An estimate of the human mind; a philosophical inquiry into the legitimate application and extent of its leading faculties, as connected with the principles and obligations of the Christian religion

^

M

OF THE

University of California.

Class

tDUC.

PSYCH-

LIBRARY

4

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AN

ESTIMATE OF THE HUMAN MIND;

A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIEY

INTO THE LEGITIMATE APPLICATION AND EXTENT
Of ITS LEADING FACULTIES,

AS CONNECTED WITH THE PRINCIPLES AND OBLIGATIONS OF
THE CHEISTIAN KELIGION.

SY

JOHN DAVIES, D.D,

RECTOR OP GATESHEAD, AND MASTER OF KING JAMES'S HOSPITAL,
IN THE COUNTY OP DURHAM.

A NEW EDITION, WITH LARGE ADDITIONS.

LONDON:
JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND.

M.DCCC.XXVII.

yitAtw^^

LONDON :
HARRISOM AND CO., PRINTERS,

ST. martin's lank.

EDUC.

PSYCH.

LIBRARr

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In bringing before the Public a new and enlarged
edition of the following work, the Author is desirous
of briefly stating its general nature and object, and
the extent of the addition that has now been made
to it. Accustomed as he has been from a very
early period of life to contemplate the mind of
man as the noblest work of the Creator, and as
affording a subject of investigation inferior to no
other in interest and importance, he has ever been
anxious to view its various faculties and endowments
in immediate relation to the great and paramount
end for which they were created, and in their con-
nection with those important principles and facts
which have been made known to man by a direct
revelation. While it is unquestionably true, as has
frequently been averred, that the statements of reve-
lation are not and cannot be at variance with the
testimony of reason and experience, it is equally
true that theories of physical or intellectual science,

A 2

IV PREFACE TO

always limited in the facts upon which they are
based, cannot be allowed to contradict or supersede
what has been distinctly and unequivocally revealed.
It is, however, a gratifying and consolatory fact, that
between the inductions of philosophy and the dis-
coveries of revelation, when properly understood and
applied, there is, in reality, no discrepancy.

In surveying the mind of man under this aspect,
it appeared to the Author of the following pages
that the great scheme of Christianity might be
considered as bearing a relation and as directly
addressing itself to one or other of the following-
faculties — his Reason — ^liis Will — his Conscience —
his Imagination — or his Affections. Circumstances
led him, in the first instance, to prepare and publish
a short dissertation on the first of these faculties.
Proceeding in the same general line of thought, he
extended his enquiries to three other leading facul-
ties or susceptibilities of the mind — the Will — the
Imaginations — and the Affections. In presenting to
the Public this Avork, so far completed, his views of
its character and object were expressed in the fol-
lowing terms: "That the object of these disser-
tations opens a very important and interesting view
of the philosophy of the human mind cannot, I
conceive, be doubted. In many of its departments
indeed, this c()m))rohensive subject has undergone

THE SECOND EDITION. V

frequent and profound discussion. Upon these
points I have endeavoured, without, I trust, any
undue claim to originality, to express the result
of the unbiassed exercise of my own thoughts. In
some of its branches, however, especially that which
relates to the legitimate use of the Imagination, it
did not seem altogether destitute of novelty, and
I have attempted to mark out, with some distinct-
ness, the limits which must guard and regulate the
excursions of this noble faculty — a faculty which
has doubtless been implanted in our nature for the
highest and most important purposes."

'^That in such a difficult and extensive range
of inquiry there are many imperfections, I cannot
but be painfully conscious. At a time, hoAvever,
in which the powers of the human mind are so
closely examined, and the study of metaphysical
science is in so many instances alloyed by a spirit
of scepticism and infidelity, such a work, it may be
hoped, will not be without its use. Extreme opinions
upon speculative questions I have cautiously avoided,
and have endeavoured to point out their danger:
nor is there a single difficulty started in the course
of these discussions, the force of which has not, at
some time or other, weighed upon my own mind.
And if the fruit of what may be called this mental
experience should be, in any degree, instrumental

VI PREFACE TO

in relieving similar embarrassments in the minds of
others, my labours will be amply repaid."

There was one department of the mind, however,
which was still left untouched, except so far as it
was involved in the discussions relating to the exer-
cises of the Will. The Author indeed hesitated for
for some time whether this faculty might not, with
greater propriety, be considered as belonging to the
practical department of the human character, and
as forming a part of moral science, which has refer-
ence to the duties of man as an individual and as
a member of society. Several years ago he was
invited by some members of the Council of the
London University to offer himself as a candidate
for the Professorship of Moral and Political Philo-
sophy in that Institution. Although by various con-
siderations he was induced ultimately to decline that
invitation, he was led by it to direct his attention in
a more special manner to the question of Christian
Ethics, as standing in close connection with those
investigations in which he had already been engaged.
The Dissertation on the Conscience as connected
with the Moral Law, now incorporated into this work,
was the first result of these inquiries. So far as the
Faculties of the Mind itself are concerned therefore,
the object wliich the Author had proposed to himself,
may be considered as completed. He has lono- con-

THE SECOND EDITION. vii

templated another "Work, the design of which woukl
be to exhibit the practical application of the Princi-
ples here attempted to be established, in their bearing
on the Character and Conduct of Man in his several
relations as a Christian and as a member of civil and
domestic society. Whether he shall ever be able in
any degree to accomplish such an undertaking, must
be left to circumstances and events, which are alto-
gether beyond his control. From the pressure of
immediate duties, he is for the present obliged to put
it altogether in abeyance. He is thankful, however,
in having been enabled so far to carry his general
plan into effect as to bring within the range of in-
quiry all the leading Faculties of the Human Mind in
their bearing on the most important of all questions.
On the Theory of Morals, as connected with the
Conscience, without neglecting the various systems,
which have been long before the public, the Author
endeavoured to direct his attention to those sources,
from which alone correct views can be derived — the
constitution of the mind itself — the order and admi-
nistration of the universe, and the discoveries of
Divine Revelation. Paley, though by no means so
unsound as he has frequently been considered in his
general principle — that of utility as the foundation of
virtue — has carried that principle too far into the
naked details of moral calculation. Butler, on the

viii PREFACE TO

other hand, the Author considers as havmg decidedly
assigned an undue supremacy to the Conscience as
an isolated Faculty, in a great degree dependent as it
is for the correctness of its judgments upon the views
of the understanding. From all that he has been
able to deduce from a careful contemplation of the
various phenomena of the Divine Government, the
result, to which he has been inevitably led, is, that
Happiness is the inseparable associate, and cannot
fail eventually to rise to the level, of Moral Excel-
lence, and that, correlatively. Misery is the conse-
quence, and by Divine appointment, the ultimate
limit of Moral Evil.

The former Edition of this Work met with a
reception on the part of a large proportion of the
public press, which more than satisfied the expecta-
tions of the Author. The present Edition, he ven-
tures to hope, from the slight corrections it has
undergone, and the important addition, which has
been made to it, presents a somewhat higher claim.
To students in theology, and others, who wish to
pursue their literary and philosophical inquiries in
subordination to the higher demands of sacred and
revealed trutli, he trusts that the Work may be of
some service; and lie cannot better express his own
views and feelings on this subject, than in the lan-
guage of the learned and eloquent liisliop Reynolds :

THE SECOND EDITION. IX

" If then, we be careful to Moderate, and Regulate
our Affections, to take heed of the pride and infla-
tion of Secular learning, not to admire Philosophy,
to the prejudice of Evangelical knowledge, as if with-
out the revealed light of the Gospel, salvation might
be found, in the way of Paganism; if we suffer not
these lean Kine to devour the fat ones, nor the River
Jordan to be lost in the Dead Sea, — I mean Piety to
be swallowed up of profane Studies ; and the know-
ledge of the Scriptures, (which alone would make any
man conversant in all kind of Learning with much
greater Felicity, and success,) to be undervalued, and
not rather, the more admired, as a rich Jewel com-
pared with Glass. In this case, and with such care as
this, there is no doubt but secular studies prepared
and corrected from Pride and Profaneness, may be
to the Church, as the Gibeonites were to the Congre-
gation of Israel, for Hewers of Wood, and Drawers of
Water ; otherwise we may say of them as Cato Major
to his son, of the Grecian arts and learning, ^ Quan-
docunque ista Gens suas literas dab it, omnia cor-
rumpet.' "

The Author would only further add, that the In-
troductory and Concluding Dissertations have been
deemed no inappropriate appendages to the body of
the Work — the first as illustrative of the natural
tendency of a well-directed exercise of the Faculties

X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

of man to purify the outer court of his moral character
— the second as expressive of the indispensable ne-
cessity of a Divine influence, in order to give full
effect to every subordinate agency in the spiritual
transformation of the inner man.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Page

The Moral Benefits connected with Intellectual Pursuits .... 3

BOOK I.

The Limits of Reason, in the Investigation of Revealed Truth,
stated and explained.

PART I.
How PAR Reason is allowed to Proceed.

Section

I. The general grounds of this Inquiry .... .... .... 55

II. Reason authorized to judge of the Character and Evi-
dences of a professed Revelation 68

III. Reason required to receive no alleged Doctrine of Reve-

lation, without suflBcient Evidence that it really
forms a part of that Communication .... .... 74

IV. No Doctrine to be received, which is palpably opposed

to the Principles of Common Sense 78

PART II.
How far Reason is not allowed to Proceed,

I. A Doctrine of Revelation is not to be rejected, be-

cause it could not have been discovered without
Supernatural Assistance .... .... .... .... 82

II, Reason not justified in rejecting a Doctrine of Revela-

tion because it cannot understand its exact mode .... 93
III. A Doctrine of Revelation not to be rejected because it
may be attended with Difficulties, which Reason can-
not solve .... .... .... .... .... ..■• 105

xii CONTENTS.

BOOK 11.

An Inrjuiri/ into the Nature and Extent of the Faculty of
Volition, as connected with Moral Agency and Religious
Obligation.

PART I.

How FAR Man is to be considered as Free in his Volitions,

Section Page

I. The Choice of Simple Tendency, as displayed in Mate-
rial Substances .... .... .... .... .... 123

II. Sensitive Preference — The next stage in the Elective

Process .... .... .... .... .... .... 137

III. Rational Choice 140

IV. The Possession of Life — an essential Requisite to Moral

Liberty 142

V. A Susceptibility of Enjojrment and Suffering — the next

Fundamental Principle of Rational Liberty .... 147

VI. An Invariable Desire of the greater apparent Good

essential to Moral Liberty .... .... .... .... 159

VII. The Prerogative of Reason, in the ultimate Determina-
tions of the Will, the distinguishing Characteristic of
accountable Liberty ... .... .... .... .... 161

VIII. Punishment not inflicted where Reason is incapable of

exercising its Control .... .... .... .... 170

IX. Reason capable of exciting new Volitions .... .... 183

X. The Prerogative Power of Reason extends over the

whole Range of the Character 191

XI. The Theory of Suggestion destructive of accountable

Agency 1.03

XII. The Influence of Reason as it relates to the Aff'cctions.... 222

XIII. The Actions of the Life subject to the control of Reason 224

XIV. Philosophical Necessity 228

PART 11.

Groundless and Erroneous Notions op Human Liberty.

I. The Subject of Inquiry stated .... .... .... .... 233

II, Man not free in such a senso as to render any of his

Actions Jinccrtain .... .... .... . 237

CONTENTS. xui

Section Page

III. The Liberty of Man not exclusive of the Influence of

Motives 252

IV. Moral Liberty not requiring Indifference with respect to

the Objects of Choice 2G0

V. Recapitulation 267

BOOK III.

The Conscience viewed hi connection loith the Sense of Duty and
the Obligations of the Moral Laic.

I. The Origin of the Notion of Duty, as centering in the

Conscience ... .... .... .... .... .... 277

II. On the Standard of Duty as the authoritative Guide

of Conscience .... .... .... .... .... 289

III. The Nature and Origin of the Moral Law as binding

upon the Conscience .... .... .... .... .... 299

IV. The Means by which the Moral Law, or the Law of

Conscience, has been made known unto Man .... 306
V. The Moral Law considered in its relation to the Chris-
tian System 326

VI. The Authority of the Moral Law 334

VII. The Sanctions of the Moral Law, as harmonizing with

the Voice of Conscience .... .... .... .... 341

VIII. The real nature of Evil as prohibited by the Moral Law 350
I^IX. The Consummation of Happiness an infallible result of
the perfect observance of the Moral Law, as an ex-
pression of the Divine Will, and as binding on the
Human Conscience .... .... .... .... .... 358

BOOK IV.

The Legitimate Use of the Imagination as subservient to the
Influence of Religion.

PART I.

The proper Use of Imagination.

I. The different Degrees in which Imagination is found in

different Individuals .... .... .... .... .... 369

II. The advantage of Imagination for purposes of Illus-
tration 377

xiv CONTENTS.

Section _ Pas*

III. Imagination serviceable in the Formation of a lively

and impressive Style .... ... ■•• •••• •• 391

IV. Imagination useful as the means of realizing and era-

bodying invisible Scenes .... ... ••.• • ••• 3di)

PART II.

The Evils of an ill-regulated Use op Imagination.

I. Extravagant Ideas of Individual Destiny 415

II. An extravagant Estimate of Means as related to the

proposed End .... .... .... .... .... 432

III. Injurious Irregularities and Alternations of Feeling

arising from an ill-governed Imagination .... .... 437

IV. Fanciful and forced Interpretations of Scripture .... 449
V. The injurious Effect of undisciplined Imagination upon

Style 464

BOOK V.

An Inquiry into the Legitimate Use of the Affections, in con-
nection with the hifluence of Religion upon the Character.

PART I.
The just Use op the Appections.

I. The Subject of Inquiry stated 475

II. Sensitive Affection originally intended to be employed

in the service of Religion .... .... .... .... 487

III. The Use of the Affections always recognized and en-

forced in Scripture ... .... .... .... .... 509

IV. Sensitive Affection necessary, in order that Religion may

produce its proper Effect upon the Character .... 524

V. The Exorcise of the Affections, a chief constituent of

the happiness of Heaven 546

PART II.
The Evils liable to result from a mistaken and ill-
governed Exercise op the Affections in Religion.

I. The Error of making Religion almost entirely to con-

sist of internal Feelings .... .... .... ,... 5(,'i

CONTENTS. XV

Section Page

II. Inward Impressions liable to supersede Practical Evidence

in the Estimate of the Individual's own Character .... 567

III. Strong Feelings, unaccompanied with sound Judgment,

in danger of completely unhinging the Mind .... 572

IV. The Distress occasioned by an attempt to fix the time

of Conversion by a regard to Experimental Feeling 577
V. The State of the Affections in the immediate prospect of
Death, no sure Test of Spiritual Character and Con-
dition 589

CONCLUSION.

Supernatural Influence necessary to render the Truths of Chris-
tianity efficacious upon the Human Mind and Character 595

INTRODUCTION.

Range the spacious intellectual field,

And gather every fruit of sovereign power,
To heal the moral maladies of man. — Young.

Ilia vero quae proprie ac pure Scientia nominatur, quia ratione et intelligentia
paratur, mala esse quomodo potest? — Augustine.

i:f^TRODUCTIOK

Before we enter on the discussion of the proper use
and application of the various faculties of the mind
in connexion with the principles and obligations of
religion, it may not be amiss to preface a brief in-
quiry into the influence which the general pursuit of
knowledge appears calculated to exert on the charac-
ter of the individual and the welfare of society.
The time in which we live, indeed, is not so remark-
able for the splendour of its discoveries, nor for any
extraordinary advances that have been made into
regions of truth hitherto unexplored. It is not so
much the marcli of intellect, except in some few
directions, that we have an opportunity of witnessing,
as the perambulations of intellect — the busy and
active evolutions of intellect within those remote
outposts, which transcendent genius, favoured by
the untrodden novelty of the path of investigation,
has already fixed. This is no reflection upon the
vigour and originality of living talent. The human
faculties, in their most enlarged dimensions, are
limited in their capabilities, and as the sphere over
which they are required to spread becomes expanded,
it is natural to expect that they should appear to
lose something of their profundity of research and of
their intensity of force. Since the days of Bacon
and his illustrious followers in the path of scientific

B 2

4 INTRODUCTIOX.

discovery, the field of science lias immensely widened,
and, with all the facilities that have been providcil,
it now requires no ordinary measure of labour and
industry and streno-th, in any of the more extensive
branches of knowledge, to learn what others have
taught. It is true, indeed, that, by every accession
to its store, the human mind is enriched, not merely
by such an amount of intellectual gain to be added
to its former resources, but also by the increased
ability which it imparts for the further acquisition of
treasures, which had been otherwise beyond its reach;
so that mental attainment becomes a species of float-
ing capital, having a tendency, when duly employed
and wisely directed, to accumulate in the ratio of
compound interest. But it is also true that life is
short — that its duties are numerous and distracting
— that the most vigorous powers must be in some
degree bewildered by multiplicity, and Avearied by
ceaseless effort ; and, therefore, it is no Avonder that
an age, which enjoys the fruits of the most intense
and concentrated energy which the human intellect
is capable of exerting upon some of the sublimest
and most interesting departments of science, should
present few instances of actual and important dis-
covery.

But though it were granted that the present is
not an age of extraordinary individual genius, it can
at least be denied by none, that it is an age of un-
jjaralleled general knowledge. Science, information,
taste, are no longer confined to a privileged few,
shining in rare and solitary brightness amidst the
expanse of surrounding vacancy; but ten thousand

i

INTRODUCTION. 5

lights, liable in some degree, indeed, to eclipse each
other, but increasing the splendour of the whole, have
almost simultaneously started into existence, and
covered the face of the hemisphere. From the me-
tropolis of the land to the remotest manufacturing
town, scientific institutions have sprung up, in which
knowledge, in its various departments, is cultivated
as an embellishment to rank — as a resource against
disquietude and care — as an instrument of self-culti-
vation— as a means of usefulness, respectability, and
success, and as a relaxation from manual toil. From
the universities of the realm to the lowest village-
school, literature and science, in their appropriate
branches, are pursued with an ardour and intensity,
which, upon a scale so general and extensive, were
unknown to ages 4hat are past, and assume the
character of a grand experiment upon human society.
Hence the importance of ascertaining, as nearly as
possible, what is likely to be the result, and what is
the genuine tendency of such a mighty power brought
to operate upon human minds. Knowledge has now
ceased to be a luxury confined to the few sons of
genius, who were accustomed to be regarded as the
lords of the creation, and has become the common
fare — the great marketable commodity — the staple
of social commerce. So much the more necessary it
is, therefore, to determine, so far as we are capable
of determining, whether it be of a nature, in this
extent and diffusiveness of circulation, to exert an
influence, salutary or noxious, upon the body politic;
— Avhether it be calculated, in its ultimate results, to
advance the real interests of the species.

6 INTRODUCTION.

Many there are, indeed, to whom, though perhaps
on opposite grounds, such an inquiry must appear
altogether needless. They consider the question,
either in its favourahle or obnoxious bearing, so
clear and decisive, as that, instead of a problem to
be solved, or a theorem to be demonstrated, it as-
sumes, in their estimation, the form of an axiom,
which it were absurd to attempt to demonstrate.
To one class of warm and impassioned theorists,
the cultivation of the human mind, the expansion
of the popular intellect to the last verge of possible
enlargement, appears to be so pure, simple, and
unmixed a good, as to be scarcely capable of per-
version or misapplication — as to stand distinct and
isolated from all contact — to be unalloyed by the least
amalgamation with one element of evil, i^ot content
with the great philosophical maxim, that " knowledge
is power," they come little short of maintaining that
knowledge is virtue — that knowledge is piety — that
knowledge is happiness — that knowledge is, in fact,
what it had baffled the skill and escaped the penetra-
tion of so many ancient philosophers clearty to per-
ceive and satisftictorily to determine — the summiaii
honum of human nature. Others there arc, who
view the pursuits of knowledge in its more advanced
stages, and as impregnating the great mass of the
community with a spirit of eager, active, and ener-
getic eifort, with a very different eye. Not denying
that a cultivated understanding is a noble and exalted
distinction — that a refined taste is a source of exqui-
site gratification — and that literary accomplislnnents
are a rich possession unto those whose character and

INTRODUCIION. 7

circumstances afford them an opportunity of usefully
laying tliem out, — they imagine that the endeavour
to extend these endowments beyond the mystic en-
closure of rank and profession, is an attempt not less
perilous than it is needless and unwise.

Amidst this conflicting array of sentiments upon
a subject which daily assumes a character of more
serious and weighty interest, sentiments on either
side of which great and respectable authorities are
marshalled, it becomes the business of the calm and
enlightened observer to endeavour to form his just
and impartial estimate with a due regard to the
legitimate claims and prospects of every class and
member of the community. Extreme opinions upon
a question of this difficult and complicated nature —
opinions which are almost invariably cherished by
habits and connexions, and tinctured by prejudices,
religious or political — are seldom correct or safe. It
seems, therefore, to be an investigation not less
interesting in itself than required by the spirit of
the jDresent times, and accordant with the object and
design of the following work, to take a survey of the
legitimate influence which the exercise of the human
faculties upon subjects of literature and science, in
their most general and unfettered developement,
appear calculated to exert upon the character and
happiness of society. Upon the most superficial view
of the matter, it appears, like almost every other ques-
tion, indeed, connected with man in his present state,
to be of a mixed nature ; combining, in this instance,
much positive and palpable good, with a liability to
great and portentous evil; not forgetting, however,

8 INTRODUCTION.

as I trust it will be seen in the sequel, that on a
candid estimate of the case, the proportion of the
former seems vastly to preponderate over any likeli-
hood of the latter. A powerful writer of the present
day* has portrayed, with his usual energy of concep-
tion and depth of colouring, the "Evils of popular
Ignorance."

It is still an object not less important and not
less imperatively called for by the circumstances of
the age, and Avhich it were to be wished that the
same masterly hand had undertaken, to point out the
benefits and the possible attendant evils of popular
Knowledge. When I speak of the evils of know-
ledge, it must be sufficiently obvious that I refer not
to any inherent quality existing in the subject itself,
but to that deterioration or perversion to which every
organ of power, every instrument of influential
agency, usefulness, and perfection is, under some cir-
cumstances, liable in the hand of man. In accordanc
Avith the method adopted throughout nearly the whole
of this Avork, it will be our endeavour, in the prose-
cution of the following inquiry, to exhibit the subject
under a two-fold aspect: first, showing the beneficial
effects calculated to result from it when duly regu-
lated and controlled; and secondly, pointing out
some of the dangers against which it is necessary to
guard in tlic pursuit of it, and of the evils which,
witliout due care and vigilance, cannot foil to be
associated with it. The peculiar aspect under which,
as most ch)scly connected with tlie general design.

* Foster.

INTRODUCTION. 9

wc propose to present the beneficial influence of
litenarj and scientific pursuits, is the relation in whicli
they stand to the interests of morality, and their
efficacy as a subordinate instrument in purifying-
the character from the defilements of depravity and
vice.

I am -willing to acknowledge, that it is principally
in this view of the case that I have been always
disposed to contemplate those literary Institutions of
various ranks and orders, Avhich have of late years so
thickly sprung up in our land, and the progress of
science throughout the world. It is true, indeed,
that scientific investigations, properly so called, are,
for the most part, directed to the elucidation of the
diversified forms and modifications of matter and
motion ; a department of philosophical research in
the highest degree useful and important. By a
minute and accurate observation of the powers of
nature, as exhibited in actual experiments, we lay
the foundation of a more intelligent and compre-
hensive view of the laws by which it is regulated.
We learn to generalize our ideas — to resolve what
is more complicated in operation into the simplicity
of a common cause — to melt down, as it were, the
endless and bewildering particulars of analogous
facts into one primary principle, and thus to trace
the footsteps of one governing and presiding agency
pervading the whole universe. But interesting, and
capable of the most salutary direction, as are the
more immediate pursuits of physical science, as con-
nected with the facts which they evolve, and the
practical uses to which they are subservient, it is

10 INTRODUCTION.

chiefly in reference to the moral influence which they
are calculated to exert upon the character of those
who are employed in them, that their importance is
to be estimated as engaging the attention of the
great mass of society. By thus associating the two
great departments of philosophy, the physical and
the moral, they will be found to enliven and illustrate
each other: the former will be raised from a state of
lifeless and grovelling materialism; and the latter,
from being a system of dry abstractions and subtile
distinctions, will become embodied in every pheno-
menon in nature, and interwoven with every exer-
cise of the intellectual faculties. The interests of
morality, both as a matter of state, and much more
as constituting an essential ingredient of that reli-
gion, without which man cannot possibly secure the
great end of his existence, appear to me so tran-
scendent and paramount in their claims, that the
expediency of the general pursuit of knowledge itself
must be altogether estimated by its tendency to
subserve and cherish them. Could the point for one
moment be regarded as problematical, whether the
pursuits of literature and science are calculated to
operate favourably or otherwise upon the moral and
religious habits of society, we should deem all other
considerations, of a political or secular nature, as
utterly incapable of establishing any legitimate claim
for support; and they would appear so upon this
ground, tliat, according to the known and clearly
revealed constitution of things, it is impossible any
order of pursuits sliould be really and finally advan-
tageous, which is adverse to these habits. If, on the

INTRODUCTION. 11

other hand, wc are fully persuaded, and if we are
supported in the conviction by every thing in his-
tory and analogy and philosophy, which can throw
light upon the subject, that Science, soberly and
dispassionately pursued, has a tendency, however
resisted in particular instances, to exert an ele-
vating and pui'ifying influence upon the character
of man, without violating any duties of a prior and
more commanding obligation, then we know not
what further is necessary to demonstrate its utility,
and to enforce, in that exclusive view of the question,
a fair demand upon our attention. In reality, it re-
quires nothing more, than clearly to demonstrate the
genuine moral effects, which the cultivation of the
human mind upon the most extensive scale is calcu-
lated to produce, when duly regulated and wisely
directed; to neutralize all objections that can be
raised against it, and to recommend every legiti-
mate mode of promoting it, to the countenance and
support of every man who values the best interests
of his species.

When we speak of the moral influence of Science,
it is not meant to be affirmed that it operates with a
direct and invariable power in the production of this
effect, and that every man of genius, or of literary
habits and philosophical attainments, is of necessity
a moral man. History, and perhaps personal expe-
rience, have supplied us with too many melancholy
instances of the reverse. In heathen countries it
cannot be matter of surprise that the pursuit of
knowledge should have been frequently associated
with profligacy of manners. "VYhere the laws of

12 INTRODUCTION.

morality were in many respects but imperfectly un-
derstood^ obscurely and indistinctly defined, and
inadequately sanctioned — where the code of social
rights and civil obedience, suggested and limited by
reasons of state and A'iews of present interest, was the
only guide of conduct to which any real authority
attached — where the reigning superstition, from the
power of whose ascendent influence very few, even
of the most enlightened and best informed, were able
completely to emancipate themselves, embodied
many of the grosser vices as component parts of
that system of religious worship which it enjoined,
it is no wonder that the practice of genuine virtue
should, in many instances, have failed to keep pace
with the cultivation of knowledge. In the absence
of a specific principle of morality, which carries
its OAvn sanction, and stands independent of the
variable and fluctuating notions of political expe-
diency, it is no wonder that mere knowledge should
have proved insufficient to efl'ect an entire reforma-
tion in the habits of those by Avhom it was prosecuted
with so much success*. Socrates himself was far

* Tlierc are few subjects of importance upon which philosophers
liavc more widely differed from each other, and in many instances
more grievously wandered from the truth, than the ultimate ground
of moral obligation: and, as immediately connected with this
point, their opinions have no less varied with respect to the real
nature and essence of virtue; some ])lacing it, as Clarke and most
of the leading sects of ancient jdiilosophy, in the propriety and fit-
ness of things; others, among whom are Ciulworth and More and
Hutchcson, in disinterested benevolence; and a third class, at the
head of which may be set Epicurus, in mere prudence. The hito
Dr. Brown identities virtue with obligation, and resolves them bolli
into a mere feeling of niiprovcablcncss, a principle (lilleriiig in

INTRODUCTION. 13

from being- a correct and unexceptionable moralist.
That the lessons of wisdom uttered by bis lips
sbould bare effectually restrained tbe exorbitant

iiotliing but in terms from Dr. Hutclicson's " Moral Sense." It is
lamentable to see a writer of so much talent and good feeling, in a
work in many respects of such pre-eminent merit as his Lectures, on
the rhilosophy of the Human Mind, laying the weight of the whole
system of human duty upon so weak and precarious a basis, as a
mere feeling of individual approbation, liable to be modified, and
even utterly perverted, as it is, by every change of circumstances,
and by every variety of intellectual and physical condition. And
it ia remarkable that so acute a writer did not perceive, that, in
answering objections to his system, arising from some barbarous
practices prevalent among savage nations, to which the sentiment
of approveableness is unequivocally attached, he was altogether
shifting his ground, when he explained these abominable perver-
sions by referring them to a mistaken notion of utility. After his
eloquent and triumphant exposure of the system of Expediency
under the name of Selfishness, he does not seem to be aware that in
this instance he was assuming its leading principle as the very
foundation of that approveableness, by which he limits — " Obliga-
tion, Virtue, Merit." I am glad to find some of Brown's errors
upon this and other points judiciously corrected by Dr. Dewar, in
his useful work on Moral Philosophy and Christian Ethics, lately
published. That there is such a principle in human nature as a
" Moral Sense," I am fully persuaded ; but to maintain that this, or
any other Sense constitutes the only ohligation of morality, is as
false and absurd as it would be to affirm, that a feeling of gratitude
is the sole obligation by which a child is bound to obey his parent.
Let the feeling be extinguished, and the obligation at once ceases.
The only adequate foundation of human duty, unquestionably rests
in the independent will of a Supreme Being, regulated by wisdom,
rendered amiable and engaging by goodness, and enforced by in-
finite power. To render this effectual, indeed, as will be shewn in
a subsequent part of this work, there must be a correspondent sus-
ceptibility of moral approbation implanted in the mind; but the
ohligation, which is external and independent, is surely a widely
different thing from a disposition to recognise it, which is personal
and inherent.

14 INTRODUCTION.

passions and ungovernable excesses of his pupil
Alcibiades, the irregularity of whose conduct was
exceeded only by the extent and universality of his
talents, could hardly have been expected. It was,
doubtless, a rare, if a real, instance of the influence
of philosophy, which is related of the young man
of dissolute habits, whose character Avas completely
changed in consequence of his having been led
accidentally to hear a lecture of morality in one of
the schools of Greece. And eminent as Julius Caesar
was for the variety of his literary and scientific
attainments — distinguished no less for his love of
knowledge than for his love of conquest — pursuing
the study of astronomy and mathematics amidst the
tumult of camps and the din of battles — appearing
no less anxious to determine the laws of the planetary
motions than to settle the destinies of nations — com-
bining, in short, such a multiplicity of shining quali-
ties, as made Lord Bacon to esteem him the greatest
of all the characters of antiquity, he was at the same
time, if not the slave, at least the devotee of his pas-
sions, and disfigured by vices, which have tarnished
the lustre of his fame.

I am far from thinking, indeed, that philosophy
alone is sufficient to purify the manners of society.
I am persuaded that without the aid of a higher and
more commanding principle, it can by no means
adequately correct and regulate the hidden springs
of character, upon the accuracy and precision of
whose impulses, the rectitude of the outward move-
ments altogether depends. The experience of nearly
half a dozen centuries, during which it simultaneously

INTRODUCTION. 15

or successively flourished in Greece and Rome, to
say nothing of its effects in modern times, sufficiently
demonstrates this fact. The more inward and retired
habits of the mind must fall under the influence and
control of another principle. But to clear the outer
court of the human character — to lop off the wild
excrescences of passion — to remove the base funguses
of vice and immorality, which may adhere to the
goodly tree of human life — ^to perform this subordi-
nate and preparatory work, we are convinced that, in
general, the pursuits of knowledge are calculated to
be of essential service.

Who, for example, can look abroad into the world,
and contemplate its varying aspects at different
periods of its history, and not be impressed with
the conviction, that the progress of science has a ten-
dency to 7'efine and hum-anize the character. It is a
trite maxim drawn from a heathen source, but it in
no degree militates against the principles or pre-
cepts of the Christian religion, that * " to have tJio-
rouglily learnt the liberal sciences softens the man-
ners, and does not allow them to he harharous." This
is eminently the case with respect to nations and
civil communities. Survey man for a moment in the
state of ignorant and undisciplined nature — not as
he may dwell in the solitude of individual existence,
but as herding with a clan marked by the same
savage ferocity with himself, and distinguished mainly
by their shape from the quadrupeds which they chase

Didicisse fideliter artes

EmoUit moreS; nee sinit esse feros.

IG INTRODUCTION.

along- the forests. AVliat are his occupations ? Kot
to exercise his faculties upon any noble and useful
pursuit — not to employ his intellectual powers in the
investigation of what is true, and in the contempla-
tion of what is beautiful and fair over the wide
domains, and in the inexhaustible stores of creation
■ — not to direct those physical energies, with which
he is endued, to some department of salutary and in-
genious labour. These arc pursuits to which he is a
stranger, too refined and intricate for his apprehen-
sion— too sublime for his remotest conception. AYhat
are his pleasures ? Not the elevated gTatifications,
which arise from the commerce of minds — from the
interchange of ideas — from the communication of
knowledge and information — from the civilities and
comparative elegancies of social life, not the pure and
exquisite delights, which spring from the exercise of
the domestic and relative affections. These are en-
joyments, of A\hicli he knows as little as he docs of
the pursuits and employments prevalent among the
inhabitants of another planet. The indulgence of the
grossest appetites of nature, carried to an excess,
frequently destructive of health and even life —
instinctive sagacity exerting itself in schemes of
treachery and fraudulent advantage — native courage
displaying its vehement energies in every form of
cruelty, and ferocity, and rage — in mutual slaughter
and devastation, and expeditions of sanguinary re-
venge for the insults and injuries of a rival tribe
— these are the only occupations in which he de-
lights, and the advantages of which he has learnt
to understand. An African Chief, who adorns the

INTRODUCTION. 17

walls of his palace with the scalps of his conquered
enemies, maj in fact be considered as a fair repre-
sentative of the habits and dispositions of man in
the state of ignorant, untutored, and unreclaimed
nature. And so far is this from being an exagge-
rated representation, and such as applies only to
some extraordinary instances of ferocity, it may be
safely asserted, that, with very slight variations,
before they were visited by the softening beams of
knowledge and civilization, this was the aboriginal
condition of every nation upon earth. It was the
light of truth gradually arising above the horizon,
and dissipating with its orient beams the mists of
ignorance and error, which developed the faculties,
that lay dormant in the torpor of unconscious exist-
ence, which prepared and capacitated man for per-
forming the real functions of humanity. It was this
genial sun, which, visiting the cold and cheerless
wastes of savage life, and penetrating what we may
call the polar regions of human intellect.

Called nature from lier ivy-mantled den,
And soften'd human rock-work into men.

But there is a state of ignorance essentially different
from that of savage nature, but which exhibits few of
the fair and engaging features of humanity in a state
of advanced civilization and intellectual culture. It
is true, that the most polished state of society is not
without its vices — it is true, that luxury, voluptuous
refinement, and excess, frequently associate them-
selves with a considerable measure of literary refine-
ment and taste — that mind in some of its subordi-
nate departments becomes leagued with the depraved

c

18 INTRODUCTION.

propensities of nature, and employs its powers in
throwing a specious and imposing varnish over the
tube, which conveys moral pollution in the form of
intellectual gratification, to the character. It is true,
that human nature, even in its most enlightened
order, and after learning and philosophy have exerted
their utmost power in purifying it from the dregs of
sensual appetite, evinces too much of an instinctive
affinity with what is corrupt, too much of an elec-
tive attraction for what is base and deteriorating in
the moral elements, with which it is surrounded.
But amidst scenes of rude ignorance, where reason
and intellect have never attempted to assert their
dignity and independence, and to claim their legiti-
mate ascendancy over the inferior powers of nature :
where a system of physical energies and propensi-
ties, acting as by mechanical impulse, and operating
without salutary control, is regarded as constituting
the whole of the man, the original evils, and tenden-
cies of the human character will present themselves
in forms infinitely more odious and revolting. We
have read, indeed, of scenes of Arcadian innocence,
where unsophisticated nature, without the aid of
science and art, contributed everything that was ne-
cessary to consummate tlie idea of human felicity —
and while contemplating the enchanting colours in
which a vivid fancy has portrayed those forms of
shadowy existence, we have been tempted to exclaim

Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to bo wise.

But those, ^\hose oppcn-tunities have made them
acquainted Avitli the realities of human character in
these retreats of sequestered ignorance — in these

INTRODUCTION. 19

back-grounds of the intellectual scene, are perfectly
aware that the picture is illusory. They know that
these bright creations of untaught innocence and
rustic blessedness exist only in the regions of poetry
and romance, and that a state of gross and rude
ignorance is but another fonn of expression for a
state of degrading vice, and in many instances of
brutal violence.

In such a state of society you will in vain look for
anything like nicety of principle — a dignified sense of
honour — refinement of feeling or delicacy of language
— sentiments and habits, which the expansion of the
mind and the pursuit of knowledge have such an
obvious tendency to engender and to cherish. There
you will in vain, except in some very extraordinary
instances, look for those tender and soothing sensi-
bilities of domestic life peiwading and mutually
attaching the several members of a family to each
other; for those decencies of deportment, those pro-
prieties of outward habit, those ci\alities of intercourse
and address, which impart a character of serenity
and blandness to the atmosphere of human society.
The most valuable and fertile districts of the rational
and intellectual nature, are in those cases wholly
uncultivated; a wild and uncleared forest, into which
a noble, elevated, and refined idea never happens by
any possible chance to straggle, but where evil pas-
sions, like so many ferocious and venomous beasts,
range at will, and grow to a portentous magnitude.
Mutual animosity, ready upon the slightest occasion of
insult or provocation to kindle into a flame of violent
revenge — trials of strength, outraging every principle

c 2

20 INTRODUCTION.

of virtue and humanity, exhibited, perhaps, to the g'aze
of admiring- spectators — cruelty sometimes carried to
the excess of the most wanton barbarity exercised
towards the lower animals — these are the features
which most prominently stand forth to the eye in the
character of an ignorant and unenlightened commu-
nity. And if the diffusion of the light of knowledge,
independently of the operations of a higher principle,
Avhich is now so rapidly spreading among us, should
do nothing more than soften down something of this
grosser hardihood — than remove some of these more
palpable asperities and disfigurements of our nature,
I think that an important step will have been gained
towards meliorating the habits of society, and more
generally elevating the moral standard of the land.

For an illustration of the point under our present
consideration, we need not travel beyond the boun-
daries of the British empire. Let us for a moment
^ook into the neighbouring island. AYe do not mean
to enter into the political or religious questions con-
nected with that country, but simply to notice the
phenomena of the intellectual darkness and moral
degradation which it presents, as illustrative of the
point before us. From all the accounts we have seen
or heard of that country, amidst tlie numerous indi-
vidual instances of splendid talents and extensive
acquirements which it presents, tlie whole, or at least,
the chief part of its lower rank of population, is in-
volved in the most abject ignorance. Its condition,
in a civil and intellectual point of view, may justly be
described as that of semi-barbarism — just emerging
above the horizon of total darkness, but in vain

INTRODUCTION. 21

strug'g-ling to rise to the meridian of mental illumi-
nation and knowledge. And what is the consequence,
or rather what is the necessary attendant of this state
of rude and untutored ignorance? It is just what
might have been expected. There we behold in their
full force, and operating with mischievous and des-
tructive energy, those violent and untamed qualities
of human nature in its uncivilized or half-civilized
state, which Ave have represented it to be an obvious
tendency of knowledge and cultivation to soften,
refine, and humanize. There are far more fre-
quently witnessed than in any other part of the
united kingdom, scenes of rapine and bloodshed.
There, in short, is confusion and every evil work.

From Ireland, let us transfer our survey to the
northern parts of this island, and contemplate the
noble and generous spirit — the feeling of honorable
independence — the habits of regularity, sobriety, and
economy — the quietness and content — the domestic
tenderness and hospitality, which, from all we have
been able to learn, distinguish the population of
Scotland. How are we to account for this striking
and acknowledged superiority? It is unphilosophical
and absurd to seek for the cause of it in any diversity
in the original elements of the intellectual stamina
or the physical constitution. Whatever other causes
may have contributed to the depression of the one
community and the elevation of the other, wdiatever
corrupting or paralyzing influence may have been
exerted in the former case, by a wretched and degra-
ding superstition connected with a course of re-
strictive, and in times that are i)ast at least, not very

22 INTRODUCTION.

pure administration, there can be no doubt that the
system of universal education, ^vhich has so long been
prevalent in Scotland, and the spirit of intelligence,
reflection, and inquiry, which it has been the means
of diffusing, is one very principal ground of the
decided advantage in point of civilization, comfort,
and moral refinement, which the great body of its
population possesses over that of the sister island.
So early, in the progress of its civil history, did the
cultivation of literature gain a footing in Scotland,
that it was said by one of its eminent writers,
that there they had learnt to compose Latin verses
before they could make a wheelbarrow. The fruit of
this timely devotedness and persevering attachment
to the cause of useful knoAvledge, is manifest in the
masculine sense — the sound wisdom — and the very
superior habits of morality, decency and propriety,
which are almost universally allowed to mark the
generality of the inhabitants of that country.

When the character has thus been softened into
humanity, imbued with the refining elements of social
kindness and affection, and defecated from the grosser
impurities of unreclaimed nature, it is prepared for
the influence of another most important circumstance
arising from the cultivation of science, Avith a view to
the melioration or maintenance of the moral habit, —
that it teaches most effectually the value and proper
use of time. "We know of no more fertile source of
crime — of no corrupt fountain, which wells out a
a more copious stream of vice and moral pollution,
in all its forms and modifications, tlian idleness. "We
are persuaded that it is the parent of a more nume-

INTRODUCTION. 23

rous progeny of depraved habits and delinquencies,
than any other single circumstance whatever. It is
the want of a due impression of the importance and
legitimate employment of time, which is one of the
main occasions of the luxury and profligacy of one
order of society; and it is the same cause which
vitiates and defiles the manners of another, and a
subordinate rank in the scale. It is inquired by an
ancient poet, who was a keen and accurate observer
of human character, why JEgisthus so grievously and
wantonly deviated from the path of virtue, and he
immediately subjoins the reply — ^'The cause is obvious
— he was idle*." And it is a circumstance Avorthy of
remark, that wben Hogarth, who is so celebrated for
his striking delineations of human life and manners,
wished to give a portraiture of a veteran criminal,
he made him commence his career as a boy lolling on
the tomb-stones of the church-yard on the Sunday.

In no scene of life, perhaps, is the malignant
influence of time, not being duly appreciated, upon
the habits of the general conduct, more strikingly
apparent, than among the congregated mass of the
students, or rather residents of a university. It is a
notorious and unquestionable fact, that amidst this
promiscuous assemblage the men of incorrect morals
are those who are strangers to the pleasure, and ima-
gine themselves to be exempt from the necessity, of
a close and vigorous attention to their studies. And
nothing has more effectually contributed to the eleva-
tion of the moral and religious standard in our great

Quasritur ^Egisthus qua re sit factus adulter?
In promptu causa est, desidiosus erat.

24 IXTRODUCTION.

seminaries of learning', tlian those liabits of generous
competition and active, unwearied industry in the
pursuit of scientific attainment, which now so gene-
rally prevail in them. Throughout the various grada-
tions of the nobility and gentry of the land, among
Avhom amusements, not always of the most unexcep-
tionable kind, are considered as the great business of
life, the want of some intellectual engagement to
cover the vacant spaces of unoccupied hours, is griev-
ously felt in its deteriorating effects upon the cha-
racter. Among the lower classes of society, the dan-
gers attendant on a spirit of indolence are still greater,
and the benefits resulting from the means of eff'ectual
security against them are proportionably important.
That a taste for literary and scientific pursuits has a
powerful tendency to ward ofl^ these evils, and to
realize the opposite advantages, requires, I conceive,
but little discrimination to perceive, and little force
of argumentation to demonstrate.

It is perfectly obvious that those who are engaged
in the most laborious undertakings, who are employed
in those departments of industry which require the
most assiduous and incessant attention, will have
some time at command. Every business or profes-
sion has in a degree, more or less, its seasons of lei-
sure and relaxation. And even when the hours of
the day are engrossed entirely by necessary duties,
as in some instances they doubtless are, it is at least,
in very few cases, that a small portion of disposable
time may not be innocently stolen from the hours
legitimately and fairly devoted to repose. It is also
to b(5 observed, that there arc few professions, or spe-

INTliODUCTION. 25

cific modes of applying' labour and skill, ^vlnch arc
capable of being prosecuted at all times and in all
seasons of the year. There will, moreover, occur,
though not very frequently, in the case of an indus-
trious and active individual, but there will occasionally
occur seasons in which persons of the class to which I
am now referring, will be destitute of full and regular
employment, and of necessity have a considerable
quantity of time on their hands.

I^ow the question is, w^ho is likely to convert these
seasons of leisure and of exemption from the demands
of active duty to the best account? The man whose
mind is a perfect blank with respect to every idea
beyond the range of his physical occupations and
propensities, or the man whose mind is a mirror of
inteUigence, reflecting the fair and beautiful ideas of
creation in their diversified forms of combination
throughout the extinsive provinces of material and
animated existence. The former, it is evident, the
moment he breaks loose from the shackles of neces-
sary labour, or is shaken off as a useless weight from
the machinery of active employment, will be eager
to plunge into some scene of boisterous and exciting
enjoyment, or, perhaps, he Avill sink into a state of
insipid and degrading indolence — an insupportable
burden to himself — a nuisance to society, and ready
to fall into any snare of temptation, and to become
a prey to every corrupting association. In every
scene of debauchery and excess, so far as his means
extend, and much beyond his legitimate resources, he
is likely to be foremost. Depraved himself, and de-
praving others by his influence and example, it is

26 INTRODUCTION.

difficult to know where his career may end. Idleness
and ignorance having betrayed him into profligacy, it
is well if his profligacy does not lead him into some
outrage upon the rights and privileges of the commu-
nity, which will result in punishment and disgrace.
We should be sorry to be supposed to bring a general
charge of this nature against every person of ignorant
and uncultivated mind. We are perfectly aware, that
in many cases there is much of good feeling, where
the range of ideas is very narrow and confined ; and
there are few specimens of character, which it is more
delightful to contemplate than this noble triumph of
involuntary intellectual poverty over all the disadvan-
tages of its condition. But we are here endeavour-
ing to state what is the natural tendency, and Avhat,
in very many instances, proves to be the actual effect
of grovelling and unthinking ignorance in the absence
of a better principle.

Compare with this tendency and eff'ect what is
likely to be the conduct of the latter individual that
has been mentioned — the man to whose mind science
has just begun to open its treasures, in his seasons of
leisure from his regular duties. If he be imbued with
the genuine spirit of literary and philosophical re-
search, he will be anxious to avail himself of every
opportunity, which legitimately intervenes amidst the
pursuits in which he may be professedly employed, to
cultivate the soil of his own mind. He will be desi-
rous of being disengaged from the trammels of his
proper vocation, not for the purpose of indulging in
sloth, and much less with the eagerness of one who
wishes to rush into scenes of riot and intemperance,

INTRODUCTION. 27

but uith a view of engaging in the more imdisturljetl
exercise of his own faculties — Avith the cahii delight,
but not the morbid impatience, of enjoying an intel-
lectual feast as soon as the just requirements of duty
and necessity have been fully and adequately met.
Such a person will feel that he cannot afford to Avaste
aAvay his time, to squander his best resources in the
extravagance of idleness and folly. The very consi-
deration, that he has but little, Avill make him habi-
tually more solicitous that he may lose none. And
thus his hours will be divided between the indispens-
able duties of his rank and situation in life, and the
cultivation of those habits of mind and character
which become a rational and accountable being — it
being perfectly understood and taken for granted in
this view of his conduct, that the most important of
all interests, so far from being neglected, receives its
appropriate and a very primary share of attention.

I do not think it very easy to over-rate the moral
importance of these unoccupied intervals of time,
which continually occur in the life of the most dili-
gent and fully employed. They appear to me to be
above all other seasons the inlets of corruption ; and,
therefore, it is of the utmost consequence to guard
and secure them by some salutary engagement. They
seem to be so many sluices, which, unless duly closed,
are in danger of admitting a torrent of evil habits ;
but Avhen properly filled up, they constitute a species
of artificial dykes, by which the overflowings of vice
and iniquity are effectually restrained.

In taking a survey of the nature of man and the
principles by Avhich he is governed, it is impossible

28 INTRODUCTION.

not to perceive that a desire of happiness occupies
a very commanding and influential position in his
character. On this ground it is evident, that what-
ever is calculated to meet this powerful and prevail-
ing tendency, will modify every fiiculty and afl'ection
of the mind, and give a predominant and specific
direction to the whole course of the conduct. It
may, therefore, be regarded as another very decisive
proof of the moral and beneficial influence of science
upon the character, that it opens new sources of
pleasure. Such is the craving eagerness of man for
enjoyment, that unless he can obtain it within the
legitimate bounds of morality and virtue, he will
seldom scruple, except he is restrained by a higher
principle of religion, to transgress those limits, so far
as is not absolutely inconsistent Avith the legal and
civil institutions of the land.

Yery frequently, indeed, he is instigated by pas-
sion, hurried by some precipitate impulse, or led by
a cool and deliberate calculation of some unlawful
advantage or gratification, to the gross and outrage-
ous violation of those salutary principles. But if
prudence and other subordinate considerations of
safety and interest should be effectual in keeping
him within the just boundaries prescribed by the
laws of the state, if his habits should not absolutely
degenerate into crimes impeachable at the bar of
the public magistrate, there will be still abundant
scope for the practice of every vice, and for the pur-
suit of x)leasure in every form of depravity, and
through every channel of sensual indulgence. If he
is a stranger to a purer, sublimer, and more intcl-

INTIIODUCTIO]^. 29

Icctucal rano'e of enjoyments, he will l)e urg-ed by a
native tendency, operating in him with the force of
a species of moral necessity, but a necessity, which
neutralizes none of his guilt, to slake his thirst after
happiness from some more turbid source. Accord-
ing to the extent of his means and the peculiar bias
of his constitutional temperament, he will either
indulge in the excesses of prodigality and unre-
strained libertinism, or in the pursuit of those meaner
and more grovelling gratifications, which every one
has it in his power to command. Impatient of the
insipidity of the same dull round of employments, of
the torpor of unexercised faculties, and of the insup-
portable weight of unoccupied time, he will, perhaps,
plunge into the vortex of dissipating amusements,
where vice meets him in every seductive form, and
where the atmosphere is contaminated with princi-
ples fatal to the best interests of virtue ; or he may
frequent those resorts of intoxication and excess,
where the orgies of nocturnal revelry are celebrated,
and where the votaries of vice meet together as for
the express purpose of performing the last obsequies
of morality.

But let the ennobling and elevating spirit of
science once deeply imbue his mind, and I will
venture to affirm that, at least, a very powerful if not
completely influential counteracting principle will
become incorporated into his character. Let know-
ledge unfold its resources, and literature display its
inexhaustible treasures before him. Let the Me-
chanical Arts no longer remain mechanical, but, by
the discovery of their astonishing forces and capabi-

30 INTRODUCTION.

lities of application, become mental and intellectual
employments in his hands. Let Mathematics, in
their abstruse and more remote combinations of
quantity, and in their practical adaptation to the
various uses of life, employ the acuter and more
investigating faculties of his mind. Let Chemistry,
containing the universal law of matter in every form
of composition and analysis, teach him to look with a
scientific eye to every object with which he is sur-
rounded. Let Astronomy reveal her stupendous
wonders to his view, and engage his mind in the
contemplation of her brilliant phenomena. Let His-
tory unroll her records, and cause to pass before him
in review the diversified scenery of ages and genera-
tions past, presenting in more prominent exhibition
those striking epochs which have exerted an exten-
sive and lasting influence upon the destinies of man-
kind. Let Poetry, chaste, pure, and sublime, enchant
him with the magic of her charms, and soothe him
with the melody of her voice, tinging every scene
with colours of a brighter hue, and arraying the face
of nature with beauties not her own. Let his various
faculties be thus directed toAvards their appropriate
objects, and flow forth in their respective channels of
enjoyment, and I do not assert, indeed, that he will
be everything that he may and ought to be, but it
may be safely affirmed, that he will have in himself
such resources — that he will, at all times, have at
command such diversified means of refined and exqui-
site enjoyment, as will be sufficient to preserve him
from any imaginary necessity of recurring to plea-
sures of a debasing or questionable character.

INTRODUCTION. 31

To point out all the avenues, by which the pur-
suits of literature and science conduct to the sources
of intellectual gratification, would far exceed my
present limits. To the man of taste and imagina-
tion, or of patient research, there is an indefinable
pleasure in the conscious exercise of his faculties,
and in satiating his appetite for knowledge out of
the exhaustless stores which lie before him. In
whatever department of labour, or art, he may be
engaged, he will throw a portion of mind into every
undertaking, and sublimate with this ethereal spirit
the coarsest elements with Avhich he comes in contact.
In the pursuit of knowledge, he will doubtless be fre-
quently humiliated at the thought of the comparative
scantiness of his acquirements ; he will have to en-
counter many difficulties in his way. In the abstract
sciences he will more particularly have to engage in
these trials of intellectual dexterity and strength.
Few obstacles, however, will meet him, over which
labour and perseverance will not triumph ; and, inde-
pendently of the joy of victory, there is pleasure in
the very effort, in the vigorous attempt to master
what hitherto has baffled his endeavours*. And
though, in his upward progress along the acclivities
of that mountain, whose summit is lost in the clouds,
he will still find

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps o'er Alps arise ;
yet it is not Avithout satisfaction that he occasionally
looks downward, and marks the impediments which

* HSeia S' eo-rt tov fiev napovros r] evepyeia, tov 8e fxeWovTos t] eXiris,
Tov 8e yeyevrjfxevov tj Hvt)(it]' r^hiarov be to Kara Tr}v evepyeiav. — ArISTOT.

Eth. Nic, ix. 7.

32 INTRODUCTIOX.

lie lias already surmounted, the heights which he has
already scaled. It is said of Pythagoras, that he
sacrificed a hecatomb in token of his exulting- grati-
tude for the discovery of an important problem con-
tained in the elements of Euclid. It is related of
another philosopher of antiquity, the renowned Ar-
chimedes, that such was the delight which he enjoyed
in his sublime speculations, that he regarded the
practical uses of his astonishing mechanical inventions
as altogether a subordinate consideration, and exhi-
bited them only for amusement. So completely ab-
sorbed was the mind of this wonderful man in his
geometrical calculations, that, when a Eoman soldier
was on the point of plunging his sword into his body,
he requested him to withhold the fatal stroke until
he had finished the problem, which he was engaged in
demonstrating. And how great and exquisite, as
Dugald Stewart justly remarks, must have been the
pleasure experienced by the celebrated mathemati-
cian and astronomer, La Grange, on having proved,
upon principles of sublime and complicated science,
that the present system has not, as by some had been
imagined, the elements of necessary destruction in
itself. The same remark is applicable to those emi-
nent persons who have distinguished themselves by
their inventions and discoveries in other branches of
knoAvledge and art. And though it would be extra-
vagant to compare with these every humble votary
who carries his offering to the altar of science*, yet
the pleasure of success, though in a subordinate and

Quis(juis adluic uno partain colit assc Miuorvain.— Juv.

INTRODUCTION. 33

less splendid career, is as real, and, perliap.-;, as vivid
in his case, as with those ^vho are most powerfully
efficient in extending the empire of knowledge.

Science, by opening the som*ces of refined and
varied pleasure, renders him v>'ho pursues it, in a
great measure, independent of the senses, which dis-
closes another very important modification of moral
influence. It is remarked by Addison, that the plea-
sures of taste and imagination occupy a middle place
betAveen those of pure intellect and science, and the
pleasures of sense. And where there is a capacity
for enjoying both or either of the former, it may be
fairly assumed, that the latter will be in a consider-
able measure superseded. In the mixed and com-
pound nature of man, there is an incessant contest
between discordant elements and varying inclina-
tions, until the intellectual principle, or the animal
propensity, gains a decisive and almost complete
predominance ; and the general tenor of the conduct
will take its direction according to the superior and
preponderating influence, which these constituents
of character are respectively found to exert. Let a
man be supposed to be altogether destitute of any
relish for the pure gratifications of mind in its diver-
sified modes of exercise and application, and by an
almost unavoidable proclivity of 'nature, he will sink
into the mire of sensuality, where he will be held
fast in the chains of some sordid pursuit or affection.
But deprive him of his usual indulgences ; dry up, or
divert from their wonted and accessible channels the
polluted streams, from which he has been accustomed

D

34 INTRODUCTION.

to drink — let him be incapacitated by age or infir-
mity, or any other uncontrollable circumstance, to
pursue his former habits, and satiate himself with the
same intoxicating draught, and, unless he is sup-
plied with resources of cheerfulness and consolation,
springing from a principle still nobler and better
than science itself, he will of necessity be plunged
into a state of sour melancholy and vacant wretched-
ness.

But the man, who, like the ancient philosopher,
carries with him his riches in his mind, and the chief
portion of his happiness, so far as it is connected
with the affairs of the present world, in the exercise
of his faculties, rises to a great degree superior to
those privations or vicissitudes, or those superabun-
dant and diversified opportunities of indulgence,
which affect the enjoyment of the senses. K he is
destitute of the means, he feels not the necessity,
except so far as the moderate supply of his jihysical
wants. He can expatiate in the liberty of thought,
amidst the confinement of the closest and most
binding employment; he can luxuriate amidst scenes
of intellectual affluence and delight, Avhile surrounded
on every hand with the insignia of contracted re-
sources. If, on the contrary, his circumstances be
ample, and the sources of sensitive gratification be
freely at his command, even though he should be
destitute of a sublimer and more unexceptionable
principle, a sense of the dignity of his nature, and
an elegance of feeling and taste springing from the
habitual contemplation of the abstract and ideal
beauty of moral excellence will in general effectually

INTRODUCTION. 35

preserve him from suffering the rational part of his
being to become entirely amalgamated with tlie
animal. He will assert the freedom of his mind
against every attempt of the senses to bring him
into bondage, and wath the consciousness of his
heavenly origin and immortal destiny, purified, it
may be hoped, from the pride and self-complacence,
which in the case of the Eoman philosopher it too
clearly embodied, he will exclaim with Seneca, "I
was born for higher things than to be the slave of
my body." And if this independence of the mind
over the propensities and allurements of the senses
be effectually maintained, the fortress of morality
and virtue will be considerably strengthened, and
some of the broadest avenues will be closed, through
which vice makes her inroads into the character. On
a most superficial view of society, it is impossible
not to observe, that a large portion of the various
gradations of vice and misery, by which unhappily
it is too generally characterized, arise from impro-
vidence and inconsiderateness, from the want of a
deliberate and due calculation of remote conse-
quences and effects. It is this combination of defects
which opens the door for so many positive evils and
delinquencies, from which otherwise the character
would have been exempt. Men, whose minds have
not been enlightened by knowledge, and whose un-
derstandings have not been trained to habits of
patient and comprehensive thought, are apt to be
led away by present appearances, and to be urged
by momentary impulses. Their views are too narrow
to survey an object in all its circumstances and

D 2

36 INTRODUCTIOX.

relations — too sliort to follow the obviours tendencies
of an action to its distant and eventual results.
They are not accustomed to look beyond the sphere
of actual and sensitive vision — they know not what it
is to weigh the probabilities of a question in the scales
of an impartial and deliberate judgment. They have
not sagacity to penetrate beneath the surface of
things. With them whatever is specious and im-
posing carries conviction — whatever promises imme-
diate gratification is substantial good — Avhatever
glitters is gold. Hence their character lies at the
mercy of surrounding influences and adventitious
circumstances. To them a strong temptation is
almost a certain fall. To this thoughtless and un-
calculating habit, is owing half the vice and attend-
ant wretchedness, which prey upon so large a portion
of mankind.

But let the mind be expanded by suitable exercise,
and the understanding be disciplined in the school of
sober reflection — ^let such a moderate degree of in-
sight into the present character, and of foresight
into the future consequences of things, be acquired,
as is not incompatible with the unavoidable ignorance
and iallibility of human nature, and many of the
most grievous moral maladies of individuals, as well
as of society, will be cured in the removal of their
causes. As iii(Jiri(Jf(((7s, men will no longer allow
themselves to be hunied headlong by passion, or
allured by corrupt communication, into acts of dis-
lionesty, profligacy, or intem})erance, which, in their
(•onse([uences, must of necessity entail poverty,
misery, or disgrace, upon themselves and their la-

INTRODUCTION. 37

milies. They will look before they resolve — they
will pause before they act. In their social and clHl
capacity, they will possess equal advantages. They
will take a clear, dispassionate and enlightened view
of their duties and obligations, as well as of their
privileges, as members of a free, but not laAvless
government; nor will they be easily persuaded to
forego the certain blessings of safety and civil pro-
tection Avhich they enjoy, for the doubtful and
perilous advantages, which would result from violence
and insubordination. Knowing the value of their
own rights, they have learnt to respect the rights of
others. If they have too much knowledge to be
deluded into the approbation of oppressive and arbi-
trary decrees, they have also too much wisdom to be
precipitated by a rash and headlong spirit of inno-
vation, into the gulf of anarchy and confusion.

On this question, which I consider as a legitimate
and very important branch of social morality, it is
remarked by Professor Stewart, whom no one will
suspect of being an enemy to the rights and liberties
of mankind, that one great benefit resulting from
the general diffusion of light and knowledge through-
out the community is, that men are thereby rendered
less liable to be led away by the artifices of public
orators and popular demagogues, and that the inevi-
table effect of such a dissemination of sound princi-
ples among the mass of the people, is to lessen the
dangerous and injurious influence of these persons.
The same enlightened philosopher and laborious in-
vestigator of the principles of the human mind, has
observed that it is only upon ignorant minds — upon

38 INTRODUCTION.

minds unaccustomed to the exercise of their faculties,
and incapable of a cool and deliberate application of
their reasoning powers, that inflammatory declama-
tions, addressed to the imagination, can produce their
effect. With hini agrees the late moderate and ex-
cellent Dr. Paley, who remarks that, although in a
state of peace and public tranquillity, and when all
external circumstances contribute to the maintenance
of regularity and quietness of conduct, ignorance may
afford a colour of security to the interests of the
community, and by its pliability of movement, may
seem to be conducive to the harmony of the system;
yet in those seasons of difficulty and depression, by
wdiich, from whatever causes they may arise, the his-
tory of states is so frequently chequered, when the
political horizon is darkened with clouds, and seems
fraught with the elements of destruction, in such an
order of things it is in the knowledge and sound dis-
cretion of the great body of the people that the
safety of a nation is centred. And I am persuaded,
that most of those dreadful convulsions, which at
different periods have deluged countries with blood —
those frantic ebullitions of barbarity and crime, which
are at once the terror and disgrace of our nature, are
mainly to be attributed, not to popular knowledge
and philosophy, as they have sometimes been erro-
neously traced, but to the want of this enlightened
wisdom in those, who must always constitute the
physical and disposable energy of a kingdom. So
far as they were ascribable to knowledge at all, the^^
were the effects of the perverted knowledge of a few
operating upon the ignorance of the many. They

INTRODUCTION. 39

were, in fact, the fire and smoke, and pestilential ex-
halations, arising from the political laboratory of those
who experimented upon the elements of ignorance
and passion as their subjects*.

The last modification of moral influence which we
shall now be able to notice, as belonging to science,
is the favourable aspect which it bears, when properly
cultivated, to the interests of religion, as the grand

* As illustrative of the natural influence of the pursuits of sci-
ence, and of the general expansion of mind upon the political con-
dition of society, it gives me great pleasure to strengthen the pre-
ceding remarks, by the following passage from a luminous and
eloquent speech of a distinguished member of the British Parliament,
delivered on opening the Budget, March 15, 1826: — " There are,
indeed, some persons who think this diffusion of knowledge the
misfortune of the age ; but I know not how those minds can be
constituted, who look upon knowledge with an eye of fear. On
me, it produces an impression diametrically the reverse. I am
convinced — most thoroughly convinced, that the more people are
instructed in all that is essential to their good, the more likely they
are to see what that good is, and the ends by which it is to be
attained ; the more likely they are to abstain from the use of means
in their operation prejudicial to the strength of a country; since all
mankind, nay, I was going to use that despised word, philosophers,
are agreed, that — ' Knowledge is power.'"

In fact, the only danger to a state, arising from the dissemina-
tion of sound knowledge, must be owing to the absence of that
principle in the administration of its affairs, which alone can secure
the homage of a well-instructed mind — an equitable and enlightened
discharge of its legislative and authoritative functions. This is the
condition, upon which every well-constituted government expects,
and may with safety calculate upon, the veneration and cheerful
obedience of its subjects; and, in this view of the case, I see nothing
to be apprehended from the following unquestionable statement
of Cicero — "Huic veri videndi cupiditati adjuncta est appetitio
qugedam principatus, ut nemini parere animus bene a natura infor-
matus velit, nisi prsecipienti aut docenti, aut utilitatis causa jiiste el
legitime imperanti.'^ — De Offic, lib. i, cap. 4.

40 INTRODUCTION.

foundation of morality. AYe hope that the time is
now gone hj, -when ignorance "was regarded as the
mother of piety — when it Avas deemed necessary for
the maintenance of the cause of truth, that the Scrip-
tures themselves should be kept

Bound ill the fetters of an unknown tongue,

and confined within the massive Avails of churches,
and cloistered monasteries; lest, clad in the garb of
plainness and simplicity, and speaking the vulgar
dialect, they should go abroad among the people, and
excite in them a spirit of needless and inexpedient
inquiry. The palpable gloom of this Egyptian night
was dissipated by the morning star of the Eeforma-
tion, Avhich heralded the approaching and more gene-
ral diffusion of the light of revealed truth. And I
cannot but regard it as a circumstance honourable to
literature, as connected with the interests of religion,
that as one of the subordinate causes, in the hands of
a superintending Providence, it was mainly instru-
mental in effecting the emancipation of a large portion
of the Christian Avorld from the bondage of Popish
superstition. It Avill be acknoAvledged, I conceive, by
all AAdio are acquainted Avith history, that the destruc-
tion of the Eastern Empire, and the capture of Con-
stantinople by the Turks, had the effect of transfer-
ring the seat of classical and theological learning from
Asia into Europe; and that the revival of letters con-
sequent upon that change, proved the happy occasion,
in connexion Avith other causes, of opening the eyes of
the early champions of the Keformation to the absurd
and impious dogmas of the Uomisli Cliurch. It Avas
this Avhich, in subordination to a higher inliucnce, en-

INTRODUCTION. 41

lio-litened tlic minds and roused the spirits of LiUlicr,
the foremost among a band of Avortliics — of Melanc-
tlion, and I may add, of Erasmus, notwithstanding his
pitiable duplicity, and vacillating timidity of charac-
ter— it was this which, in a great measure, prepared
and qualified them for laying bare, and for demolish-
ing, to a considerable extent, that enormous mass of
ignorance and superstition which had accumulated
over the site of the Christian Church, as the muddy
stream of time gradually lodged its deposits.

An apprehension has been felt, indeed, by well-
disposed individuals, in almost every age of the church
— an apprehension, w-hich I by no means regard as
utterly destitute of all foundation, that philosophy and
secular literature, owing to the general habit and bias
of the human mind, are calculated rather to be inju-
rious than favourable to the real interests of religious
truth.

Under the influence of this feeling, the celebrated
Gregory, Bishop of Eome, wdshed to destroy all the
literary remains of heathen antiquity, and prohibited
the use of them in those seminaries of Christian edu-
cation, which were subject to his control. But in
this, as Lord Bacon, in his Treatise on the Advance-
ment of the Sciences, justly remarks, he is seldom
thought by the most enlightened part of the Avorld
to have acted wisely. And with a view of supplying
the defect, several of the fathers of the church at-
tempted to compose pieces in prose and verse upon
the plan of the ancient models. The great restorer
of learning, or rather founder of modern science,
acknowledges, indeed, that a slight and superficial

42 INTRODUCTION.

survey of the world of knowledge, may, in some in-
stances, be productive of a species of vertiginous and
intoxicating effect, and give the mind an atheistic
and irreligious tendency. But a clearer insight into
the mysteries of nature, and a richer infusion of the
genuine spirit of philosophy, he affirms, never fail to
bring it back again into a sober and wholesome
frame*. It is also unquestionable, that subsequently
to his time, science and literature, in most of their
ordinary departments, have frequently dishonoured
their names, and compromised their character, by be-
coming allied, and, as it were, amalgamated with a
spirit of impiety and infidelity. The nobler and
more transcendent efforts of human genius, however,
have soared above this polluted atmosphere. The
great representatives of the various provinces of the
human mind, the most honourable functionaries in
the intellectual republic, they who have been most
successful in extending its territories, and have
erected the standard of knowledge in regions hitherto
unexplored, have not soiled their garments with this
base refuse. While we have our Bacons — our N^ew-
tons — our Lockes — our Miltons — our Pascals, and

* It is remarkable, that the truth of this representation is dis-
tinctly recognized by Hume himself, who remarks, " that men being
taught by sujicrstition to lay the stress on a wrong place, when
that fails them, and they discover, by a little reflection, that the
course of nature is regular and uniform, their whole faith totters
and falls to ruins. But being taught by more reflection, that this
very regularity and uniformity is the strongest proof of a design
and of a supreme Intelligence, they return to that belief which they
had deserted, and they are now able to establish it upon a firmer
and more durable foundation."

INTRODUCTION. 43

other scarce inferior names, associated with a firm
belief in the doctrines of revelation — many of them
zealous defenders of its vital truths, we need be under
no apprehension that the spirit of infidelity should
ever with justice be identified with the spirit of
philosophy.

Philosophy baptized

In the pure fountain of eternal love,

Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees,

As meant to indicate a God to man,

Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own.

Learning has borne such fruit in other days,

On all her branches ; piety has found

Friends in the friends of Science, and true prayer

Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews.

Such was thy wisdom, Newton, child-like sage !

Sagacious reader of the works of God,

And in his word sagacious. Such, too, thine,

Milton, whose genius had angelic wings.

And fed on manna. And such, thine in whom

Our British Themis gloried with just cause.

Immortal Hale, for deep discernment praised,

And sound integrity, not more than famed

For sanctity of manners undefiled.

It is, indeed, only while Science confines herself
to her suitable oflice of being an handmaid to reli-
gion, and through the gradation of the exquisite
arrangement of subordinate and secondary causes,
conducts the mind to the admiration and acknow-
ledgment of the great first Cause — that she is
entitled to countenance and respect. It is her
business, if we may venture to apply a heathen
illustration, to lead the inquirer through that beau-
tiful range of harmonious and mutually dependent
operations, which pervade the economy of the uni-
verse, until he has found that the last link in nature's

44 INTRODUCTIOX.

diain is fastened to tlie foot of Jupiter's cliair.
And the moment she forgets this, her appropriate
province, by prying- into scenes which are of neces-
sity concealed from lier view, and by invalidating
truths, the evidence of which she is not qualified
to appreciate, instead of being an angel of light,
she becomes at once emphatically a minister of
darkness.

That this, however, should be generally or exten-
sively the case, is by no means to be apprehended.
That it should ever take place is only one of those
instances of unnatural perversion and abuse, to which
every excellency and advantage are liable, when they
become associated Avitli corrupt principles, and is in
reality no more an argument against it, than (as
Aristotle has truly remarked in reply to a similar
objection against the art of Ehetoric) it is an argu-
ment against the value of health or physical strength
that it is capable of being misapplied*. It is true,
that there is a vain philosophy — a science falsely so
called, against which an apostle cautions the com-
munitity to Avhich he is writing; but the true and
sober, and well directed knowledge of nature cannot
be included in that designation; and from a variety
of other declarations and examples, we have abundant
reason to conclude, that this latter form of '' divine
philosophy" has nothing in it inconsistent, but on the

* Et on jifyoKa fiXciyj/fuv nv o ;^pw/xf I'o? rj] Toiavryj Swafxci tchi' Xoycoi',
Tovrn re koivov tan Kara tviivtwv n-yadiou ttXiju apfTrjs, kcu /luXiaTa Kara tcov
^prjaiixoTaTMv, oiov ia-)^vos, vyuuii, irXovrov, (TTfjaTiiyttis. Toiovrois yap av th
u)(j)cXi]Ocic ru ptyiarTa ^(/Jco/ifj'os fiiKuicoy, km j:i\a\j/(uv, adiKU)S, — Do Rliet.
lil). i. cap. i.

INTRODUCTION. 45

otlicr liaiid is perfectly congenial, with a spirit of the
devoutest piety.

The interests of morality and religion, though
not identical, are inseparably connected together.
AVhatever is calculated to promote and secm-e the
one, must exert a favourable influence with respect
to the other. It is dangerous, and injurious in the
extreme, to rest in science or morality as an end.
Assuredly they do not, either separately or combined,
constitute the chief good of man, nor of themselves
can they raise him to that perfection, of which his
nature is capable; but they may be eminently con-
ducive to that end. The order of relation in which
they appear to stand is, that science, duly and soberly
cultivated, leads to morality, and morality, as an inter-
mediate stage, conducts into the confines of religion,
and religion as the transforming and perfecting
economy of the character of man, brings him by
an immediate and direct path to the completion of
his hopes, and the consummation of his felicity.
Morality is the outer court of the temple, of which
religion is the sanctuary. In order to enter the
latter, it is indispensable to pass through the former.
Or, to adopt an illustration from the technical phrase-
ology of Logic, religion, as the major proposition,
includes morality as the minor, though the converse
of this proposition is by no means necessarily true.
If science, therefore, as we have now endeavoured to
show, be in its general tendency favourable to the
interests of religion, it must by implication be con-
ducive to the interests of morality.

^Ye now proceed to notice some of the dangers

46 INTRODUCTION.

which may incidentally arise from the pursuits of
science, and to suggest such cautions and correctives,
as appear calculated most effectually to secure suc-
cess in the prosecution of knowledge, and, therewith
associated, those beneficial results of a moral and
social nature Avhich have been already specified.
Much, however, of this part of the discussion has
been already anticipated, and interwoven with the
former portion of this inquiry. In reference to these
points, therefore, a few brief hints alone are neces-
sary. In the endeavour to acquire useful knowledge,
it is of great importance that we do not suffer our-
selves to be bewildered by attempting too many
things at once, or by neglecting those gradations in
the scale of intellect, without a due regard to which,
it is impossible to arrive at the higher departments.
It is the rule of epic poetry, as exemplified by the
Grecian bard, and enforced by the Roman critic, to
plunge at once into the midst of the scene*, and to
interweave whatever is necessary to the due compre-
hension of the subject, with the structure of the work,
by a skilful arrangement of episodes and interlocu-
tions. But the rule of scientific acquirement is the
very reverse. Here we must begin ah ovo — with first
principles, and lay the foundation of the edifice in a
clear and comprehensive acquaintance with elemen-
tary facts. And when this has been in some degree
secured, it requires no ordinary measure of resolution
and self-denial, to fix and concentrate the attention

mcdi

Non sccus ac notas auditorem rapit.

INTRODUCTION. 47

in that peculiar branch of knowledge which promises
most usefulness and success. It is, doubtless, a mor-
tifying consideration, that we cannot know everything
which is fairly within the reach of the human facul-
ties— that w^e cannot make a complete and accurate
tour through the whole circle of the sciences; but it
is what has never yet been effected by man. A re-
spectable and adequate proportion of general know-
ledge, a share of information upon every subject of
importance, sufficient for the purposes of illustration
and intellectual expansion, is certainly attainable;
but to aspire after universality is assuredly to covet
forbidden fruit. One of the most eminent mathe-
maticians of modern times acknowledges, that the
science of quantity alone, in its higher and more
complicated departments, has ramified into too
great a variety of forms and methods of investiga-
tion, to be adequately pursued and appreciated by
one mind*. How completely out of the question is
it, therefore, that an individual, however eminently
endowed, and however favourably circumstanced,
should comprehend within the sphere of his distinct
and penetrating vision the whole domain of human
knowledge. Against such an illimitable enlargement
of the range of the intellectual faculties, the eternal
law of our constitution hath raised an insurmount-
able barrier; and it may without hesitation be
affirmed, that the profoundest philosopher or the

* Vide Douglas's Advancement of Societij in Knowledge and
Religion — a work, notwithstanding some questionable positions, dis-
tinguished by a vigour of intellect, and an extensiveness of research
seldom equalled.

48 INTRODUCTION.

most accomplished scholar that ever lived, knew no
more than the alplicibet of universal 'knou'ledfje. It
is no less a true than it is a pleasing estimate, which
the greatest discoverer of modern times formed of
his own character and attainments, the man, of
whom it was said aptly, though extravagantly,
indeed —

Nature and nature's works lay liid in night,
God said — Let Newton be, and all was light,

when he represents himself as a child walking upon
the shore, and gathering pebbles, wherewith to amuse
himself, while the great ocean of truth lay before
him, in its wide and measureless expanse, untra-
versed, and for the most part unperceived. In the
earlier stages of literary attainment, before the
mind is yet fully acquainted with its own powers, the
danger of this presumption is greater. When science
and imagination first begin to unfold their treasures
to an individual possessed of a considerable aptitude of
acquirement, naturally fond of knowledge, and enthu-
siastic in his admiration of everything that is elegant
and sublime, he is like one who enters a room splen-
didly illuminated. He is for a while dazzled with the
profusion of lights, and with the beautiful variety of
the prismatic colours ; and it is some time before he
can apply his mind to the objects most worthy of his
attention. Such, indeed, is the case with most per-
sons in the earlier stages of their intellectual culti-
vation ; and it is of the utmost importance to their
real improvement that they reduce their expectations
and confine their researches to those sober limits
which arc obviously within their reach. The great

INTRODUCTION. 49

secret of doing miicli, said Locke, than wliom no one
could be a better judge, is to do one thing at a time.
It was a due regard to this principle — a patient and
concentrated application of the faculties to one prin-
cipal branch of investigation, which enabled him to
complete his own immortal work, and was mainly
conducive to the erection of the majestic edifice of
the philosophy of E'ewton.

With a view to the moral influence of scientific
pursuits, and to the prevention of those evils which
they may be incidentally liable to produce, we should
lay it down as a fundamental principle, never to
allow our love of knowledge, however laudable and
intense, materially to interfere with our proper
duties, whether they be those primary obligations
wdiich we owe to the great Author of our being, or
those which subordinately arise from our several
relations in life, or our rank in society. Most men
of literary habits, who are shaclded by other en-
gagements, and great demands upon their time,
(and few there are, beyond the period of their pupil-
age, wholly exempt from such requisitions,) have
felt the danger and inconvenience of this excessive
indulgence. Generally, indeed, prudence, and a
commanding sense of obligation, in many instances
absolute and unavoidable necessity, operates as a
sufficient guard against this evil. Wherever the
love of knowledge is so powerfully predominant, as
in some cases it is found, and the legitimate oppor-
tunities of acquiring it comparatively fev/ and rare,
it must be confessed that there is no slight danger
of withholding from less intellectual pursuits and

E

50 INTRODUCTION.

avocations that undivided attention which they de-
mand— of curtailing the time, which they require —
of thus violating the principles of prudential and
domestic interests, and even of encroaching upon the
sacredness of seasons, and duties of still deeper
solemnity. The maxim of Bishop Sanderson should
be inscribed in prominent and legible characters
upon the closet door of every student, "Bene orasse
est bene studuisse." It certainly cannot be denied,
and it is greatly to be lamented, that a disposition to
cultivate science in its various departments, inde-
pendently of all connexion with religion, is very
widely and alarmingly prevalent in the present day.
In some of our great seats of learning, and more
especially in those which have recently sprung up,
there is by no means that prominent and practical
recognition of the importance of religion as a per-
sonal concern, and as essentially entering into the
system of education suited to an immortal being
which its nature so justly demands. There is a spirit
gone abroad among certain classes of illuminati,
which occasionally vents itself in very extravagant
terms, as descriptive of that era of light and glory
which the diffusion of intellect, by its own sovereign
and exclusive agency, is expected to usher in upon
the world. It is possible to carry this notion of the
unaided efficiency of knowledge and mental cultiva-
tion to an extent that will prove not only false, but
also, in the highest degree, prejudicial and injurious.
There is a danger, lest the young aspirant after
academical or literary distinction should forget that
there arc other duties to perform than the mere im-

INTRODUCTION. 51

provement of liis own mind — than the mere expan-
sion and invigoration of his own intellectual facul-
ties ; and that the hour which he employs in the
subhme occupations of prayer and retired meditation,
so far from being wasted, as he may sometimes be
tempted to think, is the hour of all others most use-
fully and legitimately spent. In order, therefore,
that science may be religiously, morally, and socially
beneficial, it should be laid down as a principle, as
firm and immoveable as any of the axioms upon
which it rests, that the pursuits of knowledge, how-
ever delightful in themselves, must never interrupt
the regular course of the relative and subordinate
duties of life, and still less of those primary duties
which man owes to his Maker. But when these
claims have been fully, honestly, and conscientiously
met, science may lawfully come in for the surplus of
time which remains, and cannot be prosecuted with
an ardour too devoted and enthusiastic.

Still viewing the subject under the same aspect,
it is an essential element in the constitution of a
well-regulated mind, and therefore of a well-ordered
frame of character, to guard against the remotest
tendency towards a contemptuous feeling with respect
to those, who may be necessarily destitute of that
comparative measure of literary and scientific endow-
ment, which the individual himself may possess.
Independently of the irresistible testimony of obser-
vation and experience, we have the express declara-
tion of an apostle, that at a certain stage of the
character, and, for the most part, at the earlier pe-
riods of intellectual growth, before the habits of a

E 2

52 ' INTRODUCTION.

sound judgment and mature reflection are formed,
" Knowledge puffeth up." It is mainly in this point
of view, that the celebrated couplet of Pope, which,
with many persons, carries an authority so unques-
tionable and commanding, and is so frequently in
the mouth of those who are hostile to the general
progress of knowledge, admits at all of a fair and
legitimate application —

A little learuing is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

There is something in the elevation of genius — in
the dignity of science, the remotest affinity to which,
like the pride of ancestry, is apt to swell the mind
Avith a sense of imaginary and undue importance.
And he who has made the slightest advancement
towards this fancied eminence, is sometimes tempted
to think that he has a right to despise those, who,
either from defects of nature, or a less auspicious
order of circumstances, have been left behind in the
vale of ignorance; or to view with emotions, not
altogether foreign to envy and morbid dissatisfiic-
tion, those who, perhaps, with inferior intellectual
pretensions, have been able by other means more
rapidly to ascend the gradations of honour, distinc-
tion, and emolument. While I would be the last to
derogate from the intrinsic excellency of mental en-
dowment — from its unquestionable and decided
superiority over every external and adventitious ap-
pendage of the human character, I must maintain, at
the same time, that it can no more justify a con-
tempt of comparative and unavoidable ignorance in
any rank of life, than the power of tlic great, or tlie

INTRODUCTION. 53

wealth of the affluent, can justify a similar feeling in
their possessors toAvarcls those who are debarred from
these more doubtful advantages. A calm and sober
estimate of science in any of its gradations and de-
partments, as an ingredient of character, and as
forming a claim to any sudden and extraordinary
elevation in life, is an indispensable requisite to that
purifying and meliorating influence, which it is cal-
culated to exert upon society.

Happily the temptation to intellectual and lite-
rary pride, the moment it is in danger of becoming
general, carries Avith it its own corrective. Let
knowledge be extensively disseminated — let the
whole mass of the people be elevated to the utmost
of their native capabilities in the scale of intellect,
and the possession of a moderate portion of literary
taste and scientific information will cease to be an
object of distinction. Let it cease to be an object of
distinction, and the danger of undue self-compla-
cence upon the ground of ordinary attainments will,
of necessity, disappear; and the mass of general
knoAvledge, thus acquired, Avill mingle as a valuable
accession Avith the principles of common sense. Let
there be a simultaneous movement toAvards the
higher regions of intellect in the several ranks and
orders of society, Avithout any attempt to disturb the
salutary economy of nature, and to set at nought the
collective Avisdom of ages, by a capricious change of
positions in the firmament of human life, but every
planet moving in its appropriate orbit, and every
luminary maintaining its allotted place; and though
occasionally an erratic star may shoot across the

54 INTRODUCTION.

liemisphere, wliicli no weiglit of atmosphere can re-
tard, and no laws of regular arrangement can control,
jet the whole system, thus mutually illuminated,
consolidated, and sustained, will present a scene of
moral beauty to the eye, resembling that girdle of
refreshing light, which we sometimes see encircling
the nocturnal sky, and its peaceful and accordant
play of operations will convey a sound of moral
melody to the ear, more delightful than the harmony
of the spheres.

BOOK I.

THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE INVESTIGATION OP
REVEALED TRUTH STATED AND EXPLAINED.

Section I.

The general Grounds op this Inquiry.

When a subject intimately connected with our inter-
ests, and deeply affecting our conduct, is proposed to
our consideration, it is important, in order to arrive
at a correct result, that it should be investigated by
those powers of the mind, to which it is properly
addressed. To secure this object, it is necessary that
the province of every faculty, as it stands related to
that question, should be accurately defined — that
each should have its limits distinctly marked out,
and its office clearly assigned to it. In the forma-
tion of our opinions, and in the regulation of our
judgment, nothing is more essential than a metho-
dical arrangement of our ideas — a well-balanced
exercise of the intellectual powers. When these are
allowed to act disproportionately — when one is un-
duly elevated, and another sunk below its just level
— when they are suffered mutually to run into what
more immediately comes under the jurisdiction of
each other, it is impossible that the examination
should issue in truth and certainty.

56 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

Some things are exclusively directed to the affec-
tions— to what may be termed the sensitive part of
human nature. These consist in appeals to the pas-
sions, and in details of striking facts. Other things
there are bearing more of a speculative character,
which are submitted to the abstract operations of the
understanding, and are to be surveyed in the pure
light of the intellect: in this latter class are com-
prised the more refined branches of knowledge — the
more subtile and abstruse parts of scientific and
metaphysical inquiry. A third order of things there
is, which in a greater or less degree, concerns all the
faculties of the soul, whether sensitive or intellectual.
Such, in an eminent and peculiar sense, is the Chris-
tian religion. As this comprehensive scheme was
designed to influence the whole character of man —
as it was intended to fill his soul — to spread, as it
were, over the Avhole extent of his capacities, leaving
no part of his nature unoccupied and unaffected, so
it is admirably calculated to accomplish such an end.
It m composed of facts, the most wonderful and
affecting, to interest the heart; of speculations the
most sublime, to employ the Imagination; of doc-
trinal truths, combining the utmost simplicity with
the profoundest mystery, to exercise the Understand-
ing; and of moral principles, the most binding and
authoritative, to control the Will and to regulate the
conduct.

In the volume of inspiration we have a full and
accurate developcment of this system: it becomes
us, therefore, to study that divine connnunication
with the most serious and devout attention, to ex-

*£^^f '^^--m'ESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 57

amine it uith impartiality and care, and to receive
Avitli meekness and simplicity Avliatever it expressly
declares.

As, however, it was the design of Eevelation to
teach us what we could not otherwise have disco-
vered, to inform us of what, without such a commu-
nication, we could not have known, it was to be
expected that it should bring to our view a variety of
objects far removed from, if not utterly at variance
with, our previous conceptions. The analogies of
nature, as a celebrated prelate* has most ably and
luminously shown, would have prepared us to find,
that it would present difficulties, which our present
faculties are by no means capable of solving, and
have taught us to expect a disclosure of truths far
surpassing the ordinary range of human comprehen-
sion; and as was to be naturally presumed, such
proves to be the fact.

We find accordingly that Eevelation brings within
the reach of a partial apprehension, if not within the
clear limits of the understanding, a variety of most
important points, of which otherwise we could not
have formed the most remote idea, and of which,
after they have been revealed, our notions are of
necessity obscure and indistinct, "^^^len we say that
our views of these matters are obscure and indistinct,
we do not mean to intimate, that the imperfection of
our knowledge is such as to preclude the most firm
and unhesitating belief. It is abundantly possible —
as we shall have occasion to remark in the course of

^' Bishop Butler.

$8 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

these observations — to give assent to a proposition,
when the various facts which stand inseparably con-
nected with, and many of the truths which essen-
tially enter into, that proposition, are but very par-
tially understood.

In the wide range of divine Eevelation, there are
many things, which are perfectly accordant with the
plain deductions of unenlightened reason; which it
requires no effort, no violence, to our previous ideas
to acknowledge, and of which we seem to recognize
the truth at first view; while in the investigation of
others, which are more mysterious and complex in
their nature, or more indefinitely expressed, the rea-
soning faculty must be kept within due restraints,
regulated in its requisite movements, and checked in
its tendency to dangerous and unallowed excursions.

Many persons, and, indeed, whole classes of re-
ligionists, have either rejected the most fundamental
truths, or embraced the most extravagant and un-
seemly errors, through a misconception, or neglect of
the peculiar nature, and limited extent of that agency,
which this distinctive faculty has a right to exert in
scrutinizing every principle of human belief. One
order of inquirers, by elevating the standard of Rea-
son to an inordinate height, and by endeavouring to
bring the Avhole range of divine Eevelation beneath
its distinct and commanding survey, has shut its
eyes to some of the richest and most glorious pro-
vinces of Truth, whicli the volume of inspiration has
disclosed, and has cither sunk, amidst tlie giddiness
of its own intellectual pride, into the depth of utter
scepticism, or has contracted the system of its belief

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 50

into a few cold, barren, and uninfluential generalities.
To say nothing of the milder and less malignant
forms, in which this spirit of chilling Rationalism dis-
plays itself among ourselves, — throughout Germany
and a large portion of the continent of Europe, it
seems to prevail to a most alarming extent, and to
operate vdtli a most injurious influence*.

Under the name of Geology, and with the pre-
tensions of a new principle of mental illumination, it
appeared for a while to have almost extinguished
every ray of revealed truth in that country, which
was first privileged to hail the light after the dark-
ness of almost a thousand years. To define the exact
character, or to trace the whole progress of the sys-
tem, would be a hopeless and unprofitable attempt.
Like most other theories of error and delusion, it sets
out with the assumption of a great and unquestion-
able truth — that Revelation cannot be really opposed
to Reason; but while, amidst the process of philoso-
phical refinement, this truth is made to pass through
successive stages of subtilization, and rises through
the varied gradations of transcendentalism, it soon
assumes a new form, and enters into new combina-
tions, losing every salutary and celestial element,
sending forth a noxious fume of infidel speculations
and absurdities, like those fetid gases which some-
times evolve under the operations of the crucible,
and leaving a dry residuum of religious formality and

* Recently, however, a sounder spirit has been gradually gaining
ground, and the distinguishing principles of a more enlightened,
because a more Christian, philosophy have to a considerable extent
regained their ascendency.

60 THE LIMITS OF REASON IX THE

hypocrisy. In contemplating the deadly effects of
this system upon the minds of those who are initiated
into its mysteries, we are reminded of a fatal inci-
dent, said to have occurred in one of the German
universities at an early period in the history of che-
mical science, when two young men, engaged in the
pursuit of what had claimed the attention, and baffled
the skill of alchemists of every age, fell victims to
the poisonous influence of carbonic acid gas, supposed
by many to have been a spirit of darkness allowed to
destroy them for their avarice, but explained by a
more experienced naturalist to have been nothing
else than the spirit of charcoal. Equally injurious to
the life of religion, and to the spiritual welfare of the
soul, is that process of interpretation applied to the
doctrines and principles of Eevelation, which destroys
and neutralizes their very essence, by subjecting
them to the debasing influence of a proud and
bewildered philosophy, dignified with the name of
Reason.

Others there are who go to an opposite extreme,
who, in mistaken reverence for the authority of
Scripture, and under the idea of magnifying the im-
portance of divine Eevelation, and of closing up
every avenue against the pride and self-sufficiency of
human wisdom, discard Eeason altogether, and deny
the competency of her tribunal, to pass judgment
upon principles of a higher order. Eeason and Faith
they have been accustomed to consider as standing in
direct opposition to each other; and the very name of
tlic former used in connexion with any alleged doc-
trine of Scripture, they consider little short of [)ro-

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. Gl

fanencss, and as an encroachment upon tlie sove-
reignty of the latter. They forget that the one is as
miicli a divine endowment, bestowed upon us for use-
ful and necessary purposes, as the other, and that
however bright and clear may be the light of revealed
truth, yet, without the aid of Reason, as an organ of
mental perception, we can no more form an estimate
of the objects which it discloses, than we can discern
the diversified colours of a distant scenery, irradiated
by the beams of the natural sun, wdthout the instru-
mentality of our eyes. In consequence of this con-
fusion of ideas, arising from their want of a correct
view of the real functions of Reason, in relation to
the discoveries of the Bible, and in the economy of
the Christian character, they are liable to embrace
the most chimerical and absurd notions, as the imme-
diate dictates of inspiration; nor is it possible that
they should accurately distinguish between the au-
thoritative and direct communications of heaven, and
the visionary suggestions of their own fancy. The
effect is, that they often run into the most dangerous
errors of mysticism and enthusiasm. Under these
circumstances, it is obviously a matter which deeply
concerns the best interests of truth and piety, that
the legitimate use of human Reason, in forming a
judgment of the doctrines of Revelation, should be
clearly unfolded — that the limits be assigned within
which it may with advantage exercise its functions,
and with propriety pronounce its decisions, and that
the boundaries be established, beyond which it cannot
safely proceed.

In the following Inquiry it Avill be our endeavour

62 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

to trace, and distinctly to mark out these important
limitations. But before we enter upon this investiga^
tion, it may be necessary to settle the meaning of the
term generally employed to designate the facidty, the
use of which we proposed to examine. " Eeason" is
an expression of a very vague and indeterminate
import — capable, according to the connexion in which
it stands, of a variety of acceptations. In the most
enlarged sense it signifies the perception of the eter-
nal and unchangeable fitness of things, showing the
mutual relation of causes and effects, and teaching
how the best ends can be secured by the best means.
Thus the Supreme Being, in the constitution, govern-
ment, and general economy of the universe, may be
said to act in accordance with the principles of Eea-
son. Limited in its import, and considered as an
attribute of the human character, Eeason constitutes
that capacity of the mind, by which a judgment is
formed on a cool and discriminative survey of the
grounds of belief — that intellectual faculty, in the
exercise of which a conclusion is arrived at, after a
careful and diligent examination of premises.

To form such a judgment, whether it relates to
the truth or error of a proposition, or to the rectitude
and propriety, or the injustice and folly of an action,
it is not necessary that there should be a long and
complicated process of ratiocination. ^Vliatever the
understanding pronounces upon these questions, how-
ever brief or apparently instantaneous may be the
verdict, provided its decision will bear the test of
deliberate examination, must be considered as falling
within the unquestionable range of reason. Prompt-

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 63

ness and readiness of acquiescence in such cases, so
far from proving an independence of the jurisdiction
of Eeason, in reality evince the highest perfection of
Eeason, as resulting from a faculty of generalization,
which passes on to the ultimate fact of the case with
the same rapidity and certainty, as an expert mathe-
matician perceives the truth of a theorem, without
going through the tedious process of actual demon-
stration. Some persons there are, indeed, and, among
these, the ingenious Dr. Hancock, in his very inter-
esting Essay on Instinct, who confine the exercises
of Eeason to such things only as directly fall under
the notice of what is technically called the Discursive
Facult}^; and, as such, they almost entirely separate
it from all connexion with religion. It is true, that
there is such a power as Instinct, and that it is abso-
lutely necessary to the preservation and Avell-being
of man, prior to the development of Eeason, and of
those animals, to which the discursive faculty is not
granted, or at least granted in a ver}^ limited degree.
But it is surprisingly forgotten, that as far as man is
governed by instinct, or by any internal light analo-
gous to instinct — as is obvious in the case of infants —
he is not, and cannot be the subject of moral obliga-
tion. So far as he is capable of religion, or of feel-
ing a sense of duty, which religion throughout in-
volves, he must be able to form an estimate of the
grounds of that duty : and what is this but an exer-
cise of reason, in a degree more or less enlightened;
or, if the phrase be preferred, of the Discursive Fa-
culty? A child, no doubt, may be conscious of many
pleasing and amiable affections, especially of grateful

64 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

love and tenderness towards its parents, without any
laborious calculation of the grounds of filial obliga-
tion ; but then it would be absurd to attem^Dt to bring
a system of moral principles, involving questions of
remote truth and investigation to operate upon such
a subject. This method of instruction must be re-
served, until its powers of thought and understanding
are so far unfolded, as to be able to appreciate its
import. It might love its parents Avitli an instinctive
attachment — it might act in a thousand ways, neces-
sary and perfectly suitable to its own welfare and
security; but it could neither believe it as a truth,
nor feel it as a duty, that it should thus act. These
perceptions and emotions imply the possession of a
power of estimating relations, which, in such a case,
was evidently wanting.

I^ow, whatever may have been the internal or
supernatural light vouchsafed unto man, it is unques-
tionable that Divine Eevelation is a system of illumi-
nation and instruction, which comes upon him from
without, and to the appreciation of which it is implied,
that he is possessed of correspondent powers : for in
the communication of this gracious scheme it is as-
sumed that man is not only endued with certain
faculties, but also that these faculties have arrived at
a certain degree of ripeness, in order that it may
exert any salutary influence upon the character. The
chief of these faculties, as most intimately connected
with the belief of truth and the recognition of duty,
we call Eeason, to the comparative feebleness and
inadequacy of which. Revelation is a friendly auxi-
liary, and not an overbearing antagonist. Tlie light

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 05

of Revelation, and that of right Reason, indeed, are
not so much opposite in their nature, as different in
their degree — -just as it is the same celestial influence
that emanates in fainter gleams from the moon, and
darts in brighter radiance from the glowing disk of
the sun. Such appears to be the legitimate import
of Reason, as expressive of that faculty, which distin-
guishes man as having arrived at that state of intel-
lectual maturity, which renders him a proper subject
of religion, and as capable of belief and of moral
obligation. In the ordinary transactions of life, the
term Reason is frequently employed to express the
cause of an event, without any direct and obvious
reference to the operations of a mind — the effect,
however, being considered as connected with its cause
by that chain of dependency, which forms the ground-
work of all intelligent reasoning.

It is obvious that, in the present inquiry. Reason
must be considered in the second of the senses here
assigned to it — as constituting that faculty of the
soul, in the exercise of which sound judgment or opi-
nion is formed. And were this faculty always correct
and consistent in its operations, there would be no
danger of its leading into errors and false conclusions.
If it was to be invariably regulated by sound princi-
ples— if it was supplied with an adequate measure of
light to discover what were and were not just and
sufficient grounds of belief — if, in short, the Reason
of man was in all cases guided by the truth of tilings,
it could not fail of being right in its deductions. But
the evil is, that this, like every power of the human
mind, is become feeble, disordered, and defective.

F

66 THE LIMITS OF EEASON IN THE

Hence it is often guilty of acting in direct violation
of its own character, or rather of what was its
character in its original state of strength and un-
biassed rectitude: it is liable to become the dupe
of fancy on the one hand, or the slave of prejudice
on the other, and thus by receiving the reveries
of imagination as the light of truth, or by rejecting
the declarations of truth as the phantoms of imagina-
tion— to run into either extreme of scepticism, or
superstitious belief. It should seem, that no judg-
ment ought, or, indeed, can be formed without an
exercise of some species of reasoning, but the data
on which this reasoning is built must entirely depend
upon the nature of the subject ; and the nice point in
each case — a point in which man often fails — is, what
does and what does not constitute due evidence.
There are two kinds of evidence totally distinct from
each other, but both of them, in their order, consti-
tuting a firm and adequate basis of belief — the evi-
dence of sense, or that which is founded on external
phenomena, and the evidence of testimony.

In the works of nature, and in the primary inves-
tigations of science, the first of these evidences exclu-
sively has place. "We have an instinctive assurance
implanted in our bosoms by the hand of nature, that
the intimations of our senses are real demonstrations
of the state of things around us; and hence our
Eeason justly concludes, that things are as they
appear to be. Let the intimations be repeated, and
applied to subjects similar to those by which they
have been already suggested, and they will constitute
that inductive evidence which forms the basis of the

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. C7

modern philosophy of experiment, in opposition to
the ancient, which was in reality a philosophy of
theory. In historical or traditionary details on the
other hand, or in the declaration of truths before
unknown, the evidence is obviously that of testimony ;
and moreover, the claim of that testimony to be
received as a ground of belief, must wholly depend
upon the character of the narrator or proposer, and
upon the quality of the declarations which he makes.^
Of this latter kind, authenticated, indeed, in its ori-
ginal enforcement, by the most powerful and convinc-
ing appeals to the senses, is the evidence on which
divine Eevelation principally rests its claims ; and the
object of the present Inquiry is to define what is the
legitimate province of Eeason in forming an estimate
of this evidence, and to show how far it is required or
alloAved to go, in receiving or rejecting the proposi-
tions which suspend their proof upon it. In the ]3ro-
secution of this inquiry, we shall range our observa-
tions under these two general divisions: — First, we
shall endeavour to show how far Eeason ongJit to go —
in other words, Jiow far the reasoning faculties may
he rightly and heneficialJy exercised in judging of
suhjects of Revelation ; and, secondly, we shall at-
tempt to point out the houndaries icithin which their
range must he confined — leaving whatever other
regions Eevelation has brought to view to the reign
of an implicit and adoring Faith.

