{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8956/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8956","id":"gutenberg_8956","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8956","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Literature -- History and criticism"],"text":"THE LITERARY REMAINS\n\nOF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE\n\n\n\nVOLUME THE THIRD\n\n\n\nCOLLECTED AND EDITED BY\n\nHENRY NELSON COLERIDGE.\n\n\n\n1838\n\n\n\n\nTO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE THE THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES\nOF COLERIDGE'S REMAINS ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.\n\n\n\n\n  CONTENTS\n\n\n  Preface\n  Formula Fidei de SS. Trinitate\n  Nightly Prayer\n  Notes on 'The Book of Common Prayer'\n  Notes on Hooker\n  Notes on Field\n  Notes on Donne\n  Notes on Henry More\n  Notes on Heinrichs\n  Notes on Hacket\n  Notes on Jeremy Taylor\n  Notes on 'The Pilgrim's Progress'\n  Notes on John Smith\n  Letter to a Godchild\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nFor a statement of the circumstances under which the collection of Mr.\nColeridge's Literary Remains was undertaken, the Reader is referred to\nthe Preface to the two preceding Volumes published in 1836. But the\ngraver character of the general contents of this Volume and of that\nwhich will immediately follow it, seems to justify the Editor in\nsoliciting particular attention to a few additional remarks.\n\nAlthough the Author in his will contemplated the publication of some at\nleast of the numerous notes left by him on the margins and blank spaces\nof books and pamphlets, he most certainly wrote the notes themselves\nwithout any purpose beyond that of delivering his mind of the thoughts\nand aspirations suggested by the text under perusal. His books, that is,\nany person's books--even those from a circulating library--were to him,\nwhilst reading them, as dear friends; he conversed with them as with\ntheir authors, praising, or censuring, or qualifying, as the open page\nseemed to give him cause; little solicitous in so doing to draw\nsummaries or to strike balances of literary merit, but seeking rather to\ndetect and appreciate the moving principle or moral life, ever one and\nsingle, of the work in reference to absolute truth. Thus employed he had\nfew reserves, but in general poured forth, as in a confessional, all his\nmind upon every subject,--not keeping back any doubt or conjecture which\nat the time and for the purpose seemed worthy of consideration. In\nprobing another's heart he laid his hand upon his own. He thought pious\nfrauds the worst of all frauds, and the system of economizing truth too\nnear akin to the corruption of it to be generally compatible with the\nJob-like integrity of a true Christian's conscience. Further, he\ndistinguished so strongly between that internal faith which lies at the\nbase of, and supports, the whole moral and religious being of man, and\nthe belief, as historically true, of several incidents and relations\nfound or supposed to be found in the text of the Scriptures, that he\nhabitually exercised a liberty of criticism with respect to the latter,\nwhich will probably seem objectionable to many of his readers in this\ncountry. [1]\n\nHis friends have always known this to be the fact; and he vindicated\nthis so openly that it would be folly to attempt to conceal it: nay, he\npleaded for it so earnestly--as the only middle path of safety and peace\nbetween a godless disregard of the unique and transcendant character of\nthe Bible taken generally, and that scheme of interpretation, scarcely\nless adverse to the pure spirit of Christian wisdom, which wildly arrays\nour faith in opposition to our reason, and inculcates the sacrifice of\nthe latter to the former,--that to suppress this important part of his\nsolemn convictions would be to misrepresent and betray him. For he threw\nup his hands in dismay at the language of some of our modern divinity on\nthis point;--as if a faith not founded on insight were aught else than a\nspecious name for wilful positiveness;--as if the Father of Lights could\nrequire, or would accept, from the only one of his creatures whom he had\nendowed with reason the sacrifice of fools! Did Coleridge, therefore,\nmean that the doctrines revealed in the Scriptures were to be judged\naccording to their supposed harmony or discrepancy with the evidence of\nthe senses, or the deductions of the mere understanding from that\nevidence? Exactly the reverse: he disdained to argue even against\nTransubstantiation on such a ground, well knowing and loudly proclaiming\nits utter weakness and instability. But it was a leading principle in\nall his moral and intellectual views to assert the existence in all men\nequally of a power or faculty superior to, and independent of, the\nexternal senses: in this power or faculty he recognized that image of\nGod in which man was made; and he could as little understand how faith,\nthe indivisibly joint act or efflux of our reason and our will, should\nbe at variance with one of its factors or elements, as how the Author\nand Upholder of all truth should be in contradiction to himself. He\ntrembled at the dreadful dogma which rests God's right to man's\nobedience on the fact of his almighty power,--a position falsely\ninferred from a misconceived illustration of St. Paul's, and which is\nless humbling to the creature than blasphemous of the Creator; and of\nthe awless doctrine that God might, if he had so pleased, have given to\nman a religion which to human intelligence should not be rational, and\nexacted his faith in it--Coleridge's whole middle and later life was one\ndeep and solemn denial. He believed in no God in the very idea of whose\nexistence absolute truth, perfect goodness, and infinite wisdom, were\nnot elements essentially necessary and everlastingly copresent.\n\nThus minded, he sought to justify the ways of God to man in the only way\nin which they can be justified to any one who deals honestly with his\nconscience, namely, by showing, where possible, their consequence from,\nand in all cases their consistency with, the ideas or truths of the pure\nreason which is the same in all men. With what success he laboured for\nthirty years in this mighty cause of Christian philosophy, the readers\nof his other works, especially the Aids to Reflection, will judge: if\nmeasured by the number of resolved points of detail his progress may\nseem small; but if tested by the weight and grasp of the principles\nwhich he has established, it may be confidently said that since\nChristianity had a name few men have gone so far. If ever we are to find\nfirm footing in Biblical criticism between the extremes (how often\nmeeting!) of Socinianism and Popery;--if the indisputable facts of\nphysical science are not for ever to be left in a sort of admitted\nantagonism to the supposed assertions of Scripture;--if ever the\nChristian duty of faith in God through Christ is to be reconciled with\nthe religious service of a being gifted by the same God with reason and\na will, and subjected to a conscience,--it must be effected by the aid,\nand in the light, of those truths of deepest philosophy which in all Mr.\nColeridge's works, published or unpublished, present themselves to the\nreader with an almost affecting reiteration. But to do justice to those\nworks and adequately to appreciate the Author's total mind upon any\ngiven point, a cursory perusal is insufficient; study and comprehension\nare requisite to an accurate estimate of the relative value of any\nparticular denial or assertion; and the apparently desultory and\ndiscontinuous form of the observations now presented to the Reader more\nespecially calls for the exercise of his patience and thoughtful\ncircumspection.\n\nWith this view the Reader is requested to observe the dates which, in\nsome instances, the Editor has been able to affix to the notes with\ncertainty. Most of those on Jeremy Taylor belong to the year 1810, and\nwere especially designed for the perusal of Charles Lamb. Those on Field\nwere written about 1814; on Racket in 1818; on Donne in 1812 and 1829;\non The Pilgrim's Progress in 1833; and on Hooker and the Book of Common\nPrayer between 1820 and 1830. Coleridge's mind was a growing and\naccumulating mind to the last, his whole life one of inquiry and\nprogressive insight, and the dates of his opinions are therefore in some\ncases important, and in all interesting.\n\nThe Editor is deeply sensible of his responsibility in publishing this\nVolume; as to which he can only say, in addition to a reference to the\ngeneral authority given by the Author, that to the best of his knowledge\nand judgment he has not permitted any thing to appear before the public\nwhich Mr. Coleridge saw reason to retract; and further express his hope\nand belief that, with such allowance for defects inherent in the nature\nof the work as may rightfully be expected from every really liberal\nmind, nothing contained in the following pages can fairly be a ground of\noffence to any one.\n\nIt only remains to be added that the materials used in the compilation\nof this Volume were for the greatest part communicated by Mr. Gillman;\nand that the rest were furnished by Mr. Wordsworth, the Rev. Derwent\nColeridge, the Rev. Edward Coleridge, and the Editor.\n\nLincoln's Inn, March 26, 1838\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: See 'Table Talk', p. 178, 2nd edit.]\n\n\n\n\nFORMULA FIDEI DE SANCTISSIMA TRINITATE.\n\n1830.\n\n\nTHE IDENTITY.\n\nThe absolute subjectivity, whose only attribute is the Good; whose only\ndefinition is--that which is essentially causative of all possible true\nbeing; the ground; the absolute will; the adorable [Greek: pr_\u00f3pr_oton],\nwhich, whatever is assumed as the first, must be presumed as its\nantecedent; [Greek: the\u00f2s], without an article, and yet not as an\nadjective. See John i. 18. [Greek: the\u00f2n oude\u00ecs he_\u00f3rake p_\u00f3pote] as\ndifferenced from ib. 1, [Greek: kai the\u00f2s aen o l\u00f3gos]\n\nBut that which is essentially causative of all being must be causative\nof its own,--'causa sui', [Greek: autop\u00e1t_or]. Thence\n\n\nTHE IPSEITY.\n\nThe eternally self-affirmant self-affirmed; the \"I Am in that I Am,\" or\nthe \"I shall be that I will to be;\" the Father; the relatively\nsubjective, whose attribute is, the Holy One; whose definition is, the\nessential finific in the form of the infinite; 'dat sibi fines'.\n\nBut the absolute will, the absolute good, in the eternal act of\nself-affirmation, the Good as the Holy One, co-eternally begets\n\n\nTHE ALTERITY.\n\nThe supreme being; [Greek: ho ont'os 'on]; the supreme reason; the\nJehovah; the Son; the Word; whose attribute is the True (the truth, the\nlight, the 'fiat'); and whose definition is, the 'pleroma' of being,\nwhose essential poles are unity and distinctity; or the essential\ninfinite in the form of the finite;--lastly, the relatively objective,\n'deitas objectiva' in relation to the I Am as the 'deitas subjectiva';\nthe divine objectivity.\n\nN.B. The distinctities in the 'pleroma' are the eternal ideas, the\nsubsistential truths; each considered in itself, an infinite in the form\nof the finite; but all considered as one with the unity, the eternal\nSon, they are the energies of the finific; [Greek: p\u00e1nta di' autou\neg\u00e9neto--ka\u00ec ek tou plaer'\u00f3matos autou haemeis p\u00e1ntes el\u00e1bomen.]  John\ni. 3 and 16.