Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end. Blessed were those days, when every man thought himself rich and fortunate by good success of the public wealth and glory. We want public souls, we want them. I speak it with compassion: there is no sin and abuse in the world that affects my thought so much. Every man thinks, that he is a whole Commonwealth in his private family. _Omnes quæ sua sunt quærunt._ All seek their own.[69]

COMMENT.

Selfishness is common to all ages and countries. In all ages Self-seeking is the Rule, and Self-sacrifice the Exception. But if to seek our private advantage in harmony with, and by the furtherance of, the public prosperity, and to derive a portion of our happiness from sympathy with the prosperity of our fellow-men--if this be Public Spirit, it would be morose and querulous to pretend that there is any want of it in this country and at the present time. On the contrary, the number of "public souls" and the general readiness to contribute to the public good, in science and in religion, in patriotism and in philanthropy, stand prominent[70] among the characteristics of this and the preceding generation. The habit of referring actions and opinions to fixed laws; convictions rooted in principles; thought, insight, system;--these, had the good Bishop lived in our times, would have been his _desiderata_, and the theme of his complaints.--"We want _thinking_ Souls, we _want them_."

This and the three preceding extracts will suffice as precautionary Aphorisms. And here again, the reader may exemplify the great advantages to be obtained from the habit of tracing the _proper_ meaning and history of words. We need only recollect the common and idiomatic phrases in which the word "spirit" occurs in a physical or material sense (as, fruit has lost its _spirit_ and flavour), to be convinced that its property is to improve, enliven, actuate some other thing, not to constitute a thing in its own name. The enthusiast may find one exception to this where the material itself is called _Spirit_. And when he calls to mind, how _this_ spirit acts when taken _alone_ by the unhappy persons who in their first exultation will boast that it is meat, drink, fire, and clothing to them, all in one--when he reflects, that its properties are to inflame, intoxicate, madden, with exhaustion, lethargy, and atrophy for the sequels--well for him, if in some lucid interval he should fairly put the question to his own mind, how far this is _analogous_ to his own case, and whether the exception does not confirm the rule. The _Letter_ without the Spirit killeth; but does it follow, that the Spirit is to kill the Letter? To kill that which it is its appropriate office to enliven?

However, where the Ministry is not invaded, and the plain sense of the Scriptures is left undisturbed, and the Believer looks for the suggestions of the Spirit only or chiefly in applying particular passages to his own individual case and exigences; though in this there may be much weakness, some delusion and imminent danger of more, I cannot but join with Henry More in avowing, that I feel knit to such a man in the bonds of a common faith far more closely, than to those who receive neither the Letter nor the Spirit, turning the one into metaphor, and oriental hyperbole, in order to explain away the other into the influence of motives suggested by their own understandings, and realized by their own strength.

[69] Hacket's Sermons, p. 449.--ED.

[70] The very marked _positive_ as well as comparative, magnitude and prominence of the bump, entitled BENEVOLENCE (_see Spurzheim's Map of the Human Skull_) on the head of the late Mr. John Thurtel, has woefully unsettled the faith of many ardent Phrenologists, and strengthened the previous doubts of a still greater number into utter disbelief. On MY mind this fact (for a _fact_ it is) produced the directly contrary effect; and inclined me to suspect, for the first time, that there may be some truth in the Spurzheimian Scheme. Whether future Craniologists may not see cause to _new-name_ this and one or two other of these convex gnomons, is quite a different question. At present, and according to the present use of words, any such change would be premature; and we must be content to say, that Mr. Thurtel's Benevolence was insufficiently modified by the unprotrusive and unindicated convolutes of the brain, that secrete honesty and common-sense. The organ of Destructiveness was indirectly _potentiated_ by the absence or imperfect development of the glands of Reason and Conscience in this, "_unfortunate Gentleman_!"

APHORISMS

ON THAT

WHICH IS INDEED SPIRITUAL RELIGION.

In the selection of the extracts that form the remainder of this volume and of the comments affixed, I had the following objects principally in view:--first, to exhibit the true and scriptural meaning and intent of several Articles of Faith, that are rightly classed among the Mysteries and peculiar Doctrines of Christianity:--secondly, to show the perfect rationality of these Doctrines, and their freedom from all just objection when examined by their proper organs, the Reason and Conscience of Man:--lastly, to exhibit from the works of Leighton, who perhaps of all our learned Protestant Theologians best deserves the title of a Spiritual Divine, an instructive and affecting picture of the contemplations, reflections, conflicts, consolations and monitory experiences of a philosophic and richly-gifted mind, amply stored with all the knowledge that books and long intercourse with men of the most discordant characters could give, under the convictions, impressions, and habits of a Spiritual Religion.