F 2

68 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

Section II.

Reason authorized to judge of the Character and
Evidences of a professed Revelation.

We remark then, in the first place, that it lies within
the legitimate province of Reason to judge of the
Character and Evidences of a professed Revelation.
Although this noble and distinguishing attribute, in
its present state of obtuseness and infirmity, is liable
to commit great and grievous errors, in the attempt
to penetrate into the deep obscurity of the divine
mysteries — even after those mysteries have been
partially unveiled, yet the interests of truth are not
likely to be promoted by discarding the use of it
altogether. It has been often asserted, indeed, that
Eeason has little or nothing to do with the nature of
the truths alleged to be communicated from above —
that it is not so much her business to inquire ichat
they are, as whether they have been really revealed.
It is very true, that Reason is bound — and, indeed,
it is one of her first dictates — to receive whatever
God hath declared, as truth. But how is it to be
ascertained, whether such a statement has proceeded
from Him? Is it replied, by the evidence of the
miracles with which it is authenticated? But then,
how does it appear that miracles are an adequate
proof of a Revelation? Is it not, that Reason, as an
instinctive principle of our nature, informs us that
there is an inseparable connexion between causes
and effects, and that the effects under consideration
could result only from the exertion of a supernatm-al

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 09

Power? And were it possible that doctrines, clearly
contrary to the very first and most decided intima-
tions of this original faculty of our minds, should be
confirmed by the most brilliant array of miracles
that the world hath ever seen, they could have no
adequate claim upon our assent, because they would
be subversive of that which is to us the foundation
of all certainty and belief. This representation hath
no analogy whatever to the sceptical allegation of
Hume, that miracles, being contrary to experience,
however strongly attested, can never be entitled to
belief. For miracles, such at least as are recorded in
the Old and 'New Testament, have nothing in them
that is contrary to Eeason, but are perfectly accor-
dant with its principles, provided only we suppose the
interposition of a power superior to that, which is
exerted in the ordinary operations of nature. If,
indeed, a miracle could be shown to be impossible
or absurd, that miracle would cease to deserve credit,
or be of any value as a proof of any branch of divine
Eevelation. Eeason is, therefore, fully entitled to
investigate the nature of the miracle, as well as of
the doctrine which it is intended to authenticate. It
must be always borne in mind, that the understanding
of man can no otherwise be addressed, even by the
voice of Eevelation itself, than through the medium
of his rational powers. How else, indeed, could he
appreciate the merits, perceive the importance, and
examine the proof of a Eevelation? How else could
he know it to be a genuine communication from
heaven ? How else could he distinguish the form of
immortal truth, descending in simple majesty from

70 THE LIMITS OF KEASON IN THE

the skies, from tliose splendid combinations of error
and falsehood which, in different regions of the globe,
raise their pretensions so high, and lift up their heads
with such deceitful and imposing grandeur? Hoav
else could he discover the transcendent excellency of
the religion of Jesus, as compared with the supersti-
tion of the false prophet of Mecca, the preposterous
institutes of Brahma, or the frantic rites of Budhu.
Let us, for a moment, suppose man in a state of utter
ignorance of all religion, except what he could collect
from the light of nature, or the scattered beams of
tradition, antecedently to the first vouchsafement of
a divine communication, but with the powers of
reason, in the mean while, in the highest degree
cultivated and improved.

Under these circumstances, let us conceive an
individual to approach him, professing to be a mes-
senger from Heaven, and to come charged with the
disclosures of eternal truth. After the message has
been delivered and authenticated by such proofs as
are deemed necessary and expedient, after the Avhole
scheme has been developed and urged upon his recep-
tion, as the immediate communication of Heaven —
we may conceive him to enter on a train of reflection,
somewhat like the following: — "That there exists
some great and mysterious Being, veiled from the
eyes of mortals behind the visible scenes of the
material universe, the mere contemplation of nature
— of the various forms of animated existence — of the
phenomena of earth and seas, and of the wonderful
economy of the sun and moon and stars, is sufficient
to convince me. After all my researches into the

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 71

nature and purposes of that stupendous Being had
proved unavailing, and failed to satisfy my desires, I
have now received a communication, represented as
coming immediately from Himself. But on what
ground can I give credit to it as such? Is it probable
that He should make such a disclosure ? Is it, in all
respects, Avorthy of Him, to whom it is ascribed ?
Does it bear those marks of dignity ? Is it charac-
terized by that majesty, which might have been
expected to distinguish the communication of one so
great and glorious as the Governor of the Universe
must be? And what again are its tendencies, in
reference to the human character ? — Is it adapted to
the present circumstances, and to the future prospects
of man ? Is it calculated to operate beneficially upon
his happiness, and his moral habits? And, finally,
what are the credentials, by which its divine origin
and its binding authority are vindicated? Are its
evidences unexceptionable, satisfactory and convincing
— such as abundantly to sanction my acquiescence in
its truth, and even to demand my obedience to its
dictates ? If it be found to comprise all that is im-
plied in these queries — then I cannot reject it; I am
bound to receive it as a discovery of truth in the
highest degree important to man, and coming imme-
diately from God Himself; to do otherwise would be
to act in opposition to the clearest intimations of my
own judgment."

In this iDrocess of reflection — a process something-
similar to which every man that embraces a Divine
Eevelation upon a firm and well-grounded conviction
of his own mind must experience, who does not per-

72 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

ceive that reason is the acting principle ? And while
it confines itself to such an investigation of the gene-
ral character, tendency, and evidences of a professed
Revelation, it is assuredly exercising its proper office,
and whatever scheme cannot thus far submit to its
severest scrutiny, it is unquestionably authorized to
reject.

I^or is it any real objection to this view, that so
many millions of our fellow-creatures, in the full pos-
session of their natural faculties, receive the most
monstrous and chimerical dogmas of superstition, as
the principles of their faith and practice. These
delusions maintain their ascendancy in the mind, not
because a door of admission was opened to them by
the hand of sound and Avell-regulated Eeason, and
because they are sanctioned by her authority, but be-
cause, through her infirmity, she did not vigorously
resist their entrance, and does not decisively assert
her right in their expulsion. Hence we find, that the
higher any heathen sages rose to the dignity of
reason, the more they were disposed to abjure the
tenets of the popular superstition; the nearer they
approached — though standing at an infinite distance,
indeed, in their greatest approximations — to the pu-
rity, the sublimity, and the sobriety of pure religion ;
and the more deeply they were convinced of the
necessity of divine and supernatural teaching, in
order to arrive at correct notions. Reason, as Locke
has well remarked, is the eye or the light of the mind.
It constitutes that faculty, by means of Avhich the
soul perceives no less the objects presented to it by
Revelation, than any other objects. One striking

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 73

effect of Revelation is, that in addition to the dis-
coveries which it makes, and to the new scenes which
it brings to the view, it also enables this faculty to
judge more correctly of the subjects which it examines,
than it could have previously done — like those glasses,
which not only reveal new objects by a just concen-
tration of the rays of light, but are found sometimes
to improve the natural powers of vision. Hence, as a
learned writer* has truly observed, if modern sceptics
and infidels, who professedly renounce all aid from
Revelation, have formed somewhat better notions of
what is termed ^N'atural Theology, and have argued
somewhat more accurately on some points of moral
philosophy, than the ancient heathen, it is not that
these later writers had more talent, or a greater depth
of discernment, but because they have received an
assistance from Revelation, which they are unwilling
to acknowledge. We may add, that it is easier for
Mm to draw the model of a building, bearing some
remote resemblance to what it ought to be, who has
had an opportunity of witnessing an edifice, combin-
ing in itself all the perfections of beauty and gran-
deur, though he should deny it to have been planned
by the most consummate architect in the world, and
though, under the influence of pride and caprice, he
should disdain to avow that his sketches had been
transferred from it, than it Avould be found by another.

* " For almost all the things, that are said wisely and truly by
modern Deists, are plainly borrowed from that Revelation, which
they refuse to embrace, and without which they never could have
said the same things." — Dr. Clarke. Unchangeable Obligations of
Natural Religion. Prop, 7.

74 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

who had seen nothing but the huts of savages, or here
and there a vast congeries of corrupt and unarranged
materials.

From the preceding remarks, it appears that Rea-
son viewed, not as a principle standing in opposition
to Faith, as is sometimes the case, but simply as the
judging and discriminating faculty of man, is allowed,
and, indeed, required, in the case of a Eevelation,
however generally acknowledged and received, to
proceed so far as to inquire into its internal character,
and to weigh its external evidences ; and, in accord-
ance with the free and unbiassed result of this exami-
nation, to reject or to embrace it. But we cannot
dismiss this part of the subject, without seriously ad-
verting to the immense importance — the absolute
necessity that Reason, in performing this part of her
office, should disengage herself from all prejudice and
passion, from all pride and self-exalting views — that
with the earnestness and importunity of a suppliant,
and with the simplicity and docility of a child, she
should seek to be guided in her decisions from above.

Section III.

Reason kequired to receive no alleged Doctrine of Reve-
lation, AviTnouT sufficient Evidence that it really

FORMS A part OF THAT COMMUNICATION.

Another point, to which Reason, tempered with
these qualifications, may fearlessly advance, in judg-
ing of subjects of Revelation, is, that it should receive
no particfdar tenet, represented as contained in a

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 75

Revelation, already embraced as a whole, Avithout
sufficient evidence that it really constitutes a part of
that Revelation. In communities, professedly Chris-
tian, this is the chief question of debate. And in
deciding this, Reason must quit the Avide generalities
of abstract speculation, by which, in some measure, it
formed its opinion of the claims and merits of Reve-
lation, as an immediate communication from heaven,
and confine its attention to the written documents,
in which its principles are embodied. It must here
descend from the more congenial element of philoso-
phical investigation, to the humbler walks of philology
and criticism, of reading, searching, and comparing
of texts. We now assume that the document, under
investigation, after passing through the process of
examination already detailed, is acknowledged to be
of divine authority ; and, therefore, that every state-
ment which it contains must be right, however con-
trary it may prove to what we might have previously
expected. The mind must be prepared implicitly to
receive whatever the sober and enlightened judgment
pronounces to be really contained Avithin the record.
It is true, that consistently with the most unqualified
recognition of the absolute certainty and infallibility
of inspired truth, there is a very extensive range for
the exercise of sound and judicious criticism, in the
investigation of the original languages — in the colla-
tion of manuscripts — in the reconciliation of apparent
discrepancies — in the interpretation of figurative and
emblematic representations — in the limitation Avithin
due and necessary bounds of parabolical illustrations
— in the discovery of the rich nucleus of doctrinal

76 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

truth, or practical precept, as it is sometimes hidden
under the gorgeous imagery of prophetic diction, and
in the explication of the genuine import of conven-
tional phraseology and local allusion. Criticism,
modestly applied to these points, is no more than
Reason may justly demand, and Revelation freely
concedes, as necessary to its due apprehension. But
to rush among the inspired writers, who spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost, and to cut off, as
Avith the barbarian's tomahawk, whatever limb appears
out of proportion with a previously conceived system,
or to cast them, like Pelias, into the caldron of ration-
alism, boiling with pride and self-sufficiency, in order
that their antiquated forms may come forth in all
the freshness of philosophical youth and beauty ; or,
finally, to apply to them an instrument of torture,
framed by modern inquisitors, and technically called
by the name of Exegesis, in order to extort from them
a confession of what it has been beforehand deter-
mined that they ought to declare. This is profane-
ness the most unhallowed — this is an outrage the
most daring upon the sacredness of celestial truth.

But although the complete and unreserved admis-
sion of the truth of Revelation exempts it from all
further responsibility at the bar of human Reason,
so far as its clear and unequivocal declarations are
concerned, yet, in judging whether such a doctrine
be one of its distinct annunciations, that faculty
must still be allowed to have an important and
extensive jurisdiction. " I believe the Bible," — the
incjuirer may be supposed to say — " I am fully per-
suaded that every sentence which it contains is the

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 77

truth of God — I am not now to inquire, Avhctlicr
this invahiable book is a record of the works, the
will, and the purposes of Jehovah ; but is this par-
ticular doctrine one among* the manifold truths which
it declares ? Is this article of faith one of its clear,
express, and unquestionable propositions ? It is not
enough to convince me of its claim to my reception,
that it forms a component and essential part in some
human system — that it is enumerated among the
credenda of some Christian Church, whatever defer-
ence I may be willing to pay to its authority ; — it is
not sufficient, that it may have been adopted by a
multitude of others, many of them wise and learned
(though this, of course, entitles it to a respectful and
candid examination); that it is a corner-stone in the
scheme of one party, and a distinguishing principle
in the creed of another. I can conscientiously em-
brace it only on a full conviction, that, to the best of
my judgment, it has been revealed in this very form,
and, so far as I can comprehend it, in this sense by
God himself."

In this investigation, conducted in the exercise
of his rational powers, accompanied, it is to be ob-
served, by prayer for divine guidance and illumi-
nation, the inquirer appears to act consistently with
the oracles of truth, as well as with the principles
of his nature. For what more is here implied than
that a man cannot be required to believe a doctrine,
until, after due examination, he has ground to be
persuaded, that it is, indeed, a doctrine of Eevela-
tion ! The Scriptures themselves invariably address
man, as a being possessed of reason and intelligence.

78 THE LnilTS OF REASON IN THE

and by so doing invite him to bring these faculties
to bear on their own contents; and any opinion
which is not the result of an inquiry into the word of
God, regulated by this principle, as a mere opinion,
can be of little value. The office of Eeason here,
therefore, seems to be to judge of the ^meaning, the
connexion, and the general analogy of revealed
truth; and the limits, to which it is allowed to
advance in the exercise of this function, is to reject
those doctrines, and those only, which have no place
in the volume of inspiration. Whatever it there finds,
it is bound to regard as sacred and inviolable.

Section IV.

No Doctrine to be received, wnicii is palpably opposed to
THE Principles of Common Sense.

A THIRD use to which Eeason may be lawfull}^ con-
verted, in judging of subjects of Revelation, is to
guard against the mistaken reception of any doc-
trines which are contrary to the dear evidence of
intuitive helief, — or, as it may be more simply ex-
pressed, to the principles of common sense. When
Ave employ this expression, we do not mean to allow,
that any such doctrines arc to be found on the pages
of the Bible. But it is a fact, as certain as it is
lamentable, that through the weakness, the igno-
rance, or the hypocrisy of professed believers, tenets
have been too frequently deduced from it, which are
justly obnoxious to this charge. In what other light
can we view the absurd notion of transuljstantiation,

INVESTIGATION OF TtEYEALED TRUTH. 70

and several others of the senseless dogmas of tlie
llomish church, Avhich, after all the attempts of
scholastic ingenuity to reconcile to our understand-
ing by subtle disputations and refined theories, we
find it impossible to regard otherwise than with
feelings of pity and contempt? It must also be
admitted, that in the explication of the more obscure
and mysterious parts of Scripture, — in the expanded
illustration of topics which are there but concisely
stated — in the full and confident develop ement of
pui-poses to be hereafter executed in the order of the
divine proceedings, which are there but darkly hinted,
those, whom we may hope to be, on the whole, sin-
cere Christians, have sometimes allowed a range to
their imagination, over which it would have been well
if the voice of Eeason had been suffered to exercise
some control. In confirmation of this remark, it is
sufficient to advert to the views, which have been
sometimes taken, of the mystic correspondence sup-
posed to exist between the doctrines of Scripture
and the operations of nature, of the union which
subsists between Christ and his people, and of the
influences of the Holy Spirit. It is lamentable to
think of the utter sacrifice of all the principles of
common sense — the total prostration of all that is
sober and wise in the understanding, and of aU that
is discriminative in the reasoning faculty, which the
reception of some of the opinions held upon these
important points involves.

As belonging to the same class, we might also
refer to notions sometimes founded upon the intima-
tions of j)rophecy, especially those which respect

80 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

the millennial reign of Christ, and the condition of
the world and its inhabitants during that period.
Upon this and similar questions, to which Scripture,
for wise ends doubtless, has supplied us with but
few brief allusions, a variety of hypotheses have
been formed, which calm and enlightened Reason
pronounces, to use the mildest term, no better than
the illusive anticipations of mistaken, though sin-
cerely ardent zeal. In these and the like matters,
the appropriate and la^^'ful employment of Reason,
is to watch over the progress of the Fancy, and to
prevent her unbridled vagaries from encroaching
upon the sacredness of truth. Whatever^ is palpably
opposed to those principles Avhich, by the necessity
of our nature, we are bound to regard as true.
Reason is assuredly required to proceed so far as to
reject.

But here let us not for a moment be supposed
to countenance the pernicious and unscriptural idea,
that nothing is to be admitted as a matter of faith,
which is not discoverable, nor fully comprehensible
by man's unassisted Reason. If there be any one
notion, in the catalogue of human errors, which
exhibits more strikingly than another the pride of
an ignorant and unhumbled mind (for that mind
must surcl}' be called ignorant and unhumbled which
shows so little acquaintance with its own capabilities,
and so grievously overrates them,) it is this, — if there
be any one form, in which a specious philosoph}",
while it professes to make wise, converts its votaries
into fools, it is this. While those who would totally
exclude Reason from all conununication Avitli subjects

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 81

of divine revelation, frequently receive truth unac-
companied with its proper evidence, and mixed Avith
much alloy; they, who labour under the delusion
last noticed, generally reject the distinguishing and
most important truths of Revelation altogether.

82 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

PART II.

Section I.

A Doctrine of Revelation is not to be rejected, because it

COULD not have BEEN DISCOVERED WITHOUT SUPERNATURAL

Assistance.

Having, in the preceding remarks, attempted to show
how far the limits of Reason may be lawfully ex-
tended in its entrance upon the field of Revelation,
with a view of correcting the misapprehension of the
first class, above specified, we shall now endeavour,
as was proposed, to mark out, with a more immediate
reference to the errors of the last, certain points on
the same holy ground, to which that curious faculty
cannot, without danger of profanation, be allowed to
advance.

As one of these boundaries, we observe, that
Reason ought not to proceed so far as to reject a
doctrine conveyed in a professed communication
from Heaven, on the mere ground of its being
undiscovercd)le ivithout supernatural and Divine
assistance. The reverse of this position would
amount to a denial of the need and utility of Reve-
lation altogether ; for, if the human understanding
could, by its own c Sorts, find out whatever is of
importance to be known, Avhere was the necessity of
any further information? Or if nothing is to be
received with assent, but what was subject to the

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 83

previous view of the reasoning' faculty, to what pur-
pose was it to bring' any other truths to light ? But
here it is a question of peculiar interest, and attended
with considerable difliculty, what portion of those
doctrines, w-hich constitute the great mass of scrip-
tural truth, must be considered as discoverable by the
well-directed operations of unaided Reason, and
what as standing utterly beyond its reach. Some
have gone to the length of affirming, that without a
Eevelation man can absolutely know nothing relative
to the being and attributes of God, and to the
acceptable mode of worshipping Him. Others main-
tain that the great essentials of religion, which they
confine within a very limited compass, are sufficiently
legible on the page of nature, requiring only a mode-
rate share of skill and attention to be clearly deci-
phered ; and that the end of revelation is at best but
to embody in w^'itten language, and to state with
somewhat greater precision, what before existed, as it
were, in the form of hieroglyphics.

Extremes are, however, rarely safe; unless we
allow that the light of nature conveys some informa-
tion respecting the Author and Euler of the universe,
Eevelation will be left without its evidence ; for how
can w^e receive as true and obligatory the word of
One, Avhose very existence, independently of that
communication, we have not the means of ascer-
taining? Unless we acknowledge, on the other hand,
that the Bible does contain a variety of important
and most deeply-interesting truths, to the knowledge
of which w^e could never otherwise have attained,
Eevelation is comparatively witJiout its use. The

G 2

84 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

opinion of the great Lord Bacon on this question is,
tliat philosophy, by which he means a wise and intel-
ligent contemplation of the works of nature, is
sufficient to "confute Atheism, but not to inform
Eeligion." If the two schemes of natural and
revealed religion were so separate and distinct from
each other, as that the one stood in no need what-
ever of the concurrent testimony of the other, how
is it that the volume, in which the latter is contained,
so frequently directs its reader to study the lectures
of the former, as they are inscribed on the produc-
tions of the earth, on the succession of the seasons,
and on the brilliant phenomena of the noctm-nal
heavens ? If they were, on the other hand, so nearly
commensurate in the discoveries intimately affecting
the character and condition of man; if the one
displayed, in the palpable exhibition of facts and
sensible appearances, all, of any practical value, that
the other held forth in the fainter representation of
written phraseology, where was the necessity or
the expediency, that Revelation should at different
periods be introduced into the Avorld, attended Avith
circumstances so striking and extraordinary, so ex-
pressive of its importance, so demonstrative of its
dignity, and so convincing of its truth ? If it com-
municated nothing worth knowing, but what every
one could find out by the diligent application of a
well-disciplined understanding to the phenomena of
the natural Avorld, this surely could have been effected
without such a display of power as was exhibited in
the repeated suspension of the laws of the universe.
Our view of the comparative importance of these

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 85

two systems, or rather our view of the one grand
system, formed by the combined operations of both,
will be regulated by our notion of that influence
which religion is intended to exert upon the human
character. If we consider this influence as required
to reach no farther than the regulation of the out-
ward conduct, as calculated simply to adapt man
to his present circumstances, without any reference
to his future existence, by di'awing out in visible
colours the lines of personal and relative duty; if,
in a word, we consider religion as a mere scheme
of ethics, then it is natural to conclude, that the
Bible contains but few truths, that were of conse-
quence for man to know, which coidd not have been
leamt from other sources. It must be confessed,
that, for this meagre purpose, the summaries of
Aristotle, of Cicero, and others, though necessarily
feeble in their influence through the want of a firm
foundation and adequate sanctions, are in few ex-
ternal points defective. But, if there be other rela-
tions in which we stand, than those which immediately
concern this world ; if there be other principles by
which we are required to be actuated, than those
which enter into the schemes of heathen morality —
if there be other duties which it concerns us to
practise, than those which spring from our varied
circumstances and connexions with the things of
time and sense, it is upon these relations, these
principles, these duties, that we require to be
informed.

That man may be placed in a state in which
intelligence upon these points is useful and neces-

86 THE LLAIITS OF REASON IN THE

sary to him, no one possessed of the use of his
faculties Avill presume to deny. Let it even be
admitted, that he may discover the being and leading-
perfections of Jehovah, by the mere contemplation
of his works*: let him be supposed capable of ad-
justing, with the nicest precision, the limits of moral
obligation ; what a small progress does all this
imply, that he has made in that knowledge, which
the circumstances of a sinful, and, at the same time,
immortal Being evidently demand! Must he not
be conscious that he has oftentimes offended that
great Sovereign, whose existence he has argued
with a conclusiveness, which will not suffer him to
doubt ; that he has violated those attributes, to the
perception of which the light of nature has con-
ducted him? Must he not feel that he has fre-
quently trampled upon those very obligations, which
he so clearly knew to be binding upon him ? And
must he not, under this view, unless his moral sen-
sibilities be utterly extinguished, be oppressed with
an overwhelming weight of guilt ? But how is this
burden to be removed ? Can he discover the exact
method by which the balm of forgiveness may be
administered unto him ? Has he any certainty that
it can be administered at all ? In the whole range
of possibilities, can he perceive one channel, through
which he can pronounce, with assurance, that the
streams of mercy may flow unto him 'i The wisest

* OvKovv, CO ^(ve,hoK(i. pahiov (ivm a\r)d(vovnii Xeyfii' los fieri <?fot. nwy,

SiC. UpoiTOU p(v yrf km i]\ios aarpa re ra ^vp-rravra km t« ra>v uspov

hiaK(KO(Tpj]p.fva (cnXcor ovrcus, (viavrois rt km firjai. ^KiXijpfxfva^KM on navTfS
EWrjvfs T6 KM ^apfSapoL vopi^ovaiv tivM Btovs. — Plato, De Leg. lib. x.

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 87

of unenliglitcned sages*, he \y1io may be deemed
the representative of all that is laborious in research,
and of all that is elevated and refined in speculative
reasoning, without hesitation, avows that he cannot.

Under these circumstances of ignorance and
doubt, the page of Eevelation unfolds itself before
him. At once a new world bursts upon his view;
what he had before faintly conjectured, amidst the
twilight glimmer of Eeason, he now beholds as in
the brightness of the meridian sun. At once the
mist of time retires before the blaze of the heavenly
light, which has visited him. Guided by the day-
spring of Eevelation, he looks back to the very
threshold of the creation — he witnesses the effica-
cious energy of divine power — the wondrous display
of divine wisdom — the effusive flow of divine bene-
volence, respectively exhibited in the formation and
arrangement of the whole universe. He discovers
his own origin. He sees himself formed by the
plastic hand of the Deity — his body raised out of
the dust, and his soul, immortal as its Author,
breathed into him by his Maker. He is made ac-
quainted with the primary condition of his being;
he learns the terms of the covenant, under which,
yet pure, sinless, and reflecting the image of his
Creator, he was placed in the garden of Eden;
he witnesses the dismal breach of that covenant,
and in that breach he is instructed to place the
origin of evil in all its modifications. After he has
been thus made a spectator of the fall, the guilt, the

* Plato.

88 THE LIMITS OF KEASON IN THE

condemnation, and the attendant moral degradation
of the species, he is led to a view of a glorious plan
of redemption, by which the ruins of that awful
catastrophe may be repaired; a plan, which Jehovah,
in his threefold character, designated by the appella-
tions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, undertook to
accomplish. In this scheme, he is taught to consider
the office of the Father as more particularly con-
sisting in giving his only begotten Son, to expiate by
his sufferings the guilt of mankind — that of the Son,
in cheerfully engaging in, and successfully perform-
ing, that work — and that of the Holy Ghost, in
applying the benefits of the redemption, effected by
the death and righteousness of the Son, to the soul
of the penitent and believing sinner; in enlighten-
ing, sanctifying, and comforting him, so that by a
process of renovation, carried on through the whole
remaining portion of his earthly existence, he may
be made meet for the enjoyment of the future bles-
sedness of Heaven. In consequence of this gracious
interposition of Jehovah, he finds that man is no^v
placed under an entirely new dispensation — a dis-
pensation which requires but a sincere and deep
repentance, accompanied with a lively and operative
faith on his part, to endue him with the inestimable
blessings of forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation —
to remove his guilt — to justify him in the eye of the
divine law — and to invest him Avith a title to eternal
glory. To support his mind under tlic gloomy anti-
cipations of sickness and death, he is enabled to dart
his eye across that darksome valley, and to catch
a glimpse, as through an illuminated vista, of the

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 89

region of immortality, which lies beyond it. At the
end of that vista, the morning of the resurrection
opens with gladdening beams, and exhibits its
triumphs over the tomb.

Now, the question is, whether he is to reject this
whole mass of soothing, cheering, and elevating in-
formation, merely because it eluded the keenest scru-
tiny of his intellectual eye, and baffled the efforts
of his native powers of research ; or is he thank-
fully to receive it, after having submitted it to that
mode of examination, which we have already repre-
sented as just and necessary? It is astonishing to
find the reluctance with which men give credit to
the Divine Being, on his own testimony. So far as
his declarations coincide with the obvious intimations
of their own senses, and correspond with the pre-
vious deductions of their own understanding, they
are generally ready to admit them. But the moment
he soars above them, and brings to their view things,
which lay not within the scope of their limited capa-
city, they instantly begin to be filled with jealousy
and suspicion, and to express their apprehension, lest
their Reason should be imposed upon by empty and
unmeaning sounds. How far this disinclination to
receive new truths, delivered in the form of an im-
mediate communication from above, may arise from
a somewhat overweening sense of the strength of
their own mind, and of the extent of their own in-
vestigations, is assuredly a matter entitled to grave
consideration. To the admission of doctrines not
before known, and to an acquaintance with which
the profoundest researches of man's unaided intel-

90 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

lect could afford no clue, tliey seem to be actuated
by that feeling of repugnance, with which a philo-
sopher would acknowledge the discoveries of a novice
in a science, to the elucidation of Avhich, the labours
of his own life had been directed; or a navigator,
who had circumscribed the globe, those of subse-
quent adventurers in regions, where he had pushed
his enterprises, as he had imagined, to the utmsst
bounds of possibility. Such persons, it is obvious,
without a large share of that modesty and self-diffi-
dence, which do not always fall to the lot of scientific
inquirers, are apt to view the limits of their own
knowledge as the limits of all that can be known.
Having, like Hercules, arrived at a point beyond
which they cainiot with safety or certainty launch
their narrow skiff, they there set up the terminating
pillars, which they vainly pronounce the pillars of the
world*.

Thus, the men to whom we have referred, many
of them highly ingenious, and some apparently not
ill-affected to the truth, having made the moral
relations and destinies of man an object of their
study and research, find no difficulty in acquiescing
in those propositions, which are palpable and essen-
tial to their present safety, but are inclined to con-
sider every accession of information upon points
which they could not satisfactorily clear up, as a
reflection upon their own understanding, and prefer
groping in midnight darkness — the darkness of

• TwSe vnfp^uXXovTi avruv (jtdoi'ovvTfs r]d(, Kai aniaTova-iu. — TlluclD.
lib. 2, Xf .

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 91

ignorance and doubt, rather than submit to avail
themselves of Nvhat they deem the humiliating ad-
vantage of a light, which did not spring from them-
selves. The eye of unassisted Reason, when ai)plicd
to spiritual and eternal things, is very dim and
clouded; its sphere of vision is exceedingly con-
tracted. It would be as absurd, therefore, to make
this faculty the standard of communicable or de-
monstrable truths, as it would be to judge of the
extent of the ocean by the line of the visible horizon,
or to estimate the dimensions of the stars by the
apparent magnitude of the points which bestud the
nocturnal skies. They, however, deem it more cre-
ditable to this feeble and idolized power, to enter-
tain no truth, to give a favourable reception to no
opinion, but what she has introduced to their ac-
quaintance. AYe may sometimes have had an oppor-
tunity of witnessing, wdth what perfect self-compla-
cence and contempt the untaught inquirer into the
laws of nature, habituated just to that degree of
reflection, which was sufficient to make him obstinate,
heard some of the most striking and best established
facts of astronomical science ; with what a smile of
disdain he listened to the description of the telescopic
appearances of the several planets of our system, and
especially to the intimation that the sun, in reference
at least to us, was, comparatively speaking, stationary;
and that, in order to produce the grateful succession
of day and night, the globe of the earth every four-
and-twenty hours whirled upon its own axis ; we may
recollect, with what confidence and assurance he
brought forward the testimony of reason and com-

&2 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

mon sense, against these preposterous representa-
tions, ^ay, we may recollect a period in our oAvn
lives, Avlien, Avilling to give a general credence to the
statements above mentioned, we were, notwithstand-
ing, in no small degree puzzled how it was that we
did not fall upon our heads, when in the course of
the earth's rotary motion it became our turn to de-
scend into what we deemed the lower part of the
orbit which it described.

Will it be asked whence all this scepticism — this
reluctance to admit truths demonstrable by the
clearest evidence, arose? It may be confidently
answered, that it arose from the imperfect and ill-
directed use of reason, from an attempt at reconcil-
ing the propositions of science with the first dictates
of sensible perception. There appears to be a some-
what similar relation between the intimations of
sense and the deductions of Reason, that there is
between the deductions of Reason and the disclo-
sures of Revelation. As the first ought not to re-
ject the demonstrations of the second, because it
could not of itself have found out the facts Avhich
they prove, but seemed to suggest the very reverse,
so neither ought the second to refuse the discoveries
of the third, because they did not lie Avithin the
limits of its own researches; and the philosopher,
who withholds liis assent from an express truth of
Revelation, merely because it lay out of the common
range of the unassisted intellect, acts just as wisely
as the untutored rustic, who would maintain, in op-
position to the most unquestionable evidence, that
the earth is perfectly stationary, tliat the sun and

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 93

other celestial bodies whirl around it in four-and-
twentj hours, that the stars were so many glittering-
points fixed aloft in the firmament of heaven, and
that the magnitude of the moon did not much ex-
ceed that of a crown piece. The notions of the
latter are universally allowed among men of infor-
mation to be whimsical and absurd in the extreme,
because he listens to the suggestions of a fallible
sense, without examining those intimations in the
light of a superior and more investigating faculty.
Those of the former are scarce less so, where he ven-
tures to let loose his speculations upon the various
concerns of an unseen world, with the glimmering
taper of Eeason for his sole and exclusive guide.
To reject the noble discoveries which Eevelation has
made of the things of God, because they were pre-
viously impercej)tible to the mind, would, indeed,
resemble the conduct of the man, who would strenu-
ously deny the existence of the diversified objects of
a distant scenery, which the meridian sun clearly
exhibited to view, because the same were not equally
visible amidst the darksome gleams of evening, or
the twinklings of the nocturnal glow-worm.

Section II.

Reason not justified in rejecting a Doctrine op Revelation
because it cannot understand its exact mode.

And as a doctrine of Revelation ought not to be
rejected on the mere score of its being previously
undiscoverable by man's unassisted efforts, so neither

94 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

ouglit a doctrine clearly asserted in that heavenly
communication to be denied our firm and decided
assent, because Ave may be unable to comprehend
tlie exact mode in which the facts that it affirms or
involves may subsist. This, therefore, we would
establish as another Limit, to which Eeason, in the
investigation of divine truth, cannot advance in the
exercise of her right of rejection and disbelief, with-
out violating her own character, and profaning the
holy ground on which she has presumed to tread.
To imagine that we are allowed to proceed to this
length in regulating our views of the express decla-
rations of Jehovah, implies, indeed, that the measure
of our self-knowledge is exceedingly small, and our
confidence in Him equally narrow. He must, doubt-
less, be possessed of no common share of presump-
tion, who supposes that God can reveal no truth, or
that it is not necessary and expedient that any truth
should be revealed and credited, which he cannot
fully understand. Of such persons, it may be hoped
that the number is not considerable. There may be
more, perhaps, who find some difficulty in conceiving*
how a doctrine can be properly believed, which is not
fully comprehended.

There is a sense, in which the reverse of this
proposition is undoubtedly true — a sense in which
an assertion not understood cannot be believed, how-
ever true it may be in itself. If, for instance, one
of the plainest and most obvious facts be stated in a
foreign language, or if it be expressed in terms which
convey no idea to the mind of the hearer, it is im-
possible that that fact should be to him an object

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 95

of belief, however he iiitay repose a general con-
fidence in the veracity of the narrator. The exer-
cise of assent consists in associating and combining
together ideas in a regular and orderly relation, and
when the latter, constituting the requisite materials,
are wanting, the former cannot exist. But here let
it be carefully noticed, that there is no impossibility,
or even difficulty in acquiescing in a connexion de-
clared by competent authority to exist between a
train of ideas, each of them separately perceived by
the understanding, although the mode in which they
combine, so as to result in the general truth, should
be very indistinctly, or not at all observed. To
illustrate this, we fear, rather obscure enunciation, as
well as the remarks by which it was preceded, let us
suppose a philosophical lecturer to lay the following
truth before his pupil, in a language which he did
not understand, or previously to his learning the
meaning of the terms employed: "A ray of light is
formed by the combination of the seven primitive
colours." In this case there could be no exercise of
assent, because no distinct ideas were conveyed to
the mind. But let the pupil have a tolerably clear
notion of the objects respectively specified by the
terms of the proposition, and there is no difficulty in
his firmly acquiescing in the general truth, that a
ray of light is formed by the union of the seven
distinct colours, although he may have never seen
the prismatic experiment by which the fact is proved,
nor have it in his power to form the most distant
conception of the mode, by which the decomposition
or reunion is effected, and the final result produced.

96 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

His assent rests upon the mere testimony of his
instructor, and as he has no reason to distrust that
testimony, he can believe with a certainty nearly as
great as if he had personally witnessed the whole pro-
cess, and perfectly comprehended the whole scheme.
Or, to exemplify the case by another similar analogy,
how easy is it to give the most prompt and unhe-
sitating assent to a geometrical proposition, illus-
trated by a diagram, without the slightest know-
ledge of the process of demonstration. AVliere is
the difficulty of believing, provided it be affirmed
on credible authority, that the three interior angles
of a triangle are equal to two right angles, with a
total ignorance of the properties in these figures,
which render such an equality necessary? It involves
no impossibility to believe the apparent paradox of
the two asymptotic lines — always approximating and
yet never meeting, than which nothing, according to
our ordinary mode of conceiving the relations of
quantity, can certainly be not only more strange,
but absolutely more absurd. And yet, in the scien-
tific view of the case, it is clearly seen to be demon-
strable. The fact is, that truth, as an object of
belief, is the mere agreement of things, or of ideas
as the representatives of things, put into the form of
naked propositions, without any necessary reference
to the mode of their agreement. Few things appear
at first sight more strange and incredible, than that
an astronomer should have it in his poAver to measure
the magnitude and tlie distances of the sun, moon
and planets, in his study-chair, or on the top of his
observatory. Suppose the philosopher, — JS'cwton for

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 1)7

instance, — were to have taken a person wholly unac-
quainted with the principles of mensuration, and
given him a cursory account of the process, by which
the ultimate points in question were attained ; would
it not be to such a person a mystery as incomprehen-
sible as any that is proposed to our faith in the whole
compass of the Old and Kew Testament ? And yet
could he not, ought he not, upon the mere testimony
of his knoAving instructor, to give credit to the simple
fact, that the sun, the moon, and the i^lanets actually
had been measured with, at least, a considerable
approximation toward perfect accuracy, and that
their respective dimensions amounted to such a
number of miles? Would not the opposite con-
duct be considered extremely obstinate and unbe-
coming ? Would it not be the plain dictate of in-
genuous and unperverted reason, that unimpeachable
veracity was to be implicitly depended upon, and
that whatever obscurity the several cases involved,
or appeared to involve, was to be attributed rather
to narrowness of intellect and imperfection' of know-
ledge, than to any thing- really incomprehensible or
impossible in themselves?

Our object in these analogical illustrations, to
which many others might be added, especially from
the sciences of Electricity and Chemistry, has been
to show that there is none of the impossibility, some-
times imagined, in believing a truth declared and
inculcated by infallible authority, although the mode
in which its constituent parts mutually combine, so as
to form that proposition, may be very indistinctly
understood. Llany doctrines of this description the

n

98 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

volume of inspiration evidently contains. We arc
required to receive, with the full assent of our heads
and hearts, of our judgment and affections, a variety
of truths, which not only eluded our poAvers of dis-
covery, previously to their being revealed, but utterly
surpass our comprehension, even when revealed. Of
these, the scriptural account of the creation of the
material universe, out of mere and absolute nothing,
affords one striking example. This is a fact, which
but few, if any, professed Christians ever thought of
denying ; but it is, notwithstanding, a fact, which we
can no more understand, as to the precise manner in
which it took place, than we can comprehend how the
whole mass of existing matter could be inclosed
within a nutshell. We believe it, because we find it
asserted in a book, the veracity of which we cannot
venture to question.

The confidence reposed in the divine declaration,
however, in this instance, is not so repugnant to the
exercise of the intellect, as is sometimes supposed.
It is strikingly remarked by the Apostle, "by faith Ave
understand (not merely believe) that the AAorlds Avere
framed by the Avord of God; so that things Avhich
are seen, Avere not made of things Avhich do appear."
The process of understanding, in this connexion,
evidently means a full and deliberate conviction of
the judgment, arising from a clear perception of i\\Q
adequacy of the means, the diAine poAver accompany-
ing the all-creating fiat, to the ])roduction of the end
— the formation of Ji visible and material system out
of pure nihility. But it does not imply, that avc can
perceive the manner in Avhich real being Avas called

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 99

forth out of the depths of non-existence. So far is
this from being the case, that it was held as a maxim
among the whole host of the ancient philosophers,
which none but the most ignorant and absurd would
think of questioning, that '-nothing really existing
can be reduced to nothing, by any imaginable
power:"

gigni,
De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti.

It is contended, however, with great force of argu-
ment, by the learned Cudworth, that the sentiment
conveyed in this and similar maxims, was not in-
tended to deny the possible origination of matter,
but was directed against the atheists, and was de-
signed to assert the impossibility that any thing
should begin to exist, without an adequate cause.
By faith in the declarations of Jehovah, we, however,
understand that both the members of this vaunted
and apparently self-evident maxim are false, so far
as they relate to the substance of the material uni-
verse; while of the internal operation, by which its
incorrectness was practically proved, — while, in fact,
of everything connected with that stupendous trans-
action, beyond the exterior agency employed, (an
agency, we know, capable of everything which does
not involve a contradiction,) we are equally ignorant
with those who most resolutely adhered to it.

The doctrine of a divine influence communicated
by the Holy Spirit into the human mind, either to
enrich it with infallible knowledge and with miracu-
lous endowments, or merely to sanctify the affections,
and to enlighten the understanding with the gift of

H 2

100 - THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

ordinary illumination, is another of those whicli -we
are required to believe on the testimony of Scripture,
but the precise mode of wliich we cannot pretend to
understand. With this tenet, in a perverted and
mutilated form, the heathens of antiquity Avere not
wholly unacquainted, as is manifest from their super-
stitious notions of oracular inspiration, and from the
continual appeal of their poets, for the elevating^ and
informing aid of certain superhuman beings, to which
they gave the name of Muses. But while they re-
tained some traditional knowledge of the f^ict, that
supernatural assistance is necessary to illumine the
human soul, and to purify it from earthly dross, they
were totally ignorant of the Giver of that assistance,
and of the means by which it is usually imparted.
In these latter points, we have greatly the advantage
over them. AYe know the Author, as well of that
extraordinary illumination, which is necessary to
qualify men for the office of delivering divine and
infallible truths, as of that mild transforming- intiu-
ence Avhich is, in every case, essential to the renova-
tion of the character, and the new creation of the
soul. We also know the means, in the use of which
this sacred influence, so far as its object is to produce
personal holiness, is for the most part communicated.
But how it is exerted; by what kind of agency it
affects the mind in the manner that it does; in ac-
cordance Avith what rules, or what principles, the
operation is carried on, is, to a very considerable
extent, an inex})li cable mystery. AVe can no more
unfold it to the view, than (to use the appropriate
figure of Divine Jvevelation) we can tell how the

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 101

various members and lineaments of the unborn infant
arc formed in the mother "s womb. But as Ave would
not deny the evidence of fact, that the infant is thus
mysteriously formed, so neither ought we to reject
the express testimony of inspiration, that the influ-
ences of the Holy Spirit do thus mysteriously operate
in the formation of the ncAv man in Christ Jesus.

The plan of redemption, through Christ, viewed
as a mediatorial scheme, constitutes also a branch of
revealed truth, which we do not pretend that we can
perfectly comprehend in all its parts. With the dis-
mal cause which gave rise to it, we are acquainted ;
the stupendous grace and love, which suggested it to
the mind of the Deity, and the wonderful wisdom
displayed in the arrangement of it, we can admire
and adore. Its amazing benefits, in reference to our
own destinies, we can appreciate. But when we
attempt to follow it up higher, to trace it to its ulti-
mate reasons, to discover its original grounds and
final principles, to sound its depths and scan its
heights — when we endeavour to find out the exact
congruity of a vicarious atonement to the propi-
tiation of a supremely just and holy Being, and to
the satisfaction of a violated law, and of a mutual
transfer of guilt and righteousness between the sin-
ner and the Saviour, between the criminal and the
innocent — when we Avould represent to ourselves the
perfect propriety of these and other things which
they involve, upon principles of human reason, we
must confess that, notwithstanding the many striking,
and, for the most part, satisfactory analogies, by
which they may be illustrated, we can form but a

102 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

partial and indistinct estimate of them. But are
we, therefore, to reject the whole scheme — to deny
its truth, and to refuse its blessings? This, truly,
would be acting a wise part, and a part highly
becoming the present extent of our knoAvledge and
capacity.

To discard a system, in which we can discover so
much glory — so much beauty — so much excellency,
because we cannot perceive with accuracy the perfect
harmony and consistency of all its relative parts,
would be like shutting our eyes against the light of
the sun, and denying that any such body existed,
because we cannot tell by what laws that beneficent
luminary hangs self-poised in the expanse of Heaven,
or how he is upheld in air by some remote unde-
finable attraction. It would be going far towards
realizing, in our belief, or rather disbelief, the pro-
fane scepticism of. Hume, and the visionary idealism
of Berkeley.

In presuming to judge of the reasons of the divine

conduct, as far as they are revealed in the Bible, and

they are doubtless revealed, so far as is suitable to

our character and circumstances, we must always bear

in mind that only

One part — one little part we dimly scan
Through the dark medium of life's feverish dream.

When we hear plain and direct assertions, therefore,
we must implicitly believe them. AVlien, in these
assertions, we meet with anything that surpasses our
comprehension, we ought to ascrilje it to its just
cause; — we should feel it our privilege to become
little children — to receive with meekness and sim-

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 103

plicity, what the express declarations of our Heavenly
Father have made it our duty to receive — being fully
assured that whatever object of implicit faith our

capacities may now be unable completely to grasp

hereafter they Avill be so expanded and improved, as
to understand with facility and precision, — that what
we know not now, we shall know at a future period of
our being.

But once more, the Doctrine of a Eesurrection
from the dead is eminently one of those which,
though clearly asserted as truths on the pages of
divine revelation, yet elude the keenest researches
of the human intellect, as to the XKirticular mode
in which their 'component parts stand relatively con-
nected, or by which the facts asserted in them are to
be accomplished. This important point is, in the
most complete and exclusive sense, a discovery vouch-
safed to man by direct communication from Heaven.
It is a tenet lying quite out of the range of human
philosophy. In lier profoundest speculations, in Iter
sublimest views, in her noblest excursions, it never
became her lot so much as to catch a glimpse of it.
That the soul, the thinking principle, is to survive the
WTeck of its earthly tabernacle, she formed some plau-
sible, though uncertain and fluctuating conjectures,
conjectures which, even in her own estimation, bore
the character rather of a delightful vision — an Elysian
dreJtm, than of an established truth. But that the
body, after being once deserted by its celestial resi-
dent ; after having mouldered for ages, and incorpo-
rated by a gradual process of decomposition with its
congenial dust, was again to be consolidated into a

104 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

human form, and awakened into life ; that, at a period
yet remote, a resuscitating influence was to descend,
and to rouse the sleeping ashes of mortality, was an
idea that she never dimly conceived ; and hence we find,
that when St. Paul brought forward this topic before
an assembly of learned Athenians, it was treated with
instant ridicule and contempt.

AVhen, on another occasion, the Apostle felt him-
self called upon formally to vindicate this doctrine
from the charge of absurdity and impossibility, which
had been urged against it, he confirms its truth,
indeed, by many powerful and convincing illustrative
and analogical arguments. He leaves, however, a
variety of particulars, most intimately connected with
this amazing transaction, of which we are still in
utter ignorance. While he gives a most sublime
and luminous statement of the fact, he shows us
what, in a considerable measure, is still " a mystery. "
What will constitute the identity of the body that
shall rise with the body that was deposited in the
grave; ^vhether the re-animated frame wuU be com-
posed of the same numerical particles of matter — an
hypothesis exceedingly improbable, and, so far as we
can judge, impossible ; or whether there be in the cor-
poreal system a simple elemental principle, that will
secure its sameness amidst all the fiuctuations of
other component parts ; whether, indeed, it be in-
different what parcel of dust will form the future
body, provided it be united to the same soul, are
points on A\hich, however we may theorize, we can
say nothing decisive. Even the nature of a body,
that will be exempt from the ordinary hiAVS of nuxtter,

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 105

that will be free from every species of infirmity and
disease, and will probably require no material suste-
nance, is to us a mystery as profound as any in the
whole scheme of theology. But this interferes not
in the least with our belief of the doctrine, as we
have already endeavoured to show. The only ques-
tion is, whether it be actually revealed ; and as this
will be denied by none in the present case, no doubt
remains, whether it is to be adopted into our creed,
and to be realized in our minds for the purpose of
strengthening our faith, confirming our hope, and
stimulating our diligence.

These and several other doctrines contained in the
volume of inspiration, some of wdiich will be noticed
under our following head of observation, surpass the
comprehension of Eeason with respect to the precise
modes and relations, which characterize them, and,
therefore, do not properly come within her limits, as
to the exercise of the power of rejection. They are
above Reason, but not contrary to her dictates; and
as it has been ascertained that they are revealed, the
question determines itself, whether they are to be
admitted as articles of faith.

Section III.

A Doctrine op Revelation not to be rejected because it may
BE attended with DIFFICULTIES^ WHICH Reason cannot solve.

Finally, the jurisdiction of Reason in matters of
Faith and of divine Revelation does not extend as
far as that a doctrine should be rejected, merely be-

166 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

cause it may be attended ivith difficulties icldcli Rea-
son cannot solve. The distinction we would make
between this and the last Remark is, that in tliat the
difficulty consisted in the mere absence of light and
information, and a correspondent power of under-
standing, while in the present it consists in the actual
existence of apparent contradictions — of a seemingly
opposite evidence. Hence it is, that while several
doctrines of Eevelation, though allowed to involve
obscurities, which our mental eye cannot penetrate,
are admitted without much hesitation — yet when any
one of those which w^e would class under the latter
description is proposed in terms equally clear and
express to the same persons, it does not meet with
the same cordial reception. And here it is obvious,
that the doctrine of a threefold union of persons in
the essence of Jehovah, and that of the no less mys-
terious union of the divine and human nature in
the person of Christ, form the most prominent points
of attention. To these doctrines, the wary, inves-
tigating, and, for the most part, self-sufficient mind,
of the metaphysician and philosopher, has often been
reluctant to yield his assent. Against these, the
disputer of this Avorld — whether he called himself
a heathen or a Christian — a believer, or a free-
thinker— has ever directed his mightiest artillery,
and employed his carnal Aveapons with the most
confident hope of success. It appears, that it was
with difficulty, and not without considerable doubt,
that ISTewton, with all his childlike simplicity — that
Locke, with all his candour and his unquestionable
love of truth — that Milton, Avith all his profound

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 107

reverence for holy scripture, and his anxiety to ren-
der all the rich exuberance of his devout imagination
subservient to the illustration of its principles, pre-
vailed upon themselves to recognize doctrines, so far
as they distinctly recognized them at all, the depth of
which their powerful genius was incapable of sound-
ing*. A modern division of professing Christians,
which it is difficult to designate without offence, or
without danger of an apparent compromise of truth,
(for Socinian is, I believe, regarded by its members
as a term of reproach, and, therefore, ought not to
be wantonly attached to them ; and Unitarian is an
appellation, as expressive of a belief in one God, to
which I do not conceive that they are entitled, inas-
much as other classes of Christians, with reference
to the unity of the Divine Being, are as much Uni-
tarians as themselves,) has made great boast of
the authority of these distinguished individuals, as
all resting on their side of the question. To say
nothing of the illegitimate extent to which this
assumption is carried, as it is difficult to say, with
certainty, how far they severally went in their belief
or disbelief in the doctrines under consideration,

Reason could scarce sustain to see
The Almighty One — tli' eternal Three,
Or bear the infant Deity.
Scarce could her pride descend to own
Her Maker stooping from his throne,
And dressed in glories so unknown.
A ransomed world, a bleeding God,
And Heaven appeased with flowing blood
Were themes too painful to be understood.

Watts, on Locke's Annotations. Lyric Poems.

108 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

if, indeed^ they had any settled and decided views
at all upon these points, it assuredly indicates great
■weakness in a cause^ -when it requires to be propped
by pillars of human authority. It reminds us of the
vaunting decrees of the Eomish conclave, whose
members tAvo or three centuries ago maintained the
absurdities of a false philosophy, and resisted the
early progress of truth, by a triumphant appeal to
the authority of Aristotle and Aquinas, and other
worthies of the Scholastic theology. It is delightful,
indeed, to be able to range the great lights of
science among those whose genius and learning
illumine the bright firmament of revealed truth,
when their recognition of that truth has been dis-
tinct and unequivocal. But to gather up the frag-
ments of traditional hints, and of doubtful author-
ship, and to rear them into an imposing front, whe-
ther it be for the guardianship of truth, or the
defence of error, is surely very much to overrate
the importance which belongs to them. Of j^ewton
it might be truly said, with an illustrious foreigner,
that, in his own particular department of knowledge,
it is seldom safe to contradict what he has positively
asserted. But there may be some truth also in
what another foreigner has said, that, in some of
his theological writings, JN'ewton has made amends
unto mankind for his superiority to them in other
respects. There is still more truth in what his own
learned editor said of him, that in the science of
quantity he was unequalled, but that in matters
of religious inquiry he Avas but one of the people.
It has been remarked by Gil^bon, that the study of

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 10.0

the mathematics has a strong' tendency, l)y the
liabits of thought which it induces, to incapacitate
the mind for the nice perception and correct appre-
ciation of moral evidence. It can be matter of just
surprise to none, therefore, that a man, whose mighty
faculties were so completely absorbed in the investi-
gations of that science, as were those of I^ewton,
should have failed to attain to a correct view of a
system, whose evidence, from the very nature of the
things, can never be made to assume the form of
mathematical demonstration. A similar considera-
tion would apply to Milton and Locke, and would
account for any erroneous notion, or doubtful ortho-
doxy with respect to some of the great mysteries of
godliness, which may display itself in some of
their writings. The authority of the controversial
theologian in both instances ^^is lost — swallowed up in
the one case by the imagination of the poet — sunk
in the other into the profundity of the metaphysician.
Of the views of Bacon, however, a man, to the ori-
ginality and comprehensiveness of whose genius all
names of modern or ancient celebrity must yield, we
may speak with more certainty, inasmuch as he has
left a confession of his faith upon record, in which he
makes an unqualified acknowledgment of his belief in
those doctrines, at which the mind is most apt to
stagger"'-. AYe mention these illustrious names, not

* " I believe that nothing is without beginning but God — no
nature — no matter — no spirit— but one only and the same God.
That God, as he is eternally almighty, only wise, only good in his
nature, so He is eternally Father, Son and Spirit in persons." —
Lord Bacon, Confession of faith. ^

110 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

because we consider their opinion as at all decisive of
the truth on either side of the question, but merely
to show the reluctance with which Reason, in its
highest state of cultivation and improvement, sub-
mits to the mysteries of godliness. In the contemp-
lation of a truth so evidently transcending the efforts
of a finite capacity, as that which relates to the na-
ture and essence of the Deity, all human understand-
ings are brought very nearly to a level*. Perhaps,
indeed, the acutest and most enlarged is most liable
to be lost and bewildered, as the strongest sight, if
it give occasion to a presumptuous and incautious
gazing at the sun, is in greatest danger of being
injured.

The leading, the ever-recurring argument which
they w^ho, we fear, would be wise above what is
written, urge against a triplicity of personal sub-
sistencies in the undivided essence of Jehovah, is,
that such a notion is absolutely absurd, and con-
trary to the palpable dictates of common sense.
ISTow, we have already laid it down, in a former part
of this inquiry, that whenever a doctrine clearly
and unquestionably obnoxious to this charge is pro-
posed to our belief, it is the undoubted province of
Reason to reject it. But it has never yet been proved,
with Avhatever flippancy and triumph it may have been
asserted, that this is the case with the doctrine under
our present consideration.

* " One man may somewhat exceed another in physical power;
but show mc the man who can jump over a wall forty feet high." —
Skelton.

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. Ill

Before we can prove a proposition to be absurd,
it is obvious that we must have a clear perception
of the mutual relations of its component parts. If,
for example, it was asserted, that two parallel lines
would meet if prolonged to a certain point — we
have an intuitive certainty, that this never can be
the case, because we have an infallible evidence in
our breast, that the mutual relation of these lines is
such, that they never can meet. But if we beheld a
certain number of lines running for a considerable
distance separately from each other, and at length
lost in a mist; if, moreover, we had no means of
ascertaining with accuracy, whether they proceeded
in a parallel, diverging, or approximating direction
— nay, if to the very best of our judgment they
appeared to be all exactly parallel, we could not
prove it an absurdity, if we heard it asserted by
credible testimony, that, at a remote point, they met
together, like so many confluent streams, and formed
but one line. Our duty under these circumstances
would evidently be to admit the fact, and to acknow-
ledge the fallacy of our previous conclusion, a con-
clusion founded upon the imperfection of our visual
powers.

We readily allow, that the doctrine under consi-
deration, may be proposed in such terms, and repre-
sented in such an order, as may imply an absolute
contradiction; nor would we deny, that its maintainers
sometimes view and express it in such an order.
When, therefore, this mysterious tenet is formally
stated in language which appears best adapted to
scriptural phraseology — language, at the best, very

112 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

inadequate to the subject — its candid oppugners take
tlie liberty of giving- their own meaning to the terms
employed, and are on the alert with an array of
quibbling analogies, by which they pretend to prove
its impossibility.

It requires no great depth of discernment to
perceive, no very superior powers of argumentation
to evince, that three distinct beings cannot constitute
one in the same sense, and in the same relation^
that they were separately One. If such a union of
persons is what the champions of reason labour to
disprove — if this is the shadow^ Avith which our ad-
versaries contend, they may amuse themselves with
much freedom; the defenders of the faith once
delivered to the saints may willingly recede from the
arena, and allow them the full enjoyment of their
triumph, until they have learnt that the phantom
which they had pursued with so much zeal, has never
yet been embodied in the judgment of any man of
common understanding.

But we may be asked, what do we understand by
this doctrine, and how do we explain it, in consistency
with sound reason and good sense? It is sometimes
legitimate to reply to a question, by asking another.
When the chief priests and elders of the Jcavs came
to the Saviour, and asked, in reference to his mi-
racles, " By Avhat authority doest thou these things,
and who gave thee this authority?'' He retorted
upon them, by saying, " I will also ask you one thing,
which, if ye tell me, I, in like manner, will tell you
by wliat authority I do these things. ''.Phe Baptism
of John; whence was it? Of Heaven, or of men?"'

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 113

Their reply was, "We cannot tell." In reference to
the demand to explain what w^e understand by the
doctrine just specified, we may also say to our que-
rists— The principles of attraction and repulsion in
the same mass of matter, what are they? The two
polarities of the magnet; how are they to be accoun-
ted for? The positive and negative electricities;
how are their causes to be explained? The infinite
divisibility of matter and time and space ; how is it
to be rendered palpable to the apprehension, without
the danger of a reductio ad ahsurdum? AYe strongly
suspect, that their reply to these, and a hundi-ed
more questions relative to things which are believed,
and yet very imperfectly understood, must be that
of the Jewish high priests, " We cannot tell." But
they will allege, in respect of these points, "We
have the phenomena, and we profess not to go far-
ther;" and so have we, the believer may answer.
Our phenomena are the explicit statements of Him,
who is the truth — of Him, who is no less true in his
word, than He is in his works ; and beyond these we
do not venture to advance.

If, therefore, it be asked, what we do mean, when
we speak of three persons subsisting in the essence of
Jehovah, we frankly confess, without inquiring how
far these terms are best calcidated to express the truth,
and without fear of compromising our cause, that there
is in this scheme much that we do not understand,
and something that, without a divine Eevelation, we
should have been inclined to controvert. But we
have learnt that there is a difference between absur-
dity and obscurity, between the confined range of

114 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

our feeble Reason, and the boundless expanse of
infinity; we know the fallibility of our own judgment:
we rely on the unimpeachable veracity of the Author
of our being. With these views and feelings, we
believe that we can discover in the pages of Scripture
a clear attestation to these two points, that there is
one Supreme infinite Jehovah, indivisible and incom-
prehensible; and also that, in the essence of this
great and glorious Being, there is a threefold dis-
tinction, which distinction is expressed in the Bible,
by the terms of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The
appellation of persons is adopted simply, because this
word appears best suited to convey the idea of a
real agent; but the order of combination, in which
these two apparently discordant points coalesce, we
do not profess to understand : we can form some idea
of either, separately viewed, but how they harmo-
niously unite, we cannot perceive; just as we can
frame some indistinct conception of the eternity that
is past, and the eternity which is to come; but how
both eternities, if we may use such a term, join
together, so as to make one boundless circle of
duration, unmarked by fore or after — by present,
past, or future — one everlasting now — we cannot
clearly comprehend. We are fully aware, indeed,
that there is no analogy in nature, which can give
a proper idea of this truth. Analogy, however, is no
absolute test of truth, and we enter our decided pro-
test against its being employed as such in the present
instance. It is often of great use, indeed, in illustrat-
ing truth, and in vindicating it from the charge of
folly and inconsistency, a use to which we have

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 115

endeavoured frequently to convert it in the conrf^c of
these observations. " Solent tamen fiillere similitu-
dinmn species"~said the Roman rhetorician —
"ideoque adhibendum est his judicium."

Analogy, thus fairly and legitimately employed,
rather favours the reception of mysteries in religion
than oppugns them, inasmuch as it points out such
numberless mysteries in the whole economy of
nature.

When we assert, on the authority of divine Reve-
lation, as we are fully and deliberately convinced,
that in the one essence of Jehovah there is a three-
fold distinction of persons, mysteriously united with
each other, we mean not that Jehovah is One precisely
in the same sense as He is three, for this would
imply, that one and three numerically amounted to
the same quantity, an absurdity which an idiot can
hardly fail to perceive. The instances, however, in
which there is a unity in one sense and a plurality
in another, are so numerous and apparent, that we
surely need not particularly refer to many. Our
own form of government supplies an example of this
kind — one in its substantial and universal character,
but threefold in its constituent parts, framed by a
combination of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy,
each making a distinct element in the general power
of administration. And we doubt not, that if an
unlettered barbarian, who lived under the uncon-
trolled sway of a petty despot, were to be told that the
government of England was decidedly one riding
authority — if again, he was to hear of the king-
pardoning criminals by an act of pure and unfettered

I 2

116 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

sovereignty, and appointing domestic officers and
foreign delegates by a choice for which he was ac-
countable to no man; and again, of the two houses
of parliament conducting the affairs of state according
to their respective rights — levying taxes — establishing
and abrogating law^s, with all the freedom apparently
of independent bodies — he would find it as impossible
to reduce what he conceived to be the discordant and
heterogeneous rudiments of this triple scheme to a
form of perfect unity, as we find it to reconcile the
idea of a triplicity to a unity of essence in the infinite
Jehovah. Let it, however, be distinctly understood,
that the analogy here introduced is not intended so
much to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity, as to
exemplify the obvious principle, that unity of cha-
racter does not necessarily exclude a triplicity of com-
ponent parts, though it may require more knowledge
and understanding than is possessed in some cases, to
perceive their perfect consistency. It is, in fact,
quite out of our power to discover the sense in which
unity of substance, and plurality of persons may or
may not consist with each other, in the nature of the
Divine Being, unless we had a clear and distinct
idea of the whole of that nature, which few, it may
be supposed, will have the presumption to maintain
that we can have. To reject the doctrine that we
have been briefly endeavouring to discuss, because it
is attended with Avhat have been shown to be mere
difficulties, and not by any means contradictions,
appears to militate against every dictate of wisdom,
against every, principle of sound reason. To prove
this doctrine by citations from Scripture, we shall not

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 117

attempt, nor do wc deem it necessary. The many
passages wliicli we vieAv as decisive on tins point, we
cannot suppose to be unknown, or otherwise than
ftimiliar to our opponents, without ascribing to them
a measure of ignorance, which they would, perhaps,
consider as disgraceful, as we think their rejection of
the evidence which these passages afford, to be un-
happy. Our business, at present, is not so much to
confirm the truth of any particular doctrines as to
establish principles, by which our judgment of doc-
trines should be governed; and on this ground we
shall decline entering upon a more particular consi-
deration of those other doctrines with which Eeason
is generally considered as more especially concerned.
If, in the progress of these remarks, we have, with
some tolerable accuracy, marked out the boundaries,
both in respect of liberty and restraint which should
limit the operations and the researches of Eeason, in
estimating the truth of Eevelation, our purpose has
been fully accomplished. If we have been enabled,
in some degree, to teach that noble faculty Avhat
measure of light and knowledge it is her duty and
her privilege to require, and with what she ought to
rest satisfied in our investigations, our design has
been answered. What has been said in illustration
of one doctrine may with ease be applied to another.
Such a sober, chastised, and limited exercise of
Eeason as has been here recommended and defined,
appears to be of great importance on this as well as
on other grounds, — ^that it will prove an effectual
preservative against enthusiasm, superstition, and
credulity on the one hand, and against the baneful

118 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

influence of a proud, self-sufficient, and sceptical phi-
losophy on the other. It is calculated to produce a
general firmness, consistency, and humility of cha-
racter— to regulate the judgment Avithout damping
the ardour of the aff*ections — to enlighten the head
without petrifying the heart. Discarding every thing
that is inconsistent and absurd, every thing that is
vague and illusive, it secures a clearness of concep-
tion, a harmony, a simplicity, and decisive conviction
of mind; admitting nothing without suitable evi-
dence, it establishes belief upon a solid basis ; not
excluding mysteries, it affords an expansive range
to the vigorous eff'orts of the understanding. AYliile
it checks the presumptuous intrusions of a prying-
fancy, it discourages not the Avell regulated flights of
a sublime imagination ; while it banishes every wild,
chimerical, and legendary notion, it reposes a calm
and delightful confidence in the declarations of the
God of truth. Eeason thus exercised, renouncing
the low, mean, and contemptible character of a quib-
bler and a railer against truths which it does not
understand, and was never meant to understand, is
elevated into devotion, is sublimated into faith.

We would merely add, as we draw these observa-
tions to a close, that as the benefits calculated to
result from a just and legitimate use of Eeason, are
great and important ; so the evils springing from the
neglect or the undue application of it are grievous
and often fatal. Through the first of these faults,
the unqualified rejection of the aid of Eeason in
investigating the truths of Ecvelation, the most
visionary schemes have been invented and zealously

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 110

propagated — theories, the most senseless, groundless,
and extravagant, have been adopted and cherished.
Men have believed the most fanciful and unmeaning
conceits, with the same blind and pitiable credulity,
that the South Americans received the orders of the
man, who pretended to act under a commission from
the sun. To perceive the danger of an unnatural
mixture of reason and philosophy with the mysterious
parts of divine Eevelation, we have only to view its
effects in the case of different individuals, and in the
various ages of the church. It appears, that this
mischievous association had begun to corrupt the
purity and to destroy the simplicity of the Christian
faith, in some instances, even in the Apostolic age.
For, we find St. Paul earnestly exhorting the Colossian
Christians, that they should be established in the
faith, and not suffer themselves to be spoiled through
philosophy and vain deceit. At subsequent periods
in the history of primitive Christianity, the danger
against which the Apostle delivers this pointed and
affectionate warning, was realized to a lamentable
extent. Even the pious and devoted Justin Martyr
does not a]3pear to have wholly escaped the infection.
His scholastic habits, and his original profession as a
heathen philosopher, gave a tinge to the character of
his mind, and consequently to the productions of his
pen, by no means favourable to the unadulterated
purity of the Gospel, and far from congenial with the
transparent perspicuity of truth.

After him, the learned and laborious Origen, as
w^ell as the disciples of the Eclectic School in general,
poisoned the springs of divine knowledge to a still

120 THE LIMITS OF REASON IN THE

more grievous extent, by an admixture of the same
error. Actuated in many cases, doubtless, by the
laudable desire of conciliating their learned contem-
poraries among the heathen, they proceeded to an
undue length in lowering the mysteries of faith to a
level with the speculations of reason — in assimilating,
by a species of moral alchemy, the doctrines of Christ
to the lucubrations of Plato.

From that period to the present time, excepting
those ages in which the face of Europe, and of the
civilized world was wrapped in a veil of ignorance
and midnight gloom, and no one inquired what he
believed, or why he believed it, a tendency to abolish
mysteries from the scheme of revealed truth, and to
reduce it altogether to a meagre set of speculative
and ethical axioms, has been the bane of the rashly
inquisitive and superficially learned. Assuming the
honourable name of free and liberal thinking, this
petulant humour has blasted with its malignant influ-
ence many an active and vigorous mind, whose ener-
gies might have otherwise been advantageously cm-
ployed in developing the principles of piety, and in
extending the dominions of truth. To this, as its
natural parent, must be ascribed that spectrous form
of Christianity, which, though possessed of neither
warmth, nor life, nor wisdom, its patrons represent as
the daughter of light — as the good genius sent down
from heaven to banish ignorance and superstition
from the earth, and in time to regenerate the world.

To this also, however little it may be suspected,
and however strenuously it may be denied, arc to be
traced the bold and unwarrantable assertions of a

INVESTIGATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. 121

rank supralapsarianism. To this, in fact, is to l)e
attributed every attempt to systematize beyond what
the word of God has clearly authorized — to bring
down the high purposes of heaven to a scale co-ordi-
nate with the human capacity.

BOOK II.

AN INQUIKY IKTO THE NATUEE AND EXTENT OF THE

FACULTY OF VOLITION, AS CONNECTED WITH MORAL

AGENCY AND RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS.

PAET I.

HOW FAR MAN IS TO BE CONSIDERED AS FREE IN HIS
VOLITIONS.

Section I.

The Choice of simple Tendency as displayed in Material
Substances.

The first thing, probably, tliat strikes a contem-
plative and reflecting mind, and fills it with astonish-
ment and awe, when it has withdi'awn from the tumult
and agitation of surrounding scenes, is the fact that
something exists. Some persons may recollect a period
in early life, when, without having heard anything of
the reasonings and demonstrations of philosophers
upon this question, their own thoughts were strangely
exercised and perplexed, and ran into very curious
speculations upon it. Such individuals, indeed, may
not have proceeded, according to the strict logical
method of Des Cartes, to reason out their own exist-
ence, and that of the universe at large from the con-
scious operations of their own minds — Cogito, ergo
sum. But viewing themselves and the various objects

124 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

around them as actually existing, and forgetting for
the moment the clear and distinct disclosures of
divine Eevelation, they have been greatly at a loss to
account unto themselves for a scene of things so won-
derful and mysterious. They have speculated in
eager and bewildering inquiry: — What is its real sub-
stance ? What was its origin, if it originated at all,
and what is to be its final destiny? We know no
exercise of mind, which is more delightful than thus
to gather up the faint recollections of those inquiries,
which first engaged the unsophisticated mind. In
such an order of mental phenomena there will be
found problems and hypotheses, not only interesting
to remember and amusing in the retrospect, but like-
wise sometimes involving the profoundest and most
difficult points of investigation in the whole range of
human thought.

When the existence of a universe has thus been
noticed, the next thing which seems to claim the at-
tention is the ceaseless motion — the diversified ope-
ration of parts upon parts, that is going on in this
amazing scene. The whole system of nature appears
full of life, and energy, and activity. It resembles,
at first view, some immense machine, constructed by
a hand of consummate skill, and exhibiting every
wheel as performing its appropriate function. It is
this part of the subject, indeed, that has embarrassed
philosophical inquirers, unenlightened and unin-
structed from above, in every age of the world. It
Avas the origination of motion, Avhich the ancients
always considered as that which most clearly proved
and demonstrated the existence of a Supreme Being.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 125

This justly appeared the Deo digmis vindice nodus —
the fact, which absolutely required divine interference,
in order to be satisfactorily explained. It is in the
futile endeavour to account for this phenomenon, l)y
giving the atomic particles a native tendency to move
downward, that the Epicurean philosophy, as ex-
pounded by Lucretius, fails most grievously. Inde-
pendently of the error, fatal and destructive to all
sound reasoning, which this notion involves, — that of
introducing an effect, upon the varied modifications of
which the whole system depends, without an adequate
cause, — it is not considered by those, by whom it is
advanced, that upward and downward are altogether
relative terms, intended to express the motion or posi-
tion of objects with reference to other objects already
existing and maintaining a uniform local direction;
but that, in infinite space, Avhere there was no central
or gravitating point, where ascending, descending,
progressive, or oblique motion could, as such, have no
place, such a supposed tendency must be altogether
nugatory and unmeaning. Although, therefore, con-
trary to what we know, and involving, as the hypo-
thesis does, the most insuperable difficulties, we should
suppose, with Aristotle, and, indeed, most of the
ancients, that the matter of the universe has existed
from eternity, in the way of a necessary emanation
from Him, who spread his line over the dark con-
fusion, and reduced it to harmony and order; still the
life which animates, and the motion which pervades
and agitates the whole system, would be utterly un-
accounted for. There is found at work throughout
the whole mass, and in every department of the uni-

126 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

verse, an active force combined and proportioned
witli the most perfect accuracy, and working Avith the
most astonishing precision, so that art, with her
utmost ingenuity, in arranging a few of the me-
chanical powers, can only make some faint approaches
to the uniformity of nature, when left to her own
spontaneous operations. There is nothing in matter,
considered merety as a mass of solidity and exten-
sion, which can give rise to the least suspicion, that
motion, in such precise directions, and in such exact
proportions of velocity, can have originally belonged
to it as such; and this circumstance, in connexion
with the collocation of the elements, as Chalmers has
well remarked, and those appearances of unquestion-
able design, which the universe presents, forms the
main argument of natural religion for the existence
of a Supreme Being.

But amidst all the variety and multiplicity of the
motions and operations which are thus carrying on in
the created universe, they may all be divided into two
kinds, and considered as flowing from either of two
immediate and direct causes. They may all be re-
garded as either mechanical or voluntary — either as
resulting from some hidden quality or force, originally
impressed by the Creator upon matter, or as pro-
ceeding from that peculiar modification of mental
action in living agents, called the exercise of the
will. These two originators of motion, in their gene-
ral character and mode of operation, are, indeed, as
clear and palpable as any two causes or effects can
l)ossibly be. Tlie merest child understands the dif-
ference between a motion or an effect produced by an

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 127

intellio-ent and voluntary agent, and that occasioned
by mechanical impulse and blind, undesigning force.
But clearly to understand the nature, and to mark
out the limits of each of these modes of action, and
to point out, in some minute instances, the exact
line of demarcation by which they are respectively
distinguished and separated from each other, is a far
more difficult task.

In this universal system of action and reaction,
it is therefore an inquiry in the highest degree in-
teresting and important, what kinds of operations
are to be considered as voluntary, and what as
mechanical or physically necessary. Upon this dis-
tinction, viewed in its various bearings, is founded
the whole question of liberty and moral agency — a
question, which has always been considered as one
of the most difficult and perplexing in the whole
range of human investigation. To those who view
the matter superficially, indeed, it might appear a
very palpable and adequate distinction, that the
one order of effects belongs to the inanimate part
of the creation, and the other to that which is
endued with life, and some faculty of thought and
volition. And as a broad outline of the bare phe-
nomena, this might undoubtedly be correct and
sufficient. But to those who enter deeper into the
subject, and penetrate beyond the bare exterior of
the question, it will at once appear, that it is by
no means so clear and definite, and free from per-
plexity, as the first aspect of it would intimate.
It will be seen by such, especially after the con-
flicting theories and hypotheses, by which philo-

128 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

sophers and theologians of different schools have
embarrassed this naturally intricate inquiry, that it
is by no means so easy to determine, how far, and
in what sense, those actions, usually termed volun-
tary or elective, differ in their real mode of produc-
tion or causation from those which are mechanical ;
and, on the other hand, how far living agency, if
not mental volition, may be concerned in many of
those effects which are generally regarded as the
results of mechanical or physical necessity. It will
be found, in many cases, that these two modes of
agency and operation so run into each other, as
that it is almost impossible to define their precise
limitations. Like the colours of the rainbow, they
are palpable and easily distinguishable in the general
aspect which they present, but in their connecting
lines they become almost imperceptibly merged
into each other. We cannot help thinking, how-
ever, that much of the perplexity of this question,
so far as it relates to the accountableness and the
practical obligations of man, has arisen from a love
of theorizing, and from an attempt to reduce one
order of phenomena, under a system of operation
and arrangement belonging to another order entirely
different, and to which the former bears no more
than a general analogy. In the followmg inquiry,
it will be our endeavour to keep as closely as pos-
sible to acknowledged phenomena, or to modes of
operation which must be universally recognized as
characterizing the exercises of rolithn in the human
mind — noticing the various contradictory systems
which have been advanced upon this subject, only so

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 129

far as may appear necessary for the vindication or
illustration of the truth. The order in which Ave
shall pursue this important investigation, in accord-
ance Avith the general method observed in this Avork,
Avill be, first, to point out Avhat is essential to the
liberty of moral agency — or, in AA'hat sense and to
Avhat extent, man, as a rational and accountable
being, is free; and then to shoAv in Avhat sense, and
to Avhat extent, man is not free — in Avhat respect he
is to be regarded as a necessary agent, Avithout in
any degree interfering Avith his character as a respon-
sible creature. And if these points can be satisfac-
torily determined, and the limits Avithin Avliich the
exercises of the faculty of volition are carried on
be definitely ascertained, then, at least, the difficul-
ties of this abstruse subject, so far as they relate
to the responsibility of man, and the necessary in-
fluence of the grace of God, Avill have been in a
great measure relieved. Ultimate facts, for Avhich
no reason can be given, except the Avise and be-
nevolent and all-poAverful Avill of the Supreme
Disposer of all things, Avill still remain, indeed, at-
tached to this, as Avell as every other question
of human investigation. But so far as Ave proceed,
Ave shall feel confident and secure ; and upon those
points Avhich transcend our present capacity, or are
concealed from our vieAv in the depths of an im-
penetrable mystery, Ave must AA'ait for the mani-
festations of a brighter Avorld. At present Ave may
truly say, Avith reference to our keenest insight into
the physical and moral system, as Avell as into the
scenes of glory and blessedness hereafter, that " Ave

K

130 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

see but through a glass darkly." We can do little
else than notice a few of the more palpable move-
ments, trace the revolutions of the . most superficial
wheels, and estimate the relations of a few of the
more obvious and approachable springs of the stu-
pendous machinery, from the operations of which
such astonishing effects continue to evolve them-
selves ; but the original and ultimate arrangements,
in every department of our inquiries and obser-
vations, are removed from us to an immensity of
distance, or involved in a complication and intri-
cacy of mutual subserviency and adaptation, which
renders them wholly imperceptible to om* eye, or
utterly baffles our comprehension. We enter upon
this part of our investigations with no overweening
confidence of complete success, but with an humi-
liating sense of the absolute necessity of resting in
those few general principles and facts relating to
our mental faculties — especially to that, the exercises
and operations of which we are noAv preparing to in-
vestigate— beyond which, it does not appear to be
the privilege of man here below to pass.

With reference to the exercises of volition, we
have represented them as characterized by an elec-
tive process — as accompanied with choice or prefer-
ence, in opposition to those actions or motions, which
are the result of external impulse or mechanical force.
That action is unquestionably voluntary, whatever
imaginary necessity may belong to it, which is done
spontaneously, and is accompanied with a feeling of
desire, complacence and satisfaction. As in the
functions of life, with which the exercises of volition

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 131

appear to be \cyj intimately connected, there is a
scale of gradations carried on from its lowest mani-
festations in vegetable organization and expansion,
through the various stages of the zoophytic and loco-
motive tribes, until it has arrived at the highest
point of perfection, in which it is displayed here on
earth; so in the elective process — in those actions,
which appear to involve obvious preference, there is a
similar order of arrangement. In inanimate nature,
we find very frequent instances of operations which
bear a very strong analogy, and would seem, in many
respects, to be closely allied to the exercises of the
human will. We find numerous actions and reactions
among material elements of various kinds, which are
scarcely explicable upon the mere principles of me-
chanical impulse or external power. We witness the
most striking effects produced upon each other, by
bodies removed to a considerable distance from all
possibility of tactual operation or connexion — effects
strongly indicating a spontaneity of movement and
action correspondent to those results, which flow from
the instinctive inclination or the rational will in ani-
mate beings. We may consider, therefore, the
elective process, like the vital principle, as extending
through a long scale — originating where it is scarcely
perceptible or determinable, and acting with greater
vigour and perfection as it advances, until it has
reached its terminating point in intellectual prefer-
ence, and the exercise of the liberty of Moral Agency
in man.

It is interesting to traverse this scale with the
eye of observation from what we may consider as its

K 2

132 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

commencing point, its lowest extremity, in the elec-
tion of simple native tendency — to its loftiest point
in the exercise of free and unfettered Moral Agency.
Under that modification of preference, which we have
called simple tendency, we may rank the whole range
of magnetic influences — chemical affinities — material
attraction, and the interesting phenomena of crystal-
lization. AYho can witness the curious, and, in many
instances, utterly inexplicahle effects of magnetism
and electricity, without being struck with the very
great resemblance which they frequently bear to the
functions of conscious volition ? Wlien Ave see the
magnet or the magnetized steel attracting and re-
pelling, with unaccountable tendency and apparent
caprice, objects, with which they do not come in con-
tact, and with which they can have no direct com-
munication, except through the medium of inter-
vening atmosphere or some imperceptible substance,
are we not ready to conclude, that there is here an
actual expression, both of choice and aversion, as
related to either the attracting or the repelling pole ?
When again, we see the paper images dance in
sportive motions, and raising their uplifted hands
under the action of the electric fluid, we can scarcely
fail to be impressed Avith the momentary illusion, that
here there is a modification of life and volition; and
we are ready to think, with John Hunter and his dis-
ciples, that the vital principle is very nearly akin, if
not absolutely identical, with electricity*. When, in
chemistry again, Ave behold the apparent eagerness

* Vide Abernetuy's Lectures!, Lcct. 6.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 133

and avidity with which different elements hasten to
escape from their present state of combination, and
to enter into new alliances, and to form fresh com-
pounds— when we see how soon the strongest and
most solid plates of iron Avill yield their superficial
particles, in order to form an oxide with the oxygen
of the air, and the plates of copper and zinc so ra-
pidly corroded by the acid in the interstices of the
galvanic trough, we feel certain, at least, that there is
a very strong display of spontaneous action. The
process of crystallization affords likewise a most re-
markable specimen of an inherent tendency to choose
a particular position and arrangement with respect
to other associated component parts. However this
curious phenomenon may be attempted to be ex-
plained upon principles of mechanism, and by a con-
sideration of the peculiar form and structure of the
globules, which constitute the crystallized mass, it
still remains clear, that there is an inherent and
native tendency in those particles to enter into this
pecidiar order of combination and juxtaposition.
This principle of a spontaneous tendency to attrac-
tion or repulsion — this exercise of preference with
respect to other objects and surrounding parts,
seems, indeed, to pervade the whole system of na-
ture. It is this which preserves, in a state of aggre-
gation and cohesion, the innumerable particles which
constitute the various masses of unorganized matter
— it is this, which occasions the solidity of the dia-
mond, as well as maintains in a state of loose and
more soluble composition, the most brittle or spongy
body in nature. It is this quality of an original

134 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

elective tendency to move in a certain direction — to
attract towards a certain point, operating on a large
and extensive scale, which retains the planets in their
orbits, and controls the luminaries of the skies.

Considering these poii^ts, it seems to be a
groundless and altogether inadequate view of matter
as such, to regard it as a mere inert substance, solid
and extended — destitute of all active power, except
a susceptibility of motion from the application of
external and foreign force. Matter, indeed, in the
first and superficial view of it, may appear a mere
mass of quiescent and inactive substance. But it is
perfectly obvious, at the same time, on the least
consideration, that those heaps of matter, which
would appear most motionless and inert, are not by
any means in a state of absolute quietude. Some
process of combination or decomposition, of repro-
duction or decay — either of them equally involving
and evincing qualities distinct from, and indeed
inconsistent with, absolute inertness — will be found,
though perhaps slowly and imperceptibly, to be still
carrying on. It is saying nothing in reply to this
remark, to afiirm, that these changes are produced
by the action of other bodies — that iron, for ex-
ample, is oxidated by the action of atmospheric air ;
for, is it not at once obvious, that an active power is
attributed in this very instance to what is in itself
nothing more than a body ? Air, even in its highest
state of fluidity and elasticity — na}-, the inconceiv-
ably tenuous aither, to the operation of which some
of the followers of Newton ascribe the phenomena
of gravitation, is 'as much and as perfectly matter,

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 135

fis the dullest clod of earth. And if matter is to l)e
considered as universally and essentially an inert and
inactive substance, how is it possible that its ele-
ments, when in a state of peculiar arrangement and
juxtaposition, should exhibit motive phenomena, and
be attended Avith unquestionable evidences of active
energy ? AYhen we look around us, and

See through this air, this ocean and this earth,
All matter quick and bursting into birth —

when we contemplate the various effects which are
produced through the sole agency of matter in its
different modifications of operation, such as those
of magnetism, electricity, deflagration, and attrac-
tion, how is it possible that we should maintain a
notion so groundless and absurd, as that matter is
nothing more than a mere aggregate of inert par-
ticles, utterly destitute of every quality of motivity
and action? AYhether the powers, indeed, pro-
ductive of these remarkable effects, essentially and
inseparably belong to matter, so as in a manner to
form a part of it, or whether they be qualities and
energies superinduced upon its original substance,
is what we can no more determine, than we can
determine whether thought and volition be essential
constituents of the substance called mind. All thnt
we can positively know is, that as mind in some
circumstances speculates, wills, loves, hopes, fears,
and hates, so matter in certain circumstances, and
in some of its fomis, attracts, repels, combines, dis-
solves, precipitates, electrifies and burns, without
the intervention of any other force than that which
results from its native capabilities. And the pecu-

136 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

liar direction, in which these original or superinduced
energies act, seems to occupy the lowest rank in that
Elective Process, in that graduated scale of prefer-
ence, by which the spontaneous actions of all beings
are regulated, and which is exhibited in its highest
order in the liberty and moral agency of rational
and accountable intelligences.

It may here be expedient to observe, that the
preceding observations upon the inherent activity of
matter, have nothing whatever to do with the system
of materialism, as related to the human mind.
Activity or motive power and sensation, accompanied
with a faculty of volition, are phenomena perfectly
distinct from, though strikingly analogous to one
another. It would, therefore, be an utter paralogism
to reason from the first of these phenomena, unto
either of the two last. We are of opinion, that
motivity or energetic power, requiring only to be
called into action by a suitable arrangement or collo-
cation of parts, and to be accounted for only by
considering it an effect of the original design of the
Deity, pervades all nature. Whether this energy
exists in matter, as consisting of living monads,
according to the notion of Leibnitz; or whether,
according to other systems of philosophy, it be the
result of a subtile ethereal fluid, pervading all matter ;
or an immediate quality belonging to the very being
of it ; or whether, as others suppose, it be a con-
tinued exercise of the direct power of God himself,
we have no means of ascertaining. But tliat such
phenomena do evolve themselves in the operations
of simple matter, as to give evident indication of a

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 137

peculiarity of tcnclency, strikingly similar to the
exercises of volition in sentient and intellectual
beings, is unquestionable. The illustrious Kepler,
indeed, went so far as to consider " the globe itself
as possessed of living faculties. According to hiin
it contains a circulating vital fluid. A process of
assimilation goes on in it as well as in animal bodies.
Every particle of it is alive." Without, however,
proceeding to the length of this profound but fanciful
philosopher, we deem it unquestional^le, that the
constituent elements of the material world are very
far from being a mere congeries of inert and torpid
particles, but that they possess, when placed in suit-
able combination and arrangement, a capability of
motion and action closely analogous to a principle of
vitality.

Section II.

Sensitive Preference — The Next Stage in the Elective
Process.

'Next to the act of simple Tendency, manifesting
itself in the operations of material nature, and
occupying the lowest extremity in the scale of the
elective process, which we have mentioned, is to be
regarded that of sensitive Preference, peculiar to
sentient beings. We have already specified many
instances of evident, though unconscious choice in
the exercise of the inherent powers of material
agents. But there are other preferences of a higher
order, exercised by other classes of beings, and

138 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

accompanied with the very important circumstance
of a lively desire or emotion, but still coming short
of what we usually mean, when we speak of volition
as an exercise of the faculties of rational and intel-
ligent agents. It may, indeed, be difficult to deter-
mine the line of demarcation which separates mere
sensitive propensity from a preference or predilection,
guided by some reasoning views of the desirableness
of the object preferred. It woidd be difficidt to
decide at what link in the great chain of animated
creation, blind impidse, guided by no other principle
than a strong instinctive emotion, ends, and where a
considerate view of the advantages connected with
the attainment of the object, to which the active
energies are directed, begins to blend its influence.
Between the propelling principles themselves, hoAv-
ever, there is a very clear and obvious difference, and
they may unquestionably act quite apart from each
other, and even occasionally in direct opposition,
when both are capable of being exercised. In man,
for example, in whose character the exercises of
volition are susceptible of influence, from both
quarters, — that of mere sensitive feeling and a
rational view of his best interests, how frequently
do Ave find these grounds and principles of choice
militate against each other! How often lias the
scene, so graphically described by Persius, been
realized in human life, Avhcn the views of interest
suggested by the calculating poAvers of the mind
urge to one line of pursuit, and passion dictates
another.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 139

Mane, piger, stertis? Surge, inqnit Avaritia; cja

Surge: Negas? Instat; surge, inquit. Non (jueo. Surge,

Et quid agam 1 Rogitas 1 Saperdas advche pouto,

Castoreum, stuppas, Lebeuuni, thus, lubrica Coa.

Tolle rccens primus piper e sitientc caraclo.

Verte aliquid. Jura. Sed Jupiter audiet. Elieu !

Bare, regustatum digito terebrare salinum

Contentus perages, si vivere cum Jove tendis.

Sat. V. 132—140.

The whole range of animated natnre abounds with
exhibitions of that species of elective ijropensity
which Ave are now considering. Indeed, it may be
doubted, whether the whole class of what are called
instinctive feelings and habits, as well as most of the
unconscious motions of the muscular and nervous
systems in animals — we mean unconscious, so far as
that there is no deliberate exercise of the mental
aj)prehension, every time such an action takes place —
may not be ranged under this head. In the selection
of their food, in the construction of their habitations,
in the dexterous application of their various means of
defence against violence, and of offensive assault ; in
the remarkable provision which they make against a
period of inactivity and want, and in the consummate
skill which they display in the arrangement of their
stores, in their care of their young, and in the asto-
nishing sagacity, tenderness and affection with which
they adapt the whole system of treatment, and watch
over the course of their education, animals of different
ranks and species evince indications of cJioice accom-
panied Avith tokens of feeling, Avhich it Avould be as
absurd to attribute to mere mechanical action, or
simple tendency, as has sometimes been maintained,
on the one hand, as it would probably be, on the

140 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

other, to ascribe them to the suggestions of a delibe-
rative and designing mind. In other views of their
nature, this rank of creatures by no means appears to
be endued with a mind capable of embracing within
the sphere of its reasonings and combinations, the
whole chain of relations and subserviences — of causes
and effects — of principles and consequences, that the
work in which they are engaged, in order to be planned
with such unerring accuracy, would unquestionably
appear to involve. In the mechanism of the human
frame also — in the disposition of its parts, and in the
exercise of its powers, there are various actions which
almost incessantly take place under the influence of
mere sensation, without any immediate and percept-
ible intervention of the rational or intellectual facul-
ties. All such modes of instinctive operation are to
be considered as so many exemplifications of that
sensitive preference, which occupies, as it were, a
middle space in the elective process, between that of
unsentient nature, and that of rational volition. And
to the consideration of this last, as standing upper-
most in that graduated scale of preference, Avhich the
phenomena of nature seem to present, we shall next
proceed.

Section III.

Rational Choice.

The subject of our present investigation, therefore,
we may dci^ncBdfiondJ Choice — a preference founded
upon, and iniiuenced by, mot ices suggested by the

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 141

understanding' in the exercise of its delil)erative and
judicial functions. To this mode of exercising choice,
we usually give the name of Volition; and the faculty,
Avhich is considered as capacitating the mind for this
peculiar modification of feeling, is called the TT7//.
This species of elective agency is peculiar to man
alone, of all the creatures with the functions of which
Ave are acquainted, as an intelligent and responsible
being. It is, therefore, justly regarded as the foun-
dation of the Avhole system of the liberty of moral
agency. ¥or, although the elective preferences al-
ready noticed may, in a certain sense, be considered
as free, inasmuch as they are not the effects of exter-
nal force, or the results of a necessitating constraint,
in which the electing subjects exerted no inherent
poAver or quality of their OAvn, yet they were not free
in such a sense as to be the ground of responsibility
and moral agency. This latter, and by far the most
important, species of liberty, necessarily requires
reason and intellect as a guiding and controlling
poAver. What then is that principle or combination
of principles, Avhich essentially constitutes the liberty
of moral agency? And hoAv far, within Avhat limita-
tions, and upon Avhat grounds, may we regard man in
the present state, as enjoying this distinguishing pri-
vilege ? These are questions of no ordinary import-
ance ; and Avith a view to the solution of them, so far
as Ave have reason to think that they are capable of
being solved, Ave would lay doAvn tAvo or three first
principles, Avhich are essential to the exercise of ra-
tional volition and the enjoyment of moral liberty.

142 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

Section IV.

The Possession of Life — an essential REauisiTE to Moral
Liberty.

1. We would lay it down as a first principle — as an
indispensable requisite to the exercise of rational
volition and the enjoyment of moral liberty, that the
subject of this species of agency be possessed of
Life. We are of opinion, indeed, that the possession
of this peculiar principle in man is more closely and
necessarily connected with the functions of the Will
than has generally been noticed. It has already been
observed, that so far as we are capable of tracing the
analogy of this faculty, through the inferior ranks of
being, it invariably implies the existence of motive
energy as naturally inherent in, or divinely attached
to, the beings in which it is manifested. The strength
and capabilities of this power, as fundamental to
the elective process, must obviously be correspon-
dent to the rank which its subject was intended to
occupy in the scale of nature, and to the peculiar
mode in which its acts of preference are to be exer-
cised. The chemical or magnetic energy, for exam-
ple, in the exercise of which bodies attract or repel
each other, sink into the embrace of eacli other in
the recognition of an original tendency to affinity or
combination, or rapidly decompose in evaporation or
combustion, is something very different, at least in
its effects, if not in its real nature, from that calm
display of vital activity, \s\\\c\\ is no less clearly
displayed in the progressive developemcnt, growth

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 143

and organization of the vegetable system. In its
latter form it may be wholly extinct, after which
it may exert itself in the former with increased
vigour. Life, indeed, in animals and vegetables, is
the grand antagonist to that process of active decom-
position, which, subsequently to its extinction or its
destruction in that mode of its exercise, invariably
takes place. But different as the life of vegetation
and organization may be from those other manifesta-
tions of active energy, which nature, as a system of
chemical elements, universally displays, the difference
between these is by no means so great as that by
which they are both separated from sensitive or
animal life. And in proportion to the difference in
the nature or developement of the vital principle, in
these classes of being is the difference, which marks
their respective agencies in the exercises of prefer-
ence or volition. The volitions of an animal, even
of the lowest tribe, for instance, owing to the super-
induction of sensation to mere locomotive power and
plastic energy, are as superior to the physical tenden-
cies and elective preferences of the various objects
of inanimate nature — using the term inanimate as
simply designative of the destitution of a capacity of
thought and feeling — as the life of the former is
higher and more extensive in its capabilities than
that of the latter.

In tracing the scale of nature, we find that every
being, that has life or active energy, requiring only
a suitable arrangement of circumstances to be called
into exercise, has also native tendencies, which are
either actual volitions, or are obviously analogous

144 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

to volitions, and can, indeed, be hardly regarded
otlicnvise than as modifications of choice. And if
we consider any form of being utterly destitute of
this principle of vitality in its largest and most com-
prehensive sense, it is impossible to conceive such a
being as capable, in any degree, or in any imaginable
modification, of exerting a will, or manifesting an
inclination. It seems, therefore, inevitably to follow,
that as, without life in some one or other of its gra-
duated modifications, there can be no exercise of
choice — no display of native propensity swayed by
external circumstances, so where life exists, there
cannot fail to be tendencies, rising, in co-ordinate
gradations, towards rational volition and the exercise
of moral agency as manifested in the character of
man, with the endowments and capacities, by which
the subject is distinguished. Although, therefore,
life — viewed simply as a principle of motivity and
energy — does not involve the exercise of rational
volition and the responsibility of moral liberty, yet
the latter mode of agency does unquestionably imply
the possession of the former in a higher order of na-
tive capabilities. The life, by which man is capaci-
tated for the enjoyment of a rational and accountable
liberty, is, indeed, transcendently superior to that
principle which qualifies a chemical element to com-
bine with another element, and to that higher
principle, which causes a vegetable to grow and to
acquire a regularly-organized form ; to that even,
which instinctively prompts or sensitively urges the
various ranks of the lower animals to choose one
species of food in preference to another, and to exert

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 1 45

the numberless propensities, of which they are ()])\\-
ouslj susceptible. Let us not, therefore, ])e sup-
posed to confound man as a being endued with the
power of volition with other orders of creatures,
which manifest, indeed, a similar, but by no means
identical, susceptibility, Avhile we maintain the uni-
versality of the vital principle in some of its endlessly
diversified forms.

The fact is, that the animating principle by
which man is qualified to be a subject of volition is
as different from the same principle, as it exists in
other creatures, as his responsibilities are greater,
his capacities of enjoyment superior, and his desti-
nies more sublime. It is quite absurd, therefore,
to suppose that any specific circumstance connected
with life in its lower and less perfect forms, can lead
to any legitimate conclusion respecting the same
principle in an order of nature, in which qualities
and endowments totally distinct and incomparably
superior are found to belong to it. We have found
that a principle of activity analogous to life, may
inhere in matter, in a manner completely independ-
ent of structure and organization of parts, which ar-
rangement, indeed, is considered essential to it in its
form of a vegetative vitality. How little reason is
there to conclude then — ^liow contrary, indeed, to all
analogy is it to suppose, that in its higher rank of a
rational and intellectual, as well as a sensitive and
plastic principle, it should ever be annihilated, or
cease to exist.

The connexion of life with the faculty of volition
and the functions of moral agency in man is evident

L

146 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

from the order of liis creation and his constitution
as an accountable being. When the material frame
had been completed — when the organic structure
had been prepared for the reception of its future
inmate, and for those actions which it was designed
subordinately and instrumentally to perform, it is
said, that " God breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and man became a living soul." It was by
this process of animation, that man became capable
of volition, and the fact of his having been made
after the image of God would seem prominently to
imply and to hold out this among other important
points, that he now received a faculty of originating
and directing his own motions, analogous to that
which is possessed by Jehovah himself, and by the
due government of which he might secure his own
happiness and well being. This view of a delegated
and communicated power does not in the slightest
degree interfere with the absolute dependence of
man upon his Maker; for it affirms nothing as
possessed by the creature, which he did not imme-
diately receive from the Creator, and some discre-
tionary power he must have received in order to con-
stitute him a moral agent ; otherwise, how could he
be accountable for the abuse of what he had never
received ? Life, therefore, may be regarded as a
first principle — as a fundamental and indispensable
re(|uisitc to a moral agent, to a being capable of
exerting rational volition.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 147

Section V.

A Susceptibility of Enjoyalent and Suffering — the next
Fundamental Principle to Rational Liberty.

2. As another fundamental principle of rational
liberty, as a ground -without which it cannot be exer-
cised, we would mention a susceptibility of Enjoy-
ment and Suffering — associated with an order of cir-
cumstances' from which the one or the other would
necessarily rise, from the direction which the faculty
of volition gave to the character and conduct.
Without such a capability of painful or pleasurable
feeling superadded to mere life, and without a state
of things adapted to call it into action, there can
be no just and adequate ground for the exercise of
such a power as that of volition. "Without a view of
happiness in some of its varied forms, as connected
with a certain order of pursuits, as appointed to
arise from a certain line of conduct followed under
circumstances, the multiplicity of whose combinations
afforded an opportunity of verging into a great
variety of directions, there would be no intelligible
ground of preference, in which the very essence of
volition consists. !N'or is it enough that the subject
of volition should be merely susceptible of happiness.
It is equally necessary to the due exercise of this
faculty, that, as a moral and responsible agent, he
should be capable of a sensation of pain and suffer-
ing. We find, indeed, that even the lower animals,
whose faculty of combination does not extend far to
the future or the past, and, therefore, fails to qualify

L 2

148 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

them for moral agents, yet so far as they are at all
capable of exerting a volmitary choice, and of being
made the subjects of discipline, are entirely urged
and swayed and controlled in their preferences by
this very susceptibility. That creatures of this order
have a faculty of willing one thing rather than ano-
ther is unquestionable, and that they are capable of
being trained up by a system of discipline, directed
to their natural capacities of pleasure and pain, to a
most extraordinary degree of docility, sagacity, and
tractableness, is equally undeniable. And avc find
that, in every system of human education, which has
for its main object the regulation and control of the
yet wayward and imsettled tendencies of the AVill, it
is the appeal by varied means to this same original
susceptibility, which constitutes the ground-work of
the process, and gives energy to every other subordi-
nate means.