\n\nBut with the relatively subjective and the relatively objective, the\ngreat idea needs only for its completion a co-eternal which is both,\nthat is, relatively objective to the subjective, relatively subjective\nto the objective. Hence\n\n\nTHE COMMUNITY.\n\nThe eternal life, which is love; the Spirit; relatively to the Father,\nthe Spirit of Holiness, the Holy Spirit; relatively to the Son, the\nSpirit of truth, whose attribute is Wisdom; 'sancta sophia'; the Good in\nthe reality of the True, in the form of actual Life. Holy! Holy! Holy!\n[Greek: hil\u00e1sthaet\u00ed moi].\n\n\n\n\nA NIGHTLY PRAYER.\n\n1831.\n\nAlmighty God, by thy eternal Word my Creator, Redeemer and Preserver!\nwho hast in thy free communicative goodness glorified me with the\ncapability of knowing thee, the one only absolute Good, the eternal I\nAm, as the author of my being, and of desiring and seeking thee as its\nultimate end;--who, when I fell from thee into the mystery of the false\nand evil will, didst not abandon me, poor self-lost creature, but in thy\ncondescending mercy didst provide an access and a return to thyself,\neven to thee the Holy One, in thine only begotten Son, the way and the\ntruth from everlasting, and who took on himself humanity, yea, became\nflesh, even the man Christ Jesus, that for man he might be the life and\nthe resurrection!--O Giver of all good gifts, who art thyself the one\nonly absolute Good, from whom I have received whatever good I have,\nwhatever capability of good there is in me, and from thee good\nalone,--from myself and my own corrupted will all evil and the\nconsequents of evil,--with inward prostration of will, mind, and\naffections I adore thy infinite majesty; I aspire to love thy\ntranscendant goodness!--In a deep sense of my unworthiness, and my\nunfitness to present myself before thee, of eyes too pure to behold\niniquity, and whose light, the beatitude of spirits conformed to thy\nwill, is a consuming fire to all vanity and corruption;--but in the name\nof the Lord Jesus, of the dear Son of thy love, in whose perfect\nobedience thou deignest to behold as many as have received the seed of\nChrist into the body of this death;--I offer this my bounden nightly\nsacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in humble trust, that the\nfragrance of my Saviour's righteousness may remove from it the taint of\nmy mortal corruption. Thy mercies have followed me through all the hours\nand moments of my life; and now I lift up my heart in awe and\nthankfulness for the preservation of my life through the past day, for\nthe alleviation of my bodily sufferings and languors, for the manifold\ncomforts which thou hast reserved for me, yea, in thy fatherly\ncompassion hast rescued from the wreck of my own sins or sinful\ninfirmities;--for the kind and affectionate friends thou hast raised up\nfor me, especially for those of this household, for the mother and\nmistress of this family whose love to me hath been great and faithful,\nand for the dear friend, the supporter and sharer of my studies and\nresearches; but above all, for the heavenly Friend, the crucified\nSaviour, the glorified Mediator, Christ Jesus, and for the heavenly\nComforter, source of all abiding comforts, thy Holy Spirit! O grant me\nthe aid of thy Spirit, that I may with a deeper faith, a more enkindled\nlove, bless thee, who through thy Son hast privileged me to call thee\nAbba, Father! O, thou who hast revealed thyself in thy holy word as a\nGod that hearest prayer; before whose infinitude all differences cease\nof great and small; who like a tender parent foreknowest all our wants,\nyet listenest well-pleased to the humble petitions of thy children; who\nhast not alone permitted, but taught us, to call on thee in all our\nneeds,--earnestly I implore the continuance of thy free mercy, of thy\nprotecting providence, through the coming night. Thou hearest every\nprayer offered to thee believingly with a penitent and sincere heart.\nFor thou in withholding grantest, healest in inflicting the wound, yea,\nturnest all to good for as many as truly seek thee through Christ, the\nMediator! Thy will be done! But if it be according to thy wise and\nrighteous ordinances, O shield me this night from the assaults of\ndisease, grant me refreshment of sleep unvexed by evil and distempered\ndreams; and if the purpose and aspiration of my heart be upright before\nthee who alone knowest the heart of man, O in thy mercy vouchsafe me yet\nin this my decay of life an interval of ease and strength; if so (thy\ngrace disposing and assisting) I may make compensation to thy church for\nthe unused talents thou hast entrusted to me, for the neglected\nopportunities, which thy loving-kindness had provided. O let me be found\na labourer in the vineyard, though of the late hour, when the Lord and\nHeir of the vintage, Christ Jesus, calleth for his servant.\n\n'Our Father', &c.\n\nTo thee, great omnipresent Spirit, whose mercy is over all thy works,\nwho now beholdest me, who hearest me, who hast framed my heart to seek\nand to trust in thee, in the name of my Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, I\nhumbly commit and commend my body, soul, and spirit.\n\nGlory be to thee, O God!\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.\n\n\nPRAYER.\n\nA man may pray night and day, and yet deceive himself; but no man can be\nassured of his sincerity, who does not pray. Prayer is faith passing\ninto act; a union of the will and the intellect realizing in an\nintellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is\nwishing, or lip-work; a charm or a mummery. 'Pray always', says the\nApostle;--that is, have the habit of prayer, turning your thoughts into\nacts by connecting them with the idea of the redeeming God, and even so\nreconverting your actions into thoughts.\n\n\nTHE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST.\n\nThe best preparation for taking this sacrament, better than any or all\nof the books or tracts composed for this end, is, to read over and over\nagain, and often on your knees--at all events, with a kneeling and\npraying heart--the Gospel according to St. John, till your mind is\nfamiliarized to the contemplation of Christ, the Redeemer and Mediator\nof mankind, yea, and of every creature, as the living and\nself-subsisting Word, the very truth of all true being, and the very\nbeing of all enduring truth; the reality, which is the substance and\nunity of all reality; 'the light which lighteth every man', so that what\nwe call reason, is itself a light from that light, 'lumen a luce', as\nthe Latin more distinctly expresses this fact. But it is not merely\nlight, but therein is life; and it is the life of Christ, the co-eternal\nson of God, that is the only true life-giving light of men. We are\nassured, and we believe that Christ is God; God manifested in the flesh.\nAs God, he must be present entire in every creature;--(for how can God,\nor indeed any spirit, exist in parts?)--but he is said to dwell in the\nregenerate, to come to them who receive him by faith in his name, that\nis, in his power and influence; for this is the meaning of the word\n'name' in Scripture when applied to God or his Christ. Where true belief\nexists, Christ is not only present with or among us;--for so he is in\nevery man, even the most wicked;--but to us and for us.\n\n  'That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into\n  the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the\n  world knew him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power\n  to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name;\n  which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of\n  the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt\n  among us.'\n\n  John i. 9-14.\n\nAgain\n\n  'We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.'\n\n  John xiv. 23.\n\nAs truly and as really as your soul resides constitutively in your\nliving body, so truly, really, personally, and substantially does Christ\ndwell in every regenerate man.\n\nAfter this course of study, you may then take up and peruse sentence by\nsentence the communion service, the best of all comments on the\nScriptures appertaining to this mystery. And this is the preparation\nwhich will prove, with God's grace, the surest preventive of, or\nantidote against, the freezing poison, the lethargizing hemlock, of the\ndoctrine of the Sacramentaries, according to whom the Eucharist is a\nmere practical metaphor, in which things are employed instead of\narticulated sounds for the exclusive purpose of recalling to our minds\nthe historical fact of our Lord's crucifixion; in short--(the\nprofaneness is with them, not with me)--just the same as when\nProtestants drink a glass of wine to the glorious memory of William III!\nTrue it is, that the remembrance is one end of the sacrament; but it is,\n'Do this in remembrance of me',--of all that Christ was and is, hath\ndone and is still doing for fallen mankind, and of course of his\ncrucifixion inclusively, but not of his crucifixion alone.\n\n14 December, 1827.\n\n\nCOMPANION TO THE ALTAR.\n\n\n  First then, that we may come to this heavenly feast holy, and adorned\n  with the wedding garment, Matt. xxii. 11, we must search our hearts,\n  and examine our consciences, not only till we see our sins, but until\n  we hate them.\n\nBut what if a man, seeing his sin, earnestly desire to hate it? Shall he\nnot at the altar offer up at once his desire, and the yet lingering sin,\nand seek for strength? Is not this sacrament medicine as well as food?\nIs it an end only, and not likewise the means? Is it merely the\ntriumphal feast; or is it not even more truly a blessed refreshment for\nand during the conflict?\n\n  This confession of sins must not be in general terms only, that we are\n  sinners with the rest of mankind, but it must be a special declaration\n  to God of all our most heinous sins in thought, word, and deed.\n\nLuther was of a different judgment. He would have us feel and groan\nunder our sinfulness and utter incapability of redeeming ourselves from\nthe bondage, rather than hazard the pollution of our imaginations by a\nrecapitulation and renewing of sins and their images in detail. Do not,\nhe says, stand picking the flaws out one by one, but plunge into the\nriver, and drown them!--I venture to be of Luther's doctrine.\n\n\nCOMMUNION SERVICE.\n\nIn the first Exhortation, before the words 'meritorious Cross and\nPassion,' I should propose to insert 'his assumption of humanity, his\nincarnation, and.'\n\nLikewise a little lower down, after the word 'sustenance,' I would\ninsert 'as.'\n\nFor not in that sacrament exclusively, but in all the acts of\nassimilative faith, of which the Eucharist is a solemn, eminent, and\nrepresentative instance, an instance and the symbol, Christ is our\nspiritual food and sustenance.\n\n\nMARRIAGE SERVICE.\n\nMarriage, simply as marriage, is not the means 'for the procreation of\nchildren,' but for the humanization of the offspring procreated.\n\nTherefore in the Declaration at the beginning, after the words,\n'procreation of children,' I would insert, 'and as the means for\nsecuring to the children procreated enduring care, and that they may be'\n&c.\n\n\nCOMMUNION OF THE SICK.\n\nThird rubric at the end.\n\n  But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, &c.