Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY
1980
THE LITERARY REMAINS
OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
^^ OLUME l\
, . n I'll I I NO II > >i
•21 TOOKS COURT, CHAIN MM LANE, LONDON.
f.
THE LITERARY REMAINS
. I '.a i i u
Qi
OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
HENRY \l LSON COLERIDGE, ESQ. M.A.
VOLUME THE 1-oLRTH
~0C^L L
\ I. II I
.-.
%■
\\%w
LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING
1*39
447/
C
CONTENTS.
AliVl I! lis! M|\T V
b on Luther i
St. Theresa
Bedell 71
Baxter 76
■ Leighton .... LOG
Sherlock 184
Waterland 221
Skelton 258
Andrew Fuller 289
Whitaker 296
Oxlec 308
A Barrister's Hints 320
— Davison 38/»
Irving 399
Noble 415
on I 'aith 425
advertisement.
For some remarks on the character of this
publication, the Editor begs to refer the
Header to the Preface to the third volume
of these Remains. That volume and the
present are expressly connected together
as one work.
The various materials arranged in the
following pages were preserved, and kindly
placed in the Editor's hands, by Mr. Sou-
they, Mr. Green, Mr. Gillman, Mr. Alfred
Elwyn of Philadelphia, United States,
Mr. Money, Mr. Hartley Coleridge, and
the Rev. Edward Coleridge ; and to those
gentlemen the Editor's best acknowledg-
ments are due.
Lincoln's Inn,
9th May, 1839.
>
-
Di i"
LI.TKKARY REMAINS.
NOTES ON LUTHER'S TABLE TALK."
cannot meditate too often, too deeply, or too
devotionally on the personeity of God, and his
personality in the Word, Yfy no povoyev«, and
thence on the individuity of the responsible
creature ;— that it is a perfection which, not
indeed in my intellect, but yet in my habit of
feeling, I have too much confounded* with that
complexus of visual images, cycles or customs
of sensations, and fellow-travelling circum-
stances (as the ship to the mariner), which
make up our empirical self: thence to bring
myself to apprehend livelily the exceeding
mercifulness and love of the'act of the Son of
God, in descending to seek after the prodigal
children, and to house with them in the sty.
Likewise by the relation of my own under-
Doctoris Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia: or Dr.
•tin Luther's Divine Discourses at his Table, &c. Collected
first together by Dr. Antonius Lauterbach, and afterwards dis-
posed into certain common-places by John Aurifaber, Doctor
in Divinity. Translated by Capt. Henry Bell. Folio London,
1652.
VOL. 1\ . B
2 NOTES ON
standing to the light of reason, and (the most
importantof all the truths that have been vouch-
safed to me !) to the will which is the reason, —
will in the form of reason — I can form a suf-
ficient gleam of the possibility of the subsis-
tence of the human soul in Jesus to the Eternal
Word, and how it might perfect itself so as to
merit glorification and abiding union with the
Divinity ; and how this gave a humanity to
our Lord's righteousness no less than to his
sufferings. Doubtless, as God, as the abso-
lute Alterity of the Absolute, he could not suf-
fer : but that he could not lav aside the abso-
lute, and by union with the creaturely become
aftectible, and a second, but spiritual Adam,
and so as afterwards to be partaker of the ab-
solute in the Absolute, even as the Absolute
had partaken of passion (tov ttckj^uv) and infir-
mity in it, that is, the finite and fallen creature ;
— this can be asserted only by one who (uncon-
sciously perhaps), has accustomed himself to
think of God as a thing, — having a necessity
of constitution, that wills, or rather tends and
inclines to this or that, because it is this or
that, not as being that, which is that which it
wills to be. Such a necessity is truly compul-
sion ; nor is it in the least altered in its na-
ture by being assumed to be eternal, in virtue
of an endless remotion or retrusion of the con-
stituent cause, which being manifested by the
understanding becomes a foreseen despair of
a cause. — Sunday 1 1th February, 1820.
LUTHEB S TABLE TALK. -i
( )ne argument strikes me in favour of the
tenet of Apostolic succession, in the ordination
of Bishops and Presbyters, as taught by the
Church of Home, and by the larger part of the
< arlier divines of the Church of England, which
I have not seen in any of the books on this
subject; namely, that in strict analogy with
other parts of Christian history, the miracle
itself contained a check upon the inconvenient
consequences necessarily attached to all mira-
cl( miracles, narrowing the possible claims
to any rights not proveable at the bar of uni-
versal reason and experience. Every man
among the Sectaries, however ignorant, may
justify himself in scattering stones and fire-
ubs by an alleged unction of the Spirit.
The miracle becomes perpetual, still beginning,
never ending. Now on the Church doctrine,
the original miracle provides for the future re-
currence to the ordinary and calculable laws
of the human understanding and moral sense;
instead of leaving every man a judge of his
own gifts, and of his right to act publicly on
that judgment. The initiative alone is super-
natural ; but all beginning is necessarily mi-
raculous, that is, hath eitherno antecedent,
or one irioou ytvovg, which then lore is not its, but
merely an, antecedent, — or an incausative alien
co-incident in time: a- if, for instance, Jack's
shout w erefoilowed bya Hash of lightning, which
should -tiike and precipitate the ball on St.
Mil's cathedral. This would be a miracle as
p- '«
Ontario
4 NOTES ON
long as no causative nexus was conceivable be-
tween the antecedent, the noise of the shout,
and the consequent, the atmospheric discharge.
The Epistle Dedicatory.
But this will be your glory and inexpugnable, if you cleave
in truth and practice to God's holy service, worship and reli-
gion : that religion and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is pure and undented before God even the Father, which is to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
yourselves unspotted from the world. — James i. 27.
Few mistranslations (unless indeed the word
used by the translator of St. James meant dif-
ferently from its present meaning), have led
astray more than this rendering of 0pr?o-/cet'a
(outward or ceremonial worship, cultus, divine
service,) by the English religion. St. James
sublimely says : What the ceremonies of the law
were to morality, that morality itself is to the
faith in Christ, that is, its outward symbol, not
the substance itself.
Chap. I. p. 1, 2.
That the Bible is the word of God (said Luther) the same
I prove as followeth : All things that have been and now
are in the world ; also how it now goeth and standeth in the
world, the same was written altogether particularly at the be-
ginning, in the first book of Moses concerning the creation.
And even as God made and created it, even so it was, even so
it is, and even so cloth it stand to this present day. And al-
though King Alexander the Great, the kingdom of Egypt, the
Empire of Babel, the Persian, Grecian and Roman monarchs ;
the Emperors Julius and Augustus most fiercely did rage and
swell against this Book, utterly to suppress and destroy the
same ; yet notwithstanding they could prevail nothing, they
LUTHER S TABLK TALK. -")
are all gone and vanished ; but this Book from time to time
hath remained, and will remain unremoved in full and ample
manner as it was written at the first.
A proof worthy of the manly mind of Lu-
ther, and compared with which the Grotian
pretended demonstrations, from Grotius him-
self to Paley, are mischievous underminings of
the Faith, pleadings fitter for an Old Bailey
thieves' counsellor than for a Christian divine.
The true evidence of the Bible is the Bible, —
of Christianity the living fact of Christianity
itself, as the manifest archeus or predominant
of the life of the planet.
lb. p. 4.
The art of the School divines (said Luther) with their specu-
lations in the Holy Scriptures, are merely vain and human
cogitations, spun out of their own natural wit and understand-
ing. They talk much of the union of the will and understand-
ing, but all is mere fantasy and fondness. The right and true
speculation (said Luther) is this, Believe in Christ; do what
thou oughtest to do in thy vocation. &c. This is the only
practice in divinity. Also, Mysticu Theologia Dionysii is a
mere fable, and a lie, like to Plato's fables. Omnia sunt non
ens, et omnia sunt ens ; all is somethin , and all is nothing,
and so he leaveth all hanging in frivolous and idle sort.
Still, however, da l/ieure Maim Golles, mein
verehrter Luther! reason, will, understanding
are words, to which real entities correspond ;
and we may in a sound and good sense say
that reason is the ray, the projected disk or
image, from the Sun of Righteousness, an echo
from the Eternal Word — the Unfit that lighteth
every man that comet h into tin1 world; and that
6 NOTES ON
when the will placeth itself in a right line with
the reason, there ariseth the spirit, through
which the will of God floweth into and actuates
the will of man, so that it willeth the things of
God, and the understanding is enlivened, and
thenceforward useth the materials supplied to
it by the senses symbolically ; that is, with an
insight into the true substance thereof.
lb. p. 9.
The Pope usurpeth and taketh to himself the power to ex-
pound and to construe the Scriptures according to his plea-
sure. What he saith, must stand and be spoken as from hea-
ven. Therefore let us love and preciously value the divine
word, that thereby we may be able to resist the Devil and his
swarm.
As often as I use in prayer the 16th verse
of the 71st Psalm, (in our Prayer-book ver-
sion), my thoughts especially revert to the sub-
ject of the right appreciation of the Scriptures,
and in what sense the Bible may be called the
word of God, and how and under what condi-
tions the unity of the Spirit is translucent
through the letter, which, read as the letter
merely, is the word of this and that pious but
fallible and imperfect man. Alas for the su-
perstition, where the words themselves are
made to be the Spirit ! O might I live but
to utter all my meditations on this most con-
cerning point !
lb. p. 12.
Bullinger said once in my hearing (said Luther) that he was
earnest against the Anabaptists, as contemners of God's word,
I l ["HER * TABLE TALK.
and also strainst those which attributed too much to the literal
word, t'nr (said he) Buch <lo •sin against God and his almighty
power; as the .lows did in naming the ark, God. Hnf, (said
lie) whoso holdeth a mean between both, the Bame La taught
what is the riirht use of the word and sacraments.
Whereupon (said Luther) 1 answered him and said ; Bull-
Lnger, you err. yon know neither yourself, nor what you hold ;
1 mark well your tricks and fallacies : Zuinglius and (Eco-
lampadins likewise proceeded too far in the ungodly meaning:
when Brentius withstood them, they then lessened their
opinions, alleging, they did not reject the literal word, but
only condemned certain gross abuses. By this your error you
cut in sunder and separate the word and the spirit, oi:c.
In my present state of mind, and with what
light 1 now enjoy, — (may God increase it, and
cleanse it from the dark mist into the lumen
siccum of sincere knowledge !) — I cannot per-
suade myself that this vehemence of our dear
man of God against Bullinger, Zuinglius and
CEcolampadiua on this point could have had
other origin, than his misconception of what
they intended. But Luther spoke often (I
like him and love him all the better therefor,)
in his moods and according to the mood. Was
not that a different mood, in which he called
St. James's Epistle a 'Jack-Straw poppet' ; and
even in this work selects one verse as the best
in the whole letter,— evidently meaning, the
onlv verse of any great value ' Besides he ac-
customed himself to use the term, ' the word,'
in a very wide sense when the narrower would
have cramped him. When he was on the
point of rejecting the Apocalypse, then 'the
word' meant the spirit of the Scriptures col-
lective! \ .
8 NOTES ON
lb. p. 21.
I, (said Luther), do not hold that children are without faith
when they are baptized ; for inasmuch as they are brought to
Christ by his command, and that the Church prayeth for them ;
therefore, without all doubt, faith is given unto them, although
with our natural sense and reason we neither see nor under-
stand it.
Nay, but dear honoured Luther ! is this fair?
If Christ or Scripture had said in one place,
Believe, and thou may est be baptized; and in
another place, Baptize infants ; then we might
perhaps be allowed to reconcile the two seem-
ingly jarring texts, by such words as " faith is
given to them, although, &C/' But when no
such text, as the latter, is to be found, nor any
one instance as a substitute, then your conclu-
sion seems arbitrary,
lb. p. 25,
This argument (said Luther), concludeth so much as nothing ;
for, although they had been angels from heaven, yet that
troubleth me nothing at all ; we are now dealing about God's
word, and with the truth of the Gospel, that is a matter of far
greater weight to have the same kept and preserved pure and
clear; therefore we (said Luther), neither care nor trouble
ourselves for, and about, the greatness of Saint Peter and the
other Apostles, or how many and great miracles they wrought :
the thing which we strive for is, that the truth of the Holy
Gospel may stand ; for God regardeth not men's reputations
nor persons.
Oh, that the dear man Luther had but told
us here what he meant by the term, Gospel !
That St. Paul had seen even St. Luke's, is but
a conjecture, grounded on a conjectural inter-
LUTHER s TABLE TALK. J)
pretation of a single text, doubly equivocal ;
namely, that the Luke mentioned was the same
with the Evangelist Luke; and that the evan-
ai/iuni signified a book; the latter, of itself
improbable, derives its probability from the
undoubtedly very strong probability of the for-
mer. If then not any book, much less the four
books, now called the four Gospels, were meant
by Paul, but the contents of those books, as
far as they are veracious, and whatever else
was known on equal authority at that time,
though not contained in those books; if, in
short, the whole sum of Christ's acts and dis-
courses be what Paul meant by the Gospel;
then the argument is circuitous, and returns
to the first point, — What is the Gospel? Shall
we believe you, and not rather the companions
of Christ, the eye and ear witnesses of his doings
and sayings ? Now I should require strong
inducements to make me believe that St. Paid
had been guilty of such palpably false logic ;
and 1 therefore feel myself compelled to infer,
that by the Gospel Paul intended the eternal
truths known ideally from the beginning, and
historically realized in the manifestation of the
Word in Christ Jesus; and that he used the ideal
immutable truth as the canon and criterion of
the oral traditions. For example, a Greek
mathematician, standing in the same relation
of time and country to Euclid as that in which
St. Paul stood to Jesus Christ, might have ex-
claimed in the same spirit : " What do you talk
10 NOTES ON
to me of this, that, and the other intimate ac-
quaintance of Euclid's ? My object is to convey
the sublime system of geometry which he
realized, and by that must I decide/' " I,"
says St. Paul, " have been taught by the spirit
of Christ, a teaching susceptible of no addi-
tion, and for which no personal anecdotes, how-
ever reverend ly attested, can be a substitute.""
But dearest Luther was a translator ; he could
not, must not, see this.
lb. p. 32.
That God's word, and the Christian Church, is preserved
against the raging of the world.
The Papists have lost the cause ; with God's word they are not
able to resist or withstand us. * * * The kings of the earth
stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, &c. God will
deal well enough with these angry gentlemen, and will give
them but small thanks for their labor, in going about to sup-
press his word and servants ; he hath sat in counsel above these
five thousand five hundred years, hath ruled and made laws.
Good Sirs ! be not so choleric ; go further from the wall, lest
you knock your pates against it. Kiss the Son lest he be an-
gry, &c. That is, take hold on Christ, or the Devil will take
hold on you, &c.
The second Psalm (said Luther), is a proud Psalm against
those fellows. It begins mild and simply, but it endeth stately
and rattling. * * * I have now angered the Pope about his
images of idolatry. 0 ! how the sow raiseth her bristles ! *
The Lord saith : Ego suscitabo vos in novissimo die : and then
he will call and say : ho ! Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon,
Justus Jonas, John Calvin, &c. Arise, come up, * * * Well
on, (said Luther), let us be of good comfort.
A delicious paragraph. How our fine prea-
chers would turn up their Tom-tit beaks and
11 ther's table talk. 1 1
flirt with their tails at it! But this is the waj
in which the man of life, the man of power, sets
the dry bones in motion.
Chap. ii. p. 37.
This is the thanks that God hath for his grace, for creating,
for redeeming-, sanctifying, nourishing, and for preserving as :
such a seed, fruit, and godly child is the world. (J, woe be to
it!
Too true,
lb. p. -34.
That out of the best comes the worst.
Out of the Patriarchs and holy Fathers came the Jews that
crucified Christ; out of the Apostles came Judas the traitor;
out of the city Alexandria (where a fair illustrious and famous
school was, and from whence proceeded many upright and godly
learned men), came Arius and Origenes.
Poor Origen ! Surely Luther was put to it
for an instance, and had never read the works
of that very best of the old Fathers, and emi-
nently upright and godly learned man.
lb.
The sparrows are the least birds, and yet they are very hurt-
ful, and have the best nourishment.
Ergo digni sunt opini persecutions. Poor
little Philip Sparrows ! Luther did not know
that they more than earn their good wages by
destroying grubs and other small vermin.
lb. p. 61.
He that without danger will know God, and will speculate
of him, let him look first into the manger, that is, let him be-
gin below, and let him first learn to know the Son of the
12 NOTES ON
Virgin Mary, born at Bethlehem, that lies and sucks in his
mother's bosom ; or let one look upon him hanging on the
Cross. * * But take good heed in any case of high climb-
ing cogitations, to clamber up to heaven without this ladder,
namely, the Lord Christ in his humanity.
To know God as God (rov Z?jva, the living-
God) we must assume his personality : other-
wise what were it but an ether, a gravitation? —
but to assume his personality, we must begin
with his humanity, and this is impossible but
in history ; for man is an historical — not an
eternal being. Ergo. Christianity is of neces-
sity historical and not philosophical only.
lb. p. 6*2.
What is that to thee ? said Christ to Peter. Follow thou
me — me, follow me, and not thy questions, or cogitations.
Lord ! keep us looking to, and humbly fol-
lowing, thee !
Chap. VI. p. 103.
The philosophers and learned heathen (said Luther) have
described God, that he is as a circle, the point whereof in the
midst is every where ; but the circumference, which on the out-
side goeth round about, is no where : herewith they would shew
that God is all, and yet is nothing.
What a huge difference the absence of a
blank space, which is nothing, or next to no-
thing, may make ! The words here should have
been printed, " God is all, and yet is no thing ;"
For what does ' thing' mean? Itself, that is,
the ing, or inclosure, that which is contained
LI TliF.u's TABLE TALK. 13
within an outline, or circumscribed. So like-
wise to think is to inclose, to determine, con-
fine and define. To think an infinite is a con-
tradiction in terms equal to a boundless bound.
So in German Ding, denken; in Latin res,
rear.
Chap. VII. p. 113.
Helvidius alleged the mother of Christ was not a virgin ; so
that according to his wicked allegation, Christ was born in
original sin.
O, what a tangle of impure whimsies has this
notion of an immaculate conception, an Ebio-
nite tradition, asl think, brought into theChris-
tian Church ! I have sometimes suspected that
the Apostle John had a particular view to this
point, in the first half of the first chapter of
his Gospel. Not that I suppose our present
Matthew then in existence, or that, if John had
Been the Gospel according to Luke, the Chris-
topcedia had been already prefixed to it. But
the rumor might have been whispered about,
and as the purport was to give a psilanthropic
explanation and solution of the phrases, Son
of God and Son of Man, — so Saint John met
it by the true solution, namely, the eternal
Filiation of the Word.
lb. p. C20. Of Christ's riding into Jerusa-
lem.
But I hold (said Luther) that Christ himself did not mention
that prophecy of Zechariah, hut rather, that the Apostles and
Evangelists did use it for a witin
14 NOTES ON
Worth remembering for the purpose of ap-
plying it to the text in which our Lord is re-
presented in the first (or Matthews) Gospel,
and by that alone, as citing Daniel by name.
It was this text that so sorely, but I think very
unnecessarily, perplexed and gravelled Bent-
ley, who was too profound a scholar and too
acute a critic to admit the genuineness of the
whole of that book.
lb.
The Prophets (said Luther) did set, speak, and preach of the
second coming of Christ in manner as we now do.
I regret that Mr. Irving should have blended
such extravagancies and presumptuous pro-
phesyings with his support and vindication of
the Millennium, and the return of Jesus in his
corporeal individuality, — because these have
furnished divines in general, both Churchmen
and Dissenting, with a pretext for treating his
doctrine with silent contempt. Had he fol-
lowed the example of his own Ben Ezra, and
argued temperately and learnedly, the contro
versy must have forced the momentous ques-
tion on our Clergy : — Are Christians bound to
believe whatever an Apostle believed, — and in
the same way and sense ? I think Saint Paul
himself lived to doubt the solidity of his own
literal interpretation of our Lord's words.
The whole passage in which our Lord de-
scribes his coming is so evidently, and so in-
tentionally expressed in the diction and images
LUTHER S TABLE TALK. 15
off the Prophets, that nothing but the carnal
laterality common to the Jews at that time and
most strongly marked in the disciples, who
were among the least educated of their coun-
trymen, could have prevented the symbolic
import and character of the words from being
seen. The whole Gospel and the Epistles of
John, are a virtual confutation of this reigning
error — and no less is the Apocalypse whether
written by, or under the authority of, the
Evangelist.
The unhappy effect which St. Paul's (may
I not say) incautious language respecting
Christ's return produced on the Thessalonians,
led him to reflect on the subject, and he in-
stantly in the second epistle to them qualified
the doctrine, and never afterwards resumed it ;
but on the contrary, in the first Epistle to the
Corinthians, c. 15, substitutes the doctrine of
immortality in a celestial state and a spiritual
body. On the nature of our Lord's future epi-
phany or phenomenal person, I am not ashamed
to acknowledge, that my views approach very
nearly to those of Emanuel Swedenborg.
lb. p. 121.
Doctor Jacob Schenck never preacheth out of his book, but
I do, (said Luther), though not of necessity, but I do it for ex-
ample's sake to others.
As many notes, memoranda, cues of connec-
tion and transition as the preacher may find
expedient or serviceable to him ; well and
10 NOTES ON
good. But to read in a manuscript book, as
our Clergy now do, is not to preach at all.
Preach out of a book, if you must ; but do
not read in it, or even from it. A read sermon
of twenty minutes will seem longer to the
hearers than a free discourse of an hour.
lb.
My simple opinion is (said Luther) and I do believe that
Christ for us descended into hell, to the end he might break
and destroy the same, as in Psalm xvi, and Acts ii,is shewed
and proved.
Could Luther have been ignorant, that this
clause was not inserted into the Apostle's
Creed till the sixth century after Christ? I
believe the original intention of the clause was
no more than vere mortuus est — in contradic-
tion to the hypothesis of a trance or state of
suspended animation.
Chap. VII. p. 122.
When Christ (said Luther) forbiddeth to spread abroad or
to rmke known his works of wonder ; there he speaketh as
being sent from the Father, and doth well and right therein
in forbidding them, to the end that therebv he might leave
us an example, not to seek our own praise and honor in that
wherein we do good ; but we ought to seek only and alone the
honor of God.
Not satisfactory. Doubtless, the command
was in connection with the silence enjoined
respecting his Messiahship.
Chap. VIII. p. 147.
Doctor Hennage said to Luther, Sir, where you say that the
Holy Spirit is the certainty in the word towards God, that is.
luther's tabi e hlk. 17
th at a man is certain of liis ow n mind and opinion ; then it must
follow that all sects have the Holy Ghost, for they will
ds be most certain of their doctrine and religion.
Luther might have answered, " positi
you mean, not certain."
Chap. 1\. p. 160.
But who bath power to forgive or to detain sin* ? Answer;
the Ap - ad all Church servants, and (in case of necessity)
ry Christian. Christ giveth them not power over money,
.Itli, kingdoms, &c; but over sins and the consciences of
human creatures, over the power of the Devil, and the throat of
:i.
Few passages in the Sacred Writings have
casioned so much mischief, abject slavish-
ness, bloated pride, tyrannous usurpation,
bloody persecution, with kings even against
their will the drudges. false soul-destroying
quiet of conscience, as this text, John xx. 2:5.
misinterpreted. It is really a tremendous
proof of what the misunderstanding of a few
words can do. That even Luther partook, of
the delusion, this paragraph uives proof. But
that a delusion it is ; that the commission uiven
to the Seventy whom Christ sent out to pro-
claim and offer the kingdom of God, and after-
wards to the Apostles, reins either to the power
of making rules and ordinances in the Church,
or otherwise to the gifts of miraculous healing,
which our Lord at that time conferred on them;
id that per Jiguram causa pro effectot 'sins'
here mean diseases, seems to me more than
VOL. IV '
18 NOTES ON
probable. At all events, the text surely does
not mean that the salvation of a repentant and
believing Christian depends upon the will of a
priest in absolution.
lb. p. 161.
And again, they are able to absolve and make a human crea-
ture free and loose from all his sins, if in case he repenteth
and believeth in Christ ; and on the contrary, they are able to
detain all his sins, if he doth not repent and believeth not in
Christ.
In like manner if he sincerely repent and
believe, his sins are forgiven, whether the
minister absolve him or not. Now if M X 5
=5, and 5 — M = 5, M = O. If he be impeni-
tent and unbelieving, his sins are detained, no
doubt, whether the minister do or do not de-
tain them.
lb. p. 163.
Adam was created of God in such sort righteous, as that he
became of a righteous an unrighteous person ; as Paul himself
argueth, and withall instructeth himself, where he saith, Tbe
law is not given for a righteous man, but for the lawless and
disobedient.
This follows from the very definition or idea
of righteousness ; — it is itself the law ; — 7ruc yao
SiKaiog avrovo/Lioc;.
lb.
The Scripture saith, God maketh the ungodly righteous :
there he calleth us all, one with another, despairing and wicked
wretches ; for what will an ungodly creature not dare to ac-
complish, if he may but have occasion, place, and opportunity ?
LUTHEB B TABLE TALK. 19
That is with a lu^t within correspondent to
the temptation from without.
A Christian's conscience, methinks, oiil? h t
to be a Janus bifrons, — a Gospel-face retro-
spective, and smiling through penitent tears
on the sins of the past, and a Moses-face look-
ing forward in frown and menace, frightening
the harlot will into a holy abortion of sins
conceived but not yet born, perchance not yet
quickened. The fanatic Antinomian reverses
this ; for the past he requires all the horrors of
remorse and despair, till the moment of assu-
rance ; thenceforward, he may do what he
likes, for he cannot sin.
lb. p. 165.
All natural inclinations (said Luther) are either against or
without God ; therefore none are good. We see that no man
is so honest as to marry a wife, only thereby to have children,
to love and to bring them up in the fear of God.
This is a very weak instance. If a man had
been commanded to marry by God, being so
formed as that no sensual deliuht accom-
panied, and refused to do so, unless this appe-
tite and gratification were added, — then indeed !
(hap. X. p. 108, J).
Ah Lord God (said Luther), why should we any way boast
of our free-will, as if it were able to do anything in divine and
spiritual matters were they never so small ? * * * I confess
that mankind hath a free-will, but it is to milk kine, to build
houses, &c, and no further : for so long as a man sitteth well
and in safety, and sticketh in no want, so long he thinketh he
hath a free-will which is able to do something ; but, when want
20 NOTTS ON
and need appeareth, that tliere is neither to eat nor to drink,
neither money nor provision, where is then the free will ? It is
utterly lost, and cannot stand when it cometh to the pinch.
But faith only standeth fast and sure, and seeketh Christ.
Luther confounds free-will with efficient
power, which neither does nor can exist save
where the finite will is one with the absolute
Will. That Luther was practically on the right
side in this famous controversy, and that he
was driving at the truth, I see abundant rea-
son to believe. But it is no less evident thai
he saw it in a mist, or rather as a mist with
dissolving outline ; and as he sawr the thing
as a mist, so he ever and anon mistakes a
mist for the thing. But Erasmus and Saave-
dra m ere equally indistinct ; and shallow and
unsubstantial to boot. In fact, till the ap-
pearance of Kant's Kritiques of the pure and
of the practical Reason the problem had never
been accurately or adequately stated, much
less solved. — 26 June, 1820.
lb. p. 174.
Loving- friends, (said Luther) our doctrine that free-will is
dead and nothing at all is grounded powerfully in Holy Scrip-
ture.
It is of vital importance for a theological
student to understand clearly the utter diver-
sity of the Lutheran, which is likewise the
Calvinistic, denial of free-will in the unre-
generate, and the doctrine of the modern Ne-
cessitarians and (proh pudor !) of the later
Calvinists, which denies tiie proper existence of
LI II1KU v rABLE TALK. 21
will altogether. The former is sound. Scrip-
tural, compatible with the divine justice, u
new, yea, a mighty motive to morality, and,
finally, the dictate of common sense grounded
on common experience. The latter the verj
contrary of all these.
( hap. \ii. p. 187.
ibis is now (said Luther), the first instruction concerning
tli»' law; namely, that the Bame must he used to hinder the
Ungodly from their wicked and mischievous intentions. For
the Devil, who is an Abbot and a Prince <»f this world, driveth
and alluretb people to work all manner of >in ami w ickedm " :
for which cause God hath ordained magistrates, elders, school-
masters, laws, and statutes, to the end, if they cannot do more,
yet at least that they may hind the claws of the Devil, and to hin-
der him from raging and swelling so powerfully (in those which
are his) according to his will and pleasure.
And (said Luther), although thou hadst not committed this
or that sin, yet nevertheless, thou art an ungodly creature, &c.
hut what is done cannot he undone, he that hath stolen, let him
tceforward steal no more.
indly, we use the law spiritually, which is done in this
manner; that it maketh the trai one greater, as S;unt
Paul saith ; that is, that it may reveal and discover to people
their sins, blindness, misery, and ungodly doings wherein they
were conceiv. d and horn ; namely, that they are ignorant of
i. and are his enemies, and therefore hive justly deserved
:h, hell,' God's judgments, his • ting wrath and iiuiitr-
nition. Saint Paul, (said Luther), expoundeth such spiritual
offices and works of the law with many words. — Rom. vii.
Nothing can be more sound of more philo-
sophic than the contents of these two para-
graphs. They afford a sufficient answer to the
pretence of the Romanists and Arminians, that
1>\ the lav. St. Paul meant only the ceremo-
nial law.
I
i :u
:22 NOTES ON
lb. p. 189.
And if Moses had not cashiered and put himself out of his
office, and had not taken it away with these words, (where he
saith, The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee another
prophet out of thy brethren; Him shalt thou hear. (Deut.
xviii.) who then at any time would or could have helieved the
Gospel, and forsaken Moses ?
If I could be persuaded that this passage
{Dent, xviii. 15 — 19.) primarily referred to
Christ, and that Christ, not Joshua and his suc-
cessors, was the prophet here promised ; I must
either become a Unitarian psiianthrophist, and
join Priestley and Belsham, — or abandon to the
Jews their own Messiah as yet to come, and
cling to the religion of John and Paul, without
further reference to Moses than to Lycurgus,
Solon and Numa ; all of whom in their different
spheres no less prepared the way for the coming
of the Lord, the desire of the nations.
lb. p. 190.
It is therefore most evident (said Luther), that the law can but
only help us to know our sins, and to make us afraid of death.
Now sins and death are such things as belong to the world, and
which are therein.
Both in Paul and Luther, (names which I
can never separate), — not indeed peculiar to
these, for it is the same in the Psalms, Eze-
kiel, and throughout the Scriptures, but which
I feel most in Paul and Luther, — there is one
fearful blank, the wisdom or necessity of which
I do not doubt, yet cannot help groping and
straining after like one that stares in the dark ;
i.i tiii.k\ table talk. 23
and this is Death. The Law makes us afraid
of death. What is death? — an unhappy life ?
Who does not feel the insufficiency of this an-
swer? What analogy does immortal suffering
bear to the only deatli which is known to us \
Since J wrote the above, God has, 1 humbly
trust, given me a clearer Light as to the true
nature of the death so often mentioned in the
Scriptures.
lb.
It ;s (said Luther), a very hard matter: yea, an impossible
thing for thy human strength, whosoever thou art (without
funce) that (at such a time when Moses setteth upon
thee with his law, and fearfully aftrighteth thee, accuseth and
condemneth thee, threateneth thee with God's wrath and death)
thou shouldest as then be of such a mind ; namely, as if no
law nor sin had ever been at any time : — I say, it is in a man-
ner a thing impossible, that a human creature should carry
himself in such a sort, when he is and feeleth himself assaulted
with trials and temptations, and when the conscience hath to
do with God, as then to think no otherwise, than that from
everlasting nothing hath been, but only and alone Christ, alto-
gether grace and deliverance.
Yea, verily, Amen and Amen ! For this
short heroic paragraph contains the sum and
substance, the heighth and the depth of all
true philosophy. Most assuredly right diffi-
cult it is for us, -while we are yet in the narrow
chamber of death, with our faces to the dusky
falsifying looking-glass that covers the scant
end-side of the blind passage from tloor to
ceiling, — right difficult for us, so wedged be-
tween its walls that we cannot turn round, nor
have other escape possible but by walking
24 NOTES ON,
backward, to understand that all we behold or
have any memory of having ever beholden,
yea, our very selves as seen by us, are but
shadows, and when the forms that we loved van-
ish, impossible not to feel as if they were real.
lb. p. 197.
Nothing that is good proceedeth out of the works of the
law, except grace be present ; for what we are forced to do, the
same goeth not from the heart, neither is acceptable.
A law- supposes a law-giver, and implies an ac-
tuator and executor, and consequently rewards
and punishments publicly announced, and dis-
tinctly assigned to the deeds enjoined or for-
bidden ; and correlatively in the subjects of the
law, there are supposed, first, assurance of the
being, the power, the veracity and seeingness
of the law-giver, in whom I here comprise the
legislative, judicial and executive functions;
and secondly, self-interest, desire, hope and
fear. Now from this view, it is evident that the
deeds or works of the Law are themselves null
and dead, deriving their whole significance
from their attachment or alligation to the re-
wards and punishments, even as this diversely
shaped and ink colored paper has its value
wholly from the words or meanings, which
have been arbitrarily connected therewith ; or
as a ladder, or flight of stairs, of a provision-
loft, or treasury. If the architect or master of
the house had chosen to place the store-room
or treasury on the around floor, the ladder or
Ll i .: EH s i IBLE TALK.
steps would have been useless. The life is
divided between the rewards and punishments
on the one hand, and the hope and fear on the
other: namely, the active life or excitanc\
to the former, the passive life or exci-
tability to the latter. Call the former the affi-
cients, the latter the affections, the deeds being
merely the signs or impresses of the former, as
the seal, on the latter as the wax. Equally
ident is it, that the affections are wholly
formed by the 3, which are themseh
but the lifeless unsubstantial shapes of the
actual forms (formee formantes), namely, the
rewards and punishments. Mow contrast with
this the i rocess of the Gospel. There the af-
fections are formed in the first instance, not
by any reference to works or deeds, but by an
unmerited rescue from death, liberation from
-lavish task-work; by faith, gratitude, love,
and affectionate contemplation of the exceed-
ing goodness and loveliness of the Saviour,
Redeemer, Benefactor: from the affections
flow the deeds, or rather the affections over-
flow in the deeds, and the rewards are but a
mtinuance and continued increase of the
free grace in the state of the soul and in the
growth and gradual perfecting of that stale.
which are themse! *ifts of the
ad one w ith the i ds ; for in tl
kingdom of Christ which is the realm of love
and intern ommunity, the joy and grace of each
generated spirit becomes double, and thereb
26' NOTES ON
augments the joys and the graces of the others,
and the joys and graces of all unite in each ; —
Christ, the head, and by his Spirit the bond,
or unitive copula of all, being the spiritual sun
whose entire image is reflected in every indi-
vidual of the myriads of dew-drops. While
under the Law, the all was but an aggregate of
subjects, each striving after a reward for him-
self,— not as included in and resulting from
the state, — but as the stipulated wages of the
task-work, as a loaf of bread may be the pay
or bounty promised for the hewing of wood or
the breaking of stones !
lb.
He (said Luther), that will dispute with the Devil, &c.
Queries.
I. Abstractedly from, and independently of,
all sensible substances, and the bodies, wills,
faculties, and affections of men, has the Devil,
or would the Devil have, a personal self-subsis-
tence? Does he, or can he, exist as a con-
scious individual agent or person ? Should the
answer to this query be in the negative : then —
II. Do there exist finite and personal beings,
whether with composite and decomponible
bodies, that is, embodied, or with simple and
indecomponible bodies, (which is all that can
be meant by disembodied as applied to finite
creatures), so eminently wicked, or wicked and
mischievous in so peculiar a kind, as to con-
1. 1 rHER'8 l vr.i.i. J vi. k. 27
stitute a distinct genus of beings under the
name of devils !
III. Is tliis second /////><>/// i sm compatible
with the acts and functions attributed to the
Devil in Scripture ? O! to have had these three
questions put by Melancthon to Luther, and
to have heard his reply !
lb. p. 200.
li' (said Lather) (»od should give unto us b strong and an
unwavering faith, then we Bboold l>e proud, yea also, we should
at last contemn Him. Again, if he should gire us the right
kirn of the law, then we should be dismayed and faint-
hearted, we should not know which way to wind ourselves.
The main reason is, because in this instance,
the change in the relation constitutes the dif-
ference of the things. A. considered as acting ab
extra on the selfish fears and desires of men is
the Law : the same A. acting ah intra as a new
nature infused by grace, as the mind of Christ
prompting to all obedience, is the (iospel. Yet
what Luther says is likewise very true. Could
we reduce the great spiritual truths or ideas of
our faith to comprehensible conception-, or for
the thing itself is impossible) fancy we had done
so, we should inevitably be ' proud vain ass< -
11). p. 203.
And as to know his works and actions, is not yet rightly to
know the Gospel, (for thereby we know not as yet that he hath
overcome sin death and the Devil); even so likewise, it is not
vet to know the Gospel, when we know such doctrine and
commandments. but when the voice soundeth, which saith, Christ
28 NOTES ON
is thine own with life, with doctrine, with works, death, resur-
rection, and with all that he hath, doth and may do.
Most true,
lb. p. 205.
The ancient Fathers said : Distingue tempora et concordabis
Scripturas ; distinguish the times ; then may we easily recon-
cile the Scriptures together.
Yea! and not only so, but we shall recon-
cile truths, that seem to repeal this or that
passage of Scripture, with the Scriptures. For
Christ is with his Church even to the end.
lb.
1 verily believe, (said Luther) it (the abolition of the Law)
vexed to the heart the beloved St. Paul himself before his con-
version.
How dearly Martin Luther loved St. Paul !
How dearly would St. Paul have loved Martin
Luther! And how impossible, that either
should not have done so !
lb.
In this case, touching the distinguishing the Law from the
Gospel, we must utterly expel all human ;\m\ natural wisdom,
reason, and understanding.
All reason is above nature. Therefore by
•son in Luther, or rather in his translator,
you must understand the reasoning faculty : —
that is, the logical intellect, or the intellectual
understanding. For the understanding is in
all respects a medial and mediate faculty, and
has therefore two extremities or poles, the sen-
1 I 1 11 ER'S I I U.K.
Bual, in which form it is St. Paul's ^povn/ta
oapKo< : and the intellectual pole, or the hemi-
sphere as it \\< re turned towards the n ason.
.Now the n ason< lux idealis sen spiritualis) shin
<1<»\\ d into the understanding, which recogniz
the light, id est, (mm n a luce spiritual i quasi ah
nigenum ti//<jni(/, w hich it can only comprehend
s< ribe to itself by attributes opposite to its
own essential properties. Nom these latter being
contingi ncy, and for though the immediate
obje< I the understanding arc genera d spe-
—till they are particular genera </ species
particularity, it distinguishes the formal light
lumen) (not the substantia] light, lux) of
reason by the attributes of the necessary and
the universal ; and by irradiation of this /mm n
or shine the understanding becomes a conclu-
sive or logical faculty. As such it is Aoyoc.
lb. 206.
When Satan saith in thy heart, God will not pardon thy
.-ins, nor be gracious unto thee, 1 pray (said Luther) how wilt
thou then, as a poor sinner, raise up and comfort thj elf, i -pe-
ciallj when other signs of God's wrath besides do beat op »□
thee, as . poverty, &c. And that thy heart begino
t" pn ..■ h and - .old, here thou livest in sickness, thou art
poor and for&aken of every one, &c.
Oh! how true, how affectingly true is this !
And when t. tan, the tempter, becom< -
itan the accuser, saying in thy heart : —
•• This sickness is the consequence of sin, or
sinful infirmity, and thou hast brought tin-
•30 NOTES ON
self into a fearful dilemma ; thou canst not
hope for salvation as long as thou continuest
in any sinful practice, and yet thou canst not
abandon thy daily dose of this or that poison
without suicide. For the sin of thy soul has
become the necessity of thy body, daily tor-
menting thee, without yielding thee any the
least pleasurable sensation, but goading thee
on by terror without hope. Under such evi-
dence of God's wrath how canst thou expect
to be saved ?" Well may the heart cry out,
" Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death, — from this death that lives and tyran-
nizes in my body ?" But the Gospel answers
— " There is a redemption from the body
promised ; only cling to Christ. Call on him
continually with all thy heart, and all thy
soul, to give thee strength, and be strong in
thy weakness; and what Christ doth not see
good to relieve thee from, suffer in hope. It
may be better for thee to be kept humble and
in self-abasement. The thorn in the flesh may
remain and yet the grace of God through
Christ prove sufficient for thee. Only cling
to Christ, and do thy best. In all love and
well-doing gird thyself up to improve and use
aright what remains free in thee, and if thou
doest ought aright, say and thankfully believe
that Christ hath done it for thee." O what a
miserable despairing wretch should I become,
if I believed the doctrines of Bishop Jeremy
Taylor in his Treatise on Repentance, or those
luther's table talk. 31
I heard preached by Dr.-- ; if I gave up
the faith, that the life of Christ would preci-
pitate the remaining dregs of sin in the crisis
of death, and that I shall rise in purer capa-
city of Christ ; blind to be irradiated by his
light, empty to be possessed by his fullness,
naked of merit to be clothed with his right-
eousness
lb. p. 267.
The nobility, the gentry, citizens, and farmers, &c. are now
become so haughty and ungodly, that they regard no ministers
nor preachers ; and (said Luther) if we were not holpen some-
what by great princes and persons, we could not long subsist :
therefore Isaiah saith well, And kings shall be their nurses, fyc.
Corpulent nurses too often, that overlay the
babe ; distempered nurses, that convey poison
in their milk !
Chap. XIII. p. 208.
Philip Melancthon said to Luther, The opinion of St. Austin
of justification (as it seemeth) was more pertinent, fit and con-
venient when he disputed not, than it was when he used to
speak and dispute ; for thus he saith, We ought to censure and
hold that we are justified by faith, that is by our regeneration,
or by being made new creatures. Now if it be so, then we
are not justified only by faith, but by all the gifts and virtues
of God given unto us. Now what is your opinion Sir ? Do
you hold that a man is justified by this regeneration, as is St.
Austin's opinion ?
Luther answered and said-, I hold this, and am certain, that
the true meaning of the Gospel and of the Apostle is, that
we are justified before God gratis, for nothing, only by God's
mere mercy, wherewith and by reason whereof, he imputeth
righteousness unto us in Christ.
True ; but is it more than a dispute about
32 NOTES ON
words ? Is not the regeneration likewise gra-
tis, only by God's mere mercy ? We, accord-
ing to the necessity of our imperfect under-
standings, must divide and distinguish. But
surely justification and sanctiiication are one
act of God, and only different perspectives of
redemption by and through and for Christ.
They are one and the same plant, justifica-
tion the root, sanctification the flower ; and
fmay I not venture to add?) transubstantia-
tion into Christ the celestial fruit.
lb. p. 210-11. Melancthons sixth reply.
Sir ! you say Paul was justified, that is, was received to ever-
lasting life, only for mercy's sake. Against which, J say, if the
piece-meal or partial cause, namely our obedience, followeth
not; then we are not saved,- according to these words, Woe is
me if I preach not the Gospel. 1 , Cor. ix.
Luther's answer.
No piecing- or partial cause (said Luther) approacheth there-
unto : for faith id powerful continually without ceasing ; other-
v\ i.se, it is no faith. Therefore what the works are, or of what
value, the same they are through the honor and power of faith,
which undeniably is the sun or sun-beam of this shining.
This is indeed a difficult question ; and one,
I am disposed to think, which can receive its
solution only by the idea, or the act and fact
of justification by faith self-reflected. But,
humanly considered, this position of Luther's
provokes the mind to ask, is there no recep-
tivity of faith, considered as a free gift of God,
prerequisite in the individual ? Does faith
commence by generating the receptivity of
LI rHElTs TABL1 l kLK.
itself? If so, there is do difference either in
kind or in degree between the receivers and the
rejectors of the word, at the moment proceed-
ing this reception or rejection ; and a stone is
subject as capable of faith as a man. How
can obedience exist, where disobedience was
not possible ! Surely two or three texts from
St. Paul, detached from the total organismm
of his reasoning, ought not to out-weigh the
plain fact, that the contrary position is implied
in, or is an immediate consequent of, our Lord's
own invitations and assurances. Everywhere
something is attributed to the will.*
Chap. XIII. p. 211.
To conclude, a faithful person is a new creature, a now tree.
Therefore all these speeches, which in the law are usual, belong
to this case ; as to say A faithful person must do good
rka. Neither were it rightly spoken, to say the sun shall
.>liinc : a good tree shall bring forth good fruit, &c. For the
. shall not shine, but it doth shine by nature unbidden, it is
thereunto created.
This important paragraph is obscure by the
translator's ignorance of the true import of the
German soil, which does not answer to our
shall; but rather to our ought, that is, should
do this or that, — is under an obligation to do it.
lb. p. 213.
And 1, my loving Brentius, to the end I may better under-
d this case, do use to think in this manner, namely, as if
in my heart were no quality or virtue at all, which is called
ST. li. I should not have written the above note in my pre-
sent state of light ; — not that I find it false, but that it may have
ood by not goin lough. July, 1829.
»1 . IV 1)
,
34 NOTES ON
faith, and love, (as the Sophists do speak and dream there-
of), but I set all on Christ, and say, my formalis justitid, that
is, my sure, my constant and complete righteousness (in which
is no want nor failing-, but is, as before God it ought to be) is
Christ my Lord and Saviour.
Aye ! this, this is indeed to the purpose. In
this doctrine my soul can find rest. I hope to
be saved by faith, not by my faith, but by the
faith of Christ in me.
lb. p. 214.
The Scripture nameth the faithful a people of God's saints.
But here one may say ; the sins which daily we commit, do
offend and ano-er God ; how then can we be holv ? Answer. A
mother's love to her child is much stronger than are the excre-
ments and scurf thereof. Even so God's love towards us is far
stronger than our filthiness and uncleanness.
Yea, one may say again, we sin without ceasing, and where
sin is, there the holy Spirit is not : therefore we are not holy,
because the holy Spirit is not in us, who maketh holy. Answer.
(John xvi. 14.) Now where Christ is, there is the holy Spirit.
The text saith plainly, The holy Ghost shall glorify me, &c.
Now Christ is in the faithful (although they have and feel sins,
do confess the same, and with sorrow of heart do complain
thereover) ; therefore sins do not separate Christ from those
that believe.
All in this page is true, and necessary to be
preached. But O ! what need is there of holy
prudence to preach it aright, that is, at right
times to the right ears ! Now this is when the
doctrine is necessary and thence comfortable;
but where it is not necessary, but only very com-
fortable, in such cases it would be a narcotic
poison, killing the soul by infusing a stupor or
counterfeit peace of conscience. Where there
are no sinkings of self-abasement, no griping
luther's table talk. 35
sense of sin and worthlesshess, but perhaps the
contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing
for good qualities supposed an overbalance for
the sins, — there it is not necessary. In short,
these are not the truths, that can be preached
fu/cat'pwc uKaipug, in season and out of season.
In declining life, or at any time in the hour
of sincere humiliation, these truths may be
applied in reference to past sins collectively ;
but a Christian must not, a true however in-
firm Christian will not, cannot, administer
them to himself immediately after sinning ;
least of all immediately before. We ought
fervently to pray thus : — " Most holy and most
merciful God ! by the grace of thy holy Spirit
make these promises profitable to me, to pre-
serve me from despairing of thy forgiveness
through Christ my Saviour ! But O ! save
me from presumptuously perverting them into
a pillow for a stupified conscience ! Give me
grace so to contrast my sin with thy trans-
cendant goodness and long-suffering love, as
to hate it with an unfeigned hatred for its own
exceeding sinfulness."
lb. p. 219-20.
Faitb is, and consisteth in, a person's understanding, bu( hope
consisteth in the will. ' * Faith inditeth, distinguisheth and
• In tli. and it is the knowledge and acknowledgment. * *
Faith fightetb against error and heresies, it prmeth, censnreth
and judgeth the spirits and doctrines. ' Faith in divinity is
the wisdom and providence, and belongeth to the doctrine. * *
Faith is the dialectica, for it is altogether wit and wisdom.
36 NOTES ON
Luther in his Postills discourseth far better
and more genially of faith than in these para-
graphs. Unfortunately, the Germans have
but one word for faith and belief — Glaube, and
what Luther here says, is spoken of belief.
Of faith he speaks in the next article but one.
lb. p. 226.
That regeneration only maketh God's children.
The article of our justification before God (said Luther) is, as
it useth to be with a son which is born an heir of all his father's
goods, and cometh not thereunto by deserts.
I will here record my experience. Ever
when I meet with the doctrine of regeneration
and faith and free grace simply announced —
"So it is!" — then I believe; my heart leaps
forth to welcome it. But as soon as an expla-
nation or reason is added, such explanations,
namely, and reasonings as I have .any where
met with, then my heart leaps back again, re-
coils, and I exclaim, Nay! Nay ! but not so.
25th of September, 1819.
lb. p. 227.
Doctor Carlestad (said Luther) argueth thus : True it is that
faith justifieth, but faith is a work of the first commandment;
therefore it justifieth as a work. Moreover all that the Law
commandeth, the same is a work of the Law. Now faith is
commanded, therefore faith is a work of the Law. A^ain,
what God will have the same is commanded : God will have
faith, therefore faith is commanded.
St. Paul (said Luther) speaketh in such sort of the law, that
he separateth it from the promise, which is far another thing
than the law. The law is terrestrial, but the promise is celestial.
LUTHER S TABLE TALK. o7
God giveth the law to the end we may thereby be roused up and
made pliant ; for the commandments do go and proceed against
the proud and haughty, which contemn God's gifts ; now a gift
or present cannot be a commandment.
Therefore we must answer according to this rule, Verba sunt
accipienda secundum subject am materiam. * * St. Paul
calleth that the work of the law, which is done and acted
through the knowledge of the law by a constrained will with-
out the holy Spirit; so that the same is a work of the law,
which the law earnestly requireth and strictly will have done ;
it is not a voluntary work, but a forced work of the rod.
And wherein did Carlestad and Luther dif-
fer? Not at all, or essentially and irreconcil-
ably, according as the feeling of Carlestad was.
If he meant the particular deed, the latter ; if
the total act, the agent included, then the former.
(hap. XIV. p. 230.
The love towards the neighbour (said Luther) must be like
a pure chaste love between bride and bridegroom, where all
faults are connived at, covered and borne with, and only the
virtues regarded.
In how many little escapes and corner-holes
does the sensibility, the fineness, (that of which
refinement is but a counterfeit, at best but a
reflex,) the geniality of nature appear in this
>on of thunder! O for a Luther in the present
age! Why, Charles!4 with the very hand-
culls of his prejudices he would knock out the
brains (nay, that is impossible, but,) he would
split the skulls of our Cristo-galli, translate
the word as you like:— French Christians, or
coxcombs !
( harles Lamb, — E<l.
38 NOTES ON
lb. p. 231-2.
Let Witzell know, (said Luther) that David's wars and battles,
which he fought, were more pleasing to God than the fastings
and prayings of the best, of the honestest, and of the holiest
monks and friars; much more than the works of our new ridicu-
lous and superstitious friars.
A cordial, rich and juicy speech, such as
shaped itself into, and lived anew in, the Gus-
tavus Adolphuses.
Chap. XV. p. 293-4.
God most certainly heareth them that pray in faith, and
granteth when and how he pleaseth, and knoweth most profit-
able for them. We must also know, that when our prayers
tend to the sanctifying of his name, and to the increase and
honor of his kingdom (also that we pray according to his will)
then most certainly he heareth. But when we pray contrary
to these points, then we are not heard ; for God doth nothing
against his Name, his kingdom, and his will.
Then (saith the understanding, to typovnpa
aapKOii) what doth prayer effect? If A— prayer
= B., and A + prayer = B, prayer = O. The
attempt to answer this argument by admitting
its invalidity relatively to God, but asserting the
efficacy of prayer relatively to the pray-er or
precant himself, is merely staving off the ob-
jection a single step. For this effect on the de-
vout soul is produced by an act of God. The
true answer is, prayer is an idea, and ens spiri-
tuale, out of the cognizance of the understand-
ing-
The spiritual mind receives the answer in
the contemplation of the idea, life as deltas
diffusa. We can set the life in efficient motion,
lutuer's table talk, .'»:>
but not contrary to the form or type. The
errors and false theories ofgreat men sometimes,
perhaps most often, arise out of true ideas fal-
sified by degenerating into conceptions; or the
mind excited to action by an inworking idea,
the understanding works in the same direction
according to its kind, and produces a counter-
feit, in \\ liidi the mind rests.
Tins I hi lieveto be the case with the scheme
of emanation in Plotinus. God is made a first
and consequently a comparative intensity, and
matter the last ; the whole thence finite ; and
thence its conccivability. But we must admit
a gradation of intensities in reality.
(hap. XYf. p. -247.
When governor* and rulers are enemies to God's word, then
our duty is to depart, to sell and forsake all we have, to rly from
one jdace to another, as Christ commandeth ; we must make
.ind prepare no uproars nor tumults by reason of the Gospel,
but we must Buffer all things.
Right. But then it must be the lawful
rult re ; those in whom the sovereign or su-
preme power is lodged by the known laws and
constitution of the country. Where the laws
and constitutional Liberties of the nation are
trampled on, the subjects do not lose, and are
not in conscience bound to forego, their right
of resistance, because they are Christians, or
because it happens to be a matter of religion,
in which their rights are violated. And this
was Luther's opinion. Whether, if a Popish
Czar shall act as our James 1 1, acted, the Rus-
40 NOTES ON
sian Greekists would be justified in doing with
him what the English Protestants justifiably
did with regard to James, is a knot which I shall
not attempt to cut ; though I guess the Russians
would, by cutting their Czar's throat.
lb.
But no man will do this, except he he so sure of his doctrine
and relig'ion, as that, although I nvyself should play the fool, and
should recant and deny this my doctrine and religion (which
God forbid), he notwithstanding therefore would not yield, but
say, " If Luther, or an angel from heaven, should teach other-
wise, Let him be accursed."
Well and nobly said, thou rare black swan !
This, this is the Church. Where this is found,
there is the Church of Christ, though but
twenty in the whole of the congregation ; and
were twenty such in two hundred different
places, the Church would be entire in each.
Without this no Church.
lb. p. 248.
And he sent for one of his chiefest privy councillors, named
Lord John Von Minkivitz, and said unto him ; " You have
heard my father say, (running with him at tilt) that to sit up-
right on horseback maketh a g-ood tilter. If therefore it be
good and laudable in temporal tilting* to sit upright ; how much
more is it now praiseworthy in God's cause to sit, to stand, and
to go uprightly and just !"
Princely. So Shakspeare would have made
a Prince Elector talk. The metaphor is so
grandly in character.
Chap. XVII. p. 249.
Signet sunt subinde facta minora ; res autem et facta
subinde crcverunt.
LUTHER S TABLE TALK. 41
A valuable remark. As the substance waxed,
that is, became more evident, the ceremonial
sign waned, till at length in the Eucharist the
signum united itself with the significatum, and
became consubstantial. The ceremonial sign,
namely, the eating the bread and drinking the
wine, became a symbol, that is, a solemn in-
stance and exemplification of the class of mys-
terious acts, which we are, or as Christians
should be, performing daily and hourly in
every social duty and recreation. This is in-
deed to re-create the man in and by Christ.
Sublimely did the Fathers call the Eucharist
the extension of the Incarnation : only I should
have preferred the perpetuation and applica-
tion of the Incarnation.
lb.
A bare writing' without a seal is of no force.
Metaphors are sorry logic, especially meta-
phors from human and those too conventional
usages to the ordinances of eternal wisdom.
lb. p. 250.
Luther said, " No. A Christian is wholly and altogether
sanctified. * * We must take sure hold on Baptism by faith,
as then we shall be, yea, already are, sanctified. In this sort
David nameth himself holy.
A deep thought. Strong meat for men. It
must not be offered for milk.
Chap. xxi. p. 276.
Then I will declare him openly fo the Church, and in this
42 NOTES ON
manner I will say : " Loving friends, I declare unto you, how
that N. N. hath been admonished: first, by myself in private,
afterwards also by two chaplains, thirdly, by two aldermen and
churchwardens, and those of the assembly : yet notwithstanding
he will not desist from his sinful kind of life. Wherefore I earn-
estly desire you to assist and aid me, to kneel down with me,
and let us pray against him, and deliver him over to the Devil.
Luther did not mean that this should be
done all at once ; but that a day should be
appointed for the congregation to meet for joint
consultation, and according to the resolutions
passed to choose and commission such and
such persons to wait on the offender, and to
exhort, persuade and threaten him in the name
of the congregation : then, if after due time
allowed, this proved fruitless, to kneel down
with the minister, &c. Surely, were it only
feasible, nothing could be more desirable.
But alas ! it is not compatible with a Church
national, the congregations of which are there-
fore not gathered nor elected, or with a Church
established by law ; for law and discipline are
mutually destructive of each other, being the
same as involuntary and voluntary penance.
Chap. xxii. p. 290.
Wicliffe and Huss opposed and assaulted the manner of life
and conversation in Popedom. But 1 chiefly do oppose and
resist their doctrine ; I affirm roundly and plainly that they
teach not aright. Thereto am I called. I take the goose by
the neck, and set the knife to the throat. When I can maintain
that the Pope's doctrine is false, (which I have proved and
maintained), then I will easily prove and maintain that their
manner of life is evil.
LUTHEB S TABLE TALK. 13
This is ;i remark of deep insight : verum
vere l/utheranum.
lb. p. 291.
Ambition and pride (said Luther), are the rankest poison in
the Church when they are possessed by preachers. Zuinglius
thereby was misled, who did what pleased himself * * * He
wrote, " Ye honorahle and good princes must pardon me, in
that 1 give you not your titles; for the glass windows are as
well illustrious as ye."
One might fancy, in the Vision-of-Mirza
le, that all the angry, contemptuous, haughty
< xpn —ions of good and zealous men, gallant
ll'-offieers in the army of Christ, formed a
rick of straw and stubble, which at the last
day is to be divided into more or fewer hay-
cocks, according to the number of kind and
unfeignedly humble and charitable thoughts
and speeches that had intervened, and that
these were placed in a pile, leap-frog fashion,
in the narrow road to the gate of Paradise ;
and burst into flame as the zeal of the indi-
vidual appro-ached, — so that he must leap over
and through them. Now 1 cannot help think-
ing, that this dear man of God, heroic Luther,
will rind more opportunities of showing his agi-
lity, and reach the gate in a greater sweat and
with more blisters a parte post than his brother
hero. Zuinglius. I guess that the comments
of the latter o"n the Prophets will be found al-
most sterile in these tiger-lilies and brimstone
flowers of polemic rhetoric, compared with the
44 NOTES ON
controversy of the former with our Henry VIII.,
his replies to the Popes Bulls, and the like.
By the by, the joke of the ' glass windows'
is lost in the translation. The German for
illustrious is durchlauchtig, that is, transparent
or translucent.
lb.
When we leave to God his name, his kingdom and will,
then will he also give unto us our daily bread, and will remit
our sins, and deliver us from the devil and all evil. Only his
honor he will have to himself.
A brief but most excellent comment on the
Lord's Prayer.
lb. p. 297.
There was never any that understood the Old Testament so
well as St. Paul, except only John the Baptist.
I cannot conjecture what Luther had in his
mind when he made this exception.
Chap. XXVII. p. :M'>.
I could wish (said Luther) that the Princes and States of the
Empire would make an assembly, and hold a council and a
union both in doctrine and ceremonies, so that every one might
not break in and run on with such insoloncy and presumption
a< cording to his own brains, as already is begun, whereby
many good hearts are offended.
Strange heart of man ! Would Luther have
given up the doctrine of justification by faith
alone, had the majority of the CoYincil decided
in favor of the Arminian scheme? If not, by
what right could he expect Oecolampadius or
l.l THER s l \ l-l.l TALK. 1">
Zuingliua to recant their convictions respecting
the Eucharist, or the Baptists theirs on In-
fant Baptism, to the same authority ? In fact,
the \\ ish expressed in this passage must be
considered as a mere flying thought shot onl
by the mood and feeling of the moment, a sort
of conversational flying-fish that dropped ;is
soon as the moisture of the fins had evaporated.
The paragraph in p. 336, of what Councils ought
to order, should be considered Luther's genuine
opinion.
11). p. 337.
The council of Nice, held after the Apostles' time, (said
Luther) was the very best and purest; but soon after in the
time of the Emperor Cons tan tine, it was weakened by the
Arians.
What Arius himself meant, I do not know:
what the modern Arians teach, I utterly con-
demn ; but that the great council of Arimi-
num was either Arian or heretical I could
never discover, or descry any essential differ-
ence between its decisions and the Nicene;
though I seem to find a serious difference of
the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If
there be a difference between the Councils of
N icea and Ariminum, itperhaps consists in this;
— that the Nicene was the more anxious to
assert the equal Divinity in the Filial subordi-
nation : the Ariminian to maintain the Filial
subordination in the equal Divinity. In both
there are three self-subsistenl and only one self-
originated : — which is the substance of the idea
46' NOTES ON
of the Trinity, as faithfully worded as is com-
patible with the necessary inadequacy of words
to the expression of ideas, that is, spiritual
truths that can only be spiritually discerned.*
18th August, 1826.
Chap. XXVIII. p. 347.
God's word a Lord of all Lords.
Luther every where identifies the living
Word of God with the written word, and rages
against Bullinger, who contended that the
latter is the word of God only as far as and
for whom it is the vehicle of the former. To
this Luther replies : " My voice, the vehicle of
my words, does not cease to be my voice, be-
cause it is ignorantly or maliciously misunder-
stood. " Yea! (might Bullinger have rejoined)
the instance were applicable and the argu-
ment valid, if we were previously assured that
all and every part of the Old and New Testa-
ment is the voice of the divine Word. But,
except by the Spirit, whence are we to ascer-
tain this? Not from the books themselves; for
not one of them makes the pretension for itself,
and the two or three texts, which seem to
* " Out of the number of 400, there were but 80 Arians at
the utmost. The other 320 and more were really orthodox men,
induced by artifices to subscribe a Creed which they understood
in a good sense, but which, being- worded in general terms, was
capable of being perverted to a bad one." Waterland, Vin-
dication, fyc, c. vi. — Ed.
luther's table talk. 47
assert it, refer only to the Law and the Prophets,
and no where enumerate the books thai were
given by inspiration : and how obscure the
history of the formation of the Canon, and how
great the difference of opinion respecting its
different parts, what scholar is ignorant?
Chap. \X1\. p. 349.
'res, quamquam scrpe errant, tumen venerandi propter
testimonium Jidi i.
Uthough I learn from all this chapter, that
Lather was no great Patrician, (indeed he was
better employed), yet I am nearly, if not
wholly of his mind respecting the works of the
Fathers. Those which appear to me of any
ureat value are valuable chiefly for those arti-
cles of Christian Faith which are, as it Mere.
anti Christum Jesum, namely, the Trinity, and
the primal Incarnation spoken of by John i, 10.
But in the main I should perhaps goeven farther
than Luther; for 1 cannot conceive any thing-
more likely than that a young man of strong
and active intellect, who has no fears, or suffers
no tears of worldly prudence to cry, Halt! to
him in his career of consequential logic, and
who has been innutritus et juratus in the Gro-
tio-Paleyan scheme of ( Christian e\ idence, and
who has been taught by the men and hooks,
which he has been bred up to regard as au-
thority, to consider all inward experiences as
fanatical delusions ; — 1 say. I can scarcely con-
48 NOTES ON
ceive such a young man to make a serious
study of the Fathers of the first four or five
centuries without becoming either a Romanist
or a Deist. Let him only read Petavius and the
different Patristic and Ecclesiastico-historical
tracts of Semler, and have no better philoso-
phy than that of Locke, no better theology
than that of Arminius and Bishop Jeremy
Taylor, and I should tremble for his belief. Yet
why tremble for a belief which is the very an-
tipode of faith ? Better for such a man to pre-
cipitate himself on to the utmost goal : for then
perhaps he may in the repose of intellectual
activity feel the nothingness of his prize, or the
wretchedness of it ; and then perhaps the inward
yearning after a religion may make him ask ; —
" Have I not mistaken the road at the outset?
Am I sure that the Reformers, Luther and the
rest collectively, were fanatics ?"
lb. p. 351.
Take no care what ye shall eat. As though that command-
ment did not hinder the carping and caring for the daily bread.
For 'caring,' read, 'anxiety!' Sit tibi ciure,
non dutem solicitudini, panis quoiidianus.
lb. p. 351.
Even so it was with Ambrose : he wrote indeed well and
purely, was more serious in writing than Austin, who was ami-
able and mild. * * * Fulgentius is the best poet, and far
above Horace both with sentences, fair speeches and good
actions; he is well worthy to be ranked and numbered with
and among the poets.
l.l rHER'fi rABLE IA1.K l!»
Dtr TeufeU Surely the epithets should be
reversed. Austins mildness — the dums pa-
ler infantum ! And the steper-Horatian efful-
gence of Master Foolgentius! O Swan ! thy
critical cygnets are but goslings.
N. B. I have, however, since I wrote the
above, heard Mr. J. Hookham Frere speak
highly of Fulgentius*
lb. p. 352.
die Fathers uerc but men, ami to speak the truth, their
ates and authorities did undervalue ami suppress tin- hook."
and writings of the sacred Apostles of Christ.
We doubtless find in the writings of the Fa-
thers of the second century, and still more
strongly in those of the third, passages con-
cerning the Scriptures that seem to say the
same as we Protestants now do. But then we
find the very same phrases used of writings not
Vpostolic, or with no other diileixmce than what
the greater name of the authors would natu-
rally produce; just as a Platonist would speak
of Speusippus's books, were they extant, com-
pared with those of later teachers of Platonism ;
— ' He was Plato's nephew — had seen Plato —
was his appointed successor, &c.' But in in-
spiration the early Christians, as far as I can
judge, made no generic diihrence, let Lardnei*
y what he will. Can he disprove that it was
declared heretical by the Church in the second
ceitfury to believe the written words of a dead
Apostle in opposition to the words of a living
VOL. IV. E
.50 NOTES ON
Bishop, seeing that the same spirit which guid-
ed the Apostles dwells in and guides the Bis-
hops of the Church ? This at least is certain,
that the later the age of the writer, the stronger
the expression of comparative superiority of
the Scriptures ; the earlier, on the other hand,
the more we hear of the Symbolum, the Regula
Fidei, the Creed.
Chap. XXXII. p. 362.
The history of the Prophet Jonas is so great that it is almost
incredible ; yea, it soundeth more strange than any of the poels'
fables, and (said Luther) if it stood not in the Bible, I should
take it for a lie.
It is quite wonderful that Luther, who could
see so plainly that the book of Judith was an
allegoric poem, should have been blind to the
book of Jonas being an apologue, in which
Jonah means the Israelitish nation.
lb. p. 364.
For they entered into the garden about the hour at noon day,
and having appetites to eat, she took delight in the apple ; then
about two of the clock, according to our account, was the fall.
Milton has adopted this notion in the Para-
dise Lost — not improbably from this book.
lb. p. 365.
David made a Psalm of two and twenty parts, in each of
which are eight verse's, and yet in all is but one kind of moan-
ing, namely, he v ill only say, Thy law or word is good.
I have conjectured that the 119th Psajm
might have been a form of ordination, in which
luther's table talk. 51
a series of candidates made their prayers and
profession in the open Temple before they went
to the several synagogues in the country.
lb.
lint (said Luther) 1 Bay, lie did well and right thereon: for
the office of a magistrate is to punish the guilty and wicked
malefactors. He made a vow. indeed, not to punish him, but
that is to be understood, so long as David lived.
0 Luther! Luther! ask your own heart it'
this is not Jesuit morality.
Chap. XXXI II. v. 367.
1 believe (said I.uther) the words of our Christian belief were
in such sort ordained by the Apostles, who were together, and
made this sweet Symbol um so briefly and comfortable.
It is difficult not to regret that Luther had
so superficial a knowledge of Ecclesiastical an-
tiquities : for example, his belief in this fable
of the Creed haying been a picnic contribution
of the twelve Apostles, each giving a sentence.
Whereas nothing is more certain than that it
was the gradual product of three or four cen-
turies.
(hap. XXXIV. p. 369.
An angel (said I.uther) is a spiritual creature created by
I without a body for the service of Christendom, especially
in the office of the Church.
What did Luther mean by a body ? Forto
me the word seemeth capable of two senses, uni-
versal and special: — first, a form indicating
to A. B. C. &c, the existence and finiteness
of some one other being demonstrative as hie,
52 NOTES ON
and disjunctive as hie et non Me ; and in this
sense God alone can be without body : second-
ly, that which is not merely hie distinctive, but
divisive; yea, a product divisible from the pro-
ducent as a snake from its skin, a precipitate
and death of living power ; and in this sense
the body is proper to mortality, and to be
denied of spirits made perfect as well as of the
spirits that never fell from perfection, and per-
haps of those who fell below mortality, namely,
the devils.
But I am inclined to hold that the Devil has
no one body, nay, no body of his own ; but
ceaselessly usurps or counterfeits bodies ; for
he is an everlasting liar, yea, the lie which is
the colored shadow of the substance that inter-
cepts the truth.
lb. p. 370.
The devils are in woods, in waters, in wildernesses, and in
dark pooly places, ready to hurt and prejudice people, &c.
" The angel's like a flea,
The devil is a bore ; — "
No matter for that ! quoth S. T. C.
I love him the better therefore.
Yes ! heroic Swan, I love thee even when
thou gabbiest like a goose ; for thy geese
helped to save the Capitol.
lb. p. 371.
I do verily believe (said Luther) that the day of judgment
draweth near, and that the angels prepare themselves for the
fight and combat, and that within the space of a few hundred
years they will strike down both Turk and Pone into the bot-
tomless pit of hell.
luther's table talk. 53
Yea ! two or three more such angels as thy-
self, Martin Luther, and thy prediction would
be, or perhaps Mould now have been, accom-
plished.
Chap. XXXV. p. mis.
>>unons of the understanding- do produce no melancholy,
but the cogitations of the will cause sadness; as, when one "is
grieved at a thing, or when one doth sigh and complain, there
we melancholy and sad cogitations, but the understanding is
not melancholy,
Even in Luther's lowest imbecilities what
gleams of vigorous good sense ! Had he under-
stood the nature and symptoms of indigestion
together with the detail of subjective seeing
and hearing, and the existence of mid-states
of the brain between sleeping and waking,
Luther would have been a greater philosopher ;
but would he have been so great a hero? I
doubt it. Praised be God whose mercy is over
all his works; who bringeth good out of evil,
and manifesteth his wisdom even in the follies
of his servants, his strength in their weakness !
lb. p. 389.
Whoso prayeth a Psalm shall be made thoroughly warm.
Expertus credo. 1 9th Aug. 1826.