We are so thoroughly convinced of the absolute
necessity of this order of character to the exercise
of volition, and to moral agency, as combined with
that exercise, that we cannot conceive the higliest
rank of created beings otherwise than thus circum-
stanced. We are, indeed, but little acquainted with
the economy of angels ; our general view of their
character and condition is a floating notion, that
they are an order of beings endowed with most
sublime and transcendant powers — possessed of the
most perfect and unsullied purity — glowing with the
most intense and fervent love to that great and
glorious Being, in the rays of whose resplendent
light, and in the warmth of whose overflowing be-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 149

neficencc, they dwell in the fulness of dcliglit, and
thus eternally removed from all liability to pain or
sorroAv. That this may be as clear and correct a
view of their actual state, as we are capable of
forming with our present imperfect information, we
may, indeed, be willing* to concede; but if we are
to regard them as moral agents, dependent for the
continuance of their felicity upon the continuance
of their obedience, their loyalty, and their affec-
tion; if we are to view them as a race of intel-
ligent and rational beings, SAvayed by motives, and
enjoying the highest possible privilege which beings
of this order seem capable of enjoying — that of
unshackled liberty in the choice of their chief good,
we can by no means imagine that there is any
other impossibility of suffering connected with their
character, than their confirmed and established
choice of what they know to be most conducive to
their happiness. We have no ground whatever to
think otherwise than that their clear and distinct
view of what would be the inevitable effect upon
their happiness of an opposite line of conduct — a
view awfully confirmed by the dismal fate of their
fallen companions, is one of the strongest and most
efficient means of their inviolable and undeviating
attachment to the right. We do not know but that
the overthrow of the apostate host was designed, in
the wise and beneficent purposes of Jehovah, to
operate in the Avay of a salutary warning to the
higher orders of the intelligent universe, and to
serve the purpose of a powerful link, by which to
fasten them in firmer loyalty to his throne, a link

150 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

which, in conjunction with other principles of attach-
ment, would be attended with all the certainty,
Avithout any of the galling and paralyzing bondage
of physical necessity and fate. The very fact of
the apostacy, at least, proves, beyond all doubt, that
in the history of the angelical economy, there has
been a period in which these exalted beings were
placed in a state of probation, and subject to a
system of discipline, administered by rewards and
punishments, similar to those which are now designed
to operate upon the character and conduct of man.
In the case of those who failed to stand the test
of that awful and important trial, we know what
has been the result; and the reward of those who
maintained their fidelity — of the Abdiels in that
arduous combat with temptation — is not, we may
presume, any such elevation into an absolute neces-
sitij of continued obedience, as would in any degree
interfere with their liberty, or neutralize the effect
of those motives which arise from their natural sus-
ceptibility of happiness or misery; for this would
close the noblest channel of the felicity of a rational
and intelligent being. We can see no ground for
the assertion of Bishop Jeremy Taylor, therefore,
that "liberty of will" is a circumstance peculiar to
man in his present state, being a proof of infirmity,
inasmuch as it is impossible that good or evil angels
should for once deliberate between good and evil,
they being severally determined to good and evil.
This statement seems founded upon a wrong view
of liberty, as if it was any thing like indifference to
cither side of the question proposed, or a nearly

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 151

equal measure of attachment to Loth sides; whereas,
in fact, liberty requires nothing more, as we shall
hereafter show, than that the judgment should clearly
Ijronounce one line of conduct most conducive to
happiness, and that there be a freedom unbiassed
and uncontrolled by any foreign or inherent influ-
ence to pursue that line. xVll the necessity, there-
fore, that can be consistently supposed to bind an-
gelic beings to purity, loyalty, and obedience, is the
distinct and unhesitating apprehension which they
have of the supreme and transcendent excellency
of that blessed Being, in whose presence they expe-
rience such fulness of joy, — combined unquestion-
ably with a spontaneous love of moral purity and
excellency. They are under no other necessity than
that which arises from their exquisite susceptibility
to all the benignant and rapturous emanations, which
continually flow forth from Him, to cheer and delight
those who are admitted into his blissful fellowship,
accompanied, doubtless, with the consciousness, when-
ever the reflection presents itself to their minds, of
the extreme wretchedness of those who had rebelled,
and must always be the doom of those who rebel,
against his majesty. And what can there be in all
this to interfere with the "liberty of will," beyond
what, in a lower degree, indeed, may, upon the same
principle, be supposed to interfere with the liberty
of will of every good man, whose habits are in any
measure conformed to piety and virtue, even in the
present state. We seem, therefore, upon the most
enlarged view of the government of God, to be jus-
tified in laying it down as one of the first axioms of

152 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

liberty and moral agency, that there be a suscepti-
bility of enjoyment and suffering belonging to those
who are the responsible and accountable subjects of
that agency.

It may be worthy of consideration, whether this
view of the ground-work of liberty, responsibility,
and moral agency, as combined in the character of
man, may not throw some light upon, and go a con-
siderable way in accounting for the origin of evil
as necessarily connected Avith suffering. The ques-
tion TToOev TO KUKov? — whcncc is evil — is one which
has puzzled and embarrassed philosophers and moral
investigators. Heathen and Christian, in every age of
the world; and it may be one of those phenomena,
which must always continue mysteries, or idtimate
and unaccountable facts to man here below. In
moral science, however, he who teaches to analyze
into simpler principles a more complicated fact, or,
by a process of generalization, applies to the solu-
tion of a great variety of problems a principle, which
lies deeper in the system, and nearer to the founda-
tion of the whole, contributes as really though ever
so humbly, to the discovery of truth in his own line
of investigation, as he who decomposes a chemical
substance into elements, which had never before been
known, or demonstrates such relations of quantity as
hitherto had escaped observation. We inquire not
whether the preceding view of an essential requisite
to the exercise of rational liberty, and to moral
agency, fully explains and accounts for the existence
of evil, so as to make it perfectly accordant with the
views generally entertained of the divine justice and

VriTII LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 153

benevolence. But we submit whether it does not
at least carry this awful phenomenon of the divine
government somewhat more deeply into our nature,
and does not mingle its possible existence more with
the very essence of moral agency than has generally
been considered. If a susceptibility of pain, as well
as of pleasure, associated with an order of circum-
stances, from a peculiar combination of which the one
as well as the other may arise, lies at the very foun-
dation of rational liberty and responsible agency, it
follows that a possibility of evil is an absolute and
indispensable part of a moral and probationary
scheme. Penal evil, as the only alternative of a
wrong choice, or of an abuse of liberty, seems to
constitute the very essence of the system. To sup-
pose Jehovah, therefore, in the exercise of his sove-
reignty, to prevent, as He unquestionably might do
in any particular instance, the introduction or the
existence of that, the entrance of which as the only
possible alternative of an abuse of discretionar}''
power, constituted the antagonist muscle of the moral
frame, would be to suppose him to act in immediate
and direct opposition to the very system of moral
government which he had established. If the appoint-
ment of a moral system be capable of producing the
greatest and noblest happiness, and if the suscep-
tibility of suffering be so necessarily connected with
that plan, as that without such a possibility the
scheme cannot be maintained, and would leave no
adequate ground for the exercises of preference and
volition, then how is it inconsistent with the bene-
volence of the Deity, rightly understood, that He

154 THE FxVCULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

should not sovereignly prevent that, the arbitrary and
universal prevention of which would utterly destroy
and neutralize the very principles of the economy
which He had instituted ? The capability of penal
suffering, and the absolute necessity of its introduc-
tion as the only alternative of disobedience, seems
as much an inherent quality of a system, which is to
govern rational creatures, through the instrumen-
tality of motives, as it is a laAv of force, that a body,
which is driven by two impulses, meeting each other
at right angles, should move in the diagonal of a
square. "Wliatever superficial notions we may form
of the benevolence and the equity of Jehovah, and
whatever tasks we may impose upon these attributes
in order to force them into a consistency with our
notions, it is not on a deeper and more deliberate
estimate of the case, a requirement, which can be
fairly demanded of these sublime perfections, that
God should absolutely annihilate a system so bene-
ficial in its general bearings, and that He should
deprive so many of the transcendent happiness which
it secured to them, and which it afforded to all
the opportunity of securing, because some would
choose to deprive themselves of that happiness, and
voluntarily take the alternative of misery. To expect
happiness as the invariable and necessary result of a
moral government, would evidently be requiring an
impossibility. The possible existence of evil is essen-
tial to such a government: — its actual existence is
an effect, which Jehovah was bound neither in justice
nor goodness to prevent; because such sovereign
prevention would, at once, undermine a sclicme.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 165

from wliicli there doubtless will ultimately flow a vast
preponderance of good.

A scheme of considerable jDlausibility and of very
high pretensions was advanced at the commencement
of this century, and developed at great length by the
Rev. Dr. Williams, professing to explain the Origin
of 'Evil, and to remove all the difficulties of the
question, upon the principle of the natural and essen-
tial defect ihility of the creature. To that tendency
to degenerate, and to fall away, which is inseparable
from the nature of a created being, as such, and the
effect of which tendency can be obviated only by the
communication of sovereign aid from the Creator,
the name of metaphysical evil is given — an evil
apparently innocent in itself, but which, left to its
own course, will inevitably result in moral and physi-
cal evil. And the way, in which this scheme attempts
to reconcile the actual existence of misery with the
justice and benevolence of the Deity, is to suppose,
that those who were originally by necessity defec-
tihle beings, and subjects of metaphysical evil, had
no rigJit, upon principles of equity, to expect any
such sovereign interposition on the part of Jehovah
to prevent the moral evil that would otherwise un-
avoidably result from their very condition as crea-
tures.

It is surprising that a man of Dr. Williams's un-
doubted piety and good sense could bring himself
seriously to believe, that such a view of the original
state of man, even if correct, could solve the grand
per]^)lexity, with which this subject is embarrassed.
It is wonderful, that this excellent individual did not

156 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

at once perceive, that liis sclieme did not in any de-
gree remove or even alleviate the difficulty, but only
threw it back one step, and involved it, perhaps, in a
little greater obscurity. For, allowing the notion of
metaphysical evil as identical with the inherent de-
fectibility of a creature, of which Professor Stampfer
and others speak, by what process of metaphysical,
physical, or moral chemistry does this original and
unavoidable defect of nature become transmuted into
crime, and an equitable ground of suffering? To
view sin as a defect, indeed, or as the result of a
defect, which could only be obviated by sovereign
power and grace, and yet icas not in all cases obvi-
ated, instead of relieving the difficulty, seems rather
to increase it. What is the real difference between
creating a being, which, from the original impotence
of its nature, independently of any direct fault of
AYill, would evolve misery, if Ave may so speak, out of
the elements of its own existence, as combined with
the circumstances in which it was placed; and creat-
ing him at once subject to suffering, without any
such progressive evolution of inherent principles ?
The difference is no other than that of laying a train
of greater or less complication, and that of imme-
diately and directly applying the igneous spark; of
which combustion, in either case, would be the neces-
sary and inevitable effect.

AVe tremble, lest we should use unbecoming
terms, or employ unworthy similitudes even in the
exposure of an erroneous scheme, Mhich is so closely
connected and intertwined with the character and
conduct of Him, whose justice is unimpeachable.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 157

M'liose purity is without a stain, and uhosc benevo-
lence is, doubtless, commensurate with the universe,
which He has made. But it is difficult, without
incurring such danger, to evince the utter inadequacy
of a theory of such bold assumption to account for
what it professes completely to explain, — its futility
as an instrument of " vindicating the ways of God to
man," and the inexplicable confusion of metaphysical
and moral, and subsequently of natural evil, of mis-
fortune and of blameworthiness, of impotence and
criminality, which it involves.

But although this scheme may be useless, and no
other perhaps can fully clear up the difficulties and
embarrassments of the divine government, as con-
nected with the origin and operations of evil, any
more than the system of Copernicus and l^ewton can
carry us beyond a certain point in the explication of
the phenomena of the material universe, or that of
Locke can unfold to us all the mysteries of the
human understanding, yet whatever view of our na-
ture as living and voluntary beings has a tendency
to withdraw the sufferings to which we are exposed
from every thing that may be deemed arbitrary, or
even sovereign in the purposes of Jehovah, and to
attach them in the form of a general law to the very
essence of things, supposing these things to exist,
must certainly be considered a step in advance, and
so far a relief to what may still be acknowledged to
press heavily upon our feeble faculties, and to require
much simplicity of faith, much humility of mind, to
bear with the submission which becomes us. If an

158 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

original susceptibility of pain, and an actual suffering
of pain, in case of a voluntary abuse of discretionary
power conferred, enters into the very nature and
essence of a moral agent, it seems to follow that the
possibility of evil is involved in the very existence of
living beings capable of exercising a Will, so that
the alternative is between the non-existence of such
beings, and the possibility of the existence of evil;
and whether the existence of unnumbered hosts of
intelligent and exalted creatures, all capable of the
most exquisite enjoyment, or the original abstinence
from the creation of such beings, because some of
them would choose to render their existence a curse
rather than a blessing, were more accordant with
such views as we are warranted from nature and re-
velation to form of the justice and benevolence of
the Deity, it surely cannot be a matter of doubt.
In order to square the conduct of Jehovah, whether
positive or permissive, with any unauthorized or in-
adequate idea, which we may have formed of these
attributes, we surely are not justified in imposing
upon him a task, which involves impossibility or
absurdity, l^ov is it wise in us to embarrass our-
selves with difficulties, which may arise in a great
measure from our error in supposing his character to
be formed of such a benevolence as is only concerned
in the prevention of suffering, while, in fact, it em-
braces other attributes equally essential to his per-
fection, though by no means destructive of that
sublime and lovely quality. It is a true and pro-
found remark of Bishop Butler, that the character of

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 159

the Deity, so far as we are capable of ascertaining^ it,
is not that of mere benevolence. We should do well
also to recollect the saying of the poet, that

A God all mercy is a God unjust.

Section YI.

An invariable Desire of the greater apparent Good

ESSENTIAL TO MoRAL LiBERTY.

3. We would state as another essential ground of
the exercises of volition, that the subject of those
exercises should be so formed, and have his sus-
ceptibilities so regulated, as to have an invariahle
desire and preference of the Greater Good, when
presented to the view. This is indeed a natural
result of the circumstance immediately preceding.
If there be a susceptibility of enjoyment and suffer-
ing which must, in their causes, be identified with
good and evil, it is obvious that in most circum-
stances they must be varied in every possible pro-
portion. Good and evil can rarely be considered
purely and entirely such in any case. A lesser evil
may be relatively a good, and, in the same manner,
a lesser good, contrasted with a higher and nobler
form of good, may be a serious evil. In a state of
things, therefore, in which these elements are asso-
ciated and frequently blended with each other in
endless and embarrassing combination, the subject of
volition would be bewildered in continual difficulty
and doubt, and would hardly ever come to any deter-
minate point in the exercises of his Will, unless there

IGO THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

was in him a principle, wliicli instinctively directed
him to the choice of that ol)ject, which presented itself
to him in the light of a superior advantage. AVe
mean not that he must always, as a matter of course,
choose what is absolutely the greater good. But
there must he, in his nature, a principle which in-
clines him to the choice of that which, at the moment
of contemplation, at least, appears to promise the
more exquisite gratification, or the more valuable
good. It is this comparative estimate of different,
and not unfrequently of conflicting claims, indeed,
which calls the preferring faculty into exercise,
though it is by no means necessary that a regular
and formal comparison should be instituted every
time that the Will is to give its direction to the
conduct. In the common concerns of life, the great
line in which it is most advantageous that the course
of action should flow, is marked with such clearness,
and universally recognized as so certain, and con-
sequently has become so habitual, that any attempt
at balancing interests of this kind would be altogether
needless.

But in the first decisions of the Will, or in cir-
cumstances of a new and difficult nature, there must
always be a latent, if not a palpable and open
algebraic process of calculating the plus and the
minus of good expected to be enjoyed from the
respective candidates for preference and superior
regard. Volition or willing, indeed, is more an act
of mind yielding to this superior claim, and recog-
nizing its legitimate demand to attention or pursuit,
than any particular j^ower or facuJty distinctly

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. IGl

existing in the mind. It is tliat determination of
the judgment, frequently accompanied with a strong
feeling of the heart, which tells in clear and intelli-
gible language, that such an oljject, or such a line
of conduct, is that which has most aptitude to give
happiness, either with respect to liveliness or per-
manence, or perhaps to both. When the mind by
any means has been brought to this state, it may
truly be said to will or to prefer that thing which
it thus represents to itself as most desirable, and to
the immediate enjoyment or pursuit of which it
excites the other principles of the character. It is
on this view of superior desirableness that the whole
system of volition is built, and if w^e could conceive
a being possessed of life, and of a susceptibility of
happiness and misery, and yet, by some strange
formation of character, destitute of the inclination
of which we now speak, we can see no steady nor
adequate grounds upon which such an one should
exercise his volitions.

Section YII.

The Prerogative of Reason, in the ultimate Determina-
tions OP THE Will, the distinguishing Characteristic op
accountable Liberty.

These three points — the possession of life — a suscep-
tibility of enjoyment and suffering — and an invariable
tendency to the greater apparent good, are to be
regarded as first principles, as fundamental axioms in
the whole system of spontaneous agency and volition.

162 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

Tliej are indispensable to every created being who
has a Will, and is regulated by adequate motives in
its exercises. Without these properties, action must
be nothing more than the result of an original
simple tendency, or of mechanical force, destitute of
all sensation and voluntary choice, or it must be
something wild and capricious, guided by no steadi-
ness of principle, and directed to no object of ulti-
mate desire. It can hardly be necessary here to
state, that in this discussion, we do not class the Su-
preme Being himself among those voluntary agents,
whose Wills must be entirely excited and controlled
by an appeal to the original susceptibilities of their
nature. His volitions must be something so com-
pletely different in their origin, in their nature, in
their mode of operation, in their reasons, and in their
ends, from those of which created beings, possessed
of certain qualities, and placed in an order of circum-
stances most deeply and unavoidably affecting their
character and emotions, are the subjects, that it
would be utterly useless and unmeaning to trace any
analogy beyond some very broad outlines, or to apply
to both cases the same process of reasoning and re-
mark. Jehovah, in the exercise of his supreme and
unaccountable, though at the same time most pure,
and holy, and benevolent Will, is a law unto himself,
and is the end of his own actions; and his perfections
are the measure of rectitude, the last rule of excel-
lence. The case of creatures is very different.
Merely sensitive beings know no other guide or
stimulant of their AVills than the original suscepti-
bilities implanted in them, brought under the corres-

WITH LIBERIT AND NECESSITY. 1G3

pondent influence of objects and circumstances de-
signed to affect tliem.

But man is not merely a sensitive creature. This
lie might have been, without rising to the scale of a
free, accountable, and rational agent. He might
have been a living sentient being — he might have
had a native capacity of pleasure and pain — he might
have been powerfully and instrumentally urged to
prefer the greater good — the object which immedi-
ately appeared to his unreflecting sense to promise
much gratification. There might have been such a
correspondency as this established between his appe-
tites and external objects, and this relation of his
emotions to outward things might certainly call forth
in him the exercise of a sensitive tendency, such as we
represented to be characteristic of the brute creation.
But, without something beyond this — without some-
thing superior to these blind propensities — something
capable, in various ways, of regulating and control-
ling them, he would have been utterly unfit for sus-
taining the character of a moral agent, nor with any
propriety could he have been said to possess the
faculty of free and rational volition. And here we
feel that we have arrived at the grand point of in-
quiry : Is man free ? and, if he is, what is the dis-
tinguishing circumstance which constitutes his free-
dom, and qualifies him for moral agency, and for a
responsibility so awful as is involved in that agency ?

l^ow, with whatever real or imaginary difliculties
this question may be embarrassed, in whatever obscu-
rity nature may have involved it, in some of its
ulterior ramifications, or in whatever web of meta-

M 2

1G4 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS COXXECTED

physical subtilty nice controverriialists and prejudiced
disputants may have entangled it, no man, ayIio forms
a just and enliglitened estimate of his own character,
faculties, and destinies, can seriously doubt whether
he be free. However scriptural and lamentably true
may be the doctrine of the bondage of the Will, and
of the enslaving power of lusts and passions, as a
tlieological tenet — however correctly it may be said,
as an illustration of the gross and utter depravity of
our moral nature, that, since the apostasy, man is
only free to sin, but not free to holiness and virtue,
— -still it cannot for a moment be questioned by any
one who dispassionately consults either the dictates of
nature, the records of conscience, the arrangements
of providence, or the declarations of Scripture, that
he is possessed of such a liberty of action, and such a
power of discretionary self-control, as are sufficient
to justify that course of divine government which
evidently regards him as a fit subject of rewards and
punishments; and when we consider the awful mag-
nitude of the evil to which he renders himself obnoxi-
ous, on the alleged perversion and abuse of his native
freedom of action, it cannot surely be an equivocal or
problematical question, whether he had been free to
act otherwise. It is with no less truth than sim-
plicity and admirable conciseness, that Bishop Butler
remarked, that we are treated as //'we were free, and,
therefore, we (ire free. Whatever logical artillery
the polemic may direct against this fact, wliatever
quibbles of reasoning, or wliatever array of weighty
argument may be advanced against it, and whatever
difficulty, upon principles of theory and system, there

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 1G5

may be to repel the assault, and to maintain it in all
the soundness of technical symmetry and consistency,
yet, like an impregnable bulwark of nature, it stands
upon its own basis, firm as the fortress of morality
itself, coeval with humanity, and destructible only
when man shall cease to be accountable, or God shall
cease to be just.

It is not enough to grant, as philosophical neces-
sitarians have done, that man is free to act as he
pleases, while it is at the same time maintained that
it as necessarily pleases him to act in one way, as
a stone falls down to the earth — that, in his most
spontaneous and unfettered actions, he is subject to
an influence, over which he has no m.ore command
or control than the criminal has over the chains by
which he is bound, or the wheels of the vehicle in
which he is conveyed to execution. It is in vain to
attempt to escape out of the palpable absurdity, or
to hide the glaring incongruity of this preposterous
representation, or, at least, of notions which amount
to the full import of this representation, by saying
that it is allowed to man, in all his volitions and
determinations, to follow the bent of his own mind,
and that it is as necessary he should choose in the
manner in w^hich it is assumed that he does choose,
as that any one event in nature should follow another.
If all that is meant hj the necessity which is at-
tached to the exercises of volition, imports no more
than this, it surely did not require much philosophy
to make cut such a mere truism. It vrould appear,
en this principle, that the profound and complicated
theorem, which it rec^uircd such a niigl ty apparatus

166 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

of reasoning, liypotheses, and illustrations to demon-
strate, is no more than this, — that a man must of
necessity, nay, of philosophical necessity, choose,
what it is already taken for granted as a fact, that
he does choose. But surely there must be some-
thing more than this in the theory of necessity, as
relating to the exercises of volition; otherwise to
what purpose would be all the parade of learning
and philosophy, if the object was no more than to
prove a proposition, so purely and palpably trifling,
as that a man must prefer and will and act, as he
does prefer and will and act — a proposition Avhich is
but another and a modified formula of the axiom,
that the same thing cannot be and not be at the
time. If there is any meaning worthy of notice in
the assertion of necessity, as governing the acts of
the human will, it must be that there is some
external influence, or some combination of circum-
stances, independent of itself, the impulse of Avhich
it cannot control or resist, or by the presence of
which it is so completely paralyzed, as never to
attempt a resistance. Then, if this be a just theory
of volition, if this be the real economy of the human
mind, upon what imaginable basis can desert, or
blameworthiness rest? A\^here is the ground of
punishment? A¥liat is the distinguishing principle
upon Avhich man, in the full possession of his facul-
ties, and trans<2,'ressin2: in the midst of w

•arnings

and exhortations, the grounds and reasons of which
he was fully (lualificd to appreciate, is more justly
exposed to punislnnent than tlie maniac, who, driven
by an equally powerful impulse of Will, had com-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 167

mitted the same act? Surely misery is not so
trifling a thing as that it should be withheld, and
most properly Avithheld in one case, and largely
inflicted in the other, without some very serious
diff'erence in the moral estimate of the acts. Upon
the principles of the scheme, which we are now
resisting, the only difference of the Necessity which
produced these acts, is that, in the one instance, it
was a necessity which entailed no evil consequence
upon its subject, in the other it was the necessity
of the stoic philosopher and his slave, combining
the necessity of punishment with the necessity of
crime. It is futile and trifling to say that reasons
were suggested to the mind of the sane man, which
could not be suggested to that of the insane. To
what purpose are reasons, if they do not prove them-
selves suflaciently strong to form a chain of necessity,
which will prevail over the antagonist chain already
leading onward the mind to its determinations?
"What avails it to bind green withes upon the arms
of Samson? To say, as has sometimes been inad-
vertently and superficially done, that the blame-
worthiness and punishableness of a crime lie in its
own nature, and are estimated by what the act is in
itself, and by the real state of the mind, without
any reference to the manner in which it was brought
into existence, is surely to lose sight of the fact, that
in thus estimating an action, as odious in itself, and
as entitling its author to punishment, there is always
a latent supposition, that the perpetrator of such an
action micjlit have chosen otherwise, than he did
choose to act. The measure of its moral odiousness

168 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

and guilt is always projiortionGcl to the supposed
unbiassed freedom of his mind, and so far as it is
deemed the result of circumstances and influences,
which have interfered with that freedom, he is con-
sidered Avorthy of pity rather than of punishment.
If, therefore, a clear distinction be made by God
and man in estimating the voluntary conduct of a
rational intellectual being, and that of those sensitive
creatures which are destitute of these endowments,
as it stands related to punishment, it follows that
there must be some material and most important
difference in the exercise of the faculty of AVill, as
the immediate instigator and regulator of that con-
duct in these two ranks of beings. Founding, there-
fore, our judgment upon this palpable phenomenon
of human nature in its sound state, in contrast with
other sentient beings not similarly endowed, or with
itself, in a state of mental incapacity and imbecility,
as subjecting to guilt and punishment, we are con-
strained to come to the conclusion, that it is the
Prerogative of Reason in the ultimate determina-
tions of the Will, which properly and distinguishingly
constitutes the liberty of moral agency, or as it has
usually been called, the freedom of the Will in man *.

* Since the first edition of this work was pnblished, the author
has been much struck with a coincidence of idea exhibited in con-
nection with this and some other parts of his subject, in a short
essay entitled The FhilosopJi)/ of the rian of Salvation, by an Ame-
rican citizen; an essay distinguished by a profound and accurato
view of the mental faculties as bearing on moral and religious truth.
• — "Man has a will and a conscience, and ho must ■iindenfaiul the
rule in order to ivill obedience. A law therefore adapted to man's
nature, must be adapted to his nndcrstandhuj.'" (p. 4G.)

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. IGO

It is the possession of this sublime endowment,
Avhich forms so broad and palpable a line of distinc-
tion between man and all other inferior voluntary
agents ; for it is very possible, as is obvious in the
case of those in whom this principle has not been
developed, or has lost its commanding influence, to
have a Will — to be a subject of volitions even the
strongest and most powerful, without moral liberty
or responsibility in the exercise of that faculty. It
seems evident that this principle forms the hinge, on
which really turns this important question in the
character of man, from the circumstance that ac-
countable liberty and moral agency are universally
regarded as coeval and coextensive in his nature with
the possession and exercise of right reason. They
begin and end at the same time, and are invariably
united in the same acts of conduct ; so that Avherever
the one is absent, the other cannot be present.
Eeason is pre-eminently the faculty of judgment and
combination. It is that which traces the connection
between causes and effects, between the various
divisions of duration into which time has been
marked out as past, present, or future. It is that
which decides upon the merits of actions, and pur-
sues them, through all their combinations of influ-
ence, to their remote and eventual consequences,
and by this means determines their comparative
desirableness, as they relate to the susceptibilities
of the soul, so as to exhibit an adequate ground for
clfoice and selection, amidst the diversified lines of
movement, which present their claims to the eye of
the mind. It is the business of this noble faculty

170 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

to arbitrate "between interfering demands — ^Ijetween
opposite and conflicting tendencies. To liave tliis
discretionary power — to be able to summon the
experience of the past, the sensations of the present,
and the probable anticipations of the future, into
judgment, in order to determine upon a litigated
measure; to hold the scale with a firm and even
hand, and with the intellectual eye steadily fixed
upon the tongue of the balance, in order to perceive
to what side the weight of good preponderates, and
to give its verdict accordingly, — the faculty of con-
ducting this discriminating process enters into the
very nature, and forms almost the very definition of
rational intelligence. Without such a directing and
controlling power, man Avould be utterly unfit for the
rank which he occupies in the scale of being.

Section YIII.

Punishment not inflicted where Reason is incapable op
exercising its control.

To evince that it is this Prerogative of Reason to
exert a determining influence over the various af-
fections and susceptibilities, which enter into the
exercises of the Will, that must be regarded as
constituting the essence of human freedom and tlie
groundwork of moral agency, we would remark, in
the first place, that, in our estimate of character, we
never consider those as deserving of punishment,, in
Avhom lieason is not in a state of sufiicient strengtli
or development to exercise this salutary control.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 171

]\Ioral agency, as connected with responsibility, is
altog'ctlier founded upon a liableness to punishment
on the one hand, and a capacity of remunerative
happiness on the other. Xow there are two cir-
cumstances indispensably necessary to constitute
just and rational and effective ground of punish-
ment. There must be first, a susceptibility of suf-
fering in the subject, upon which it is inflicted or
designed to be inflicted; and there must next be
liberty belonging to that being, in consequence of
the voluntary and conscious abuse of which he be-
comes a legitimate subject of punishment, for the
various purposes of reformation, discipline, and
example. The first of these circumstances is ne-
cessary, because without it there can be no real
punishment applied; however, in the ^jaroxysms of
passionate revenge, or in the cooler and more deli-
berate ferocity of baffled and disappointed resent-
ment, there may be the external machinery, the
show, and the mockery of punishment. But how
contemptible and absurd is the exhibition of this
impotent and imbecile rage ! How vain and ludi-
crous in its purpose, and how utterly foiled in its
end! A^^^ien v\-e see the child wreaking its little
passing vengeance upon the chair or the table,
against which it has run and hurt its head, and
with which, therefore, as the immediate occasion of
its pain, it associates the idea of guilt and punish-
ableness, or when it applies more calm chastisement
to the picture or the doll, which refuses to move and
to act in obedience to lawful authority, we smile at
the incongruity, or if we view it in a more serious

172 THE FACULTY OF YOLITIOX AS CONNECTED

light, we endeavonr by such reasonings as are
adapted to the child's capacity, to check in its
earliest manifestations a tendency, which might
otherwise grow into a settled habit of violence and
vindictiveness. But when we contemplate the in-
flated and frantic Xerxes at the head of the armies
of the East, ordering the infliction of so many
lashes upon the Hellespont as a rebel, who had the
insufferable daring to disturb the arrangements of
his master's mighty armament, we not only laugh
at the folly and the complete futility of such an
act, but we are astonished at the effect of flattery
and despotic power, in paralyzing the faculties of
the understanding so completely, and in strengthen-
ing the malignant and vindictive passions to a
degree, that is destructive to all sense and reason.
When we think, again, of the unseemly indignities,
which the annals of tyranny and persecution record
as having been offered to the bodies, to the mutilated
trunks, the half putrified limbs, and even to the
scarce distinguishable ashes of the obnoxious dead ;
when we read of the inanimate frames, at one time,
of rebels and traitors, at another, of patriots and
saints, of generous and self-devoting champions for
their country's liberties, and of martyrs and con-
fessors, Avho had died in a still more glorious and
illustrious cause, torn by ruffian hands from their
several repositories of silent and quiet repose, in
order to be maimed by the axe or hung in a
gibbet, that the eyes of triumphant barbarity miglit
feast themselves, at least, with the illusive semblance
of further suilbring and humiliation, avc rise, indeed.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 1 73

with indignant detestation a^^ainst such scenes, as
insulting to the decencies of humanity, as in many
instances completely contravening the demands of
truth and justice, and as indications of a fierce
and dark revenge in the perpetrators of such acts,
which no extremity of agony and no measure of
prostrate mortification can satiate; but we feel, at
the same time, that in such cases punishment and
sufi*ering, except as they may regard the living, are
completely out of the question*. We are perfectly
conscious, that the vitally susceptible alone can feel
a pang, as well as experience a transport. The
atheistic philosopher even persuaded himself, that
while he was yet alive he had escaped in a great
degree from the dominion of punishment, and in reply
to the menace of the tyrant exclaimed, " It differs
nothing to Theodorus, whether he rots on the earth,
or in the air."

The second requisite above-mentioned, the pos-
session of liberty, is necessary, because that without
such a discretionary power over the active faculties,
however there may be a susceptibility of punishment,
it is contrary to every principle of justice to inflict
it. We have already remarked the absurdity and
incongruity of attempting to excite suff'ering, where
there was no capacity of feeling, and represented

* Among the most disgraceful and absurd exhibitions of this
kind, which have outraged religion and humanity, was the exhuma-
tion and subsequent burning of the remains of Bucer and Fagius
under the authority of a commission from Cardinal Pole. — Vid.
Strype, Eccles. Mem., iii. i. 510, Zurich Letters, Parker Soc,

174 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

such objects to be entirely out of the range of blame
and guilt, and moral discipline. And, if in such
cases, it is impossible to apply punishment, so in the
destitution of the circumstance which we are now
considering — an entire freedom of mind extending
to every act of the conduct, it would be utterly
unjust to inflict it. If, therefore, liberty — an exemp-
tion from any overwhelming constraint from within,
or from without — a power of unquestionable self-
government and self-control be that, which alone
qualifies a living sentient being for punishment de-
signedly inflicted, there cannot be a surer method, a
method more strictly of the experimental kind, for
discovering the nature and bounds of freedom as a
principle of the human mind, than to mark out those
limits, within which alone punishment can be legiti-
mately aAvarded as the due desert of guilt. ^Vliat-
ever principle, or faculty, or endowment of human
nature is found coincident and coextensive with the
capability of contracting guilt, and consequently
with a just liability to punishment ; whatever quality
of the mind or character is found to run parallel
with these fundamental grounds and invariable ac-
companiments of responsible agency, that quality or
endowment must unquestionably be a main point in
the system of human liberty. If that principle be
found to limit guilt and punishableness in all cases,
and under all possible circumstances; if it be the
test, by which alone is tried the equity of that inten-
tional suffering, which all acknowledge can be justly
occasioned only to those, avIio were free in the actions
which call it forth, then surely it must be granted.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 1 75

that such a principle must be very closely connected
with liberty itself, if it does not enter into its essence
and form its very mainspring. In order to render
the matter clearer, we may in such a case technically
consider punishableness, as a species of middle term,
connecting the principle upon which it is founded
with liberty, to which it is also attached by the same
inseparable tie. In the government of God, and in
all the laA\^ul and equitable administrations of the
authority of man, they are the free alone w^ho are
punished, and if we are at any loss to determine who
the free are, what leading and distinguishing quality
of character this liberty involves, we have only to
inquire, what endowments of mind must belong to
the individuals who are considered proper subjects
of punishment, as being capable of contracting
guilt. And this investigation will at once deter-
mine who are the free, and what it is which consti-
tutes them such.

To discover this is no difficulty, for it is at once
obvious, and universally recognised, that they alone
can really contract blame, and be justly punished,
v>'ho have the leading and commanding faculty of
Reason in full growth, and capable of exerting its
discriminative poAver in forming a judgment of the
action, upon which punishment is entailed. We
mean not to say that it is necessary Eeason should
exist in every such instance in the highest possible
degree of improvement and cultivation, in order to
capacitate for guilt, and to expose to punishment.
For Eeason may be so paralyzed by inordinate pas-
sions habitually indulged — it may be so numbed by

176 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS COXXECTED

inactivity and indolence and neglect — it may be so
blinded bv prejudices and evil habits — it may be so
besotted by sm-feiting- and intemperance, as to be
utterly disabled from performing its appropriate
office of conducting the preferences of the mind,
and directing them to their legitimate objects. But
the guilt contracted in this imbecile state of the
rational faculty is rather aggravated than relieved,
because the whole series of improper indulgences,
or of criminal acts, by which it has been reduced
to this state, or has been prevented from rising to
its ]3roper level in the character, were so many accu-
mulations of guilt, which are now punished in the
impotence, to which they have led, or in the exem-
plary sufferings which are almost the necessary result
of that impotence, — just as in one of the states of
Greece, double punishment was awarded to a crime
committed in a state of intoxication, one portion for
having actually perpetrated the crime, and the other
for the inebriety, which gave occasion to the perpe-
tration of it. In the original view of the case, the
possession of the unimpeded use of the faculty of
Eeason is universally considered as indispensably
necessary, both to the commission of actual crime,
in the moral sense of the expression, and to the
sufferance of the punishment, which is the result of
that crime. This is obvious, from the respective
cases of infants, idiots, and madmen, and of the
whole class of those sensitive beings, which are sup-
posed either incapable of discerning a difference
between right and wrong, or of discovering the
object of punishment, both retrospective as it re-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 177

gards the past, and prospective as it reg'ards their
future conduct. Whenever there is supposed to be
a faculty capable of perceiving these distinctions,
and of benefiting from the results of discipline and
experience, there punishment is deemed just and
salutary; but beyond these capabilities it cannot
with propriety and discretion — it cannot without a
gross violation of the law of equity and kindness,
without an unwarrantable exertion of arbitrary
power, proceed a single step. It is utterly wrong
to say that all which is necessary, or all that can
be conceived as belonging to the liberty of moral
agency, is no more than that the person acting
should do as he pleases, and be influenced in what
he does, by the strongest motives ; for the infant of
six months old, and the most frantic maniac, so far
as he is exempt from coercion, act as much under
the influence of feelings, which operate with them
in the shape of motives, as the most cool and dis-
passionate and calculating reasoner in the land.
But who would say that the former are equally sub-
jects of moral government, and consequently as
firmly bound by the sanctions of that government
as the latter. Moral freedom, in fact, which is the
kind of freedom we are now investigating, consists
more in a power of restraining, selecting, and con-
trolling actions than in impetuously urging them
forward. And hence intellectual impotence, an
inability to exert this sovereignty of 2)0wer and
dominion over the subordinate faculties of the soul —
over the afl*ections and propensities, which are the
more immediate stimulants to action, utterly dis-

N

178 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

qualifies for the enjoyment of liberty, the obligations
of morality, and the penal sanctions of government.
In the exercise of accomitable freedom it is always
assumed ; it is laid doAvn as the acknowledged basis
of the whole system of discipline or responsibility,
that the Understanding or the rational Faculty is in
a state to command the sensual passions and other
inferior inclinations, so as to prevent their deviation
from the line of rectitude, and to secure their strict
and unvarying adherence, in all their operations
and effects, to the authorized principles, and the
established laws of conduct. There is something-
more, therefore, required to constitute such liberty
of Will as can alone qualify an individual for being
a moral agent, than the maintainers of philoso-
phical, or even of theological, necessity are willing
to grant. It is not enough for this freedom that
a man should simply act as he pleases — that he
should yield to the influence of the stronger motive,
for this the most raving madman, or the most imbe-
cile idiot is as capable of doing as the profoundest
philosopher, or the devoutest saint. It is only a part,
though an essential and indispensable part of libert}^,
that an agent should be able to do as he pleases,
however unfettered and unlimited that power may
be. The influence of motives, as immediately and
necessarily directing the conduct, is, in fact, the mere
superficial arrangement, the exterior instrumentality
which invariably, indeed, precedes the last result, but,
in order to attach the character of morality to that
result, it must itself have received its direction from
something superior and more recondite ; and to

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 179

represent it as that, Mliich alone is concerned in the
liberty of a moral agent, is the same thing as it
would be to represent the wheels as the sole agents
in guiding the movements of a system of machinery,
or the wonderful operations of the steam-engine as
traceable no further than the alternations of ascent
and descent produced in that part of this complicated
framework, which receives the first impression of
force, and is inseparably connected in the way of a
power more or less proximate with all the subsequent
results. One who was utterly unacquainted with the
nature, or the existence of the prime mover in this
astonishing arrangement of physical powers and
adaptations, and with the various joints and valves
which are necessary to the secure evolution of the
effects eventually designed to be produced, might
content liimself with barely inspecting the revolutions
of the wheels, and the disposition of the connecting-
links, and affirm this curious and indissoluble ar-
rangement of wheels, and screws, and pistons, to form
at least unto man the whole science of the steam-
engine, and that everything beyond these palpable
agents, as belonging to the instrument itself, was
mystery and impenetrable obscurity. We know
perfectly well, indeed, that in physical, as well as
intellectual or metaphysical operations, there is an
ultimate power, which can be traced only to the
sovereign will of a supreme Disposer ; and that in
our inquiries into both we must rest in that will, as
our ultimate basis. But we maintain that mere
motives as such, without any regard to the means
by which they have been produced, or the conside-

N 2

180 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

rations by -vvhicli they are accompanied, do no more
constitute tliat ultimate ground, in our estimate of
human liberty, than wheels and rods form the termi-
nating point of our investigations into the nature of
the steam-engine. AYe, in fact, recognise the prin-
ciple— we assume the point, that merely to have the
power of willing or of acting as he pleases, is not that
which constitutes the essence of the freedom of a
moral agent in all our administrations of penal jus-
tice. The most atrocious criminal unquestionably
acted under the instigation of motives, which, as
existing, and as prevailing, in the absence of all inter-
ference on the part of a better princijile, or a higher
faculty, operated in him with commanding influence;
and yet we consider him, and surely we justly consi-
der him, if possessed of reason and understanding, as
accountable for the result, and adjudge him a punish-
ment which is deemed proportionate to the enormity
of his guilt. A maniac, who escapes from his chain,
or in a fit of unaccountable phrenzy takes advantage
of that measure of physical liberty, which, it was
hoped, might be safely indulged to him, rushes upon
the first impotent individual that he meets with,
and, perhaps, takes away his life. It cannot be said
that in this lamentable deed he acts without a motive,
without a most powerful and commanding motive,
though that motive might not be malignant hate, or
a lust of gain ; nor can it be ailirmcd that he acts
otherwise than as he chooses, than as it appears best
to him to give scope to that excess of ferocious irri-
tation, under which his nervous and mental system
labours. lie most assuredly acted without any

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 181

external incitement; he acted under tlie undisturbed
influence of the motives — of the precipitate sugges-
tions of his disordered mind. He was, therefore,
in that respect, as free as the most deliberate and
cold-blooded murderer. But do Ave regard him, do
v,e criminate him, do we penally treat him as a free
agent? If we do not, there must be some other dif.-
ference betv/een his act, as an act of liberty and free
agency, and that of the designing and calculating
destroyer of human life, than the difference in the
state of the circulation of the blood, or the degrees
of irritability in the nervous system. And wherever
that difference is found to rest, that point must
constitute the definitive feature, the essential germ
of the liberty of moral agency. That point of
human nature, in the instance before us, we can
be at no loss to determine. The consideration of
it is embodied in the whole scheme of the govern-
ment of God, as it is more partially developed in
the progress of time, and as it will be more dis-
tinctly unfolded in the destinies of eternity. The
assumption of it is laid doAvn as the basis, and the
recognition of it is interwoven with the whole sys-
tem of human judicature. The murderer is endued
with a principle of Eeason, which, in the exercise of
its legitimate prerogative in his character, ought
and has the povrer, to act as the inquisitor of his
motives, the controller of his passions, the regulator
of his conduct, and the guardian of his security.
He is, therefore, free, and for the abuse of his
liberty is justly liable to punishment. The maniac
has unhappily lost this distinguishing princix>le of

182 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

his nature as a moral being. In him the bahance
of power ha^ been destroyed. The commanding-
faculty has lost its necessary pre-eminence in the
system. The head has been severed from the
moral frame, aud nothing remains but an occa-
sional convulsive movement of disjointed faculties.
He has ceased deliberately to think, though he has
not ceased to feel, to move, and to be impelled.
He has become incapable of guiding himself with
judgment, though not of being actuated by motives.
He is still able to will and to act, though he knows
not hoAv rightly to direct his volitions, or to regu-
late his actions. In him the power is extinct, which
could say unto the tide of inclination. Hitherto
mayest thou safely go, and no further. In him
the ear is shut which could listen to the calls of
duty, the dictates of conscience, and the eloquence
of affection. In him the eye is closed which could
glance over the past, survey the present, and pene-
trate into the future, and mark out in this extensive
scenery such prominent points of observation as
might form rules of experience, incentives to action,
and directions of prudent conduct. We, therefore,
view him with kindness and compassion, instead of
prosecuting him with vengeance. And b}^ this we
are led to a second consideration, which serves to
prove and illustrate the fact, that it is Reason
exerting a supreme and commanding power, that
forms the distinguishing point, the very essence of
the liberty of man as a moral and accountable
agent.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 183

Section IX.

Reason capable of exciting New Volitions.

AYe now proceed to remark, tlierefore, that Eeason,
as constituting the deliberating, the judging faculty
of the human mind, can excite new volitions —
volitions essentially different from those which
would have inevitably risen, if the same faculty
had been dormant, careless, or indifferent. If it
be the province of Reason to exert this creative
power in the economy of the human mind, it must
be allowed to be far more closely connected with
the question of liberty and of the exercises of the
Will, than has often been supposed. Man is an
intellectual as well as a sensitive being — a being
of momentary passions and emotions. He is not,
therefore led, or at least, he ought not to be led
like the lower animals by mere instinct and present
feeling in the formation of his habits, in the direc-
tion of his preferences, and in the regulation of his
conduct. The manner, in which Heason operates
in exciting new volitions, and, through the medium
of these volitions, in governing the course of the
conduct, is not that of constraining or forcing the
mind to resolve against the strongest motives:
this, indeed, is impossible, and contrary to the
whole economy of mental agency, but that of sug-
gesting such views of things as will infallibly act
as motives. It is not in the nature of man — it
would involve a principle of self-contradiction and
neutralization to suppose that he should be able to

184 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

will or to act in opposition to Avliat his judgment and
feelings unitedly recommend to him as best. But it
is in entire accordance with the elements of his intel-
lectual, moral, and sensitive being, that Eeason, by
exhibiting actions in their real character and as con-
nected with their proper consequences, should mate-
rially influence his preferences, and give a new
colouring to the whole order of his volitions. There
is in the understanding of man an active energy, a
prospective and calculating power, which enables it
to range over the wide scene of contemplation, and
to present to the elective faculty such views of things
as are calculated to call it into exercise. It is by
thus judiciously availing itself of that original ten-
dency of our nature, which inclines us to the choice
of the greater good, that Eeason successfully acts
upon the faculty of volition, and not by any unna-
tural attempt to urge us in a direction contrary to
our strongest motives. AYe affirm not that Reason
can change the original constitution of the human
soul, and so alter its susceptibilities, as that those
things should appear desirable to it, which it was
made to abhor ; but it assuredly has such a power to
appeal to those susceptibilities, and so to adapt the
scene of contemplation to them, as that a ne\v order
of desires and preferences will immediately spring
up in the mind. Eeason, especially if it be enlight-
ened by faith, is the eye of the soul, by Avhich it is
enabled to range over surrounding scenes, hy which
it discovers a thousand perils, Avliich would have been
liidden from the dull vision of sense, and discerns
advantages as numerous, which would have escaped

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 185

the same contracted faculty. It is the telesco2)e,
which the moral combatant in the arduous war of
temptation employs to reconnoitre the positions, and
to watch the movements of his enemies. It is that
transparent and approximating medium, which to the
eye of the calm and deliberate observer brings out
upon the firmament of futurity a countless multitude
of objects, Av])ich otherwise would have been lost in
the immensity of their distance ; and by presenting
this new aspect of things, and exhibiting every object
under a nearer angle, it naturally calls forth a new
series of volitions and determinations. AYithout
neutralizing and utterly destroying the Eeason of
man, it is impossible to deny that it is capable of
exerting a most important influence upon the course
of the Will, and upon the whole system of prefer-
ences as regulating the actions of the life. To prove
this, if it stood in any need of confirmation, we have
only to consider how different are the volitions formed
in the human mind, when Eeason is active and alive,
and exerts its full force in selecting, arranging, and
discriminating the various claims, Avhich offer them-
selves to the choice, and when that faculty is heedless
through indifference, paralyzed by sensual indulgence
and intemperance, or incapacitated by any other cir-
cumstance for the exercise of its discerning care or
its predominant authority. How different are the
choices of the sober man from those of the same
man in a state of intoxication ! The ground of this
difference is, that in the one state Reason is utterly
disabled from performing its appropriate office, in
directing the general course of volition, by bringing

186 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

those considerations prominently fonvard to the view
of the mind, which woukl have caused the scale of
desire to preponderate to the opposite side. In the
other state, this enlightened faculty takes a deliberate
survey of the conflicting pretensions, which labour to
force themselves upon the choice, and estimates them
according to their greater or less adaptation, in their
ultimate consequences as well as their present effects,
to meet those exigencies and susceptibilities, which
are implanted in man as a ])art of his very nature.

It is therefore by judging and by determining in
favour of the source of the greater good, so far as it
can be ascertained, that Eeason becomes the author
of new volitions, and a creator of new motives. As
it is the great end of man to be happy, to enjoy the
greatest measure of good, which is compatible with
the wise and benevolent arrangements of his Creator,
and with his own nature and capacities, it is
assigned to Reason, as the leading attribute of his
character, and the distinguishing faculty of his
peculiar rank of being, to be the guardian of this
happiness, to watch the progress of events in their
various relations to it, to give warning, in a clear
and audible tone, of the injurious results that may
spring from actions and pursuits, in which there
may be a strong sensitive propensity to indulge,
and to exhibit in all their inherent excellency, and
substantial and permanent advantages, such habits
and modes of conduct as may for the present be
attended with considerable pain and self-denial. It
is the office of Eeason thus to liold the balance be-
tween the several objects and degrees of enjoyment

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 187

and essential good, Avhieli alternately advance their
opposite and often embarrassing claims to human
preference, an office which, when duly enlightened
and informed, she is fully competent to discharge.
To deny her such an active power of superintendence
and effective control, is surely to deny a fact in the
history of the human mind, of Avhich every one, who
reflects upon the intellectual processes which take
place in his own character, must be perfectly aware.
It is to annihilate and destroy all that is valuable
and distinctive in intellect, as the glorious attribute
of man, as the umpire of conduct, as the jndge of
truth, as the salutary director of liberty, as the only
earthly guide to happiness. The mutual adaptation
of the character of man, and of external objects as
capable of receiving and communicating gratification,
we know, indeed, to be entirely independent of any
exercises of intellect or volition on the part of the
former. Outward circumstances, or personal acts of
conduct as related to those circumstances, are good
or evil, are occasions of more or less comparative
happiness or misery to man, simply because the will
of God has rendered them such; because the esta-
blished constitution of nature, as ordained by Him, has
stamped upon them these qualities. It is not neces-
sary to liberty that man should be without invincible
and unchangeable inclinations of nature. Such in-
clinations, indeed, are essential as the very ground-
work of mental freedom, but it is equally essential
that all these inclinations should meet and unite in
the one commanding and preponderating emotion of

188 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

the choice of the greater good, Avher^ various degrees
of enjoyment, as springing from different sources,
place the mind under the unavoidable necessity of
choosing the one or the other.

The relations of the intellectual and physical
universe have already been settled, and the laws of
human preference are as firm and secure as any of
the rest. But then, it is one of these immutable
arrangements, that the love of the greater good
should always operate in man with a ceaseless and
unvarying influence, and that Eeason, as improved,
by diligent cultivation, and as enlightened by what-
ever additional aid may be graciously vouchsafed,
should direct him, and mark out to him with
clearness and decision, amidst the manifold illusions
with which he is surrounded, what that good is. AYe
know not what higher idea of liberty than this can
be formed, that man should be the subject of a con-
tinual and intense desire of happiness, that he should
feel perfectly free in his choice, and that Eeason,
aided by the requisite measure of assistance from
above should be always at hand, as a vigilant and
faithful sentinel, to warn him of danger, and to direct
him to those measures, which may ultimately secure
the complete attainment of his object. The desire
of happiness, and a capacity for its enjoyment, form
the ultimate fact, so far as we are capable of investi-
gating it, the gravitating tendency of the human
mind; but Eeason, somewhat like the original im-
pulse, hypothetically assumed in the JSTewtonian phi-
losophy, as having been impressed upon the planetary

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 189

bodies for the purpose of controlling their centripetal
force, was designed so to regulate and restrain this
tendency, as to secure the harmony of the system.

It is therefore by exhibiting new views of things,
by taking an enlarged survey of the scene of human
character and destiny, by bringing the results of ex-
perience to bear upon the determinations of present
conduct, by removing the veil of futurity, so far as it
is the privilege of human sagacity, aided by all the
auxiliary lights that have been afforded, to remove it,
and by tracing actions to all their remote conse-
quences upon the happiness and security of the indi-
vidual,— it is by this train of operations that Eeason
exerts her supremacy in the exercises of human
liberty, so far as it is concerned in the creation of
fresh motives, and in the excitement of new volitions.
Who is not sensible — who has not a thousand times
experienced in his own mind, that the suggestion of
a new topic of consideration, the development of a
new order of results as likely to follow upon the pro-
posed act, or the communication of new intelligence,
has, by shifting the scene of contemplation, changed
the nature and tendency of his volitions, as related
to any object of pursuit, or any line of conduct, and
given a new direction to the whole current of his
preferences ? To deny that the Intellect does thus
indirectly operate upon the determinations of the
Will, is to oppose the immediate testimony of every
man's experience, no dictate of which is more clear
and certain, than that the exercises of volition are
very materially modified, and in many instances en-
tirely transformed by those inquiries and delibera-

190 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

tions, the capacity to engage in which, enters into
the very essence, and forms the very definition of
Eeason, as an endowment of the hmnan character.

To argue against such a fact with some degree of
plausibility, to entangle it in a net of logical subtilty
and metaphysical sophistry, indeed, we deem to be
possible, as many have written elaborate treatises,
which it requires no small measure of philosophical
acumen to refute, to prove that matter does not exist.
But we hold it to be equally impossible to convince
any man of reflecting mind, unbiassed by theory,
that there is no material universe, as it is to persuade
him that he cannot reason himself into numberless
volitions by the mere energy of his intellectual
faculty, applied to the investigation of those actions
and pursuits which are most conducive to happiness,
and with which is connected the enjoyment of the
greater good. We find, in truth, that it is this very
appeal to our reason and understanding, through the
medium of rewards and punishments, which Jehovah
himself is pleased to employ, for exciting such voli-
tions, and creating such motives in the mind, as may
at least have a natural tendency to secure the practice
of virtue, and the pursuit of " glory, and honour, and
immortality,"

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 191

Section X.

The Prerogative Power op Reason extends over the whole

RANGE OF the CHARACTER.

In further illustration of the leading princij)le advo-
cated in the preceding pages, as constituting the
main pillar of the freedom essential to moral agency,
as inherent in the character of man, we observe that
this prerogative of Eeason extends in a manner more
or less influential over the whole range of the mind
and conduct of every individual possessed of the un-
fettered use of his faculties. This appears obvious
from the fact universally acknowledged, — that when
we witness any very remarkable deviation from the
established laws of human character, whether it be in
thought, or feeling, or action, we conclude, in accord-
ance with the general sentiments of mankind, that
such an individual has lost that mastery, which we
assume that sound Reason was capable of exercising
over these parts of his nature. When we see a per-
son run into such extravagances of mind or conduct,
as are utterly inconsistent with the supposition of a
sane and well-ordered intellect, we consider such
an one as no longer legally or morally accountable
for his behaviour; we regard him as one who has lost
the essential and distinctive principle of liberty, as
involving responsible agency. And what is the
faculty — what is the peculiar intellectual or mental
operation in which we view him as deficient? In
what department of his character do we consider him
to have failed ? In what part of the system has that

192 THE FACULTY OP VOLITION AS CONNECTED

disorganization taken place^ on the ground of Avliich
we no longer deem him a proper subject of reward or
punishment, of virtuous merit, or of guilt and moral
delinquency ? It is not that any one of his affections
has been paralyzed: it is not that he has lost the
power to love and to hate, to hope or to fear. It is
not that he has become incapable of glowing with
desire, or of being infuriated with rage. The capacity
of being warmed with such affections, of being trans-
ported by such passions, and of being torn by tumul-
tuous and conflicting emotions, he may possess, in-
deed, in a far greater degree than was the case, prior
to the melancholy catastrophe, Avhicli has befallen
him. i^or is it any decay of bodily health or strength,
any diminution of physical energy, for this endow-
ment also may remain unto him unimpaired. He
may, moreover, in many things, have much acuteness
and sagacity. The extreme irritability and high ex-
citement, of which he has become susceptible, may
occasionally give a quickness of apprehension, a rapi-
dity of conception, and a felicity of combination, far
exceeding the usual order of his mental operations.
But he has evidently lost his control over these
vigorous and energetic powers. It is obvious that
he cannot command them. He wants the magic
wand, wherewith these mighty spirits may be laid
and kept within those bounds of propriety and equity,
to which, in all their movements, they should be
restrained. He wants that commanding and all-per-
vading faculty which might cause the rest to blend
their exercises in one delightful and harmonious
play of operations ; and that faculty, experience, ob-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 193

servation, and the universal usage of mankind agree
in representing to be the faculty of Eeason. It is
the loss of this, which constitutes the awful malady of
mental aberration. It is the -want of the due strength,
or exercise of this, that occasions every irregularity in
feeling and action. It is the overthrow of this that
shatters the whole system of moral agency, and, to
all accountable purposes, overturns the whole fabric
of human liberty.

Section XI.

The Theory of Suggestion destructive of accountable
Agency.

In a late extensive and, in many respects, very
valuable system of mental philosophy, a theory has
been advanced and developed, with great ingenuity
of reasoning, and occasionally with much eloquence
of style, by which the faculty of volition, in addition
to many other supposed principles of the human
mind, w^hich it professedly labours to disprove and
supersede, appears to me to be utterly annihilated.
Among the original qualities of the mind of man,
it is said by the author of the very elaborate inves-
tigation, of which this theory forms a part, that
there is a tendency in one state of thought or feel-
ing, to give rise to another, connected wdth the for-
mer by some tie of proximity or resemblance. This
tendency to excite congenial or contrasted ideas, he
terms the faculty of Suggestion, wdiich he divides
into simple and relative. That there does exist a

o

194 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

mysterious aptitude in one idea to give rise to
anotlier, which is related to it in the way of simi-
litude or contrast, is unquestionable, and it has
generally been referred to a principle of the mind
called that of Association; but this author, by what
he conceives to be a nicer and more accurate ana-
lysis, annihilates that as well as many other powers,
such as those of attention, memory, and imagination,
which had been considered in former systems as
original elements of the mental constitution, and
resolves all their phenomena into that, which he calls
the faculty of Suggestion. In his reasoning upon
the doctrines of the association of ideas we are of
opinion that this acute and very eloquent writer
utterly fails, and that his argument proceeds alto-
gether upon a false and unwarrantable assumption.
He seems to consider the doctrine of the associ-
ation of ideas as involving the fact that the ideas,
between which this relation subsists, must have
co-existed together in the mind, in the very form
and manner in which the one afterwards suggests
the other, in order that this affinity may be formed,
and that the subsequent suggestion of the one by
the other, is nothing more than a recognition of
a former acquaintance. But who ever thought of
such a co-existence as necessary to the excitement
of one idea or emotion, on account of some like-
ness or striking contrariety it has to some former
idea or emotion*? AVe had always considered the
phrase of association of ideas as meaning nothing

Vitlc Broavn's Fhilosophi/ of the Iluman Mind. Lect. 40, &c.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 195

more than that one idea had an aptitude indeed to
excite another, on the ground of some resemblance,
analogy, or contrast, and that in the mind there
was a natural susceptibility of such a combination
of associate conceptions or emotions, just as the
sound of thunder generally follows the flash of light-
ning; but, surely, without supposing that the two
ideas must have before existed at the same instant
in the mind. It is quite enough that the two ideas
have ever existed at all in the mind, and under any
modification, which is sufficiently specific to lay the
foundation of a relationship more or less direct, in
order to answer all the demands of the doctrine of
association properly understood. Any other con-
nexion represented as subsisting between such ideas
is altogether arbitrary.

But the error, which the theory of suggestion as
propounded by this author involves respecting the
phraseology of association of ideas, is trifling, in
comparison of the enormous length, to which it is
carried in reference to the faculty of volition, and the
liberty of human thought. According to the hy-
pothesis so confidently stated, and so plausibly and
eloquently advocated by this philosopher, the human
mind is merely a sort of channel, through which there
flows an incessant stream of feelings and ideas sug-
gesting and propelling each other, like the particles
of water in a current, or the successive portions of
time, in a manner altogether independent of any
exercise of Will; or to change the simile, it may be
regarded as a mere mirror, which reflects in suc-
cession the various forms and appearances of things,

o 2

19G THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

that by a regular la'.v of nature pass over its sur-
face, but utterly excluding every notion of voluntary
control over any one part of the series. The theory
represents it as absurd to suppose that the faculty
of volition can have anything to do in the pro-
cess, because before any idea can be willed into
existence, independently of this established and
immutable law of spontaneous suggestion, it must
have already existed. It is a consequence, spring-
ing quite naturally from this representation, that,
in the formation of a system of opinions upon
any subject, the mind is altogether passive, and is
bound to receive, with meek submission, whatever
the all-controlling and unaccountable power of sug-
gestion may deign to exhibit to its view. Difference
of opinion, therefore, is a necessary and unavoidable
effect, because the suggesting principle differs, in
its strength and direction, in different individuals.
The train of ideas, which unitedly constitutes the
chain of evidence in a process of investigation,
whether mathematical and demonstrative, or moral
and analogical, forms and generates itself in the
mind by a law of suggestion as firm and necessary in
itself, and in a manner as entirely independent of any
exertion 'of will on the part of the investigator, as
any order of phenomena or physical successions esta-
blished in the economy of nature. To suppose the
intervention of any operation of volition, in calling
into existence, in modifying the character, or in con-
trolling and regulating the direction of this series
of views, for the due rise and progress of which
nature has already provided, by a law as certain

WITH LIBERTY AND ^ECESSITl'. 1 97

and unvarying as any process of chemical combina-
tion or decomposition, is deemed an utter absurdity,
inasmuch as the slightest voluntary effort in search
of any new idea, as a medium of demonstration
and conviction, implies the existence of that idea
already in the mind. The discovery of the relation
of two remote idea<, therefore, is not owing to any
peculiar faculty of finding out by a voluntary search
such media of proof as may demonstrate that rela-
tion, but is altogether dependent upon the simple
fact, that these necessary media happen to rise in
the mind, at the proper and exact conjuncture,
which fact is entirely to be accounted for upon the
principle of the original law of suggestion. In this
view of the case, nothing can be more obvious than
that, in the process of intellectual investigation, and,
indeed, in the whole range of mental exercises, the
faculty of volition is altogether annihilated, except
as it may coexist in the form of a wish or desu-e
with the feelings or ideas, to which suggestion alone
gives rise. It is vain to say that volition is thus
combined and interwoven with the operations of
the suggesting tendency, while it is maintained that
every subsequent state of the mind is as necessarily
and regularly an effect of a preceding state, as the
growth of the physical and organic structure is
an effect of that law of expansion, which was
originally impressed upon the bodily constitution.
The desire or delight that may accompany the deve-
lopment of the mental phenomena, can no more
attach to them a voluntary, moral, and accountable
character, than the same emotions associated with

198 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS COMECTED

the evolution of the bodily organs, can impart the
same character to the results of assimilation and
nutrition. Such feelings never can make it a virtue
that the corporeal trunk should rise in an upright
direction, hj a vrell arranged superposition of par-
ticles, and that the various branches which shoot
forth out of it, should form themselves into a size
and shape of sj^nmetry, because such a disposition
of the aggregate atoms, constituting the physical
system, is a just and legitimate object of desire;
nor again, on the other hand, can they render it a
vice that there should be any remarkable defect in
any of these formations. Wlien the exercise, or at
least the capacity of exercising a controlling and
commanding power of Will is excluded, except as it
may exist in the form of an accompanying and unin-
fluential appendage — as, in fact, a mere colouring of
the sentiment, or emotion, the substance of which is
altogether independent of it, liberty, morality, and
responsibility, must surely be altogether neutralized.
And in truth the philosophy of mind is in this
respect, to a very considerable extent, entirely con-
sistent with itself. It is freely conceded, rather it
is unhesitatingly advanced with much specious
candour and benevolence by the author of the
Theory under consideration, that diversity of
opinion upon the most important points is the
necessary, and, therefore, blameless result of that
constitution of mind, which he endeavours to prove ;
and that this diversity will be in exact proportion
to the diversity of strength, or weakness, or spon-
taneous tendency belonging to the suggesting prin-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 19D

ciple. In one man, the state of the mind is such
as that Avithout any availing, or, indeed, possible
agency or intervention of Will, another state is
suggested, or another idea or train of ideas called to
the view, just as the state of one body is such as
to grow stout, and the state of another such as to
grow tall. And if choice was altogether excluded
in the nature of the ideas, or the media of evidence
and proof, which presented themselves to the mind,
or in the measure of the influence, Avhich these ideas
exerted upon the judgment, it is obvious, that the
last result — the deliberate opinion formed upon any
subject, however vital and important, is equally out
of the control of the Will, and, therefore, exempt
from anything, which can attach to it a character
of liberty or responsibility, of guilt or blame. And
if opinions are thus involuntary, and, therefore,
out of the jurisdiction of morality and account-
ableness, Avhy may not feelings, principles, actions,
every element in short, which enters into the con-
stitution of the character of man, be equally so?
The class of emotions, it is allowed, quite as much
as that of ideas or intellectual states, are subject to
the very same law of suggestion in its various
modifications of simple and relative. Upon this
scheme the natural and unavoidable order of human
character and conduct appears to be this — The state
of the mind, at any given period, is such as to
suggest certain opinions. — These opinions, when
thoroughly matured, suggest principles; for Avhat,
indeed, are principles but established opinions?
Principles thus formed suggest strong feelings, Avhere

200 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

tlie question is such as can engage and interest the
feelings; and feelings, as every one knows, when
they become predominant in the mind, operate
as motives, and suggest actions congenial AAith
themselves. Throughout the whole series of these
suggestions, as they relate to the character of man,
there does not appear to be a single point, at
which the moral faculty of volition can introduce
its influence, interpose its power, and effectually
break the chain. So that allowing the principle of
suggestion its full sway, as maintained in this
Theory, over the sentiments and emotions of every
kind, virtue and vice are at once excluded from the
universe. It is to no purpose to say that there is in
every human breast a feeling of approbation of vir-
tue, and disapprobation of vice, which in reality are
but another phraseology for the principle of a moral
sense, for this approbation or disapprobation involves
the notion of some standard of right and wrong ; in
accordance with which the individual knows and feels
that he ought and had free choice to regulate his
thoughts, feelings, and actions, so far as they can be
objects of a moral estimate.

The notion of " self-approveableness" as consti-
tuting the only ohligation to the practice of morality
and religion, indeed we consider as replete with ab-
surdity, and if carried to its legitimate consequences
as utterly subversive of the very basis of religion and
all accountable agency. We should be sorry to
charge such an intention upon the very amiable and
ingenious individual, Avho is the author of this hy-
pothesis, which is, indeed, very closely allied to the

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 201

theory of a moral sense as advocated by his country-
man Dr. Hutchcson. That there is in human nature
as originally formed, and as subsequently influenced
by the established order of the divine government^ a
principle, which, unless grievously perverted by evil
habits and circumstances, sounds in unison with the
will of God as the last standard of right, we are fully
persuaded. But this principle, in the present state of
our nature, is far too unsteady and fluctuating in its
operatic ns, and carries too little authority in its sanc-
tions to be regarded as forming the sole obligation
to virtue. To suppose that man is accountable to no
other tribunal than his own feelings of approbation or
the reverse, is, indeed, to adapt the rule of morality
to the varying views and susceptibilities of mankind,
according to the endless diversity of circumstances
under which they may be placed. When the author
of the Theory supposes himself pressed with this
difficulty, he is in fact forced to have recourse to the
very system of utility, which he had combated with
so much eloquence, as that which alone could save
him from the unavoidable difficulties of his own.
Wlien he feels himself called upon to account for the
fact, that a Hindoo will destroy his OAvn parent or child
with an emotion of most entire self-approveableness,
and with an undoubting persuasion that he has per-
formed a meritorious act, an act, therefore, Avhich upon
the author's hypothesis, he was under an obligation to
perform as much as any other duty could be binding
upon him; in order to relieve this deluded individual
from a charge of demerit, he is obliged to represent
this act, as generally considered by the members of

202 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

that community^ to be calculated to promote the
advantage of the Avhole ; and what is this but to shift
the obligation of virtue from self-approveableness,
and to fix it upon utility* ?

It is with great reluctance and unfeigned regret
that we have offered these remarks upon what we
regard as the most essential and defective parts of
unquestionably one of the ablest and most compre-
hensive systems of mental philosophy in any lan-
guage. The views of the author appear completely
wrong on the important questions of volition and
moral obligation; and hence, his scheme is lament-
ably defective with respect to the great foundations
of human responsibility. He seems to have no notion
of obligation as any thing external, to which the voice
within the breast is only required to respond; as any
thing imposed by a sovereign power, with which the
subject is bound to comply, so far as it is known
independently of any prior notions that may have
been formed in his own mindf . And hence, he never
once, so far as we can recollect, makes any direct
and impressive reference to a future state of punish-
ment, by which the violation of this rule of right will
be awfully resented, but uniformly speaks of death as
a mere transition into a scene of the most glorious
and transcendent felicity. He seems to take it quite
for granted, as altogether a matter of course, that
man, as soon as he has closed the present introduc-

* Lect, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, &c. (vol. iv.) See also note in a
former jiart of this volume.

f Vide Rev. Rokekt Hall's Sermon on Lifiddlty, pp. 21, 22,

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 203

tory period of his existence, will, without the least
doubt or hesitation, and without any specific refer-
ence to his past conduct, the delinquencies of which
seem to have been abundantly punished in the accom-
panying' feeling of '^•disapprobation," enter upon an
interminable career of blessedness, resulting from
moral and intellectual excellence. This is certainly
a flattering view of human destiny, doubtless far
more delightfid and animating, than the dark gulf
into which a cold and heartless infidelity plunges
the human soul. But is this precisely the vicAv, is
this promiscuous and unquestioning felicity, as the
universal lot of mankind, exactly the notion sugges-
ted by the Christian Eevelation? A transition from
the eloquent pages of this author to the no less
eloquent, but more sober pages of St. Paul, will fear-
fully prove the contrary. On the pages of the latter,
indeed, we meet with sublime announcements of
^- glory, honour, and immortality;" but then this
lofty destiny is confined to those, who seek it by
faith, and love, and obedience to the will of God; to
those, who by patient continuance in well-doing,
labour to attain it. But to those, who obey not the
truth, but obey unrighteousness, are denounced, with
equal explicitness of language, " tribulation and an-
guish, indignation and wrath." It is, indeed, quite
a natural result, that when the responsibility of man
has been virtually, though we are persuaded uninten-
tionally destroyed and annihilated by a theory, which
resolves all mental exercises into a process of sug-
gestion, over which the faculty of AYill has no influ-
ence or control, the sin of man, if he is capable of

204 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

sinning, should not be regarded as that heinous thing,
which demands any punishment beyond the transient
rebuke of a disapproving conscience. However short
of this extremity the professed views of persons be-
longing to that school of philosophy, which we are
now considering, may be, it is the inevitable conse-
quence of dethroning the Will from that dominion,
which, in subordination to enlightened Keason, it was
designed to exercise over the thoughts, affections,
and actions of every accountable being.

It is indeed a notion, independently of the theory
of suggestion just noticed, which has lately begun to
prevail in certain classes of men in this country, to
a most alarming, and I am persuaded, if allowed to
run into its natural consequences, most injurious
extent, — that man is in no degree accountable for
his opinions, and that they are the result of evidence,
which he can only honestly weigh, but in no respect
control or resist in its influence. This, like most other
extensive and mischievous errors, is engrafted upon
a great and unquestionable truth. It is, doubtless,
a truth founded in the very constitution of the human
mind, that when it is in a sound and healthy state,
evidence of a certain kind should command its assent,
and irresistibly stamp conviction upon it. It is also
a truth equally certain, and necessarily resulting
from the very same principles, that it cannot yield
its assent where it does not perceive an adequate
jrround of belief, arising either from the essential
nature of things, or from credible testimony and
authenticated tradition. In the theory of human
belief, therefore, we may consider these two points

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 205

as fundamental axioms — positively, that assent must
invariably follow proofs, wliicli appear undeniable,
and, negatively, that belief is impossible, where
suitable evidence is either altogether wanting, or
seems to preponderate on the opposite side of the
proposition offered to the judgment and understanding.
We may, therefore, safely grant, that rational belief
must always be in proportion to the apparent ground
of assent, and, consequently, that intellectual faith
or disbelief, viewed simply as an isolated act of the
mind, is entirely independent of any immediate
process of volition, and as such, destitute of all moral
character which can be considered as involving merit
or demerit. In the investigation of the media of
proof, the mind is unquestionably free, and nothing
can be, and in the economy of divine Eevelation
nothing is, attempted to be forced upon its reception
upon evidence, Avhich it is not allowed humbly and
modestly to discuss. And as it can admit nothing
without a proper reason, a reason of authority, de-
monstration, experiment, deduction, or of the various
degrees of probability and analogy, so it cannot do
otherwise than admit that, of which the evidence is
resistless and commanding, and of which the truth at
once flashes involuntary conviction upon the judgment.
This view of the case cannot be questioned with-
out denying the competency of the human mind to
conduct a process of argumentation, and to appre-
ciate the force of evidence altogether: for, unless
there be certain points necessary to its fidl satis-
faction, and, unless, moreover, there be some fixed
criteria which may be considered as the terminating

206 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

limits of doubt and hesitation, to what purpose can it
be to prosecute the inquiry at all? But while we
freely concede this inseparable connexion between
evidence and assent in the system of human be-
lief, as a simple and general fact, as a pheno-
menon of our intellectual nature, which, like many
others, must be considered as a j^art of its origi-
nal character, do we therefore mean to admit the wide
and unlimited, and we do not hesitate to say, the
monstrous principle, that man is not in any degree
accountable for his opinions, and that, morally, it is
a matter of indiflPerence what he believes, and Avhat
he rejects, whether he acknowledges a divine Being,
or is besotted enough to deny his existence ? It is
indeed, astonishing, that any persons of sober under-
standing, persons who profess to have any regard for
morality and religion, should be so far blinded by the
blaze of a narrow and superficial philosophy, as to
allow themselves to propagate a notion, which, in its
direct and legitimate consequences, is so evidently
subversive of both. It is wonderful, as well as melan-
choly to hear, as the Avriter of this disquisition has
heard, an individual, eminently distinguished by his
learning and talents, avow in the presence of one of
the most respectable assemblies in the world, that he
considered it to be the fault of no man, though he
might deem it to be his misfortune, to be an Atheist*.

* The germ of this mischievous and antichristian speculation

is unquestionably to be found in the infidel philosophy. " The civil

wars which arose some few years ago in Morocco, betwixt the blacks

and ivkites, merely on account of their complexion, are founded on

very pleasant difterence. We laugh at them; but I believe,

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 207

Under a pretence of proving this futile as well as
most injurious notion, its advocates have frequent
recourse to the analogy of the senses, and to the
process of conviction, which results from mathe-
matical demonstration. But before these processes
and analogies can be of any value, and be ap-
plied with any legitimacy and propriety to questions
in whicli moral evidence is concerned, it is necessary,
that, in investigations of the latter kind, different
persons should believe and disbelieve, should re-
cognise and reject evidence with the same precise
uniformity as they would agree respecting the colours
of a landscape, or the relations of a triangle and
parallelogram. Upon matters of mere sensitive per-
ception or bare intellectual apprehension, where the
passions or the animal propensities can have no pos-
sible interest, and where, therefore, no danger exists,
that any extraneous disturbance should be given to

were things rightly examined, we afford much more occasion of
ridicule to the Moors. For, what are all the wars of religion which
have prevailed in this polite and knowing part of the world 1 They
are certainly more absurd than the Moorish civil wars. The
difference of complexion is a sensible and real difference; but the
difference about an article of faith, which is utterly absurd and
unintelligible, is not a difference of sentiments, but only a difference
of a few phrases and expressions which one party accepts of, with-
out understanding them ; and the other refuses in the same manner.
Besides, I do not find that the whites in Morocco ever imposed on
the blacks any necessity of altering their complexion, or threatened
them with inquisitions and penal laws in case of obstinacy ; nor
have the blacks been more unreasonable in this particular. But is
a man's opinion, where he is able to form a real opinion, more at
his disposal than his complexion? And can one be induced by
force or fear to do more than paint and disguise in the one case, as
well as in the other?" — Hume's Essays, Ess. 7, vol. i.

203 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

the judgments and decisions of the mind, men in
general believe and disbelieve alike, and they cannot
often act otherwise without attempting to belie their
own convictions, and without appearing unto them-
selves to be guilty of absurdity; and as in these
cases there is little or no discretionary power to be
exercised in assenting or dissenting, and no direct
practical question of moral conduct involved, there is,
so far, no responsibility attached to the opinion, Avhether
negative or positive, whether true or false. But in
questions of a moral and practical nature, questions
which, in their various bearings, touch the conduct at
every point, and are liable to encounter the collision
of passions and interests, at every step, in the whole
range of their discussion, and of which the evidence,
moreover, is of necessity of that kind which is called
probable, the case is very different. That a sun
shines in the firmament of heaven, every person who
possesses the faculty of vision readily grants, for,
independently of the force of evidence Avhich he feels
that without absurdity he cannot possilsly resist, the
fact is such as cannot in any considerable degree
interfere with the dictates of pride, or the propen-
sities of passion. It is also freely conceded by most
of those who can appreciate the process of demon-
stration and the mode of proof, that the angles at
the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to each
other; but, as has been truly remarked, if the
admission of the principles and truths of mathe-
matical science interfered so materially with the
gratifications of human passion as those of religion
are found to do, it may be seriously doubted whether

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 209

persons might not take upon them to dispute some
of the clearest conclusions of that most conclusive
of all sciences. It is not at all improbable that
individuals might be found who would undertake to
show that what had been usually considered as
unquestionable axioms, and what had been generally
deemed as legitimate inferences deduced from those
axioms, were nothing more than popular prejudices,
which the philosopher was bound to reject, in order
to make way for principles of more established truth.
In fact, the science of quantity itself, with all its
precision, has not been without its controversies, as
is evident, to instance in no other, from some parts
of the protracted discussion carried on between the
celebrated Leibnitz and the learned Dr. Clarke as
the advocate of the philosophy of [N'ewton*. AMien
prejudice, passion, and the love of fame have obtained

* The difficulty attendant upon those mathematical demonstra-
tions, which involve the method of infinite series, is very plausibly
stated in the following passage by Hume. " The chief objection
against all abstract reasonings is derived from the ideas of space
and time; ideas which, in common life, and to a careless view,
are very clear and intelligible, but when they pass through the
scrutiny of the profound sciences (and they are the chief objects of
these sciences), afford principles which seem full of absurdity and
contradiction. No priestly dogmas, invented on purpose to tame
and subdue the rebellious reason of mankind, ever shocked common
sense more than the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of extension,
with its consequences; as they are pompously displayed by all
geometricians and metaphysicians, with a kind of triumph and
exultation. A real quantity, infinitely less than any finite quan-
tity, containing quantities infinitely less than itself, and so on, in
infinitum ; this is an edifice so bold and prodigious, that it is too
weighty for any pretended demonstration to support, because it
shocks the clearest and mo5t natural principles of human reason."

P

.. or -THE ^

210 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

complete possession of the mind, they haA^e been
found sometimes so to pervert the judgment, and
to blind the intellect, as to destroy the capacity
of distinguishing between the plainest truth and the
most palpable error; and if, in matters of science
and speculative knowledge, men are thus liable, under
the influence of various habits and predilections, to
run into the grossest absurdities and inconsistencies,
how much more likely are they to have their senti-
ments and opinions warped and diverted from the
point of rectitude and truth, upon questions which
enter with the keenest scrutiny into the whole
scheme of their conduct, and bear with an awful
weight of responsibility upon the whole estimate of
their character. It is not more clear, or more cer-
tain, as a matter of fact, that a sun exists in the
firmament, and is suspended in the ethereal expanse,
than it is that there must have existed a Being
of transcendent powder and wisdom, who originally
created that glorious luminary, and fixed it in its
appropriate sphere. But it is not so difficult, and
requires by no means so high an order of moral
feeling to acknowledge the former of these facts
as the latter, because the one stands completely
removed from all connexion with the conduct and
with the general course of the habits and affections ;
while the other, by the intimate relation which it
sustains to human destiny, arrays against itself a host
of evil passions and prejudices, which are eager to
banish it from the field of contemplation, and to
dislodge it from its hold upon the intellect, the
heart, and the conscience. While, therefore, the

WITH LIBERTY ^^D NECESSITY. 211

denial of the existence of the magnificent orb of
day might only be regarded as an aberration of
judgment, as foolish, preposterous, and absurd, the
denial of the existence of Him who is the Sun of
the universe which he has made, would be justly
esteemed in a mind capable of estimating appro-
priate and adequate evidence, criminal and morally
depraved.

We are at issue with those who maintain the
strange and untenable notion, that man is not
accountable for his opinions upon questions of
theology and religion, not from any wish to cramp
the freedom, and to confine the legitimate range of
the human mind, not from any narrowness of idea
resembling that which brought the illustrious phi-
losopher of Florence upon his knees, before the
tribunal of the inquisition, because he had been
guilty of the heinous crime of discovering facts in
natural science, which seemed to oppose the creed of
the Catholic Church, as supported by the authority
of Aristotle, but, because we are persuaded that
the principle, as propagated by modern theorists,
is far too extensive and unqualified to admit of its
being received without absurdity as well as danger.
The notion that man may embrace any principle,
or reject all principles of religion, however essential
and fundamental, without any derogation to his cha-
racter or diminution of his virtue, must surely be
seen by all refiecting minds, to strike at the very
root of the obligations of religion. The source of
the error appears to be this. It generally com-

p 2

212 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

mences with the assumption of this axiom of moral
truth, that the mind cannot resist evidence, which
appears convincing, and that it is bound to yield its
assent only to such evidence; and much flimsy
declamation is employed to prove and illustrate a
fact, which no person of reflection can for a moment
deny. But by a process of dexterous sophistry, it
is immediately subjoined, that belief being thus an
involuntary act, whatever direction it may take,
w^hatever truths it may sacrifice, and whatever
heresy it may adopt and cherish, is altogether free
from any possible imputation of blame, so that, in
fact, every principle of faith or disbelief is perfectly
innocent to him, to whom it merely appears to be
true, or the reverse. But surely such persons ought
to consider, that it is the state of the mind, the pre-
vious habit and condition of the intellectual and
moral faculties, which gives this appearance of truth
or falsehood to the proposition rejected or believed.
Let it be granted that man is not accountable for
the simple act of the understanding in receiving or
rejecting a principle proposed, does it follow that
he is not accountable for that corrupt and depraved
state of heart, from which alone such a conclusion
as he has drawn in reference to that principle could
have been derived? Are they such superficial in-
vestigators of the human mind as to require to
be reminded that man believeth and disbelieveth in
moral questions still more with the heart than with
the understanding, and that there are many fun-
damental principles of religion Avliich no man can

WITH LIBEKTY AM) NECESSFFY. 213

reject without betraying the grossest obliquity of feel-
ing, and, consequently, without incurring an awful
measure of guilt and criminality ?

If, indeed, the principles of religion found the
mind in a state as free and unbiassed by previous
tendencies and susceptibilities — as prepared to give
them a candid and impartial examination, and, if
they make good their claim to the satisfaction of
an unprejudiced understanding, to welcome them
into the cordial embrace of the affections, as it
generally is for the investigation and admission of
the truths of physical or abstract science, then it
might be granted that opinions upon this most im-
portant and influential of all questions, would be
less under the control of the Will, and, consequently,
would involve a less measure of moral account-
ability. But nothing short of an absolute and uni-
versal exemption from everything that is unfavour-
able to the reception of truth, can be of the least
avail towards cutting off that department of the
intellectual nature from a liability to the contraction
of guilt. It is necessar}', not only that there be a
present love of truth, in general, but it is also
necessary that there should be no indisposition,
resulting from former habits of feeling and conduct,
voluntarily indulged, for the due influence of the
peculiar kind of evidence, by which that truth comes
authenticated — habits which, in their aggregate effect,
may be considered as having formed the character
and limited the capabilities of the mind. It is neces-
sary that no proud and overweening conceit of a
superficial and arrogant philosophy should have been

214 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

harboured in the judgment, and rolled as a sweet
morsel upon the tongue, until it has utterly disquali-
fied the understanding for an equitable estimate of
the claims of Avhat must be regarded as humiliating
to the dignity of man, and derogatory to the para-
mount authority of reason — that no corrupt passion
shoukl have been wilfully indulged, or the desire of
indulging it been cherished, until its own base humour
has become, as it were, the medium of refraction and
transmission to every object and scene of contempla-
tion, which offers itself to the eye of the intellect,
and consequently incapacitated that eye for the per-
ception of what is pure and refined — that no notions
of latitudinarian indifference, fostered by a desire of
being freed from all shackles of religion, and being
allowed to pursue, without disquietude or remorse,
the line of conduct which interest or ambition may
dictate, should have so numbed the moral sensibili-
ties and paralyzed the faculty of serious reflection,
as to produce a total apathy to what is awakening,
and an equal intolerance of what is binding — and
finally, that no course of reading should have been
pursued, of an inevitable tendency to darken and
bewilder the mind and to produce an inaptitude for
the fair and legitimate investigation of the proofs of
a divine communication having been made to man,
and that no association with minds of an ascendant
influence and sceptical turn of thought should have
been cultivated, until the Avhole mass of the intellec-
tual character has now been cast into such a mould,
and formed into such a firm and settled order of
belief, or disbelief, upon the points proposed for

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 215

inquiry, as to render it almost entirely imimpressible
by any arguments that can be advanced in behalf of
an opposite and less compromising system of princi-
ples. Let this sublime phenomenon of unprejudiced
and unbiassed reason be produced — this abstraction
of pure intellect among the men of liberal and free
inquiry, as they would characterize themselves, and
we will readily grant, that such a mind, though it
errs, will err without blame. Over the conclusions
of such an inquirer we will allow that the AYill may
have no immediate control. But until such an indi-
vidual be found, and we are not very sanguine in the
hope of such a discovery in the present state of
human nature, it is the merest sophistry to lay hold
of a generality, — such as that assent must invariably
be proportioned to the force of evidence, and upon
this vague ground to introduce the monstrous anomaly
into the system of the divine government of man,
that opinions, however, rash and extravagant — how-
ever directly they may strike at the very existence
and authority of a supreme Being, pro^dded only
they assume the appearance of truth, are completely
out of the range of moral responsibility. This is
just as if it was maintained, that because man is not
accountable for what he does, while he is destitute of
the power of rational self-control, which is unques-
tionably true as a general principle, he is, therefore,
not responsible for the acts, which he commits in a
state of intoxication. It is true, that the action
simply considered as performed by one, who had no
direct consciousness of what he was doing, may not
involve moral turpitude, but then it derives, in a

216 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

manner, a twofold measure of turpitude from the
circumstance of his having vokmtarily reduced him-
self to a condition, which thus deprived him of the
dignity of a moral being. In the same manner,
although it be granted, that false opinions, upon the
fundamental points of religion, may not have any
guilt attached unto them simply as notions adopted
upon what assumes the appearance of adequate proof,
or upon the want of a perception of the proofs, which
would lead to different conclusions, yet the grand
verities of Christianity are so clear, so important, so
paramount in their evidence and authority, that no
man can reject them without having fallen into a
state of moral intoxication, arising from some of the
causes alread}^ mentioned. The operation of these
or similar causes, therefore, may always be taken for
granted, when opinions are formed subversive of the
whole system of religion, as the instrument of God's
moral government. And consequently, however
blameless and irresponsible they are in themselves
as exemplifications of a general principle, they involve
in their grounds and sources the most awful measure
of guilt and moral pravity. It is in vain, therefore,
to attempt to hide the deformity of those notions
under the shelter of a loose generality, because, in
this instance, the very condition is wanting, upon
which alone it can be legitimately applied*.

* " Perhaps the most absurd and injurious adage that has ever
gained currency among mankind is, that it is no difference what a
man believes, if he only bo sincere; now the truth is, that the more
sincerely a man believes a falsehood, the more destructive it is to
all his interests for time and for eternity." — Philosophy of the Flan
of Salvation, (p. 107.)

WITH LIBERTY A>'D NECESSITY. 217

'KoY arc the consequences necessarily resulting
from this theory of opinions less forcibly demonstra-
tive of its futility and danger than the process by
which opinions upon questions of theology and
religion are formed. Let it be considered for a
moment, what must be the natural result of ad-
mitting that the opinions or judgments of the mind
do not fall under the cognizance of a moral law, and
bear no relation of responsibility to that law. The
natural order, in which the elements of the human
character combine and form themselves into some-
Avhat of a pal]3able and consolidated shape, is some-
thing like the following. Images of external objects,
which Locke calls ideas of sensation, are received
into the mind. These by various processes of combi-
nation, arrangement, and comparison, which the same
illustrious author denominates ideas of reflection, give
rise to sentiments and opinions. These views of the
mind again, if they relate to objects which concern
the feelings and conduct, pass into principles and
established maxims, embodying the most powerful
affections of the soul as their strength and support.
And when the sentiments and affections, Avhen the
views of the intellect, and the feelings of the heart
have been thus engaged and made to concentrate in
one point, or to direct their energies in one line of
operation, congenial actions are the necessary result.
We do not assert, indeed, that speculative opinions
are invariably attended v>ith these practical effects.
Li many instances they grievously fail, where it were
in the highest degree desirable that they should be
accompanied with such an influence. But the con-

218 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

elusions of his deliberate judgment are assuredly the
most legitimate guide, which man may be expected
to follow in the regulation of his general conduct.
Upon points vrhich are necessarily interwoven with
the whole course of his actions, it can hardly be other-
wise than that the opinions, negative or positive,
which he has embraced, should operate, at least, in
some degree, in giving its direction to the general
stream of the practical conduct. 'No man can be
justly blamed for acting according to what he con-
scientiously believes to be right. The opposite con-
duct, that which is at variance with established views
of doctrine and duty, must be considered rather as an
infringement upon the general and natural economy
of the character ; and therefore failures and devia-
tions of this kind are not to be brought forward as
proofs of the innocence of any injurious notion, but,
at the best, can only be regarded as some slight
mitigations of its malignity. In estimating an opi-
nion, the proper method is, doubtless, to view it as
designed to be reduced to practice, where it can be
legitimately made to bear upon the practice.

Let us suppose, then, an individual to have come
to the conclusion, after a laborious and unbiassed
consideration of the subject in his own mind, that
there is no God — for this is the very case, which we
have heard one of the most distinguished cham-
jiions of the notion here combatted, asserting that he
deemed the misfortune rather than the fault of any
man. Let this be the firm conviction of his judg-
ment, after weighing the evidence on either side of
the (|uestion, with all the impartiality of which he

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 219

is master. Wc arc not allowing in point of fact,
that such a process of reasoning resulting in the
negative, can take place in any instance, but we
are merely arguing upon the principle of those
whom we oppose. It surely must be acknow-
ledged to follow, that such a person cannot be fairly
expected to feel and act, as those who believe that
such a Being, possessed of the glorious attributes of
power and wisdom, of justice and goodness, does
exist. Can he be justly required to love or to fear,
to reverence or to obey a Being, whose very exist-
ence he deliberately, and as he supposes upon
adequate evidence, disbelieves? The demand is
preposterous and absurd. It is obvious, that if he
would be consistent with himself, he must feel as he
thinks, and act as he feels, that is, he must live as
without God in the world, Avithout any other obliga-
tions to act, or to restrain himself from acting, than
those which the arbitrary laws of man may impose,
and which he may, therefore, deem rather a merit to
infringe, whenever his own pleasure or interest may
dictate it, and the infringement can be effectually
concealed. Such, Ave are persuaded, are the legiti-
mate, the unavoidable consequences in numberless
other instances that might be mentioned of the modern
philosophic theory, that man is not responsible for
his opinions. The sentiments of the mind, secretly,
and often imperceptibly, slide into principles and
affections of the heart; and by another transition,
equally natural and easy, these feelings of the heart
pass over into actions of the conduct : so that if
man is to be considered as accountable for the last.

220 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

it follows that he is still more emphatically account-
able for the views and emotions from Avhich they
directly proceed.

It appears, then, that the Prerogative of Eeason,
as directing and controlling the exercises of the
AVill, extends indirectly, but Avith a powerful and
effectual influence, to the very opinions of the mind,
when those opinions are such as are founded upon
probable and moral evidence, and relate to matters
immediately connected with the character and con-
duct. Through the neglect of a due exercise of the
superintending power of Eeason and sound judg-
ment, guided by the light of revealed truth, notions
may be embraced, involving the highest degree of
guilt and criminality; and principles may be rejected,
which are indispensably necessary to the formation of
a devout and virtuous character. ]^s^or can this be
surprising, when it is borne in mind, that the faculty
of volition, guided by reason, can produce a con-
siderable eft'ect upon the very senses themselves,
which are supposed to be completely independent, in
their operations, of almost every species of voluntary
action. It is, however, an unquestionable fact, that
the most comprehensive and important of all the sen-
sitive organs is indebted, for all its useful and availing
exercises, to the discipline it receives from the com-
bined faculties of reason and volition. The most
superficial acquaintance with the science of optics is
sufficient to convince any one that the eye is merely
a material organ, which, in order to answer its end,
must be adapted in a variety of ways by the energy
of the will, directed by the experience of the judg-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 221

ment. Under this superintending influence, it readily
assumes the position, and performs the peculiar func-
tion which is necessary to the particular kind of
vision and perception, which the mind desires to
exercise. It is habit, guided by voluntary experience,
which enables the eye to adapt its focus to objects
comparatively near or remote — to determine the
form of objects as plane, concave, or convex — as lon-
gitudinal, circular, or angular, and numberless other
points, without which the mere capability of trans-
mitting the celestial fluid, if a fluid there really exists,
to the branch of nerves constituting the retina,
would be comparatively useless and unimportant. In
the case of the sense of Taste, the same remark is
applicable to a very considerable extent. At the
first view, there is nothing which Avould seem more
arbitrary, and more perfectly uncontrollable by any
dictate of Eeason, or any tendency and desire of
Will. In the literal as Avell as metaphorical sense of
the expression, taste is one of those susceptibilities
of human nature, of the direction and peculiar bias
of which it seems to be generally acknowledged that
no account can be given. It seems to vindicate, in
its preferences and dislikes, a stern independence, not
only of the wishes, the counsels, and suggestions of
others, but at first, even of the sober and deliberate
judgment, and of the eager anxious desires and voli-
tions of the individual himself. But yet, who is not
aware that, by steady perseverance, by a firm and
enlightened exercise of the commanding faculties
of Reason and Will, predilections the most powerful,
and antipathies the most decided, will learn to give

222 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

way; that the most insipid viand, or even the most
nauseous drug, will, by this long course of habit, be-
come palatable, and the most uninteresting plainness
of feature assume the character of comparative beauty
and attractiveness? The reason why the various
emotions of taste, in the most comprehensive accepta-
tion of the term, are in general considered so capri-
cious and invincible, and in many cases so ludicrous
and eccentric, is, that few persons have the wisdom
to repress their irregular tendencies in their incipient
stages, or the resolution to maintain the contest of
sound judgment against them, until a complete victory
has been obtained. It is always in the power of the
Will, if it steadily exerts its authority, to reduce
every modification of taste so far under its dominion,
as to secure its accordance with the principles and
decisions of Eeason.

Section XII.
The Influence of Reason as it relates to the Affections.

The Prerogative of Reason also, as the guide and
controller of the Will, extends in a great measure
over the affections of the heart. If the opinions of
the mind are subject to such a law of necessity as
exempts them from all responsibility, it is remark-
able that the same privilege, if privilege it can
be deemed, has not been extended unto the affec-
tions also. In many speculative systems, indeed,
and in some of the ordinary forms of human speech,
this is necessarily implied. 'V\\o affections, assu-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 223

redly, yield themselves as readily to the impres-
sions and influences of what is attractive, as the
judgment to the evidence of what is convincing.
There are in human nature susceptibilities of feel-
ing, as well as susceptibilities of conviction; why,
then, are not the former as unaccountable and as
improper subjects of moral responsibility in all their
diversities of operation as the latter ? How are we
justified in making a distinction, where nature has
made none ? The necessity of something like con-
sistency in a theory, has di'iven some to the virtual
acknowledgment that man acts, or rather is acted
upon as irresistibly in his affections, as in his spe-
culative opinions. If this, however, be granted, to
what purpose is the commandment, " Thou shalt not
covet?" It is unquestionable that, in the very con-
stitution of human nature, there is a very strong
predilection for certain objects, and that in these
objects there are qualities, which are specifically
intended to caU that attachment into exercise. The
attraction is thus powerfid and immediate. But
does this really exempt the affections from respon-
sibility— from aU possibility of guilt or blame ?
Wliatever theoretical opinions men may form ugon
the question, and wiiatever their systems may force
them to grant, in their actual estimate of human
character, they maintain, as firmly as others, that
the feelings of the heart, where they can be clearly
ascertained, are not free from the obligations of
law, that they enter even into the very essence of
the punishableness of an action resulting from their
impulse. And experience proves the perfect equity

224 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

of tlii.s view ; for however contrary to the reason
and will of an individual, whose mind is in an un-
disciplined and ill-governed state, the aftections
may sometimes run, yet it is certain that, in their
general direction, and well-regulated exercises, they
are subject to the entire control of those faculties.
Few of the affections are generally supposed to be
less swayed by the authority of the mere Will of
the individual, as guided by his judgment, than
that of the passion of love; and yet it is obvious,
that in the great majority of instances, this affection
acts in entire accordance with the decisions of
reason. If it were not that intellect and volition,
unitedly exerted, could 'control and regulate the
affections, so as to prevent them from being fixed
upon objects, the enjoyment of which could not be
lawfully attained, and to direct them to those which
were legitimately within the sphere of their pursuit,
there would be no criminality attached to passions
the most inordinate, and to emotions indulged in
direct opposition to every principle of right, and pro-
priety, and law ; and thus the pure and wholesome
streams of morality would be vitiated and poisoned
in^heir very fountains.

Section XIII.

The Actions op the Life subject to the contuol or Reason.

And if the affections, which constitute the moving
springs of human character, are thus under the
control of the rational faculty, in every well regu-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 225

lated mind, it follows, as a matter of com'se, that
the same power, as the guardian and director of
human liberty, should exercise a governing super-
intendence over the actions of the life. It is to out-
ward actions more palpably and obviously indeed
that freedom relates. If, however, the interior
operations of the mind are subject to such a neces-
sity as would virtually exclude all rational volition,
it is impossible that any real liberty should belong
to the acts of the conduct, for what are these acts
but the affections embodied, the opinions carried
into their practical consequences ? If at any point
of the series liberty fails and constraint is applied,
the morality of everything that is immediately con-
nected with that point is utterly destroyed. If the
freedom of that, in which human freedom essentially
consists, the unconstrained exercise of Eeason in
directing the Will to the choice of the greater good,
is neutralized, the responsibility of man, as the
subject of moral government, is at once annulled.
K the mind is not free to think, to desire, and to
love, it is impossible that the practical manifesta-
tions of these sentiments and emotions should
possess that character. The moment the actions
cease to be under the legitimate authority of the
understanding and judgment, they cease to be pro-
perly accountable and moral ; and the difference be-
tween the acts of a man, under the influence of
passion, and of one in a state of insanity, is, that the
former possessed the power of regulating his conduct
by Eeason, whereas in the latter that power was
extinct.

Q

226 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

It is, therefore, a fundamental and most injurious
error in the several systems of necessity, whether
philosophical, or what may be termed theological,
to maintain that the mind operates under the im-
pulse of an influence, arising either from within or
without, which it can neither resist nor control, and
yet that the actions immediately flowing from that
mode of operation, are accountable and punishable.
It is a very inadequate explanation of the case, that
the actions thus punished, are performed with the
choice and consent of the Will, if that Will itself is
necessitated by inherent character, or by surrounding
circumstances, to choose and prefer as it does. It
is a very frequent and favourite method with those
who are called J^ecessitarians, to assert that their
system gives to man all the liberty which he is
capable of enjoying, inasmuch as it allows him, in
all cases, to act precisely as he pleases; but then
if, as they maintain, he is under an absolute neces-
sity of being thus pleased, it is only removing his
disability to act as a free agent a little further out
of sight. It is only hiding his manacles under a
specious garb of liberty, while, to all moral purposes,
he is still in chains. He must think and feel freely
in order to act freely. It is not contended that man
must be capable of choosing against his own choice,
for this were an absurdity; but it is indispensably
necessary to the freedom and accountableness of his
actions, that they should be the result of a prefer-
ence, to which his rational and intelligent nature, if
duly exercised, had the power of giving the negative.
If T^ecessitarians mean no more than that the Will

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 227

of man cannot determine itself to prefer in oppo-
sition to that, which it is ah-eady assumed that it
does prefer, they surely hold no more than every
reasonable man will readily grant. But their system
appears to involve much more. They seem to main-
tain that the volitions of man succeed each other in
the way of cause and effect, with the same absolute
uniformity as a process of chemical analysis is carried
on through the medium of a decomposing agent; so
that man, in fact, instead of a responsible moral
being, becomes a mere agent of this description,
whose business and influence reach no further than
merely to evolve those successions of thought and
feeling, in the regulation and direction of which he
has no discretionary power whatever. The circum-
stance that these ideas and emotions assume the
character of volitions, and appear pleasing and pre-
ferable unto him, is a mere illusion, giving him a
notion of liberty, which, in reality, he does not
possess. Unless man is capable of exercising a valid
and effectual control over his own voluntary decisions
and actions, he is all his life labouring under a
delusion, with reference to one of the strongest and
most unhesitating convictions of his own mind. ^N'ot
all the piety and acuteness of the excellent Jonathan
Edwards could disengage his system from this fatal
defect, that it draws out the sin of man through a
series of causes and effects, to the operation of which
he cannot choose to give a negative, and then
attempts to fix its evil and enormity in its own na-
ture; whereas it is obvious, as we have already

Q 2

228 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

remarked, that in estimating sin with respect to its
moral turpitude, it is always assumed, that it is the
effect of wilful indulgence, which the individual
possessed an adequate power to restrain, if he had
thought proper to exercise it. "Without such a power,
indeed, sin might have been odious and disgusting,
as Avormwood is bitter, a wound is painful, and
disease, in general, is loathsome, but no idea of
moral pravity, or accountability, could be attached
to it.