\n\nI think this rubric, in what I conceive to be its true meaning, a\nprecious document, as fully acquitting our Church of all Romish\nsuperstition, respecting the nature of the Eucharist, in relation to the\nwhole scheme of man's redemption. But the latter part of it--'he doth\neat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his\nsoul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his\nmouth'--seems to me very incautiously expressed, and scarcely to be\nreconciled with the Church's own definition of a sacrament in general.\nFor in such a case, where is 'the outward and visible sign of the inward\nand spiritual grace given?' [1]\n\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n  'Should it occur to any one that the doctrine blamed in the text, is\n  but in accordance with that of the Church of England, in her rubric\n  concerning spiritual communion, annexed to the Office for Communion of\n  the Sick: he may consider, whether that rubric, explained (as if\n  possible it must be) in consistency with the definition of a sacrament\n  in the Catechism, can be meant for any but rare and extraordinary\n  cases: cases as strong in regard of the Eucharist, as that of\n  martyrdom, or the premature death of a well-disposed catechumen, in\n  regard of Baptism.'\n\n  Keble's Pref. to Hooker, p. 85, n. 70. Ed.]\n\n\n\n\nXI SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.\n\nEpistle.--1 Cor. xv. 1.\n\n  Brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you.\n\nWhy should the obsolete, though faithful, Saxon translation of [Greek:\neuagg\u00e9lion] be retained? Why not 'good tidings?' Why thus change a most\nappropriate and intelligible designation of the matter into a mere\nconventional name of a particular book?\n\nIb.\n\n ... how that Christ died for our sins.\n\nBut the meaning of [Greek: up\u00e8r ton hamarti_on haem_on] is, that Christ\ndied through the sins, and for the sinners. He died through our sins,\nand we live through his righteousness.\n\nGospel, Luke xviii. 14.\n\n  This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.\n\nNot simply justified, observe; but justified rather than the other,\n[Greek: ae ekeinos],--that is, less remote from salvation.\n\n\n\nXXV. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.\n\nCollect.\n\n ... that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may\n of thee be plenteously rewarded. ...\n\nRather--\"that with that enlarged capacity, which without thee we cannot\nacquire, there may likewise be an increase of the gift, which from thee\nalone we can wholly receive.\"\n\n\n\nPS. VIII.\n\nv. 2.\n\n  'Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained\n  strength, because of thine enemies; that thou mightest still the enemy\n  and the avenger'.\n\nTo the dispensations of the twilight dawn, to the first messengers of\nthe redeeming word, the yet lisping utterers of light and life, a\nstrength and a power were given 'because of the enemies', greater and of\nmore immediate influence, than to the seers and proclaimers of a clearer\nday:--even as the first re-appearing crescent of the eclipsed moon\nshines for men with a keener brilliance, than the following larger\nsegments, previously to its total emersion.\n\nIb. v. 5.\n\n  'Thou madest him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and\n  worship'.\n\nPower + idea = angel.\nIdea - power = man, or Prometheus.\n\n\n\nPS. LXVIII.\n\nv. 34.\n\n  'Ascribe ye the power to God over Israel: his worship and strength is\n  in the clouds'.\n\nThe 'clouds' in the symbolical language of the Scriptures mean the\nevents and course of things, seemingly effects of human will or chance,\nbut overruled by Providence.\n\n\n\nPS. LXXII.\n\nThis Psalm admits no other interpretation but of Christ, as the Jehovah\nincarnate. In any other sense, it would be a specimen of more than\nPersian or Moghul hyperbole and bombast, of which there is no other\ninstance in Scripture, and which no Christian would dare to attribute to\nan inspired writer. We know, too, that the elder Jewish Church ranked it\namong the Messianic Psalms. N.B. The Word in St. John, and the Name of\nthe Most High in the Psalms, are equivalent terms.\n\nv. 1.\n\n  'Give the king thy judgments, O God; and thy righteousness unto the\n  king's son'.\n\nGod of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the only begotten, the\nSon of God and God, King of Kings, and the Son of the King of Kings!\n\n\n\nPS. LXXIV.\n\nv. 2.\n\n  'O think upon thy congregation, whom thou hast purchased and redeemed\n  of old'.\n\nThe Lamb sacrificed from the beginning of the world, the God-Man, the\nJudge, the self-promised Redeemer to Adam in the garden!\n\nv. 15.\n\n  'Thou smotest the heads of Leviathan in pieces; and gavest him to be\n  meat for the people in the wilderness'.\n\nDoes this allude to any real tradition? [1] The Psalm appears to have\nbeen composed shortly before the captivity of Judah.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: According to Bishop Horne, the allusion is to the\ndestruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea.--Ed.]\n\n\n\nPS. LXXXII. vv. 6-7.\n\nThe reference which our Lord made to these mysterious verses, gives them\nan especial interest. The first apostasy, the fall of the angels, is,\nperhaps, intimated.\n\n\n\nPS. LXXXVII.\n\nI would fain understand this Psalm; but first I must collate it word by\nword with the original Hebrew. It seems clearly Messianic.\n\n\nPS. LXXXVIII.\n\nvv. 10--12.\n\n  'Dost than shew wonders among the dead, or shall the dead rise up\n  again and praise thee?' &c.\n\nCompare Ezekiel xxxvii.\n\n\n\nPS. CIV.\n\nI think the Bible version might with advantage be substituted for this,\nwhich in some parts is scarcely intelligible.\n\nv. 6.\n\n  'the waters stand in the hills.'\n\nNo; 'stood above the mountains'. The reference is to the Deluge.\n\n\n\nPS. CV.\n\nv. 3.\n\n  'Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.'\n\nIf even to seek the Lord be joy, what will it be to find him? Seek me, O\nLord, that I may be found by thee!\n\n\n\nPS. CX.\n\nv. 2.\n\n  'The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Sion'; (saying)\n  'Rule', &c.\n\nv. 3. Understand:\n\n  'Thy people shall offer themselves willingly in the day of conflict in\n  holy clothing, in their best array, in their best arms and\n  accoutrements. As the dew from the womb of the morning, in number and\n  brightness like dew-drops; so shall be thy youth, or the youth of\n  thee, the young volunteer warriors.'\n\nv. 5.\n\n  'He shall shake,'\n\nconcuss, 'concutiet reges die ir\u00e6 su\u00e6,'\n\nv. 6. For\n\n  'smite in sunder, or wound, the heads;'\n\nsome word answering to the Latin 'conquassare'.\n\nv. 7. For 'therefore,' translate 'then shall he lift up his head again;'\nthat is, as a man languid and sinking from thirst and fatigue after\nrefreshment.\n\nN.B. I see no poetic discrepancy between vv. 1 and 5.\n\n\n\nPS. CXVIII.\n\nTo be interpreted of Christ's church.\n\n\n\nPS. CXXVI.\n\nv. 5.\n\n  'As the rivers in the south.'\n\nDoes this allude to the periodical rains? [1]\n\nAs a transparency on some night of public rejoicing, seen by common day,\nwith the lamps from within removed--even such would the Psalms be to me\nuninterpreted by the Gospel. O honored Mr. Hurwitz! Could I but make you\nfeel what grandeur, what magnificence, what an everlasting significance\nand import Christianity gives to every fact of your national history--to\nevery page of your sacred records!\n\n\n[Footnote 1:  See Horne in loc. note.--Ed.]\n\n\n\nARTICLES OF RELIGION.\n\nXX.\n\nIt is mournful to think how many recent writers have criminated our\nChurch in consequence of their own ignorance and inadvertence in not\nknowing, or not noticing, the contra-distinction here meant between\npower and authority. Rites and ceremonies the Church may ordain 'jure\nproprio': on matters of faith her judgment is to be received with\nreverence, and not gainsaid but after repeated inquiries, and on weighty\ngrounds.\n\nXXXVII.\n\n  It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the magistrate,\n  to wear weapons, and to serve in the wars.\n\nThis is a very good instance of an unseemly matter neatly wrapped up.\nThe good men recoiled from the plain words:\n\n  'It is lawful for Christian men at the command of a king to slaughter\n  as many Christians as they can!'\n\nWell! I could most sincerely subscribe to all these articles.\n\nSeptember, 1831.\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON HOOKER. [1]\n\n\n'LIFE OF HOOKER' BY WALTON.\n\np. 67.\n\n  Mr. Travers excepted against Mr. Hooker, for that in one of his\n  sermons he declared, 'That the assurance of what we believe by the\n  word of God, is not to us so certain as that which we perceive by\n  sense.' And Mr. Hooker confesseth he said so, and endeavours to\n  justify it by the reasons following.\n\nThere is, I confess, a shade of doubt on my mind as to this position of\nHooker's. Yet I do not deny that it expresses a truth. The question in\nmy mind is, only, whether it adequately expresses the whole truth. The\nground of my doubt lies in my inability to compare two things that\ndiffer in kind. It is impossible that any conviction of the reason, even\nwhere no act of the will advenes as a co-efficient, should possess the\nvividness of an immediate object of the senses; for the vividness is\ngiven by sensation. Equally impossible is it that any truth of the\nsuper-sensuous reason should possess the evidence of the pure sense.\nEven the mathematician does not find the same evidence in the results of\ntranscendental algebra as in the demonstrations of simple geometry. But\nhas he less assurance? In answer to Hooker's argument I say,--that God\nrefers to our sensible experience to aid our will by the vividness of\nsensible impressions, and also to aid our understanding of the truths\nrevealed,--not to increase the conviction of their certainty where they\nhave been understood.\n\n\n\nWALTON'S APPENDIX.\n\nIb. p. 116.\n\nIt is a strange blind story this of the last three books, and of\nHooker's live relict, the Beast without Beauty. But Saravia?--If honest\nIsaac's account of the tender, confidential, even confessional,\nfriendship of Hooker and Saravia be accurate, how chanced it that Hooker\ndid not entrust the manuscripts to his friend who stood beside him in\nhis last moments? At all events, Saravia must have known whether they\nhad or had not received the author's last hand. Why were not Mr. Charke\nand the other Canterbury parson called to account, or questioned at\nleast as to the truth of Mrs. Joan's story? Verily, I cannot help\nsuspecting that the doubt cast on the authenticity of the latter books\nby the high church party originated in their dislike of portions of the\ncontents.--In short, it is a blind story, a true Canterbury tale, dear\nIsaac! [2]\n\n\n\nOF THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY.\n\nPref. c. iii. 7. p. 182.\n\n  The next thing hereunto is, to impute all faults and corruptions,\n  wherewith the world aboundeth, unto the kind of ecclesiastical\n  government established.\n\nHow readily would this, and indeed all the disputes respecting the\npowers and constitution of Church government have been settled, or\nperhaps prevented, had there been an insight into the distinct nature\nand origin of the National Church and the Church under Christ! [3] To\nthe ignorance of this, all the fierce contentions between the Puritans\nand the Episcopalians under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, all the errors\nand exorbitant pretensions of the Church of Scotland, and the heats and\nantipathies of our present Dissenters, may be demonstrably traced.\n\nIb. 9. p. 183.