I have learnt to interpret for myself the im-
precating verses of the Psalms of my inward
and spiritual enemies, the old Adam and all his
corrupt menials ; and thus I am no longer, as
T used to be, stopped or scandalized by such
passages as vindictive and anti-Christian.
54 NOTES ON
lb.
The Devil (said Luther) oftentimes objected and argued against
me the whole cause which, through God's grace, I lead. He
objecteth also against Christ. But better it were that the
Temple brake in pieces than that Christ should therein remain
obscure and hid.
Sublime !
lb.
In Job are two chapters concerning Behemoth the whale,
that by reason of him no man is in safety. These are
colored words and figures whereby the Devil is signified and
showed.
A slight mistake of brother Martin's. The
Behemoth of Job is beyond a doubt neither
whale nor devil, but, I think, the hippopotamus;
who is indeed as ugly as the devil, and will
occasionally play the devil among the rice-
grounds ; but though in this respect a devil of
a fellow, yet on the whole he is too honest a
monster to be a fellow of devils. Vindicia Be-
hemoticce.
Chap. XXXVI. p. 390.
Of Witchcraft.
It often presses on my mind as a weighty ar-
gument in proof of at least a negative inspira-
tion, an especial restraining grace, in the com-
position of the Canonical books, that though
the writers individually did (the greater num-
ber at least) most probably believe in the ob-
jective reality of witchcraft, yet no such direct
luther's table talk. 55
assertions as these of Luther's, which would
with the vast majority of Christians have raised
it into an article of faith, are to be found in
either Testament. That the Ob and Oboth of
Moses are no authorities for this absurd super-
stition, lias been unanswerably shewn by Web-
ster.*
Chan. XXXVII. p. 398.
To conclude, (said Luther), I never yel knew ;i troubled and
perplexed man, that was right in his own wits.
A sound observation of great practical utility.
Edward Irving should be aware of this in deal-
ing with conscience-troubled (but in fact fancy-
vexed) women.
lb.
[t was not a thorn in the flesh touching the unchaste love he
re towards Tecla, as the Papists dream.
I should like to know how high this strange
legend can be traced. The other tradition that
St. Paul was subject to epileptic fits, has a less
legendary character. The phrase thorn in the
flesh is scarcely reconcilable with Luther's hy-
pothesis, otherwise than as doubts of the objec-
tivity of his vision, and of his after revelations
may have been consequences of the disease,
whatever that might be.
Jb. p. 399.
Our Lord God doth like a printer, who scttoth the letters
' I'll'' Displaying of supposed Witchcraft, <.V<\ London.
folio. 1677. !
56 NOTES ON
back winds ; we see and feel well his setting, but we shall see
the print yonder in the life to come.
A beautiful simile. Add that even in this
world the lives, especially the autobiographies,
of eminent servants of Christ, are like the look-
ing-glass or mirror, which, reversing the types,
renders them legible to ns.
'©j
lb. p. 403.
Indignus sum, sed diynus fid — creari a Deo, &c. Al-
though I am unworthy, yet nevertheless / have been worthy,
in that I am created of God, &c.
The translation does not give the true sense
of the Latin. It should be was and to be. The
dignus fui has here the sense of dignum me
habuit Dens. See Herberts little poem in the
Temple, —
Sweetest Saviour, if my soul
Were but worth the having-,
Quickly should I then control
Any thought of waving ;
But when all my care and pains
Cannot give the name of gains
To thy wretch so full of stains,
What delight or hope remains ?
lb, p. 404,
The chiefest physic for that disease (but very hard and dif-
ficult it is to be done) is, that they firmly hold such cogitations
not to be theirs, but that most sure and certain they come of
the Devil.
More and more I understand the immense
difference between the Faith- article of the De-
vil (roi> Ylovipov) and the superstitious fancy of
• -
I I in nit s I'.UU.L TALK. .»;
<lc\ils: animus objectivus dominationem in rov
\-.iui affedans ; ovrog TO /li7« opyavov Ata/3oXou
mrapyct,
Chap. XLIV. p. 4;n.
I truly advise all those (said Luther) who earnestly do affect
the honor of Christ and the I rospel,that they would bo enemies
t.> Erasmus Roterodamus, for he is a devaster of religion. Do
l>ut read only his dialogue />< /'< regrinatione, where you will
how ho derideth and flouteth the whole religion, and at
last concluded) out of single abominations, that ho rojecteth
religion, &c.
Religion here means the vows and habits of
the re ligiousor those bound to a particular life;
—the monks, friars, nuns, in short, the regulars
m contradistinction from the laitv and the seen-
lar Clergy.
!l». p. 1:32.
Erasmus can do nothing but cavil and flout, he cannot con-
fute. If (said Luther) I wore a Papist, so could I easily over-
come and boat him. lor although ho flouteth the Pope with
bis ceremonios, yet lie neither hath confuted nor overcome him;
no enemy u D nor overcome with mocking, jeering, and
flout,
Most true; but it is an excellent pioneer
and an excellent corps dc reserve, cavalry for
pursuit, and for clearing the field of battle,
and in the first use Luther was greatly obliged
to Erasmus. Hut such utter unlikes can-
not but end in dislikes, and so it proved be-
tween Erasmus and Luther. Erasmus, might
the Protestants say. wished no good to the
Church of Rome, and still less to our party :
it \\as with him Rot her onfl f)<un its '
58 NOTES ON
Chap. XLVIII. p. 442.
David's example is full of offences, that so holy a man,
chosen of God, should fall into such great abominahle sins and
blasphemies ; whenas before he was very fortunate and happy,
of whom all the borderimr kingdoms were afraid, for God was
with him.
If any part of the Old Testament be typical,
the whole life and character of David, from his
birth to his death, are eminently so. And
accordingly the history of David and his
Psalms, which form a most interesting part
of his history, occupies as large a portion of
the Old Testament as all the others. The type
is two-fold — now of the Messiah, now of the
Church, and of the Church in all its rela-
tions, persecuted, victorious, backsliding, peni-
tent. N. B. I do not find David charged witli
any vices, though with heavy crimes. So it
is with the Church. Vices destroy its essence.
lb.
The same was a strange kind of offence (said Luther) (hat
the world was offended at him who raised the dead, who made
the blind to see, and the deal' to hear, &c.
Our Lord alluded to the verse that imme-
diately follows and completes his quotations
from Isaiah.* I, Jehovah, will come and do
this. That he implicitly declared himself the
Jehovah, the Word, — this was the offence.
Chap. XLIX. p. 443.
God wills, may one say, that we should serve him i'ree-
wiliingly, hut he that serveth God out of fear of punishment of
[saiah xxxv. 4. lxi. I. Ed. Luke iv. IS, 19.
LI THER s TABLE TALK. •">!'
lull, or out of a hope and love of recompence, the Bame serveth
ami honored] 1 1 k» 1 Dot freely; therefore Buch a one Berveth
God not uprightly nor truly. Antwer. This argument (said
Luther) is Stoi< al, & c.
A truly wise paragraph. Pity it was not
[pounded. God will accept our imperfec-
tions, where their face is turned toward him,
on the road to the glorious liberty of the
( rospel.
Chap. L. p. 4 Hi-
ft is the hi::! -t grace and gift <>t God to have an honest,
;i God-fearing, housewifely consort, &c. But God thrusteth
many into the Btate of matrimony before they he aware and
tly bethink themselves.
The state of matrimony (said Luther) is the chietest state
in the world after religion, &c.
Alas! alas! this is the misery of it, that so
many wed and so few are Christianly married !
But even in this the analogy of matrimony to
the religion of Christ holds good: for even
such i> the proportion of nominal to actual
Christians;— -all christened, how few baptized!
hut in true matrimony it is beautiful to con-
sider, how peculiarly the marriage state har-
monizes with the doctrine of justification by
tree grace through faith alone. The little
quarrels, the imperfections on both sides, the
casional frailties, yield to the one thought, —
there is love at the bottom. If sickness or
other sorer calamity visit me, how would the
love then blaze forth ! The faults are there, but
thev are not imprinted. The prickles, the
acrid rind, the bitterness or sourness, are trans-
60 NOTES ON
formed into the ripe fruit, and the foreknow-
ledge of this gives the name and virtue of the
ripe fruit to the fruit yet green on the bough.
lb. p. 447.
The causers and founders of matrimony are chiefly God's
commandments, &c. It is a state instituted by God himself,
visited by Christ in person, and presented with a glorious pre-
sent ; for God said, It is not good that the man should be
alone: therefore the wife should be a help to the husband, to
the end that human generations may be increased, and chil-
dren nurtured to God's honour, and to the profit of people and
countries ; also to keep our bodies in sanctification.
(Add) and in mutual reverence, our spirits
in a state of love and tenderness; and our
imaginations pure and tranquil.
In a word, matrimony not only preserveth
human generations so that the same remain
continually, but it preserveth the generations
human.
lb. p. 450.
In the synod at Leipzig the lawyers concluded that secret
contractors should be punished with banishment and be dis-
inherited. Whereupon (said Luther) I sent them word that I
would not allow thereof, it were too gross a proceeding, &c.
But nevertheless I hold it fitting, that those which in such sort
do secretly contract themselves, ought sharply to be reproved,
yea, also in some measure severely punished.
What a sweet union of prudence and kind
nature! Scold them sharply, and perhaps let
them smart a while for their indiscretion and
disobedience ; and then kiss and make it up,
remembering that young folks will be young
folks, and that love has its own law and logic,
Luther's table talk. <U
(hap. L1X. p. 481.
1 'he presumption and boldness of the Bopbists and School-
divines Lb b \nv ungodly thing, wbicb some of the Fathers also
approved of and extolled ; namely of spiritual Bignifications in
the Holy Scripture, whereby she is pitifully tattered and torn
in pieces. It is an apish work in such sort to juggle with Holy
iptnre: it is no otherwise than if I should discourse of phy-
in this manner : the fever is a sickness, rhubarb is the physic.
The fever Bignifieth the sins — rhubarb is Jesus Christ, &c.
Who seeth not here (said Luther) that such significations
are mere juggling tricks ' Even 80 and after the same man-
ner are they deceived that say, Children ought to be baptized
use they had not faith.
For the life of me, I cannot find the 'even
so in this sentence. The watchman cries,
1 half-past three o'clock.' Even so, and after
the same manner, the great Cham of Tartary
lias a carbuncle on his nose.
Chap. LX. p. 483.
< reorge in the Greek tongue, is called a builder, that build-
l 'ii countries and people with justice and righteousness, &< .
\ mistake for a tiller or boor, from Bauer,
batten. The latter hath two senses, to build
and to bring into cultivation.
Chap. LXX. p. 503.
I am now advertised (said Luther) that a new astrologer is
• n, who prtsumeth to prove that the earth movetfa and goetfa
about, not the firmament, the sun and moon, nor the stars ;
like as when one who sitteth in a coach or in a ship and is
moved, thinketh he sitteth still and resteth, but the earth and
the trees go, run, and move themselves. Therefore thus it
goeth, when we give up ourselves to our own foolish fancies
and conceits. This fool will turn the whole art of astronomy
02 NOTES ON
upside-down, but the .Scripture sheweth ami teacheth him ano-
ther lesson, when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and
not the earth.
There is a similar, but still more intolerant
and contemptuous anathema of the Copernican
system in Sir Thomas Brown, almost two cen-
turies later than Luther.
Though the problem is of no difficult solu-
tion for reflecting minds, yet for the reading-
many it would be a serviceable work, to bring
together and exemplify the causes of the ex-
treme and universal credulity that character-
izes sundry periods of history (for example,
from a.d. 1400 to A.D. 1650) : and credulity in-
volves lying and delusion — for by a seeming pa-
radox liars are always credulous, though cre-
dulous persons are not always liars ; although
they most often are.
It would be worth while to make a collec-
tion of the judgments of eminent men in their
generation respecting the Copernican or Py-
thagorean scheme. One writer (I forget the
name) inveighs against it as Popery, and a
Popish stratagem to reconcile the minds of
men to Transubstantiation and the Mass
For if we may contradict the evidence of our
senses in a matter of natural philosophy, a for-
tiori, or much more, may we be expected to do
so in a matter of faith.
In my Noetic, or Doctrine and Discipline of
Ideas = logice, Organon — I purpose to select
some four, live or more instances of the sad
u i her's i \r.ii. i ilk. (>:5
effects of the absence of ideas in the use of
words and in the understanding of truths, in
tile different departments of life ; for example,
the word body, in connection with resurrection -
men, &C, — and the last instances, will (please
God !) be the sad effects on the whole system
of Christian divinity. I must remember As-
gill's book.*
Religion necessarily, as to its main and pro-
r doctrines, consists of ideas, that is, spiritual
truths that can only be spiritually discerned,
and to the expression of which words are ne-
jsarily inadequate, and must be used by ac-
commodation. Hence the absolute indispen-
sabilitv of a Christian life, with its conflicts
i
and inward experiences, which alone can make
a man to answer to an opponent, who charges
one doctrine as contradictory to another, —
•• Yes! it is a contradiction in terms; but ne-
vertheless so it is, and both are true, nay, parts
of the same truth."' — Hut alas! besides other
evils there i> this, — that the ( rospel is preached
in fragments, and what the hearer can recollect
of the sum total of these is to be his Christian
knowledge and belief. This is a grievous
error. First, labour to enlighten the hearer
as to the essence of the Christian dispensation,
4 •' Ad iiririiinenl proving that, < i ng to the covenant of
. revealed in tin- Scriptui s, roan may l><- translated
from hence, without passing through death, although the human
nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated, till he had
used through death." See Tabh Talk. 2nd Edit. j>. 127.
*>4 NOTES ON
the grounding and pervading idea, and then set
it forth in its manifold perspective, its various
stages and modes of manifestation. In this as
in almost all other qualities of a preacher of
Christ, Luther after Paul and J ohn is the great
master. None saw more clearly than he, that
the same proposition, which, addressed to a
Christian in his first awakening out of the death
of sin was a most wholesome, nay, a necessary,
truth, would be a most condemnable Antino-
mian falsehood, if addressed to a secure Chris-
tian boasting and trusting in his faith — yes, in
his own faith, instead of the faith of Christ com-
municated to him.
I cannot utter how dear and precious to me
are the contents of pages 197 — 199, to line 17,
of this work, more particularly the section
headed, —
How we ought to carry ourselves towards the Law's accusa-
tions.
Add to these the last two sections of p. 201.*
the last touching St. Austins opinion f especi-
ally. Likewise, the first half of p. 202.J But
indeed the whole of the 12th chapter 'Of the
We must preach the Law (said Luther) for the sakes of
the evil and wicked, &c.
t The opinion of St. Austin is (said Luther) that the Law
which through human strength, natural understanding and wis-
dom is fulfilled, justifieth not, &c.
\ Whether we should preach only of God's grace and mercy
or not. From " Philip Melancthon demanded of Luther" — to
" yet we must press through, and not suffer ourselves to recoil."
LU1 HER's 1 Mill: TALE.
Law and the < rospel' is of inestimable value
a serious ami earnest minister of the Gospel.
Here lie may learn both the orthodox faith,
and a holy prudence in the time and manner of
preaching the same. July, 18-29.
NOTES ON THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA. 1812.*
Pref. Part I. p. 51. Letter of Father Avila
to Mother Teresa de Jesu.
Persons ought to beseech our Lord not to conduct them bv
the way of seeing ; but that the happy sight of him and of his
,ts be reserved for heaven ; and that, here he would conduct
them in the plain, beaten road, &c. * * But if, doing all this,
the visions continue, and the soul reaps profit thereby, &c.
1 n what other language could a young woman
check while she soothed her espoused lover, in
his too eager demonstrations of his passion ?
And yet the art of the Roman priests, — to
keep up the delusion as serviceable, yet keep
off those forms of it most liable to detection, by
medical commentary !
Life, Part I. Chap. IV. p. 15.
But our Lord began to regale me so much by tbis way, that he
vouchsafed me the favor to give me quiet praj er : and Bometimes
it came so far as to arrive at union ; though I understood neither
the one nor the other, nor bow much they both deserve to be
• The works of the Holy Mother St !• resaof Jesus Foun-
dress of the Reformation of the Discalced Carmelites. Divided
into two parts. Translated into Engli-h. mdcl.xxv. Ed.
VOL. IV. F
(K) NOTES ON THE
prized. But I believe it would have been a great deal of hap-
piness for me to have understood them. True it is, that this
union rested with me for so short a time, that perhaps it might
arrive to be but as of an Ave Maria ; yet I remained with so
ver)' great effects thereof, that with not being then so much as
twenty years old, methought I found the whole world under my
feet.
Dreams, the soul herself forsaking ;
Fearful raptures; childlike mirth.
Silent adorations, making
A blessed shadow of this earth !
lb. Chap. V. p. 24.
T received also the blessed Sacrament with many tears; though
yet, in my opinion, they were not shed with that sense and grief,
for only my having offended God, which might have served to
save my soul; if the error into which I was brought by them
who told me that some things were not mortal sins, (which after-
ward I saw plainly that they were) might not somewhat bestead
me. * * * Methinks, that without doubt my soul might have
run a hazard of not being saved, if I had died then.
Can we wonder that some poor hypochon-
driasis and epileptics have believed themselves
possessed by, or rather to be the Devil himself,
and so spoke in this imagined character, when
this poor afflicted spotless innocent could be so
pierced through with fanatic pre-conceptions,
as to talk in this manner of her mortal sins, and
their probable eternal punishment; — and this
too, under the most fervent sense of God's love
and mercy !
lb. p. 43.
True it is, that I am both the most weak, and the most wicked
of any living.
What is the meaning of these words, that
LIFE OF ST. TERES \. o7
orcur so often in the works of great saints ! Do
they believe them literally ? Or is it a specific
suspension of the comparing power and the
memory, vouchsafed them as a orift of grace ?—
a gift of telling a lie without breach of veracity
— a gift of humility indemnifying pride.
lb. Chap. VII 1. p. 11.
I have not without cause been considering and reflecting upon
this life of mine so long, for I discern well enough that nobody
will have gust to look upon a thing so verv wicked.
gain! Can this first sentence be other than
madness or a lie! — For observe, the question
is not, whether Teresa was or v. as not positively
ry wicked ; but whether according to her own
ale of virtue she was most and verv wicked
comparatively. See post Chap. x. p. o7-8.
That relatively to the command Be ye per-
fect ( i , i, as your Father in Heaven is perfect,
and before the eye of his own pure reason, the
best of men may deem himself mere folly and
imperfection, I can easily conceive ; but this is
not the case in question. It is here a compa-
rison of one man with all others of whom he
has known or heard ; — ergo, a matter of expe-
rience; and in this sense it is impossible, with-
out loss of memory and judgment on the one
hand, or of veracity and simplicity on the other.
Besides, of what use i> it ! To draw off our
conscience from the relation between ours
and the perfect ideal appointed for our imita-
tion, to the vain comparison of one individual
self with other men ! Will their -ins lessen mine
68 NOTES ON THE
though they were greater ? Does not every man
stand or fall to his own Maker according to his
own being?
lb. p. 45.
I see not what one thing there is of so many as are to be
found in the whole world, wherein there is need of a greater
courage than to treat of committing treason against a king, and
to know that he knows it well, and yet never to go out of his
presence. For howsoever it be very true that we are always
in the presence of God ; yet methinks that they who converse
with him in prayer are in his presence after a more particular
manner; for they are seeing then that he sees them; whereas
others may, perhaps, remain some days in his presence, yet
without remembering that he looks upon them.
A very pretty and sweet remark : truth in
new feminine beauty !
In fine.
How incomparably educated was Teresa for
a mystic saint, a mother of transports and fu-
sions of spirit! 1. A woman;— 2. Of rank, and
reared delicately; — 3. A Spanish lady; — 4. With
very pious parents and sisters ; — 5. Accustomed
in early childhood to read " with most believing
heart" all the legends of saints, martyrs, Span-
ish martyrs, who fought against the Moors ; —
6. In the habit of privately (without the know-
ledge of the superstitious Father) reading books
of chivalry to her mother, and then all night to
herself. 7. Then her Spanish sweet-hearting,
doubtless in the trueOroondates style — and with
perfect innocence, as far as appears; and this
giving of audience to a dying swain through a
grated window, on having received a lover's mes-
LIFE OF ST. i l.Kl.SA. 69
sagesof flames and despair, \\ itli her aversion at
fifteen or sixteen years of age to shut herself up
forever in a strict nunnery, appear to have been
those mortal sins, of which she accuses herself,
added, perhaps to a few warm fancies of earthly
love • :— 8. A frame of exquisite sensibility by
nature, rendered more so by a burning lever,
which no doubt had some effect upon her brain,
as she was from that time subject to frequent
feinting tits and </c/i(/t(i<i : — !>. Frightened at
her Uncle's, by reading to him Dante's books of
Hell and Judgment, she confesses that she at
length resolved on nunhood because she thought
it could not be much worse than Purgatory —
and that purgatory here was a cheap expiation
for Hell for ever; — 10. Combine these (and I
have proceeded no further than the eleventh
page of her life) and think, how impossible it
was, but that such a creature, so innocent, and
of an imagination so heated, and so well peo-
pled should often mistake the first not painful,
and in such a frame, often pleasurable ap-
proaches to deliquium for divine raptures ; and
join the instincts of nature acting in the body
of a mind unconscious of them, in the keenly
asitive body of a mind so loving and so inno-
cent, and what remains to be solved which the
Stupidity of most and the roguery of a few
would not simply explain ! — I 1. One source it
is almost criminal to have forgotten, and which
p. 12. of the first Part brought back to my recol-
lection ; I mean, the effects — so super-sensual
that they may easily and most venially pass
70 NOTES ON THE
for supernatural, so very glorious to human na-
ture that, though in truth they are humanity
itself in the contradistinguishing sense of that
awful word, it is yet no wonder that, conscious
of the sore weaknesses united in one person with
tliis one nobler nature we attribute them to a
divinity out of us, (a mistake of the sensuous
imagination in its misapplication of space and
place, rather than a misnomer of the thing
itself, for it is verily o Oeog kv tj/uV, o oikuoq 6e6q,)
the effects, I mean, of the moral force after
conquest, the state of the whole being after the
victorious struggle, in which the will has pre-
served its perfect freedom by a vehement energy
of perfect obedience to the pure or practical
reason, or conscience. Thence flows in upon
and fills the soul that peace which passe th under-
standing, a state affronted and degraded by the
name of pleasure, injured and mis-represented
even by that of happiness, the very cornerstone
of that morality which cannot even in thought
be distinguished from religion, and which seems
to mean religion as long as the instinctive cra-
ving, dim and dark though it may be, of the
moral sense after this unknown state (known
only by the bitterness where it is not) shall re-
main in human nature! Under all forms of
positive or philosophic religion, it has developed
itself, too glorious an attribute of man to be
confined to any name or sect ; but which, it is
but truth and historical fact to say, is more
especially fostered and favoured by Christi-
anity ; and its frequent appearance even under
ill i. 01 BT. l ERESA. / 1
the most selfish and unchristian forms of < Chris-
tianity is a Btronger evidence of the divinity <>i"
that religion, than all the miracles of Brahma
and Veeshnou could afford, even though thej
were supported with tenfold the judicial evi-
dence of the Gospel miracles.*
V>1 ES ON Hi RNETS LIFE OF BISHOP BEDELL.1
is io.
P. 12. — 14.
Here I must add a passage, concerning whfc h 1 am in doubt
whether it reflected more on the sincerity, or on the under-
■■; • . I oglish Ambassador. The breach between the
e and the Republic was brought very near a crisis, &C.
These pages contain a weak and unhandsome
attack on Wotton, who doubtless had discover-
ed that the presentation of the Premonition
previously to the reconciliation as publicly com-
pleted, but after it had been privately agreed
on, between the Court of Koine and the Senate
ot'\ enice, would embarrass the latter : whereas,
delivered as it was, it shewed the King's and
* In one of the volumes of this work used by the Editor for
ertaining- the references, the following note is written by a
former owner;
" October 12, 1788. Begged of the Most Blessed Virgin
Mary to take my salvation on herself, and obtain it for Saint
Hyacinthe's sake ; to whom she has promised to grant any thing,
or never to refua any thing begged for l>i> Bake."
Ii would be very interesting to know bow far the f< eling ex-
pressed in this artless effusion coexisted with a faith in the atol
ment and mediation of the one Lord Jesus Christ. — Ed.
t London 1685.
I'l NOTES ON
his minister's zeal for Protestantism, and yet
supplied the Venetians with an answer not dis-
respectful to the king. Besides, what is there
in Wotton's whole life (a man so disinterested,
and who retired from all his embassies so poor)
to justify the remotest suspicion of his insin-
cerity ? What can this word mean less or other
than that Sir H. W. was either a crypt-Papist,
or had received a bribe from the Romish party?
Horrid accusations! — Burnet was notoriously
rash and credulous ; but I remember no other
instance in which his zeal for the Reformation
joined with his credulity has misled him into
so gross a calumny. It is not to be believed,
that Bedell gave any authority to such an as-
persion of his old and faithful friend and patron,
further than that he had related the fact, and
that he and the minister differed in opinion as
to the prudence of the measure recommended.
How laxly too the story is narrated ! The exact
date of the recommendation by Father Paul
and the divines should have been given ; — then
the date of the public annunciation of the re-
conciliation between the Pope and Venetian
Republic ; and lastly the day on which Wotton
did present the book ; — for even this Burnet
leaves uncertain.
P. 26.
It is true he never returned and changed his religion himself,
but his son came from Spain into Ireland, when Bedell was
piomoted to the Bishopric of Kilmore there, and told him, that
his father commanded him to thank him for the pains he was
at in writing it. He said, it was almost always lying open be-
burnet's life of bishop bedell. 7.J
fore him, and tlint lie had heard him Bay, '• I If was resolved to
6 one." Ami ; he instructed his son in the true re-
ligion, for he declared himself a Protestant on his coming over.
Southey has given me a bad character of
this si)ii of the unhappy convert to the Romish
Church. He became, it seems, a spy on the
Roman Catholics, availing himself of his fa-
ther's character among them, a crime which
would indeed render his testimony null and
more than null; it would be a presumption of
the contrary. It is clear from his letters to
Bedell that the convert was a very weak man.
i owe to him, however, a complete confirmation
old persuasion concerning Bishop Hall,
whom from my rirst perusal of his works I have
always considered as one of the blots (alas!
there are too many) of the biography of the
Church of England ; a self-conceited, coarse-
minded, persecuting, vulgar priest, and (byway
of anti-climax) one of the first corrupters of and
epigrammatizers of our English prose style. It
i- not true, that Sir Thomas Brown was the
prototype of Dr. Johnson, who imitated him
only as far as Sir T. B. resembles the majority
of his predecessors ; that is, in the pedantic
preference of Latin derivations to Saxon words
of the very same force. In the balance and
construction of his periods Dr. Johnson has
followed Hall, as any intelligent leader will
discover by an attentive comparison.
P. 15:;.
Yea, will some man say, " But that which marreth all is the
opinion of merit and satisfaction." Indeed that is the School
74 NOTES ON
doctrine, but the conscience enlightened to know itself, will
easily act that part of the Publican, who smote his breast, and
said, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Alas ! so far from this being the case with
ninety nine out of one hundred in Spain, Italy,
Sicily, and Roman Catholic Germany, it is the
Gospel tenets that are the true School doctrine,
that is confined to books and closets of the
learned among them.
P. 161.
And the like may be conceived here, since, especially, the
idolatry practised under the obedience of mystical Babylon is
rather in false and will-worship of the true God, and rather
commended as profitable than enjoined as absolutely necessary,
and the corruptions there maintained are rather in a superfluous
addition than retraction in any thing necessary to salvation.
This good man's charity jarring with his
love and tender recollections of Father Paul,
Fulgentio, and the Venetian divines, has led
him to a far, far too palliative statement of Ro-
man idolatry. Not what the Pope has yet ven-
tured to thunder forth from his Anti-Sinai, but
what he and his satellites, the Regulars, en-
force to the preclusion of all true worship, in
the actual practice, life-long, of an immense
majority in Spain, Italy, Bavaria, Austria, &c.
&c. — this must determine the point. What
they are themselves, — not what they would
persuade Protestants is their essentials or
Faith,— this is the main thing.
P. 104.
I answer, under correction of better judgments, they have
the ministry of reconciliation by the communion which is given
i-.i rnet's life of BISHOP BEDELL. 7">
at their Ordination, being the same which our Saviour left in
his Church: — whose sins yc remit, they arc remitted, whose
sins ye ri tain, thi y are retained.
Could Bishop Bedell believe that the mere
will ot'a priest could have any effect on the
everlasting weal or woe of a Christian ! Even to
the immediate disciples and Apostles could the
text it' indeed it have reference to sins in our
sense at all. mean more than this, — When-
ever you discover, by the spirit of knowledge
which I will send unto you, repentance and
faith, you shall declare remission of sins; and
the sins shall be remitted; — and where the
contrary exists, your declaration of exclusion
from bliss shall be fulfilled! Did Christ say,
that true repentance and actual faith would not
i soul, unless the priest's verbal remission
was superadded ?
In fine.
II' it were in my power I would have this
book printed in a convenient form, and distri-
buted through every house, at least, through
every village and parish throughout the king-
dom. A volume of thought and of moral feel-
ings, the offspring of thought, crowd upon me,
I review the different parts of this admirable
mans life and creed. Only compare his con-
duct to James Wudsworth (probably some an-
.- i stral relative of my honoured friend, William
Wordsworth : for the same name in Yorkshire,
from whence his father came, is pronounced
Wudsworth) with that of the far, far toohighh
rated, Bishop Hall ; his letter to Hall tenderly
7() NOTES ON
blaming his (Hall's) bitterness to an old friend
mistaken, and then his letter to that friend de-
fending Hall! What a picture of goodness!
I confess, in all Ecclesiastical History I have
read of no man so spotless, though of hundreds
in which the biographers have painted them as
masters of perfection : but the moral tact soon
feels the truth.
NOTES ON BAXTER'S LIFE OF HIMSELF.
1820.*
Among the grounds for recommending the peru-
sal of our elder writers, Hooker — Taylor — Bax-
ter— in short almost any of the folios composed
from Edward VI. to Charles II. I note : —
1. The overcoming the habit of deriving
your whole pleasure passively from the book
itself, which can only be effected by excite-
ment of curiosity or of some passion. Force
yourself to reflect on what you read paragrap i
by paragraph, and in a short time you will
derive your pleasure, an ample portion of it, at
least, from the activity of your own mind. All
else is picture sunshine.
'2. The conquest of party and sectarian pre-
judices, when you have on the same table before
you the works of a Hammond and a Baxter,
and reflect how many and momentous their
* Relliquice. Baxteriance : or Mr. Richard Baxter's Narra-
tive of the most memorable passages of his life and times. Pub-
lished from his manuscript, by Matthew Sylvester. — London.
folio. 1699.
Baxter's life of himself.
points of agreement, how few and almost child-
ish the differences, which estranged and irri-
tated those good men. Lot us but imagine
what their blessed spirits now feel at the retro-
spect of their earthly frailties, and can we do
other than strive to feel as they now feel, not
as they once felt .' So will it be with the (lis-
i
putes between good men of the present day ;
and if you have no other reason to doubt your
opponent's goodness than the point in dispute,
think of Baxter and Hammond, of .Milton and
Taylor, and let it he- no reason at all.
:>. It will secure von from the idolatry of
the pie-cut times and fashions, and create the
noblest kind of imaginative power in your soul,
that of living in past ages; wholly devoid of
which power, a man can neither anticipate the
future, nor even live a truly human life, a life
of reason in the present.
4. In this particular work we may derive a
most instructive lesson, that in certain points,
of religion in relation to law, the medio
iutissimvs this is inapplicable. There is no
medium possible ; and all the attempts, as those
of Baxter, though no more required than " 1
believe in God through Christ,'' prove only the
mildness of the proposer's temper, but as a
rule would be equal to nothing, at least exclude
only the two or three in a century that make it
a matter of religion tod« clare themselves At he
b, or i Ise be just as fruitful a rule for a per-
Becutor as the most complete set of articles that
could be framed by a Spanish Inquisition.
78 NOTES ON
For to ' believe,' must mean to believe aright
— and ' God' must mean the true God — and
' Christ' the Christ in the sense and with the
attributes understood by Christians who are
truly. Christians. An established Church with a
Liturgy is a sufficient solution of the problem
de jure magistratus. Articles of faith are in
this point of view superfluous ; for is it not too
absurd for a man to hesitate at subscribing his
name to doctrines which yet in the more awful
duty of prayer and profession he dares affirm
before his Maker ! They are therefore in this
sense merely superfluous ; — not worth re-en-
acting, had they ever been done away with ;—
not worth removing now that they exist.
5. The characteristic contradistinction be-
tween the speculative reasoners of the age
before the Revolution, and those since, is this :
— the former cultivated metaphysics, without,
or neglecting, empirical psychology the lat-
ter cultivate a mechanical psychology to the
neglect and contempt of metaphysics. Both
therefore are almost equi-distant from pure phi-
losophy. Hence the belief in ghosts, witches,
sensible replies to prayer, and the like, in
Baxter and in a hundred others. See also
Luther's Table Talk.
6. The earlier part of this volume is inter-
esting as materials for medical history. The
state of medical science in the reign of Charles
I. was almost incredibly low.
The saddest error of the theologians of this
age is, tog ifxoiye Soku, the disposition to urge the
Baxter's life ur himself. 7!)
historiesof the miraculous actions and incidents,
in and by which Christ attested his .Messiah-
ship to the Jewish eye-witnesses, in fulfilment
of prophecies, which the Jewish Church had
previously understood and interpreted as marks
of the Messiah, before they have shewn what
and how excellent the religion itself is includ-
ing the miracles as for us an harmonious part
of the internal or self-evidence of the religion.
Alas! and even when our divines do proceed
to the religion itself as to a something which
no man could be expected to receive except by
a compulsion of the senses, which by force of
logic only is propagated from the eye witnesses
to the readers of the narratives in 1 J320 — (which
logic, namely, that the evidence of a miracle is
not diminished by lapse of ages, though this
includes loss of documents and the like ; which
logic, I say, whether it be legitimate or not,
God forbid that the truth of Christianity should
(Upend on the decision!) — even when our di-
vines do proceed to the religion itself, on what
do they chiefly dwell? On the doctrines pe-
culiar to the religion? No ! these on the con-
trary are either evaded or explained away into
metaphors, or resigned in despair to the next
world where faith is to be swallowed up in
certainty.
■r
But the worst product of this epidemic error
is, the fashion of either denying or undervalu-
ing the evidence of a future state and the sur-
vival of individual consciousness, derived from
the conscience, and the holy instinct of the
80 NOTES ON
whole human race. Dreadful is this : — for the
main force of the reasoning by which this scep-
ticism is vindicated consists in reducing all le-
gitimate conviction to objective proof: whereas
in the very essence of religion and even of mo-
rality the evidence, and the preparation for its
reception, must be subjective; — Blessed are
they that have not seen and yet believe. And
dreadful it appears to me especially, who in the
impossibility of not looking forward to con-
sciousness after the dissolution of the body
(corpus phenomenon,) have through life found
it (next to divine grace.) the strongest and in-
deed only efficient support against the still re-
curring temptation of adopting, nay, wishing
the truth of Spinoza's notion, that the survival
of consciousness is the highest prize and conse-
quence of the highest virtue, and that of all be-
low this mark the lot after death is self-oblivion
and the cessation of individual being. Indeed,
how a Separatist or one of any other sect of
Calvinists, who confines Redemption to the
comparatively small number of the elect, can
reject this opinion, and yet not run mad at
the horrid thought of an innumerable multi-
tude of imperishable self-conscious spirits ever-
lastingly excluded from God, is to me incon-
ceivable.
Deeply am I persuaded of Luther's position,
that no man can worthily estimate, or feel in
the depth of his being, the Incarnation and
Crucifixion of the Son of God who is a stranger
to the terror of immortality as ingenerate in
\ I I l; -. I II I. <>1 HIMSELF. .",1
mat)] while it Is yet unquelled by the faith in
God as the Almighty Father.
Book I. Part I. p. '_>.
But though nay conscience would tumble me when 1 Binned,
yel divers Bins i was addicted to, and oft committed against my
oscience; which for the warning of others I will confess
here to my shame.
1 . I was much addicted when I feared correction to lie, that
I iiii^lit BCape.
I was much addicted to the excessive gluttonous eating of
ire, &c.
I"<> this end, and to concur with naughty boys that glo-
ried in evil, 1 have oft gone into other men's orchards, and stolen
their fruit, when 1 had enough at home, &C
There is a childlike simplicity in this ac-
count of his sins of his childhood which is very
pleasing.
lb. p. 5, 6.
1 the use that God made of books, above ministers, to the
benefit of my soul made me somewhat e iy in love with
good books ; so that I thought I had never enough, but scraped
up as great a treasure of them as I could. It made
the world seem to me as a carcase that had neither life nor love-
liness ; and it destroyed those ambitious desires after literate
fame which were the sin of my childhood. * ' * And for the
mathematics, 1 was an utter stranger to them, and never eould
find in my hear' to divert any Btudies that way. But in order
V< the knowledge of divinity, my inclination was most to logic
and metaphysics, with that part of physics which treateth of
tlie soul, contenting myself at first with a slighter study of the
rest: and there had my labour and delight.
What a picture of myself!
VOL. IV. (■
82 NOTES ON
lb. p. 22.
In the storm of this temptation I questioned awhile whether
I were indeed a Christian or an Infidel, and whether faith could
consist with such doubts as I was conscious of.
One of the instances of the evils arising from
the equivoque between faith and intellectual
satisfaction or insight. The root of faith is in
the will. Faith is an oak that may be a pol-
lard, and yet live.
lb.
The beinsr and attributes of God were so clear to me, that he
was to my intellect what the sun is to my eye, by which I see
itself and all things.
Even so with me ; — but, whether God was
existentially as well as essentially intelligent,
this was for a long time a sore combat between
the speculative and the moral man.
lb. p. 23.
Mere Deism, which is the most plausible competitor with
Christianity, is so turned out of almost all the whole world, as
if Nature made its own confession, that without a Mediator it
cannot come to God.
Excellent,
lb.
All these assistances were at hand before I came to the imme-
diate evidences of credibility in the sacred oracles themselves.
This is as it should be ; that is, the evidence
a priori, securing the rational probability ; and
then the historical proofs of its reality. Pity
that Baxter's chapters in The Saints'' Rest j
BAXTER S LIPE OP HIMSELF. i\'.\
should have been one and the earliest occa-
sion of the inversion of this process, the fruit of
which is the Grotio-Paleyan religion, or mini-
mum of faith ; the maxim being, quanto minus
tanto melius.
lb. p. 24.
ill the ignorant rout were raging mad against me
i'ii- preaching the doctrine of Original Sin to'them, and telling
them that infants, before regeneration, had so much guilt and
corruption i- made them loathsome in the eyes of God.
No wonder; — because the babe would perish
\«r ithout the mother's milk, is it therefore loath-
me to the mother ? Surely the little ones
that Christ embraced had not been baptized.
And yet of such is I he Kingdom of Heaven.
lb. p. -26.
Some thought that the Kinir should not at all he displeased
..iid provoked, and that they were not bound to do any other
justice, or attempt any other reformation but what they could
procure the King to be willing to. And these said, when you
have displeased and provoked him to the utmost, he will be your
King1 still. • * * The more you offend him, the less you can
trust him ; and when mutual confidence is gone, a war is be-
aing. * * * And if you conquer him, what the better
you '. lie will still be King. You can hut force him to an
• ement ; and how quickly will he have power and advantage
f" violate that which he is forced to, and to be avenged on you
all for the displeasure you have done him ! lie Lb ignorant of
the advantages of a King that cannot foresee this.
This paragraph goes to make out a case in
justification of the Regicides which Baxter
would have found it difficult to answer. Cer-
84 NOTES ON
tainly a more complete exposure of the incon-
sistency of Baxter's own party cannot be. For
observe, that in case of an agreement with
Charles all those classes, which afterwards form-
ed the main strength of the Parliament and
ultimately decided the contest in its favour,
would have been politically inert, with little
influence and no actual power, — I mean the
Yeomanry, and the Citizens of London : while a
vast majority of the Nobles and landed Gentry,
who sooner or later must have become the ma-
jority in Parliament, went over to the King at
once. Add to these the whole systematized
force of the High Church Clergy and all the
rude ignorant vulgar in high and low life, who
detested every attempt at moral reform, — and
it is obvious that the King could not want op-
portunities to retract and undo all that he had
conceded under compulsion. But that neither
the will was wanting, nor his conscience at all
in the way, his own advocate Clarendon and
others have supplied damning proofs.
lb. p. 27.
And though Parliaments may draw up Bills for repealing-
laws, yet hath the King his negative voice, and without his
consent they cannot do it; which though they acknowledge,
yet did they too easily admit of petitions against the Episco-
pacy and Liturgy, and connived at all the clamors and papers
which were against them.
How so? If they admitted the Kings right
to deny, they must admit the subject's right to
entreat.
Baxter's like of himseli ;;"'
lb.
Had they endeavoured the ejection of lay- chancellors, and
the reducing of the dioceses to a narrower compass, or the -
_- up of a subordinate discip ine, and only the correcting and
nningofthe Liturgy, perhaps it might have been borne more
patiently.
Did Baxter find it so himself— and when too
he had the formal and recorded promise of
Charles II. for it '
fb.
Bat when the same m< n Ussher, Williams, Morton, a
r things wen aimed at, and episcopacy itself in dan-
their grandeur and richt s at l> ast, most of them turned
gainst the Parliament.
This, and in this place, is unworthy of Bax-
ter. Eveo he, good man, could not wholly es-
cape the jaundice of party.
11.. p. 34.
They said to this ; — that as all the courts of justice do i
cute their sentences in the King'.- name, and this by his own
law, and therefore bv Lis authority, so much more might his
Parliament do.
A very sound argument is here disguised in
a false analogy, an inapplicable precedent, and
a sophistical form. Courts of justice adminis-
ter the total of the supreme power retrospec-
tively, involved in the name of the most dig-
nified part. But here a part, us a part, acts
the w hole, w Ik re the w hole is absolutely re-
quisite.— that is, in passing laws; and again as
B. and C. usurp a power belonuini: to A. by
U6 NOTES ON
the determination of A. B. and C. The only
valid argument is, that Charles had by acts of
his own ceased to be a lawful King.
lb. p. 40.
And that the authority and person of the King were invio-
lable, out of the reach of just accusation, judgment, or execu-
tion by law ; as having no superior, and so no judge.
But according to Grotius, aking waging war
against the lawful copartners of the summa
potestas ceases to be their king, and if con-
quered forfeits to them his former share. And
surely if Charles had been victor, he would
have taken the Parliament's share to himself.
If it had been the Parliament, and not a mere
faction with the army, that tried and beheaded
Charles, I do not see how any one could doubt
the lawfulness of the act, except upon very
technical grounds.
lb. p. 41.
For if once legislation, the chief act of government, be de-
nied to any part of government at all, and affirmed to belong to
the people as such, who are no governors, all government will
hereby be overthrown.
Here Baxter falls short of the subject, and
does not see the full consequents of his own
prior, most judicious, positions. Legislation in
its high and most proper sense belongs to God
only. A people declares that such and such
they hold to be laws, that is, God's will.
lb. p. 47.
In Cornwall Sir Richard Grenvill, having taken many sol-
Baxter's like of himself. v,7
dien of the Bar! of Essex's army, sentenced about a dozen to
\\ hen they had banged two or three, the rope
broke which Bhould have hanged the next, And they sent for
new ropes so oft to hang him. and all of them still broke, that
they durst go no further, hut saved all the rest.
The Boldiers, doubtless, contrived this from
tlw aversion natural to Englishmen of killing
an enemy in cold blood ; and because they
foresaw that there would be Tit for Tat.
II). p. 59.
It is easy to see from Baxter's own account,
that his party ruined their own cause and that
of the kingdom by their tenets concerning the
..hi and duty of the civil magistrate to use
the sword against such as were not of the same
religion with themselves.
lb. p. 62.
They seem not to me to have aa&wered satisfactorily to the
main argument fetched from the Apostle's own government,
with which Saravia had inclined me to sonn- Episcopacy before:
though miracles and infallibility were Apostolical temporary
privileges, yet Church government is an ordinary thing to be
continued. And therefore as the Apostles had successors as
they were preachers, I see not hut that they must have suc-
<>rs as Church governors.
W as not Peter's sentence against Ananias an
act of Church government ' Therefore though
Church government is an ordinary thing in
some form or other, it does not follow that one
particular form is an ordinary thing. For
the time being the Apostles, as heads of the
( hurch, did what they thought best ; but what-
88 NOTES ON
ever was binding on the Church universal ami
in all times they delivered as commands from
Christ. Now no other command was delivered
but that all things should conduce to order and
edification.
lb. p. 6Ci.
And therefore how they could refuse to receive the King-, till
he consented to take the Covenant, I know not, unless the
taking of the Covenant had been a condition on which he was
to receive his crown by the laws or fundamental constitutions
of the kingdom, which none pretendeth. Nor know I by what
power they can add anything to the Coronation Oath or Cove-
nant, which by his ancestors was to be taken, without his own
consent.
And pray, how and by whom were the Co-
ronation Oaths first imposed ? The Scottish
nation in 1(150 had the same right to make a
bargain with the claimant of their throne as
their ancestors had. It is strange that Baxter
should not have seen that his objections would
apply to our Magna Ckarta. So he talks of
the " fundamental constitutions," just as if
these had been aboriginal or rather sans origin,
and not as indeed they were extorted and
bargained for by the people. But throughout
it is plain that Baxter repeated, but never
appropriated, the distinction between the King
as the executive power, and as the indivi-
dual functionary. What obligation lay on the
Scottish Parliament and Church to consult the
man Charles Stuart's personal likes and dis-
likes? The Oath was to be taken by him as
Baxter's life of himself. j;.('
their King. Doubtless, lie equally disliked the
whole Protestant interest ; and it' the Tories
and ( lunch of England -Jacobites of a later day
had recalled James II., would Baxter have
thought them culpable for imposing on him an
( )ath to preserve the Protestant ( hurch of Eng-
land and to inflict severe penalties on his own
( 'hurch-fellows !
lb p. 71.
And some men thought it a very hard question, whether tliey
eld rather wish the continuance of a usurper that will do
d, or tin n storation of a rightful governor whose followers
will do hurt.
And who shall dare unconditionally condemn
those who judged the former to be the better
alternative ! Especially those who did not
adopt Baxter's notion of a jus divinum personal
and hereditary in the individual, whose father
had broken the compact on which the claim
rested.
lb. p. /<">.
One Mis. Dyer, a chi< t' person of the Sect, did firsl bring
forth a monster, which had the parts of almost all sorts of living1
attires, some parts like man, l>ut most ugly and misplaced,
and Mime like beasts, birds and fishes, having horns, fins and
claws ; and at the birth of it the bed shook, and the women pre-
sent fell a vomiting, and were fain to go forth of the room.
This babe of Mrs. Dyer's is no bad emblem
of Richard Baxter's own credulity. It is al-
most an argument on his side, that nothing he
believed is more strange and inexplicable than
own belief of them.
90 NOTES ON
lb. p. 76.
The third sect were the Ranters. These also made it their
business, as the former, to set up the light of nature under the
name of Christ in men, and to dishonour and cry down the
Church, &c.
But why does Baxter every where assert the
identity of the new light with the light of na-
ture ? Or what does he mean exclusively by
the latter? The source must be the same in
all lights as far as it is light.
lb. p. 77.
And that was the fourth sect, the Quakers ; who were but
the Ranters turned from horrid profaneness and blasphemy to
a life of extreme austerity on the other side.
Observe the but.
lb.
Their doctrine is to be seen in Jacob Behmen's books by him
that hath nothing- else to do, than to bestow a great deal of time
to understand him that was not willing to be easily understood,
and to know that his bombasted words do signify nothing more
than before was easily known by common familiar terms.
This is not in all its parts true. It is true
that the first principles of Behmen are to be
found in the writings of the Neo-Platonists
after Plotinus, and (but mixed with gross im-
pieties) in Paracelsus ; — but it is not true that
they are easily known, and still less so that they
are communicable in common familiar terms.
But least of all is it true that there is nothing
original in Behmen.
lb.
The chiefest of these in England are Dr. Pordage and his
family.
Baxter's life of himself. 9]
It is curious that Leasing in the Review.
which he, Nicolai, and Mendelssohn conducted
under the form of Letters to a wounded ( MKcer,
joins the name of Pordage with that of Bell-
men. Was Pordage's work translated into
( lerman ?
lb. p. 79.
Also the Socinians made some increase by the ministry of
one Mr. Biddle, sometimea Bcboolmaster in Gloucester; who
wrote against the Godhead of the Holj Ghost, and afterwards
of Christ ; whose followers inclined much to mere Deism.
Tor the Socinians till Biddle retained much
of the Christian religion, for example, Redemp-
tion by the Cross, and the omnipresence of
Christ as to this planet even as the Romanists
with their Saints. Luther's obstinate adhe-
rence to the ubiquity of the Body of Christ and
his or rather its real presence in and with the
bread was a sad furtherance to the advocates
of Popisli idolatry and hierolatry.
lb. p. 80.
Many a time have I been brought very low, and received the
>• ntence of death in myself, when my poor, honest, praying
_rh hours have met, and upon their fasting and earnest prayers
I have been recovered. Once when 1 had continued weak three
weeks, and was unable to go abroad, the verv day that they
prayed for me, being Good Friday, I recovered, and was able
to preach, and administer the Sacrament the next Lord'* Day,
and was better after it, &C
Strange that the common manuals of school
losic should not have secured Baxter from the
92 NOTES ON
repeated blunder of Cum hoc, ergo, propter hoc ;
but still more strange that his piety should not
have revolted against degrading prayer into
medical quackery.
Before the*Revolution of 1688, metaphysics
ruled without experimental psychology, and in
these curious paragraphs of Baxter we see the
effect: since the Revolution experimental psy-
chology without metaphysics has in like man-
ner prevailed, and we now feel the result. In
like manner from Plotinus to Proclus, that is,
from a. d. 250 to a. n. 450, philosophy was set
up as a substitute for religion : during the dark
ages religion superseded philosophy, and the
consequences are equally instructive. Thegreat
maxim of legislation, intellectual or political,
is Subordinate, not exclude. Nature in her as-
cent leaves nothing behind, but at each step
subordinates and glorifies : — mass, crystal, or-
gan, sensation, sentience, reflection.
lb. p. 82.
Another time, as I sat in my study, the weight of my great-
est folio books brake down three or four of the highest shelves,
when I sat close under them, and they fell down every side me,
and not one of them hit me, save one upon the arm ; whereas
the place, the weight, the greatness of the books was such, and
my head just under them, that it was a wonder they had not
beaten out my brains, &c.
Mc'ya fitftXiov fieya KaKov.
lb. p. 84.
For all the pains that my infirmities ever brought upon me
BAX L'ER 8 LIFE O* HIMSELI . ♦».'>
wen never hall rous an affliction to me, as the unavoid-
able • my time, which they occasioned. I could not hoar,
through the weakness of mystomach, to rise before seven o'clock
in the morning, &c.
Alas ! in how many respects dots my lot re-
able Baxter's ; but how much less have my
bodily evils heen : and yet how very much
gn ater an impediment have I suffered them to
lie ' Hut verily Baxter's labours seem mira-
cles of supporting grace. Ought I not there-
fore 10 retract the note p. 80 ? 1 waver.
lb. p. 87.
For my part, I bless God, who gave rue even under a Usurper,
whom I opposed, such liberty and advantage to preach his Gos-
pel with success, which I cannot have under a Kinir to whom
I have sworn and performed true subjection and obedience ; yea,
which n i age since the Gospel came into this land did before
--. as far as I can learn from history. Sure I am that
when it became a matter of reputation and honour to be godlv,
it abundantly furthered the succc.-ses of the ministry. Yea,
and 1 shall add this much more for the sake of posteritv, that
much as I hare said and written against licentiousness in
religion, and for the magistrate's power in it, and though 1
think that land most happy, whose rulers use their authority
for Christ as well as for the civil peace ; yet in comparison of
the rest of the world, I shall think that land happy that hath
but bare liberty to be as good as tiny are willing to be; and if
countenance and maintenance be but added to liberty, and tole-
rated errors and sects be but forced to keep the peace, and not
to oppose the substantiate of Christianity, 1 shall not hereafter
much fear such toi. ration, nor despair that truth will bear down
adversaries.
What a valuable and citable paragraph !
Likewise it is a happy instance of the force of
a cherished prejudice in an honest mind —
94 NOTES ON
practically yielding to the truth, but yet with a
speculative, " Though I still think, &c."
lb. p. 128.
Among' truths certain in themselves, all are not equally cer-
tain unto me ; and even of the mysteries of the Gospel I must
needs say, with Mr. Richard Hooker, that whatever some may
pretend, the subjective certainty cannot go beyond the objective
evidence. * * * Therefore I do more of late than ever dis-
cern the necessity of a methodical procedure in maintaining the
doctrine of Christianity. * * * My certainty that I am a
man is before my certainty that there is a God. * * * My
certainty that there is a God is greater than my certainty that
he requireth love and holiness of his creature, &c.
There is a confusion in this paragraph, which
asks more than a marginal note to disentangle.
Briefly, the process of acquirement is con-
founded with the order of the truths when
acquired. A tinder spark gives light to an
Argand's lamp : is it therefore more luminous?
lb. p. 129.
And when I have studied hard to understand some abstruse
admired book, as de Scientia Dei, de Providentia circa malum,
de Decretis, de Prcedeterminatione,de Liber tale creaturce , &c.
I have but attained the knowledge of human imperfection, and
to see that the author is but a man as well as I.
On these points I have come to a resting-
place. Let such articles, as are either to be re-
cognized as facts, for example, sin or evil having
its origination in a will ; and the reality of a
responsible and (in whatever sense freedom is
presupposed in responsibility,) of a free will
in man ; — or acknowledged as laws, for example,
the unconditional bindingness of the practical
BAXTERS LIFE Ol HIMSELF. 95
reason ; — or to be freely affirmed as necessary
through their moral interest, their indispensa-
bleness to our spiritual humanity, for example,
the personeity, holiness, and mural government
and providence of (iod; — let these be vindi-
cated from absurdity, from self-contradiction,
and contradiction to the pure reason, and re-
ared to simple incomprehensibility. He who
kg for more, knows not what he is talking
<»t'; he who will not seek even this is either in-
different to the truth of what he professes to
beliei e, or he mistakes a general determination
not to disbelieve for a positive and especial
faith, which is only our faith as far as we can
sign a reason for it. O ! how impossible it
to move an inch to the right or the left in
any point of spiritual and moral concernment,
without seeing the damage caused by the con-
fusion of reason with the understanding:.
■»•
lb. p. 181.
Mv soul is much mure afflicted with the thoughts of the m
rable world, and mure- drawn out in desire of their conversion
than heretofore. I was wont to look but little further than En-
tnd in mv prayers, as not considering th< of the rest
of the world; — or if I prayed for the conversion of the Jews,
that was almost all. But now as I better understand the care
of the world, and the method of the Lord's Prayer, so then
nothing in the world that lieth so heavy upon my heart, as the
thought of :!■>■ miserable nations of the earth.
I dare not not condemn myself for the languid
or dormant state of my feelings respecting the
Mohammedan and Heathen nations; yet know
96 NOTES ON
not in what degree to condemn. The less cul-
pable grounds of this languor are, first, my utter
ignorance of God's purposes with respect to the
Heathens; and second, the strong conviction, I
have that the conversion of a single province
of Christendom to true practical Christianity
would do more toward the conversion of Hea-
thendom than an army of Missionaries. Ro-
manism and despotic government in the larger
part of Christendom, and the prevalence of
Epicurean principles in the remainder ; — these
do indeed lie heavy on my heart.
lb. p. 135.
Therefore I confess I give but halting- credit to most histories
that are written, not only against the Albigenses and Waldenses,
hut against most of the ancient heretics, who have left us none
of their own writings, in which they speak for themselves ; and
I heartily lament that the historical writings of the ancient
schismatics and heretics, as they were called, perished, and
that partiality suffered them not to survive, that we might have
had more light in the Church affairs of those times, and been
better able to judge between the Fathers and them.
It is greatly to the credit of Baxter that he
has here anticipated those merits which so long-
after gave deserved celebrity to the name and
writings of Beausobre and Lardner, and still
more recently in this respect of Eichhorn,
Paulus and other Neologists.
lb. p. 136.
And therefore having myself now written this history of my-
self, notwithstanding my protestation that I have not in anything
wilfully gone against the truth, I expect no more credit from
BAXTERS LIFE OF HIMSELF. 97
tin- reader than the Belf-evidencing light <>f the matter, with
concurrent rational advantages from p rsoi , and things, and
other witnesses, shall constrain him to.
1 may not unfrequently doubt Baxter's me-
mory, or even his competence, in consequence
of his particular modes of thinking; but J
could almost as soon doubt the Gospel verity
his veracit) .
Book I. Part II. p. L39.
The follow inn Book of this Work is interest-
ing and most instructive as an instance of Syn-
cretism, and its Epicurean clinamen, even when
it has been undertaken from the purest and
most laudable motives, and from impulses the
most Christian, and yet its utter failure in its
object, that of tending to a common centre.
The experience of eighteen centuries seems to
prove that there is no practicable medium be-
tween a ( hureh comprehensive (which is the
only meaning of a Catholic Church visible) in
which A. in the North or East is allowed to
advance officially no doctrine different from
what is allowed to B. in the South or West; —
and a co-existence of independent Churches,
in none of which any further unity is required
but that between the minister and his congre-
gation, while this again is secured by the elec-
tion and continuance of the former depending
wholly on the will of the latter.
Perhaps the best state possible, though not
the best possible state is w here both are found,
VOL. IV. n
98 NOTES OS
the one established by maintenance, the other
by permission ; in short that which we now
enjoy. In such a state no minister of the
former can have a right to complain, for it was
at his own option to have taken the latter ; et
volenti nulla Jit injuria. For an individual to
demand the freedom of the independent single
Church when he receives £500 a year for sub-
mitting to the necessary restrictions of the
Church General, is impudence and Mammon-
olatry to boot.
lb. p. 141.
They (the Erastians) misunderstood and injured their bre-
thren, supposing and affirming them to claim as from God a
coercive power over the bodies or purses of men, and so set-
ting up imperium in imperio ; whereas all temperate Chris-
tians (;it least except Papists) confess that the Church hath
no power of force, but only to manage God's word unto men's
consciences.
But are not the receivers as bad as the thief?
Is it not a poor evasion to say : — " It is true I
send you to a dungeon there to rot, because
you do not think as I do concerning some point
of faith; — but this only as a civil officer. As
a divine I only tenderly entreat and persuade
you ! " Can there be fouler hypocrisy in the
Spanish Inquisition than this?
lb. p. 142.
That hereby they (the Diocesan party) altered the ancient
species of Presbyters, to whose office the spiritual government
of their proper folks as truly belonged, as the power of preach-
ing and worshiping God did.
BAXI ER*S LIFE OF HIMSELF. 99
1 could never rightly understand this obji
tion of Richard Baxter-. What power not
possi SSI il by the Rector of a parish, would he
have wished a parochial Bishop to have ex-
erted ? What could have been given by the
Legislature to the latter which might not be
given to the former? In short Baxter's plan
3< tins to do away Archbishops — koiioi ewioicoirm
— but for the rest to name our present Rectors
and Vicars Bishop-. 1 cannot see what is
med by his plan. The true difficulty is that
Church discipline is attached to an Establish-
ment by this world's law, not to the form itself
» stablished: and his objections from paragraph
•') to paragraph 10 relate to particular abuses,
not to Episcopacy itself.
lb. p. 143.
But above all I disliked that most of them (the Independents)
made the jM'ople by majority of votes to be Church governors
in excommunications, absolutions, &c, which < Jbrist hath made
an act of office ; and so they governed their governors and them-
es.
Is not this the case with the Mouses of Legis-
lature ? The members taken individually are
subject.-; collectively governors.
lb. p. 177.
rdinaiy f the Apostles, and the privilege
of being eve and ear wit] Christ, were abilities which
id for the infallible discharge of their function, but they
■•• not the ground of their power and authority to govern
the Church. Potesi avium was committed to th< m
only, not to rl, ty.
100 NOTES ON
I wish for a proof, that all the Apostles had
any extraordinary gifts which none of the LXX.
had. Nay as an Episcopalian of the Church of
England, I hold it an unsafe and imprudent
concession, tending to weaken the governing
right of the Bishops. But I fear that as the law
and right of patronage in England now are,
the question had better not be stirred; lest
it should be found that the true power of the
keys is not, as with the Papists, in hands to
which it is doubtful whether Christ committed
them exclusively ; but in hands to which it is
certain that Christ did not commit them at all.
lb. p. 179.
It followeth not a mere Bishop may have a multitude of
Churches, hecause an Archbishop may, who hath many Bishops
under him.
What then does Baxter quarrel about? That
our Bishops take a humbler title than they have
a right to claim ;— that being in fact Arch-
bishops, they are for the most part content to
be styled as one of the brethren !
lb. p. 185.
I say again, No Church, no Christ; for no body, no head ;
and if no Christ then, there is no Christ now.
Baxter here forgets his own mystical rege-
nerated Church. If he mean this, it is nothing
to the argument in question ; if not, then he
must assert the monstrous absurdity of, No un-
regenerate Church, no Christ.
b \\ ii:k's life of himself. I <>1
II). p. 188.
Or if the j would not yield to this at all, we might have com-
munion with them as Christians, without acknowledging them
for 1 ' •
Observe the inconsistency of Baxter. No
Pastor, do Church ; do Church, do ( hrist ; and
I he will receive them as Christians: much
to his honor as a Christian, but not much to
his m ilit as a logician.
ih. p. 189.
I that as some discovery of consent on both
md people) is necessary to the being of the
men fa political particular Church : mi that the most
js declaration of that consent is the most plain and satis-
■.'iv dealing, and most obliging, and liktst to attain the ends.
In our Churches, especially in good livings,
there is such an overflowing fullness of consent
on the part of the Pastor as supplies that of
the people altogether ; nay, to nullity their de-
clared dissent.
II). p. 1!>4.
By the establishment of what is contained in these twelve
propositions or articles following, the < Ihurches in these nati
may have a holy communion, peace and concord, without any
wrong to the consciences or liberties of Presbyterians, Congre-
oal, Episcopal, or any other Christians.
Painfully instructive are these proposals from
so wise and peaceable a divine as Baxter. How
mighty musl be the force of an old prejudice
when so generally acute a logician was blinded
by it to such palpable iu< ou>istencies ! On
102 NOTES ON
what ground of right could a magistrate inflict
a penalty, whereby to compel a man to hear
what he might believe dangerous to his soul, on
which the right of burning the refractory indi-
vidual might not be defended as well?
lb. p. 198.
To which ends * * 1 think that this is all that should be
required of any Church or member ordinarily to be professed :
In general I do believe all that is contained in the sacred ca-
nonical Scriptures, and particularly I believe all explicitly con-
tained in the ancient Creed, &c.
To a man of sense, but unstudied in the con-
text of human nature, and from having con-
fined his reading to the writers of the present
and the last generation unused to live in former
ages, it must seem strange that Baxter should
not have seen that this test is either all or no-
thing. And the Creed ! Is it certain that the
so called Apostles' Creed was more than the
mere catechism of the Catechumens? Was it
the Baptismal Creed of the Eastern or Western
Church, especially the former ? The only test
really necessary, in my opinion, is an establish-
ed Liturgy.
lb. p. 201.
As reverend Bishop Ussher hath manifested that the Western
Creed, now called the Apostles' (wanting- two or three clauses
that now are in it) was not only before the Nicene Creed, but
of much further antiquity, that no beginning of it below the
Apostles' days can be found.
Remove these two or three clauses, and doubt-
Baxter's life of himsei i. 103
lese the substance of the remainder must havt
been little Bhon of the Apostolic ag» Bu! bo
is one at [east of the writings of Clement. The
great question is: Was this the Baptismal
Symbol, tlu- Regukt Fidei, which it was forbid-
den to }>ut in writing ;— or was it not the Chris-
tian A. B. ('. of the Catechumeni previously
to their Baptismal initiation into the higher
mysteries, to the strong mmt which was not for
babes ? *
11). p. 203.
s. • - i much for mj own sake as others ; lest it should of-
fend tlic Parliament, and open the mouths of our adve -
. moot ourseh - in fundamentals; and l«j?t it
prove an occasion foi to sue for ;i universal toleration.
That this apprehension so constantly haunt-
ed, s<» powerfully actuated, even the mild and
really tolerant Baxter, is a strong proof of my
old opinion. — that the dogma of the right and
duty of the civil magistrate to restrain and
punish religious avowals by him deemed here-
tical, universal among tin Presbyterians and
Parliamentary Churchmen, joined with the
persecuting spirit of the Presbyterians, — was
the main cause of ( JromwelFs d< -pair and con-
[uentunfaithfulness concerning a Parliamen-
tary Commonwealth.
- H oker 1'.. 1'. V. svni. 3. Vol. II. p. BO. Keble.
104 NOTES ON
lb. p. 222.
I tried, when I was last with you, to revive your reason by
proposing- to you the infallibility of the common senses of all
the world ; and I could not prevail though you had nothing to
answer that was not against common sense. And it is impos-
sible any thing controverted can be brought nearer you, or
made plainer than to be brought to your eyes and taste and
feeling; and not yours only, but all men's else. Sense goes
before faith. Faith is no faith but upon supposition of sense
and understanding : if therefore common sense be fallible, faith
must needs be so.
This is one of those two-edged arguments,
which not indeed began, but began to be
fashionable, just before and after the Restora-
tion. I was half converted to Transubstantia-
tion by Tillotson's common senses against it ;
seeing clearly that the same grounds tot idem
verbis et syllabis would serve the Socinian
against all the mysteries of Christianity. If
the Roman Catholics had pretended that the
phenomenal bread and wine were changed into
the phenomenal flesh and blood, this objection
would have been legitimate and irresistible ;
but as it is, it is mere sensual babble. The
whole of Popery lies in the assumption of a
Church, as a numerical unit, infallible in the
highest degree, inasmuch as both which is
Scripture, and what Scripture teaches, is infal-
lible by derivation only from an infallible deci-
sion of the Church. Fairly undermine or blow
up this : and all the remaining peculiar tenets
of Itomanism fall with it, or stand by their own
right as opinions of individual Doctors.
B \\ l I u - ill I OF HIMSEL1 . 105
Aii antagonist of a complex bad system, —
a Bysto in. howei er, notwithstanding— and such
is Popery, — Bhould take heed above all things
not to disperse himself. Let him keep to the
Bticking place. But the majority of our Pro-
testant polemics seem to have taken for granted
that they could not attack Romanism in too
many places, or on too man} points ; — forget-
ting that in some they will be less strong than
in others, and that if in any one or two they
are repelled from the assault, the feeling of this
will extend itself over the whole. Besides, what
tin use of alleging thirteen reasons lor a wit-
bs's not appearing in Court, when the first
is that the man had died since his subpoena ?
li is us if a party employed to root up a tree
were to set one or two at that work, while others
were hacking the branches, and others saw-
ing the trunk at different heights from the
ound.
N . 13. The point of attack suggested above in
disputes m ith the Romanists is of special expedi-
ency in the present day : because a number of
pious and reasonable Roman Catholics are not
aware of the dependency of their other tenets
on this of the infallibility of their ( 'hurch de-
i isions, as they call them, but are themselves
shakt n and disposed to explain it away. This
once fixed, the Scriptures rise uppermost, and
the man is already a Prou stant, rather a gen-
nine Catholic, though his opinions should re-
main nearer to the Roman than the Reformed
( hurch.
106 NOTES ON
lb.
But methinks yet I should have hope of reviving your charity.
You cannot he a Papist indeed, but you must believe that out
of their Church (that is out of the Pope's dominions) there is no
salvation ; and consequently no justification and chanty, or
saving grace. And is it possible you can so easily believe your
religious father to be in hell ; your prudent, pious mother to be
void of the love of God, and in a state of damnation, &c.
This argument ad affectum is beautifully and
forcibly stated ; but yet defective by the omis-
sion of the point; — not for unbelief or misbe-
lief of any article of faith, but simply for not
being a member of this particular part of the
Church of Christ. For it is possible th t a
Christian might agree in all the articles of faith
with the Roman doctors against those of the
Reformation, and yet if he did not acknowledge
the Pope as Christ's vicar, and held salvation
possible in any other Church, he is himself ex-
cluded from salvation ! Without this great dis-
tinction Lady Ann Lindsey might have replied
to Baxter: — "So might a Pagan orator have
said to a convert from Paganism in the rirst ages
of Christianity ; so indeed the advocates of the
old religion did argue. What ! can you bear
to believe that Numa, Camillus, Fabricius, the
Scipios, the Catos, that Cicero, Seneca, that
Titus and the Antonini, are in the flames of
Hell, the accursed objects of the divine hatred !
Now whatever you dare hope of these as hea-
thens, we dare hope of you as heretics."
lb. p. -2-24.
But this is not the worst. You consequently anathematize
BAXTERS LIFE OF HIMSELF 1<>7
all I 'apists by your sentence : for heresies by your own sentence
off men from heaven : hut Popery is a bundle of beresi
therefore it cots <>tV men from heaven. The minor I prove, &c.
This introduction of syllogistic form in a
letter to a young Lady is whimsically charac-
teristic.
lb. p. 225.
You say, the Scripture admits of n<> private interpretation.
But you abuse yourself and the text with a false interpretation
of it in these words. An interpretation is called private
er as to the Bubject person, or as to the interpreter. You
. of tin- latter, when the context plainly
iu that it speaks of the former. The Apostle direct-
them to understand the prophecies of tlie Old Testament,
them this caution ;— that none of these Scriptures that
rken of Christ the puhlic person must be interpreted as
spoken of David or other private person only, of whom they
mentioned but as types of Christ, &c.
It is strange that this sound and irrefragable
argument lias not been enforced by the Church
divines in their controversies with the modern
Unitarians, as Capp, Belsham and others, who
refer all the prophetic texts of the Old Testa-
ment to historical personages of their time,
exclusively of all double sense.
lb. p. 'I'K).
Ai to what you say <>t Apostl< - -rill placed in the Church : —
when any shew us an immediate mission by their communion,
and by miracles, tongues, and a spirit of revelation and infalli-
bility prove themselves Apostles, we shall believe them.
This is another of those two-edged arguments
which Baxter and Jeremy Taylor imported
■
' IU
108 NOTES ON
from Grotius, and which have since become
the universal fashion among Protestants. I
fear, however, that it will do ns more hurt by
exposing a weak part to the learned Infidels
than service in our combat with the Romanists.