Section XIY.

Philosophical Necessity.

The theory of Philosophical ]N'ecessity as stated
by Hobbes, as modified by the amiable Hartley,
and as boldly exhibited in all its nakedness by
Priestley, absolutely, and with a few slight eva-
sions, avowedly confounds virtue and vice, sin and
holiness as developed in the character of man.
The last of these authors does not hesitate to afhrm,
that God as the framer of the constitution of nature,
and of the mental system of man, is the direct author
of all actions good and evil, which are regulated by
the same law of necessity without any distinction
whatever, ISTay, he asserts Avitli all the assurance so
truly characteristic of himself, that the unhesitating
admission of this doctrine is, that which must always
distinguish the real philosopher from the dabbler in
moral and metaphysical science, and that it is only

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 229

for want of a little strength of mind, that there is
any difficulty in receiving it as an unquestionable
axiom of truth, that God is to be considered as the
proper cause of all things good and evil, natural and
moral. He acknowledges with much candour, indeed,
that this momentous doctrine is not to be found in
the ^ew Testament. Hq allows, that the Apostles
were not necessitarians, and that in all probability,
if the question of philosophical necessity had been
proposed to them, they would have answered in the
negative. But what then? The Apostles were not
philosophers. To a person of his courage and
strength of mind, what is the opposition of inspired
men and Apostles ? One of these persons, indeed,
and the most highly educated among them, Avould
in all probability have had the presumption to pro-
nounce this "a philosophy falsely so called." But
amidst so much ignorance and debility of mind, what
authority could attach to his assertion ? It is much
safer to bow to the decisions and to do homage to
the loftier intellects of the illuminati of later ages,
especially when it is acknowledged, that that very
sound and unexceptionable Christian philosopher, the
author of Leviathan, is the grand patriarch of the
community, the privileged individual, who had the
merit first to place the system upon its proper footing,
and to fix it upon an immoveable basis.

It will be freely allowed, indeed, to this intrepid
writer, that it does require very considerable strength
of mind to credit all that he asserts, to sustain
the shock which the feelings can hardly fail to

230 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

receive from a statement so bold and startling, as
that Jehovah himself, the God whose eyes are pm-er
than to behold iniquity, is " the proper cause of all
the good and evil, physical and moral," that are
done in the whole universe. It certainly does demand
no ordinary energy of controversial and polemical
genius, no common hardihood in bearing the onset of
an array of formidable consequences, to maintain the
position that man is subject to one identical law of
necessity in all his actions, and, whether he does good
or evil, is impelled by the same insuperable and
uncontrollable influence, and thus by binding " nature
fast in fate," without leaving " free the human will,"
to annihilate all the grounds, upon which any real
distinction can be established, between right and
wrong; to break down the barriers which divine
Kevelation had raised, and the wisdom of ages had
marked with the impress of its approbation, for the
purpose of guarding the territories of virtue against
the encroachments of immorality and vice; to destroy
all that can really render man an accountable being,
by reducing the whole play of his faculties, the whole
range of his voluntary exercises and activities to a
mere system of mechanism; in short, to strike at
the first principles of the divine government in its
treatment of responsible agents, and to undermine
the very pillars of the moral world. To produce all
these disastrous effects, or to adopt a theory, the
inevitable tendency of which is to produce them,
must be granted, to call for a measure of intellectual
vigour, which does not often fall to the lot of man.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 231

To digest all — I Avill not say the crudities^ but the
heterogeneous elements, the injurious and umvhole-
some ingredients, which this theory of philosophical
necessity involves, unquestionably, and we will add
liappily, requires a strength of organs which not
many are found to possess. To be serious; we do
not mean to charge upon the advocates of this hypo-
thesis any intention to deprive man of one of the
noblest of his privileges, that of a rational and self-
controlling liberty, and thus by neutralizing his
accountableness to throw^ the whole weight of his
guilt, whatever may be the extent and enormity of
his dehnquencies, back upon God himself. We are
persuaded, however, that the theory of philosophical
necessity, as developed by these persons, is bound to
recognise — and, indeed, with a very slight variation of
terms it does recognise — these consequences as its
legitimate and direct offspring.

To proceed no further with this branch of the
discussion, let it be laid down as an established point,
that the voluntary actions of man, in order to be
accountable and moral, must be subject to the avail-
ing control of his Reason. It appears, then, that the
authority of this commanding power extends, in a
degree more or less perfect and complete, to the
opinions of the mind, the affections of the heart, and
the actions of the life. And on these grounds we
conclude, in addition to those which have been already
stated, that it is in this prerogative of the Eational
Facidty, that the liberty of man essentially consists.
In this sense, therefore, as possessing a power of

232 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

regulating his own views, and feelings, and conduct,
in the exercise of his Understanding and Will, man
is unquestionably free. Liberty is a principle of his
nature, which is no less attested by the whole eco-
nomy of the divine government towards him, than by
the conscious dictates of his own bosom.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 233

PART II.

GROUNDLESS AND ERRONEOUS NOTIONS OF
HUMAN LIBERTY.

Section I.

The Subject of Inquiry stated.

We have now endeavoured to show in what sense man
is a free and accountable agent. We have found that
hberty — a discretionary power of acting or not acting
in any proposed manner in the exercise of voluntary
choice, of giving the negative or affirmative of his
mental preference to any measure relating to his
conduct, is an essential and fundamental part of his
nature, as a rational and intelligent being. We have
pointed out the radical defects, the injurious tendency
of some theories of necessity, as involving the utter
destruction of his moral responsibility, and as calcu-
lated, by losing sight of the essential distinction of
mind, reason, and intellect, as the peculiar attributes
of his nature, to reduce all the exercises of his will to
a mere system of mechanism. But, although some,
both philosophers and divines, belonging, indeed,
generally to very different schools, have grievously
erred on this side of the question, by confounding
the laws of matter and mind, and by requiring in the
operations of both the same relation of cause and

234 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

effect, without allowing unto the latter any advantage
in the origination of the grounds of motion and
action; yet the error relating to the abstruse and
difficult points of moral agency, and the freedom of
the human will, has been by no means confined to
those, who have inclined to the various shades and
modifications of necessitarianism. There is, indeed,
little danger that the doctrines of fatalism, and abso-
lute mechanical necessity, should ever be very widely
diffused, and very generally adopted. There is some-
thing in these theories, when carried to their utmost
length, so much at variance with the first principles
of the human mind, so much opposed to the conscious
dictates of Eeason and Intellect, so directly contrary
to all that is known and felt, and so completely the
reverse of what is actually experienced in the very
process of volition itself, that a reflecting man can
hardly admit them, without at the same time belying
his own convictions ; that we might almost say, he is
under a necessity of disbelieving and rejecting them.
•Like the sceptical philosophy, they suit only the
retirement of the chamber, Avhere their advocates
may dispute or dogmatize, speculate or refine, doubt
or affirm, entangle themselves with the subtilties of
argument or range through the lighter mazes of
fancy, as may suit their present mood or habitual
temperament ; but in the real business of life, and in
the sober estimate of character, they are forced to
lay them aside, or to act in direct contradiction to
themselves.

But although the errors of necessitarianism, espe-
cially that which terms itself philosophical, are more

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 235

directly opposed to the dictates of Reason and divine
Eevelation, and appear more deeply injurious if car-
ried to their legitimate consequences, yet those of
Free A\^ill, in the technical and theological sense of
the expression, are far more extensive in their preva-
lence, and, in their ranker and more extravagant
forms, little less injurious to the interests of true and
vital religion. To the consideration of these, as
involved in unphilosophical and unscriptural notions
of human liberty, we must now therefore proceed.
And having already attempted to demonstrate that
man is rationally and substantially free, we shall now
endeavour to show, in accordance with the general
plan of these disquisitions, in icliat sense and to what
extent man is not free. It will be seen, in the pro-
gress of these remarks, under what limitations man
may be said to be a necessary agent, without in any
degree interfering with his responsibility as a rational
being, and a subject of moral government. For that
there are certain bounds and fundamental principles
by which man is regulated in the exercise of the
faculty of volition, as well as every other, must be
obvious to every person of reflection. There have
been those, who, in their extravagant fondness for
Free Will, and the proud independence which it was
supposed to bestow upon man, have endued him with
a power, in the capricious and contingent exercise
of which he escapes from the direct sovereignty of
Jehovah, and in virtue of which he can conceal the
whole range of his future actions from the pene-
trating ken of Omniscience. And if the former
theories give man too little to capacitate him for

236 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

being subject to the penal sanctions of a moral
government, this latter scheme, originating in the
vanity and obstinacy of fallen nature, gives him too
much to allow the Author of his being, and the Euler
of the universe, wisely and steadily to administer that
government. It is not a rash and inconsiderate
assertion of the liberty of the human Will — it is not
a light and confident denunciation of the folly and
ignorance of the Socinianism or Calvinism of those,
who find it necessary to lay doA^Ti some principles as
limiting the exercises of volition, that will settle this
profound question, or dispose of the real difficulties
with which it is on every hand embarrassed. Persons
who allow themselves to run on in this strain, and
suppose that they have determined the point by a
few superficial and unquestioned truisms, and that
they have succeeded in cutting this gordian knot by
directing a few violent and intemperate strokes of
their controversial weapon at the network, with which
their adversaries may have covered it over, have in
fact never looked into it beyond the bare exterior,
nor traced it through its manifold involutions.

In what remains of this discussion, we shall en-
deavour to keep as closely as possible to the real
phenomena, and thus mark out as correctly as is
compatible with our present views and capacities, the
limitations within which man must be considered,
without the slightest infringement upon his moral
liberty, as capable of exercising the faculty of will.
In this investigation, we must of course leave many
points, ultimately connected with the question of
human liberty, and forming as it were its ground-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 237

Avork, in tliat mystery and obscurity, where, in com-
mon Avitli the final and fundamental principles of
every subject of inquiry, they must be allowed, at
least for the present, to lie inscrutably concealed from
the eye of man. It is enough for us if we can trace
the subject so far as our own estimate of duty, and
a correct view of our ability and inclination to act up
to that estimate, absolutely require.

Section II.

Max xot Free in such a sense as to render any of his
actions uncertain,

1. We remark, then, in the first place, that man is
not free in such a sense as that any of his actions
should be doubtful, uncertain, or contingent. It is
altogether a mistake to imagine that it is an essen-
tial part of human liberty, that the line of conduct
to be pursued in any conjuncture of circumstances
should be absolutely indeterminable until it has
already taken place. Some, in order not to infringe,
as they suppose, upon the absolute freedom of
the Will, but to leave it in a state of unfettered
sovereignty over its own determinations, have
thought it necessary to deny to the Supreme Being
himself, any positive foreknowledge of the volun-
tary actions of man. But, surely, this is very
needlessly to encroach upon the prerogative of the
Holy One of Israel. It is the effect of confounding,
in a very strange and unaccountable manner, the
mere fact of the certainty of event, with the neces-

238 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

sity of causation or compulsion. It was well re-
marked by the celebrated bishop of Hippo, in illus-
tration of this point, that the mere foreknowledge
of the future conduct of free agents, however abso-
lute and certain in itself, does no more to necessitate
that conduct, and no more interferes with the mode
in which the mind determines upon the performance
of such an order of actions, than the knowledge of
what is past can have exerted any causative in-
fluence in the production of such effects as are thus
known to have taken place. There is nothing in
the idea of liberty inconsistent with the supposition
that the future actions of him who enjoys this pri-
vilege, should be subject to the view of one, who
is sufficiently acquainted with the nature and
susceptibilites of the free mind, and with the in-
fluence which external circumstances are capable of
imparting, for the purpose of determining the
inclinations of that mind. It is vain to say that
absolute prescience involves absolute certainty, and
that absolute certainty destroys the very condition
upon which will can freely exercise its volitions,
and direct its preferences; that of a real and dis-
cretionary power to choose either of two alternatives
in a question of conduct. The real state of the case
is this. In every instance in which the will of man,
or of any voluntary agent, is to be exerted, there is
a necessity in the nature of things, which it were
absurd to deny, that he should choose on either
side, that however completely free he may feel him-
self to be in tlie course of deliberation, he should
determine on the negative or attirmativo. There

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 239

must also be a reason, either internal or external,
a reason, arising either from the influence of circum-
stances, or from the state of the mind itself, as
originally constituted, and as modified by prior
views, habits, and aff'ections, why he should prefer
that which ultimately commands his choice. How-
ever exalted may be our notions of moral liberty,
it is impossible, that we should conceive an intelli-
gent being to choose or to act without some adequate
ground for such a determination of will. To deny
this would be to unhinge the w^hole system of the
human mind, and, in reality, to neutralize the
validity, or even to annihilate the very existence of
the faculty of volition itself, for it destroys the ful-
crum upon which this mighty engine rests, an
apparent and availing reason of preference. Let this
be removed, and the faculty of Will seems no longer
capable of being exercised. All that is necessary to
foreknowledge, therefore, is merely to be able to
know and to appreciate this ground of preference,
whether wholly inherent in the mind, or partially
supplied by circumstances. And it is assuredly cast-
ing a very serious reflection upon the knowledge
and wisdom of Jehovah, to suppose him incapable
of estimating the capabilities, and of weighing the
tendencies and inclinations of the soul, which him-
self hath made. The very nature of Will supposes
an alternative — an indispensable necessity of choos-
ing either of two things or modes presented to its
notice. It must, without any encroachment upon
liberty, determine upon the choice of one or other
of these objects, otherwise it ceases to be a Will,

240 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

and volition is altogether excluded. All that pre-
science requires, therefore, in order to make it,
and the circumstances or actions, upon which its
eye is fixed, as certain as actual existence can
make them, is simply that it be seen beforehand
to what side of the alternative the mind will really
and definitively turn. And in this mere knowledge
there is surely nothing, which can interfere with the
freedom of the agent. It is a mere contemplative
survey of what he is actually doing, or is already
supposed to have done, and has no more to do with
the mode, in which the act is called into existence,
than if no such eye was directed towards it. It is
a distinct, isolated, and immanent perception of
what is effected by an agent, with the operations of
which it has no connexion whatever, and to whose
causative energy it does not radiate a single portion
of co-operative or directive influence. It, in fact,
h;y^othetically views, as already existing, the ob-
jects and agencies upon which it is founded. This
is the order of foreknowledge with reference to the
futurities, which it surveys. Like the axiomatic
truths of the science of mathematics, they are
assumed to have existed, or to be about to have
existed, in the very act of their being known ; and
to a mind adequately acquainted with the principles
of the mental constitution of man, the views of the
past, the present, and the future, exhibit themselves
with equal clearness and certainty. There is nothing,
therefore, in the mere fiict of the foreknowledge of
actions, Avhich can interfere with the freedom of those
actions.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 241

Tliis^ however, is unquestionable, that certainty
of knowledge, whether it relates to the past or the
future, implies the absolute certainty of the facts
or events, which are known. If, therefore, all the
actions of man are really foreknown, nothing can be
more obvious than that no such contingency can
belong to them as can make it in any degree doubt-
ful or uncertain whether they shall indeed take place.
The whole certainty of foreknowledge, and of the
facts which are thus foreknown, arises, not from any
antecedent compulsive necessity that man should
act in any prescribed manner, but from the infallible
hypothetical assumption that he will thus choose.
]N"either man, nor any other being, can be supposed
to possess such liberty as that he should be capable
at once of acting in two ways contradictory to each
other. He must choose one of these ways. Let
that way be known, and a ground of prescience is
established as firm and immoveable as the most
indissoluble chain of necessity, in the successive
operations of his mind, could possibly form. It is,
therefore, a superficial style of speaking to repre-
sent the actions of intelligent and free beings as
contingent — as so regulated by accidental circum-
stances, as that it cannot beforehand be determined
what course they will take.

A moment's consideration will be sufficient to
convince us, not only of the possibility of such a
prescient view of human conduct, Avithout infringing
upon liberty, but of its absolute necessity to the
moral government of the world. In the physical
system of the universe, it is allowed on all hands

R

242 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

that God hath established general laws, the opera-
tions and effects of which, throughout all the changes
and evolutions of time, he saw with most minute
and unerring accuracy at the first moment of the
creation. It was this clear foresight into the future
results of the tendencies and energies, Avhich he
originally impressed upon matter, that has secured
the harmony of nature, without the necessity of con-
tinual interference with the first principles of its
constitution. AYlien we consider the astonishing
forces belonging to parts of matter in a certain
order of combination, and especially as attached to
those huge masses of being, which roll through the
immensity of space; when we think of the stu-
pendous rapidity of their movements, and of the
dreadful consequences that would inevitably follow
upon any unexpected failure, or disproportion of
strength, or any deviation from the ordinary sphere
or relative velocity, against which no provision had
been made, it must be obvious that nothing short of
a perfect survey of all the capabilities, and of the
actual working of the vast mechanism of the world,
could have erected a frame-work so firm, so perma-
nent, so subservient in its mutual relations and cor-
respondencies to the stability and security of the
whole. If, as one of the most delightful of bards
has said, the poet must have

an eye to catcli the distant goal

Ere yet the wheels of verse begin to roll ;

it surely must be no less necessary that the great
Framer of the universe should liave embraced, within
the range of his compreliensive survey, the develop-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 243

ment of every i)riiiciple, and the actuating energy
of every cause in the vast scheme, which He was
forming. Even if the physical world, as has by
some philosophers been supposed, was like a huge
machine, which, after a certain period of time, would
lose its original force of action, and Avould require, as
it were, to be wound up afresh ; at least, such a decay
of energy, and such a necessity of renovating inter-
position, must have been apparent unto Him who
^•knoAveth the end from the beginning." Without
consigning the Deity to that torpor and inactivity —
to that lassitude and sublime indifference to the
concerns of the material universe, which Epicurus
thought necessary to the happiness of his indolent
divinities, it would certainly be derogatory to the
wisdom and power of Jehovah, to suppose him to
be under a continual obligation to meet exigencies
and events occurring in the successive evolutions of
his own creation, upon which he had not originally
calculated.

And if in the course of the natural world, and in
the government of its various elements, such a want
of foresight would be inconsistent with the regularity
and harmony of the system, and with our ordinary
views of the character of Jehovah, can we for a
moment imagine, that the most important and in-
teresting part of the general scheme, that, for which
the other was formed and instituted, should be out of
the range of his universal knowledge, and hid in any
of its minutest springs, from the penetration of his
prescient glance ? The moral world, the world of
rational and intelligent agents, hath its laws, its

R 2

244 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

capabilities, its grounds and principles of action, as
well as the physical; and although voluntary and
accountable beings have belonging to them a most
important peculiarity, inasmuch as they are allowed
to regulate their own actions in virtue of the faculties
of Understanding and Will, with which they are en-
dowed; yet, if the eye of omniscience be allowed to
be capable of perceiving the present operations of
mind, there does not seem to be any thing to prevent
it from equally penetrating into the future. It is
said of Jehovah, that He " inhabiteth eternity," in-
timating, that His being and attributes extend alike
over the whole range of duration, and that the several
divisions of time are perceived by Him only in their
relation to created existences. And as there does
not seem to be any difficulty in the supposition of
the certain prescience of the future volitions and
actions of free and intelligent beings, such a know-
ledge must, upon the slightest reflection, be seen
to be absolutely necessary to their proper govern-
ment, and to the arrangement of the whole plan of
their destiny. This will appear, if we consider the
immense power which man is allowed to exert, not
only in the formation of his own character, and in
promoting his own happiness or misery, but likewise
very frequently in the determination of the circum-
stances, the habits, and the general condition of
others. Instrumentally and subordinately, man, in
the exercise of his voluntary faculties and energies,
does almost everything, which relates to his own
character and prospects, and in this sense it may be
truly said, that ''man is the maker of innnortal fates."

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 245

It is true, indeed, that the Will of man cannot have
much influence over the general system of the
natural world. Although the philosophical axiom is
unquestionably true, within proper limitations, that
knowledge is power, yet* these two attributes in man
are by no means equal in their degree, and co-ordi-
date in their range. He knows something of the
general laws, and of the more jjalpable phenomena of
a small portion, at least, of the vast worlds, which
traverse the immensity in Avhich they are lost. But
his power is confined to the production of small, and
comparatively insignificant changes, in the separate
portions of that which he inhabits. He knows, or
at least he supposes, upon very strong grounds, that
he knows the grand principles of the motions and
arrangements of the solar system. But he cannot
produce the least physical effect beyond a distance,
which is much less than the millionth part of the
interval which separates him from the centre of that
system . He could neither stop a planet in its course,
or cause it to deviate one point from its track ; he
could neither increase nor moderate the warmth of
the sun, nor quench one ray of its light, though all
the energies of the species were concentrated in an
individual. With all his ingenious contrivances, and
his success in applying the powers already inherent
in nature, he must still want the fulcrum, the point
from which to bring his engines to bear, before he
can attempt to alter the locality of the great masses
of being, into which matter has been cast and
moulded; and the proud and extravagant assertion,
5o9 irov arco kuc jt]v Ktvrjao), will always be perfectly

246 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

secure against any chance of being practically de-
monstrated to be false.

In what relates to virtue and vice, happiness
and misery, however, man certainly does possess
very extensive power, and in fact, the moral govern-
ment of God is in a very great degree conducted
through the instrumentality of the free and volun-
tary agency of man. To suppose, therefore, that
so great and important a part of the system should
be unknown and absolutely incapable of being
known unto God, until it developed itself into
actual existence and operation, or to suppose any
degree of uncertainty as to the events of it, would
surely be creating a blank on the page of his
omniscience, and a doubt and hesitation into the
course of his administration utterly unworthy of all
our notions of his character and attributes. It
would be depriving Him of that advantage in the
conduct of his universal government, the possession
of which in a lower degree, is that Avhich alone
qualifies human rulers for the important and diffi-
cult functions which devolve upon them. Without
a tolerable general knowledge of the manner in
which men will choose to act, a knowledge acquired
from an insight into their character, derived from
long observation and experience, the statesman
would be utterly unfit to make laws ; for those laws,
it is obvious, are entirely dependent for their ob-
servance upon the determinations of the collective
Will. It is vain to say, under the idea of doing
away with the necessity of a perfect foreknowledge
and an absolute certainty of the voluntary acts of

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 247

men^ that their volitions, in general, are of no im-
portance, in their relation to the established course
of the divine government. Although it may he
true, in the great majority of instances, that an
individual act of volition is of no particular con-
sequence, so far as Ave are capable of tracing its
results in its connexion with the progress of the
divine administration of the moral world, yet it is
unquestionable, that everything that is great and
important in human affairs originates in some act
of this description, giving rise and direction to
other innumerable subsequent acts of a similar kind,
apparently as trivial and insignificant in them-
selves as the first. And if the divine Being is sup-
posed to be ignorant of the first in the series, or if
any uncertainty rested upon that particular deter-
mination of the mind, if it was a contingency in
such a sense, as to leave it at all doubtful as a
matter of fact, whether the first will, which was to
operate as a prime conductor with reference to
those which were to foUoAv, would move in the
peculiar direction, which it happened, perhaps, un-
expectedly to take, then, who must not at once
perceive, that the grand evolution which was so
materially to affect the destinies of generations yet
unborn, and the management of the varied influences
of which formed so prominent a part of the divine
government, must have partaken of the same con-
tingency and uncertainty? To say that, although
the individual, in whose volition this important
series of events originated, had chosen otherwise,
yet God could have accomplished the same general

248 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

order of events, througli the instrumentality of other
persons, can answer no puqDose. For, upon the sup-
position which we are combating, these persons
also, for anything that could have been known to
the contrar}^, might choose to act otherwise, so that
without either a supernatural influence upon men's
wills, that would utterly destroy their moral agency,
or a certain and absolute fore-knowledge of the
manner in which they w^ould exercise the faculties of
volition and action, it w^ould be impossible for any
scheme of importance to be planned as a part of the
divine government, and to be carried into effect
through the instrumentality of human power. It
must be that God should have an infallible prescience
of the results of the Avill of man, and, therefore, that
those results should be certain, or that man should
have properly no AVill at all. Unless Ave dethrone
Jehovah altogether from the sovereignty of the
world, it is inconceivable that those striking epochs,
whether prosperous or adverse, Avhich prominently
stand forth in the various periods of its history as
giving their character and colouring to the ages and
generations Avhich succeed, should not have been
taken into his calculation and not have formed a part
of his plan. Let the conquests of Alexander or of
Cyrus, let the establishment and overthrow of the
four grand empires, and the various consequences
resulting from those events be traced to their origin;
let those mighty revolutions, which at different periods
of the Avorld have convulsed the frame of society and
have given a ncAv aspect, favourable or the reverse, to
the moral scenery of half the globe, be followed up to

OF /

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 249

their first moving spring; let those tides of desolation
and blood, which have so often in their primary effects
overwhelmed comitries and nations in destruction, but
have subsequently been the immediate or indirect
occasion of their regeneration to liberty and light, be
accompanied with a retrograde movement, while they
gradually lessen in energy and in variety of elements,
and combinations, as the approximation is made
towards their starting points, and they will invariably
be found to commence in the quiet and retired voli-
tions of some commanding individual, whose acts of
Will were as spontaneous and undiscoverable by any
eye but that of Omniscience, as those of the feeblest
and obscurest of mankind. It is true that in the
primary view of his character, as a rational and moral
being, such an individual might have chosen to will
and to act otherwise, but in the formation of the plan
of providence, and in the arrangement of the whole
scheme of human destinies, it was assumed as a thing
well known, that he, and all his associates and fol-
lowers, icould prefer thus to exercise their volitions,
and to direct their energies. But to imagine that
there was any real uncertainty of the fact, whether
they would thus choose, and to maintain that things
might possibly, and not improbably, be otherwise,
after it had already been known that they would thus
occur, is to destroy everything like unity of purpose,
comprehensiveness of design, and consistency of ope-
ration, from the whole conduct of providence, and
the whole government of the world. One of the most
important and decisive proofs of the perfect com-

250 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

patibleness of the entire freedom of man, even in his
worst deeds, and of the alxsolute certainty and fore-
knowledge of the results of his volition, is, doubtless,
the great fact of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus
Christ. As an event, no one who professes to give
the least credit to the scheme of divine revelation,
can have any doubt whether it must have taken
place; for, independently of its lying at the foun-
dation of the whole system of human salvation, it is
expressly stated to have been done in fulfilment of
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,
and yet was accomplished by " wicked hands ;" the
wickedness of those hands doubtless resulting from
the wickedness of the wills, by which they were
actuated and directed. There is no circumstance in
sacred or profane history, which must have been more
completely left to the arbitrary choice of those, by
whom the dreadful catastrophe was brought to pass —
the black tragedy was acted. To suppose any com-
pulsive interference with their spontaneous volitions,
in this instance, would involve the most awful
blasphemy. And, su])posing any such uncertainty,
as is here combated, with respect to the results of the
human Will, no event could have been more com-
pletely contingent, no circumstance more doubtful,
inasmuch as no affair of importance appeared to pre-
sent a greater collision of the inherent principles and
passions of human nature. The real state of the
case, however, is, that nothing was ever more certain,
and nothing more entirely dependent upon the free
and capricious volitions of man. Wq conclude, there-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 251

fore, that there is no actual inconsistency between
these two great facts in the government of God, and
in the character and conduct of man.

How far this and other similar events may have
been the objects of a positive decree, we forbear to
inquire ; indeed, the term decree, and, consequently,
the peculiar shade of meaning attached to it, appear
to me altogether technical, and as having, properly,
no place in the mind of Jehovah. A decree is an
instrument of human authority, obliging to the per-
formance of certain prescribed acts, and making that
a duty, which otherwise might not have been known
to be such. It is, therefore, generally considered as
involving some causal and necessitating influence.
The divine decrees, even by the most positive advo-
cates of the doctrine, are universally allowed to be
secret and unknown to man, and, therefore, with
reference to his character, they mean nothing more
than a determination to act in a certain manner to-
wards him; and the whole controversy turns, not upon
the certainty or uncertainty,, not upon what has impro-
perly been called the contingency of his actions, but
upon the consideration whether that determination is
founded upon a previous view of human conduct, 9,3
regulated by unconstrained volition, or upon a sove-
reign and unaccountable will of the Deity, asserting
the awful prerogative of doing what seemeth good in
his sight. So far as the decree leaves the will of
man uncontrolled by any such influence as would
seem to destroy its nature, it resolves itself into the
two elements of foreknowledge, and a determination
to act upon the ground of that foreknowledge. In

252 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

this view of the term decree, a view, however, which
we readily acknowledge to come short of its ordinary
conventional import, it implies nothing more than a
purpose of the divine mind to pursue such a line of
administration towards man. And if the term fore-
knowledge, as expressive of that purpose, is preferable,
it is not because the latter leaves any looseness and
uncertainty about the results of human volition, but
because it involves no necessitating interference with
the operations of that volition, and keeps more per-
fectly clear of the technical formalities of earthly
governments and authorities — formalities which can
hardly fail to lead into error, when applied as mea-
surements and adequate analogies to the plans and
proceedings of the Eternal.

Section III.

TuE Liberty op Man not exclusive of the influenxe
OF Motives.

2. We proceed to remark, in the second place, that
man is not free in such a sense as that the deter-
minations of his Will should be independent of i\\Q;
influence of Motives. It is the circumstance of the
alleged invariable connexion of the exercises of voli-
tion with motives as their commanding and regulat-
ing forces, which Necessitarians, especially those of
the philosopliical school, have brought forward with
the greatest confidence as corroborative of their sys-
tem. They have assumed it as a demonstrable ftict,
or rather as an axiom, which needs no demonstration.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 253

that there is the same inseparable relation between
motives and volitions, as there is between cause and
effect, between any former state of matter and that
to which it immediately gives rise. And as motives
are suggested very frequently by external circum-
stances, or spring from something over which the in-
dividual has no immediate and absolute control, it is
concluded that the will of man is so completely under
the power of these motives, as to have no other
liberty than to yield in all its operations to their re-
sistless energy. Others, apprehending that, if there
be such an order of authority and subordination as
this between motives and the Will, freedom is de-
stroyed, and necessity — the most absolute and unqua-
lified necessity, is inevitable, have run into the
opposite and absurd extreme of maintaining that the
Will is not subject to the determination and control
of Motives, and is capable of exercising a power con-
trary to them and above them. They think that
motives have nothing more to do with the Will than
to hold out inducements, to endeavour as it were to
incline its preferences to one side of a question ; but
that it is altogether at its own discretion whether it
complies with their solicitations, and that it is in this
power of resistance its liberty essentially consists.

We cannot help thinking there must be some
mistake, some mutual misunderstanding in the mode
of stating their opinions between these persons, in
a case where the phenomena are so palpable and
obvious, and, if the process be clearly analyzed, so
distinct as to render it hardly possible that any mis-
apprehension or difference of opinion should take

254 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

place. The extraordinary contrariety of sentiment
upon this point between these persons, appears
in a great measure to spring from this source;
that the term Motives, as relating to the human
mind, is used in two senses, very different from
each other, but, taken in their respective significa-
tions, truly applied in both the theories just men-
tioned. Motives may be either external or internal.
They may either be circumstances from without,
motives ab extra, having simply a general, and per-
haps feeble, tendency to move and excite the will ;
or they may be feelings of the mind inciting to
action, and in a manner constituting themselves pre-
vailing acts of Will. In the former sense, as mere
circumstances that have some tendency, and are in a
certain degree calculated to call forth and to direct
the exercises of the Will, there is certainly no
necessary connexion whatever between them and
the final decisions and preferences of that Will.
If motives in this respect Avere resistless and un-
controllable, man would be continually exposed to
the action of diff'erent and even contradictory kinds
of necessity, inasmuch as a thousand impulsive
strokes of this nature fall upon him from different,
and often diametrically opposite quarters, every
day of his life. A great part of liberty, doubt-
less, consists in conscious and actual discretionary
power, to decide amidst this violent collision of
jarring motives. There may be many motives, in
other terms many circumstances, to induce an in-
dividual to pursue one line of conduct, to enter
upon one order of pursuits, but there may be

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 255

more numerous or stronger motives to incline and
to determine him to the contrary. He may see
many reasons, which woukl powerfully urge him to
the adoption of such a measure, if they were left
to their own free and undisturbed operations; but
there are counteracting circumstances, which more
than balance their Weight. It is not true, there-
fore, universally and without limitation, that ex-
ternal motives, that objects and events from with-
out invariably control the preferences of the human
will. They may be neutralized in their effects by
other motives of the same kind, but of an opposite
tendency, or there may be a sufficient energy of
resistance in the mind itself, in its established prin-
ciples and habits, to annul and to frustrate that
measure of influence, which they are able to exert.
And this is the only sense in which it seems to be
possible that man should will and act independently
of motives, and in a manner contrary to their sug-
gestions. In any other view, to choose to act against
motives is as impossible and absurd as to choose
against choice, and to prefer a particular action in
opposition to that preference itself.

Motives, therefore, in the second signification
here allotted to them as emotions of the mind, are
undoubtedly the guides, and even the materials of
its volitions as mental states. In a process of
volition, the prevailing motive, the feeling which
is predominant over aU others, from whatever source
it may rise, is so clearly interwoven with the exer-
cise of will, that it seems to form the very ele-
ment of willing itself. To be the subject of a

256 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

motive, which is felt to rise superior to all others, to
experience a decided preference, and to exert an
act of Avill, are so closely connected Avith each
other, are so nearly identical sensations, that there
appears to be no ground, upon which they can be
separated, no method of analysis by which they
can properly be resolved into simpler and more
distinct elements. It may be said, therefore, that
the prevailing motive, as a mental feeling, is not
merely connected in immutable necessity with voli-
tion, but constitutes the very act of the elective
preference itself, and as such, may be considered as
throwing the preponderating weight into the scale,
which before may have been equally balanced.
It must be borne in mind, hoAvever, that motives,
as internal sensations, are generally founded upon
the view of some external circumstance of direct
and positive good, or of negative advantage in the
alleviation of evil, which is considered of sufficient
weight and importance to operate with a prevailing
influence upon the faculty of volition. It is implied
in the very nature of exercising a preference, that
there be some ground for it. And if the sensation
excited by any order of facts or any particular
object was of the same relative strength, and was
attended with the same commanding power over
other sentiments and emotions in every instance,
there is no doubt that such circumstances would
act with a perfect and complete uniformity of effect
upon every mind. It is, however, continually seen
in the course of human life, and in the development
of the principles of character, that this is by no

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 257

means tlie case. AVliat operates as a prevailino-
motive, and outweighs with a paramount and unri-
valled superiority of influence, in one instance, in
another is found utterly powerless and ineffective,
just as different physical constitutions and halnts
of body, superinduced by different modes of living,
require a different kind of treatment, and the appli-
cation of a different combination of medical ingre-
dients, in order to experience a remedial effect.
In the case of one person, for example, any object
which promises the immediate gratification of a
strong sensual appetite, acts with a decided predo-
minance over every other consideration which can
be presented to him, and thus forms the outward
ground of the internal prevailing motive, and con-
sequently his volition becomes embodied in that
motive, so as in reality to form one feeling or state
of mind. Let the same object offer ii»elf to the
view of another, and instead of yielding himself at
once with a passive succumbency to its force, he
pauses, directs towards it the eye of calm, unim-
passioned reason, views it in its present meanness
and fugitiveness of enjoyment and in its future
consequences, and connects it with the law, by
which it is perhaps prohibited, and with the misery,
which it wall in all probability entail. Having
exercised these reflections upon it, he finds it loses
all its motive energy, becomes stripped of all its
attractiveness, and sinks into powerlessness and
insipidity. And his Will, consequently, refuses to
comply with its suggestions or fix its preference
upon it. In this instance, the material of the out-

258 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

ward motive, or of the ground of the mental
feeling, was precisely the same. But in its actual
bearing and influence upon the mind in these re-
spective cases, it has proved very different. In
one, it operated as a prevailing motive, and en-
listed the Will in its favour ; in the other, it only
made an impotent attempt, and was repelled from
its encroachment upon the character, through the
exercise of that prerogative of the intellectual and
reasoning Faculty, in which we have represented the
principle of liberty to rest as a part of the mental
constitution of man. And it is in this view of the
matter only, that the Will can be said not to be
invariably influenced by motives. It must be re-
collected, however, that considering motive simply
as an afl'ection of mind, both these persons willed
in strict accordance with its dictates. The differ-
ence was^his, that the sensual man wilfully ne-
glected to exercise his reason and understanding
in such a manner, as would have effectually coun-
teracted the influence of the first motive, by bring-
ing other more cogent motives into operation;
whereas the thoughtful and considerate man, by
availing himself of this principle of his nature, was
enabled to call into existence a motive, or com-
bination of motives, derived from other views and
sources, which more than neutralized the force of
that whicli first appealed to the Will. The man of
serious and reflecting mind can thus bring all the
interests of eternity to act as a restraining or sti-
mulating force, in giving a salutary direction to liis
volitions. But it is impossible, in tlic nature of

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 259

thing's, that he should be possessed of any such
liberty, as that he can choose and determine the
operations of his Will in direct opposition to those
vie^YS and feelings which actually exist as prevail-
ing motives in his own mind. To suppose him pos-
sessed of any such power, is, in reality, to suppose
him capable of preferring and rejecting the same
thing at one instant of time.

In the very essence and idea of a prevailing mo-
tive, it is implied that the AYill has already deter-
mined fi'eely in its favour. The conclusion, there-
fore, is, that no order of external circumstances to
which the name of motives may be loosely and im-
properly given, can act with a compulsive or necessi-
tating influence upon the will of man. But when
he has already allowed them to become embodied
in the predominating emotions of his own heart,
and has given them the decided preference, it is an
absurdity, a contradiction in terms, to suppose that
he can choose to direct his volitions in a contrary
order. Man, indeed, is free in the most perfect,
or at least in the only availing and valuable sense
of the expression, but his very freedom essentially
consists in preferring and acting in undisturbed
accordance with the most powerful inclinations of
his own mind; and if these inclinations fall in any
measure under the vassalage and captivity of the
passions and the sensitive part of his nature, it is
only because he has neglected, and continues to
neglect, to assert that prerogative, which inalienably
belongs to him as an accountable being, to control
his ai^petites and more grovelling volitions in the

S 2

260 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

commanding exercise of his judgment, and with the
aid of the more comprehensive views of his under-
standing.

Section IY.

Moral Liberty not requirixg Indifference -with respect
TO THE objects op Choice.

3. It may be observed once more, that man is
not possessed of such a kind of free will as that all
things should be Indifferent to him. The notion
which some persons entertain of moral liberty, is,
that external circumstances are altogether a matter
of indifference, as they relate to the susceptibilities
of the human mind, and that the choice of one
thing rather than another, is a mere arbitrary act
of the will, which out of various objects, whose
claims appear precisely equal, or at least, whose
power of making an impression in their favour is
equal, selects one out of the number for no other
reason, than that it chooses so to do. All candidates
for preference are considered as occuping two oppo-
site scales, balanced with the most perfect nicety,
and the business of the Will is represented to be, to
throw its determining energy into one side, so as to
cause it to preponderate, M-ithout any other ground
for so doing, than simply because it prefers thus to
act. This notion appears to me utterly groundless
and absurd. Indifference, indeed, as applied to the
faculty of volition, is a most incongruous term. For,
with whatever arbitrariness, capriciousncss, or inde-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 261

pendencc, this faculty may appear sometimes to
operate, it is contrary to its very nature, that it
should operate at all without some principle or reason
of preference to guide it in its elective jDrocesses.
We do not, indeed, wish to establish such a connec-
tion between the acts of the Will, and the grounds of
those acts, as that the former should be considered
as resulting from the latter in the way of n^ssary
consequences and effects, without the possibility of
any interference or control being exercised by the
intellectual and reasoning Faculty. But, although it
is in the power and at the discretion of an enlightened
judgment to exercise its magic influence in bringing
such views of things into mental existence, in ex-
hibiting them in such lights, and in arranging them
in such an order of accurate form and proportional
magnitude and importance, as would secure the Will
from being enslaved and over-borne by any law of
blind necessity, to which it is forced to bow as im-
plicitly as the limb of a pair of scales sinks when its
equipoise has been destroyed by an additional quan-
tity of weight; yet as Will is not a power of the
human mind, which can act independently of the
other faculties, but a mere mode of thinking and feel-
ing, the quality or distinguishing character of which,
is preference founded upon some idea or combination
of ideas present to the judgment at the same instant,
in which the emotion is experienced, it is contrary to
the very definition of the operation, that it should
take place, while the objects to which it is directed,
and from which it chooses, appear indifferent. Voli-
tion is a phenomenon of the human mind, requiring

262 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

an apparent preferableness or eligibility in its objects
as suggested by reason, or coloured by imagination,
nd, perhaps, additionally urged upon the choice by
affection, in order to be called into actual being, as
much as motion in a body previously in a state of
quietude, and prevented by the same weight of inertia
operati^ equally on all its parts from the slightest
efforts towards changing its relative position, requires
some force or impulse from without to excite its
capability of impression, and to urge it in the peculiar
direction which it is found to take.

If we undertake to analyze any particular act of
volition, we shall invariably find, that so far as its
object is a matter of deliberation at all, it invariably
involves as its groundwork, an order of positive and
negative considerations, circumstances which have | a
tendency to incline to either side of the general
question at issue. If these circumstances, as weighed
by the judgment, appear so equally balanced as to
render it almost impossible to determine on which
side the advantage lies, the mind is thrown into that
state of indecision, which for the time completely
neutralizes the Will, and in which the reasoning or
inventive faculty is busily and often painfully at
work, to find out some new fact or some aspect of the
case not yet duly surveyed, which may relieve it from
this powcrlessness of elective agency, and afford a
foundation of energetic choice upon one side of the
question. Pursuing our analysis still further, we find
that, in order properly to excite a volition, it is not
merely necessary that there should be a question
proposed, presenting a ])ositivc and negative to the

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 263

choice, but that when the ground of a preference is
sufficiently obvious and decided, there should be a
feeling of the mind giving its clear and unhesitating
acquiescence in the propriety and expediency of that,
which is believed to be in itself preferable. With
whatever carelessness and precipitancy the voli-
tions of manldnd in general, and of some persons
more particularly, are formed, they Avill always be
found to be the consequence of some idea sug-
gested to the mind, or some impression made upon
the outward senses. An act of Will, therefore,
however thoughtless, if we may be allowed the
paradox, is never without some mental exercise,
without some train of ideas passing through the
mind, which may be properly called thought. It is
not a mere feeling, it is not a mere emotion of
strong desire or preference, for which the mind can
give no such account as appears at the moment
satisfactory to itself; but it is a feeling — an emotion
founded upon and accompanied wdtli the conviction,
illusive, perhaps, indeed, because Eeason does not
properly exert its discerning and controlling power,
that "this is good for me." It is, therefore, a
phenomenon of the mind, it is a modification of
mental exercise, which, while the external or relative
circumstances, to which it has reference, continue to
appear absolutely indifferent, cannot possibly exist.

And as it is philosoiihically impossible that any
volition should take place, while outward objects,
or those circumstances, with which the Will is more
immediately concerned, continue to appear indiffer-
ent, and without presenting any special ground of

204 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

preference ; so it militates against the clearest repre-
sentations of scripture, and against one of the leading
and fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith to
suppose, that all the scenes of the moral world, that
all those modes of action, which constitute virtue
and vice, holiness and sin, hold forth an aspect of equal
attractiveness, or are viewed with equal antipathy,
as estimated Ly the mind of man. It assuredly is not
the fact, as universal observation shows and expe-
rience testifies, that all things, which present their
claims and urge their eager appeals to the favourable
notice of man, are possessed of the same power to
engage his attention, and to incline, although not
absolutely to command, his choice. One of the worst
heresies, which ever sprung up in the church, was that
which ascribed an inordinate power to the Will of
man, unaided by divine influence, in resisting the fas-
cinations of evil, and in fixing the regards of the mind
upon what is holy and pure and good. In order to
afford anything like consistency to that mischievous
scheme of doctrine, which was set up by Pelagius, and
has prevailed, in its main principles, in its spirit and
essence, in a degree more or less in every age of the
church, it was found necessary, in order to support
the extravagant notions which it entertains of the
freedom of the human AYill, that the great fact of
the awful and deplorable degradation from moral
purity and rectitude, which has evidently 1)efallen our
nature, should be virtually denied. If moral good
and evil, obliquity and uprightness, purity and turpi-
tude were precisely upon the same footing with respect
to any inherent power of producing an impression

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 265

upon the Will of man, it mnst follow, that every
single act of preference, Avhether directed to what is
excellent or what is base, must take place without any
perceptible ground in the object of choice, and, there-
fore, that the Will is not only free to choose both
what appears desirable to the unreflecting feelings,
and what Eeason sanctions as such, but that it is even
free to prefer without any imaginable ground, without
anything in the objects themselves, on account of
which it fixes itself upon them. Such capriciousness
of liberty is more preposterous and unmeaning, if
possible, than necessity itself. It is an utter mistake
to imagine that an indifference in the objects, to
which it is directed, is essential to the moral
freedom of the human Will, and that such an equi-
poise belonging to their capabilities of impression is
necessary to his responsibility as an accountable
agent. It is true, indeed, that since the fall, man has
lost, to an awful and deplorable degree, his inherent
love of moral excellency, and that his susceptibility of
evil impressions is become far more sensitive and
acute ; but then he has not lost his love of the greater
apparent good, nor altogether, if he properly employs
his faculties, his original power of discerning it. Al-
though good and evil, therefore, morally considered,
are far, very far from being equally indifferent to him,
the absolute fact being that the latter is more attrac-
tive to him than the former, yet as no compulsion is
applied to the Will, as it requires only calm reflection
to perceive that the choice and pursuit of vice are
absolutely inconsistent with peace and safety, secu-
rity and blessedness, there is quite enough in this

266 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

consideration connected with man's unalterable love
of the greater good, to preserve him from that sla-
very, from that utter destruction of his character as a
moral agent, which his innate love of sin and hatred
of holiness would seem at first sight to threaten him.
There is nothing more necessary to the constitution
of his moral freedom, than that, by a due exercise of
his reflecting faculties, he may have it in his power
to summon into view such scenes of future and eternal
destiny as may more than balance the evil tendency,
which is now, unquestionably, a part of his nature.
Since the melancholy catastro^^he which has univer-
sally befallen our species, the exercise of the Prero-
gative of Eeason, as the fundamental principle of
human freedom, has become, indeed, much more diffi-
cult than otherw ise it would have been, just as we find
it to be with the man w^ho has become besotted with
sin and vice. A measure of slavery of Will is, in
such a case, a penal judgment, because the individual
has absolutely sinned away his freedom and the com-
mand exercised by his intelligence. And it is only
in the sense of a strong tendency to evil, super-
induced by the fall, that the expression, which we
often hear, is true, that man, since that fatal period,
is " only free to sin." In any other application to the
will of man, it is erroneous and unmeaning. AVliile
man continues in a state of probation, he can never
wholly lose the required prerogative of his Reason.
Althougli the oljjects of the Will are not and cannot
be indifferent, yet there is no such irresistible ten-
dency to any object, as that a clear view of tlie
greater good may not and ought not to overcome it.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 267

It is in a state of future recompense only, that the
love of evil in the condemned, and that of good in
the blessed, will constitute a species of moral, though
not a physical and absolute necessity, binding them
severally to the states to which they are respectively
consigned.

Section Y.

Recapitulation.

These appear to me to be the chief limitations, under
which it is indispensably necessary that we should
estimate the character of man as a free and respon-
sible agent. It is as essential to a correct scriptural
and philosophical view of the subject, that these
boundaries and qualifying considerations be marked
out, as it is that the great fact of liberty, as the
groundAYork and foundation of the whole scheme of
responsibility and moral agency, should be distinctly
asserted and firmly maintained. It is equally possible
to err on both sides of the question ; and Ave are per-
suaded that warm and violent partisans have most
grievously erred, one class in representing the faculty
of volition as sunk into such a state of bondas^e and
impotence of elective agency, or as bound in its
operations to such a series of mechanical and conca-
tenated influences, as to have the inevitable effect
of encroaching upon real, practical, and equitable
accountability of character ; and another, in ascribing
unto the AVill of man such a preposterous and inor-
dinate power of self-determination, as is inconsistent

268 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

with the sovereignty of God's purposes, with the uni-
versality of his knowledge, and the established order
of his government, and utterly at variance with the
very nature of the process of volition, and with the
actual condition of the species, as demonstrated by
the most unquestionable experience. In the pre-
ceding discussion it has been our object to hold a
middle course betvveen these opposite extremes, and,
by observing the oscillations of error, to fix the index
of its tendencies, as nearly as our present faculties
and means of knowledge appear to admit, upon the
unvarying point of truth. It may be that, in this
difficult and abstruse problem of moral investigation,
like some of those questions of mathematical inquiry,
of which the exact and definite limits cannot be
distinctly fixed, and the method of infinite approxi-
mation is consequently substituted in their stead, we
must be content with an approach to truth. In
the principles, Avhich have been here laid down and
attempted to be illustrated, we have endeavoured
to keep the eye upon the actual phenomena of the
mental constitution, as they develop themselves in
the operations of the Will, without deviating from
those vicAvs of conscious belief in reference to this
point, which form a part of our ver^' nature, and
without encroaching upon those representations of
Scripture, which can never be at variance Avith the
clear and fundamental dictates of that nature. And
in bringing this discussion to a close, it may be
useful, in order to a clear view of the general train
of argumentation which has been pursued in it, to
exhibit a brief summary of the principal vicA^s, yyhidi

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 2G9

have been advanced, and of tlie order in which the
reasoning has been arranged. By means of tliis
analytic process, the connexion of the whole will be
more easily perceived, and Jiie force and validity of
the several component parts will be more accurately
ascertained.

As the first and most remote analogy to the
operations of Will, Ave noticed the continual motion,
the ceaseless action and reaction, which prevail
throughout the system of nature. We proceeded to
remark that some of these phenomena are evidently
the effects of voluntary choice, others the results
of mechanical and inherent forces and suscepti-
bilities, but involving no exercise of perception,
thought, or feeling; and that this difference in the
mode of producing motion, and of performing ac-
tions, lies at the foundation of the whole question
of liberty. In further illustration of the general
process of elective agency, as displayed in the
various departments of the physical, animal, and
intellectual and moral world, it was observed that
the first and lowest modification of preference dis-
played in nature, is that of Sinq^Je Tendency to one
kind of action, and to one direction of motion rather
than another, as exhibited in the several phenomena
of magnetism, crystallization, and chemical aftinity,
and in those mechanical forces which the Creator
originally impressed upon matter, or willed to be
a part of its very being, and Avhich are found to
pervade the whole economy of IsTature. It was,
therefore, stated to be a groundless and inade-
quate view^ of matter, as a substance created by

270 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

the Divine being and endued with certain qualities,
requiring only certain collocations and arrangements
to be called into operation, to represent it as totally
inert and destitute of al^aower of action and reaction.
The next stage in the gradations of the elective
process was shown to be that of Sensitive preference,
in the exercise of which all living and Sentient
beings feel inclined to some actions and objects,
rather than others. The third and last in the scale,
of which we have any knowledge, is that of Rational
choice, upon the ground of motives suggested by
the understanding, and rendered availing through
the native and inherent susceptibility of the being,
who thus prefers. This was seen to be the peculiar
kind of liberty belonging to man, the mode of
exerting his volitions suitable to a being placed in
accountable circumstances, and a subject of moral
agency. Assuming this to be the distinctive cir-
cumstance, characteristic of the mode in which man
exerts or is capable of exerting his preferences and
voluntary determinations, we proposed it as a first
object of inquiry, upon what ground and to what
extent man is to be considered as free; in other
words, what is essential to the Liberty of moral
agency. AVith a view of ascertaining and illustra-
ing this important point, we proceeded to lay do^vn
certam indispensable requisites and first principles
of moral liberty as founded upon the exercises
of volition. The first of these is Life, accompanied
with sensation and intellect, in opposition to the
condition of inanimate beings, which are obviously
not qualified for moral agency. The second is a sus-

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 271

ceptibility of enjoyment and suffering, as otherwise
there wouUl be no adequate ground of preference,
and the operation of rewards and punishments, as
the instrument of moral government, could have
no place. To this circumstance the origin of evil
was traced, inasmuch as a Possibility of offending
and suffering is an absolute and necessary part of
every form of government. Evil, as the only alter-
native of a wrong choice, of an improper exercise
of discretionary power, was shown to be of the very
essence of responsible agency, and therefore, the
capacity and possibility of suffering extend to the
highest angel in heaven as well as to man upon
earth. To this was added, as a third principle, an
invariable Desire of the Greater Good, when properly
presented to the view and duly appreciated by the
underst9.nding. These three properties, or endow-
ments, every moral and responsible agent — every
being that is accountable for the exercise of his
volitions, must possess as the very first rudiments of
his character. In the application of these principles
to the determination of the extent of human liberty,
and the illustration of the method of human volition,
it was shown that in man there is a paramount and
commanding faculty of Reason, the business of which
is not to urge him to prefer and to act in opposi-
tion to the original elements and tendencies of his
nature, but to direct his Will to the choice of such
things as will prove permanently conducive to his
highest good, — to arbitrate between the different
kinds and degrees of good,- and to engage him in
the pursuit of that, which is, on the whole, best

272 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

adapted to his character, and best calculated to
satisfy his desires.

It is this Prerogative of Eeason, therefore, on
which the liberty of man, as a responsible moral
agent, may be considered as depending. This was
shown to be the case, in the iirst place, because
those persons are never viewed as proper subjects of
punishment, in whom Eeason is not in a state to
exercise this dominant influence and salutary con-
trol, as is evident from the estimate formed of the
actions of infants, and of persons labouring under
mental aberration. It was next stated, that the
rational or intellectual Faculty has the power, as
demonstrated by daily experience, to excite new
volitions, by exhibiting actions in their real cha-
racter, and by following them to their eventual con-
sequences— volitions quite diiferent from those which
would have arisen in the mind, if the same faculty
had been listless and indifferent. It was, thirdly,
maintained, that, in the economy of the human con-
stitution, this Prerogative of Eeason, when duly
and vigorously exerted, extends over the whole
range of the character ; over the views of the mind,
so as effectually to prevent the adoption of such
profane and impious notions as are at variance
equally with the evidence of intuitive belief and
demonstrative science, with the law of Nature and
the principles of Eevelation ; over the affections of
the heart, so as to direct them in their exercises
and attachments, and to allow them permanently to
rest upon those objects only, upon Avhich they may
be legitimately and suitably placed ; and, finally.

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 273

over tlie actions of the conduct, so that tlicy are to
be morally estimated, to be considered as proper
objects of reward or punishment, just in proportion
to the degree in which Reason exerted, or was
capable of exerting', its authority in their regulation.
In the investigation of this last head of argument,
several theories and hypotheses fell under our con-
sideration, especially that of Suggestion, as totall^^
neutralizing the influence, and even annihilating
virtually the very being of any voluntary power
over the series of thoughts and feelings, which suc-
cessively and spontaneously rise in the mind — that
of the unaccountableness of speculative opinions —
that of the evil of sin as consisting simply in its
own nature, without any reference to the manner
in which it is produced — and, finally, that of phi-
losophical Necessity, which utterly confounds good
and evil actions, binds them together, and attaches
them to the human character with the same chain of
destiny, and makes God the author of both alike.

AYhile, however, we considered the Prerogative of
Eeason above the subordinate faculties of the human
mind, as that which forms the main hinge, upon
which his Liberty and his capacity of moral agency
turn, we by no means wished to give the idea of such
extravagant and inordinate power and efficiency as
belonging to this faculty, as is inconsistent with the
real economy of the mental constitution, and would
seem to supersede the absolute and indispensable
necessity of divine grace, in order effectually to
subdue the pen^ersities of the Will, to purify the
affections, and to mould the character. AVe pro-

T

274 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION AS CONNECTED

ceeded, therefore, to the Second branch of the general
question, and endeavoured to point out in what sense
man is not free, and to what extent he may be consi-
dered a Necessary agent, without in the slightest
degree interfering with his accountability as a Moral
agent. And in the prosecution of this investigation,
we found that man is not free in such a sense, as that
any of his actions should be doubtful, ^uncertain, or
Contingent, inasmuch as this would be utterly incon-
sistent with the comprehensive and harmonious plan
of the divine government; neither, secondly, is he free
in such a sense as to be exempt from the command-
ing influence of Motives, considered as emotions
of the mind, and not mere external circum-
stances, to which that designation is frequently
applied. Volitions are so uniformly connected with
prevailing motives, as to become in a manner iden-
tified, and to form one elective state of mind. And,
finally, it was shown that it does not form a part of
human liberty, that man is not in such a sense free,
as that all actions, good and evil, virtuous and
vicious, holy and profane, should, as Pelagians, and
other heretics have maintained, be Indifferent to
him. So far is this from being the case, that a
preponderance of spontaneous attachment to Evil
was the inevitable consequence of the lamentable
degradation which he has experienced, and becomes
strengthened in the way of penal judgment by every
instance of wilful additional indulgence in sin, thus
opening a way for the operations of a divine influence
graciously vouchsafed to his aid, without, in reality,
destroying the leading feature of his character as a

WITH LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 275

moral, accountable being. Under these limitations,
therefore, man is Free. Such, so far as Ave can trace
it, appears to be the order of the mysterious opera-
tions of the voluntary principle in man — such the
sublime economy, which the infinite Creator hath
been pleased to establish as best calculated for the
purposes of a moral government. We have forborne
from entering at length into the opinions of heathen
philosophers and the Fathers of the Christian church,
upon this great question, because their sentiments in
both instances, for the most part, were exceedingly
vague and indeterminate, and often inconsistent Avith
themselves. The sect of the Stoics, it is well known,
held the doctrine of a fixed fate, though it is, at the
same time, by no means easy to ascertain the precise
meaning which, in general, they attached to this
term. Others of the ancient philosophers held that
the intellectual and moral constitution of man is a
species of syncrasis, a mixture of liberty and necessity.
In the treatises of St. Bernard, St. Augustine, and
others of the early fathers, there is but little of Avhat
is satisfactory upon this inquiry. Their discussions
are loose and rambling in the extreme. Many valu-
able and solid observations are, however, scattered
over their pages, and the general di'ift of their reason-
ings and illustrations seems to be, to i)rove the free-
dom of the human Will on the one hand, and the
necessity of the aid of divine Grace on the other,
thus laudably endeavouring to enforce the obligations
of piety and virtue, and, at the same time, to demon-
strate the absolute gratuitousness of all the blessings
of salvation. Overlooking, however, the opinions

T 2

276 THE FACULTY OF VOLITION,

and hypotheses, .vhich have prevailed at different
periods of the history of the chureh and of the .oM
upon this point, we have endeavoured to state the
truth as it unfolds itself in the invariahle phenomena
of the mind itself, and to mark out the leading prn.-
ciples of that wise and beneficent moral economy, ot
which the existence of Evil appears to he an insepar-
able appendage, but a vast preponderance of good
cannot fail to be the ultimate issue.

BOOK III.

THE CONSCIENCE VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE

SENSE OF DUTY AND THE OBLIGATIONS OF

THE MOKAL LAW.

Section I.

The Origin of the Notion of Duty as centering in tub
Conscience.

Independently of any design or effort of my own, I
find myself surrounded by an order of circumstances,
in Avhich certain habits of mind and conduct are in-
dispensably necessary to my happiness. I am placed
in the midst of a system of physical and moral in-
fluences which, like so many radiations of light and
heat either emanating directly from their source, or
reflected from other objects, incessantly act with
more or less force upon the views of my understand-
ing, and the feelings of my heart. To date the com-
mencement, and to trace the respective and minute
effects of this combination of elements, as they pro-
gressively develop themselves in the character, were
indeed as much beyond the range of possibility as to
apply a similar method of analysis to the precise
mode and extent, in which food and atmospheric in-
fluence act upon the animal principle in the j^rocess
of organic formation. It is perfectly apparent that,
for the evolution of the exquisite machinery of the

278 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

bodily frame^ both of tbese materials are necessary,
but by what means they are limited and controlled
in their tendencies — by what order of correlative
operation they are aggregated into the coarser
masses, or elaborated into the more delicate instru-
ments of the system, entirely escapes our observa-
tion. Thus, in our intellectual and moral nature, we
can easily discover the aids and influences, by which
our mental principles are modified and evolved in
their aggregate effects ; but to mark out the exact
point at which the progress originated, and to recog-
nise distinctly every successive step, by which the
inherent susceptibility was unfolded, until it has
assumed the form of an established maxim of the
understanding, is a task, for which our present facul-
ties are by no means competent. The grand ten-
dency, however — the obvious bearing and design of
circumstantial influences, as they relate to the
human mind and character, may be as clearly ascer-
tained by observation and experience as the assimi-
lating properties of matter in its effects upon the
animal frame. In estimating any principle or pro-
pensity of our nature, therefore, it is unquestionably
right to take all these considerations into the
account, without for a moment losing sight of the
fact, that there must have been an original capability
of impression and expansion, otherwise no principle
could have been evolved — no maxim consolidated.
It seems that, in the investigation of the moral, as
well as the intellectual elements of the nature oi'
man, as they are cxhil)ited in the comparative ma-
turity of social life, philosophers have too mucli

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 270

overlooked the correlative bearing which exists be-
tween him and the system, in the midst of which he
is placed. Hence, some have viewed the great
axioms of the understanding, and the fundamental
principles of the conduct as naturally engraven upon
his mind, and as there standing out in legible promi-
nence independently of all instruction or experience.
They represent them as so many members of an in-
tellectual organization either immediately created by
the hand of Deity, or put forth by the mind itself
in the exercise of its own independent energy.
Others have run into the opposite and more danger^
ous extreme of making man altogether the creature
of circumstances and external influences.

In opposition to these theories it must be main-
tained that man combines in his character as much
as is correct in both, but derives all the habits of his
intellectual and moral being in the mode assumed by
neither. He is unquestionably possessed of an indi-
viduality of personal existence — of responsibility — of
thought and of feeling — of a susceptibility of happi-
ness and of misery ; and therefore it is necessary that
he should be possessed of a power of combination and
reflection perfectly distinct from the mere result of
sensitive influx. The design of this power is, how-
ever, not to evolve principles of thought or action by
any isolated exercises of its OAvn, but to work out
the various materials, with which it is supplied, by its
constant and never-ceasing correspondence with the
things which are without, into the boundless forms
of truth and moral excellence.

In endeavouring to discover the first germ, and to

280 THE COXSCIEXCE IN CONNECTION WITH

mark the incipient development of the notion of
duty in the human mind, it is important to observe,
that man was not only made for society, and there-
fore was endowed Avith capabilities of thought and
feeling adapted to that condition, but that also since
the first creation of the species, he has been inva-
riably trained up amidst some of the habits and asso-
ciations Avhich that state of being implies and abso-
lutely requires. It is indeed as impossible as it would
be useless to exhibit a view of the naked powers and
susceptibilities of his mind apart from the education
which they have received amidst that unceasing play
of influences and occasions Avhich have been radiating
and operating upon him throughout the AA'hole period
of his existence. These circumstances were, in fact,
as necessary to call forth the intellectual and moral
principles of his nature, as colours and sounds, and
tactual impressions were to awaken the external
senses into conscious and efficient operation, ^o
one, perhaps, except the Epicurean Atheists of old,
has doubted that the eye was made for seeing, and
was framed in accordance with the established laws
of the physical world, with a peculiar aptitude for that
function*. The same remark is equally applicable to
the car in relation to the sensitive act of hearing, and
to all the other perceptive inlets of the human frame.
But however curious and exquisite may be the work-
manship displayed in these organs — however clear
and unquestionable may be the impress of specific

Liimina nc facias oculoruiii clara crcata
Pio,si)iccro lit poy.-^imuy. — LucuET. lib. 4, v. 824.

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 281

design and consummate Avisdom^ Avhicli they bear, it
is oljvious that without a correlative order of external
objects and events, and even without considerable
exercise and reflective experience, they Avould Ijc
utterly useless and unavailing. Upon the sentient
organs, indeed, material impressions are productive
of an effect similar to that of the beams of the morn-
ing sun upon the harp of Memnon, or of the breeze
which sweeps its chords upon the melody of the JEo-
lian lyre. Touched by appropriate influence, the
string that was before silent, at once awakens into
sound, and is found to ^'discourse most eloquent
music." Strictly analogous to these effects, appears
to be the mode in which the various faculties of man,
whether they be sensitive, intellectual, or moral, are
called into action by the numerous train of suitable
circumstances with which they are surrounded. jN^or
does this view of the subject lead to the slightest
encroachment upon the spirituality and integrity of
the mental principle — upon the responsibility of man,
and the certainty of moral distinctions. It only
exhibits our nature as placed in the midst of a vast
range of influences which afford the best possible
opportunity for the development of its powers — the
excitation of its susceptibilities, and the salutary
direction of its moral energies.

To analyze an aggregation of emotions and ideas,
which have already been consolidated by slow and
imperceptible accumulation into the texture of first
principles, especially when the elements are so subtile
and evanescent, and so recondite in their mode of
combination, is obviously a task of extreme difficulty.

2S2 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

Like the strata of massive rocks in the arrangements
of geological formation, which were deposited from a
liquid, the great facts of mind which present them-
selves to the superficial observer as the original and
unmodified constituents of its very being, as it came
forth from the Creator's hand, will be found on closer
inspection to have assumed their existing form in
obedience to the progressive operation of laws of
mutual influence and association as invariable as
those of crystallization or cohesion. In the case of
the moral phenomena the difficulty is much increased
by that principle of derangement, which we know
from infallible authority, has gained entrance into
the system, and has disturbed that beautiful harmony
of mental operations, which originally distinguished
the great masterpiece of creative wisdom. Like one
of those maladies which run in a hereditary line
through a succession of families, and which have a
continual tendency to impair and undermine the
salutary economy of the physical constitution, this
insidious evil has mingled itself with every element
of our being, and prevents that free and well-pro-
portioned evolution of mental capacities and endow-
ments, by which our character was designed to act in
unison with the whole system of the universe. The
great laws of moral government, however, as origi-
nally established by supreme wisdom and goodness,
still remain unaltered, and as administered by their
divine Author in the several departments of provi-
dence and grace, have a continual tendency, like a
species of niiiiis vahira^, to correct the aberrations
of passion and sensitive function, and to restore that

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 283

delightful equilibrium of the desires, ^vhich consti-
tutes the glory and happiness of every rational and
responsi1)le being. The law of nature as imposed
upon the first founders of our race, and as consti-
tuting the great bond of the rectitude and well-being
of the intellectual universe, was not abrogated or in
any degree weakened by its original violation. It
was, indeed, in order to vindicate and maintain it in
all its integrity that the restorative system was insti-
tuted; and that plan may be considered as a branch
of the great scheme of government, by which Jehovah
binds together the whole community of his intelligent
creatures in an identity of interest and of happiness
as arising from obedience to himself. If such, then,
be the design of the beneficent Author of our being
in all his dispensations towards us, to raise us in
thought, feeling, and conduct to that standard of
excellency, which had its original in his own nature
and which he has prominently embodied in all the
works of his hands, it is obvious that we must regard
the several departments of his government as so
many successive steps, by which, in accordance with
the exercise of our native powers, Ave may attain to
this object. Hence we find that the means, which
he has appointed to bear upon our character, are
strictly adapted to our nature and beautifully har-
monize with the development of our faculties. But
amidst all the variety of these means they uniformly
tend to the same object. In subserviency to this
purpose we find man in the very first stage of his
existence possessed of a capacity of physical enjoy-
ment and suffering — of pleasure and pain. This is

284 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

the foundation of his moral education; and it is in
obedience to the natural impulse, T^^hich craves for
gratification and shrinks from the opposite emotion
that his notions of conduct are first formed. AYho
has ever witnessed a child in the first stage of infancy
abstaining from any object of delight within his
reach, or willingly submitting to any process of pain
and self-denial under an idea of the rectitude and
propriety of such an act, or from any instinctive
propensity amounting to what has been called a
moral sense? It is obvious that at such a period
the child thinks only of what is agreeable and grati-
fying to itself. As, however, its powers of observa-
tion and experience begin to expand, and the results
of the exercises of benevolence and self-denial,
which within certain limits are essential to any
measure of happiness and security in a social state,
are instilled into its mind, it learns to think it right
to extend its views somewhat beyond its own present
physical enjoyment, for otherwise happiness could
not upon any scale exist. From the delight which it
derives from pleasure of every kind, it by degrees
comes to regard happiness or enjoyment as a positive
good, and therefore as inherently desirable. Hence
every mode of conduct, which experience has shown
to be, on the whole, calculated to promote happiness,
is viewed in the same light. When the idea of rec-
titude or justice has been once gained as a relation
inse])arably connected with a benevolent constitution
of nature, that of duty necessarily springs out of it.
In whatever manner it is supposed to be riglit tliat I
should act towards an indi\idual, it is at once ]ier-

TIIK SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 285

cei\-ed and felt that it is my duty thus to act towards
him.

It is not to be supposed from the preceding view,
that in forming the notion of Duty, every individual
enters into an arithmetical calculation of the good
which will result to himself or others from any parti-
cular line of conduct any more than in learning to
see he mathematically estimates the angle under
which an object presents itself to his view. In both
processes there is a gradual and therefore unobserved
approximation towards the judgment which is formed,
and a concurrence of a great variety of associate
means and influences tending to the same point. In
a state of society there are maxims of Duty and
rectitude afloat, which have justly assumed the cha-
racter of moral axioms, and which under certain
modifications are inculcated upon every new actor
upon the stage of existence, and which his owui
observation, as well as every higher light which he
may enjoy, combines in convincing him to be as
lasting as the frame of nature, or rather as immut-
able as the Author of nature Himself. These
maxims, like the h}^3othetical truths of geometry, or
the rules of grammatical construction, did not how-
ever exist in the mind in the form of specific and
isolated facts previously to all experience and inves-
tigation into the nature of things. They are rather
the great generalizations, which had indeed their
germs in the inherent susceptibilities of the mind,
that Avere unfolded into conscious and recognized
existence like the statue out of the block of marble,
by the exercise of reason and observation upon the

286 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

condition of external things. In this view they may
with the most perfect propriety be considered as in-
nate, inasmuch as they require only the circumstances
of social life conjoined with observation and reflec-
tion to be elicited into necessary existence. The
great evangelical maxim, for example, that we should
do unto others as we would have them do unto us,
which constitutes the sublimest and most compre-
hensive formula of social obligation ever exhibited,
although it had not been embodied in lucid expres-
sion, until it was enounced by the Saviour of the
world, yet was inscribed with equal certainty upon
the very altar-piece of nature ; and after the light of
heaven had thus beamed upon the obscurity of its
characters, it is seen to be the governing principle of
the whole social compact.

In the formation of a scheme, nothing is more
decisive of the wisdom and skill of its author than
the maintenance of a universal subservience and co-
operation among all its constituent parts. In the
composition of an epic poem, which is considered one
of the greatest eff'orts of the human mind, it has been
remarked that such should be the relative symmetry
and dependency of its materials, as that not a single
adventure or episode could be added or withdrawn
without deranging the machinery or deforming the
superlative beauty of the whole. In the vast system
of the natural world, so far as it has been brought
under human observation, it is Avell known with what
consummate accuracy this principle has been acted
npon — with what amazing precision every mechanical
force and every chemical combination has been bal-

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 287

anced and adjusted, with a view to tlie permanency
and security of the universal frame. And although
our Imowledge of intellectual and moral operations
be of necessity somewhat more indefinite and ob-
scure, yet there can be no doubt that there is
the same unity of design — the same relation of
co-operative influence maintained throughout the
whole range of the divine government. In this
view of the question before us, it appears to me
that our notion of Duty arises not from any single
and specific source internal or external, but is the
combined result of a variety of relative influences.
We have in our o^vn nature an implanted desire as
well as a capacity of happiness. The first exercise
of this instinct necessarily tends towards ourselves,
and centres in our own enjoyment — operating in a
manner analogous to the principle of attraction in the
system of material nature. This, however, if left to
its own uncontrolled energy, would be inevitably
destructive to the whole, and hence another force has
been introduced in the scheme of physics denomi-
nated repulsion — in that of morals it may be called
an expansion of benevolent impulse continually urging
the exercise of a due regard to the happiness of
others. The line of motion traced in obedience to
these twofold influences is justice or rectitude — that
function of our moral nature, which consists in giving
every one his due, forming as it were the equitable
arbiter between individual and social interests — the
guardian of personal and relative rights and the
balance of the rational universe. It is from this
combined influence of internal instinct and external

288 THE CONSCIE^•CE IN CONNECTION WITH

relation that the notion of Duty primarily rises in
the mind. It is not an axiom of moral quantity
legibly inscribed upon the tables of the heart prior to,
and independent of, all observation and reflection;
for in its very nature it involves a considerable and
comprehensive estimate of relations. It does not
arise from the mere contemplation of the injunctions
of resistless power; for although the menaces of
power may enforce obedience, they can never, in
accordance Avith the genuine principles of our nature,
create a sense of obligation. It is not the result, in
its elemental state, of the disclosures of a divine
revelation, for it is obvious from the pages of Aris-
totle and Cicero, that a notion of Duty as clearly,
though not so accurately and comprehensiveh^, existed
in the view of the heathen as in the more enlightened
estimate of the Christian. AYe must trace this im-
portant idea, therefore, to a prior date, although it
was never adequately sanctioned nor recognized in
its full extent, until the light of celestial truth dis-
closed its more remote relations. In its more simple
and primary form it is a corollary, Avhich necessarily
arises from that moral demonstration, Avhich the
Avhole face of nature and of society exhibits to the
eye of reason. And it is a very remarkable proof of
the Avisdom and beneficence of the Author of our
being, that we are so constituted as that what the
understanding pronounces to be right, the heart can-
not fail to recognize as agreeable to its most native
instincts. In the economy of nature indeed, it is
seldom that what is necessary to our well-being, is
not gratifying to our unsophisticated feelings and

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE ]\I0IIAL LAW. 289

propensities. Thus it is that our duty and our happi-
ness have been inseparably connected — producing by
their correlative action that beautiful equipoise of
character, to Avhich in the present state indeed, Ave
can only approximate. But when the disturbing ele-
ments, which have gained an entrance into our nature,
shall have ceased to operate, then the union will be
perfect and complete. Then every principle will act
in harmony with all the duties and relations of our
existence, and what our judgment will pronounce to
be right, the heart will have already felt to be
delightful.

Section II.

On the Standard of Duty as the authoritative guide of
Conscience.

Having thus endeavoured to trace our notion of Duty
to its source, and exhibited it as the result of the
instinctive susceptibilities of our own nature, directed
and controlled by the established order of social life,
as well as by the light of divine revelation subse-
quently vouchsafed, we proceed next to inquire more
distinctly what constitutes the authoritative and ulti-
mate standard of Duty. Although a general idea of
obligation as binding to certain habits of feeling and
conduct has always prevailed in the world, it is well
known that the views of mankind upon the subject
of Dut}", have in different ages and communities
considerably varied from each other. Some have
gone to the length of denying the certainty of moral
distinctions altogether, and maintained that the

u

290 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

standard of Duty is nothing else than a capricious
imposition founded upon no fixed and permanent
basis^ and liable to be changed and modified by every
peculiarity of mind, and by every order of circum-
stances. Others have placed the tribunal of Eight
in the mind itself, which, as they maintain, invariably
declares its decisions in the dictates of conscience —
in the perceptions of the moral sense — in the homage
of congenial Emotions as sympathizing with other
minds — or in the feelings of self-approbation as
universally accompanying what is honourable, and
just, and good, and in the compunctions of remorse
as inevitably associated with the reverse. A third
class has connected the claims of Duty with the
mere calculations of Utility — limiting their views of
what is essentially right by their estimate of what is
personally advantageous. Others, including Hobbes
and his followers, make the institutions of society —
the laws of the civil magistrate the alone standard of
Duty; and according to this theory, the ordinances
of the state not only define the limits of social obli-
gation, but constitute the very groundwork of the
whole scheme of morality and virtue. Lastly, it has
been held by others that the rectitude of actions is
entirely founded upon Avhat has been called the arbi-
trary Will of the Supreme Being, and that the know-
ledge of that Will is to be exclusively found in the
written Law, which therefore, independently of all
prior or collateral considerations, is to be regarded
as the sole standard of Duty.

These constitute the leading features of the i)rin-
cipal theories, which have been advanced both in

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 291

ancient and modern times in illustration of the
grounds and obligations of Duty. As an appendage
of some of these hypotheses, it has been frequently
investigated and discussed whether virtue be in itself
immutable and eternal, a relation absolutely inde-
structible and inseparable from the nature of things,
or whether it be a positive and discretionary appoint-
ment resulting from the mere Will of the Author of
nature, and capable of being reversed and modified
by his injunctions*. In these inquiries it does not
appear to be sufficiently kept in view that Duty or
Yirtue is in itself no positive, absolute being, but a
mere quality or relation belonging to a state of
things actually existing. It supposes, therefore, in
its very idea some being, in whom it may be consi-
dered as inhering, and a certain order of circum-
stances, before it can be called forth into practical
exhibition. Like mathematical and other axioms
it can be considered as eternal only on supposi-
tion of the conditions which it necessarily implies.
Assuming these conditions, and extending our views
to possible as well as actual existences, its nature and
obligations are doubtless eternally and unalterably

* According to Warburton, whose views would in some measure
seem to unite the various theories of his predecessors, morality is
founded on three combined principles : the onoral sense, the nahiral
fitness of things, and the Will of God. Of these it is the last only
which can constitute moral obligation, but [it is limited in its power
to bind to obedience by the nature of the command and the mutual
relations and circumstances of the parties concerned. " It is not
simply Will, but Will so and so circumstanced,'''' and though, ac-
cording to his notion, Will could bind, though all consideration of
consequence were discarded, yet he acknowledges that '•' Will could
not bind to unhappiness." — Divine Leg., book i. sect. 4.

U 2

292 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

fixed. That benevolence, for example, is in itself
amiable, and entitled to gratitude and affection,
wherever there are beings capable of exercising it
towards appropriate objects — that malevolence, on
the contrary, is odious and detestable — that a bene-
ficent Creator has a just claim upon the homage and
obedience of his dependent creatures, wherever these
relations may exist — these are moral axioms or ele-
ments of virtue as absolute and unchangeable in
themselves, antecedently to all positive injunction, as
any of the surest dictates of reason, or of the first
principles of geometrical science. The former class
of truths commend themselves as strongly and irre-
sistibly to our moral susceptibilities, as the latter to
our rational convictions. And they may be consi-
dered as constituting the first germ or nucleus of
that aggregation of natural dictates and positive
injunctions, which in their collective character form
the materials of the Moral Law — that Law, which, so
far as it is knoAvn, is the last authoritative standard
of Duty to every rational and accountable being.
Li this connection 1 do not consider the Moral Law
simply as the Law of N'ature, nor exclusively as an
epitome of the preceptive disclosures of divine reve-
lation, but as the great standard of virtue and excel-
lence, so far as it can be appreciated by our fiiculties
throughout the whole universe. This standard does
not vary with the changing conditions of any parti-
cular department of the divine government, with the
oscillations of the manners of society, and the fluc-
tuations of human character. Li its fundamental
principle it remains imnuitably the same amidst all

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 293

the changes and evohitions which may take place
among those wlio may come within the range of its
requirements — amidst all the new forms of intellec-
tual being, which in the progress of time the creative
will of Deity may call forth into existence, and place
beneath its sway. The history of the universe, from
the birth of created nature until now, has been a
history of changes and vicissitudes. Analogy would
suggest that the dominions of Jehovah have still
been extending their range — that worlds have risen
upon worlds, and that the boundless amplitude of
space has been continually replenishing with new
abodes of happiness — with fresh subjects of moral
government as the most effectual means of renewing
and perpetuating that happiness. All the discoveries
of science — all the brief intimations of divine reve-
lation interpreted by the spontaneous and concurrent
dictates of our own minds seem to argue a vast scale
of rational and intelligent beings deriving life and
happiness from the same great source — moving at
various distances around the same centre, and there-
fore of necessity required to obey the same unvary-
ing rule of subordination and dependence. This law
of subjection, of purity, and of happiness, is the
great bond of harmony throughout the universe. In
its nature and authority it is as extensive as creation,
and as lasting as eternity. In its essential charac-
teristics as an expression of aU that is holy, wise,
and good; of aU that is just, virtuous, and benefi-
cent ; it is as unchangeable as the Being from whom
it flowed.

294 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

And as the Moral Law constituting the ultimate
and authoritative standard of Duij, is immutable in
its principle, it follows that it is universal in its
bearing and application. It embraces within its com-
prehensive range the universality of those beings,
whatever may be the diversity of their capacity and
condition, which are capable of virtue and happiness.
It ascends the whole climax — rising to the loftiest
point, and descending to the lowest grade of account-
able agency. It is of equal force in each of what Ave
have been accustomed to consider as the three great
departments of the creation, — in the world of holi-
ness and happiness above — in the world of discipline
and probation in which we have been destined to
spend this introductory period of our existence, and
in the world of penal retribution below. The diflfer-
ence is solely in the result and application of its pro-
visions, as modified by the character of the beings,
upon whom its sanctions are brought to bear. The
principle and spirit of its enactments are the same.
It is the law of angels, vastly superior to all that we
can noAv conceive as their circumstances and endow-
ments may be, and little as we know of the graduated
economies, under Avhich their respective orders may
live, inasmuch as it holds out to them a standard of
duty blazing in legible characters over the throne of
their Sovereign, upon the observance of Avhich their
happiness as much depends as that of the loAvest
inhabitant of earth. It has been the law of human
nature, amidst all the changes of its character and
condition, throughout every period in the history of

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 295

the world, and amidst every successive dispensation
under which its moral government has been admi-
nistered, and it will form the last rule of judgment,
by which our destiny throughout eternity will be
determined. It was imposed upon us at the very
dawn of our existence. It has been inviolably bind-
ing upon obedienc.e amidst all the subsequent revo-
lutions, which have befallen us, and the benevolent
interpositions made in our behalf. All the misery
which has been entailed upon us, or is incurred by
our ov^ii misconduct, is the aggregate result of its
infractions. It is the law exhibited in awful execu-
tion among the inmates of the world of penal woe,
inasmuch as the wretchedness which they are doomed
to endure, is the ratification of its inviolable sanc-
tions. These views of the Moral Law as the Standard
of Duty seem necessarily to flow from the very nature
and character of its Author. A^Tien we speak of the
Moral law as having God for its Author, we employ
the term as an abstract expression of that aggregate
of principles, which forms, as it were, the established
constitution of that universe of which He is the
Sovereign. In the original institution of such an
order of government, we may legitimately assume
that He was influenced by the best reasons. The
whole system was based upon benevolence the most
enlightened, disinterested, and expansive. In order
that this principle might be developed, however, upon
the largest possible scale in the diffusion of happiness
in its purest and most exalted forms, it was obviously
necessary that various other principles should be asso-
ciated and combined. It is the result of this blended

29 G THE COXSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

exercise of infinite power and wisdom and benevo-
lence, embodied into the Will of the supreme
Governor, which constitutes the Moral Law. Its
permanency and immutability are secured in the very
attributes, which were employed in its formation.
By the universality of his knowledge, Jehovah was
free from all possible mistake in fixing the first great
principles of his government. His eye penetrated
not only all that was actual, but all that was possible
in the nature of things. It perceived every minute
as well as every magnificent evolution, which the
stupendous forces impressed upon the machinery of
matter were about to produce. It anticipated the
still darker and more intricate workings of the
rational Avill. It outstripped the career of time,
spread its survey over the widest expanse of space,
and brought the remotest outlines of creation within
the range of its concentrated glance. The benignity
of his character afforded an equal security for every-
thing that was excellent and most conducive to the
happiness of his creatures in the first conception of
his great rules of procedure toAvards them, while his
power keeping pace with every other attribute of his
nature rendered certain the accomplishment of every
wise and beneficent design. It was impossible,
therefore, that any new and unexpected event in
any department of the universe should surprise him
into a necessity of changing the first principles of his
administration. There is this great difference to be
considered between the Moral Law as the standard of
universal Duty, and the positive enactments of man
— that the former preceded the state of things, which

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MOKAL LAW. 297

it was intended to regulate, just as the principles
■which are to govern a system of machinery are
clearly perceived and appreciated by the inventor,
before that system is actually constructed. The en-
gine is therefore adapted to pre-existing forms and
laws of mechanical action, and not the reverse ;
whereas the latter, — the injunctions of human ap-
pointment, are these contrivances adjusted to a con-
dition of things actually existing, and consequently
liable to all the changes, which the variations and
the imperfect knowledge of that condition may
require. They are but local applications intended to
repress the outbreakings of a disorder, the seat of
which is beyond their cognizance and control. They
are comparatively but shifts of a political empiric,
who is liable to be baffled in every attempt to attain
the great object of legislation, and is therefore
obliged to vary his measures at every new turn of
events. At the best his efforts are but experiments,
which are correct only in proportion to his knowledge
of a state of things previously existing, and suc-
cessful only as far as they accord with the conserva-
tive and divinely established principles of social
happiness. The case of the Moral Law, in its various
modes of application, is totally the reverse. Here
the principle is perfect, and therefore immutable.
The whole frame of the material and intellectual
universe was constituted in accordance with its cha-
racter, and in subordination to its dictates. It is
therefore immutable, universal, and eternal.

Such is the Law, Avhich we conceive to be the last
authoritative standard of Human Duty. Everything

298 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

short of this, as the ultimate ground of moral obli-
gation, is baseless, fluctuating, and uncertain. This
is the voice of the Eternal issued forth at the first
dawn of the creation — a voice whose accents were
blended with the melody of the morning stars, and
touched a chord of responsive and undying harmony
throughout every region of the intellectual universe.
Of this primary annunciation of the Sovereign Will
there is left a record on every page of nature, — a
memorial upon every pillar of creation — an echo in
every rational ear, and an inscription upon the tables
of every sentient heart. They are these fainter ves-
tiges,— they are these remembered tones of celestial
music still floating through the turbid atmosphere of
this lower world, which so many have mistaken for the
original, authoritative, and direct communications of
Jehovah's will, and consequently, instead of being
regarded as accordant intimations, they have been
erected into the sole standards of duty. It has been
forgotten that such monitions, however valuable,
Avhen explained and illustrated by a principle of
higher and more lucid interpretation, are in them-
selves utterly insufficient. The intimations of nature
and providence may be neglected or misunderstood ;
the sympathies of the heart may be perverted and
be turned aside from their natural channel: the
standard of Utility may be lowered doAvn to the level
of a grovelling and selfish calculation — the voice of
conscience may be drowned amidst the storms of un-
govcrncd passion ; and the laws of the civil magis-
trate may be the enactments of impiety, venality,
and oppression, and thus the spirit, which is provided

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 299

with no other resource, may, like the Dove sent out
of the Ark, he found to wander amidst the tem-
pestuous elements of an overwhelming deluge, with-
out heing able to discover any firm footing, upon
which its sense of duty may venture with confidence
to repose. The history of the world, so far as it has
been destitute of the light of divine revelation, is to a
great extent a melancholy record of theoretic errors,
or of practical deviations from the rule of universal
right. But wherever this rule has been fully and
distinctly made known, it must, undoubtedly, be
regarded as that, which is to define and limit our
ideas of moral excellence — as the grand directory of
conduct — as • the last authoritative criterion of all
that is pure and just and good. This it is, therefore,
which at once directs us in the way of our duty, and
binds us by the most imperative obligations to its
performance. We shall now, therefore, proceed more
distinctly to inquire into the source, in which the
Moral Law may be considered as having originated.

Section III.

The Nature and Origin of the Moral Law as binding
UPON THE Conscience.

The moral law, or, as it has been frequently termed,
the law^ of nature, so far as it relates to the conduct
of rational beings, may be considered in its primary
application as the law of motives. In contradistinc-
tion to those rules of action which control the opera-
tions of physical substances, it has immediately to do

300 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

only with that choice, purpose, or design of the mind,
which Aristotle has properly denominated Trpoatpecns*.
In its legitimate acceptation as a standard of duty,
and as inyolying considerations of merit and demerit,
it applies solely to the yiews and intentions of the
rational understanding and Avill, as lying at the foun-
dation of all the decisions of the conscience. The
whole of the material uniyerse is subject to laws or
established modes of action adapted to the pecidiar
nature, character, and design of its seyeral depart-
ments. ISTor does it appear that there has been a
single deyiation from these habits originally impres-
sed upon its yarious elements, except when they haye
been intentionally suspended and oyerruled by a
higher power, from the creation until the present
moment. The laws of chemistry and mechanics —
the phenomena of heat, electricity and magnetism,
so far as they haye been accurately inyestigated and
ascertained by adequate induction, haye been found
to be inyariably uniform. Thus nature in all her
material modifications, when questioned in reference
to the same powers and elements, has uniyersally
returned the same replies.

Analogy would haye led us to expect that the
same uniformity should preyail in the higher and
more important department of the works of tlie Cre-
ator ; in other words, that the Moral Law should be as
fixed and inyariable in its bearing towards its proper
subjects as that Avhich regulates the machinery and
controls the combinations and reactions of that mass

* Ufwaipeais oiKdoraTov fiuai 8ok(i ttj aptTTj^ kgi futXXov ra rjdr) KpivdV
T(x>v Trpu^ewv. — Aristot. E(/t. lib. ", c. 11.

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 301

of corpuscular substances Avhicli forms tlic material
world. In the method of government hy means of
these laws, however, the analogy entirely ceases.
The physical and inanimate system is a mere series
of motions — a change of position, resulting from
innate forces among the constituent atoms of a mass.
The moral regimen, on the contrary, is conducted
upon totally other principles. In this the motions of
the body, the actions and effects resulting from those
motions are taken into the account and brought under
cognizance only as they are supposed to spring from
sentiments and emotions of a voluntary and design-
ing mind. And they are estimated with a reference
more or less obvious and direct to the evil or the
good, which they are calculated to produce among an
order of beings susceptible of the most intense sensa-
tions of suffering or enjoyment. This circumstance
alone places the operations of the human will as sub-
ject to the restrictions of the moral law upon a foot-
ing utterly dissimilar from the mechanical processes
of causation prevailing in the material system ; and
therefore the attempt to explain the former by ana-
logies derived from the latter beyond that of mere
metaphorical illustration, is AvhoUy devoid of force.
The law which we are now investigating, exclusively
applies to rational and intellectual beings, and the
science, which undertakes to analyze its first prin-
ciples may be suitably denominated the Doctrine of
Motives. In its corollaries and practical results,
however, it embraces the whole range of the character
and conduct of rational existences of every rank and
order throughout the universe. Wliatever has a

302 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

designed relation to the happiness or suffering of
beings capable of those emotions — whatever in
thought, feeling, or conduct, is susceptible of ad-
measurement by the established rule of duty, must
be considered as falling under the cognizance of that
great standard of obligation, of which we are now
endeavouring to trace the nature and origin. Uni-
versal and immutable, how^ever, as is the principle, in
which it is founded, in the details and peculiarities of
its requirements, it varies according to the character
and circumstances of the beings to whom it applies.

Its nature we cannot, perhaps, more briefly and
accurately define than by representing it as that which
binds every being endued with the powers of thought
and reflection, hi suhordination to the glory of the
Supreme Ruler of the universe, to design the wel-
fare, happiness, and secnritij of all other heings in
anywise connected with him hy the equitable dis-
charge of all his relative obligations towards them.
It is obvious, indeed, that, while the principle of the
Moral Law is universally the same as tending to the
safety and well-being of those, who are capable of
enjoyment, and to the infliction of condign suffering
upon those who have violated its just obligations, it
assumes a diversity of aspects corresponding to the
character and relations of those whose conduct is to
be governed by its dictates. This is essential to its
propriety and efficiency as the rule of adjudication
among the several ranks and orders of being — as the
criterion of moral worth throughout the whole extent
of the vast scale of intellectual nature. An instru-
ment thus universal in its design and application

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 303

must of necessity have taken its rise in a mind
capable of comprehending all the endless multiplicity
of interests on which it was to bear, and in one
simple sentiment, which contained, as it were, in
embryo, the whole of that boundless range of rami-
fication and expansion, of which it has proved sus-
ceptible. By this we are led to trace the origin of
the Moral Law to the essential nature and charac-
ter of tlie great First Cause of all things. This
sublime standard of virtue and excellence had existed,
as a habit of being, though not in the specific form
of a law, in the mind of Deity, from eternity. It
had dwelt in the breast of Jehovah, presenting, as in
a mirror, the reflected light and beauty of his own
spotless excellency, and exhibiting to his intro-
specting eye a model of every imaginable perfection,
while yet in the absence of every other object of
contemplation, and in the solitude of his own blissful
existence. He filled that indefinable orb of duration
and space, which preceded the birth of creation.

In the language of Solomon, applied to the per-
sonification of infinite wisdom, " The Lord possessed
it in the beginning of his ways, before his works of
old. It was set up from everlasting, from the begin-
ning, or ever the earth was. When there were no
depths it was brought forth, when there were no
fountains abounding with water. Then it was by
Him as one brought up with Him, and it was daily
his delight, rejoicing always before Him."

When we employ such language in illustration of
the Moral Law as it originally existed in the charac-
ter of the Deity, we mean no abst}-act code of pre-

304 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

scribed regulations, to wlycli Jehovali was bound by
external obligation to conform liis conduct. The
term Law, as applied to Him, is nothing more than
an expression of the essential and unalterable prin-
ciples and habits of his being. He was subject to no
outward authority, to which He was bound in duty
or interest to yield the homage of submission, and to
pay the tribute of obedience. There was no higher
tribunal, to which He could regard himself as ame-
nable. There was nothing out of the range of his
own nature, which He could recognize as a directing
or controlling power in the original exercises of his
will, and in the progressive fulfilment of his pur-
poses. He stood pre-eminent and supreme in
the discharge of every creative and legislative func-
tion. Everything in the natural and moral world,
according to the original constitution of things, was
evolved as a direct emanation out of the sovereign
exercise of his own essential attributes. Thus He
was a Law unto himself — responsible only to the
judgment, which He passed upon his own conduct.
But in the formation of all his plans and in the exe-
cution of all his purposes, though He was free by his
inviolable prerogative as the first and greatest of
beings from all authoritative obligation or controlling
influence, yet there was in Him an original quality of
nature and character as fixed and invariable as his
very existence, which afforded a security that He
should design or accomplish nothing but what was
pure and just and good. That law, therefore, which
had virtually and essentially existed in his own
nature from all eleruitv, lie made the IJule of his

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 305

conduct in tlie creation and his instrument of
government in the subsequent administration of the
world; and they are only modified applications of this
sublime emanation of everlasting wisdom and good-
ness— of justice, and power, and love, which pervade
the whole mass, and bind together in relative depen-
dency and obligation the whole frame of society.

It is this which secures the uniformity and benig-
nity of the supreme rules of government as adminis-
tered by the universal Sovereign. It is this which
unites the Creator in love and rectitude to his
creatures, and reunites the creatures in duty and
obedience to the Creator. This is the federative
bond of the universe, binding together and securing
by the strict execution of its provisions in one great
interest of glory and happiness, God, angels, and
men. It is the rule of judgment in the Supreme
Court above, dispensing his due awards unto every
one upon principles of justice combined wath love.
It is that which gives all their force and validity to
the decisions and enactments of the subordinate and
representative courts here below. It is that which
obliges man, first in homage and service to his God,
and then in duty and benevolence to his fellow, thus
forming at once the foundation of true religion, and
the authoritative rule, the connecting link of all the
relative rights, offices, and interests of social life.

Such we conceive to be, in brief, the nature and
origin of the Moral Law, that which is at once the
authoritative standard of duty, and will be the rule
of final adjudication and retribution to every account-
able agent. It is primarily the Law of Motives as

X

306 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

adapted to beings possessed of powers of reflection
and voluntary action, and as taking cognizance
through the exercise of conscience, of the prevailing
principles and affections of the mind, and by a
necessary extension of its jurisdiction it is, second-
arily, the law of practical conduct as suggested,
regulated, and controlled by those internal impulses.
In endeavouring to discover its origin we can only
trace it to the essential nature of Him, who is the
fountain of all existence. In his character it dwelt
from aU eternity as a sanctuary consecrated by its
presence and irradiated by its effulgent beams. By
his will and authority it was embodied into a reflect-
ing mirror of his excellency, and placed aloft upon
the highest pinnacle of the universe, displaying
before the countless myriads of its intelligent occu-
pants, the standard of their Duty — the contrasted
guilt and enormity of disobedience, and a model of
sinless perfection.

Section IV.

The Means by wnicii the Moral Law, or the Law op
Conscience, has been made known unto Max.

If that order of principles then, which we denominate
the Moral Law, be such in their origin, obligation,
and extent: if in their collective character they
constitute the instrument by which Jehovah governs
the world, and with an undoviating reference to
whicli, lie disi)enses ha])piness and misery to beings,
who fall under their legitimate control, it is not less

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE IMORAT. LAW. 307

important than it is interesting- to ascertain by what
means of commmiication such a rule of judgment
has been made known unto man. It is indispensable
to the equitable administration of a law that the
knowledge of it, so far as it is intended to be en-
forced, should be brought Avithin the reach of its
subjects. However correct it may be in its princi-
ples— how^ever necessary in its enactments — however
right and unimpeachable in its sanctions, no one can
justly become entitled to its rewards, or exposed to
its penal visitations, who was unavoidably debarred
the opportunity of making himself acquainted with
its provisions and demands. Xeglect and voluntary
ignorance, or an inaptitude to appreciate its requi-
sitions, superinduced by a wilful violation of duty,
can indeed plead no exemption from the penalty due
to transgression ; for in such a case guilt would
always find a secure refuge in the darkness, to which
it had chosen to retire. It would only be necessary
resolutely to close the eyes against the light, and to
turn a deaf ear to tlie calls of truth and duty, to
rush into crime with impunity, and to divest sin of all
its enormity. All that is requisite to give force to a
law and to justify the execution of its retributive
sanctions, is that the means of ascertaining its real
character and bearings should be strictly propor-
tioned to the measure, in wdiicli it is intended to be
carried into effect. As, therefore, the Moral Law
was obviously designed by its wise and beneficent
Author to regulate the present conduct, and to
determine the future destiny of his rational creatures,
it v.ould be utterly at variance with all our notions

X 2

308 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

of his character to suppose that he should at any
time have left them in total ignorance of it. The
modes, indeed, may have been various — the degrees
of clearness and accuracy may have been different.
These are points, which Infinite Wisdom was best
qualified to determine, and the estimate of unerring
justice will not fail to take into the final account.
But that moral agents of every order are supplied
with means and facilities of discovering the law of
their duty, proportioned to the extent of their
responsibility and to the magnitude of the interests
involved, enters into our notion of the first principles
of all equitable government: and hence we may
freely assume that, in reference to his demands upon
the service and obedience of his creatures, Jehovah
has not left himself without a witness to bear testi-
mony to the nature and justness of his claims.

In our investigation of the origin of the Moral
Law, Ave traced it to the very essence of the character
of Jehovah as a just and beneficent and holy Being.
On the creation of the material and intellectual uni-
verse, these attributes of his nature Avere embodied
into a specific and authoritative expression of his
Will. Hence that which before existed as an essen-
tial quality of character, now began to be recognized
as a law — adapted to the government of beings en-
dued with appropriate faculties and susceptibilities of
impression— in other words, with the attribute of
conscience. As the floral Law thus virtually pre-
existed in the character of the great first cause; it
was to be expected that he should impart something
of that impression to all the effects, which issued

J

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 309

from lii.s creative energy. In accordance with this
view of things, the first intimation of Jehovah's will
— the first draught as it were of the Moral Law, is to
be found in the very constitution and frame of I^ature
as originally established by his power and wisdom,
and as subsequently preserved and regulated by his
over-ruling Providence. To those, who have duly con-
sidered the subject, it Avill appear sufficiently evident,
that the whole system of ^N^ature bears a Moral aspect.
It was the absurd notion of some of the ancient sects
of philosoph}^, that matter has in itself an inherent
malignity, and that the world, which is composed of
it, owes its existence to the power of evil. The
fact is, on the contrary, that the whole system of the
universe is pervaded by what we may call a principle
of Morality analogous to that of electricity, heat,
or attraction, in the natural world. Throughout its
whole extent it seems to be instinct with this spirit of
life, and purity, and love. While w^e contemplate
the stupendous fabric of the material universe, it is
impossible not to perceive that its Design was con-
ceived in perfect accordance with the law of eternal
rectitude and benevolence. To adopt the language
of scenic representation, whatever may be the obscu-
rity and apparent incongruity of some of its subordi-
nate departments, the general effect, w^liich the view
of it is calculated to produce upon the mind, is that of
a deep impression of its moral character and tendency.
To the eye of enlightened reason it presents the
appearance of a vast temple of virtue based upon the
everlasting pillars of justice, and bearing inscribed

310 THE COXSCIEXCE IN CONXECTION WITH

upon every portal appropriate maxims of duty mito
all, who are introduced within its precincts.