To obviate a possible disappointment in any of my readers, who may chance to be engaged in theological studies, it may be well to notice, that in vindicating the peculiar tenets of our Faith, I have not entered on the Doctrine of the Trinity, or the still profounder Mystery of the Origin of Moral Evil--and this for the reasons following. 1. These Doctrines are not (strictly speaking) subjects of _Reflection_, in the proper sense of this word: and both of them demand a power and persistency of Abstraction, and a previous discipline in the highest forms of human thought, which it would be unwise, if not presumptuous, to expect from any, who require "_Aids_ to Reflection," or would be likely to seek them in the present work. 2. In my intercourse with men of various ranks and ages, I have found the far larger number of serious and inquiring persons little, if at all, disquieted by doubts respecting Articles of Faith, that are simply above their comprehension. It is only where the belief required of them jars with their _moral_ feelings; where a doctrine in the sense, in which they have been taught to receive it, appears to contradict their clear notions of right and wrong, or to be at variance with the divine attributes of goodness and justice; that these men are surprised, perplexed, and alas! not seldom offended and alienated. Such are the Doctrines of Arbitrary Election and Reprobation; the Sentence to everlasting Torment by an eternal and necessitating decree; vicarious Atonement, and the necessity of the Abasement, Agony and ignominious Death of a most holy and meritorious Person, to appease the wrath of God. Now it is more especially for such persons, unwilling sceptics, who believing earnestly ask help for their unbelief, that this volume was compiled, and the comments written: and therefore to the Scripture Doctrines, _intended_ by the above-mentioned, my principal attention has been directed.

But lastly, the whole Scheme of the Christian Faith, including _all_ the Articles of Belief common to the Greek and Latin, the Roman, and the Protestant Churches, with the threefold proof, that it is _ideally_, _morally_, and _historically_ true, will be found exhibited and vindicated in a proportionally larger work, the principal labour of my life since manhood, and which I am now preparing for the press under the title, 'Assertion of Religion, as necessarily _involving_ Revelation; and of Christianity, as the only Revelation of permanent and universal validity.'[71]

[71] A work left incomplete by Coleridge, and not yet given to the world.--ED.

APHORISM I.

LEIGHTON.

Where, if not in Christ, is the Power that can persuade a Sinner to return, that can _bring home a heart to God_?

Common mercies of God, though they have a leading faculty to repentance, (Rom. ii. 4.) yet, the rebellious heart will not be led by them. The judgments of God, public or personal, though they ought to drive us to God, yet the heart, unchanged, runs the further from God. Do we not see it by ourselves and other sinners about us? They look not at all towards Him who smites, much less do they return; or if any more serious thoughts of returning arise upon the surprise of an affliction, how soon vanish they, either the stroke abating, or the heart, by time, growing hard and senseless under it! Leave Christ out, I say, and all other means work not this way; neither the works nor the word of God sounding daily in his ear, _Return return_. Let the noise of the rod speak it too, and both join together to make the cry the louder, _yet the wicked will do wickedly_: Dan. xii. 10.

COMMENT.

By the phrase "in Christ," I understand all the supernatural aids vouchsafed and conditionally promised in the Christian dispensation; and among them the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot receive, were it only that the knowledge of _spiritual_ Truth is of necessity immediate and _intuitive_: and the World or Natural Man possesses no higher intuitions than those of the pure _Sense_, which are the subjects of _mathematical_ science. But _aids_, observe! Therefore, not _by_ Will of man alone; but neither _without_ the Will. The doctrine of modern Calvinism as laid down by Jonathan Edwards and the late Dr. Williams, which represents a Will absolutely passive, clay in the hands of a potter, destroys all Will, takes away its essence and definition, as effectually as in saying: This circle is square--I should deny the figure to be a circle at all. It was in strict consistency therefore, that these writers supported the Necessitarian scheme, and made the relation of Cause and Effect the Law of the Universe, subjecting to its mechanism the moral World no less than the material or physical. It follows, that all is Nature. Thus, though few writers use the term Spirit more frequently, they in effect deny its existence, and evacuate the term of all its proper meaning. With such a system not the wit of man nor all the Theodicies ever framed by human ingenuity before and since the attempt of the celebrated Leibnitz, can reconcile the Sense of Responsibility, nor the fact of the difference _in kind_ between REGRET AND REMORSE. The same compulsion of consequence drove the Fathers of Modern (or Pseudo-) Calvinism to the origination of Holiness in power, of Justice in right of Property, and whatever other outrages on the common sense and moral feelings of mankind they have sought to cover, under the fair name of _Sovereign Grace_.

I will not take on me to defend sundry harsh and inconvenient expressions in the works of Calvin. Phrases equally strong and assertions not less rash and startling are no rarities in the writings of Luther; for catachresis was the favourite figure of speech in that age. But let not the opinions of either on this most fundamental subject be confounded with the New England System, now entitled Calvinistic. The fact is simply this. Luther considered the pretensions to Free-will _boastful_, and better suited to the "budge doctors of the Stoic Fur," than to the preachers of the Gospel, whose great theme is the Redemption of the Will from Slavery; the restoration of the Will to perfect Freedom being the _end_ and consummation of the redemptive process, and the same with the entrance of the Soul into Glory, that is, its union with Christ: "GLORY" (_John_ xvii. 5.) being one of the names or tokens or symbols of the Spiritual Messiah. Prospectively to this we are to understand the words of our Lord. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me," John xiv. 20: the freedom of a finite will being possible under this condition only, that it has become one with the will of God. Now as the difference of a captive and enslaved Will, and _no_ Will at all, such is the difference between the _Lutheranism_ of Calvin and the Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards.

APHORISM II.

LEIGHTON.