I venture to assert most unequivocally that the
New Testament contains not the least proof of
the linguipotence of the Apostles, but the clear-
est proofs of the contrary : and I doubt whe-
ther we have even as decisive a victory over
the Romanists in our Middletonian, Farmerian,
and Douglasian dispute concerning the mira-
cles of the first two centuries and their assumed
contrast in genere with those of the Apostles
and the Apostolic age, as we have in most other
of our Protestant controversies.
N. B. These opinions of Middleton and his
more cautious followers are no part of our real
Church doctrine. This passion for law Court
evidence began with Grotius.
lb. p. 246.
We conceived there needs no more to be said for justifying
the imposition of the ceremonies by law established than what
is contained in the beginning- of this Section. * * * Inas-
much as lawful authority hath already determined the ceremo-
nies in question to be decent and orderly, and to serve to edifi-
cation : and consequently to be agreeable to the general rules
of the Word.
To a self-convinced and disinterested lover
of the Church of England, it gives an indes-
cribable horror to observe the frequency, with
which the Prelatic party after the Restoration
Baxter's life of himself. i<>!>
appeal to the laws as of equal authority with
tlu1 express words of Scripture ; — as if the law s,
by them appealed to, were other than the vin-
dictive determinations of their own furious
partizans ; — as if the same appeals might not
have been made by Homier and Gardiner un-
der Philip and Mary! Why should 1 speak
of the inhuman sophism that, because it is silly
in my neighbour to break his egg at the broad
rod when the Squire and the Vicar have de-
clared their predilection for the narrow end,
therefore it is right for the Squire and the Vicar
to hang and quarter him for his silliness :— for
it comes to that.
lb. p. 248.
To you it is indifferent before your imposition : and therefore
i may without any regret of your own consciences forbear
tin- imposition, or persuade the law makers to forbear it. lint
to n: those that dissent from you, they arc .sinful, &c.
Hut what is all this, good worthy Baxter, but
\ ing and unsaying ! If they are not indiffer-
ent, why did you previously concede them to
be Buch ? In short nothing can be more piti-
ably weak than the conduct of the Presbyterian
party from the first capture of Charles I. Com-
mon sense required, either a bold denial that
the ( hurch had power in ceremonies more than
in doctrines, or that the Parliament was the
Church, since it is the Parliament that enacts
all these things; — or if they admitted the au-
thority law fnl and tin ceremonies only, in then-
110 NOTES ON
mind, inexpedient, good God ! can self-will
more plainly put on the cracked mask of ten-
der conscience than by refusal of obedience?
What intolerable presumption, to disqualify as
ungodly and reduce to null the majority of the
country, who preferred the Liturgy, in order to
force the long winded vanities of bustling God-
orators on those who would fain hear prayers,
not spouting !
lb. p. 249.
The great controversies between the hypocrite and the true
Christian, whether we should be serious in the practice of the
religion which we commonly profess, hath troubled England
more than any other ; — none being more hated and divided as
Puritans than those that will make religion their business, &c.
Had not the Governors had bitter proofs that
there are other and more cruel vices than swear-
ing and careless living ; — and that these were
predominant chiefly among such as made their
religion their business?
lb.
And whereas you speak of opening a gap to Sectaries for
private conventicles, and the evil consequents to the state, we
only desire you to avoid also the cherishing of ignorance and
profaneness, and suppress all Sectaries, and spare not, in a way
that will not suppress the means of knowledge and godliness.
The present company, that is, our own dear
selves, always excepted.
lb. p. 250.
Otherwise the poor undone Churches of Christ will no more
believe you in such professions than we believed that those men
BAXTER > LIFE OF HIMSELF. 1 1 I
intended the King's just power and greatness, who took away
his life.
Or who, like Baxter, joined the armies that
were showering cannon balls and bullets around
his inviolable person! Whenever by reading
the Prelatical writings and histories, 1 have
had an over dose of anti- Prelatism in my feel-
ings, I then correct it by dipping into the works
of the Presbyterians, and their fellows, and so
bring myself to more charitable thoughts re-
specting the PrelatistS, and fully subscribe to
Milton's assertion, that " Presbyter was but Old
Priest writ large."
lb. p. 254.
The apocrypha] matter of your lessons in Tobit, Judith,
Bel and the Dragon, &c, is scarce agreeable to the word of
God.
Dot- not .hide refer to an apocryphal book?
lb.
Our experience unresistibly convinceth us that a continued
prayer doth more to help mosl of the people, and carry on their
-. than turning almost everypetition into a distinct prayer;
and making prefaces and conclusions to be near half the pray-
This now is the very point 1 most admire in
our excellent Liturgy. To any particular pe-
tition offered to the < mniixient, there may be
a sinking of faith, a sense of its superfluity ;
but to the lifting up of the soul to the Invisible
and there fixing it on his attributes, there can
be no scruple.
1 12 NOTES ON
lb. p. 257.
The not abating of the impositions is the carting" oft of many
hundreds of your brethren out of the ministry, and of many
thousand Christians out of your communion; but the abating
of the impositions will so offend you as to silence or excommu-
nicate none of you at all. For example, we think it a sin to sub-
scribe, or swear canonical obedience, or use the transient image
of the Cross in Baptism, and therefore these must cast us out, &c.
As long as independent single Churches, or
voluntarily synodical were forbidden and pun-
ishable by penal law, this argument remained
irrefragable. The imposition of such trifles
under such fearful threats was the very bitter-
ness of spiritual pride and vindictiveness; —
after the law passed by which things became
as they now are, it was a mere question of ex-
pediency for the National Church to determine
in relation to its own comparative interests. If
the Church chose unluckily, the injury has
been to itself alone.
It seems strange that such men as Baxter
should not see that the use of the ring, the
surplice and the like, are indifferent according
to his own confession, yea, mere trifles, in com-
parison with the peace of the Church ; but that
it is no trifle, that men should refuse obedience
to lawful authority in matters indifferent, and
prefer the sin of schism to offending their
taste and fancy. The Church did not, upon
the whole, contend for a trifle, nor for an indif-
ferent matter, but for a principle on which all
order in society must depend. Still this is
BAX rER S LIFE OF HIMSELF. 1 I '.\
true only, provided the Church enacts no ordi-
nances that are not necessary or al least plainly
conducive to order or (generally) to the ends
tor which it is a Church. Besides, the point
which the Kinu had required them toconsidt r
\\;i< not what ordinances it was right to obey,
but what it was expedient to enact or not to
enact.
11). p. -H?J.
That the Pastors of the respective parishes may he allowed
ii"r only publicly to preach, hut personally to catechize or other-
■ instruct tl ral families, admitting none to the Lot
• bare not personally owned their Baptismal covenant
by a credihle p Q of faith and obedience ; and to admo
nish and exhort the scandalous, in order to their repentance:
near the witnesses and the accused party, and to appoint lit
times and places tor these things, and to deny such persons the
Communion of the Church in the holy Eucharist, that remain
impenitent, or that wilfully refuse to come to their Pastors to
be instructed, or to answer such prohable accusations; and to
continue such exclusion of them till they have made a credible
orofession of repentance, and then to receive them again to the
communion of the Church ; — provided there be place for due
appeals to superior power.
Suppose only such men Pastors as are now
most improperly, whether as boast or as sneer,
called Evangelical, what an insufferable ty-
ranny would this introduce! Who would not
rather live in Algiers ! This alone would make
this minute history of the ecclesiastic factions
invaluable, that it must convince all sober lovi
of independence and moral self-government,
how dearly we ought to prize ourpresentChurch
Establishment with all its faults.
VOL. iv. i
114 NOTES ON
lb. p. 272.
Therefore we humbly crave that your Majesty will here de-
clare, that it is your Majesty's pleasure that none be punished
or troubled for not using the Book of Common Prayer, till it
be effectually reformed by divines of both persuasions equally
deputed thereunto.
The dispensing power of the Crown not only
acknowledged, but earnestly invoked ! Cruel
as the conduct of Laud and that of Sheldon to
the Dissentients was, yet Gods justice stands
clear towards them ; for they demanded that
from others, which they themselves would not
grant. They were to be allowed at their own
fancies to denounce the ring in marriage, and
yet impowered to endungeon, through the ma-
gistrate, the honest and peaceable Quaker for
rejecting the outward ceremony of water in
Baptism, as seducing men to take it as a sub-
stitute for the spiritual reality ; — though the
Quakers, no less than themselves, appealed to
Scripture authority — the Baptist's own con-
trast of Christ's with the water Baptism.
lb. p. 273.
We are sure that kneeling in any adoration at all, in any
worship, on any Lord's Day in the year, or any week day be-
tween Easter and Pentecost, was not only disused, but forbid-
den by General Councils, &c. — and therefore that kneeling in the
act of receiving is a novelty contrary to the decrees and prac-
tice of the Church for many hundred years after the Apostles.
Was not this because kneeling was the agreed
sign of sorrow and personal contrition, which
was not to be introduced into the public wor~
BAXTERS LI IT. OP HIMSELF. I 1 .">
ship on the great day and the solemn seasons
of the Church's joy and thanksgiving? If so,
Baxters appeal to this usage is a gross sophism,
a mere pun.
II). p. 308.
Ba.\ter'> Exceptions to the Common Prayer Book,
i. Order requireth that we begin with reverent praver to
! for his acceptance and assistance, which is not done.
Enunciation of Clods invitations, and pro-
mises in God's own words, as in the Common
Prayer Book, much better.
'-. That the Creed and Decalogue containing- the faith, in
which we profess to assemble for God's worship, and the law
which we have broken by our sins, should go before the con-
ion and Absolution; or at least before the praises of the
Church ; which they do not.
Might have deserved consideration, if the
people or the larger number consisted of unin-
structed catechumeni, or mere candidates for
( hurch-membership. But the object being,
not the first teaching of the Creed and Deca-
logue, but the lively reimpressing of the same,
it is much better as it is.
3. The Confession oruitteth not only original sin, but all ac-
tual sin as specified by the particular commandments violated,
and almost all the a<*-irravation> of those sins. * * * \\ h« reas
confession, being the expression of repentance, should he more
particular, as repentance itself should be.
Grounded on one of the grand errors of the
whole Dissenting party, namely, the confusion
of public common prayer, praise, and instrue-
116 NOTES ON
tion, with domestic and even with private de-
votion. Our Confession is a perfect model for
Christian communities.
4. When we have craved help for God's prayers, before we
come to them, we abruptly put in the petition for speedy de-
liverance— (0 God, make speed to save us : 0 Lord make haste
to help us,) without any intimation of the danger that we de-
sire deliverance from, and without any other petition conjoined.
5. It is disorderly in the manner, to sing- the Scripture in a
plain tune after the manner of reading.
6. (7 lie Lord be with you. And with thy spirit,) being pe-
titions for divine assistance, come in abruptly in the midst or
near the end of morning prayer: And (Let us pray.) is ad-
joined when we were before in prayer.
Mouse-like squeak and nibble.
7. (Lord have mercy upon us : Christ have mercy upon vs :
Lord have mercy upon us.) seemeth an affected tautology with-
out any special cause or order here ; and the Lord's Prayer is
annexed that was before recited, and yet the next words are
again but a repetition of the aforesaid oft repeated general ( O
Lord, sheiv thy mercy upo?i us.)
Still worse. The spirit in which this and
similar complaints originated has turned the
prayers of Dissenting ministers into irreverent
preachments, forgetting that tautology in words
and thoughts implies no tautology in the music
of the heart to which the words are, as it were,
set, and that it is the heart that lifts itself up to
God. Our words and thoughts are but parts
of the enginery which remains with ourselves ;
and logic, the rustling dry leaves of the lifeless
reflex faculty, does not merit even the name of
a pulley or lever of devotion.
BAXTERS LIFE OF HIMSELF. 1 17
8. The prayer for the King \<> Lord, sure the King.) is
without anv order put between the foresaid petition ami another
teral request onlv for audience. (And mercifully hear us
n ue call upon thee).
A trifle, but just.
9. The second Collect is intituled (For Peace.) and hath
n. -t ■ word in it of petition tor peace, hut only for defence in
tnd that we may not fear their power.
And the pi • - (in knowledge of whom standetk, $c. and
irh DO more evident respect to a petition
for than to any other. And the prayer itself comes in
ly. while many prayers or petitions are omitted, which
irding both to the method of the Lord's Prayer, and the
nature of the things, should go before,
1". The third Collect intituled {For Grace.) is disorderly,
. * * • And thus the main parts of prayer, according to
the rule of the Lord's Prayer and our common necessities, are
omitted.
Not wholly unfounded: but the objection
proceeds on an arbitrary and (I think) false as-
sumption, that the Lords Prayer was univers-
ally prescriptive in form and arrangement.
12. The Litanv * * omitteth very many particulars, * *
and it is exceeding disorderly, following no just rules of method.
Haring begged pardon of our sins, and deprecated vengeance,
it proceedeth to evil in general, and some few sins in particular,
and thence to a more particular enumeration of judgments ; and
thence to a recitation of the parts of that work of our redemp-
tion, and thence to the deprecation of judgments again, and
thence to pravers for the King and magistrates, and then for all
nations, and then for love and obedience, &c.
The very points here objected to as faults I
should have selected as exc< Uencies. Tor do
not the duties and temptations occur in real
life even so intermingled * The imperfection
1 18 NOTES ON
of thought much more of language, so singly
successive, allows no better representation of
the close neighbourhood, nay the co-inherence
of duty in duty, desire in desire. Every want
of the heart pointing Godward is a chiliagon
that touches at a thousand points. From these
remarks I except the last paragraph of s. 12,
(As to the prayer for Bishops and Curates and the position of
the General Thanksgiving, &c.)
which are defects so palpable and so easily re-
moved, that nothing but antipathy to the ob-
jectors could have retained them.
13. The like defectiveness and disorder is in the Communion
Collects for the day. * * There is no more reason why it
should be appropriate to that day than another, or rather be a
common petition for all days, &c.
I do not see how these supposed improprie-
ties, for want of appropriateness to the day,
could be avoided without risk of the far greater
evil of too great appropriation to particular
Saints and days as in Popery. I am so far a
Puritan that I think nothing would have been
lost, if Christmas day and Good Friday had
been the only week days made holy days, and
Easter the only Lords day especially distin-
guished. I should also have added Whitsun-
day ; but that it has become unmeaning since
our Clergy have, as I grieve to think, become
generally Arminian, and interpreting the de-
scent of the Spirit as the gift of miracles and
of miraculous infallibility by inspiration have
Baxter's life of himsei r. 119
rendered it of course of little or no application
to Christians at present. Yet how can Armi-
aians pray our Church prayers collectively on
any day ? Answer. See a l><><i constrictor with
an ox or deer. What they do swallow, proves
astounding a dilatability of gullet, that it
would be unconscionable strictness to complain
of the horns, antlers, or other indigestible non-
sentials being suffered to rot oil' at the con-
fines, tpK<K o&Jvrwv. But to write seriously on
serious a subject, it is mournful to reflect
that the influence of the systematic theology
then in fashion with the anti-Prelatic divines,
whether Episcopalians or Presbyterians, had
quenched all fineness of mind, all flow of heart,
ail grandeur of imagination in them; while the
victorious party, the Prelatic Arminians, en-
riched as they were with all learning and highly
gifted with taste and judgment, had emptied
;< \ elation of all the doctrines that can properly
be said to have been revealed, and thus equally
caused the extinction of the imagination, and
quenched the life in the light by withholding
the appropriate fuel and the supporters of the
tiered flame. So that, between both parties,
our transcendent Liturgy remains like an an-
cient Greek temple, a monumental proof of the
architectural genius of an age long departed,
when there Mere giants in the land.
lb. p. 337.
\- I mu proceeding, Bishop Morley interrupted me accord-
ing t«. hi> manner, with vehemencv crvingout * * The Bin-
\'2V) NOTES ON
hop interrupted me again * * I attempted to speak, and still
he interrupted me * * Bishop Morley went on, talking- louder
than I, &c.
The Bishops appear to have behaved inso-
lently enough. Safe in their knowledge of
Charles's inclinations, they laughed in their
sleeves at his commission. Their best answer
would have been to have pressed the anti-im-
positionists with their utter forgetfulness of the
possible, nay, very probable differences of opi-
nion between the ministers and their congrega-
tions. A vain minister might disgust a sober
congregation with his extempore prayers, or his
open contempt of their kneeling at the Sacra-
ment, and the like. Yet by what right if he
acts only as an individual ? And then what an
endless source of disputes and preferences of
this minister or of that !
lb. p. 341.
The paper offered by Bishop Cosins.
1. That the question may be put to the managers of the divi-
sion, Whether there be anything in the doctrine, or discipline,
or the Common Prayer, or ceremonies, contrary to the word of
God ; and if they can make any such appear; let them be sa-
tisfied.
2. If not, let them propose what they desire in point of ex-
pediency, and acknowledge it to be no more.
This was proposed, doubtless, by one of your
sensible men ; it is so plain, so plausible, shal-
low, nihili, nauci,pili,Jlocci-cal. Why, the very
phrase "contrary to the word of God" would
take a month to define, and neither party agree
BAXTERS LIFE Ol HIMSELF. I "J I
at last. One party says: — The Church has
power from God's word to order all matters of
order so as shall appear to them to conduce to
decency and edification: but ceremonies re-
ap* i i the orderly performance of divine service :
jro, the Church has power to ordain ceremo-
nies : hut the ( Jross in baptizing is a ceremony ;
the (lunch has power to prescribe the
crossing in Baptism. What is rightfully ordered
cannot be rightfully withstood : — but the cross-
ing, v\< ., is rightfully ordered: — ergo, the
< rossing cannot be rightfully omitted. To this,
how easily Mould the other party reply;— I.
That a small number of Bishops could not be
lied the Church: — 2. That no one Church
had power or pretence from God's word to
prescribe concerning mere matters of outward
decency and convenience to other Churches
or assemblies of Christian people: — .3. That
the blending an unnecessary and suspicious,
if not superstitious, motion of the hand with
a necessary and essential act doth in no wise
respect order or propriety: — Lastly, that to
forbid a man to obey a direct command of
God because he will not join with it an ad-
mitted mere tradition of men, is contrary to
common sense, no less than to God's word,
pressly and by breach of charity, which is
the great end and purpose.- of God's word.
li«-ide<: might not the Pop* and his shave-
lingS have made the same proposition to th<
Reformers in the reign of Edward VI., in
122 NOTES ON
respect to the greater part of the idle super-
fluities which were rejected by the Reformers,
only as idle and superfluous, and for that
reason contrary to the spirit of the Gospel,
though few, if any, were in the direct teeth of
a positive prohibition? Above all, an honest
policy dictates that the end in view being fully
determined, as here for instance, the preclu-
sion of disturbance and indecorum in Christian
assemblies, every addition to means, already
adequate to the securing of that end, tends to
frustrate the end, and is therefore evidently
excluded from the prerogatives of the Church,
(however that word may be interpreted) inas-
much as its power is confined to such cere-
monies and regulations as conduce to order
and general edification. In short it grieves
me to think that the Heads of the most Apos-
tolical Church in Christendom should have
insisted on three or four trifles, the abolition
of which could have given offence to none but
such as from the baleful superstition that alone
could attach importance to them effectually,
it was charity to offend ; — when all the rest of
Baxter's objections might have been answered
so triumphantly.
lb. p. 343.
Answer to the foresaid paper.
8. That none may be a preacher, that dare not subscribe that
there is nothing- in the Common Prayer Book, the Book of Or-
dination, and the 39 Articles, that, is contrary to the word of
God .
BAXTER S LIFE Ol HIMSELF. I *2.'>
1 think this might have been left out as well
as the other two articles mentioned by Baxter.
For as by the words "contran to the word of
* *
God'" in Cosins's paper, it was not meant to
declare tin ( oinmon Prayer Book free from all
ror, the sense must have been, that there is
not anything in it in such a way or degree con-
trarv to God's word, as to oblige us to assign
sin to those who have overlooked it, or who
think the same compatible with God's word,
or who, though individually disapproving the
particular thing, yet regard that acquiescence
an allowed sacrifice of individual opinion to
modesty, charity, and zeal for the peace of the
( hurch. For observe that this eighth instance
is additional to, and therefore not inclusive of,
the preceding seven : otherwise it must have
been placed as the first, or rather as the whole,
the seven following being motives and instances
in support and explanation of the point.
lb. p. 368.
Let me mediate here between Baxter and
the Bishops: Baxter had taken for granted that
the King had aright to promise a revision of the
Liturgy, Canons and regiment of the Church,
and that the Bishops ought to have met him
and his friends as diplomatists on even ground.
The Bishops could not with discretion openly
avow all they meant ; and it would be bigotrv
to deny that the spirit of compromise had no
124 NOTES ON
indwelling in their feelings or intents. But
nevertheless it is true that they thought more
in the spirit of the English Constitution than
Baxter and his friends.—" This," thought they,
" is the law of the land, quam nolumus mutari ;
and it must be the King with and by the advice
of his Parliament, that can authorize any part
of his subjects to take the question of its repeal
into consideration. Under other circumstances
a King might bring the Bishops and the Heads
of the Romish party together to plot against
the law of the land. No ! we would have no
other secret Committees but of Parliamentary
appointment. We are but so many individuals.
It is in the Legislature that the congregations,
the party most interested in this cause, meet col-
lectively by their representatives." — Lastly, let
it not be overlooked, that the root of the bitter-
ness was common to both parties, — namely, the
conviction of the vital importance of uniformity ;
— and this admitted, surely an undoubted ma-
jority in favor of what is already law must
decide whose uniformity it is to be.
lb. p. 368.
We must needs believe that when your Majesty took our con-
sent to a Liturgy to be a foundation that would infer our con-
cord, you meant not that we should have no concord but by
consenting- to this Liturgy without any considerable alteration.
This is forcible reasoning, but which the
Bishops could fairly leave for the King to an-
Baxter's life of himself. 125
swer ;— the contract tacit or expressed, being
between him and the anti-Prelatic Presbytero-
Episcopalian party, to which neither the Bishops
nor the Legislature ha<l acceded or assented.
If Baxter and Calamy were so little imbued
with the spirit of the Constitution as to consi-
der Charles II. as the breath of their nostrils,
ami this dread sovereign Breath in its passage
gave a snort or a snuffle, or having led them to
expect a snuffle surprised them with a snort,
let the reproach be shared between the Breath's
fetid conscience and the nostrils' nasoductility.
The traitors to the liberty of their country who
were swarming and intriguing for favor at
Breda when they should have been at their
post in Parliament or in the Lobby preparing
terms and conditions ! — Had all the ministers
that were afterwards ejected and the Presby-
terian party generally exerted themselves,
heart and soul, with Monk's soldiers, and in
collecting those whom .Monk had displaced,
and, instead of carrying on treasons against
the Government dejacto by mendicant nego-
ciations with Charles, had taken open mea-
sures to confer the sceptre on him as the Scotch
did, — whose stern and truly loyal conduct has
been most unjustly condemned, — the schism
in the Church might have been prevented and
the Revolution of 1688 superseded.
N.B. In the above I speak of the Bishops
as men inter* st< d in a litigated estate. Ciod for-
120 NOTES ON
bid, I should seek to justify them as Chris-
tians.
lb. p. 369.
Quiere. Whether in the *20th Article these words are not
inserted ; — Habet Ecclesia auctoritatem in controversies fdei.
Strange, that the evident antithesis between
power in respect of ceremonies, and authority
in points of faith, should have been overlooked !
lb.
Some have published, That there is a proper sacrifice in the
Lord's Supper, to exhibit Christ's death in the post-fact, as
there was a sacrifice to prefigure it in the Old Law in the ante-
fact, and therefore that we have a true altar, and not only
metaphorically so called.
Doubtless a gross error, yet pardonable, for
to errors nearly as gross it was opposed.
lb.
Some have maintained that the Lord's Day is kept merely
by ecclesiastical constitution, and that the day is changeable.
Where shall we find the proof of the con-
trary?— at least, if the position had been worded
thus : The moral and spiritual obligation of
keeping the Lord's Day is grounded on its
manifest necessity, and the evidence of its be-
nignant effects in connection with those con-
ditions of the world of which even in Chris-
tianized countries there is no reason to expect
a change, and is therefore commanded by im-
plication in the New Testament, so clearly and
by so immediate a consequence, as to be no
Baxter's life of himseli . I -27
less binding on the conscience than an explicit
command. A., having lawful authority, ex-
pressly commands me to go to London from
Bristol. There is at present but one sate road :
this therefore is commanded bvA. ; and would
be so, even though A. had spoken of another
road which at that time was open.
II). p. :*7<>.
3 me have broached out of Socinus a most uncomfortable
and desperate doctrine, that late repentance, that is, upon the
last bed of sickness, is unfruitful, at least to reconcile the pe-
nitent to God.
This no doubt refers to Jeremy Taylor's
work on Repentance, and is but too faithful a
(!( scription of its character.
lb. p. 373.
A little after the King was beheaded, Mr. Atkins met this
priest in London, and going- into a tavern with him, said to
him in his familiar way, " What business have you here I I
warrant vou come about some roguery or other. " Whereupon
the priest told it him as a great secret, that there were thirty of
them here in London, who by instructions from Cardinal Ma-
zarine, did take care of such affairs, and had sat in council,
and debated the question, whether the King should be put to
death or not; — and that it was carried in the affirmative, and
there were but two voices for the negative, which was his own
and another's; and that for his part, he could not concur with
them, as foreseeing what misery this would bring upon his
country." Mr. Atkins stood to the truth of this, but thought
it a violation of the laws of friendship to name the man.
Richard Baxter was too thoroughly good for
any experience to make him worldly wise;
else, how could he have been simple enough to
128 NOTES ON
suppose, that Mazarine would leave such a
question to be voted pro and con, and decided
by thirty emissaries in London ! And, how
could he have reconciled Mazarine's having
any share in Charles's death with his own mas-
terly account, pp. 98, 99, 100? Even Crom-
well, though he might have prevented, could
not have effected, the sentence. The regicidal
judges were not his creatures. Consult the Life
of Colonel Hutchinson upon this.
lb. p. 374.
Since this, Dr. Peter Moulin hath, in his Answer to Philanax
Anglicus, declared that he is ready to prove, when authority
will call him to it, that the King's death, and the change of the
government, was first proposed both to the Sorbonne, and to
the Pope with his Conclave, and consented to and concluded
for by both.
The Pope in his Conclave had about the
same influence in Charles's fate as the Pope's
eye in a leg of mutton. The letter intercepted
by Cromwell was Charles's death-warrant.
Charles knew his power ; and Cromwell and
Ireton knew it likewise, and knew that it was
the power of a man who was within a yard's
length of a talisman, only not within an arm's
length, but which in that state of the public
mind, could he but have once grasped it, would
have enabled him to blow up Presbyterian and
Independent both. If ever a lawless act was
defensible on the principle of self-preservation,
the murder of Charles might be defended. I
suspect that the fatal delay in the publication
Baxter's liff. of himself. 129
of the Icon Basilike is susceptible of no other
satisfactory explanation. In short it is absurd
to burthen this act on Cromwell and his party,
in any special sense. The guilt, if guilt it was,
was consummated at the nates of Hull ; that is,
the first moment that Charles was treated as
an individual, man against man. Whatever
right Hampden had to defend his life against
the King in battle, Cromwell and Ireton had
in yet more imminent danger against the King's
plotting. Milton's reasoning on this point is
unanswerable : and what a wretched hand does
Baxter make of it !
lb. p. 375.
But if the laws of the land appoint the nohles, as next the
King, to assist him in doing; right, and withhold him from
doing wrong, then he they licensed by man's law, and so not
prohibited by God's, to interpose themselves for the safety of
equity and innocency, and by all lawful and needful means to
procure the Prince to be reformed, but in no case deprived,
where the sceptre is inherited! So far Bishop Bilson.
Excellent! O, by all means preserve for
him the benefit of his rightful heir-loom, the
regal sceptre; only lay it about his shoulders,
till lie promises to handle it, as ho ought ! But
what if he breaks Ii is promise and your head?
or what if he will not promise? How much
honester would it be to say, that extreme cases
are ipso nomine not general izable, — therefore
not the subjects of a law, which is the conclu-
sion per genus singuli in genere inclusi. Every
\(>L. IV. K
130 NOTES ON
extreme case must be judged by and for itself
under all the peculiar circumstances. Now as
these are not foreknowable, the case itself can-
not be predeterminable. Harmodius and Aris-
togiton did not j ustify Brutus and Cassius :
but neither do Brutus and Cassius criminate
Harmodius and Aristogiton. The rule applies
till an extreme case occurs; and how can this
be proved ? I answer, the only proof is success
and good event ; for these afford the best pre-
sumption, first, of the extremity, and secondly,
of its remediable nature — the two elements of
its justification. To every individual it is for-
bidden. He who attempts it, therefore, must
do so on the presumption that the will of the
nation is in his will : whether he is mad or in
his senses, the event can alone determine.
lb. p. 398.
The governing power and obligation over the flock is essen-
tial to the office of a Pastor or Presbyter as instituted by
Christ.
There is, J>c ifioiye Soku, one flaw in Baxter's
plea for his Presbyterian form of Church go-
vernment, that he uses a metaphor, which, in-
asmuch as it is but a metaphor, agrees with
the thing meant in some points only, as if it
were commensurate in toto, and virtually iden-
tical. Thus, the Presbyter is a shepherd as far
as the watchfulness, tenderness, and care, are
to be the same in both ; but it does not follow
that the Presbyter has the same sole power and
Baxter's liff. of himself. 131
i xclusive right of guidance; and for this reason,
— that his flock are not sheep, but men ; not of
a natural, generic, or even constant inferiority
of judgment; but Christians, co-heirs of the
promises, and therein of the uifts of the Holy
Spirit, and of the interpretation of the Holy
Scripturt - How then can they be excluded
from a share in Church Government? The
words of Christ, if they may be transferred
from their immediate application to the Jewish
Synagogue, suppose the contrary; — and that
highest act of government, the election of the
officers and ministers of the Church, was eon-
ssedly exercised by the congregations inclu-
ding the Presbyters and Arch-presbyter or
Bishop, in the primitive Church. The question,
therefore, is: — Isa national Church, established
by law, compatible with Christianity? If so,
Baxter held, the representatives (King,
Lords, and Commons,) are or may be repre-
sentatives of the whole people as Christians
Bfl well as civil subjects ; — and their voice will
then l»c the voice of the Church, which every
individual, as an individual, themselves as in-
dividuals, and. a fortiori, the officers and ad-
ministrators appointed by them, are bound to
obey at the risk of excommunication, against
which there would be no appeal, but to the
heavenly Caesar, the Lord and Head of the
universal ( lunch. Hut whether as the ac-
credited representatives and plenipotentiaries
of the national Church, they can avail them-
132 NOTES ON
selves of their conjoint but distinct character,
as temporal legislators, to superadd corporal
or civil penalties to the spiritual sentence in
points peculiar to Christianity, as heretical
opinions, Church ceremonies, and the like, thus
destroying discipline, even as wood is destroyed
by combination with fire ; — this is a new and
difficult question, which yet Baxter and the
Presbyterian divines, and the Puritans of that
age in general, not only answered affirmatively,
but most zealously, not to say furiously, af-
firmed with anathemas to the assertors of the
negative, and spiritual threats to the magis-
trates neglecting to interpose the temporal
sword. In this respect the present Dissenters
have the advantage over their earlier prede-
cessors ; but on the other hand they utterly
evacuate the Scriptural commands against
schism ; take away all sense and significance
from the article respecting the Catholic Church ;
and in consequence degrade the discipline it-
self into mere club-regulations or the by-laws
of different lodges ; — that very discipline, the
capability of exercising which in its own spe-
cific nature without superinduction of a de-
structive and transmutual opposite, is the fairest
and firmest support of their cause. 20th Oc-
tober, 1829.
lb. p. 401.
That sententially it. must be done by tbe Pastor or Governor
of that particular Church, winch the person is to be admitted
into, or cast out of.
BAXTERS LIFE OF HIMSELF. 133
This most arbitrary appropriation of the
words of Christ, and of* the apostles. John and
Paul, by the Clergy to themselves exclusively,
is the np&rov \peu$oq, the fatal error which has
practically excluded Church discipline from
among Protestants in all free countries. That
it is retained, and an efficient power, among
the Quakers, and only in that Sect, who act
collective! 3 as a Church,— who not only have
no proper Clergy, but will not allow a division
of majority and minority, nor a temporary
president, — seems to supply an unanswerable
confirmation of this my assertion, sad a strong
presumption for the validity of my argument.
The Wesleyan Methodists have, I know, a
discipline, and the power is in their consistory,
—a genera] cone lave of priests cardinal since
the (hath of Pope Wesley. But what divisions
and secessions this has given rise to; what dis-
contents and heart-burnings it still occasions
in their labouring inferior ministers, and in the
classes, is no less notorious, and may authorize
at
a belief that as the Sect increases, it will he
less and less effective; nay, that it has de-
creased; and after all, what is it compared
with the discipline of the Quakers ? — Baxter's
inconsistency on this subject would be inex-
plicable, did we not know his zealotry against
Harrington, the Deists and the Mystics; — so
that, like an electrified pith-ball, he is for ever
attracted towards their tenets concerning the
pretended perfecting of spiritual sentences by
134 NOTES ON
the civil magistrate, but he touches only to
fly off again. " Toleration ! dainty word for
soul-murder! God grant that my eye may
never see a toleration !" he exclaims in his
book against Harrington's Oceana.
lb. p. 405.
As for the democratical conceit of them that say that the
Parliament hath their governing power, as they are the peo-
ple's representatives, and so have the members of the convo-
cation, though those represented have no governing power
themselves, it is so palpably self-contradicting, that I need not
confute it.
Self-contradicting according to Baxter's
sense of the words " represent" and " govern."
But every rational adult has a governing
power : namely, that of governing himself.
lb. p. 412.
That though a subject ought to take an oath in the sense of
his rulers who impose it, as far as he can understand it; yet
a man that taketh an oath from a robber to save his life is not
always bound to take it in the imposer's sense, if he take it
not against the proper sense of the words.
This is a point, on which I have never been
able to satisfy myself. — The only safe conclu-
sion I have been able to draw, being the folly,
mischief, and immorality of all oaths but judi-
cial ones, — and those no farther excepted than
as they are means of securing a deliberate
consciousness of the presence of the Omniscient
Judge. The inclination of my mind is at this
moment, to the principle that an oath may
BAXTERS LIFE OF HIMSELF. 135
deepen the guilt of an act sinful in itself, hut
cannot be detached from the act ; it being
understood that a perfectly voluntary and self-
imposed oath is itself a sin. The man who
compels me to take an oath by putting a pistol
to my ear has in my mind clearly forfeited all
his right to be treated as a moral auent. Nay,
it seems to be a sin to act so as to induce him
to suppose himself such. Contingent conse-
quences must be excluded ; but would, I am
persuaded, weigh in favour of annulling on
principle an oath sinfully extorted. But I
hate casuistry so utterly, that I could not with-
out great violence to my feelings put the case
in all its bearings. For example : — it is sinful
to enlarge the power of wicked agents ; but to
allow them to have the power of binding the
conscience of those, whom they have injured,
- to enlarge the power, &c. Again : no oath
can bind to the perpetration of a sin ; but to
transfer a sum of money from its rightful owner
to a villain is a sin, £:c. and twenty other
such. I5ut the robber may kill the next man !
Possibly : but still more probably, many, who
would be robbers if they could obtain their
ends without murder, would resist the temp-
tation if no extenuations of guilt were contem-
plated;—and one murder is more effective in
rousing the public mind to preventive mea-
sures, and by the horror it strike s, i- made more
directly preventive of the tendency, than fifty
civil robberies by contract.
136 NOTES ON
lb. p. 435.
That the minister be not bound to read the Liturgy himself,
if another, by whomsoever, be procured to do it ; so be it he
preach not against it.
Wonderful, that so good and wise a man as
Baxter should not have seen that in this the
Church would have given up the best, perhaps
the only efficient, preservative of her Faith.
But for our blessed and truly Apostolic and
Scriptural Liturgy, our churches' pews would
long ago have been filled by Arians and So-
cinians, as too many of their desks and pulpits
already are.
Part III. p. 59.
As also to make us take such a poor suffering as this for a
sign of true grace, instead of faith, hope, love, mortification,
and a heavenly mind ; and that the loss of one grain of love
was worse than a long imprisonment.
Here Baxter confounds his own particular
case, which very many would have coveted,
with the sufferings of other prisoners on the
same score ; — sufferings nominally the same,
but with few, if any, of Baxters almost flatter-
ing supports.
lb. p. 60.
It would trouble the reader for me to reckon up the many
diseases and dangers for these ten years past, in or from which
God hath delivered me ; though it be my duty not to forget
to be thankful. Seven months together I was lame with a
strange pain in one foot, twice delivered from a bloody flux ;
a spurious cataract in my eye, with incessant webs and net-
BAXTER S LIFE OF HIMSELF. 137
works before it, bath continued these eight years, * * * so that
I nave rarely one hour's or quarter of an hour's ease. Yel
through God's mercy I was never one hour melancholy, &c,
The power of the soul, by its own act of
will, is, 1 admit, meat for any one occasion or
for a definite time, yea, it is marvellous. But
of Blich exertions and such an even frame of
spirit, as Baxter's were, under such unremit-
ting and almost unheard-of bodily derange-
ments and pains as his, and during so lung a
life, 1 do not believe a human bouI capable,
unless substantiated and successively pptenti-
■ 1 by an especial divine grace.
lb. p. 65.
reasons why 1 make no larger a profession necessary
than the Creed and Scriptures, are, because if we depart from
this old sufficient Catholic rule, we narrow the Church, and
'It-part from the old Catholicism.
Why then any Creed ? This is the difficulty.
If yon put the Creed as in fact, and not by
courtesy, Apostolic, and on a parity with Scrip-
ture, having, namely, its authority in itself, and
a direct inspiration of the trainers, inspired ad
id tempus ei ad cam rem, on what ground is this
to be done, without admitting the binding
power of tradition in the very sense of the term
in which the Church of Home uses it, and the
Protestant Churches reject it? That it is the
sum total made by Apostolic contributions,
each Apostle casting, as into a helmet, a seve-
ral article as his rrv/ttio\or, is the tradition ;
138 NOTES ON
and this is holden as a mere legendary tale by
the great majority of learned divines. That
it is simply the Creed of the Western Church
is affirmed by many Protestant divines, and
some of these divines of our Church. Its
comparative simplicity these divines explain
by the freedom from heresies enjoyed by
the Western Church, when the Eastern Church
had been long troubled therewith. Others,
again, and not implausibly, contend that it
was the Creed of the Catechumens preparatory
to the Baptismal profession of faith, which
other was a fuller comment on the union of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, into
whose name (or power) they were baptised.
That the Apostles' Creed received additions
after the Apostolic age, seems almost certain ;
not to mention the perplexing circumstance
that so many of the Latin Fathers, who give
almost the words of the Apostolic Creed, de-
clare it forbidden absolutely to write or by
any material form to transmit the Canon Fidei,
or Symbolic m or IZegula Fidei, the Creed kut'
efryjiv, by analogy of which the question whe-
ther such a book was Scripture or not, was to
be tried. With such doubts how can the
Apostles' Creed be preferred to the Nicene by
a consistent member of the Reformed Catholic
Church?
lb. p. 67.
They think while you (the Independents) seem to be for a
BAXTER s LIFE OF HIMSELF. 13!)
stricter discipline than others, that your way or usual practice
tended) to extirpate godliness out of the land, by taking a
very few that can talk more than the rest, and making- them
the Church, &c.
Had Baxter had as judicious advisers anion"-
ii is theological, as he had among his legal,
friends; and had he allowed them equal iu-
lluence with him ; he would not, I suspect,
have written this irritating and too egometical
paragraph. But Baxter would have disbe-
lieved a prophet who had foretold that almost
the whole orthodoxy of the Xon-conlbrmists
Mould be retained and preserved by the Inde-
pendent congregations in England, after the
Presbyterian had almost without exception
become, tirst, Arian, then Socinian, and finally
Unitarian : that is, the demi-semi-quaver of
Christianity, Arminianism being taken for the
semi-breve.
lb. p. (>«).
After this I waited on him (Dr. John Owen) at London
in, and he came once to me to my lodyin^s, when I was
in town near him. And he told me that he received my chid-
letter and perceived that I suspected his reality in the
unesfl ; hut he was so hearty in it that I should see that he
really meant as he spoke, concluding in these words, " You
shall see it, and my practice shall reproach your diffidence"
* * *. About a month after I went to him again, and he had
done nothing, hut was still hearty for the work. And to be
:t, ! thus waited on him time after time, till my papers
bad been near a year and a quarter in his hand, and then I
advised him to return them to me, which he did, with th<
words, ■• 1 am still a well-wisher to those mathematics;" —
without any other words about them, or ever giving me any more
140 NOTES ON
exception against them. And this was the issue of my third
attempt for union with the Independents.
Dr. Owen was a man of no ordinary intel-
lect. It would be interesting to have his con-
duct in this point, seemingly so strange, in
some measure explained : The words " those
mathematics" look like an inuendo, that Bax-
ter's scheme of union, by which all the parties
opposed to the Prelatic Church were to form
a rival Church, was, like the mathematics,
true indeed, but true only in the idea, that is,
abstracted from the subject matter. Still there
appears a very chilling want of open-heart-
edness on the part of Owen, produced perhaps
by the somewhat overly and certainly most
ungracious resentments of Baxter. It was odd
at least to propose concord in the tone and on
the alleged ground of an old grudge.
lb.
I have been twenty- six years convinced that dichotomizing-
will not do it, but that the divine Trinity in Unity hath expressed
itself in the whole frame of nature and morality * * *. But he,
Mr. George Lawson, had not hit on the true method of the
vestigia Tri?iitatis, &c.
Among Baxter's philosophical merits, we
ought not to overlook, that the substitution of
Trichotomy for the old and still general plan
of Dichotomy in the method and disposition
of Logic, which forms so prominent and sub-
stantial an excellence in Kant's Critique of
BAXTERS LIFE <»l HIMSELF. II 1
the Pure Reason, of the Judgment, and the
rest of liis works, belongs originally to Richard
Baxter, a century before Kant; — and this not
as a hint, but as a fully evolved and syste-
matically applied principle. Nay, more than
this: — Baxter grounded it on an absolute
idea presupposed in all intelligential aets :
whereas Kant takes it onlv as a fact in which
he seems to anticipate or suspect some yet
*lt < per truth latent, and hereafter to be dis-
< red.
On recollection, however, I am disposed to
consider this alone as Baxter's peculiar chum.
I have not indeed any distinct memory of
Giordano Bruno's Logice Venatrix Veritatis ;
but doubtless the principle of Trichotomy is
necessarily involved in the Polar Logic, which
lin is the same with the Pythagorean Te-
tractys, that is, the eternal fountain or source
of nature; and this being sacred to contempla-
tions of identity, and prior in order of thought
to all division, is so far from interfering with
Trichotomy as the universal form of division
more correctly of distinctive distribution in
logic that it implies it. Pro thesis being by
the very term anterior to Thesis can be no part
of it. Thus in
Proihesis
Thesis Antithesis
Synthesis
we have the Tetrad indeed in the intellectual
142 NOTES ON
and intuitive contemplation, but a Triad in
discursive arrangement, and a Tri-unity in
result.*
lb. p. 144.
Seeing the great difficulties that lie in the
way of increasing charities so as to meet the
increase of population, or even so as to follow
it, and the manifold desirableness of parish
Churches, with the material dignity that in a
right state of Christian order would attach to
them, as compared with meeting-houses, cha-
pels, and the like — all more or less privati juris,
I have often felt disposed to wish that the large
majestic Church, central to each given parish,
mighthavebeen appropriated to Public Prayer,
to the mysteries of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper, and to the quasi sacramenta, Marriage,
Penance, Confirmation, Ordination, and to the
continued reading aloud, or occasional chant-
ing, of the Scriptures during the intervals of
the different Services, which ought to be so
often performed as to suffice successively for
the whole population ; and that on the other
hand the chapels and the like should be en-
tirely devoted to teaching and expounding.
lb. p. 15:3.
And I proved to him that Christianity was proved true many
years before any of the New Testament was written, and that
* See Table Talk, p. 162. 2nd edit. Ed.
I
BAXTERS LIFE OF HIMSELF. 1 J.>
BO it may be still proved by one tlr.it doubted of sonic words of
the Scripture ; and therefore the true order is, to try the truth
of the Christian religion first, and the perfect verity of the
Scriptures afterwards.
With more than Dominican virulence did
Groeze, Head Pastor of the Lutheran Church
at Hamburg, assail the celebrated Lessing for
making and supporting the same position as
the pious Baxter here advances.
This controversy with Goeze was in 1778,
nearly a hundred wars after Baxter's writing
tin'-.
lb. p. 155.
And within a few days .Mr. Barnett riding the circuit was
I by his horse, and died in the very fall. And Sir John
Medlicote and his brother, a few weeks after, lay both dead in
his house together.
This interpreting of accidents and coinci-
dences into judgments is a breach of charity
and humility, only not universal among all sects
and parties of this period, and common to the
best and gentlest men in all; we should not
therefore bring it in charge against any one
in particular. But what excuse shall be made
for the revival of this presumptuous encroach-
ment on the divine prerogative in our days \
lb. p. 180.
V ur this time my book called A Key for Catholics, was
to be reprinted, in the preface to the first impression I had
mentioned with praise the Earl of Lauderdale. * * • j
thought to prefix an epistle to the Duke, in which 1 said
.•iota word of him but truth. * * * But the indignation that
fry
!
0
' -n\ Jo.
144 NOTES ON
men had against the Duke made some hlame me, as keeping up
the reputation of one whom multitudes thought veryill of; where-
as I owned none of his faults, and did nothing that I could well
avoid for the aforesaid reasons. Long after this he professed
his kindness to me, and told me I should never want while he
was ahle, and humbly entreated me to accept twenty guineas
from him, which I did.
This would be a curious proof of the slow and
imperfect intercourse of communication be-
tween Scotland and London, if Baxter had not
been particularly informed of Lauderdale's
horrible cruelties to the Scotch Covenanters :
— and if Baxter did know them, he surely ran
into a greater inconsistency to avoid the ap-
pearance of a less. And the twenty guineas !
they must have smelt, I should think, of more
than the earthly brimstone that might naturally
enough have been expected in gold or silver,
from his palm. I would as soon have plucked
an ingot from the cleft of the Devil's hoof.
Taiir kXeyoi' Trepidv^io^' eyw yap yiicjEi ev \nu>
AavcipOuXor i\w kcl\ KepKOKepoji'v^ SarctJ'.
lb. p. 181.
About that time I had finished a book called Catholic
Thoughts ; in which I undertake to prove that besides things
unrevealed, known to none, and ambiguous words, there is no
considerable difference between the Arminians and Calvinists,
except some very tolerable difference in the point of persever-
ance.
What Arminians? what Calvinists? — It is
possible that the guarded language and posi-
tions of Arminius himself may be interpreted
Baxter's life of himsei i . 145
into ;i " very tolerable" compatibility with tin
principles of the milder Calvinists, such as
Archbishop Leighton, that true Father of the
Church of Christ. But 1 more than doubt the
possibility of even approximating the principles
of Bishop Jeremy Taj lor to the fundamental
doctrines of Leighton, much more to those of
Cartwright, Twiss, or Owen.
lb. j). 186.
Bishop Barlow toid mv friend that got my papers for him,
that he could hear of nothing that we judged to he sin, but
re inconveniences. When as above seventeen years ago, we
publicly endeavoured to prove the sinfulness even of many of
the old impositions.
Clearly an undeterminable controversy; in-
asmuch as there is no contra-definition possi-
ble of sin and inconvenience in religion : while
the exact point, at which an inconvenience,
becoming intolerable, passes into sin, must de-
pend on the state and the degree of light,
of the individual consciences to which it ap-
irs or becomes intolerable. Besides, a thing
may not be only indifferent in itself, but may
be declared such by Scripture, and on this in-
difference the Scripture may have rested a pro-
hibition to Christians to judge each other on
the point. If yet a Pope or Archbishop should
force this on the consciences of others, for ex-
ample, to eat or not to eat animal food, would
he not sin in so doing? And dots Scripture
permit me to subscribe to an ordinance made
in direct contempt of a command of Scripture '.
VOL. IV. L
146 NOTES ON
If it were said, — In all matters indifferent and
so not sinful you must comply with lawful au-
thority : — must I not reply, But you have your-
self removed the indifferency by your injunc-
tion ? Look in Popish countries for the hideous
consequences of the unnatural doctrine — that
the Priest may go to Hell for sinfully com-
manding, and his parishioners go with him for
not obeying that command.
lb. p. 191.
About this time died my dear friend Mr. Thomas Gouge, of
whose life you may see a little in Mr. Clark's last book of Lives :
— a wonder of sincere industry in works of charity. It would
make a volume to recite at large the charity he used to his poor
parishioners at Sepulchre's, before he was ejected and silenced
for non-conformity, &c.
I cannot express how much it grieves me,
that our Clergy should still think it fit and
expedient to defend the measures of the High
Churchmen from Laud to Sheldon, and to
speak of the ejected ministers, Calamy, Bax-
ter, Gouge, Howe, and others, as schismatics,
factionists, fanatics, or Pharisees : — thus to flat-
ter some half-dozen dead Bishops, wantonly de-
priving our present Church of the authority of
perhaps the largest collective number of learn-
ed and zealous, discreet and holy, ministers that
one age and one Church was ever blest with ;
and whose authority in every considerable point
is in -favor of our Church, and against the pre-
sent Dissenters from it. And this seems the
BAX rERS III r OF HIMSE] l . 117
mure impolitic, when it must be clear to every
student of the history of these times, that the
unmanly cruelties inflicted on Baxter and
others were, as Bishops Ward, Stillingfleet, and
ben Baw at the time, part of the Popish
heme of the Cabal, to trick the Bishops and
dignified Clergy into rendering themselves and
the established Church odious to the public
by laws, the execution of which the King,
the Duke, Arlington, and the Popish priests
directed towards the very last man that the
tti>hoi>s t hems. Ives (the great majority at
least) would have moksted.
Appendix II. p. ,37.
If I can prove that it hath been the universal practice of the
Church in nudum apcrtum caput /nanus imponere, doth it
follow that this is essential, and the contrary null ?
How likewise can it be proved that the im-
position of hands in Ordination did not stand
on the same mound as the imposition of hands
in sickness : that is, the miraculous gifts of the
first preachers of the Gospel? All Protestants
admit that the Church retained several forms
originated, after the cessation of the origin-
ating powers, which were the substance of these
forms.
lb.
[f you think not only imposition *o be essential, hut also that
nothing •.:.-.■ is essential, or that all an- true ministers that are
ordained by a lawful Bishop pei manuum impositionem, then
do you eg tediously tibi ijisi i/n •/<>,,
148 NOTES ON
Baxter, like most scholastic logicians, had a
sneaking affection for puns. The cause is, —
the necessity of attending to the primary sense
of words, that is, the visual image or general
relation expressed, and which remains common
to all the after senses, however widely or even
incongruously differing from each other in
other respects. For the same reason, school-
masters are commonly punsters. " I have in-
dorsed your Bill, Sir," said a pedagogue to a
merchant, meaning he had flogged his son Wil-
liam.— My old master the Rev. James Bowyer,
the Hercules fiirens of the phlogistic sect, but
else an incomparable teacher, — used to trans-
late, Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu,
— first reciting the Latin words, and observing
that they were the fundamental article of the
Peripatetic school, — " You must flog a boy,
before you can make him understand ;" — or,
" You must lay it in at the tail before you can
get it into the head-"
lb. p. 45.
Then, that the will must follow the practical intellect whe-
ther right or wrong-, — that is no precept, but the nature of the
soul in its acting, because that the will is potentia cceca, non
nata ad intelligendum, sed ad volendum vel nolendum intel-
lectum.
This is the main fault in Baxters metaphy-
sics, that he so often substantiates distinctions
into dividuous self-subsistents. As here : — for
a will not intelligent is no will.
Baxter's life of himself. I J!>
Appendix. III. p. 55.
And for many ages do other ordinarily baptised but infants.
It' Chri>t had no Church then, where was his wisdom, his love,
and his power ? What was become of the glory of his redemp-
tion, and his ( atholic Church, that was to continue to the end ?
But the Antipoedo- Baptists would deny any
-iich consequences as applicable to them, who
are to act according to the circumstances, in
which God, who ordains his successive mani-
festations in due correspondence with other
Lights and states of things, has placed them.
ile does not exclude from the Church of Christ
i\ they) those whom we do not accept into
the communion of our particular Society, any
more than the House of Lords excludes Com-
moners from being Members of Parliament.
And we do this because we think that such pro-
miscuous admission would prolong an error
which would be deadly to us, though not to you
who interpret the Scriptures otherwise.
In fine.
There are two senses in which the words,
' Church of England," may be used ; — first,
with reference to the idea of the Church as an
estate of this Christian Realm, protesting
against the Papal usurpation, comprising, first,
the interests of a permanent learned class, that
is, the Clergy ; — secondly, those of the proper,
that i>. l he infirm poor, from age or sickness ;
— and thirdly, the adequate proportional in-
struction of all in all classes by public prayer,
recitation of the Scriptures, by expounding,
150 NOTES ON
preaching, catechizing,, and schooling, and
last, not least, by the example and influence
of a pastor and a schoolmaster placed as a
germ of civilization and cultivation in every
parish throughout the land. To this idea, the
Reformed Church of England with its marriable
and married Clergy would have approximated,
if the revenues of the Church, as they existed
at the death of Henry VII., had been rightly
transferred by his successor ; — transferred, I
mean, from reservoirs, which had by degene-
racy on the one hand, and progressive improve-
ment on the other, fallen into ruin, and in
which those revenues had stagnated into con-
tagion or uselessness, — transferred from what
had become public evils to their original and
inherent purpose of public benefits, instead of
being sacrilegiously alienated by a transfer to
private proprietors. That this was impracti-
cable, is historically true ; but no less true is
it philosophically, that this impracticability,
arising wholly from moral causes, (namely,
the loose manners and corrupt principles of a
great majority in all classes during the dynasty
of the Tudors,) does not prevent this whole-
sale sacrilege, from deserving the character of
the first and deadliest wound inflicted on the
Constitution of the kingdom ; which term, in
the body politic, as in bodies natural, expresses
not only what is and has been evolved, but
likewise whatever is potentially contained in
the seminal principle of the particular body,
BAX i EH 3 LIFE OF HIMSELF. 151
and which would in it* due time have appeared
but for emasculation in its infancy. This.
however, i> the first sense of the words, Church
of England.*
The second is the Church of England as
now by law established, and by practice of the
Law actually existing. That in the first sense
it is the object of my admiration and the
earthly ne plus ultra of my religious aspirations,
it were superfluous to say: but I may be
allowed to express my conviction, that on our
recurring to the same ends and objects, (the
restoration of a national and circulating pro-
perty in counterpoise of individual possession,
disposable and heritable) though in other forms
and by other means perhaps, the decline or
progress of this country depends. In the
second sense of the words I can sincerely
profess, that I love and honour the Church of
England, comparatively, beyond any other
Church established or unestablished now ex-
isting in Christendom; and it is wholly in
consequence of this deliberate and most affec-
tionate filial preference, that I have read this
work, and Calamy's historical writings, with
so deep and so melancholy an interest. And I
dare avow that 1 cannot but regard as an is-
aorant bigot every man who (especially since
the publicity and authentication of the con-
* ntsof the Stuart Papers, .Memoirs and Life
- i the < burch ami State, p. 73, 3rd edit. — Ed.
152 NOTES ON
of James II. &c.) can place the far later furious
High Church compilations and stories of Wal-
ker and others in competition with the veracity
and general verity of Baxter and Calamy ;
or can forget that the great body of Non -con-
formists to whom these great and good men
belonged, were not dissenters from the esta-
blished Church willingly, but an orthodox and
numerous portion of the Church. Omitting
then the wound received by religion generally
under Henry VIII., and the shameless secu-
larizations clandestinely effected during the
reigns of Elizabeth and the first James, I am
disposed to consider the three following as the
grand evil epochs of our present Church. First,
The introduction and after-predominance of
Latitudinarianism under the name of Armini-
anism, and the spirit of a conjoint Romanism
and Socinianism at the latter half or towards
the close of the reign of James I. in the per-
sons of Montague, Laud, and their confede-
rates. Second, The ejection of the two thou-
sand ministers after the Restoration, with the
other violences in which the Churchmen made
themselves the dupes of Charles, James, the
Jesuits, and the French Court. (See the Stuart
Papers passim). It was this that gave consis-
tence and enduring strength to Schism in this
country, prevented the pacation of Ireland, and
prepared for the separation of America at a
far too early period for the true interest of
either country. Third, The surrender by the
BAXTERS LIFE or HIMSELF. 153
Clergy of the right of taxing themselves, and
the Jacobitical follies that combined with the
former to put it in the power of the Whig party
to deprive the Church of her Convocation, — a
bitter disgrace and wrong, to which most un-
happily the people were rendered indifferent
by the increasing contrast of the sermons of
the ( 'lergy with the Articles and Homilies of the
( hnrch itself, — but a wrong nevertheless which
already has avenged, and will sooner or later
& en to avenue, itself on the State and the
< rning classes that continue this boast of a
short-sighted policy ; the same policy which
in our own days would have funded the pro-
perty of the Church, and, by converting the
(lergy into salaried dependents on the Govern-
ment pro tempore, have deprived the Establish-
ment of its fairest honor, that of being neither
enslaved to the court, nor to the congregations;
the same policy, alas! which even now pays
ami patronizes a Hoard of Agriculture to un-
dermine all landed property by a succession of
false, shallow, and inflammatory libels against
tit li
These are my weighed sentiments : and for-
vently desiring, as 1 do, the perpetuity and
prosperity of the established Church, zealous
tor its rights and dignity, preferring its forms,
Sieving its Artu les of Faith, and holding its
»ook of Common Prayer and it> translation
►f the Scriptures among my highest privileges
a- a Christian and an Englishman, I trust
lo4 NOTES ON
that I may both entertain and avow these sen-
timents without forfeiting any part of my
claim to the name of a faithful member of the
Church of England. June 1820.
N. B. As to Warburton's Alliance of the
Church and State, I object to the title (Alli-
ance), and to the matter and mode of the
reasoning. But the inter-dependence of the
Church and the State appears to me a truth
of the highest practical importance. Let but
the temporal powers protect the subjects in
their just rights as subjects merely : and I do
not know of any one point in which the
Church has the right or the necessity to call
in the temporal power as its ally for any pur-
pose exclusively ecclesiastic. The right of a
firm to dissolve its partnership with any one
partner, breach of contract having been proved,
and publicly to announce the same, is common
to all men as social beings.
I spoke above of " Romanism." But call
it, if you like, Laudism, or Lambethism in
temporalities and ceremonials, and of Soci-
nianism in doctrine, that is, a retaining of the
word but a rejecting or interpreting away of the
sense and substance of the Scriptural Myste-
ries. This spirit has not indeed manifested
itself in the article of the Trinity, since Water-
land gave the deathblow to Arianism, and so
left no alternative to the Clergy, but the actual
divinity or mere humanity of our Lord ; and
the latter would be too impudent an avowal for
B \\ l i :u S LIFE OF H1MSE1 I . !•">•">
a public reader of our Church Liturgy: but
in the articles of original sin, the necessity of
regeneration, the necessity of redemption in
order to the possibility of regeneration, of jus-
tification by faith, and of prevenient and aux-
iliary grace, — all I can say with sincerity is,
that our orthodoxy seems so far in an improving
state, that I can hope for the time when Church-
men will use the term Arminianism to express
a habit of belief opposed not to Calvinism, or
the works of Calvin, but to the Articles of our
own Church, and to the doctrine in which all
the iirst Reformers agreed.
Xote — that by Latitudinarianism, I do not
mean the particular tenets of the divines so
called, such as Dr. H. More, Cudworth and
their compeers, relative to toleration, compre-
hension, and the general belief that in the
greater number of points then most contro-
verted, the pious of all parties were far more
nearly of the same mind than their own imper-
fections, and the imperfection of language al-
lowed them to see: I mean the disposition to
explain away the articles of the Church on the
pretext of their inconsistency with right reason ;
— when in fact it was only an incongruity with
a wrong understanding, the faculty which St.
Paul calls fpovtyui rapcoc, the rules of which
having been all abstracted from objects of sense,
finite in time and Bpace,) arc logically appli-
tble to objects of the sense alone. This I
have elsewhere called the spirit ofSocinianism,
156 NOTES ON
which may work in many whose tenets are
anti-Socinian.
Law is — conclusio per regulam generis siugu-
lorum in genere isto inclusorum. Now the ex-
tremes et inclusa are contradictory terms.
Therefore extreme cases are not capable sub-
jects of law a priori, but must proceed on
knowledge of the past, and anticipation of the
future, and the fulfilment of the anticipation
is the proof, because the only possible deter-
mination, of the accuracy of the knowledge.
In other words the agents may be condemned
or honored according to their intentions, and
the apparent source of their motives ; so we
honor Brutus, but the extreme case itself is
tried by the event.
NOTES ON LEIGHTON. *
Surely if ever work not in the sacred Canon
might suggest a belief of inspiration, — of some-
thing more than human, — this it is. When
Mr. Elwyn made this assertion, I took it as
the hyperbole of affection : but now I sub-
scribe to it seriously, and bless the hour that
introduced me to the knowledge of the evan-
gelical, apostolical Archbishop Leighton.
April 1814.
• Works of Leighton, 4 vols. 8vo. London 1819. Ed.
LEIGHTON. 1")7
\i ixl to the inspired Scriptures— yea, and as
the vibration of that once struck hour remain-
ing on the air, stands Leighton's Commentary
on the 1st Epistle of St. Peter.
Connnent Vol. I. p. 2.
their redemption and salvation by Christ Jesus ; that
inheritance of immortality bought by his blood for them, and
the evidence and stability of their rij^ht and title to it.
By the blood of Christ 1 mean (his. I con-
template the Christ, 1 ; — As Christus a gens,
the Jehovah Christ, the Word: -2; — As Chris-
Ins patiens, The God Incarnate. In the former
lie is relative ad intellectum li u man tun, lux
hnifica, sol intelligibilis : relative ad e.vislentiam
humanam, anima animans, color f ovens. In the
latter he is vita vivificans, principium spiritu-
(dis, id est, verce reproduction is in ritam veratn.
Now this principle, or vis vitce ritam vivificans,
considered in forma passiva, assimilationem pa-
tiens, at the same time that it excites the soul
to the vital act of assimilating — this is the
IMood of Christ, really present through faith
to, and actually partaken by, the faithful. Of
this the body is the continual product, that is,
a good life — the merits of Christ acting on the
soul, redemptive.
lb. pp. 13—1-5.
Of their sanctification : elect unto obedience, Sic.
That the doctrines asserted in this and the
two or three following pages cannot be denied
IT) 8 NOTES ON
or explained away, without removing (as the
modern Unitarians), or (as the Arminians) un-
settling and undermining, the foundations of
the Faith, I am fully convinced ; and equally
so, that nothing is gained by the change, the
very same logical consequences being deducible
from the tenets of the Church Arminians ; —
scarcely more so, indeed, from those whuh
they still hold in common with Luther, Zuin-
glius, Calvin, Knox, and Cranmer and the
other Fathers of the Reformation in England,
and which are therefore most unfairly entitled
Calvinism — than from those which they have
attempted to substitute in their place. Nay,
the shock given to the moral sense by these
consequences is, to my feelings, aggravated in
the Arminian doctrine by the thin yet dishonest
disguise. Meantime the consequences appear
to me, in point of logic, legitimately concluded
from the terms of the premisses. What shall
we say then? Where lies the fault? In the
original doctrines expressed in the premisses ?
God forbid. In the particular deductions,
logically considered? But these we have found
legitimate. Where then ? I answer in deduc-
ing any consequences by such a process, and
according to such rules. The rules are alien
and inapplicable ; the process presumptuous,
yea, preposterous. The error, to 7rpwrov \ptv§oc,
lies in the false assumption of a logical dedu-
cibility at all, in this instance. First : — because
the terms from which the conclusion must be
LEIGHTON. 159
drawn — (termini in majore pramissi, a quibus
tcientialiter ti scientific^ demonstrandum erat
are accommodations and not scientific — thai
is, proper and adequate, not per idem, but i>er
quam maxime simile, jr rather quam maxime
dissimile: Secondly; — because the truths in
question are transcendant, and have their evi-
dence, if any, in the ideas themselves, and for
the reason ; and do not and cannot derive it
from the conceptions of the understanding,
which cannot comprehend the truths, but is to
be comprehended in and by them, (John i. 5.) :
Lastly, and chiefly ; — because these truths, as
they do not originate in the intellective faculty
of man, so neither are they addressed primarily
to our intellect; but are substantiated for us
by their correspondence to the wants, cravings,
and interests of the moral being, for which they
were given, and without which they would be
devoid of all meaning, — vox et praterea mini.
The only conclusions, therefore, that can be
drawn from them, must be such as are implied
in the origin and purpose of their revelation ;
and the Legitimacy of all conclusions must be
tried by their consistency with those moral
interests, those spiritual necessities, which are
the proper final caus< of the truth- and of our
faith therein. For some of the faithful these
truths have, I doubt not, an evidence of reason ;
but for the whole household of faith their cer-
tainty is in their working. Now it is this, by
which, in all cases, we know and determine ex-
100 NOTES ON
istence in the first instance. That which works
in us or on us exists for us. The shapes and
forms that follow the working as its results or
products, whether the shapes cognizable by
sense or the forms distinguished by the intel-
lect, are after all but the particularizations of
this working ; its proper names, as it wer^,
as John, James, Peter, in respect of human
nature. They are all derived from the rela-
tions in which finite beings stand to each
other ; and are therefore heterogeneous and,
except by accommodation, devoid of meaning
and purpose when applied to the working in
and by which God makes his existence known
to us, and (we may presume to say) especially
exists for the soul in whom he thus works.
On these grounds, therefore, I hold the doc-
trines of original sin, the redemption there-
from by the Cross of Christ, and change of
heart as the consequent ; without adopting the
additions to the doctrines inferred by one set
of divines, the modern Calvinists, or acknow-
ledging the consequences burdened on the
doctrines by their antagonists. Nor is this
my faith fairly liable to any inconvenience,
if only it be remembered that it is a spiritual
working, of which I speak, and a spiritual
knowledge, —not through the medium of image,
the seeking after which is superstition ; nor
yet by any sensation, the watching for which
is enthusiasm, and the conceit of its presence
LEIGHTON. Ifil
fanatical distemperature. " Do the will <>f
the Father, and ye shall Av/o/r it."
We must distinguish the life and the soul ;
though there is a certain sense in which the
life may be called the soul ; that is, the life is
the soul of the body. But the soul is the life
of the man, and Christ is the life of the soul.
Now the spirit of man, the spirit subsistent,
is deeper than both, not only deeper than the
body and its life, but deeper than the soul ;
and the Spirit descendent and supersistent is
higher than both. In the regenerated man
the height and the depth become one — the
Spirit communeth with the spirit — and the
soid is the inter-ens, or ens inter-medium between
the life and the spirit; — the participium, — not
as a compound, however, but as a medium
indifferens — in the same sense in which heat
may be designated as the indifference between
light and gravity. And what is the Reason I —
The spirit in its presence to the understanding
abstractedly from its presence in the will, —
nay, in many, during the negation of the
latter. The spirit present to man, but not
appropriated by him, is the reason of man : —
the reason in the process of its identification
with the will is the spirit.
lb. pp. 63—4.
( an wo deny that it is unbelief of those things that causeth
this neglect and forgetting of them ? The discourse, the tongue
VOL. IV. M
IUw NOTES ON
of men and angels cannot beget divine belief of the happiness
to come ; only He that gives it, gives faith likewise to appre-
hend it, and lay hold upon it, and upon our believing to be filled
with joy m the hopes of it.
Most true, most true !
lb. p. 08.
In spiritual trials that are the sharpest and most fiery of all
when the furnace is within a man, when God doth not onlv
shut up his loving-kindness from its feeling, but seems to shut
it up ,n hot displeasure, when he writes bitter things against it ■
yet then to depend upon him, and wait for his salvation, this
is not only a true, but a strong and very refined faith indeed
and the more he smites, the more to cleave to him * * *
Though I saw, as it were, his hand lifted up to destroy me
yet from that same hand would I expect salvation.
Bless God, O my soul, for this sweet and
strong comforter ! It is the honey in the lion.
lb. p. 75.
This natural men may discourse of, and that very know-
ingly, and give a kind of natural credit to it as to a history
that may be true ; but firmly to believe that there is divine
truth in all these things, and to have a persuasion of it stronger
than of the very things we see with our eyes; such an assent
as this is the peculiar work of the Spirit of God, and is certainly
saving faith.
Lord I believe: help thou my unbelief! My
reason acquiesces, and I believe enough to
fear. O, grant me the belief that brings sweet
hope !
lb. p. 76.
Faith • causes the soul to find all that is spoken of him
in the word, and his beauty there represented, to be abundantly
true, makes it really taste of his sweetness, and by that pos-
LEIGHTON. 163
Besses tin' heart mure Btrongly with his luvo, persuading it of
the truth of those things, not by reasons and arguments, but
by an inexpressible kind of evidence, that they only know that
have it.
Either this is true, or religion is not religion ;
that is, it adds nothing to our human reason ;
mm religat. Grant it, grant it me, O Lord !
11). pp. 10 1 — ~>.
This am of their doctrine did, as the rivers, make
its own hanks fertile and pleasant as it ran by, and ilowed still
forward to after ages, and by the confluence of more such
prophecies grew greater as it went, till it fell in with the main
current of the Gospel in the New Testament, both acted and
preached by the great Prophet himself, whom they foretold to
come, and recorded by his Apostles and Evangelists, and thus
united into one river, clear a- crystal. This doctrine of sal-
vation in the Scriptures hath still refreshed the city of God,
lii— t linrch under the I aid still shall do so, till it empty
itself into the ocean of eternity.
In the whole course of my studies I do not
remember to have read so beautiful an allegory
as this : s<» various and detailed, and yet so
just and natural.
II). p. I '2 1.
There is a truth in it, that all sin arises from some kind of
trance * *. For were the true visage of Bin seen at a
full light, undressed and unpainted, it wen imj idle
it so appeared, that any one soul could be in love with it, hut
would rather flee from it a- hideous and abominable.
This is the only defect, shall 1 say ? No,
but the only) omission 1 have felt in this divine
Write] — for him we understand by feeling.
164 NOTES ON
experimentally — that he doth not notice the
horrible tyranny of habit. What the Arch-
bishop says, is most true of beginners in sin ;
but this is the foretaste of hell, to see and
loathe the deformity of the wedded vice, and
yet still to embrace and nourish it.
lb. p. 122.
He calls those times wherein Christ was unknoAvn to them,
the times of their ignorance. Though the stars shine never
so bright, and the moon with them in its full, yet they do not,
altogether, make it day : still it is night till the sun appear.