The means by Avhich the Will of God, as ex-
pressed in the ]\Ioral Law, is made known in the sys-
tem of nature, is in the first place the striking-
exhibition which it affords of his moral perfections.
It is true indeed that they are the natural attributes
of Jehovah, so denominated, in contradistinction to
the former — his moral perfections, which stand forth
with most immediate and observable prominence
upon the surface of the material universe, and even
these, when surveyed in their just bearing, and in
their due relation to the class, which has been usually
designated as moral, will be found strongly confirma-
tory of the same general impression. The most
remarkable characteristic of the Author of nature,
perhaps, with which the mind is struck, while it con-
templates the frame of the universe, is the vast
power which it displays. With this is immediately
associated the sublime and boundless skill with which
this stupendous machinery is regulated. These attri-
butes in themselves involve no moral excellency.
They might have been exerted in the creation and
government of a system, which would be productive
of nothing but misery and wretchedness. Power
might have been employed only to tyrannize and
oppress, and skill to devise the means of suffering and
torture. AVe know of no necessity except the inhe-
rent and essential tendency of his own gracious
nature, whicli could prevent a Being possessed of
these awful ([ualities to the extent, to which it is

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 311

obvious that he does possess them, from putting them
forth in the incessant multiplication of creatures
endued ^vith the most exquisite sensibilities, in order
to delight Himself Avith the sight of their agonies,
and to listen to the music of their cries. AYe know no
reason in the absence of other attributes, why the uni-
verse should not be at once turned into an aceldama,
and the fair volume of creation should not be wrapped
up into one dark scroll, inscribed with mourning,
lamentation, and woe. But when, instead of these
direful h}'pothetical possibilities, we find that the
poAver and wisdom of Deity have been exerted in the
production of a scheme of things, which bears the
most obvious impress of the benignity of his charac-
ter, and appears to have been called into existence
for the express purpose of communicating the largest
amount of happiness compatible with moral govern-
ment unto beings, whom He has endued with a
capacity of enjoying it; when Ave perceive hoAv
admirably the AA'hole system of the universe is balanced
and adjusted — hoAv its contending forces are found
to harmonize in the Avelfare and security of man —
hoAv nicely the Avhole of the mighty apparatus of
heaven and earth is adapted to his condition, and
made to contribute to the good of him, and, as the
A'oice of reason and analogy unequivocally pronounces,
of other orders of sentient beings : amid such vicAA's
of things it is impossible not to recognize in the very
machinery of nature a principle of moral action as
positive, as absolute, and as uniform in its tendencies,
hoAvever occasionally counteracted by human de-
pravity and Aveakness, as the most palpable and

312 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

invariable law of matter. Thus regarded, the Sun
becomes a bright revelation of its Maker's will and
character; and every star, which bestuds the firma-
ment, becomes a torch to light us into a knowledge of
our duty. It is to these resplendent manifestations
of Jehovah's attributes as the measures of man's
obligations that the apostle triumphantly appeals, as
rendering impiety and disobedience inexcusable. The
more, therefore, we know of the laws of nature, the
more shall we discover of the will of God, and of our
own corresponding duty, and hence the declaration
of Newton will be realized — that as the boundaries of
natural philosophy are extended, the limits of moral
philosophy will experience a proportionate enlarge-
ment. But the spirit of the Moral Law appears to be
still more distinctly embodied in the system of nature,
in that, according to the present constitution and
course of things happiness is invariably found in a
degree more or less to attend on one line of conduct,
and misery in some form or other on the reverse.
The grand characteristic of a moral government is
here distinctly exhibited. The voice of nature clearly
distinguishes between right and Avrong, and proclaims
in audible language the difference which will be
finally made between them. It is true indeed that the
present system of nature, as it is administered towards
the various orders of human character, does not afford
a full and accurate development of the principles of
the divine government. It doubtless presents much
of obscurity and intricacy to the eye, which has not
been illumined l)y a brighter manifestation. The
dispensations of the Supreme Ruler in the present

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE 3I0HAL LAW. 313

slate are for the most part general and indiscriminate.
There is enough in the constitution of nature how-
ever, to s'ive a decisive indication of the Will of its
Author as it relates to the leading features of human
conduct. There is enough to show the tendency of
the system as expressive of his appointment and
design. There is enough in the opposite effects,
which in the existing order of things virtue and vice
are respectively calcidated, and seldom fail to pro-
duce, to stamp the former as his delight, and the
latter as his abhorrence. The great principles of in-
dividual security and social happiness are interwoven
with the w^hole tissue of providential and physical
arrangements. There is a meaning in the silent
countenance of nature, which tells the most ignorant
and unreflecting that He who made it is One who
loves purity and benevolence, rectitude and truth,
and marks with his unequivocal displeasure cruelty
and oppression, intemperance, malignity and fraud.
Amidst all the irregularity and confusion, which the
great original catastrophe, that befel our species, has
introduced into the world, there is still discoverable
a moral basis, which nothing can utterly destroy —
resting beneath the superincumbent layers of human
passions and opinions, like the primitive granite, over
which the secondary formation may have been de-
posited, or the basaltic torrent may have rushed.

Thus it is that in the original constitution of the
frame of nature, and in the general course of provi-
dential government, there is a strildng view afforded
of the essential character of Jehovah as the origin
and archetype of the ^Moral Law. The more deeply

314 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION ^VITI[

Ave are enabled to penetrate into the arcana of nature
— the more accurately and comprehensively we survey
its relative bearings and dependencies, by so much
the more clearly and unequivocally shall we find it to
be stamped with the impress of its Maker's attributes.
It was not without reason, therefore, that Xewton
remarked, as above noticed, that as the bounds of
natural science were extended, the range of Moral
Philosophy Avould be proportionably expanded and
enlarged. As the veil is gradually removed — as the
curtains are drawn aside by the hand of successful
investigation, and open a wider scene of contempla-
tion to the eye of the reflecting observer, he will
doubtless tind greater reason to admire, not only the
wisdom and power displayed to his view in every
variety of minute and splendid illustration, but also
the same great rule of right — the same principle of
sublime and superlative excellence pervading the
whole economy of the universe : and the law of duty
Avill thus be found as invariable in its obligation — as
deeply laid in its foundation, and as broad and diffu-
sive in its relation to its proper subjects as the
simplest and most comprehensive form of material
and physical action. This, therefore, may be regarded
as the first, though not the clearest method, in Avhich
the Moral Law has been evolved, inasmuch as its
leading principles were embodied in the original for-
mation of the system of the universe, and are con-
spicuously held forth to the view in the arrangements
of an all-regulating and all-sustaining providence.

In order, however, that this physical and i)r()vi-
dential revelation of the JJivine AVill might be oi"

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LA^Y. 315

any avail in aiding- man to attain unto a knowledg-e
and sense of his duty, it ^vas necessary that his own
mind should be endued with a siisceptihility of accor-
dant impression, appropriately denominated con-
science. And this is the next means by which avc
may consider the Moral Law as made known unto
man. Between the soul of man and the external
universe there is obviously a striking relation. There
is a remarkable mutual adaptation between the parts
of the one, and the faculties of the other. To some,
indeed, the connexion has appeared so close that the
external world of matter and motion was deemed to
have no existence, except as it was identified with
the various notions and impressions of the internal
world of thought and affection. By Leibnitz the
analogy was deemed so remarkable, as to induce him
to have recourse to the notion of a pre-established
Harmony between the two great departments of
nature — implying that, without any real communica-
tion with each other, they are respectively so consti-
tuted as that the state of external things should be
at all times exactly such as the mind represents
them, although its ideas are developed entirely from
its own nature.

Without, however, adopting either of these hypo-
theses, it is abundantly evident that the powers of
intellect, and the organs of perception, as well as the
capabilities of moral impression in man are wonder-
fully and designedly adapted to a condition of things,
which affords occasion for their exercise. There is
doubtless as great a suitableness in the capabilities
of the mind to receive the moral intimations intended

31 G THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WVm

to be conveyed in the system of nature, as there is
in the organ of vision to be impressed by the undu-
lations of the kiminiferous ether.

"Without attempting to revive the theory of innate
practical principles, which Locke was at so much
pains to explode, we must still maintain that the
native character of the human mind, as it relates to
moral instincts, is very inadequately and inaccurately
represented by the analogy of the rasa tabula — an
utter blank as to any original impressions. It is
readily conceded indeed that the mind of man is not
a species of register, the leaves of which are inscribed
as with the pen of inspiration, and bear on record the
edicts of the Eternal, previously to, and independently
of, the numberless train of educational influences, to
which in every condition of society it must be subject.
At such a period it is obvious that it is destitute of
all the materials which enter into the constitution of
every definite idea of moral right and legal obliga-
tion. Where there is no notion of those relations
and connections, which Duty universally involves, it
is evident that there can be no conception, much less
a deep-felt impression of what is just and right.
The only sense therefore, in which, consistently with
reason and experience, moral principles or a recogni-
tion of the universal Law of Conduct can be said to
be instinctive and innate, is that there is in the very
constitution of our intellectual and moral nature an
aptitude — a tendency — a pre-disposition for the
development of those judgments under the influences
of the peculiar circumstances, in which we have been
placed. The mind, according to this view of it, may

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 317

l)e regarded as a sheet of paper — not indeed indif-
ferent to any characters that may be drawn upon it,
and equally calculated for the reception of what is
true or false, right or wrong, but bearing in indelible
inscription the Law of Duty, invisible, hoAvever, to
the perceptive faculty until it be drawn forth into
palpable exhibition by the application of appropriate
influence. As the element of heat, by its eifect upon
the chemical fluid, in which the characters had been
traced, brings out into distinct and legible forms
what before had lain concealed on the colourless
uniformity of a blank, so the commingling glow of
expanding faculties, actuated and controlled by social
and circumstantial influences, calls out and gradually
embodies into unavoidable recognition those moral
intimations and impressions, which, however they
may be occasionally perverted and misconstrued, are
felt to be as true as nature itself, and as firm as the
foundations of the tmiverse. They may be distorted
indeed from their original bearing — they may be
corroded by an ungenial atmosphere — they may be
overwhelmed beneath the thick layers of surrounding
depravity and corruption — they may be deluged by
the overflowing tide of headlong and ungovernable
passions; but amidst all this disorder of functions
and dislocations of parts, their elements will be found,
if we may so speak, among the lower strata of the
mental system, like a monumental pillar buried, in
some destructive convulsion of nature, beneath a
mass of earth and rubbish, and requiring only to be
cleared and raised to light in order to exhibit the
same unalterable inscription.

318 THE CONSCIEXCE IN CONNECTION WITH

It is this ready perception and irresistible convic-
tion of what is really and essentially right^ ^yhich in
holy writ is described as "the Law -wi'itten on the
heart/' — a law, which is said by the Apostle to accuse
or excuse, in reference to the more general and
important part of their character, those who are des-
titute of any other rule of conduct. It is regarded
by some as specifically the Light, which light eth every
one, which cometh into the world, inasmuch as it
exhibits the great broad lines of duty with sufficient
clearness for general practical purposes unto every
man who is willing to be guided by its beams. It is
an internal capability of moral perception, indepen-
dently of all supernatural communication, which, on
account of its analogy to the external inlets of ideas
may be justly called a moral sense. It is that, which,
in the absence of all direct and positive instruction,
enables us to discriminate the eternal and unalterable
ditference between riglit and wrong, and pronounces
its verdict upon any alleged act of conduct with a
rapidity which outstrips the application of any posi-
tive standard of duty; and will be found wrong in its
decisions only where it has been inadequately deve-
loped or perverted by custom or evil passion. This
is the voice from within, which responds to the many
voices from without, forming by their combined and
mingled melody the moral Harmony of t\\(i universe.

In bestowing on man such a constitution of
nature — in so iVaming and balancing his suscep-
til)ilities as to secure their attestation to the great
fundamental principles of nu)ral government, tlie
Autlior of bis l)eiiig may un(iues;tionn1)ly be con-

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MOKAL LA^Y. 319

siderecl as virtually conveyino," to him a knowledge of
his LaAv. AYithout this capability of appreciating-
the purity and justice of that Law, all other means
of attaining unto a knowledge of it, or of enforcing
the practical observance of it, would have been
utterly useless and unavailing. It is this which
renders man a fit subject of moral discipline, for that
system can take salutary effect only in proportion to
the fulness and spontaneity of that homage, which
the heart yields at every step to its requisitions.
So far, therefore, as man is a moral being, a being
endowed with the faculty of conscience, he embodies
in his own character a living representation of that
Law, wliich has its origin in the eternal Mind.

But although the Moral Law be embodied, as has
been already shoAvn, in the whole system of nature,
and is exemplified before the eyes of the intelligent
universe in the constant administration of the divine
government, and although, as has been further
stated, its leading characteristics and requirements
are interwoven with the first principles of the human
constitution, yet the peculiar circumstances of our
natur^ rendered a more direct and authoritative
communication essential to a complete and adequate
knowledge of its demands. There is enough, indeed,
in the phenomena of the Creation as they unfold
themselves to the view under the control of a super-
intending Providence, combined with the unequivocal
intimations of his own conscience to inform the
judgment of man in the great outlines of practical
duty. There is a sufficient measure of light elicited
from the mutual action of his own faculties and the

320 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

magnificent scenery of the world around him, to
render him inexcusable in the violation of the first
principles of moral obligation. But for all the inter-
esting and important details of his more specific
relations towards the author of his being and the
duties Avhich those relations involve — for a definite
view of the high sanctions with which the requisitions
of the Law are enforced — for a knowledge of the
peculiar stipulations and provisions which the great
ruler of the universe hath made for his preservation
and direction — for these several purposes the book
of nature is far too general and comprehensive, too
enigmatical and obscure. And upon these points,
which are so closely connected with his destiny, the
exercises of his OAvn reason directed by the instinctive
susceptibilities of his character are incapable of
throwing any further light. Upon numberless ques-
tions, which bear with the most commanding influ-
ence upon the moral regimen of his nature, the
great volume of the universe, so far as it can be
comprehended by his unaided poAvers, is a sealed
book — the page of his own reason is a blank. Wliile
he is confined to the exclusive information co*|vcyed
by these instruments of knowledge, lie is in the
condition of -one, who is a stranger in a country
governed by peculiar statutory enactments, super-
induced upon the fundamental laws of human conduct
as the necessary result of the character and circum-
stances of its inhabitants. Such an one might not
be likely to err upon the fe^v great points, which are
considered as constituting the laAv of nations. He
might be fully aware of the general duty of sub-

I

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 321

jection, which he owed to the governing powers. He
mio^ht be in no dano^er of mistakins; the rules of
justice and benevolence as binding upon every human
being. But of the specific arrangements, which were
then obligatory as having arisen from the prevailing
habits and exigencies of the community, he might
labour under utter ignorance, while these arrange-
ments were in reahty but modifications and results
of the eternal law of duty ^mtten on his oa\ti heart.

It was to supply this great deficiency of the book
of nature and of the table of conscience — it was to
explain what was symbolical and obscure — to confirm
what was doubtful and uncertain, and to correct what
Avas erroneously conceived in both, that the Plan of
a direct revelation was adopted. It was not to
contradict and set at nought the intimations of both,
or to supersede the use of either as the means,
within due limitations, of discovering the rule of
duty, but to afford a more copious and accurate
detail of information upon points of the highest
moment than they were able to impart. This, there-
fore, is the next — the most ample and satisfactory
means, by which the INIoral Law, in the general and
extensive sense of the expression, has been made
known unto man. And although the testimony of
this last witness be incomparably more definite and
express than that of either of the former, yet it will
be found in no degree at variance with their genuine
information, wherever it has been correctly appre-
ciated and understood.

The method of communicating and receiving
knowledge by Eevelation is twofold. It is either by

y

immediate personal inspiration or by tradition, or in
other words, by a written record of what was revealed
unto him, by whom it was thus embodied. The
knowledge Avhich is imparted unto us in the Scrip-
tures, is evidently conveyed by the latter method.
It was originally received by the former. The evi-
dence of its truth, if duly authenticated, is equally
decisive in both cases. The mode, in which super-
natural kno^vledge has been delivered, has likewise
greatly differed in different instances. In many
cases mentioned in the Old Testament, and probably
in that of our first parents in the time of innocence,
Jehovah was pleased to impart the intended know-
ledge by vocal communication in outward audible
language. During the continuance of the para-
disiacal and patriarchal dispensations, Jehovah was
pleased to hold intercourse with his servants as a
man would speak unto his friend. He made known
unto them his will in accents, which fell upon their
organs of sensitive perception. The more frequent
method at subsequent times, however, appears to
have l)een that of a strong impression made upon
the mind by the resistless influence of the divine
Spirit — carrying direct conviction to the under-
standing, overpowering the imagination with a
burden of sublime or moral imagery, and tracing
upon the tables of the memory the records of infal-
lible truth. In one memorable instance, indeed,
God was pleased to inscribe as with his own hand,
a brief summary of his Avill, to be preserved as a
permanent document, wliich might be known and
read of all men.

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAV,'. 323

The most succinct, explicit, and comprehensive
digest of the Moral Law, ilkmiined and interpreted
by the subsequent discoveries of the Gospel, ever
communicated from Heaven to Earth, is doubtless
that, Avhich was delivered unto Moses upon Mount
Sinai, arranged under ten specific injunctions, and
written upon two tables of stone. Previously to this
important era there had been no positive and pal-
pable record bearing the immediate stamp and autho-
rity of the Lawgiver Himself to instruct men in the
knovdedge of their duty. They had been hitherto
left to those imperfect notions, which they were able
to deriye from the sources already mentioned, aided,
indeed, by the floating remains of traditionary reve-
lation, and by the occasional irradiations, which were
darted down from on high to illumine the spirits of
the faithfid, but vrithout any authentic expression of
moral obligation embodied into the form of a fixed
standard — an appeal to Avhich would rectify misap-
prehension, and set conjecture at rest. This was the
first wTitten proclamation of the great Sovereign of
the Uniyerse, calling his subjects to their allegiance,
and directing them in the path of their duty. This
brief instrument contains, under ten distinct heads,
all the fundamental principles of the divine govern-
ment. This may be regarded as a series of postu-
lates, by a due regard to which the various problems
and corollaries of Moral Science may be solved. In
this the great practical truths, which lay scattered
over the face of nature, or buried in the unexplored
depths of the human mind beneath a confused and
overwhelming mass of carnal prejudices and passions,

Y 2

324 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

were brought out into clear and prominent exhibi-
tion, and concentrated into a few intense points of
express and authoritative requisition. Although
these points assume a positive, and in some respects
an arbitrary aspect, yet on a closer surv^ey of them
in relation to the real condition of humanity, they
will all be found based upon a moral reason of
the most important and influential character. They
are, in fact, nothing else than the theory of that con-
stitution, which Jehovah hath established, reduced
under a few pregnant, practical principles. As farther
generalized and simplified by our blessed Saviour,
they may be comprehended under the significant
axiom, that it is the duty of man supremely to love
the Lord his God and his neighbour as himself. . This
extensive formula may be regarded as virtually con-
taining within itself all the demands of the Moral
Law, just as D'Alembert remarked, that the whole
mass of mathematical science is nothing more than
modifications and results of the simple equation
a=h.

The book of inspiration, as conveying the know-
ledge of the Moral Law, indeed, we consider as
an explicit and authoritative declaration of duties,
which were enjoined in the hoolc of Nature, but in
language too enigmatical and indefinite to admit of
their being clearly comprehended. It is, within cer-
tain limits, like a luminous treatise on natural phi-
losophy, Avhich does not invent or call into existence
the fiicts, which it records and illustrates, but only
exhibits in a small compass the result of a long and
intricate investigation, and thus brings to the dis-

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 325

tinct view of the mind what otherwise must have
escaped its observation, or surpassed its conception.
It is from the book of Revektion, therefore, and
from that alone, that a complete and adequate know-
ledge of the Moral Law, in the present state of our
nature, is to be obtained. That volume, indeed, Avill
be found infinitely to surpass, in fulness of informa-
tion and accuracy of detail, any other source of
knowledge, to which we can have recourse, but it
conveys nothing, which is really at variance with
what had before been revealed upon the magnificent
page of nature, and inscribed upon the deep tablet
of our o^vn heart.

Such appear to be the means, by which the Moral
Law as the rule of divine government, and as the
universal and unchangeable standard of duty, is made
known unto man. Dwelling in the mind of Jehovah
as its original and native home, it directed the whole
process of creation. It stamped with its own image
the whole face of nature; and hence it is promi-
nently exhibited to the view of the discerning ob-
server in the constitution and general administration
of the universe. It is there exemplified upon a scale
of magnitude and extent, which claims the notice
and admiration of the highest created intelligences.
It is displayed in a manner more or less clear and
distinct in the rule of Providence here below. Thus
Jehovah has not left himself without witness even in
the works of nature, and in the course of providence.
But besides this species of physical revelation of the
will of God, there is in man's own heart, before it
has been perverted by evil habits, and incrusted with

32G THE co^■scIE^'CE in conxection with

every prejudice and vile affection, a voice Avliich
responds to the loudest call of duty from without.
This may be regarded as another powerful means of
bringing man to the knowledge and cordial recog-
nition of the Moral Law. It is the voice of con-
science. Both of these sources of information have
been shown by experience to be of themselves
utterly inadequate, in the present fallen condition of
our nature, to make man fully acquainted with his
obligations. And hence a Revelation has been given,
by which every doubt has been solved, and every
error rectified. In this mirror of truth and holiness,
therefore, we may behold a delightful and accurate
reflection of that Law, which emanated from the
eternal Kinc;.

Section V.

The Moral Law considered in its Relation to the
Christian System.

If such, then, be the origin, the extent and the vast
bearings of the Moral LaAv : if it took its rise in the
eternal and immutable nature and essence of Jeho-
vah as a just and beneficent Being, and spreads over
the whole surface of Creation, wherever there are
subjects, to whom its provisions and requisitions can
apply: if it be interwoven with the first principles of
our own mind and engraven for our guidance in more
luminous and uneciuivocal characters upon the pages
of divine Revelation, it is an inquiry not less inte-
resting than important, how it stands related to that

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 327

sublime and peculiar system of divine government,
under Avhicli we are now placed. The Christian dis-
pensation in its various principles and doctrines,
privileges and duties, is a moral regimen, which has
sprung from a particular state and relation of things.
But if we take an enlarged and accurate survey of
its nature and design, it will be found to be the
natural residt on the part of God of that Laic,
which we have already stated to be the Eule of uni-
versal government as the offspring of the eternal
Mind. This is a vieAv of Christianity, which appears
to have been, to a great extent, overlooked, and
hence that gracious provision for the evils attendant
on the existing condition of our nature has been fre-
quently represented as something which rises infi-
nitely above and stands but remotely connected with
that rule of administration, which was in force before
its manifestation. The Law and Gospel have thus
been injuriously contrasted with each other. The
former has been regarded as a mere expression of
dry and unbending justice, and everything gracious
and beneficent in the dealings of Jehovah referred
to the tenderness and compassion of the latter ; and
thus, instead of a system of uniform and progressive
development the government of the universe is made
to be shifted from its original footing, and to be con-
ducted upon an essentially different principle of admi-
nistration. AYe consider the Moral Law, on the con-
trary, as the great, immutable rule of proceeding
towards rational and accountable beings throughout
every period in the history of creation, and the Gospel
itself but a modified application of that Rule to meet

328 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

the exigencies resulting from the disaster which "befel
our species. We regard it as a contrivance springing
out of the original spirit and tendency of the Law
adopted with a view to obviate an existing evil, rather
than a scheme designed to supersede the genuine
requisitions of that Law. We view Christianity, in
fact, not as an arbitrary nor merely a sovereign insti-
tution, totally distinct from every principle, which
had been hitherto recognized in the government of
God, but rather as one important branch of the
scheme, which had already been universally estab-
lished— as a corollary naturally inferred from the glo-
rious theorem of the divine perfections. It is an
economy founded upon the same basis as the w^hole
constitution of I^ature. If, therefore, we could con-
ceive a mind capable of appreciating the Avhole theory
of administration, which had been originally insti-
tuted, and the principles of character, in which its
various facts took their rise, it would perceive that
the method of deliverance through Christ was an
evolution of results, w^iose germ had before dwelt in
all the fulness and richness of its capabilities in the
bosom of the great Lawgiver.

In order more fully to unfold and illustrate this
view of the question it is to be remarked that Bene-
volence, combined with and regulated by Justice and
Holiness, forms the very essence of the Moral cha-
racter of Clod, and these qualities form the basis and
distinguishing features of that law, which he had pre-
scribed to Himself as the Ruler of the world. The
great princii)]e, therefore, upon which the moral
system was founded, appears to have been that Hap-

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 329

pincss should be communicated and Misery prevented
in the greatest degree compatible with the demands
of Truth and Justice. The diligent and faithful per-
formance of duty was inseparably connected with
secure and exalted enjoyment. The violation of its
obligations with equal certainty and necessity called
for punishment. This would seem to be the only
method by which a moral government could be con-
ducted. It is that alone, which is adapted to the
nature of intelligent beings endued with a faculty of
free and unconstrained volition and capable of exer-
cising a discretionary control over the exercise of
their own powers. It does not appear that there can
in the nature of things be any other means of govern-
ing rational creatures in consistency wdth the essen-
tial principles of their being than that of connecting
in a manner more or less direct the penalty of suffer-
ing A\ith voluntary delinquencies and the fruition of
happiness with the maintenance of purity, sanctity,
and obedience. It would unquestionably be the dic-
tate of benevolence, so far as was not utterly incom-
patible with this fundamental principle of a moral
system, to adopt every means, which wisdom could
suggest and power could carry into effect, to obviate
incidental evil. Such gracious interposition Avould
evidently come within the range of an administration
conducted upon the principles of a Law, which is
founded in the most expansive benevolence.

It was under the sway of such an economy that
man was originally placed. He was endued with all
the faculties and susceptibilities, which qualified him
to be a subject of moral government, and therefore

830 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

.subordinatelj a guardian of Ins own happiness. The
Law, to which he was amenable, was calculated in
the highest degree to promote his welfare and secu-
rity. This Avas the object, vrhich it kept most promi-
nently in view, as connected with his Maker's glory.
It could not, however, without utterly destroying its
own character and annihilating the relation in which
he stood to the Supreme Ruler, secure his welfare or
avert the evils, to which he might expose himself,
without an unqualified recognition of the great prin-
ciple of retributive justice. When man had incurred
tlie penalty which the Law, as applied to his charac-
ter and condition, had denounced against disobedi-
ence, he stood in the peculiar and difficult predica-
ment of one apparently doomed to inevitable misery
by the very constitution, which had been established
with a special and pre-eminent regard to his happi-
ness. The spirit and design of the Law as a tran-
script of the beneficent character of Jehovah were
favourable to his deliverance, but the fact of his
being condemned by that specific enunciation of it,
which had been delivered for his guidance and con-
trol, appeared to present an insuperable l)arrier to his
escape. In this awful and perplexing conjuncture it
was perceived by infinite Wisdom that the End of the
Law might still be secured in affording man an oj)-
portunity of regaining his forfeited happiness, Avhile
its penal denunciations should at the same time be
carried into ade(]uate aud satisl^ictory eifect. The
means by Avhich this glorious o])jecf was to be realized,
Avas the ajjpointment of a Mediator, avIio graciously
undertook to bear tlie penalty of i\\c broken Law, in

THE SEXSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAl^ LAW. 331

order that its threatened victim might go free. Into
the peculiar suitableness and propriety — or rather
into the ultimate grounds and reasons of this bene-
volent arrangement we are scarcely competent to
enter. We can perceive Avith sufRcient clearness its
admirable adaptation to answer the ends of govern-
ment— as combining the promotion of happiness with
the unbending enforcement of the sanctions of the
Law. We can see how remarkably it blends and
harmonizes the benign and exalted spirit of the law
with the rigid execution of its letter. We see in it
an irrefragable proof that the government of Jehovah
is essentially a government of benevolence as well as
of justice, and that if righteousness be the founda-
tion of his throne, compassion is also the girdle of
his loins.

We consider, indeed, that benevolence or a desire
to promote the happiness of his creatures is so essen-
tial an attribute in the character of God, and forms
so decided and prominent a feature in the great law
of the universe that it would have been impossible for
Him Avithout denying his own nature not to have
recourse to any justifiable and salutary means of
obviating the direful consequences, which threatened
to result from sin. A remedial plan, therefore, al-
though man had no claim of justice for such an insti-
tution, was the natural and congenial effect of the
conjoint operation of the everlasting attributes of
Jehovah. It was a measure springing from the same
generous and beneficent impulse, as led to the crea-
tion of the Avorld, and to the appointment of a moral
system.

832 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION ^VITH

The Christian covenant therefore — the loveliest
manifestation of divine goodness and grace — was not
something, Avhich stood isolated and distinct from
every former exercise or display of the Moral attri-
butes of God. It Avas not a system of government
founded upon some grand transcendental perfections
of the Deity, which was at once to obliterate and
abolish every record of former regulations, but it was
rather the development of a germ, which the law of
nature virtually contained within itself, and to the
practical evolution of which the exigencies of fallen
man afforded the direct occasion. It was an effusion
of loving-kindness, which had lain concealed in the
unknown depth of that benevolence, with the streams
of which the whole universe is cheered and refreshed.
This view of Christianity, instead of derogating from
its dignity and importance, in reality enhances its
value, and more firmly establishes its truth, inasmuch
as it shows that glorious scheme to be interwoven
with the essential perfections of Deity, and to be
virtually embodied in the original scheme of his
moral government. It stands forth to our view
therefore, and urges its claims upon our acceptance
in all the accredited majesty of an offspring of the
Eternal Mind.

It must be obvious that in this view of the jVIoral
Law as the basis of the Christian system and indeed
throughout the preceding discussion, we consider it
not merely as a positive constitution for the govern-
ment of this lower world, but as an expression upon
the most extended scale, of those principles of equity
(lud (/ooditess which collectively form the invariable

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 333

Collide of Jehovah's conduct in all his dealings with
his creatures. This universal rule of action is simple
and uniform in its bearing, although it is infinitely
Aaried in its application as circumstances and rela-
tions may differ. As the self-originating directory
of the great Sovereign of heaven and earthy its main
import appears to be that He should promote the
happiness of his creatures in every way not utterly
inconsistent wdth the inviolable demands of his Holi-
ness and Truth. This always has been, and always
must be the spirit of every economy which claims
Jehovah as its author, and every intei'position for the
deliverance or remedy of his creatures, is but an
additional evolution of this beneficent principle.
Therefore it is, that we regard the great remedial
system, which w as graciously superinduced upon the
defection and fall of man, not as the manifestation
of a quality, which had been hitherto, as it were, an
alien to the government of God, but as a modifica-
tion, involving indeed the exercise of the most stu-
pendous wisdom and love, of that benign principle
which pervaded every department of the universe
for the purpose of meeting a case of overAvhelming
disaster. It must always be borne in mind that the
Love, which the covenant of redemption so strikingly
and gloriously displays, existed in all the tenderness
and intensity of its glow, before that beneficent plan
was brought to bear upon the character and destiny
of man. Christianity thus view^ed ceases to be a
species of gracious encroachment upon the great
principles of the divine government, but it becomes
closely and intimately identified with the character of

334 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION V/ITH

the Deity, and a component part of the eternal Law
of the universe as administered by His wisdom and
love. The immutability of Jehovah's purposes is
vindicated, and Jesus Christ, as the great agent in
the work of our redemption, is emphatically seen to
be the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

Section VI.

The AuTnoniTY of the Moral Laav,

It has already been laid down that the ]\Ioral Law is
the proper and ultimate standard of Human Duty,
and that its requisitions are the only decisive mea-
sure by which the rectitude of actions is to be tried.
Other standards may be erroneous, and are at best
defective. Human institutions are but conventional
arrangements established for the welfare and secu-
rity of society, and draAv all their power of binding
either directly from the sword, or by derivation
from a higher source. The susceptibilities of our
own minds may be perverted by local prejudices and
innate passions. Conscience itself may be blinded
by ignorance, or warped by temptation. Amidst tlie
uncertainty and weakness therefore which attach to
every other rule of duty, it is important and deliglit-
ful to reflect that there is a Law, to which we can
with confidence look for direction — a Law which can
neither err through mistake, nor fail through feeble-
ness. It becomes, therefore, an interesting subject
of in(iuiry — what really constitutes the authority,
the obliuatior.s of this Law, as imposed by the Su-

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 335

prcme Ruler of the universe, in the exercise of liis
sovereign Will, upon his rational and accountable
creatures.

In proposing- such a question, it becomes us to
reflect v>'ith the profoundest reverence, and the deepest
self-abasement, upon the Majesty and Sovereignty of
the Being into Avhose prerogative in the establish-
ment of the economical arrangement, under which
we are placed, we venture to inquire. It is not from
any presumptuous notion that we have a right to sit
in judgment upon the plan of the Eternal, that this
process of investigation is instituted. The constitu-
tion of the universe, in many of its primary reasons
and remote relations, is utterly beyond our knowledge
and comprehension. For the removal of many of
its difficulties — for the elucidation of many of its
obscurities — we must wait for the revelations of a
brighter economy. In this introductory season of
our being, however, it is delightful to be enabled to
fix the eye upon some broad principles, in which the
attributes of Deity appear to harmonize with what
we instinctively conceive to be just and right, and
upon which the mind may therefore repose in full
and unhesitating acquiescence. In proportion, in-
deed, as we apprehend more clearly, and appreciate
more distinctly, the great fundamental maxims of
the Divine government, this satisfaction becomes
more perfect and complete. Every deeper and wider
survey which we take of the vast system in which our
lot is assigned, conveys a stronger impression of the
stability of the fabric, and of the correctness of the
principles upon which it is erected: every ray which

33G THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

plays around its pillars, is found to exhibit in a more
engaging; light the beauty and loveliness of its pro-
portions.

The moral authority of a law, or the ground upon
which it is entitled to observance, whatever may be
the mode of its promulgation and enforcement, must
be determined by a combined consideration of the
competency of the Legislator, and of the design and
tendency of the enactment. The last of these cir-
cumstances, indeed, cannot in all cases enter into
the estimate of individual obligation; for the subject
in many instances is utterly incapable of forming a
just judgment of the bearing of the Law he is
required to obey, on the comprehensive scale on
which it is designed to operate; and the end of
legislation would be entirely frustrated, if every
person was to withhold his homage until he had
been able to ascertain the benevolent origin and
the salutary effect of the civil institutions under
which he lives. It is not less true, however, that
the consideration of its tendency, as it relates to
the welfare of those whom it is designed to govern,
lies at the foundation of every law and constitution,
which prefer a genuine claim upon their regard.
The Sovereign, who is possessed of adequate power,
may issue and enforce edicts which are capricious,
arbitrary, and malevolent in their principle, and
pernicious in their practical results. As part of a
general system, whose total overthrow might be
more injurious than its occasional despotism was
oppressive, it might be the duty of a subject to
submit to such regulations. But a laAv bearing this

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MOllAL LAW. 337

character, and a government conducted upon sucli
a principle, would in tlicir real and essential nature
be destitute of all pretension to just authority, and
could be enforced only by the addition of tyranny
to malignity. The mightiest monarch upon earth
never had nor could have the least moral right,
upon any ground of honour or expediency, to intro-
duce a single enactment which was at variance with
the real interests of his subjects. The whole force
of Law under every form of administration will be
found ultimately to rest entirely and exclusively
upon the effects which it is calculated to produce
upon the happiness of those who are under its sway.
This tendency is not to be estimated by any confined,
partial, and inequitable regard to individual interests,
but by a broad, benevolent, and expansive survey
of all the relations which it involves. As, however,
this comprehensive investigation would for the most
part be impracticable, and in its application to the
Divine Law, with our present measure of knowledge
and information, absolutely impossible, the rule of
duty is to recognize the obligation, which compe-
tent authority has declared to be binding, and tran-
scendent rectitude and goodness have asserted to be
benevolent and just. Eor all the ordinary purposes
of government, it is quite sufficient to say that it is
the Will of God that such conduct should be pur-
sued. But if we carry the matter deeper, and
inquire why we are bound to regard the laws of God,
the ultimate reason will doubtless be found in the
inherent excellency of those laws, and in their direct
tendency to promote our own happiness as well as

z

338 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

the glory of their Divine Author. The happiness of
the creature, as inseparably connected with the glory
of the Creator, is, in fact, the great end of all the
physical and moral an-angements of the universe,
and the glory of God consists not in the abstract
possession of any particular order of perfections, but
in exercising these attributes in the communication
of the means of enjoyment upon the largest possible
scale consistent with the rule of eternal justice, and
the unalterable principles of his own being. It is
thus that the honour of God becomes essentially
linked with the welfare of man. The latter is a
mirror, from which the former is most conspicuously
reflected, and the Moral Law is the medium, through
which the rays are made to converge upon their
object. "We may conceive it possible, indeed, that
the Divine Being, in the exercise of his uncon-
trollable power, should have appointed a law, which
would only be productive of misery to his creatures,
and He might enforce the observance of this law by
penalties, which it would be additional misery to
incur; but it is evident that obedience to such a
regulation would be the result of necessity rather
than obligation — of prudence rather than of duty.
It is contrary to the first principles of our intel-
lectual and physical constitution, that any living and
sentient being should be morally obliged to do that,
Avhich is absolutely prejudicial to his happiness
throughout the whole range of his existence. On
the supposition of any other rule of government
than that which is on the whole conducive to hap-
piness, indeed, the motive to virtue and the means

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 339

of enforcing it would be altogether destroyed, as tlie
observance or the neglect of it would lead alike to
suffering, and the whole course of administration in
^luch a case would be only one series of coercive mea-
sures and penal inflictions

The proper and ultimate authority of the Moral
Law, therefore, unquestionably lies in the benevo-
lence of its principle, and in the inherent excellency
of its requirements as calculated to promote our
highest good. It is on this ground, in the primary
reason of the duty, that the child is bound to obey
liis parent, and as no being can be morally obliged
to act in a manner that would be finally destructive
to his own welfare, that duty at once ceases, when
the injunction is seen to involve such a sacrifice.
Thus, in our relation to the gracious Author of our
nature, we are required to obey Him — not merely
because He gave us our being — not only on account
of His infinite power to punish us, but because, in
the infinite wisdom and benevolence of his character.
He has made it our happiness to obey Him — ^because
He has given us a law, which unites and identifies
our own welfare ^vith the manifestation of his tran-
scendent perfections. This is the benign principle,
which runs throughout the whole range of his moral
government, and, like a child who is confident of his
father's concern for his happiness, we have only to
learn His Will, in order to ascertain, with an accuracy
far surpassing any result of our own abstract inves-
tigations, what is really conducive to our good.
Hence the incalculable value and importance of a
written law; not that, abstractedly considered, it

z 2

340 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

forms the ground of our duty, without any reference
to its effects upon our final and eventual destiny, but
that it affords a clear and unequivocal disclosure of
the mode of conduct, by which it is the will of our
Heavenly Father that Ave should be raised to happi-
ness and glory. The law, therefore, is paramount
and universal in its obligations, but it is such, as it
involves ihe previous fact, that its recognition is the
constituted means of our own welfare and security.
It is not for us, under these circumstances, to form a
graduated estimate of what we may conceive to be
our duty, according to what may appear to us to be
our interest, but to receive the intimations of our
Heavenly Father's will, being that in which both
combine, as cemented l)y everlasting love.

This appears to be the genuine ground, upon
v/liich the authority of the Moral Law, as binding
upon rational Ijeings, rests. It is that, which at once
satisfies our own views of relative obligation between
the Creator and the creature, and accords Avith the
disclosures of revelation, as well as the universal
testimony of experience in its bearing upon the fact
assumed. They Avho resolve the law into a mere
expression of sovereign Avill, apart from any reference
U) its influential tendency and design as it regards
the happiness of its subjects, and maintain the moral
right of Jehovah, in virtue of his absolute supremacy
to govern them upon such a principle, seem altoge-
ther to forget that the exercise of that right, liow-
ever uncontrollable, becomes materially modified
when its objects are beings endued with a capacity
ol' suiferiug and enjoyment. However complete may

THE SENSE OF DUTi' AXD THE MORAL LAW. 341

be the dependence of such an order of beings upon the
Power Avhich gave them birth, for the original posses-
sion, as well as the continuance of all the faculties of
their nature, equity appears to demand that no rule
of government should be applied to them, which is
not calculated upon the whole to promote their good.
In the administration of Him, whose character is a
combination of all that is superlatively excellent
and benign, happiness must invariably be the end :
misery in every modification or extent must be the
incidental effect resulting from the maintenance of a
system, which, upon the vast scale on which it has
been instituted, is doubtless the most favourable
that infinite wisdom could have devised for securing
the welfare of the Universe. This is, in fact, the
very ground upon Avhich the Law is enforced. We
are commanded to observe it, because our happiness
is bound up in its requisitions, and the voice of uni-
versal nature is but an echo of the same truth.

Section YII.

The Sanctions of the Moral Law as harmoxizixq with
THE VOICE OP Conscience.

If a Law has been thus established upon just and
equitable grounds of authority, and if it was intended
to be adopted as the great Eule of administration in
the government of rational creatures, it is clear that
there must be some adequate means, by which its
provisions may be enforced, and its design carried

342 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

into effect. As we have already stated that the
authoritative ground of such a law was morally de-
fined by its tendency to promote the happiness of
those to whom it was intended to be applied, so it is
abundantly evident that, such being its character, it
should be ratified with adequate sanctions. A lavr
would be of no avail as a mere expression of power-
less and inefficient will. To be entitled to such a
designation, it must not only point out what is just
and right, but its injunctions, whether affirmative or
prohibitory, must be seconded by such considerations
as appeal at once to the most powerful and com-
manding principles of our nature. These circum-
stances, indeed, must not be of such direct and
resistless force as would destroy the freedom of
human agency, and annihilate the ground of moral
responsibility, but they must be of such weight in
the estimation of every man who duly reflects upon
the consequences of his conduct, as to make him
clearly to perceive, that obedience is security and
happiness, and the reverse a pledge of all that is
miserable and disastrous. It is, moreover, to be
observed that, in order to render a law productive of
its just and proper effects in, the governance of a
rational and accountable being, there must be an
inherent and spontaneous response in his own bosom
to its requirements. This is that Law of Conscience
— that monitor within the breast, whose voice as
originally attuned by consummate wisdom and love,
sounds in unison with that law of positive and
authoritative injunctions, which controls and directs

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 343

the moral relations of the universe. In the demands
and directions of the latter, the former is naturally
formed and constituted to acquiesce.

The first rudiments of those a^vful sanctions, by
^yhich the Law of the universe is enforced, are found
in the constitution of nature, as it bears upon the
happiness and misery of mankind. The result of those
habits of conduct, which fall under the cognizance of
the Law, is a voice which tells in accents loud and
clear, and seems to embody the spirit of the maxim,
that \dce is its own punishment, and virtue its own
reward. The whole history of the world may be
regarded as a record of impressive and practical
declarations, that there is a ^od who judgeth the
earth, and that sooner would the universe sink back
into nonentity, than that disobedience should cease
to be pernicious. Jn addition, however, to this phy-
sical and providential sanction, which the Law daily
receives, there is in our own breast a witness, who
a-^vfidly confirms every sentence, which hath been
passed against disobedience and transgression. In a
court of judgment, whose functions are visible to no
eye and audible to no ear, there is a sanction given
to the awards of justice, which the criminal can
neither gainsay nor despise.

Besides, however, these universal monitors, which
are somewhat less palpable and express in their
announcements, the Moral Law hath been repeatedly
sanctioned by the most solemn and unequivocal an-
nunciations of its Divine Author and Founder. In
its character as a direct communication from above
— as part of the great scheme of revelation, it has

344 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

been authenticated by every circumstance Avliich was
necessary to give it credibility and weight, by the
suspension of the Laws of nature, and by the most
sublime and overwhelming manifestations of the pre-
sent God, But it has not only been thus evinced to
be of Divine origin and appointment; but by the
very same agency it has been clothed with an autho-
rity, which renders its requisitions paramount to
every other demand. In accordance with its charac-
ter and in fulfilment of its design as a rule of govern-
ment, its sanctions may be considered as twofold —
penal and remuneratory. When the first principle of
the Moral Law was imparted unto man from the
mouth of Deity, it was embodied in one simple in-
junction, but this expression of Divine will was en-
forced with the most alarming and peremptory
announcement — " In the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die." This was the first statement in
which the Moral Law was directly and authoritatively
made known unto man : but in this brief formula the
spirit of that constitution is displayed as it will con-
tinue to be executed throughout eternity. This
coercive intimation of sovereign will indeed, as it was
made the test of human character and the arbiter of
human destiny, was the germ of all that has subse-
quently been unfolded and more fully revealed
respecting the inviolable authority of God and the
relative subordination of man. -This was in fact
altogether the point at issue. The particular fact
in reference to which it was to be exemplified and
determined, was in itself perfectly immaterial. It
was selected by sovereign wisdom as best adapted to

THE SENSE OF DUTY AXD THE MORAL LAW. 345

embody the first draught of the great rule of govern-
ment, and to exhibit the implicitness and universality
of that obedience which on pain of his displeasure
and of all the consequences it involves. He required
at the hand of his creatures. Taking this therefore
as expressive of the spirit of the Divine Law, and of
the sanctions by which it is enforced, it is clearly seen
to be not less pure and holy in its nature, and bene-
ficent in its genuine tendency and design, than it is
absolute in its requirements and awful in its penal
ratifications. In the declaration attached to the first
command, there is every thing expressed Avhich can be
conceived as dreadful in the catalogue of human suf-
ferings— everything which the wrath of Deity as
wielding the arm of omnipotence could deem it ne-
cessary to inflict.

The Law was imposed upon our first parents in
the form of a covenant, the tenor of which was, that
in case of a violation of its express stipulation, death
would be the inevitable consequence. Every subse-
quent edition of the same great rule of action in its
more explicit and enlarged forms is enforced by
similar penalties. Personal guilt and demerit of the
deepest and most aggravated kind — the loss of the
Divine favour — the forfeiture of the Divine pro-
tection— the condemnation of the soul at the great
tribunal of the Judge of quick and dead — everlast-
ing misery beyond the grave — these are the com-
bination of just and overwhelming penalties, which
constitute the sanctions of the law of human conduct.
These are the bright flaming swords which turn every
way around this sacred path of duty, in order to

346 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

guard it against every encroachment. These are the
ministers of indignation which are ready to seize and
crush into irretrievable destruction every rebel against
the throne and sceptre of the Most High. These
sanctions, be it observed, under the modifications
superinduced by the new and better covenant of hu-
man redemption, will uniformly take effect in every
individual instance. The constitution of the moral
world is not less uniform and unvarying in its opera-
tions and results than is that of the natural world.
The law of action in both cases is perfect and defini-
tively settled, and if the phenomena should not
always be the same, it must be the consequence of
some disturbance or interposition having the effect of
preventing the evolution of their genuine and spon-
taneous functions. This was the method, by which
the penalty of everlasting misery was graciously
averted from being the necessary doom of man, and
its equivalent inflicted upon his Substitute. By this
compassionate contrivance of Divine wisdom and
love, the penal sanctions of the Law were maintained
in all their integrity and force; and in the sufferings
of the Redeemer is seen more conspicuously and im-
pressively than in the commingled flame of a thousand
worlds, that " death is the wages of sin." That
important event, therefore, instead of enfeebling the
sanctions of the law, has infinitely strengthened
them. Instead of shattering the pillars of the moral
universe, and reducing the system into a chaos, it has
established them upon a still firmer foundation, and
cemented them into closer union. It has provided
for the removal of the guilt of sin, while sin is at the

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 347

same time most unequivocally condemned. It has
averted the infliction of the penalty of sin from the
person of the offender without the slightest palliation
of its enormity, or the reversal of its threatened doom.
But the Moral Law is sanctioned as the Rule of
Divine government, not merely by the most dreadful
and alarming penalties, but also by the most glorious
and blissful rewards. In the business of legislation
it is the welfare of the community, which is most dis-
tinctly and prominently kept in view ; but in order
to attain this object, it is necessary that obedience
should be cherished and protected, as well as that
transgression should be punished and avenged. Un-
der any other system of adminstration innocence
would be left without encouragement, and \drtue
without its reward. And hence it is the very end of
all government to provide by all just and practicable
means for tbe security and happiness of its faithful
and loyal subjects. This principle is recognized to
the full extent in the moral constitution of the uni-
verse. The character of the Divine law indeed, as
an expression of the mind of its beneficent author,
renders it necessary in the nature of things that He
should be pleased with the diligent observance of it,
and consequently that all the blessings involved in
his favour and love should be immediately connected
with the cordial and practical recognition of it. So
far as it is embodied in the system of nature, or de-
velopes itself in the indispensable institutions of
human society, it carries with it a remuneration as
well as a penal sanction throughout the whole range
of its operations. They who live in strict accordance

348 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

Avitli the established order of nature, and in cheerful
subjection to the injunctions of the civil magistrate,
so far as they are in unison with the will of God,
assuredly pursue the method which is best calculated
to secure the largest measure of enjoyment. And if
this object is but imperfectly and inadequately
gained in this world, it is doubtless on account of the
state of disorder and confusion into which this de-
partment of Jehovah's dominions has for a while
been reduced by sin. The sublime theory of moral
administration as conceived in the Eternal Mind, is
doubtless that suffering should be invariably con-
nected with sin, and happiness with piety and virtue.
We behold this equitable rule of government suffi-
ciently exemplified indeed in the present disordered
and incoherent condition of our world to give us an
insight into the general principle, and to impress our
minds with the conviction that at some future period
in the history of our being, we should find all that is
apparently out of moral proportion rectified, and all
that is discordant harmonized. But it is only by the
light of revelation that all the mysteries of this per-
plexing subject are unfolded, and all its difficulties
are removed. In that we at once behold the favour of
God shining with benign lustre upon the observance
of his holy law. We see the angels of glory who
kept their first estate by obeying this great law of
their being, basking in the glowing warmth, and
glistening with the resplendent brightness of their
Heavenly Father's love; and man, during his time of
innocence, walking in close and exalted fellowship
with his God. We find the protection and care of

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 349

God in this world, <and the everlasting enjoyment of
the presence of God in the world to come promised —
not indeed as the reward of our own imperfect obe-
dience, but as the recompence of grace awarded unto
us for the merits of Him, who by his righteousness
magnified the law, and made it honourable in our
behalf.

These are the impressive Sanctions, by which the
Moral Law is enforced. It proclaims in a voice of
thunder and shows forth as in the lightning's flash
the utter condemnation of all sin and disobedience;
while, at the same time, it declares in accents of
tenderness, and records in characters of love, the
glory and honour and immortality, which are in re-
serve for the faithful and just. The Moral Law as
surveyed in the light in which we have viewed it, is
not an arbitrary institution designed only to serve a
local and temporary purpose in the government of
this transitory world. But it is the great law of rec-
titude— the immutable standard of duty throughout
every region of the intellectual and rational creation
— as wide as the universe and as lasting as eternity.
It is the inviolable bond of union, the badge of
social and federative alliance between the remotest
provinces of Jehovah's dominions. It was right,
therefore — it was necessary that its sanctions should
be of the strongest and most engaging character —
that they should be secure and unalterable in their
nature, and proportioned to its magnitude and extent.
It was not enough that there should be an accordant
voice of approbation, or the rev^rse, answering within
the breast to the requisitions of the Divine Law —

350 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

confirming- its demands and justifying its prohibitions,
to which some have so strangely and unaccountably
confined its sanctions : it was not sufiicient that its
transcendent beauty and loveliness should be per-
ceived and appreciated by the understanding, and
that the conduct which it prescribed should be recog-
nized by the conscience as alone worthy of a rational
being : it would have availed nothing that it should
be traced upon the page of the creation, and that it
should have been inscribed in beams of light upon
the tablet of Divine Eevelation as an accurate ex-
pression of Jehovah's Will. To give it any real
force — to invest it with adequate authority as the
instrument of supreme government, it was necessary
that these powerless intimations should be ratified
and consolidated as rules of universal obligation —
that the terrors of hell should give an awful emphasis
to all which they denounce, and that the promises of
heaven should gild them with their radiant lustre.

Section VIII.

The real nature of Evil as prouicited by the
Moral Law,

The notion of a Law as an authoritative Eule of
action immediately leads the mind to the considera-
tion of a certain order of habits and pursuits, in which
beings endowed with powers of Keason and Volition
are forbidden to indulge. Such an institution, what-
ever may be the manner in which it is enforced, is
designed to operate a^ a check upon the exercise of
those propensities, from the uncontrolled operation of

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 351

which it is alleged that evil would result. But what
is the true character — what is the essential nature of
that evil, against which in its various modifications,
the Law is intended to be a preservative ? Evil has
been usually divided into two kinds — physical and
moral, and these have been regarded not merely as
distinct in their immediate forms, but as totally dif-
ferent in their very being. Although, however, they
may exist in some circumstances apart from each
other, and may be considered in general as affections
of different departments of our nature, yet there does
not appear to be any solid ground for the absolute
and universal disjunction of these habits from all
necessary and direct connection with each other*.
Evil may be defined to be universally either imme-
diate suffering itself, or what has the unavoidable
tendency to produce suffering. I know of nothing
else, which antecedently to all the views and associa-
tions springing from the present condition of human
existence could have properly been called Evil.
Everything, which throughout the whole range of its
operations and effects is calculated to promote pure
and unmingled happiness, is unquestionably entitled
to be regarded as good. It is equally certain that
whatever is painful in itself, or directly tends in any
order of circumstances to occasion pain, cannot be
viewed otherwise than as evil, although the ulterior
advantages arising out of it may in some instances
transform it into comparative good. Misery in itself,

*" Natural and moral evil are closely connected together iu their
consequences as well as in their origin." — Sumner, Records of the
Creation, vol. i. p. 245,

352 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

from whatever cause it may arise, is an evil; and it
is only under a system of government, in which it
may be subservient to a higher order of enjoyment,
that it can be contemplated in any other light. In
any other condition of things it may be safely averred
that suffering is evil, and the fruition of happiness is
good.

If this view of the subject be correct, it seems to
aiford us a criterion by Avhich we may determine the
relative character of physical and moral evil. The
former of these is a mere sensation, marked by varied
degrees of intensity, and endlessly diversified in the
peculiar modification of feeling, but universally pain-
ful and distressing. The latter, in its immediate
influence, is not necessarily accompanied with emo-
tions of suffering, but is a voluntary deviation in the
exercise of the thoughts and affections, and in the
regulation of the outward conduct, from those exalted
relations of duty and subordination which the Author
of Nature has instituted. This abandonment of the
prescribed lines of required agency is evil, although
it may not be instantaneously productive of a sensa-
tion of suffering, because it has an inevitable ten-
dency to occasion such a feeling, and inasmuch as it
is an encroachment upon the established order of
things as adapted to universal good. It has already
been stated, in the course of these discussions, that
the present frame of nature is so constituted by its
Divine Author, as virtually to embody in its own
tendencies and relations the i)rinciples of moral obli-
gation. The c()nse(|uence of tliis close connection
is, that when the latter are violated, the former are

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 353

found to rise into sympathetic action, as if to resent
and avenge the wrong. No sooner had man become
the subject of moral evil, by the wilful dereliction of
his duty, and by acting in opposition to the declared
will of the Author of his being, than the whole sys-
tem of ]N"ature rose in hostility against him. An
innumerable train of physical evils, to which he had
been hitherto a stranger, became at once inseparably
attached to his destiny. His body became the seat
of complicated diseases and infirmities, from which it
had hitherto been perfectly exempt. His mind, which
had hitherto been the hallowed shrine of pure and
sublime affections, was at once thrown open to the
incursions of every corrupt, malignant, and degrad-
ing passion, and from being the sanctuary of holiness,
peace, and love, was transformed into an abode of
impiu-ity, depravity, and discord. The very elements
of the material system — ^the influences of the heavens
and the phenomena of earth assumed an altered
aspect towards him, and, instead of being the minis-
ters of his good, became, in many instances, the
instruments of penal indignation towards him, in the
infliction of suffering, pain, and death. Independ-
ently of the retributions of a future state, therefore,
it is abundantly e\ddent that even in the present
world the admission of moral evil stands closely and
inseparably connected -with suffering or physical
evil.

And from this representation we may be naturally
led to inquire whether evil of every kind may be
ultimately resolved into suff'ering as that which con-
stitutes its real essence. We are accustomed, and

2 A

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

354 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

when the subject is properly understood, are justly
accustomed, to regard moral delinquency as in itself
eternally and unalterably base. But it is obvious
that Moral Evil is such in relation to a system
of things already existing, without which it could
not have a being except in vague and abstract hypo-
thesis, and with the harmonious operations of which
it is utterly, and must of necessity be eternally
incompatible. Its malignity bears a strict proportion
to the injurious eflPects that would result from it, if it
became universally prevalent. Its odiousness springs
from the destructive influence which it would exert
in proportion to its energy and extent. This view
of the question is strongly confirmed by the fact that
the physical act of the most atrocious crime has
nothing in itself, which involves guilt and Moral
delinquency. The material form, if we may so speak,
in other words the mere act, as an exertion of phy-
sical powers, of murder, of theft, or of adultery has
nothing in it which is vile or base. The process of
taking away the life of a man under certain circum-
stances— the supply of the individual's wants — the
union of the sexes have in themselves no necessary
depravity or turpitude. The evil, which belongs to
them in certain cases, arises wholly from the evil
passions in which they originate, and their tendency
under those circumstances to produce results so fatal
to the security and happiness of mankind. It may,
therefore, be fairly assumed that their real evil con-
sists in the malignant effects with which the/ are
attended, or the pure and benign affections which
they outrage, and in the suffering which they conse-

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 355

quently inflict, rather than in any abstract qualities
belonging to themselves considered apart from all
their tendencies.

It must ever be borne in mind, however, that
moral distinctions — as expressive of wtue and vice,
wherever an opportunity is afforded of calling them
forth into actual being, are absolute, unchangeable,
and eternal, so that it is impossible in the nature of
things to render the one laudable, or the other cri-
minal or odious. This view, therefore, does not in
any degree alle^date the enormity of sin, nor palliate
the guilt of transgression ; it only fixes the evil in
the right place. From all that we know or can con-
ceive — impiety — injustice — ingratitude — cruelty,
must have an unalterable tendency to produce unhap-
piness, and therefore are evil ; and the business of
the Law, to which conscience unequivocally responds,
is to prohibit Moral Evil, which alone falls under its
cognizance, and to enforce its injunctions by making
physical evil or suffering the result of disobedience.

Immediately connected with this part of our sub-
ject, is the consideration of Moral and Positive Laws
as contrasted with each other. The distinction which
has been generally made between these two depart-
ments of legislation, indeed, is far greater than
appears to be warranted by their real difference.
In their authority as expressions of the WiU of the
Supreme Governor, they carry with them precisely
the same obligation. As they are both founded
upon the universal duty of a creature to obey the
commands of a ^vise and beneficent Creator, they
stand upon the same footing, and embody the same

2 A 2

356 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

great moral principle. The difference is in the mode
in which the Sovereign Will has been made known,
and in the extent to which its preceptive intimations
are intended to bear upon hmnan character and con-
duct. The Moral Law, in the usual acceptation of
the term, in its great fundamental requisitions, is
interwoven with the whole frame of I^ature, and is
inscribed in imperishable characters upon the vast
roll of Creation. It is co-extensive in its authority
and direction with the existence of those relations
which subsist between God and man. As a transcript
of the Divine mind, it is indeed not less the Law of
angels, than it is the local directory of men in this
remote district of Jehovah's dominions. It is as
much the code of Eternity, as it is the statute-book
of time. A positive Law, on the other hand, though
it be doubtless founded upon an adequate reason in
the established constitution of things, does not ap-
pear to hold the same universal connection with the
order of nature. So far as we are able to trace its
bearings, it is only a temporary enactment made
known by express revelation, arising from some
peculiarity of character or condition, and binding-
only so far as is definitively specified in the commu-
nication or institution, in which it is embodied as a
Law. Independently of such an appointment, there
was nothing in the previous arrangement of things,
which could have led the mind to form any idea of a
design on the part of the Supreme Legislator to
impose such an injunction. There might have been
nothing, whicli the eye of man could discern, to
mark out its peculiar excellency, as compared with

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 357

many other observances which might have been
enjoined. There was nothing, perhaps, by which it
appeared to be linked in harmony and congruity
with some other institution that went before or fol-
lowed after. There might, in fact, be no reason
beyond the sovereign will of the great Arbiter of
the Universe, why this was selected, out of many
other measures that might have been equally appro-
priate, to be a rule of conduct to his creatures.

Of these observations, the appointment of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil to be a test of
obedience — the institution of the Sabbath — the rite
of Circumcision under the old dispensation, and of
Baptism under the new, and a very considerable
number of the ceremonial ordinances of the JcAvish
economy, may be considered as affording evident
examples. These, and other similar enactments were
positive, inasmuch as they were established by direct
authority, and did not appear to maintain any neces-
sary connection with those great principles of duty,
which were embodied in the general scheme of Divine
government. But they were Moral precepts, in that
they conveyed an unequivocal intimation of the Will
of that Being, whom it is man's first duty to obey.
Nor is this obligation in the slightest degree less
than if they were enforced by ten thousand reasons,
and the voice of universal nature proclaimed their
paramount necessity. The mere act of Jehovah
indeed, in establishing a rule of duty, makes that to
be virtue which previously might have been a matter
of indifference, and possessed no moral character,
and that vice, on the other hand, which, antecedently

358 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

to such appointment, involved no moral turpitude.
He lias as just and unquestionable a right to esta-
blish laws of this nature as he had to frame a system,
and to govern it by those rules of rectitude and jus-
tice, which are incorporated into its whole substance.
Every deviation, therefore, from the appointed order
of the universe — whether it be expressed in moral or
positive injunctions — every violation of the acknow-
ledged rules of duty — every encroachment upon those
relations of subordination and dependence, in which
man stands towards his Maker, the Law prohibits as
evil.

Section IX.

The Consummation of Happiness an infallible result of

THE PERFECT OBSERVANCE OF THE MoRAL LaW, AS AN
EXPRESSION OF THE DiVINE WiLL, AND AS BINDING ON

THE Human Conscience.

The End of the Moral Law, wherever its provisions
are fully carried into effect, must be accordant with
its origin, and its results congenial with its design.
Taking its rise in the infinite benevolence of Jehovah,
directed in all its bearings and requisitions by His
wisdom, and sustained in all the plenitude of its
authority by His power, this bright Offspring of
Eternal Love, has been sent forth to traverse the
length and breadth of the created universe, as at
once a faithful monitor against evil, and a benign
Minister of Good. These are the traits, which, so
far as oui- clouded vision is capable of recognizing
them, invariably mark its character. This is the first

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 359

great principle of the Divine Law — this is the master-
spring in all its complicated movements — to forbid
nothing, but what has an inevitable tendency in its
more proximate or remote effects to produce suffering,
and to command nothing, but what is equally calcu-
lated to promote the happiness, security, and well-
being of those, who have been placed under its
control. This is the foundation upon which the
sublime and beneficent Theory of the Moral universe
is built, and with a reference to which all its parts
and proportions arc adjusted*. There is the same
never-failing tendency in the Moral Law, to preserve
the happiness of the rational and intellectual creation
unimpaired, that there is in the great law of physics,
in its various combinations of force to maintain the
harmony and equipoise of the vast system of material
nature. On the supposition of beings possessed of
rational and voluntary powers, it is obvious that there
may be a partial and temporary interference with the
operations of both. Man may within certain limits
divert the elements from their spontaneous course of
action, and employ them for good or evil according
to his own inclination. He may upon a diminutive

* It is remarkable that Bistop Butler, notwithstanding that he
makes the Conscience, as an original faculty of the human .mind, to
be the great arbiter of moral distinctions, nevertheless regards the
creation and government of the whole universe as based in bene-
volence or a disposition to promote the happiness of the creature.
This is the principle uniformly maintained in these pages. "Perfect
Goodness in the Deity is the principle from whence the universe was
brought into being, and by which it is preserved; and general
Benevolence is the Great Law of the whole Moral Creation." —
Butler's Sermons, serm. 8, pt. 1st.

360 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

scale set them in hostile array against each other,
and make the principle or force, which was designed
for unmixed good, an occasion of overwhelming evil.
In the same manner he may pervert and contravene
the Moral Law in its numberless ramifications and
demands, so as to render that, which was intended to
be the bond of happiness, an occasion of misery and
woe.

When the constitution of the Universe was first
established, it was placed upon a footing and subjected
to a law, which could not fail to secure the blessed-
ness of those, who were willing to enter into its
spirit, and cheerfully to submit to its authority. All
the evil, which has been known — all the sufiering,
which has been experienced throughout the whole
range of the universe, has resulted from disobedience
to the Law, and from rebellion against the sovereign.
As long as the apostate angels kept their first estate
— as long as their sublime endowments were employed
in their Maker's service, and the march of their
glowing energies moved in harmony with His acknow-
ledged Will — all was peace, tranquillity, and safety,
and their felicity knew no change, except as it might
occasionally rise to the more fervid raptures of exalted
and impassioned joy. With man the case was
analogous. While he retained the purity and integ-
rity of his nature — while he continued to walk in the
serene light of the Divine commandments — Avhile he
afforded a practical compliance with the expression of
his Maker's Will — the end of the law, as designed for
the promotion of universal good, Avas perfectly realized
ill his happiness. He occupied liis place and fulfilled

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 361

his duties in the vast scheme of creation, in a manner
entirely accordant with the relations in which he
stood, and the functions he was appointed to
discharge; and thus the harmony of the Moral system
was maintained, while its ultimate object was at the
same time most effectually secured.

'No sooner, however, had man, in the exercise of
the voluntary powers, with which he was invested,
ventured to deviate from that path of rectitude,
which the law had marked out for his course, than a
change of condition was experienced by him. The
system was at once disorganized. Everything began
to be out of joint. The prime mover in the curious
machinery of his nature was no longer able to
control the subordinate springs and movements,
upon whose regularity and precision the harmony
of the whole was dependent. Like a planet driven
out of its appropriate orbit, he became at once the
sport of contending and conflicting influences, while
every thing, which was most lovely and delightful in
the constitution of his nature, was placed in the most
imminent danger of utter and irremediable destruc-
tion. In other words, no sooner had man trans-
gressed the appointed and authoritative law of his
nature, than man began to suffer. If sin had never
gained an entrance into the world, we are abun-
dantly authorized by reason and revelation to assert
that penal suffering would have been likewise un-
known, and that sorrow and pain would have been
eternally excluded from the universe. The system
of created nature as an evolution, in its original
state, of the principle of the moral law, is doubt-

362 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

less calculated for the production of perfect and
unmingled happiness; but it formed an essential
condition of that system, that those who occupied
its rational departments should possess the discre-
tionary power of transgressing, and of thus per-
versely marring their own blessedness. Moral
government requires such a condition as its very
basis, and its advantages can no otherAvise be secured
than at the risk or by the trial which it universally
involves. And when perfect obedience is the result
of this process of probation, happiness is secure and
complete. Into whatever department of intellectual
being — into whatever rank of rational existences sin
or the transgression of the Law has not gained an
entrance, there it may confidently be affirmed, that
the stream of enjoyment has flowed pure and unper-
turbed. There conscious guilt has never awakened
a chilling apprehension, there inordinate desire,
ungoverned passion, pride, envy, malice and revenge
have never excited the fever of disquietude, and the
fang of remorse has never lodged its venom in the
heart. All, on the contrary, is there benignity,
peace, and joy: and not only does an absolute free-
dom from sin secure an absolute exemption from
suffering, but the relative, the graduated absence
of the former will bear a strict proportion and ana-
logy to that of the latter. The misery of any order
of rational beings, must in every case, both in its
nature and extent, be the result of their sins, and
to adopt the language of the Apostle, where sin
aboundeth, suffering, unless obviated by forgiving
and sanctifying grace, will much more abound.

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 363

And if this be the real condition of things, if
the transgression of the Law be the true cause of all
suffering, it must be obvious, that under an economy,
from which sin is altogether banished, happiness
must be pure and unalloyed. A capability of suffer-
ing, indeed, I consider as an indispensable attendant
on moral government. It is that which most power-
fully binds the subject to obedience, and gives the
laAv all its effective authority. But the fact of suffer-
ing, at least in its penal character, was doubtless
unknown until the commission of sin gave occasion
to its development. This may in some degree
account for the temerity with which our first parents
allowed themselves to violate the Divine law, and to
expose themselves to the dreadful penalty which had
been denounced. Hitherto they had been strangers
to any experimental sense of the poignancy of bodily
pain and the bitterness of an accusing conscience.
And although this in no degree justified their con-
duct or extenuated their guilt, amidst the numerous
and engaging motives to fidelity and obedience,
which the goodness of their Sovereign and the
blessedness of their own condition might suggest to
them, yet it may in some measure tend to explain
what has always appeared to me one of the most
mysterious moral phenomena in the whole history
of our nature — how a being perfectly pure and
immaculate in his affections, and with every feeling
so strongly inclined to what was good, should so
readily swerve from his duty. It may be that the
experience of suffering, or the perception of its effects
in beings of the same nature, as the just consequence

364 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

of transgression is essential to the stability of moral
government, and that the apostate angels were al-
lowed to lapse, in order more deeply to impress upon
every rank of intellectual existence, the duty and
blessedness of obedience. It may be impossible in
the nature of things, that the great ultimate end of
Moral Government, should be attained through any
other medium, than that of a system of discipline, in
which the abuse of voluntary powers and rebellion
against lawful authority, were visited with condign
punishment. The present condition of our nature is
evidently an introductory dispensation. It affords an
example of government, in which the grand principles
of justice and rectitude are indeed distinctly recog-
nized and displayed, but affording at the same time
the most unquestionable symptoms of a deranged and
imperfect economy. The rule of administration is
obviously equitable and right, but the subjects to
whom it is aj)plied evince a continual disposition to
resist its authority, and to frustrate its provisions.
Hence the whole scene presents the appearance of a
struggle between contending principles, and as the
moral scheme is thus imperfectly developed, the
result in the condition of those who are governed, is
equally mixed and indecisive. The present state is
neither that of perfect purity and justice, nor of entire
and unminglcd depravity; and in the same manner it
is neither a condition of consummate blessedness nor
of utter wretchedness. It is a combination of both,
or rather it is a constant effort towards the complete
realization of eitlicr. It is a contest of opposing
elements, an oscillation between conflicting powers.

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW. 365

But when the design of the system has been attained
— when the object of this preparatory discipline has
been realized, the respective elements, which had
been in conflict, will be entirely and finally separated
from each other. A new order of moral government
will commence. Sin and misery will be bound toge-
ther in indissoluble union, and the community to
which they belong will be removed from all fellowship
with the rest. The principles of equity, purity, and
justice, on the other hand, will be dra^vn forth from
beneath the mere cloud by which they had been par-
tially covered and overwhelmed, in all their glory and
excellency. The struggle will then be over. Every-
thing will have found its place, and have fully worked
its effect. Then God will be known not merely in
His will, but in the actual accomplishment of His
purpose. His law will be seen, not only in its ten-
dency and general requisitions, but in all the perfec-
tion and sublimity of its nature, and in all the fulness
r f its eflPects. The period of trial and temptation^
of partial obedience and imperfect happiness — ^will
then have passed away, and the reign of absolute
purity, conjoined with the most consummate felicity,
will eternally prevail and flourish. Under that bright
and blissful economy, the provisions of the Christian
covenant, as the noblest and most beneficent evolu-
tion of the first principle of the Moral Law, will be
carried into full effect. It will be seen to afi'ord a
most glorious illustration of the accordant attributes
of Deity — to harmonize the claims of conflicting
principles — to blend the interests of heaven and
earth in a manner which will command the pro-

366 THE CONSCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH

foundest adoration of every intelligent nature
throughout the Universe of the blest. Then the
veil, which once rested over the plans and dispensa-
tions of Jehovah will have been rent asunder, and
the sunshine of perfect love will spread like a robe
of light over the scene : the sanctuary of his secret
purposes will be thrown open, and all that ignorance
or partial knowledge might have deemed as arbitrary,
will be recognized as wise and good. Duty will be
perceived in its reasons — labour be appreciated in its
fruits — and suffering be estimated by its results.
And thus taught by experience, or instructed by
methods of illumination adapted to the faculties of
their nature to recognize the goodness of their sove-
reign, and the benevolent equity of his law, the
various orders of being will enter upon a career of
purity, and glory, and blessedness, to which time can
mark no bounds, and space assign no limits. In
their ascending progress along the scale of beatific
existence, the Law of holiness will still be their
companion and guide, and as their character is gra-
dually moulded into a more perfect conformity to its
dictates as a transcript of the Eternal Mind, they
will realize such scenes of glory and felicity as Avill
transcend all that they had previously conceived in
the brightest visions of their faith, and the most
glowing raptures of their love.

It is thus in close and invariable connection with
the Moral Law as its great and ultimate Rule of
judgment, that the functions of the Conscience as an
important faculty of the human mind are to be in-
vestigated and ascertained. Conscience is a susccp-

THE SENSE OF DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW.

tibility of impression — an organ of moral feel
guided by the Understanding, gradually adapte
its office by the various influences with which i
surrounded, and entirely subject, for the correct
of its decisions, to the paramount Hule and authi
of the Divine Law. It is not, therefore, to
regarded as an infallible instinct planted in
mind, forming itself the final standard of right
wrong, but rather as a moral instrument natui
fitted by its divine Creator to act as a just censo
conduct, but ever requiring the light of correct
formation to direct it, and tlie sanction of a hi:
authority to give efficiency to its announcemt
and to invest it with a power of absolute and
versal obligation.

BOOK IV.

THE LEGITIMATE USE OF THE IMAGINATION AS SUBSERVIENT
TO THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION.

PART I.

THE PROPER USE OF IMAGINATION.

Section I.

The different Degrees in which Imagination is found in
different individuals.

Every man who reflects, must be conscious of a
Power, which presents to the view of his mind in-
numerable forms of things without the immediate
intervention of the Senses. In different indivi-
duals indeed, this remarkable faculty is found
greatly to vary, as well in the clearness of its
representations, as in the energy and rapidity of
its movements. In some it is found capable only
of exhibiting in slow succession to the eye of the
understanding, and often with much obscurity of
conception, the ideas, which have been derived
from objects the most prominent and familiar.
Its operations are attended with no fervour of
emotion, kindle no glow, and awaken no sentiment
bearing the remotest alliance to that excitation of
the mental affections usually termed rapture. All,

2 B

370 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

on the contrary, is calm and unruffled — a flow of
conceptions characterized by uniformity of feeling,
and diversified only by the various aspects of the
tracts of thought through which it passes. The
man who is distinguished for this torpor and inert-
ness of the imaginative Faculty, may indeed be
subject to strong and impetuous passions, which
are properties rather of the animal than the intel-
lectual nature, and resemble rather the murky
glare of a volcanic eruption, than the glowing
radiance of the sun; but to the nobler and finer
frenzies 'of the mind — to those beams of light and
heat which illumine and warm the soul, without
devastating all with which they come in contact,
he must always continue a stranger. He may,
if ignorant and uneducated, be possessed of his
full share of that kind of sense, which is more im-
mediately connected with the affairs of common
life, and which, in ordinary circumstances, is, after
all, as Burke well remarked, the best sense. But,
to a very refined order of affections, or even to
very enlightened views of religion, and an exalted
pitch of devotional feeling, there is no great like-
lihood that he will attain ; for either of these
attainments requires a sensibility of heart and an
abstraction of mind, attended with a power of
combination, of which he is capable but in a very
slight degree. But if trained up in the institutes
of science, and habituated to the severe exercise of
intellect, he may possess himself of an enlarged
and varied store of ideas, and arrange them Avitli
consummate skill, for the purposes of reasoning

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 371

and investigation. Like him who penetrates the
bosom of the earth, and labours through its dark
recesses in quest of precious ore, he may explore
with success those departments of philosophical
or even theological inquiry, where bare knowledge
is the object of pursuit. In his progress, tardy
and wearisome as it may appear, yet if steady and
uniform, he may fall upon many a gem, and dis-
cover many a vein of rich and invaluable truth.
He may be an Edwards in logical acumen ; a
Locke in metaphysical sagacity ; an Euclid or an
Archimedes in Geometry, or a ITewton in the various
departments of mathematical and physical investiga-
tion. But the creative energy of the poet, or the
glow of the impassioned orator, are endowments,
which obviously form no part of his character. It is
said of Malebranche, with aU his metaphysical acute-
ness, that he had such an utter distaste, and even
dislike for the pursuits of Imagination, as to be
unable to read the noblest and sublimest poetry
without a feeling of deep disgust.

In such persons the Imagination, though it can-
not be said to be whoUy absent or extinct, where
clear ideas of outward objects are formed, inde-
pendently of the present operation of the senses,
holds in the scale of mental powers a most subor-
dinate, and, comparatively speaking, insignificant
rank. It is not only kept in entire subserviency to
the faculty of Reason, as it unquestionably ought
to be, but it seems destitute of all native vigour,
hardly exhibiting any signs of life, nor venturing
to assert its congenial liberty of action. And so

2 B 2

372 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

far as the faculty may be supposed to exist in its
genuine cliaracter, we can only compare it to an
eagle pinioned to the ground, and scarce capable of
ruffling its plumage.

In others this faculty appears to greater ad-
vantage, and assumes a much livelier character;
exerts a wider influence, and rises to more daring
heights. In such cases it is found, if not to predo-
minate in the soul, and to control the operation of
all the other powers, at least to mingle, in some
measure, with every process of thinking and feeling,
— to infuse life into every idea, and to give its own
peculiar tincture to all the activities of the mind.
The man of warm and and vigorous imagination
differs as widely, and may be as easily distinguished
from him in whom its range is confined, and its move-
ments languid, as a tree clothed in all the verdure
of spring's luxuriant foliage, from that which stands
in naked desolation, having been stripped of its leafy
honours by the violence of the autumnal blast ; or as
youth in all the beauty of its form, all the symmetry
of its features, and all the agility of its motions,
from the coarse and athletic vigour of manhood, or
the shrunk and withered aspect of decrepitude and
old age. But even in persons who are endowed with
this faculty in a high degree of energy and cultiva-
tion, it is by no means uniform in its operations.
In some it assumes more of the light and playful
character, and in this modification of its nature it is
generally denominated Fancy. And though Fancy
and Imagination, with respect to their etymological
origin, spring from sources very closely allied, and

U?ON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 373

are often promiscuously employed, yet, in strict pre-
cision of language, they may be clearly distin-
guished from each other. Both, indeed, constitute
but one faculty or power of the mind; but they
respectively express, when placed in contrast to
each other, different exercises of that power. Fancy
is marked by delicacy of perception, by quickness and
facility of combination, by the volubility of her turns,
and her versatile aptitude to almost every variety of
application. Imagination delights in forms of gran-
deur, in scenes of magnificence, and in energy of
action. Fancy is charmed with the soft and the
beautiful both of nature and of art. Imagination
exults in the sublime and the daring. The one de-
lights in sprightliness and vivacity of spirit, the other
prides in majesty and strength. Fancy resembles
the rapid, though not impetuous current, whose sur-
face reflects the splendour of the sunbeams, as it
purls along its pebbled channel, or is curled by the
western breeze ; while imagination bears a stronger
likeness to the mountain torrent, which rushes down-
ward, impatient of control, and seems to direct its
o^\Ti course. Or, to institute another comparison,
the operations of fancy are pictured in the wanton
play of light and shade, exhibited on a spot partly
illumined by the penetrating rays of the sun, and
partly darkened by the superincumbent foliage of a
tree, as the wind rustles among its branches ; while
those of imagination may be more aptly represented
by the vivid coruscations of lightning.

In illustration of these remarks we may observe,
that among that class of modern authors, whose

374 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

productions are characterized by a rich exuberance
of fancy, we should rank Cowper as the most dis-
tinguished of the poets, and Addison as holding the
same station among the prose writers. Neither of
these, indeed, nor many others, who might be
deservedly associated with them, were utter strangers
to the higher efforts of imagination, but the regions
of fancy were the scenes most congenial to the cha-
racter of their minds, and formed the peculiar pro-
vince of their genius. Of those who have been most
distinguished for vigour and sublimity of Imagina-
tion, and have soared aloft —

Extra flammantia mcenia mundi,

Milton and Young stand foremost, perhaps, of any
writers, which ancient or modern times have pro-
duced.

But, though fancy and imagination are clearly
susceptible of this distinction, a distinction which
it were easy to illustrate at greater length : in theo-
logical discussion they are generally used as nearly,
if not altogether, synonymous. The following in-
quiry is designed to embrace the provinces of both ;
and for the sake of simplicity we shall consider the
imagination as combining all the powers, modifica-
tions, and exercises of that rich and comprehensive
mental endowment, which properly constitutes genius.
For, although the metaphysician, the critic, and the
mathematician, may each of them be said to have a
genius for his own department of science — importing
nothing more than that he has a peculiar aptitude of
mind for that particular branch of knowledge, yet
genius, as the endowment of the poet or the orator, is

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 375

generally considered as a species of inspiration, and
consists of a faculty of rapid combination and inven-
tion, which in reality are nothing else than varied exer-
cises of Fancy and Imagination. In the present dis-
cussion, therefore, we shall include, under the general
idea of imagination, all those modifications of intel-
lect and feeling, which fancy and genius are sepa-
rately or unitedly designed to express.

It has often been a matter of doubt how far this
vigorous and active Faculty of the human mind
should be allowed to be exercised, and may be
made advantageously to bear upon matters of reli-
gion, and points of revealed truth. Some, in whose
mental constitution it does not appear to form a very
powerful ingredient, would have it banished altoge-
ther from within the precincts of the sanctuary, as
the race of poets was to be excluded from the com-
monwealth of Plato. They would dissociate Ima-
gination from all concern or connexion with the grave
questions relating to eternal things. They condemn
her character as light; they dislike her language as
affected; they disapprove of her attire as meretri-
cious. Others there are, naturally of a different
temperament, and habituated to a different mode of
thinking and feeling, who carry their notions to an
opposite extreme. They wiU give a favourable
reception to nothing, whatever may be its acknow-
ledged importance, unless it comes recommended by
the clear stamp and signature of Imagination. Truth,
in the sober garb of reason, and enlivened by
chaste and pure feeling, they are disposed to
reject as uninteresting common-place. They are

376 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

apt to overlook the plain, in order to gaze at the
beautiful, and to forget the generally useful, in their
admiration of the merely splendid. The doctrines of
religion, in order to meet their taste, and to engage
their affections, must be decorated with the flowers
of fancy, and illustrated by all that is new and
striking in ideal combination. To them the canopy
of heaven itself has nothing attractive or worthy of
attention, except when it is arched with the rainbow's
resplendent semicircle, or arrayed in the rich drapery
of clouds tinged with sunbeams. Unhappily for
them, or perhaps fortunately for their real advantage,
the sources are but few, from which they can derive
the gratification which exactly suits their peculiar
modification of taste.

To arbitrate between these two parties, or rather
to define the legitimate use of the Imagination, as
it may be applied to the important subject of Keli-
gion, is, assuredly, a very difficult matter. To those
in whom the faculty of Imagination is in no danger
of exercising a predominant and injurious influence
over their other powers, this question indeed can be
of no great interest ; and its determination is chiefly
important, as it may teach those who are possessed
of that endowment in a somewhat more than ordi-
nary proportion, how far they may advantageously
employ it, and to what dangers and abuses it is liable,
as it refers to the most weighty of all human con-
cernments.

Having, therefore, in a former part of this Inquiry
endeavoured to mark out the boundaries, which
should limit the operations of Reason in the invcs-

UPON SUBJECTS OF EELIGION. 377

ligation of divine truth, we shall now proceed to
institute a somewhat similar investigation with re-
spect to the faculty of Imagination. In pursuance
of this plan, we shall first state some of the Uses to
which Imagination may be legitimately applied in
the treatment of divine truth, and then point out
some of the Evils and Excesses, into which it is
in danger of running, if immoderately indulged, and
allowed to break loose from the restraints of reason
and sound judgment.

Section II.

The advantage op Imagination for purposes op
Illustration.

One of the first and most important Uses, to which
Imagination can be applied in the elucidation or
enforcement of religious truth, is that of Iwely and
appropriate Illustration. To remove all doubt and
hesitation that may be felt respecting the lawfulness
or expediency of this method, we shall only refer to
the sacred writings themselves, which abound with
every variety of figurative representation and illus-
trative allusion. The Bible is, indeed, a book pre-
eminently distinguished by this, as well as many
other peculiar characteristics, that, while it is marked
throughout by a unity of principle, and consistency of
facts, yet this principle is developed and these facts
are arranged with every possible diversity of manner.
While the system of doctrine, which it unfolds, is
every where essentially the same, it can never be

378 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

charged with a heavy and uninteresting uniformity of
aspect. It is, on the contrary, exliibited in manifold
positions, presented in the most engaging lights, and
furnished with a multiplicity of appendages, which may
allure the eye, fix the attention, and impress the heart.
To borrow the language of architecture, while the
effect is designed to be unique, the style is occasion-
ally varied, with a just adaptation to circumstances,
from the plainest, soberest simplicity, to the highest
degree of rich and splendid decoration. The scrip-
ture, indeed, stands at the widest possible distance
from the narrow and technical in sentiment or diction.
And without adopting the theory of Hutchinson, that
the Bible is a pandect of philosophy as well as of
divine knowledge, involving in mysterious symbols
the whole of natural, no less than theological science,
it may safely be affirmed, that its language is often
exceedingly intellectual and elevated. There is no
species of composition, and scarce a figure of speech,
the object of which is to inform, to move, or delight
the human mind, but is found there employed. The
rhythm of verse, the harmony of prose, the allegory,
the parable, the apostrophe, the metaphor, and the
antithesis, in short, the whole ordonnance of figura-
tive combinations is there brought into service; and
we might almost venture to assert, that, amidst the
extensive and diversified range of matter and of man-
ner presented in the volume of inspiration, each one
of the nine Muses (if such an allusion be pardoned)
might fix upon a portion as constituting her peculiar
department. The reason is obvious ; the Bible takes
man as it finds him, and as he is in himself, possessed

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 379

of various faculties, each of them affording an inlet
through which knowledge may be instilled into his
understanding, or feeling be communicated unto his
heart. Hence it demonstrates to his Keason; it
paints to his Fancy; it threatens, persuades, and
entreats, in order to give the needful impulse to the
AYill — the Conscience — and Affections. The voice of
truth, precisely suited to the character of man, is dis-
tinguished by different notes and gradations. Break-
ing the monotony of one unvarying style of address,
it is sometimes found to utter forth, as in peals of
thunder, the sounds of denunciation and alarm ; some-
times to speak in the calmer dialect of argument and
earnest expostulation; sometimes to attune itself to
such accents of soft and evangelical sweetness, as may
charm the ear of the soul with the melody of harmo-
nious numbers. While it is impossible for us to per-
ceive the exact line of demarcation, and to determine
how far the different penmen of scripture were under
the influence of inspiration with respect to the phrase-
ology, which they employed to convey their ideas,
whether the guidance of the divine Spirit proceeded
farther than infallibly to secure the truth and accuracy
of the sentiments to be expressed, or extended to the
suggestion of every form of speech which they used, it
is certain that a difference of character is obvious in
their writings. [N'or is this diversity of style confined
to the Old and JS^ew Testaments, as contradistin-
guished the one from the other. This perhaps might
have been expected from the dissimilarity of the dis-
pensations, under which they were respectively com-
posed ; but it is also equally observable in the writers

380 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

of either portion of the sacred volume viewed by them-
selves. AVliat, for example, can be more strongly
contrasted in the method of composition, and in the
faculties more immediately addressed, than the Apo-
calyi)se of St. John, compared with the Epistles of
St. Paul, or the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles?

It is upon these general principles of scriptural
authority, and of human character, that we main-
tain the legitimacy and utility of employing the
Imagination as an instrument for illustrating the
various branches of divine truth. It is the lot of
man in the present state of existence, that he is
forced to contemplate all objects, however abstract
in their character, however remote from gross matter
in all the properties of their nature, however pure,
spiritual, and ethereal in their essence, through the
medium of image» derived from things sensible and
corporeal. In a future world he will doubtless be en-
dued with other inlets of perception, and be possessed
of faculties, which will enable him to hold communi-
cation with the bright essences around him, without
the intervention of those channels of intercourse
which are so useful to him here below, but whose
operations are at the same time so imperfect and
confined. During his pilgrimage upon earth, though
he is conscious of the workings, the hopes, and aspira-
tions of an immortal principle, he is wrapped within
a garb of mortality, through the narrow rents of which
he receives all the forms and ideas of things, which
he is privileged to treasure up in his memory, or to
liarbour within liis breast.

Hence arises the importance of the talent of

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 381

suitable illustration, and of exhibiting under proper
analogies, the principles which it is designed to un-
fold. Who has not felt the need of this method;
who has not felt refreshed and relieved by its judi-
cious adoption, while listening to descriptions, or
perusing treatises on the abstruse points of theology
and metaphysics ? While the question was stated in
the language of abstract truth, with whatever logical
accuracy it might be propounded, the ideas presented
themselves to the mind as in a mist; they appeared
before it, borne as in vehicles of air, too light, too
subtil, too attenuated to afford it the opportunity of
a firm and vigorous grasp. Like the incorporeal
forms which ranged through the fields of Elysium,
they yielded to the touch, and vanished from the
hold, before they could be seized. The whole region
of thought seemed to be a land of shadows, where
there were many floating notions, but no clear and
definite conceptions. The mind, therefore, felt un-
easy, until it could embody these evasive phantasms,
which seemed to mock it like visions of the night,
in some shape of palpable and coherent representa-
tion, that would enable it to survey them at its leisure,
and examine them in all their bearings.

It is, doubtless, owing to the difficulty of forming
clear and distinct views without those helps of illus-
tration, which serve as a species of material organ
for communicating intellectual and spiritual ideas
into the mind, that discourses of abstract reasonings,
however skilfully arranged, and however conclusive in
argument, leave the generality of hearers without
impression. The matter of the discussion may be

382 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

good and important ; the metliod of handling it may
be logically just and sound. Each successive state-
ment may confirm and establish the jDreceding, as
every additional stone in a compact and well-founded
edifice serves to consolidate the lower parts of the
structure, and locks them together into a firmer
coherency; but they comprehend not the main
design and therefore they cannot appreciate the
symmetry and beauty of its respective compart-
ments, nor receive from it that deep and salu-
tary effect, which, if presented under livelier and
more familiar images, it could not have failed to
convey. Or, to change the figure, they have not a
clue to conduct them through what, to them, has all
the appearance of a labyrinth. They allow them-
selves to be led through its windings, and a bright
idea may sometimes glance upon their minds, but as
it is not one of a series, which gradually unfolds itself
to the view, they suffer it to drop, and as they feel no
interest, they treasure up no sentiment.

To obviate this inconvenience, to assist the rea-
soning Faculty in this impotency of her attempts,
arising from the inaptitude or the incapacity of her
subjects. Imagination supplies a most valuable ex-
pedient. Nothing can more decisively show the
necessity of this aid in the majority of cases, than
the frequency with which the Saviour of the world
himself, — He who "spake as never man spake,"
was pleased to have recourse to it. Indeed, with
the exception of some sententious maxims occa-
sionally delivered to his disciples, and of brief re-
marks thrown out in the course of ordinary con-

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 383

versation, the whole mass of his instructions con-
sisted of allegories, similitudes, and metaphorical
illustrations, addressed to the Imagination of his
hearers. His discourses, indeed, were not distin-
guished by flights of artificial eloquence, and eff'orts
of rhetorical display. His whole style bore a most
evident impression of the exquisite tenderness of his
heart, the placid tenor of his life, and the transcen-
dent dignity of his character. His preaching was the
most remarkable example that the world has ever
witnessed, of simplicity without meanness, of pathos
without effeminacy, of sublimity without hyperbolical
excess.

Taking the example of the Redeemer as his rule
and his authority, but obviously regarding those
differences and modifications, which the character of
the age or nation may render expedient, the teacher
of divine truth, whether through the medium of the
press, or of the public duties of the ministry, will be
anxious to seize upon the understanding and the
heart through the powerful instrumentality of the
Imagination. While, indeed, he will be desirous of
communicating the knowledge of " heavenly things,"
he will not disdain to make use of " earthly things,"
as the channels of conveyance. To assist him in
this undertaking, and to enable him to accomplish it
to any purpose in the present enlightened state of
the community, it will be necessary that his mind
should be stored with a plentiful supply of rich and
varied knowledge. It was remarked of the excellent
Dr. Watts, by Dr. Johnson, a biographer that will
not be charged with partiality, that in his hands

384 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

everything was converted into theology; and Bacon
had long before charged Plato with having spoiled his
philosophy, by intermixing with it the principles of
his religion, as Aristotle ruined Jiis, by tincturing it
throughout with the subtilties of the science of dia-
lectics. But, however philosophy may be corrupted
by being amalgamated with the elements of a false
and fantastic theology, there can be no doubt, — for
it is the testimony of the truly enlightened of all
ages, — that the true philosophy can be rendered
eminently serviceable in the illustration of the true
religion. It is the man of Imagination alone, how-
ever, who knows how it may most advantageously
be turned to this account; for it is he alone, who,
by an intuitive glance, perceives the resemblances
of things, traces their analogies, combines them into
such forms of splendour, and unites them together
by such ties of friendly affinity, as that they may
mutually illuminate and sustain each other. An in-
dividual thus endowed, provided his mind be cast in
the mould of the Gospel, and his whole character be
impregnated with the principles of piety, stands on an
eminence, which commands a prospect of almost the
whole sphere of the intellectual world ; and every
discovery of science, as weU as every phenomenon of
nature, offers itself to his service. N^or is there a
single province within its vast extent, from which he
cannot draw something that may throw liglit upon
subjects of revealed truth. He can accompany the
astronomer throughout the whole progress of his
wonderful study, pursue the brilliant track of his
discoveries, attend him in his demonstrations, and

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 385

launch forth into the interminable ocean of his pro-
bable and plausible conjectures. He can attach him-
self to the philosopher of nature, and watch his
movements, while he penetrates into the recesses,
and dives into the secrets of the material world;
while he propounds the laws and classifications of the
mineral and botanical kingdoms; while he experi-
ments on the powers and effects of chemical com-
bination; while he decomposes the drop of water,
separates the constituents of air, and analyses the
ray of light. He may share in the studies of the
anatomist, notice the astonishing skill displayed in
the construction of the animal system, the mutual
dependency of its parts, and the mysterious pro-
cess of its organization. He may turn inward upon
himself the piercing eye of the metaphysician, ex-
plore the provinces of thought, distinguish the
powers of the mind, and investigate the origin, the
formation, and the association of ideas. He may
direct his attention to the institution of that federal
economy, by which the individuals and respective
orders constituting a social community, are harmo-
niously blended together. He may glance upon the
interior springs of government, estimate the prin-
ciples of legislation, and scan the policy of states.
He may visit the painter's or the statuary's scene
of labour, whose matcliless workmanship in the one
case teaches the pale canvass to glow, — in the other
the marble rock to breathe. He may inquire into
the laws to which music owes her power to charm ;
he may observe or experience the effects produced
by the modulations of sound, attune his ear to an

2 C

386 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

exquisite discernment of the vibrations of a concord,
and feel the full force of the sympathy which they
awaken in the human spirit. He may descend from
the heights of science, and abandon the walks of
art, and barely contemplate the face of nature, and
the aspect of human life, as daily presented to his
view. He may look up and behold the sun in his
native lustre, the moon in her reflected light, and
the clouds now thickening into a gloomy squadron,
and now pendent in silvery fleeces on the bosom of
the expanse. He may look around him and watch
the progress of vegetation as modified by the vicis-
situdes of the seasons, the verdure of spring, the
plentiful maturity of summer, the decay of autumn,
and the naked desolation of winter. He may cast
the eye of observation over the scene of human life
as diversified by age, sex, or pursuits, by the shades
of character, and the gradations of society. He may
survey the influence of opinions, the development
of principles, the working of passions, as called into
action by the regular course of events, or by a com-
bination of unforeseen occurrences.

It requires only an Imagination trained in the
discipline of piety, and ever alive to its impressions,
to render all these accomplishments, whether literary
or philosophical, whether they be the fruit of deep
and patient investigation, or the result of a cursory
tour through the world of science, aided by a habit
of accurate observation, eminently subservient to the
illustration of divine truth. Quintilian takes much
pains to show that the Orator, in order to be duly
qualified for his office, ouffht to be acouainted in n

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 387

degree more or less, with every art and science.
Geometry, music, and other departments of human
knowledge, which a superficial observer would deem
wholly unconnected with his province, the critic pro-
nounces eminently useful, and, under many circum-
stances, absolutely necessary to him. A similar
remark the philosopher in Rasselas has applied to a
poet, and Bishop Home to a divine ; and, doubtless,
in each case, under certain limitations, with perfect
truth. Very extensive literature and profound
scientific attainment, under the ordinary circum-
stances, and with the present capacity of man, may
be desirable, rather than possible to the active
Christian instructor. But a store of general know-
ledge, an acquaintance with the outlines of the most
distinguished philosophical inquiries, and, above all,
a thorough insight into the human character in all
its varieties, and as it is unfolded amidst all the
changes and evolutions of earthly destiny, it is in
the highest degree expedient that he should possess.
These constitute the materials of the ^^ mental maga-
zine," which Imagination arranges and " speech bur-
nishes" for use. And though Holy Scripture itself
be, and always ought to be, his chief armoury, yet,
that he may dexterously and efficiently use the
weapons there supplied, he must be trained in the
discipline of other studies. To borrow the illus-
tration of an eminent female writer *, he must imitate
the example of the Israelites of old, who did not

* Hannah More.

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388 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

disdain to sharpen their weapons at the forges of the
Philistines.

To exemplify at length the remarks wliich we
have here made on the use of Imagination, as an
instrmnent of theological illustration, derived from
the principles of literary, philosophical, or practical
science, would lead us beyond the limits prescribed
to this Inquiry. It may be sufficient to refer to
those Avho have been most eminently endoAved with
that faculty, and by general acknowledgment have
most successfully applied it to the purpose here
mentioned; to Barrow and Taylor, and Hervey and
Heber, with many others of living celebrity, whom it
would be invidious to mention — men who differ,
indeed, in the shades of their theological sentiments,
and in the extent of their respective attainments,
but all distinguished for the brilliancy of their
thoughts, the splendour of their style, and the vigour
of their imagination; or, in some cases, perhaps,
more correctly characterized by the devout liveliness
of their fancy; — luminaries of different magnitudes,
and moving in different spheres, but each radiant
with light, and drawing the eyes of admiring mul-
titudes, by the force of their attractive influence.
These are the men, who, in their respective ages,
redeem the character of religion, extend her empire
over the unreclaimed provinces of human thought
and human feeling, snatch the magic wand of Fancy,
and wrest the powerful sceptre of Imagination from
those, who would employ them for the base purposes
of decoying the unwary, throwing the illusive colour-

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 389

ing of virtue over the blackest character of vice, and
of enslaving their unhappy victims to the tyranny
of lust and passion. They who are conversant with
their writings can alone appreciate the felicity with
which they have applied the phenomena of nature,
the institutes of society, and many of the principles
and discoveries of science, to the elucidation of the
various parts of the Christian system. They have
availed themselves of all these methods to carry con-
\dction to the judgment, delight to the imagination,
and impression to the heart. The regularity, the
harmony, the magnificence, which characterize the
starry firmament, have been devoutly considered, in
imitation of the inspired Psalmist, as afi'ording a
marvellous display of the power and wisdom of the
Creator, and as exhibiting in the most amazing light
the magnitude of his condescension, in noticing, with
such intensity of regard as is involved in the eco-
nomy of redemption, a creature so insignificant as
man*. The laws of civil polity, and the whole
process of human judicature, have been convincingly
brought forward, in illustration of the mediatorial
scheme, both with respect to its necessity and perfect
equity. The operations of natural causes, once
involved in obscurity, but since brought to light by
the sagacity of genius, and the experiments of philo-
sophy, and a variety of elemental affinities and com-
binations still utterly unaccountable, have been made

* It is quite needless to refer, in illustration of this statement,
to the splendid "Discourses on the Christian Revelation, as con-
nected with the Modern Astronomy ;" a work which, on its first
appearance, ran with such electtic rapidity throughout the land.

390 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

powerfully instrumental in reconciling the mind to
the more abstruse and mysterious, though at the
same time vital and essential, parts of Christian
theology. And we have continual proofs before our
eyes, with what deep and salutary effect the affairs
of common life, the more obvious and famihar
aspects of nature, and more especially the social, the
relative, and the domestic affections, in all their
modes of operation and endearment, are made use
of, to convey unto the mind the lessons of piety and
truth.