\n\n  Pythagoras, by bringing up his scholars in the speculative knowledge\n  of numbers, made their conceits therein so strong, that when they came\n  to the contemplation of things natural, they imagined that in every\n  particular thing they even beheld as it were with their eyes, how the\n  elements of number gave essence and being to the works of nature: a\n  thing in reason impossible; which notwithstanding, through their\n  mis-fashioned pre-conceit, appeared unto them no less certain, than if\n  nature had written it in the very foreheads of all the creatures of\n  God.\n\nI am not so conversant with the volumes of Duns Scotus as to be able to\npronounce positively whether he is an exception, but I can think of no\nother instance of high metaphysical genius in an Englishman. Judgment,\nsolid sense, invention in specialties, fortunate anticipations and\ninstructive foretact of truth,--in these we can shew giants. It is\nevident from this example from the Pythagorean school that not even our\nincomparable Hooker could raise himself to the idea, so rich in truth,\nwhich is contained in the words\n\n  'numero, pondere, et mensura generantur coeli et terra'.\n\nO, that Hooker had ever asked himself concerning will, absolute will,\n\n  [Greek: ho arithm\u00f2s hyperar\u00edthmi\u00f2s],\n  'numerus omues numeros ponens, nunquam positus!' [4]\n\n\nIb. p. 183.\n\n  When they of the 'Family of Love' have it once in their heads, that\n  Christ doth not signify any one person, but a quality whereof many are\n  partakers, &c.\n\nIf the Familists thought of Christ as a quality, it was a grievous error\nindeed. But I have my doubts whether this was not rather an inference\ndrawn by their persecutors.\n\n\nIb. 15. p. 191.\n\n  When instruction doth them no good, let them feel but the least degree\n  of most mercifully-tempered severity, they fasten on the head of the\n  Lord's vicegerents here on earth, whatsoever they any where find\n  uttered against the cruelty of blood-thirsty men, and to themselves\n  they draw all the sentences which Scripture hath in favor of innocency\n  persecuted for the truth.\n\nHow great the influence of the age on the strongest minds, when so\neminently wise a man as Richard Hooker could overlook the obvious\nimpolicy of inflicting punishments which the sufferer himself will\nregard as merits, and all who have any need to be deterred will extol as\nmartyrdom! Even where the necessity could be plausibly pretended, it is\nwar, not punitive law;--and then Augustine's argument for Sarah!\n\n\nIb. c. iv. 1. p. 194.\n\n  We require you to find out but one church upon the face of the whole\n  earth, that hath been ordered by your discipline, or hath not been\n  ordered by ours, that is to say, by episcopal regiment, sithence the\n  time that the blessed apostles were here conversant.\n\nHooker was so good a man that it would be wicked to suspect him of\nknowingly playing the sophist. And yet strange it is, that he should not\nhave been aware that it was prelacy, not primitive episcopacy, the\nthing, not the name, that the reformers contended against, and, if the\nCatholic Church and the national Clerisy were (as both parties unhappily\ntook for granted) one and the same, contended against with good reason.\nKnox's ecclesiastical polity (worthy of Lycurgus), adopted bishops under\na different name, or rather under a translation instead of corruption of\nthe name [Greek: ep\u00e1skapoi]. He would have had superintendents.\n\n\nIb. c. v. 2. p. 204.\n\n  A law is the deed of the whole body politic, whereof if ye judge\n  yourselves to be any part, then is the law even your deed also.\n\nThis is a fiction of law for the purpose of giving to that, which is\nnecessarily empirical, the form and consequence of a science, to the\nreality of which a code of laws can only approximate by compressing all\nliberty and individuality into a despotism. As Justinian to Alfred, and\nConstantinople, the Consuls and Senate of Rome to the Lord Mayor,\nAldermen, and Common Council of London; so is the imperial Roman code to\nthe common and statute law of England. The advocates of the discipline\nwould, according to our present notions of civil rights, have been\njustified in putting fact against fiction, and might have challenged\nHooker to shew, first, that the constitution of the Church in Christ was\na congruous subject of parliamentary legislation; that the legislators\nwere 'bona fide' determined by spiritual views, and that the jealousy\nand arbitrary principles of the Queen, aided by motives of worldly state\npolicy,--for example, the desire of conciliating the Roman Catholic\npotentates by retaining all she could of the exterior of the Romish\nChurch, its hierarchy, its ornaments, and its ceremonies,--were not the\nsubstitutes for the Holy Spirit in influencing the majorities in the two\nHouses of Parliament. It is my own belief that the Puritans and the\nPrelatists divided the truth between them; and, as half-truths are whole\nerrors, were both equally in the wrong;--the Prelatists in contending\nfor that as incident to the Church in Christ, that is, the collective\nnumber [Greek: t_on ekkaloum\u00e9n_on] or 'ecclesia', which only belonged,\nbut which rightfully did belong, to the National Church as a component\nestate of the realm, the 'enclesia';--the Puritans in requiring of the\n'enclesia' what was only requisite or possible for the 'ecclesia'.[5]\nArchbishop Grindal is an illustrious exception. He saw the whole truth,\nand that the functions of the enclesiastic and those of the ecclesiastic\nwere not the less distinct, because both were capable of being exercised\nby the same person; and _vice versa_, not the less compatible in the\nsame subject because distinct in themselves. The Lord Chief Justice of\nthe King's Bench is a Fellow of the Royal Society.\n\n\nIb. c. vi. 3. p. 209.\n\n  God was not ignorant, that the priests and judges, whose sentence in\n  matters of controversy he ordained should stand, both might and\n  oftentimes would be deceived in their judgment. However, better it was\n  in the eye of His understanding, that sometime an erroneous sentence\n  definitive should prevail, till the same authority perceiving such\n  oversight, might afterwards correct or reverse it, than that strifes\n  should have respite to grow, and not come speedily to some end.\n\n\nIt is difficult to say, which most shines through this whole passage,\nthe spirit of wisdom or the spirit of meekness. The fatal error of the\nRomish Church did not consist in the inappellability of the Councils, or\nthat an acquiescence in their decisions and decree was a duty binding on\nthe conscience of the dissentients,--not I say in contending for a\npractical infallibility of Council or Pope; but in laying claim to an\nactual and absolute immunity from error, and consequently for the\nunrepealability of their decisions by any succeeding Council or Pope.\nHence, even wise decisions--wise under the particular circumstances and\ntimes--degenerated into mischievous follies, by having the privilege of\nimmortality without any exemption from the dotage of superannuation.\nHence errors became like _glaciers_, or ice-bergs in the frozen\nocean, unthawed by summer, and growing from the fresh deposits of each\nreturning winter.\n\nIb. 6. p. 212.\n\n  An argument necessary and demonstrative is such, as being proposed\n  unto any man, and understood, the mind cannot choose but inwardly\n  assent. Any one such reason dischargeth, I grant, the conscience, and\n  setteth it at full liberty.\n\nI would not concede even so much as this. It may well chance that even\nan argument demonstrative, if understood, may be adducible against some\none sentence of a whole liturgy; and yet the means of removing it\nwithout a palpable overbalance of evil may not exist for a time; and\neither there is no command against schism, or we are bound in such small\nmatters to offer the sacrifice of willing silence to the public peace of\nthe Church. This would not, however, prevent a minister from pointing\nout the defect in his character as a doctor or learned theologian.\n\n\nIb. c. viii. 1. p. 2-20.\n\n  For adventuring to erect the discipline of Christ without the leave of\n  the Christian magistrate, haply ye may condemn us as fools, in that we\n  hazard thereby our estates and persons further than you which are that\n  way more wise think necessary: but of any offence or sin therein\n  committed against God, with what conscience can you accuse us, when\n  your own positions are, that the things we observe should every of\n  them be dearer unto us than ten thousand lives; that they are the\n  peremptory commandments of God; that no mortal man can dispense with\n  them, and that the magistrate grievously sinneth in not constraining\n  thereunto?\n\n'Hoc argumentum ad invidiam nimis sycophanticum est quam ut mihi placeat\na tanto viro'. Besides, it contradicts Hooker's own very judicious rule,\nthat to discuss and represent is the office of the learned, as\nindividuals, because the truth may be entire in any one mind; but to do\nbelongs to the supreme power as the will of the whole body politic, and\nin effective action individuals are mere fractions without any\nlegitimate referee to add them together. Hooker's objection from the\nnobility and gentry of the realm is unanswerable and within half a\ncentury afterwards proved insurmountable. Imagine a sun containing\nwithin its proper atmosphere a multitude of transparent satellites, lost\nin the glory, or all joining to form the visible 'phasis' or disk; and\nthen beyond the precincts of this sun a number of opake bodies at\nvarious distances, and having a common center of their own round which\nthey revolve, and each more or less according to the lesser or greater\ndistance partaking of the light and natural warmth of the sun, which I\nhave been supposing; but not sharing in its peculiar influences, or in\nthe solar life sustainable only by the vital air of the solar\natmosphere. The opake bodies constitute the national churches, the sun\nthe churches spiritual.\n\nThe defect of the simile, arising necessarily out of the\nincompossibility of spiritual prerogatives with material bodies under\nthe proprieties and necessities of space, is, that it does not, as no\nconcrete or visual image can, represent the possible duplicity of the\nindividuals, the aggregate of whom constitutes the national church, so\nthat any one individual, or any number of such individuals, may at the\nsame time be, by an act of their own, members of the church spiritual,\nand in every congregation may form an 'ecclesia' or Christian community;\nand how to facilitate and favor this without any schism from the\n'enclesia', and without any disturbance of the body politic, was the\nproblem which Grindal and the bishops of the first generation of the\nReformed Church sought to solve, and it is the problem which every\nearnest Christian endued with competent gifts, and who is at the same\ntime a patriot and a philanthropist, ought to propose to himself, as the\n'ingens desiderium proborum'.\n\n8th Sept, 1826.\n\n\nIb. c. viii. 7. p. 232.\n\n  Baptizing of infants, although confessed by themselves, to have been\n  continued ever sithence the very apostles' own times, yet they\n  altogether condemned.\n\n'Qu\u00e6re'. I cannot say what the fanatic Anabaptists, of whom Hooker is\nspeaking, may have admitted; but the more sober and learned\nAntipaedobaptists, who differed in this point only from the reformed\nchurches, have all, I believe, denied the practice of infant baptism\nduring the first century.\n\n\nB.J. c. ii. 1. p. 249.