How beautiful, and yet how simple, and as
it were unconscious of its own beauty !
lb. p. 124.
You were running to destruction in the way of sin, and
there was a voice, together with the Gospel preaching to your
ear, that spake into your heart, and called you back from that
path of death to the way of holiness, which is the only way of
life. He hath severed you from the mass of the profane world,
and picked you out to be jewels for himself.
O, how divine ! Surely, nothing less than
the Spirit of Christ could have inspired such
thoughts in such language. Other divines, —
Donne and Jeremy Taylor for instance, — have
converted their worldly gifts, and applied them
to holy ends ; but here the gifts themselves
seem unearthly.
lb. p. 138.
As in religion, so in the course and practice of men's lives,
the stream of sin runs from one age to another, and every age
LEIGHTON. 165
muk. - it greater, adding Bomewhal to whal it receives, as rivers
m in their course by the accession <>f trooks thai rail into
them; and every man when he is born, falls like a drop into
this main current of corruption, and bo is carried down it, and
this by reason ofita Btrength, and his own nature, which wil-
lingly dissolves into it, and runs along with it.
In thi> single period we have religion, the
Bpirit, — philosophy, the soul,— and poetry, the
body and drapery united ; — Plato uloriried by
St. Paul; and yet coming as unostentatiously
- in\ Bpeech from an innocent girl of fifteen.
lb. p. 158.
The chief point of obedience is believing:; the proper obe-
dience to truth is to irive credit to it.
This i> in»t quite so perspicuous and single-
used as Archbishop Leighton's sentences in
neral are. This effect is occasioned by the
omission of the word " this," or " divine," or
the truth " in Christ." For truth in the ordi-
nary and scientific sense is received by a spon-
taneous, rather than chosen by a voluntary,
a<t ; and the apprehension of the same belief)
supposes a position of congruity rather than
an act of obedience. Far otherwise is it with
the truth that is the object of Christian faith :
and it is tln> truth of which Lei'_rhton is speak -
ing. Belief indeed is a living part of this faith ;
but onl\ as long as it i> a living part. In other
words, belief i> implied in faith ; but faith is
not necessarily implied in belief. 77/* devih
hi In ve.
166
NOTES ON
lb. p. 166.
Hence learn that true conversion is not so slight a ^ork as
yet it is such a one, and the qualities so far distant from
they before were, &rc.
I dare not affirm that this is erroneously
.aid • but it is one of the comparatively lew
passages that are of service as remindmg me
SSttta not the Scripture that I am readt^
Not the qualities merely, but the root of the
qualities is trans-created. How else could it
be. a birth,— a creation 1
lb. p. 170.
This natural life is compared, even by natural men, to the
J„tl" and scarce find they things light enough to
S & and as it is here caiied grass, so they compa.e
HecoZ, forth like a fio„er <«i is cut *». Job xtv. 1 ,
2 Psalm xc. 12; xxxix. 4.
It is the fashion to decry scholastic distinc-
tions as useless subtleties, or mere phantoms
-entia logica, vel eliam verbaha solum. And
yet in or/er to secure a safe and ChmUan m-
Lpretation to these and numerous other pas-
sages of like phrase and impart » the Old
Testament, it is of highest concernment ha,
we should distinguish the persone.ty o spurt,
as the source and principle ot personality, from
the person itself as the particular product at
LEIGHTON. H>7
any our period, and as that which cannot be
evolved or sustained but by the co-agency of
the system and circumstances in which the
individuals are placed. In this latter sense it
is that man is used in the Psalms, in Job, and
elsewhere — and the term made synonymous
with flesh. That which constitutes the spirit
in man, both for others and itself, is the real
man ; and to this the elements and elementary
powers contribute its bulk (to videri et tangi)
wholly, and its phenomenal form in part, both
as co-efficients, and as conditions. Now as these
are under a law of vanity and incessant change,
TUj.ii) orra, a\\ lit] JlVOfilva, SO UlllSt all be, to
the production and continuance of which they
are indispensable. On this hangs the doctrine
of the resurrection of the body, as an essential
part of the doctrine of immortality; — on this
the Scriptural (and onlytrueand philosophical)
nse of the soul, psyche or life, as resulting
from the continual assurgency of the spirit
through the body ; — and on this the begetting
of a new life, a regenerate soul, by the descent
of the divine Spirit on the spirit of man. When
the spirit by sanctification is fitted for an in-
corruptible body, then shall it be raised into a
world of incorruption, and a celestial body sha"
burgeon forth thereto, the germ of which had
been implanted by the redeeming and crea-
tive Word in this world. Truly hath it been
-aid of the elect : — They fall asleep in earth,
but awake in heaven. So St. Paul expressly
168 NOTES ON
teaches : and as the passage ( 1 . Cor. xv. 35 —
54,) was written for the express purpose of rec-
tifying the notions of the converts concerning
the Resurrection, all other passages in the New
Testament must be interpreted in harmony
with it. But John, likewise, — describing the
same great event, as subsequent to, and contra-
distinguished from, the partial or millennary
Resurrection — which (whether we are to un-
derstand the Apostle symbolically or literally)
is to take place in the present world, — beholds
a new earth and a new heaven as antecedent
to, or coincident with, the appearance of the
New Jerusalem, — that is, the state of glory,
and the resurrection to life everlasting. The
old earth and its heaven had passed away from
the face of Him on the throne, at the moment
that it gave up the dead. Rev. xx. — xxi.
lb. pp. 174—5.
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.
And with respect to those learned men that apply the text
to God, I remember not that this abiding for ever is used to
express God's eternity in himself.
No ; nor is it here used for that purpose ;
but yet I cannot doubt but that either the Word,
'O Aoyoc sv ao-^y, or the divine promises in and
through the incarnate Word, with the gracious
influences proceeding from him, are here meant
■ — and not the written prifiara or Scriptures.
lb. p. 194.
If any one's head or tongue should grow apace, and all the
rest stand at a stay, it would certainly make him a monster ;
LEIGHTON. 169
and they are no other thai are knowing and discovering Chris
tians. and grow daily in that, but not at all in holiness of heart
:uul life, which is the proper growth of the children of God.
Father in heaven, have mercy on me! Christ,
Lamb of God, have mercy on me ! Save me,
Lord, or 1 perish ! Alas ! 1 am perishing.
lb. p. 200.
A well-furnished table may please a man, while he hath
health and appetite; hut offer it to him in the height of a fever,
how unpleasant it would be then ! Though never so richly
ked, it is then not only useless, but hateful to him. But
the kindness and love of God is then as seasonable and refresh-
ing to him, as in health, and possibly more.
To the regenerate ; — but to the conscious
sinner a source of terrors insupportable.
lb. p. 211.
These things hold likewise in the other stones of this build-
in--, chosen before time : all that should be of this building- are
fore-ordained in God's purpose, all written in that book before-
hand, and then in due time they arc chosen, by actual calling,
according to that purpose, hewed out and severed by God's
own hand from the quarry of corrupt nature ; — dead stones in
themselves, as the rest, but made living by his bringing them
to Christ, and so made truly precious, and accounted precious
l>v him that hath made them so.
Though this is not only true, but a most
important truth, it would yet have been well
to have obviated the- apparent carnal conse-
quences.
lb. p. "2\<>.
All sacrifice is not taken away ; but it is changed from the
offering of those things formerly in use, to spiritual sacrilh-i -.
■ x these are every way preferable; they are easier and
cheaper to us, and yet more precious and acceptable to God.
J 70 NOTES ON
Still understand, — to the regenerate. To
others, they are not only not easy and cheap,
bnt unpurchaseable and impossible too. O
God have mercy upon me !
lb. p. 229.
Though I be beset on all hands, be accused by the Law, and
mine own conscience, and by Satan, and have nothing to an-
swer for myself; yet here I will stay, for I am sure in him
there is salvation, and no where else.
" Here I will stay." But alas ! the poor
sinner has forfeited the powers of willing ;
miserable wishing is all he can command. O,
the dreadful injury of an irreligious education!
To be taught our prayers, and the awful truths
of religion, in the same tone in which we are
taught the Latin Grammar, — and too often in-
spiring the same sensations of weariness and
distrust !
"TV
Vol. II. p. 2 12.
And thus are reproaches mentioned amongst the sufferings
of Christ in the Gospel, and not as the least; the railings and
mockings that were darted at him, and fixed to the Cross, are
mentioned more than the very nails that fixed him. And (Heb.
xii. '2,) the shame of the Cross, though he was above it, and
despised it, yet that shame added much to the burden of it.
I understand Leighton thus : that though
our Lord felt it not as shame, nor Vvas wounded
by the revilings of the people in the way of
any correspondent resentment or sting, which
yet we may be without blame, yet he suffered
from the same as sin, and as an addition to
LEIGUTON. 17 1
the guilt of his persecutors, which could not
but aggravate the burden which he bad taken
on himself, as being sin in its most devilish
form.
lb. p. _
This th is mainly to be studied, that the Beat of hu-
mility be the heart. Although it will b
*. And this 1 would recommend
r let thy thoughts concerning thyself be
•liit thou utterest; and what thou seest needful or fit-
to thy own abasement, be not only content (which
most are not) to he- taken at thy word, and believed to he such
by thrm that hear thee, hut be desirous of' it ; and let that be
i of thy speech, to pcrsmde them, and gain it of them,
• ally take thee for as worthless a man as thou dost
express thys
Alas ! this is a most delicate and difficult
subject : and the safest way, and the only sale
neral rale is the silence that accompanies
the inward act of looking at the contrast in all
that is of our own doingand impulse! So may
praises he made their own antidote.
Vol. Hi. p. 20. Serm. I.
// shall see Got/. Whit this is we cannot tell you,
nor can you conceive- it : hut walk heavenwards in purity, and
long to be there, where you shall know what it means: for
you shall know him as In is.
We Bay; "Now i see the full meaning,
force and beauty of a pa -we see them
through the words." Is not Christthe Word
the substantial, consubstantial Word, <> wv eic r6v
koXvov row Trarpoc, — not as our words, arbitrary :
<3
! 7 1 NOTES ON
nor even as the words of Nature phenomenal
merely 1 If even through the words a powerful
and perspicuous author — (as in the next to in-
spired Commentary of Archbishop Leighton, —
for whom God be praised !) — I identify myself
with the excellent writer, and his thoughts be-
come my thoughts : what must not the blessing
be to be thus identified first with the Filial
Word, and then with the Father in and through
Him ?
lb. p. 63. Serm. V.
In this elementary world, light being (as we hear,) the first
visible, all things are seen by it, and it by itself. Thus is
Christ, among spiritual things, in the elect world of his Church ;
all things are made manifest by the light, says the Apostle,
Eph. v. 13, speaking of Christ as the following verse doth
evidently testify. It is in his word that he shines, and makes
it a directing and convincing light, to discover all things that
concern his Church and himself, to be known by its own bright-
ness. How impertinent then is that question so much tossed
by the Romish Church, " How know you the Scriptures (say
they) to be the word of God, without the testimony of the
Church ?" I would ask one of them again, How they can
know that it is daylight, except some light a candle to let them
see it ? They are little versed in Scripture that know not that
it is frequently called light ; and they are senseless that know
not that light is seen and known by itself. If our Gospel be
hid, says the Apostle, it is hid to them that perish : the god of
this world having blinded their minds against the light of the
glorious Gospel, no wonder if such stand in need of a testimony.
A blind man knows not that it is light vt noon-day, but by
report : but to those that have eyes, light is seen by itself.
On the true test of the Scriptures. Oh ! were
it not for my manifold infirmities, whereby I
am so all unlike the white-robed Leighton, 1
LE1GHTON. 17.'.
could almost conceit that my soul had been an
emanation from his ! So many and so remark-
able are the coincidences, and these in parts of
his works that I could not have seen — and so
uniform the congruity of the whole. As I read,
I seem to myself to be only thinking my own
thoughts over again, now in the same and now
in a different order.
lb. p. <;
Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls him (Christ)
ajravyatrpa, the brightness of his Fathers glory, and the
character of his person, (i. 3.) And under these expressions
lies that remarkable mystery of the Son's eternal relation to
the Father, which is rather humbly to be adored, than boldly
to be explained, either by God's perfect understanding of his
own essence, or by any other notion.
Certainly not by a transfer of a notion, and
this too a notion of a faculty itself but notional
and limitary, to the Supreme Reality. But
there are ideas which are of higher origin than
the notions of the understanding, and by the
irradiation of which the understanding itself
becomes a human understanding. Of such
veritates verified' Leigh ton himself in other
words speaks often. Sun ly, there must have
been an intelligible propriety in the terms,
L.o»os, Word, Begotten l>< fori all creation, — an
adequate idea or icon, or the Evangelists and
Apostolic penmen would net have adopted
them. They did not invenl the terms; but
took them and used them as they were taken
and applied by Fhilo and both the Greek and
174 NOTES ON
Oriental sages. Nay, the precise and ortho-
dox, yet frequent, use of these terms by Philo.
and by the Jewish authors of that traditional
wisdom, — degraded in after times, but which in
its purest parts existed long before the Chris-
tian sera, — is the strongest extrinsic argument
against the Arians, Socinians, and Unitarians,
in proof that St. John must have meant to
deceive his readers, if he did not use them in
the known and received sense. To a Mate-
rialist indeed, or to those who deny all know-
ledges not resolvable into notices from the five
senses, these terms as applied to spiritual
beings must appear inexplicable or senseless.
But so must spirit. To me, (why do I say to
me ?) to Bull, to Waterland, to Gregory Nt.
anzen, Basil, Athanasius, Augustine, the terms,
Word and generation, have appeared admi-
rably, yea, most awfully pregnant and appro-
priate ;— but still as the language of those who
know that they are placed with their backs to
substances— and which therefore they can name
only from the correspondent shadows — yet not
(God forbid !) as if the substances were the
same as the shadows ; — which yet Leighton
supposed in this his censure, — for if he did
not, he then censures himself and a number
of his most beautiful passages. These, and
two or three other sentences,— slips of human
infirmity, — are useful in reminding me that
Leightons works are not inspired Scripture.
Postscript. On a second consideration of
LEIGHTON. ''•'
this passage, and a revisal of my marginal am-
madversion-yet how dare I apply such a word
to a passage written by a minister of Christ so
dearly under the especial light of the divine
grace as was Archbishop Leighton >-I am in-
clined to think that Leighton confined his cen-
sure to the attempts to " explain" the Trinity,
-and this by " notions/'-and not to the as-
sertion of the adorable acts implied in the terms
both of the Evangelists and Apostles and
of the Church before as well as after Christ s
ascension ; nor to the assent of the pure reason
to the truths, and more than assent to, the af-
firmation of the ideas.
lb. p. 73.
This fifth Sermon, excellent in parts, is yet
on the whole the least excellent of Leighton s
works,-and breathes less of either his own
character as a man. or the character of his
religious philosophy The style too is in many
places below Leightons ordinary styie-m
some places even turbid, operose and cate-
chrestic ;-for example,-" to trample on sail-
ings with one foot and on frownings with the
other."
lb, p. 77. Serm. VI.
Leighton, I presume, was acquainted with
the Hebrew Language, but he does not appear
to have studied it much. His observation on
the heart, as used in the Old Testament, shews
170
NOTES ON
that he did not know that the ancient Hebrews
supposed the heart to be the seat of intellect,
and therefore used it exactly as we use the
head.
lb. p. 104. Serm. VII.
This seventh Sermon is admirable through-
out, Leighton throughout. O what a contrast
might be presented by publishing some dis-
course of some Court divine, (South for in-
stance,) preached under the same state of af-
fairs, and printing the two in columns !
lb. p. 107. Serm. VIII.
In all love three things are necessary ; some goodness in the
object, either true and real, or apparent and seeming to be
for the soul, be it ever so evil, can affect nothing but which it
takes in some way to be good.
This assertion in these words has been so
often made, from Plato's times to our's, that
even wise men repeat it without perhaps much
examination whether it be not equivocal— or
rather (I suspect) true only in that sense in
which it would amount to nothing— nothing to
the purpose at least. This is to be regretted—
for it is a mischievous equivoque, to make
' good' a synonyme of ' pleasant, or even the
genus of which pleasure is a species. It is a
grievous mistake to say, that bad men seek
pleasure because it is good. No ! like children
they call it good because it is pleasant. Even
LEIGHTON. 177
the useful must derive its meaning from the
good, not vice versa.
Postscript. The lines in p. 107, noted by
me, are one of a myriad instances to prove
how rash it is to quote single sentences or
assertions from the correctest writers, without
collating them with the known system or ex-
press convictions of the author. It would be
easy to cite fifty passages from Archbishop
Leightoifs works in direct contradiction to the
sentence in question — which he had learnt in
the schools when a lad, and afterwards had
heard and met with so often that he was not
aware that he had never sifted its real purport.
This eighth Sermon is another most admirable
discourse.
lb. Serm. IX. p. 12.
The reasonable creature, it is true, hath more liberty in its
actions, freely choosing one thing: and rejecting; another; yet
it cannot be denied, that in acting; of that liberty, their choice
and refusal* follow the sway of their nature and condition.
* I would fain substitute for ' follow,' the
words, ' are most often determined, and always
affected, by/ T do not deny that the will
follows the nature; but then the nature itself
is a will.
lb.
As the angels and glorified souls, (their nature being; per-
fectly holy and unalterably such,) they cannot sin ; they can
delig-ht in nothing but obeying; and praising that God, in the
enjoyment of whom their happiness consisted).
VOL IV. N
178 NOTES ON
If angels be other than spirits made perfect,
or, as Leighton writes, " glorified souls," — the
" unalterable by nature" seems to me rashly
asserted.
lb.
The mind, <pp6vr}jj.a. Some render it the prudence or wisdom
of the flesh. Here you have it, the carnal mind ; but the word
signifies, indeed, an act of the mind, rather than either the
faculty itself, or the habit of prudence in it, so as it discovers
what is the frame of both those.
I doubt, ^povrima signifies an act : and so
far I agree with Leighton. But <j>p6vr)na cxapicog
is ' the flesh' (that is, the natural man,) in the
act or habitude of minding — but those acts,
taken collectively, are the faculty — the under-
standing.
How often have I found reason to regret,
that Leighton had not clearly made out to
himself the diversity of reason and the under-
standing !
lb. Serm. XV. p. 196.
A narrow enthralled heart, fettered with the love of lower
things, and cleaving to some particular sins, or but some one,
and that secret, may keep foot a while in the way of God's
commandments, in some steps of them ; but it must give up
quickly, is not able to run on to the end of the goal.
One of the blessed privileges of the spiritual
man (and such Leighton was,) is a piercing
insight into the diseases of which he himself
is clear. 'EAajffov Kvpu !
LEIGHTON. 17")
lb. Serm. XVI. p. 204
Know you not that the redeemed of Christ and He are one >
They live one life, Christ lives in them, and if any man hath
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his, as the Apostle de-
clares in this chapter. So then this we are plainly to tell you
and consider it ; you that will not let go your sins to lay hold
on Christ, have as yet no share in him.
But on the other side : the truth is, that when souls are once
set upon this search, they commonly wind the notion too high
and subtilize too much in the dispute, and so entangle and
perplex themselves, and drive themselves further off from that
comfort that they are seeking- after; such measures and marks
they set to themselves for their rule and standard ; and unless
they find those without all controversy in themselves, they will
not believe that they have an interest in Christ, and this blessed
and safe estate in him.
To such I would only say, Are you in a willing league with
any known sin ? &c.
An admirable antidote for such as, too sober
and sincere to pass off feverous sensations for
spiritualities, have been perplexed by Wesley's
assertions— that a certainty of having been
elected is an indispensable mark of election.
\Miitrields ultra-Calvinism is Gospel gentle-
ness and Pauline sobriety compared with Wes-
ley's Arminianism in the outset of his career.
But the main and most noticeable difference
between Leighton and the modern Methodists
is to be found in the uniform selfishness of the
latter. Not " Do you wish to love God ?" " Do
you love your neighbour?'' • Do you think,
' O how dear and lovely must Christ be!' "—
but—" Are you certain that Christ has saved
you ; that he died for you— you— you— y our self 7"
180 NOTES ON
on to the end of the chapter. This is Wesley's
doctrine.
Lecture IX. vol. IV. p. 96.
For that this was his fixed purpose, Lucretius not. only vows,
but also boasts of it, and loads him (Epicurus) with ill-advised
praises, for endeavouring through the whole course of his
philosophy to free the minds of men from all the bonds and ties
of religion.
*r> ■
But surely in this passage religio must be
rendered superstition, the most effectual means
for the removal of which Epicurus supposed
himself to have found in the exclusion of the
gods many and lords many, from their imagined
agency in all the phenomena of nature and
the events of history, substituting for these th«*
belief in fixed laws, having in themselves their
evidence and necessity. On this account, in
this passage at least, Lucretius praises his
master.
lb. p. 105.
They always seemed to me to act a very ridiculous part, who
contend, that the effect of the divine decree is absolutely irre-
concilable with human liberty ; because the natural and neces-
sary liberty of a rational creature is to act or choose from a
rational motive, or spontaneously, and of purpose: but who
sees not, that, on the supposition of the most absolute decree,
this liberty is not taken away, but rather established and con-
firmed ? For the decree is, that such an one shall make
choice of, or do some particular thing freely . And whoever
pretends to deny, that whatever is done or chosen, whether
good or indifferent, is so done or chosen, or, at least, may be
so, espouses an absurdity.
LEIGHTON. 101
I fear, I fear, tliat this is a sophism not
worthy of Archbishop Leighton. It seems to
me tantamount to saying — " I force that man
to do so or so without my forcing him." But
however that may be, the following sentences
are more precious than diamonds. They are
divine.
lb. Lect. XI. p. 113.
For that this world, compounded of so many and such hete-
rogeneous parts, should proceed, hy way of natural and neces-
sary emanation, from that one first, present, and most simple
nature, nobody, I imagine, could believe, or in the least suspect
*. But if he produced all these things freely, * * how
much more consistent is it to believe, that this was done in
time, than to imagine it was from eternity !
It is inconceivable how any thing can be
created in time ; and production is incompa-
tible with interspace.
lb. Lect. XV. p. 152.
The Platonists divide the world into two, the sensible and
intellectual world * * *. According to this hypothesis, those
parables and metaphors, which are often taken from natural
things to illustrate such as are divine, will not be similitudes
taken entirely at pleasure ; but are often, in a great measure,
founded in nature, and the things themselves.
I have asserted the same thing, and more
fully shown wherein the difference consists of
symbolic and metaphorical, in my first Lay
Sermon ; and the substantial correspondence
of the genuine Platonic doctrine and logic
-jy.? NOTES ON
with those of Lord Bacon, in my Essays on
Method, in the Friend. *
lb. Lect. XIX. p. 201.
Even the philosophers give their testimony to this truth, and
their sentiments on the subject are not altogether to be re-
jected ; for they almost unanimously are agreed, that felicity
so far as it can be enjoyed in this life, consuls solely, or at
least principally, in virtue : but as to their assertion, that this
virtue is perfect in a perfect life, it is rather expressing what
were to be wished, than describing things as they are.
And why are the philosophers to be judged
according to a different rule? On what ground
can it be asserted that the Stoics believed in
the actual existence of their God-like perfec-
tion in any individual? or that they meu
more than this-" To no man can the name
of the Wise be given in its absolute sense, who
is not perfect even as his Father in heaven is
perfect !"
lb. Lect. XXI. p. 225.
In like manner, if we suppose God to be the first of all
beino-s we must, unavoidably, therefrom conclude his unity.
As to the ineffable Trinity subsisting in this Unity, a mystery
discovered only by the Sacred Scriptures, especially in the
New Testament, where it is more clearly revealed than in the
Old, let others boldly pry into it, if they please, while we receive
it with our humble faith, and think it sufficient for us to admire
and adore.
But surely it having been revealed to us, we
may venture to say -that a positive unity, so
* Statesman's Manual, p. 230. 2nd edit. Friend, III. 3d
edit Ed.
LEIGHTON. 18.J
far from excluding, implies plurality, and that
the Godhead is a fulness, irXiipw/ua.
lb. Lect. XXIV. p. 24o.
Ask yourselves, therefore, what you would be at, and with
what dispositions you come to this most sacred tahle ?
In an age of colloquial idioms, when to write
in a loose slang had become a mark of loyalty,
this is the only L'Estrange vulgarism 1 have
met with in Leighton.
lb. Exhortation to the Students, p. 252.
Study to acquire such a philosophy as is not harren and
babbling, but solid and true ; not such a one as floats upon
the surface of endless verbal controversies, but one that enters
into the nature of things ; for he spoke good sense that said,
" The philosophy of the Greeks was a mere jargon, and noise
of words."
If so, then so is all philosophy : for what
system is there, the elements and outlines of
which are not to be found in the Greek schools !
Here Leighton followed too incautiously the
Fathers.
fU NOTES ON
NOTES ON SHERLOCK'S VINDICATION OF THE
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.*
Sect. I. p. 3.
Some new philosophers will tell you that the notion of a spirit
or an immaterial suhstance is a contradiction ; for by substance
they understand nothing' but matter, and then an immaterial
substance is immaterial matter, that is, matter and no matter,
which is a contradiction ; but yet this does not prove an imma-
terial substance to be a contradiction, unless they could first
prove that there is no substance but matter; and that they can-
not conceive any other substance but matter, does not prove that
there is no other.
Certainly not : but if not only they, but Dr.
Sherlock himself and all mankind, arc inca-
pable of attaching any sense to the term sub-
stance, but that of matter, — then for us it would
be a contradiction, or a groundless assertion.
Thus : By ' substance' I do not mean the only
notion we can attach to the word ; but a some-
what, I know not what, may, for aught I know,
not be contradictory to spirit ! Why should we
use the equivocal word, ' substance' (after all
but an ens logicum), instead of the definite term
4 self-subsistent?' We are equally conscious of
mind, and of that which we call ' body ;' and
the only possible philosophical questions are
( A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Bles-
sed Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God, occasioned
by the Brief Notes on the Creed of St Athanasius, and the Brief
History of the Unitarians, or Socinians, and containing an
answer to both. By Win, Sherlock, London. 8vo. 1690.
SHERLOCK. 185
these three: — 1. Are they co-ordinate as agent
and re-agent ; — 2. ( >r is the one subordinate to
the other, as effect to cause, and which is the
cause or ground, which the effect or product; —
:). Or are they co-ordinate, but not inter-depend-
ent, that I8,per harmonium prastiibiUtiun.
lb. p. A.
N '■ bo far .i- we understand the nature of any being, we can
certainly tell what is contrary and contradictious to its nature ;
that accidents should subsist without their subject, &c.
That accidents should subsist (rather, exist
without a subject, may be a contradiction, but
not that they exist without this or that subject.
The words 'their subject" are a petitio principii.
lb.
These and such like arc the manifest absurdities and contra-
dictions of Transubstantiation ; and we know that they are so,
because we know the nature of a body, &C
Indeed ! Were I either Romanist or Unita-
rian, 1 should desire no better than the admis-
sion of body having an esse not in the percipi,
and really subsisting, (auro to yjo>V«) as the
supporter of its accidents. At all events, the
Romanist, declaring the accidents to be those
ordinarily impressed on the senses ni faivofuva
Km atoOnro) by bread and Vf inc. dots at the same
time declare the flesh and blood not to be the
(pnironiva Km ma(h)T(i SO Called, but the VOVfUVO.
nuTa tu yjn'i^uirn. Then is therefore no contra-
diction in the terms, however reasonless the
doctrine may be, and however unnecessary
\H6 NOTES ON
the interpretation on which it is pretended. I
confess, had I been in Luther's place, I would
not have rested so much of my quarrel with
the Papists on this point ; nor can I agree with
our Arminian divines in their ridicule of Tran-
substantiation. The most rational doctrine is
perhaps, for some purposes, at least, the rem
credimus, modum nescimus; next to that, the
doctrine of the Sacramentaries, that it is stu'-
num sub rei nomine, as when we call a portrait
of Caius, Caius. But of all the remainder,
Impanation, Consubstantiation, and the like, I
confess that I should prefer the Transubstan-
tiation of the Pontifical doctors.
lb. p. 6.
The proof of this comes to this one point, that we may have
sufficient evidence of the being; of a thing; whose nature we
cannot conceive and comprehend : he who will not own this,
contradicts the sense and experience of mankind ; and he who
confesses this, and yet rejects the belief of that which he has
good evidence for, merely because he cannot conceive it, is a
very absurd and senseless infidel.
Here again, though a zealous believer of the
truth asserted, I must object to the Bishop's
logic. None but the weakest men have objected
to the Tri-unity merely because the modus is
above their comprehension : for so is the influ-
ence of thought on muscular motion ; so is life
itself; so in short is every first truth of neces-
sity; for to comprehend a thing, is to know its
antecedent and consequent. But they affirm
that it is against their reason. Besides, there
seems an equivocation in the use of ' compre-
8HERL04 K. \H7
land and ' conceive' iii the same meaning.
When a man tells me, that his will can lift his
arm, 1 conceive his meaning; though 1 do not
comprehend the fact, I understand him. Hut
the Socinians Bay; -"We do not understand
i/ou. We cannot attach to the word 'God,*
more than three possible meanings; either,
I. A person, or self-conscious being; — 2. Or a
thing;—:;. Or a quality, property, or attribute.
If von take the first, then you admit the con-
tradiction : if either of the latter two, you have
not three Persons and one God, but three Per-
sons having equal shares in one thing, or three
with the same attributes, that is, three Gods."
Sherlock does not meet this.
Let me repeat the difficulty, if possible, more
death . The argument of the philosophic
Unitarians, as Wissowatius, who, mistaken as
they were, arc not to be confounded with their
degenerate successors, the Priestleyans and
Belshamites, may be thus expr< ssed. " By the
term, God, we can only conceive you to sup-
pose one or other of three meanings. I. Either
you understand by it a person, in the common
use of an intelligent or self-conscious being;
— or, -1. a thing with its qualities and proper-
ties;— or, '.). certain powers and attribute 3,
comprised under the word nature. If we sup-
pose the first, the contradiction is manifest, and
you yourselves admit it. and therefore forbid
us so to int< rpret your words. For if by God
you mean Person, then three Persons and one
188 NOTES ON
God, would be the same as three Persons and
one Person. If we take the second as your
meaning, as an infinite thing is an absurdity, we
have three finite Gods, like Jupiter, Neptune,
and Pluto, who shared the universe between
them. If the latter, we have three Persons
with the same attributes; — and if a Person with
infinite attributes be what we mean by God,
then we have either three Gods, or involve the
contradiction above mentioned. It isunphilo-
sophic, by admission of all philosophers, they
add, to multiply causes beyond the necessity.
Now if there are three Persons of infinite and
the same attributes, dismiss two, and you lose
nothing but a numerical phantom."
The answer to this must commence by a de-
nial of the premisses in toto: and this both Bull
and Waterland have done most successfully.
But 1 very much doubt, whether Sherlock on
his principles could have evaded the Unitarian
logic. In fact it is scarcely possible to acquit
him altogether of a quasi-Tritheism.
Sect. II. p. 13.
For like as ive are compelled by the Christian verity to
acknowledge every Person by himself to be riod and Lord; —
(That is, by especial revelation.)
So are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, There
are three Gods, or three Lords.
That is, by the religion contained in, and
given in accompaniment with, the universal
SHERLOt K. IW
reason, the light that lighteth every man that
cometh into the world.
lb. p. 1 1.
This Creed (Athanasian) does not pretend to explain bow
there are three Persons, each of which is God, and vet but
( )ne ( >od, (of which more hereafter, ) but only asserts the thing,
that thus it is, and thus it must be it' we believe a Trinity in
Unity ; which should make all men, who would be thought
neither Ariane nor Socinians, more cautious how they express
the least dislike of the Athanasian Creed, which must either
16, that they condemn it, before they understand it, or that
some secret dislike to the doctrine of the Trinity.
The dislike commonly felt is not of the
doctrine of the Trinity, but of the positive ana-
thematic assertion of the everlasting perdition
of all and of each who doubt the same ; — an
-crtion deduced from Scripture only by a
train of captious consequences, and equivo-
cations. Thus, A. : " I honour and admire
( aius for his great learning." B. : " The know-
ledge of the Sanscrit is an important article in
Caius's learning." A.: "I have been often in
his company, and have found no reason for
believing this." B. : " O ! then you deny his
learning, are envious, and Caius's enemy."'
A. : " God forbid ! 1 love and admire him. I
know him for a transcendant linguist in the
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and modern European
languages; — and with or without the Sanscrit,
I look up to him, and rely on his erudition in
all cases, in which I am concerned. And it is
this perfect trust, this unfeigned respect, that
1JJ0 NOT liS ON
is the appointed criterion of Caius's friends
and disciples, and not their full acquaintance
with each and all particulars of his superiority. ,?
Thus without Christ, or in any other power
but that of Christ, and (subjectively) of faith
in Christ, no man can be saved ; but does it
follow, that no man can have Christian faith
who is ignorant or erroneous as to any one
point of Christian theology ? Will a soul be
condemned to everlasting perdition for want of
logical acumen in the perception of conse-
quences ? — If he verily embrace Christ as his
Redeemer, and unfeignedly feel in himself the
necessity of Redemption, he implicitly holds
the Divinity of Christ, whatever from want or
defect of logic may be his notion explicite.
lb. p. 18.
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal, and co-equal.
And j'et this we must acknowledge to be true, if we acknow-
ledge all three Persons to be eternal, for in eternity there can
be no afore, or after other.
It must, however, be considered as a serious
defect in a Creed, if excluding subordination,
without mentioning any particular form, it
gives no hint of any other form in which it
admits it. The only minus admitted by the
Athanasian Creed is the inferiority of Christ's
Humanity to the Divinity generally; but both
Scripture and the Nicene Creed teach a subor-
dination of the Son to the Father, independent
of the Incarnation of the Son. Now this is
SHERLOI k l!»l
not inserted, and therefore the- denial in the
sertion none is greater or less than another.
is universal, and a plain contradiction of Christ
speaking of Himself as the co-eternal Son ;
Mt/ Father in greater than J. Speaking of
himself as the co-eternal Son, 1 say ;— for how
superfluous would it have been, a truism how
unworthy of our Lord, to have said in effect,
ill it •• a creature is less than God!" And
after all. Creeds assuredly arc not to be im-
posed ad libitum— ^ new (reed, or at least a
new form and choice, of articles and expn s-
sions, at the pleasure of individuals. Now
where is the authority of the Athanasian
(reed? In what consists its necessity? If it
be the same as the Nicene, why not be content
with the Nicene? If it differs, how dare w<
retain both?* If the Athanasian does not say
more or different, but only differs by omission
of a necessary article, then to impose it, is as
absurd a- to force a mutilated copy on one
who has already the perfect original. Lastly,
it is not enough that an abstract contains
nothing which may not by a chain of conse-
tpiences be deduced from the hooks of the
Evangelists and Apostles, in order for it to be
a (reed for the whole Christian Church. For
a Creed is or ought to be a syllepsis of those
• The third General Council, that at Ephesue in 431, de-
creed " that it should not be lawful fur any man t<> publish or
upose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined
by the Nicene Council." Ed.
192 NOTES ON
primary fundamental truths that are, as it were,
the starting-post, from which the Christian
must commence his progression. The full-
grown Christian needs no other Creed than the
Scriptures themselves. Highly valuable is
the Nicene Creed ; but it has its chief value
as an historical document, proving that the
same texts in Scripture received the same
interpretation, while the Greek was a living
language, as now.
Sect. III. p. 23.
If what he says is true : He that errsiyi a question of faith,
after having used reasonable diligence to be lightly informed,
is in no fault at all ; how comes an atheist, or an infidel, a
Turk, or a Jew, to be in any fault ? Does our author think
that no atheist or infidel, no unbelieving Jew or heathen, ever
used reasonable diligence to be rightly informed ? * * If
you say, he confines this to such points as have always been
controverted in the churches of God, I desire to know a reason
why he thus confines it ? For does not his reason equally ex-
tend to the Christian Faith itself, as to those points which have
been controverted in Christian Churches ?
And the Notary might ask in his turn :
" Do you believe that the Christians either of
the Greek or of the Western Church will be
damned, according as the truth may be re-
specting the procession of the Holy Ghost? or
that either theSacrainentary or the Lutheran ?
or again, the Consubstantiationist, or the Tran-
substantiationist? If not, why do you stop here?
Whence this sudden palsy in the limbs of your
charity? Again, does this eternal damnation
of the individual depend on the supposed im-
nmi rlock. 19
portance of tlie article denied? Or on the
moral state of the individual, on the inward
source of this denial ? And lastly, who autho-
rized either yon, or the pseudo-Athanasius, to
interpret Catholic faith by belief, arising out of
the apparent predominance of the grounds for,
over those against, the truth of the positions
sserted; much more, by belief as a mere
passive acquiescence <>!" the understanding !
Were all damned who died diving the period
when totusjert mundus Jactus est Arianus, as
one of the Fathers admits ? Alas! alas! how
long will it be ere Christians take the plain
middle road between intolerance and indiffer-
ence, by adopting the literal sense and Scrip-
tural import of heresy, that is, wilful error, or
belief originating in some perversion of the
will ; and of heretics, (for such there are, nay,
even orthodox heretics , that is, men wilfully
unconscious of their own wilfulness, in their
limpet-like adhesion to a favourite tenet !
11). p. -Hi.
All ( hristians must confess, that there is no other name
a under heaven whereby m n can he saved, but only the
name of Christ.
New this is a most awful question, on w Inch
depends whether Christ was more than So-
crates; for to bring God from heaven to re-
proclaim the Ten Commandments, is /<><> too
ridiculous. Need 1 say 1 incline to Sherlock ?
But yet I (annul _Jve to faith the meaning h
does, though I give it all, and more than all. the
\oj . i\. o
194 NOTES ON
power. But if that Name, as power, saved the
Jewish Church before they knew the Name, as
name, how much more now, if only the will be
not guiltily averse ? Any miracle does in kind
as truly bring God from heaven as the In-
carnation, which the Socinians wholly forget,
as in other points. They receive without
scruple what they have learned without exami-
nation, and then transfer to the first article
which they do look into, all the difficulties that
belong equally to the former: as the Simoni-
dean doubts concerning God to the Trinity, and
the like.
lb. p. 27.
The Eclectic Neo-Platonists (Sallustius and
others,) justified their Polytheism on much the
same pretext as is in fact involved in the lan-
guage of this page ; ttoAAoi /nev, ev of jxia OtOTrjri.
This indeed seems to me decisive in favour of
Waterland's scheme against this of Sherlock's ;
— namely, that in the latter we find no suffi-
cient reason why in the nature of things this
intermutual consciousness might not be pos-
sessed by thirty instead of three. Tt seems a
strange confounding ertowv -ysi-twv to answer,
" True ; but the latter only happens to be the
fact !"— -just as if we were speaking of the
number of persons in the Privy Council.
lb. p. 28.
Notes. By keeping this faith whole and undejiled, must
be meant that a man should believe and profess it without
RRLOCK. 1 ■',
ding to it or taking from it. *"* First, for adding. What
if' an honest plain man, because he is ;i Christian and a Pro-
testant, shuulil think it necessary to add this article to the Atha-
ed ; — / hi lit ve the Holy Scriptures oj the Old and
»t to be a divine, infallibli and complete rule
both/or faith and manners. 1 hope no Protestant would think
a man damned for such addition ; and if so, then this (reed
of Athanasius is at least an unnecessary rule of faith.
rtoer. That is to say, it is an addition to the Catholic
Faith to own the Scriptures to be the role of faith ; as it" it
d addition to the laws of England to own the original
i - : them in the Tower.
This Notary manages his cause most weakly,
and Sin rlock Jibs him like a scientific pugilist.
But he himself exposes weak parts, as in
p. -27. The objection to the Athanasian Creed
urged by better men than the Notary, yea. by
divines not less orthodox than Sherlock him-
self, is this: not that this Creed adds to the
Scriptures, but that it adds to the original Sym-
bolum Fidei, the Resrula, the Canon, by which,
according to the greater number of the ante-
Nicene Father-, the books of the New Testa-
ment were themselves tried and determined to
be Scripture. Now this Symbolum \\ as to bring
.( ther all that must 1: j believed, « veu by the
babes in faith, or to what purpose was it made?
Now, say they, the Nicene (reed is really
nothing more than a verbal explication of the
common (reed, but the clause in the Atha-
nasian (which faith, &c. , however fairly de-
duced from Scripture, is not contained in the
Creed, or selection of certain articles of Faith
from the Scriptures, or not at least from thos<
'4
««.
9t
ri
<<J
lario
!>f (••
196 NOTES ON
preachings and narrations, of which the New
Testament Scriptures are the repository. Might
not a Papist plead equally in support of the
Creed of Pope Pius : " The new articles are
deduced from Scripture ; that is, in our opinion,
and that most expressly in our Lord's several
and solemn addresses to St. Peter." So again
Sherlock's answer to this paragraph from the
Notes is evasive, — for it is very possible, nay,
it is, and has been the case, that a man may
believe in the facts and doctrines contained in
the New Testament, and yet not believe the
Holy Scripture to be either divine, infallible,
or complete.
Sect. IV. p. 50.
We know not what the substance of an infinite mind is, nor
how such substances as have no parts or extension can touch
each other, or be thus externally united ; but we know the
unity of a mind or spirit reaches as far as its self-consciousness
does, for that is one spirit, which knows and feels itself, and
its own thoughts and motions, and if we mean this by circum-
incession, three persons thus intimate to each other are nume-
rically one.
The question still returns ; have these three
infinite minds, at once self-conscious and con-
scious of each other's consciousness, always the
very same thoughts? If so, this mutual con-
sciousness is unmeaning, or derivative; and
the three do not cease to be three because they
are three sames. If not, then there is Trithe-
ism evidently.
lb. p. 64.
St. Paul tells ns, 1 Cor. ii. 10. That the Spirit searcheth all
SHERLOCK. 107
things, yea the deep things of God. So that the Holy Spirit
knows all that is in God, even bis most deep and secret coun-
sels, which i^ an argument that he is very intimate with him ;
but tliis is not all: it is the manner of knowing, which must
prove this consciousness of which I speak: and that the Apos-
tle adds in the next verse, that the Spirit of God knows all that
i- mi God, just as the spirit of a man knows all that is in man :
that is, not by external revelation or communication of this
knowledge, but by self-consciousness, by an internal sensation,
which IE to an essential unity. For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the *j>irit of a man which is in him ;
■i so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of
I.
It would be interesting, if it were feasible, to
point out the cpocli at which the text mode of
filing in polemic controversy became pre-
dominant ; I mean by single texts without any
modification by the context. I suspect that it
commenced, or rather that it first became the
fashion, under the Dort or systematic theolo-
gians and during the so called Quinquarticular
Controversy. This quotation from St. Paul is
a striking instance: — for St. Paul is speaking of
the holy spirit of which true spiritual Christ-
ians are partakers, and by which or in which
those Christians are enabled to search all
things, eyen the deep things of God. No
person is here spoken of, but reference is made
to the philosophic principle, that can only
act immediately, that is, interpenetratively, as
two globules of quicksilver, and co-adunatively.
Now, perceiving and knowing were considered
as immediate acts relatively to the objects
perceived and known : — ergo, the principium
198 NOTES ON
sciendi must be one (that is, homogeneous
or consubstantial) with the principiuin essendi
quoad object um cognitum. In order. therefore
for a man to understand, or even to know of,
God, he must have a god-like spirit commu-
nicated to him, wherewith, as with an inward
eye, which is both eye and light, he sees the
spiritual truths. Now I have no objection to
his calling this spirit a ' person,' if only the
term ' person' be so understood as to permit of
its being partaken of by all spiritual creatures,
as light and the power of vision are partaken
of by all seeing ones. But it is too evident
that Sherlock supposes the Father, as Father,
to possess a spirit, that is, an intellective fa-
culty, by which he knows the Spirit, that is,
the third co-equal Person ; and that this Spirit,
the Person, has a spirit, that is, an intellective
faculty, by which he knows the Father ; and
the Logos in like manner relatively to both.
So too, the Father has a logos with which he
distinguishes the Logos ; — and the Logos has a
logos, and so on : that is to say, there are three
several though not severed triune Gods, each
being the same position three times realiter
positum, as three guineas from the same mint,
supposing them to differ no more than they
appear to us to differ; —but whether a difference
wholly and exclusively numerical is a con-
ceivable notion, except under the predicament
of space and time ; whether it be not absurd to
affirm it, where interspace and interval cannot
SHEULOl K.
1U1»
be affirmed without absurdity— this is the
question ; or rather it is no question.
lb. p. 08.
Nor do we divide the substance, but unite these three Per-
B in one numerical essence : for we know nothing of the
unity of the mind, but self-consciousness, as I showed before;
and therefore as the self-consciousness of every Person to itself
makes them distinct Persons, so the mutual consciousness of
all three divine Persons to each other makes them all but one
infinite God : as far as consciousness reaches, so far the unity
of a spirit extends, for we know no other unity of ;. mind or
it. but consciousm
But this contradicts the preceding para-
graph, in which the Father is self-conscious
that he is the Father and not the Son, and the
Son that he is not the Father, and that the
lather is not he. Now how can the Son's
being conscious that the Father is conscious
that he is not the Son, constitute a numerical
unity ? And wherein can such a consciousness
as that attributed to the Son differ from abso-
lute certainty ! Is not God conscious of every
thought of man ;— and would Sherlock allow me
to deduce the unity of the divine conscious-
q. ^s with the human f Sherlock's is doubtless
a \(iy plain and intelligible account of three
Gods in the most absolute intimacy with each
other, so that they are all as one; but by no
means of three persons that are one God. I
do not wonder that Waterland and the other
followers of Bull were alarmed.
lb. p. 72.
liven among mta it is only knowledge thai is power. Human
200
NOTES Ox\
•«»«■. t„, ^ r; .ec;re7re: whatew "— «■■
"hat he k„„,s hoW JITf tf r n"-V' C™7 — -n do
materials to do it with. ' f"'°per lnst""nents and
same. « if L W 7-are °"e and the
does no. thsshoithatPth?:r "*™W-
with it? cu»e, not tlie same
lb.
a-i toe ^LC "/,„ , ' " "f .— « ". and
of all human force aj': ^ h 7 *».«™dto instruments
which do nol depend npon „ /, n"""? ^^"^ «*».
"-*. 'I- circulation „Pf t I,"; J ,S;.SUch » *• -*■ of the
and the like. All TO,mtZ T?' *e ™«oetio„ of „„r meat
caused by though,: and ^ "7? "" "<" "fr d^ted hot
he - motion in%he : „ ° £- * mas, he. „r the,, conld
therefore some mind mm £ 27,™°°' ^ ksC'f' *»*
lb. p. 81.
«• these are perfection^ ^fT '^ *"" P0"^
*~ '«en may all know «ne s 2 ,h'° m°'e «ha° »"«, as
J"»« and good : but three Jeh T gS' a"'J l,e "'"ally
feet „•„,,„,„ being m ;X, "" Ca°n0t be»°-h,te,;per-
are to themselves J °"S"°m "> cach other, as 'hey
8H* KLoi k. 20 I
Will any man in his senses affirm, thai my
knowledge is increased by saying " all" thre<
times following? Is it not mere repetition in
time? [f the Son has thoughts which the
Father, as the Father, could not have but for
bisinterpenetrationofthe Son's consciousness,
then 1 can understand it; but then these are'
ao1 three Absolutes, but three modes of perfec-
tion constituting one Absolute; and by what
right Sherlock could call the one Father, more
than the other. I cannot see.
lb. p. ii.
And yet if we consider these three divine Persons as con-
tting each other in themselves, and essentially one by a
mutual consciousness, this pretended contradiction vanishes •
for then the Father is the one true God, because the Father
has the Son and the Holy Spirit in himself: and the Son may
be called the one true God, because the Son has the Father
and the Holy Ghost in himself, &c.
N ay, this is to my understanding three Gods,
and Sherlock seems to have brought in the
material phantom of a thing or substance.
lb. p. 97.
But if these three distinct Persons are not separated, but
mtially united unto one, each of them may be God, and all
three but one God : for if these three Persons,— each of whom
Cc, as it is in the Creed, singly by himself, not sepa-
rately from the other divine Person ,„| and Lord, are
essentially united into one, there can be but one God and one
1 ; and how each of these persona in ( Jed, and all of them
h,jf one Godi h *«r mutual -onsciousness. I hare already
explained.
202 NOTES ON
— " That is, — if the three Persons are not
three ;" — so might the Arian answer, unless
Sherlock had shown the difference of separate
and distinct relatively to mind. "For what other
separation can be conceived in mind but dis-
tinction ? Distinction may be joined with im-
perfection, as ignorance, or forgetfulness ; and
so it is in men : — and if this be called separation
by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion
would be that in the Supreme Mind there is
distinction without imperfection ; and then the
question is, whence comes plurality of Persons?
Can it be conceived other than as the result of
imperfection, that is, finiteness?
lb. p. 98.
Thus each Divine Person is God, and all of them but the
same one God ; as I explained it before.
O no ! asserted it.
lb. p. 98-9.
This one supreme God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, a
Trinity in Unity, three Persons and one God. Now Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, with all their divine attributes and per-
fections (excepting,- their personal properties, which the Schools
call the modi subsistendi, that one is the Father, the other the
Son, and the other the Holy Ghost, which cannot be commu-
nicated to each other) are whole and entire in each Person by
a mutual consciousness ; each feels the other Persons in himself,
all their essential wisdom, power, goodness, justice, as he feels
himself, and this makes them essentially one, as I have proved
at large.
Will not the Arian object, " You admit the
Ml Kill. o< K. 203
modus subsistendi to be a divine perfection, and
\<>u affirm that it is incommunicable. Doc-
it not follow therefore, that there are perfections
which the All-perfect does not possess ' This
would not apply to Bishop Bull or Waterland.
Sect. V. p. 10:2.
Austin in his .sixth book of the Trinity takes notice of a
common argument used by the orthodox Fathers against the
Allans, to prove the co-eternity of the Son with the Fat!
that if the Son be the Wisdom ami Power of < rod, as St. Paul
teaches ( 1 ( 'or. i. ) and ( rod was never without his Wisdom and
Power, the Son must be eo-etemal with the Father. * * *
But this acute Father discovers a great inconvenience in this
rument, for it forces us to say that the Father is nor wise,
hut by that Wisdom which he he^ot, not being himself Wisdom
as the lather: and then we must consider whether the Son
hints If, as he is God of God, and Light of Light, may be said
to he Wisdom of Wisdom, if God the Father be not Wisdom,
but only begets Wisdom.
The proper answer to Augustine is, that the
Son and Holy Ghost are necessary and essen-
tial, not contingent: and that his argument
has a >tiil greater inconvenience, as shewn in
note p. 98.
lb. pp. 1 t.O — 1 13.
But what makes St. Gregory dispute thus nicely, and oppose
the common and ordinary forms of speech? Did he in good
earnest believi that there is but one man in the world ' No,
no ! he acknowledged as many men as we do ; 8 great mul-
titude who had the same human nature, and that every one
who had a human nature was an individual man, distinguished
and divided from all other individuals of the Bame nature.
W hat makes him so zealous then against Baying, that Peter,
James and John are three men? Only this; that he savt-
204 NOTES ON
man is the name of nature, and therefore to say there are three
men is the same as to say, there are three human natures of a
different kind ; for if there are three human natures, they
must differ from each other, or they cannot be three ; and so
you deny Peter, James, and John to be o/xoovaiot, or of the same
nature ; and for the same reason we must say that though the
Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, yet
there are not three Gods, but fxia Qt6-i)c, one Godhead and
Divinity.
Sherlock struggles in vain, in my opinion at
least, to clear these Fathers of egregious logo-
machy, whatever may have heen the sound-
ness of their faith, spite of the quibbles by
which they endeavoured to evince its ration-
ality. The very change of the terms is sus-
picious. " Yes! we might say three Gods" (it
would be answered,) " as we say and ought to
say three men : for man and humanity, avQpw-
■jrog and avOpcjirorrig are not the same terms ; —
so if the Father be God, the Son God, and the
Holy Ghost God, there would be three Gods,
though not rpuq Oeonneg, — that is, three God-
heads/'
lb. p. 115-16.
Gregory Nyssen tells us that (hoc is 0con)c and fyopoc, the
inspector and governor of the world, that is, it is a name of
energy, operation and power ; and if this virtue, energy, and
operation be the very same in all the Persons of the Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then they are but one God, but
one power and energy. * * The Father does nothing
by himself, nor the Son by himself, nor the Holy Ghost by
himself; but the whole energy and operation of the Deity re-
lating to creatures begins with the Father, passes to the Son,
and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit ; the Holy Spirit
docs not act anything separately; there are not three distinct
SHERLCM K. k2<»'»
operations, aa there are three Persons, &XXa pla - -<u
\)lfui7t» r/l ijmr Kill < KikuTfiifTir \ hilt One motion
and disposition of the good will, which passes through the
whole Trinity from Father to Son, and to the Holy Ghost, and
this is don ro) adiaprruc, without any distance of
time, or propagating the motion from one to the other, hut In-
one thoug-ht, as it is in one numerical mind and spirit, and
th.-refore, though they are three Persons, they are hut one nu-
merical power and eneri
But this i> either Tritheism or Sabellianism ;
it i> hard to say which. Either the j3ovXn/ui
Mil>>i-i> in the Sou, and in the Holy Ghost,
and not merely passes through them, and then
there would be three numerical j3ouAtyiara, as
well as three numerical Persons : ergo, rn-Jr Otol
7) diarai (according to Gregory Nyssen's shallow
and disprovable etymology), which would he
Tritheism : or ev -< yivzrai /3ouA^a, and then the
Son and Holy (-host are but terms of relation,
which i> Sabellianism. But in fact this (ire-
gory and tin others were Tritheistsin the mode
of their conception, though they did not wish
to be so, and refused even to believe themselves
such.
( in gory Nj SSen, ( 'yiil of Alexandria. Maxi-
mufl and Damascen were charged with "a
kind of Tritheism" by Petavius and Dr. Cud-
worth, who. according to Sherlock, have " mis-
taken their meaning/ See pp. 106 — 9, of this
" Vindication."
II). p. 1 17.
For I leave any man to jadge, whether this /mm Kivqvit |3ov-
\i)fniri < . this one Bingle motion of will, which is in the same
206 NOTES ON
instant in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, can signify anything
else but a mutual consciousness, which makes them numerically
one, and as intimate to each other, as every man is to himselt,
as I have already explained it.
Is not God conscious to all my thoughts,
though I am not conscious of God's? Would
Sherlock endure that I should infer : ergo, God
is numerically one with me, though I am not
numerically one with God? I have never
seen, but greatly wish to see, Waterland s con-
troversial tracts against Sherlock. Again : ac-
cording to Sherlock's conception, it would seem
to follow that we ought to make a triad of
triads, or an ennead.
1 . Father— Son— Holy Ghost.
2. Son— Father-Holy Ghost.
3. Holy Ghost— Son— Father.
Else there is an x in the Father which is not
in the Son, a y in the Son which is not in the
Father, and a z in the Holy Ghost which is
in neither : that is, each by himself is not
total God.
lb. p. 120.
But however he might be mistaken in his philosophy, he was
not in his divinity ; for he asserts a numerical unity of the
divine nature, not a mere specific unity, which is nothing but
a logical notion, nor a collective unity, which is nothing but a
company who are naturally many : but a true subsisting nu-
merical unity of nature ; and if the difficulty of explaining
this and his zeal to defend it, forced him upon some unintel-
ligible niceties, to prove that the same numerical human nature
toDo is but one in all men, it is hard to charge him with teaching,
MILK LOCK. 207
"e think he has not proved that Peter, James, and John are
--™. This wiU make very foul workwk the Fathe"
tZFSl *--^all those erroneous conceits al t*
'•' U,' we «■ '•""•y « their iuconveuient waya ofex-
Plauung tli;it venerable mystery, especially when the^mpare
'hat mysterious unity with any uatural anions. P
So that after all this obscuration of the ob-
scure, Sherlock ends by fairly throwing up his
bnefs, and yei calls out, « Not guilty! Vie
torta! And what is this but to say : These
™OT (,i(I indeed involve Tritheism in their
mode of defending the Tri-personality ; but
^ey^renotTritheists:-thoughitwouldbe
more accurate to say, that they were Tri-
theiste, but not so as to make any practical
breach of the Unity ;-as it; for instance, Peter
James, and John had three silver tickets by
shewing one of which either or all three would
have the isame thing as if they had shewn all
thrf tickets, and via n,,,,, all three tickets
,uW Produce no more than each one : each
corresponding to tin whole.
lb.
I unsure St Gregory was so tar from suspecting thai he
£ould be charged with Tritbeism upon this* ,„i, that £
fences agmnst another charge of mixing and confounding the
2« Menying any difference or dive^
argues that he thought he bad so full, .euniiyoftne
dmne esseuce thai aome might auspect he had left but one
wn,aa well as one nature in God.
208 NOTES ON
This is just whatl have said, p. 1 16. Whether
Sabellianism or Tritheism, I observed is hard
to determine. Extremes meet.
lb. p. 1-21.
Secondly, to this homo-ousiotes the Fathers added a nume-
rical unity of the divine essence. This Petavius has proved at
large by numerous testimonies, even from those very Fathers,
whom he before accused for making God only collectively one,
as three men are one man ; such as Gregory Nyssen, St. Cyril,
Maximus, Damascen ; which is a demonstration, that however
he might mistake their explication of it, from the unity of
human nature, they were far enough from Tritheism, or one-
collective God.
This is most uncandid. Sherlock, even to
be consistent with his own confession, § 1 . p.
120, ought to have said, " However he might
mistake their intention, in consequence of their
inconvenient and unphilosophical explication ;"
which mistake, in fact, consisted in taking
them at their word.
lb.
Petavius greatly commends Boethius's explication of this
mystery, which is the very same he had before condemned in
Gregory Nyssen, and those other Fathers :— That Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost are one God, not three Gods : hujus conjunc-
tionis ratio est indifferentia : that is, such a sameness of nature
as admits of no difference or variety, or an exact homo-onsiotes,
as he explains it. * * Those make a difference, who augment
and diminish, as the Arians do ; who distinguish the Trinity
into different natures, as well as Persons, of different worth and
excellency, and thus divide and multiply the Trinity into a
plurality of Gods. Principium enim jduralitatis alteritas est.
Prater alteritatem enim, nee pluralitas quid sit intelligi
potest.
SHERLOC K.
Then if so, what becomes of the Persons?
Have the Persons attributes distinct from tin ii
nature ; —or does not their common nature con-
stitute their common attributes? Principium
lb. p. 124,
That the Fathers universally acknowledged that the operation
of tlie whole Trinity, ad extra, is but one, Petavius has proved
one! all contradiction ; and hence they conclude the unity
of the divine nature and essence ; for every nature has a virtue
an<] of its own ; tor nature is a principle of action, and
if the energr and operation be but one, there can be but one
nature ; and if there be two distinct and divided operations, if
either of them can act alone without the other, there must be
two divided natures.
Then it was not the Son but the whole
Trinity that was crucified : for surely this was
an operation ad extra,
lb. p. 126.
But to do St. Austin right, though he do not name this con-
he explains this Trinity in Unity by examples <>t'
mutual consciousness. I named one of his similitudes before,
of the unitv of our understanding-, memory, and will, which
are all conscious to each other; that we remember what we
understand and will ; we understand what we remember and
will ; and what we will we remember and understand ; and
therefore all these three faculties do penetrate and comprehend
other.
Which! The man is self-conscious alike
when he rememb. srs, wills, and understands;
but in what sense is the generic term "memory"
conscious to tin generic word " will V This
is mere nonsense. Are memory, understanding,
VOL. iv. p
210 NOTES ON
and volition persons, — self-subsistents ? If not,
what are they to the purpose? Who doubts
that Jehovah is consciously powerful, con-
sciously wise, consciously good ; and that it is
the same Jehovah, who in being omnipotent,
is good and wise : in being wise, omnipotent
and good ; in being good, is wise and omnipo-
tent ? But what has all this to do with a dis-
tinction of Persons ? Instead of one Tri-unity
we might have a mille-unity. The fact is,
that Sherlock, and (for aught I know) Gregory
Nyssen, had not the clear idea of the Trinity,
positively ; but only a negative Arianism.
lb. p. 127.
He proceeds to shew that this unity is without all manner of
confusion and mixture, * * for the mind that loves, is in the
love. * * * And the knowledge of the mind which knows and
loves itself, is in the mind, and in its love, because it loves
itself, knowing-, and knows itself loving* : and thus also two
are in each, for the mind which knows and loves itself, with
its knowledge is in love, and with its love is in knowledge.
Then why do we make tri-personality in
unity peculiar to God ?
The doctrine of the Trinity (the foundation
of all rational theology, no less than the pre-
condition and ground of the rational possibility
of the Christian Faith, that is, the Incarnation
and Redemption), rests securely on the posi-
tion,— that in man omni actioni prceit sua pro-
pria passio ; Deus autem est actus purissimus
sine ulla potentialitate. As the tune produced
between the breeze and Eolian harp is not a
SHERLO* K. -2 I I
self-subsistent, s<> neither memory, nor und<
standing, nor even love in man: for he is a
passi as well as active being : heisapatible
ut. But in God tliis i> not so. Whatever
is necessarily of him, (God of God, Light of
Light ". i^ i irily all act ; therefore neces
lily self-subsistent, though not necessarily
self-originated. This then is the true mystery,
because the true unique; that the Son of God
has origination without passion, that is, with-
out ceasing to be a pure act : while a created
entity is, as far as it is merely creaturely and
distinguishable from the Creator, a mere passio
or recipient. This unicity we strive, not to
express, for that is impossible; but to designate,
by the nearest, though inadequate, analogy, —
Begotten.
lb. p. 133.
As for the Holv Ghost, whose nature is represented to be
love, I do not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where
said, that the Holv < rhost is that mutual love, wherewith Father
and Son love each other : but this we know, that there is a
mutual love between Father and Son: the Father loveth tin
Son, and hath given all things into Ids hands. — Jolm iii. 35.
And the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things
that himself doeth. — John v. 20 ; and our Saviour himself tells
us, / love tin Father. — John \iv. 31. And f shewed before,
that love is a distinct act, and tin, God must be a
person : for there arc no accidents nor faculties in Clod.
Thi> most important, nay, fundamental
truth, so familiar to tin eld< r philosophy, and
strongly and distinctly enunciated by Philo
Judaeus, the senior and contemporary of tlir
212 NOTES ON
Evangelists, is to our modern divines darkness
and a sound.
Sect. VI. pp. 147-8.
Yes ; you'll say, that there should be three Persons, each of
which is God, and yet but one God, is a contradiction: but
what principle of natural reason does it contradict ?
Surely never did argument vertiginate more!
I had just acceded to Sherlock's exposition
of the Trinity, as the Supreme Being, his re-
flex act of self-consciousness and his love, all
forming one supreme mind ; and now he tells
me, that each is the whole Supreme Mind, and
denies that three, each per se the whole God,
are not the same as three Gods ! I grant that
division and separation are terms inapplicable,
yet surely three distinct though undivided
Gods, are three Gods. That the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, are the one true God, I fully
believe; but not Sherlock's exposition of the
doctrine. Nay, I think it would have been
far better to have worded the mystery thus : —
The Father together with his Son and Spirit,
is the one true God.
" Each per se God.' This is the tt^tov fxk-ya
fcvSog of Sherlock's scheme. Each of the three
is whole God, because neither is, or can be
per se; the Father himself being a se, but not
per se.
lb. p. 149.
For it is demonstrable that if there be three Persons and
one God, each Person must be God, and yet there cannot be
SHERLOCK. 213
throe distinct Gods, but one. For if each Person be not God,
;ill three cannot be God, unless the Godhead have Persons in
it which are not God.
Three persons having the same nature are
three persons; — and if to possess without limi-
tation the divine nature, as opposed to the
human, is what we mean by God, why then
three such persons are three Gods, and will
bethought so, till Gregory Nyssen can persuade
us thai John, James, and Peter, each possessing
the human nature, are not three men. John
is a man, James is a man, and Peter is a man :
but they are not three men, but one man !
lb. p. 150.
I affirm, that natural reason is not the rule and measure of
expounding Scripture, no more than it is of expounding any
other writing. The true and only way to interpret any writing,
even the Scriptures themselves, is to examine the use and pro-
priety of words and phrases, the connexion, scope, and design
of the text, its allusion to ancient customs and usages, or dis-
putes. For there is no other good reason to be given for any
exposition, but that the words signify so, and the circumstances
of the place, and the apparent scope of the writer require it.
This and the following paragraph are excel-
lent. O si sic omnia !
lb. p. 153.
Reconcile men to the doctrine (of the Trinity), and the
Scripture is plain without any farther comment. This I have
now endeavoured ; and I believe our adversaries will talk more
sparingly of absurdities and contradictions for the future, and
they will lose the best argument they have against the orthodox
expositions of Scripture.
214 NOTES ON
Good doctor ! you sadly over-rated both
your own powers, and the docility of your ad-
versaries. If so clear a head and so zealous a
Trinitarian as Dr. Waterland could not digest
your exposition, or acquit it of Tritheism, little
hope is there of rinding the Unitarians more
persuadable.
lb. p. 154.
Though Christ be God himself, yet if there be three Persons
in the Godhead, the equality and sameness of nature does not
destroy the subordination of Persons : a Son is equal to his
Father by nature, but inferior to him as his Son : if the Father,
as I have explained it, be original mind and wisdom, the Son
a personal, subsisting, but reflex image of his Father's wisdom,
though their eternal wisdom be equal and the same, yet the
original is superior to the image, the Father to the Son.
But why ? We men deem it so, because the
image is but a shadow, and not equal to the
original ; but if it were the same in all perfec-
tions, how could that, which is exactly the
same, be less? Again, God is all Being: —
consequently there can nothing be added to
the idea, except what implies a negation or
diminution of it. If one and the same Being
is equal to the Father, as touching his God-
head, but inferior as man ; then it is -f m — x,
which is not = + m. But of two men I may
say, that they are equal to each other. A. =
-f courage -wisdom. B. = + wisdom- courage.
Both wise and courageous ; but A. inferior in
wisdom, B. in courage. But God is all-per-
fect.
SHERLOCK. '.Mo
lb. p. I-jO.
S born before all creatures, U rpwroroKOC also signifies, thut
by him wire nil things created.
All things acre created by him, and for him, and It* is
before all things, (which is the explication of 7rwproro*.o._ -amir
nriatmct begotten before the whole creation, and therefore no
part of the creation himself. )
Tlii> is quite right. Our version should
here be corrected. llpCrro or Trporarov is here
an intense comparative, — infinitely before.
11). p. 1-39.
1 hat he briny in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be eijital with God, &c. — Phil. ii. 8, 9.
1 .should be inclined to adopt an interpreta-
tion of the unusual phrase aoiray/iov somewhat
different both from the Socinian and the Church
version : — " who beiim' in the form of God did
not think equality with God d thing to be seized
with violence, but made, S:c."
lb. p. 100.
1- a mere creature a fit lieutenant or representative of God
in personal or prerogative acts of government and power? Must
not every being be represented by one of his own kind, a man
by a man, an angel by an angel, in Bucb acta aa are proper to
their natures? and must not(iod then be represented by one
who is God ? Is any creature capable of the government of the
world I Does not this require infinite wisdom and infinite
power? And can God communicate infinite wisdom and infinite
power to a creature or a finite nature ? That is, can a creature
be made a true and essential God I
This is sound reasoning. It is to be regretted
216
NOTES OA
lb. pp. j 61— 3.
*** «• 8, 9. And Vet J ""lively; of
something that sto^t' T * *?' " if a
to which all these ™L / en Prefixed, and
been excellent sTonT- nS WOU,d b™
P^in the Cross Tv ,f ' ""^^ To ex-
b<°°d, and th s l :iarbTiyof sac,ificia!
-^-delegate or pr Xi ,"\a tyPe and
-o >ike an „r,^rr:ti;he c-s- -
lb- p. 164.
And (hough Christ be ,he P,0 , 0
natural Lord and heir of all, , S°n of G">> and the
y at (or i„ h) the nmm ^"f " *- «*>* M«
£*£Z£$Z2rr more debased ■
-<— *«m— itiS 5 ."7ad of
weww. For such is the fi° r *" the nou'
■v*- and **» itg: c lat:r"' nawe-
*ia A6yov, the fn.o , S' £" Aoyw Kai
* chLs't. Vo b0 °;i'r or e'i *«B*
may becotne a unZ^al buT^ ** •fPM—
BUEBLO< K. 217
But the debasement of the idea is not tin
il of tin- false rendering ;— it has af-
ded tli* pretext and authority for un-Christ-
ian intolerance.
lb. p. 16
The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed alljudg-
S ».— John v. 22 Should the Father judge the
ust judge as the maker and sovereign of the world,
lofrighteon ind justice, and then how
could any sinner be saved I
bj ' I- mercy incompatible with righte-
ousness ! How then can the Son be righteous ?)
But he has committed judgment to the Son, as a mediatory
. who judges by the equity and chancery of the Gospel.
This article required exposition incompara-
bly more than the simple doctrine of the Trin-
ity, plain and evident simplici intuitu, and
rend< red obscure onlj by diverting the mental
vision by terms drawn from matter and multi-
tude. En the Trinity all the Hows? may and
should be answered by Look! just as a wis<
tutor would do in stating the fact of a double
or treble motion, as of a ball rolling northward
on the deck of a ship sailing south, while the
rth is turning from west to east. And in
Like manner, that is, fh r intuitum inti llectual m,
must all the mysteries of faith be contem-
plated;—they are intelligible per se, aot dis-
cursively and per antUogiam. For the truths
are unique, and may have Bhadows and typ
but ao analogies. At this moment 1 have no
•2 If*
*J,° NOTES ON
intuition, no intellectual diagram, of this article
of the commission of all judgment to the Son,
and therefore a multitude of plausible objec-
tions present themselves, which I cannot solve
-nor do I expect to solve them till by faith I
see the thing itself.-Is not mercy an attribute
of the Deity, as Deity, and not exclusively of
the Person of the Son? And is not the autho-
rizing another to judge by equity and mercv
the same as j udging so ourselves ? If the Father
can do the former, why not the latter ?
lb. p. 171.
And therefore now it is given him to have life in himself as
the Father hath life in himself, as the original fountain of all
hfe by whom the Son himself lives : all life is derived from
God, either by eternal generation, or procession, or creation ;
and thus Clmst hath life in himself also ; to the new creation
he is the fountain of life : he quickeneth whom he will.
The truths which hitherto had been meta-
physical, then began to be historical. The
Eternal was to be manifested in time. Hence
Christ came with signs and wonders ; that is,
the absolute, or the anterior to cause and effect!
manifested itself as a phenomenon in time, but
with the predicates of eternity ;-and this is
the only possible definition of a miracle in re
ipsa, and not merely ad hominem, or ad igno-
rantiam.
lb. p. 177.