In the discharge of the ordinary duties of the
Christian ministry, the imagination should doubt-
less, for the most part, confine itself to these latter
sources of illustration ; and the wdse and judicious
labourer in the vineyard of Christ, whatever may be
its difficulty, and whatever may be the sacrifice and
self-denial which it requires, will feel it a duty to
impose upon himself this restraint. The higher
efforts of this noble faculty, its more excursive
ranges into the regions of the natural and intel-
lectual world, provided its pinions be of sufficient
strength to bear him in such flights, he must reserve
for more suitable occasions; otherwise he will but
embarrass with illustrations too complicated to be
understood, with allusions too far-fetched to have
their force perceived ; — and thus, what was designed
to enlighten his hearers Avill only confound them;
what was intended to explain the truth, and to
better-informed and more cultivated intellects would
have explained it, to them will only involve it in all
the obscurity of an enigma.

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 391

Section III.

Imagination serviceable in the Formation of a lively

AND impressive StYLE.

Another use to which Imagmation may be advan-
tageously converted in the treatment of divine truth,
is, that it is calculated to afford great aid in the
formation of a lively, forcible, and efficient Style.
Some there are, indeed, who reject all refinement
and energy of language, and every species of deco-
ration, arising from a skilful and well-arranged
combination of words, as utterly unsuitable to the
simple and unaffected majesty of Truth. To confirm
their opinion upon this question, they refer with
much confidence to one or tw^o imperfectly under-
stood and ill-applied passages of St. Paul, who
declares to the polished and dissolute Corinthians,
that he came not to them in excellency of speech
or of man's wisdom, — a phraseology importing no
more than that the apostle did not calculate upon
their conversion through the mere force of rhetoric,
nor attempt to captivate their understanding by
strains of secular eloquence. But, that the prevail-
ing style of St. Paul, viewed independently of that
inspiration, under the influence of which it was
formed, rose much above •mediocrity, and frequently
partook of the imaginative, is evident from the
whole tenor of his epistles. It was, doubtless, no
mean exhibition of oratorical talent, that could have
led his hearers to take the apostle for the divinity,
whose special office it was to preside over literature

392 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

and eloquence. We fully agree with Chrysostom,
in his Treatise concerning the priesthood, that in a
Christian minister* the polished smoothness of Iso-
crates, the swelling vehemence of Demosthenes, the
majesty of Thucydides, and the suhhmity of Plato,
may be easily dispensed with. But a style of address
far removed from poverty and meanness, from all
that is meagre, grovelling, and insipid ; and though
sometimes "familiar," yet never "vulgar," — a style
tliat will not degrade the lofty themes which he
undertakes to discuss, it is in a high degree expe-
dient that he should possess. In confirmation of
this remark, we may refer to the authority of the
royal preacher, who declares respecting himself, that
he sought to find out acceptable words, and these
words of the wise he affirms to be as goads, and as
nails fastened by masters of assembliesf .

But here let us be rightly understood. Against
that plain, earnest, and unvarnished style of pulpit
instruction, which has been so successfully adopted
by many of our most estimable divines, both living
and departed— a style which may be truly said to
have simplicity for its character, usefulness for its
end, and the testimony of every enlightened con-

* Eyo) be ei fiev ttjv Xeiorrjra IcroKparovs anrjTovv, Kat ATjuoadfPovs
oyKov, Kai TrjV ©ov/cuStSou at (ivorrfTa, k(u to Ii\aTa>vos v^os, eSei (peptiv
eis p,e(TOV ravrqv tov YlavKov rrjv naprvpiav. Nvv Se Travra (Keiva acpirjpi. —
Chrys. Ilepi lepos. lib. iv.

t JIIDDJ^ ^"iPi^^ a plinise very variously rendered : literally
" Masters of Collections." It is generally considered as intended to
express the office of the ministers of the Church, those whose busi-
ness it is to preside over the assemblies of the saints, and to curry
home the truth unto their hearts and consciences.

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 393

science as the stamp of its approval, we have
nothing to object. AYe have often witnessed with
delight the flow of that clear current of sound
speech, which, running on a level with the ordinary
capacity, appeared most admirably calculated to
diffuse the verdure of Christian graces and the fer-
tility of Christian virtues over the surrounding
regions. ^N^ot to appreciate that method of hand-
ling divine truth, which experience has proved to
be in general the most effective, — a method regu-
lated by the discipline of a sound judgment on the
one hand, and enlivened by the fervour of unaffected
feeling on the other, w^ould assuredly betray the
most inconsiderate levity. We do not hesitate to
avow, that, admitting of such exceptions and quali-
cations as may arise from peculiarity of character or
circumstances, this is the just, the legitimate, the
scriptural method of discharging the duties of the
ministerial ofiice ; and happy, supremely happy, must
be deemed the individual, who has attained to this
wise medium.

But ha^dng thus explained ourselves upon a
point, where misconstruction w ould have been most
fatal, we proceed to remark, that there is a style
of speaking and writing on sacred subjects, which,
possessing nothing of the simple but its home-
liness, nor of the judicious except its tameness,
is calculated neither to interest the intelligent,
nor to enlighten the ignorant mind, neither to
rouse the lethargy of the languid, nor to keep
pace with the energy of the impassioned. While
it forms the vehicle of unpremeditated thought, the

394 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

difficulty of expression superinduced upon that of
invention, and the uncouthness generally charac-
terizing all raw produce, may offer some excuse
for the tardiness of its movements, and serve as
some palliation for its delinquency. But when it
presumes to appear in print, whether it creeps with
monosyllabic steps, or drags along through words
and periods of ill-arranged proportion, the mind
becomes inevitably torpid, while engaged in watch-
ing its progress. There are no brisk sallies of the
intellect grasping at those collateral ideas, which
throw a momentary light upon that more imme-
diately before the mind. Like a ship fraught with
the produce of Indian climes, there may be many
precious and valuable truths deposited in this dull
and unwieldly structure, but there is no tide of
feeling, there is no breath of imagination to urge
forward its floating weight, and consequently all is
sluggish, inanimate, and unimpressive. There may
be all the dryness of logic, but little or none of its
conclusiveness.

To obviate this evil, and to infuse vigour and
spirit into the character of style, is a legitimate
use of Imagination. This active power, when
sanctified by divine grace, becomes an effective
auxiliary to the understanding, hi collecting the
materials of a suitable medium for the communi-
cation of its ideas, and to the heart, for the ex-
pression of its feelings. Like the fabled messenger
of the gods, she is ever ready to be on the wing.
With prompt celerity she darts upward to heaven,
and with the same speed descends to earth loaded

UrON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 395

with fresh intelligence, and enriched with the fruit
of her observations. She ranges over all the
diversified scenes, the beautiful, the magnificent,
and the picturesque of nature ; she bends her ear
to the melody of every pure and holy sound ; she
directs her eye to every spectacle of the fair and
lovely in creation. On the productions of devout
genius she gazes with raptured admiration : and
exquisitely alive to all the felicities of thought and
combination, to all the graces of language, to every
nice touch of modest and ingenuous art, she be-
comes gradually imbued with the spirit of the
objects of her contemplation, and imparts some-
thing of their form and colouring to the fruits of
her OA\ii conceptions. By means of such a process
carried on through the agency of the Imagination,
style is formed, and purified, and elevated. The first
attempts at composition, in cases where that faculty
bears a powerful sway, will, indeed, generally be
distinguished by more than an adequate measure
of ornament. The tissue of thought will be marked
by much superfluous embroidery. But even this,
in the opinion of the celebrated Eoman critic, is
preferable to the opposite defect. Luxuriance may
be repressed, the exuberant efflorescence of spring
may be pruned away, but barrenness cannot be
supplied. The evil in the former case seldom
fails to be corrected by years. As the judgment
ripens, as the ardour of invention is tempered by
the coolness of habitual reflection, as the eagerness
of unfledged eff'orts at soaring is succeeded by a
power of regular and uninterrupted flight, fantastic

396 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

decoration will give way to real beauty and solid
excellence : —

Nature now

To the experienced eye a modest grace
Presents, where ornament the second place
Holds, to intrinsic worth and just design
Subservient still.

Style modelled on these principles, animated by
these energies, and chastened by these correctives,
will suit itself to every subject within the whole
province of theology. It will describe with fidelity
and exactness; it will explain with clearness and
order ; it will exhort with fervour and earnestness ;
it will illustrate with beauty and success ; it will
reason with force and vehemence, and conclusive-
ness ; it will advance in the calm and steady atti-
tude of the plain and simple ; it Avill rise to the rapid
and sublime; it will burst forth into the eloquent
and impassioned, as the nature of the subject may
require ; and it will carry light and conviction into
every bosom as it proceeds.

When we attribute this importance to style, an
aifair which many persons consider as utterly un-
worthy of their regard, it will not be supposed
that we view it in a state of separation from the
thoughts, of which it is designed to be the vehicle.
A choice selection of words, appropriate phraseo-
logy, a skilful collocation of terms and arrange-
ment of sentences, the disposition of every com-
ponent part of the structure, in the most advan-
tageous manner for light and beauty and strength,
is indeed important, and will be despised by none

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 397

but those who are ignorant of its influence in the
recommendation of the matter. But isolated from
this matter, it would be perfectly worthless. The
hue of health on the cheek, and the brilliancy of
the eye, are both objects pleasant to behold; but
the one is derived from the silent stream which
flows beneath, and the other is kindled by the
buoyant principle of vitality which resides within.
Style and sentiment, indeed, we are inclined to
think, are much more intimately connected wdth
each other than is generally supposed. It is not
unusual to hear it remarked of a literary or theo-
logical treatise, that the style is admirable, but
the thoughts are mean and ordinary: and the
reverse of the observation is perhaps equally fre-
quent. It may readily be granted, indeed, that a
profusion of brilliant words may be amassed toge-
ther, where there is so little vigour of conception,
and such a vacuity of sober and just thought, as
to leave the whole composition almost without a
meaning. But, as verbal phraseology constitutes
the only medium through which ideas can be con-
veyed, it is impossible that the character of the one
should not be greatly modified by the other; and
it would seem, that a tide of noble and majestic
thoughts can no more flow through the channel of a
creeping, grovelling, and inanimate style, than the
waters of the Ganges could roll within the banks of
a rivulet.

We have dwelt longer than we should otherwise
have done upon this question of style, because, in
theology, it seems to be more generally disregarded

898 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

and undervalued than in any other branch of litera-
ture. Some feeling, as they justly ought, the su-
preme importance of the matter of their exhortations
or discussions, have been honestly, we had almost
said devoutly, betrayed into the mistake that lan-
guage was an affair of so very subordinate import-
ance, as scarcely to deserve a moment's attention ;
and we have many valuable pieces of argumentative
and practical divinity bearing evident marks of this
error. Others there are guilty of the same fault
through an original deficiency of the faculties most
essential to the formation of style, and that defi-
ficiency in no degree supplied by discipline and men-
tal cultivation. Both these classes should remember,
however, that while Christianity, in all its parts, is
possessed of a native sublimity and dignity and
beauty, which no adventitious majesty or decoration
of language can further exalt or embellish, it may be
very easily degraded and impeded in its effects by
the opposite of these characteristics in style. It is
obviously expedient, therefore, that every faculty of
the mind, in all the variety of their operations,
should be made conducive, by mutual combination
and connexion, to the improvement and perfection of
an instrument, which is capable of exercising so
powerful an influence upon the advancement and
interests of divine truth.

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 399

Section IY.

Imagination useful as the Means of realizing and
embodying invisible scenes.

A THIRD use, for which Imagination may be em-
ployed with much advantage and effect in the treat-
ment of divine truth, is, to give a realizing view of
invisible scenes, hy exhibiting them under striking
and important emblems, and by emhodying abstract
principles informs of paJpable and vivid represen-
tation. Closely allied to this process of Imagina-
tion, is that species of lively realization, which the
celebrated author of the Treatise on the Sublime,
has denominated Phantasies; and his follower,
Quintilian, by a literal translation, has expressed by
the term Visions; and both have given suitable
illustrations of it from the several writers of anti-
quity. It is that wonderful operation, by which
remote objects and distant events, whether real or
fictitious, are brought before the mind with such
clearness and force as if they were sensibly pre-
sent. To produce this species of illusion is the
peculiar business of Imagination : and so unlimited
is its poAver in this respect, where it is possessed
in a high degree of vigour, that it can lead the
mind at pleasure through every variety of place and
scene. It can raise out of non-existence a host of
personages suited to its purposes, and clothe them
with the attributes of real and active beings. It

can give to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

400 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

It can endue with the principle and the functions of
vitality the inanimate parts of material nature : it
can, on the other hand, give a body to the opera-
tions of mind; it can present the beings of the
spiritual world in the attire and costume of the
natural ; it can bring together persons and things
most widely separated from each other; it can por-
tray actions and proceedings in the most affecting
forms of reality, whether recorded of the past, or
predicted of the future.

Of such a powerful engine of impression, it was
impossible that religion should not have attempted
to avail herself. Hence, we find that works of
fiction, imbodying the most vital and important
truths of Christianity, abound among us. These,
indeed, are executed with various judgment, and
display much inequality of talent; some exhibiting
a masculine vigour of understanding, a thorough
acquaintance with the world, and a profound know-
ledge of the human heart ; others, characterized by
puerility of thought, narrowness of view, and most
lamentable deficiency of taste. In some of these
pieces, such as the Dialogues of Hervey, and the
Coelebs of Mrs. More, imaginary characters are intro-
duced in order to discuss the several questions of
moral and religious truth. Instead of formal disqui-
sition, and a regular explication of these topics from
the pen of the author, he is supposed merely to lay
the scene in which the creatures of his fancy are to
perform their respective parts, and to end the debate
by bringing it to the conclusion which he deems most
just and satisfactory. In other works of this descrip-

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 401

tion, partaking more of the character of the allegory,
inanimate objects are endued with life ; the faculties
of the mind, the affections of the heart, the appetites
and passions, the graces, the virtues, the vices, and
all the distinguishing constituents of human nature,
are considered as possessed of separate and independ-
ent existence, and are represented as discharging their
several functions in accomplishing the main design.
The advantages of this species of personification,
while its dangers must be acknowledged to be great
if carried to an undue extent, are manifold and
striking. The human mind is naturally fond of
action; it delights in the exercise of the senses.
^N'ovelty and beauty of sight, liveliness, and harmony
of sound, rapidity of motion, the operations of intel-
lect, and the working of passions as exhibited in out-
ward form and feature, excite in it stronger emotions
than could be awakened by the mere abstract con-
templation of these objects. To this is owing the
superior pleasure which the admirer of the drama
derives from the actual performances of the theatre,
compared with that which he is capable of enjoying in
the retired perusal of the piece. And the same cir-
cumstance accounts for the deeper impression pro-
duced by a discourse from the pulpit, delivered with
every advantage of voice and manner, than would
attend the reading of the same composition in the
stillness and quietness of the closet, — a difference of
effect, which occasioned Queen Anne's grievous dis-
appointment (if we remember right) on perusing a
sermon of Bishop Burnet, which she had ordered him
to print. We may explain, upon the same principle,

2 D

402 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

the intensity of interest with which every devout
reader, and some more distinguished for splendid
talent than deep devotion, including Johnson and
Swift, and others of the same school, accompanied
Bunyan's Pilgrim in his progress, notwithstanding
the numerous faults with which that singular and, on
the whole, excellent production abounds ; while Dod-
dridge's admirable treatise, the Eise and Progress of
Religion in the Soul, conducted in the calmer and
more simple method of statement, exhortation, and
appeal, requires a mind disciplined to a much severer
order of taste and feeling before it can rivet the
attention with any thing of a similar force.

Such is the constitution of the mind of man, or
rather, such is the predominance which the powers
of Sense exercise over those of bare Intellect. On
this principle it is found, that, in proportion as a
representation of facts approaches to what is osten-
sible and familiar in life and nature, as abstract
truth is clothed in the language of imagery, and
brought as it were in contact A\ith the sensitive
organs, the deeper impression it produces, and the
livelier interest it awakens. It is, doubtless, in con-
descension to this infirmity, that the Supreme Being
was pleased, in ancient times, so frequently to exhibit
himself in visible emblem; and throughout almost
the whole of Revelation to represent Himself as pos-
sessed of the form and constituent members, as well
as many of the faculties and affections of human
nature. In those descriptions of his character and
attributes, indeed, which are designed to inform tlie
understanding, He is clearly asserted to be a Being

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 403

of infinity, without passions, and without parts. But
Avith respect to his conduct as more immediately
connected with mankind, He is described as endued
with the organs, as actuated by the feelings, and as
performing the functions peculiar to a human being.
He is said to have eyes to see, ears to hear, feet
to walk, hands to grasp, anger to resent, and love
to cherish ; though we must be perfectly aware that
these operations as performed by Him must be
accomplished in some very different way from what
is known to men. In the same manner all that has
been revealed, and all that we know of angels and
spirits in all their gradations of dignity and excel-
lence, is no more than has been communicated through
the medium of sensible images. 'No book has been
written apparently under a more vivid recollection,
that man is dependent for his leading ideas upon the
exercise of his senses, than the Bible. Spiritual in
its disclosures and in its purposes beyond any other
volume upon earth, it notwithstanding speaks the
language, and employs the figures and illustrations
suitable to beings immersed in matter. It embodies
the thoughts of heaven in the words and phraseology
of earth.

The Imagination, being the faculty most con-
cerned in the exercise of taste, may be considered as
an interlocutor betwee^n Sense and Reason, between
matter and spirit; and as all feelings and impressions
are dependent upon the powers of sense, he who can '
most skilfully employ the Imagination in adapting
and communicating the views of the intellectual and

2 D 2

404 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

spiritual world to these powers, will be most successful
in awakening deep and powerful emotions.

With a view of exemplifying these remarks, let
us consider the effect of Imagination as it may be
employed in carrying home to the mind and con-
science some of the leading doctrines and facts of
the Christian religion. Let the state of man by
nature, as he stands related to the demands and
obligations of the divine law, be the topic of dis-
cussion. While the question of his guilt and con-
demnation before God is calmly and deliberately
argued; while it is proved by Scripture, and further
corroborated by the actual evidence of experience;
while this strain of dispassionate argumentation is
maintained, the understanding indeed* is enlightened,
and may be convinced, and thus an important point
is gained towards producing the desired impression.
But when this has been accomplished, let the scene
be enlivened by the introduction of the Law as a
distinct, independent, and animated being. Let her
be brought forward as the offspring of the Eternal,
bearing, in the essence of her character, the awful
majesty of his holiness, and the inflexible sternness
of his justice, clothed with authority, and claiming,
as her subjects, every order of rational and intelli-
gent beings, within the limits of the universe. Let
her be heard proposing the original compact in
Eden, pronouncing her threatened award on its
'violation, and repeating her denunciations in the
lightning and thunder of Sinai, testifying her indig-
nation by such scenes of terrific grandeur, as made

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 405

every living thing to flee in consternation from her
presence. Let her be exhibited as girt with a two-
edged sword, and pursuing every human soul in its
natural condition, as the manslayer was pursued by
the avenger of blood, in order to vindicate the
honour of Jehovah, by inflicting the full measure of
his wrath. Let this process be strikingly and vividly
presented to the mind, and there will not only be a
conviction of the understanding, but it is scarcely
possible there should not be also excited strong
emotions of heart. Every sense will be interested,
aroused, and terrified, and thus become auxiliary to
the accomplishment of the desired object. The
voice of the Law will be heard to condemn ; her arm
will be seen as raised to strike.

Let us again contemplate the use of Imagination
as it may be exercised in the representation of the
wonderful method of salvation through Christ. The
grandeur and the simplicity united in this plan, the
greatness of its design, the beauty and coherency of
its parts, and the clearness with which the whole of
it is displayed on the page of Holy Scripture, render
it a subject eminently suitable for the employment
of that sublime faculty. The consummation of the
scheme of human redemption, efi'ected in the death
of Christ, is a theme on which Young, and Barrow,
and Maclaurin, and others of illustrious name, have
lavished all the splendour of their comprehensive and
exalted genius. The man of serious and devout
judgment, unaccompanied with the lively powers of
fancy and imagination, may, indeed, unfold the prin-
ciples of the covenant of redemption ; he may define

406 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

its conditions, and urge the acceptance of its bless-
ings, but this he will do in a dry and didactic man-
ner,— a manner calculated neither to engage the
attention, nor influence the affections: whereas the
man of imagination wdll place the whole in a light,
clear, interesting, and impressive. He will seize
upon the most striking analogies of nature, and,
combining them with those schemes, proceedings,
and operations, which are observable in the wide
aspect of human society, he will exhibit the whole
in one scene of lucid representation, on one spot of
distinct and definite contemplation, which will give
prominence to every point, freshness to every colour-
ing, and precision to every line of demarcation. He
will show the necessity of this plan on general and
public grounds, on the principles of universal govern-
ment, the sanctions of law, and the immutability of
justice. He will point out the evils which would
seem inevitably to result from the pardon of sin
without the intervention of a mediator, ihe influence
Avhich such an example would probably exert upon
the higher orders of intelligence, and the effect
which it might have in disorganizing the whole
system of the universe. He will represent the utter
discordancy with all the rules of supremacy, of allow-
ing offence to pass without adequate punishment,
and the absolute necessity, in order to secure the
subordination of the subject, to carry into unmiti-
gated execution the stipulations of an established
compact. Having brought in the whole human race
guilty, and apparently condemned to suffering by
the announcement of an irreversible decree ; havinc^

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 407

shut up the whole mass and every individual of the
species within the enclosures of this prison of despair,
while every attribute of Jehovah, except his Mercy,
conspires to bar the doors against their egress, he at
once changes the scene: he pours a flood of light
upon this habitation of darkness and woe ; he directs
the eye to an object, the very sight of which is
health to the sick, hope to the forlorn, liberty to the
captive, and salvation to the lost. The eternal Son
of God he exhibits as descending in the chariot of
his love; as surrounded by a retinue of attendant
spirits, who rejoice to celebrate his triumphs, with
the key of man's deliverance suspended from his
girdle; as at his birth commencing the evolution of
that purpose of grace, which from eternity had been
folded up in the bosom of deity; as carrying it on
in every successive act of his life, and as trium-
phantly consummating it in his death. He will
present to the mind every lovely feature in the
character of the Redeemer, the unexampled kind-
ness and condescension which engaged him, though
rich, for the sake of man, to become poor; the meek-
ness, the gentleness, and the benevolence of his life,
and every affecting circumstance of his death; his
entire suitableness as an example, and his all-suffi-
ciency as an atonement.

He will then set forth the henefits of this plan,
and its admirable adaptation to the accomplish-
ment of its proposed end. He will show its effects
as they respect both God and man, how they unite
as it were the interests both of heaven and earth,
crossing the immeasurable interval, which sepa-

408 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

rates the throne of God from the humble abode
of man, expanding into immensity, and stretching
forward into eternity ; promoting the glory of God,
and simultaneously advancing the highest happi-
ness of man. He will describe this method, not
only as an effectual remedial system for all the
evils and disorders which have befallen the human
race, but also as affording a most illustrious dis-
play of all the divine perfections ; as forming the
bright centre to which all the rays of the divine
majesty converge, and from which they are again
reflected in resplendent lustre upon the intelligent
universe ; as constituting a mirror in which the
character of Jehovah appears endowed with every
element, and clothed with every attribute, that can
render it great, and lovely, and venerable. The
several qualities inherent in the divine mind, he
will represent as here combined together, in such
well-balanced proportions, as to form one perfect
model of unrivalled beauty and excellency, all
harmoniously united, and each lending its aid and
co-operation in exalting the transcendent glory of
the other ; wisdom dignified by power, and power
regulated by wisdom; mercy sustained and invi-
gorated by justice, and justice tempered and mel-
lowed by softening infusions of mercy; justice
erecting her pillars upon the imperishable basis of
Jehovah's truth, and the warm light of mercy's
beams moving around with delightful and radiant
play, without melting them down into a mass of
disorder and confusion. Thus, in the salvation
of man, accomplished through the mediation of

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 409

Christ, every attribute of the divine character has
its demands satisfied, its claims vindicated, and its
essential dignity unfolded, displayed, and exalted.
The Gospel, therefore, is a scheme of grace, in
■which the glory of God, and the happiness of man,
are found inseparably connected. xVnd it is the
business of Imagination to exhibit this connexion
through the medium of every process and analogy
that is tangible, realizing, and striking.

We might extend this remark to almost every
principle and every truth of the Christian religion.
However abstract in their nature, however subtle
and abstruse in conception, and however partially
revealed. Imagination will give them body and
substance, and make them pass in visible repre-
sentation before the mind. It is Imagination which
portrays the king of terrors in all that is dismal
and appalling in his pale and gloomy visage, in aU
that is awful and melancholy in his appendages
and attendant circumstances ; that groups together
the unequivocal symptoms of approaching dissolu-
tion— the ceasing pulse, the swimming eye, the qui-
vering lip, the last struggle of nature, the groans
of the expiring, the frame now cold, motionless,
and extended; the shroud, the coffin, the funeral
paU, the darkness, and the silence of the tomb ;
the lamentations of the surviving, the tears of for-
lorn widowhood, the cries of bereaved orphanage,
the anguish of broken-hearted friendship ; all that
is awful and distressing in the discharge of Death's
commission, into one spectacle of pain, and fear,
and woe, which it is impossible the most thought-

410 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

less should contemplate without emotions of serious-
ness and dread. It is the Imagination which wafts
the mind beyond the gulf of death, and con-
ducts it to the scene of Judgment; a scene, the
most awfully important, the most dreadfully magni-
ficent, that will stand on record in the annals of
God's creation. To call it the assizes of the uni-
verse would degrade the subject, and yet we are
forced to contemplate it under something of this
aspect, because we have no higher and more suit-
able image, in which to embody our conceptions.
The trial is about to commence. It is ushered in
with a shout, which startles the ear of nature, and
breaks the slumbers of death: the Judge appears,
with angels for his retinue, clouds for his robes,
and heaven's ethereal concave for his canopy, and
bearing the scales of eternal justice as his rule of
adjudication. The sun is quenched in his light;
the moon retires from his splendour ; the stars, like
so many sickly tapers, are extinguished by his
breath ; the earth trembles at his voice, forgets the
laws of her constitution, and unable to control the
elements of destruction nurtured in her own bosom,
again sinks into a chaos. He utters his mandate ;
the dead obey his call; and, swift as winged
spirits, they rise with frames renewed and trans-
figured, cross the intervening regions of air, and
stand marshalled in countless hosts before his
dread tribunal. After a process of investigation,
which Imagination may dimly conceive, but does
not attempt minutely to describe, the irreversible
sentence is pronounced. The brief announcement

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 411

of that sentence involves an emphasis of meaning,
which eternity will be too short to mifold.

And will this soaring faculty venture further into
the scenes of the invisible world? Tes! provided
with the chart of Revelation, and with her eye steadily
fixed upon the pole-star of truth, she wiU leave the
shores of time, and launch forth with confidence on
the ocean of boundless and unknown duration. From
the throne of Judgment, she will accompany either
host into the regions of their respective destination :
she will descend into the place of torment, and learn
to shudder, while she contemplates every form of
anguish there exhibited. All that is dreadful in
sensitive suffering, produced by the most intolerable of
all elements ; all that is wretched in the extremity of
mental agony and conscious guilt ; all that is terrific
in the wild affray of passions uncontrolled, exaspe-
rated and infuriated into the highest pitch of malig-
nant energy ; all that is dreary and appalling in the
view of a community of beings prisoned in everlast-
ing darkness, and doomed to never-ending woe, and
among Avhom, the only shadowy semblance of enjoy-
ment which prevails, is that which is derived from
mutual oppression, tyranny, and torture : all these
forms of indescribable endurance and dismay. Imagi-
nation beholds and realizes in vivid perception ; and
indulged with a commission, which was denied the
unhappy Dives, she warns thoughtless mortals, in
terms of solemn expostulation, lest they should be
consigned to that place of torment.

But, from that scene of guilt and Avoe, Imagina-
tion hastens to escape; it is only necessity, awful

412 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

necessity, that ever obliges her to visit that gloomy
abode, and, as it were, to soil her wing with its
smoke. When that needful task is accomplished,
she prepares for a more pleasing excursion, and
essays a nobler flight. She softens and arranges her
plumage, and her wings become as those of a dove,
" that is covered with silver wings, and her feathers
like gold." She soars upward, and takes her place
among tliat innumerable multitude, which are trium-
phantly retiring from the tribunal, at which, through
the efficacy of the blood of the Lamb, they have
been acquitted and pronounced blessed. She beholds
the emblems of peace, and happiness, and glory, with
which they appear, with emotions of exquisite delight ;
their robes of white, their garlands of victory, their
crowns of honour, their harps of gold. She becomes
absolutely enraptured and overwhelmed with the
contemplation of their enjoyment ; its scene a para-
dise, supplying appropriate objects for every consti-
tutional inlet of fruition — ^beauty to the eye, melody
to the ear, all that is sweet and pleasant to the taste :
its character, transcending indeed all that Imagina-
tion can conceive ; but known to include all that is
great and noble and exalting, all that is agreeable in
the exercise of every mental faculty, all that is ten-
der and refined in aff'ection, all that is sublime and
elevated in intellectual gratification, all that is trans-
forming and assimilating in the immediate vision of
the supreme and uncreated Good: its society, bright
and pure essences, ascending by a scale of gradation
from the order of human spirits,- which, perhaps, con-
stitute the lowest in power, in intelligence and love,

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 413

to the loftiest cherub or ser.aph, whose faculties ex-
pand most widely, and whose affections glow most
intensely in that sphere of being, which approaches
nearest to the throne of God: the highest without
pride ; the meanest Avithout envy, differing in their
respective quantities of joy, but each filled to the
utmost limits of his capacity ; all combining together
into one glorious fraternity, cemented by the strongest
ties of benevolence and good-will, and infinitely aug-
menting the general sum of fruition, by mutual
union, participation, and reflection. Heaven, in short,
as it appears to the eye of Imagination, may be aptly
described in the language of one most eminently
endowed with that faculty, as a place " where eter-
nity is the measure, felicity is the state, angels are
the companions, the Lamb is the light, and God is
the portion and inheritance*."

If such be the power of Imagination, in embody-
ing what is subtle and abstract, and realizing what is
distant and unseen, we cannot be surprised at the
striking effects which the vigorous use of it, espe-
cially in public addresses, and sometimes in a mea-
sure bordering upon extravagance, has in all ages
produced. Imagination is, in fact, the instrument of
power, by which the orator has always electrified and
enchanted, alarmed and soothed, has fixed and led
captive, at his pleasure, the audience which was
hanging on his lips. It was Imagination that thun-
dered with resistless energy in the illustrious de-
claimers of Greece and Eome ; in many of the cele-

* Jeremy Taylor.

414 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

brated Fathers of the Christian Church ; in the
reno^vned preachers of France ; and in the departed
senators, advocates, and pulpit-orators, that vindicate
the genius and character of the British name. And
it is sanctified Imagination Avhich still rouses the
lethargic powers of our population to domestic acti-
vity and missionary enterprise, through the various
divisions of the empire.

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 415

PART II.

THE EVILS OF AN ILL-REGULATED USE OF
IMAGINATION.

Section I.

Extravagant Ideas of Individtjal Destiny.

But powerful as this engine is in the accomplishment
of good, when skilfully and legitimately employed, it
is capable, like all other instruments of a similar
nature, of being converted to a bad use, and of
working much evil. It is now time, therefore, that
we institute a brief inquiry into the Dangers and
Abuses, with which the exercises of imagination
are liable to be attended. Only we would here just
remark, that the possibility of perverting a faculty
or acquirement to a mischievous purpose, neither
derogates from its value, nor impedes its just use.

We may say of the Imagination, that, as con-
nected with the various departments of divine truth,
it may be made subservient to the noblest purposes,
or be productive of the most lamentable conse-
quences, as it is duly directed and regulated, or left
to range abroad lawless and uncontrolled. The
richest soil, if left uncultivated and neglected, will
produce the most luxuriant crop of weeds ; the most
generous spirits, if unacquainted Avith wholesome
discipline, are in danger of running into the greatest

416 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

excesses. But, let the one experience the timely
and judicious care of the husbandman, and the other
be trained up in the habits of morality and religion,
and they will both be the most excellent of their
kind. Thus Imagination, abandoned to itself, will
inevitably lead to error, superstition, and weakness :
but guided by judgment, and controlled by discretion,
it will afford most essential aid in the illustration and
enforcement of divine truth. Imagination, com-
bined with the reasoning poAver, is valuable and
important; but without that accompaniment, isolated
from that guardian faculty, will unquestionably do
much more harm than good.

In illustration of these remarks we may observe,
that, under the unrestrained influence of imagination
operating upon a mind ill trained, or peculiarly con-
stituted, and taking advantage of an extraordinary
conjuncture of circumstances, persons have been
frequently led to entertain extravagant notions of
their oicn individual destiny. We are inclined to
think that many of the most absurd impostures, and
some of the wildest excesses of fanaticism, ^v^th
which the Christian world has been deluded or deso-
lated, may be originally traced to this source. The
known and acknowledged fact, that in the order of
divine government individuals have been specially
delegated of heaven, and employed in the accom-
plishment of extraordinary changes and revolutions
in the religious and political world, renders it a
possible, and perhaps not improbable case, that per-
sons similarly endowed, and furnished with super-
natural means for the achicA ement of some great

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 417

and beneficent designs, will be raised up to the latest
period in the history of the world. Considerations
of this kind coming in contact with the elements of
ambition in a mind natm*ally inclined to the romantic,
have, doubtless, frequently laid there a deposit of
combustible materials, which required only a concur-
rence of circumstances to burst forth in an eruptive
explosion of heresy and fanaticism. Deeds of heroic
enterprise never act so strongly as when they are
contemplated as embodied in the character of an
individual renowned in the annals of historical record.
IsTever does an imaginative mind rise and expand
with such heat of intellectual fermentation, as when
its attention is riveted and absorbed by some colossal
figure of venerable antiquity, swelling before it into
dimensions more than human. When such a view
of greatness or goodness is associated with charac-
ters and transactions recorded in the sacred page, it
becomes invested with congenial sanctity, and there
is a conscious satisfaction felt, in the faintest analogy
discoverable, or in the remotest approximation sup-
posed to be made, while such examples and events
are under survey. Where there is a sufficient ballast
of sound principle to prevent these floating ideas
from completely destroying the stability and equi-
poise of the mind, and where they are properly
directed and controlled by the unerring helm of
Reason, these active and elevating contemplations
are eminently calculated to produce greatness, and
force, and energy of character. Heroes in war,
patriots in politics, and apostles and saints in reli-

2 E

418 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

gion, owe a great part of their excellency and pre-
eminency to such exercises.

But where this antagonist and overruling influ-
ence is wanting ; where Imagination greatly prepon-
derates over the more sober and deliberating faculty
of the soul, the review and intense admiration of
such instances of rare qualification and destiny, may
give occasion to notions and ideas in the highest
degree chimerical, dangerous, and absurd. Imagi-
nation is naturally inventive, and proverbially fond
of analogy and combination. The man, therefore,
in whose views and feelings it is allowed to pre-
dominate, is exceedingly liable to be imposed upon
by its plausible and delusive representations. Such
is his susceptibility of impression, and such is the
assimilating energy of the plastic power by which he
is swayed, that he soon discovers in himself an almost
perfect reflection of the character whom he admires.
In the world of science this extravagance of con-
ception has produced a succession of speculations
and theorizing philosophists. In the department of
common life it has given rise to wild and romantic
sentimentalists. In affairs of state, it has drawn
forth, in difierent ages and countries of the world, a
host of political empirics, of reformers and innovators
upon a large scale, professing to be restorers and
conservators of the public welfare; but, if successful
in their attempts, proving for the most part traitors
to their country, disturbers of its tranquillity, and
destroyers of a large portion of that happiness and
prosperity which it previously enjoyed. In the still

I

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 419

more fertile field of theology and religion, it has
sown the seed and cherished the growth of a plentiful
crop of visionaries, false prophets, and heresiarchs.
Let it not be supposed from these remarks, that we
wish to condemn every thing that is novel, grand,
and strikingly original in character; every thing that
is magnificent in design, vivid in anticipation, and
energetic in action in any one of the departments,
to which reference has been just made. In early
youth, when the mind is at its highest point of effer-
vescence,— at that period of life when early genius
is just moulting its feathers, and preparing to soar
upward, a measure of this species of enthusiasm is
not unnatural, is generally, indeed, considered a
happy indication, and, if checked with reasonable
and proper correctives, seldom proves injurious in the
result. We are, moreover, persuaded, that some of
the most extravagant schemers and projectors in the
economy of state, of the most eccentric in life, and
of the most heretical and absurd among the pro-
fessed reformers and innovators in religion, have
been persons of integrity and benevolence ; and that
their errors, however mischievous in their effects,
originated less in obliquity of heart, than in confused
impressions of the Imagination. Many individuals
there have been providentially raised, in whom some-
thing like a prophetic anticipation of their own fated
appointment for the performance of great things, and
the introduction of great changes, has been abun-
dantly justified and verified by the result. Thus
Bacon rose in the sphere of intellect, and in him it
can hardly be regarded as extravagance, when, under

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420 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

the influence of a conscious feeling, that he was to
fix a new era in the history of science and philo-
sophy, he exclaimed, "Viam aut inveniam aut
faciam;" and when apparently actuated by the same
emotion, he closed a part of his works with the
significant enunciation, "Sic cogitavit Franciscus
Baconus!"

The same remark may be applied to Milton,
when, in a juvenile copy of verses addressed to his
father, he gave utterance to the oracular intimation,
that he would one day produce a work which
would throw lustre over his age and country. In
the sacred history we find a multitude of instances
in which individuals had intimations from heaven,
that they were immediately destined to fill peculiar
stations fand offices, or to accomplish extraordinary
ends. Thus, Moses was designed to be the instru-
ment of deliverance to the Israelites out of the
captivity of Egypt. Thus, David was called to the
sovereignty of the same people. Thus, Jeremiah
was set apart to the prophetic office at one of the
most critical and calamitous periods in the history
of the Jewish nation. And thus, in a special
manner, was Paul chosen, and supernaturally
fitted to proclaim the tidings of the Gospel sal-
vation throughout the whole extent of the Eoman
world. And who can doubt that Luther had
the persuasion strongly impressed upon his mind,
that he was distinctly marked out in the councils
of heaven, and sent into the world for the express
purpose of unfolding the mystery of that iniquity,
which had throAvn a covering of darkness over the

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 421

whole region of truth, and held abject and enthralled
the powers of the human spirit in the chains of a
portentous superstition ?

But for a few individuals appearing, sometimes
after a succession of ages and centuries, peculiarly
destined and transcendently endowed, thousands
have been led to fancy themselves such. In the
majority of instances, indeed, the workings of this
fantastic notion have been confined to the indi-
vidual's own breast; kept in, like fixed air, within
an inclosure, which they had not force to break
through: or, if the effervescence, which they
created, found a vent, their elements soon eva-
porated, and their ebullitions sunk dovm into the
stillness of a quiet stagnation. But, where cir-
cumstances have been peculiarly favourable to the
formation, indulgence, and subsequent operations
of such an illusion ; where all around was involved
in comparative ignorance, and tottering with imbe-
cility ; and where there was a well-grounded con-
fidence of superior knowledge and energy ; it has
been productive of great, and sometimes disastrous
effects, and risen to its highest pitch of phrenzy.
In such cases, it has been found exceedingly diffi-
cult to form a fair and discriminating estimate of
character, to sift the heterogeneous mass, and to
analyze the different elements of which it was
composed. In this department of the interpreta-
tion of nature, we can but very partially apply the
principles of the experimental philosophy, inas-
much as our materials are too subtile and recondite
to bear the process of a palpable observation.

422 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

We are, therefore, obliged to have recourse to the
general views of analogy and reflection. "VVlien
persons are under the influence of a strong im-
pression,^ that they have been delegated of Heaven
to rectify crying abuses in the church or state, or
to communicate truths which have been hitherto
unknown in the world, or merely to effect, by
immediate assistance from above, what no one
else is capable of doing, or has been appointed to
accomplish; when, to other eyes, the object, if
laudable, appears to be pursued by ^vrong means,
or perhaps is altogether futile, or sometimes even
dangerous and mischievous in the extreme; it
is by no means easy, at all times, to determine
what part of the illusion is to be ascribed to aber-
ration of intellect, what to sincerity and piety of
purpose, and what to absolute knavery and ambi-
tion. There can be no doubt, however, that the
whole frequently originates in the unlimited and
uncontrolled indulgence of the reveries of Ima-
gination.

The direction, which the current of enthusiastic
feeling takes, will generally be regulated by the
character and condition of the individual, and,
more than all, by the circumstances of the times.
The ecclesiastic, especially if the church be in an
unsettled state, or sunk into torpid indifference,
torn with factions, or overrun with error, will most
probably lay claim to inspiration, or, at least, to
such aids and illuminations from Heaven as are
equivalent to it. He will assume the self-consti-
tuted character of a prophet; and sometimes, by

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 423

a dexterous conformity with popular habits and
prejudices, but more frequently by extraordinary
austerities, sometimes by the glowing representa-
tions of his captivating eloquence, and sometimes
by the mysterious terror of his oracular denun-
ciations, will attach a multitude to his standard.
Brooding for a while, perhaps, over the defects and
corruptions of the church, which unhappily, in all
ages, have too much abounded, and perceiving
that the state of things called for a zealous re-
former, or, at least, afforded a fair opportunity for
a bold and adventurous pretender to put in his
claims, he begins with caution and dubious hesi-
tancy, like a wary assailant approaching an enemy's
camp under the covert of the night; until, grow-
ing confident by success, he lifts up the banner
of his profession, and announces that there is
a prophet in Israel. In the first centuries of the
Christian era, characters of this description, greatly
varying from each other indeed, were not un-
common. The most noted, perhaps, was Montanus,
with his female associates, by whose plausible pre-
tensions and rigorous ascetic principles, the virtuous
and eloquent, but sour and stern-minded Tertullian
was for a while held in thrall. One of the most
remarkable and highly endowed in modern times,
perhaps, was the renowned Baron Swedenborg, who,
by a new and cabalistic method of scriptural in-
terpretation, has established a system of theolo-
gical mysticism and delusion as unfounded and
chimerical, in many respects, as the Pythagorean
metempsychosis, or the dreams of fabulous romance

424 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

recorded in the Shasters of Indostan ; and yet
it can hardly be doubted, that this singular and
benevolent man was, on the whole, actuated by
sincere motives, and that he really believed him-
self, in his moments of most rapturous eleva-
tion, to be the subject of visions and revelations
from Heaven, which he was bound to communicate
for the benefit and instruction of mankind. How
great and lamentable, therefore, must have been
the aberration and illusion of that mind, which had
once proved itself so capable of penetrating into
the secrets of nature, and of investigating the laws
of the sublimest of human sciences. When we
contemplate a character of this order, we fancy our-
selves transported into the vicinity of the pole; a
region of mind, completely deserted by the steady
light of the luminary of Reason, and only blazing at
intervals with the flashes and fantastic coruscations
of the Aurora Borealis ; and we regard him with no
less pity and compassion than the philosopher in
Easselas, who had seriously persuaded himself that
the regulation of the celestial bodies had been
confided to his care.

We know not whether we should rank in the same
class the fifth monarchy-men in Cromwell's time ; for
these, however deluded and extravagant in their
notions, seem in general rather to have expected a
new order of things by the immediate interposition
and appearance of Christ, than that they themselves
were to be individually the authors of that change.
Among those who laboured under this illusion of the
imagination, at this factious and turbulent period, no

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 425

one indeed seems to have been more confident of a
commission from Heaven, and to have carried its
supposed duties and privileges to a greater extent,
than the Protector himself. Invested with the unli-
mited powers of a plenipotentiary from the court of
Heaven, he thought himself justified to depose, to
subvert, and to exterminate whatever stood in the
way of what, at least during the earlier period of his
insurrectionary career, he appears to have sincerely
considered a pious and praiseworthy w^ork. That this
remarkable individual was an instrument in the hands
of God, for the performance of some good, and, in
conjunction with his rebellious associates, was suff'ered
to run into some of the most odious and guilty
excesses of public crime, including in the black cata-
logue of his offences, sacrilege, regicide, and usurpa-
tion, is unquestionable. But when the exemplary
character maintained by him in private life is recol-
lected ; when the moral and religious discipline so
rigidly enforced upon, and so generally observed by
his army, even amidst the most frantic ebullitions of
republican zeal, are taken into consideration ; a can-
did estimate of his conduct would lead us, perhaps,
rather to regard him as a victim of fanaticism and
exasperated enthusiasm, than the cold, deliberate,
and murderous insurgent; — as the dupe of his own
inflamed imagination, than the proud and ambitious
perpetrator of deeds of violence and blood. Yery
different in many points, but still as symbolizing in
many leading features of character and pursuit with
the Head of the Protectorate, and his famed compa-
triots, we may rank the first promoter and many

426 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

subsequent leaders of the Crusades. Grievances
there were to be redressed; evils there were, which
required correction, undoubtedly, in both cases ; but
evidently, in the former, of a much lighter order, and
admitting of a much easier remedy: but the means
adopted in both, being of a similar nature, were
unjustifiable, and ended in scenes of inexpressible
cruelty and disaster. The age, in which the wars of
the Cross were first preached and undertaken, was
proverbially an age of chivalry, and sentiment, and
imagination. Eeason was trammelled by the mecha-
nism of subtle dialecticians ; philosophy was debased
into the noisy logomachy of the schools, and cor-
rupted by the sophistry of cloistered monks; and
sound piety was buried under an enormous mass
of ignorance and superstition. Thus the great con-
trolling and regulating faculty of the human mind
lay dormant. Fancy and feeling were left unguarded,
and the population of Europe formed a mass of com-
bustible elements, which required only the applica-
tion of the kindling material, and the collision of
congenial principles, to blaze forth with the porten-
tous glare of the torch of holy war. And there is
little doubt that the leader of the motley multitude,
which met on the plains of Clermont, exclaiming with
ecstatic rapture, " The cause of God ! " regarded
himself with as much confident sincerity delegated
to lead the armies of the Lord of Hosts, as the pro-
phet of Mecca, with blasphemous imposture, pro-
claimed himself commander of the faithful.

We cannot help adding to these examples of a
perverted and deluded imagination, the celebrated

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 427

Maid of Orleans ; and a late sibyl of our own coun-
try, who, not possessed of a genius for war, like the
former, assumed to herself the character of the des-
tined mother of Him, who is Prince of Peace. If
this female impostor had not succeeded in palming
her impious pretensions upon a large number of indi-
viduals, some of them of high respectability and
attainments, and if she had not appeared to be really
a subject of delusion herself, we should have thought
her utterly unworthy of regard, and of a place in this
enumeration of instances. But as all phenomena,
those even of a more insignificant order, deserve the
attention of him who would illustrate principles, and
trace effects to their causes, the profane ravings of
Johanna Southcote are unquestionably entitled to
attention. In the recollection of his earlier history —
his devoted labours, and his noble bearing, it is
melancholy to be obliged to rank the late Edward
Irving, in his later years, among the most infatuated
of the victims of a heated and ill-regulated Imagi-
nation.

But not only impostors, false prophets, and rank
enthusiasts, whether ecclesiastical or military, have
been led astray by the meteoric illusions of an ill-
governed and inflated Imagination; but even some
of those, whose sentiments and views of doctrine
may generally be regarded as scriptural and ortho-
dox, have occasionally indulged notions, and em-
ployed expressions, which, at the least, if personally
applied, and literally understood, would render them
too obnoxious to the charge. That the two renowned
founders of modern methodism, properly so called.

428 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

greatly as they differed in many not unimportant ques-
tions of faith, in the earlier stages of their progress
carried their ideas of personal destiny and authority,
and spiritual illumination and assistance, to an unwar-
rantable and extravagant height, is acknowledged by
themselves in their maturer days, and after the effer-
vescence of juvenile zeal and glowing anticipation
had somewhat subsided, and allowed them time and
opportunity for more deliberate reflection. That these
two remarkable and highly endowed individuals, toge-
ther with some of their more eminent associates,
were employed of Heaven for the accomplishment
of a great, important, and very necessary work, at
that particular period ; in rousing the dormant ener-
gies of the Christian world ; in stirring up to whole-
some fermentation those waters of the sanctuary,
which had now sunk into so general a stagnation, and
gathered so gross a sediment ; and in brushing away,
though with rough and careless hands, those ashes,
which, as a deep stratum, were now so mdely depo-
sited over the once pure and glowing altar of the
church, no man of piety and candour, we conceive,
will, for a moment, be disposed to deny. In this
view of the matter we cannot but consider that the
Church of England, notwithstanding the effective
warfare which they carried on against some of her
principles, as an ecclesiastical constitution, as infi-
nitely indebted to their labours. Still professing to
be her friends, and to act in a manner which might
be construed into hostility only from necessity, they
did homage to her essential excellency, to the purity
of her doctrinal articles, and to the veneration due to

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 429

her apostolic character. But while all this is to be
freely acknowledged in their behalf, it must, at the
same time, be maintained, that, in their public ad-
dresses, and in their private memorials, they allowed
themselves the use of expressions which involved
assumptions, and indicated an estimate of character,
far from consistent with that humility, that modera-
tion, that sobriety, w^hich are necessary, not only to
preserve the equipoise of the mind of the ordinary
Christian, but also to repress the extravagances of
iipostoHcal and high-sounding pretension.

But, this disposition to indulge ideas of some-
thing peculiar and divinely authoritative, connected
with their own destination, has been by no means
confined to those few characters, who have become
notorious in the history of the religious or political
world ; but it has manifested itself with more or less
prominency in most of those, who, by some remark-
able conjecture of circumstances, united with superior
energy of talent, or, even by means of very mode-
rate abilities, raised beyond their level by a tempo-
rary and factitious interest, have suddenly emerged
from obscurity, and gained a position, which gave
them a considerable command over the public mind.
Some few, indeed, having, by patience and laborious
perseverance and transcendent merit acquired this
ascendency, have nobly and unfeignedly taken ad-
vantage of it to advance the cause of piety and
truth: but, generally, the pinnacle of eminence in
the temple of religion has proved dangerous. The
Imagination, looking downward from its lofty height,
has become vertiginous; and when the mind has been

430 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

thoroughly saturated with the atmosphere of that
elevated region, it is not long before the mouth
begins to thunder out in peals of indignant rebuke
against the men of this generation ; and the indivi-
dual, if truly worthy and excellent, under the influ-
ence of a feeling of self-confident sincerity, believes
that he has been specially deputed of heaven to cor-
rect the errors, and to remodel the principles of his
age, with nearly as much certainty as he credits the
most fundamental truths of the Gospel, which,
perhaps, he may be commissioned to preach. Let it
not be supposed that we are reflecting upon the
boldness and fidelity of the Christian ambassador.
In so doing, we should be condemning the very qua-
lity which, at the least, is as commendable as any
other in his character, and which the circumstances
of human nature in general render the most essential
and important of all others. An occasional and well-
timed severity of reproof, an unqualified enunciation
of truth, even in its most awful and alarming charac-
ter, is not only authorized, but imperatively demanded
of him who bears the credentials of the skies, and has
to conduct, as it were, a solemn negociation between
heaven and earth, on questions which involve the
fate of eternity. Our remarks are intended only to
cany reprehension unto those, who, intoxicated with
inflated notions of their own imagined destiny, pour
out the redundancy of their swollen conceptions
sometimes in the anathemas of universal condemna-
tion, and sometimes in the rhapsody of presumptuous
conceit. To give an individual instance, with a full
and cordial recognition of all that was really excellent

UPON SUBJECTS OF UELIGION. 431

and praiseworthy in his character, and without pre-
suming to decide on his state before God, and his
everlasting doom, such, in our estimation, was Hun-
tington, or, as he was accustomed, with a mixture of
pride and affected humility, to denominate himself,
from his former occupation, the coal-heaver, who de-
clared and ordered it to be inscribed upon his tomb,
that, in due time, the inhabitants of England should
know that there had been " a prophet" among them.
On this part of the subject we have only to sub-
join the cautionary remark, that all are not to be
regarded as running into the excesses here repro-
bated, or as guilty of the offence here condemned,
whom the world frequently charges with such
fanaticism. It is impossible not to be aware, and
not deeply to lament, that an indiscriminate alle-
gation of this nature is not unusually preferred
against men at once enlightened in their views,
calm and deliberate in judgment, and uniformly
regidar throughout the whole sphere of their prac-
tice, and remarkable only for their zealous, active,
and unremitting efforts, in the best and most
arduous of causes. Enthusiasm of feeling, con-
trolled and directed by profoundness of intellect, by
simplicity and sincerity, by prudence and discretion
of mind, and steadily flowing forth through the
channels of piety and obedience, we consider as the
perfection of the Christian character. Every thing
which designedly and uniformly falls short of this
point, or runs extravagantly beyond it, is either
stagnant and putrescent, or turbulently pernicious
and unwholesome.

432 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

Section II.

An extravagant Estimate of Means as related to the
PROPOSED End.

Another evil, which has sometimes resulted from
a preponderance and unlimited indulgence of Imagi-
nation in matters of religion, is an extravagant
Estimate of Means, as directed to the accomplish-
ment of a proposed end. When a man of warm
temperament, and active, energetic, and projecting
mind, has fixed his attention upon an object of
transcendent magnitude and importance, he is apt to
forget all that is difficult and arduous in the prosecu-
tion of it : fancy throws her illusive colouring over
the whole scene; and, by a species of optical de-
ception, reduces mountains into mole-hills, and con-
tracts a space of almost immeasurable longitude into
a point of approximation bordering upon contact.
To the man of imagination difficulties are seldom
visible, and facilities are rarely wanting. He can
annihilate and create at pleasure. The regular de-
velopment of causes and effects is a process too slow
and too tedious to keep pace with the rapid evolu-
tions of his mind. With strides of imperceptible
rapidity he crosses the intervening distance, and
grasps his object before he has yet fairly arranged
the method of pursuing it. All resisting media
are decomposed and melted away by the electric
influence of the magic power by which he is swayed;
and all surrounding elements become tributary to the
grand result upon Avhich he calculates. The process

UNIVERSITY I

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 433

of successful enterprise vvitli him is "veni, vidi, vici."
In his cooler and more deliberate moments, and
when the record of experience unveils its annals to
his view, he may, indeed, be sensible of the inade-
quacy of the means, if left to their own unaided
operation; but then he is confident that a divine
power will accompany them and render them effectual.
With inimitable tact and skill he will seize every
fact, and every promise contained in the volume of
inspiration, and without inquiring very accurately
into his ground and warrant of present application,
without very carefully examining into the analogy, or
the conditions and relative bearings of the promises,
he considers them all as subsidiary to his views, and
as positive pledges of the success of his schemes.

To produce the full and genuine effect of religion
upon the human character, either among those to
whom its theory is already known, and by whom
its forms are already observed, or by disseminating
its truths among those who have been hitherto unac-
quainted with its principles, is evidently a task which
surpasses the power of all subordinate agency. But
it is equally certain that Jehovah has frequently
exerted his omnipotent energy in the accomplishment
of this end, through the instrumentality of such an
agency, on a scale of immense magnitude and im-
portance. It is also true that he has made a variety
of promises, by which, under definite circumstances,
and limited by specified requirements, he is pledged
to bless the well-directed labours of his servants, and
to co-operate with their endeavours. But all his en-
gagements and designs form a part of a stupendous

2 F

484 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

and regularly organized plan of government and
proceeding, — a plan, Avhich we can but very partially
appreciate, and can never wholly comprehend.
We are, therefore, in great danger of thwarting or
outrunning the purposes which gradually and in-
fallibly unfold themselves in the progressive opera-
tions of this infinite scheme, when we venture to
predict, or too confidently to anticipate, what will
be its course, and to assign some determinate pro-
portion of its power to the accomplishment of a
particular object. Not that we are to sit listless
and quiescent, and let the divine purposes in their
own way, and in their appointed time, work their
own effect. This is as much beneath our duty, as
the former conduct is unwarrantable and supernu-
merary to our duty. Our obligations to labour and
activity are clearly defined: — Whether we shall exert
ourselves or not in the cause of religion and truth
lias not been left to our discretion. But, what pre-
cise measure of success may attend our efforts, and
in what instances Ave are authorized with confidence
to expect the accompanying energies of divine grace,
has been by no means decided, but has been left to
be determined by principles of expediency, as per-
ceived and established by the infinite wisdom of
Heaven. Though the effective influences of the
Ploly Spirit appear to us frequently arbitrary, and
can be regulated by no settled laAvs of human calcu-
lation, yet, in their communication, there is undoubt-
edly a general correspondency observed between the
aptitude of the means, and the end proposed to be
attained; and the anticipations of success ought, for

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 435

the most, to be limited by this circmnstance. In
some extraordinary cases, indeed, this rule would
seem to have been completely reversed, and phe-
nomena have often presented themselves in the moral
and spiritual world, which appeared explicable upon
no other principle, and accountable from no other
cause, than the assumption of a more marked exer-
tion and co-operation of Jehovah's power than is
observable in the ordinary range of his proceedings.
Forgetting the general method of His administra-
tion, and taking their standard of judgment from
His special and occasional interpositions, men have
frequently allowed themselves to form the most
chimerical and unfounded expectations, and, upon
the failure of their projects, like the companions of
Kaleigh in his expedition to the land of gold, have
sunk into the apathy of disappointment, or risen to
the mutiny of discontent. These sanguine calcu-
lators are all energy and alacrity, while their vision
is bodied forth in its full proportions, and glows with
the rainbow tints of fancy and hope; but when it has
melted into thin air, and vanished at the criterion
touch of time and experience, they are like the
traveller, whose steps for a while were guided, and
whose path was illuminated by the light of a false fire,
but on the extinction of its illusive glare, he finds
himself benighted, bewildered, and lost. The sanguine
author, the sanguine preacher, the sanguine employer
of his own or of others' labours, are all so many
examples of the deceptive and pernicious influence
which a warm and undisciplined Imagination is
capable of exerting upon minds not duly upon their

2 F 2

436 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

guard against its vagaries. These remarks are not
intended to check that sprightly vigour of faculty,
that generous ardour of zeal, that noble enthusiasm
of activity, which characterizes the youthful aspirant
after usefulness on a great and extensive scale. We
know of no lovelier sight, of no finer specimen of
the combination of the power of grace with that of
nature, than is exhibited in that concentration of
the faculties and uniform direction of the physical
energies in the prosecution of a great, sacred, and
glorious object, which we have sometimes an oppor-
tunity of witnessing. Silent be the tongue, para-
lyzed be the hand, that would stagger the resolutions,
chill the heaven-born aspirations, and impede the
beneficent career of the evangelical or Christian
hero. We would only have him contract his sphere
of vision, that he may sec more clearly, and trace
more steadily the path which is set before him. We
would only trim, and in due measure supply the
lamp, which we have no wish to extinguish. AVe
would only have all legitimate means employed for
the advancement of religion and truth, but with a
sense of their own inadequacy, with expectations
chastised and regulated by a proper regard to that
measure of success, which the ordinary supplies of
divine aid are calculated to aff*ord, so as to avoid the
sting of disappointment, and the shame of extra-
vagant calculations.

In illustration of this part of our subject little
more need be said. Observation and experience
must have supplied sufficient opportunities for the
development and contenii)lation of an evil, of which

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 437

every individual must, perhaps, be conscious of
having, in a degree, more or less, afforded an ex-
ample. To estimate means, intellectual and spiritual,
somcAvhat above their real importance, in the earlier
stages of character, is an error hardly separable from
the nature of man.

Section III.

Injurious Irregularities and Alternations op Feeling
arising from an ill-governed imagination.

We proceed to observe, as another evil frequently
associated with a preponderance and unlimited
indulgence of Imagination in matters of religion,
that it is in danger of producing or of fostering
feelings of morbid melanclioly, gloomy apprehen-
sion, and dark despair, on the one hand; or of
levity, eccentricity, and of fantastic and ill-judged
humour, on the other. It may appear strange, that
Ave specify, as liable to spring from the same general
cause, qualities so different, and apparently so op-
posed to each other. But, on further consideration,
Ave are persuaded that the very same faculty, in its
multiform exercises and operations, according to the
circumstantial and incidental influence to Avhich it is
subject, and the order of mental and physical quali-
ties Avith Avhich it is combined, is abundantly capable
of producing all these A'arieties and modifications of
effect. The religious principle, above all others,
perhaps, requires a due equipoise of the mind, and

438 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

to be diffused, in suitable proportions, over the whole
substratum of the character, in order that it may
develope itself in those forms of moral symmetry
and beauty, which are equally remote from what is
frigid, tame, and insipid, and from what is wild,
irregular, and excessive. This inevitably results
from the nature of the thing. Such is the tran-
scendent importance of religion, that it is sufficient
to turn the balance to a dangerous excess, whenever
it is disproportionately collocated and injudiciously
arranged in the extensive receptacle of the human
mind. Such is the vast momentum which it com-
mands, that if, through some unhappy influence or
defect, it takes a wrong direction, it is capable of car-
rying the faculty, in which it has exorbitantly lodged,
like a planet thrown out of the range of its attrac-
tion, into the most perilous excursions and aberra-
tions. If this faculty be that of Reason, religion, in
that case, will be cold, and stiff, and stagnant ; full
of nice distinctions, and abounding, perhaps, \nth
noisy logomachies and contentions; but without
warmth, without vigour, without zeal. If it be that
of Feeling, the consequence will be a religion of
strong and indefinite emotions, of heat without light,
of sensations without principles, of desires, and hopes,
and fears; of which the owner is neither able nor
disposed, and is, perhaps, surprised to find that any
one should expect of him, with meekness to give a
reason. If it be that of the Imagination, the result
will be a fluctuating instability of character; tlic tones
of tlie mind, like notes of irregular music, now rising

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 439

too high, and now sinking as much too k)w ; now

pouring- forth in strains of deep and plaintive melody,

and now

Light turns of music, broken and uneven,
Carry tlie soul upon a jig to heaven.

On the stage of a mind thus constituted and thus
influenced, the scenes will be continually shifting.
One while the dark and sombre view of things will
present itself; but soon, unless prevented by phy-
sical or other causes, the more bright and brilliant
will succeed. The unresting activity, the elastic
vigour, the mercurial versatility of the predomi-
nantly imaginative mind, can seldom long endure
a stationary position, and a uniformity of moral
colouring. To answer the exorbitant demands, to
meet the craving exigencies of such a mind, there
must be a continual range of speculation, an endless
diversity of scenery. And, spurred on by its own
inherent impetuosity in quest of novelties, it will
sometimes plunge into darkest caverns, and involve
itself in lurid gloom. After struggling for a while
with forms of horror and despair of its own creation,
it will escape and rise into empyrean light, and exult
in its recovered joy, and peace, and freedom, with
undue and unbecoming sportiveness. Imagination,
by the peculiar property which it possesses of realiz-
ing, combining, embodying, and of tinging with a
stronger hue — a hue of darker shade, or of more
brilliant colouring — every scene which it contem-
plates, changes fear into consternation, and despond-
ency into black despair; or transforms composure
into levity, and cheerfulness into unseemly gaiety and

440 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

mirth ; and the mind finds itself, almost incessantly,
cither overwhelmed with the ideas of the a^ful and
terrific ; or amused and titillated with tm*ns of the
humorous, and combinations of the ludicrous. Hence
it is, that persons of this character and habit fre-
quently exhibit great changes of feeling and conduct,
from ap2)arently very trifling causes. Occurrences of
the most immaterial importance occasion perturba-
tions and transitions in their mind, too rapid and
instantaneous for others to perceive, except in their
fanciful or objectionable effects. They will some-
times seize upon a point of doctrine, true in itself,
which they either imperfectly understand, or are
obstinately determined to contemplate under a false
and distorted aspect ; and, without any conceivable
ground or reason, will apply it to themselves in such
a manner as can only have the effect of plunging
them into inexpressible agony and dismay. The
uncertainty and obscurity which hang around all
moral speculations and prospective views, when not
illuminated by the clear beams of faith in a divine
revelation, throw a sublime and awful horror over
the sphere of their contemplations. They become
dizzy in looking down upon a gulf, the depths of
which they cannot fathom. At other times, the
case will be, in almost every respect, the reverse.
Imagination, like the illustrious Bard of Paradise,
ascending from the dismal darkness of the nether
world, where she had for a while been sojourning,
will regain the regions of light, and wanton in the
cheering warmth of tlie bright sun of divine reve-
lation, unfolding her glossy pinions to the splcn-

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 441

dour of its cfFulgent beams. This is the season of
an opposite danger — that of a levity, and a species of
jesting bordering upon profaneness, in the treatment
of sacred truth, whether in ordinary converse, in epis-
tolary communication, or in the public discussions
of the sanctuary. Here Imagination, abandoning
her former and generally more congenial character of
lone and pensive melancholy, assumes the form and
attitude of fancy, proverbially light in her air, and
frequently grotesque in her motions. That play of
intellect, that rapid and intermingling flow of ideas,
associated by relations of various kinds, usually and
specifically denominated Fancy, is, for the most part,
attended with the external manifestation of the qua-
lity of wit : and though we would not have wit alto-
gether banished from the province of religion, yet she
is assuredly never -to be admitted into that hallowed
region, but in her more sober livery, in her native
simplicity, and employing a dialect suitably regu-
lated and chastised. She must remember that she
treads on holy ground. Guided by wisdom and
discretion, she may indeed throw "a sprightly
beam" over the face of truth, and exhibit its beauty
in a lovelier and more engaging form; but her merry
turns, and her tricks of buff'oonery, are to be checked
and totally excluded ; and (to use the language of
one of the purest and brightest of her sons) would
be as unbecoming amidst the solemnities of the sanc-
tuary, as if Harlequin should intrude into the gloomy
chamber, where a corpse was lying in state.

The main end of preaching — that end to which all
other means are to be regarded as subsidiary and

442 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

subservient^ is, we apprehend, to produce a habit
of deep and serious reflection. This appears in-
dispensably necessary to prepare the mind for those
influences and impressions, which it is the design
of religion to impart, and which, in a great measure,
constitute its ultimate effect. AYhatever, therefore,
is inconsistent, or militates with this object; what-
ever has a tendency to dissipate the thoughts, to
abstract the ideas and feelings from their firm and
vigorous concentration, in attending to the "one
thing needful;" whatever is calculated to divest
the realities of an eternal world of their solemnity
and transcendent importance, by associating them
with ideas of levity or contempt, must obviously
be incompatible with the legitimate purposes of
Christian instruction, and, therefore, cannot be other-
wise regarded than as an outrage upon the sacred-
ness of its character. The most grievous offenders
in this department, among writers of respectability
and eminence, are perhaps Swift and South; the for-
mer, more particularly, in a work professedly on
religion, of which a pious and learned divine of our
church, the late celebrated William Jones, truly
asserted, that no man can read it without being the
worse for it; and the latter, almost throughout his
numerous and occasionally striking sermons. The
Dean of St. Patrick appears to have been a most
remarkable instance of that sour disdain, that moody
melancholy, and that riotous and overbearing wit, whicli
frequently form the ill-sorted and ill-regulated com-
pound of the character of i)ersons under the influence
of an imagination inadequately controlled by religious

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 443

principle. Wit^ and irony, and sarcasm, arc weapons
whicli, even in the hands of the most judicious and
candid, can seldom be brought to bear with suitable
effect upon the subject of religion ; but when wielded
by one, who knoAvs not hoAv to restrain his spirit, and
repress the sportive volatility of his fancy, they can-
not fail deeply to wound the cause, which he under-
takes to defend.

The case of the amiable and excellent Co^vper
must always possess a melancholy interest to those,
who-'would trace the effects of Imagination as con-
nected Avith religious principle. The character of
this extraordinary man, as it was affected by his
peculiar views of divine truth, has been variously
represented ; but its pre-eminent worth, both intel-
lectual and moral, all have concurred to acknow-
ledge. Some are in the habit of regarding the
melancholy aberrations, which clouded with such deep
shades of misery the latter years of his life, as alto-
gether owing to his religion; and conclude, without
further examination, that the principles, which could
produce such effects, must be unquestionably wrong,
and in the highest degree odious and detestable.
Others qualify this opinion, by allowing that the
elements of darkness and despair were naturally
inherent in the mind of Cowper ; but that a system
of religion, which required and encouraged excitation
and high-wrought feeling, having been superinduced
upon that previous tendency, and attached itself to a
restless vigour of Imagination, called forth the seeds
of mental malady, and was the instrumental cause of
most of the wretchedness which he endured. Others

444 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

again, including most of Cowper's friends, and of
those who embraced the same principles in the main,
which he had adopted, thought that his overwhelm-
ing depression arose entirely from his physical or
mental constitution; from the original organization
of his intellectual system; and that his sentiments of
religion, so far from aggravating it, were the best,
and, apparently, under some circumstances, the only
means of alleviating it. With respect to the first of
these opinions, it hardly deserves serious notice, be-
cause it evidently proceeds upon false principles, and
evinces a total ignorance, or a most inconsi^rate
disregard of known facts. Of the last, we shall only
say, that independently of the tendency of that
scheme of religion which Cowper is known to have
embraced, to produce peace and tranquillity, and
sometimes the more elevated feeling of joy in the
mind, as ascertained by almost universal experience,
it derives great weight and probability from the cir-
cumstance, that his first attack, which rendered it
necessary that he should be placed under the care of
Dr. Cotton, was finally surmounted by a cheering
view of divine truth; and that, for a succeeding
series of years, he enjoyed a measure of happiness
and delightful satisfaction, to which he had before
been a perfect stranger.

As to the intermediate view of the character of
this great and good man here mentioned, and the
infiuence which his faith and devotional habits are
supposed to have had in occasioning his subsequent
depression, we conceive that the assumption may
have some truth. But let so much be conceded.

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 445

Docs it follow that the conclusion usually drawn from
this assumption is fairly dcducible from the i^remiscs?
Let it be even granted that Cowper's views of reli-
gion were the instrumental cause of calling forth the
malady from which he suffered so intensely during
the latter period of his life : is it to be thereby
inferred that these views were wrong ? Does it in
the slightest degree affect their previous character ?
Surely nothing can be more preposterous and absurd.
Nothing can be a greater outrage upon every prin-
ciple of reason, and every rule of conduct, than that
a system of opinions should be deemed universally
false and prejudicial, because the previous tendencies
and dispositions of an individual may have rendered
him unapt for the reception of its genuine influence,
and because, in consequence of that circumstance, it
may produce a temporary effect exceedingly painful
and melancholy. A general truth, it is obvious, must
stand totally independent of the peculiarities of an
isolated subject. Were not this the case, what Avould
become of the science of medicine — indeed, of almost
the whole theory of humar. knowledge and practice ?
In the instance of Cowper himself, it may, with quite
as much propriety, be maintained that the profession
of the law, and the necessity of discharging official
duties, are unsuitable to the human character, and
have a necessary tendency to produce aberration of
mind, as the profession of religion, and the conscien-
tious discharge of its duties; for it is well known
that his first attack of overwhelming and alarming
depression w^as occasioned by the terror of appearing
before the House of Lords, for the performance of a

446 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

simple duty in the capacity of clerk, while yet a
student in the Temple. To conclude against law
and its associated duties from this circumstance would
be hazarded by few. We affirm it to be equally so-
phistical and illogical to conclude universally against
the religion of Cowper, and the duties which legiti-
mately result from it, even supposing it to have been
the instrumental cause of the a^vful calamity under
which he so long laboured. The fact is, his mind
was so tender, and so delicately poised, and his Ima-
gination was so morbidly active, so irritably alive,
that anything was sufficient to destroy its balance,
which would come upon it with an overpowering
effect. That religion, ^Yith its awful weight of ever-
lasting interests, should have been attended with a
temporary effect of this nature, we consider neither
wonderful, nor at all derogatory; and we think that
his friends have shown an unnecessary and undue
degree of sensitiveness, in endeavouring to abstract
his view of divine truth from all connexion with his
malady, and to resolve it altogether into physical
causes. We do not conceive that those peculiarities
of the Gospel, which he adopted, would lose a single
grain of their credibility, force, and importance, if it
were proved that they were the sole cause, of which
his diseased Imagination availed itself to plunge him
into that state of wretchedness, from which, in this
world, he never wholly emerged. His case shows,
indeed, the necessity of extreme caution, and of the
exercise of much sound wisdom and discretion, in
conveying the truths of religion to minds of a deli-
cate temperament, and in directing the subsequent

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 447

sta<2:cs of the character. Where there is a strono-
tendency to nervous irritability, where the mind is
so constituted as to be actuated by a species of elec-
tive attraction towards forms of terror and ideas of
pensive melancholy bodied forth by the Imagination,
as was the case with the sublime and devout Pascal,
it is unquestionably the part of prudence to avoid all
occasions of undue excitement, and to cultivate those
gentle feelings, those serene and unruffled graces of
the Spirit, which are best calculated to preserve the
balance of the mental faculties, and to advance the
soul in holiness. We are acquainted with an instance
of a person very early in life possessed of some of
the features of character just specified, who, in con-
sequence of having been once so transported by his
feelings, , while engaged in prayer, as to have his
whole mind almost entirely unhinged for the time,
for a considerable period subsequent to that circum-
stance could never kneel down without the most
painful and distressing apprehension of the recur-
rence of the same overwhelming emotions. Cases of
this nature, however, form no argument whatever
against an order of principles, which stand upon
their own independent evidence, and are enforced
by their inherent and immutable obligations. Wlien-
ever they may be attended with an effect so calami-
tous and deeply melancholy, as some affirm to have
been the fact in the interesting and illustrious bard
of Olney, we are to ascribe it to an intellectual
organization, which spurned their control, and ren-
dered it morally impossible that they should exert
their legitimate influence. For such mournful aber-

448 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

rations Imagination, and not Eeligion, is fairly and
properly amenable.

After all that has been said and conceded respect-
ing Cowper, however, and in the full view of the
indescribable sufferings which he underwent, we are
far from considering his adoption of the peculiar
creed, which he had embraced and maintained through
life, an unhappy circumstance. Let it be supposed
that he should have recovered from his first stroke of
mental malady, independently of all views of religion,
and returned to a coterie of gay literary associates,
with whom he had hitherto lived, and from whose
follies and fashionable vices there is no reason to
suppose that he either had been, or would be, com-
pletely free ; is there any person, who has the slight-
est impression of the value of the human soul, and
of the eternal obligations of religion; is there any
such person, we would ask, who would now regret,
that, at the expense of any measure of temporary
suffering, he should have been rescued from his
imminent danger; that he should, by that means,
have been the instrument of such extensive benefit
to mankind ; and, so far as human judgment can
go, that he should now have reached the secure
possession of everlasting glory ? Did the devout
and amiable sufferer himself regret it the moment
he was emancipated from that tabernacle of clay,
which for so many years had been his dungeon?
Oh ! with Avhat transport did his pure and sul)lime
spirit, now freed and unmanacled, emerge from tlie
darkness and gloom of despair, in which he had
been so long enveloped and enchained, and soar

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 449

upward witli waving pinions into regions of eternal
day! How little account does he now set upon
that brief night of woe, in which it had been his
lot to mourn and weep ! The very recollection of
it, except so far as it may be the means of
heightening his joys and kindling his gratitude, is
lost amid the enraptured felicities of heaven, and the
entrancing visions of the Almighty.

Section IV.
Fanciful and forced Interpretations op Scripture.

In illustration of the dangerous use to which Ima-
gination is liable to be perverted, as connected
with the great and comprehensive subject of reli-
gion, we must not omit noticing as a great and
palpable evil into which it is apt to lead, that it is
frequently guilty of making a fanciful and forced
application of Scripture ; of turning figurative lan-
guage into literal, and the reverse ; and discover-
ing resemblances and coincidences which were never
intended to be established or expressed. This is
a danger of no common magnitude, inasmuch as
it has a direct tendency to neutralize the strongest
evidences of its truth, supplied in the inherent
beauty and consistency of divine revelation; to
subvert all rules of sober and legitimate interpre-
tation ; and to render the whole scheme of Chris-
tianity contemptible in the eyes of men of rational
and investigating minds. The Bible, indeed, con-
tains much of what is peculiar, mysterious, and

2 G

450 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

divinely sublime. There is a correspondence be-
tween its respective parts, especially its two
grand divisions of Old and New Testament, of
a very intimate and distinguishing nature. There
is, unquestionably, a general, and, in many points,
very striking analogy between the system of doc-
trines which it proposes, the principles of admi-
nistration which it develops, and the more re-
markable phenomena of the natural world, and
the ordinary course of Providence, as unfolded in
the records of history, and presented to our daily
observation. There can be no doubt, that divine
truth is frequently conveyed in the volume of
inspiration under the form of allegory; and that
practical doctrines, of the most weighty importance,
are often exhibited under the transparent imagery
of poetical diction ; that many circumstances and
events there recorded, have a twofold reference,
answering the primary purpose of sustaining the
present interest of religion in the world, and serv-
ing the ultimate end of reflecting anticipatory light
upon the transactions of future times. In this
mixed character of the records and communications
of Scripture, in this union of immediate application
and of secondary and ultimate reference, which
distinguishes many of its parts, there is a striking-
display of the infinite wisdom of God, and a re-
markable adaptation to the varied situations and
faculties of man. Here a variety of ends is served
by simplicity of means. From this circumstance,
important indeed, if correctly appreciated and duly
estimated, many have taken occasion to run into

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 451

extravagances of interpretation and allusion, not
only at variance vnth. all the recognized principles
of philology and criticism, but in some cases even
in direct violation of those of piety and sound wis-
dom. 'With, the telescopic eye of their fancy, they
have discovered luminaries of truth scattered over
the firmament of revelation, which the eye of Faith,
guided and regulated by Reason, never could have
perceived. They have found out laws of harmony
and mutual dependency subsisting between the
various doctrines and dispensations of religion,
infinitely more intimate and sublimely refined than
those striking and palpable relations, which it
were blindness not to observe, and impiety not
to acknowledge. But, unhappily, their spheres of
doctrinal symmetry and correspondence, like the
whirlpools of the French philosopher, and "the
cycles and epicyles, orb in orb," of the Ptolemaic
system, will seldom bear the test of sober and
enlightened investigation.

Upon this illusive principle of analogy and adap-
tation, is founded the whole scheme of mystical
interpretation, which, in some form or other, has
prevailed in every age of the Christian church.
From this, carried to its utmost length, and allowed
an unlimited range, sprung the monstrous chimeras
of dogmatical impiety and absurdity, which harassed
and desolated the church during the three first
centuries of the evangelical era; the numberless
sects and modifications of heresy which are partly
described and confuted by Irenaeus, the Pleroma of
^ons, and the numerical principles of the Yalenti-

2 G 2

452 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

nians, and other equally revolting and visionary
branches of gnostic theology. Most of these pro-
fessed to derive their leading opinions from Scrip-
ture, refined into a sublime and attenuated essence,
after its contents had been made to pass through the
alembic of their heated fancies. Some of the
founders and propagators of these heresies, arrayed
the offspring of their imagination in colours of the
most glowing eloquence, and by that means, suc-
ceeded in giving a plausibility to their notions, and
an apparent consistency with the principles of revela-
tion, which, otherwise, they could never have attained.
But a wresting of Scripture, to the destruction of all
sound views and sentiments of doctrine, was by no
means confined to arch-heretics and notorious cor-
rupters of the divine word. A disposition to mysti-
cize upon what is plain and simple and practical, if
taken in its literal and obvious acceptation, but con-
taining wonderful sublimities and abstractions, when
divested of its allegorical veil, has vitiated some of
the finest productions of venerable piety. In these
persons, it was, doubtless, an error of judgment,
generated, in a great measure, by habits of mo-
nastic seclusion, in which the imagination and the
heart, mutually combining together, to the almost
entire exclusion of solid reason, spun out those
theories of explication, of which we have often to
admire the piety and ingenuity; but at the same
time we have to lament the irrelevant and unautho-
rized application of the various declarations of Scriji-
ture. In the sermons and homilies of the renowned
Abbot of Clermont, for example, it is impossible for

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 453

a candid and serious mind not to perceive and respect
the vein of devotion which pervades them; but it is
equally impossible not to observe, with pain, how
frequently his fancy, immersed in the humid vapours
of superstition, contrives to abandon the literal sense
of a passage, and to extract from it a meaning which
the inspired writer does not appear to have had in the
remotest contemplation. A specimen of this method
of interpretation is seen in his second sermon, " De
adventu Domini," in which the language of Isaiah's
prediction, addressed to Ahaz when he had been
commanded to ask a sign — a language which Jews
and Christians have found it so difficult consistently
to explain — is thus applied. Justly taking it for
granted that the prophecy refers to the Lord Jesus
Christ, the promised Messiah, he institutes a com-
parison between Him and the first Adam, who chose
the evil rather than the good. The expressions of
butter and honey, as constituting the food of the infant,
whom the Virgin should bring forth, oblige him to
have recourse to the parable of the lost sheep, which
he considers as emblematical of human nature. As
the milk of a sheep produces two substances, butter
and cheese, the former rich and moist, the latter dry
and hard, it was to be characteristic of the Messiah,
that he should take to himself only the butter, the
goodness and excellency of human nature in its
original purity; while he would altogether leave and
avoid the evil principles of that nature represented
by the other product of the milk. In order to
account for the other term, honey, he considers the
Messiah as represented by a bee feeding among

454 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

lilies. In this character, he describes him as origi-
nally dwelling in the flower-bearing country of angels.
From thence He flew into Nazareth ; but contrary to
the practice of bees in general, he came to us without
a sting, without the rigour and severity of judgment,
and bearing only honey, the sweetness of grace and
mercy. He came without the sting of malice and
revenge, which Avas now become inherent in our
nature, and united unto himself only the kindness
and gentleness of love. Similar expositions and
applications abound throughout his writings. The
same remark may be made, with some qualification,
perhaps, in reference to the eloquent and devout
Augustine, especially in his commentary upon the
" Mystical Psalms." His " Enarrations" upon these
sublime compositions, are often beautifully and
devoutly elevated. The mind delights to follow him
through those scenes of Elysian joy, and peace, and
love, which he unfolds to the view. But the plan of
invariably applying the Psalms to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and to the immediate and designed illustra-
tion of the blessings and privileges of the Gospel,
involves him in difficulties, which require the con-
tinual aid of fancy to discern points of analogy and
adaptation, Avhere, otherwise, they are utterly undis-
coverable. The most distant resemblance, the re-
motest possibility of an intended allusion, is to him
equivalent to perfect similitude, and amounts almost
to identity. His mode of allegorizing the history of
Paradise and the fall, in Avhich, among other strange
things, he represents the four rivers of Eden as in-
tended to symbolize the four cardinal virtues, is a

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 455

singular instance of this plan of interpretation. But
the most remarkable and ingenious fancy-piece in the
whole of his writings, perhaps, is the numerical calcu-
lation appended to the last Psalm, by which he
endeavours to account for the number of these
divine songs being confined to one hundred and fifty.
From this quantity, by various and intricate processes
of multiplication, he infers the agreement of the two
Testaments and several other points, which appear to
him highly important.

In this scheme of scriptural application, the elo-
quent Bishop of Hippo has been followed at various
distances by many subsequent theologians, some of
them of great and illustrious name. Among these
the learned Horsley, and the amiable and elegant
Home, must unquestionably be regarded as having
carried the principle of mystic interpretation to an
undue length. Under the cover of the names of
these distinguished prelates, many have since come
forward, who, to use the words of the former of these
writers in the commencement of one of his sermons,
we " know not by what alchemy" have extracted an
essence of signification from the songs of the sweet
Psalmist of Israel, which it can only excite feelings of
astonishment that any one can seriously propose as
legitimate interpretations of Scripture. According
to these notions the songs of Zion chanted to the
notes of David's lyre, and mingling with the swelling
tide of the choral symphonies, which ascended from
the temple at Jerusalem, are seldom allowed to have
any primary meaning, and to have only an occasional
and general reference, as they unquestionably have.

456 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

to the person and offices of the Messiah and the
various blessings of his kingdom. But they were
designed ahnost entirely and exclusively to illustrate
and even graphically to describe the scenes which
were to be developed under the evangelical dispensa-
tion. The region of prophecy partly illuminated with
beacons, by which faith might steer its course through
a dark and tempestuous current of time, and the
divine word might receive its confirmation after the
accomplishment of the predicted events, but still
covered over with much obscurity to prevent the un-
warrantable intrusions and the rash pervagations of
bold presumption, has been always a department of
revealed knowledge peculiarly attractive to the
minds, and not unfrequently fatal to . the safety of
imaginative adventurers. The Jews, to whom the
prophecies were more immediately addressed, have
almost universally misapprehended their nature, and
by a process of literal and carnal application, to the
exclusion of all spiritual import, scornfully rejected,
and continue to reject, the Messiah, who was to be
the end of the law, and to whom all the prophets
gave witness. Thus the literal interpretation of what
was obviously intended figuratively and emblematically
to represent spiritual blessings of a most exalted
order, was the stumbling block upon which the ancient
Jews fell : and we fear that a similar misapplication,
in reference to a different economy — the economy of
millennial glory, has led astray from the path of
soberness and truth, in scriptural exposition, many of
those who arc most anxious and practically zealous in
the conversion and restoration of the same interestiuii"

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 457

people. WTiat portion may be true of the theories,
which, under various modifications, have been carried
down from the very first ages of Christianity, and
illustrated among the moderns, principally by Mede
and others, respecting the second advent of Christ,
and the grand line of operations, by which his king-
dom shall be universally established upon earth;
whether He will, indeed, personally appear and con-
duct His restored people in one glorious host into
Palestine, and there reign over them with unprece-
dented pomp and triumph, as many suppose, or whe-
ther under the gorgeous veil of prophetic imagery is
conveyed nothing more than a magnificent display of
divine power, in establishing the kingdom of grace
upon earth, which seems to be the more general opi-
nion, we cannot positively determine. AYe would,
therefore, by no means condemn the speculative
lucubrations of ingenious and learned men upon these
interesting topics, if stated with something of that
modesty and diffidence, with which Newton proposed
his conjectures. "We condemn only the dogmatism
of a heated imagination, in laying down schemes,
which, on account of the obscurity and inadequacy
of the premises, must, at the very best, be in many
of their details utterly uncertain, and when at-
tempted to be fully developed, are found to involve
difficulties and contradictions which must be regarded
as principles of evident self-destruction. Amidst
these rich and flowery regions of inspiration. Fancy,
under the guidance of Reason, may be allowed to
range and speculate, but not to pronounce and legis-
late, until the unquestionable light of facts has dissi-

458 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

pated their remaining obscurities. In the mean
time they have enough of what is palpable and dis-
tinct to embody the visions of faith, to animate the
expectations of hope, to kindle the flame of love, and
to rouse to higher energy the efforts of practical zeal.
There can be no doubt that days of unrivalled glory
are before us, that the cycle of ages is rapidly run-
ning its round, and that the revolutions of time will
soon introduce the period, which will establish a new
era of light, and righteousness, and peace.

Until this bright epoch in the history of our fallen
world shall commence, however, let us adhere to the
plain and simple, and practical exposition of the word
of truth, and guard against being imposed upon by
the illusive halo, which our OAvn imagination may have
thrown around its scenes.

In the aj)plication of the parables of our Lord,
and in estimating the various typical characters,
and the emblematic objects and events mentioned
in Scripture, we likewise often perceive a play of
fancy, which greatly desecrates the subject, and
has a strong tendency to detract from its inherent
solemnity. With persons of this disposition nothing
is to be taken in its natural sense, and to be confined
to its primary intention. They must refine and
subtilize upon every thing, until sometimes they
have banished all rational meaning, in order to
produce the quintessence of their lofty and arbi-
trary speculation. For every utensil in the ex-
tensive and complicated establishment of Solomon's
temple, they have an exact correspondent spiritual
import. Every laudable feature in the character,

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 459

and every important event in the life of the Jewish
patriarchs, prophets, and Idngs, are in some way or
other designed to adumbrate the person or offices of
the promised Messiah. And instead of considering
the parables as consisting partly of fiction, serving
the sole purpose of a substratum of the mould, and
partly of certain superficial conformations, by which
the correct image of truth might be represented,
they regard them as the models of recondite prin-
ciples, even to the minutest specialities and details.
Thus the parable, instead of answering the original
and subordinate end of illustrating truth, becomes
itself the gauge and measure of truth. In the case
of a miracle, again, it is not enough that our Lord
should have afforded a general confirmation of his
Messiahship, and performed an act of beneficence,
which evidently surpassed the unaided resources
of nature, but there must be a meaning attached
to it of a more sublimated order. The twelve
baskets of fragments, for example, which remained
after the five thousand had been fed, are to be
viewed as representative of so many blessings and
priAileges of the Gospel : six of which, a preacher
having once explained to his hearers in the morn-
ing, gravely told them, that in the evening he
would entertain them with the remaining six. And
I have a perfect personal recollection of being
once present, when a man of apparent sincerity
and zealous piety, and possessed of no mean cele-
brity in his o\\Ti connection, expounded the twelve
manner of fruit produced by the tree, which grew
by the river of the waters of hfe, throughout upon

460 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

this principle. An occasional accommodation of
some of the peculiarities of Scripture, even where
there was no original connection or reference for
the illustration of principles or duties, specifically
announced and enforced in other places, may, in-
deed, within due limitations be allowable. Such
a practice seems not destitute of authority, from
the example of our Saviour himself, and his
Apostles. But to establish a principle, and to sus-
pend the whole weight of a doctrine upon so un-
certain and precarious a basis, — to contend that
the whole machinery of the fact, or the emblematic
circumstance, like the wheels in Ezekiel's vision,
was fabricated for the purpose of embodying the
spirit of abstruse and remote meaning, with which
it is supposed to be animated, while there does
not appear to be any adequate ground for such
a supposition, — such a method of interpretation is
replete with danger, and seems to come little
short of the impiety of adding unto Scripture, and
reflecting upon the wisdom of its author. While
it is lamentably true that there are many, who,
through blindness and carnal prejudice, cannot dis-
cern the things of the spirit, when they are openly
and palpably presented to their view, upon the
surface of clear and express declarations, there
unhappily are others endued with such extraordi-
nary powers of perception, with such a species of
second sight, as to enable them to discover the
presence of a. spirit, where in reality, or, at least,
according to the concurrent judgment of those whose
faculties of vision have generally been considered as

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELTGION. 461

most accurate and discriminative, a spirit does not
exist.

But not merely in the application of Scripture,
especially its prophetical parts, its parables, and
symbolical representations, has the faculty of Ima-
gination been allowed an undue license, and taken
too much upon her, but also in explaining the
phenomena of nature, and the course of providence,
she has been guilty of the same indiscretion, in
pointing out coincidences and analogies which are
supposed to bear a designed and corroborative
relation to the doctrines and mysteries of faith.
\Ye mean not to censure a perpetual and devout
regard to the great Author and Governor of the
world, throughout the whole range of that magni-
ficent display of power, wisdom, and love, which
his works universally present, nor to exclude him
from a controlling share in the minutest specialities
of daily and hourly occurrence. Far be it from us
to give any countenance to that shallow and spu-
rious philosophy on the one hand, or that unre-
flecting levity on the other, which can lose sight
for one moment of a supreme primary cause, and
a continual superintending Providence. To have
the clearest perceptions of a deity originally con-
stituting, and subsequently propelling, regulating,
and guiding the complicated wheels of nature, so
as to secure that strength and beauty, and har-
mony, which characterize the stupendous machi-
nery of the universe, we consider to be the part, not
so much of imagination, as of sound and enlightened
reason. But when Kepler, in his " Mysterium Cos-

462 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

mographicum/' expresses his delight in the contem-
plation of the firmament of the fixed stars, the sun,
and the immense interval which separates them, and
declares, that he considers them as symbolical of
the doctrine of the Trinity, he evidently gives the
rein to his Fancy, and, by removing that important
truth from the basis of its proper evidence, and
connecting it with a vague and visionary specu-
lation, for which there does not appear to be any
foundation in nature, can hardly fail to prejudice
its character, and lessen its probability, in minds
of more calm and sober investigation. [N^othing is
more injurious to a principle liable in any degree
to be controverted, than to shift it from its own
ground, and to render it most remotely dependent
for its certainty, upon fanciful and factitious repre-
sentations. A devout, but at the same time weak
and unguarded man, is exceedingly apt to err
again in his observations upon providence, and to
suffer the suggestions of his imagination to pre-
ponderate over the dictates of his judgment. He
will so connect the occurrences of the world around
him with the declarations of Scripture, as to regard,
as signs of the times, and as involving the most
peculiar significancy, things Avliich are perfectly
explicable upon the ordinary principles of nature.
He wiU associate together, by ties of arbitrary and
incoherent relation, circumstances and events, which,
in reality, stand perfectly distinct from each other ;
in consequence of which, the whole of his character
is shaded over with a tinge of superstition, and his
religion, in a great measure, degenerates into weak-

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 4G3

ness. Hence the dreams of astrological delusion,
the ominous dread or the exhilarating prospect
arising from the various aspects and conjunctions
of the planetary bodies, and the numberless pre-
sages, inauspicious or felicitous, attached to inci-
dents and appearances, from which no operative in-
fluence upon the events apprehended or desired, can
rationally be supposed to emanate ; and we may add,
the manifold forms of imposture, which craft and
bigotry have in different ages contrived to palm
upon devout credulity. Imagination constitutes the
spell by which the mind of the devotee has been
kept in thrall, and the wand of Antichrist has pro-
duced its miraculous effect*.

* Of the process of a fanciful extraction of a spiritual meaning,
and of a scriptural truth, from a congeries of fabulous absurdity, a
remarkable example was afforded in the case of Mr. Struchtmeyer,
a late professor of eloquence and languages in the University of
Hardenwyk, in Guelderland, 1757. " In a work which bears the
title of the Symbolical Hercules, the learned and wrongheaded
author maintains, (as he had also done in a preceding work, entitled
An Explication of the Pagan Theology,) that all the doctrines of
Christianity were emblematically represented in the heathen mytho-
logy; and not only so, but that the inventors of that theology knew
that the Son of God was to descend upon earth; believed in Christ,
as the only fountain of salvation ; were persuaded of his future
incarnation, death, and resurrection; and had acquired all this
knowledge and faith by the perusal of a Bible much older than
either Moses or Abraham. The Pagan doctors, thus instructed in
the mysteries of Christianity, taught these truths under the veil of
emblems, types, and figures. Jupiter represented the true God;
Juno, who was obstinate and ungovernable, was the emblem of the
ancient Israel; and chaste Diana was a type of the Christian church.
Hercules was the figure or forerunner of Christ; Amphytrion was
Joseph ; the two serpents, that Hercules killed in his cradle, were
the Pharisees and Sadducees.

"Such are the principal lines of Mr. Struchtmeyer's system,

464 THE USE OF IMAGINATION' AS EMPLOYED

Section Y.

The injurious Effect of undisciplined Imagination upon
Style.

The last evil whicli we shall notice, as liable to
result from allowing the imagination to exert a pre-
dominant influence upon the mind, is that which is
connected with style. We mentioned it as one of
the advantages and beneficial uses attending the due
and well-regulated exercise of this noble faculty,
that it is of great service in the suitable elevation
and embellishment of style, in raising it above all
that is low in idea, and mean and grovelling in lan-
guage. Highly important as this effect is, considered
as resulting from a taste refined and sublimated by a
well-trained imagination, the danger of running into
the extreme of bombast, of indulging in the fantastic
puerility of conceit, and of marching in the formal
pace of monotonous and frigid declamation, is pro-
portionably great: To form a theological style full
and majestic, and yet not turgid; animated and yet
chaste; rich, and yet simple; rapid, and yet clear;
metaphorical, and yet plain; vigorous, and yet calm;
and imaginative, but yet rationally sound and well
compacted in its structure, is, indeed, one of the
most difficult objects which a speaker or writer has to
attain; and of the numberless books in our language,
very few can be safely adopted as models. We have.

which shows the sad havoc that a warm imagination, undirected by
a just and solid judgment, makes in religion." — Dr. Maclaine's
Note to MosheirrCs Eccles. IlisL, vol. i,, p. 336.

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 465

it is true, many valual)le writers, who are pre-emi-
nently distinguished for peculiar and characteristic
excellencies, and have advanced, in their congenial
and chosen department, to a point of consummate
perfection. In one we have the vigour of reason
clothed in the language of a close and argumenta-
tive logic; in another, we have the sublime concep-
tions of a towering imagination unfolded in the
loftiest strains of poetry; in a third, we have all
the simplicity and ardour of the most zealous piety,
expressed, with as little variation as possible, in the
peculiar dialect of Scripture, like water drawn out of
a pure and unadulterated fountain to irrigate a
garden of flowers, to fertilize a spot, to refresh a
paradise, in which the plants of righteousness are
intended to vegetate. There can be no doubt that
each of these modifications, which the vehicle of
thought, in difi'erent individuals, has been found to
assume, has its beauty and advantage. But, as
Cicero looked in vain for an orator, that would per-
fectly correspond with that conception of faultless
and unrivalled excellence, which he had formed in
his own mind, so in the discussion and enforcement
of theological questions, it is rarely we discover any-
thing like an approach to that order of superior
excellence, w^hich the happy combination of all these
qualities of profundity, subUmity, and sacred beauty
and elegance, w^ould form. Without any disparage-
ment to the illustrious authors of the last and pre-
ceding centuries, not forgetting the nervous elo-
quence of Hooker, the liveliness of Hall, the splendid
and profuse imagery of Taylor, the majestic simplicity

2 H

466 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

of Leighton, and the philosophic depth and clearness
of Butler, and fully sensible of the immense advan-
tage which their successors have derived from their
labours, we are disposed to think that there are
writers of the present age, in general more free
from characteristic defects, and uniting, perhaps, a
greater variety of valuable ingredients in the struc-
ture of their composition, * than most of their pre-
decessors. Those who are accustomed to despise
every thing that is modern, and estimate books, to
adopt the keen sarcasm of the Sabine bard, according
to their years, will be apt to demur to this view of
Christian authorship; but we have learnt to abandon
a prejudice generally found to arise, if accurately
investigated, from a feeling of human nature, which
is too reluctant to recognize the claims of contempo-
rary merit.

While, however, we may congratulate ourselves
upon that general purity, manliness, and force, to
which the style of theology, both from the pulpit
and the press, has been carried in our own days,
we have still to lament many prevailing errors and
deficiencies. But, difficult as we find it, both
from observation and humiliating experience, to
arrive at such a conformation of language in the
habitual delivery of sentiment, as would evince
a duly proportioned exercise of all the faculties of
the mind, it is easy to discover the evil which is
liable to result from the predominant sway and
exclusive indulgence of that, whose operations we
arc no^v discussing. The most eminent writer, in
vhom this defect is plainly discernible, and with

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 467

whose valuable works it seems essentially interwoven,
is, doubtless, Jeremy Taylor. In the multifarious
productions of this devout and extraordinary pre-
late, there is so much grandeur of thought, so much
sincerity of purpose, and occasionally so much
transcendent beauty of expression, such richness
of allusion, such felicity of illustration, and such
unaffected pathos, that it is an exercise of self-denial,
a sacrifice at the shrine of truth and usefulness, to
make any reflection upon the embroidery and super-
fluous ornament, in which his thoughts are too gene-
rally arrayed. For this defect, indeed, he has his
apology in the unformed taste of the age in which he
lived, and in the powerful and peculiar construction of
his own mind; but it is unquestionable that, owing to
these circumstances, some of the sentiments dearest
to his heart completely fail of their effect. In his
discourses he appears embellished with such a pro-
fusion of rich and various garniture, fetched from
every region of truth and science, from the field of
classical and heathen literature and the mountain
haunts of the Muses, no less than the hill of Zion,
and the flowery vales of divine Eevelation, that, on a
superficial view, we should be led to question, whether
we had before us a minister of the Christian sanc-
tuary, or a high priest of a Grecian temple oflfering
incense to the divinity of poetry and learning. The
figure must not be strained, but in the writings,
especially in the sermons of this pious prelate, there
is certainly a very undue infusion of fanciful combi-
nation and profane literature. And in some in-
stances may be applied to him, Avith little qualification,

2 H 2

468 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

what Dr. Johnson has said of Akenside's Pleasures
of Imagination: "The reader wanders through the
gay diffusion, sometimes amazed, and sometimes de-
lighted, but after many turnings in the flowery
labyrinth, comes out as he went in. He remarked
little, and laid hold on nothing." We have often
found, with pain and regret, that Avhile perusing some
of the most solemn and affecting of his pieces, some
heathen illustration or allusion was introduced, which,
by associating with the leading idea a train of extra-
neous, and, perhaps, frivolous sentiments, destroyed, or
greatly enfeebled the salutary impression of the whole.
The same observations are applicable, in a less
degree, to the elegant and eminently pious Hervey.
In the style which characterizes the estimable writ-
ings of this amiable and good man. Imagination, it
must be allowed,' is rather unduly predominant. But
this was the path which he chose, and in which he
abundantly succeeded. His talent in this depart-
ment, and the manner in which he exerted it, were
peculiarly his own. Others less richly endowed, or
less regulated and controlled by an exquisite refine-
ment of taste, by attempting to walk in his steps,
have grievously failed*. It is a trite and ordinary
remark, that the corruption of the best thing is the
worst. This is true in nothing more than the imagi-
native style of writing and speaking upon sacred sub-
jects. Wliile a suitable infusion of the powerful
ingredient of imagination gives a vividness, a warmth,

* It is a curious circumstance, recorded by the late learned Dr.
Parr concernino: himself, that, in early life, he formed his style upon
the model of that of Hervey.