There is nothing in religion farther out of Nature's reach, and more remote from the natural man's liking and believing, than the doctrine of Redemption by a Saviour, and by a crucified Saviour. It is comparatively easy to persuade men of the necessity of an amendment of conduct; it is more difficult to make them see the necessity of Repentance in the _Gospel_ sense, the necessity of a change in the _principle_ of action; but to convince men of the necessity of the Death of Christ is the most difficult of all. And yet the first is but varnish and white-wash without the second; and the second but a barren notion without the last. Alas! of those who admit the doctrine in words, how large a number evade it in fact, and empty it of all its substance and efficacy, making the effect the efficient cause, or attributing their election to Salvation to a supposed Foresight of their Faith and Obedience.--But it is most vain to imagine a faith in such and such men, which being foreseen by God, determined him to elect them for salvation: were it only that nothing at all is _future_, or can have this imagined _futurition_, but _as_ it is decreed, and _because_ it is decreed by God so to be.

COMMENT.

No impartial person, competently acquainted with the history of the Reformation, and the works of the earlier Protestant Divines, at home and abroad, even to the close of Elizabeth's reign, will deny that the doctrines of Calvin on Redemption and the natural state of fallen man, are in all essential points the same as those of Luther, Zuinglius, and the first Reformers collectively. These Doctrines have, however, since the re-establishment of the Episcopal Church at the return of Charles II., been as generally [72] exchanged for what is commonly entitled Arminianism, but which, taken as a complete and explicit Scheme of Belief, it would be both historically and theologically more accurate to call _Grotianism_, or Christianity according to Grotius. The change was not, we may readily believe, effected without a struggle. In the Romish Church this latitudinarian system, patronized by the Jesuits, was manfully resisted by Jansenius, Arnauld, and Pascal; in our own Church by the Bishops Davenant, Sanderson, Hall, and the Archbishops Usher and Leighton: and in the latter half of the preceding Aphorism the reader has a _specimen_ of the _reasonings_ by which Leighton strove to invalidate or counterpoise the _reasonings_ of the innovators.

Passages of this sort are, however, of rare occurrence in Leighton's works. Happily for thousands, he was more usefully employed in making his readers feel that the doctrines in question, _scripturally treated, and taken as co-organized parts of a great organic whole_, need no such reasonings. And better still would it have been, had he left them altogether for those, who severally detaching the great features of Revelation from the living context of Scripture, do by that very act destroy their life and purpose. And then, like the eyes of the Indian spider,[73] they become clouded microscopes, to exaggerate and distort all the other parts and proportions.--No offence then will be occasioned, I trust, by the frank avowal that I have given to the preceding passage a place among the Spiritual Aphorisms for the sake of the Comment: the following Remarks having been the first marginal note I had pencilled on Leighton's pages, and thus (remotely, at least) the occasion of the present work.

Leighton, I observed, throughout his inestimable work, avoids all metaphysical views of Election, relatively to God, and confines himself to the doctrine in its relation to Man: and in that sense too, in which every Christian may judge of it who strives to be sincere with his own heart. The following may, I think, be taken as a safe and useful Rule in religious inquiries. Ideas, that derive their origin and substance from the _Moral_ Being, and to the reception of which as true _objectively_ (that is, as corresponding to a _reality_ out of the human mind) we are determined by a _practical_ interest exclusively, may not, like theoretical or speculative Positions, be pressed onward into all their possible _logical_ consequences.[74] The Law of Conscience, and not the Canons of discursive Reasoning, must decide in such cases. At least, the latter have no validity, which the single _veto_ of the former is not sufficient to nullify. The most pious conclusion is here the most legitimate.

It is too seldom considered though most worthy of consideration, how far even those Ideas or Theories of pure Speculation, that bear the same name with the Objects of Religious Faith, are indeed the same. Out of the principles necessarily presumed in all discursive thinking, and which being, in the first place _universal_, and secondly, antecedent to every particular exercise of the understanding, are therefore referred to the reason, the human mind (wherever its powers are sufficiently developed, and its attention strongly directed to speculative or theoretical inquiries,) forms certain essences, to which for its own purposes it gives a sort of notional _subsistence_. Hence they are called _entia rationalia_: the conversion of which into _entia realia_, or real objects, by aid of the imagination, has in all times been the fruitful stock of empty theories, and mischievous superstitions, of surreptitious premises and extravagant conclusions. For as these substantiated notions were in many instances expressed by the same terms, as the objects of religious Faith; as in most instances they were applied, though deceptively, to the explanation of real experiences; and lastly, from the gratifications, which the pride and ambition of man received from the supposed extension of his knowledge and insight; it was too easily forgotten or overlooked, that the stablest and most indispensable of these notional beings were but the necessary _forms_ of thinking, taken abstractedly: and that like the breadthless lines, depthless surfaces, and perfect circles of geometry, they subsist wholly and solely in and for the mind, that contemplates them. Where the evidence of the senses fails us, and beyond the precincts of sensible experience, there is no _reality_ attributable to any notion, but what is given to it by Revelation, or the Law of Conscience, or the necessary interests of Morality.

Take an instance:

It is the office, and, as it were, the instinct of Reason to bring a unity into all our conceptions and several knowledges. On this all system depends; and without this we could reflect connectedly neither on nature nor our own minds. Now this is possible only on the assumption or hypothesis of a ONE as the ground and cause of the Universe, and which in all succession and through changes is the subject neither of Time nor Change. The ONE must be contemplated as Eternal and Immutable.

Well! the Idea, which is the basis of Religion, commanded by the Conscience and required by Morality, contains the same truths, or at least truths that can be expressed in no other terms; but this idea presents itself to our mind with additional attributes, and these too not formed by mere Abstraction and Negation--with the attributes of Holiness, Providence, Love, Justice, and Mercy. It comprehends, moreover, the independent (_extra-mundane_) existence and personality of the supreme ONE, as our Creator, Lord, and Judge.