\n\n  That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth\n  moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and\n  measure, of working, the same we term a law.\n\nSee the essays on method, in the 'Friend'. [6] Hooker's words literally\nand grammatically interpreted seem to assert the antecedence of the\nthing to its kind, that is, to its essential characters;--and to its\nforce together with its form and measure of working, that is, to its\nspecific and distinctive characters; in short, the words assert the\npre-existence of the thing to all its constituent powers, qualities, and\nproperties.\n\nNow this is either--first, equivalent to the assertion of a 'prima et\nnuda materia', so happily ridiculed by the author of 'Hudibras', [7] and\nwhich under any scheme of cosmogony is a mere phantom, having its whole\nand sole substance in an impotent effort of the imagination or sensuous\nfancy, but which is utterly precluded by the doctrine of creation which\nit in like manner negatives:--or secondly, the words assert a\nself-destroying absurdity, namely, the antecedence of a thing to itself;\nas if having asserted that water consisted of hydrogen = 77, and oxygen\n= 23, I should talk of water as existing before the creation of hydrogen\nand oxygen.\n\nAll laws, indeed, are constitutive; and it would require a longer train\nof argument than a note can contain, to shew what a thing is; but this\nat least is quite certain, that in the order of thought it must be\nposterior to the law that constitutes it. But such in fact was Hooker's\nmeaning, and the word, thing, is used 'proleptice' in favour of the\nimagination, as appears from the sentences that follow, in which the\ncreative idea is declared to be the law of the things thereby created. A\nproductive idea, manifesting itself and its reality in the product is a\nlaw; and when the product is ph\u00e6nomenal, (that is, an object of the\noutward senses) it is a law of nature. The law is 'res noumenon'; the\nthing is 'res phenomenon' [8] A physical law, in the right sense of the\nterm, is the sufficient cause of the appearance,--'causa sub-faciens'.\n\nP.S. What a deeply interesting volume might be written on the symbolic\nimport of the primary relations and dimensions of space--long, broad,\ndeep, or depth; surface; upper, under, above and below, right, left,\nhorizontal, perpendicular, oblique:--and then the order of causation, or\nthat which gives intelligibility, and the reverse order of effects, or\nthat which gives the conditions of actual existence! Without the higher\nthe lower would want its intelligibility: without the lower the higher\ncould not have existed. The infant is a riddle of which the man is the\nsolution; but the man could not exist but with the infant as his\nantecedent.\n\n\nIb. 2. p. 250.\n\n  In which essential Unity of God, a Trinity personal nevertheless\n  subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possibility of man's\n  conceit.\n\nIf 'conceit' here means conception, the remark is most true; for the\nTrinity is an idea, and no idea can be rendered by a conception. An idea\nis essentially inconceivable. But if it be meant that the Trinity is\notherwise inconceivable than as the divine eternity and every attribute\nof God is and must be, then neither the commonness of the language here\nused, nor the high authority of the user, can deter me from denouncing\nit as untrue and dangerous. So far is it from being true, that on the\ncontrary, the Trinity is the only form in which an idea of God is\npossible, unless indeed it be a Spinosistic or World-God.\n\n\nIb. c. iv. 1. p. 264.\n\n  But now that we may lift up our eyes (as it were) from the footstool\n  to the throne of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the\n  state of heavenly and divine, creatures: touching angels which are\n  spirits immaterial and intellectual, &c.\n\nAll this disquisition on the angels confirms my remark that our\nadmirable Hooker was a giant of the race Aristotle 'versus' Plato.\nHooker was truly judicious,--the consummate 'synthesis' of understanding\nand sense. An ample and most ordonnant conceptionist, to the tranquil\nempyrean of ideas he had not ascended. Of the passages cited from\nScripture how few would bear a strict scrutiny; being either,\n\n1. divine appearances, Jehovah in human form; or\n2. the imagery of visions and all symbolic; or\n3. names of honor given to prophets, apostles, or bishops; or\nlastly, mere accommodations to popular notions!\n\n\nIb. 3. p. 267.\n\n  Since their fall, their practices have been the clean contrary unto\n  those before mentioned. For being dispersed, some in the air, some on\n  the earth, some in the water, some among the minerals, dens, and\n  caves, that are under the earth; they have, by all means laboured to\n  effect a universal rebellion against the laws, and as far as in them\n  lieth, utter destruction of the works of God.\n\nChildish; but the childishness of the age, without which neither Hooker\nnor Luther could have acted on their contemporaries with the intense and\nbeneficent energy with which, they (God be praised!) did act.\n\n\nIb. p. 268.\n\n  Thus much therefore may suffice for angels, the next unto whom in\n  degree are men.\n\nSt. Augustine well remarks that only three distinct 'genera' of living\nbeings are conceivable:\n\n1. the infinite rational:\n2. the finite rational:\n3. the finite irrational:\n\nthat is, God, man, brute animal. 'Ergo', angels can only be with wings\non their shoulders. Were our bodies transparent to our souls, we should\nbe angels.\n\n\nIb. c. x. 4. p. 303.\n\n  It is no improbable opinion therefore which the arch-philosopher was\n  of.\n\nThere are, and can be, only two schools of philosophy, differing in kind\nand in source. Differences in degree and in accident, there may be many;\nbut these constitute schools kept by different teachers with different\ndegrees of genius, talent, and learning;--auditories of philosophizers,\nnot different philosophies. Schools of psilology (the love of empty\nnoise) and misosophy are here out of the question. Schools of real\nphilosophy there are but two,--best named by the arch-philosopher of\neach, namely, Plato and Aristotle. Every man capable of philosophy at\nall (and there are not many such) is a born Platonist or a born\nAristotelian. [9] Hooker, as may be discerned from the epithet of\narch-philosopher applied to the Stagyrite, 'sensu monarchico', was of\nthe latter family,--a comprehensive, vigorous, discreet, and discretive\nconceptualist,--but not an ideist.\n\n\nIb. 8. p. 308.\n\n  Of this point therefore we are to note, that sith men naturally have\n  no free and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men,\n  therefore utterly without our consent, we could in such sort be at no\n  man's commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that\n  society whereof we are part hath at any time before consented, without\n  revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Wherefore as\n  any man's deed past is good as long as himself continueth; so the act\n  of a public society of men done five hundred years sithence standeth\n  as theirs who presently are of the same societies, because\n  corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and\n  they in their successors do live still. Laws therefore human, of what\n  kind soever, are available by consent.\n\n\nNo nobler or clearer example than this could be given of what an idea is\nas contra-distinguished from a conception of the understanding,\ncorrespondent to some fact or facts, 'quorum not\u00e6 communes\nconcapiuntur',--the common characters of which are taken together under\none distinct exponent, hence named a conception; and conceptions are\ninternal subjective words. Reflect on an original social contract, as an\nevent or historical fact; and its gross improbability, not to say\nimpossibility, will stare you in the face. But an ever originating\nsocial contract as an idea, which exists and works continually and\nefficaciously in the moral being of every free citizen, though in the\ngreater number unconsciously, or with a dim and confused\nconsciousness,--what a power it is! [10] As the vital power compared\nwith the mechanic; as a father compared with a moulder in wax or clay,\nsuch is the power of ideas compared with the influence of conceptions\nand notions.\n\n\nIb.15. p.316.\n\n  ... I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better frame\n  themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour with\n  so great instancy gave us concerning peace and unity, if we did all\n  concur in desire to have the use of ancient Councils again renewed,\n  rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all\n  contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and that\n  of all other the worst, which is by sword.\n\nThis is indeed a subject that deserves a serious consideration: and it\nmay be said in favour of Hooker's proposal, namely, that the use of\nancient Councils be renewed, that a deep and universal sense of the\nabuse of Councils progressively from the Nicene to that of Trent, and\nour knowledge of the causes, occasions, and mode of such abuse, are so\nfar presumptive for its non-recurrency as to render it less probable\nthat honest men will pervert them from ignorance, and more difficult for\nunprincipled men to do so designedly. Something too must be allowed for\nan honourable ambition on the part of the persons so assembled, to\ndisappoint the general expectation, and win for themselves the unique\ntitle of the honest Council. But still comes the argument, the blow of\nwhich I might more easily blunt than parry, that if Roman Catholic and\nProtestant, or even Protestant Episcopalian and Protestant Presbyterian\ndivines were generally wise and charitable enough to form a Christian\nGeneral Council, there would be no need of one.\n\nN.B. The reasoning in this note, as far as it is in discouragement of a\nrecurrence to general Councils, does not, 'me saltem judice', conclude\nagainst the suffering our Convocation to meet. The virtual abrogation of\nthis branch of our constitution I have long regarded as one of three or\nfour Whig patriotisms, that have succeeded in de-anglicizing the mind of\nEngland.\n\n\nIb. c. xi. 4. p. 323.\n\n  So that nature even in this life doth plainly claim and call for a\n  more divine perfection than either of these two that have been\n  mentioned.\n\n\nWhenever I meet with an ambiguous or multivocal word, without its\nmeaning being shown and fixed, I stand on my guard against a sophism. I\ndislike this term, 'nature,' in this place. If it mean the 'light that\nlighteth every man that cometh into the world', it is an inapt term; for\nreason is supernatural. Now that reason in man must have been first\nactuated by a direct revelation from God, I have myself proved, and do\nnot therefore deny that faith as the means of salvation was first made\nknown by revelation; but that reason is incapable of seeing into the\nfitness and superiority of these means, or that it is a mystery in any\nother sense than as all spiritual truths are mysterious, I do deny and\ndeem it both a false and a dangerous doctrine.\n\n15 Sept. 1826.\n\n\nIb. 6. p.327.\n\n  Concerning that faith, hope and charity, without which there can be no\n  salvation; was there ever any mention made saving only in that law\n  which God himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world\n  a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three,\n  more than hath, been supernaturally received from the mouth of the\n  eternal God.