His next argument consists in applying such things to the
divinity of our Saviour as belong to his humanity ; that he
SHERLOCK. '2\i>
increased in wisdom, Sec: — that he knows not the day of
judgment ; — which be evidently speaks of himself as man ;
as all the ancient Fathers confess. In St. Mark it is said,
Hut of that day and that hour hnoircth no man, no, not the
gels that arc in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Matthew does not mention the Son : Of that day and hour
knoiveth no man, not the angels of heaven, but my Father
only.
How much more politic, as well as ingenu-
ous, it had been to have acknowledged the
difficulty of this text. So far from its being
< vident, the evidence would be on the Arian
Bide, were it not that so many express texts
determine us to the contrary.
lb.
Which shows that the Son in St. Matthew is included in
the mnt'tr none, or no man, and therefore concerns him onlj
as a man : for the Father includes the whole Trinity, and
therefore includes the Son, who seeth whatever his Father
doth.
This is an argwnentum in circulo, and petitio
n i sub lite. Why is he called the Son in anti-
thesis to the Father, if it meant, " no not the
Christ, except in his character of the co-eternal
Son, included in the rather?" If it "con-
cerned him only as a man," why is he placed
after the angels? Why called the Son simply,
instead of the Son of Man, or the Messiah !
lb.
Ovctlc is not ohbtlc avOpwirtav, but, no one : as in .lohni. 18.
No one hath seen God at any time ; that is, be is by essenci
invisible.
220 NOTES ON
This most difficult text I have not seen ex-
plained satisfactorily. I have thought that the
a-yytXot must here be taken in the primary
sense of the word, namely, as messengers, or
missionary Prophets : Of this day knoweth no
one, not the messengers or revealers of God's
purposes now in heaven, no, not the Son, the
greatest of Prophets,— that is, he in that cha-
racter promised to declare all that in that
character it was given to him to know.
lb. p. 186.
When St. Paul calls the Father the One God, he expressly
opposes it to the many gods of the heathens. For though
there be that are called gods, &c. but to us, there is but one
God, the Father, of whom are all things ; and one Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him : where
the one God and one Lord and, Mediator is opposed to the many
gods and many lords or mediators which were worshipped by
the heathens.
But surely the one Lord is as much distin-
guished from the one God, as both are contra-
distinguished from the <*ods many and lords
many of the heathens. Besides the Father is
not the term used in that age in distinction
from the gods that are no gods ; but O eirl
iravTtov Qioq.
lb. p. 222.
The Word was ivith God; that is, it was not yet in the
world, or not yet made flesh; hut with God. — John i. 1.
So that to be with God, signifies nothing but not to be in the
world.
The Word was with God.
SHERLCX k -2'1\
Grotinsdoes say, that this was opposed to the Word's bein 5
made Besh, and appearing in the world : but h<- was far enough
from thinking that these words have only a negative sen-
* * * for he telle us what the positive Bense is, that with God
is -,,,„, tm narpi, With the Father, * * and explains it by
what Wisdom says, Prov. vii. 30. Then I was by him, &c.
which he does not think a prosopopaia, but spoken of a sub-
og person.
But even this is scarcely tenable even as
Greek. Had this been St. John's meaning,
Mink he would have said, iv duo, not vpoi: tov
6W, in the nearest proximity that is not con-
tusion. But it is strange, that Sherlock should
not have seen that (irotius had a hankering
toward Socinianism, but, like a shy cock, and
a man of the world, was always ready to unsay
what he had said.
NOTES ON WATERLAND'S VINDICATION OF
CHRIST'S DIVINITY.*
/// initio.
It would be no easy matter to find a tolerably
competent individual who more venerates the
writings of Waterland than J do, and long
have done. But still in how many pages do I
not see reason to regret, that the total idea of
* A Vindication of Christ's Divinity: being a defence of
some queries relating to Dr. Clarke's scheme of the Holy
Trinity, &c. By Daniel Waterland. 2nd edit. Cambridj
1719. Ed.
222
NOTES ON
the 4=3=1,— of the adorable Tetractys, eter-
nally self-manifested in the Triad, Father,
Son, and Spirit,— was never in its cloudless
unity present to him. Hence both he and
Bishop Bull too often treat it as a peculiarity
of positive religion, which is to be cleared of
all contradiction to reason, and then, thus
negatively qualified, to be actually received by
an act of the mere will ; sit pro ratione voluntas.
Now, on the other hand, I affirm, that the
article of the Trinity is religion, is reason, and
its universal formula; and that there neither
is, nor can be, any religion, any reason, but
what is, or is an expansion of the truth of the
Trinity ; in short, that all other pretended re-
ligions, pagan or pseudo-Chri&tmn (for example,
Sabellian, Arian, Socinian), are in themselves
Atheism; though God forbid, that I should
call or even think the men so denominated
Atheists. I affirm a heresy often, but never
dare denounce the holder a heretic.
On this ground only can it be made com-
prehensible, how any honest and commonly
intelligent man can withstand the proofs and
sound logic of Bull and Waterland, that they
failed in the first place to present the idea it-
self of the great doctrine which they so ably
advocated. Take myself, S. T. C. as a humble
instance. I was never so befooled as to think
that the author of the fourth Gospel, or that
St. Paul, ever taught the Priestleyan Psilan-
thropism, or that Unitarianism (presumptu-
W ATE BLAND. -J-2.*]
OUfily, nay, absurdly so called , was the doctrine
of the Xcw Testament generally. But during
the sixteen months of my aberration from the
Catholic Faith, I presumed thai the tenets of
the divinity of Christ, the Redemption, and
the like, were irrationnl and that what was
contradictory to reason could not have been
reveahd by the Supreme Reason. As soon as
1 discovered thai these doctrines were not only
consistent with reason, but themselves very
reason, 1 returned at once to the literal inter-
tation of the Scriptures, and to the Faith.
As to Dr. Samuel Clarke, the fact is, every
generation has its one or more over-rated men.
Clarke was such in the reign of George 1. ;
Dr. Johnson eminently so in that of George
111.; Lord Bvron being the star now in the
ascendant.
In every religious and moral use of the
Word, God, taken absolutely, that is, not as a
God, or the God, but as God, a relativity, a
distinction in kind ab omni quod /ton est Pens,
i> so essentially implied, that it is a matter of
perfect indifference, whether we assert a world
without God, or make God the world. The
one is as truly Atheism as the other. In fact,
for all moral and practical purposes they are
the same position differently expressed; for
whether J Bay, God is the world, or the world
i^ God, the inevitable conclusion, the sense and
import i>, that there is do other God than the
world, that is, there is in. other meaning to the
224 NOTES ON
term God. Whatever you may mean by, or
choose to believe of, the world, that and that
alone yon mean by, and believe of, God. Now
I very much question whether in any other
sense Atheism, that is, speculative Atheism,
is possible. For even in the Lucretian, the
coarsest and crudest scheme of the Epicurean
doctrine, a hylozism, a potential life, is clearly
implied, as also in the celebrated lene clinamen
becoming actual. Desperadoes articulating
breath into a blasphemy of nonsense, to which
they themselves attach no connected meaning,
and the wickedness of which is alone intelli-
gible, there may be ; but a La Place, or a La
Grand, would, and with justice, resent and
repel the imputation of a belief in chance, or
of a denial of law, order, and self-balancing
life and power in the world. Their error is,
that they make them the proper and underived
attributes of the world. It follows then, that
Pantheism is equivalent to Atheism, and that
there is no other Atheism actually existing,
or speculatively conceivable, but Pantheism.
Now I hold it demonstrable that a consistent
Socinianism, following its own consequences,
must come to Pantheism, and in ungodding
the Saviour must deify cats and dogs, fleas
and frogs. There is, there can be, no medium
between the Catholic Faith of Trinal Unity,
and Atheism disguised in the self-contradicting
term, Pantheism ;— for every thing God, and
no God, are identical positions.
u a 1 1 :ri and. 225
Query 1. p. I.
The Word was God. — John i. 1 . / am the Lord, and tin re
• me else ; there is no God besides me, — [a. xiv. .•"), &
In all these texts the was, or is, ought to be
rendered positively, or objectively, and not as
mere connective: The Word Is (tod, and
-aith, / .//// the Lord; there is no God Insults
)ne, the Supreme Being, Deitas objectiva. The
Father saith, / Am in that I am, — Deitas sub-
tiva.
lb. p. 2.
Whether all other beings, besides the one Supreme God, be
not excluded by the texts of Isaiah (to which many more might
be added), and consequently, whether Christ can be God at all,
unless He be the same with the Supreme God?
The sum of your answer to this query is, that the texts cited
from Isaiah, are spoken of one Person only, the Person of the
Father, &c.
O most unhappy mistranslation of Hypos-
tasis by Person ! The Word is properly tin-
only Person.
lb. p.
w upon your hypothesis, we must add; that even the
self, however divine he may be thought, is
really no God at all in any just and proper sense. He is no
more than a nominal God, and stands excluded with the rest.
All worship of him, and reliance upon him, will be idolatry, as
much a.s the worship of angels, or men, or of the gods of the
heathi o would be. God the Father he is God, and he only,
and him only shah thou serve. 'I bis 1 take to be a clear con-
sequence from your principled, and unavoidable.
Waterland's argument is absolutely unan-
\ <>!,. IV. Q
220 NOTES ON
swerable by a worshipper of Christ. The mo-
dern ultra-Socinmn cuts the knot.
Query II. p. 43.
And therefore he might as justly bear the style and title of
Lord God, God of Abraham, &c. while he acted in that capa-
city, as he did that of Mediator, Messiah, S071 of the Father,
&c. after that he condescended to act in another, and to dis-
cover his personal relation.
And why, then, did not Dr. Waterland,-—
why did not his great predecessor in this glo-
rious controversy, Bishop Bull, — contend for a
revisal of our established version of the Bible,
but especially of the New Testament ? Either
the unanimous belief and testimony of the first
five or six centuries, grounded on the reiterated
declarations of John and Paul, and the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, were erroneous,
or at best doubtful ; — and then why not wipe
them off; why these references to them ? — or
else they were, as I believe, and both Bull and
Waterland believed, the very truth ; and then
why continue the translation of the Hebrew
into English at second-hand through the me-
dium of the Septuagint? Have we not adopted
the Hebrew word, Jehovah ? Is not the Kvpioc,
or Lord, of the LXX. a Greek substitute, in
countless instances, for the Hebrew Jehovah ?
Why not then restore the original word, and
in the Old Testament religiously render Jeho-
vah by Jehovah, and every text of the New
Testament, referring to the Old, by the Hebrew
u \ I BRLAND. -'-'
word in the texl referred to? Had this been
done, Socinianism would have been Bcarcely
possible in England.
Why was not this dW 1—1 will tell you
why. Because that great truth, in which are
contained all treasures of all possible know-
ledge, was still opaque even to Hull and Water-
land ;— because the Idea itself -that Idea
Idearum, the one Bubstrative truth which is the
in. manner, and involvent of all truth-.
was never present to either of them in its en-
tireness, unity, and transparency. They most
ably vindicated the doctrine of the Trinity,
gatively, against the charge of positive irra-
tionality. With equal ability they shewed the
contradictions, nay, the absurdities, involved in
the rejection of the same by a professed Chris-
tian. They demonstrated the utterly un-Scrip-
tural and contra-Scriptural natureof Arianism,
and Sabellianism, and Socinianism. But the
If-evidence of the great Truth, ;is a universal
on,— as the reason itself' as a light
which revealed itself by it^ own essence as
Light— this they had not had vouchsafed to
them.
Query XV. p. 225-6.
Tho pretence is, that we equivocate in talking of eternal
generation.
All generation is necessarily avapx°'VT*» with-
oul dividuous beginning, and herein contradis-
tinguished from creation.
228 NOTES ON
lb. p. 226.
True, it is not the same with human Generation.
Not the same eodem modo, certainly ; but it
is so essentially the same that the generation
of the Son of God is the transcendent, which
gives to human generation its right to be so
called. It is in the most proper, that is, the
fontal, sense of the term, generation.
lb.
^ ou have not proved that all generation implies beginning ;
and what is more, cannot.
It would be difficult to disprove the con-
trary. Generation with a beginning is not
generation, but creation. Hence we may see
how necessary it is that in all important con-
troversies we should predefine the terms nega-
tively, that is, exclude and preclude all that
is not meant by them; and then the positive
meaning, that is, what is meant by them, will
be the easy result,— the post-definition, which
is at once the real definition and impletion, the
circumference and the area.
lb. p. 227-8.
It is a usual thing- with many, (moralists may account for it),
when they meet with a difficulty which they cannot readily
answer, immediately to conclude that the doctrine is false, and
to run directly into the opposite persuasion ; — not considering
that they may meet with much more weighty objections there
than before ; or that they may have reason sufficient to main-
tain and believe many things in philosophy and divinity, though
they cannot answer every question which may be started, or
every difficulty which may be raised against them.
WATERLAND. ._)o<,
O, if Bull and Waterland had been 6rst
J.' -"l'1"-;-"! the ,ncs, instead „,,„,,„!
> . n,„lil(.|,,| ,„■ s;l, articled clerks off
gu',d:-rf the clear free intuition of the truth
r;'"1"- ^Article, and not the A3e
o the defence of ,t as not having been proved
o be Wse.-how different would hare been
he result! Now we only feel the inconsistency
^T'. "'." tbe inith of the doctrine at-
„ ked' *™°«m is confuted, and in such a
™'-' """, ' f} »ot reject the Cathl
1 ' ">' upon the Anan's grounds. It may I
;'""■ 'H-still true. But that it i, true, bS
the Anans have hitherto foiled to prove its
falsehood, is no logical conclusion. The Uni
tanan may have better luck; or if he fail, the
Query XVI. p. 234.
But God's thoughts are not our thoughts.
That is, as J would interpret the
"ieasmandby which God reveals himself to
["anare not the same with, and are not to be
judged by, the conceptions which the human
understanding generalizes from the notices of
he senses, common to man and to irrational
animals dogs, elephants, beavers, and the- like
endowed with the same senses Therefore I
"egard this paragraph, p. 223-4; as a specimen
of admirable special pleading ad Aominem „,
»»><<.ur of enstic I.„„, : but I condemn it
asa wilful resignation or temporaiy self-depo-
230 NOTES ON
sition of the reason. I will not suppose what
my reason declares to be no position at all,
and therefore an impossible sub-position.
lb. p. 2.35.
Let us keep to the terms we began with ; lest by the chang-
ing- of words we make a change of ideas, and alter the very
state of the question.
This misuse, or rather this omnium- gatherum
expansion and consequent extenuation of the
word, Idea and Ideas, may be regarded as a
calamity inflicted by Mr. Locke on the reigns
of William III. Queen Anne, and the first two
Georges.
lb. p. 237.
Sacrifice was one instance of worship required under the
Law ; and it is said ; — He that sucrificeth unto any God, save
unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed (Exod. xxii.
20.) Now suppose any person, considering with himself that
only absolute and sovereign sacrifice was appropriated to God
by this law, should have gone and sacrificed to other Gods,
and have been convicted of it before the judges. The apology
he must have made for it, I suppose, must have run thus :
" Gentlemen, though I have sacrificed to other Gods, yet I
hope you'll observe, that I did it not absolutely : I meant not
any absolute or supreme sacrifice (which is all that the Law
forbids), but relative and inferior only. I regulated my inten-
tions with all imaginable care, and my esteem with the most
critical exactness. I considered the other Gods, whom I sacri-
ficed to, as inferior only and infinitely so ; reserving all sove-
reign sacrifice to the supreme God of Israel." This, or the
like apology must, I presume, have brought off the criminal
with some applause for his acuteness, if your principles be
true. Either you must allow this, or you must be content to
sav, that not only absolute supreme sacrifice (if there be any
sense in that phrase), but all sacrifice was by the Law appro-
priate to God only, &c. &c.
WATERLAND. 231
How was it possible for an vnan to answer
this ? But it was impossible ; and Arianism was
extinguished by Waterland, but in order to the
inerease of Socinianism ; and this, I doubt not,
\\ aterland foresaw. He was too wise a man
to suppose that the exposure of the folly and
falsehood of one form of Infidelism would cure
or prevent Infidelity. Enough, that he made
it more bare-faced — 1 might say, bare-breech-
ed; for modern Unitarianism is verily the
sans-culotterie of religion.
lb. p. 239.
You imagine that acts of religious worship are to derive
their signification and quality from the intention and meaning
of the worshippers : whereas the very reverse of it is the truth.
Truly excellent. Let the Church of Eng-
land praise God for her Saints — a more glori-
ous Kalendar than Rome can show !
lb. p. -231.
The sum then of the case is this: If the Son could be in-
cluded as being uncreated, and very God ; as Creator, Sustainer,
Preserver of all thii id one with the Father ; then he might
be worshipped upon their (the Ante-Xicene Fathers') principles,
but otherwise could not.
Everv where in this invaluable writer 1 have
to regret the absence of all distinct idea of the
I Am as the proper attribute of the Father ;
and hence, tin ignorance of the proper Jeho-
vaism of the Son; and hence, that while we
w orship the Son together with the Father, we
nevertheless pray to the Father ouly through
the Son.
NOTES ON
Query XVII.
meltable o.der and economy of ,he ever-blessed co-eternal
"Comprehend!" No. For how can any
spiritual truth be comprehended' Who can
comprehend his own will , or his own person-
e y that is, his I-ship r/c/,W0 . or 4 ow„
mind, that ,s, his person ; or his own life »
But we can distinctly apprehend them. In
stnctness, the Idea, God, like all other ideas
rightly so called, and as contradistinguished
from conception, is not so properly above, as
ahen from, comprehension. It is like smelling
a sound. &
Query XVIII. p. 269.
Here I differ Mo orbe from Waterland, and
say w,th Luther and Zinzendorf, that before
the Baptism of John the Logos alone had
been distinctly revealed, and that first in Christ
he declared himself a Son, namely, the co '
eternal only-begotten Son, and thus revealed
the ! 3 . /"I1166'! the WOnt °f the Idea of
the I =3 couW al0ne have prevented Waterland
fromtnfernng this from his own query II. a°d
'he texts cited by him pp. 28-38 The Father
WATERLAND. 233
cannot be revealed except in and through the
-s<»", his eternal exegesis. The contrary posi-
tn.n is an absurdity. The Supreme Will in-
deed, th.e Absolute Good, knoweth himself as
,,lr Father/ hut the act of self-affirmation, the
1 Am in that 1 Am, is not a manifestation ad
extra, not an exegesis.
H>. p. -a a.
•Point being settled, t might allow you that, in some
worship commenced with the distinct title of
or Redeemer : that is, our blessed Lord was then first
I, or commanded to he worshipped by as, under that
d»tmct title or character; having before had no other title or
nwter peculiar and proper to himself, but only what was
common to the Father and him too.
Rather shall I say that the Son and the
Spirit, the Word and the Wisdom, were alone
worshipped, because alone revealed under the
Law. See Proverbs, i. ii.
The passage quoted from Bishop Bull is
plausible and very eloquent; but only
cum until is grams salts sumend.
Query XIX. p. 279.
• th< Rather, whose honour had been sufficiently secured
uwtar the Jewish dispensation, and could not but be so under
the Christian also, &c.
Here again I This contradiction of Water-
land to his own principles is continually re-
curring;—yea, and in one place he involves
the very Tiitheism, of which he was so victo-
rious an antagonist, namely, that the Father is
hovah, the Son Jehovah, and the Spirit
234 NOTES ON
Jehovah ; — thus making Jehovah either a mere
synonyme of God — whereas he himself rightly
renders it 'OlVQv, which St. John every where,
and St. Paul no less, makes the peculiar name
ol the Son, /.lovoytvrig inog, o d>v eg rov Kokirov tov
irarpog — ; or he affirms the same absurdity,
as if had said : The Father is the Son, and the
Son is the Son, and the Holy Ghost is the
Son, and yet there are not three Sons but one
Son. N. B. 'O wv is the verbal noun of 6g
kan, not of zyio ufii. It is strange how little use
has been made of that profound and most preg-
nant text, John i. 18 !
Query XX. p. 302.
The b/ioovcriov itself might have been spared, at least out of
the Creeds, had not a fraudulent abuse of good words brought
matters to that pass, that the Catholic Faith was in danger of
being lost even under Catholic language.
Most assuredly the very ' disputable' ren-
dering of o/Lioovatov by con substantial, or of one
substance with, not only might have been
spared, but should have been superseded.
Why not — as is felt to be for the interest of
science in all the physical sciences — retain the
same term in all languages? Why not usia
and homoiisial, as well as hypostasis, hypos-
tatic, homogeneous, heterogeneous, and the
like ; — or as Baptism, Eucharist, Liturgy, Epi-
phany and the rest ?
Query XXI. p. 303.
The Doctor's insinuating from the 300 texts, which style the
WATERLAND. -_);}o
kher God absolutely, or the one God, thai the Son is not
>t,K,1.v ;'" "d, not one God with the- Father, is a
trained and remote inference of his own.
\\ aterland has weakened his argument by
seeming to admit that in all these 300 texts
the Father, distinctive, is meant.
lb. p. 316-17.
["he simplicity of God is another mystery. * * When we
U> inquire whether all extension, or all plurality, diversity,
composition of substance and accident, and the like', be consist-
ent with it, then it is we discover how confused and inadequate
our ideas are. * To this head belongs that perplexing ques-
tion I with difficulties on all sides), whether the divine
substance be extended or no.
Surely, the far larger part of these assumed
difficulties rests on a misapplication either of
the senses to the sense, or of the sense to the
understanding, or of the understanding to the
reason;— in short, on an asking for images
where only theorems can be, or requiring the-
orems for thoughts, that is, conceptions or
notions, or lastly, conceptions for ideas.
Query XXIII. p. 361.
in- advantage of the ambiguity of the word hypos-
- imetimea used to signify substance, and sometimes per-
son, you contrive a fallacy.
\ id why did not Walerlaud lift up Ids voice
against this mischievous abuse of the term
hypostasis, and the perversion of its Latin ren-
dering, substantia as being equivalent to oiaia \
W liv oiwia should not have been rendered by
236* NOTES ON
essentia, I cannot conceive. Est seems a con-
traction of esset, and ens of essens : wv, ovaa,
ova'm = essens, essentis, essentia.
lb. p. 354.
Let me desire you not to give so great a loose to your fancy
in divine things : you seem to consider every thing under the
notion of extension and sensible images.
Very true. The whole delusion of the Anti-
Trinitarians arises out of this, that they apply
the property of imaginable matter — in which
A. is, that is, can only be imagined, by exclu-
sion of B. as the universal predicate of all sub-
stantial being.
lb. p. 357.
And our English Unitarians * * have been still refining upon
the Socinian scheme, * * and have brought it still nearer to
Sabellianism.
The Sabellian and the Unitarian seem to
differ only in this ; — that what the Sabellian
calls union with, the Unitarian calls full inspi-
ration by, the Divinity.
lb. p. 359.
It is obvious, at first sight, that the true Arian or Semi-Arian
scheme (which you would be thought to come up to at least)
can never tolerably support itself without taking in the Catholic
principle of a human soul to join with the Word.
Here comes one of the consequences of the
Cartesian Dualism : as if aapE,, the living body,
could be or exist without a soul, or a human
living body without a human soul ! ^apt, is not
Greek for carrion, nor aujxu for carcase.
WATERLAND. 237
Querj XXIV. p. 371.
Necessary existence is an essential character, and belongs
equallv to Father and Son.
Subsistent in themselves are Father, Son
and Spirit: the Father only has origin in hhn-
Belf.
Query XXVI. p. 41-2.
The words obx ">e ytv6pevov he construes thus: " not as
eternally generated," as it* h»- had read yew&utvov, supplying
uunoc: hv imagination. The sense and meaning1 of the word
made, or created, is so fixed and certain
in thi.i author, S
This is but one of fifty instances in which
the true Englishing of yevo/uo/oe, lycvcTo, 6cc.
would have prevented all mistake. It is not
made, but became. Thus here :— begotten eter-
nally, and not as one that became ; that is, as
not haying been before. The only-begotten
Son never became; but all things becarrn
through him.
lb. 412.
Et nos etiam Si rtnoni atque Rationi, it' mque Virtuti, j>< r
qua omnia molitum Deum ediximus, propriam substantiam
Spirit* \mus; cui tt Sermo insit prcenunti
adtit d '>.•' Virtus perficienti. Hunc ex D
prolatum didicimus, < t prolatione generatum, et idcirco Filium
Dei et Deum dictum ex uvitate substantia. — Tertull. Apol.
c. 2 i .
How Btrange and crude the realism <<f the
Christian Faith appears in Tertullian's rugged
Latin !
NOTES ON
lb. p. 414.
He represents Tertnllian as making the Son, in his hWlest
capacity, ignorant of the day of judgment.
Of the true sense of the text, Mark xiii. 32
1 still remain in doubt; but, though as zealous
and stedfast a Homoiisian as Bull and Water-
land themselves, I am inclined to understand
it of the Son in his highest capacity; but I
would «x ,ld the inferiorizing consequences by
a stricter rendering of the a rf „ Flarfe. The
tT 1 w MaUheW Xxiv- m- is here omitted.
i think Waterland's a very unsatisfying solu-
tion of this text.
lb. p. 415.
excto,,o»to„ m p<Mst0Be r,e!K *•
2 .tK? ? ■ &* *? M* c™ *; •*- !M
26.'c 30 ' "eC * ' &C-~ Tertu11- Adv- Prax- c-
The ignorance of the Fathers, and, Orison
excepted, of the Ante-Nicene Fathers in par-
ticular, m all that respects Hebrew learning
and the New Testament references to the Old
lestament, is shown in this so early fantastic
misinterpretation grounded on the fact of our
Y>rds reminding, and as it were giving out
aloud t John and Mary the twenty-second
1 salm the pred.ction of his present sufferings
and after glory. But the entire passage i„
Tertulhan though no proof of his Arianism, is
full of proofs of his want of insight into the true
W VTERLAND. v>3<>
sense of the Scripture texts. Indeed without
detracting from the inestimable services of the
Fathers from Tertullian to Augustine respecting
the fundamental article of the Christian Faith,
yet commencing from the fifth century, 1 dare
claim for the Reformed Church of England
the honorable name of apxacTTritrr^ of Trinitarian-
ism, and the foremost rank among the Churches,
Roman or Protestant: the learned Romanist
divines themselves admit this, and make a
merit of the reluctance with which they never-
theless admit it, in respect of Bishop Bull.*
lb. p. 421.
It seems to me that if there he not reasons of conscience
Obliging a good man to speak out, there are always reasons of
prudence which should make a wise man hold his tongue.
True, and as happily expressed. To this,
Y sino ah'i esta el Doctor Jorge Bull Profesor de Teo-
logia, y Presbitero de la Iglesia Anglicana, que muriS
tpo <l, So n David el ano d, 1 7 1 - ;, cuyas obras teologico—
escolasticas, en folio, nada deben 6 las mas alambicadas que
se han estampado en Salamanca y en Coimbra ; y como los
■tos que por la mayor parte train en el las son sobre los
misterios capitales de nuestra Santa Fe, conviene 6 saber,
reel mist, node la Trinidad, y sobre el de la Divinidad
de Crist,,, en los cuales su Pseudaiglesia Anglicana no se
desvia dt la Catolica, en verdad, que los mane jo con tanto
y con tanta delicadeza, que los teologos ortodojos
mas escolastizados, como si dijeramos electrizados, hucen
grande estimacion de dichas obras. Y aun en l,>s ,1 , Tr,,fll(los
que escribin acerca de la Justification, que es punto mas
l^'■sr",'■ ln< printipios que abrazo, no se separ,', d, los
\ < utolicos ; pero en algunas consecuan ins que in/irio,
di/, bastantement. ',- [n mnja /,,/,, ,/in w,^'
mamado. Fray. Gerundio. ii. 7. Ed.
he
-
■3
240 NOTES ON
however, the honest Anti-Trinitarian must
come at last : " Well, well, I admit that John
and Paul thought differently ; but this remains
my opinion."
Query XXVII. p. 427.
Tov a\r]Bivov ra< oi'twq bvra Qeov, Toy rov Xpiorow iraripa.
— Athanas. Cont. Gent.
The just and literal rendering- of the passage is this : ' The
true God who in reality is such, namely, the Father of Christ.'
The passage admits of a somewhat different
interpretation from this of Wateiiand's, and of
equal, if not greater, force against the Arian
notion : namely, taking rov ovtuq ovra distinc-
tively from o Cov — the Ens omnis entitatis, etiam
sua, that is, the I Am the Father, in distinc-
tion from the Ens Supremum, the Son. It
cannot, however, be denied that in changing
the formula of the Tetractys into the Trias, by
merging the Prothesis in the Thesis, the Iden-
tity in the Ipseity, the Christian Fathers sub-
jected their exposition to many inconveniences.
lb. p. 432.
Ov% 6 irof>]Ti)g t&v oKmv karca Qsoq 6 rw MwiteI eiVwi' avrvv
flvcu Qeoi' 'Aftpaafx, rat Qtbv 'IcraaK, rat Qe6i' Icocw/3. — Justin
Mart. Dial. p. 180.
The meaning- is, that that divine Person, who called himself
God, and was God, was not the Person of the Father, whose
ordinary character is that of maker of all things, but another
divine Person, namely, God the Son. * * It was Justin's
business to shew that there was a divine Person, one who was
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and was not the Father;
and therefore there were two divine Persons.
u \ rERLAND. '24 1
\t all events, it was a very incautious ex-
pression on the part of Justin, though his
meaning was, doubtless, that which Waterland
gives. The same most improper, or at best,
most inconvenient because equivocal phrase,
has been, as 1 think, interpolated into our
Apostles' ( Ireed.
lb. p. 4.J<;.
TtjpotTO < in-, a>< " i/juq Xoyoe, £«c ptv Oeog, elc \v a'iriov tcai
u Rti Uyevfiaros &va$epo/i£vb)v. k. t. \. — Greg. Naz. Orat.
may, as I conceive, preserve (the doctrine of) one God,
by referring' both the Son and Holy Ghost to one cause, &c.
Another instance of the inconvenience of
the Trias compared with the Tetractys.
►TES <>\ WATERLANDS IMPORTANCE OF THE
DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY.*
Chap. I. p. 18.
It is the property of the Divine Being to be unsearchable;
and if he were not so, he would not be divine. Must we there-
fore reject the mo-^t i ertain truths concerning the Deity, only
because they are incomprehensible, <Vc. ?
It is strange that so sound, so admirable a
logician as Waterland, should have thought
* The Importance of the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as-
serted, in reply to some late pamphlets. 2nd edit. Lond. 1734.
VOL. IV. R
242 NOTES ON
' unsearchable' and ' incomprehensible1 syno-
nymous, or at least equivalent terms : — and
this, though St. Paul hath made it the privilege
of the full-grown Christian, to search out the
deep things of God himself.
Chap. IV. p. 111.
The delivering over unto Satan seems to have been a form
of excommunication, declaring the person reduced to the state
of a heathen ; and in the Apostolical age it was accompanied
with supernatural or miraculous effects upon the bodies of the
persons so delivered.
Unless the passage, (Acts v. 1 — 11.) be an
authority, I must doubt the truth of this
assertion, as tending to destroy the essential
spirituality of Christian motives, and, in my
judgment, as irreconcilable with our Lord's
declaration, that his kingdom was not of this
world. Let me be once convinced that St.
Paul, with the elders of an Apostolic Church,
knowingly and intentionally appended a palsy
or a consumption to the sentence of excommu-
nication, and I shall be obliged to reconsider
my old opinion as to the anti-Christian prin-
ciple of the Romish Inquisition.
lb. p. 114.
A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admo-
nition, reject ; knowing that he that is such, is subverted, and
sinneth, being condemned of himself . — Tit. iii. 10, 11.
This text would be among my minor argu-
ments for doubting the Paulinity of the Epistle
to Titus. It seems to me to breathe the spirit
WATERLAND. -24.'>
of a later age, and a more established Church
power.
lb.
Not every one that mistakes in judgment, though in matters
t importance, in points fundamental, but he that openly
espouses such fundamental error. * Dr. Whitby adds to
the definition, the espousing it out of disgust, pride, envy, or
some worldly principle, and against his conscience.
Whitbv went too far ; Waterland not far
enough. Every schismatic is not necessarily
a heretic ; but every heretic is virtually a
schismatic. As to the meaning of avToKma-
KfHTor, Waterland surely makes too much of a
very plain matter. What was the sentence
passed on a heretic ? A public declaration
that he was no longer a member of — that is, of
one faith with — the Church. This the man
himself, after two public notices, admits and
involves in the very act of persisting. How-
ever confident as to the truth of the doctrine
he has set up, he cannot, after two public ad-
monitions, be ignorant that it is a doctrine con-
trary to the articles of his communion with the
Church that has admitted him ; and in regard
of his alienation from that communion, he is
necessarily avTOKmuKmrnc, — though in his pride
of heart he might say with th" man of old,
" And I banish you."
lb. p. 12.'}.
as soon as the miraculous gifts, or gift of discerning
"pints, ceased.
244 NOTES ON
No one point in the New Testament per-
plexes me so much as these (so called) mi-
raculous gifts. I feel a moral repugnance to
the reduction of them to natural and acquired
talents, ennobled and made energic by the life
and convergency of faith ;— and yet on no other
scheme can I reconcile them with the idea of
Christianity, or the particular supposed, with
the general known, facts. But, thank God !
it is a question which does not in the least
degree affect our faith or practice. I mean,
if God permit, to go through the Middletonian
controversy, as soon as I can procure the loan
of the books, or have health enough to become
a reader in the British Museum.
lb. p. 120.
And what if, after all, spiritual censures (for of such only I
am speaking,) should happen to fall upon such a person, he
may be in some measure hurt in his reputation by it, and that
is all. And possibly hereupon his errors, before invincible
through ignorance, may be removed by wholesome instruction
and admonition, and so he is befriended in it, &c.
Waterland is quite in the right so far ;— but
the penal laws, the temporal inflictions — would
he have called for the repeal of these ? Milton
saw this subject with a mastering eye, — saw
that the awful power of excommunication was
degraded and weakened even to impotence by
any the least connection with the law of the
otate.
lb. p. 127.
who are hereby forbidden to receive such heretics into
WATER LAND. "J 4 •">
their houses, or to pay them so much as common civilities.
This precept of the Apostle may be further illustrated by his
own practice, recorded by Irenaeus, who had the information at
second-hand from Polycarp, a disciple of St. John's, that St.
John, once meeting with Cerinthus at the bath, re' red instantly
without bathing, for fear lest the bath should fall by reason of
Cerinthus being there, th- ~nemy to truth.
Psha ! The bidding Itim God speed —\kyiov
ain-to yn'otu', — (2 John, 1 1 ,) is a spirituality, not
a mere civility. If St. John knew or suspected
that Cerinthus had a cutaneous disease, there
would have been some sense in the refusal, or
rather, as I correct myself, some probability of
truth in this gossip of lren*us.
lb. p. 128.
They corrupted the faith of Christ, and in effect subverted
the Gospel. That was enough to render them detestable in the
eyes of all men who sincerely loved and valued sound faith.
O, no, no, not ■ them !' Error quidem, non
tamcn homo errans, ahominandus : or, to pun a
little, abhomincntdus. Be bold in denouncing:
the heresy, but slow and timorous in de-
nouncing the erring brother as a heretic. The
unmistakable passions of a factionary and a
schismatic, the ostentatious display, the am-
bition and dishonest arts of a sect -founder,
must be superinduced on the false doctrine,
before the heresy makes the man a heretic.
lb. p. 129.
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
W ere the Nicolaitans a sect, properly so
240 NOTES ON
called ? The word is the Greek rendering of
' the children of Balaam ;' that is, men of
grossly immoral and disorderly lives.
lb. p. 130.
For if he who shall break one of the least moral command-
ments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven, (Mat. v. 19,) it must be a very dangerous
experiment, &c.
A sad misinterpretation of our Lord's words,
which from the context most evidently had no
reference to any moral, that is, universal com-
mandment as such, but to the national in-
stitutions of the Jewish state, as long as that
state should be in existence ; that is to say,
until the Heaven ox the Government, and the
Earth or the People or the Governed, as one
corpus politicum, or nation, had passed a way.
Till that time, — which was fulfilled under
Titus, and more thoroughly under Hadrian, —
no Jew was relieved from his duties as a citizen
and subject by his having become a Christian.
The text, together with the command implied
in the miracle of the tribute-money in the fish's
mouth, might be fairly and powerfully adduced
against the Quakers, in respect of their refusal
to pay their tithes, or whatever tax they please
to consider as having an un-Christian destina-
tion . But are they excluded from the kingdom
of heaven, that is, the Christian Church? No;
— but they must be regarded as weak and in-
judicious members of it.
WATERLAND. "247
Chap. V. p. 140.
Accordingly it may be observed, how the unbelievers cm-ess
and compliment tbose complying gentlemen who meet them
half way, while they arc perpetually inveighing against the
Btiff divines, as they call them, whom they can make no ad-
vantage of.
Leasing, an honest and frank-hearted In-
fidel, expresses the same sentiment. As long
as a German Protestant divine keeps himself
-till" and stedfast to the Augsburg- Confession,
to the foil Creed ofMelancthon, he is impreg-
nable, and may bid defiance to sceptic and
philosopher. But let him quit the citadel, and
the Cossacs are upon him.
lb. p. 187.
And therefore it is infallibly certain, as Mr. Chillingworth
well argues with respect to Christianity in general, that we
ought firmly to believe it ; because wisdom and reason require
that we should believe those things which are by many degrees
more credible and probable than the contrary.
Yes, where there are but two positions, one
of which must be true. When A. is presented
to my mind with probability = >, and B. with
probability— 15, 1 must think that B. is three
times more probable than A. And yet it is
very possible that a C. may be found which
will supersede both.
( hap. VI. p. 230.
The Creed of Jerusalem, preserved by Cyril, (the most an-
cient perhaps of any now extant,) is very express for the divi-
nity of God the Son, in these words : " And in our Lord Jesus
248 NOTES ON
Christ, the only begotten Son of God, true God, begotten of
the Father before all ages, by whom all things were made" * *.
Kcu elg tvit Kvpiov 'Itjctovv Xpifrrov, rov vlbv rov Qeov fiovoyevrj,
Toy ek rov Trarpbc yEvrrjQii'Ta, Qeov a\t]6ir6v, 7rpo iravrwv rCJv
aluH'wv, fit ov ra Travra ejeveto.
I regard this, both from its antiquity and
from the peculiar character of the Church of
Jerusalem, so far removed from the influence
of the Pythagoreo-Platonic sects of Paganism,
as the most important and convincing mere fact
of evidence in the Trinitarian controversy.
lb. p. 233.
—true Son of the Father, invisible of invisible, &c.
How is this reconcilable with John i. 18 —
(no one hath seen God at any time: the only
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath declared him, — ) or with the express
image, asserted above. ' Invisible,' I suppose,
must be taken in the narrowest sense, that is,
to bodily eyes. But then the one ' invisible'
would not mean the same as the other.
lb. p. 236.
Symbola certe Ecclesioe ex ipso Ecclesia sensu, non ex
hcereticorum cerebello, exponenda sunt. — Bull. Judic. Ecel. v.
The truth of a Creed must be tried by the
Holy Scriptures ; but the sense of the Creed
by the known sentiments and inferred inten-
tion of its compilers.
WATERLAND. '1 l!»
lb. p. 238.
The very name of Father, applied in the Creed tc the first
Person, intimates the relation he bean to a Son, &c.
No doubt: but the most probable solution
of the apparent want of distinctness of explica-
tion on this article, in my humble judgment,
i- — that the so-called Apostles" Creed was
at first the preparatory confession of the
catechumens, the admission-ticket, as it were
rmbolum ad Baptismum), at the gate of tin
Church, and gradually augmented as heresies
started up. The latest of these seems to have
consisted in the doubt respecting the entire
death of Jesus on the Cross, as distinguished
from suspended animation. Hence in the fifth
or sixth centurv the clause — " and he descended
into Hades," was inserted ;— that is, the indis-
soluble principle of the man Jesus, was sepa-
rated from, and left, the dissoluble, and sub-
ited apart in Scheol, or the abode of separated
souls ;— but really meaning no more than vcre
mortuus < »/. Jesus was taken from the Cross
ad in the very same sense in which the
Baptist was dead after his beheading.
Nevertheless, well adapted as this Creed
was to its purposes, I cannot but regret the
high place and precedence which by means of
its title, and the fable to which that title gave
rise, it has usurped. It has, as it appears to m<
indirectlv favoured Arianism and Socinianism.
'^0 NOTES ON
lb. p. 250.
That St. John wrote his Gospel with a view to confute
Cennthus, among other false teachers, is attested first by Ire-
nanis, who was a disciple of Polycarp, and who flourished
within less than a century of St. John's time.
I have little trust and no faith in the gossip
and hearsay-anecdotes of the early Fathers,
Irenaeus not excepted. « Within less than a
century of St. John's time." Alas ! a century
in the paucity of writers and of men of educa-
tion in the age succeeding the Apostolic, must
be reckoned more than equal to five centuries
since the use of printing. Suppose, however,
the truth of the Irenaean tradition ;~that the
Creed of Cerinthus was what Irena?us states it
to have been ; and that John, at the instance
of the Asiatic Bishops, wrote his Gospel as an
antidote to the Cerinthian heresy ;-does there
not thence arise, in his utter silence, an almost
overwhelming argument against the Apostoli-
ciiy of the Christop&dia, both that prefixed to
Luke, and that concorporated with Matthew 1
lb. p. 257.
In him was life, and the life was the light of 'men. The
same Word was life, the \6yoc and <•«,,}, both one. There was
no occasion therefore for subtilly distinguishing the Word and
Life into two Sons, as some did.
I will not deny the possibility of this inter-
pretation. It may be,_nay, it is -fairly dedu-
cible from the words of the great Evangelist :
but I cannot help thinking that, taken as the
WATERLAND. -J'H
primary intention, it degrades this most divine
chapter, which unites in itself the three cha-
racters of sublime, profound, and pregnant, and
alloys its universality by a mixture of time
and accident.
lb.
d thr light shineth in darkness, and the darkness Com-
eth not upon it. So I render the verse, conformable to the
n adoring of the Bame Greek verb, KaraXaftfiavia, by our trans-
lators in another place of this same Gospel. The Apostle, as I
conceive, in this ,3th verse of his 1st chapter, alludes to the pre-
vailing-error of the Gentiles, &c.
O sad, sad ! How must the philosopher have
been eclipsed by the shadow of antiquarian
erudition, in order that a mind like Water-
land's could have sacrificed the profound uni-
versal import of comprehend to an allusion to a
worthless dream of heretical nonsense, the
mushroom of the day! Had Waterland ever
thought of the relation of his own understand-
ing to his reason ? Hut alas ! the identify . 1 1 ion
of these two diversities— of how many errors
has it been ground and occasion !
lb. p. 250.
And the Word was made Jlcsh — beC8J > personally united
with the man Jesus ; and dwelt among u — resided constantly
in the human nature BO assumed.
Waterland himself did but dimly see the
awful import of iylvero <rap£ — the mystery of the
alien ground — and the truth, that as the ground
sui ii must be the life. He caused himself to
252 NOTES ON
become flesh, and therein assumed a mortal
life into his own person and unity, in order
himself to transubstantiate the corruptible into
the incorruptible.
Waterland's anxiety to show the anti-heretical
force of St. John's Gospel and Epistles, has
caused him to overlook their Catholicity — their
applicability to all countries and all times —
their truth, independently of all temporary
accidents and errors ; — which Catholicity alone
it is that constitutes their claim to Canonicity,
that is, to be Canonical inspired writings.
lb. p. 266.
Hereupon therefore the Apostle, in defence of Christ's real
humanity, says, This is he that came by water and blood.
1 Water and blood,' that is serum and crassa-
mentum, mean simply ' blood,' the blood of the
animal or carnal life, which, saith Moses, is the
life. Hence ' flesh' is often taken as, and
indeed is a form of, the blood,— blood formed
or organized. Thus ' blood' often includes
'flesh,' and 'flesh' includes 'blood.' 'Flesh and
blood' is equivalent to blood in its twofcid form,
or rather as formed and formless. ' Water
and blood' has, therefore, two meanings in St.
John, but which in idem coincidunt : — 1. true
animal human blood, and no celestial ichor
or phantom :— 2. the whole sentiently vital
body, fixed or flowing, the pipe and the stream.
For the ancients, and especially the Jews,
had no distinct apprehension of the use or
action of the nerves : in the Old Testament
U ATI.K1 AM). 253
'heart1 is used as we use 'head.1 lite fool
hdth said in his heart — is in English : " the
worthless fellow vaurien) hath taken it into
his bead," &c.
lb. p. 2(33.
The Apostle having said that the Spirit is truth, or essential
truth, (which was giving him a title common to God the Father
and to Christ,) &C.
Is it clear that the distinct hypostasis of the
Holy Spirit, in the same sense as the only-
begotten Son is hypostatically distinguished
from the Father, was a truth that formed an
immediate object or intention of St. John?
That it is a truth implied in, and fairly dedu-
ctible from, many texts, both in his Gospel and
Kpistles, 1 do not, indeed I cannot, doubt ;—
but only whether this article of our faith lie
was commissioned to declare explicitly ?
It grieves me to think that such giar.t.
archaspistte of the Catholic Faith, as Bull and
W terland, should have clung to the intruded
gloss \\ Jo/ut v. 7 , which, in the opulence
and continuity of the evidences, as displayed
by their own master-minds, would have been
>up< rfluous, had it not been worse than super-
fluous, that i-, sensel* sa in itself, and interrup-
tive of the profound sense of the Apostle.
lb. p. -17-2.
He is come, come in the Besh, and not merely to reside for
a time, or occasionally, and to fly off again, hut to abide and
dwell with man, clothed with humanity.
2,54 NOTES ON
Incautiously worded at best. Compare our
Lord's own declaration to his disciples, that
he had dwelt a brief while with or among
them, in order to dwell in them permanently.
lb. p. 286.
It is very observable, that the Ebionites rejected three of the
Gospels, receiving only St. Matthew's (or what they called so),
and that curtailed. They rejected likewise all St. Paul's writ-
ings, reproaching him as an apostate. How unlikely is it that
Justin should own such reprobates as those were for fellow-
Christians !
I dare avow my belief— or rather I dare not
withhold my avowal— that both Bull and
Waterland are here hunting on the trail of an
old blunder or figment, concocted by the gross
ignorance of the Gentile Christians and their
Fathers in all that respected Hebrew literature
and the Palestine Christians. I persist in the
belief that, though a refuse of the persecuted
and from neglect degenerating Jew-Christians
may have sunk into the mean and carnal no-
tions of their unconverted brethren respecting
the Messiah, no proper sect of Ebionites ever
existed, but those to whom St. Paul travelled
with the contributions of the churches, nor any
such man as Ebion ; unless indeed it was St.
Barnabas, who in his humility may have so
named himself, while soliciting relief for the
distressed Palestine Christians;—" I am Bar-
nabas the beggar." But I will go further, and
confess my belief that the (so-called) Ebionites
of the first and second centuries, who rejected
VTATERLAND. 255
the Christoptedia, and whose Gospel com-
menced with the baptism by John, were or-
thodox Apostolic Christians, who received
Christ as the Lord, that is, as Jehovah mani-
^tid in tin .//<>//. As to their rejection of the
other Gospels and of Paul's writings, I might
ask:— "Could they read them' But the
whole notion seem- to rest on an anachronical
misconception of the Evangelia. Every great
mother Church, at iirst, had its own Gospel.
lb. p. -lr.r>.
To say nothing; here of the truer reading; (" men of your
nation"), there is no consequence in the argument. The
Ebionites were Christiana in u large sense, men of Christian
profession, nominal Christians, as Justin allowed the worst of
heretics to be. And this is all he could mean by allowing; the
Kbionites to be Christians.
I agree with Bull in holding aWo tov vfurkpov
ytvovg the most probable reading in the passage
cited from Justin, and am by no means con-
vinced that the celebrated passage in Josephus
is an interpolation. But 1 do not believe that
such men, as are here described, ever professed
themselves ( hristians, or were, or could have
been, baptized.
lb. p. 292.
Le Clerc would appear to doubt, whether the persons pointed
to in Justin really denied Christ's divine nature or no. It is
•lain as possible that they 'lid.
Le ( Here is do favourite of mine, and Water-
land is a prime favourite. Nevertheless, in
this instance, I too doubt with Le Chic, and
more than doubt.
^5ti NOTES ON
II). p. 338.
*£«i & rm tpQopas TrpoayevofJLiyne, LvuyKaiov 7,v 8n crUtrac
iJovKofisvos rj rr,v ^dopoirochv ohaiav a<f>avL<raQ- rovro Ik oIk %v
AotTTow ro Se^afXEvov diarijpovva. K. r. X.— Just. M.
Here Justin asserts that it was necessary for essential life or
life by nature, to be united with human nature, in order to
save it.
Waterland has not mastered the full force of
h k«™ <t>voiv M. If indeed he had taken in the
full force of the whole of this invaluable frag-
ment, he would never have complimented the
following extract from Irenams, as saying the
same thing « in fuller and stronger' words "
Compared with the fragment from Justin, it is
but the flat common-place logic of analogy, so
common in the early Fathers.
lb. p. 340.
Qui nude tantum hominem eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum
moriuntur.
Non nude hominem— not a mere man do I
hold Jesus to have been and to be ; but a per-
fect man and, by personal union with the Wos
perfect God. That his having an earthly fa-
ther might be requisite to his being a perfect
man I can readily suppose ; but why the hav-
ing an earthly father should be more incompa-
tible with his perfect divinity, than his havino-
an earthly mother, I cannot comprehend. All
that John and Paul believed, God forbid that
1 should not !
WATERLAND.
•2">7
Chap. VII. p. 389.
It is a sufficient reason for not receiving either them ( Anan
doctrines), or the interpretations brought to support them, that
the ancients, in the best and purest times, either knew nothing
of them, or if they did, condemned them.
As excellent means of raising a presumption
in the mind of the falsehood of Arianism and
Socinianism, and thus of preparing the mind
for a docile reception of the great idea itself —
I admit and value the testimonies from the
writings of the early Fathers. But alas! the
increasing dimness, ending in the final want
of the idea of this all-truths-including truth
of the Tetractys eternally manifested in the
Triad ; this, this is the ground and cause of
all the main heresies from Semi- Arianism,
recalled by Dr. Samuel Clarke, to the last
setting ray of departing faith in the necessi-
tarian Psilanthropism of Dr. Priestley.
lb. p. 412, &c.
I cannot but think that Water-land's defence
of the Fathers in these pages against Barbey-
rac, is below his great powers and charac-
teristic vigour of judgment. It is enough that
they, the Fathers of the first three centuries,
were the lights of their age, and worthy of all
reverence for their good gifts. But it appears
to me impossible to deny their credulity ; their
ignorance, with one or two exceptions, in the
interpretation of the Old Testament ; or their
hardihood in asserting the truth of whatever
VOL. IV. s
258 NOTES ON
they thought it for the interest of the Church,
and for the good of souls, to have believed as
true. A whale swallowed Jonah ; but a be-
liever in all the assertions and narrations of
Tertullian and Irenseus would be more wonder-
working than Jonah ; for such a one must have
swallowed whales.
NOTES ON SKELTON.t
1825.
Burdy's Life of Skelton, p. 22.
She lived until she was a hundred and five. The omission of
his prayers on the morning- it happened, he supposed ever after
to be the cause of this unhappy accident. So early was his
mind impressed with a lively sense of religious duty.
In anecdotes of this kind, and in the in-
stances of eminently good men, it is that my
head and heart have their most obstinate falls
out. The question is :— To what extent the
undoubted subjective truth may legitimately
influence our judgment as to the possibility of
the objective.
lb. p. 67.
The Bishop then gave him the living of Pettigo in a wild
part of the county of Donegal, having made many removals on
purpose to put him in that savage place, among mountains,
rocks, and heath, * * '*. When he got this living he had
been eighteen years curate of Monaghan, and two of Newtown-
f The complete Works of the late Rev. Philip Skelton,
Rector of Fintona. 6. vols. 8vo. London, 1824. Ed.
SKI LTON.
. r durinir wb:„v ,;..,,!„• saw, a he told me, many illite-
without having served a cure.
Though I have heard of one or two excep
riona stated in proof that nepotism is not yet
extinctamongoiir Prelates, yet it is impossible
0 compare the present condition of the Church,
and the disposal of its dignities and emolu-
ments with the facts recorded in tins Lite,
without an hones! exultation.
lb. p. 106.
He once declared to me that he would resign hie, living, .<
tllC Athanaeian Creed were removed from the Prayer book,
and I am sure he would have done so.
Surely there was more zeal than wisdom in
this declaration. ■ Does the Athanawan or
rather the «**<fo-Athanasian (reel differ iron,
the Nicene, or not? If not, it must be dispen-
sable at least, if not superfluous. If it does
differ, which of the two am 1 to follow ;-the
profession of an anonymous individual, or the
Llemn decision of upwards of three hundred
Bishops convened from all parts ot the ( hnst-
ian world !
Vol. I. p. 177—180.
No problem more difficult or of more delicate
treatment than the criteria of miracles; yet
none on which young divines are fonder ot
I displaying their gifts. Nor is tin, the worst.
Their charity too often goes to wreck froin the
error of identifying the faith in Christ with the
200 NOTES ON
arguments by which they think it is to be
supported. But surely if two believers meet
at the same goal of faith, it is a very secondary
question whether they travelled thither by the
same road of argument. In this and other
passages of Skelton, 1 recognize and reverence
a vigorous and robust intellect ; but I complain
of a turbidness in his reasoning, a huddle in
his sequence, and here and there a semblance
of arguing in a circle — from the miracle to the
doctrine, and from the doctrine to the miracle.
Add to this a too little advertency to the dis-
tinction between the evidence of a miracle for
A, an eye-witness, and for B, for whom it is
the relation of a miracle by an asserted eye-
witness; and again between B, and X, Y, Z,
for whom it is a fact ofhistory. The result of
my own meditations is, that the evidence of the
Gospel, taken as a total, is as great for the
Christians of the nineteenth century, as for
those of the Apostolic age. I should not be
startled if I were told it was greater. But it
does not follow, that this equally holds good of
each component part. An evidence of the most
cogent clearness, unknown to the primitive
Christians, may compensate for the evanes-
cence of some evidence, which they enjoyed.
Evidences comparatively dim have waxed into
noon-day splendour; and the comparative
wane of others, once effulgent, is more than
indemnified by the synopsis rov narrow, which
we enjoy, and by the standing miracle of a
SKELTON. -J(il
Christendom commensurate and almost syno-
nymous with tlir civilized world. I make this
remark tor the purpose of warning the divinity
student against the disposition to overstrain
'particular proofs, or rest the credibility of the
Gospel too exclusively on someone favourite
point. I confess, that 1 cannot peruse page
ir.'i without fancying that I am reading s<
Romish Doctor's work, dated from ;i commu-
nit\ where miracles are the ordinary news of
the day.
P. s. By the by, the Rev. Philip Skelton
of the true Irish breed; that is, a brave
fellow, but a hit of a bully. 'k Arrah, bv St.
Pathrick ! but 1 shall make cold mutton of
u, Misther Arian."
lb. p. 182.
If in this he appears to deal fairly by us, proving such things
idmit of it, !._v reason : and such as <l >t, by the authority
of his mirach b, &c.
Are Hi likel) to have miracles performed or
pretended before our eyes? [f not, what ma)
all this mean? If Skelton takes for granted
the \. rack) of the Evangelists, and the precise
verit) <t the Gospels, the truth and genuim
ness <>: the miracles is included :— and if*not,
v. hat does he proi »■ .' The exact accordance of
the miracles related with the ideal of a true
miracle in the n ason, ilocs indeed furnish an
argument for the probable truth of the rela-
tion. But this does not se in to he Skelton >
intention
20*2 NOTES ON
lb. p. 185.
But to remedy this evil, as far as the nature of the thing will
permit, a genuine record of the true religion must be kept up,
that its articles may not be in danger of total corruption in such
a sink of opinions.
Anything rather than seek a remedy in that
which Scripture itself declares the only one.
Alas ! these bewilderments (the Romanists
urge) have taken place especially through and
by the misuse of the Scriptures. Whatever
God has given, we ought to think necessary ; —
the Scriptures, the Church, the Spirit. Why
disjoin them 1
lb. p. 186.
Now a perpetual miracle, considered as the evidence of any
thing, is nonsense ; because were it at first ever so apparently
contrary to the known course of nature, it must in time be
taken for the natural effect of some unknown cause, as all
physical phcenomcna, if far enough traced, always are ; and
consequently must fall into a level, as to a capacity of proving-
any thing, with the most ordinary appearances of nature, which,
though all of them miracles, as to the primary cause of their
production, can never be applied to the proof of an inspiration,
because ordinary and common.
I doubt this, though I have no doubt that it
would be pernicious. The yearly blossoming
of Aaron's rod is against Skelton, who con-
founds single facts with classes of phenomena,
and he draws his conclusion from an arbitrary
and, as seems to me, senseless definition of a
miracle.
SKELTON. 263
Jl). p. -214. Eini discourse II.
Skelton appeals to have confounded two
errors very different in kind and in magni-
tude ; — that of the Infidel, against whom his
arguments are with few exceptions irrefragable;
and that of the Christian, who, sincerely be-
lieving the Law, the Prophecies, the miracles
and the doctrines, all in short which in the
Scriptures themselves is declared to have been
revealed, does not attribute the same immediate
divinity to all and every part of the remainder.
It would doubtless be more Christian-like to
substitute the views expressed in the next
Discourse (III.); but still the latter error is
not as the former.
lb. p. 234.
But why should not the conclusion be given up, since it is
possible Christ may have had two natures in him, so as to have
been less than the Father in respect to the one, and equal to
him in respect to the other.
I understand these words (My Father is
greater than 1) of the divinity— and of the
Filial subordination, which does not in the least
encroa< h on the equality necessary to the unity
of Father, Son, and Spirit. Bishop Bull does
the same. See too Skelton 's own remarks in
Discourse \ . p. '2<>-~>.
lb. p. 251.
This was necessary, because their Law was ordained by
• Is.
I
264 NOTES ON
Now this is an instance of what I cannot
help regarding as a superstitious excess of
reverence for single texts. We know that long-
before the Epistle to the Hebrews was written,
the Alexandrian Church, which by its inter-
course with Greek philosophers, chiefly Pla-
tonists, had become ashamed of the humanities
of the Hebrew Scriptures, in defiance of those
Scriptures had pretended, that it was not the
Supreme Being who gave the Law in person
to Moses, but some of his angels. The author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, arguing ad
homines, avails himself of this, in order to
prove that on their own grounds the Mosaic
was of dignity inferior to the Christian dispen-
sation. To get rid of this no-difficulty in a
single verse or two in the Epistles, Skelton
throws an insurmountable difficulty on the
whole Mosaic history.
lb. p. 2(>-3.
Therefore, he saith, / (as a man) can of myself do noticing.
Even of this text I do not see the necessity
of Skeltons parenthesis (as a man). Nay it
appears to me (I confess) to turn a sublime
and most instructive truth into a truism. " But
if not as the Son of God, therefore a fortiori
not as the Son of man, and more especially, as
such, in all that refers to the redemption of
mankind."
lb. p. 267.
To this glory Christ, as God, was entitled from all eternity ;
SK ELTON. *J«!"*
but did not acqoin fht to it as man, till he had paid the
purchase by his blood.
i I too hold this for a most important truth ;
'>ut vet couhl wish it to have been somewhat
differently expressed ; as thus: — " but did not
Require it as man till the means had been pro-
vided and perfected by his blood."
lb. p. 268.
If Christ in one place, (John xiv. 28,) says. My Father is
greater than I ; he must be understood of his relation to the
Father aa his Son, born ot" a woman.
1 do not see the necessity of this : does not
( Ihrist sav. Mi/ Father and I will conic and we
will (drill in you ? Nay, I dare confidently
affirm that in no one passage of St. Johns
Gospel is our Lord declared in any special
B< use the Son of the First Person of the Trinity
in reference to his birth from a woman. And
remember it is from St. John's Gospel that
the words are cited. So too the answi r to
Philip ought to be interpreted by ch. i. Ki. of
the same Gospel.
lb. p. 276.
I confess 1 do not agree with Skel ton's inter-
pretation of any of these texts entirely. Be-
cause I hold the Nicene Faith, and revere the
doctrine of the Trinity as the fundamental
article of Christianity, J apply to Chrisl as
the Second Person, almost all the texts
which Skelton explains of his humanity. At
266 NOTES ON
all events I consider the first-born of every*
creature as a false version of the words, which/
(as the argument and following verse prove)
should be rendered begotten before, (or rathei
superlatively before), all that was created or
made ; for by him they were made.
lb. j
Of that day, and that hour knoweth no man, no not the
angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
I cannot explain myself here ; but I have
long thought that our Saviour meant in these
words alviTTtiv ti)v QtoTnra avrav — and that like
the problem proposed by him to the Scribes,
they were intended to prepare the minds of
the disciples for this awful mystery— a ^ i
7r«r///0— " unless, or if not, as the Father knows
it;" while in St. Matthew the equivalent sense
is given by the omission of the owS' o viag, and its
inclusion in the Father. As the Father know-
eth me, so know I the Father.
It would have been against the general rule
of Scripture prophecies, and the intention of
the revelation in Christ, that the first Christ-
ians should have been so influenced in their
measures and particular actions, as they could
not but have been by a particular foreknow-
ledge of the express and precise time at which
Jerusalem was to be destroyed. To reconcile
them to this uncertainty, our Lord first teaches
them to consider this destruction the close of
one great epoch, or a'uov, as the type of the
SKELT\ N. -Hu
final close of the whole w Id of time, that is,
of all temporal things; ana then reasons with
them thus: " Wonder not that I should Leave
yon ignorant of the former, when even the
highest order of heavenly intelligences know
not the latter, ovB' o v\6ij, tl /t«?6 wnrnp ; nor should
I myself, but that the Father knows it, all
whose will is essentially known to me as the
Eternal Son. But even to me it is not reveal-
ably communicated." Such seems to me the
true sense of this controverted passage in
Mark, and that it is borne out by many pa-
rallel texts in St. John, and that the corres-
pondent text in Matthew, which omits the
oi»S' o woe, conveys the same sense in equivalent
terms, the word l/tiou including the Son in the
jrarrjp fxovoq. For to his only-begotten Son be-
fore all time the Father showeth all things.
lb. p. 279.
But whether we can reconcile those words to our belief of
Christ's prescience and divinity, or not, matters little to the
debate about his divinity itself; since we can so fully prove it
by innumerable passages of Scripture, too direct, express, and
positive, to be balanced by one obscure passage, from whence
the Arian is to draw (he consequence himself, which mag
ibly In wrong.
Very good,
lb. p. 280.
II ' know that the Son of God is I I mt , nnil huth givi n US
an understanding that we may know him that is true ; and
an iii /tin: that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This
is the true God, and eternal life. — 1 John v. 20. The whole
connection evidently Bhows the word- to be spoken of Christ.
26*8 NOTES ON
That the words comprehend Christ is most
evident. All that can be fairly concluded from
1 Cor. viii. (>, is this: — that the Apostles, Paul
and John, speak of the Father as including and
comprehending the Son and the Holy Ghost,
as his Word and his Spirit ; but of these as
inferring or supposing the Father, not compre-
hending him. Whenever, therefore, respecting
the Godhead itself, containing both deity and
dominion, the term God is distinctively used,
it is applied to the Father, and Lord to the
Son.
lb. p. 281.
But, farther, it is objected that Christ cannot be God, since
God calls him his servant more than once, particularly Isaiah
xlii. 1.
The Prophets often speak of the anti-type,
or person typified, in language appropriate to,
and suggested by, the type itself. So, perhaps,
in this passage, if, as I suppose, Hezekiali was
the type immediately present to Isaiahs ima-
gination. However, Skelton's answer is quite
sufficient.
lb. p. -287.
Hence it appears, that in the passage objected, (1 Cor. xv.
24, &c.) Christ is spoken of purely as that Man whom God
had highly exalted, and to whom he had given a name which
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should boio. (Phil. ii. 9, 10.)
I must confess that this exposition does not
quite satisfy me. I cannot help thinking that
xKI 11 OS,
2<>9
something more and deeper was meant by the
Apostle; and this must be sought for in the
mystery of the Trinity itself, in which (mystery)
all treasures of knowledge are hidden.
lb. p. 318.
Hence, perhaps, may be best explained what St. Peter Bays
in the Becond Epistle, after pleading a miracle. We haveaho
a more sure word of prophecy , whereunto you do well that
you tuke hi (<!.
1 believe that St. Peter neither said it, nor
meant this; but that fkfiawrtpov follows the
prophetic word. We have also the word of
prophecj more firm ;— that is; we have, in
addition to the evidence of the miracles them-
m Ives, this further confirmation, that they are
the fulfilment of known prophecies.
II). p. :vil.
Agreeable to these passages of the Prophet, St. Peter tells
us . 38), God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the
Holy Ghost mid power.
I have often to complain that too little atten-
tion is paid by commentators to the history
and particular period in which certain speeches
were delivered, or words written. Could St.
Peter with propriety have introduced the truth
to a prejudiced audience with its deepest mys-
teries ' Must he not have begun with the most
dent facts !
Ih. Disc. VIII.
The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity vindicated.
'270 NOTES ON
Were I a Clergyman, the paragraphs from
p. 3(>6 to p. 370, both inclusive, of this Dis-
course should form the conclusion of my Ser-
mon on Trinity Sunday, — whether I preached
at St. James's, or in a country village.
lb. pp. 374—378.
As a reason why we should doubt our own
judgment, it is quite fair to remind the objector,
that the same difficulty occurs in the scheme
of Gods ordinary providence. But that a
difficulty in a supposed article of revealed
truth is solved by the occurrence of the same
or of an equivalent difficulty in the common
course of human affairs — this I find it hard to
conceive. How was the religious, as distin-
guished from the moral, sense first awakened ?
What made the human soul feel the necessity
of a faith in God, but the apparent incongruity
of certain dispensations in this world with the
idea of God, with the law written in the heart?
Is not the reconciling of these facts or pheno-
mena'.with the divine attributes, one of the pur-
poses of a revealed religion? But even this is
not a full statement of the defect complained
of in this solution. A difficulty which may be
only apparent (like that other of the prosperity
of the wicked) is solved by the declaration
of its reality ! A difficulty grounded on the
fact of temporal and outward privations and
sufferings, is solved by being infinitely increas-
ed, that is, by the assertion of the same prin-
BKELTON. . 271
ciple on the determination of our inward and
everlasting weal and woe. That there is no-
thing in tlu1 Christian Faith or in the Canon-
ical Scriptures, when rightly interpreted, that
requires such an argument, or sanctions tin-
recourse to it, I believe myself to have proved
in the Aids to Reflection. Tor observe that
" to ><.1\* bus a scientific, and again a reli-
gion- sense, and that in the hitler, a difficulty
is satisfactorily solved, as soon as its insolvi
bility for the human mind is proved and ac-
counted for.
lb. (Disc. XIV. pp. 000—502.)
Christianity proved by Miracles.
1 cannot see and never could, the purpose,
or cui bono, ol* this reasoning. To whom is it
addressed ? To a man who denies a God, or
that God can reveal his will to mankind ? It'
such a man be not below talking to, he must
first be convinced of his miserable blindness
respecting these truths; for these are clearly
presupposed in every proof of miracles gene-
rally.
Again, does he admit the authenticity of the
Gospels, and the veracity of the Evangelists \
Does he credit the facts there related, and as
related ? 1 f not, these points must be proved ;
for these are clearly presupposed in all reason-
ing on the particular miracles of the Christian
dispensation. If he does, can he deny that
many acts of Christ were wonderful; — that
*272 NOTES ON
reanimating a dead body in which putrefaction
had already commenced, — and feeding four
thousand men with a few loaves and lishes, so
that the fragments left greatly exceeded the
original total quantity, — were wonderful events?
Should such a man, compos mentis, exist, (which
I more than doubt,) what could a wise man do
but stare — and leave him? Christ wrought
many wonderful works, implying admirable
power, and directed to the most merciful and
beneficent ends ; and these acts were such
signs of his divine mission, as rendered inat-
tention or obstinate averseness to the truths and
doctrines which he promulgated, inexcusable,
and indeed on any hypothesis but that of im-
moral dispositions and prejudices, utterly in-
conceivable. In what respect, I pray, can this
statement be strengthened by any reasoning
about the nature and distinctive essence of
miracles in abstracto ? What purpose can be
answered by any pretended definition of a mi-
racle ? If I met with a disputatious word-
catcher, or logomachist, who sought to justify
his unbelief on this ground, I should not hesi-
tate to say — " Never mind whether it is a
miracle or no. Call it what you will ; — but do
you believe the fact ? Do you believe that
Christ did by force of his will and word mul-
tiply instantaneously twelve loaves and a few
small fishes, into sufficient food for a hungering
multitude of four thousand men and women ?"
When I meet with, or from credible authority
BKELTON. '27'.)
hear of' a man who believes this fact, and yet
thinks it no sign of Christ's mission ; when I
can even conceive of a man in his right senses
who, believing all the tacts and events related
in the New Testament, and as there related,
docs yet remain a Deist, I may think it time
to enter into a disquisition respecting- the right
definition of a miracle ; and meantime, I hum-
bly trust that believing with my whole heart
and soul in the wonderful works of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall not forfeit
my title of Christian, though 1 should not sub-
scribe to this or that divine's right definition of
his ' idea of a miracle ; which word is with me
no idea at all, but a general term ; the common
surname, as it were, of the wonderful works
wrought by the messengers of God to man in
the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispen-
sations.
It is to these notions and general definitions,
far more than to the facts themselves, that the
arguments of Infidels apply ; and from which
they derive their plausibility. Nor is this all.
The Infidel imitates the divine, and adopts the
same mode of arguing, namely, by this sub-
• ntiation of mere general or collective terms.
For instance, Hume's argument (stated, by
the by, before he was born, and far more for-
cibly, by Dr. South, who places it in the mouth
of Thomas,)* — reduce it to the particular facts
• <ee South's Works, vol. iii. p. i0<>. Clarendon edit. 1823
— Ed.
VOL. IV. T
274 NOTES ON
in question , and its whole speciousness vanishes.
I am speaking of the particular facts and actions
of the Gospel ; of those, and those only. Now
that I should be deceived, or the eye-witnesses
have been deceived, under all the circum-
stances of those miracles, with all antecedents,
accompaniments, and consequents, is quite as
contrary to, that is, unparalleled in my expe-
rience, as the return to life of a dead man.