The hypothesis of a _one_ Ground and Principle of the Universe (necessary as an _hypothesis_; but having only a _logical_ and _conditional_ necessity) is thus raised into the Idea of the LIVING GOD, the supreme Object of our Faith, Love, Fear, and Adoration. Religion and Morality do indeed constrain us to declare him Eternal and Immutable. But if from the Eternity of the Supreme Being a Reasoner should deduce the impossibility of a Creation; or conclude with Aristotle, that the Creation was co-eternal; or, like the latter Platonists, should turn Creation into _Emanation_, and make the universe proceed from Deity, as the Sunbeams from the Solar Orb;--or if from the divine Immutability he should infer, that all prayer and supplication must be vain and superstitious: then however evident and logically necessary such conclusions may appear, it is scarcely worth our while to examine, whether they are so or not. The positions themselves _must_ be false. For were they true, the Idea would lose the sole ground of its _reality_. It would be no longer the Idea intended by the Believer in _his_ premise--in the premise, with which alone Religion and Morality are concerned. The very subject of the discussion would be changed. It would no longer be the God in whom we _believe_; but a stoical FATE, or the superessential ONE of Plotinus, to whom neither Intelligence, nor Self-consciousness, nor Life, nor even _Being_ can be attributed; nor lastly, the world itself, the indivisible one and only substance (_substantia una et unica_) of Spinoza, of which all _phænomena_, all particular and individual things, lives, minds, thoughts, and actions are but modifications.

Let the believer never be alarmed by objections wholly speculative, however plausible on speculative grounds such objections may appear, if he can but satisfy himself, that the _result_ is repugnant to the dictates of conscience, and irreconcilable with the interests of morality. For to baffle the objector we have only to demand of him, by what right and under what authority he converts a thought into a substance, or asserts the existence of a real somewhat corresponding to a notion not derived from the experience of his senses. It will be of no purpose for him to answer, that it is a _legitimate_ notion. The _notion_ may have its mould in the understanding; but its realization must be the work of the FANCY.

A reflecting reader will easily apply these remarks to the subject of Election, one of the stumbling stones in the ordinary conceptions of the Christian Faith, to which the infidel points in scorn, and which far better men pass by in silent perplexity. Yet surely, from mistaken conceptions of the doctrine, I suppose the person, with whom I am arguing, already so far a believer, as to have convinced himself, both that a state of enduring bliss is attainable under certain conditions; and that these conditions consist in his compliance with the directions given and rules prescribed in the Christian Scriptures. These rules he likewise admits to be such, that, by the very law and constitution of the human mind, a full and faithful compliance with them cannot but have _consequences_, of some sort or other. But these _consequences_ are moreover distinctly described, enumerated, and promised in the same Scriptures, in which the conditions are recorded; and though some of them may be apparent to God only, yet the greater number of them are of such a nature that they cannot exist unknown to the individual, in and for whom they exist. As little possible is it, that he should find these consequences in himself, and not find in them the sure marks and the safe pledges, that he is at the time in the right road to the Life promised under these conditions. Now I dare assert, that no such man, however fervent his charity, and however deep his humility may be, can peruse the records of History with a reflecting spirit, or look round the world with an observant eye, and not find himself compelled to admit, that _all_ men are _not_ on the right road. He cannot help judging, that even in Christian countries, many, a fearful many! have not their faces turned toward it.

This then is a mere matter of fact. Now comes the question. Shall the believer, who thus hopes on the appointed _grounds_ of hope, attribute this distinction exclusively to his own resolves and strivings? or if not exclusively, yet primarily and principally? Shall he refer the first movements and preparations to his own Will and Understanding, and bottom his claim to the promises on his own comparative excellence? If not, if no man dare take this honour to himself, to whom shall he assign it, if not to that Being in whom the promise originated, and on whom its fulfilment depends? If he stop here, who shall blame him? By what argument shall his reasoning be invalidated, that might not be urged with equal force against any essential difference between obedient and disobedient, Christian and worldling? that would not imply that both _sorts_ alike are, in the sight of God, the Sons of God by adoption? If he stop here, I say, who shall drive him from his position? For thus far he is practically concerned--this the Conscience requires, this the highest interests of Morality demand. It is a question of facts, of the will and the deed, to argue against which on the abstract notions and possibilities of the speculative reason, is as unreasonable, as an attempt to decide a question of colours by pure Geometry, or to unsettle the classes and specific characters of Natural History by the Doctrine of Fluxions.

But if the self-examinant will abandon this position, and exchange the safe circle of Religion and practical Reason for the shifting sand-wastes and _mirages_ of Speculative Theology; if instead of seeking after the _marks_ of Election in himself he undertakes to determine the ground and origin, the possibility and mode of election itself _in relation to God_;--in this case, and whether he does it for the satisfaction of curiosity, or from the ambition of answering those, who would call God himself to account, why and by what right certain souls were born in Africa instead of England:--or why (seeing that it is against all reason and goodness to choose a worse, when being omnipotent He could have created a better) God did not create beasts men, and men angels:--or why God created any men but with fore-knowledge of their obedience, and left any occasion for Election?--in this case, I say, we can only regret, that the inquirer had not been better instructed in the nature, the bounds, the true purposes and proper objects of his intellectual faculties, and that he had not previously asked himself, by what appropriate sense, or organ of knowledge, he hoped to secure an insight into a Nature which was neither an object of his senses, nor a part of his self-consciousness; and so leave him to ward off shadowy spears with the shadow of a shield, and to retaliate the nonsense of blasphemy with the _abracadabra_ of presumption. He that will fly without wings must fly in his dreams: and till he awakes, will not find out, that to fly in a dream is but to dream of flying.