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 4G9

and an enkindling glow to a composition; in order to
produce its due effect, it must be sustained and invi-
gorated by other qualities. Standing prominent and
alone, it will either rave into extravagance, amuse
itself with turns and quibbles, or languish into sickli-
ness and imbecility. A man under the uncontrolled
influence of this morbid faculty, and stunning the
ear with one continued peal of high-sounding meta-
phors, puts us in mind of the profane Grecian, who
endeavoured to imitate thunder and lightning, by
driving his chariot over a bridge of brass, and hurling
firebrands around him as he passed. There might be
the sound of the one, and the momentary flash of the
other, but unattended with the electric energy with
which the mighty artillery of nature is propelled.
The tone of declamation falls powerless on the
ear, and the gleam of artificial figures, like the
light of midnight tapers, is cold and cheerless to
the eye: —

" The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,
Falls soporific on the listless ear."

Discourses of this nature are sometimes found to be
so fertile in a gay and perishing efflorescence, but at
the same time so barren of the substantial fruit of
reason and sound sense ; so rich in fragrant decora-
tions culled from the tasty parterres of fancy, that
we are reminded of the banquet of perfumes which
Philip ordered to be elegantly set out in the corner
of the room for the entertainment of a son of iEscu-
lapius, who laid claim to the character of divinity,
and who was therefore justly regarded, by the mo-
narch of Macedon, as above the condition of huma-

470 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

nity requiring material food. Thus, in addresses
from the pulpit, and in essays and dissertations from
the press, we have sometimes to lament the absence
of all that is digestible and nutritive ; and, instead
of the pure waters of the sanctuary immediately con-
veyed to our lips from the reservoir of eternal truth,
are treated only with nicely prepared potions, to
which the flowers of imagination have yielded their
aromatic essence.

From what has been stated in the prosecution of this
inquiry, it appears that imagination, as it is properly
cultivated, regulated, and controlled, or as it is al-
lowed to range without limit, to float on the ocean of
speculation without the ballast of sound principle,
and to plunge into the dark recesses of the invisible
world without the safety-lamp of enlightened and
well-guarded reason, is capable of being directed to
the noblest uses, and of serving the most exalted
ends, or of being perverted to the most dangerous
and pernicious purposes. Unrestrained by sound
wisdom, it has a direct tendency to generate the
phantoms of delusion, to urge the career of extra-
vagance, to extinguish the beams of spiritual conso-
lation, and to enfeeble the energy of truth. An
instrument thus mighty in operation, forming an
element of character inherent in all men, though
unequally manifesting its presence in difl'erent indivi-
duals, like the physical principle of fire existing in
all material bodies, though latent in some, and more
promptly active in others, according to their peculiar

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 471

organizations and radiating powers, it is of the
higliest importance to be able to turn to the best
possible account. Upon the free use and judicious
management of this powerful faculty, it depends,
whether a minister of the sanctuary, adequately en-
dowed and duly qualified in other respects, shall be
a cold, languid, uninteresting, and drily logical expo-
sitor of divine truth: or a wild, enthusiastic innovator,
confounding speculations with principles, flights of
fancy with the sublimities of devotion, and flimsy
combinations of rhetorical figures with strength and
beauty of composition, on the one hand; or whe-
ther, on the other, he shall be an engaging, convinc-
ing, and efiicient labourer, communicating to im-
mortal souls the doctrines, and inculcating the
precepts of the everlasting Gospel. Upon this it
depends whether or not he will appear in the
firmament of the church, in the full-orbed light, and
glowing with the benignant warmth of the sincere
and unaff'ected Christian preacher; whether he will
be a burning and a shining light, a star held forth in
the hand of the Son of Man, to convey the beams of
celestial truth into the golden candlestick of his
church. Upon this it depends, in connexion with
the influences of the Holy Spirit, which are generally
imparted in proportion to the inherent suitableness
and efficiency of the instrumental and subordinate
agency, and Avithout which, all other means are but
like rams' horns directed against the walls of Jericho,
whether he will illustrate, with felicity and success,
what is abstractedly obscure and indistinct; whether
he will enliven, by interesting remark, the otherwise

472 THE USE OF IMAGINATION AS EMPLOYED

tedious details of knowledge and duty; whether he
Avill infuse life into his exhortations, energy into his
appeals, force into his expostulations, and tender
affection into his topics of consolation and encourage-
ment; whether, in short, he will conduct the work of
the ministry, with the co-operating aid of di\'ine
grace, in the manner most consistent with his high
obligations, most satisfactory to his own conscience,
most edifying to his hearers, most conducive to the
salvation of souls, and, what is more than all, to the
advancement of the glory of God.

But not only to the minister of truth is it a mat-
ter of high consideration and importance to cherish
the enlivening and invigorating efforts of Imagina-
tion, while her tendency to aberration and excess
must be rigidly disciplined and restrained, but it also
deeply concerns the growth, and spirituality, and use-
fulness of the private Christian, and the welfare of
the universal church. Because this active power has
been greatly abused and perverted, in common, in-
deed, with every other principle of our nature, some
would have it altogether extinguished, or, at least,
banished from religion, as it has long been from phy-
sical science, into the more congenial regions of
poetry and romance. But surely this is losing sight
of the purposes for which our faculties were given
us. They were bestowed upon us, to be economized
and regulated; not to be cramped, extirpated, and
destroyed. Our mental principles, like the mechani-
cal powers of nature, are all capable of a salutary
direction, and may be usefully employed in the ser-
vice of the great Autlior of our being ; and the hitter

UPON SUBJECTS OF RELIGION. 473

are altogether as liable to perversion as the former.
To exhibit the legitimate use, and to teach the
appropriate application, and, at the same time, to
guard with the utmost care against the abuses and
inordinate excesses of these principles, is the object
of the present investigation, and we venture to hope
that those, who will candidly and attentively peruse
the preceding remarks, will find some useful direc-
tions for this purpose. Let those, therefore, in whom
Imagination is more torpid and inert, call it forth
into exercise, and stir up the gift that is within them,
as one of the noblest endo^vments of their nature.
But let those, in whose intellectual system it assumes
a more active and mercurial form, be equally solici-
tous to repress its extravagances and to ward off its
illusions. Under the firm restraint of reason, and
guided by an enlightened judgment. Imagination
may be suffered to range with advantage over the
extensive provinces of truth. She may cull w^hatever
is elegant in form, and exquisite in taste ; and, soar-
ing upward on the wings of faith, she may ascend to
regions of uncreated hght, and delight herself with
the visions of Eternity.

BOOK V.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGITIMATE USE OF THE AFFECTIONS

IN CONNECTION WITH THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION

UPON THE CHARACTER.

Are Passions, then, the pagans of the soul ?

Reason alone baptized — alone ordained

To touch things sacred ? — O for warmer still ! — Young.

PART I.

THE JUST USE OF THE AFFECTIONS.

Section I.
The Subject op Inquiry stated.

To the most superficial inquirer into the nature and
endowments of man, as a moral and accountable
being, it must be obvious, that those feelings or sen-
sitive affections, which accompany various operations
of his mind, constitute a very important part of his
character*. The mind, however diversified its aspects,
however multiplied its modes of evincing its proper-
ties and of exerting its energies, is one indivisible
substance; and however necessary it be to analyze
what may be considered as its component parts, and
to arrange them into systematic order, for the pur-

* The celebrated Gregory Nyssen mentions it of some, that
they consiilered the heart as the leading part of human nature —
01 (V KapSia TO ^ye^^.ovlKov eivai rtdevrai. — De Offic. Hom. cap. 12.

476 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

pose of a more clear and distinct apprehension of its
general nature, it cannot, we presume, have been
supposed, that the mind is really formed of so many
separate and independent principles, which may be
totally disjoined from each other, and perform their
respective functions in that isolated capacity. The
principle of mind appears, in some measure, to re-
semble that of physical vitality. As animal life dif-
fuses itself throughout the whole bodily system, and
notwithstanding its own individuality, becomes the
means of a great variety of sensations, according to
the quality of the organs which receive the immediate
impressions, so the mental principle, without violating
the essential unity of its character, assumes a multi-
plicity of forms, according to the nature of the objects
upon which it operates; sometimes employing itself
in a process of abstract reasoning, sometimes passing-
its moral verdict in the exercise of the Conscience,
sometimes ranging in imaginative excursions, and
sometimes glowing with intense emotion in the exer-
cise of the several feelings and affections ; sometimes
balancing opinions and probabilities in the judgment,
sometimes recognizing the traces of past and almost
vanished impressions in the memory, and sometimes
acting in the prompt and unconstrained energies of
the Will. But, amidst all this variety of modifica-
tions, who is not aware, that it is one and the same
mind which reasons, and imagines and feels ; Avhich
judges, recollects and wills, corresponding, in many
respects, to the Platonic idea of a universal soul of
the world so exquisitely described in these lines of
Pope : —

THE AFFFXTIONS IN RELIGION. 477

" That, cliangcd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame ;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent."

Or, if we may venture to borrow an illustration from
a more sacred source, we would say, in the language
of St. Paul, " There are diversities of operation, but
the same spirit.''

We deem it of importance, that the absolute
unity and individuality of the human spirit should be
thus clearly laid doAvn, for there is some danger lest
the view of its " disjecta membra," as arranged by
the anatomical hand of the metaphysician, should
give rise to the idea, that it is compounded of so
many elements linked together in order to form a
whole; like the four distinct principles, which the
Epicurean atheist thought quite sufficient to make a
soul. Three of these the ingenious poetical ex-
pounder of that scheme affirms to be strictly material.
Of the fourth, which is the main ingredient in think-
ing, he is forced to confess his ignorance: —

" Quarta quoque his igitur queedam natura necesse est
Attribuatur ; ea est omnino nominis expers."

LucRET., lib. iii.

With the heathen believers in the immortality of the
human soul, or rather with those among them who
ventured to indulge the transporting hope that it
might be immortal, its absolute simplicity, its sup-
posed indivisibility, and, consequently, its freedom
from all liability to corruption and decay, formed
one of the strongest arguments; and however de-

478 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

fective might be their reasoning, through the want
of the light of Revelation, — for it is evident that it
did not prove conclusive and satisfactory to their own
minds, — there can be no doubt that the fact, which
constituted the basis of that reasoning, was founded
in truth.

In order to acquire as accurate a knowledge of
the soul, however, as is compatible with our present
state, it is convenient to view it as possessed of
various distinct faculties; but care must be taken
that, in this analysis of the parts, we do not lose
sight of the unity of the principle. To obtain a
correct view of the structure of the human body, it
is not enough to take a superficial survey of its
exterior; it is not enough to observe it generally
as a whole: but its constituent members must be
separated from each other; its interior must be
examined; the several muscles and ligaments of
every limb must be minutely inspected ; every organ
must be noticed apart, its connection and relation
to other organs investigated, and its various uses
discovered. But after this process of dissection, it
is necessary to contemplate the whole frame in its
united and related capacity, The analogy which
thus subsists between mind and body, and is per-
fectly legitimate to a certain extent, has, we think,
been carried much too far in some metaphysical
systems. The phraseology of the operating theatre
and the laboratory has been so lil)erally employed
in the examination of the powers of the mind, as if
the intellectual principle A\as a system of material
organization to be separated, or of chemical ele-

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 479

ments to be decomposed. But in this curious, and,
within due limits, useful and necessary analysis, it
appears rather remarkable that so little attention
has been paid to the faculty of feeling or affection*.
These surely constitute as essential, and important
a part of the human mind as those of Reason, Ima-
gination, Memory, and Judgment. To overlook
these in a system of intellectual and mental philo-
sophy, in a professed survey of the world of the
human soul, seems to be as great a defect as if a
treatise on anatomy confined its researches to the
description of the head, the brain, and the ex-
tremities of the system, while it left the heart, — the
central and most influential part of the whole, as
connected with the health and activity of the body, —
altogether untouched. Such a performance might
exhibit a very accurate detail of the matter, the
form, the linear divisions, and cellular vessels of the
brain, and subjoin a phrenological disquisition upon
every external protuberance of the cranium. It
might present a very distinct outline of the general
system, and show the mutual dependencies subsisting
between various parts of the frame ; but who would
deem it a complete manual of the science, if it left
wholly untouched, or but transiently noticed, the
important anatomy of the heart? We maintain,

* In Dr. Brown's splendid and comprehensive work, this depart-
ment of the Mind is more fully investigated than in most preceding
treatises of Metaphysics. He has viewed the human mind under
its two distinguishing characteristics, as presenting intellectual
states and emotions, in accordance with the following statement of
Cicero : " Est enim animus in partes distributus duas, quarum
altera rationis est particeps j altera expers." — Quces. Fuse, lib. iii.

480 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

that sensitive Affections, as distinct from Reason and
Imagination, Will and Conscience, constitute as
essential and natural a part of the philosophy of
mind, as the systole and diastole of the heart, and
tlie circulation of the blood, fall within the sphere of
anatomical science.

One of the reasons, probably, why this circum-
stance has been so little regarded, and why the
heart has been so greatly neglected by those who
have been engaged in analyzing the powers of the
mind, is, that the sensitive affections are generally
considered as more closely connected with the body,
and as forming a subordinate part of human nature,
and, therefore, as hardly entitled to the dignity of
mental principles. That the feelings of the heart
are very closely associated with the state of the
body; that there is a powerful reciprocal influence
carried on between them; that they respectively
reflect much of their character upon each other,
cannot be denied. But of the sublimest and most
refined operations of the understanding, it may be
unquestionably affirmed, that they are greatly de-
pendent upon the system of the material organi-
zation, with which they are more immediately con-
versant. We are not aware that, in the present
state of man, he can form a single idea, or exert one
faculty, without the instrumental aid of the corporeal
apparatus, which has been provided for him. And,
doubtless, much of the energy of mind, much of the
striking disparity observable in different individuals,
results from the varied degrees of activity and suit-
ableness as belonging to tliese physical engines. It

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 481

is readily granted, however, that sensitive affection
belongs to a lower order of mental operations, that
it is often most active in those persons who are least
refined in understanding, and that it is more liable to
be abused and perverted, than those exercises of pure
intellect, which stand at a wider distance from the
line of practical conduct.

But surely Feeling, as an exercise of the heart,
cannot be considered less a mental operation, than
the various acts of external perception, the use of
the five senses; the nature of the ideas commu-
nicated by which has employed the elaborate
investigation of one of the most distinguished
inquirers into the principles of the human mind.
Dr. Reid, doubtless, conceived himself to be ranging
Avithin the legitimate province of mind, when he
prosecuted with so much ardour the discussion of
the doctrine of ideas, as connected with common
sense. That he most grossly mistook the meaning
of the term idea, as used by Locke, and has been
followed by most of his disciples in the mistake, we
have always been inclined to think. That the pro-
found author of the Essay of Human Understanding
never intended to attribute a real and independent
existence to ideas, but that he merely considered
them as modes or instruments of thinking, must be
obvious to any one, who will read him with candour
and discernment. What perverse use infidels may
have made of his notions, and what extravagant
theories they have built upon them, is quite another
question, and ought to be met upon its own ground.
But it is impossible not to feel the injustice which

2 I

482 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

has been done to that great philosopher, in ascribing
an absurd meaning to his words, which he obviously
never designed to attach to them^'.

Every perception and affection belonging to a
human being, whether seated in the head or the
heart, are properly acts of the mind. The chief
difference is, that the latter is attended with a
livelier and more tumultuous emotion, either of
pain or pleasure, of joy or sorrow. It is what
Hume would have called an impression in opposi-
tion to the more calm and abstract operations of
the intellect, which he termed ideas. We would
have it distinctly understood, that by affections, as
about to be employed in this Inquiry, we mean not
that varied emotion, which arises from the actual
and immediate exercise of the outward senses, such
as accompanies the use of the power of vision, or
the touch. But we mean those feelings of the mind
which are excited by views of the understanding or
representations of the imagination, — such as love to
an object, which is conceived to be beautiful and
attractive ; or the fear of a danger, which is known,
from unimpeachable testimony, to be dreadful and
imminent. The English language does not supply a

* The author has since read with great delight the masterly
vindication of Locke, against the mistakes and pretended confuta-
tions of Dr. Reid and his followers by Dr, Brown. It is perfectly
astonishing, as that eloquent writer truly remarks, that the northern
philosopher, in addition to his real merits, which were great, should
so long have had the imaginary merit allowed him, of having made
a discovery in the science of mind, which, to use the strong language
of another distinguished countryman of Dr. Reid, — the Rev. Edward
Irving, originated in a '' great blunder."

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 483

term wliicli precisely answers to this idea ; for sen-
sation and affection are too vague and indistinct to
express it, the former generally applied to an im-
pression produced by the immediate operation of the
bodily organs, and the latter in its more usual
acceptation designative of the simple emotion of
love. The Germans use the term aesthetics, though
not generally applied by them to religious emotions
or perceptions, to convey an idea of those feelings of
the soul, which form, as it were, the connecting link
between body and mind.

We may advantageously consider the faculties
of the human mind as applicable to the various doc-
trines and obligations of religion. Eeason, as stand-
ing uppermost in the mental scale, is most suitably
employed in investigating the general principles, in
scanning the evidences, in estimating the import-
ance, in removing the difficulties, in harmonizing the
apparent discrepancies, and in demonstrating the
truth of religion. The Conscience is concerned with
moral relations and requirements. The Will may
be regarded as more peculiarly connected with the
exercise of a cheerful submission to the divine
authority, and a free and unrestrained obedience
to the divine commands. Imagination being a
livelier and more excursive faculty, and less con-
trolled by the rigid laws of logical precision and
argumentation than the first of these faculties, de-
lights in exhibiting the beauty and loveliness of
religion ; in presenting her to the vicAv in the most
impressive, engaging, and attractive forms; in
clotliing her with a lustre reflected from every

2 I 2

484 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

tiling that is fair and excellent in the whole range
of nature — in the whole firmament of knowledge;
in recommending her to the understanding and
the heart, by all that Eeason can approve, by all
that prudence can dictate, by all that fear can
apprehend, by all that hope can anticipate, and
all that faith can realize and substantiate within
the confines of the invisible world, and through-
out the evolutions of eternity. But to give eff'ect
to the demonstrations of Reason, the decisions
of the AYill, the verdict of the Conscience, and the
splendid lights of Imagination, deep and fervent
Affection of heart must lend her aid. The office of
Reason is to strengthen the outworks, and to guard
the citadel of truth ; that of Imagination is to adorn
and embellish the various passages and entrances
Avhich lead to her presence-chamber, the place of her
permanent abode. But devout Aff'ection is the inner
sanctuary, Avhere she dwells ; the pavilion, in which
she delights to repose, and from Avhich she sends
forth the energy of her influence throughout every
department of her legitimate dominions. Each one
of these functions is highly important in itself, and
is obviously designed and admirably suited to meet
the peculiar character and exigencies of human
nature, nor do we wish, in any degree, to elevate the
office and importance of one faculty, to the injury
and depreciation of another.

In the former parts of this work we have investi-
gated, at some length, the legitimate use of Reason,
Will, the Conscience, and the Imagination, in their
relation to the subject of religion. It remains, that

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 485

we should institute a similar investigation into the
general warrant — the expediency and legitimate ex-
tent of Feeling, as forming an element or component
part of the Christian character. On this, as well as
on every other question of religion, a great diversity
of opinion has prevailed. Some would banish the
sensitive aflPections altogether from the territory of
truth, as aliens intruding into a domain, which they
are not authorized or qualified to enter. They re-
gard feeling as a drossy ingredient in the character
of religion, as a frothy effervescence, invariably
symptomatic of a state of unwholesome fermenta-
tion. Others, accustomed to dwell in a warmer lati-
tude, regard the researches of reason and the deduc-
tions of sound argument, as too cold and cheerless
for the interesting realities of religion, and deem the
sallies of imagination too light and airy for the gra-
vity and simplicity of the Christian faith. They
therefore place the sum and substance of religion in
the ardour and energy of feeling ; and as the strength
and spirit of a liquid are frequently estimated by the
vehemence of its tendency to expand and explode,
they measure the validity of the religious principle
by the internal tumultuation which it creates, and
the impetuosity with which it occasionally bursts
forth. It is our aim, in these discussions, to hold
the balance between extremes of every kind, to give
every leading faculty its full play, to give every ele-
ment of mind its appropriate range of action, and,
by combining their operations in due proportion, to
exhibit an order of character, in which no endowment
should injuriously preponderate, but that all, mutually

486 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

sustaining and sustained, enlightening and enlight-
ened, animating and animated in return, might pre-
sent, in delightful hannony and union, the strength
and manliness of Reason, the unfettered freedom,
but, at the same time, the invariable steadiness and
uniformity of the Will, the soundness of a well regu-
lated Conscience, the vigour and liveliness of Imagi-
nation, and all the fervency and earnestness of the
most ardent Affection. This, we are persuaded, is
the scriptural x^lan. When the inspired writers set
before us the example of a character deserving our
imitation, and claiming our regard, they do not hold
forth to our view " the fragments of a soul immor-
tal,"— one energetic quality standing out with an ill-
proportioned and almost distressing prominency,
appearing to overwhelm and annihilate every other
endowment equally necessary in its place. But with
them, knowledge and zeal, reason and faith, imagina-
tion and aifection, are severally made to fill the out-
line, and to complete the harmony of the system. It
is only in the narrowness of artificial plans, and of
human schemes of religion, that these principles
are found to clash with each other. In that Avhich
Jehovah has set before us, they have abundant room
to expand and unfold themselves, without in the
slightest degree interfering with the movements of
each other. The very symmetry of the human frame
would lead us to the same conclusion. The very
balance of the human constitution, in all other re-
spects, would teach us the same doctrine. And
whenever there is found a great and striking devia-
tion from this rule, it is invariably regarded as a
monstrous specimen of humanity.

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION 487

Pursuing the same mode of discussion in general,
as Ave have adopted in the former Parts, we shall first
endeavour' to show the necessity and importance of
the affections, as connected with the subject of reli-
gion; and then notice some of the evils and mistakes
liable to arise from the excessive indulgence, or from
erroneous views of sensitive Emotion, as a constituent
of the Christian character.

Section II.

Sensitive Affection originally intended to be employed

IN THE service OP RELIGION.

1. With a vieAv to the elucidation of the first branch
of this argument, we may remark, that all the ele-
ments of the human character, that all the mental
as weU as physical ingredients, which enter into the
nature of man, of which sensitive affection forms an
important portion, were originally designed to be
mainly employed in the service of Jehovah. AVhy,
then, is it that many persons so greatly object to the
use and necessity of feeling, in the performance of
the duties of religion ? It cannot be their mere lia-
bility to abuse and perversion; for the very same
objection might be urged against the use of Eeason
and every other faculty of mind. What power of
man, in his present corrupt and degraded state, is not
continually abused ? And if we are to withdraw from
the service of religion every principle which is capable
of perversion, we shall speedily rob her of all her

488 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

subjects, and count them as rebels, unworthy of being
admitted into her confidence. Reason often degene-
rates into scepticism, Will into caprice, Conscience
into passion, and Imagination into extravagance and
romance ; and the active energies of man into instru-
ments of impiety and profaneness. Upon the plea of
abuse, therefore, we have the very same ground for
excluding these from the pale of religion ; and the
result will be the expulsion of all religion from the
world. This, however, we do not conceive to be the
real ground of the objection. It appears more
natural to suppose that it arises from a distaste, a
disinclination, amounting, in some cases, to absolute
hatred, directed against religion itself. When an
object is contemplated at a distance, as a matter of
mere speculation, it is comparatively of little conse-
quence whether it be congenial or obnoxious to the
mind. If it is only required to believe its existence,
and to acknowledge certain general facts relating to
its character; if, moreover, it be enjoined to go
through a routine of outward performances, in order
to avert a train of dangers and evils which it
threatens, and to secure an order of advantages
which it holds forth, — if this be the whole amount of
the connection which it is to have with the character;
if it claims no nearer access to the sanctuary of the
heart, it is deemed a point of indifference what may
be tlie real principles and elements, of which it is
composed. Though it were, in its own nature, in the
highest degree offensive to the mind, yet, under the
influence of the apparent necessity of the case, there
would be, for the most part, a readiness to yield this

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 489

external and distant homage. This would be deemed
the wisest and safest measure. Nor would such a
superficial recognition require any sacrifice of for-
mer feelings and predilections. But if the matter is
to be brought into closer contact with the character ;
if an entrance is demanded for it into the hidden man
of the heart ; if it must mingle Avith the whole stream
of the affections, and exert a predominant influence
in the regulation and direction of their course, then
the case is essentially diff'erent. Then, if the indivi-
dual be sensible of a strong indisposition to make
such a surrender of his feelings to the object, and yet
the necessity of it strongly enforced upon him, it is
obvious that his most violent opposition and enmity
will be called forth. Such ai)pears to be the state of
feeling in a large portion of manldnd towards the
important subject of religion. They are, by nature,
not only destitute of all inherent propensity towards
it; •they are not only without any antecedent predi-
lection for its services; but they are actuated by
emotions of powerfid and positive hostility against
it, whenever it is recommended to their acceptation,
and inculcated as a paramount duty upon their con-
sciences. Their hearts are pre-engaged by other
objects; and, therefore, contract with icy antipathy
whenever its claims to their regard are enforced.
As they are experimentally acquainted with none of
those warm and glowing emotions, of those animat-
ing hopes and ardent aspirations, which religion,
received into the heart, never fails to awaken, they
labour to steel themselves into a comdction, that it
is a question which stands wholly isolated from the

490 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

feelings; and that it requires nothing more than an
intellectual assent to certain theological tenets, and a
decent discharge of the most ostensible and promi-
nent duties of life. By this means, they escape the
condemnation of their own consciences ; delude them-
selves into a lulling security; and, at the same time,
are allowed to yield their affections to those objects
of frivolity or dissipation, to which they had been
hitherto accustomed. This appears to be the main
ground of the reluctance with which many persons
admit the heart into a participation in the blessings
and privileges, the genuine fruits and graces of the
Gospel, as flourishing in the soil of a renewed mind
— their consciousness of being utterly destitute of
these affections and their desire still to retain their
present habits and predilections.

A capacity of feeling, or of being actuated by the
several emotions of joy and sorrow, of fear and
love, of hatred and delight, constitutes a primary
and elementary power in the nature of man. This
faculty is the most active and influential of all the
principles of his moral being. It is the main source
of his happiness and misery. It is the most keenly
alive, the most susceptible of impression, in the
whole order of his mental capacities. The intellect
is often tardy in its movements, dull in its appre-
hensions, and languid in its operations. The Ima-
gination, the Will, the Memory, and the Judgment,
are not unfrequently dormant, and fail to perform
with suitable energy their various appropriate func-
tions. But feeling, like the phosphoric taper, is
ready to kindle at the slightest touch.

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 491

As the depravity, consequent upon the fall, took
its strongest position in the heart, and spread its
most destructive ravages, its most disastrous effects,
its most ruinous desolation, . through the province of
the affections ; as the heart is the central i)oint from
which sin's pestilential vapours flow forth in every
direction; as it is the fountain of bitterness — the
dead sea, from which a thousand streams of corrupt
effluvia are constantly rising up and tainting the
whole atmosphere of the soul ; as it is the hostile
camp, which forms the rendezvous of every rebel
passion that lifts its standard of enmity and war
against the Majesty of heaven and the legitimate
Sovereign of earth, — -we may fairly presume, that in
its original state, it constituted the loveliest portion
of our nature. It was the bright spot, upon which
the eye of Heaven dwelt with most complacency,
amidst a scene that was all beauteous and magni-
ficent. Ardent love to the beneficent Author of his
being was the most brilliant gem in that star of
glory, which blazed upon the heart of man. But
when that star fell, when the glory departed, and
Ichabod became the fit emblem to mark the turn of
our destiny, no where did the catastrophe prove more
fatal; no where did the ruin appear more complete;
no where did the moral darkness which succeeded,
assume a form of deeper and more settled gloom
than in the heart. The understanding retains some-
what of its original brightness. Eeason is not
wholly extinct. The intellectual faculties in general,
even in their fallen and ruined condition, may be
raised by a course of discipline and education to

492 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

a considerable degree of elevation. The mind may
be so expanded by reading and reflection as to form
theoretic views of divine truth not far from correct.
But the heart has received a deeper wound, and
labours under a more incurable distemper — a dis-
temper, which nothing short of the power of the
Omnipotent can effectually remove ; and one of the
worst symptoms of which is, that it has become
hardened into a stony insensibility to its own dis-
eased condition.

But, because the heart has sunk into this state
of moral impotence, wretchedness, and gloom, and
become the seat of a carnal mind, which is enmity
against God, are we, therefore, to conclude that it
was originally created with these qualities belong-
ing to it, — that it was designed to be the residence
of such inmates as now possess it, and that it is
proper it should always continue the abode of
degrading passions, instead of the sanctuary of
holy love and truth? Such a notion must surely
be inconsistent with the original plan, and with
the final end of our existence. For what were we
made? Why was a heart capable of loving and
fearing placed in our bosom? Why was the glow
of ardent affection ever kindled in our breast ?
Does not the possession of every capacity imply
that there is an object, upon which it may be
usefully and legitimately exercised, and, in the
enjoyment of which, it may receive its appro-
priate gratification ? Nature suggests, Scripture de-
clares, reason demonstrates, that we were made
to serve and enjoy our Creator. Non nohis nati

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 493

sininis — wc were not born out of tlie womb of
nothing for ourselves. We were endowed Avitli the
powers of feeling and affection, as well as of under-
standing that we possess, for the purpose of exerting
and laying them out upon Him, who is their alone
adequate and. satisfactory object. jN'or can we easily
conceive a more preposterous and absurd idea, than
that man should be required to knoAV and recognize
his Maker with the powers of his understanding, and
practically serve and obey him in the diligent and
uniform observance of those laws of conduct, which
he has prescribed, while the heart is to stand apart
at a cheerless distance from him, never to glow Avith
the rapture of his love, nor to expand with swelling
emotions of the grandeur and magnificence of his
character. Such a separation of light and warmth
from each other; such a disruption of the ties by
which man is most strongly bound to the Author of
his being; such a disorganization of the system, in
which the wheels of external conduct are closely
connected with, and entirely dependent upon, the
spring of motion in the heart; such a confusion of
powers thrown out of their mutual relation and sub-
serviency to each other, indicates an utter forgetful-
ness of that simplicity and harmony, which naturally
marked the whole machinery of the human character.
Considering our universal dependency upon Jehovah,
and the original subordination of all our faculties of
mind and body to his glory; regarding him as the
centre, to which all our powers should tend, as the
ocean, from which the streams of our enjoyments
flow, and to which the streams of our gratitude and

494 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

obedience should return^ we see no imaginable reason
that can be assigned, why the affections should not
be called forth in his service in all their energy and
force, — why feeling should be dead unto Him, and
to the transcendent concerns, which revelation and
religion have unfolded to our view, while it is alive
to every meaner object, and ready to burst into a
flame under the influence of the most trifling earthly
excitement. What a strange and unaccountable
economy must that have been, which should have
exempted man from the duty of supremely loving
and fearing the God by whom he was made ! Under
such circumstances, we may conceive his Creator
thus to address him : " You are peremptorily required
to know me; you are bound to employ your powers
of understanding in contemplating my character, in
investigating the laws of my creation, and in sur-
veying the monuments of my power ; you are impe-
ratively enjoined to keep my commandments, to
frame the whole system of your conduct with a strict
correspondence to my written law; you are to be
regular and precise in the observance of the external
duties and ceremonies of religion; you are to go
through, with mechanical accuracy, the whole range
of ritual performances. But, as for the movements
of your hearts, as to that busy play of feelings and
aff'ections, which takes place within you; as to that
powerful impulse of sensitive emotions, by which
you are liable to be irresistibly driven onward, these
things are to me a matter of indifference. Your
hearts may freeze into apathy, or dissolve under the
melting influence of worldly objects. Your aficc-

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 495

tions may be wrapped up in the dormancy of absolute
insensibility, or they may unfold at the attraction,
and be roused at the call of other applicants. To my
service they are aliens, and tend only to create a
needless and inconvenient disturbance."

Such, in the very best view of it, would be a sys-
tem of moral government, from which the sensitive
affections should be excluded. The disorders which
would necessarily ensue under such a government we
need not point out. They must be obvious to every
considerate mind.

But not only is man naturally endowed with those
susceptibilities of feeling and affection which in a
peculiar manner qualify him for a subject of moral
government, but there is, moreover, in the character
and administration of Jehovah, as exhibited on the
page of Scripture, and as developed in the course
of his providence, a remarkable suitableness to call
forth and engage those powers. It is impossible,
indeed, that the heart of man should be properly
affected, that internal sensation should duly cor-
respond with the state of things, with the views of
the understanding, with the dictates of the judgment,
with the dangers and obligations of the present time,
and with the varied prospects of futurity, without an
order of sentiments and emotions being called forth
of a most profound and impressive nature. One of
the most powerful and active sensations of which
the mind of man is capable, is that of Love. And
what can be better calculated to awaken this tender
and energetic feeling, and to fan it into a flame, to
rouse it into the highest degree of concentrated

496 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

force and intensity, than those marvellous manifes-
tations of divine goodness which are dis^^lajed in
providence and grace? It is the established order
of nature, it is an original law in the constitution of
the human mind, and continually developed in the
exercise of human feelings, that love should create
love. This affection is, of all others, the most con-
tagious and reciprocal; and where there is no pre-
vious antipathy, where there is no diametrical oppo-
sition of character, no collision of feeling upon every
point of importance, it is impossible that the view
of kindness, generosity, and benignity, should not
in some measure kindle it in the soul. The reason
why mankind in general are not more strongly
actuated by this devout affection towards God is, that
such antecedent hostility against him is in malignant
operation in their souls ; that a root of bitter enmity
to his character, his attributes, and the whole order
of his government, has sprung up in their hearts,
rendering any reciprocation of kindly feeling in such
a state of things utterly impossible. But when that
deadly plant has been rooted up, Avhen the enmity of
the carnal mind has been slain, and a principle of
enlightened, lively, and operative faith has been in-
troduced into the heart in its stead, then the smile of
divine beneficence is attended with its appropriate
and congenial effect. With a mind thus purified from
the old leaven of malice, with a heart thus regene-
rated and transformed*, now rendered susceptible of

* Totuin ciiiiii Cor in lug quatuor affectionibus est, et dc his
accipieuduni puto quod dicitur, ut in toto cordo tuo convortaris ad
Dominum. Couvcrtatur Amor tuus, ut nihil omuino diligas nisi

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 497

the genuine impressions of Jehovali's character, and
accessible to those benign influences, against which
it was hitherto closed in impenetrable hardness and
insensibility, who can look around him and expatiate
over the wide field of divine goodness and compas-
sion, and not feel the emotions of affectionate admi-
ration and glowing gratitude rising up within him ?
While he sends his thoughts backward, and endea-
vours to penetrate the depth of that eternity, in
which the counsels of Jehovah's peace and love
towards man are inscrutably and unfathomably con-
cealed; while he glances at the incipient develop-
ment of these merciful designs, and views the orient
beams of creation breaking forth amidst the darkness
and vacuity of boundless space, and man selected to
be an object of the special regard of his Maker;
while he witnesses the dismal catastrophe of the fall,
and perceives Jehovah, unsolicited and uncalled,
except by the tender accents of his own mercy,
stepping forward to obviate its e^dls, and, by an effu-
sion of loving-kindness, which will be a theme of joy
and adoration throughout eternity, raising the pro-
spective condition of man into a nobler elevation, in
consequence of the very fall which he had experi-
enced; while he travels through the successive stages
of time, and notices the gradual evolution of the plan

Ipsnm aut certe propter psum. Convertatur etiam ad Ipsum Timor
tuus, quia perversus est timor oranis, quo metuis aliquid praeter eum
aut non propter eum. Sic et Gaudium tuum et Tristitia seque con-
vertatur ad ipsum. Quid enim perversum magis quam IjEtari, cum
malefeceris, et in rebus pessimis exultare ] — Bernard. Serm. ii.
De Conversione.

2 K

498 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

of redeeming love until it has reached its crisis in
the pathetic scene of the incarnation, sufferings, and
death of the only begotten Son of God; while, with
the eye of faith, he looks forward to the eventful
consequences of this amazing transaction, and soars
upward to the bright abode of the Eternal, to witness
the blissful consummation of the system, of which
his wisdom and love laid the foundation; while he
allows his thoughts to range over this rich and
widely extended scene — a scene, the noblest and
most glorious which can engage the admiring con-
templation of mortal man, nay, of an immortal spirit,
is it possible that, to use the language of the two
disciples, his heart should not burn within him? We
can have no sympathy with the man; we cannot,
upon any principle of Christian consistency, under-
stand the mental constitution of him, who, professing
to believe all these things, will maintain that religion
has not to do, most materially to do, with the affec-
tions. What must be the state of that heart, which,
under an economy established for the special good of
man, can contemplate " love without end, and with-
out measure grace," and yet retain the cold-blooded
apathy of the most perfect indifference and uncon-
cern, while the unnatural and death-like quietude,
disguising a real hostility, is at one time called by
the name of philosophy, and at another, by that of
reason and good sense? If this be philosophy, then
must wisdom be excluded from the heart; if this be
good sense, then must gratitude cease to feel. Upon
this principle every axiom of moral science must be
overthrown. The whole order of human motives

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 499

must be inverted. While the smallest kindness is
allowedly entitled to a feeling of kindly regard in
return, the greatest can lay claim to none. Grati-
tude and love must lessen, in proportion to the mag-
nitude of their exciting cause, until, at last, they are
absolutely annihilated, and evaporate in airy specu-
lation and verbal acknowledgment.

Fear is another affection naturally implanted in
the human breast, and, under due regulation and
management, is calculated to exert a powerful and
salutary influence in the formation of the Christian
character. AVliile the attributes of Deity, and the
principles of His government, are such as tend, in
the highest degree, to attract the love and gratitude
of his innocent and obedient creatures, and while
these are the feelings, doubtless, most prevalent and
influential among them, yet, to beings situated as we
are, a filial and reverential fear is a very useful and
necessary appendage. And if the goodness of God
is such as must infallibly engage the love of those,
whose hearts can duly appreciate it; so his severity,
as displayed in his threatenings, as embodied in his
law, and as frequently exhibited in the infliction of
deserved punishment upon those, who rose in open
rebellion against Him, is equally calculated to excite
the awe and apprehension of mankind. The terrors
of the Lord St. Paul considers a legitimate topic of
ministerial expostulation. To wield this powerful
weapon with suitable effect, to use it with such well-
guarded force as to render it " mighty through God
to the pulling down of strong holds," without in-
flicting unseemly wounds upon the living stones of

2 K 2

500 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

the spiritual temple, requires indeed much prudence,
experience, and skill; but in a tender, cautious, and,
at the same time, energetic hand, it is of the highest
utility and importance.

It is remarked by the profound and admirable
Bishop Butler, " that reflections of this kind are not
without their terrors to serious persons, the most free
from enthusiasm, and of the greatest strength of
mind. But it is fit that things be stated and consi-
dered as they really are; and there is in the present
age a certain fearlessness with regard to what may
be hereafter under God's government, which nothing
but an absolute demonstration on the side of Atheism
can justify, and which makes it quite necessary that
men be reminded, and if possible, made to feel that
there is no sort of ground for being thus presump-
tuous." Wlien, indeed, we consider the present cha-
racter and future prospects of man; when Ave bear in
mind that he is guilty, polluted, and depraved; that
his soul is a wilderness of moral desolation, over
which the fire of divine anger would pass with con-
suming force, unless it was restrained by the control-
ling influence of His grace and love ; when we reflect
that he is under the government, and is to receive
his destiny at the hand of a God, w^ho is omnipotent
in power and inflexible in justice, as well as infinite
in compassion and love ; it is, indeed, astonishing
that a human being should exist, who shoidd dare to
lift up the front of presumption and to wave the ban-
ner of rebellion against heaven. It is wonderful, not
merely that man should be altogether uninfluenced
by this consideration, but that he should ever be

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 501

exempt from it. Fear assuredly becomes a being,
who is guilty, and has no absolute security, except
so far as he has ground to believe that he has made
a transition to a new and covenanted relation unto
God, that he shall be finally acquitted ; who is sur-
rounded with dangers, and yet is impotent to avert
them : who has an interest at stake, the duration and
importance of which the years of eternity will be
too short to calculate. TVho can duly reflect upon
these things, and not feel that the sensation of fear
has been wisely implanted in the breast of man, and
that directed to sin and its consequences, as the most
dreadful of all evils, and mingled with gratitude and
reverential affection, as it regards the great Sove-
reign of the Universe, it was designed to be his
preservative from danger, the shield of his protec-
tion, and the palladium of his safety ?

As man in his present state is enveloped in doubt
and uncertainty; as he can realize but an indistinct
vision of his prospects, through the mist of futurity,
which overshadows them, Hope acquires a great
importance in the history of his character, and is as
an angel sent doAvn from heaven to walk by his side,
to conduct his steps through the wilderness, and to
lift up her exhilarating torch to cheer him amidst the
gloom with which he is surrounded. It is with re-
luctance, that he ever allows this choice companion
to abandon him, and it is not until every calculation
has been baffled, every effort failed, and every fair
probability of deliverance or success has vanished,
that he suffers himself to be precipitated into the
dungeon of dark despair. What too frequently in-

502 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

volves him in misery and disappointment, however,
is, that instead of cherishing the hope, which came
doAvn from heaven, and whose guiding light would
have conducted him to heavem, he attaches himself
to those illusive images, which, like the luminous
exhalations of marsh-ground, can only embarrass him
and enveigle his steps. In the character of Jehovah,
as formed of every combination of moral excellency,
as uniting in itself every thing, which not only can
awaken love and excite fear, but also encourage con-
fidence, and in the Gospel, as an economy of grace,
there is a hope set before him, which can neither
deceive nor disappoint him ; which can neither raise
his expectations too high, nor will suffer his appre-
hensions to sink too low. It is by this means that
the balance of the human mind is maintained, that
the equipoise of the character is preserved; that
while the sea of danger is rough, while the waves of
discouragement rise high, there may be a principle
within, which, by taking anchorage upon the immo-
vable rock of the divine promises, may keep the
vessel above water, and secure its stability amidst
the storm. The character and prospective circum-
stances of man, connected with those aids and sup-
ports which are pledged in the promises of God, are
so accurately and remarkably proportioned, and so
mutually adapted to each other, as to inspire hope,
without engendering presumption. The highest in
the scale of Christian attainment, can seldom rise
higher than the full assurance of hope ; and lie wlio
is yet at the foot of the hill is not debarred some of
its consolations. Like the early traveller, he is

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 503

cheered by some golden streaks of the morning sun
resting upon the acclivities before him, and these
afford him an encouraging presage of the splendour
of the noonday light. It is a distinguishing feature
of Christian hope, that it continues firm and immo-
vable amidst all the changes and perturbations of
life. It has a steadiness which resists the impression
of every gale; it has a buoyancy which enables it to
rise superior to every wave. How great, therefore,
must be the dreariness and desolation of that breast,
how lonely must be the gloom of that heart, which is
a stranger to this hope ! If Alexander, when he had
distributed all his possessions, still thought himself
rich in the possession of a hope, which was dependent
upon the issue of sieges and battles, upon the vicissi-
tudes of fortune and aU the contingencies of war,
how secure, how affluent may lie regard himself, who
has all that is immutable in Jehovah for the founda-
tion of his hope, who has all that is comprised in the
unsearchable riches of Christ as the inventory of his
promised wealth !

A modification of feeling closely allied to hope,
but more vehement in its operations, and generally
directed to objects of speedier gratification, is that
of Desire. When this sensation is strong and impe-
tuous, it is attended with a degree of uneasiness
until its object is attained. The channels, in which
the streams of this affection flow, are regulated for
the most part by the views entertained of the chief
sources of happiness. The worldly man places his
delight in those objects, to which his constitutional
habits or his circumstances naturally incline him.

504 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

Towards these, therefore, his desires mainly flow.
In these he expects satisfaction; nor is the repeated
testimony of experience sufficient to remove the illu-
sion, to correct the aberration, under which he
labours, and to convince him that, in these, satisfac-
tion is not to be found. There is in the human soul
a capacity of enjoyment, an amplitude of intellectual
and moral dimensions, with which no earthly object
fully corresponds. Hence there is a continual sense
of vacuity experienced in the breast: there is always
an indistinct idea, some obscure apprehension of a
fulness of happiness, which has never yet been real-
ized. With those who have almost every source of
worldly gratification at their nod, this perpetual
craving after something, of which they can only feel
the want, but cannot form a clear conception,
assumes the character of more frequent disappoint-
ment. In such cases life is little else than a mono-
tonous iteration, a never-varying succession of eager
desires and peevish dissatisfactions. These, like the
alternate movements of light and shade, form the
chequer-work of a large portion of human existence.

But when the eyes of the understanding have
been illumined from above, when the immortal [spirit
has been taught its own origin and destiny, its
predominant inclinations and propensities experience
an entire and almost universal change. The subor-
dinate and multiform desires, by which it was pro-
pelled in an endless variety of directions, are turned
like so many minor and diverging streams into one
grand channel. The different forces, by which the
Will was torn and distracted, arc concentrated into

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 505

one mighty force and coalesce into one great energy,
which carries the soul upward to Jehovah himself as
the alone adequate portion. In his character there
are resources which are more than commensurate
with the utmost demands and exigencies of human
nature. It was not without reason, therefore, nor
without abundant encouragement, that the Psalmist
declared that his desire was toward the Lord his God.
When we speak of Jehovah as an object of desire
and a portion to his people, we use language familiar
to the volume of revelation, and with slight modifi-
cation, not infrequently employed by the more intel-
lectual and refined among the heathen philosophers.
The more enlightened and elevated schools of mo-
rality and even of superstition have always regarded
Him as the chief good, conscious as they were of the
inadequacy of all inferior objects; and many of
them, especially the comprehensive and wide-spread
system of Brahminical theology, represent mankind
as rising by successive gradations of spiritualization
and abstraction until they are ultimately absorbed in
Him — until, like refluent rays, they are completely
swallowed up in the sun, from which they first ema-
nated. These erroneous but sublime conceptions are
doubtless to be regarded as faint reflections of that
glorious fact developed and illustrated in Scripture,
that the human soul is a stranger upon earth, meets
here no objects fully equal to its capacities, and,
where it has been rencAved and sanctified by grace,
has a strong and continual tendency to rise to a
loftier scene, to breathe a purer atmosphere, and to
regain its native seat, and to find a completeness, a

606 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

permanence of bliss in the bosom of its Father and
its God. The devout Psahnist of Israel had so deep
an impression of this truth, he had so exalted an idea
of the unfathomable depth, of the boundless magni-
tude of the happiness resulting from the fruition of
God, that he does not hesitate to avow Him to be
the whole of his hope and the whole of his desire.
And the Apostle of the Gentiles appears to have
been actuated by the very same idea, when he uttered
the fervent and affectionate prayer, that his Christian
brethren, to whom he Avas writing, might be filled
with all the fulness of God. In Jehovah, therefore,
the desires of his faithful servants meet as in their
centre, terminate as in their end, and rest as having
attained the utmost felicity which a human being is
capable of enjoying.

We shall mention but one more species of sensi-
tive feeling as a constituent of the nature of man,
and required to enter as an ingredient into the
formation of the Christian character. When we
speak of Hatred as an element in that character, it
will not be supposed that' we mean to represent
this affection as essential under all circumstances
to the service of God, or as in any way exercised
towards Jehovah himself. As we regard a capabi-
lity of hatred, in its various forms and modifications,
as a principle divinely implanted in the human
mind, and as susceptible of a very salutary opera-
tion under a system of moral government, into
which sin has gained an entrance, we do not con-
sider by any means that it should be altogether
extinguished. The Bible abounds with attributions

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 507

of this quality to the Deity himself; not, indeed,
that we are to suppose Jehovah as actually subject
to the influence of this or any other affection, as they
are properties of the human character ; but it must
be observed at the same time, that no property can
be justly ascribed unto Him in the way of conde-
scending adaptation to our infirmity, which would
convey ideas derogatory to his character. No act
can emanate from Him, which, by the remotest
analogy, can be traced to a principle or affection,
which would be unworthy of his nature, and inconsis-
tent with his supreme excellencies. And as such
analogies and relations frequently do subsist between
his conduct towards his sinful creatures, and those
actions which proceed from hatred or anger in man,
we consequently find Him described in Scrii^ture as
actuated by emotions of the deepest abhorrence
against sin, and of the most vehement indignation
against impenitent sinners. The perfection of his
nature, indeed, excludes the passion of hatred or any
of its co-ordinate modifications of feeling; but the
very circumstance of its being attributed unto Him,
is a sufficient proof that it is not universally to be
renounced and annihilated in the soul of man.

It is the perversion of hatred, it is the malignant
effect produced by it when directed towards persons
instead of things, it is the horrors and miseries which
it leads in its train, when allowed to degenerate into
malice and resentment, which has rendered it so
justly odious to mankind, and caused it to be so
generally branded with reprobation in the pages of
holy Scripture. That this powerful principle may

508 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

answer its end in the government of God, and in
the regulation of human conduct, it is necessary that
it be directed simply and entirely towards sin as a
violation of the divine law, as the act of a responsible
and voluntary agent, and as involving those who in-
dulge in it in guilt and inevitable misery. In this
point of view, and strictly regulated by these consi-
derations, it is hardly possible that the princii)le of
hatred should be carried too far, or should operate
with undue energy. Under these limitations it
should move in a line parallel with the love of holi-
ness, and it may exist in its mightiest and most
influential vigour in the benevolent bosom of an
angel.

We have found, therefore, that the faculties of
man, including all the original elements of his con-
stitution, were designed and adapted to be called
forth in the various departments of the service of his
Creator. On this ground it is impossible, consis-
tently, to reject or exclude the affections comprising
all those modifications of feeling, which flow forth
in the several channels of sensitive emotion. The
capacity of being actuated by these emotions, was a
primary part of our being — a first rudiment of our
nature, and by no means a quality superinduced by
the fall. It must, therefore, have been inwrought
into our composition by the all-wise Creator, for
some great and important end, and this end could
be no other than that it might be exercised upon
Himself, and in subordinate reference to his law, his
Avorship, and his service. Hence it was strikingly
observed by some one, that if he could make a being

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 509

such as man ; if lie could endue him with animal
life, with physical powers, and intellectual and ra-
tional faculties, the first thing he should expect of
him Avould be, that he should fall down and adore
him ; that he should prostrate himself before him in
devout acknowledgment of his obligation and depen-
dence upon him for every endoAvment which he pos-
sessed. And this consideration applies, perhaps, to
the sensitive part of human nature above every other,
because it forms the chief, or at least the proximate
agency, by which the whole machinery of the out-
ward conduct is regulated. The assertion, therefore,
under due limitation, is unquestionably true, that it
is of more importance that the heart should be
brought to a wholesome and salutary state of feeling,
than even that the views of the understanding should
be rectified ; for persons much more frequently act
under the influence of the passions and affections,
than under the direction of intellect and reason.

Section III.

The Use of the Affections always recognized and
enforced in scripture.

But, in illustration of the legitimacy and import-
ance of the Aff'ections as entering into the services of
religion, and as a component part of the Christian
character, we would further remark, that, in their
various modifications, they are recognized, and pro-
minently displayed in every page of Scripture, and
under every dispensation of truth. How any man

510 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

with the Bible in his hand, and with a professed
belief in its statements, and deference to its au-
thority, can proscribe feeling in its strongest, if not
wild and extravagant, manifestations from the pro-
vince of religion; and much more how he can allow
himself to treat it with ridicule and unthinking con-
tempt, while it is confined within decent and appro-
priate bounds; how he can expose his ignorance and
destitution of it in expressions of scorn or disgust,
directed to those by whom it is realized or inculcated
in its genuine and legitimate exercise, we are, in-
deed, utterly at a loss to understand. It is justly
remarked by the late eminent and candid Dr. Paley,
that, in religion, the weakest and most puerile super-
stition is beyond all comparison more reasonable and
manly and wise, than utter indifference to all reli-
gion, and that the latter feature of character is the
most degrading and contemptible that can well enter
into the constitution of a human creature. And we
do not hesitate to assert, in the spirit of the opinion
thus expressed by that great man, that the wildest
effervescence, the most fantastic and ill-regulated
excesses of feeling, if united with real piety, are infi-
nitely more worthy, not merely of our pardon, but
even of our regard, than the impious unconcern, the
dead apathy, which betrays a total estrangedness to all
feeling, except perhaps that of prejudice and party-
spirit, respecting the most awful and stupendous of
all questions. It requires no ordinary measure of
patience and forbearance to witness, without emotion,
the ridicule and scorn thrown upon the purest and
most influential vitalities of religion under the name of

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 511

entliusiam, or as embodied by the detractor in some
more pungent and appropriate epithet. It would be
amusing, if it did not involve painful and melancholy
considerations, to observe the self-complacency and
pride with which the inflated philosopher descends
from the hill of science to express his disgust ; the
political haranguer turns round upon the arena of
contention to utter his vapid jest ; the gay sensualist
rises from the festive board to pronounce his autho-
ritative verdict; and even the illiterate scorner starts
forth in order to fling the common-place sneer, when
the question of Christian experience, comprising the
various ardent and interesting emotions in which it
mainly consists, happens to come under their notice.
It is striking to see what a legitimate object of sport,
if not of more malignant treatment, the merest half-
thinker, the most perfect driveller upon every great
and important question, deems himself justified in
regarding the man, who maintains the necessity, and
professes himself not altogether ignorant of the fact
of a sublime communion with the Father of his spirit,
through the medium of a well-directed exercise of
the most powerful and energetic principles of his
nature. It is also a remarkable circumstance, how
much more disposed mankind in general — we mean
the mass of a professedly Christian community — are
to live at peace with, and even to give the homage
of their respect to men, who manifest a total desti-
tution of all sense of religion' apart from ordinary
and very imperfect morality, than wdth those who
indicate the slightest weakness or extravagance in
the external displays of the religious feelings within

512 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

them; how much more venial a fault it is usually
regarded to be righteous in too small a measure, in
the spiritual sense of the expression, than to be
righteous overmuch. The entire absence of all affec-
tion upon a matter of all others most calculated, it
might have been supposed, to awaken it into its
intensest exercise, and to rouse it into the most over-
powering force, is easily tolerated, and deemed no
derogation from the dignity and respectability of
character. But if the stream rise at all above its
banks; if it ascend in any degree above its due level;
if the outbursts of emotion should occasionally over-
step the limits of the coldest and most calculating-
prudence; if its manifestations should sometimes
appear rather eccentric to those who contemplate
them with the coldness of indifference; as the cele-
brated critic of antiquity speaks of the impassioned
orator, that he appears to rave and to be little short
of mad, when he does not carry along with him the
sympathies of his hearers; in such a case the world
is in arms. Such indulgence of the sensitive feelings
is intolerable. It is a delinquency dignum cane et
angue.

Let me not be misunderstood; I am not the ad-
vocate of extravagance. I would not be an apologist
for the violation of the laws of reason and sound
sense in their application to the duties and services
of religion, as I trust it will sufficiently appear before
this inquiry is brought to a close. I am merely sta-
ting a fact, which, 1 fear, too clearly indicates that
the prevailing antipathy to the admission of a due
admixture of sensitive affection into relisrion lies

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 613

deeper than the head, and is seated in the workings
of a strong counter-feeling, which has predominant
possession of the heart. The drapery which the reli-
gious affections wear is often fantastic. Some of the
minor habits of conduct, in which they outwardly
exhibit themselves, are frequently, in a high degree,
objectionable, and sometimes, through ignorance and
weakness, mischievous and absurd. There are hu-
morists in religion, as well as every other department
of human character; men who are rather singular
than properly original; men who find it easier to pass
into the antipodes of ordinary conduct, than rise to
the loftier elevations of excellence in the prescriptive
range of the community to which they belong. There,
doubtless, are cases, in which the cloak of hypocrisy
is assumed for the unsullied robe of Christian sin-
cerity. But it is carrying the outrage rather too far
upon the fair domain of charity to assume the exist-
ence of hypocrisy as the cause, wherever any indi-
cations of devout feeling present themselves, just as
a quick pulse and a hectic flush upon the countenance
are considered as the diagnostics of fever or con-
sumption. It is not for any modes and formalities
of religious feehng that I am contending, much less
for those singularities displayed in the habits of some
classes of professed Christians, the only probable
effect of which is to excite the prejudices of those
who are, perhaps, incapable of estimating the pure
and fervent emotions, of which these external signs
are but the inadequate, and sometimes grotesque
representatives. But it is for the reality and neces-
sity of deep and genuine exercises of the heart as

2 L

514 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

constituent elements of vital religion, as founded in the
nature of man considered in his relation towards his
Creator, and as authorized in the clearest declarations
of Scripture, that we are now arguing. It is the
impiety and uncharitableness of those who are total
strangers to the fear and love of God as feelings of the
heart, and would banish every thing that is spiritual
in religion out of the range of human character, and
would thus produce a darkness, a chillness, a deso-
lation of soul, similar to that which would result from
the expulsion of the sun out of the system; it is the
ignorance and inconsistency of these men, that we
are now exposing. It is a lamentable fact that
persons abound in the world, who allow themselves to
use the language of mockery and contempt in refer-
ence to the deep spiritualities of religion, of whom it
might too truly be said that they know neither what
they say nor whereof they affirm. And, conse-
quently, they would abstract the half, and in many
respects the most important half of humanity, from
all connection with the service of the Deity*.

But if these persons cannot perceive the duty
and expediency of Feeling in religion from a view of
human nature in its original state ; if they have not
sufficient compass of mind ; if they cannot generalize

* The object and design of feeling in religion are stated in the
following passage by the Rev. Robert Hall, with his nsual accuracy
and beauty : " The religious affections and sentiments are, in fact,
and were intended to be the ]->ro])er antagonist of sensuality — the
great deliverer from the thraldom of the appetites, by opening a
spiritual world, and inspiring hopes and fears, and consolations, and
joys, iwhich bear no relation to the material and sensible universe."
— Serm. on Infid., p. 54.

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION- 515

their conceptions of duty so as to take into the
account all the principles of their constitution as it
came forth from their Maker's hand, then let them
look into the pages of that book, the authority of
which they recognize ; and mil they not, in almost
every line, discover either a direct injunction or a
plain implication of devout Affection as a component
part of religion amidst every variety of circumstances
and dispensations ?

"View, for a moment, the state of our first parents
under the paradisaical dispensation. From the very
brief intimations which we have respecting their
character and employments during that period of
their being, we can be at no loss in determining
what must have been the prevailing habit of their
minds. It was the opinion of Bacon that their work
in the garden of Eden, during the short continuance
of their innocence, was mainly the work of holy
contemplation ; for that the earth, prior to the curse,
required, comparatively, no cultivation; the groAvth
of every wholesome and nutritious plant being spon-
taneous and abundant. Although this sentiment
may not be literally correct and strictly accordant
with the scriptural statement of the occupation as-
signed to Adam upon his creation, to di*ess and to
keep the garden in which he was placed, yet there
can be no doubt that their happiness chiefly con-
sisted in elevated fellowship \^dth G-od, in a conge-
niality of spirit, in a pure and sublime communion of
soul with Him, whom they knew, as it were, by
intuition, and loved as by instinct. Their intellect,

2 L 2

616 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

indeed, we have reason to suppose, was but very im-
perfectly developed. Wliatever knowledge they pos-
sessed, must have been almost exclusively the result
of original implantation, the immediate gift of the
Author of their nature, and, in all probability, ex-
tended not much beyond the exigencies of their
present condition. In what related to the attributes
of purity, and holiness, and love in their Creator, and
to their own obligations and duties towards Him,
their understanding was a lamp of pure and resplen-
dent light; but it was neither expanded by long-
experience, nor filled with the multiplied details of
history and science, as the fruit of extensive investi-
gations into the laws and relations of the universe.
And, as the mind was thus free from a variety of
complicated ideas, the effect of which is invariably to
distract, and frequently to debase, the affections had
an opportunity of unfolding themselves with intenser
and more direct energy towards their object, and
flowed forth in admiration, gratitude, and love, with
rapturous and unimpeded force. The atmosphere of
Paradise was doubtless the atmosphere of holy and
ardent love. There the heart breathed its aspira-
tions in accents of the purest and most hallowed
affection, and the knee bent in adoration, as the
homage of a grateful mind. The air was fragrant
with divine love ; and every gale wafted upward on
its wing the melody of thanksgiving and praise.

Thus the Affections of the heart entered as com-
ponent parts into religion, and indeed, as we may
fairly assume from the scriptural representation, con-

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 517

stituted the principal ingredients in the character of
man, under the original economy of his nature, while
yet in a state of innocence.

But let us pass on to the varied forms of that
grand Dispensation, which was divinely established
for him, as a fallen and corrupt being, and which was
gradually developed in an order of distinct succes-
sion, until it was completed and consummated in the
introduction of Christianity into the world. Let us
cross the dark gulf of the fall, and suiTcy the cha-
racter of religion, as exhibited in the incipient light,
in the primary evolution of the covenant of grace,
under the form of the patriarchal dispensation.
During this early period, that portion of divine truth,
which had survived the ruins of the fall, was kept
alive by tradition, to which the remarkable longevity
of the first inhabitants of the world very materially
contributed. It was, however, but a glimmering and
straggling light. It shone but very partially and
imperfectly, like that which issues through the inter-
stices of a lantern in a dark night. The mind of
man, in his fallen state, is an earthen vessel, in which
the treasure of heavenly truth can be but very imper-
fectly preserv^ed. Moreover, the knowledge of God,
and of the great method of restoration to his favour,
was yet vouchsafed but in a very smaU measure to
the world. But even amidst all these disadvantages,
even in this da^vn of divine knowledge and truth,
we find instances of such affectionate zeal, of such
warmth of devotion, of such energy of piety, as de-
monstrate with sufficient clearness, that religion was
not an alien from the heart ; that it was not a cold

518 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

lunar reflection; but a beam of light and heat pro-
ceeding immediately from Him, who is the central
Sun of the universe. Of Enoch it is said, that he
walked with God, an expression, which, if applied in
its genuine import to the character — indeed, if em-
ployed as descriptive of the general habits and
conduct of an individual under the resplendent light
of even the Christian Dispensation, would by many
be regarded as involving the quintessence of enthu-
siasm, if not of absurdity and folly. To walk with
God, as the phrase was designative of the character
of that holy patriarch, implies not merely the
obedience of the outward conduct, not merely the
practical observance of the law; but also the inti-
macy of holy friendship, the communion of the soul
with a God, who graciously condescends to hold
intercourse with it ; the interchange of the tenderest
affections, the maintenance of a fellowship with
Heaven, to which the world is a stranger, and com-
pared to which its pleasures are but empty grati-
fications. And if the expression was inadequate,
the result proves the amount of its meaning; for
when Enoch had thus walked with God, we are told
that he was not, for God took him. Thus Jehovah
testifies his regard for such extraordinary devotion,
and set the seal of his authority, even at that early
period, upon the obligation and importance of a
cordial surrender of the Affections unto Him, and of
a life distinguished by close converse with Him.

The same truth is illustrated, with more or less
clearness, in the characters of I^oah, of Abraham,
of Lot, and of the patriarchs in general. To the

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 619

second of these eminent saints, Jehovah Iiimself
immediately addresses a language similar to that
which had been used in reference to Enoch, " Walk
thou before the Lord." He is also called the "Friend
of God." In the brief accounts which we have of
these persons, indeed, the more ordinary phraseology
employed as expressive of the various acts of their
conduct, is, that they did as the Lord commanded
them. But even these statements do most empha-
tically prove the existence of devout Feelings in
their hearts. When it is asserted by the Apostle,
that to love God is to keep His commandments, he
does not mean completely to resolve the former part
of the proposition in the latter ; he does not intend
to affirm that the love of God is absolutely and iden-
tically the keeping of His commandments, so that
the Feeling is absolutely annihilated, and no where
exists but as it is embodied in the act. Such a
notion is calculated to convey, and, we fear, fre-
quently has conveyed, a most erroneous impression ;
so that a decent observance of some of the most
palpable injunctions of the moral law is taken by
many persons to include all that is necessarily re-
quired in loving God. Whereas, the statement of
the Apostle, properly understood, really implies the
greater strength and intensity of this affection as a
Feeling of the heart. His design is to establish an
inseparable connection between the affection and the
action, between the heart and the life. His meaning
is, that wherever the love of God is really possessed,
and exerts a predominant influence in the mind, it
is impossible it should not manifest itself in keeping

520 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

God's commandments. The consequence of this
train of argument is, that to profess to love God,
without a corresponding regard to his law, is hypo-
crisy ; and to make a show of keeping His command-
ments, Avhere His love is not really shed abroad in
the heart, and acts not as the moving spring of the
conduct, is Pharisaism.

The introduction of the Mosaic or Levitical system
of religious worship was an important step in advance
towards the full development of the covenant of
redemption. At the establishment of this dispensa-
tion, a most important portion of divine truth was
embodied in written records. The knowledge, which
was lost at the fall, or was obscured in its transition
through the corrupt channels of human tradition,
was, in a great measure, restored through the
medium of infallible inspiration. The veil, which
time had thrown over the cosmogony of the present
system of things, and the history of its earliest state,
was removed. The mournful fact, which brought sin
and its attendant woe into the world, Avas clearly
announced. The effects of the fall were stated, and
the gracious method by which the most dreadful of
those effects was capable of being averted, was hinted
with a clearness, and symbolized with a distinctness
of representation, which were sufficient to form the
basis of a saving faith. The character of God was
unfolded in the precepts of that moral law, which
was the measure of his will, as it regarded mankind,
and the very image and transcript of his nature.

With this increase of light, and with these supe-
rior advantages, it might have been expected that

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 521

the leading features of that religion, Avhich Jehovah
designed for man as the medium of acceptably
serving and enjoying himself, would be more clearly
displayed. We consequently witness an evident
advance of character in the general aspect of pious
Feeling. Religion is more fully appreciated as a
matter of the heart, and as a service offered unto
Him, who regards not so much the views and spe-
culations of the understanding, as the attitude of
the spirit and affections, indispensably required to
evince itself, indeed, in the uniform obedience of
the life. How frequently do we find a due and ap-
propriate exercise of the Feelings inculcated in the
writings of Moses. And though the dispensation,
which he was appointed to establish, was in a great
measure a dispensation of types and external em-
blems, yet how obviously does it appear that, without
a congenial habit of Affection in the inner man of
the heart, no observances however precise, no rites
of service however duly performed, no piacular
sacrifices however costly, could be of any avail in
the propitiation of the divine favour. JSTor is it
merely the necessity of sincerity, of a state of mind
accordant with the ostensible acts of the conduct,
that stands forth with prominence in the pages of
the Old Testament. But we find there a current of
devout feelings, and occasional ebullitions of holy
affection, which not only demonstrate the point which
Ave are now discussing, as related to that economy,
but stamp a character of the most exalted spirituality
upon the individuals in whom they were displayed.
Let any man peruse the Psalms of David, the mystic

522 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

odes of Solomon, and the animated effusions of the
prophets, in each of which the very soul of feeling-
seems to breathe, and let him doubt whether the
Aflfections even in their most energetic vigour, were
excluded from the dispensation, to which these
eminent and highly favoured persons belonged.
The first of these compositions have always been
regarded by the Christian Church as the most suitable
channels through which the heart of devotion, whether
distressed by guilt, overwhelmed by calamity, dis-
mayed by fear, glowing with love, cheered by hope,
or exulting in the triumphs of faith, could discharge
the plenitude of its high-wrought and overburdened
emotions. By a prescient adaptation they appear to
have been in a manner designed for the expression
of feelings which would be called forth under a fu-
ture economy. They seem, in some instances, to
be more suited to the raptures of heaven, and more
proper to be chanted by the lips of a seraph, or to
be set to the harp of an archangel, than to embody
the thoughts and affections of a mortal sojourning
upon earth.

[N'eed w^e pass on to the Christian Dispensation
to evince the same fact? In this, as the consum-
mation to which all previous systems of rehgious
worship were designed to be preparatory; as the
fruit, of which those that preceded it were but the
germinating principle in its various stages of deve-
lopment,— it might have been expected that the
operations of divine truth, as it relates to the cha-
racter of man, would be more fully disclosed. The
scaiiolding, which surrounded the Temple during the

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 523

gradual process of its erection, was now to be taken
clown, and the interior of the structure to be thrown
open in all its beauty and utility. The Gospel is
eminently a dispensation of the Spirit. The vast
and diversified apparatus, which was brought into
action in the performance of the services of the law,
was now removed as a useless and cumbersome
appendage. It now became more distinctly recog-
nized that religion is not a mere affair of the under-
standing and of outward action, but that its principles
have their chief seat in the heart, and must be
intimately interwoven with all the chords of Feeling.
There is not a single affection; there is not one
inmate of the human breast, being a genuine element
of the original nature of man, which is not repre-
sented in the New Testament as entering, in some
form or other, into the constitution of the Christian
character. Those, which are base and evil, the whole
order of sinful and malignant passions, the code of
Christ requires to be totally renounced and eradicated.
Those, which are of an opposite description, which
are elevating in their nature and sanctifying in their
influence, it demands as a sacrifice to be offered up
on the altar of Jehovah. Warm and impassioned
feeling was no less a prominent feature exemplified
in the character of St. Paul himself, than it forms a
main and principal point in that discipline of the
heart, which his Epistles so admirably delineate.
Holy sentiments and affections he places among the
fruits of the Spirit; and so far from allowing the
heart to sink into torpor and insensibility, he takes
every opportunity to arouse it into liveliest energy

624 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

and to kindle it into an intenser flame. The whole
import of the book of inspiration, indeed, as it res-
pects the heart, may be embodied in these brief but
emphatic exhortations of this eminent Apostle — ^'Not
slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the
Lord." " Set your Affections on things above, and
not on things upon the earth."

Thus we have the exercise of the Affections
clearly recognized, exemplified, and, in many in-
stances, forcibly inculcated throughout the whole
compass of Revelation, and under every economy of
religion which God hath vouchsafed unto man.

Section IV.

Sensitive Affection necessary, in order that Religion may

PRODUCE its proper EfPECT UPON THE CHARACTER,

The next observation relative to the warrant and
expediency of sensitive Affection in religion, Avhich
we propose to make, is, that such Emotions of heart
are indispensahly necessary to give divine truth its
legitimate influence avid effect upon the character.
It is one of the first principles of our nature, a prin-
ciple continually verified by experience, and abun-
dantly recognized in Scripture, that the habits of the
conduct should take their colour and prevailing cast
from the predominant affections of the heart. It is
an injunction of one of the wisest of men and the
most illustrious of monarchs, of one whose compre-
hensive and sagacious mind had compassed the
whole circle and penetrated the profoundest depths

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 525

of human knowledge, and who, in all his investiga-
tions, carried with him the lamp of divine illumina-
tion, " Keep thy Heart with all diligence, for out of
it are the issues of life." It is asserted by the same
inspired writer, that whatever "a man thinketh in
his Heart, so is he." It is possible indeed, that a
train of actions may be entered upon in the life,
bearing the appearance of an immediate and direct
derivation from the genuine source of the heart ;
there may be excitements from without sufficient,
to produce an occasional and temporary effect,
while the spring of permanent motion lies wholly
dormant and inactive — as an external impulse given
to the pendulum of a clock, which had stood still,
will put it for a while in motion, and urge forward
the minute hand, even though the requisite weights
should have fallen down, or the machinery have been
out of order. Or as Yirgil describes the contest of
the galleys — the Trojan regatta, when a powerful
stroke had been given, such was the accelerating
force thus imparted, that, for a time, any further
effort was needless, "Fert impetus ipse." It is
possible, also, that such mounds may be raised by
pride or self-interest as that the streams of conduct
should be diverted from their genuine tendency,
and be forced into channels the very opposite of
those, to which they originally were propelled. But
such causes are unnatural, artificial, and transitory in
their operation. When they cease to operate, the
effects disappear, and a reaction foUows, which throws
the character backward into a state of more hopeless
Supineness and inactivity, or carries it into more

526 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

dangerous and ruinous extremities in a line of con-
trary direction. The hue of florid bloom which is not
the result of the healthful and spontaneous operations
of unforced nature, which does not arise from the
crimson tide issuing forth from its salient point in the
heart, will soon give place to an aspect of sickly
paleness and withering decay. Or, if we may be
allowed the illustration, by providing a moral appa-
ratus of pistons and valves, and other requisite
articles, you may pump some portion of muddy water
out of the system of the worldly and unrenewed heart,
but a wholesome and never-failing supply can be
yielded only from the fountain of that heart, which
is become a well of salvation, a spring of living water.
It is only from this exhaustless source that the
issues of the divine life can flow forth to feed the
plants of righteousness — the evergreens in the garden
of the Lord.

That the Heart and Affections shoidd be engaged
and powerfully interested on the side of truth, in
order that religion may produce its due effect upon
the character, is equally necessary for the prevention
of evil, and the production of active, positive good.
What is the design of Christianity as it regards the
present conduct of man? Was it not intended to
actuate and control his whole character — to arouse
his energies into a vigorous and salutary operation
— to restrain every irregular impulse, and to check
the overflowings of iniquity? Was it not intended
to infuse a renovating and transforming influence
into the whole system, to worh, as it were, the whole
machinery of the outer and inner man; to bend the

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 527

stubborn power of the Will; to rectify the perverse
obliquities of the judgment; and to bring down every
high and lofty thing, every ambitious and aspiring
aim of an unhallowed imagination into captivity to
the obedience of Christ ?

We will assume then that Christianity was de-
signed by its divine Author to exercise this subor-
dinating control over the faculties of the human
mind, and the habits of human conduct. But how
is this dominant authority to be acquired, and this
universality of influence to be exerted ? If the re-
medial principles of the Grospel are to meet the
human character at every point, to spread by a kind
of superposition over the whole extent of its moral
being, so far as to produce an assimilating effect upon
every part, how can this object be accomplished
otherwise than by the application of an adequate
and appropriate influence to every element, of which
it is composed? The blindness of the understanding
is to be removed by the introduction of the light of
heaven into the mind through the renovated organs of
the Reason. The errors of the judgment and the
conscience must be rectified by a clear and con-
vincing development of the truth. But the Heart
is an organ of a difl'erent construction, and its dis-
orders must be obviated by a remedy congenial to its
own nature. The heart is the centre of the affections,
and the affections are the animating and all-pervading
principles of the conduct. To meet the irregularities
and excesses of the latter, they must be encountered
in the former. Here demonstration is not sufiicient,
for reasoning addresses itself to another department

528 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

of human nature, and however necessary as a ground-
work, however useful as an auxiliary, yet as the
instrument of sanctification and conversion it is of
itself wholly inadequate. Thousands in the face of
the most imminent peril, and in spite of the
most powerful array of argument, have rushed head-
long into sin and destruction with this confession
ready to break forth from their lips —

video meliora proboque,

Deteriora sequor.

The strong man armed is too closely harricadoed
to be expelled by the weapons of dry logic. The
Leviathan of human corruption will not retire at the
shaking of such powerless spears. His scales are
impenetrable to such puny armour, and he laughs
to scorn the attempt by such means, unaccompanied
by a mightier and more direct assault, to dislodge
him from his position. When the heart is encased
in spiritual insensibility; when daring impiety and
reckless passion burn within, and send forth a poi-
sonous exhalation of irreligion and vice, — to oppose
the deductions of reason, and the speculations of
airy imagination to such a malignant and over-
whelming force of evil, would be just as efficacious
as a sprinkling of water from a fire-engine to ex-
tinguish the flames of Etna, or the erection of a
mound of glass-work to stop the torrent of Vesuvius.
So impotent is Reason, whatever may be its necessity,
its energy, and its efficiency, in convincing the un-
derstanding, when required to control the actions of
a man, whose heart is a volcano, where the discordant
elements of passion work in continual tumult, and

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 529

the mouth of whose conduct is a crater discharging
an everhxsting supply of every thing that is noxious
and destructive.

But it does not require such extreme and incor-
rigible wickedness as these expressions and illus-
trations will appear to many to imply, to render the
co-operation of the strongest Feelings of the heart
indispensably necessary to give religion its due
effect upon the character. The late Mr, Fox, it
will be allowed by all, without any reference to his
political opinions or moral character, was a pro-
found observer of human nature. He was naturally
a man of philosophic mind, and had witnessed the
development of general principles, as they affected
the conduct of mankind, with an accuracy which, in
matters of practical and intellectual investigation,
must attach considerable weight to his sentiments.
When there was a motion before parliament, the
object of which was to remove the disabilities of a
certain class of professed Christians, whose prin-
ciples were of a rather obnoxious character, this
eminent statesman remarked, in the course of his
speech, and argued at some length, that men's
speculative opinions, whatever they may be, are of
very little consequence, for it is an obvious and
w^ell-known fact that they seldom affect the conduct
in a very great degree. Whether, therefore, the
theoretical notions of these persons were right or
wrong, it did not appear to him that they would
be either better or worse members of the commu-
nity.

Although we are ready to acquiesce in the cor-

2 M

530 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

rectness of these observations, as far as tliey tend
to show the inadequacy of speculative notions to
exert any powerful influence upon the conduct,
while they continue to float as abstract theories or
visionary x^hantoms in the head, and do not become
incorporated into any feeling of the heart; yet it
by no means follows, and we desire most distinctly
to disavow the mischievous and absurd idea, that
men are in no respect accountable for their opinio .
This subject we have already discussed at some
length in a former part of this work; but such do
we deem to be the importance belonging to it in
the present state of public opinion, that we cannot
help subjoining the following observations in addi-
tion to what has been already stated. It is at this
moment a current maxim in certain circles of lite-
rature and politics, that, in the formation of his
opinions, man is perfectly passive — that, in the
views which he adopts, even upon the most impor-
tant points of the most important of all questions,
he is a necessary agent, and that he is no more
responsible for his belief or disbelief of religious
truth, than he is for the colour of his skin or the
form of his visual organs. According to this theory
of opinions, the most confirmed atheist, provided
he does not violate the laws of the State in the
promulgation of his sentiments, is as innocent a
man as the devoutest and most practical believer in
the doctrines of the New Testament ; and whatever
may be wrong in his creed, or rather his no-creed,
it is, forsooth, his misfortune and not his fault.
The only feeling, therefore, witli which liis charac-

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 531

ter is to be regarded, is that of pity and not con-
demnation. We are ready to acknowledge, indeed,
tliat we are bound to pity the worst of criminals, — •
that we have no right to triumph in malignant
disdain or hate over the most abandoned of the
species. The salutary memento, "who made thee
to differ," ought always to repress every such ten-
dency. That infidelity and profaneness, confined
within the limits of decency, ought to be visited by
penal laws, and considered amenable at the bar of
human judicature, we do not affirm. The expe-
diency of legal prosecution, on the ground of infidel
opinions, except in cases of peculiar aggravation,
may be fairly questioned. But it by no means
follows that the maintenance of such sentiments
involves no moral guilt, and is regarded with no
abhorrence by Him, whose very being, so clearly
imaged forth in the mirror of nature, and whose
character and attributes, so distinctly portrayed
and so strikingly demonstrated upon the page of
revelation, are thus outraged. Before Jehovah can
witness such intellectual conduct with complacence.
He must be considered as willing to deny Himself,
and to expose Himself to the reflection, that in the
two volumes of nature and revelation, where He
intended that his creatures should read his exist-
ence and purposes. He has supplied them with
proofs, which are inadequate to convince an honest
and sincere inquirer. It is the merest sophistry to
affirm, in reference to this subject, that a man can-
not command his convictions — that he must beheve
or disbelieve, according to the evidence which the

2 M 2

532 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

subject appears to him inherently to possess. In
mathematical science, indeed, and in the immediate
exercise of the senses, assent is compulsory. To
dispute the fact demonstrated or perceived would
be irrational. In matters of complicated investiga-
tion, where the proofs are insufficient, and where
the passions and interests of the inquirer are in
nowise concerned, he may innocently err in esti-
mating what may appear to him the preponderating
side of the question. But in an affair which is
partly moral and partly intellectual, and the deci-
sion of Avliich rests as much with the heart as with
the understanding, it is obvious that the case is
widely different. Supposing that there is a strong
previous bias to one side of the question — that a
powerful array of passions consolidated into stand-
ing habits is ranged on the negative ; supposing
that the individual, in consequence of former actions
or present tendencies and predilections, deems him-
self deeply concerned to prove the reverse of the
proposed system, and that his hopes and fears,
while he continues what he is, are leagued in con-
federacy against its reception, will any one main-
tain that, under these circumstances, he is an
impartial and competent judge of the question, and
that, with perfect innocence, he can pronounce
against evidence, however strong, and thus under-
mine the very basis of a scheme of conduct, however
imperatively enjoined by One, who had a right to
command it? Will it be maintained that moral
proof will be allowed its real weight by one, whose
perceptions are subject to these deteriorating and

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 533

perverting influences, and that the inclination of" a
judgment thus soaked in passion and saturated with
prejudice is totally free from moral turpitude?
The measure of guilt involved in such a determina-
tion of the mind will bear a strict proportion to the
magnitude of the consequences liable to result from
it, and to the complexional shade, which it must
necessarily give to the whole of the future conduct.

^ow we affirm that this is precisely the state of
the case, when a man of vicious habits, or bloated
with vanity and conceit, undertakes, perhaps with
very scanty qualifications of intellect, as w^ell as
utter inaptitude of heart, to examine the evidences
of revealed religion. A¥ith him the question is
already prejudged in the court of highest influence,
in the areopagus of the affections. It is his interest,
according to his perverted view of it, that the
whole of that glorious and transcendent system
should be fabulous, and that he should walk abroad
in all the unaccountableness of licentious freedom,
or intellectual pride. It was remarked by the late
Dr. Beattie, and we think in perfect accordance
with the most philosophical views of human nature,
as related to the point we are now discussing, that
no good man ever undertook to examine the Chris-
tian religion, but he found the religion to be true,
and its evidences satisfactory. But where the quali-
ties of the moral being are defective, or wholly
wanting, which are necessary to conduct the in-
quiry with success, wdiere the very organs of percep-
tion, if we may so speak, are wholly vitiated and
disordered, it is no wonder, with whatever clearness

534 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

and transparency the light may shine, that such

darkness should comprehend it not. Then is realized

the truth of the distich —

Faults in tbe life breed errors in the brain,
And these reciprocally those again.

The guilt of infidelity, as a system of dishelief, lies
not in the opinions which it entertains, abstractedly
considered, for the intellect, as an operative faculty,
is as incapable of guilt as the common organs of
sense; but in the state of the heart and affections,
which, by their reaction, impose such a mass of
impiety and absurdity upon an understanding too
grovelling or perverse to resist its force.

We have thought it necessary to guard thus
strongly against the conclusion liable to be de-
duced from the comparative dormancy of specula-
tive opinions, as it respects an efficient influence
upon the conduct; as if it was, therefore, a matter
of utter indifference, and involving no moral prin-
ciple, no question of innocence or guilt, what opi-
nions were held or rejected. Although the purest
sentiments, and an assent to the most scriptural
tenets, while they continue to float in all the vague-
ness of intellectual notions, are wholly useless and
unavailing in the regulation of the character; yet
so much the more powerful and spontaneous is the
tendency of human nature to evil than to that which
is good, that there is a much closer connection
between profane speculations in the understanding,
and impious habits in the life, than there is be-
tween the purest notional principles, and the cor-
responding practical results. in the former case,

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 5'35

the passage from the understanding to the heart,
and from the heart to the life, is short and easy ;
while, in the latter, it is formed of the steepest
acclivities, and is divided bj immeasm-able inter-
vals*. The match requires only to be applied to
some chymical compositions, to kindle into a flame ;
but tinder, in order to produce the same effect,
must be set on fire by sparks actually struck out of
the flint.

It is this strong disinclination of the human
mind to the practice of Christian duty, that renders
it indispensably necessary that all the feelings of
the heart should be powerfully engaged on the side
of truth. In all other pursuits of importance, in-
deed, they are the Affections in their diversified
and endless modifications, which prove the grand
stimulants to action. Without the aid of these
vigorous incentives, the weightiest undertakings of
mankind would fall into a state of torpor and in-
activity. The machine of state would be unable
to move amidst the cumbersome appendages with
which it is clogged, and the wheels of business, in
its most enteqDrising departments, would stand
still. What would be the effect in the political
and commercial world, if the sensitive part of
human nature w^as to be paralyzed, and the busy
stir of the passions was to sink into motionless
quiescence? What would become of the energetic

* Chez la plupart des Chretiens il y a bien loin de la profession
a la croyance, de la croyance a la conviction, et de la conviction a
la pratic^ue. — Montesquieu.

536 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

measures of the statesman, the generous enthu-
siasm of the patriot, and of the sleepless activity
of the various orders of mercantile projectors, if
every thing within those comprehensive depart-
ments of human labour, was to be reduced into the
axioms of political economy, and the dry rules of
trade? What would become of the resistless im-
petus, which urges forward the hero in the prose-
cution of his martial achievements, and in the
legitimate career of victory, if every thing that is
exciting and spirit-stirring in his character, was to
be sobered down to the tameness and inertness of
the disciplinary tactics of war? What is it that
awakens the energy and kindles the ardent devo-
tion of tliese several performers upon the theatre of
human action, but their love of fame, their love of
glory, their love of their country, or, if we may be
allowed to translate the lan^ua^e of declamation
into that of simple fact, in many cases, their love of
themselves, and the fear of the opposite to what
they desire? Let these respective characters, who
may be considered as the representatives of all that
is most active and influential among mankind be
divested of those passions and affections which are
as it were the elements of motivity in their nature ;
let them go forth clad in the dull armoury of the
mechanical regulations and principles of their pro-
fessions; and what will they be but so many sha-
dows of existence, so many forms of humanity, in
which the spark of vitality was extinct?

It is true that, in all these cases, principles and
axioms are necessary, — that they are a ,s///e qua nan

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 537

ill every individual instance. It is true that there
is a system of rules connected with every branch
of activity, which must be understood and adopted ;
it is true that, without their adoption as a basis,
it is impossible to advance a single step with secu-
rity and success — that they are the very rudder
which keeps the vessel in its due course, or the
very ballast by which its equipoise is preserved.
But, in addition to this, there is wanted an actuating
power, without which principles of belief, however
correct, are but combinations of language or meta-
physical abstractions, vague, visionary, and unsub-
stantial. Axioms of truth, however firm and valid,
are but a fulcrum, resting upon which, the agency
of the affections may be called into exercise. They
are (to change the figure) but the veins and arte-
ries of a system, through which it is the function of
the heart to propel and circulate the current which
gives life and energy to the w^hole frame. And if,
to all other pursuits and undertakings of importance,
it would be fatal to extinguish that powerful flame
which, on necessary occasions, sets the whole world
of the human soul on fire; if love, and hope, and
fear, in their most intense exercise, are necessary
to give effect to every plan that is to be carried on
upon a great scale and amidst many difficulties;
if it would be a mutilation of the human character
to cut these off* from their appropriate share of
influence in every other department; with what
imaginable propriety can they be excluded from the
arduous and all-important business of religion ?
Will a set of cold and speculative dogmas, like so

538 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

many wedges mechanically lodged in the grooves
of the understanding, send forth a life-giving and
transforming influence throughout the whole cha-
racter? Will an order of opinions, which claim no
sympathy with the heart, with which no chord of feel-
ing sounds in unison, be effectual in securing that
universality of obedience, that devoted self-denial,
that complete self-surrender to the will of God, that
active and uniform resistance to the power of evil,
that total and unreserved renunciation of every
sinful habit, however inveterate it may have grown,
and however interwoven with the very stamina of
the mental constitution, that prompt and steady
abandonment of every pursuit which is inconsis-
tent with the obligations of religion, however
sanctioned by custom and authority, and however
conducive to immediate gratification or interest,
that alacrity of purpose, that energy of zeal, that
assiduity of diligence in the service of God, that
living sacrifice in short of the whole man, that
entire dedication of every corporeal and mental
endowment — of every physical power and of every
intellectual faculty unto His cause and the promo-
tion of His glory, which Christianity so evidently
demands? To remove or to invalidate the use and
importance of sensitive affection in the formation
or development of the Christian character, is a
sophistry in moral science. It is like removing the
middle term in a syllogistic process: it is to snap
asunder the connecting link between premise and
conclusion in the practical logic of religion. For
the affections are the middle term between the

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 539

understanding and the outward conduct, without
which either limb of the syllogism would be desti-
tute of all validity and force. Let the heart sink
into apathy, and the strings of feeling cease to
vibrate, and feebleness and inefficacy will instantly
characterize the operations of the intellect, however
luminous its views and however firm its grasp, with
respect to that influence which it is required to
exert upon the life. The conduct can no more
exhibit the regular evolution of the Christian graces
and virtues, than a wheel can turn around its axis
and produce the distant and complicated results in
which it was designed to be the most eflPective agent,
when the motive power has been withdrawn.

The records of history invariably speak the same
language, and conspire in confirming and illustrat-
ing the same important truth. They tend univer-
sally to demonstrate that, although, unaccompanied
by clear and sound and manly views of divine truth
strong feelings must of necessity run into fanaticism
and superstition ; yet without these feelings in their
due and w^ell-regulated operation, zealous and ener-
getic piety cannot exist, either isolated in the
character of individuals or embodied in the habits
of a people. AVTienever the faith and hope sug-
gested by the Gospel have ceased to be living
principles of the heart, and have floated upward
into the head, like deteriorated air ascending to-
wards the uj)per galleries of a crowded room in
consequence of having been deprived of its vital
and respirable qualities, it has been found that the
laws of genuine Christianity have ceased to bear

540 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

swaj, that zeal for its propagation has vanished,
that indiflPerence respecting its grand essentials as
a redeeming and saving scheme has prevailed, and
a system of baseless morality, if not of gross licen-
tiousness, at best a species of refined heathenism,
has been substituted in its stead. Wlienever, on the
contrary, the great truths of Christianity have been
appreciated as facts, and felt as realities, the effect
has been manifest in the character and conduct of
those who professed it. Of this we cannot have
a more striking proof than that which is supplied
by the celebrated historian of the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire, a witness Avho will not be
suspected of attributing too much to the power of
faith. In his account of the early progress of
Christianity, and in his list of causes which, ac-
cording to his view, sufficiently explain the unri-
valled rapidity of growth which distinguished that
oppressed and persecuted religion, he brings it for-
ward as a very prominent and influential circum-
stance, that the Faith of the believers at that time
appears to have been formed of much stronger
materials than that of professors of later ages;
that those primitive Christians felt the full force of
all that they believed, and that consequently the
principles of the Gospel had their full effect upon
their conduct; that the realizing impressions wliicli
they had of the affairs of another world were so
powerfully influential upon their character, that they
counted no sacrifice too great to make, no efforts
too laborious to exert, no sufferings too dreadful to
encounter, if. thereby they could in any measure

THE AFFECTIONS TN RELTCION. 541

advance the interest of the truth which they had so
deeply at heart.

Such is the substance of the argument advanced
by this eminent but sceptical historian, while he is
endeavouring to form an array of causes for the
amazing and almost instantaneous spread of Chris-
tianity throughout the Eoman empire, sufficiently
strong to keep at a distance the main power, or
even any auxiliary force, which was supplied from
another Avorld. The fact which he asserts, of the
mighty energy of feeling with which the speculative
truths of the Gospel were at that time accompanied,
is unquestionable; but the inference which he de-
duces from this, in connection with other causes, to
the exclusion of a miraculous power going forth
with the first promulgation of the Gospel, is futile
and unsatisfactory.

We may go on to assert that the decay of this
deep and affectionate earnestness has always been
attended with a correspondent decay in the prin-
ciples and practice of religion. When the heart
ceased to beat, a torpid quiescence began to spread
through the frame, and a hue of death to mark the
whole system, and unless the organ of vital circu-
lation had again been roused into action by a super-
human power, the speedy result would have been
mortification and utter dissolution. Eevivals in re-
ligion, therefore, have always been attended with
the prevalence of deep and impassioned feelings,
sometimes, through the agency of the evil one tak-
ing advantage of human weakness and ignorance,
running into much extravagance and folly. But still

542 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

it is an unquestionable fact that no great revivals,
no important reformations of great and inveterate
abuses ever have taken place Avithout the operation
of strong and high-wrought feehng. While the
heart is unconcerned, no one thinks it worth while
to disturb his own peace, and, perhaps, to endan-
ger his own life by agitating the stagnant pool,
where so many pestilential ingredients lie depo-
sited. The passions may sometimes, indeed, be
unduly fermented, and gain vent by improper out-
lets, but this is only the effervescence of a principle,
which, in its permanent results, is productive of
salubrity and strength.

For an illustration of these remarks, look to the
reformation in Grermany. Contrast the characters
of Luther and Erasmus, as leading agents in the
effectuation or retardation of that great event. In
their doctrinal views, except in a few important
points indeed, they do not appear so very widely
to have differed. In the acknowledgment of the
necessity of an ecclesiastical reformation they en-
tirely agreed. Erasmus saw this as clearly as
Luther. But the difference was this — they felt not
alike. Luther had such a deep and ever present
impression of the importance of this measure, and
of the revival of the pure doctrines of Scripture to
the salvation of immortal souls, that he counted
nothing dear unto him, by the sacrifice of which he
might attain his object. He was anxious to heave
from its very foundation that enormous mass of
tyranny and superstition, under which the human
mind, like the fabled giant under ^Etna, had groaned

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 543

and struggled for so many ages. A^Hiereas Eras-
mus, possessed of the richest stores of erudition,
and for a long period commanding a wider influ-
ence, dared not manfully to put forth his arm. His
heart was not in the matter. It weighed not upon
his mind with a sense of overwhelming importance,
and therefore the whole of his conduct, in reference
to that salutary convulsion of the seat of the papal
beast, is one scene of temporizing policy and
shuffling hesitation. He Avas afraid, on the one hand,
to avow and patronize with openness what his
understanding obliged him, in the main, to approve;
and afraid on the other to offend the power, upon
whose good pleasure his honour and elevation
seemed to depend. His intellect, however brilliant,
failed to communicate an adequate measure of
moral energy and impetus to arouse the fatal indif-
ference to the interests of pure religion, which
rested like a sheet of lead upon his heart.

The consequence was, that while Luther, urged
forward by the noble and devout enthusiasm of his
feelings, and accompanied by a band of congenial
associates, among whom the illustrious Melancthon
stood foremost, marched on in the career of victory
over the powers of spiritual darkness, Erasmus fol-
lowed, like a timid and discontented warrior behind
his car. While the profound and elegant scholar
of Rotterdam loitered between the hostile camps of
Popery and Protestantism, admired for his learning
and knowledge by all, but respected for his con-
sistency by none, a memorable instance of the ina-
dequacy of what, on the whole, may be considered

544 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

as speculative orthodoxy, to give effect to the prin-
ciples of religion, the Saxon Reformer, with talents
less cultivated, but Avith his heart and affections
more deeply engaged in the work, was made instru-
mental in the hand of Grod in establishing an era in
the history of the human mind, compared w^ith
which the philosophical revolutions effected by
Bacon and Newton and Locke, were insignificant
events. The petty disturbances occasioned by his
slight indiscretions, and some undue outburstings
of feeling, of which he was guilty, have passed away
and are forgotten, like the surf in a rough sea thrown
up by the keel of a vessel gallantly riding into
harbour, while the benefits of his inestimable labours
are felt to the extremities of the globe, and are pro-
minently embodied in the habits and religious insti-
tutions of almost every country in Europe.

The same observations might be made relative to
those revivals of religion, which at different periods
have taken place in Great Britain and America; but
to no epoch in the history of the Church, perhaps,
with more propriety, than to that noble and well
regulated enthusiasm, by which the nations of the
world, and our own country in particular, seem to
have been lately roused to disseminate the know-
ledge, and to impart the saving efficacy of the
Gospel, throughout every region of the globe. This
is no unholy crusade, which clothes itself in steel,
breathes out slaughter and revenge, and calls forth
one set of angry passions into murderous array
against another, but it is one simultaneous movement
of the army of the Prince of Peace, distinguished,

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 545

indeed, into different battalions, and clad in different
uniforms, but yet united together in bonds of
brotherly love ; bearing no weapons but the panoply
of heavenly truth, and the sword of the eternal
Spirit; carrying on no war but that of kindness and
affectionate persuasion against ignorance, and super-
stition, and misery; and exhibiting in its triumphant
progress no scenes of carnage and of blood, but the
affecting emblems of the broken body and of the
shed blood of that Lamb of God, which was slain for
the sins of the world.

We can trace tliis mighty stir in the camp of
Israel in all its wide-spread departments, ramifica-
tions, and divisions, only to a cause, which had for
a long time lain quiescent, — a deep-felt conviction of
the importance of religion in general, and of its ne-
cessity to every individual of mankind in particular.
l!^othing short of this, no clear perceptions of the
mind, no demonstrations adduced unto and recog-
nised by the intellect could have given such a
powerful impulse to the community, and clothed the
Gospel with such energy with respect to its influence
upon individual character, and upon the state of the
world at large. It foUows that sensitive Feeling in
religion is not only legitimate, but indispensably
necessary, inasmuch as it is the parent of zeal, and
the fertile source of every thing that is great and
heroic in the annals of Christian achievement.

2 N

546 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

Section V.

The Exercise op the Affections — a chief constituent op

THE happiness OP HeAVEN.

In illustration of the legitimacy and importance
of devout Feeling as an element of the Christian
character, we would finally remark, that from all
the intimations of Scripture, and from all that
reason and the consideration of the nature and
character of man can suggest, we have grounds to
believe that the exercise of holy Affection will
constitute a very principal ingredient, if not the
main substance of the hiessedness of heaven. It
is generally admitted that the present world was
designed to be a probationary scene, a school of
intellectual and mental discipline, to prepare the
soul for the enjoyments and occupations of her
future destiny. Religion is the instrument, the
grand agent, by which this work is to be carried
on, and the whole process realized. So far, there-
fore, as we can ascertain from our varied sources
of information the nature of those sublime employ-
ments, and of those transcendent felicities, which
are reserved for the righteous hereafter, in the same
proportion can we form accurate ideas of the
distinguishing features of true religion as it stands
connected with the character here below. It may
be assumed as an unquestionable point, as the
groundwork of all our views upon this subject, that
whatever original capacities belong to the human
mind will not oe extinguished or annihilated in

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 547

heaven, but rectified from every obliquity, purified
from every stain, and gradually developed to an order
of still higher maturity and perfection. If this world
is a nursery, in the distant soil of which the tender
plants of human nature are to be reared up for a
while, until they are removed to a warmer clime and
a richer paradise, it may be necessary to prune them
of their superfluous branches, and to separate from
them the fungous excrescences, which the unhealthy
atmosphere around them, or the disorder which has
crept into them may occasion, but the very elements
of their being, the organizing principles of their life
and growth are still to remain, and only to be
strengthened and directed in order to be meet for
the situation, which they are hereafter intended to
occupy. And as we have shown that sensitive
Affection is an original and essential part of the
mental constitution of man, it would be against every
analogy of nature — to say nothing of the declarations
of Scripture — to imagine that it will not expand into
more vigorous energies amidst the transporting
scenes of futurity.

Heaven is universally represented in Scripture
as a place, not so much of intense and laborious
thinking, as of sublime and rapturous feeling. And
nothing appears to us more strongly to prove, more
fully to demonstrate the futility and unscriptural
character of that religion, which is confined to the
cold speculations of intellect, or the formalities of a
professed creed and a bodily service than this, its
utter want of all congeniality with the functions, to
which it ought to be the preparative. Unless, there-

2 N 2

548 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

fore, we transform the heaven of the Scriptures into
the Elysium of heathenism, and with Yirgil admit the
warrior, the equestrian, and the huntsman, to follow
in it the diversions and occupations in which they
took their chief delight upon earth, it is impossible
that they should have any meetness for its pure
pleasures, and its exalted society, who are total
strangers to all those ardent affections, to all those
spiritualities of feeling, which are implied in the
expressive, but to them mystic and unintelligible
phraseology of fellowship and communion with God.
We mean not to say that in heaven the understand-
ing will be unemployed, and that there will be no
active duties. Such a notion would hardly suit that
more perfect economy to which we are taught to
look forward, — an economy under which all the
powers of man will have scope for their full and
unrestrained development. But we maintain, that
a feeling of exquisite delight will accompany every
act; that all the faculties of the understanding, all
the affections of the heart, all the activities of the
conduct, whatever may be their spiritual direction,
will, in a manner, be absorbed in love. Every lesser
light, every subordinate movement, will be lost in
the splendour, and yield to the predominating in-
fluence of that central sun in the firmament of the
glorified character.

The happiness of the servants of God in a future
world has been represented by St. Paul, as resulting
from a perpetual enjoyment of his exalted presence
and society. "And they shall be ever with the
Lord." With a view of illustrating- the blessedness

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 549

of the saints, and of showing the important share
which the affections will have in the fruition of that
blessedness, we shall consider the privilege of being
ever with the Lord as embracing various particulars.
So highly did the apostle estimate this privilege, that
he regarded it as the crown and perfection of happi-
ness, as the sum total of human good, as rising to a
height and extending to an amplitude of enjoyment,
beyond which desire cannot soar, and the faculties
cannot expand.