\n\n\nThat reason could have discovered these divine truths is one thing; that\nwhen discovered by revelation, it is capable of apprehending the beauty\nand excellence of the things revealed is another. I may believe the\nlatter, while I utterly reject the former. That all these cognitions,\ntogether with the fealty or faithfulness in the will whereby the mind of\nthe flesh is brought under captivity to the mind of the spirit (the\nsensous understanding to the reason) are supernatural, I not only freely\ngrant, but fervently contend. But why the very perfection of reason,\nnamely, those ideas or truth-powers, in which both the spiritual light\nand the spiritual life are co-inherent and one, should be called\nsuper-rational, I do not see. For reason is practical as well as\ntheoretical; or even though I should exclude the practical reason, and\nconfine the term reason to the highest intellective power,--still I\nshould think it more correct to describe the mysteries of faith as\n'plusquam rationalia' than super-rational. But the assertions that\nprovoke the remark arose for the greater part, and still arise, out of\nthe confounding of the reason with the understanding. In Hooker, and the\ngreat divines of his age, it was merely an occasional carelessness in\nthe use of the terms that reason is ever put where they meant the\nunderstanding; for, from other parts of their writings, it is evident\nthat they knew and asserted the distinction, nay, the diversity of the\nthings themselves; to wit, that there was in man another and higher\nlight than that of the faculty judging according to sense, that is our\nunderstandings. But, alas! since the Revolution, it has ceased to be a\nmere error of language, and in too many it now amounts to a denial of\nreason!\n\n\nB. ii. c. v.3. p.379.\n\n  To urge any thing as part of that supernatural and celestially\n  revealed truth which God hath taught, and not to shew it in Scripture;\n  this did the ancient Fathers evermore think unlawful, impious,\n  execrable.\n\nEven this must be received 'cum grano salis.' To be sure, with the\nlicences of interpretation, which the Fathers of the first three or four\ncenturies allowed themselves, and with the 'arcana' of evolution by\nword, letter, allegory, yea, punning, which they applied to detached\nsentences or single phrases of Holy Writ, it would not be easy to\nimagine a position which they could not 'shew in Scripture.' Let this be\nelucidated by the texts even now cited by the Romish priests for the\ntruth of purgatory, indulgence, image-worship, invocation of dead men,\nand the like. The assertion therefore must be thus qualified. The\nancient Fathers anathematized any doctrine not consentaneous with\nScripture and deducible from it, either 'pari ratione' or by\nconsequence; as when Scripture clearly commands an end, but leaves the\nmeans to be determined according to the circumstances, as for example,\nthe frequent assembly of Christians. The appointment of a Sunday or\nLord's day is evidently the fittest and most effectual mean to this end;\nbut yet it was not practicable, that is the mean did not exist till the\nRoman government became Christian. But as soon as this event took place,\nthe duty of keeping the Sunday holy is truly, though implicitly,\ncontained in the Apostolic text.\n\n\nIb. vi. 3. p. 392.\n\n\n  Again, with a negative argument, David is pressed concerning the\n  purpose he had to build a temple unto the Lord: 'Thus saith the\n  Lord, Thou shalt not build me a house to dwelt in. Wheresoever I have\n  walked with all Israel, spake I one word to any of the judges of\n  Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Why have ye not\n  built me a house?'\n\n\nThe wisdom of the divine goodness both in the negative, the not having\nauthorized any of the preceding Judges from Moses downwards to build a\ntemple--and in the positive, in having commanded David to prepare for\nit, and Solomon to build it--I have not seen put in the full light in\nwhich it so well deserves to be. The former or negative, or the evils of\na splendid temple-worship and its effects on the character of the\npriesthood,--evils, when not changed to good by becoming the antidote\nand preventive of far greater evils,--would require much thought both to\nset forth and to comprehend. But to give any reflecting reader a sense\nof the providential foresight evinced in the latter, and this foresight\nbeyond the reach of any but the Omniscient, it will be only necessary to\nremind him of the separation of the ten tribes and the breaking up of\nthe realm into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel in the very next\nreign. Without the continuity of succession provided for by this vast\nand splendid temple, built and arranged under the divine sanction\nattested by miracles--what criterion would there have existed for the\npurity of this law and worship? what security for the preservation and\nincorruption of the inspired writings?\n\n\nIb. vii. 3. p. 403.\n\n  That there is a city of Rome, that Pius Quintus and Gregory the\n  Thirteenth, and others, have been Popes of Rome, I suppose we are\n  certainly enough persuaded. The ground of our persuasion, who never\n  saw the place nor persons before named, can be nothing but man's\n  testimony. Will any man here notwithstanding allege those mentioned\n  human infirmities as reasons why these things should be mistrusted or\n  doubted of? Yea, that which is more, utterly to infringe the force and\n  strength of man's testimony, were to shake the very fortress of God's\n  truth.\n\n\nIn a note on a passage in Skelton's 'Deism Revealed', [11] I have\ndetected the subtle sophism that lurks in this argument, as applied by\nlater divines in vindication of proof by testimony, in relation to the\nmiracles of the Old and New Testament. As thus applied, it is a [Greek:\nmet\u00e1basis eis allo g\u00e9nos], though so unobvious, that a very acute and\ncandid reasoner might use the argument without suspecting the\nparalogism. It is not testimony, as testimony, that necessitates us to\nconclude that there is such a city as Rome--but a reasoning, that forms\na branch of mathematical science. So far is our conviction from being\ngrounded on our confidence in human testimony that it proceeds on our\nknowledge of its fallible character, and therefore can find no\nsufficient reason for its coincidence on so vast a scale, but in the\nreal existence of the object. That a thousand lies told by as many\nseveral and unconnected individuals should all be one and the same, is a\npossibility expressible only by a fraction that is already, to all\nintents and purposes, equal to nought.\n\n\nB. iii. c. iii. 1. p. 447.\n\n  The mixture of those things by speech, which by nature are divided, is\n  the mother of all error.\n\n\n'The division in thought of those things which in nature are distinct,\nyet one, that is, distinguished without breach of unity, is the\nmother,'--so I should have framed the position. Will, reason,\nlife,--ideas in relation to the mind, are instances; 'enti\u00e6 indivise\ninterdistinct\u00e6'; and the main arguments of the atheists, materialists,\ndeniers of our Lord's divinity and the like, all rest on the asserting\nof division as a necessary consequence of distinction.\n\n\nB. v. c. xix. 3. vol. ii. p. 87.\n\n  Of both translations the better I willingly acknowledge that which\n  cometh nearer to the very letter of the original verity; yet so that\n  the other may likewise safely enough be read, without any peril at all\n  of gainsaying as much as the least jot or syllable of God's most\n  sacred and precious truth.\n\nHooker had far better have rested on the impossibility and the\nuselessness, if possible, of a faultless translation; and admitting\ncertain mistakes, and oversights, have recommended them for notice at\nthe next revision; and then asked, what objection such harmless trifles\ncould be to a Church that never pretended to infallibility! But in fact\nthe age was not ripe enough even for a Hooker to feel, much less with\nsafety to expose, the Protestants' idol, that is, their Bibliolatry.\n\n\nIb. c. xxii. 10. p. 125.\n\n  Their only proper and direct proof of the thing in question had been\n  to shew, in what sort and how far man's salvation doth necessarily\n  depend upon the knowledge of the word of God; what conditions,\n  properties, and qualities there are, whereby sermons are distinguished\n  from other kinds of administering the word unto that purpose; and what\n  special property or quality that is, which being no where found but in\n  sermons, maketh them effectual to save souls, and leaveth all other\n  doctrinal means besides destitute of vital efficacy.\n\nDoubtless, Hooker was a theological Talus, with a club of iron against,\nopponents with pasteboard helmets, and armed only with crabsticks! But\nyet, I too, too often find occasion to complain of him as abusing his\nsuperior strength. For in a good man it is an abuse of his intellectual\nsuperiority, not to use a portion of it in stating his Christian\nopponents' cause, his brethren's (though dissentient, and perhaps\nerring, yet still brethren's,) side of the question, not as they had\nstated and argued it, but as he himself with his higher gifts of logic\nand foresight could have set it forth. But Hooker flies off to the\ngeneral, in which he is unassailable; and does not, as in candour he\nshould have done, inquire whether the question would not admit of, nay,\ndemand, a different answer, when applied solely or principally to the\ncircumstances, the condition and the needs of the English parishes, and\nthe population at large, at the particular time when the Puritan divines\nwrote, and he, Hooker, replied to them. Now let the cause be tried in\nthis way, and I should not be afraid to attempt the proof of the\nparamount efficacy of preaching on the scheme, and in the line of\nargument laid down by himself in this section. In short, Hooker\nfrequently finds it convenient to forget the homely proverb; 'the proof\nof the pudding is in the eating.' Whose parishes were the best\ndisciplined, whose flocks the best fed, the soberest livers, and the\nmost awakened and best informed Christians, those of the zealous\npreaching divines, or those of the prelatic clergy with their readers?\nIn whose churches and parishes were all the other pastoral duties,\ncatechizing, visiting the poor and the like, most strictly practised?\n\n\nIb. 11.\n\n  The people which have no way to come to the knowledge of God, no\n  prophesying, no teaching, perish. But that they should of necessity\n  perish, where any one way of knowledge lacketh, is more than the words\n  of Solomon import.\n\nBut what was the fact? Were those congregations that had those readers\nof whom the Puritans were speaking--were they, I say, equally well\nacquainted with, and practically impressed by, the saving truths of the\nGospel? Were they not rather perishing for lack of knowledge? To\nreply,--It was their own fault; they ought to have been more regular in\ntheir attendance at church, and more attentive, when there, to what was\nthere read,--is to my mind too shocking, nay, antichristian.\n\n\nIb. 16. p.137.\n\n  Now all these things being well considered, it shall be no intricate\n  matter for any man to judge with indifferency, on which part the good\n  of the church is most conveniently sought; whether on ours, whose\n  opinion is such as hath been shewed, or else on theirs, who leaving no\n  ordinary way of salvation for them unto whom the word of God is but\n  only read, do seldom name them but with great disdain and contempt,\n  who execute that service in the church of Christ.