Thus then the doctrine of Election is in itself a necessary inference from an undeniable fact--necessary at least for all who hold that the best of men are what they are through the grace of God. In relation to the believer it is a _hope_, which if it spring out of Christian principles, be examined by the tests and nourished by the means prescribed in Scripture, will become a _lively_, an _assured_ hope, but which cannot in this life pass into _knowledge_, much less certainty of fore-knowledge. The contrary belief does indeed make the article of Election both tool and parcel of a mad and mischievous fanaticism. But with what force and clearness does not the Apostle confute, disclaim, and prohibit the pretence, treating it as a downright contradiction in terms! See Romans viii. 24.

But though I hold the doctrine handled as Leighton handles it (that is practically, morally, _humanly_) rational, safe, and of essential importance, I see many[75] reasons resulting from the peculiar circumstances, under which St. Paul preached and wrote, why a discreet minister of the Gospel should avoid the frequent use of the _term_, and express the _meaning_ in other words perfectly equivalent and equally Scriptural; lest in _saying_ truth he may convey error.

Had my purpose been confined to one particular tenet, an apology might be required for so long a Comment. But the reader will, I trust, have already perceived, that my object has been to establish a general rule of interpretation and vindication applicable to _all_ doctrinal tenets, and especially to the (so called) mysteries of the Christian Faith: to provide a _Safety-lamp_ for religious inquirers. Now this I find in the principle, that all Revealed Truths are to be judged of by us, as far as they are possible subjects of human conception, or grounds of practice, or in some way connected with our moral and spiritual interests. In order to have a reason _for_ forming a judgment on any given article, we must be sure that we possess a reason, by and according to which a judgment may be formed. Now in respect of all Truths, to which a _real_ independent existence is assigned, and which yet are not contained in, or to be imagined under, any form of space or time, it is strictly demonstrable, that the human reason, considered abstractly, as the source of positive _science_ and theoretical _insight_, is _not_ such a reason. At the utmost, it has only a _negative_ voice. In other words, nothing can be allowed as true for the human mind, which directly contradicts this reason. But even here, before we admit the existence of any such contradiction, we must be careful to ascertain, that there is no equivocation in play, that two different subjects are not confounded under one and the same word. A striking instance of this has been adduced in the difference between the notional ONE of the Ontologists, and the idea of the Living God.

But if not the abstract or speculative reason, and yet a reason there must be in order to a rational belief--then it must be the _practical_ reason of man, comprehending the Will, the Conscience, the Moral Being with its inseparable Interests and Affections--that Reason, namely, which is the Organ of _Wisdom_, and (as far as man is concerned) the source of living and actual Truths.

From these premises we may further deduce, that every doctrine is to be interpreted in reference to those, to whom it has been revealed, or who have or have had the means of knowing or hearing the same. For instance: the Doctrine that _there is no name under Heaven, by which a man can be saved, but the name of Jesus_. If the word here rendered _name_, may be understood (as it well may, and as in other texts it must be) as meaning the Power, or originating Cause, I see no objection on the part of the practical reason to our belief of the declaration in its whole extent. It is true universally or not true at all. If there be any redemptive Power not contained in the Power of Jesus, then Jesus is not _the_ Redeemer: not the Redeemer of the _World_, not the Jesus (_i.e._ Saviour) of man_kind_. But if with Tertullian and Augustine we make the Text assert the condemnation and misery of all who are not Christians by Baptism and explicit belief in the Revelation of the New Covenant--then I say, the doctrine is true _to all intents and purposes_. It is true, in every respect, in which any practical, moral, or spiritual interest or end can be connected with its truth. It is true in respect to every man who has had, or who might have had, the Gospel preached to him. It is true and obligatory for every Christian community and for every individual believer, wherever the opportunity is afforded of spreading the _Light_ of the Gospel, and making _known_ the name of the only Saviour and Redeemer. For even though the uninformed Heathens should _not_ perish, the _guilt_ of their perishing will attach to those who not only had no certainty of their safety, but who are commanded to _act_ on the supposition of the contrary. But if, on the other hand, a theological dogmatist should attempt to persuade me, that this text was intended to give us an historical knowledge of God's future actions and dealings--and for the gratification of our curiosity to inform us, that Socrates and Phocion, together with all the savages in the woods and wilds of Africa and America, will be sent to keep company with the devil and his angels in everlasting torments--I should remind him, that the purpose of Scripture was to teach us our duty, not to enable us to sit in judgment on the souls of our fellow creatures.

One other instance will, I trust, prevent all misconception of my meaning. I am clearly convinced, that the scriptural and only true[76] Idea of God will, in its development, be found to involve the Idea of the Tri-unity. But I am likewise convinced, that previously to the promulgation of the Gospel the doctrine had no claim on the faith of mankind; though it might have been a legitimate contemplation for a speculative philosopher, a theorem in metaphysics valid in the Schools.