So again in the second paragraph of page
502,* the position is true or false according to
the definition of a miracle. In the narrower
sense of the term, miracle,— that is, a conse-
quent presented to the outward senses without
an adequate antecedent, ejusdem generis,— it is
not only false but detractory from the Christian
religion. It is a main, nay, an indispensable
evidence ; but it is not the only, no, nor if com-
parison be at all allowable, the highest and
most efficient ; unless, indeed, the term evidence
is itself confined to grounds of conviction of-
fered to the senses, but then the position is a
mere truism.
There is yet another way of reasoning, which
I utterly dislike ; namely, by putting imaginary
cases of imaginary miracles, as Paley has
done. " If a dozen different individuals, ail
men of known sense and integrity, should each
* But it will be proper to observe, tbat it strikes directly at
tbe very root of Revelation, wbicb cannot possibly give any
other evidence of itself, as the dictate of God, but what must
be drawn from miracles, wrought to prove the divine mission
of those who publish it to the world.
SK.ELTON. -"■''
independently of the- other pledge their ever-
lasting weal on the truth, that they snw a man
beheaded and quartered, and that on a certain
person's prayer or bidding, the quarters re-
united, and then a new head grew on and from
out of the stump of the neck: and should the
man himself assure you of the same, shew you
the junctures, and identify himself to you by
some indelible mark, with which you had been
previously acquainted, — could you withstand
this evidence V What could a judicious man
reply but — " When such an event takes place,
I will tell you ; but what has this to do with
the reasons for our belief in the truth of the
\\ ritten records of the Old and New Testament ?
Why do you rty off from the facts to a gigantic
fiction, — when the possibility of the Jf with
respect to a much less startling narration is the
point in dispute between us?"
Such and so peculiar, and to an honest mind
so unmistakeable, is the character of veracity
and simplicity on the very countenance, as it
were, of the Gospel, that every remove of the
inquirer's attention from the facts themselves
is a remove of his conversion. It is your
business to keep him from wandering, not to
set him the example.
Never, surely, was there a more unequal
writer than Skelton ; — in the discourses on the
Trinity, the compeer of Bull and Waterland ;
and yet the writer of these pages, 500—501 !
Natural magic ! a stroke of art ! for example,
converting the Nile into blood ! And then his
270 NOTES ON
definition of a miracle. Suspension of the
laws of nature ! suspension — laws — nature !
Bless me ! a chapter would be required for the
explanation of each several word of this defi-
nition, and little less than omniscience for its
application in any one instance. An effect
presented to the senses without any adequate
antecedent, ejusdem generis, is a miracle in the
philosophic sense. Thus : the corporeal pon-
derable hand and arm raised with no other
known causative antecedent, but a thought, a
pure act of an immaterial essentially invisible
imponderable will, is a miracle for a reflecting
mind. Add the words, prater experientiam :
and we have the definition of a miracle in the
popular, practical, and appropriated sense.
Vol. III.
That all our thoughts and views respecting
our Faith should be consistent with each other,
and with the attributes of God, is most highly
desirable: but when the great diversities of
men's understandings, and the unavoidable
influence of circumstances on the mind, are
considered, we may hope from the Divine
mercy, that the agreement in the result will
suffice ; and that he who sincerely and effici-
ently believes that Christ left the glory which
he had with the Father before all worlds, to
become man and die for our salvation, — that
by him we may, and by him alone we can, be
saved,— will be held a true believer,— whether
he interprets the words * sacrifice,' ' purchase,'
BKBLTON. 277
- bargain," ' satisfaction,' of the creditor by full
payment of the ' debt,' and the like as proper
and literal expressions of the redeeming act
and the cause of our salvation, as Skelton
ins to have done ; — or (as I do) as figurative
language truly designating the effects and
consequences of this adorable act and process.
lb. p. M)3.
But were the prospect of a better parish, in case of greater
diligence, set before him by his Bishop, on the music of such
a promise, like one bit by a tarantula, we should probably suon
see him in motion, and serving God, (O shameful !) for the
sake of Mammon, as if his torpid body had been animated anew
!iv n. returning: soul.
Without any high-flying in Christian mor-
ality, I cannot keep shrinking from the wish
here expressed; at all events, I cannot sym-
pathize with, or participate in, the expectation
of " an infinite advancement" from men so
motived.
lb. p. 394.
Yet excommunication, the inherent discipline of the Church,
which it exercised under persecution, which it is still permitted
to exercise under the present establishment.
Rarely 1 suspect, without exposing the Cler-
gyman to the risk of an action for damages, or
some abuse. There are few subjects that more
need investigation, yet require more \ igour and
soundness of judgment to be rightly handled,
than this of Christian discipline in a Church
established by law. It is indeed a most diffi-
cult anil delicate problem, and supplied Baxter
278 NOTES ON
with a most plausible and to me the only per-
plexing of his numerous objections to our
Ecclesiastical Constitution. On the other hand,
I saw clearly that he was requiring an impos-
sibility ; and that his argument carried on to
its proper consequences concluded against all
Church Establishment, not more against the
National Church of which he complained, than
the one of his own clipping and shaping which
he would have substituted ; consequently, every
proof (and I saw many and satisfactory proofs)
of the moral and political necessity of an Esta-
blished Church, was at the same time a pledge
that a deeper insight would detect some flaw
in the reasoning of the Disciplinarians. For
if A. be right and requisite, B., which is incom-
patible with A., cannot be rightly required.
And this it was, that first led me to the dis-
tinction between the Ecclesia and an Enclesia,
concerning which see my Essay on Establish-
ment and Dissent, in which I have met the
objection to my position, that Christian disci-
pline is incompatible with a Church established
by law, from the fact of the discipline of the
Church of Scotland.* Who denies that it is in
the power of a legislature to punish certain
offences by ignominy, and to make the clergy
magistrates in reference to these ? The question
is, whether it is wise or expedient, which it
may be, or rather may have been, in Scotland,
* The Editor is not aware of the existence of the Essay here
mentioned. But see for the distinction of the Ecclesia and
Enclesia, the Church and State, 3rd edit. — Ed.
SKLLTON. "27 lJ
and the contrary in England ? Wise or unwise,
this is not discipline, not Christian discipline,
enforced only by spiritual motives, enacted by
spiritual authority, and submitted to for con-
science' sake.
lb. p. 446.
Be this as it may, the foreknowledge and the decree were
both eternal. Here now it is a clear point that the moral
actions of all accountable agents were, with certainty, fore-
known, and their doom unalterably fixed, long before any one
of them existed.
Strange that so great a man as Skelton
should first affirm eternity of both, yet in the
next sentence talk of " long before." These
Reflections* are excellent, but here Skelton
offends against his own canons. I should feel
no reluctance, moral or speculative, in accept-
ing the apparent necessity of both propositions,
as a sufficient reason for believing both; and
the transcendancy of the subject as a sufficient
solution of their apparent incompatibility. But
yet I think that another view of the subject,
not less congruous with universal reason and
more agreeable to the light of reason in the
human understanding, might be defended,
without detracting from any perfection of the
Divine Being. Nay, I think that Skelton
needed but one step more to have seen it.
lb. p. 47>5.
In Jim .
1 On Predestination, as far :>- p. 1 15.
280 NOTES ON
To what purpose were these Reflections,
taken as a whole, written! I cannot answer.
To dissuade men from reasoning on a subject
beyond our faculties ? Then why all this rea-
soning ?
Vol. IV. p. 28. Deism Revealed.
Shepherd. Were you ever at Constantinople, Sir ?
Dechaine. Never.
Shep. Yet I believe you have no more doubt tbere is such a
city, than that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right ones.
Temp. I am sure I have not.
Dech. Nor I ; but what then?
Shep. Pray, Mr. Dechaine, did you see Julius Caesar assas-
sinated in the Capitol ?
Dech. A pretty question ! No indeed, Sir.
Shep. Have you any doubts about the truth of what is told
us by the historians concerning that memorable transaction ?
Dech. Not the least.
Shep. Pray, is it either self-evident or demonstrable to you,
at this time and place, that there is any such city as Constan-
tinople, or that there ever was such a man as Caesar ?
Dech. By no means.
Shep. And you have all you know concerning the being of
either the city, or the man, merely from the report of others,
who had it from others, and so on, through many links of tra-
dition ?
Dech. I have.
Shep. You see then, that there are certain cases, in which
the evidence of things not seen nor either sensibly or demon-
strably perceived, can justly challenge so entire an assent, that
he who should pretend to refuse it in the fullest measure of
acquiescence, would be deservedly esteemed the most stupid or
perverse of mankind.
That there is a sophism here, every one must
feel in the very fact of being non-phis' d without
SKBLTON. *JHI
being convinced. The sophism consists in the
instance being liaud ejusdem generis (fkeyypq
/LitTafiaoHtx; etc aAAo yfi'ot;) ; and what the allo-
geneics is between the assurance of the being
of Madrid or Constantinople, and the belief of
the fact of the resurrection of Christ, I have
shown elsewhere. The universal belief of the
tyrannicidium of Julius Casar is doubtless a
fairer instance, but the whole mode of argu-
ment is unsound and unsatisfying. Why run
off from the fact in question, or the class at
least to which it belongs ? The victory can be
but accidental— a victory obtained by the un-
guarded logic, or want of logical foresight of
the antagonist, who needs only narrow his
positions to narrations of facts and events, in
our judgment of which we are not aided by
the analogy of previous and succeeding expe-
rt nee, to deprive you of the opportunity of
skirmishing thus on No .Man's land. But this
is Skel ton's ruling passion, sometimes his
strength — too often his weakness. He must
force the reader to believe : or rather he has
an antagonist, a wilful infidel or heretic always
and exclusively before his imagination; or if
he thinks of the reader at all, it is as of a par-
tizan enjoying every hard thump, and smash-
ingjister he gives the adversary, whom Skelton
hates too cordially to endure to obtain any
thing from him with his own liking. Xo ! It
must be against his will, and in spite of it. No
thanks to him — tin dog could not help him-
'282 NOTES ON
self ! How much more effectual would he have
found it to have commenced by placing him-
self in a state of sympathy with the supposed
sceptic or unbeliever ; — to have stated to him
his own feelings, and the realgrounds on which
they rested ; — to have shown himself the dif-
ference between the historical facts which the
sceptic takes for granted and believes sponta-
neously, as it were,— and those, which are to
be the subject of discussion ; and this brings
the question at once to the proof. And here,
after all, lies the strength of Skelton's reasoning,
which would have worked far more powerfully,
had it come first and single, and with the whole
attention directed towards it.
lb. p. 35.
Templeton. Surely the resurrection of Christ, or any other
man, cannot be a thing impossible with God. It is neither
above his power, nor, when employed for a sufficient purpose,
inconsistent with his majesty, wisdom, and goodness.
This is the ever open and vulnerable part of
Deism. The Deist, as a Deist, believes, im-
plicite at least, so many and stupendous mira-
cles as to render his disbelief of lesser miracles,
simply because they are miraculous, gross in-
consistencies. To have the battle fairly fought
out, Spinoza, or a Bhuddist, or a Burmese
Gymnosoph, should be challenged. Then, I
am deeply persuaded, would the truth appear
in full evidence, that no Christ, no God, — and,
conversely, if the Father, then the Son. I can
SKELTON. 283
never too often repeat, that revealed religion is
a pleonasm. —Religion is revelation, and reve-
lation the only religion.
11). p. .°>7.
Shep. Those believers, whose faith is to rely on the truth ot"
tin- Christian history, rest their assent on a written report made
by eye-witnesses ; which report the various Churches and sects,
jealous of one another, took care to preserve genuine and un-
corrupted, at least in all material points, and all the religious
writers in every age since have amply attested.
A divine of the present day who shall under-
take the demonstration of the truth of Chris-
tianity by external evidences, or historically,
must not content himself with assuming or
asserting this. He must either prove it; or
prove that such proof is not necessary. I my-
self should be quite satisfied if I proved the
former position in respect to the fourth Gospel,
and showed that the evidence of the other three
was equivalent to a record by an eye-witness :
which would not be at all inconsistent with my
contending at the same time for the authen-
ticity of the first (iospel, or rather for the
( atholic interpretation of the title- words Knr«
Mcr&uov, as the more probable opinion, which
a sound divine will neither abandon nor over-
load, neither place it in the foundation, nor on
the other hand suffer it to be extruded from
the wall. Believe me, there is great, very
great, danger in these broad unqualified asser-
tions that Skelton deals in. Even though the
balance of evidence should be on his side, yet
284 NOTES ON
the inquirer will be unfavourably affected by
the numerous doubts and difficulties which an
acquaintance with the more modern works of
Biblical criticism will pour upon him, and for
which his mind is wholly unprepared. To
meet with a far weaker evidence than we had
taken it for granted we were to find, gives the
same shake to the mind, that missing a stair
gives to the body
lb. p. 243.
Temp. You, Mr. Dechaine, seem to forget that God is just ;
and you, Mr. Shepherd, that he is merciful
Deck. I insist, that, as God is merciful, he will forgive.
Shep. And I insist, that, as he is just, he will punish.
Temp. Pray Mr. Dechaine, are you able, upon the Deistical
scheme to rid yourself of this difficulty ?
Deck. I see no difficulty in it at all. God gives us laws only
for our good, and will never suffer those laws to become a snare
to us, and the occasion of our eternal misery.
Here is the cardo ! The man of sense asserts
that it is necessary for the good of all, that a
code of laws should exist, while yet it is im-
possible that all should at all times be obeyed
by each person : but what is impossible cannot
be required. Nevertheless, it may be required
that no iota of any one of these laws should be
wilfully and deliberately transgressed, nor is
there any one for the transgression of which
the transgressor must not hold himself punish-
able. " And yet" (says our man of sense,)
" what may not be said of any one point, or
any one moment, cannot be denied of the col-
SKKLTOV 28fi
lective agency ofa whole life, or any consider-
able section of it. Here we tind ourselves ton-
strained by our best feelings to praise or con-
demn, to reward or punish, according as a great
predominance of acts of obedience or disobe-
dience, and a continued love of the better, or
the lusting after the worst, manifests the maxim
regula maxima), the radical will and proper
character of the individual. So parents judge
of their children ; so schoolmasters of their
scholars ; so friends of friends, and even so
will God judge his creatures, if we are to trust
in our common sense, or believe the repeated
declarations in the Old Testament/' And now
1 should be glad to hear any satisfactory sen-
sible reply to this, or any answer that does not
fly higher than sense can follow, and pierce
into " the thick clouds" of decried metaphy-
sics ! For no fair reply can be imagined, but
one which would find the root of the moral
evil, the true vovifpov, in this very impossibility.
lb. p. 249.
Cunningham. But now docs all tin* discourse about sacri-
fices and the natural litrlit show that your faith does not ascribe
injustice to God in patting an innocent person to death for the
transgressions of the guilty '
Shep. Was Christ innocent ?
Cunn. He was without sin.
Shep. And he was put to death by the appointment and pre-
determination of God ;
Cunn. The Jews put him to death.
Shep. Do not evade the question. Was lie not the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world ? \\ as lie not so
286 NOTES ON
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, that the Jews, having taken him, by wicked hands cru-
cified and slew him ?
Cunn. And what then ?
Shep. Nothing ; but that you are to answer, as well as I,
for saying that God predetermined the death of this only in-
nocent person.
I am less pleased with this volume than with
any of the preceding. Ask your own heart
and conscience whether (for instance,) they
are satisfied with this defence duri per durius :
or whether frightening a modest query into
silence by perverting it into an accusation of
the Almighty, by virtue of a conclusion bor-
rowed from the Calvinistic theory of Predesti-
nation, is not more in the spirit of Job's com-
forters, than becomes a minister of the Apostolic
Church of England and Ireland ? Such argu-
ments are but edge-tools at the safest, but more
often they may rather be likened to the two-
edged blade of Parysatis's knife, the one of
which was poisoned. Leave them to Calvin,
or those who dare appropriate Calvin's words,
that " God's absolute will is the only rule of
his justice ;" — thus dividing the divine attri-
butes. Yet Calvin himself distinguishes the
hidden from the revealed God, even as the
Greek Fathers distinguished the Qk\i]jxa OeoG,
the absolute ground of all being, from the /SouAt}
tov Qtov, as the cause and disposing providence
of all existence.
But I disapprove of the plan and spirit of
this work, (Deism Revealed.) The cold-
SKELTON. 287
hearted, worldly-minded, cunning Deist, or
the coarse sensual Infidel, is of all men the least
likely to be converted ; and the conscientious,
inquiring, though misled and perplexed, Sceptic
will throw aside a book at once, as not appli-
cable to his case, which treats every doubt as
a crime, and supposes that there is no doubt at
all possible but in a bad heart and from wicked
wishes. Compare this with St. Paul's language
concerning the Jew-
S - again, pp. -J-J ">. &c. of this volume. Do
not the plainest intuitions of our moral and
rational being confirm the positions here at-
tributed to the Deist, Dechaine ? Are they not
the same by which Melancthon de-Calvinized,
at least de-Augustinized, the heroic Luther ; —
those which constitute one of the only two es-
sential differences between the Augsburg Con-
fession and the Calvinistic Articles of Faith ?
And can anything be more flittery and special-
pleading than Skelton's objections? And again,
p. 507, -'and that prayer which he (Tindal) is
reported to have used a little before his death,
1 If there is a God, I desire he may have mercv
on me;' " — was it Christian-like to publish and
circulate a blind report — so improbable and
disgusting, as to demand the strongest and most
unsuspicious testimony for its reception ?
lb. p. -2G8.
Shep. Pray. Mr. Dechaine, if a person, whom you knew to
be an honest and clear- sighted man, should solemnly assure
faiia
ijj pi
u
28S NOTES ON
you he saw a dead man restored to life, what would you think
of his testimony ?
Deck. As 1 could not possibly have as strong an assurance
of his honesty, clear-sightedness, and' penetration, as of the
great improbability of the fact, I should not believe him.
Shep. Well ; it is true he mig-ht be deceived himself, or
intend to impose on you. But in case ten such persons should
all, at different times, confirm the same report, how would this
affect you ?
There is one inconvenience, not to say dan-
ger, in this argument of Mr. Shepherd's ;
namely, that of its not standing in the same
force, when it comes to be repeated in the
particular miraculous facts in support of which
it is adduced.
lb. p. 281.
No other ancient book can be so well proved to have been
the work of the author it is now ascribed to, as every book of
the New Testament can be proved to have been written by him
whose name it hath all along borne.
This is true to the full extent that the de-
fence of the divinity of our religion needs, or
perhaps permits, and I see no advantage gained
by asserting more. I must lose all power of dis-
tinction, before I can affirm that, the genuineness
of the first Gospel, — that in its present form
it was written by Matthew, or is a literal trans-
lation of a Gospel written by him, — rests on as
strong external evidence as Luke's, or on as
strong internal evidence as St. John's. Suf-
ficient that the evidence greatly preponderates
in its favor.
-_!;,!>
NOTES ON WMM.u FULLER'S CALVINISTIC AND
SOC1NIAN SYSTEMS EXAMINED AND
COMPARED.* 1807.
Litter III. p. :)8.
Thev (the Jews) did not deny that to be God's own Son was
to be equal with the Father, nor did they allege that such an
equality would destroy the divine unity : a thought of this kind
never Beams to have occurred to their minds.
I n so truly excellent a book as this is, I regret
that this position should rest on an assertion.
The equality of Christ would not, indeed,
destroy the unity of God the Father, considered
a> one Person : but, unless we presume the
Jews in question acquainted with the great
truth of the Tri-unity, we must admit that it
would be considered as implying Ditheism.
Now that some among the Jews had made very
near approaches, though blended with errors,
to the doctrine taught in John, c. i., we can
prove from the writings of Philo ; — and the
Socinians can never prove that these Jews did
not know at least of the doctrine of their schools
concerning the only-begotten Word — A.6yog po-
roytvTjc, — not as an attribute, much less as an
abstraction or personification — but as a distinct
* The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems examined and coin-
pared, as to their moral tendency ; in a series of Letters ad-
dressed to the friends of vital and practical religion ; especially
those amongst Protestant Dissenters. By Andrew Fuller.
Market Harborough. 1793.
VOL. IV. U
290 NOTES ON
Hypostasis av^voiKi} : — and hence it might be
shown that their offence was that the carpen-
ter's son, the Galilean, should call himself the
Gtoc Qavspoq. This might have been rendered
more than probable by the concluding sen-
tence of Christ's answer to the disciples of
John ; — and blessed is he, whosoever shall not he
offended in me (Luke vii. 23.) ; which appears
to have no adequate or even tolerable meaning,
unless in reference to the passage in Isaiah,
(Ixi. 1, 2.) prophesying that Jehovah himself
would come among them, and do the things
which our Saviour states himself to have done.
Thus, too, I regret that the answer of our Lord,
(John x. 34—36.) being one of the imagined
strong-holds of the Socinians, should not have
been more fully cleared up. I doubt not that
Fuller's is a true interpretation ; and that no
other is consistent with our Lord's various other
declarations. But the words in and by them-
selves admit a more plausible misinterpretation
than is elsewhere the case of Socinian displa-
nations. In short, I think both passages would
have been better deferred to a further part of
the work.
Let me add that a mighty and comparatively
new argument against the Socinians may be
most unanswerably deduced from this reply
of our Lord's, even were it considered as a
mere argumentum ad homines : — namely, that
it was not his Messiahship that so offended the
Jews, but his Sonship ; otherwise, our Saviour's
ANDREW FULLER. 291
language would have neither force, motive, or
object. " Even were I no more than the Mes-
siah, in your meanest conceptions of that cha-
racter, yet after what I have done before your
eyes, nothing but malignant hearts could have
prevented you from adopting a milder inter-
pretation of my words, when in your own Scrip-
tures there exists a precedent that so much
more than merely justifies me." And this 1
believe to be the meaning of the words as in-
tended to be understood by the Jews in ques-
tion ; though, doubtless, Fuller's sense exists
implicite. Xo candid person would ever call
it an evasion, to prove the injustice and malig-
nity of an accuser even from his own grounds:
— " You charge me falsely ; but even were
your charge true, namely, that I am a mere
man, and vet call mvself the Son of God, still
it would not follow that I have been guilty of
blasphemy. " But as understood by the modern
I'nicists, it would verily, verily, be an evasive
ambiguity, most unworthy of Christian belief
concerning his Saviour. Common charity
would have demanded of him to have said : —
'• I am a mere man : I do not pretend to be
more ; but I used the words in analogy to the
words, Ye are as Gods ; and I have a right to
do so : for though a mere man, I am the great
Prophet and Messenger which Moses promised
yon."
Letter V. p. 72.
If Dr. Priestley had formed his estimate of human virtue by
292 NOTES ON
that great standard which requires love to God with all the
heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbour as our-
selves,— instead of representing men by nature as having " more
virtue than vice," — he must have acknowledged with the
Scripture, that the whole world lieth in wickedness — that every
thought and imagination of their heart is only evil con-
tinually— and that there is none of them that doeth good, no
not one.
To this the Unicists would answer, that by
the ivholeworld ismeant all theworldly-minded ;
— no matter in how direct opposition to half a
score other texts! " One text at a time!"
sufficient for the day is the evil thereof! — and
in this way they go on pulling out hair by hair
from the horse's tail, (say rather, dreaming
that they do so,) and then conclude with a
shout that the horse never had a tail ! For
why ? This hair is not a tail, nor that, nor
the third, and so on to the very last ; and how
can all do what none of all does? — Ridiculous
as this is, it is a fair image of Socinian logic.
Thank God, their plucking out is a mere
fancy; — and the sole miserable reality is the
bare rump which they call their religion ; —
but that is the ape's own growth.
lb. p. 77.
First, that all punishments are designed for the good of the
whole, and less or corrective punishments for the good of the
offender, is admitted. * * God never inflicts punishment
for the sake of punishing.
This is not, u>g 'l/noty* Sokh, sufficiently guarded.
That all punishments work for the good of the
whole, and that the good of the whole is in-
ANDREW FULLER. 293
eluded in God's design, I admit : but that this
is the sole cause, and the sole justification of
divine punishment, I cannot, I dare not, con-
rede; — because I should thus deny the essen-
tial evil of guilt, and its inherent incompati-
bility with the presence of a Being of infinite
holiness. Now, exclusion from God implies
the sum and utmost of punishment ; and this
would follow from theverj essence of guilt and
holiness, independently of example, conse-
quence, or circumstance.
Letter VI. p. 00.
(The systems compared as to their tendency to promote mo-
rality in general.)
1 have hitherto made no objection to, no
remark on, any one part of this Letter; for I
object to the whole — not as Calvinism, but —
as what ( ah in would have recoiled from. How
v as it that so good and shrewd a man as An-
drew Fuller should not have seen, that the dif-
ference between a Calvinist and a Priestleyan
Materialist-Necessitarian consists in this: — The
former not only believes a will, but that it is
equivalent to the ego ipse, to the actual self, in
every moral agent ; though he believes that in
human nature it is an enslaved, because a cor-
rupt, will. In denying free will to the unre-
i.' aerated lie no more denies will, than in as-
serting the poor negroes in the West Indies to
be slaves I deny them to be men. Now the
latter, the Priestleyan, uses the word will, — not
294 NOTES ON
for any real, distinct, correspondent power, but,
— for the mere result and aggregate of fibres,
motions, and sensations ; in short, it is a mere
generic term with him, just as when we say,
the main current in a river.
Now by not adverting to this, and alas ! mis-
led by Jonathan Edwards's book, Fuller has
hidden from himself and his readers the dam-
nable nature of the doctrine — not of necessity
(for that in its highest sense is identical with
perfect freedom ; they are definitions each of
the other) ; but — of extraneous compulsion.
O ! even this is not adequate to the monstrosity
of the thought. A denial of all agency ; — or
an assertion of a world of agents that never
act, but are always acted upon, and yet without
any one being that acts ; — this is the hybrid of
Death and Sin, which throughout this letter
is treated so amicably ! Another fearful mis-
take, and which is the ground of the former,
lies in conceding to the Materialist, explicite el
implicite, that the vov/ntvov, the intelligibile, the
ipseitus super sensibilis, of guilt is in time, and
of time, and, consequently, a mechanism of
cause and effect ; — in other words, in con-
founding the (f>aii>o/.iti>a, til pkovra, rd /oj ovrwt; ovra,
— all which belong to time, and cannot be even
thought of except as effects necessarily pre-
determined by the precedent causes, (them-
selves in their turn effects of other causes), —
with the transsensual ground or actual power.
After such admissions, no other possible
ANDREW PULLER. 295
defence can be made for Calvinism or any
other ism than the wretched recrimination :
11 Why, yours, Dr. Priestley, is just as bad !"
— Yea, and no wonder : — for in essentials both
are the same. But there was no reason for
Fuller's meddling with the subject at all, — me-
taphysically, I mean.
lb. p. 95.
If the unconditionality of election render it unfriendly to
virtue, it must be upon the supposition of that view of things,
" which attributes more to God, and less to man," having such
ascendancy ; which is the very reverse of what Dr. Priestley
elsewhere teaches, and that in the same performance.
But in both systems, as Fuller has errone-
ously stated his own, man is annihilated. There
is neither more nor less ; it is all God ; all, all
are but Dens i/tjiiiite modificatus: — in brief,
both systems are not Spinosism, for no other
reason than that the logic and logical conse-
quency of 10 Fullers -f 10 x 10 Dr. Priestleys,
piled on each other, would not reach the calf
of Spinoza's leg. Both systems of necessity
lead to Spinosism, nay, to all the horrible
consequences attributed to it by Spinoza's
enemies. O, why did Andrew Fuller quit the
high vantage ground of notorious facts, plain
durable common sense, and express Scripture,
to delve in the dark in order to countermine
mines under a spot, on which he had no busi-
ness to have wall, tent, temple, or even stand-
ing-ground !
296
NOTES ON WHITAKER'S ORIGIN OF ARIANISM
DISCLOSED.* 1810.
Chap. I. 4. p. 30.
Making himself equal with God.
Whoever reads the four verses (John v. 16 —
19,) attentively, judging of the meaning of
each part by the context, must needs, I think,
see that the iaov lavrov ttouov tw 6ho (18) refers,
— not tO the irarepa 'iSiov zXtyt rov Geo?', (18) or the
0 nariip pov (I7j, but — to the tpyat,trai, Kayio ep-
yalopai (17). The 1 9th verse, which is directly
called Jesus' reply, takes no notice whatever
of the o irarrip pov (17), but consists wholly of a
justification of the Kayio ioyalopat. 1803.
The above was written many years ago. I
still think the remark plausible, though I
should not now express myself so positively.
1 imagined the Jews to mean : " he has evi-
dently used the words o irar^p pov — not in the
sense in which all good men may use them,
but — in a literal sense, because by the words
that followed, epyalzrai, Kayu epyalopai, he makes
himself equal to God." To justify these words
seemed to me to be the purport of Christ's
reply.
Chap. II. 1. p. 34.
(•friXwp) — 7T£p< piv ovv ra dela kciI Trarpta padi/para, Ttoaov
* The Origin of Arianism Disclosed. By John Whitaker,
B.D. London, 1791.
NOTES ON WH1TAK.ER. 2J»7
rt mi mjkiKOV (tatt iiieKrai k6vov, tpyu> TtCten cifKoc' «U rrepi ra
<f>i\6(To<pa ce Kiit iknOipia rf/r 'ilwQtv TtuSeias oToj nc ijr, oi
?e7 Xryetv" ort rai uaXurra n)r rara QXarwva kcu [Ivoayopav
Vwcwc uytoyip . iiiveyKtV urrutrag rovg kciO' icivtuv, htto-
pctrac. Euseb. Hist. II. 4.
Philo's acquaintance with the doctrines of the heathens was
known onlv by historical report to Eusebius ; while the writings
of Philo displayed his knowledge in the religion of the Jews.
Strange comment. Might I not, after having
spoken of Dun Scotus's works, say; — " he is
reported to have surpassed all his contempo-
raries in subtlety of logic :" — yet still mean no
other works than those before mentioned ? Are
not Philo's works full of, crowded with, Pla-
tonic and Pythagorean philosophy? Eusebius
knew from his works that he was a great Pla-
tonic scholar ; but that he was greater than
any other man of his age, he could only learn
from report or history. That Virgil is a great
poet I know from his poems ; but that he was
the greatest of the Augustan age, I must learn
from Quinctilian and other-.
lb. p. 35.
Philo and the author of the Wisdom of So-
lomon,— (or rather, perhaps, authors; for the
first ten chapters form a complete work of
themselves,) — were both Cabalistico-Platoni-
zing Jews of Alexandria. As far as, being
such, they must agree, so far they do a<j,ree ;
and as widely as such men could differ, do
they differ. Not only the style of the Wisdom
of Solomon isgenerically different from Philo's,
298 NOTES ON
— so much so that I should deem it a free trans-
lation from a Hebrew original, — but also in all
the minuticB of traditional history and dogma it
contradicts Philo. Philo attributes the creation
of man to angels ; and they infused the evil
principle through their own imperfections. In
the Book of Wisdom, God created man spot-
less, and the Devil tempting him occasioned
the Fall. So the whole account of the plagues
of Egypt differs as widely as possible, even to
absolute contradiction. The origin of idolatry
is explained altogether differently by Philo, and
by the Book of Wisdom. In short, so unsup-
ported is the tradition that many have supposed
an elder Philo as the author. That the second
and third chapters allude to Christ is a ground-
less hypothesis. The just man is called the
son of God, Jehovah, waig Kvpiov ; — but Christ's
specific title which was deemed blasphemous
by the Jews, was Sen Elohim, vlog rod Qeov ; —
and the fancy that Philo was a Christian in
heart, but dared not openly profess himself
such, is too absurd. Why no traces in his latest
work, or those of his middle age? Why not
the least variation in his religious or philoso-
phical creeds in his latter works, written long
after the resurrection, from those composed by
him before, or a few years after, Christ's birth ?
Some of Philo's earlier works must have been
written when our Lord was in his infancv, or
at least boyhood.
In short, just take all those passages of Philo
which most closely resemble others in the
Wisdom of Solomon, ami contain the same or
nearly the same thoughts, and write them in
opposite columns, and no doubt will remain
(hat Philo was not the composer of the Book
of Wisdom. Philo subtle, and with long in-
volved periods knit together by logical connec-
tives : the Book of Wisdom sententious, full of
parallelisms, assertory, and Hebraistic through-
out. It was either composed by a man who
tried to Hebraize the Greek, or, if a translator,
by one who tried to Greecise the Hebraisms
of his original— not to disguise or hide them —
but only so as to prevent them from repelling
or misleading the Greek reader. The different
use of the Greek particles in the Wisdom of
Solomon, and in the works of Philo, is suffi-
cient to confute the hypothesis of Philo being
the author. As little could it have been written
by a Christian. For it could not have been a
( hristian of Palestine, from the overflowing
Alexandrine Platonism ; — nor a Christian at
all ; for it contradicts the doctrine of the resur-
rection of the body, and in no wise connects any
redemptory or sacrificial virtue with the death
of his just man ;— denies original sin in the
(hristian sense, and explains the vice and
virtue of mankind by the actions of the souls
of men in a state of pre-existence. No signs
or miracles are referred to in the account of
the just man; and that it was intended as a
generalization is evident from the change of
300 NOTES ON
the singular into the plural number in the third
chapter.
The result is, in my judgment, that this Book
was composed by an unknown Jew of Alex-
andria, either sometime before, or at the same
time with, Christ. I do not think St. Paul's
parallel passages amount to any proof of quo-
tation or allusion ; — they contain the common
doctrine of the spiritualized Judaism in the
Cabala ; — and yet the work could scarcely have
been written long before Christ, or it would
certainly have been quoted or mentioned by
Philo, and most probably by Josephus. And
this, too, is an answer to the splendid and well-
supported hypothesis of its being a translation
fromaChaldaic original, composed by Jerubba-
bel. The variations of the Syriac translation, —
which are so easily explained by translating
the passage into the Chaldaic, when the cause
of the mistake in the Greek or of the variation
in the Syriac, is seen at once, — are certainly
startling ; but they are too free ; and how could
the Fathers, Jerome for example, remain ig-
norant of the existence of this Chaldaic original?
My own opinion is, as I said before, that the
Book was written in Greek by an Alexandrian
Jew, who had formed his style on that of the
LXX., and was led still further to an imitation
of the Old Testament manner by the nature
of his fiction, and as a dramatic propriety, and
yet deviated from it partly on account of the
very remoteness of his Platonic conceptions
WHITAKEK. .'JO I
from tlif simplicity and poverty of the Hebrew;
ami partly because of the wordy rhetoric epi-
demic iii Alexandria : and that it was written
before the death, if not the birth, of Christ, I
am induced to believe, because I do not think
it probable that a hook composed by a Jew,
who had confessed Christ after the resurrection,
would so soon have been received by the
Christians, and so early placed in the very
next rank to works of full inspiration.
Taken, therefore, as a work ante, or at least
/ * *':,i. Christum, it is most valuable as ascer-
taining the opinions of the learned Jews on
man\ subjects, and the general belief concern-
ing immortality, and a day of judgment. On
this ground Whitaker might have erected a
most formidable battery, that would have
played on the very camp and battle-array of
the Socinians, that is, of those who consider
( hrist only as a teacher of important truth-.
In referring to the Cabala, I am not ignorant
of the date of the oldest Rabbinical writings
which contain or refer to this philosophy, but I
coincide with Eichorn, and very many before
l.ichorn, that the foundations of the Cabala
were laid and well known long before Christ,
though not all the fanciful superstructure. I
am persuaded that new light might be thrown
on the Apocalypse by a careful study of the
Book Sohar, and of whatever else there may
be of that kind. The introduction (i. 4,) is
clearW t abala : — the o w, koi <> 5v, koj o toy^o^uvoi;
302 NOTES ON
== 3, and the seven spirits = 10 Sephiroth, con-
stituting together the Adam Kadmon, the se-
cond Adam of St. Paul, the incarnate one in
the Messiah.
Were it not for the silence of Philo and Jo-
sephus, which I am unable to explain if the
Wisdom of Solomon was written so long before
Christ, I might perhaps incline to believe it
composed shortly after, if not during, the per-
secution of the Jews in Egypt under Ptolemy
Philopator. This hypothesis would give a par-
ticular point to the bitter exposure of idolatry,
to the comparison between the sufferings of the
Jews, and those of idolatrous nations, to the
long rehearsal and rhetorical declaration of the
plagues of Egypt, and to the reward of the
just man after a death of martyrdom ; and
would besides help to explain the putting to-
gether of the first ten chapters, and the frag-
ment contained in the remaining chapters.
They were works written at the same time,
and by the same author : nay, I do not think
it absurd to suppose, that the chapters after
the tenth were annexed bv the writer himself,
as a long explanatory appendix ; or, possibly,
if they were once a separate work, these nine
concluding chapters were parts of a book com-
posed during the persecution in Egypt, the in-
troduction and termination of which, being
personal and of local application, were after-
wards omitted or expunged in order not to give
offence to the other Egyptians, — perhaps, to
WHITAKER. .'}<):{
spare the shame of such Jews as had aposta-
tized through fear, and in general not to revive
heart-burnings. In modern language I should
call these chapters in their present state a
Note on c. x. 15 — 19.
On a reperusal of this Book, I rather believe
that these latter chapters never formed part of
any other work, but were composed as a sort
of long explanatory Postscript, with particular
bearing on certain existing circumstances, to
which this part of the Jewish history was es-
pecially applicable. Nay, I begin to find the
silence of Philo and Josephus less inexplicable,
and to imagine that I discover the solution of
this problem in the very title of the Book. No
one expects to find any but works of authen-
ticity enumerated in these writers ; but to this
a work, calling itself the Wisdom of Solomon,
both being a fiction and never meant to pass
for anything else, could make no pretensions.
To have approximated it to the Holy Books of
the nation would have injured the dignity of
the Jewish Canon, and brought suspicion on
the genuine works of Solomon, while it would
have exposed to a charge of forgery a compo-
sition which was in itself only an innocent
dramatic monologue. N.B. This hypothesis
possesses all the advantages, and involves none
of the absurdity of that which would attribute
the Ecclesiasticus to the infamous Jason, the
High Priest. More than one commentator, I
find, has suspected that the Wisdom of Solomon
304 NOTES ON
and the second book of Maccabees were by the
same author. I think this nothing.
lb. p. 36.
Philo throws out a number of declarations, that shew his
own and the Jewish belief in a secondary sort of God, a God
subordinate in origin to the Father of all, yet most intimately
united with him, and sharing his most unquestionable honours.
The belief of the Alexandrian Jews who
had acquired Greek philosophy, no doubt ; —
but of the Palestine Jews ?
lb. 2. p. 48.
St. John also is witnessed by a heathen (Amelius,) and by
one who put him down for a barbarian, to have represented the
Logos as " the Maker of all things," as " with God,''' and as
" God." And St. John is attested to have declared this. " not
even as shaded over, but on the contrary as placed in full
view.
Stranger still. Whitaker could scarcely have
read the Greek. Amelius says, that these
truths, if stripped of their allegorical dress,
(^t£ro7T£^)pa(7^£va f/c tiiq tov Bappapou OtoXoyiaqj
would be plain ; — that is, that John in an alle-
gory, as of one particular man, had shadowed
out the creation of all things by the Logos, and
the after union of the Logos with human na-
ture,— that is, with all men. That this is his
meaning, consult Plotinus.
lb. 9. p. 107.
" Seest thou not," adds Philo, in the same spirit of subti-
lizing being into power, and dividing the Logos into two.
Who that had even rested but in the porch
IVHITAKBR. 305
<•! the Alexandrian philosophy, would not ra-
ther say, ' of substantiating powers and attri-
butes into beiiiLT V What is the whole system
from Philo to Plotinus, and thence to Proclus
inclusively, but one fanciful process of hypos-
tasizing logical conceptions and generic terms?
In Proclus it is Lojiolatrv run mad.
(hap. III. 1. p. 131—2.
Such would be the evidence for that divinity, to accompany
the Book of Wisdom, if we considered it to be as old as So-
lomon, or only as the Son of Sirach. But I consider it to be
much later than either, and actually a work of Fhilo's. * *
The language is very similar to Philo's ; flowing, lively and
happy.
How is it possible to have read the short
Hebraistic sentences of the Book of Wisdom,
and the long involved periods that characterize
the style of all Philo's known writings, and yet
attribute both to one writer ? But indeed I
know no instance of assertions made so auda-
ciously, or of passages misrepresented and even
mistranslated so grossly, as in this work of
W bitaker. His system is absolute naked Tri-
theism.
lb.
The righteous man ifl shadowed out by the author with a
plain reference to our Saviour himself. " Let its lie in wait
the righteous," Ac
How then could Philo have remained a
Jew 7
lb. 2. p. 195.
In all effect* that are voluntary, the cause must be prior to
Vfj! . IV. \
306 NOTES ON
the effect, as the father is to the son in human generation. But
in all that are necessary, the effect must be coeval with the
cause ; as the stream is with the fountain, and light with the
sun. Had the sun been eternal in its duration, light would
have been co-eternal with it.
A just remark ; but it cuts two ways. For
these necessary effects are not really but only
logically different or distinct from the cause :
— the rays of the sun are only the sun diffused,
and the whole rests on the sensitive form of
material space. Take away the notion of ma-
terial space, and the whole distinction perishes.
Chap. IV. 1. p. 266.
Justin accordingly sets himself to shew, that in the begin-
ning, before all creatures, God generated a certain rational
power out of himself.
Is it not monstrous that the Jews having,
according to Whitaker, fully believed a Tri-
nity, one and all, but half a century or less
before Trypho, Justin should never refer to
this general faith, never reproach Trypho with
the present opposition to it as a heresy from
their own forefathers, even those who rejected
Christ, or rather Jesus as Christ ? — But no ! —
not a single objection ever strikes Mr. Whita-
ker, or appears worthy of an answer. The
stupidest become authentic — the most fantastic
abstractions of the Alexandrine dreamers sub-
stantial realities ! I confess this book has
satisfied me how little erudition will gain a
man now-a-days the reputation of vast learn-
ing, if it be only accompanied with dash and
H HI I AM R :]{)~
insolence. It seems to me impossible, that
Wnitaker can have written well od the subject
ot Man, Queen of Scots, his powers of judg-
ment being apparently so abject. For in-
stance, he says that the grossest moral impro-
bability is swept away by positive evidence : —
as if positive evidence that is, the belief I am
to yield to A. or B.) were not itself grounded
on moral probabilities Upon my word Whi-
taker would have be< u a choice judge for
( harles II. and Titus Oates.
lb. p. 207.
- fin therefore proceeds to demonstrate it, (the pre-existence
of Christ.) asserting Joshua to have given only a temporary
inheritance to the Jews, &c.
A precious beginning of a precious demon-
stration ! It is well for me that my faith in the
Trinity is already well grounded by the Scrip-
tures, by Bishop Bull, and the best parts of
Plotinus, or this man would certainly have
made me either a Socinian or a Deist.
lb. 2. p. 270.
The general mode of commencing and concluding the Epistles
of St. Paul, is a prayer of supplication for the parties, to whom
were addressed; in which he says. Grace t<> you and
•e front God our Father, and — from whom besides '. — the
I d Jesus Christ ; in which our Saviour is at times invoked
alone, as the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ In with ijou all ;
and is even invoked the first at times as. the Gract of the Lord
'is Christ, and the laic of God, and the communion of the
i Ghost, be uith you all ; shews us plainly, drc.
Invoked ! Surely a pious wish is not an in-
;}()£ NOTES ON
vocation. " May good angels attend you !" is no
invocation or worship of angels. The essence
of religions adoration consists in the attributing,
by an act of prayer or praise, a necessary pre-
sence to an object— which not being distin-
guishable, if the object be sensuously present,
we may safely define adoration as an acknow-
ledgement of the actual and necessary pre-
sence of an intelligent being not present to our
senses. " May lucky stars shoot influence on
your would be a very foolish superstition ,—
but to say in earnest ! " O ye stars, I pray to
you, shoot influences on me," would be idol-
atry. Christ was visually present to Stephen ;
his" invocation therefore was not perforce an
act of religious adoration, an acknowledgment
of Christ's deity.
NOTES ON OXLEE ON THE TRINITY AND
INCARNATION.* 1827.
Strange— yet from the date of the book of
the Celestial Hierarchies of the pretended Dio-
nysius the Areopagite to that of its translation
by Joannes Scotus Erigena, the contemporary
of Alfred, and from Scotus to the Rev. John
Oxlee in 1815, not unfrequent -delusion of
* The Christian Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation
considered and maintained on the principles of Judaism. By
the Rev. John Oxlee. London, 1815.
OXLBE. 30!)
mistaking Pantheism, disguised in a fancy
dress of pious phrases, for a more spiritual and
philosophic form of Christian Faith ! Nay,
stranger still : — to imagine with Scotus and
Mr. Oxlee that in a scheme which more di-
rectly than even the grosser species of Atheism,
precludes all moral responsibility and subverts
all essential difference of right and wrong, they
have found the means of proving and explain-
ing, " the Christian doctrines of the Trinity
and Incarnation," that is, the great and only
sufficient antidotes of the right faith against
this insidious poison. For Pantheism — trick
it up as you will — is but a painted Atheism.
A mask of perverted Scriptures may hide
its ugly face, but cannot change a single
feature.
Introduction, p. 4.
In the infancy of the Christian Church, and immediately
after the general dispersion which necessarily followed the
sacking of Jerusalem and Bither, the Greek and Latin Fathers
had the fai-est opportunity of disputing with the Jews, and of
evincing the truth of the Gospel dispensation ; hut unfor-
tunately for the success of so nohle a design, they were totally
ignorant of the Hebrew Scriptures, and 60 wanted in every
argument that stamp of authority, which was equally necessary
to sanction the principles of Christianity, and to command the
respect of their Jewish antagonists. For the confirmation of
this remark 1 may appeal to the Fathers themselves, but espe-
cially to Barnabas, Justin, and Irenaeus, who in their several
attemptl at Hebrew learning betray such portentous signs of
ignorance and stupidity, that we are covered with shame at
the sight of their criticisms.
Mr. Oxlee would be delighted in reading
310 NOTES ON
Jacob Rhenferd's Disquisition on the Ebionites
and other supposed heretics among the Jewish
Christians. And I cannot help thinking that
Rhenferd, who has so ably anticipated Mr.
Oxlee on this point, and in Jortin's best man-
ner displayed the gross ignorance of the Gen-
tile Fathers in all matters relating to Hebrew
learning, and the ludicrous yet mischievous
results thereof, has formed a juster though very
much lower opinion of these Fathers, with a
few exceptions, than Mr. Oxlee. I confess
that till the light of the twofoldness of the
Christian Church dawned on my mind, the
study of the history and literature of the Church
during the first three or four centuries infected
me with a spirit of doubt and disgust which
required a frequent recurrence to the writings
of John and Paul to preserve me whole in the
Faith .
Prop. I. ch. i. p. 16.
The truth of the doctrine is vehemently insisted on, in a
variety of places, by the great R. Moses ben Maimon ; who
founds upon it the unity of the Godhead, and ranks it among
the fundamental articles of the Jewish religion. Thus in his
celebrated Letter to the Jews of Marseilles he observes, &c.
But what is obtained by quotations from
Maimonides more than from Alexander Hales,
or any other Schoolman of the same age?
The metaphysics of the learned Jew are
derived from the same source, namely, Aris-
totle ; and his object was the same, as that of
OXLEE. 311
the Christian Schoolmen, namely, to systema-
tize the religion he professed on the form and
in the principles of the Aristotelian philo-
sophy.
By the by, it is a serious defect in Mr.
Oxlee s work, that he does not give the age of
the writers whom he cites. He cannot have
expected all his readers to be as learned as
himself.
lb. ch. iii. p. 26.
Mr. Oxlee seems too much inclined to iden-
tity the Rabbinical interpretations of Scripture
texts with their true sense; when in reality
the Kabbis themselves not seldom used those
interpretations as a convenient and popular
mode of conveying their own philosophic opi-
nions. Neither have I been able to admire
the logic so general among the divines of both
Churches, according to which if one, two, or
perhaps three sentences in any one of the
< anonical books appear to declare a given
doctrine, all assertions of a different character
must have been meant to be taken metapho-
rically.
lb. p. -2(J— 7.
Prophet Isaiah, too, clearly inculcates the spirituality
of the Godhead in t lie following declination: But Ei/i/pt is
man, and not God: and their horses jhsh, and not spirit.
(c. xxxi. 3. ) * * *. In the former member the Prophet
declares that Egypt was man, and not Hod ; and then in terms
of strict opposition enforces tho sentiment hy adding, that
312 NOTES ON
their cavalry was flesh, and not spirit; which is just as if he
had said : But Egypt, which has horses in war, is only a
man, that is, flesh, and not God, who is spirit.
Assuredly this is a false interpretation, and
utterly unpoetical. It is even doubtful whe-
ther p«H (riiach) in this place means spirit in
contradistinction to matter at all, and not ra-
ther air or wind. At all events, the poetic
decorum, the proportion, and the antithetic
parallelism, demand a somewhat as much
below God, as the horse is below man. The
opposition of flesh and spirit in the Gospel of
St. John, who thought in Hebrew, though he
wrote in Greek, favours our common version, —
flesh and not spirit: but the place in which this
passage stands, namely, in one of the first forty
chapters of Isaiah, and therefore written long
before the Captivity, together with the majestic
simplicity characteristic of Isaiah's name gives
perhaps a greater probability to the other :
Egypt is man, and not God; and her horses
flesh, and not wind. If Mr. Oxlee renders the
fourth verse of Psalm civ. — He maketh spirits
his messengers, (for our version — He maketh
his angels spirits — is without a violent inver-
sion senseless), this is a case in point for the
use of the word, spirits, in the sense of incor-
poreal beings. (Mr. Oxlee will hardly, I ap-
prehend, attribute the opinion of some later
Rabbis, that God alone and exclusively is a
Spirit, to the Sacred Writers, easy as it would
be to quote a score of texts in proof of the con-
OXLEK. 313
trary.) I, however, cannot doubt that the true
rendering; of the above-mentioned verse in the
Psalms is ; — He maketh the winds his angels
or messengers, and the lightnings his ministrant
servants.
As to Mr. Oxlee's ' abstract intelligences,' I
cannot but think ' abstract' for ■ pure,' and even
pure intelligences for incorporeal, a lax use
of terms. With regard to the point in question,
the truth seems to be this. The ancient He-
brews certainly distinguished the principle or
ground of life, understanding, and will from pon-
derable, visible, matter. The former they con-
sidered and called spirit,Bud believed it to bean
emission from the Almighty Father of Spirits:
the latter they called body ; and in this sense
they doubtless believed in the existence of
incorporeal beings. But that they had any
notion of immaterial beings in the sense of
Des Cartes, is contrary to all we know of
them, and of every other people in the same
degree of cultivation. Air, fire, light, express
the degrees of ascending refinement. In the
infancy of thought the life, soul, mind, are
-apposed to be air— anima, animus, that is,
avtpoq, spiritus, -nvivfia. In the childhood, they
are fire, mens ignea, ignicula, and God himself
irvp voipov, rrvp au[u>ov. Lastly, in the youth of
thought, they are refined into light ; and that
light is capable of subsisting in a latent state,
the experience of the stricken flint, of light-
ning from the clouds, and the like, served to
314 NOTES ON
prove, or at least, it supplied a popular an-
swer to the objection ; — " If the soul be light,
why is it not visible ?" That the purest light is
invisible to our gross sense, and that visible
light is a compound of light and shadow, were
answers of a later and more refined period.
Observe, however, that the Hebrew Legislator
precluded all unfit applications of the mate-
rializing fancy by forbidding the people to
imagine at all concerning God. For the ear
alone, to the exclusion of all other bodily
sense, was he to be designated, that is, by the
Name. All else was for the mind — by power,
truth, wisdom, holiness, mercy.
Prop. II. ch. ii. p. 86.
I fear I must surrender my hope that Mr.
Oxlee was an exception to the rule, that the
study of Rabbinical literature either finds a
man ivhimmy, or makes him so. If neither
the demands of poetic taste, nor the peculiar
character of oracles, were of avail, yet morality
and piety might seem enough to convince any
one that this vision of Micaiah, (2 Ckron.
c. xviii. 18, &c.) was the poetic form, the veil,
of the Prophet's meaning. And a most sub-
lime meaning it was. Mr. Oxlee should re-
collect that the forms and personages of visions
are all and always symbolical.
lb. pp. 39—40.
It will not avail us much, however, to have established their
OX LEE. 315
iacorporeity or spirituality, if what R. Moses affirms be true
* * *. This impious paradox * *. Swayed, however, by the
authority of so great a man, even R. David Kimchi has di-
lapsed into the same error, &c.
To what purpose then are the crude meta-
physics of these later Rabbis brought forward,
differing as they do in no other respect from
the theological dicta of the Schoolmen, but that
they are written in a sort of Hebrew. I am
far from denying that an interpreter of the
Scriptures may derive important aids from the
Jewish commentators : Aben Ezra, (about
1 150) especially, was a truly great man. But
of this I am certain, that he only will be
benefited who can look down upon their
works, whilst studying them ; — that is, he must
thoroughly understand their weaknesses, su-
perstitions, and rabid appetite for the mar-
vellous and the monstrous ; and then read them
as an enlightened chemist of the present day
would read the writings of the old alchemists, or
as a Linnaeus might peruse the works of Pliny
and Aldrovandus. If he can do this, well ; —
if not, he will line his skull with cobwebs.
lb. pp. 40, 41.
But how, I would ask, is this position to be defended ?
Surely not by contradicting almost every part of the inspired
volumes, in which such frequent mention occurs of different
and distinct angels appearing to the Patriarchs and Prophets,
sometimes in groups, and sometimes in limited numbers * *.
It is, indeed, so wholly repugnant to the general tenor of the
Sacred Writings, and so abhorrent from the piety of both .leu
and Christian, that the learned author himself, either forget-
316 NOTES ON
ing what he had before advanced, or else postponing his philo-
sophy to his religion, has absolutely maintained the contrary
in his explication of the Cherubim, &c.
I am so far from agreeing with Mr. Oxlee
on these points, that I not only doubt whether
before the Captivity any fair proof of the exis-
tence of Angels, in the present sense, can be
produced from the inspired Scriptures, — but
think also that a strong argument for the di-
vinity of Christ, and for his presence to the
Patriarchs and under the Law, rests on the con-
trary, namely, that the Seraphim were images
no less symbolical than the Cherubim. Surely
it is not presuming too much of a Clergyman
of the Church of England to expect that he
would measure the importance of a theological
tenet by its bearings on our moral and spiritual
duties, by its practical tendencies. What is it
to us whether Angels are the spirits of just men
made perfect, or a distinct class of moral and
rational creatures? Augustine has well and
wisely observed that reason recognizes only
three essential kinds ; — God, man, beast. Try
as long as you will, you can never make an
Angel anything but a man with wings on his
shoulders.
lb. ch. III. p. 08.
But this deficiency in the Mosaic account of the creation is
amply supplied by early tradition, which inculcates not only
that the angels were created, but that they were created, either
'on the second day, according to R. Jochanan, or on the fifth,
according to It. Chanania.
OXLLL. S17
Inspired Scripture amply supplied by the
Talmudic and Rabbinical traditions! — This
from a Clergyman of the Church of England !
I am, I confess, greatly disappointed. I had
expected, 1 scarce know why, to have had
some light thrown on the existence of the
( -abala in its present form, from Ezekiel to
Paul and John. But Mr. Oxlee takes it as he
finds it, and gravely ascribes this patch -work
of corrupt Platonism or Plotinism, with Chal-
dean, Persian, and Judaic fables and fancies, to
the Jewish Doctors, as an original, profound,
and pious philosophy in its fountain-head !
The indispensable requisite not only to a pro-
fitable but even to a safe study of the Cabala
is a familiar knowledge of the docimastic phi-
losophy, that is, a philosophy, which has for
its object the trial and testing of the weights
and measures themselves, the first principles,
definitions, postulates, axioms of logic and
metaphysii 9. But this is in no other way
possible but by our enumeration of the mental
faculties, and an investigation of the constitu-
tion, function, limits, and applicability ad quas
res, of each. The application to this subject of
the rules and forms of the understanding, or
discursive logic, or even of the intuitions of the
reason itself, if reason be assumed as the first
and highest, has Pantheism for its necessary-
result. But this the Cabaliste did : and conse-
quently the Cabalistic theosoph y is Pantheistic,
and Pantheism, in whatever drapery of- pious
318 NOTES ON
phrases disguised, is (where it forms the whole
of a system) Atheism, and precludes moral re-
sponsibility, and the essential difference of
right and wrong. One of the two contra-distinc-
tions of the Hebrew Revelation is the doctrine
of positive creation. This, if not the only, is
the easiest and surest criterion between the idea
of God and the notion of a mens agitans molem.
But this the Cabalists evaded by their double
meaning of the term, nothing, namely as
nought=0, and as no thing; and by their use of
the term, as designating God. Thus in words
and to the ear they taught that the wrorld was
made out of nothing ; but in fact they meant
and inculcated, that the world was God himself
expanded. It is not, therefore, half a dozen
passages respecting the first three proprietates*
in the Sephiroth, that will lead a wise man to
expect the true doctrine of the Trinity in the
Cabalistic scheme : for he knows that the
scholastic value, the theological necessity, of
this doctrine consists in its exhibiting an idea
of God, which rescues our faith from both
extremes, Cabalo-Pantheism, and Anthropo-
morphism. It is, I say, to prevent the neces-
sity of the Cabalistic inferences that the full
and distinct developement of the doctrine of the
Trinity becomes necessary in every scheme of
dogmatic theology. If the first three proprie-
tates are God, so are the next seven, and so are
all ten. God according to the Cabalists is all in
* That is, Intelligence or the Crown, Knowledge, Wisdom.
Ed.
oxi ii. 3 I J)
each and one in all. I do not say that there is
not a great deal of truth in this ; but 1 say that it
is not, as the Cabalists represent it, the whole
truth. Spinoza himself describes his own phi-
losophy as in substance the same with that of
the ancient Hebrew Doctors, the Cabalists —
only unswathed from the Biblical dress.
Il>. p. 61.
Similar to thin is the declaration of It. Moses ben Maimon.
For that influence, which flows from the Deity to the actual
production of abstract intelligences flows also from the intelli-
oes to their production from each other in succession," &c.
How much trouble would Mr. Oxlee have
saved himself, had he in sober earnest asked
his own mind, what he meant by emanation ;
and whether he could attach any intelligible
meaning to the term at all as applied to spirit.
II). p. (}•").
Thushaving, by variety of proofs, demonstrated the fecundity
of the Godhead, in that all spiritualities, of whatever gradation,
have originated essentially and substantially from it, like
streams from their fountain; I avail myself of this as another
sound argument, that in the sameness of the divine essence
subsists a plurality of Persons.
A plurality with a vengeance ! Why, this is
the very scoff of a late Unitarian writer, — only
that he inverts the order. Mr. Oxlee proves
ten trillions of trillions in the Deity, in order
to deduce a fortiori the rationality of three:
the Unitarian from the Three pretends to
deduce the equal rationality of as many thou-
sands.
320 NOTES ON
lb. p. 60.
So, if without detriment to piety great things may be com-
pared with small, I would contend, that every intelligency, de-
scending by way of emanation or impartition from the God-
head, must needs be a personality of that Godhead, from which
it has descended, only so vastly unequal to it in personal per-
fection, that it can form no part of its proper existency.
Is not this to all intents and purposes ascrib-
ing parti bility to God ? Indeed it is the neces-
sary consequence of the emanation scheme? —
Unequal ! — Aye, various wicked personalities
of the Godhead ? — How does this rhyme ? —
Even as a metaphor, emanation is an ill-chosen
term ; for it applies only to fluids. Ramenta,
unravellings, threads, would be more germane.
NOTES ON A BARRISTER'S HINTS ON EVAN-
GELICAL PREACHING. 1810.*
For only that man understands in deed
Who well remembers what he well can do ;
The faith lives only where the faith doth breed
Obedience to the works it binds us to.
And as the Life of Wisdom hath exprest —
If this ye know, then do it and be blest.
LORD BROOK.
In initio.
There is one misconception running through
the whole of this Pamphlet, the rock on which,
* Hints to the Public and the Legislature on the nature and
effect of Evangelical Preaching. By a Barrister. Fourth
Edition, 1808.
A BARRISTER'S HIN'J 9. .* ; i2 1
and the quarry out of which, the whole reason-
ing, is built; -an error therefore which will
not indeed destroy its efficacy as a fdanrpov or
anti-philtre to inflame the scorn of the enemies
of Methodism, but which must utterly incapa-
citate it for the better purpose of convincing
the consciences or allaying the fanaticism of
the .Methodists themselves; this is the uniform
and gross mis-statement of the one great point
in dispute, by which the Methodists are re-
presented as holding the compatibility of an
impure life with a saving faith : whereas tin \
only assert that the works of righteousness are
the consequence, not the price, of Redemption,
a gift included in the great gift of salvation ; —
and therefore not of merit but of imputation
through the free love of the Saviour.
Part 1. p. t9.
his enough, it seems, that all tin disorderly classes of man-
kind, prompted as \}\v\ are by their worst passions to trample
on the publii welfare, Bhould know thai they are, what every
one else is convinced they are. the pests of BOciety, and the
evil is remedied. Tin y are not to he exhorted to honesty,
sobrietv, or the observance of any laws, human or divine — they
must not even be entreated to do their best. " Just as absurd
aid it be," we are told, " in a physician to semi away his
patient, when labouring nnder some desperate disease, with a
recommendation to do his utmost towards his own cure, and
then to come to him to finish it, as it is in the minister of the
Gospel to propose to the sinner to do his best, by way of
healintr the disease of the soul — and then to come to tin' Lord
Jesus to perfect his recovery. The only previous qualification
is to know our misery, and the remedy is prepared." S
Dr. Hawker's Works, vol. vi. p. 117.
VOL. IV. v
322 NOTES ON
For " know," let the Barrister substitute
" feel ;" that is, we know it as we know our life ;
and then ask himself whether the production
of such a state of mind in a sinner would or
would not be of greater promise as to his re-
formation than the repetition of the Ten Com-
mandments with paraphrases on the same. —
But whv not both ? The Barrister is at least
as wrong in the undervaluing of the one as the
pseudo-Evangelists in the exclusion of the
other.
lb. p. 51.
Whatever these new Evangelists may teach to the contrary,
the present state of public morals and of public happiness would
assume a very different appearance if the thieves, swindlers,
and highway robbers, would do their best towards maintaining
themselves by honest labour, instead of perpetually planning
new systems of fraud, and new schemes of depredation.
That is, if these thieves had a different will
— not a mere wish, however anxious : — for this
wish " the libertine" doubtless has, as des-
cribed in p. 50, — but an effective will. Well,
and who doubts this? The point in dispute is,
as to the means of producing this reformation
in the will : which, whatever the Barrister may
think, Christ at least thought so difficult as to
speak of it, not once or twice, but uniformly,
as little less than miraculous, as tantamount to
a re-creation. This Barrister may be likened
to an ignorant but well-meaning Galenist, who
writing against some iufamous quack, who
\ barrister's iiin ts. 323
lived by puffing and vending pills of mercurial
sublimate for all cases of a certain description,
should have no stronger argument than t<> extol
sarsaparilla, and lignum vita?, or senna in con-
i« nipt of all mercurial preparations.
11). p. 50.
for the revenues of an Archbishop would ho exhort them
to a duty unknown in Scripturt . of adding their five talents to
the fne they have received. &c.
All this is mere calumny and wilful mis-
tement of the tenets of Wesley, who never
doubled that we air bound to improve oui
talents, or, on the other hand, that we are
equally bound, having done so, to be equally
thankful to the Giver of all things for the power
and the will by which we improved the talents,
as tor the original capital which is the object
of the improvement.' The question is not
whether Christ will say, 11 <// dour thou good
and faithful servant, <S:c. ; — but whether the
servant is to say it of himself. Now Christ
has delivered as positive a precept against our
doinu" this as the promise can be that he will
impute it to us, if we do not impute it to oui
own merit-.
[b. p. 'JO.
The complaints of the profliu"a<v of servants of every class,
and of the depravity of the times an' in every body's hearing : —
and these Evangelical tutors — the dear Mr. Lnvegoods of the
day — deserve the best attention of the public for thus instruct-
324 NOTES ON
ing the ignorant multitude, who are always ready enough to
neglect their moral duties, to despise and insult those hy whom
they are taught.
All this is no better than infamous slander,
unless the Barrister can prove that these de-
praved servants and thieves are Methodists, or
have been wicked in proportion as they were
proselyted to Methodism. O folly ! This is
indeed to secure the triumph of these enthu-
siasts.
lb.
It must afford him (Rowland Hill) great consolation, amidst
the increasing immorality * * * that when their village Curate
exhorts them, if they have faith in the doctrine of a world to
come, to add to it those good works in which the sum and sub-
stance of religion consist, he has led them to ridicule him, as
chopping a new-fashioned logic.
That this is either false or nugatory, see
proved in The Friend.
>
lb. p. 68.
Tom Payne himself never laboured harder to root all virtue
out of society. — Mandeville nor Voltaire never even laboured
so much.
Indeed !
lb.
They were content with declaring their disbelief of a future
state.
In what part of their works? Can any wise
man read Mandevilles Fable of the Bees, and
not see that it is a keen satire on the incon-
sistency of Christians, and so intended
\ b irrister's m\ rs. •'!-•
lb. p. 71.
When the populace shall be once brought to a conviction
that the Gospel, as they are told, has neither terms nor con-
ditions • ' *, that no sins can be too great, no life too impure,
?io offences too main/ or too aggravated, to disqualify the per-
petrators of them for — salvation, &C.
Merely insert the words " sincere repentance
and amendment of heart and life, and therefore
tor" salvation,- -and is not this truth, and Gospel
truth ? And is it not the meaning of the
preacher ? Did any .Methodist ever teach that
salvation may be attained without sanctifica-
tion ? This Barrister for ever forgets that the
whole point in dispute is not concerning the
possibility of an immoral Christian being saved,
which the Methodist would deny as strenuously
as himself, and perhaps give an austerer sense
to the word immoral ; but whether morality,
or as the Methodists would call it, sanctifica-
tion, be the price which we pay for the pur-
chase of our salvation with our own money, or
a part of the same free gift. God knows. 1 am
no advocate for Methodism; but for fair state-
ment I am, and most zealously — even for the
love of logic, putting honesty out of sight.
lb. p. 7-J.
" In every age," says the moral divine (Blair), " the practice
has prevailed of substituting certain appearances of piety in
the place of the great duties of humanity and mercy," tVc.
Will the Barrister rest the decision of the
controversy <>n a comparison of the lives of the
;52t> NOTES ON
Methodists and non-Methodists ? Unless he
knows that their " morality has declined, as
their piety has become more ardent," is not
his quotation mere labouring— nay, absolute
pioneering— for the triumphal chariot of his
enemies ?
lb. pp. 75—79.
It is but fair to select a specimen of Evangelical preaching
from one of its most celebrated and popular champions * .
He will preface it with the solemn and woful communication
of the Evangelist John, in order to show how exactly they
accord, how clearly the doctrines of the one are deduced from
the Revelation of the other, and how justly, therefore, it assumes
the exclusive title of evangelical. And I saw the dead
and the dead were judged out of those things which icere
written in the books, according to their works. And the sea
gave zip the dead * ' and they were judged every man ac-
cording to his tvorks. Rev. xx. 12, 13. Let us recall to
mind the urgent caution conveyed in the writings of Paul * *
Be not deceived ; God is not mocked ; for whatsoever a man
soiveth, that shall he also reap. And let us further add * *
the confirmation * * of the Saviour himself: — When the Son
of Man shall come in his glory, * * but the righteous into
life eternal. Matt. xxv. 31 , adfnem. Let us now attend to
the Evangelical preacher, (Toplady). " The Religion of Jesus
Christ stands eminently distinguished, and essentially differ-
enced, from every other religion that was ever proposed to
human reception, by this remarkable peculiarity; that, look
abroad in the world, and you will find that every religion,
except one, puts you upon doing something, in order to recom-
mend yourself to God. A Mahometan * * A Papist * * * It is
only the religion of Jesus Christ that runs counter to all the
rest, by affirming that we are saved and called with a holy
railing, not according to our works, but according to the
Father's own purpose and grace, which was not sold to us on
A BAR R IS l i R'S II IN I 8. '.)'27
certain conditions to be fulfilled by ourselves, but was giv< d
us in Christ before the world be^an." Toplady's Works:
Sermon on James ii. IS.
Si sic omnia! All this is just and forcible;
and surely nothing- can be easier than to
confute the .Methodist by shewing that his very
no-doing, when he comes to explain it, is not
only an act, a work, but even a very severe and
perseverant energy of the will. He is there-
tore to be arraigned of nonsense and abuse of
words rather than of immoral doctrines.
lb. p. 84.
The sacred volume of Holy Writ declares that true (pure ;)
religion and undejiled before God and the Father is this, to
visit the fatherless and widow in their affliction, and to keep
hinu potted from the world. James i. J 7
This is now at least, whatever might have
been the meaning of the word ' religion' in the
lime of the Translators, a false version. St.
Jauu s is -peaking of persons eminently zealous
in those public or private acts of worship,
which we call divine si nice, BpvoKua. It
should be rendered, True worship, &c. The
pa is a tine burst of rhetoric, and not a
mere truism; just as when we say ; — "A cheer-
ful heart is a perpetual thanksgiving, and a
.ie of love and resignation the truest utter-
anceof the Lord's Prayer." St. James opposes
( hristianity to the outward signs and ceremo-
nial observances of the Jewish and Pagan
religions. But these are the only sure signs,
328 NOTES ON
these are the most significant ceremonial ob-
servances by which your Christianity is to be
made known, — to visit the fatherless, &c. True
religion does not consist quoad essentiam in
these acts, but in that habitual state of the
whole moral being, which manifests itself
by these acts — and which acts are to the
religion of Christ that which ablutions, sacri-
fices and Temple-going were to the Mosaic
religion, namely, its genuine Bp-qaicda. That
which was the religion of Moses is the cere-
monial or cult of the religion of Christ. Moses
commanded all good works, even those stated
by St. James, as the means of temporal felicity ;
and this was the Mosaic religion ; and to these
he added a multitude of symbolical observ-
ances ; and these formed the Mosaic cult,
(cullus religionis, Opiioicsia). Christ commands
holiness out of perfect love, that is, Christian
religion ; and adds to this no other ceremony
or symbol than a pure life and active benefi-
cence; which (says St. James) are the true cult*
lb. p. 86.
There is no one whose writings are better calculated to do
good, (than those of Paley) by inculcating the essential duties
of common life, and the sound truths of practical Christianity.
Indeed ! Paley s whole system is reducible
to this one precept : — " Obey God, and benefit
your neighbour, because you love yourself above
( See Aids to Reflection, p. 14, 4th edition. — Ed.