\n\nIf so, they were much to be blamed. But surely this was not the case\nwith the better and wiser part of those who, clinging to the tenets and\nfeelings of the first Reformers, and honouring Archbishop Grindal as\nmuch as they dreaded his Arminian successors, were denominated Puritans!\nThey limited their censures to exclusive reading,--to reading as the\nsubstitute for, and too often for the purpose of doing away with,\npreaching.\n\n\nIb. lxv. 8. p.415.\n\n  Thus was the memory of that sign which they had in baptism a kind of\n  bar or prevention to keep them even from apostasy, whereinto the\n  frailty of flesh and blood, overmuch fearing to endure shame, might\n  peradventure the more easily otherwise have drawn them.\n\nI begin to fear that Hooker is not suited to my nature. I cannot bear\nround-abouts for the purpose of evading the short cut straight before my\neyes. 'Exempli gratia;' I find myself tempted in this place to ejaculate\nPsha! somewhat abruptly, and ask, 'How many in twenty millions of\nChristian men and women ever reverted to the make-believe impression of\nthe Cross on their forehead in unconscious infancy, by the wetted tip of\nthe clergyman's finger as a preservative against anger and resentment?\n'The whole church of God!' Was it not the same church which, neglecting\nand concealing the Scriptures of God, introduced the adoration of the\nCross, the worshipping of relics, holy water, and all the other\ncountless mummeries of Popery? Something might be pretended for the\nmaterial images of the Cross worn at the bosom or hung up in the\nbed-chamber. These may, and doubtless often do, serve as silent\nmonitors; but this eye-falsehood or pretence of making a mark that is\nnot made, is a gratuitous superstition, that cannot be practised without\nserious danger of leading the vulgar to regard it as a charm. Hooker\nshould have asked--Has it hitherto had this effect on Christians\ngenerally? Is it likely to produce this effect and this principally? In\ncommon honesty he must have answered, No!--Do I then blame the Church of\nEngland for retaining this ceremony? By no means. I justify it as a wise\nand pious condescension to the inveterate habits of a people newly\ndragged, rather than drawn, out of Papistry; and as a pledge that the\nfounders and fathers of the Reformation in England regarded innovation\nas 'per se' an evil, and therefore requiring for its justification not\nonly a cause, but a weighty cause. They did well and piously in\ndeferring the removal of minor spots and stains to the time when the\ngood effects of the more important reforms had begun to shew themselves\nin the minds and hearts of the laity.--But they do not act either wisely\nor charitably who would eulogize these 'macul\u00e6' as beauty-spots and\nvindicate as good what their predecessors only tolerated as the lesser\nevil.\n\n12th Aug. 1826.\n\n\nIb. 15. p. 424.\n\n  For in actions of this kind we are more to respect what the greatest\n  part of men is commonly prone to conceive, than what some few men's\n  wits may devise in construction of their own particular meanings.\n  Plain it is, that a false opinion of some personal divine excellency\n  to be in those things which either nature or art hath framed causeth\n  always religious adoration.\n\nHow strongly might this most judicious remark be turned against Hooker's\nown mode of vindicating this ceremony!\n\n\nIb. lxvi. 2. p. 432.\n\n  The Church had received from Christ a promise that such as have\n  believed in him these signs and tokens should follow them.\n\n  'To cast out devils, to speak with tongues, to drive away serpents, to\n  be free from the harm which any deadly poison could work, and to cure\n  diseases by imposition of hands.'\n\n  'Mark xvi'.\n\nThe man who verily and sincerely believes the narrative in St. John's\nGospel of the feeding of five thousand persons with a few loaves and\nsmall fishes, and of the raising of Lazarus, in the plain and literal\nsense, cannot be reasonably suspected of rejecting, or doubting, any\nnarrative concerning Christ and his Apostles, simply as miraculous. I\ntrust, therefore, that no disbelief of, or prejudice against, miraculous\nevents and powers will be attributed to me, as the ground or cause of my\nstrong persuasion that the latter verses of the last chapter of St.\nMark's Gospel were an additament of a later age, for which St. Luke's\nActs of the Apostles misunderstood supplied the hints.\n\n\nIb. lxxii. 15 & 16. p.539.\n\nIf Richard Hooker had written only these two precious paragraphs, I\nshould hold myself bound to thank the Father of lights and Giver of all\ngood gifts for his existence and the preservation of his writings.\n\n\nB. viii. c. ix. 2. vol. iii. p. 537.\n\n  As there could be in natural bodies no motion of anything, unless\n  there were some which moveth all things, and continueth immoveable;\n  even so in politic societies, there must be some unpunishable, or else\n  no man shall suffer punishment.\n\nIt is most painful to connect the venerable, almost sacred, name of\nRichard Hooker with such a specimen of puerile sophistry, scarcely\nworthy of a court bishop's trencher chaplain in the slavering times of\nour Scotch Solomon. It is, however, of some value, some interest at\nleast, as a striking example of the confusion of an idea with a\nconception. Every conception has its sole reality in its being referable\nto a thing or class of things, of which, or of the common characters of\nwhich, it is a reflection. An idea is a power, [Greek: d\u00fanamis noera],\nwhich constitutes its own reality, and is in order of thought\nnecessarily antecedent to the things in which it is more or less\nadequately realized, while a conception is as necessarily posterior.\n\n\n\n\nSERMON OF THE CERTAINTY AND PERPETUITY OF FAITH IN THE ELECT.\n\n\nVol. iii. p. 583.\n\nThe following truly admirable discourse is, I think, the concluding\nsermon of a series unhappily not preserved.\n\n\nIb. p.584.\n\n  If it were so in matters of faith, then, as all men have equal\n  certainty of this, so no believer should be more scrupulous and\n  doubtful than another. But we find the contrary. The angels and\n  spirits of the righteous in heaven have certainty most evident of\n  things spiritual: but this they have by the light of glory. That which\n  we see by the light of grace, though it be indeed more certain; yet it\n  is not to us so evidently certain, as that which sense or the light of\n  nature will not suffer a man to doubt of.\n\n\nHooker's meaning is right; but he falls into a sad confusion of words,\nblending the thing and the relation of the mind to the thing. The fourth\nmoon of Jupiter is certain in itself; but evident only to the astronomer\nwith his telescope.\n\n\nIb. p. 585-588.\n\n  The other, which we call the certainty of adherence, is when the heart\n  doth cleave and stick unto that which it doth believe. This certainty\n  is greater in us than the other ... ('down to') the fourth\n  question resteth, and so an end of this point.\n\n\nThese paragraphs should be written in gold. O! may these precious words\nbe written on my heart!\n\n1. That we all need to be redeemed, and that therefore we are all in\ncaptivity to an evil:\n\n2. That there is a Redeemer:\n\n3. That the redemption relatively to each individual captive is, if not\neffected under certain conditions, yet manifestable as far as is fitting\nfor the soul by certain signs and consequents:--and\n\n4. That these signs are in myself; that the conditions under which the\nredemption offered to all men is promised to the individual, are\nfulfilled in myself;\n\nthese are the four great points of faith, in which the humble Christian\nfinds and feels a gradation from trembling hope to full assurance; yet\nthe will, the act of trust, is the same in all. Might I not almost say,\nthat it rather increases with the decrease of the consciously discerned\nevidence? To assert that I have the same assurance of mind that I am\nsaved as that I need a Saviour, would be a contradiction to my own\nfeelings, and yet I may have an equal, that is, an equivalent assurance.\nHow is it possible that a sick man should have the same certainty of his\nconvalescence as of his sickness? Yet he may be assured of it. So again,\nmy faith in the skill and integrity of my physician may be complete, but\nthe application of it to my own case may be troubled by the sense of my\nown imperfect obedience to his prescriptions. The sort of our beliefs\nand assurances is necessarily modified by their different subjects. It\nargues no want of saving faith on the whole, that I cannot have the same\ntrust in myself as I have in my God. That Christ's righteousness can\nsave me,--that Christ's righteousness alone can save--these are simple\npositions, all the terms of which are steady and copresent to my mind.\nBut that I shall be so saved,--that of the many called I have been one\nof the chosen,--this is no mere conclusion of mind on known or assured\npremisses. I can remember no other discourse that sinks into and draws\nup comfort from the depths of our being below our own distinct\nconsciousness, with the clearness and godly loving-kindness of this\ntruly evangelical God-to-be-thanked-for sermon. But how large, how\nimportant a part of our spiritual life goes on like the circulation,\nabsorptions, and secretions of our bodily life, unrepresented by any\nspecific sensation, and yet the ground and condition of our total sense\nof existence!\n\nWhile I feel, acknowledge, and revere the almost measureless superiority\nof the sermons of the divines, who labored in the first, and even the\nfirst two centuries of the Reformation, from Luther to Leighton, over\nthe prudential morals and apologizing theology that have characterized\nthe unfanatical clergy since the Revolution in 1688, I cannot but\nregret, especially while I am listening to a Hooker, that they withheld\nall light from the truths contained in the words 'Satan', 'the Serpent',\n'the Evil Spirit', and this last used plurally.\n\n\n\n\nA DISCOURSE OF JUSTIFICATION, WORKS, AND HOW THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH IS\nOVERTHROWN.\n\n\nIb. s. 31. p. 659-661.\n\n  But we say, our salvation is by Christ alone; therefore howsoever, or\n  whatsoever, we add unto Christ in the matter of salvation, we\n  overthrow Christ. Our case were very hard, if this argument, so\n  universally meant as it is proposed, were sound and good. We ourselves\n  do not teach Christ alone, excluding our own faith, unto\n  justification; Christ alone, excluding our own work, unto\n  sanctification; Christ alone, excluding the one or the other as\n  unnecessary unto salvation. ... As we have received, so we teach that\n  besides the bare and naked work, wherein Christ, without any other\n  associate, finished all the parts of our redemption and purchased\n  salvation himself alone; for conveyance of this eminent blessing unto\n  us, many things are required, as, to be known and chosen of God\n  _before_ the foundations of the world; _in_ the world to be called,\n  justified, sanctified; _after_ we have left the world to be received\n  into glory; Christ in every of these hath somewhat which he worketh\n  alone. &c. &c.\n\nNo where out of the Holy Scripture have I found the root and pith of\nChristian faith so clearly and purely propounded as in this section.