I form a certain notion in my mind, and say:--This is what _I_ understand by the term, God. From books and conversation I find, that the learned generally connect the same notion with the same word. I then apply the rules, laid down by the masters of logic, for the involution and evolution of terms, and prove (to as many as agree with me in my premises) that the notion, God, involves the notion, Trinity. I now pass out of the Schools, and enter into discourse with some friend or neighbour, unversed in the _formal_ sciences, unused to the process of abstraction, neither Logician nor Metaphysician; but sensible and single-minded, _an Israelite indeed_, trusting in _the Lord God of his Fathers, even the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob_. If I speak of God to _him_, what will _he_ understand me to be speaking of? What does he mean, and suppose me to mean, by the word? An accident or product of the reasoning faculty, or an abstraction which the human mind forms by reflecting on its own thoughts and forms of thinking? No. By God he understands me to mean an existing and self-subsisting reality,[77] a real and personal Being--even the _Person_, the I AM, who sent Moses to his forefathers in Egypt. Of the actual existence of the divine Being he has the same historical assurance as of theirs; confirmed indeed by the Book of Nature, as soon and as far as that stronger and better light has taught him to read and construe it--confirmed by it, I say, but not derived from it. Now by what right can I require this man (and of such men the great majority of serious believers consisted, previously to the light of the Gospel) to receive a _notion_ of mine, wholly alien from his habits of thinking, because it may be logically deduced from another notion, with which he was almost as little acquainted, and not at all concerned? Grant for a moment, that the latter (that is, the notion, with which I first set out) as soon as it is combined with the assurance of a corresponding Reality becomes identical with the true and effective Idea of God! Grant, that in thus _realizing_ the notion I am warranted by Revelation, the Law of Conscience, and the interests and necessities of my Moral Being! Yet by what authority, by what inducement, am I entitled to attach the same reality to a second notion, a notion drawn from a notion? It is evident, that if I have the same right, it must be on the same grounds. Revelation must have assured it, my Conscience required it--or in some way or other I must have an _interest_ in this belief. It must _concern_ me, as a moral and responsible Being. Now these grounds were first given in the Redemption of Mankind by Christ, the Saviour and Mediator: and by the utter incompatibility of these offices with a mere creature. On the doctrine of Redemption depends the _Faith_, the _Duty_, of believing in the Divinity of our Lord. And this again is the strongest Ground for the reality of that Idea, in which alone this Divinity can be received without breach of the faith in the unity of the Godhead. But such is the Idea of the Trinity. Strong as the motives are that induce me to defer the full discussion of this great Article of the Christian creed, I cannot withstand the request of several divines, whose situation and extensive services entitle them to the utmost deference, that I should so far deviate from my first intention as at least to indicate the point on which I stand, and to prevent the misconception of my purpose: as if I held the doctrine of the Trinity for a truth which Men could be called on to believe by mere force of reasoning, independently of any positive _Revelation_. In short, it had been reported in certain circles, that I considered this doctrine as a demonstrable part of the Religion of Nature. Now though it might be sufficient to say, that I regard the very phrase "_Revealed_ Religion" as a pleonasm, inasmuch as a religion not revealed is, in my judgment, no religion at all; I have no objection to announce more particularly and distinctly what I do and what I do not maintain on this point: provided that in the following paragraph, with this view inserted, the reader will look for nothing more than a plain _statement_ of my opinions. The grounds on which they rest, and the arguments by which they are to be vindicated, are for another place.

I hold then, it is true, that all the (so called) demonstrations of a God either prove too little, as that from the order and apparent purpose in Nature; or too much, namely, that the World is itself God: or they clandestinely involve the conclusion in the premises, passing off the mere analysis or explication of an Assertion for the Proof of it,--a species of logical legerdemain not unlike that of the jugglers at a fair, who putting into their mouths what seems to be a walnut, draw out a score yards of ribbon--as in the Postulate of a First Cause. And lastly, in all these demonstrations the demonstrators presuppose the Idea or Conception of a God without being able to authenticate it, that is, to give an account whence they obtained it. For it is clear, that the proof first mentioned and the most natural and convincing of all (the Cosmological I mean, or that from the Order in Nature) presupposes the Ontological--that is, the proof of a God from the necessity and necessary _Objectivity_ of the Idea. _If_ the latter can assure us of a God as an existing Reality, the former will go far to prove his power, wisdom, and benevolence. All this I hold. But I also hold, that this truth, the hardest to demonstrate, is the one which of all others least needs to be demonstrated; that though there may be no conclusive demonstrations of a good, wise, living, and personal God, there are so many convincing reasons for it, within and without--a grain of sand sufficing, and a whole universe at hand to echo the decision!--that for every mind not devoid of all reason, and desperately conscience-proof, the Truth which it is the least possible to prove, it is little less than impossible not to believe! only indeed just so much short of impossible, as to leave some room for the will and the moral election, and thereby to keep it a truth of Religion, and the possible subject of a Commandment.[80]

On this account I do not demand of a _Deist_, that he should adopt the doctrine of the Trinity. For he might very well be justified in replying, that he rejected the doctrine, _not_ because it could not be _demonstrated_, nor yet on the score of any incomprehensibilities and seeming contradictions that might be objected to it, as knowing that these might be, and in fact had been, urged with equal force against a personal God under any form capable of love and veneration; _but_ because he had not the same theoretical necessity, the same interests and instincts of reason for the one hypothesis as for the other. It is not enough, the Deist might justly say, that there is no cogent reason why I should _not_ believe the Trinity; you must show me some cogent reason why I _should_.