V BARRISTER^ HINTS. 3'2!»
all." Christ lias himself comprised his system
in — " Love your neighbour as yourself, and
God above all." These " sound truths of
practical Christianity" consist in a total sub-
version, not only of Christianity, but of all mo-
lality : — the very words virtue and vice being
but lazy synonymes of prudence and miscal-
culation,— and which ought to be expunged
from our vocabularies, together with Abraxas
and Abracadabra, as charms abused by super-
stitious or mystic enthusiasts.
lb. p. <)4.
Eventually the whole direction of the popular inipd, in the
affairs of religion, will be gained into the hands of a set of
ignorant fanatics of such low origin and vulgar habits as can
only Berve to degrade religion in the eyes of those to whom its
influence is most wanted. Will such persons venerate or respect
it in the hands of a sect composed in the far greater part of
bigotted, coarse, illiterate, and low-bred enthusiasts ? Men who
have abandoned their lawful callings, in which by industry they
might have been useful members of society, to take upon them-
Belves concerns the most sacred, with which nothing but their
vanity and their ignorance could have excited them to meddle.
It is not the buffoonery of the reverend joker
of the Edinburgh Review; not the convulsed
grin of mortification which, sprawling prostrate
in the dirt from 'wthe whiff and wind" of tlie mas-
terly disquisition in the Quarterly Review, the
itinerant preacher would pass off for the broad
grin of triumph ; no, nor even the over-valued
distinction of miracles, — which will prevent him
from seeing and shewing the equal applica-
bility of all this to the Apostles and primitive
.'3.30 NOTES ON
Christians. We know that Trajan, Pliny,
Tacitus, the Antonines, Celsus, Lucian and the
like, — much more the ten thousand philoso-
phers and joke-smiths of Rome, — did both feel
and apply all this to the Galilean Sect ; and
yet — Vicisti, O Galilcee!
lb. p. 95.
They never fail to refer to the proud Pharisee, whom they
term self-righteous ; and thus, having- greatly misrepresented
his character, they proceed to declaim on the arrogance of
founding any expectation of reward from the performance of
our moral duties : — whereas the plain truth is that the Pharisee
was not righteous, hut merely arrogated to himself that charac-
ter ; he had neglected all the moral duties of life.
Who told the Barrister this ? Not the Gospel,
I am sure.
The Evangelical has only to translate these
sentences into the true statement of his opinions,
in order to baffle this angry and impotent
attack ; the self-righteousness of all who expect
to claim salvation on the plea of their own
personal merit. " Pay to A. B. at sight —
value received by me." — To Messrs. Stone
and Co. Bankers, Heaven-Gate. It is a short
step from this to the Popish. " Pay to A. B.
or order" Once assume merits, and I defy
you to keep out supererogation and the old
Monte di Piela.
lb. p. 97.
and from thence occasion is taken to defame all those
who strive to prepare themselves, during this their state of
trial, for that judgment which they must undergo at thai day,
a barrister's hints. 33 1
when they will receive either reward or punishment, according
hey shall be found to have merited the one, or deserved the
other.
( an the Barrister have read the New Testa-
ment ? Or does he know it only by quotations I
lb.
a .swarm of new Evangelists who are every where
teaching the people that no reliance is to be placed on holiness
of life as a ground of future acceptance.
1 am weary of repeating that this is false.
It is only denied that mere aets, not proceeding
from faith, are or can be holiness. As surely
(would the Methodist say) as the Holy Ghost
proceeds from the Son, so surely does ssnetifi-
catioD from redemption, and not vice versa, —
much less from self-sanctifiedness, that ostrich
with its head in the sand, and the plucked
rump of its merits staring on the divine Ar>,
venatrix !
lb. p. 10-2.
//. thai doeth righteousness is righteous.- Since then it is
plain that each must himself he righteous, if he be so at all,
what do they mean who thus inveigh against se(/-rig-hteousness,
since Christ himself declares there is no other \
Here again the whole dispute lies in the
word "himself."' In the outward and visible
sense both parties agree; but the Methodist
calls it "the will in us," given by grace ; the
Barrister calls it "our own will," or " we our-
Lves." But why does not the Barrister reserve
a part of his wrath for Dr. Priestley, according
t<» whom a villain lias superior claims on the di-
332 NOTES ON
vine justice as an innocent martyr to the grand
machinery of Providence ; — for Dr. Priestley,
who turns the whole dictionary of human nature
into verbs impersonal with a perpetual subau-
ditur of Deus for their common nominative
case ; — which said Deus, however, is but ano-
ther automaton, self- worked indeed, but yet
worked, not properly working, for he admits no
more freedom or will to God than to man ? The
Lutheran leaves the free will whining with a
broken back in the ditch ; and Dr. Priestley
puts the poor animal out of his misery !— But
seriously, is it fair or even decent to appeal to
the Legislature against the Methodists for hold-
ing the doctrine of the Atonement ? Do we not
pray by Act of Parliament twenty times every
Sunday through the only merits of Jesus Christ \
Is it not the very nose which (of flesh or wax) this
very Legislature insists on as an indispensable
qualification for every Christian face? Is not
the lack thereof a felonious deformity, yea, the
grimmest feature of the lues conjirmata of
statute heresy ? What says the reverend critic
to this? Will he not rise in wrath against the
Barrister, — he the Pamphagus of Homilitic,
Liturgic, and Articular orthodoxy,— the Gara-
gantua, whose ravenous maw leaves not a single
word, syllable, letter, no, not one iota un-
swallowed, if we are to believe his own recent
and voluntary manifesto? * What says he to this
Barrister, and his Hints to the Legislature?
* Quart. Review, vol. ii. p. 187. — Ed.
\ barrister's hints. 333
lb. p. 105.
Tf the new faith be the only true one, let us embrace it; but
let not those who vend these new articles expect that we should
choose them with our eyes shut.
Let any man read the Homilies of the
( -hurch of England, and if he does not call this
either blunt impudence or blank ignorance,
I will plead guilty to both ! New articles ! !
Would to Heaven some of them at least were !
Why, Wesley himself was scandalized at
Luther's Commentary on the Epistle to the
Galatians, and cried off from the Moravians
(the strictest Lutherans) on that account.
lb. p. 114.
Tlr-e catalogue of authors, which this Rev. Gentleman has
pleased to specify and recommend, begins with Homer, Hesiod, the
Argonautics.iEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Theognis,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, DiodorusSiculus.
*. ' This catalogue,' says he, ' might be considerably
extended, but I study brevity. It is only necessary for me to
add that the recommendation of these books is not to be consi-
dered as expressive of my approbation of every particular
sentiment they contain.' It would indeed be grievous injustice
if this writer's reputation should be injured by the occasional
unsoundness of opinion in writers whom it is more than pro-
bable he may never have read, and for whose sentiments he
ought no more to be made answerable than the compiler of
Lackington's Catalogue, from which it is not unlikely that his
own was abridged.
Very good.
lb. p. 115—16.
These high-strained pretenders to godliness, who deny the
power of the sinner to help himself, take good care always to
.3:54 notes on
attribute his saving change to the blessed effect of some
sermon preached by some one or other of their Evangelical
fraternity. They always hold themselves up to the multitude
as the instruments producing- all those marvellous conversions
which they relate. No instance is recorded in their Saints'
Calendar of any sinner resolving-, in consequence of a reflective
and serious perusal of the Scriptures, to lead a new life. No
instance of a daily perusal of the Bible producing a daily pro-
gress in virtuous habits. No, the Gospel has no such effect-
— It is always the Gospel Preacher who works the miracle,
&c.
Excellent and just. In this way are the
Methodists to be attacked : — even as the Pa-
pists were by Baxter, not from their doctrines,
but from their practices, and the spirit of their
Sect. There is a fine passage in Lord Bacon
concerning a heresy of manner being not less
pernicious than heresy of matter.
lb. p. 118.
But their Saints, who would stop their ears if you should
mention with admiration the name of a Garrick or a Siddons ;
— who think it a sin to support such an infamous profession
as that through the medium of which a Milton, a Johnson, an
Addison, and a Young have laboured to mend the heart, &c.
Whoo ! See Milton's Preface to the Samson
Agonistes.
lb. p. 133.
In the Evangelical Magazine is the following article: " At
in Yorkshire, after a handsome collection (for the Mission-
ary Society) a poor man, whose wages are about 28s. per week,
brought a donation of 20 guineas. Our friends hesitated to
receive it * * when he answered * * — ' Before I knew the grace
of our Lord 1 was a poor drunkard : I never could save a
shilling. My family were in beggary and rags ; but since it
\ barrister's hints. 335
has pleased God to renew me by his grace, we have been
industrious and frugal : we have doI spent many idle shillings;
and we have been enabled to put something into the Bank ;
and this 1 freely offer to the hlessed cause of our Lord and
Saviour.' This is the second donation of this same poor man
to the same amount!" Whatever these Evangelists may think
inch conduct, they ou^ht to he ashamed of thus basely
taking advantage of this poor ignorant enthusiast, &c.
Is it possible to read this affecting story
without finding in it a complete answer to the
charge of demoralizing the lower classes? Does
the Barrister really think, that this generous
and grateful enthusiast is as likely to be un-
provided and poverty-stricken in his old age,
as lie was prior to his conversion? Except
indeed that at that time his old age was as
improbable as his distresses were certain if he
did live so long. This is singing Io PaanJ
for the enemy with a vengeance.
Part II. p. 14.
It hehoved him (Dr. Hawker in lus Letter to the Barri.-t r
to show in what manner a covenant can exist without terms
or condition-.
According to the Methodists there is a con-
dition,— that of faith in the power and promise
of Christ, and the virtue of the Cross. And
Mere it otherwise, the objection is scarcely
appropriate except at the Old Bailey, or in
the Court of King's Bench. The Banish r
might have framed a second law -syllogism,
as acute as his former. The laws of England
allow no binding covenant in a transfer of
33(3 NOTES ON
goods or chattels without value received. But
there can be no value received by God : —
Ergo, there can be no covenant between God
and man. And if Jehcvah should be as
courteous as the House of Commons, and
acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Courts at
Westminster, the pleading might hold perhaps,
and the Pentateuch be quashed after an argu-
ment before the judges. Besides, how childish
to puff up the empty bladder of an old meta-
physical foot-ball on the modus operandi interior
of Justification into a shew of practical sub-
stance ; as if it were no less solid than a cannon
ball ! Why, drive it with all the vehemence
that five toes can exert, it would not kill a
louse on the head of Methodism. Repentance,
godly sorrow, abhorrence of sin as sin, an^
not merely dread from forecast of the conse-
quences, these the Arminian would call means
of obtaining salvation, while the Methodist
(more philosophically perhaps) names them
signs of the work of free grace commencing
and the dawning of the sun of redemption.
And pray where is the practical difference?
lb. p. 20.
Jesus answered him thus — Verily, I say unto you, unless
a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. — The true sense of which is obviously
this : — Except a man be initiated into my religion by Baptism,
(which at that time was always preceded by a confession of
faith) and unless he manifest his sincere reception of it, by
leading that upright and spiritual life which it enjoins, he
A BARKIS rER 8 HINTS. .'H?
cannot enter t/tr kingdom of heaven, or be u partaker * • t" thnt
happiness which it belongs to me to confer on those who
believe in niv name and keep my sayings.
I'pon my faith as a Christian, it' no more is
meant by being born again than this, the
speaker must have had the strongest taste in
metaphors of any teacher in verse or prose on
record, Jacob Behmen himself not excepted.
The very Alchemists lag behind. Pity, how-
ever, that our Barrister lias not shown us how
thi^ plain and obvious business of Baptism
agrees with ver. 8. of the same chapter: The
wind bloweth where it listeth, &c. Now if this
dors not express a visitation of the mind by a
somewhat not in the own power or fore-thought
of the mind itself, what are words meant for?
lb. p. 2D.
The true meaning of being bom again, in the sense in which
our Saviour uses the phrase, implies nothing- more or less, in
plain terms, than this: — to repent; to lead for the future a
religious life instead of a life of disobedience; to believe the
Holv Scriptures, and to pray for gran- and assistance to per-
severe in our obedience to the end. All this any man of
common sense might explain in ;i few words.
Pray, then, (for I will tal^e the Barristers
own commentary,) what does the man of com-
mon sense mean by grace? If he will explain
UTaco in any other way than as the circum-
stances ab extra (which would be mere mock-
ery and in direct contradiction to a score of
texts), and yet without mystery, I will under-
take for Dr. Hawker and Co. to make the
\ OL. IV. /
338 NOTES ON
new birth itself as plain as a pikestaff, or a
whale's foal, or Sarah Robartss rabbits.
lb. p. 30.
So that they go on in their sin waiting- for a new birth, &c.
" So that they go on in their sin !"— Who
would not suppose it notorious that every Me-
thodist meeting-house was a cage of Newgate
larks making up their minds to die game ?
lb.
The following account is extracted from the Methodist Ma-
gazine for 1798 : "The Lord astonished Sarah Roberts with
his mercy, by setting her at liberty, while employed in the
necessary business of washing for her family, &c.
N. B. Not the famous rabbit- woman. — She
was Robarts.
lb. p. 31.
A washerwoman has all her sins blotted out in the twinkling
of an eye, and while reeking with suds is received in the family
of the Redeemer's kingdom. Surely this is a most abominable
profanation of all that is serious, &c.
And where pray is the absurdity of this?
Has Christ declared any antipathy to washer-
women, or the Holy Ghost to warm suds ?
Why does not the Barrister try his hand at
the " abominable profanation," in a story of a
certain woman with an issue of blood who was
made free by touching the hem of a garment,
without the previous knowledge of the wearer?
Rode, caper, vitem : tarn en hinc cum stabis ad aras,
In tua quod fundi cornua possit, erit.
\ B ARRIS l l.i; > II I \ is. 339
II). p. 32.
The leading design of John the Baptist * * was * this: — to
prepare the minds of men for the reception of that pure system
of moral truth which the Saviour, by divine authority, wan
sdily to inculcate, and of those sublime doctrines of a resur-
rection and a future judgment, which, a< powerful motives to
the practice of holiness, he was soon to reveal.
What then? Did not John the Baptist him-
-i If i< acfa a pure }j -;i in of moral truth ? Was
John bo much more ignoranl than Paul before
liis conversion, and the whole Jewish nation,
except a tow rich freethinkers, as to be ignorant
of the "sublime doctrines of a resurrection and
a future judgment?" This, I well know, is the
strong-hold of Socinianism; but surely one
single unprejudiced perusal of the New Tes-
tament,— not to suppose an acquaintance with
Kidder or Lightfoot — Mould blow it down, like
a house of cards!
lb. p. 33.
— their faiths in the efficacy of their own rites, and creeds,
and ceremonies, and their whole train of substitutions for
moral duty, was so entire, and in their opinion was such a
faith, that they could not at all interpret any lai guage
that seemed to dispute their value, or deny their importance.
Poor strange Jews! They had, doubtless,
what Darwin would call a specific paralysis
of the auditory nerves to the writings of their
own Prophets, which yet were read Sabbath
after Sabbath in their public Synagogues.
For neither John nor Christ himself ever did,
340 NOTES ON
or indeed could, speak in language more con-
tempt nous of the folly of considering rites as
substitutions for moral duty, or in severer
words denounce the blasphemy of such an
opinion. Why need I refer to Isaiah or
Micah ?
lb. p. 34.
Thus it was that this moral preacher explained and enforced
the duty of repentance, and thus it was that he prepared the
way for the greatest and hest of teachers, &c.
Well then, if all this was but a preparation
for the doctrines of Christ, those doctrines
themselves must surely have been something
different, and more difficult? Oh no ! John's
preparation consisted in a complete rehearsal
of the Drama didacticum, which Christ and
the Apostles were to exhibit to a full audience!
— jN ay, prithee, good Barrister ! do not be too
rash in charging the Methodists with a mon-
strous burlesque of the Gospel !
lb. p. 37.
— the logic of the new Evangelists will convince him that it
is a contradiction in terms even to suppose himself capuble of
doing any tiling to help or bringing any thing to reccomend
himself to the Divine favour.
Now, suppose the wisdom of these endless
attacks on an old abstruse metaphysical notion
to be allowed, vet why in the name of common
candour does not. the Barrister ring the same
tocsin against his friend Dr. Priestley's scheme
a barrister's HI NTS. 34 I
of Necessity ; — or against his idolized Paley,
who explained the will as a sensation, pro-
duced by the action of the intellect on the
muscles, and the intellect itself as a catenation
of ideas, and idea- as configurations of the
organized brain 1 Would not every syllable
apply, yea. and more Btrongly, more indis-
putably ! And would his fellow-sectaries thank
him, or admit the consequences? Or has
any late Socinian divine discovered, that Do
- \< would he done unto, is an interpolated
precept ?
lb. p. :}«».
" Even repentance and faith,"' (says Dr. Hawker,) " those
most essential qualifications of the mind, for the participation
and enjoyment of the blessings of the Gospel, (and which all
real disciples of the Lord Jesus cannot hut possess,) are never
supposed as a condition which the si it hit performs to entitle
him to mercu, hut merelv as evidences that he is brought and
hu obtained mercy. They cannot be the conditions of ob-
taining: Miration."
( hight not this single quotation to have satis-
fied the Banister, that no practical difference
is deducible from these doctrines ? " Essential
qualifications/1 -ays the Methodist : — "terms
and condition-. Bays the spiritual higgler.
But if a man begins to reflect on his past life,
i- he to withstand the inclination ? God forbid!
exclaim both, [f he feels a commencing shame
and sorrow, i> he to check the feeling? (iod
forbid! cry both in one breath! But should
not remembrancers be thrown in the way of
.542 NOTES ON
sinners, and the voice of warning sound through
every street and every wilderness? Doubtless,
quoth the Rationalist. We do it, we do it, shout
the Methodists. In every corner of every lane,
in the high road, and in the waste, we send forth
the voice — Come to Christ, and repent, and be
cleansed ! Aye, quoth the Rationalist, but I say
Repent, and become clean, and go to Christ-
Now is not Mr. Rationalist as great a bigot as
the Methodists, as he is, me judice, a worse
psychologist ?
Part II. p. 40.
The former authorities on this subject I had quoted from the
Gospel according to St. Luke : that Gospel most positively and
most solemnly declares the repentance of sinners to be the
condition on which alone salvation can be obtained. But the
doctors of the new divinity deny this : they tell us dictinctly it
cannot be. For the future, the Gospel according- to Calvin
must be received as the truth. Sinners will certainly prefer it
as the more comfortable of the two beyond all comparison.
Mercy ! but only to read Calvin's account of
that repentance, without which there is no
sign of election, and to call it " the more com-
fortable of the two ?" The very term by which
the German New-Birthites express it is enough
to give one goose-flesh — das Herzknirschen —
the very heart crashed between the teeth of a
lock-jaw'd agony !
lb.
W hat is faith ? Is it not a conviction produced in the mind
by adequate testimony ?
\ barrister's hints. 3 n
No ! thai is not the meaning of faith in the
Gospel, nor indeed anywhere else. Were it so,
the stronger the testimony, the more adequate
the faith. Yet who says, 1 have faith in the exis-
tence of George II., as his present Majesty's
antecessor and grandfather? — If testimony,
then evidence too; — and who has faith that
the two Bides of all triangles are greater than
the third * In truth, faith, even in common lan-
guage, always implies some effort, something
of evidence which is not universally adequate
or communicable at will toothers. " Well ! to
be sure he has behaved badly hitherto, but I
have faith in him." If it were otherwise, how-
could it be imputed as righteousness ? Can
morality exist without choice; — nay, strengthen
in proportion as it becomes more independent
of the will ! " A very meritorious man ! he has
faith in every proposition of Euclid, which he
understands
lb. p. 41.
•• I could aa easily create a world (saya Dr. Hawker) aa create
either faith or repentance in inv own heart." Sorely this it a
most monstrous confi Baion. ^ hat ! is not the Christian religion
a rerrnled reli'-rion. and have we not the most miraculous
•ation of its truth '
J ust look at the answer of ( hrist himself to
Nicodemus, John hi. 2, :3. Nicodemus pro-
fessed a full belief in Christ's divine mission.
Why ! It was attested by his miracli What
answered Christ? "Well said, o believer?"
344 NOTES ON
No, not a word of this; but the proof of the
folly of such a supposition. Verily, verily, I
say unto thee ; except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God, — that is, he
cannot have faith in me.
lb. p. 42.
How can this evangelical preacher declaim on the necessity
of seriously searching- into the truth of revelation, for the pur-
pose either of producing- or confirming our belief of it, when
he has already pronounced it to be just as possible to arrive at
conviction as to create a world ?
Did Dr. Hawker say that it was impossible
to produce an assent to the historic credibility
of the facts related in the Gospel? Did he say
that it was impossible to become a Socinian
by the weighing of outward evidences? No!
but Dr. Hawker says, — and I say, — that this
is not, cannot be, what Christ means by faith,
which, to the misfortune of the Socinians, he
always demands as the condition of a miracle,
instead of looking forward to it as the natural
effect of a miracle. How came it that Peter
saw miracles countless, and yet was without
faith till the Holy Ghost descended on him ?
Besides, miracles may or may not be adequate
evidence for Socinian ism ; but how could mi-
racles prove the doctrine of Redemption, or the
divinity of Christ? But this is the creed of the
Church of England.
It is wearisome to be under the necessity, or
at least the constant temptation, of attacking
\ BARRISTER'.*) hints. 3 !•">
Socioianiam, in reviewing ;i work professedly
written again si Methodism. Surely such ;i
work ought to treat of those points of doctrine
and practice, w Inch are peculiar to Methodism,
lint to publish a diatribe against the substance
of the Articles antl Catechism of the En-
glish Church, nay, of the whole Christian
world, excepting the Socinians, and to call it
• Hints concerning the dangerous and abomi-
nable absurdities of Methodism,"' is too had.
II). p. 4.5.
But this Calvinistic 1. if tolls us, by way of accounting'
for the utter impossibility of producing in himself either faith
or repentance, that both are of divine origin, and like the light,
and the rain, and the dew of heaven, which tarrieth not for
man, neither waiteth for the sons of men, are from above, and
come down from the Father of lights, from whom alone cometh
I v good and perfect gift !
I- the Barrister — are the Socinian divines —
inspired, or infallibly sure that it is a crime for
a Christian to understand the words of Christ
in their plain and literal sense, when a Soci-
nian chooses togive his paraphrase,— often, too,
a- strongly remote from the VfOlds, as the old
spiritual paraphrases on the Song of Solomon ?
lb. p. 46.
According to that Gospel which hath hitherto been the pillar
of the Christian world, we are taught that whosoever endea-
vours to the best of his ability to reform his manner*, and
amend his life, will have pardon and acceptance.
\» interpreted by whom? Bj tin Socini,
.346 NOTES ON
or the Barrister? — Or by Origen, Chrysostom,
Jerome, the Gregories, Eusebius, Athanasius ?
—By Thomas Aquinas, Bernard, Thomas-a-
Kempis ?— By Luther, Melanethon, Zuinglius,
Calvin? — By the Reformers and martyrs of
the English Church? — By Cartwright and the
learned Puritans? — By Knox? — By George
Fox? — With regard to this point, that mere
external evidence is inadequate to the produc-
tion of a saving faith, and in the majority of
other opinions, all these agree with Wesley.
So they all understood the Gospel. But it is
not so ! Ergo, the Barrister is infallible.
lb. p. 47.
When the wicked man turneth away from the wickedness
which he hath committed, and doe Ih that which is lawful and
right, he shall save his soul alive. This gracious declaration
the old moral divines of our Church have placed in the front
of its Liturgy.
In the name of patience, over and over
again, who has ever denied this? The question
is, by what power, his own, or by the free
grace of God through Christ, the wicked man
is enabled to turn from his wickedness. And
again and again I ask : — Were not these " old
moral divines" the authors and compilers of
the Homilies? If the Barrister does not know
this, he is an ignorant man ; if knowing it, he
has yet never examined the Homilies, he is an
unjust man ; but if he have, he is a slanderer
and a sycophant.
Is it not intolerable to lake up three bulky
v !; irrisj er's ii in re. 347
pamphlets against a recent Sect, denounced
as most dangerous, and which we all know to
be most powerful and of rapid increase, and
to find little more than a weak declamatory
abuse of certain metaphysical dogmas con-
cerning free will, or tree will forfeited, de libero
vei servo arbi trio— of urate, predestination, and
the like :— dogmas on which, according to
Milton, God and the Logos conversed, as soon
man was in existence, they in heaven, and
\dam in paradise, and the devils in hell; —
dogmas common to all religions, and to all
aues and sects of the Christian religion; —
Kerning which Brahmin disputes with
Brahmin, Mahometan with Mahometan, and
Priestley with Price; — and all this to be laid
on the shoulders of the Methodists collec-
tively: though it is a notorious fact, that a
radical ditference on this abstruse subject i>
the mound of the schism between the Wliit-
fieldite and Wesleyan Methodists; and that
the latter coincide in opinion with Erasmus
and Arminius, by which latter name they
distinguish themselves; and the former with
Luther. Calvin, and their great guide, St. Au-
gustin< ' This I say is intolerable,— yea, a
crime againsl sense, candour, and white paper.
lb. p. 5o.
" For .«o very peculiarly directed to the sinner, and to him
on!-. - - the evangelical preacher) i- the blessed < rospel of
the Ix>rd Jesus, that unless \<>n are a sinner, von are nm
d in its saving trmli-.
u
<~\ 1
(Dulai 10
348 NOTES ON
Does not Christ himself say the same in
the plainest and most unmistakable words? /
come not to call the righteous, but sinners to re-
pentance. They that be whole need not a phy-
sician, but they that are sick. Can he, who has
no share in the danger, be interested in the
saving ? Pleased from benevolence he may be ;
but interested he cannot be. Estne aliquid in-
ter salvum et salutem ; inter liberum et liber-
tatem ? Sains est pereuntis, vel saltern periditan-
lis: redemptio, quasi pons divinus, inter servum
et libertatem, — amissam, ideoque optatam.
lb. p. 52.
It was reserved for these days of new discovery to announce
to mankind that, unless they are sinners, they are excluded
from the promised blessings of the Gospel.
Merely read ' that unless they are sick they
are precluded from the offered remedies of the
Gospel ;' and is not this the dictate of common
sense, as well as of Methodism ? But does not
Methodism cry aloud that all men are sick-
sick to the very heart ? If we say we are with-
out sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not
in us. This shallow-pated Barrister makes me
downright piggish, and without the stratagem
of that famed philosopher in pig-nature almost
drives me into the Charon's hoy of Metho-
dism by his rude and stupid tail-hauling me
back from it.
lb. p. 53.
1 can assure these gentlemen that I regard with a reverencti
A BARRISTER^ IllN l S. 3 1L>
as pure and awful as can enter into the human mind, thai
blood which was shod upon the Cross.
That is, in the Barrister's creed, that myste-
rious Hint, which with the subordinate aids of
mutton, barley, salt, turnips, and potherbs,
makes most wonderful fine flint broth. Sup-
pose Christ had never shed his blood, yet if
he had worked his miracles, raised Lazarus,
■and taught the same doctrines, would not the
result have been (he same ? — Or if Christ had
never appeared on earth, yet did not Daniel
work miracles as stupendous, which surely must
give all the authority to his doctrines that
miracles can give ! And did he not announce
by the Holy Spirit the resurrection to judg-
ment, of glory or of punishment ?
lb. p. 54.
Let them not attempt to escape it by quoting a few discon-
nected phrases in the Epistles, but let them adhere solely and
steadfastly to that < lospel of which they affect to be the ex-
clusive preacher*.
And whence has the Barrister learnt that
the Epistles are not equally binding on Chris-
tians as the four Gospels ? Surely, of St. Paul's
at least, the authenticity is incomparably
clearer than that of the first three Gospels ;
and if he -;ive up, as doubtless he does, the
plenary inspiration of the (iospels, the per-
sonal authority of the writers of all the Epistles
is greater than two at least of the four Evange-
lists. Secondly, the Gospel of John and all
the Epistles were purposely written to teach
350 NOTES ON
the Christian Faith ; whereas the first three
Gospels are as evidently intended only as
memorabilia of the history of the Christian
Revelation, as far as the process of Redemption
was carried on in the life, death, and resurrec-
tion of the divine Founder. This is the blank,
brazen, blushless, or only brass-blushing, im-
pudence of an Old Bailey Barrister, attempting
to browbeat out of Court the better and more
authentic half of the witnesses against him.
If I wished to understand the laws of Eno-land,
shall I consult Hume or Blackstone — him who
has written his volumes expressly as comments
on those laws, or the historian who mentions
them only as far as the laws were connected
with the events and characters which he re-
lates or describes? Nay, it is far worse than
this ; for Christ himself repeatedly defers the
publication of his doctrines till after his death,
and gives the reason too, that till he hadsent the
Holy Ghost, his disciples were not capable of
comprehending them. Does he not attribute to
an immediate influence of especial inspiration
even Peter's acknowledgment of his Filiation
to God, or Messiahship? — Was it from the
Gospels that Paul learned to know Christ? —
Was the Church sixty years without the awful
truths taught exclusively in John's Gospel?
Part III. p. 0.
The nostrum of the mountebank will he preferred to the
prescription of the regular practitioner. Why is this ? Be-
cause there is something in the authoritative arrogance of the
pretender, by which ignorance is overawed.
A BARRISTER'S HINTS. 351
Thi^ i^ Bomethiog ; and true as far as it got - ;
that is, however, l>ut a very little way. Tli.
great power of l>»>th spiritual and physical
mountebanks rests on that irremovable pro-
perty of human nature, in force of which in-
definite instincts and sufferings find no echo,
no resting-place, in the definite and compn -
hensible. Egnorance unnecessarily enlarges
the sphere of these: but a sphere there is, —
facts of mind anil cravings of the soul there
are, — in which the wisest man seeks help from
the indefinite, because it is nearer and more
like the infinite, of which he is made the image:
— for t v. i: we are infinite, even in our rinite-
ness infinite, as the Father in his infinity. In
■
many caterpillars there is a large empty space
in the head, the destined room for the pushing
forth of the antemue of its next state of being.
lb. p. 12.
Rut the anti-moralists aver * * that they are quoted un-
fairly : — that although they disavow, it is true, the necessity,
and deny the value, of practical morality and personal holiness,
and declare them to bo totally irrelevant to our future salvation.
• that * * 1 might have found occasional recommendations
of moral dutv which I have neg-lected to notice.
The same cramhe bis deeies coda of one self-
same charge mounded on one gross and stupid
misconception and mis-statement : and to which
there needs no other answer than this simple
fact. Let the Barrister name any one gross
offence against the moral law, tor which he
would shun a man's acquaintance, and for that
same vice the Methodist would inevitably
352 NOTES ON
be excluded publicly from their society ; and
I am inclined to think that a fair list of the
Barrister's friends and acquaintances would
prove that the Calvinistic Methodists are the
austerer and more watchful censors of the two.
If this be the truth, as it notoriously is, what
but the cataract of stupidity uncouched, or
the thickest film of bigot-slime, can prevent
a man from seeing that this tenet of justifi-
cation by faith alone is exclusively a matter
between the Calvinisms own heart and his
Maker, who alone knows the true source of
his words and actions ; but that to his neigh-
bours and fellow-creedsmen, his spotless life
and good works are demanded, not, indeed, as
the prime efficient causes of his salvation, but
as the necessary and only possible signs of
that faith, which is the means of that salvation
of which Christ's free grace is the cause, and
the sanctifying Spirit the perfecter. But 1
fall into the same fault I am arraigning, by so
often exposing and confuting the same blun-
der, which has no claim even at its first enun-
ciation to the compliment of a philosophical
answer. But why, in the name of common
sense, all this endless whoop and hubbub
against the Calvinistic Methodists? I had
understood that the Arminian Methodists, or
Wesleyans, are the more numerous body by
far. Has there been any union lately ? Have
the followers of Wesley abjured the doctrines
of their founder on this head ?
\ l; \UKISI fclUS ItIN I -
lb. p. 16.
w,. ;.r,. t ,;,) |)V our uevv spiritual teachers, that reason is
not to be applied to the inquiry int>> the truth <>r ralsehood of
their doctrines; tliev are spiritually discerned, and carnal
n lias no concern with them.
Even under this aversion to reason, as ap-
plied to religious grounds, a very important
truth lurks: and the mistake a very dan-
_ rous one I admit, lie^ in the confounding
two verj different faculties of the mind under
one and the same name; — the pure reason or
vis identified; and the discourse, or prudential
power, the proper objects of which are ihe phe-
nomena of sensuous experience. The greatest
loss which modern philosophy has through
wilful score sustained, is the grand distinction
of the ancient philosophers between the vovueva,
and feuvofuva. This gives the true sense of
Pliny — veneran Deos (that is, their statues,
and the like, </ numina Deorutn, that is, tho-e
spiritual influences which are represented
by the images and persons of Apollo, Minerva,
and the n
Jh. p. 17.
Religion has for its object the moral care and the moral cul-
tivation of man. Its beauty is not to be sought in the regions
of mystery, or in the (lights of abstraction.
What ignorance! Is there a single moral
precept of the Gospels not to be found in the
Old Testament ' Not one. A new edition of
White's Diatessaron, with a running comment
consisting entirely of parallel passages from
Vol . TV. \ \
354 NOTES ON
the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman writers before
Christ, and those after him who, it is morally
certain, drew no aids from the New Testament,
is a grand desideratum ; and if anything could
open the eyes of Socinians, this would do it.
lb. p. 24.
The masculine strength and moral firmness which once dis-
tinguished the great mass of the British people is daily fading
away. Methodism with all its cant, &c.
Well ! but in God's name can Methodism
be at once the effect and the cause of this loss
of masculine strength and moral firmness ? —
Did Whitfield and Wesley blow them out at
the first puff — these grand virtues of masculine
strength and moral firmness ? Admire, I pray
you, the happy antithesis. Yet " feminine"
would be an improvement, as then the sense
too would be antithetic. However, the sound
is sufficient, and modern rhetoric possesses the
virtue of economy.
lb. p. 27.
So with the Tinker ; I would give him the care of kettles,
but I would not give him the cure of souls. So long as he
attended to the management and mending of his pots and pans,
I would wish success to his ministry : but when he came to
declare himself a. " chosen vessel," and demand permission to
take the souls of the people into his holy keeping, I should
think that, instead of a licence, it would be more humane and
more prudent to give him a passport to St. Luke's. Depend
upon it, such men were never sent by Providence to rule or to
regulate mankind.
Whoo ! Bounteous Providence that always
looks at the body clothes and the parents' equi-
A liAKRISTF.lt "s> HINTS. .'>.V>
page before it picks out the proper soul tor the
baby ! Ho ! the Duchess of Manchester is in
labour: — quick, Raphael, or Uriel, bring a
soul out of the Numa bin, a young Lycurgus.
Or the Archbishops lady : — ho ! a soul from
the Chrysostom or Athanasian locker.— But
poor Moll Crispin is in the throes with twins:
— well ! there are plenty of cobblers" and tin-
kers souls id the hold — John Bunyan ! ! Whv,
thou miserable Barrister, it would take an
angel an eternity to tinker thee into a skull of
hnlf his capacity !
lb. p. 30, 31.
\ truly awakened conscience," (these anti-moral editors
of the Pilgrim's Progress assure us,) " can never find relief
from the law: (that is, the moral laiv.) The more he looks
for peace this ivay, his guilt, like a heavy burden, becomes
more intolerable ; when he becomes dead to the law, — as to
any dependence upon it for salvation, — by the body of Christ,
and married to him, who was raised from the dead, then, and
not till then, his heart is set at liberty, to run the way of God's
commandments."
Here we arc taught that the conscience ran never find re-
lief from obedience to the lnw of 1 ' jpel.
False. We arc told by Bunyan and his
editors that the conscience can never find re-
lief for its disobedience to the Law in the Law
itself; — and this is as true of the moral as of
the Mosaic Law. I am not defending Calvin-
ism or Bunvan's theology; but if victory, not
truth, were my object, I could desire no easier
task than to defend il against our doughty
Barrister. Well, but 1 repent — that is, regret
356 NOTES ON
it ! — Yes ! and so you doubtless regret the
loss of an eye or arm : — will that make it
grow again? — Think you this nonsense as
applied to morality ? Be it so ! But yet non-
sense most tremendously suited to human
nature it is, as the Barrister may find in the
arguments of the Pagan philosophers against
Christianity, who attributed a large portion of
its success to its holding out an expiation, which
no other religion did. Read but that most
affecting and instructive anecdote selected from
the Hindostan Missionary Account by the
Quarterly Review.* Again let me say I am
not giving my own opinion on this very diffi-
cult point ; but of one thing I am convinced,
that the / am sorry for it, that's enough-men
mean nothing but regret when they talk of
repentance, and have consciences either so pure
or so callous, as not to know what a direful and
strange thing remorse is, and how absolutely
a fact sui generis ! I have often remarked, and
it cannot be too often remarked (vain as this
may sound), that this essential heterogeneity
of regret and remorse is of itself a sufficient and
the best proof of free will and reason, the co-
existence of which in man we call conscience,
and on this rests the whole superstructure of
human religion— God, immortality, guilt, judg-
ment, redemption. Whether another and dif-
ferent superstructure may be raised on the
same foundation, or whether the same edifice is
* See vol. i., p. 217.— Ed.
a barrister's HINTS. 357
susceptible of important alteration, is another
question. But such is the edifice at present,
and this its foundation: and the Barrister
might as rationally expect to blow up Windsor
Castle by discharging a popgun in one of its
cellars, as hope to demolish Calvinism by such
arguments as his.
i»'
1 1), p. 35, 30.
" \nd behold ;i certain lawyer stood up and tempted him,
Master, what shall I do to iu/ti rit eternal life?"
■■ lie .-aid unto him, What is written in the law? How
■ ■ hint ?"
• knd he answering -aid. Thou shall love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, with all thy sold, and with all tin/ Strength,
and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself."
•■ And he said unto him, Tliou hast ansxueredriyht. This
do, and thou shall live." Luke x. 25 — 28.
So would Bunyan, and so would Calvin have
preached ; — would both of them in the name
<»!' Christ have made this assurance to the
Barrister- This do, mid tliou shah lire. But
what if he has not done it, hut the very con-
trary? And what if the Querist should be a
staunch disciple of Dr. Paley : and hold him-
self •' morally obliged" not to hate or injure
his fellow-man, not because he is compelled
by conscience to see the exceeding sinfulness
of sin, and to abhor sin as sin, even as he eschews
pain as pain,— no, not even because God has
forbidden it;— but ultimately because the great
Legislator is able and has threatened to put
him to unspeakable torture if he disobeys, and
358 NOTES ON
to give him all kind of pleasure if he does not ?*
Why, verily, in this case, I do foresee that
both the Tinker and the Divine would wax
warm, and rebuke the said Querist for vile
hypocrisy, and a most nefarious abuse of God's
good gift, intelligible language. What ! do
you call this loving the Lord your God with
all your heart, with all your soul, ivith all your
strength, and all your mind, — and your neigh-
bour as yourself? Whereas in truth you love
nothing, not even your own soul ; but only set
a superlative value on whatever will gratify
your selfish lust of enjoyment, and insure you
from hell-fire at a thousand times the true
value of the dirty property. If you have the
impudence to persevere in mis-naming this
"love," supply any one instance in which you
use the word in this sense ? If your son did
not spit in your face, because he believed that
you would disinherit him if he did, and this
* " And from this account of obligation it follows, that we
can be obliged to nothing but what we ourselves are to gain or
lose something by; for nothing else can be a violent motive to
us. As we should not be obliged to obey the laws, or the ma-
gistrate, unless rewards or punishments, pleasure or pain, some-
how or other depended upon our obedience ; so neither should
we, without the same reason, be obliged to do what is right, to
practise virtue, or to obey the commands of God." — Paley's
Moral and Polit. Philosophy, B. II. c. 2.
" The difference, and the only difference, (between prudence
and duty,) is this ; that in the one case we consider what we
shall gain or lose in the present world; in the other case, we
consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world to come."
—lb. c. 3. — Ed.
a barrister's iiiN iv 359
Were his main moral obligation, would you allow
that your son loved you — and with all his In art.
and mind, and strength, and soul r— Shame !
Shame !
Now the power of loving (iod, of willing
od as good, not of desiring the agreeable,
and of preferring a larger though distant delight
to an infinitely smaller immediate qualification,
which is mere selfish prudence,) Bunyan con-
sider- supernatural, and seeks its source in the
free grace of the Creator through Christ the Re-
i mer :— this the Kantean also avers to be
Bupersensual indeed, but not supernatural, but
in the original and essence of human nature,
and forming its grand and awful characteristic.
Hence he calls it die Mensehheit—the princi-
ple of humanity ;— but yet no less than Calvin
or the Tinker declares it a principle most mys-
terious, the undoubted object of religious awe,
a perpetual witness of that God, whose image
(h'kwv) it is; a principle utterly incomprehen-
sible by the discursive intellect ; — and moreover
teaches us, that the surest plan for stifling and
paralyzing this divine birth in the soul (a
phrase of Plato's as well as of the Tinker's) is by
attempting to evoke it by, or to substitute for it,
the hopes and fears, the motives and calcula-
tions, of prudence; which is an excellent and
in truth indispensable servant, but considered
as master and primate of the moral diocese
precludes the possibility of virtue (in Bunyan s
phrase, holinessof spirit) by introducing legality ;
360 NOTES ON
which is no cant phrase of Methodism, but of
authenticated standing in the ethics of the pro-
foundest philosophers — even those who rejected
Christianity, as a miraculous event, and revela-
tion itself as far as anything supernatural is
implied in it. I must not mention Plato, I
suppose, — he was a mystic ; norZeno, — he and
his were visionaries : — but Aristotle, the cold
and dry Aristotle, has in a very remarkable
passage in his lesser tract of Ethics asserted
the same thing ; and called it " a divine prin-
ciple, lying deeper than those things which can
be explained or enunciated discursively."
lb. p. 45, 46.
Sure I am that no father of a family that can at all estimate
the importance of keeping- from the infant mind whatever might
raise impure ideas or excite improper inquiries will ever com-
mend the Pilgrim's Progress to their perusal.
And in the same spirit and for the same
cogent reasons that the holy monk Lewis pro-
hibited the Bible in all decent families ; — or
if they must have something of that kind, would
propose in preference Tirante the White ! O
how I abhor this abominable heart-haunting
impurity in the envelope of modesty ! Mer-
ciful Heaven ! is it not a direct consequence
from this system, that we all purchase our
existence at the price of our mother's purity of
mind ? See what Milton has written on this
subject in the passage quoted in the Friend in
the essays on the communication of truth.*
Friend, Vol. I. Essays X. and XI. 3rd edition. — Ed.
A BARRISTER'S MINI'S. 361
II). p. 47.
I • ii- ask whether the female mind is likely to be trained to
purity by studying this manna] of piety, and by expressing its
devotional desires after the following example. " Mercy being
a young and breeding woman longed for something," See.
Out upon the fellow ! I could find it in my
heart to Buspect him of any vice that t^e worst
of men could commit !
lb. pp. 55, 56.
As by one man's disobedience main/ were made sinners, so
by the obedience of one s/tull many be made ritjhteous. The
interpretation of this text is simply this : — As by following the
fatal example of one man's disobedience many were made sin-
ners ; so by that pattern of perfect obedience. which Christ has
before us shall many be made righteous.
What may not be explained thus? And into
what may not any thing be thus explained?
It comes out little better than nonsense in any
other than the literal sense. For let any man
of sincere mind and without any system to
support look round on all his Christian neigh-
bours, and will he say or will they say that the
origin of their well-doing was an attempt to
imitate what they all believe to be inimitable,
( Ihrist's perfection in virtue, his absolute sinless-
aesfl ! No— but yet perhaps some particular
virtues; for instance, his patriotism in weeping
over Jerusalem, his active benevolence in
curing the sick and preaching to the poor, his
divine forgiveness in praying for his enemies ? —
I grant all this. But then how is this peculiar
to Christ ? Is it not the effect of all illustrious
362 NOTES ON
examples, of those probably most which we
last read of, or which made the deepest im-
pression on our feelings ? Were there no good
men before Christ, as there were no bad men
before Adam ? Is it not a notorious fact that
those who most frequently refer to Christ's
conduct* for their own actions, are those who
believe him the incarnate Deity — conse-
quently, the best possible guide, but in no
strict sense an example ;— while those who re-
gard him as a mere man, the chief of the Jewish
Prophets, both in the pulpit and from the press
ground their moral persuasions chiefly on ar-
guments drawn from the propriety and seemli-
ness— or the contrary— of the action itself, or
from the will of God known by the light of
reason ? To make St. Paul prophesy that all
Christians will owe their holiness to their
exclusive and conscious imitation of Christ's
actions, is to make St. Paul a false prophet ;—
and what in such case becomes of the boasted
influence of miracles ? Even as false would it
be to ascribe the vices of the Chinese, or even
our own, to the influence of Adam's bad ex-
ample. As well might we say of a poor scro-
fulous innocent : " See the effect of the bad ex-
ample of his father on him !" I blame no man
for disbelieving, or for opposing with might and
main, the dogma of Original Sin ; but I confess
that I neither respect the understanding nor
have confidence in the sincerity of him, who
declares that he has carefully read the writings
A BARRISTERS HINTS. 363
of St. Paul, and finds in them no consequence
attributed to the fall of Adam but t lmt of his
bad example, and none to the Cross of Christ
but the good example of dying a martyr to a
good cause. I would undertake from the wri-
tings of the later English Socinians to collect
paraphrases on the New Testament texts that
could only be paralleled by the spiritual para-
phrase on Solomon's Song to be found in the
i - cent volume of " A Dictionary of the Holy
Hible, by John Brown, Minister of the Gospel
:'t Haddington :" third edition, in the Article,
Song.
lb. p. (J.'}, (U.
Call forth the rohber from his cavern, and the midnight
murderer from his den; summon the seducer from his couch,
and beckon the adulterer from his embrace ; cite the swindler
to appear ; assemble from every quarter all the various mis-
creants whose vices deprave, and whose villanies distress, man-
kind ; and when they are thus thronged round in a circle,
assure them — not that there is a God that judgeth the earth —
not that punishment in the great day of retribution will await
their crimes, &c. &c. — Let every sinner in the throng be told
that they will atamljusti/ied before God ; that the righteous-
ness of Christ will be imputed to them, &c.
Well, do so. — Nay, nay ! it has been done ;
the effect has been tried ; and slander itself
cannot deny that the effect has been the con-
version of thousands of those very sinners
whom the Barrister's fancy thus convokes. O
shallow man ! not to see that here lies the
main strength of the cause he is attacking;
that, to repeat my former illustration, he draws
364 NOTES ON
the attention to patients in that worst state of
disease which perhaps alone requires and jus-
tifies the use of the white pill, as a mode of
exposing the frantic quack who vends it pro-
miscuously ! He fixes on the empiric's cures
to prove his murders! — not to forget what ought
to conclude every paragraph in answer to the
Barrister's Hints ; " and were the case as al-
leged, what does this prove against the present
Methodists as Methodists?" Is not the tenet
of imputed righteousness the faith of all the
Scotch Clergy, who are not false to their de-
clarations at their public assumption of the
ministry ? Till within the last sixty or seventy
years, was not the tenet preached Sunday after
Sunday in every nook of Scotland ; and has
the Barrister heard that the morals of the
Scotch peasants and artizans have been im-
proved within the last thirty or forty years,
since the exceptions have become more and
more common ? — Was it by want of strict
morals that the Puritans were distinguished
to their disadvantage from the rest of English-
men during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I.
Charles I. and II. ? And that very period,
which the Barrister affirms to have been dis-
tinguished by the moral vigor of the great
mass of Britons, — was it not likewise the period
when this very doctrine was preached by the
Clergy fifty times for once that it is heard from
the same pulpits in the present and preceding
generation ? Never, never can the Methodists
A B ARSIS 1 I K S MINI 365
l>e successfully assailed, it' not honestly, and
never honestly or with any chance of succ< ss,
except as Methodists ;— for their practices,
their alarming theocracy, their stupid, mad,
and mad-driving superstitions. These are their
property in peculio; their doctrines are those
of tiie (lunch of England, with no other dif-
ference than that in the Church Liturgy, and
Articles, and Homilies, Calvinism and Luther-
anism are joined like the two hands of the
Union Fire Office : the Methodists have un-
clasped them, and one is Whitfield and the
other Weslej
lb. p. 75.
" For the same reason that a book written in had language
should never be put into the hands of a child that speaks cor-
rectly, a hook exhibiting instances of vice should never be
given to a child that thinks and acts properly." (Practical
Education. By Maria and H. 1. I ■ ;■_• worth.)
How mortifying that one is never luck}
enough to meet with any of these virtuosissimos,
fifteen or twenty years of age. But perhaps
they are such rare jewels, that they are al-
ways kept in cotton ! The Kilcrops ! I would
not exchange the heart, which 1 myself had
when a boy, while reading the life of Colonel
Jack, or the Newgate Calendar, for a waggon-
load of these brilliants.
lb. p. 78.
" Whin a man turns his back on this world, and is in good
earnest resolved for everlasting life, hi- I arnal friends, and
ungodly neighbours, will pursue him with hue and cry ; but
366 NOTES ON
death is at his heels, and he cannot stop short of the city of
Refuge." (Notes to the Pilgrim's Progress by Hawker,
Burder, &c.) This representation of the state of real Chris-
tians is as mischievous as it is false.
Yet Christ's assertion on this head is positive,
and universal ; and I believe it from my in-
most soul, and am convinced that it is just as
true A.D. 1810, as A.D. 33.
lb. p. 82.
The spirit with which all their merciless treatment is to be
borne is next pointed out. * * " Patient bearing of injuries
is true Christian fortitude, and will always be more effectual to
disarm our enemies, and to bring others to the knowledge of
the truth, than all arguments whatever."
Is this Barrister a Christian of any sort or
sect, and is he not ashamed, if not afraid, to
ridicule such passages as these ? If they are
not true, the four Gospels are false.
lb. p. 86.
It is impossible to give them credit for integrity when we
behold the obstinacy and the artifice with which they defend
their system against the strongest argument, and against the
clearest evidence.
Modest gentleman ! 1 wonder he finds time
to write bulky pamphlets : for surely modesty,
like his, must secure success and clientage at
the bar. Doubtless he means his own argu-
ments, the evidence he himself has adduced :
— I say doubtless, for what are these pamphlets
but a long series of attacks on the doctrines of
the strict Lutherans and Calvinists, (for the
doctrines he attacks are common to both,) and
if he knew stronger arguments, clearer evi-
A BARRISTER 'fl HINTS. M)l
dence, he would certainly have given them ; —
and then what obstinate rogues must our Bi-
shops be, to have Buffered these Hints to pass
into a third edition, and yet not have brought
a bill into Parliament for a new set of Articles !
I have not heard that they have even the
grace to intend it.
lb. p. 88.
< >n this subject I will quote the just and striking observations
i>t an excellent modern writer. " In whatever Tillage," says
he, " the fanatics get a footing, drunkenness and swearing1, —
-ins which, being more exposed to the eve of the world, would
be ruinous to their great pretensions to superior sanctitv — will,
perhaps, be found to decline; but I am convinced, from per-
sonal observation, that every species of fraud and falsehood —
sins which are not so readily detected, but which seem more
closely connected with worldly advantage — will be found in-
variably to increase." (Religion without Cant; by R. Fel-
lowes, A.M. of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford.)
In answer to this let me make a " very just
observation,* by some other man of my opi-
nion, to be hereafter quoted " from an excel-
lent modern writer;" —and it is this, that from
the birth of Christ to the present hour, no sect
or body of men were zealous in the reforma-
tion of manners in society, without having been
charged with the same vices in the same words.
When 1 hate a man, and see nothing bad in
him, what remains possible but to accuse him
of crimes which I cannot see, and which can-
not be disproved, because they cannot be
proved? Surely, if Christian charity did not
preclude these charges, the shame of convicted
36*8 NOTES ON
parrotry ought to prevent a man from repeat-
ing and republishing them. The very same
thoughts, almost the words, are to be found of
the early Christians ; of the poor Quakers ; of
the Republicans; of the first Reformers. —
Why need I say this? Does not every one
know, that a jovial pot-companion can never
believe a water-drinker not to be a sneaking-
cheating knave who is afraid of his thoughts ;
that every libertine swears that those who pre-
tend to be chaste, either have their mistress
in secret, or far worse, and so on ?
lb. p. 89.
The same religious abstinence from all appearance of re-
creation on the Lord's day ; and the same neglect of the
weightier matters of the moral law, in the course of the week,
&c.
This sentence thus smuggled in at the bot-
tom of the chest ought not to pass unnoticed ;
for the whole force of the former depends on
it. It is a true trick, and deserves reprobation.
lb. p. 97.
Note. It was procured, Mr. Collyer informs us, by the
merit of his " Lectures on Scripture facts." It should have
been " Lectures on Scriptural Facts." What should we think
of the grammarian, who, instead of Historical, should present
us with " Lectures on History Facts?"
But Law Tracts ? And is not ' Scripture1 as
often used semi-adjectively ?
lb. p. 98.
" Do you really believe," says Dr. Hawker," that, because
man by his apostacy hath lost his power and ability to obey,
v R tRRIS III; S HINTS
God hath lost his right t>> command ? Put the case that von
were called upon, as ■ barrister, to recov< r :i debtdue from one
man to another, and you knew the debtor had not the ability
to pay the creditor, would you tell your client that his dehtor
was under no legal or moral obligation to pav what he had no
power to do }. And would you tell him that the very expecta-
tion of his ju-t right WCU OS foolish as it was tyrannical?"
I will give my reply to these questions distinctly and
without hesitation. ' ' Suppose A. to have lent B. a thou-
sand pounds, as a capital to commence trade, and that, when
he purchased his stock to this amount, and lodged it in his
warehouse, a fire w« re to break out in the next dwelling, and,
extending itself to his warehouse, were to consume the whole
of his property, and reduce him to a state of utter ruin. If
A., my client, were to ask my opinion as to his right to recover
from B.. 1 should tell him that this his ri^ht would exist should
B. ever be in a condition to repay the sum borrowed; * * *
but that to attempt to recover a thousand pounds from a man
thus reduced by accident to utter ruin, and who had not a
shilling1 left in the world, would be as foolish as it was tyran-
nical.
But this is rank sophistry. The question is :
— Does a thief (and a fraudulent debtor is no
better) acquire a claim to impunity by not
possessing the power of restoring the goods '
Every moral act derives its character says
B Schoolman with an unusual combination of
profundity with quaintness) <tni uoluntaie ori-
ginis ai// origine voluntatis. Now the very
essence of guilt, its dire and incommunicable
character, consists in its tendency to destroy
the tree- will ; — but when thus destroyed, are
the habits of vice thenceforward innocent.'
Does the law excuse the murder because the
perpetrator was drunk ? Dr. Hawker put his
objection laxly and weakly enough : but a
\<)L. IV. P. B
370 NOTES ON
manly opponent Mould have been ashamed to
seize an hour's victory from what a move of the
pen would render impregnable.
lb. p. 102, 3.
When at this solemn trihunal the sinner shall be called upon
to answer for the transgression of those moral laws, on obe-
dience to which salvation was made to depend, will it be suf-
ficient that he declares himself to have been taught to believe
that the Gospel had neither terms nor conditions, and that his
salvation was secured by a covenant which procured him pardon
and peace, from all eternity : a covenant, the effects of which
no folly or after-act whatever could possibly destroy ? — Who
could anticipate the sentence of condemnation, and not weep in
agony over the deluded victim of ignorance and misfortune
who was thus taught a doctrine so fatally false ?
What then ! God is represented as a tyrant
when he claims the penalty of disobedience
from the servant, who has wilfully incapaci-
tated himself for obeying, — and yet just and
merciful in condemning to indefinite misery
a poor " deluded victim of ignorance and im-
posture," even though the Barrister, spite of
his antipathy to Methodists, would " weep in
agony" over him ! But before the Barrister
draws bills of imagination on his tender
feelings, would it not have been as well to
adduce some last dying speech and confes-
sion, in which the culprit attributed his crimes
— not to Sabbath-breakins: and loose com-
pany, — but to sermon-hearing on the modus
operandi of the divine goodness in the work of
redemption ? How the Ebenezerites would
stare to find the Socinians and themselves in
a barrister's hints. 37 1
one flock on the sheep-side of the judgment-
seat, — and their cousins, and fellow Methodists,
the Tabernaclers, all capriticd— goats every
man :— and why! They held, that repentance
is in the power of every man, with the aid of
grace ; while the goats held that without grace
no man is able even to repent. A. makes
grace the cause, and B. makes it only a ne-
i i 9s irv auxiliary. And does the Socinian
extricate himself a whit more clearly? With-
out a due concurrence of circumstances no
mind can improve itself into a state suscep-
tible of spiritual happiness : and is not the
disposition and pre-arrangement of circum-
stances as dependent on the divine will as
those spiritual influences which the Methodist
holds to be meant by the word grace? Will
not the Socinian rind it as difficult to reconcile
with mercy and justice the condemnation to
hell-tire of poor wretches born and bred in the
thieves' nests of St. Giles, as the Methodists
the condemnation of those who have been less
favoured by grace? I have one other question
to ask, though it should have been asked
before. Suppose Christ taught nothing more
than a future state of retribution and the ne-
cessity and sufficiency of good morals, how
are we to explain his forbidding these truths
to be taught to any but .lews till after his
resurrection? Did the Jews reject those doc-
trines? Except perhaps a handful of rich nun,
called Sadducees, they all believed them, and
372 NOTES ON
would have died a thousand deaths rather
than have renounced their faith. Besides,
what is there in doctrines common to the creed
of all religions, and enforced by all the schools
of philosophy, except the Epicurean, which
should have prevented their being taught to
all at the same time? I perceive, that this
difficulty does not press on Socinians exclu-
sively : but yet it presses on them with far
greater force than on others. For they make
Christianity a mere philosophy, the same in
substance with the Stoical, only purer from
errors and accompanied with clearer evidence :
— while others think of it as part of a cove-
nant made up with Abraham, the fulfilment
of which was in good faith to be first offered
to his posterity. I ask this only because the
Barrister professes to find every thing in the
four Gospels so plain and easy.
lb. p. 106.
The Reformers by whom those articles were framed were
educated in the Church of Rome, and opposed themselves rather
to the perversion of its power than the errors of its doctrine.
An outrageous blunder,
lb. p. 107.
Lord Bacon was the first who dedicated his profound and
penetrating genius to the cultivation of sound philosophy, &c.
This very same Lord Bacon has given us
his Confessio Fidei at great length, with full
particularity. Now I will -answer for the Me-
\ barrister's iiin rs. .{7.')
thodists1 unhesitating assent and consent to it ;
but would tin- Barrister subscribe it.'
11). p, 108.
We look back to that era of our history when superstition
threw lier virtiiu on the pile, and bigotry tied the martyr to his
■take : — but we take our eyes from the retrospect and turn
them in thankful admiration to that Being who has opened the
mind- of many, and is daily opening the minds of more
amongst 08 to the reception of these most important of all
truths, that there i? no true faith hut in practical goodness,
and that the worst of errors is the error of tin life.
Such is the conviction of the most enlightened of our Clergy :
the conviction, I trust, of the far greater part ' *. They
deem it hetter to inculcate the moral duties of Christianity in
the pure simplicity and clearness with which they are revealed,
than to go aside in search of doctrinal mysteries. For as
mysteries cannot be made manifest, they, of course, cannot be
understood ; and that which cannot be understood cannot be
believed, and can, consequently, make no part of any system of
faith : since no one, till he understands a doctrine, can tell
whether it be true or false ; till then, therefore, he can have
no faith in it, for no one can rationally atlirm that he believes
that doctrine to be true which he does not know to be so ; and
he cannot know it to be true if he does not understand it. In
the religion of a true Christian, therefore, there can be nothing
unintelligible ; and if the preachers of that religion do not make
mysteries, they will never find any.
Who? the Bishops, or the dignified Clergy \
Have they at length exploded all " doctrinal
mysteries ' Was Horsley " the one red leaf,
the last of its clan, "that held the doctrines of
the Trinity, the corruption of the human Will,
and the Redemption by the Cross of Christ?
Verily, this is the most impudent attempt to
impose a naked Socinianism ont lie public,
'374 NOTES ON
as the general religion of the nation, admitted
by all but a dunghill of mushroom fanatics,
that ever insulted common sense or common
modesty ! And will " the far greater part" of
the English Clergy remain silent under so
atrocious a libel as is contained in this page ?
Do they indeed solemnly pray to their Maker
weekly, before God and man, in the words of
a Liturgy, which, they know, " cannot be
believed?" For heaven's sake, my dear Sou-
th ey, do quote this page and compare it with
the introduction to and petitions of the Liturgy,
and with the Collects on the Advent, &c.
lb. p. 110.
We shall discover upon an attentive examination of the
subject, that all those laws which lay the basis of our constitu-
tional liberties, are no other than the rules of religion transcri-
bed into the judicial system, and enforced by the sanction of
civil authority.
What ! Compare these laws, first, with
Tacitus's account of the constitutional laws of
our German ancestors, Pagans ; and then
with the Pandects and Novella of the most
Christian Justinian, aided by all his Bishops.
Observe, the Barrister is asserting a fact of
the historical origination of our laws, — and not
what no man would deny, that as far as they
are humane and just, they coincide with the
precepts of the Gospel. No, they were " trans-
cribed."
lb. p. 113.
Where a man holds a certain system of doctrines, the State
a barrister's HINTS. 3!'>
is bound to tolerate, though it may not approve, them; but
when he demands a license to tench this system to the rest of
the community, he demands that which ought not to be
granted incautiously ami without grave consideration. This dis-
cretionary power is delegated in trust for the common good, &c.
All this, dear Southey, I leave to the lash of
your indignation. It would be oppression to
do — what the Legislature could not do if it
would— prevent a man's thoughts ; but if he
speaks them aloud, and asks either for instruc-
tion and confutation, if he be in error, or
assent and honor, if he be in the right, then
it is no oppression to throw him into a dungeon !
But the Barrister would only withhold a li-
cense ! Nonsense. What if he preaches and
publishes without it, will the Legislature dun-
geon him or not ? If not, what use is either
the granting or the withholding ? And this
too from a Socinian, who by this very book has,
1 believe, made himself obnoxious to imprison-
ment and the pillory — and against men, whose
opinions are authorized by the most solemn
acts of Parliament, and recorded in a Book, of
which there must be one, by law, in every
parish, and of which there is in fact one in
almost every house and hovel !
Part [V. p. 1.
The religion of genuine Christianity is a revelation so
distinct and specific in its design, and so clear and intelligible
in its rules, that a man of philosophic and retired thought is
apt to wonder by what means the endless systems of error and
hostility which divide the world were ever introduced into it.
What means this hollow cant — this fifty times
o?0 NOTES ON
warmed-up bubble and squeak ! That such
parts are intelligible as the Barrister under-
stands? That such parts as it possesses in
common with all systems of religion and mora-
lity are plain and obvious ? In other words that
ABC are so legible that they are legible to every
one that has learnt to read ? If the Barrister
mean other or more than this, if he really mean
the whole religion and revelation of Christ, even
as it is found in the original records, the Gos-
pels and Epistles, he escapes from the silliness
of a truism by throwing himself into the arms
of a broad brazenfaced untruth. What ! Is
the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel so dis-
tinct and specific in its design, that any modest
man can wonder that the best and most learned
men of every age since Christ have deemed it
mysterious? Are the many passages concerning
the Devil and demoniacs so very easy ? Has
this writer himself thrown the least light on,
or himself received one ray of light from, the
meaning of the word Faith ; — or the reason of
Christ's paramount declarations respecting its
omnitic power, its absolutely indispensable
necessity? If the word mean only what the
Barrister supposes, a persuasion that in the
present state of our knowledge the evidences
for the historical truth of the miracles of the
Gospel outweigh the arguments of the Sceptics,
will he condescend to give us such a comment
on the assertion, that had we but a grain of
mustard seed of it, wc might control all material
a barrister's HINTS. '577
nature, without making Christ himself the
most extravagant hyperbolist that ever mis-
used Language ! But it is impossible to make
that man blush, who can seriously call the
words of Christ as recorded by St. John,
plain, easy, common sense, out of which pre-
judice, artifice, and selfish interest alone can
compose any difficulty. The Barrister has
just as much right to call his religion Christia-
nity, as to call dour and water plum pudding :
— yet we all admit that in plum pudding both
flour and water do exist.
lb. }>. 7.
Socinufi can have no claim upon my veneration: I have
never concerned myself with what he believed nor with what
he taught &c.
The Scripture is my authority, and on no other authority
will 1 ever, knowingly, lay the foundation of my faith.
I'tterly untrue. It is not the Scripture, but
such passages of Scripture as appear to him to
accord with his Procrustean bed of so called
reason, and a forcing of the blankest contradic-
tions into the same meaning, by explanations
to which 1 defy him to furnish one single
analogy as allowed by mankind with regard to
any other writings but the Old and New Tes-
tament. It is a gross and impudent delusion
to call a Book his authority, which he receives
only so far as it is an echo of his own convic-
tions. 1 defy him to adduce one single article
of his whole faith, (creed rather) which he
really derives from the Scripture. Even the
378 NOTES ON
arguments for the Resurrection are and must
be extraneous : for the very proofs of the facts
are (as every tyro in theology must know)
the proofs of the authenticity of the Books in
which they are contained. This question I
would press upon him : — Suppose we pos-
sessed the Fathers only with the Ecclesiastical
and Pagan historians, and that not a page
remained of the New Testament,— what article
of his creed would it alter ?
lb. p. 10.
If the creed of Calvinistic Methodism is really more produc-
tive of conversions than the religion of Christianity, let them
openly and at once say so.
But Calvinistic Methodism? Why Calvin-
istic Methodism? Not one in a hundred of
the Methodists are Calvinists. Not to mention
the impudence of this crow in his abuse of
black feathers ! Is it worse in a Methodist to
oppose Socinianism to Christianity, that is, to
the doctrines of Wesley or even Whitfield,
which are the same as those of all the Re-
formed Churches of Christendom, and differ
only wherein the most celebrated divines of
the same churches have differed with each
other, — than for the Barrister to oppose Me-
thodism to Christianity (his Christianity) —
that is, to Socinianism, which in every peculiar
doctrine of Christianity differs from all di-
vines of all Churches of all ages? For the
one tenet in which the Calvinist differs from
a barrister's HINTS. .T7!>
the majority of Christians, are there not ten
in which the Socio ian differs from all?
To what purpose then this windy declama-
tion about John Calvin? How many Metho-
dists, does the Barrister think, oversaw, much
l< ss read, a work of Calvin's I If he scorns the
nana' ofSocinus as his authority, and appeals
to Scripture, do not the Methodists the same?
U hen do they refer to Calvin ? In what work
do they quote him ? This page is therefore
mere dust in the eyes of the public. And his
abuse of Calvin displays only his own vulgar
ignorance both of the man, and of his writings.
For he seems not to know that the humane
Mclanethon, and not only he, but almost every
Church, Lutheran or Reformed, throughout
Europe, sent letters to Geneva, extolling the
execution of Servetus, and returning their
thank-. Yet it was a murder not the less:
Yes! a damned murder: but the guilt of it
is not peculiar to Calvin, but common to all
the theologians of that age ; and, Nota bene,
Mr. Barrister, the Socini not excepted, who
were prepared to inflict the very same pun-
ishment on F. Davidi for denying the adora-
bility of Christ. If to wish, will, resolve, and
attempt to realize, be morally to commit, *an
action, then must Socinus and Calvin hunt in
the same collar. But.O mercy! if every human
being were to be held up to detestation, who
in that age would have thought it his duty
to have passed sentence de comburendo heretico
380 NOTES ON
on a man, who had publicly styled the Trinity
" a Cerberus," and " a three-headed monster
of hell," what would the history of the Refor-
mation be but a list of criminals? With what
face indeed can we congratulate ourselves on
being born in a more enlightened age, if we so
bitterly abuse not the practice but the agents ?
Do we not admit by this very phrase " en-
lightened," that we owe our exemption to our
intellectual advantages, not primarily to our
moral superiority? It will be time enough to
boast, when to our own tolerance we have
added their zeal, learning, and indefatigable
industry. *
lb. p. 13, 14.
If religion consists in listening to long* prayers, and attend-
ing- long sermons, in keeping up an outside appearance of de-
votion, and interlarding the most common discourse with
phrases of Gospel usage : — if this is religion, then are the
disciples of Methodism pious beyond compare. But in real
humility of heart, in mildness of temper, in liberality of mind,
in purity of thought, in openness and uprightness of conduct
in private life, in those practical virtues which are the vital
substance of Christianity, — in these are they superior? No.
Public observation is against the fact, and the conclusion to
which such observation leads is rarely incorrect. * * The very
name of the sect carries with it an impression of meanness
and hypocrisy. Scarce an individual that has had any deal-
ings* with those belonging to it, but has good cause to remember
it from some circumstance of low deception or of shuffling
fraud. Its very members trust each other with caution and
reluctance. The more wealthy among them are drained and
* See Table Talk, pp. 282 and 304. 2d edit.— Ed.
a barrister's HINl's. 381
dried by the leeches that perpetually fasten upon them. The
leaden, ignorant and bigoted — I speak of them collectively —
present u> with no counter-qualities that eau conciliate respect.
They have all the craft of monks without their courtesy, and
all the subtlety of Jesuits without their learning.
In tin- whole Bibliotheca theologica I re-
member no instance of calumny so gross, so
impudent, so unchristian. Even as a single
robber, I mean he who robs one man, gets
hanged, while the robber of a million is a
great man, so it seems to be with calumny.
This worthy Barrister will be extolled for
*
this audacious slander of thousands, for which,
if applied to any one individual, he would be
in danger of the pillory. This paragraph
should be quoted: for were the charge true,
it is nevertheless impossible that the Bar-
rister should know it to be true. He posi-
tively asserts as a truth known to him what it
is impossible he should know : — he is therefore
doubly a slanderer; for first, the charge is a
gross calumny ; and were it otherwise, he
would still be a slanderer, for he cotdd have
no proof, no ground for such a charge.
lb. p. 15.
Amidst all thi> spirit of research we find nothing1 — compa-
ratively nothing — of improvement in that science of all oth<
the most important in its influence * * *. Religion, except
from the omancipatinu; ener-v of a few superior minds, which
have dared to snap asunder the cords which bound them to the
rock of error * * * has been suffered to remain in its princi-
ples and in its doctrines, just what it was when the craft of
Catholic superstition first corrupted its simplicity.
332 NOTES ON
So, so. Here it comes out at last ! It is not
the Methodists; no; it is all and each of all
Europe, Infidels and Socinians excepted ! O
impudence ! And then the exquisite self-con-
ceit of the blunderer !
lb. p. 29.
If of different denominations, how were they thus con-
ciliated to a society of this ominous nature, from which they
must themselves of necessity be excluded by that indispensable
condition of admittance, " a union of religious sentiment in the
great doctrines :" which very want of union it is that creates
these different denominations ?