1. The saints, therefore, after the consummation
of the present order of things, shall be with God,
first, in the participation of his glory. In various
points of view they may be said to have been with
him during their probationary state of being. In
respect of the ubiquity of his essence, of the univer-
sality of his presence, they could not at any time be
otherwise than with him. Even during their state of
estrangement and pilgrimage upon earth, they were
with him, still resting under the shadow of his pro-
tection. They were with him in the experience of
his fatherly care and guidance, in the frequent reali-
zation of the tokens of his favour and love, in the
observance of his law, in the duties of his service, in
the ordinances of his sanctuary. They were with him
in the devout study of his character, in the contem-
plation of his attributes, in the reverential adoration
of his perfections, in the glow of ardent gratitude, in
the warmth of holy love, in the visions of faith, in
the anticipations of hope, and in the longing desire
of an entire conformity to his image, and of an
immediate admission into his presence. Thus far

550 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

the servants of God were with him during the
introductory period of their being. They enjoyed
somewhat of the glories and felicities of heaven ;
they caught some bright reflections of its light and
splendour as exhibited in occasional glimpses of its
everlasting hills, as they pursued their weary pilgrim-
age through the wilderness of this lower world.

But after the conclusion of the appointed period
of this world's duration, when the solemnities of the
last day are now past, and the faithful followers of
Christ gathered from all ages, and countries, and
languages, have been honourably acquitted at his
tribunal, and allowed to enter with reanimated bodies
into his kingdom, they will henceforward be with him
in the full and unreserved participation of the glory
vhich he had prepared for them. It was the glorifi-
cation of his people, as combined with the manifes-
tation of the various attributes of Deity, which the
Saviour had most prominently in view during the
whole process of his mediatorial work. This im-
portant end he distinctly incorporated into that
sublime and affectionate prayer, which he offered up
unto his Father in behalf of the whole community of
his people, just before he left the world. And when,
after the completion of the arduous work of human
redemption, and the arrangement of the various con-
cerns and interests of his church upon earth, he made
his triumphant entrance into the temple not made
with hands — even heaven itself, the scene of his
glorious residence, he took up his abode in that
bright and holy place, not so much in his private
and individual capacity, as in the public and relative

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 551

character of the Head and Representative of his
people. He went as their precursor to prepare a
place for them, to provide for their accommodation,
to plead their cause, to assert their covenanted rights
as pledged in his mediation, and as redeemed by his
death, and thus to secure for them those gifts of
grace, those crowns of glory, which he Avould now be
commissioned to bestow upon them. And wearing
those crowns, enjoying the blessed fruits of those
graces, they will spend their eternity with him.
United unto him as his members, they will partake
by a mysterious and exquisite sympathy in all his
relative and communicable perfections. They wiU
shine forth amidst the unclouded blaze of that
glory, which beams around his head, and they will
be continually sublimating into higher degrees of
purity, and be transformed into "the same image
from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord."

His communicative glory will exalt and adorn
every part of their nature. The higher powers of
the understanding wiU, doubtless, bear a fuU share
in the elevation to which they will be raised. The
capacities of glorified spirits privileged to live in
perpetual converse with ffim, who is the fountain of
all knowledge, will be expanded and enlarged in
proportion to the advantages of the exalted society
which they shall enjoy. The intellectual endowments
of the humblest and meanest, if we may use such an
expression, among the inhabitants of heaven, of those
who may be regarded as stars of smallest magnitude
in the firmament of glory, wiU transcend beyond
comparison those of the brightest luminary upon

552 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

earth. The mental faculties of the very babes in the
kingdom of heaven, will, probably, surpass those of
Milton and of ^N'ewton in their most advanced state
of sublimity and expansion upon earth. Their powers
will be invigorated so as to conceive with promptitude
and ease the great ideas, which the various objects
around them will suggest, and comprehend with clear-
ness and precision the mysterious and complicated
truths, which before it had baffled their utmost en-
deavours to understand; so as to penetrate the
depths of nature, and discover, at every step, the
wisdom and power of its great Author — so as to
unravel the intricacies of Providence, and, however
involved the labyrinth, to discover goodness and
faithfulness marked upon every turn, and love in-
scribed upon every portal; and above all, so as to
form somewhat juster, though still inadequate, notions
of that wonderful combination of the various attri-
butes of Deity, which was displayed in the formation
and accomplishment of the plan of human redemption.
The sphere of information will be continually and
endlessly widening, and the soul will be incessantly
rising to new heights and sublimities of knowledge,
without danger of exhausting its powers, and without
the possibility of terminating its inquiries ; for in-
finity will be its range, and eternity the period of its
investigations.

The Affections also, the operations of which we
are now more immediately concerned to discuss, will
partake, in a corresponding measure, of the same
glorifying process. The presence and society of
Jehovah will elevate, transform, and harmonize them

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 553

in the most delightful and astonishing manner. The
melody of his voice will sweetly attune them to his
love. They will be raised in all their attachments
and propensities to a congeniality with the scenes
with which they are now conversant, to a height of
purity and glory co-ordinate with the present order
of existence. They will have laid aside every thing
that was base, and earthly, and sensual. They will
no longer be alloyed by an admixture of degrading
passions, nor deteriorated by coming in contact with
the debasing elements of pride and malice, and envy ;
but they will all concentrate and coalesce in the one
predominating affection of love, and that love vnM be
pure, generous, and expansive ; exalted in its object,
spiritual in its exercises, and intense in its energies ;
glorious, elevated, and divine, in all its tendencies
and operations.

The bodies of believers, when fully admitted into
the presence of the Lord, will also largely participate
in the glory which He has prepared for them. On
the morning of the general resurrection, those frail
and perishable tabernacles, which for ages had moul-
dered into dust, shall be rebuilt in a style of sur-
passing splendour, and be transformed into edifices
pure as the light of heaven, and permanent as the
duration of eternity. That which had been sown in
corruption shall be raised in incorruption. That
which had been sown a natural body, shall be raised
a spiritual body. The materialism of the bodily
frame shall experience a mysterious change, by
which it will lose its debasing qualities, and be
raised to a congeniality of essence with the pure

554 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

properties of spirit. Thus the whole man will be
glorified. Every constituent of nature being propor-
tionably elevated and adorned, there will be no more
conflict between the judgment and the affections,
between the understanding and the heart. There
will be no reluctance in the one to second the desires
of the other ; but all, within and without, will be
harmony, peace, and delightful co-operation.

2. We remark further, that the saints hereafter
will be ever with the Lord in the realizing view and
contemplation of his perfections. In their former
state they could at best only see Him as through a
glass darkly. To see the glory of the Lord, to have
a distinct perceptioLii — a palpable manifestation of his
resplendent attributes, was a desire very naturally
expressed by Moses. And it has been anxiously
desired by the faithful servants of God in every age
of the world. But even that eminent and highly-
favoured saint was but very faintly and partially
indulged in his wish during his continuance in his
earthly tabernacle. He was allowed to see but the
skirts of those robes of glory, with which the character
of Jehovah is invested and adorned ; but even this
transient and imperfect view was, doubtless, attended
with emotions of exquisite delight, with sensations of
the purest and most exalted satisfaction. And it
always has been one of the most constant employ-
ments, as well as the purest pleasures of the servants
of God upon earth, to contemplate those dim shadows
of his perfections, those faint representations of his
glorious attributes, which are reflected from the
mirror of his word, and portrayed on the lace of his

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 555

creation. They have delighted to trace his wisdom
in the minute, and to admire Him in the magnificent
of nature. They have scanned His steps in the
movements of the material universe, and in the even
tenor of His providence. They have sought Him in
his temple, where He has engaged to meet them, and
to reveal himself unto them. And their souls have
been filled with rapture, and they have seemed to be
transported above earth, when they have been enabled
to catch but a transient glimpse of his reconciled
countenance. They have withdrawn to the solitude
of their retired meditations ; they have gone forth in
the public ordinances of his worship, and have united
themselves to the company of his people with the
view of beholding Him, whom their soul loveth. But
often they were utterly disappointed. The clouds of
corruption either hid Him altogether from their view,
or His visits were like those of a wayfaring man, that
turneth in to tarry for a night. There was much
of darkness in their clearest perceptions ; there was
much of what was grovelling in their sublimest con-
templations.

But when they shall awake ; when they shall be
aroused from the sleep of death, and wing their up-
ward flight and take their station at the throne of
the Lamb, they shall behold his face in righteousness
and be satisfied with his likeness. They shall be like
Him, for they shall see Him as He is. In their risen
body and in their glorified flesh they shall behold
Him. They shall see Him, not through the faint
and imperfect medium of faith, but they shall con-
template with the faculty of distinct and immediate

556 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

vision the bright countenance of Deity. They shall
see the majesty of his power, the rectitude of his
justice, the infinity of his wisdom, the immutability
of his truth, the tenderness of his love, the beauty of
his holiness, and the loveliness of his mercy, all con-
spicuously displayed and mutually reflected in the
whole plan of his government, in the whole course
of his administration, in the whole compass of his
creation ; in the past transactions of the earth ; in
the present felicities of heaven ; in the brief retro-
spect of time ; in the boundless prospect of eternity.
Their vision will be clear without a cloud or inter-
vening mist, constant without intervals of conceal-
ment or interruption, and permanent without the
remotest possibility of its ever being lost in night.
And, finally, it will be cheerful and complacent ; no
frown of displeasure shall ever contract his brow, no
gloom of dissatisfaction shall ever darken the bright
serenity of his countenance.

3. We believe again that the faithful shall here-
after be with God in the maintenance of a sublime
communion, an intimate fellowship with Him, It
was their privilege upon earth to enjoy, in a subor-
dinate measure, the communion of the Holy Ghost,
to have their fellowship with the Father and with his
Son Jesus Christ. But it was an intercourse con-
ducted upon comparatively distant terms. It was
converse held with One, who hid his face behind a
veil, it was friendship maintained with One who dwelt
in a far country. It was society carried on between
parties, who hardly understood each other, and Avhich
there was much of unfaithfulness and inaptitude on

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 557

their part to interrupt and embarrass. Conscious
guilt frequently abashed them in the presence of
that pure and holy Being, into whose partial fellow-
ship they were admitted, and made them desirous of
hiding themselves from his view. They were yet but
inadequately trained and disciplined for holding inti-
mate communication with a Being so glorious and
exalted. There was a want of perfect congeniality of
disposition, and a necessity of continual distraction
on account of the cares and anxieties of life. But in
heaven, the scene of their final joys and triumphs, all
these disabilities will have been removed ; all these
barriers of guilt and remaining depravity will have
been thrown down and consumed in the world's last
conflagration. All these impediments to the spon-
taneous flow of social aff'ection, to the free and
unrestrained exercise of friendly intercourse will
have ceased. The scenes of Eden will be renewed
under circumstances of greater glory and serenity.
The voice of the Lord God walking through the
heavenly paradise will be heard and hailed with
delight ; nor will there be a disposition in any of
the inhabitants to hide themselves from his presence.
There will be no prohibitory injunction as a test
of obedience, because obedience shall have been
confirmed and perfected in a preceding state of
probation. There no malicious and enticing spirit
will be found, because the tempter and the accuser of
the brethren, with the whole band of his rebellious
associates, will have been cast out, without the possi-
bility of regaining an entrance, to create a mutiny
among the angels, or to try the fidelity of the saints.

558 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

The redeemed shall then enjoy advantages of
communion with God infinitely superior to those
which were or could have been enjoyed in the
earthly paradise. They shall see God, not merely
in his works or in some striking display of his
glory, but they will behold God incarnate, the
essence of the Deity mysteriously and incompre-
hensibly, but at the same time manifestly and glo-
riously imbodied in their own nature. They will
see his goodness not only stamped in visible im-
press upon the wonderful page of his creation, but
also warmly glowing forth in the benignity of human
features. They will hear his voice, not in the
distant accents of a sound proceeding from afar,
but audibly uttered with the organs of human
speech. They wiU have to thank Him with warmer
affection than the mere obligations of creation and
providence could have kindled. They will have to
adore Him in higher strains, and acknowledge Him
with more ardent gratitude than could have been
awakened by blessings inferior to those of redeem-
ing love. They will adore Him in language taught
by his own Spirit, and celebrate Him in songs of
everlasting praise.

And, finally, they wiU be with Him in the full
and unbounded fruition of his love. It is this cir-
cumstance that will constitute the perfection of tJieir
happiness, that will form the absolute consumma-
tion of their bliss. They were the objects of Jeho-
vah's love, indeed, in their low estate, as they
lay helpless and unpitied amidst the overwlielming
ruins of the fall. He loved them while they were

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 559

yet sinners, and made provision, by a sacrifice the
dearest which heaven could have afforded, for their
full and unqualified restoration. He loved thcni
with a more direct and active exercise of his re-
gards, while, now reconciled unto Him by the death
of his Son, and renewed and sanctified by his
Spirit, they sojourned in the world, and lived as
strangers and pilgrims upon earth. But the bond
of union between Him and their souls was yet
incomplete. His love was yet but partially shed
abroad in their hearts. They had but a slight fore-
taste, a scanty prelibation of that rich banquet,
which they were afterwards destined to enjoy. The
rays descended into their hearts from a distance,
and were cooled in their progress by many inter-
vening clouds. They were dissipated by worldly
care, and almost neutralized in their effects by the
inherent damp of corruption. But now, when they
shall have escaped the cold atmosphere of this lower
world; when they shall have been lifted up and
drawn to the immediate vicinity of their centre of
light and heat, the beams of divine love will glow
upon them and within them with unabated strength
and intensity. Jehovah will then pour upon them
the full tide of his affections; while they, surren-
dering themselves to the impulse of that tide, will
be carried forward in endless progress of increasing
and accumulating bliss. God himself, in all the
exhaustless resources of his infinite perfections, is
become their portion. And, replenished with his
fulness, they are blessed in the fruition of his love,
and receive from Him such fresh supplies of happi-

560 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

ness as are adequate to the utmost measure of their
still expanding capacities.

Such, in its general features, so far as we are
able to gather from the indistinct intimations of
Scripture, will be the consummated felicity of glori-
fied spirits hereafter. And as the exercise of the
Affections will constitute a large portion of that
bliss, it may be fairly assumed, independently of
all other considerations, that an essential part of
true religion here is the due use and discipline of
those Affections.

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 561

PART II.

THE EVILS LIABLE TO RESULT FROM A MISTAKEN

AND ILL-GOVERNED EXERCISE OP THE

AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION.

Section I.

The Error of making Religion almost entirely to consist

OP INTERNAL FeELINGS.

But legitimate and highly important as is a suitable
and well-regulated exercise of the Affections in the
formation and progressive advancement of the Chris-
tian character, it is unquestionable that, like all other
constituent faculties of the mind, they are liable to
perversion and abuse. It will now be our business,
therefore, in accordance with the method of inves-
tigation proposed at the commencement of this
Inquiry, to state some of the evils and mistakes,
which not unfrequently arise from erroneous views,
or the excessive indulgence of this essential prin-
ciple of human nature, as connected with the subject
of religion. Many of these misapplications and ob-
liquities, indeed, have a very strict analogy, and bear
a very close affinity to those, which have been already
remarked as noxious excrescences, occasionally at-
taching themselves to the luxuriant and overgrown
ramifications of the imaginative faculty. When,
however, such erroneous views and distorted repre-
sentations of divine truth are confined to the lighter

2 o

562 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

and more speculative province of the mind, they are
comparatively harmless and ineffective in their ope-
ration. But when they descend into the heart, and
blend themselves with all that is interesting and
commanding in the Affections, their poisonous influ-
ence becomes infinitely more active and virulent.
According to their several degrees of perversity and
force they disorganize the character; they destroy
the nice and well-adjusted balance of the intellectual
faculties ; they invert the order of that regular and
harmonious movement, which should distinguish a
well-constituted economy of mind in the exercise of
all its powers. They introduce wildness and extra-
vagance, where the soberness of truth should prevail.
According to their peculiar quality and tendency
they rise into the fantastic heights of inordinate
confidence and presumption; they degenerate into
offensive and unmeaning singularities of conduct and
a narrow censoriousness of disposition, or they sink
into despondency, and sometimes plunge the soul
into the gloomiest depths of despair. These several
forms of evil are freely acknowledged occasionally,
though but rarely, to spring fi-om an ill-regulated
exercise of the Affections ; not for the unscriptural
and unphilosophical purpose of proscribing them
altogether from the service of religion — for on this
plea what faculty of the mind would not fall under a
similar sentence of condemnation ? — but with a view
of supplying a corrective, by pointing out symptoms
of the disease.

It is, in the first place, an obvious and decisive
evidence of a false and fanatical theory of religion.

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 503

and of an ill-balanced arrangement of the mental
system, when Christianity is made solely or mainly
to consist of internal Sensations and Emotions,
The unquestionable fact, that there may be much of
speculative knowledge, and of the exterior decency
of morality, unaccompanied with a vital and influen-
tial principle of religion in the heart, has led some
persons to contract their views of divine truth, to
narrow its legitimate range of dominion over the
human character, to detach it from its natural con-
nection with every province of the mind and conduct,
and to concentrate the whole of its essence in the
fervency and energy of inward feeling. In the
estimate of character, such persons seldom look with
the requisite share of attention to the state of the
higher faculties of the mind and the prevailing habits
of the life, provided, indeed, it be free from gross
overt acts of sin ; for we know of no sect of decent
and rational religionists, with whom a uniform and
unrestrained course of practical profligacy would not
be regarded as a virtual renunciation of all preten-
sion to piety. But the persons, of whom we are now
speaking, though they do not profess to abolish
the necessity, or, within due limits, to undervalue
the importance of knowledge and morality, yet
clearly make vehement and impassioned, and in
some instances perverted feeling, to the almost
entire exclusion of every other criterion, the great
standard of the religious character. Aware that the
intellect may be stored with the varied treasures of
theological science, and notionally enlightened with
the brightest illuminations of truth, and that the

202

564 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

conduct in its relative and social bearing may be
adorned with many of the graces and embellishments
of a specious and imposing virtue, or distinguished
by many of the simple and unobtrusive excellencies,
the amiability, the integrity, the inoffensiveness of
humble and retired life, while, at the same time, to
use the expressive phraseology of the Apostle, " the
carnal mind is enmity against God," they too hastily
admit the unqualified persuasion, that religion is not
merely something deeper and more vital — something
which opens a more direct communication Avith
heaven than these meagre endowments, but, that it
is something which is specifically distinct from all
essential connection with these departments of the
character, with which they are found associated.
Feeling with them, in the character of a Christian,
occupies the same place in the scale of importance,
as Demosthenes made action to sustain in that of
an orator. It is the first, the second, and the third
qualification, and so paramount is the importance
attached to it, that every other requisite, though
assumed and faintly acknowledged, appears, in the
general estimate, to sink into comparative insignifi-
cance. If an individual has passed through a course
of strong, and often turbid and indistinct sensations
— if he has been the subject of a painful process of
mental exercise, usually denominated experience,
the order and technical arrangement of wliich are
frequently determined and distinctly specified, — and
we are far from denying that divine truth in its ap-
plication to the heart and conscience, is generally
marked by the same line of operation, — it is concluded

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 665

without a due inquiry into the clearness of his views,
the extent of his scriptural information, and the
practical purity of his conduct, that he is in possession
of all that is valuable and distinguishingly peculiar in
religion. It would be as unjust as it would be in-
vidious to charge any particular community as uni-
versally fallen into this state of aberration from
sound and enlightened principles; but individuals,
labouring in a degree more or less under this de-
lusion, may doubtless be found among all classes of
professors, with whom religion is an affair of the
heart. And hence arises the expediency that Chris-
tian ministers should labour as much as possible,
and as much as is fairly consistent with circumstances,
to address the feelings of their hearers, through the
medium of their understandings, — ^that the foun-
dation of a solid and well-balanced piety should be
laid in an intelligent acquaintance with the truth in
all its bearings upon the character — that the light
of Knowledge and the warmth of Affection, ema-
nating from their instructions^ may fall with a blended
and mutually subservient effect — that, losing none
of their fervour and zeal, and diluting none of their
powerful and frequent appeals to the heart, they
should direct their efforts with equal energy to the
illumination of the mind, and the conviction of the
judgment, in order to secure the concurrence and
authority of these commanding faculties in their
assault upon the fortress of the Affections. Then
might ihej hope with the divine blessing that the
man of God enlightened by the beams of truth, and
warmed by the simultaneous influence of renewing:

666 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

and sanctifying grace, carrying on its operations
upon the heart, would become perfect, thoroughly
furnished unto every good work.

Without such an attention to the cultivation of
the intellectual part of the general system of the
mind, there is a danger that religion should lose its
hold of that great and distinguishing power, which
the Author of nature designed to be the guide and
director of all the rest, and by a remoter conse-
quence, that it should be detached from its indis-
pensable connection with, and influence upon, the
conduct. We sometimes hear, indeed, among those
who cannot be suspected of having experienced any
very overwhelming sense of the importance of reli-
gion, that such and such persons have good hearts —
hearts, it may be presumed, full of the purest feelings
and the devoutest dispositions, while the whole course
of their conduct gives pretty clear indications that
it is only a goodness of the heart. And we are
sometimes disposed to ask, why this mass of good-
ness allows itself so tamely to be pent up within
such a narrow enclosure, and never attempts to
burst forth through any of the numberless channels
of practical piety and zeal. We are apt to wonder,
seeing the heart is so well replenished with every
thing that is good and estimable in feeling, why it
is that the light is so completely and effectually
prevented from shining before men — why it is that
the ostensible character presents so much of the
appearance of a dark lantern — why the practice
proves so dense and unfit a medium for the trans-
mission of those rays of religious Affection which

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 567

are supposed to glow so intensely, and to shine so
resplendently within.

Section II.

Inward Impressions liable to supersede Practical Evidence

IN THE estimate OF THE INDIVIDUAL'S OWN CHARACTER.

We may notice, as another evil of enormous magni-
tude, which has sometimes arisen from a false and
distorted view of the office of the Aflfections, as con-
nected with the principles of religion, that upon the
mere strength of internal impressions persons have
been led confidently to assert that they enjoyed the
peculiar and distinguishing favour of God ; while in
the mean time their character was palpably defective
in those practical evidences, without which, under
ordinary circumstances, no other criterion, however
plausible, can, upon scriptural grounds, be decisive.
Experience shows that the Feelings, while they
operate with force and vigour, have an amazing
influence upon the views of the understanding, and
the convictions of the judgment. It does not always
require the aid of absolute and conscious hypocrisy
to induce a man to maintain a proposition, or to
assert a fact, for which he can adduce no other proof
than the confident but often groundless persuasion
of his ow^n mind. How frequently do Ave witness a
specimen of the fides carbonaria — the circular pro-
cess of reasoning, while persons of this description
attempt to account for the unhesitating assurance
which they possess, that they are special favourites

568 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

of Heaven, and infallible heirs of glory. They be-
lieve this momentous truth, a truth so cheering to
those who have arrived at it by the legitimate
method of a calm and sober investigation, and by
a deduction of solid and scriptural arguments applied
to the mind and character; but they believe it for
no other reason than because their own strong and
uncontrollable sensations have wrought in them a
belief of it. Where Feeling vastly predominates in
the character, whatever form it may assume, and
through whatever channels its operations may flow, it
soon establishes a most complete despotism in the soul,
it brings every other power into thrall; and the nice
distinctions, the subtle argumentations of the Eeason
and the Understanding are as impotent to resist its
force, as shreds of flax to repel the flame of a fiery
furnace.

Religious professors of this high temperature
disdain to descend to the cool atmosphere of a
deliberate and dispassionate inquiry into the real
state of their character; they seem to be perfect
strangers to the apostolical precept, to be ready to
give every man a reason of the hope that is in them
with meekness and fear. It is enough for them that
they have the witness within themselves, not the
accountable and intelligible testimony of the divine
Spirit imparted through the medium of those graces
and affections, which He implants in the soul, and
powerfully confirmed by those practical eff'ects — by
that unvarying train of devout and virtuous habits —
by that expansive charity — by that unbending in-
tegrity— by that purity of manners, and that sanctity

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 5G9

of deportment, which manifest themselves in the
outward conduct ; — not the seal of substantial piety
and holiness impressed upon the character, the super-
scription of which may be known and read of all
men, but something in the form of a direct commu-
nication from heaven, involving an esoteric signi-
fication, which is to be understood only by him, to
w^hom it is revealed; which is too unshackled and
independent in its mode of operation to be reduced
to any principles of rational and scriptural investi-
gation; w^hich is too subtle and attenuated to be
embodied in action, and to become palpable in its
efiects to the faculties of external perception, and
too delicate to transpire in any other way than
through the bold and confident assertions of him,
to whom it has been vouchsafed. To direct the
mind of such an one to those evidences of his justi-
fication and adoption, and other associated privileges
of the new covenant, which the Apostles have so fully
detailed, and upon the possession of which they insist
with so much earnestness, would be, in his case, like
holding a candle to the sun. Convinced, or at least
professing to be convinced himself, that he is in the
full enjoyment of the favour of God, and inalienably
entitled to the future inheritance of glory, he expects
that others should give implicit credence to his de-
clarations ; that, instead of following the apostolic
precept of trying the spirits, whether they be of God,
they should at once acknowledge the safety of his
condition, and that by an intuitive glance into the
interior machinery of his character they should dis-
cover the purity of his principles, and the sincerity

570 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

of his professions, while every thing that is ostensible
to the eje gives but too much reason to apprehend
the reverse.

How these strong persuasions of individual and
personal safety are produced in the mind, by what
train of concurrent influences they are formed and
consolidated, until they arrive at the pitch of bold
and daring assumption, it would in many instances
be difficult to determine. That, in some cases, they
are partly attributable to the agency of another
spirit, than the Spirit of light and holiness, there
is hardly room to doubt. Pretensions of this nature
unaccompanied with those practical vouchers, that
alone can render them tolerable to a Christian mind,
present a specimen of disgracing and outraging the
Gospel, with the adoption of some of the leading and
most vital doctrines of which they are very generally
associated, which, we may presume, cannot fail to be
highly pleasing to the malignant disposition of him,
who knows, in order to obtain his pur]^)oses, how to
assume the guise of an angel of light. That a mode
of instruction, which almost entirely confines itself to
a development of the privileges of the Christian,
which deals in exaggerated representations of the
liberty and security of the believer, Avhile his duties
and moral obligations are kept out of sight, or briefly
hinted, has a powerful tendency to cherish the same
proud and delusive habit of mind and feeling, is
unquestionable. l!^otliing can be a more effectual
preservative against it, than a close and undeviating
adherence to that wise and judicious combination
of privilege and duty, of which the writings of the

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 571

apostles afford us so many admirable specimens. It
is thus that the balance of the Christian character
is maintained — that the consciousness of freedom
from condemnation is prevented from rising into
pride, and a sense of infirmity and imperfection in
meeting the demands of moral obligation is preserved
from sinking into despondency.

We trust it is needless to say that the preceding
remarks are not intended, in the slightest degree, to
disparage the important doctrine of a divine influence
upon the heart, as indispensably necessary to accom-
pany the truth of Scripture, in order that it may
produce its appropriate effect upon the soul. And
far be it from us to limit the Holy One of Israel,
with respect to the mode of communicating that
influence. There doubtless are diversities of opera-
tion, and it is not for us to say that the Holy Spirit
may not convey an immediate impression of peace
and safety to the mind, where the character and
conduct, estimated by the rule of a written revelation,
do not manifestly contravene such a supposition.
That a good and holy man may not be favoured with
a direct assurance of his having attained to a state of
peace with God, through the medium of the appro-
priated blessings and privileges of the Gospel — such
an assurance as excludes all doubt and disquietude of
spirit, and enables him to rejoice in the prospect of
approaching blessedness, is what cannot, upon any
ground of Scripture, and without the most unbecom-
ing presumption, by any one be asserted.

572 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

Section III.

Strong Feelings, unaccompanied with sound Judgment, in

DANGER of COMPLETELY UNHINGING THE MiND,

As another ill effect, liable to arise from an intense
exercise and an unrestrained indulgence of the sensi-
tive affections in religion, I observe, that without the
counterpoise of a strong and well-regulated judgment,
they are in danger of completely overpowering and
unhinging the mind, and of producing an unnatural
and grotesque effect upon the body. It was doubt-
less never the design of religion to introduce a species
of anarchy and confusion into the harmonious and
well-constituted economy of the human faculties ; to
snatch away the rudder from the hand of Keason, to
whose care the vessel of the character has been
mainly intrusted, and to unfurl the sails of the Affec-
tions, in order to be swelled by every gale, and to be
driven without any specific direction at the caprice of
every blast. It was never the object of this placid
and celestial principle to raise a storm of conflicting
emotions in the breast, amidst the tumultuous din
and collision of which the voice of the understanding
would be drowned, and the mild accents of wisdom
would be lost ; to interfere Avith the legitimate func-
tions of the intellectual faculty, and thus to derange
those gradations and mutual subserviences, which
should invariably distinguish the operations of the
mental powers ; in short, to produce any effect,
either upon the mind or body, which can exliibit
religion in any other form or under any other aspect
than that of a reasonable service — we mean, not the

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 673

cold and lifeless mechanism of external formalities,
but a system of conduct, controlled and regulated by
wisdom, and accordant with the dictates of sobriety
and truth ; but, at the same time, animated with
the glow of aifection, and inpregnated with the
energy of zeal.

But there are circumstances, under which this
salutary balance of the faculties is liable to be com-
pletely lost. When, for example, in the incipient
stages of the religious life, the transcendent import-
ance of eternal things presents itself to the view —
when, perhaps, from a life of utter worldliness or of
thoughtless and degrading sensuality, an individual
is at once awakened to a sense of his danger, and
the awful realities of a world to come first fasten
themselves with a penetrating effect upon his atten-
tion; when a sound, as that of the last trumpet,
seems to alarm him out of the slumbers of spiritual
death ; when a voice of thunder, louder than that of
Sinai, seems to announce his guilt and condemnation:
when these considerations of imminent peril and of
personal delinquency come upon him, as is sometimes
the case, with the suddenness of terror and surprise,
it is no wonder that his sensations should be in a
high degree powerful and overwhelming. And in-
stances have occurred, in which they have for a while
had the effect of throwing the whole intellectual
system out of joint. This, however, is for the most
part OAving to some previous bias — to some radical
defect in the constitution of the mind — or some pre-
dominating habits, which bore sway in the character.
N^or is it merely by the more awful and terrific

674 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

views of religious truth — of the realities of eternity,
and of the powers of the world to come, that the
mind is thus liable to be unsettled and overborne ;
but the brighter revelations of life and immortality,
the more delightful and animating scenes of the
celestial paradise, the visions of glory bursting with
unusual radiance upon the eye of the mind, have
sometimes been attended with an ecstasy of pleasure,
and have thrown the soul into a delirium of joy,
which was more than the infirmity of nature could
bear. The contemplation of divine love, as mani-
fested in the work of redemption, being an exercise
of beneficent kindness indeed, the dimensions of
which surpass the grasp of all created capacity, has
sometimes produced an effect upon tender spirits,
which materially interfered with the calm and deli-
berate functions of the understanding. It so com-
pletely absorbed, for the time, all other views and
feelings and interests, as to occasion a degree of
impatience of every other mental exercise or prac-
tical occupation, to relax the firmness of cool and
solid principle, to unnerve the vigour of manly senti-
ment, to concentrate the whole duty of a Christian
into the solitude and retirement of meditative affec-
tion, and thus obviously to unfit him for those
conflicts with evil, and those active and energetic
endeavours for the advancement of spiritual and
moral good ; in short, for strenuously co-operating
with God in the promotion of his great designs, and
efficiently discharging the obligations of the present
mixed state of existence. This was the leading error
of the Mystics.

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 575

But it is not only upon the economy of the mind,
that occasional bursts or the habitual exercise of
ill-regulated and over-wrought feeling is apt to pro-
duce a disorganizing effect; but internal impressions
of this nature sometimes display themselves most
objectionably in the influence, which they are found
to exert upon the bodily system. Vehement excla-
mations unseasonably uttered, and without any very
appropriate meaning; fantastic movements and atti-
tudes, and sometimes swoons and hysterical distor-
tions of the frame, are among those forms of evil
and unbecoming excess, in which the intensity of ill-
governed religious feeling occasionally manifests itself.
There are some sects of professors which have derived
their names, either voluntarily assumed, or jestingly
and profanely imposed, from these uncouth and occa-
sionally ludicrous appendages to what is devoutly
sincere and morally estimable in their general cha-
racter. For it would be in the highest degree
uncandid and unjust — it w^ould be in direct oppo-
sition to the known and acknowledged testimony of
fact to charge the communities, which are particularly
distinguished by these habits, as being universally
fools and hypocrites, if not disguised profligates, as
their still more contemptible deriders have been
always disposed to do. Many of these grotesque
and incongruous effects are doubtless attributable to
imperfect knowledge, to mistaken interpretations of
Scripture, to conventional habits, to the contagious
influence of example, and to the want of imposing a
discreet and salutary restraint upon the emotions of
the heart, — circumstances deepty lamentable in

576 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

themselves indeed, and greatly injurious in their
consequences, but by no means incompatible in or-
dinary cases with purity of principle, spirituality of
affection, and uniform consistency of conduct. Every
thing, which can even incidentally expose religion to
contempt, is to be deplored. Such manifestations of
its influence as have the necessary effect of exciting
the prejudice and disgust of enlightened and culti-
vated minds, and affording a subject of mockery
and needless ridicule to the profane, must be strongly
and unhesitatingly censured. This sublime principle
should maintain such dignity of character, such
sobriety of deportment, such a power of self-control,
not shrinking, however, from a vigorous, energetic,
and animated display of its genuine and impressive
tendencies, as that impiety may be constrained to
respect it, and feel its own comparative meanness
and worthlessness before it. Although, therefore,
it is not required of the earnest and devout religionist
so to suppress and neutralize his feelings as that the
heart, which has been softened into a proper suscep-
tibility to the influence of heavenly things, should
again be petrified into a heart of stone; although a
penetrating and commanding sense of the transcen-
dent importance of eternal realities may transfuse
itself, with a salutary effect, throughout all the
powers of the mind; — this indeed is no more than
is necessary to re-establish that equilibrium of the
spirit with respect to the claims of futurity, wliich
was so completely destroyed by the great apostasy
of our nature; although in the case of the private
Christian, or the public teacher, " the soul of fire"

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 577

cannot, and need not, be expected to smother its
blazing energies, with ahnost literal truth, witliin the
stiff and jointless inclosures of a frame of "adamant;"
although religion never appears to greater advan-
tage, nor commands a more suitable and beneficent
impression than when it glows with living lustre in
the radiance of an animated countenance, and ap-
pears to swell and electrify every nerve with its OAvn
overpowering inspirations; yet assuredly all forced
and extravagant gesticulations, all " bodily exercise,"
which is calculated to give rise to light and ludicrous
associations, as well as all such partial representations
of divine truth as are likely to produce a disorga-
nizing effect upon the well-adjusted operations of the
mental system, are to be deprecated as inexpedient,
and to be condemned as a violation of that precept,
which commands all things to be done decently, and
in order — as an infraction of that principle, which
enjoins rightly to divide the word of truth.

Section IY.

The Distress occasioned by an attempt to fix the time op

CONVERSION BY A REGARD TO EXPERIMENTAL FeELING.

Another injurious effect, which is sometimes found
to arise from an ill-judged and undue regard to
feeling, as connected with the principles of religion,
is, that persons allow themselves to sink into des-
pondency or despair, because they cannot, by a
reference to their internal emotions, mark out to
their own satisfaction the precise point of time at

2 P

578 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

wliicli their conversion took place. Notliing can be
more groundless, more destitute of all scriptural
warrant, than the supposed or alleged necessity of
thus fixing the exact chronological epoch in the his-
tory of the character, at which divine truth began to
exercise a saving influence upon the soul. In most
cases, indeed, this important period was too strongly
marked by a change of views and habits to leave
the process very doubtful or remotely uncertain with
respect to time where the fact has really taken place.
In the idea of what is sometimes called an instan-
taneous conversion, by which it may be presumed,
nothing more is meant than a powerful and effectual
impression produced upon the mind, usually through
the medium of a particular agency, and giving rise
to an immediate change of principles and conduct,
we see nothing which can fairly be regarded as un-
scriptural, unphilosophical, or enthusiastic. If it be
admitted that an influence is communicated at all
from heaven, either mediately or otherwise, the
object of which is to eflfect a salutary revolution, or
to carry on a process of moral renovation in the
character, it must be obvious that it hegius to be
imparted at some period or other; and if that period
should be the mature season of life, and very possibly
in the midst of a career of immorality and irreligion,
where is the enthusiasm of supposing that the first
coruscations of that celestial illumination, which is
gradually to unfold upon the soul, should not be
altogether imperceptible; that the incipient fermen-
tations of that principle, which is to germinate, to
spring up, and to fructify under the invigorating

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 579

warmth of Iieaven, until it has been transplanted
into the Paradise above, should not be wholly unfelt?
Where is the superstition of attaching the com-
mencement of such a work of transformation to a
specified point of time, of dating the operation of a
cause from the period, at which all the intimations of
thought and feeling, demonstrably confirmed by the
appropriate phenomena of conduct, began to evince
its existence? We might rather ask, under the pe-
culiar circumstances, which have now been stated,
how great is the absurdity of maintaining, or even
of supposing the reverse? The whole current of
scriptural analogy and example is assuredly in favour
of conversion frequently taking place at a specific
time and through a known instrumentality. And
with respect to the apparent incredibility of the in-
stantaneousness of this great change, nobody has
ever had the folly and effrontery of maintaining that
the renovation was at once perfect and complete;
but all that can be rationally affirmed is, that it was
instantaneous in its beginning; and in many cases,
sufficiently perceptible to the individual for all the
purposes of consolation and encouragement.

Allowing this to be the case, however — not deny-
ing that the great work of spiritual regeneration or
conversion is often effected by means and accom-
panied by circumstances, of which it is scarcely
possible that the individual should be utterly un-
conscious, as the testimony of Scripture, illustrated
by fact and experience, abundantly demonstrates,
we can by no means grant that it is indispensably
necessary that the time and instrument of it be, in

2 P 2

580 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

every case, distinctly visible to the eye of the mind,
or be capable of being confidently pointed out.
Much misery and delusion have arisen from requiring
in this case, a test of genuineness — a criterion of
real Christianity, which the Bible no where demands,
and which the circumstantial condition of many
persons renders utterly incapable of application. This
principle is obviously inadmissible with reference to
those, who like Jeremiah, are mysteriously and pro-
gressively, though, in the earlier stages of character,
imperceptibly sanctified from the womb; those, in
whose hearts the germ of grace may have been im-
planted at the initiatory rite of baptism. In such
persons the birth from heaven — the birth from above,
is almost simultaneous with their natural birth, and
co-ordinate in time with the birth of water as its
emblem. It is also rarely that it can be applied,
with any degree of certainty, to those who have from
their childhood enjoyed the advantage of a religious
and virtuous education ; those, who have imbibed
correct theoretic views of divine truth, with the first
development of their intellectual faculties; Avho, from
the first dawn of infancy and opening manhood, have
invariably been subject to the salutary and directing
control of parental authority and example ; who have
thus been gradually trained to an inward respect and
veneration for the truth, and a uniform compliance
with its ceremonial ordinances and practical requi-
sitions, and whom nature has probably endowed with
her most estimable qualities, and adorned with the
loveliest graces. In these characters it is natural
to expect that the process of regeneration, at what-

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 581

ever period of life it is carried into effect, should be
attended with far less of deep and penetrating
emotion, and of striking and ostensible phenomena
than in persons of an opposite description. The
conversion of Paul of Tarsus, for example, might far
more easily be determined as to its chronology and
circumstances, than that of the prophet already
mentioned. And in modern times, that of Watts
or Doddridge was far less distinguishable as to its
precise period and agency than that of the revered
John Newton, or of Count Struense — the former
once an abandoned profligate, the latter a sceptical
philosopher and politician, as well as a vicious and
unprincipled debauchee.

It frequently happens, how^ever, that this allow-
able and unimportant difference of circumstances
of times and seasons is completely overlooked.
Persons of weak and tender consciences, sensitively
alive to every point most remotely connected with
their spiritual condition, are not satisfied to judge
of their state by the substantial evidence, w^hich the
conduct of their lives, and the habitual frame of
their spirits, supply; but aware of the indispens-
able necessity of a great and universal change, as,
independently of other considerations, the very
analogy of the term, by which it is expressed, evi-
dently imports, before they can be qualified to enter
into the kingdom of heaven; injudiciously and
ignorantly applying a few occasional instances re-
corded in Scripture, in which the attendants of the
regenerating and converting energy of grace were
palpable and striking, as specimens and rules of

582 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

invariable procedure ; learning, moreover, from
verbal or written representation the process of deep
mental exercise, the alternations of fear and hope
preceding the firm establishment of an assured
confidence of acceptance, which others, diff'erently
constituted, and deemed by Infinite Wisdom proper
subjects of a diflferent economy, have experienced,
they are apprehensive that, as they have never
undergone such an oppressive and overwhelming
order of operations, they have "no part nor lot in
the matter." They forget, that where the disease
of the moral nature has not been confirmed by a
long course of vicious indulgence, or utter irreligion,
so as to become, if we may so speak, a chronic dis-
order, nor aggravated by a wilful neglect and abuse
of the proffered means of restoration, the divine
Physician employs a milder method than He deems
it necessary to use in cases of more inveterate and
protracted malady. The disease is indeed radical
and universal in the present fallen and degraded
character of man; and the remedial agency must
be substantially the same in every case. But
where the disorder has been prevented from run-
ning into the excess of impiety and moral turpi-
tude, by the application of such palliatives, as early
care, educational principles, and native dispositions
of a more amiable and generous order could supply,
the restorative process may well be imagined to be
commenced and carried on with equal effect by
such gentle alteratives, as are scarcely perceptible
in their operations.

The safest principle, by which man can judge of

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 583

bis condition is to bring it at once to tbc test of
Scripture. There be bas an infalliljle standard,
whicb being designed for universality of appKca-
tion, cannot in its judicious and enligbtened use,
possibly deceive or mislead bim. Tbis ultimate
and decisive criterion does not indeed exclude or
dispense Avitb a suitable order of affections as an
essential element of tbat character, wbicb it pro-
nounces safe and boly. But tlie main stress of its
requirements it doubtless places upon tbose moral
and practical graces — tbose zealous and active per-
formances of tbe revealed will of God, ^ybicb are tbe
invariable, tbe necessary fruits of a grateful affec-
tion; Avbicb are tbe pure streams spontaneously and
insensibly emanating from tbe divine love opened in
tbe beart. Tbe Feelings, as a test of character, are
employed in Scripture, as thus being less liable to
perversion and delusion, rather with a reference to
their effects than in their own immediate operation.
AVbere tbe genuine fruits of the Spirit manifest
themselves in the life and conduct, it may there be
safely assumed that the heart and affections have
been deeply impregnated with the influences of the
Spirit ; that a principle of vitality has been implanted,
and a celestial energy imparted, wbicb have quick-
ened and pervaded, however gently, and perhaps
imperceptibly, the whole moral system. But he, who
will altogether withdraw bis attention from these
tangible and convincing phenomena, and will seek
the evidences of his condition in emotions of the
beart, wbicb, however necessary and important, are,
to a considerable degree, mysterious and undefiu-

584 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

able ; he who Avill sound the depth, gauge the dimen-
sions, and investigate the qualities of other persons'
feelings, between whose case and his own there may
be little or no analogy, and apply them as a rule
of admeasurement to his own character, for any
other purpose than that of stirring up his zeal, and
enkindling the fervour of his spirit by the glow of
their congenial warmth, adopts' a wrong and illusive
method for determining the genuineness of his reli-
gion. " To the law and the testimony" is the last
and most satisfactory resort, in this as well as every
other estimate of principle, doctrine and duty. If
the habitual character speaks the plain and practical
language, which they require and enforce, it may,
without danger or hesitation, be concluded that the
root of the matter is there.

^N'or is it merely with respect to the primary work
of converting grace that an injudicious regard to
sensitive Affection is in danger of embarrassing and
distressing the mind. There are many who suffer
their views of their state before God, and their esti-
mate of their Christian attainments, continually to
fluctuate with the varying tide — with the incessant
ebbs and flows of their feelings. Without ardour
of affection, we have abundantly shown that there
can be no real Christianity, much less a high order
of advancement in the religious character. But it is
perfectly needless and unjust to suffer every occa-
sional instance of coldness and depression, which a
thousand unavoidable circumstances may concur in
producing, to throw the mind into a state of spiri-
tual doubt and despondency. Surely a Christian

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 585

has a firmer basis upon which to erect his hopes,
than that he should be unsettled by every blast
■which may convey a chilling influence to his heart.
He has sounder principles, by which to regulate his
anticipations of the future, than that he should be
plunged into a state of despondency, or raised into
excessive elevation with every alteration of the
mental thermometer. Bodily infirmity, a deranged
state of the nervous or biliary system, and outward
affliction, or an overwhelming mass of necessary
business and secular occupation, may severally,
during their continuance, be attended Avith a dead-
ening influence upon the AflTections; while the cha-
racter, the moment it has disengaged itself from
these oppressive embarrassments, proves that it
has sustained no material decay by kindling into
reanimated warmth and proceeding with undimi-
nished vigour along the path of activity and obe-
dience. In illustration of the progressive influence
of the religious principle, as well as of every other
leading attribute of character, Bishop Butler, with
his usual profundity of remark, observes, that the
general efl'ect of continued habit is to w^eaken/ee?-
ing, and to confirm and strengthen a course of
2jractical duty. This circumstance sufficiently ac-
counts for those apprehensions of spiritual declen-
sion which frequently distress Christians of a
zealous and self-observant spirit, because their affec-
tions may not be quite so warm and susceptible as
they have once known them ; while, however, in all
the substantial endowments of the renewed character,
they appear to be steadily on the advance.

586 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

It is dangerous, however, to carry this principle
too far, and to allow it too great a latitude of appli-
cation. A real deterioration of character generally
commences in the Affections, — in the decay of their
vital and animating warmth, — in their diversion
from their appropriate objects, and in their im-
moderate and ill-directed indulgence upon things of
a fugitive and transitory nature. It is possible that
the Christian's first love should reprehensibly and
lamentably wax cold, and that he may have good
reason to bewail that it is not with him as it was in
months that are past, — that the springs of his con-
solation are dried up, and that all refreshing com-
munication between heaven and his soul has been
cut off. The genuine and proper order of the Chris-
tian Character, as the estimable author of the " His-
tory of the Church of Christ" has well remarked
is, that the warmth and energy of the devout affec-
tions should grow in proportion to the increasing
light and knowledge of the understanding. And
where the reverse of this is strongly manifested, a
most dangerous relapse, if not total apostasy, may
be justly apprehended.

From the habit of contemplating the character?
and estimating it favourably or otherwise, with a
primary and almost exclusive reference to the Feel-
ings, individuals, and sometimes whole communities
have been led to take their rule of duty, and their
motives of conduct, from the same source. This
most injurious and mischievous error appears to
have formed a very prominent part in the system
of the Mystics. The same mistake, perhaps under

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 587

a no less dangerous and objectionable form, has
been adopted by those who, professing, and we
doubt not unfeignedlj feeling, the deepest reverence
for the sacred Scriptures, suifer their conduct to be
mainly regulated by what they conceive to be the
light and motions of the Holy Spirit stirring within
them, and arousing them to appropriate action. To
such persons a written revelation would seem to be
in a great measure useless, and to be almost en-
tirely superseded by that commanding and oracular
director, which, like the attendant spirit of Socrates?
has taken up his abode in their own breasts, and is
at all times ready to point out the path in which
they are to advance, and to check their progress
whenever they are in danger of making a wrong
and unauthorized movement. Under the influence
of these impulses, persons have frequently been
urged into measures, which, apart from the autho-
rity of these mandates, they would have unhesi-
tatingly censured and condemned. In the absence
of these supposed celestial intimations, they will
venture upon scarcely any undertaking of import-
ance; but when they begin sensibly to feel the
inspirations with which they are become fraught,
they are conscious of increasing uneasiness until
they have given vent to what they are prompted to
utter, or have engaged in the enterprise, on which
they are so powerfully urged to embark. To the
voice of this internal monitor, they deem themselves
bound to yield the most implicit obedience, and on
all questions of importance they appear literally to
regard it as the voice of God within them. That

588 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

the divine Spirit can immediately produce such im-
pressions upon the heart, and sensibly affect with
such inclinations to speech or action, as leave no
doubt of their origin, and that he does, on some
occasions, thus actuate the minds of those, who
sincerely look for his guidance in modern times, as
unquestionably was the case in earlier periods of
the Church, is more than we can venture to deny;
and it is an important mixed inquiry of metaphysical
and theological science how we are fairly to account
for those emotions, by which men, of whose sin-
cerity we have no reason to doubt, and of whose
sound, and, in many cases, very superior intellec-
tual endowments we are certain, and whose personal
character, moreover, it is impossible to regard other-
wise than with feelings of veneration and respect,
believe themselves to be divinely excited and im-
pelled to the performance of duties which, inde-
pendently of such suggestions, they would not
venture to undertake. Where these secret monitors
obviously tend to good, and are in entire accordance
with the precepts and declarations of the written
record, it would be unphilosophical and unjust to
trace them to any principle of evil; and yet the
whole tenor of revelation, the whole analogy of
religion, as a system conducted by mediate agency
and operation, forbid us to recognize in them that
direct emanation from heaven, which the language
of those who profess to be guided by them would
sometimes seem to imply. The most natural and
correct interpretation of them, generally considered,
appears to be that they spring from the exercise of

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 589

conscience, partially enlightened by Scripture, and
voluntarily set at work, combined with those peculiar
associations, sometimes salutary and sometimes im-
posing and deceptive, Avliich are connected with a
specific mode of intercourse and intellectual disci-
pline, and the established habits of a community.

Section Y.

The State op the Affections in the immediate prospect
OP Death no sure Test of Spiritual Character and
Condition.

The last error, which we shall notice as not unfre-
quently connected Avith the exercise of sensitive
Affection in religion, is when frames and feelings,
as they have been often technically called, are made
a test of character and a criterion of safety, either
by the individual himself, or by those with whom he
is surrounded, in the immediate prospect of death.
It may, doubtless, be laid doMn as a general prin-
ciple, that they who have really been invested with
the privileges, and endued with the graces of the
Christian religion, die peacefully, and sometimes
triumphantly; while those of an opposite character,
for the most part, leave the world, either in a state
of stupified insensibility and unconcern, or under
the overwhelming pressure of just apprehension and
alarm. The closing period of human existence is
also, unquestionably, a season in many respects
highly favourable to the discovery of real character.
Then the mask of hypocrisy, if ever it has been

590 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

worn, as incapable of answering any further pur-
pose, seems of its own accord to drop. The illu-
sions of life vanish, the phantoms of vain hope dis-
appear, and scenes of awful and eternal reality
begin to rush upon the view. Then, also, the false
props, which have hitherto sustained the mind, are
apt to give way, — the foundation of sand to yield,
and nothing but a well-grounded confidence in the
Eedeemer's merits, associated with the recollection
of a life, sincerely, though imperfectly devoted to
his service, can suggest a feeling of conscious,
security; and when, with a hope full of immortality,
with a faith, whose bright and realizing perceptions
are ready to be lost in actual beatific vision, the
soul is enabled cheerfully to resign itself into the
hands of its Saviour, no rational doubt can remain
that such a spirit had been renewed after the image
of Him who created it, and that now, after the ter-
mination of its earthly career, it will be safely re-
ceived into glory.

Hence has arisen a strong inclination in many
persons to regulate their views of their own future
condition at the evident approach of death, or of that
of their expiring friends and relatives, less by a deli-
berate and enlightened contemplation of their past
course, including the whole assemblage of their
Christian graces and endowments, as practically
evinced in their conduct — their faith, and hope, and
love, as manifested in their zealous and uniform
obedience, than by a consideration of the sensible
joy and consolation, which they experience in their
last conflict. It is delightful, indeed — it is, doubt-

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 591

less, one of the noblest and sublimest scenes upon
earth — it is a sight worthy the admiration of angels,
to witness the triumphant exit of the faithful servant
of Christ. It is worth livins; a life of sufferin"; and
self-denial, as it has been significantly remarked, if
it was to sen^e no other purpose, and to have no
other reference, than to secure a happy death. It
is a privilege of no ordinary magnitude to have the
light of heaven resplendently beaming upon the
soul, while it is now preparing to enter upon that
dark sojourn, which must be trodden, before it can
reach the confines of the heavenly inheritance. If
the glimmering visions of philosophy excited such
an enthusiasm of delight in its votaries, as to make
them sometimes wish to die in order to realize what
their imaginations had dubiously and, in many re-
spects, erroneously conceived, it is no wonder, that
the Christian should be sometimes transported with
emotions of the most rapturous elevation, when, at
the close of his arduous career, and in full assurance
of the divine favour, he is enabled, with the great
Apostle of the Gentiles, to claim the imperishable
crown, already as his 0T^^l, and to grasp the pahn of
victory with that hand, which had hitherto wielded
the sword of the Spirit.

The feelings of a dying hour, whether peaceful
and triumphant, or the reverse, are, however, to be
no further regarded than as they stand associated
with more substantial and decisive principles of
character. There doubtless may be the rapture of
delusion, or the confidence of pharisaical self-com-
placence, which it would be, in the highest degree.

592 THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF

unscriptural and unsafe to admit as a convincing
proof of saving conversion. And there may, on the
other hand, be the depression of doubt and misgiving
apprehension, occasioned by the peculiar tendency
and overwhehning effect of bodily malady, or ap-
pointed by the infinite wisdom of heaven to check
the presumption of too aspiring spirits, observing the
descent of those burning and shining lights, which
had run a course so bright and radiant through the
firmament of the Christian church, and whose parting
beams were expected to tinge the horizon with more
than ordinary lustre. It may be, that they were
destined to set under a cloud in order to teach those,
who w^ere left behind, the necessity of securing unto
themselves a firmer basis for their hopes than the
joys and triumphs of a death-bed — a foundation, the
stability of which can neither be increased nor dimi-
nished by the emotions of expiring nature. These
feelings, therefore, at that solemn hour are utterly
out of place, as the test of the condition and final
destiny of an individual.

We now bring this extended Inquiry to a close,
and we trust that the preceding remarks exhibit a
faithful and scriptural view of that important and es-
sential element in the nature of man, which has been
under discussion, as it is legitimately and necessarily
connected with the Christian character, in reference
both to the obligations of time, and the felicities
of eternity. AVe have presented the positive and in-
dispensable uses, and the possible misapplications and
perversions of it, in such a consecutive and combined
order, as appeared calculated to secure that calm

THE AFFECTIONS IN RELIGION. 593

and sober, but at the same time lively and energetic
exercise of the mental faculties, under the well
balanced influence of which, accompanied with the
divine blessing, a moral and religious character may
be gradually formed, which will be " not slothful in
business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord" —
"perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good
work."

2 Q

CONCLUSION.

Supernatural Influence necessary to render the Truths

OP Christianity efficacious upon the Human Mind

AND Character.

Hitherto we have been engaged in the consideration
of the just application and the well directed energy
of the faculties of the human mind, vicAved, as thrown
in some measure upon their own resources, and as
exerting their own native capabilities. We have con-
templated man in some of the most interesting
aspects and relations, under which his character can
be surveyed. AYe commenced our Estimate with a
view of the influence, which the bare exercise of his
intellectual powers upon subjects of literature and
philosophy is calculated to exert upon his character.
This influence we found to be in a high degree con-
ducive to the amelioration of the moral habits, and
the elevation of the mind and conduct above the
grosser debasements of vice, and, if duly regulated,
eminently favourable to the interests of genuine
religion. And having thus endeavoured to show that
the faculties of the mind, as applied to general sub-
jects of knowledge and investigation, are accompanied
in their progressive inquiries with salutary and be-
neficial effects upon the character, we proceeded to
examine the proper use of those faculties as con-
nected with the most important of all concerns, as
directed to that great and comprehensive order of
principles and facts, in reference to which alone tliey

2 Q 2

596 CONCLUSION.

are capable of reaching their higliest state of sublimity
and maturity, and upon the brighter discoveries of
which they are destined to be employed throughout
eternity. And adapting our survey to those pheno-
mena of mind, which most prominently presented
themselves to our notice, we first considered man in
his most distinguishing characteristic as a Rational
being. In this department of our inquir}^, certain
principles of judgment were laid down, by a due
observance of which, Reason, so far from being
an antagonist to faith and revelation, as has some-
times been supposed to be the case, may become a
powerful auxiliary to both, receiving and consequently
authenticating with the stamp of its cordial accept-
ance, the declarations of the latter, after an enlight-
ened investigation of their character, and confirming
the belief of the former by an accurate examination
of its grounds.

We next considered man as a Voluntary being —
using the term voluntary in this instance in a general
sense as expressive of the possession of a faculty of
volition, or a capability of choosing and preferring.
To solve all the difiiculties — to unravel all the in-
tracacies — to carry our investigation into the very
first and last grounds of this most profound and
perplexing question, as it relates to the responsibility
and moral agency of man, we scarcely ventured to
attempt. To such a problem we can at best only
appl}^ the method of approximation. By a simple
and unbiassed consideration of the facts of the case,
as they evolve themselves in the process of actual
observation and experience, we trust that, in the

CONCLUSION. 597

preceding discussion, the question has at least been
placed upon its right footing. It Avas made to appear
with sufficient evidence, that man, in the exercise of
volition, is bound by no such necessity, philosophical
or moral, as would virtually destroy his liberty as an
accountable being, while at the same time it was shown
that neither is he possessed of any such freedom as
exempts him from the influence of motives, or endues
him with any imaginary power of self-determination,
except in accordance with those views of present
good, whether true or false, which exhibit themselves
to his mind. Hence his responsibility appears to re-
solve itself into his capability, as a rational and
intelligent being, of discovering, by the aid of those
means which he possesses, what constitutes his chief
good; for his duty runs parallel, and is identified
in all its ramifications v>-ith the availing pursuit of
that good. Such is the foundation of that view of
limnan agency which was developed in the former
pages.

In the third place, we were led to survey human
nature in its relation to the divine Law as an expres-
sion of Duty and moral obligation. That Law we
found to be based upon a comprehensive and bene-
volent regard to the well-being of man, and thus
viewed it is seen to meet with a ready response from
the Conscience, as that moral sense or instinct which
forms an essential and most important part of the
nature of man, as a rational and accountable being.

In the fourth place, we viewed man as an Ima-
ginative being. In this department of our inquiry,
it was shown that the lively faculty under consider-

598 CONCLUSION.

atioii, however liable to extravagance and abuse,
is capable, under proper guidance and due control,
of being directed to the noblest and most important
purposes. As an original element of our intellec-
tual nature, it cannot be supposed that it Avas in-
tended to lie dormant, or to be utterly extinguished
in reference to the most lofty and stupendous of all
the subjects to which it can be applied. We there-
foi;e endeavoured to point out the various ends to
which it may be rendered subservient, in the illus-
tration and enforcement of divine truth, and entered
at considerable length into an exposure of the evils
calculated to result from its exorbitant or ill-regulated
indulgence. By thus calling its energies into action,
and guarding against its undue preponderance by
providing seasonable checks in the well-balanced
operation of other co-ordinate faculties, it may,
doubtless, be made a powerful and salutary organ
in augmenting the force, and in accelerating the
movements of the machinery of the christian cha-
racter.

We finally undertook to estimate the character
of man in reference to the great business of reli-
gion as a Sensitive being — as a being endued with
an original susceptibility of strong and varied feel-
ings. Man, being so much a creature of emotion,
and not only happy or miserable, but also virtuous
or vicious, moral or depraved, spiritual or carnal,
according to the prevailing tenor of his feelings;
it is not for a moment to be imagined that so in-
fluential a part of his nature was designed to be cut
off from all connection Avith a (jucstion, which involves

CONCLUSION. 599

his most important relations and liis liighcst des-
tinies. The only consideration deserving of serious
inquiry and attention is, how this powerful and all-
pervading ingredient in the mental constitution may
be most wisely and usefully called into operation.
In the preceding investigation, certain principles
were laid down, and attempted to be developed, by a
due regard to which the inestimable advantages of
Feeling, in the formation of the religious character,
may be secured, and its dangers effectually avoided.
The object of these correlative illustrations was to
mark out the path of piety and safety, along which
the enlightened Christian might advance to his
destined goal, maintaining an equal distance from
the polar chillness of lifeless formality, and the tro-
pical heat of a lawless enthusiasm.

Thus we have contemplated man in the relation,
which the chief constituents of his intellectual and
moral nature bear to the most important of all
questions. Our object has not been so much to
analyze the faculties, or to investigate the physi-
ology of his mind, as. to seize upon those powers,
which he is universally allowed to possess, and to
view them in their legitimate exercise and appli-
cation, as connected with that sublime order of
objects and pursuits, upon which they are destined,
if in the present state they are brought under due
influence and control, to be employed in elevating
and expanding progress throughout eternity. In
the course of these inquiries, we have found, that
in religion, considered with respect to its various
doctrines, and principles, "and prospects, there is

600 CONCLUSION.

ample room for the exercise of every faculty of
mind, and of every order of talent; that within its
comprehensive range there is enough to employ
the Eeason of the inquisitive and acute, the Imagi-
nation of the fanciful and sublime, and the Feelings
of the lively and impassioned. I^or can we con-
ceive an instance of more daring rebellion against
the high purposes of Heaven, and of more utter and
complete frustration of the great end of man's in-
tellectual existence, than the wilful and systematic
diversion of these powers from the service of piety
and truth; and when we witness this grievous
desecration of lofty faculties, we are compelled to
utter our indignant sorrow with the poet, and to
exclaim,

" When I behold a genius bright and base,
Of towering talents and terrestrial aims,
Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere.
The glorious fragments of a soul immortal,
With rubbish mixt and glittering in the dust."

But in an Estimate of the human faculties it is
important to bear in mind, as we are drawing our
inquiries to a conclusion, what is the utmost extent
of their capabilities. After they have been directed,
in their highest state of cultivation and improvement
— in the most vigorous and concentrated energy of
operation, and under the most enlightened and
judicious guidance, to the great business of religion,
there is still a work to be effected — a change to be
produced in the human soul, to which, of themselves,
they are utterly inadequate. To render the Gospel
efficacious — to enable C'liristianity to exert its gen-

CONCLUSION. 601

nine and availing influence upon the character, there
must descend a power from on high. As a necessary
appendage, therefore, to an Estimate of the inherent
Powers of the human mind, we shall subjoin a brief
inquiry into the nature and necessity of those In-
fluences of the Divine Spirit, without which all other
efforts to promote personal or general religion w ill
prove utterly unavailing.

It is an obvious and unquestionable fact, upon
whatever principle it be accounted for, that there is
a striking difference in the character of individuals
subject to the same external influences, and under
circumstances equally favourable to the operations
of vital religion. Casting an eye abroad over the
wide surface of professed Christianity, or even con-
fining our view to any smaU section of this extensive
territory, we shall be at no loss to discover the
immense disparity which prevails. Some we find
living in the habitual neglect of the plainest moral
obligations, ^^olating the most express injunctions
of the divine law, without remorse, and appearing
to bear the Christian name for no other purpose
than to dishonour it. Others there are, who, exempt
indeed from the ordinary allegations of palpable
immorality, yet are altogether as destitute of the
sentiments, the affections, and the graces of genuine
piety, as those just specified. Under these two
general modifications of character, varying from
each other by every possible intermediate shade,
may be comprehended the whole mass of the un-
])elieving world. But however greatly they may
difl'cr as to the degree of practical depravity at

602 CONCLUSION.

which they have arrived, they all agree in these
essential features of impiety in every form — a de-
cided, though perhaps, in some instances, unconscious
hostility to their Maker, an ungrateful rejection of
the Redeemer, and a fatal disregard of their eternal
interest. These habits, in many cases, they indulge
in the midst of every thing that might be deemed
best calculated to produce a reverse of conduct:
surrounded with the light of Eevelation — warned
by the voice of a faithful Ministry — oft admonished
in the impressive language of providential dispensa-
tions, and with the unavoidable conviction on their
minds, that they are travelling with an uninterrupted
pace towards a world where their destiny will admit
of no change.

Another order of human beings there is, not
excluding a very considerable variety among its con-
stituent members, yet universally standing in entire
opposition to these, which is distinguished no less by
a strict regularity, propriety, and general consistency
of outward deportment, than by a spirit of unaffected
piety, pervading and universally influencing the feel-
ings and dispositions of the heart. This latter class
of men is separated from the rest of the species by a
broad and visible line of distinction. The indivi-
duals, of which it is composed, form a peculiar and
highly-favoured people : — enjoying the same external
advantages — exposed to the same secular evils — hav-
ing to contend with the same forms of temptation
with the world at large, they bear a character pre-
eminently their own. The principles by which they
arc governed — the motives by which they are actu-

CONCLUSION. 603

ated— the great end at which they aim — the varied
exercises of fear — of hope, and of desire, which alter-
nately agitate and tranquillize their breasts, belong
exclusively to themselves. AYhile the generality of
mankind, amidst all the diversity of their pursuits,
have the whole of their attention directed to the
objects of time, and scarce extend one serious
thought, or a single joyous anticipation beyond the
confines of the present world, theij afford clear and
satisfactory evidence, that the concerns of the tran-
sitory life, that now is, are a matter of very minor
and secondary importance ; and that with them the
care of the immortal and imperishable spirit, as it is
indeed beyond all comparison the most momentous,
claims the chief regard. Wliile the one exhibit a
fatal indifference to all the interests of futurity — an
indifference, spiritually considered, analogous to an
utter destitution of life, and sensible perception in
material beings ; the other evince, upon every sub-
ject connected with the service of God, and their
prospects beyond the grave, the liveliest and most
earnest concern : they respectively walk in a different
path, and breathe in a different element. The fact
of such a difference existing is unquestionable ; but
for the solution of the difficulty, which it involves,
we must look to a divine source of information. The
dissimilarity in question, as we are plainly taught in
the volume of inspiration, arises from the stubborn
resistance which is given, in the one case, to the
gracious suggestions of the divine Spirit, and the
cheerful compliance, Avhich is afforded in the other.
The external means, in both instances, are the same :

604 CONCLUSION.

but these means are utterly neutralized in their
effects, where the agency of the Holy Spirit is with-
held, or if prevented by the perverseness of a de-
praved Will from exerting its proper influence. It is
to the want or the obstinate refusal of this powerful
aid we are to attribute all the inefficiency of the
divine Word itself, and of the human ministrations of
that word — all the deadness and lifeless insensibility
to the concerns of an eternal world, which so lament-
ably prevails among mankind. And it is to the
gracious communication of the same mighty agency,
that we are to ascribe the whole success of every
species of outward instrumentalit}^ ; as Avell in the
case of individuals, as in that of the Christian com-
munity at large.

If any are quickened from the death of sin, from
a state of moral darkness and inactivity in which no
spiritual perception, thought, or affection is exercised ;
if any are roused to a deep sense of their want and
danger, of the evil of sin, and of their need of holi-
ness ; if they have their understandings illumined by
the bright beams of truth, their hearts animated by
the sublime and elevating principles of the Gospel,
and their aff'ections powerfully attracted to the things
which are above ; if any are enabled to separate
themselves from a world that lieth in wickedness,
to renounce its corrupt maxims, and to relinquish
its vain pursuits, and to enter with a real earnestness
of heart upon the way that leadeth unto life ; it is
not that they had any previous tendency towards the
truths that they have eml)raccd, and to the course
they have adopted, more than the rest of mankind.

CONCLUSION. 605

It is not that the mere means of their conversion,
simply and independently considered, carried with
them an irresistible force of conviction, and a weight
of subordinating infiiience, which it was impossible
not to feel, or to feel and at the same time with-
stand. These they probably had resisted for a long
period of time ; the effect is, therefore, to be pri-
marily attributed to another cause. It was produced
by the Holy Spirit working with and through the
means. The faithful exhibition of the threatenings
of the law, and of the proffered blessings and privi-
leges of the Gospel, may have been employed, in-
deed, as an instrument, but it was the Spirit who
infused the vivifying principle. . The sword of the
divine word may have been used, but it w^as the hand
of the Spirit alone, which could effectually have
wielded it. The dispensations of Providence, and
the external ordinances of grace, may have co-
operated in preparing the mind for the reception
of the truth, and in moulding the character into
a form suitable to its subsequent operation, but it
was the Spirit alone, who gave and could have
given life.

With a view of exhibiting the nature and neces-
sity of the grace of the Holy Spirit, we shall briefly
survey its operations under two leading aspects ; —
first, in the primary communication of a Divine life
into the soul ; and secondly, in the subsequent
effects produced by his influence upon the general
character. But before we enter upon the subject,
there are two questions which it appears necessary
previously to settle, the distinct and personal exist-

606 CONCLUSION.

ence of the Holy Ghost, and the reality of his
agency.

With respect to the first of these questions, there
are persons not a few — persons not deficient in an
acquaintance with the literal statements of Divine
revelation, and, if mental attainment, critical skill,
and intellectual acumen alone were adequate to the
task, fully competent to judge of its meaning, who
go to a much greater length than honestly to ex-
press their ignorance "whether there be any Holy
Ghost." Theirs is not a hesitating assent, or a
wavering and unsettled persuasion, arising from an
obscurity of conception, occasioned by partial and
indistinct intimations ; they, on the contrary, boldly
and unequivocally deny the existence of that sacred
and glorious Person, whose work we are now to
discuss. It would be a mere afi'ectation of candour
to admit — it would exceed the just limits of the
most expansive charity to allow, that they have
been led to this view by a sim^Ae and unbiassed
study of the Scriptures, the only safe and legiti-
mate source of information respecting the Being of
Jehovah, his attributes, and his mode of subsistence.
There we find the real and distinct existence of the
Divine Spirit so clearly exhibited, so plainly implied
in the ascription to him of offices, in declarations,
in addresses and appeals, which can, with any con-
sistency of language, refer only to a real and distinct
agent, that it is difficult to suppose any man of
unprejudiced mind could rise from the perusal of
these records, and persuade himself that the active
power, to which in an individual and independent

CONCLUSION. - 607

character so much had been attributed, was nothing
but a quality or an attribute, which it was deemed
convenient to personify, in order to convey a livelier
idea of its operations. Without, therefore, referring
to particular passages, which would be endless, and
for those, who are acquainted with their Bibles, un-
necessary, we may consider this question sufficiently
determined.

But the other point, which was mentioned, that
of the reality of the Spirit's influence upon the
human soul, has been a subject still more exten-
sively controverted. By some this has been wholly
discarded and denied, by others it has been ex-
plained and modified into a perfect neutrality. The
principal objection to the truth of a supernatural
influence, operating upon the mind of man, seems
to be that such an influence, if exerted, destroys
the freedom of human agency — the single circum-
stance which renders man a proper subject of moral
discipline, and invests him with the dignified but
awful character of a responsible and accountable
being. To this it is added, that the notion of a
sacred energy, such as is generally maintained, dif-
fused through the soul, and regulating its various
powers, is a thing in itself scarcely to be understood
o^- conceived.

To us every thing is apt to appear strange and
incredible, if not utterly impossible, which does not
fall under the immediate cognizance of our senses.
What is matter of daily and hourly experience, in-
deed, we never think of denying ; but if we take the
trouble to reflect, we shall find that the things are

G08 CONCLUSION.

exceedingly few, if there be any, which we may be
said fully to comprehend. Where is the man who
can undertake to give a satisfactory explanation of
the mutual operation — the reciprocal influences of
the human body and spirit upon each other; for
few will think that the difficulty vrill be lessened by
maintaining that all is body, in the usual gross
sense of the expression, and that there is no spirit
at all ? Who has ever been found to understand
the secret mechanism, by Avhich mind acts upon
matter, and accurately to describe the method by
which a never-ceasing interchange of affection is
carried on between the corporeal and intellectual
systems ? Who has ever had the sagacity to dis-
cover how the mere utterance of an articulate sound
by one man should raise in the mind of another a
train of images precisely similar to those which
were present to his own, and by that means fill his
soul with the most delightful or the most melan-
choly,— the most sublime or the most degrading
sensations. Upon these and a variety of other
topics of the most ordinary occurrence, a child
might start a thousand difliculties, which it would
baffle the skill of the profoundest philosopher to
solve. The fact is, that while our knowledge of
these matters, if duly cultivated and improved, is
sufficient for the general purposes of life and con-
duct, we have a perfect understanding of scarcely
any of them. How then are we to proceed ? Are
we to believe nothing because we are unable to
comprehend every thing ? Are we to reject the
clearest testimony of experience because it does

CONCLUSION. 609

not, at the same time, supply us with a complete
solution of every problem ? Are we to renounce
the character of percipient and reasonable beings,
because we are not omniscient ? Shall we deny
that our souls have a real influence upon our bodies
because we cannot exactly perceive how that influ-
ence is exerted ? The part of wisdom is obviously
to adapt our views to that state in which we find
ourselves placed; to regulate our assent by that
measure of evidence, and by that degree of light
and capacity which God has been pleased to afford
us, to steer a course equally remote from the cre-
dulity which believes every thing, and the scepticism,
which believes or affects to believe nothing.

We have been led to these remarks by the
known and avowed objection of many persons to
the doctrine of a spiritual and divine agency in
the renovation of the human heart, arising from
the mysterious, and, as they maintain, unintelligible
nature of this agency. From persons so generally
devoted to scientific pursuits, and who cannot be
unacquainted with the principles of analogical rea-
soning, this objection appears to me not a little
surprising. If it be a sufficient ground for reject-
ing a point of doctrine, that it is involved in some
degree of obscurity, that we cannot distinctly trace
it in all its connections, and in all its bearings, then
we affirm, that there is sufficient ground for rejecting
almost every principle of natural philosophy. Wliat
would become of the scheme of the modern astro-
nomy, if the theory of attraction were discarded,
because we could give no clear account of it ?

2 R

610 CONCLUSION.

Who could scientifically navigate the ocean, if the
operation of the magnet Avas discredited, because
it is not known how it acts? If, indeed, disbelief
is invariably to accompany every instance of diffi-
culty of comprehension, we shall have scarcely a
single speculative tenet, to which we can give our
assent. According to this the infidel is justified
in rejecting a written Revelation; nay, the atheist
can hardly be condemned for denying a governing
Providence, and the very existence of a Supreme
Disposer.

If these observations be just, it is quite clear
that all objections against the personality and
agency of the Holy Spirit, arising from the circum-
stance of these points being surrounded with a veil
of partial mystery, when brought under the con-
templation of our confined powers, are null, void,
and irrelevant. These, therefore, like every other
point, which does not acknowledge the uncontrolled
power of Reason, must evidently be determined by
the simple voice of Scripture; and it may, without
hesitation, be affirmed, that upon few points does
this final arbiter of all human disputations pro-
nounce with greater clearness and decision, than
upon that, which we are now considering. In the
sacred volume, the Holy Spirit is repeatedly spoken
of as a distinct Agent. He is promised as a sanc-
tifier — a comforter — a guide — as the giver of life,
and the author of holiness ; and if these offices do
not involve a reality of distinct existence as well as
a reality of operation, words must surely l)e desti-
tute of meaning.

CONCLUSION. 611

Having thus endeavoured to dispose of the ob-
jections, which appeared to stand in front of the
subject, we shall now proceed to consider the work
of the Spirit in the two points of view which were
proposed. The errors and false notions, Avhich have
been so thickly grafted upon this most important
doctrine, will be detected in the endeavour to give
an account of its genuine character. If it can be
shown what it really is, there will be no difficulty in
discovering what it is not.

In the first place, then, we are to consider the
influences of the Holy Spirit in the primary com-
munication of a divine life into the soul. The in-
sufficiency of ordinary means, unaccompanied by a
divine power to jiifect that mighty change in the
soul of man, which is expressed by the figure of a
resurrectic-. f^om the dead, has been evinced by
experience, as well as affirmed in Scripture. It is
hfi-dly possible to look into the state of religion in
Christian countries, Christian congregations, and
Christian families, without being convinced of this
fact. It is a very natural error into which young
converts are apt to fall, and into which some emi-
nent ministers, before the commencement of their
labours, have fallen, that it requires only a clear,
aff'ectionate, and forcible statement of truth, to pro-
duce deep and lasting conviction in the minds of all
jwho hear it. Having themselves experienced the
efficacious power of grace communicated through
the medium of outward ordinances — aware, at the
same time, that they were as blind, as inconsiderate,
as destitute of any tendency of affection towards

2 R 2

612 CONCLUSION.

Grod as any can he, and that, as subjects, they had
not the slightest advantage over those around them,
they find it difficult to conceive that the sentiments
which are so fresh and lively in their own minds,
and carry with them such a force of self-evident
demonstration, Avherever they are duly appreciated,
should not meet with a ready reception in the
breasts of others. Under the influence of a some-
what similar illusion, it is possible that, in these
times of benevolence and pious zeal, the expecta-
tions of Christian philanthropists have somewhat
outstripped those probabilities of success attendant
upon the means of grace, to which experience would
have justified them to look forward. It may have
been deemed, upon a disproportionate and too ardent
calculation, that it was only necessary to supply
every house with the invaluable treasure of a Bible
— that it needed only to raise the standard of the
Cross in the midst of the wilderness of heathenism,
and to sound the glad tidings of salvation through
a Redeemer in the ears of Jewish unbelief, in
order to accomplish a general reformation of cha-
racter; and that by a sort of omnipotence neces-
sarily accompanying these means, the desired
change could not fail of being effected. Fact, how-
ever, has proved what a due consideration of Je-
hovah's conduct in the ordinary administrations of
his grace could not but have suggested. Plans of
benevolence, on the most extensive scale, and con-
ducted upon the soundest principles, are in continual
operation; streams of knowledge fresh from the
fountain of inspiration are diff'using themselves

CONCLUSION. 613

over every corner of the globe ; the Gospel of Christ
is, from sabbath to sabbath, proclaimed by thou-
sands of faithful messengers ; all that is powerful
in human talent, all that is simple, ardent, and de-
voted in Christian zeal, is daily called into exer-
cise ; but the actual success attendant on these
efforts, while it is abundantly sufficient to incite to
still greater activity, yet must be acknowledged to
be far from correspondent with the magnitude of
the exertions already put forth. Millions read the
w^ord of God with a professed belief of its contents,
without receiving the slightest salutary influence
from its lessons; a number, perhaps, equal, or still
greater, hear the word preached, without seeming
to think it at all necessary that they should be doers
of the Avord as well as hearers.

The reason of this is doubtless that these per-
sons have no life in them. They want a principle,
which no agency less than a divine is capable of
bestowing upon them. If the instrumentality of the
written word, and of human teaching alone, was
sufficient, they would long since have been made
alive unto righteousness. Before they can rise
into life, a quickening power must descend upon
them from above. To understand the full force of
this assertion, it must be recollected that the natural
state of man is that of death in trespasses and
sins without holiness, without grace, without the
least spiritual feeling. At the fall he received a
shock which paralysed and numbed every limb —
every nerve of the internal man, and left him a
blasted, withered form of humanity, without so much

614 CONCLUSION.

as a power to feel his misery. While he remains
in this condition, the simple application of external
means is incapable of imparting the least degree
of salutary influence. The feelings of his nature
may, indeed, in some measure, be wrought upon,
as the fibres of once animated but now lifeless
matter may be put in motion by the operations of
galvanism, but a sensation truly vital and spiritual
it cannot awaken. He must be spiritually revived
before he can spiritually feel: he must be endued
with a celestial principle which will act as a soul
within a soul, before he can experience the emotions
and perform the functions of a living being. And
as the total failure of the outward machinery of
religion, while unaccompanied by a quickening
energy, proves the indispensable necessity of a
divine power to render it eff'ectual in any case, so
those particular instances in which it is found suc-
cessful, are equally illustrative of the same truth.
It is the primary basis of all reasoning and philo-
sophy that similar causes produce similar eftects;
or, to exhibit the same idea in a modified and some-
what expanded form, that a similar agency, ope-
rating upon similar subjects, will result in the dis-
play of the same general phenomena. In the
application of this principle to the point under con-
sideration, without intending to carry the analogy
to such an extent as would, in the slightest degree,
infringe upon the accountablencss of man as a
rational being, we remark that the agency generally
employed consists of the various modes of instruc-
tion, by providential occurrences, by written re-

CONCLUSION. 615

cords, and more esi)eciallj bj ministerial labours.
The subjects to which this agency is directed, are
human beings, all by nature corrupt, degraded, and
totally destitute of spiritual life and feeling. But
what is the effect ? On a supposition of the iden-
tity or perfect similarity of the influence exerted,
we might have naturally expected a uniformity of
result, either invariably successful, or invariably
abortive. But the fact is totally otherwise. While
the great majority of mankind remains untouched,
unaffected, unrenewed, some discover no uncertain
or equivocal symptoms of an almost entire transfor-
mation of character having been wrought in them.
Assuming it as an allowed and established point,
that all the individuals of the human species are,
by nature, tainted wdth a similar stain of pollution,
and present similar impediments to the renovating
operations of divine grace, the circumstance of some
being awakened from their fatal slumbers, and of
the rest continuing to sleep in perilous indifference
upon the brink of everlasting ruin, seems capable
of no other mode of explanation, than the suppo-
sition of an influence being made to operate upon
the one class, which does not effectually reach
the other. If the rams' horns, employed by divine
appointment in the demolition of the walls of Jericho,
had been blown around any other town, or succes-
sion of towns, similarly fortified, without producing
the same effect, it would doubtless have been con-
cluded, that the difference Avas to be referred to
another power than was inherent in these feeble
instruments. If, while Ezekiel was pronouncing

616 CONCLUSION.

the heaven-directed call over the dry bones of the
valley, some few had started into life, while the
rest remained in the same state of inanimate qui-
escence, the disparity of effect would assuredly, and
most justly, have been traced to a higher source
than was to be found in the Prophet's voice, or
in the materials to which he was commanded to
address himself; it would have been deemed an
abundant proof of a divine attendant power, that
any should be quickened and fashioned into a
human form. We intend not, in these illustra-
tions, to neutralize the essential difference between
physical and moral subjects, as susceptible of the
operations of an external agency. The distinction
is, doubtless, great and important. But it is
assuredly no less true of the latter, than it is of
the former, that when an effect has been produced
upon them for which there was no adequate in-
herent cause, it must be resolved into an influence
from without, and the efficiency of that influence
must be estimated, whatever peculiarities of mental
constitution may have interfered with its opera-
tions, according to its actual results. Where a
saving change has been produced, it must be
ascribed unto a divine energy, accompanying the
means of grace. Wliere no such change has taken
place, it is a clear proof that either the same energy
has not been imparted in the same degree, or that
a larger proportion of it was necessary, not to
render the individual inexcusable, for enough may
have been communicated for this aAA^ul purpose,
but in order to be really and practically availing

CONCLUSION. 617

to his conversion. To delineate the exact manner
in which the Holy Spirit operates upon the mind
in the primary communication of life unto the soul,
is impossible. The vivifying process we can Lut
very indistinctly conceive. Of the man quickened
by his influences, we can say little more than that,
whereas he was blind, he now seeth — whereas he
was dead, he is now alive. The means, in con-
junction with which the Spirit's influences generally
descend, and without the use of which we are
never warranted to expect his aid, are, for the most
part, the study of the divine word, and the preach-
ing of the Gospel. His oflice, at this period, in
the progress of the character, appears to be chiefly
to prepare the mind, and to render the heart sus-
ceptible of the impressions of revealed truth, as it
is the action of fire only which renders the Avax
a fit recipient of the impress of the seal. As a
sufficient guard against the enthusiastic abuse of
the doctrine of a divine influence, it must ever be
maintained, that the Spirit reveals no new truths,
makes no fresh communications from heaven, but
merely so disposes and affects the various faculties
of the soul, as that they may be able to perceive
with clearness, and to feel with force, the truths
already made known. To see the objects around
us in the light of the meridian sun, it is only neces-
sary that the eyes be opened; to feel the warmth
of the same glorious luminary, it is only necessary
that the sensitive powers be awake and lively.
This preparation of the mind for the admission of
divine truth is expressed by terms correspondent

618 CONCLUSION.

with those faculties of the soul with which it is
more immediately concerned. As applied to the
understanding, it is called illumination — "Having
the eyes of your understanding enlightened;" as
it regards the heart and affections, it is denomi-
nated sanctification ; as it is the incipient germ of
a thorough renovation of the whole character, it
is expressed by the comprehensive term of regene-
ration.

J^atural life, as well as spiritual, separately and
simply considered, we should find it extremely dif-
ficult to define. We discover either principle only
by the capacities with which it is attended, and by
the functions which it performs. The moment that
the soul becomes endued with divine life, it is capable
of views and feelings, to which it was before an utter
stranger. Eoused, as out of an inert and uncon-
scious lethargy, it instantly begins to exercise its
faculties in a manner wholly new and peculiar, and
is subject to a train of warm and lively impressions
from objects, which previously did not, in the least,
or but very vaguely and incoherently, affect it.

Of the effects of this powerful agency, upon the
mind and character, our notice must be very limited
and partial. The mention of life, as communicated
to a being that was destitute of it, instantly leads
the mind to the contemplation of a very material
and important change in the essential character of
that being. Wliatever he may have been before, it
is obvious that he must now be possessed of very
different and very superior properties. The nature
of the qualities, whicli have been thus superinduced

CONCLUSION. G19

upon him, will correspond with the nature of the vital
principle that has been imparted to him. The life
under our present consideration has been justly
entitled " the life of God in the soul of man," and
must, therefore, have a direct tendency in all its
operations, to form the character into a similitude
of Him, Avho is the author and bestower of it. The
Spirit who quickens is a Holy Spirit, and, in the
communication of life, acts in his own genuine
character. Hence, the influence which he imparts is
calculated to create the soul anew after the divine
image, in the same way as it is the nature of fire to
convert every element with which it comes in contact,
and upon which it acts, into a congeniality with itself.
Let us then attempt to trace this assimilating process
through a few steps of its progressive advancement : —
First, see the individual under review, lying dead
in the insensibility of sin, and surrounded with the
corruptions of nature, without one ray of light —
without one spark of holiness ; the victim of delusion,
the slave of passion, and the dupe of the great
adversary of man. But now the hour has arrived,
when, as one important event in the evolution of the
eternal purposes of Jehovah, he is to experience a
resurrection unto life — the hour in which there is to
descend upon him from on high a power, capable of
rousing him out of the sleep of death. Opening the
eyes of his understanding, he beholds in a clear and
most deeply interesting point of view, a variety of
objects, which before he did not even dimly descry.
His facidty of vision is, indeed, at fii'st, far from
perfect ; but he sees with distinctness enough to feel

620 CONCLUSION.

assured, that the objects of his contemplation are
realities, and not the shadowy scenes of a dreaming
fancy. Things of which he had hitherto only heard
the name, and the sound of which had passed through
his ears like the gale which blew over his head, with-
out leaving the least impression, now assume, in the
eye of his sober estimation, a character of the most
awful importance. The glories of heaven — the mise-
ries of hell — the evil of sin — the beauty of holiness
— the love of Christ, and the various blessings of the
new covenant, he no longer regards as phantoms
of weak and speculations of visionary minds, but he
considers them as matters of the most momentous
practical interest. The false notions which he had
imbibed respecting his own character — the just
demands of the divine law, and the means of resto-
ration unto favour and peace, he has cordially re-
nounced, under a full conviction of their incorrect-
ness and absurdity. And as objects appear to in-
crease in magnitude, and are perceived with greater
precision in proportion as they are approached, so
his views upon the several subjects that have been
mentioned, are found to grow still more bright and
vivid as he is advancing towards the horizon of time,
and comes into closer contact with the realities of
eternity.

But it is in the alFections of the heart, and in the
conduct of the life, that the effects of the Spirit's
influences display themselves in the loveliest forms,
and in their highest glory. Antecedently to the
operations of that mighty Agent upon the soul, the
breast was the seat of carnal, depraved, and malig-

CONCLUSION. 621

nant passions, which, at the slightest dc2,Teo of irri-
tation, were ever ready to burst into a flame. The
first-fruit of the Spirit is love — love towards God.
Like a mass of ice, melting before the w^arm beams
of the sun, the heart, which in a state of nature is
frozen into enmity against God, touched by the
softening influence of the Spirit, dissolves into pure
and genuine affection; the carnal mind, laying aside
its hatred and dislike of his character, and its de-
termined stubbornness of opposition to his law, is
converted into a spiritual mind, which delights in
the contemplation of his perfections, glows with
gratitude for his kindness, and enters with alacrity
into the whole plan of his government — a mind
which derives the chief source of its enjoyment
from the experience of his favouring presence, and
draws the motives of its obedience from the fountain
of redeeming love. It is also love to man. The
same subordinating power which slew the enmity
against God, and kindled in its stead the flame of
ardent affection towards him, has also expanded,
into a free exercise of every benevolent and disin-
terested emotion, the heart which under every blast
of unkindness was ready to be contracted into self-
ishness, or hardened into insensibility. The mind
that was ever prone, to regard rather with feelings
of jealousy than with sincere delight the happiness
and the superior advantages of others, that deemed
every instance of ill-treatment a justifiable ground
of hatred and ill-treatment in return, and every
instance of ingratitude a sufficient reason for with-
holding kindness, has now become generous in its

622 CONCLUSION.

principles, tender and amiable in its sympathies,
and patient of injuries and persecutions. Not
unconcerned for the temporal welfare of mankind,
and not backward to contribute to the utmost ex-
tent of the possessed means toward the promo-
tion of their present happiness — its chief anxiety it
will consider as justly due to their eternal interests.
Viewing them as creatures made for immortality,
its most earnest and persevering efforts will be de-
voted to the still more important purposes of securing
(so far as its endeavours may succeed) their well-
being in a world to come. Necessarily associated
with this exercise of universal love will be the other
virtues, graces, and endowments, of the Christian
character — all blending into a soft and harmonious
combination, and all flowing forth as so many
streams from that fountain of living waters, which the
Divine Spirit has opened in the heart. There Joy
mingled with gratitude, and elevated by Hope,
arising in part from the consideration of miseries
escaped, and in part from the anticipation of feli-
cities to be enjoyed — from a sense of the privileges
now possessed, and of the blessedness still in reserve,
triumphs as in its natural element. There Peace,
meek, gentle, and serene, resulting from the subjuga-
tion of the appetites and passions — from the banish-
ment of vain and irregular desires — from a soothing
persuasion of being in a state of reconciliation with
God, through the death and righteousness of his
Son, diffuses a calm and delightful composure
through all the powers of the soul. There forbear-
ance, under every species of ])rovocation, resignation

CONCLUSION. 623

to the divine will, under the most trying dispensa-
tions of providence, and amidst the most afflictive
scenes of human life, will check the first risings of
anger, and silence the voice of complaint. There
faith i^ all the variety of its operations will act with
energy and vigour, reposing an unhesitating trust in
all the declarations of Jehovah — confiding with un-
shaken reliance in the meritorious life and atoning
death of the Redeemer, as the sole and all-sufficient
ground of its hope of salvation, looking forward with
a realizing eye to the glories of a future world,
amid the clouds and darkness of present sufferings,
and directing, as a primary power, the whole move-
ments of the conduct. There the flame of Devotion
burns; Prayer delights to make kno^vn its request;
Praise to off'er up its incense of thanksgiving; holy
Contemplation to unfold its opinions, and to soar
amidst scenes yet remote. There, also, the duties
of temperance and self-denial ; the rigid restraint,
within their due and appropriate bounds, of the
several faculties and affections of the soul, will meet
with the requisite share of attention. There, in
short. Goodness, in all its constituent principles ;
whether it regards God or man; whether it relates
to the understanding, the heart, or the life — to the
habits of the mind, or the regulation of the conduct,
proves its existence, vindicates its character, and
evinces its celestial origin.

These are the general and leading effects of the
influences of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the
Christian character. It is hardly necessary to say,
that these eff'ects do not at first, nor indeed at

624 CONCLUSION.

any period durii^^ the present existence, exhibit
themselves in a state of perfection. At first, the
principle of life is simply imparted. This principle,
is, indeed, perfect in its kind, and imperishable in
its natm-e; but tnat it may be unfolded in all its
capabilities, that it may be fully developed in all its
tendencies, that it may diffuse itself through the
whole system, it will require much time, much care,
much prayer, and much diligent exertion. In its
progress, a progress, notwithstanding, steady and
uniformly advancing, it will have to encounter much
opposition, and to contend with many a bitter adver-
sary. Like a spark of fire, occasionally smothered
by the base materials with which it is surrounded, it
may sometimes appear almost utterly extinguished;
but, as it is a spark from heaven, it defies all the
powers of earth and hell altogether to extinguish it.
Gradually it will work its way through the mass of
corruption which overlays it, and spread itself through
the whole character, consuming what is incorrigible
alloy, and purifying what is capable of such a process.
And as the influences of the Holy Spirit affect
the character of individuals, such, doubtless, must
be their effect upon nations and communities; and
it is in no small degree gratifying to reflect, that
the period is approaching, and is probably not very
distant, when the Spirit shall be poured upon all
flesh, — when, like a shower of reviving and fertiliz-
ing rain. He will descend upon the wide field of the
world, and invest it as with a robe of mantling
dew, quickening every plant, and refreshing every
blossom. At present the field of human existence

CONCLUSION. 626

exhibits an aspect at once exhilarating and melan-
choly— exhilarating when we contemplate the stir
and activity of the many diligent and faithful
labourers that are scattered over its surface; —
when we witness the mighty preparations that are
going forward in it ; — when we obseiTe the rare
combination of intellect, feeling, and practical effort
which is brought to bear on its improvement ; when
we notice the noble machinery which wisdom and
love have erected and put in vigorous operation
over its several parts, and when we consider all
this in connection with the infallible assurance which
we have, that ultimately the means will be crowned
with the most complete success — with that promise
of Jehovah, which affirms that the time ivill come
when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the
whole face of the earth, when the spirit shall be
poured in plentiful effusion from on high, and, as
the result of his renovating influence, the wilder-
ness shall become a fruitful field. But it presents,
on the other hand, an aspect in no small degree
melancholy, when it is considered how very scanty
has been the produce hitherto reaped from the
diversified labours that have been expended, how
very disproportionate, upon the ordinary principles
of calculation, has been the amount of the fruit
actually gathered in, to the amount of the seed
which has been disseminated ; how small a portion
of the habitable globe has yet been gained over
from the usurped dominions of the prince of dark-
ness, to 3deld to the peaceful, privileged government
of the Son of Grod, and how far is that intimation

2 S

626 CONCLUSION.

from being yet realized, by which we are taught to
anticipate the time when the kingdoms of the earth
shall become the Lord's and his Christ's.

I do not bring forward these latter remarks, in
order to throw a character of abortiveness and in-
utility over the efforts of Christian zeal. No, let it
ever be recollected, that to be favoured with any
real success, though it should be confined to the
conversion and final salvation of one soul, w^ould
be more than an adequate compensation for the
united, the continued exertions of the whole Chris-
tian world. In the progress of eternity it will
be seen that the destiny of one immortal being
involves a greater amount of happiness or misery
than had ever been experienced through all the
revolutions of time in the countless variety of its
separate interests; nay, if the labours of Christian
benevolence were attended with no ostensible suc-
cess whatever, still if the command to labour be
express and peremptory, the duty would be clear
and imperative, and we should be no more justified
in neglecting it than Ezekiel w^ould have been in
foregoing the work of prophecy, because the ani-
mating principle did not descend at the first annun-
ciation of his message. His business was to pro-
phesy; it was God's to endue with life. At the
present time Ave see a general commotion, excited
by the voice of Christian instruction, over that deep
and extensive valley, in which a vast proportion of
the human species lies scattered and dead. We
behold the new and unexampled impression con-
ducted as by electric agency from one corner of

CONCLUSION. C27

the earth to another. We witness the dispersed
particles, the dissevered limbs, which may hereafter
form component parts of the body of Christ, which
is his church, seeming to have a disposition to unite
and assume somewhat of a consolidated shape. But
one thing is still wanting, and it is that, without
which all efforts, however persevering and well-
directed, will fail of their end, the most encouraging
appearances, the most animating prospects, and the
most sanguine anticipations result in utter disap-
pointment. This is that quickening spirit, that
breath of the Almighty, which gives the Gospel
all its efficacy, truth all its force, and duty all its
vitality.

The outward temple is erecting by the labour of
a thousand busy hands, a Divine blessing evidently
attends upon its progress, and contributes to its
glorious completion by resources and facilities, on
which there was no ground to , calculate. What
remains — ^what is essential to its full perfection,
and what, therefore, it becomes us devoutly to im-
plore is, that the sacred presence — the Shekina of
the Divine glory, and the medium of Divine com-
munications— should descend into it and consecrate
it to Jehovah's honour. To drop the language of
metaphor, what we want is, that G-od's Holy Spirit
who, alone, as we have abundantly shown, is the
giver of grace and life, should come down and pour
the abundance of his influence upon us, as indivi-
duals occupying various stations and offices, and as
social bodies constituting different orders in the
civil or religious world, — upon our rulers, and those

2 S 2

628 CONCLUSION.

in authority over us, that they may be willing to aid,
by their countenance and influence, the extension of
the Eedeemer's kingdom, not from mere motives of
policy and conciliation, but from an unfeigned desire
of promoting the interests of piety and truth — upon
the bishops of our church, and our ecclesiastical
governors in general, that they may be taught to
exercise the high powers with which they are in-
vested with zeal and integrity, and with a sincere
aim at the glory of God, as involved in the faithful
discharge of the important functions of their office
— upon all our subordinate labourers in the vine-
yard of Christ, that by their fidelity, their diligence,
and their devotedness of heart to the great work
in which they are engaged, by the soundness of
their doctrine, and the purity of their lives, they
may be the honoured instruments of bringing many
souls into a knowledge of the Saviour, of awakening
the heedless, of instructing the ignorant, and of
consoling the afflicted — upon our congregations,
that by the warmth of their aff'ections, by the cor-
rectness of their principles, and by the consistency
of their lives, they may adorn the Gospel of
Christ, and make it evident, that the labours of
their ministers have not been spent in vain upon
them — upon our families, that they may be families
calUng upon the name of the Lord in sincerity and
truth — upon every member of the community, that,
according to his means and capabilities, he may
make it his endeavour to fulfil the great end of his
being, by rendering himself Avholly subservient to
the purposes of grace, and to the advancement

CONCLUSION. 629

of the divine glory, and with special emphasis we
would add — upon those noble Institutions, which, of
late, have sprung up in our land, having for their
sole, their exalted, their disinterested object, the
promotion of the honour of God, as combined with
the present and future happiness of man; that they
may be abundantly blessed in their labours of love ;
that the streams of living waters, which are continu-
ally emanating from their magnificent resources,
and which have now diffused themselves over almost
every portion of the globe, may prove, indeed,
streams of salvation to many a dreary region ; that
the divine Word, which they have so widely dis-
seminated, may be a word of power unto many
souls ; and that the devoted agents, whom they send
forth, may, indeed, be the bearers of glad tidings of
salvation to many glad and mlling hearers.

For the success of these Institutions, so far as
patronage, wealth, and talent, are concerned, we have
ground to indulge a grateful confidence. They are,
indeed, countenanced by the highest authorities, both
ecclesiastical and civil; their treasuries are sup-
plied by the munificence of the most opulent, and
their interests are supported and maintained by the
ablest and most endowed in the various depart-
ments of genius and knowledge. While, therefore,
we should not fail to be duly thankful for the general
disposition to spread abroad the knowledge of a
Saviour, which now prevails — a disposition, doubt-
less, to be finally traced to a divine agency, we
must ever recollect, that it is not by might nor by
power, but by the Spirit of the Most High, that

630 CONCLUSION.

the spiritual temple must be erected. Without his
gracious influence, all those channels of blessing,
which Christian benevolence has formed, will do no
more towards conveying the real benefits of the
Gospel, than the aqueducts, which interspersed the
land of Egypt, could contribute towards fertilizing
the soil without the necessary inundations of the
Nile.

I know not whether it be necessary, as we draw
these observations to a close, to subjoin one further
cautionary, or rather explanatory, remark. It is
this — that the consideration of the utter inefficacy of
human efforts, unaccompanied by a divme power,
as here stated, in no degree destroys the responsi-
bility or neutralizes the obligations of man as an
accountable and immortal being. His duty as a
moral agent is a question wholly independent of
that which we have now been discussing; and, in-
deed, there is guilt involved in the very circum-
stance, that by nature the state of his mind is
such as to render the influence that we have been
considering, indispensable to the renovation of his
character. Let no one imagine, therefore, that he
is to remain ' heedless and unconcerned, until some
resistless impulse has roused him out of his le-
thargy— that labour and exertion on his part are
premature and nugatory, until a resuscitating in-
fluence descends upon him from above. It is the
Holy Spirit, alone, indeed, that can infuse a vivi-
fying principle into the human soul, and inspire it
with tlie requisite energy for motion and action, as
it is the wind of licavcn only which can effectually

CONCLUSION. 631

waft a vessel over the ocean; but prcimratory
measures and subsequent co-operation in the due
application and use of these measures are equally
necessary in both cases, and in neither is there
reason to calculate upon success, where these are
not judiciously and efficiently applied.

Such is the view, which a calm and unprejudiced
survey of the Faculties of man in connection with
the discoveries of Eevelation and the phenomena of
the Moral Universe appears to suggest. Such are
the uses, to which it appears to have been designed
by their gracious and beneficent Author, that they
should be applied in connection with the final and
paramount End of human existence. To the realiza-
tion of this result — the manifestation of the glory of
God as inseparably connected with the welfare of His
creatures, they are, in all their varied exercises to be
uniformly subservient, and as directed to this object,
they are doubtless destined to rise to higher degrees
of power and perfection throughout the progress of
Eternity.

THE END

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