But the case is quite different with a Christian, who accepts the Scriptures as the Word of God, yet refuses his assent to the plainest declarations of these Scriptures, and explains away the most express texts into metaphor and hyperbole, _because_ the literal and obvious interpretation is (according to _his_ notions) absurd and contrary to reason. _He_ is bound to show, that it is so in any sense, not equally applicable to the texts asserting the Being, Infinity, and Personality of God the Father, the Eternal and Omnipresent ONE, who _created_ the Heaven and the Earth. And the more is he bound to do this, and the greater is my right to demand it of him, because the doctrine of Redemption from sin supplies the Christian with motives and reasons for the divinity of the Redeemer far more _concerning_ and coercive _subjectively_, that is, in the economy of his own soul, than are all the inducements that can influence the Deist _objectively_, that is, in the interpretation of Nature.

Do I then utterly exclude the speculative Reason from Theology? No! It is its office and rightful privilege to determine on the _negative_ truth of whatever we are required to believe. The Doctrine must not _contradict_ any universal principle: for this would be a Doctrine that contradicted itself. Or Philosophy? No. It may be and has been the servant and pioneer of Faith by convincing the mind, that a doctrine is cogitable, that the soul can present the _Idea_ to itself; and that _if_ we determine to contemplate, or _think_ of, the subject at all, so and in no other form can this be effected. So far are both logic and philosophy to be received and trusted. But the _duty_, and in some cases and for some persons even the _right_, of thinking on subjects beyond the bounds of sensible experience; the grounds of the _real_ truth; the _life_, the _substance_, the _hope_, the _love_, in one word, the _Faith_: these are Derivatives from the practical, moral, and spiritual Nature and Being of Man.

[72] At a period, in which Doctors Marsh and Wordsworth have, by the Zealous on one side, being charged with Popish principles on account of their _Anti-bibliolatry_, and the sturdy adherents of the doctrines common to Luther and Calvin, and the literal interpreters of the Articles and Homilies, are, (I wish I could say, altogether without any fault of their own) regarded by the Clergy generally as virtual Schismatics, dividers _of_, though not _from_, the Church, it is serving the cause of charity to assist in circulating the following instructive passage from the Life of Bishop Hackett respecting the dispute between the Augustinians, or Luthero-Calvinistic divines and the Grotians of his age: in which Controversy (says his biographer) he, Hackett, "was ever very moderate."

"But having been bred under Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward in Cambridge, he was addicted to their sentiments. Archbishop Usher would say, that Davenant understood those controversies better than ever any man did since St. Augustine. But he (Bishop Hackett) used to say, that he was _sure_ he had _three_ excellent men of his mind in this controversy: 1. _Padre Paolo_ (Father Paul) whose letter is extant in Heinsius, _anno_ 1604: 2. _Thomas Aquinas_: 3. St. Augustine. But besides and above them all, he believed in his Conscience that St. Paul was of the same mind likewise. Yet at the same time he would profess, that he disliked no Arminians, but such as revile and defame every one who is _not so_: and he would often commend Arminius himself for his excellent wit and parts, but only tax his want of reading and knowledge in Antiquity. And he ever held, it was the foolishest thing in the world to say the Arminians were _Popishly_ inclined, when so many Dominicians and Jansenists were rigid followers of Augustine in these points: and no less foolish to say that the _Anti-Arminians_ were Puritans or Presbyterians, when _Ward_, and _Davenant_, and Prideaux, and Brownrig, those stout champions for Episcopacy, were decided Anti-Arminians; while Arminius himself was ever a Presbyterian. Therefore he greatly commended the moderation of our Church, which extended equal Communion to both."

[73] _Aranea prodigiosa._ See Baker's Microscopic Experiments.

[74] May not this Rule be expressed more intelligibly (to a mathematician at least) thus:--Reasoning from _finite_ to _finite_, on a basis of truth, also, reasoning from _infinite_ to _infinite_, on a basis of truth, will always lead to truth, as intelligibly as the basis on which such truths respectively rest.--While, reasoning from _finite_ to _infinite_, or from _infinite_ to _finite_, will lead to apparent absurdity, although the basis be true: and is not _such_ apparent absurdity, another expression for "truth unintelligible by a _finite_ mind"?

[75] For example: at the date of St. Paul's Epistles, the (Roman) world may be resembled to a mass in the furnace in the first moment of fusion, here a speck and there a spot of the melted metal shining pure and brilliant amid the scum and dross. To have received the _name_ of Christian was a privilege, a high and distinguished favour. No wonder therefore, that in St. Paul's writings the words, elect, and election, often, nay, most often, mean the same as _eccalumeni, ecclesia_, that is, those who have been _called out_ of the world: and it is a dangerous perversion of the Apostle's word to interpret it in the sense, in which it was used by our Lord, viz. in _opposition to the called_. (Many are _called_ but few _chosen_.) In St. Paul's sense and at that time the believers collectively formed a small and select number; and every Christian real or nominal, was one of the Elect. Add too, that this ambiguity is increased by the accidental circumstance, that the _kyriak, Ædes Dominicæ_, Lord's House, _kirk_; and _ecclesia_, the sum total of the _eccalumeni, evocati, called out_; are both rendered by the same word Church.