No, Barrister! they mean that men of dif-
ferent denominations may yet all believe in
the corruption of the human will, the redemp-
tion by Christ, the divinity of Christ as con-
substantial with the Father, the necessity of
the Holy Spirit, or grace (meaning more than
the disposition of circumstances), and the ne-
cessity of faith in Christ superadded to a belief
of his actions and doctrines, — and yet differ in
many other points. The points enumerated
are called the great points, because all Chris-
tians agree in them excepting the Arians and
Socinians, who for that reason are not deemed
Christians by the rest. The Roman Catholic,
the Lutheran, the Calvinist, the Arminian,
the Greek, with all their sub-divisions, do yet
all accord in these articles : — the booksellers
might have said, all who repeat the Nicene
Creed. N. B. I do not approve, or defend,
nay, J dislike, these " United Theological
\ barrister's hints. ;}:
Booksellers:'1 but this utter Barrister is their
best friend by attacking them so as to secur»
to them victory, and all the advantages of being
known to have been wickedly slandered ; —
the In si shield a faulty cause can protend
against the javelin of fair opposition.
1 1). j). ')(>.
< >ur S;iviour never in any Bingle instance reprobated tlie
rcise of reason : on the contrary, lie reprehends bov< rely
those wlio did not exercise it. Carnal reason is not a phrase
to be found in his Gospel ; In- appealed to the understanding
in all he said, and in all he taught. He never required faith
in his disciples, without first famishing sufficient < rub nee to
justify it. He reasoned thus: If I have done what no human
pnin r could do, you must admit that mv power is from
abotH . a .-.
( rood heavens ! did he not uniformly require
faith as the condition of obtaining the " evi-
dence, " as this Barrister calls it — that is, the
miracle.'' What a shameless perversion of the
fact ! He never did reason thus. In one in-
stance only, and then upbraiding the base
sensuality of the Jews, he said : " If ye are so
base as not to believe what I say from the
moral evidence in your own consciences, yet
pa\ some attention to it even for my works'
sake" And this, an targumentum adhominem,
a bitter reproach (just as if a great chemist
should say; — Though yon do not care for my
science, or the important truths it presents, yet,
even as an amusement superior to that of your
jugglers to whom yon willingly crowd, pay
884 NOTES ON
some attention to me) — this is to be set up
against twenty plain texts and the whole spirit
of the whole Gospel ! Besides, Christ could
not reason so ; for he knew that the Jews
admitted both natural and demoniacal miracles,
and their faith in the latter he never attacked;
though by an argumentum ad hominem (for it
is no argument in itself) he denied its ap-
plicability to his own works. If Christ had
reasoned so, why did not the Barrister quote
his words, instead of putting imaginary words
in his mouth?
lb. 60, 61.
Religion is a system of revealed truth ; and to affirm of any
revealed truth, that we cannot understand it, is, in effect,
either to deny that it has been revealed, or — which is the same
thing- — to admit that it has been revealed in vain.
It is too worthless! I cannot go on. Mer-
ciful God ! hast thou not revealed to us the
being of a conscience, and of reason, and of
will ; — and does this Barrister tell us, that he
" understands" them ? Let him know that he
does not even understand the very word under-
standing. He does not seem to be aware of
the school-boy distinction between the on eo-™
and the Sion? But to all these silly objections
religion must for ever remain exposed as long
as the word Revelation is applied to any thing
that can be bona fide given to the mind ab
extra, through the senses of eye, ear, or touch.
No ! all revelation is and must be ab intra ;
A BARRISTER'S MINIS. 3U-J
the external phenomena can only awake, recall
evidence, but never reveal. This is capable
of strict demonstration.
Afterwards the Barrister quotes from Thomas
Watson respecting things above comprehension
in the study of nature : " in these cases, the
fart is evident, the cause lies in obscurity,
deeply removed from all the knowledge and
penetration of man. " Then what can we
believe respecting these causes ? And if we.
can believe nothing respecting them, what
becomes of them as arguments in support of
the proposition that we ought, in religion, to
believe what we cannot understand I
Are there not facts in religion, the causes
and constitution of which are mysteries ?
NOTES ON DAVISON'S DISCOURSES ON
PROPHECY. 1825.*
Disc. IV. Pt. 1. p. 140.
As to systems of religion alien from Christianity, if any of
them have taught the doctrine of eternal life, the reward of
obedience, as a dogma of belief, that doctrine is not their boast,
* Discourses on Prophecy, in which are considered its struc-
ture, use and inspiration, being the substance of twelve Ser-
mons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn in the Lecture
founded by the Right Rev. William Warburton, Bishop of
Gloucester. By John Davison, B.D. 2nd edit. London,
18 -J.'..
VOL. IV. C C
380 NOTES ON
but their burden and difficulty ; inasmuch as they could never
defend it. They could never justify it on independent grounds
of deduction, nor produce their warrant and authority to teach
it. In such precarious and unauthenticated principles it may
pass for a conjecture, or pious fraud, or a splendid phantom :
it cannot wear the dignity of truth.
Ah, why did not Mr. Davison adhere to the
manly, the glorious, strain of thinking from
p. 134 {Since Prophecy, &c.) to p. 139. {that
mercy) of this discourse ? A fact is no subject
of scientific demonstration speculatively : we
can only bring analogies, and these Heraclitus,
Socrates, Plato, and others did bring ; but
their main argument remains to this day the
main argument — namely, that none but a
wicked man dares doubt it. When it is not
in the light of promise, it is in the law of fear,
at all times a part of the conscience, and pre-
supposed in all spiritual conviction.
lb. p. 160.
Some indeed have sought the star and the sceptre of Ba-
laam's prophecy, where they cannot well be found, in the reign
of David ; for though a sceptre might be there, the star pro-
perly is not.
Surely this is a very weak reason. A far
better is, I think, suggested by the words, /
shall see him — / shall behold him ; — which in
no intelligible sense could be true of Balaam
relatively to David.
lb. p. 162.
The Israelites could not endure the voice and fire of Mount
DAVISON. ;*!{/
Sinai. They asked an intermediate messenger between God
and them, who should temper the aw -fulness of his voice, and
impart to them bis will in a milder way.
Dent, xviii. 15. Is the following argument
worthy our consideration ? If, as the learned
Eichhorn, Paulus of Jena, and others of their
school, have asserted, Moses waited forty days
for a tempest, and then, by the assistance of
the natural magic he had learned in the temple
of lsis, initialed the law, all our experience and
knowledge of the way in which large bodies of
men are affected would lead us to suppose that
the Hebrew people would have been keenly
Lcited, interested, and elevated by a spectacle
so grand and so flattering to their national
pride. But if the voices and appearances were
indeed divine and supernatural, well must we
assume that there was a distinctive, though
verbally inexpressible, terror and disproportion
to the mind, the senses, the whole organism//*
of the human beholders and hearers, which
might both account for, and even in the sight
of God justify, the trembling prayer which
deprecated a repetition.
lb. p. 164.
To justify its application to Christ, the resemblance between
him and Moses has often been deduced at large, and drawn
into a variety of particulars, among which several points have
been taken minute and precarious, or having so little of dignity
or clearness of representation in them, that it would be wise
to discard them from the prophetic evidence.
With our present knowledge we are both
388 NOTES ON
enabled and disposed thus to evolve the full
contents of the word like ; but I cannot help
thinking that the contemporaries of Moses (if
not otherwise orally instructed,) must have un-
derstood it in the first and historical sense, at
least, of Joshua.
lb. p. 1G8.
A distinguished commentator on the laws of Moses, Mi-
chaelis, vindicates their temporal sanctions on the ground of
the Mosaic Code being of the nature of a civil system, to the sta-
tutes of which the rewards of a future state would be incongruous
and unsuitable.
I never read either of Michaelis's Works, but
the same view came before me whenever I
reflected on the Mosaic Code. Who expects
in realities of any kind the sharp outline and
exclusive character of scientific classification?
It is the predominance of the characterizing
constituent that gives the name and class. Do
not even our own statute laws, though co-exist-
ing with a separate religious Code, contain
many formula of words which have no sense
but for the conscience? Davison's stress on
the word covet, in the tenth commandment, is,
I think, beyond what so ancient a Code war-
rants ; — and for the other instances, Michaelis
would remind him that the Mosaic constitution
was a strict theocracy, and that Jehovah, the
God of all, was their king. I do not know the
particular mode in which Michaelis propounds
and supports this position ; but the position
itself, as I have presented it to my own mind,
davison. nn.o
seems to me among the strongest proofs of tin-
divine origin of the Law, and an essential in the
harmony of the total scheme of Revelation.
Disc. IV. Ft. II. p. 180.
But the first law meets him on his own terms ; it stood upon a
present retrihution ; the execution of its sentence is matter of
historv, and the argument resulting from it is to be answered,
before the ([notion is carried to another world.
This is rendered a very powerful argument
by the consideration, that though so vast a mind
as that of Moses, though perhaps even a Lycur-
gus, might have distinctly foreseen the ruin and
captivity of the Hebrew people as a necessary
result of the loss of nationality, and the aban-
donment of the law and religion which were
their only point of union, their centre of gra-
vity,— yet no human intellect could have fore-
seen the perpetuity of such a people as a dis-
tinct race under all the aggravated curses of
the law weighing on them ; or that the obsti-
nacy of their adherence to their dividuating
institutes in persecution, dispersion, andshame,
should be in direct proportion to the wanton-
ness of their apostasy from the same in union
and prosperity.
Disc. V. Pt. II. p. 'I'M.
Except under the dictate of a constraining inspiration, it is
not easy to conceive how the master of such a work, at the
time when he had brought it to perfection, and beheld it in its
lustre, the labour of so much opulent magnificence and curious
art, and designed to be exceeding mnqnijical, of fame, and of
(jh>ry throughout all countries, should be occupied witli the
prospect of its utter ruin and dilapidation, and that too under
•3i)0 NOTES ON
the opprobrium of God's vindictive judgment upon it, nor to
imagine how that strain of sinister prophecy, that forebodes of
malediction, should be ascribed to him, if he had no such vision
revealed.
Here I think Mr. Davison should have
crushed the objection of the Infidel grounded
on Solomon's subsequent idolatrous impieties.
The Infidel argues, that these are not con-
ceivable of a man distinctly conscious of a
prior and supernatural inspiration, accompa-
nied with supernatural manifestations of the
divine presence.
Disc. VI. Pt. I. p. 283.
In order to evade this conclusion, nothing is left but to deny
that Isaiah, or any person of his age, wrote the book ascribed to
him.
This too is my conclusion, but (if I do not
delude myself) from more evident, though not
perhaps more certain, premisses. The age of
the Cyrus prophecies is the great object of
attack by Eichhorn and his compilers ; and I
dare not say, that in a controversy with these
men Davison's arguments would appear suffi-
cient. But this was not the intended subject
of these Discourses.
Disc. VI. Pt. II. p. 28<>.
But how does he express that promise ? In the images of
the resurrection and an immortal state. Consequently, there
is implied in the delineation of the lower subject the truth of the
greater.
This remind* me of a remark, I luive else-
DAVISON. 391
where made respecting the expediency of
separating the arguments addressed to, and
valid for, a believer, from the proofs and vin-
dications of Scripture intended to form the
belief, or to convict the Infidel.
Disc. VI. Pt. IV. p. 325.
When Cyrus became master of Babylon, the prophecies of
l>;ii;ih were shewn or communicated to him, wherein were
described his victory, ami the use he m appointed to make of
is in the restoration of the Hebrew people. (Ezra i. 1, 2.)
This 1 had been taught to regard as one of
Josephus's legends ; but upon this passage
who would not infer that it had Ezra for its
authority,— who yet does not expressly say
that even the prophecy of the far later Jere-
miah was known or made known to Cyrus,
who (Ezra tells us) fulfilled it ? If Ezra had
meant the prediction of Isaiah by the words,
he hath chained me, &c, why should he not
have referred to it together with, or even in-
stead of, Jeremiah? Is it not more probable
that a living prophet had delivered the charge
to Cyrus? See Ezra vi. 14.— Again, Davison
makes Cyrus speak like a Christian, by omit-
ting the affix of Heaven to the Lord God in the
original. Cyrus speaks as a Cyrus might be
supposed to do,— namely, of a most powerful
but yet national deity, of a God, not of God.
I have seen in so many instances the injurious
effect of weak or overstrained arguments in
defence of religion, tha t I am perhaps more
392 NOTES ON
jealous than I need be in the choice of evi-
dences. I can never think myself the worse
Christian for any opinion I may have formed,
respecting the price of this or that argument,
of this or that divine, in support of the truth.
For every one that I reject, I could supply
two, and these avkoWi.
lb. p. 336.
Meanwhile this long repose and obscurity of Zerubbabel's
family, and of the whole house of David, during so many ge-
nerations prior to the Gospel, was one of the preparations
made whereby to manifest more distinctly the proper glory of
it, in the birth of the Messiah.
In whichever way I take this, whether
addressed to a believer for the purpose of en-
lightening, or to an inquirer for the purpose of
establishing, his faith in prophecy, this argu-
ment appears to me equally perplexing and
obscure. It seems, prima facie, almost tanta-
mount to a right of inferring the fulfilment of
a prophecy in B., which it does not mention,
from its entire failure and falsification in A.,
which, and which alone, it does mention.
lb. p. 370.
Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the
yreat and dreadful day of the Lord.
Almost every page of this volume makes
me feel my own ignorance respecting the
interpretation of the language of the Hebrew
Prophets, and the want of the one idea which
DAVISON. 393
would Bupply the key. Suppose an Infidel to
;t>-k me, how the Jews were to ascertain that
John the Baptist was Elijah the Prophet; — am
I to assert the pre-existence of John's personal
identity as Elijah? If not, why Elijah rather
than any other Prophet ? One answer is obvious
enough, that the contemporaries of John held
Elijah as the common representative of the
Prophets ; but did Malachi do so ?
lb. p. 373.
1 cannot conceive a more bcautful synopsis
of a work on the Prophecies of the Old Testa-
ment, than is given in this Recapitulation.
Would that its truth had been equally well
substantiated ! That it can be, that it will be,
I have the liveliest faith; — and that Mr. Davi-
son has contributed as much as we ought to
« \pect, and more than any contemporary di-
vine, I acknowledge, and honor him accord-
ingly. But much, very much, remains to be
done, before these three pages merit the name
of a Recapitulation.
Disc. VII. p. 375.
If I needed proof of the immense importance
of the doctrine of Ideas, and how little it is un-
derstood, the following discourse would supply it.
The whole discussion on Prescience and
Freewill, with exception of the i>:il:< <<r two
borrowed from Skelton, displays an unac-
quaintance with the deeper philosophy, and
394 NOTES ON
a helplessness in the management of the
particular question, which I know not how to
reconcile with the steadiness and clearness of
insight evinced in the earlier Discourses. I
neither do nor ever could see any other diffi-
culty on the subject, than what is contained
and anticipated in the idea of eternity.
By Ideas I mean intuitions not sensuous,
which can be expressed only by contradictory
conceptions, or, to speak more accurately, are
in themselves necessarily both inexpressible
and inconceivable, but are suggested by two
contradictory positions. This is the essential
character of all ideas, consequently of eter-
nity, in which the attributes of omniscience
and omnipotence are included. Now pre-
science and freewill are in fact nothing
more than the two contradictory positions by
which the human understanding struggles to
express successively the idea of eternity. Not
eternity in the negative sense as the mere
absence of succession, much less eternity in
the senseless sense of an infinite time; but
eternity, — the Eternal; as Deity, as God. Our
theologians forget that the objection applies
equally to the possibility of the divine will ; but
if they reply that prescience applied to an
eternal, Entis absoluti tota el simultanea frui-
lio, is but an anthropomorphism, or term of
accommodation, the same answer serves in re-
spect of the human will ; for the epithet human
docs not enter into the syllogism. As to con-
davison. :{yr>
tiugency, whence did Mr. Davison learn that
it is ;i necessary accompaniment of freedom,
or of free action ? My philosophy teaches me
the very contrary.
lb. p. 3«>-2.
He contends, without reserve, that the free actions of men
are not within the divine prescience ; resting his doctrine
partly 00 the assumption that there are no strict and absolute
predictions in Scripture of those actions in which men are
represented as free and responsible ; and partly on the abstract
reason, that such actions are in their nature impossible to be
certainly foreknown.
I utterly deny contingency except in rela-
tion to the limited and imperfect knowledge
of man. But the misery is, that men write
about freewill without a single meditation
on will absolutely; on the idea /cur/ iZo^nv with-
out any idea ; and so bewilder themselves in
the jungle of alien conceptions; and to under-
stand the truth they overlay their reason.
Disc. VIII. p. 416.
It would not be easy to calculate the good
which a man like Mr. Davison might effect,
under God, by a work on the Messianic Pro-
phecies specially intended for and addressed
to the present race of Jews,— if only he would
make himself acquainted with their objections
and ways of understanding Seripture. For
instance, a learned Jew would perhaps con-
tend that this prophecy of Isaiah (c. ii. 2—4,)
cannot fairly be interpreted of a mere local
396 NOTES ON
origination of a religion historically ; as the
drama might be described as going forth from
Athens, and philosophy from Academus and
the Painted Porch, but must refer to an esta-
blished and continuing seat of worship, a house
of the God of Jacob. The answer to this is
provided in the preceding verse, in the top of
the mountains ; which irrefragably proves the
figurative character of the whole prediction.
lb. p. 431.
One point, however, is certain and equally important, namely,
that the Christian Church, when it comes to recognize more
truly the obligation imposed upon it by the original command
of its Founder, Go teach all nations, &c.
That the duty here recommended is de-
ducible from this text is quite clear to my
mind ; but whether it is the direct sense and
primary intention of the words; whether the
first meaning is not negative, — {Have no re-
spect to ivhat nation a man is of but teach it to
all indifferently whom you have an opportunity
of addressing,) — this is not so clear. The larger
sense is not without its difficulties, nor is this
narrower sense without its practical advantages.
Disc. IX. p. 453, 4.
The striking inferiority of several of these
latter Discourses in point of style, as compared
with the first 150 pages of this volume, per-
plexes me. It seems more than mere careless-
ness, or the occasional infausta tempora scri-
bendi, can account for. I question whether from
DAVISON. o!>7
any modern work of a tenth part of the merit of
these Discourses, either in matter or in force
and felicity of diction and composition, as many
uncouth and awkward sentences could be ex-
tracted. The paragraph in page 4G.J and 454,
is not a specimen of the worst. In a volume
which ought to be, and which probably will
be, in every young Clergyman's library, these
macula are subjects of just regret. The utility
of the work, no less than its great comparative
excellence, render its revision a duty on the
part of the author; specks are no trifles in dia-
monds.
Disc. XII. p. 519.
Four such ruling kingdoms did arise. The first, the Babylo-
nian, was in being when the prophecy is represented to have
been given. It was followed by the Persian ; the Persian gave
way to the Grecian ; the Roman closed the series.
This is stoutly denied by Eichhorn, who con-
tends that the M< de or Medo-Persian is the
second — if I recollect aright. But it always
struck me that Eichhorn, like other learned
Infidels, is caught in his own snares. For if
the prophecies are of the age of the first Em-
pire, and actually delivered by Daniel, there
is no reason why the Roman Empire should
not have been predicted; — for superhuman
predictions, the last two at least mnst have been.
But if the book was a forgery, or a political
poem like Gray's Bard or Lycophron's Cas-
sandra, and later than Antiochus Epiphanes, it
398 NOTES ON
is strange and most improbable that the Roman
should have escaped notice. In both cases the
omission of the last and most important Em-
pire is inexplicable.
lb. p. 521.
Yet we have it on authority of Josephus, that Daniel's pro-
phecies were read publicly among the Jews in their worship, as
well as their other received Scriptures.
It is but fair, however, to remember that the
Jewish Church ranked the book of Daniel in
the third class only, among the Hagiographic—
passionately almost as the Jews before and at
the time of our Saviour were attached to it.
lb. p. 522-3.
But to a Jewish eye, or to any eye placed in the same posi-
tion of view in the age of Antiochus Epiphanes, it is utterly im-
possible to admit that this superior strength of the Roman
power to reduce and destroy, this heavier arm of subjugation,
could have revealed itself so plainly, as to warrant the express
deliberate description of it.
Quare. See Polybius.
lb.
We shall yet have to inquire how it could be foreseen that
this fourth, this yet unestablished empire, should be the last
in the line.
This is a sound and weighty argument,
which the preceding does not, I confess, strike
me as being. On the contrary, the admission
that by a writer of the Maccabaic sera the
Roman power could scarcely have been over-
looked, greatly strengthens this second argu-
DAVISON. :VJD
ment, as naturally suggesting expectations of
change, and wave-like succession of empires,
rather than the idea of a last. In the age of
Augustus this might possibly have occurred to
a profound thinker ; but the age of Antiochus
was too late to permit the; Koinan power to
i -cape notice; and not late enough to suggest
its exclusive establishment so as to leave no
source of succession.
NOTES <)N IRVING'S BEN-EZRA.' 1827.
Christ the Word.
i
The Scriptures — The Spirit — The Church.
I
The Preacher.
Such seemeth to me to be the scheme of the
Faith in Christ. The written Word, the Spirit
and the Church, are co-ordinate, the indispen-
sable conditions and the working causes of the
perpetuity and continued re-nascence and spi-
ritual life of Christ still militant. The Eternal
Word, Christ from everlasting, is the protheais
* The Coming' of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. By Juan
Josafat Ben-Ezra, a converted Jew. Translated from the
Spanish, with a preliminary Discourse. By the Rev. Edward
Irving-, A.M. London, 1^'27.
400 NOTES ON
or identity ;— the Scriptures and the Church
are the two poles, or the thesis and antithesis;
the Preacher in direct line under the Spirit,
but likewise the point of junction of the written
Word and the Church, being the synthesis.
And here is another proof of a principle else-
where by me asserted and exemplified, that
divine truths are ever a tetractys, or a triad
equal to a tetractys : 4=1 or 3=4=1. But the
entire scheme is a pentad — God's hand in the
world.*
It may be not amiss that I should leave a re-
cord in my own hand, how far, in what sense,
and under what conditions, I agree with my
friend, Edward Irving, respecting the second
coming of the Son of Man. I. How far ? First,
instead of the full and entire conviction, the
positive assurance, which Mr. Irving entertains,
I — even in those points in which my judgment
most coincides with his, — profess only to regard
them as probable, and to vindicate them as
nowise inconsistent with orthodoxy. They
may be believed, and they may be doubted,
salva Catholicafide. Further, from these points
I exclude all prognostications of time and event;
the mode, the persons, the places, of the ac-
complishment ; and I decisively protest against
all parts of Mr. Irving's and of Lacunza's
scheme grounded on the books of Daniel or
the Apocalypse, interpreted as either of the
* See supra, vol. iii. p. 93. — Ed.
llv'\ IM- Bl n EZRA. 401
two, Irving <>!' Lacunza, understands them.
Again, 1 protest against all identification of
the coming with the Apocalyptic Millennium,
which in my belief began under Constantine.
II. In what sense? In this and no other, that
the objects of the Christian Redemption will
be perfected <>n this earth ; —thai the kingdom
"1' ( rod and his Word, the latter as the Son of
M;in, in which the divine will shall Ik done on
earth as ii is in heaven, will conn .-—and that the
whole march of nature and history, from the
first impregnation of Chaos by the Spirit, con-
verses toward this kingdom as the final cause
of the world. Life begins in detachment from
Nature, and ends in union with God. 111.
Under what condition- ' That I retain my
former convictions respecting St. Michael, and
the ex-saint Lucifer, and the Genie Prince of
Persia, and the re-institution of bestial sacri-
fice^ in the Temple at Jerusalem, and the rest
of this class. All these appear to me so many
pimples on the face of my friend's faith from
inward heat-. It ,i\ ing it indeed a tine handsome
intelligent face, but certainly not adding to its
comeliness. Such are the convictions of S. T>
Coleridge, May, \i\-i7
P.S. 1 full) agree with Mr. Irving as to the
literal fulfilment of all the prophecies which
respect the restoration of the Je« b Deutt n>n.
xxv. 1—8.
It may be long before Edward Irving sees
what 1 seem at least to see so clearly, — and yet,
VOL. IV. D D
402 NOTES ON
I doubt not, the time will come when he too
will see with the same evidentness, — how much
grander a front his system would have pre-
sented to judicious beholders ; on how much
more defensible a position he would have
placed it, — and the remark applies equally to
Ben Ezra (that is, Emanuel Lacunza) — had he
trusted the proof to Scriptures of undisputed
catholicity, to the spirit of the whole Bible, to
the consonance of the doctrine with the reason,
its fitness to the needs and capacities of man-
kind, and its harmony with the general plan
of the divine dealings with the world, — and
had left the Apocalypse in the back ground.
But alas ! instead of this he has given it such
prominence, such prosiliency of relief, that he
has made the main strength of his hope appear
to rest on a vision, so obscure that his own
author and faith's-mate claims a meaning for
its contents only on the supposition that, the
meaning is yet to come !
Preliminary Discourse, p. lxxx.
Now of these three, the office of Christ, as our prophet, is
the means used by the Holy Spirit for working1 the redemption
of the understanding of men ; that faculty by which we acquire
the knowledge on which proceed both our inward principles of
conduct and our outward acts of power.
I cannot forbear expressing my regret that
Mr. Irving has not adhered to the clear and
distinct exposition of the understanding, genere
et gradu, given in the Aids to Reflection.*
* P. 157, 4th edit.— Ed.
iu\ IV. s BEN- i /it \ 403
What can be plainer than to say : the under-
standing is the medial faculty or faculty of
ni( ana, as reason on the other hand is the
Bource of ideas or ultimate ends. By reason
ire determine the ultimate end : by the under-
standing we arc enabled to select and adapt
the appropriate means for the attainment of,
or approximation to, this end. according to
umstances But an ultimate end must of
necessity be an idea, that is, that which is not
representable by the sense, and has do entire
correspondent in nature, or the world of the
sen-< s. For in nature there can be neither a
first nor a last : — all that we can see, smell, taste,
touch, are means, and only in a rpialified sense,
and by the defect of our language, entitled ends.
They are only relatively ends in a chain of
motives. B. i< the end to A. ; but it is itself
a mean to C, and in like manner C. is a mean
to D., and so on. Thus words are the means
by which we reduce appearances, or things
presented through the senses, to their several
kinds, or genera; that is, we generalize, and
thus think and judge. Hence the understand-
ing, considered -pecially as an intellective
power, is the source and faculty of words; —
and on this account the understanding is justly
defined, both 1>\ Archbishop Leighton, and by
Immanuel Kant, the faculty that judges by,
or according to, sense. However, practical or
intellectual, it is one and the same understand-
ing, and the definition, the medial faculty,
404 NOTES ON
expresses its true character in both directions
alike. I am urgent on this point, because on
the right conception of the same, namely, that
understanding and sense (to which the sensi-
bility supplies the material of outness, materiam
objectivam,) constitute the natural mind of man,
depends the comprehension of St. Paul's whole
theological system. And this natural mind,
which is named the mind of the flesh, t^oovtj/ua
aapKog, as likewise xpv-^iKi) avvzm^, the intellectual
power of the living or animal soul, St. Paul
everywhere contradistinguishes from the spirit,
that is, the power resulting from the union and
co-inherence of the will and the reason; — and
this spirit both the Christian and elder Jewish
Church named, sophia, or wisdom.
Ben- Ezra. Part I. c. v. p. 67.
Eusebius and St. Epiphanius name Cerinthus as the inventor
of many corruptions. That heresiarch being- given up to the
belly and the palate, placed therein the happiness of man.
And so taught his disciples, that after the Resurrection, * * *.
And what appeared most important, each would be master of
an entire seraglio, like a Sultan, &c.
I find very great difficulty in crediting these
black charges on Cerinthus, and know not how
to reconcile them with the fact that the Apoca-
lypse itself was by many attributed to Cerin-
thus. But Mr. Hunt is not more famous for
blacking than some of the Fathers.
lb. pp. 7.3, 4.
Against whom a very eloquent man, Dionysius Alexandrlnus,
irving's ben-ezh \. 405
a Father of the Church, wrote an elegant work, to ridicule the
Millennarian fable, the golden and gemmed Jerusalem on the
earth, the renewal of the Temple, the hlood of victims. If the
book of St. Dionysiua had contained nothing hut the derision
and confutation of all we have just read, it is certain that he
doth in no way concern himself with the harmless .Millennarians,
but with the Jews and Judaizers. It is to be clearly seen that
DionysiuB had nothing in hi* eye, but the ridiculous excesses
ofNepoa, and his peculiar tenets upon circumcision, &c.
Lacuoza, I suspect, was ignorant of Greek :
and set ins not to have known that the object
of Diouysius was to demonstrate that the Apo-
calypse was neither authentic nor a canonical
hook.
lb. p. 85.
The ruin of Antichrist, with all that is comprehended under
that name, beiny entirely consummated, and the King of kings
remaining master of the field, St. John immediately continues
in the 20th chapter, which thus commenceth : And I saw an
a in/ el come down from heaven, <fec. And I saw thrones, &c.
And when a thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed
out of his prison.
It is only necessary to know that the whole
book from the first verse to the last is written
in symbols, to be satisfied that the true
meaning of this passage is simply, that only
the great Confessors and Martyrs will be had
in remembrance and honour in the Church
after the establishment of Christianity through-
out the Roman Empire. And observe, it is
the souls that the Seer beholds :— there is not
a word of the resurrection of the body ; — for
this would indeed have been the appropriate
406 NOTES ON
symbol of a resurrection in a real and personal
sense.
lb. c. vi. p. 108.
Now this very thing St. John likewise declaretli * * to wit,
that they who have been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus,
and for the word of God, and they who have not luorslnpped
the beast, these shall live, or be raised at the coming of the
Lord, which is the first resurrection.
Aye ! but by what authority is this synoni-
mizing " or" asserted ? The Seer not only does
not speak of any resurrection, but by the word
4>vyaq, souls, expressly asserts the contrary. In
no sense of the word can souls, which descended
in Christ's train {chorus sneer animarum et Christi
comitatus) from Heaven, be said resurgere. Re-
surrection is always and exclusively resurrec-
tion in the body ; — not indeed a rising of the
corpus QavTaoTiKov, that is, the few ounces of
carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and phos-
phate of lime, the copula of which that gave
the form no longer exists, — and of which Paul
exclaims; — Thou fool! not this, &c. — but the
COrpUS VTrOGTUTlKOV, 1] VOV/tltVOV.
But there is yet another and worse wresting
of the text. Who that reads Lacunza, p. 108,
last line but twelve, would not understand that
the Apocalypt had asserted this enthronement
of the souls of the Gentile and Judaeo-Christian
Martyrs which he beheld in the train or suite
of the descending Messiah ; and that he had
first seen them in the descent, and afterward
saw thrones assigned to them ? Whereas the
IKVINO'S BEN-EZRA. 407
sentence precedes, and has positively do con-
oection with these souls. The literal interpre-
tation of tht >\ nibols e. w. v. 4, is, k 1 then
beheld the Christian religion the established
religion <>f the state throughout the Roman
empire; — emperors, kings, magistrates, and
the like, all Christians, and administering laW8
in the name of Christ, that is, receiving the
Scriptures as the supreme and paramount law.
Then in all the temples the name of Jesus was
invoked as the King of dory, and together with
him the old afflicted and tormented fellow-
laborers with Christ were revived in high and
reverential commemoration, &c. But that
the whole Vision from first to last, in every
sentence, yea, every word, is symbolical, and
in the boldest, largest style of symbolic lan-
guage : and secondly, that it is a work of dis-
puted canonicity, and at no known period of
the Church could truly lay claim to catholicity ;
— but for this, I think this verse would be
worth a cartload of the texts which the Roman-
ia divines and catechists ordinarily cite as
sanctioning the invocation of Saints.
lb. p. 110.
You will say nevertheless, that even the wicked will be raised
incorruptible to inherit incorruption. because heinu <mc raised,
their bodies will no more change or be dissolved, but must con-
tinue entire, for ever united with their sad and miserable souls.
Well, and would you call this corruption or incorruptibility '
I i rtainlv this is not the sense of the Apostle, when he for-
inallv assures us, vea. even threatens us, that corruption cannot
inherit incorruption. Neither doth corruption inherit incor-
v*ti»>i fa
u • to
B«Jiil«rii
408 NOTES ON
ruption. What then may this singular expression mean ?
This is what it manifestly means ; — that no person, whoever he
may be, without any exception, who possesseth a corrupt heart
and corrupt actions, and therein persevereth unto death, shall
have reason to expect in the resurrection a pure, subtile, active
and impassible body.
This is actually dangerous tampering with
the written letter.
Without touching on the question whether
St. Paul in this celebrated chapter (1 Cor.xv.)
speaks of a partial or of the general resurrec-
tion, or even conceding to Lacunza that the
former opinion is the more probable ; I must
still vehemently object to this Jesuitical inter-
pretation of corruption, as used in a moral
sense, and distinctive of the wicked souls. St.
Paul nowhere speaks dogmatically or precep-
tively (not popularly and incidentally,) of a
soul as the proper /. It is always we, or the
man. How could a regenerate saint put oft*
corruption at the sound of the trump, if up to
that hour it did not in some sense or other ap-
pertain to him ? But what need of many words ?
It flashes on every reader wrhose imagination
supplies an unpreoccupied, unrefracting, me-
dium to the Apostolic assertion, that corruption
in this passage is a descriptive synonyme of
the material sensuous organism common to
saint and sinner, — standing in precisely the
same relation to the man that the testaceous
offensive and defensive armour does to the
crab and tortoise. These slightly combined
and easily decomponible stuffs are as incapable
ll<\ l\c - BEN-EZR \. 10!)
of subsisting under the altered conditioDS of
the earth as an hydatid in the blaze ofa tropical
Miu. They would be no longer media of com
DUinion between tin- man and his circum-
stance -.
A beavj difficult) presse b, as it appears to me,
on Lacunza's Bystem, as soon as we come to
consider the general resurrection. Our Lord
(in books of indubitable and never doubted
catholicity -peaks of some who rise to bliss
and glory, Others who at the same time rise to
shame and condemnation. Now if the former
class live not during the whole interval from
their death to the general resurrection, includ-
ing the Millennium, or Dies Mtssice, — bow
should they, whose imperfect or insufficient
merits excluded them from the kingdom of the
Messiah on earth, be all at once fitted for the
kingdom of heaven !
-
lb. ch. vii. p. 1 IK.
It appears to me that this sentence, being looked to atten-
tively, means in good language this only, that the word quick,
which the Apostles, full of the Holy Spirit, set down, is a word
altogether oseli SB, which might without loss have been omitted,
and that it were enough to have set down the word dead :
for by thai word alone is the whole expressed, and with much
more clearness and brevity.
The narrow outline within which the Jesuits
confined the theological reading of their alumni
is strongly marked in this (in so many respects i
excellent work : for example, the " most be-
lieving mind, with which Lacunza takes for
410 NOTES ON
granted the exploded fable of the Catechu-
mens' (vulgo Apostles') Creed having been the
quotient of an Apostolic pic-nic, to which each
of the twelve contributed his several symbolum.
lb. ch. ix. p. 127.
The Apostle, St. Peter, speaking of the day of the Lord,
says, that that day will come suddenly, &c. (2 Pet. iii. 1 0.)
There are serious difficulties besetting the
authenticity of the Catholic Epistles under the
name of Peter ; though there exist no grounds
for doubting that they are of the Apostolic age.
A large portion too of the difficulties would be
removed by the easy and nowise improbable
supposition, that Peter, no great scholar or
grammarian, had dictated the substance, the
matter, and left the diction and style to his
amanuensis, who had been an auditor of St.
Paul. The tradition which connects, not only
Mark, but Luke the Evangelist, the friend and
biographer of Paul, with Peter, as a secretary,
is in favour of this hypothesis. But what is of
much greater importance, especially for the
point in discussion, is the character of these
and other similar descriptions of the Dies
Messice, the Dies ultima, and the like. Are we
bound to receive them as articles of faith ? Is
there sufficient reason to assert them to have
been direct revelations immediately vouch-
safed to the sacred writers? I cannot satisfy
my judgment that there is; — first, because I
find no account of any such events having
ll<\ ING S BEN-EZRA. 1 I I
been revealed to the Patriarchs, or to .Moses,
or to tlit- Prophets; and because 1 do find
these events asserted, and (for aught I have
been able to discover,] for the first time, in the
Jewish ( Ihurch by uninspired Rabbis, in nearly
or altogether the same words as those of the
Apostles, and know that before and in the
Apostolic aye, these anticipations had become
popular, and generally received notions; and
lastly, because they were burrowed by the Jews
from the Greek philosophy, and like several
other notions, taken from less respectable
(piarters, adapted to their ancient and national
religious belief. Now I know of no revealed
truth that did not originate in Revelation, and
rind it hard to reconcile my mind to the belief
that any Christian truth, any essential article
of faith, should have been first made known
by the father of lies, or the guess- work of the
human understanding blinded by Paganism,
<»r at best without the knowledge of the true
God. Of course I would not apply this to any
;i>-< rtion of any New Testament writer, which
was the final aim and primary intention of the
whole passaire ; but only to sentence.-- /// online
ad some other doctrine or precept, iUustrandi
causa, or ad kominem, or more suasorio site ad
oniahiram. < I rhi tOTtCi ■
lb. Part 11. p. I [■>.
- .>ikI characteristic. Tin kingdom shall bt divided, —
Third characteristic. Tht kingdom shall in partly strong and
412 NOTES ON
partly brittle. — Fourth characteristic. They shall minglo
themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave
one to another.
How exactly do these characters apply to
the Greek Empire under the successors of
Alexander,— when the Greeks were dispersed
over the civilized world, as artists, rhetoricians,
grammatici, secretaries, private tutors, para-
sites, physicians, and the like !
lb. p. 153.
For to them he thus speaketh in the Gospel : And then
shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power
and great glory. And when these things begin to come to
pass, then look up, and lift up your heads ; for your redemp-
tion draweth nigh.
I cannot deny that there is great force and
an imposing verisimilitude in this and the pre-
ceding chapter, and much that demands silent
thought and respectful attention. But still the
great question presses on me: — coming' in a
cloud! What is the true import of this phrase?
Has not God himself expounded it? To the
Son of Man, the great Apostle assures us, all
power is given in heaven and on earth. He
became Providence, — that is, a Divine Power
behind the cloudy veil of human agency and
worldly events and incidents, controlling, dis-
posing, and directing acts and events to the
gradual unfolding and final consummation of
the great scheme of Redemption ; the casting
forth of the evil and alien nature from man,
and thus effecting the union of the creature
[RVING's BEN-EZRA. I I • "»
with the Creator, of man with God, in and
through the Son of .Man, even the Son of God
made manifest Now can it be doubted by
the attentive and unprejudiced reader of St.
Matthew, c. xxiv, that the Son of Man, in fact,
came in the utter destruction and devastation
of the Jewish Temple and State, dining the
period from Vespasian to Hadrian, both in-
cluded; and is it a sufficient reason for our
rejecting the teaching of Christ himself, of
Christ glorified and in his kingly character,
that his Apostles, who disclaim all certain
knowledge of the awful event, had understood
his words otherwise, and in a sense more com-
mensurate with their previous notions and the
prejudices of their education ! They commu-
nicated their conjectures, but as conjectures,
and these too guarded by the avowal, that they
had no revelation, no revealed commentary on
their Master's words, upon this occasion, the
great apocalypse of Jesus Christ while yet in
the flesh. Forbj this title was this great pro-
phecy known among the Christians of the
Apostolic age.
lb. p. 253.
Never, Oh ! our Lady ! never, < Mi! our Mother! Bhaltthou
tall a^aiu into the crime nt' idolatry.
Was ever blindness like nnto this blindness !
1 can imagine but one way of making it seem
possible, namely, that this round square or
rectilineal curv< — this honest Jesuit, I mean—
414 NOTES ON
had confined his conception of idolatry to the
worship of false gods ; — whereas his saints are
genuine godlings, and his Magna Mater a
goddess in her own right ; — and that thus he
overlooked the meaning of the word.
lb. p. 254.
The entire text of the Apostle is as follows : — " Now we
beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be
not soon shaken in mind, &c. (2 Thess. ii. 1 — 10.)
O Edward Irving ! Edward Irving ! by what
fascination could your spirit be drawn away
from passages like this, to guess and dream
over the rhapsodies of the Apocalypse ? For
rhapsody, according to your interpretation, the
Poem undeniably is ;— though, rightly ex-
pounded, it is a well knit and highly poetical
evolution of a part of this and our Lord's more
comprehensive prediction, Luke xvii.
lb. p. 297.
On the ordinary ideas of the coming of Christ in glory and
majesty, it will doubtless appear an extravagance to name the
Jews, or to take them into consideration ; for, according to
these ideas, they should hardly have the least particle of our
attention.
In comparing this with the preceding chap-
ter I could not help exclaiming ; What an ex-
cellent book would this Jesuit have written, if
Daniel and the Apocalypse had not existed, or
had been unknown to, or rejected by, him !
You may divide Lacunza's points of belief
into two parallel columns ;— the first would be
IRVING's BEN-EZRA. 4 I 6
found to contain much tliat is demanded by,
much that is consonant to. and nothing that is
not compatible with, reason, the harmony of
Holy Writ, and the idea of Christian faith.
The second would consist of puerilities and
anilities, some impossible, most incredible ;
and all so silly, so sensual, as to befit a dream-
ing Talmudist, not a Scriptural Christian.
And this latter column would be found ground-
ed on Daniel and the Apocalypse !
NOTI> o\ NOBLE'S APPEAL. 1827. •
How natural it is to mistake the weakness
of an adversary's arguments for the strength
of our own cause ! This is especially appli-
cable to Mr. Noble's Appeal. Assuredly as
far as Mr. Beaumont's Notes are concerned, his
victory is complete.
Sect. IV. p. -2H).
The intellectual spirit is moving upon the chaos of minds,
which ignorance and necessity have thrown into collision and
* An Appeal in behalf of the views of the eternal world ami
Itato, and the doctrines of faith and life, held by the body of
Christiana who believe that a New Church is signified (in the
Revelation, C. Kxi.) by the New Jerusalem, including Answers
to objections, particularly those of the Rev. <■. Beaumont, in
his work entitled " The Anti-Swedenbor Addressed to the
reflecting of all denominations. By Samuel Noble, Minister
of Hauovei 'Street Chapel, London. London. 1826. Ed.
416 NOTES ON
confusion; and the result will be anew creation. " Nature"
(to use the nervous language of an old writer,) " will be melted
down and recoined ; and all will be bright and beautiful."
Alas ! if this be possible now, or at any time
henceforward, whence came the dross? If
nature be bullion that can be melted and thus
purified by the conjoint action of heat and
elective attraction, I pray Mr. Noble to tell me
to what name or genus he refers the dross?
Will he tell me, to the Devil 1 Whence came
the Devil ? And how was the pure bullion so
thoughtlessly made as to have an elective af-
finity for this Devil?
Sect. V. p. 286.
The next anecdote that I shall adduce is similar in its nature
to the last * * *. The relater is Dr. Stilling', Counsellor at
the Court of the Duke of Baden, in a work entitled Die Theorie
der Geister-Kunde, printed in 1808.
Mr. Noble is a man of too much English
good sense to have relied on Sung's (alias Dr.
Stilling's) testimony, had he ever read the
work in which this passage is found. I happen
to possess the work ; and a more anile, credu-
lous, solemn fop never existed since the days
of old Audley. It is strange that Mr. Noble
should not have heard, that these three anec-
dotes were first related by Immanuel Kant,
and still exist in his miscellaneous writings.
lb. p. 315.
" Can he be a sane man who records the subsequent reverie
as matter of fact ? The Baron informs us, that on a certain
night a man appeared to him in the midst of a strong shining
NOBLE'S Ai'i'i. \l. 1 I 7
light, and said, ' I am God the Lord, the Creator and K<--
deemer; I bare chosen thee to explain to men tli»> interior and
spiritual sense of the Sacred Writings: 1 will dictate to thee
what thou oughtesl to wr ' From this period, the Baron
r.lates be was so illumined, us to behold, in the clearest man-
ner, what passed in the spiritual world, and that he could con-
verse with md spirits as with men.' &
I remember no such passage as this in Swe-
denborg's works. Indeed it is virtually con-
tradicted by their whole tenor. Swedenborg
-serts himself to relate visa et audita, — his
own experience, as a traveller and visitor of
the spiritual world, — not the words of another
as a mere amanuensis. But altogether this
Gulielmus must be a silly Billy.
lb. ]). 321.
The Apostolic canon in such cn.-es is, Br/irrr not every spirit,
but try the spirits whether they be of God. (1 John iv. 1.)
And the touchstone to which they are to he brought is pointed
out by the Prophet : To the laic and to tin t< </'>,;i(nn/ ; if they
speak not iiri ording to this nurd, it is f>rrmisi thert is no truth
in them. (Is. viii. Jit.) But instead of this canon you offer
another * * *. It i> Bimply tins : Whoever profess* a to he the
1" i! ei of divine communications, i^ insane. To hriug Sweden-
borg within the operation of this rule, yon quote, as if from his
own works, a passage which i^ nowhere to he found in them,
but which you seem to have taken from some biographical dic-
tionary or cyclopaedia ; few or none of which irive anything
like a fair account of the matter.
Aye! my memory did not fail me, 1 find.
As to insanity in the sense intended by Guli-
elmus, namely, as mania, — 1 should as little
think of charging Swedenborg with it, as of
calling a friend mad who laboured under an
acyanoblepsia.
VOL. IV. L L
418 NOTES ON
lb. p. 323.
Did you never read of one who says, in words very like your
version of the Baron's reverie ; It came to pass, that, as I
took my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus, about
noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round
about me : and I fell on the ground, and heard a voice say-
ing unto me, Saul, Saul, tvhy persecutest thou me ?
In the short space of four years the news-
papers contained three several cases, two of
which I cut out, and still have among my
ocean of papers, and which, as stated, were as
nearly parallel, in external accompaniments,
to St. Paul's as cases can well be : — struck
with lightning, — heard the thunder as an arti-
culate voice, — blind for a few days, and sud-
denly recovered their sight. But then there
was no Ananias, no confirming revelation to
another. This it was that justified St. Paul
as a wise man in regarding the incident as
supernatural, or as more than a providential
omen. N.B. Not every revelation requires a
sensible miracle as the credential ; but every
revelation of anew series of cvedenda. The pro-
phets appealed to records of acknowledged
authority, and to their obvious sense literally
interpreted. The Baptist needed no miracle
to attest his right of calling sinners to repent-
ance. See Exodus iv. 10.
lb. pp. 346, 7.
This sentiment, that miracles are not the proper evidences
of doctrinal truth, is, assuredly, the decision of the Truth it-
self; as is obvious from many passages in Scripture. We
NOBLES \!M'I \i . I I!)
have Mentha! the design of the mirai lesof Moses, as external
performances, was not to instruct the Israelites in spiritual
subjects, but to make them obedient subjects of a peculiar
species of political state. And though the miracles <>f Jesus
Christ collaterally served as testimonies to bis character, he
repeatedly intimates thai this was n<>t their main design. '
\r another time more plainly still, he says, that it is a wick
and adulterous generation (that eth after n sign ; on
which occasion, according to Mark, he sighed deeply in his
spit it. How characteristic i> that touch of the Apostle, The
Jews requin a sign, and tin Greeks seek after wisdom!
nliere by wisdom li" means tlm elegance and refinement of
Grecian literatui
Agreeing, .1- in the main 1 do, with the sen-
timents here expressed by this eloquent « riter,
1 must notice that he has, however, mistaken
the Bense of the orn/iobv, which the Jews would
liave tempted our Saviour to shew, — namely,
the signal for revolt by openly declaring him-
self their king, and leading them against the
Romans. The foreknowledge thai this super-
stition would shortly hurry them into utter
ruin caused the deep sigh, — us on another oc-
casion, the bitter tears. Again, by the aofta of
the Greeks their disputatious oofurrucn is meant.
The sophists pretended to teach wisdom as
an art: and sophista may be literally ren-
dered, wisdom-mongers, as we say, iron-mon-
gers.
lb. p. 350.
Some probably will say, " What argument can induce us
to believe a man in a concern of this nature who gives no risible
credentials to his authority '" ' ' * Bui let us ask in return,
" Is it worth; of a being wearing the figure of a man to
420 NOTES ON
quire such proofs as these to determine his judgment ?" * * *
The beasts act from the impulse of their bodily senses, but are
utterly incapable of seeing- from reason why they should so act :
and it might easily be shewn, that while a man thinks and
acts under the influence of a miracle, he is as much incapable
of perceiving- from any rational ground why he should thus
think and act, as a beast is." " What !" our opponents will
perhaps reply, * * * " Was it not by miracles that the prophets
(some of them) testified their authority ? Do you not believe
these facts?" Yes, my friends, I do most entirely believe
them, &c.
There is so much of truth in all this reason-
ing on miracles, that I feel pain in the thought
that the result is false, — because it was not the
whole truth. But this is the grounding, and
at the same time pervading, error of the Swe-
denborgians ; — that they overlook the distinc-
tion between congruity with reason, truth of
consistency, or internal possibility of this or
that being objectively real, and the objective
reality as fact. Miracles, quoad miracles, can
never supply the place of subjective evidence,
that is, of insight. But neither can subjective
insight supply the place of objective sight.
The certainty of the truth of a mathematical
arch can never prove the fact of its existence.
I anticipate the answers ; but know that they
likewise proceed from the want of distinguish-
ing between ideas, such as God, Eternity, the
responsible Will, the Good, and the like, — the
actuality of which is absolutely subjective,
and includes both the relatively subjective and
the relatively objective as higher or transcend-
ant realities, which alone are the proper ob-
jects of faith, tli* mvat postulates of reason in
order to its own admission of its own being,—
the not distinguishing, 1 say, between these,
ami those positions which must be either mat-
ters of tact or fiction-. For such latter positions
it is that miracles are required in lieu of expe-
rience. A.'s testimony of experience supplies
the want of the same experience for B. C. D.,
&c. For example, how many thousands be-
hove the existence of red snow on the testimony
of Captain Parry ! But who can expect more
than hints in a marginal note !
Sect. VI. pp. 378, J); 380, I.
In the general views, then, which are presented in the writ-
ings of Swedenborg on the subject of Heaven and Hell, as the
abodes, respectively, of happiness and of misery, while there
certainly is not anything which is not in the highest degree
agreeable both to reason and Scripture, there also seems
nothing which could be deemed inconsistent with the usual
conceptions of the Christian world.
What tends to render thinking readers a
little sceptical, is the want of a distinct boun-
dary between the deductions from reason, and
the articles, the truth of w hich is to rest on the
Baron's persona] testimony, his visa et audita.
Nor is the Baron himself (as it appears to me)
quite consistent on this point.
lb. p. 434.
Witness, again, the poet Milton, who introduces active sports
among the recreations which he deemed worthy of angels, and
mge indeed for a Puritan !) included even dancing among
the number.
422 NOTES ON
How could a man of Nobles sense and sen-
sibility bring himself thus to profane the awful
name of Milton, by associating it with the
epithet " Puritan ?"
1 have often thought of writing a work to be
entitled Vindicice Heterocloxce, sive celebriwm
virorum 7rapa^oy/j,aTil6vTwv defensio ; that is,
Vindication of Great Men unjustly branded ;
and at such times the names prominent to my
mind's eye have been Giordano Bruno, Jacob
Beh men, Benedict Spinoza, and Emanuel
Swedenborg. Grant, that the origin of the
Swedenborgian theology is a problem ; yet on
which ever of the three possible hypotheses —
(possible I mean for gentlemen, scholars and
Christians) — it may be solved — namely; — 1.
Swedenborg's own assertion and constant be-
lief in the hypothesis of a supernatural illu-
mination ; or, 2. that the great and excellent
man was led into this belief by becoming the
subject of a very rare, but not (it is said)
altogether unique, conjunction of the somni-
ative faculty (by which the products of the
understanding, that is to say, words, concep-
tions and the like, are rendered instantaneously
into forms of sense) with the voluntary and
other powers of the waking state; or, 3. the
modest suggestion that the first and second
may not be so incompatible as they appear —
still it ought never to be forgotten that the
merit and value of Swedenborg's system do
only in a very secondary degree depend on
koble's appeal. 423
any one of tin* t hi"* t . For even though the
first were adopted, the conviction and conver-
sion of such a believer must, according to a
fundamental principle of the New Church,
have been wrought bj an insight into the in-
trinsic truth and goodness of the doctrines,
(rally and collectively, and their entire
consonance w ith the light of the written and of
the eternal word, that is, with the Scriptures
and with the sciential and the practical reason.
Or saj that the second hypothesis were pre-
ferred, and that by some hitherto unexplained
affections of Swedenborg's brain and nervous
By stem, he from the year 1713, thought and
reasoned through the medium and instrument-
ality of a series of appropriate and symbolic
visual and auditual images, spontaneously
rising before him, and these so clear and so
distinct, as at length to overpower perhaps his
firsl suspicions of their subjective nature, and
to become objective for him, that is, in his
own belief of their kind and origin,— still the
thoughts, the reasonings, the grounds, the de-
ductions, the facts illustrative, or in proof, and
the conclusions, remain the same; and the
n ader might derive the same benefit from
them as from the sublime and impressive
truths conveyed in the Vision of Mirza or the
Tablet of Cebes. So much ev« o from a very
partial acquaintance with the works of Swe-
denborg, 1 can venture to assert; that as a
moralist Swedenborg is above all praise; and
424 NOTES on noble's appeal.
that as a naturalist, psychologist, and theolo-
gian, he has strong and varied claims on the
gratitude and admiration of the professional
and philosophical student. — April 1827.
P. S. Notwithstanding all that Mr. Noble
says in justification of his arrangement, it is
greatly to be regretted that the contents of this
work are so confusedly tossed together. It is,
however, a work of great merit.
425
ESSAY ON FAITH.
Faith may be defined, as fidelity to our own
being — so far as such being i> not and cannot
become an object of the senses ; and hence, by
clear inference or implication, to being gene-
rally, as far as the same is not the object of the
senses: and again to whatever is affirmed or
understood as the condition, or concomitant,
or consequence of the same. This will be best
explained by an instance or example. That I
am conscious of something within me peremp-
torily commanding me to do unto others as I
would they should do unto me; — in other
words, a categorical (that is, primary and uncon-
ditional imperative; — that the maxim (regula
maxima or supreme rule) of my actions, both
inward and outward, should be such as I could,
without any contradiction arising therefrom,
will to be the law of all moral and rational
beings ;— this, 1 say, is a fact of which J am
no less conscious (though in a different way),
nor less assured, than 1 am of any appearance
presented by mv outward s< us< s. Nor is this
all; but in the very act of being conscious of
this in my own nature, I know that it i> a fact
of which all men either are or ought to be
conscious; — a fact, th< ignorance of which con-
stitutes either the non-personality of the igno-
426 ESSAY ON FAITH.
rant, or the guilt, in which latter case the
ignorance is equivalent to knowledge wilfully
darkened. I know that I possess this con-
sciousness as a man, and not as Samuel Taylor
Coleridge ; hence knowing that consciousness
of this fact is the root of all other consciousness,
and the only practical contradistinction of man
from the brutes, we name it the conscience ;
by the natural absence or presumed presence
of which, the law, both divine and human,
determines whether X Y Z be a thing or a
person : — the conscience being that which
never to have had places the objects in the
same order of things as the brutes, for example,
idiots ; and to have lost which implies either
insanity or apostasy. Well — this we have af-
firmed is a fact of which every honest man is as
fully assured as of his seeing, hearing or smell-
ing. But though the former assurance does
not differ from the latter in the degree, it is
altogether diverse in the kind ; the senses being
morally passive, while the conscience is essen-
tially connected with the will, though not
always, nor indeed in any case, except after
frequent attempts and aversions of will, de-
pendent on the choice. Thence we call the
presentations of the senses impressions, those
of the conscience commands or dictates. In
the senses we find our receptivity, and as far
as our personal being is concerned, we are
passive ; — but in the fact of the conscience we
are not only agents, but it is by this alone, that
B8SA1 OH i M ill. I'27
we know ourselves to be such; nay, that our
\<i\ pa — >i\eness in this latter is an act of
passiveness, and that we are patient (patientes)
— not, as in the other case, simply passive.
The result is, the consciousness of respon-
sibility ; and the proof is afforded by the
inward experience of the diversity between
i _ret and re mors* .
[f I have sound ears, and my companion
-peaks to nic with a due proportion of voice, 1
ma\ persuade him that 1 did not hear, but
cannot deceive myself. J3ut when mv con-
ience speaks to me, I can, by repeated efforts,
under myself finally insensible ; to which add
this other dilference in the case of conscience,
namely, that to make myself deaf is one and
the same thing with making my conscience
dumb, till at length 1 become unconscious of
mv conscience. Frequent are the instances
in w Inch it is suspended, and as it were drowned,
in the inundation of the appetites, passions
and imaginations, to which I have resigned
myself, making use of mj will in order to
abandon my free-will ; and there are not, I
fear, examples wanting of the conscience
being utterly destroyed, or of the passage of
wickedness into madness ; — that species of
madness, namely, in which the reason i> lost.
Tor so long as the reason continues, so long
must the conscience exist eitlu r a- a good
( onscience, or a- a bad consciem i
It appears then, that even the very first step,
4'2H ESSAY ON FAITH.
that the initiation of the process, the becoming
conscious of a conscience, partakes of the na-
ture of an act. It is an act, in and by which
we take upon ourselves an allegiance, and con-
sequently the obligation of fealty ; and this
fealty or fidelity implying the power of being
unfaithful, it is the first and fundamental
sense of Faith. It is likewise the commence-
ment of experience, and the result of all other
experience. In other words, conscience, in
this its simplest form, must be supposed in
order to consciousness, that is, to human con-
sciousness. Brutes may be, and are scions, but
those beings only, who have an I, scire possunt
hoc vel Mud una cum seipsis ; that is, conscire
vel scire a liquid mecum, or to know a thing in
relation to myself, and in the act of knowing
myself as acted upon by that something.
Now the third person could never have been
distinguished from the first but by means of
the second. There can be no He without a
previous Thou. Much less could an I exist
for us, except as it exists during the suspen-
sion of the will, as in dreams ; and the nature
of brutes may be best understood, by conceiv-
ing them as somnambulists. This is a deep
meditation, though the position is capable of
the strictest proof, — namely, that there can be
no I without a Thou, and that a Thou is only
possible by an equation in which I is taken
as equal to Thou, and yet not the same. And
this again is only possible by putting them in
ES8A1 us PA1 in. 429
opposition sua correspondent opposites, or corre-
latives. In order to this, a something must be
affirmed in the one, which is rejected in theother,
and this something is the will. 1 do not will to
consider myself as equal to myself, for in the
very acl of constituting myself /. 1 take it us
the same, and therefore as incapable <>t' com-
parison, that is of an) application of the will,
[fthen, 1 minus the will be the thesis;* Thou
ftlus will must be the antithesis, but the equa-
tion of Thou with I, by means of a free act,
negativing the sameness in order to establish
the equality, is the true definition of conscience.
But as without a Tlion there can be no You,
so without a You no They, These or Those ;
and as all these conjointly form the materials
and subjects of consciousness, and the condi-
tions of experience, it is evident that the con.
' There are four kinds of Theses, titntic, putting's or placings.
1. Prothesis.
2. Thesis. 3. Antithesis.
A. Sy/ithesis.
A. and B. are said to he thesis and antithesis, when if A. be
the thesis, B. is the antithesis to A., and if B. he made the
thesis, then A. becomes the antithesis. Thus making me the
thf-sis, vi. u are thou to me, hut making you tin; thesis, I become
thou to you. Synthesis is a putting together of the two, 60
that a third something is generated. Thus the synthesis of
hydrogen and oxygen is water, a third something, neither
hydrogen or oxvgen. But the blade of a knife and its handle
when put together do not form a synthesis, but still remain
a blade and a handle. Ami U a tynthesii i> a unity that
reaolts from the anion of two things, >o a prothesis ia a primary
unity that gives itself forth into two thin.
430 ESSAY ON FAITH.
science is the root of all consciousness, — a
fortiori, the precondition of all experience,-
and that the conscience cannot have been in
its first revelation deduced from experience.
Soon, however, experience comes into play.
We learn that there are other impulses beside
the dictates of conscience ; that there are
powers within us and without us ready to
usurp the throne of conscience, and busy in
tempting us to transfer our allegiance. We
learn that there are many things contrary to
conscience, and therefore to be rejected, and
utterly excluded, and many that can coexist
with its supremacy only by being subjugated,
as beasts of burthen ; and others again, as, for
instance, the social tendernesses and affections,
and the faculties and excitations of the intel-
lect, which must be at least subordinated. The
preservation of our loyalty and fealty under
these trials and against these rivals constitutes
the second sense of Faith ; and we shall need
but one more point of view to complete its full
import. This is the consideration of what is
presupposed in the human conscience. The
answer is ready. As in the equation of the
correlative I and Thou, one of the twin consti-
tuents is to be taken as plus will, the other as
minus will, so is it here : and it is obvious that
the reason or swper-individital of each man,
whereby he is man, is the factor we are to take
as minus will ; and that the individual will
or personalizing principle of free agency (arbi-
i vs v\ o\ i \i i ii. 431
trement is .Milton's word is the factor marked
plus will ; — and again, that as the identity 01
coinherence of the absolute will and the rea-
son, is the peculiar character of God ; so i> tli«
synthesis of the individual will and the common
reason, by the subordination of the former to
the latter, the on]} possible likem ss or image of
the prothesis, or identity, and therefore the re-
quired proper character of man. Conscience,
then, is a witness respecting the identity of the
will and the reason effected l>v the self-subor-
dination of the will, <>r sell", to the reason, as
equal to, <>r representing, the will of God.
But the persona] « ill is a factor in other moral
syntheses; for example, appetite plus personal
will = sensuality ; lust of power, plus personal
will, = ambition, and so on, equally as in the
synthesis, on which the conscience is grounded.
Net this therefore, bul the other synthesis, must
snpph the specific character of the conscience;
and we must enter into an analysis of reason.
Sin h as the nature and objects of the reason
are, such must be the functions and objects of
the conscience. And the form* r we shall best
learn by recapitulating those constituents of
the total man which are either contrary to, or
disparate from, the reason.
I. ReaSOD, and the proper objects of reason,
are wholly alien from sensation. Reason is
supersensnal, and its antagonist is appetite,
and the objects <>f appetite the lust of the
flesh.
43*2 ESSAY ON FAITH.
II. Reason and its objects do not appertain
to the world of the senses inward or outward ;
that is, they partake not of sense or fancy.
Reason is super-sensuous, and here its anta-
gonist is the lust of the eye.
III. Reason and its objects are not things of
reflection, association, discursion, discourse in
ihe old sense of the word as opposed to intui-
tion ; " discursive or intuitive," as Milton has
it. Reason does not indeed necessarily ex-
clude the finite, either in time or in space,
but it includes them eminenier. Thus the
prime mover of the material universe is affirmed
to contain all motion as its cause, but not to
be, or to suffer, motion in itself.
Reason is not the faculty of the finite. But
here I must premise the following. The faculty
of the finite is that which reduces the con-
fused impressions of sense to their essential
forms, — quantity, quality, relation, and in these
action and reaction, cause and effect, and the
like ; thus raises the materials furnished by
the senses and sensations into objects of reflec-
tion, and so makes experience possible. With-
out it, mans representative powers would be
a delirium, a chaos, a scudding cloudage of
shapes ; and it is therefore most appropriately
called the understanding, or substantiative
faculty. Our elder metaphysicians, down to
Hobbes inclusively, called this likewise dis-
course, discursus, discursio, from its mode of
action as not staying at any one object, but
running as it were to and fro to abstract, gene-
ESS V> »»\ i Mill. 133
ralize, and classify. .Now when tliis faculty
i- employed in the service of the pure reason,
it brings out the necessary and universal truths
contained in the infinite into distinct contem-
plation by the pure act of the sensuous imagi-
nation, that is. in the production of the forms
of space and time abstracted from all corporeity,
and likew ise of the inherent forms of the under-
standing itself abstractedly from the consider-
atiou of particulars, as in the case of geometry,
numeral mathematics, universal logic, and pure
metaphysics. The discursive faculty then be-
comes what our Shakspeare with happy pre-
cision calls " discourse of reason."'
We will now take up our reasoning again
from the words " motion in itself."
It is evident then, that the reason, as the
inadiative power, and the representative of
the infinite, judges the understanding as the
faculty of the finite, and cannot without error
be judged by it. When this is attempted, or
when the understanding in its synthesis with
the personal will, usurps the supremacy of the
reason, or affects to supersede the reason, it is
then what St. Paul (alls the mind of the flesh
(^oovr^m aapKog) or the wisdom of this world.
The result i>. that the reason is super-finite;
and in this relation, its antagonist is the in-
subordinate understanding, or mind of the
flesh.
IV. Reason, as one with the absolute will,
(/;/ the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos
VOL. IV. F K
434 ESSAY ON FAITH.
was with God, and the Logos was God,) and
therefore for man the certain representative of
the will of God, is above the will of man as an
individual will. We have seen in III. that it
stands in antagonism to all mere particulars;
but here it stands in antagonism to all mere
individual interests as so many selves, to the
personal will as seeking its objects in the ma-
nifestation of itself for itself — sit pro ratione
voluntas; — whether this be realized with ad-
juncts, as in the lust of the flesh, and in the
lust of the eye ; or without adjuncts, as in the
thirst and pride of power, despotism, egoistic
ambition. The fourth antagonist, then, of rea-
son is the lust of the will.
Corollary. Unlike a million of tigers, a
million of men is very different from a million
times one man. Each man in a numerous
society is not only coexistent with, but virtu-
ally organized into, the multitude of which he
is an integral part. His idem is modified by
the alter. And there arise impulses and objects
from this synthesis of the alter et idem, myself
and my neighbour. This, again, is strictly
analogous to what takes place in the vital
organization of the individual man. The
cerebral system of nerves has its correspondent
antithesis in the abdominal system : but hence
arises a synthesis of the two in the pectoral
system as the intermediate, and, like a draw-
bridge, at once conductor and boundary. In
the latter as objectized by the former arise
the emotions, affections, and in one word, the
I B8A> ON I \l I II. I*)-*'
passions, as distinguished from the cognitions
and appetiu b. No* the reason has been shown
to be Buper-individual, generally, and therefore
not less bo when the form of an individualiza-
tion subsists in the alter, than when it is con-
fined to the idem; not less when the emotions
have tlirir conscious or believed object in ano-
ther, than when their subject is the individual
persona] self. For though these emotions, affec-
tions, attachments, and the like, are the pre-
pared ladder by which the lower nature is
taken np into, and made to partake of, tin
highest room, — as we are taught to give a feeling
of reality to the higher per medium commune
with the lower, and thus gradually to see the
reality of the higher (namely, the objects of
reason) and finally to know that the latter are
indeed and pre-eminently real, as if you love
your earthly parents whom you see, by these
means you will learn to love your Heavenly
Father who is invisible ;— yet this holds good
only so far as the reason is the president, and
its objects the ultimate aim; and cases may
arise in which the Christ as the Logos or
Redemptive Reason declares, He that loves
father or mother more tlaut me, is not worthy of'
me; nay, he that can permit his emotions to
rise to an equality with the universal reason,
is in enmity with that reason. Here then
reason appears as the love of God; and its
antagonist is the attachment to individuals
wherever it exists in diminution of, or in com-
petition with, the love which is reason.
436 ESSAY ON FAITH.
Iii these five paragraphs I have enumerated
and explained the several powers or forces
belonging or incidental to human nature, which
in all matters of reason the man is bound
either to subjugate or subordinate to reason.
The application to Faith follows of its own
accord. The first or most indefinite sense of
faith is fidelity : then fidelity under previous
contract or particular moral obligation. In
this sense faith is fealty to a rightful superior :
faith is the duty of a faithful subject to a
rightful governor. Then it is allegiance in
active service ; fidelity to the liege lord under
circumstances, and amid the temptations, of
usurpation, rebellion, and intestine discord.
Next we seek for that rightful superior on our
duties to whom all our duties to all other
superiors, on our faithfulness to whom all
our bou 11 den relations to all other objects of
fidelity, are founded. We must inquire after
that duty in which all others find their several
degrees and dignities, and from which they
derive their obligative force. We are to find
a superior, whose rights, including our duties,
are presented to the mind in the very idea of
that Supreme Being, whose sovereign prero-
gatives are predicates implied in the subjects,
as the essential properties of a circle are co-
assumed in the first assumption of a circle,
consequently underived, unconditional, and as
rationally insusceptible, so probably prohibi-
tive, of all further question. In this sense
then faith is fidelity, fealty, allegiance of the
i 98 l\ ON i MTU. -1-57
moral nature i«» God, in opposition to all usur-
pation, and in resistance to all temptation to
the placing any other claim above or equal
with our fidelity to ( lod.
The will of God is the last ground and final
aim oi' all our duties, and to that the whole
man is to be harmonized by subordination,
subjugation, or suppression alike in commis-
sion and omission. But the will of God, which
is one with the supreme intelligence, is re-
vealed to man through the conscience. But
the conscience, which consists in an inappel-
lable bearine-witness to the truth and reality
of our reason, may legitimately be construed
with the term reason, so far as the conscience
is prescriptive ; while as approving or con-
demning, it is the consciousness of the subor-
dination or insubordination, the harmony or dis-
cord, of the personal will of man to and with the
representative of the will of God. This brings
me to the last and fullest sense of Faith, that
is, as the obedience of the individual will to
the reason, in the lust of the flesh as opposed
to the supersensual ; in the lust of the eye as
opposed to the supcrsensuous ; in the pride of
the understanding as opposed to the infinite, in
the <pp6viina trapKoq in contrariety to the spi-
ritual truth ; in the lust of the personal will as
opposed to the absolute and universal ; and in
the love of the creature, as far as it is opposed
to the love which is one with the reason,
namely, the love of God.
Tims then to conclude. Faith subsists in
438 ESSAY ON FAITH.
the synthesis of the reason and the individual
will. By virtue of the latter therefore it must
be an energy, and inasmuch as it relates to
the whole moral man, it must be exerted in
each and all of his constituents or incidents,
faculties and tendencies ; — it must be a total,
not a partial ; a continuous, not a desultory or
occasional energy. And by virtue of the for-
mer, that is, reason, faith must be a light, a
form of knowing, a beholding of truth. In
the incomparable words of the Evangelist,
therefore — -faith must be a light originating in
the Logos, or the substantial reason, which is
coeternal and one with the Holy Will, and ivhich
light is at the same time the life of men. Now
as life is here the sum or collective of all moral
and spiritual acts, in suffering, doing, and
being, so is faith the source and the sum, the
energy and the principle of the fidelity of man
to God, by the subordination of his human
will, in all provinces of his nature to his rea-
son, as the sum of spiritual truth, representing
and manifesting the will Divine.
END OK VOL. IV
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