[76] Or (I may add) _any_ Idea which does not either identify the Creator with the Creaton; or else represent the Supreme Being as a mere impersonal Law or _ordo ordinans_, differing from the Law of Gravitation only by its _universality_.

[77] I have elsewhere remarked on the assistance which those that labour after distinct conceptions would receive from the re-introduction of the terms _objective_, and _subjective_, _objective_ and _subjective reality_, and the like, as substitutes for _real_ and _notional_, and to the exclusion of the false antithesis between _real_ and _ideal_. For the Student in that noblest of the sciences, the _scire teipsum_, the advantage would be especially great.[78] The few sentences that follow, in illustration of the terms here advocated, will not, I trust, be a waste of the reader's time.

The celebrated Euler having demonstrated certain properties of arches, adds: "All experience is in contradiction to this; but this is no reason for doubting its truth." The words _sound_ paradoxical; but mean no more than this--that the mathematical properties of figure and space are not less certainly the properties of figure and space because they can never be perfectly realized in wood, stone, or iron. Now this assertion of Euler's might be expressed at once, briefly and simply, by saying, that the properties in question were _subjectively_ true, though not objectively--or that the mathematical arch possessed a _subjective reality_ though incapable of being realized _objectively_.

In like manner if I had to express my conviction, that space was not itself a _thing_, but a _mode_ or _form_ of perceiving, or the inward ground and condition in the percipient, in consequence of which things are seen as outward and co-existing, I convey this at once by the words, space is _subjective_, or space is real in and for the _subject_ alone.

If I am asked, Why not say in and for the _mind_, which every one would understand? I reply: we know indeed, that all minds are Subjects; but are by no means certain, that all subjects are minds. For a mind is a subject that knows itself, or a subject that is its own object. The inward principle of Growth and individual Form in every seed and plant is a _subject_, and without any exertion of poetic privilege poets may speak of the _soul_ of the flower. But the man would be a dreamer, who otherwise than poetically should speak of roses and lilies as _self-conscious_ subjects. Lastly, by the assistance of the terms, Object and Subject, thus used as correspondent opposites, or as negative and positive in physics (for example, negative and positive electricity) we may arrive at the distinct import and proper use of the strangely misused word, idea. And as the forms of logic are all borrowed from geometry (_Ratiocinatio discursiva formas suas sive canonas recipit ab intuitu_) I may be permitted to elucidate my present meaning. Every line may be, and by the ancient Geometricians _was_, considered as a point _produced_, the two extremes being its poles, while the point itself remains in, or is at least represented by, the midpoint, the indifference of the two poles or correlative opposites. Logically applied, the two extremes or poles are named Thesis and Antithesis: thus in the line

I
T-----------------------A

we have T = Thesis, A = Antithesis, and I = Punctum Indifferens sive _amphotericum_, which latter is to be conceived as _both_ in as far as it may be _either_ of the two former. Observe: not both at the same time in the same relation; for this would be the _identity_ of T and A, not the _indifference_:--but so, that relatively to A, I is equal to T, and relatively to T it becomes = A. For the purposes of the universal _Noetic_, in which we require terms of most comprehension and least specific import, might not the Noetic Pentad be,--

1. Prothesis.
2. Thesis. 4. Mesothesis. 3. Antithesis.
5. Synthesis.

Prothesis.
Sum.
Thesis. Methosesis. Antithesis.
Res. Agere. Ago, Patior.
Synthesis.
Agens.

1. Verb Substantive = Prothesis, as expressing the _identity_ or coinherence of Act and Being.

2. Substantive = Thesis, expressing Being. 3. Verb = Antithesis, expressing, Act. 4. Infinite = Mesothesis, as being either Substantive or Verb, or both at once, only in different relations. 5. Participle = Synthesis. Thus in Chemistry Sulphuretted Hydrogen is an Acid relatively to the more powerful Alkalis, and an Alkali relatively to a powerful Acid. Yet one other remark, and I pass to the question. In order to render the constructions of pure Mathematics applicable to Philosophy, the Pythagoreans, I imagine, represented the Line as _generated_, or, as it were, radiated, by a Point not contained in the Line but independent, and (in the language of that School) transcendent to all production, which it caused but did not partake in. _Facit, non patitur._ This was the _punctum invisible, et presuppositum_: and in this way the Pythagoreans guarded against the error of Pantheism, into which the later schools fell. The assumption of this Point I call the logical PROTHESIS. We have now therefore four Relations of Thought expressed: 1. Prothesis, or the Identity of T and A, which is neither, because in it, as the transcendent of both, both are contained and exist as one. Taken _absolutely_, this finds its application in the Supreme Being alone, the Pythagorean TETRACTYS; the INEFFABLE NAME, to which no Image can be attached; the Point, which has no (real) Opposite or Counter-point. But _relatively_ taken and inadequately, the germinal power of every seed[79] might be generalized under the relation of Identity. 2. Thesis, or position. 3. Antithesis, or Opposition. 4. Indifference. To which when we add the Synthesis or Composition, in its several forms of Equilibrium, as in quiescent Electricity; of Neutralization, as of Oxygen and Hydrogen in water; and of Predominance, as of Hydrogen and Carbon with Hydrogen, predominant, in pure alcohol; or of Carbon and Hydrogen, with the comparative predominance of the Carbon, in Oil; we complete the five most general Forms or Preconceptions of Constructive Logic.