\nGod, whose thoughts are eternal, beholdeth the end, and in the completed\nwork seeth and accepteth every stage of the process. I dislike only the\nword 'purchased;'--not that it is not Scriptural, but because a metaphor\nwell and wisely used in the enforcement and varied elucidation of a\ntruth, is not therefore properly employed in its exact enunciation. I\nwill illustrate, amplify and _divide_ the word with Paul; but I will\npropound it collectively with John. If in this admirable passage aught\nelse dare be wished otherwise, it is the division and yet confusion of\ntime and eternity, by giving an anteriority to the latter.\n\nI am persuaded, that the practice of the Romish church tendeth to make\nvain the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ alone; but judging by\nher most eminent divines, I can find nothing dissonant from the truth in\nher express decisions on this article. Perhaps it would be safer to\nsay:--Christ alone saves us, working in us by the faith which includes\nhope and love.\n\n\nIb. s. 34. p. 671.\n\n  If it were not a strong deluding spirit which hath possession of their\n  hearts; were it possible but that they should see how plainly they do\n  herein gainsay the very ground of apostolic faith? ... The Apostle, as\n  if he had foreseen how the Church of Rome would abuse the world in\n  time by ambiguous terms, to declare in what sense the name of grace\n  must be taken, when we make it the cause of our salvation, saith, 'He\n  saved us according to his mercy', &c.\n\nIn all Christian communities there have been and ever will be too many\nChristians in name only;--too many in belief and notion only: but\nlikewise, I trust, in every acknowledged Church, Eastern or Western,\nGreek, Roman, Protestant, many of those in belief, more or less\nerroneous, who are Christians in faith and in spirit. And I neither do\nnor can think, that any pious member of the Church of Rome did ever in\nhis heart attribute any merit to any work as being his work. [12] A\ngrievous error and a mischievous error there was practically in mooting\nthe question at all of the condignity of works and their rewards. In\nshort, to attribute merit to any agent but God in Christ, our faith as\nChristians forbids us; and to dispute about the merit of works\nabstracted from the agent, common sense ought to forbid us.\n\n\n\nA SUPPLICATION MADE TO THE COUNCIL BY MASTER WALTER TRAVERS.\n\n\nIb. p. 698.\n\n  I said directly and plainly to all men's understanding, that it was\n  not indeed to be doubted, but many of the Fathers were saved; but the\n  means, said I, was not their ignorance, which excuseth no man with\n  God, but their knowledge and faith of the truth, which, it appeareth,\n  God vouchsafed them, by many notable monuments and records extant of\n  it in all ages.\n\nNot certainly, if the ignorance proceeded directly or indirectly from a\ndefect or sinful propensity of the will; but where no such cause is\nimaginable, in such cases this position of Master Travers is little less\nthan blasphemous to the divine goodness, and in direct contradiction to\nan assertion of St. Paul's, [13] and to an evident consequence from our\nSaviour's own words on the polygamy of the fathers. [14]\n\n\n\nANSWER TO TRAVERS.\n\n\nIb. p. 719.\n\n  The next thing discovered, is an opinion about the assurance of men's\n  persuasion in matters of faith. I have taught, he saith, 'That the\n  assurance of things which we believe by the word, is not so certain as\n  of that we perceive by sense.'\n\nA useful instance to illustrate the importance of distinct, and the\nmischief of equivocal or multivocal, terms. Had Hooker said that the\nfundamental truths of religion, though perhaps even more certain, are\nless evident than the facts of sense, there could have been no\nmisunderstanding. Thus the demonstrations of algebra possess equal\ncertainty with those of geometry, but cannot lay claim to the same\nevidence. Certainty is positive, evidence relative; the former, strictly\ntaken, insusceptible of more or less, the latter capable of existing in\nmany different degrees.\n\nWriting a year or more after the preceding note, I am sorry to say that\nHooker's reasoning on this point seems to me sophistical throughout.\nThat a man must see what he sees is no persuasion at all, nor bears the\nremotest analogy to any judgment of the mind. The question is, whether\nmen have a clearer conception and a more stedfast conviction of the\nobjective reality to which the image moving their eye appertains, than\nof the objective reality of the things and states spiritually discovered\nby faith. And this Travers had a right to question wherever a saving\nfaith existed.\n\nAugust, 1826.\n\n\n\nSERMON IV. A REMEDY AGAINST SORROW AND FEAR.\n\n\nIb. p. 801.\n\n  In spirit I am with you to the world's end.\n\nO how grateful should I be to be made intuitive of the truth intended in\nthe words--'In spirit I am with you!'\n\n\nIb. p. 808.\n\n  Touching the latter affection of fear, which respecteth evils to come,\n  as the other which we have spoken of doth present evils; first, in the\n  nature thereof it is plain that we are not every future evil afraid.\n  Perceive we not how they, whose tenderness shrinketh at the least rase\n  of a needle's point, do kiss the sword that pierceth their souls quite\n  thorow?\n\nIn this and in sundry similar passages of this venerable writer there is\n[Greek: h_os emoige dokei], a very plausible, but even therefore the\nmore dangerous, sophism; but the due detection and exposure of which\nwould exceed the scanty space of a marginal comment. Briefly, what does\nHooker comprehend in the term 'pain?' Whatsoever the soul finds adverse\nto her well being, or incompatible with her free action? In this sense\nHooker's position is a mere truism. But if pain be applied exclusively\nto the soul finding itself as life, then it is an error.\n\n\nIb. p. 811.\n\n  Fear then in itself being mere nature cannot in itself be sin, which\n  sin is not nature, but therefore an accessary deprivation.\n\nI suspect a misprint, and that it should be depravation'. But if not\nnature, then it must be a super-induced and incidental depravation of\nnature. The principal, namely fear, is nature; but the sin, that is,\nthat it is a sinful fear, is but an accessary.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The references are to Mr. Keble's edition (1836.)--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: But see Mr. Keble's statement (Pref. xxix.), and the\nargument founded on discoveries and collation of MSS. since the note in\nthe text was written.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: See Mr. Coleridge's work 'On the constitution of the Church\nand State according to the idea of each.'--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: See E. P. I. ii. 3. p. 252.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 5: See the 'Church and State,' in which the 'ecclesia' or\nChurch in Christ, is distinguished from the 'enclesia', or national\nChurch.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 6: See the essays generally from the fourth to the ninth, both\ninclusively, in Vol. III. 3rd edition, more especially, the fifth\nessay.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 7: Part I. c. i. vv. 151--6.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 8: See the essay on the idea of the Prometheus of \u00c6schylus.\nLiterary Remains, Vol. II. p. 323.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 9:\n\n  'Every man is born an Aristotelian, or a Platonist. I do not think it\n  possible that any one born an Aristotelian can become a Platonist; and\n  I am sure no born Platonist can ever change into an Aristotelian. They\n  are the two classes of men, beside which it is next to impossible to\n  conceive a third. The one considers reason a quality, or attribute;\n  the other considers it a power. I believe that Aristotle never could\n  get to understand what Plato meant by an idea. ... Aristotle was, and\n  still is, the sovereign lord of the understanding; the faculty judging\n  by the senses. He was a conceptualist, and never could raise himself\n  into that higher state, which was natural to Plato, and has been so to\n  others, in which the understanding is distinctly contemplated, and, as\n  it were, looked down upon, from the throne of actual ideas, or living,\n  inborn, essential truths.'\n\n'Table Talk', 2d Edit. p. 95.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 10: See the 'Church and State,' c. i.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 11: See 'post'.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 12: But see the language of the Council of Trent:\n\n  Si quis dixerit justitiam acceptam non conservari 'atque etiam augeri\n  coram. Deo per bona opera'; sed opera ipsa fructus solummodo et signa\n  esse justificationis adept\u00e6,' non autem ipsius augend\u00e6 causam';\n  anathema sit.\n\n  'Sess'. VI. 'Can'. 24.\n\n  ... Si quis dixerit hominis justificati 'bona opera' ita esse dona\n  Dei, 'ut non sint etiam bona ipsius justificati merita'; aut ipsum\n  justificatum 'bonis operibus', qu\u00e6 ab eo per Dei gratiam, et Jesu\n  Christi meritum, cujus vivum membrum est, fiunt, 'non vere mereri\n  augmentum grati\u00e6, vitam \u00e6ternam, et ipsius vit\u00e6 \u00e6tern\u00e6, si tamen in\n  gratia decesserit, conscecutionem atque etiam glori\u00e6 augmentum',\n  anathema sit.\n\n  'Ib. Can.' 32.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 13: Rom. ii. 12.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 14: Matt. xix. 8.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON FIELD ON THE CHURCH. [1]\n\n  'Fly-leaf.--Hannah Scollock, her book, February 10', 1787.\n\n  This, Hannah Scollock! may have been the case;\n  Your writing therefore I will not erase.\n  But now this book, once yours, belongs to me,\n  The Morning Post's and Courier's S. T. C.;--\n  Elsewhere in College, knowledge, wit and scholerage\n  To friends and public known, as S. T. Coleridge.\n  Witness hereto my hand, on Ashly Green,\n  One thousand, twice four hundred, and fourteen\n  Year of our Lord--and of the month November,\n  The fifteenth day, if right I do remember.\n\n\n28 March, 1819. [2]\n\nMY DEAR DERWENT,\n\nThis one volume, thoroughly understood and appropriated, will place you\nin the highest ranks of doctrinal Church of England divines (of such as\nnow are), and in no mean rank as a true doctrinal Church historian.\n\nNext to this I recommend Baxter's own Life, edited by Sylvester, with my\nmarginal notes. Here, more than in any of the prelatical and Arminian\ndivines from Laud to the death of Charles II, you will see the strength\nand beauty of the Church of England, that is, its liturgy, homilies, and\narticles. By contrasting, too, its present state with that which such\nexcellent men as Baxter, Calamy, and the so called Presbyterian or\nPuritan divines, would have made it, you will bless it as the bulwark of\ntoleration.\n\nThirdly, you must read Eichorn's Introduction to the Old and New\nTestament, and the Apocrypha, and his comment on the Apocalypse; to all\nwhich my notes and your own previous studies will supply whatever\nantidote is wanting;--these will suffice for your Biblical learning, and\nteach you to attach no more than the supportable weight to these and\nsuch like outward evidences of our holy and spiritual religion.\n\nSo having done, you will be in point of professional knowledge such a\nclergyman as will make glad the heart of your loving father,\n\nS. T. COLERIDGE.\n\nN. B.--See Book iv Chap. 7, p. 351, both for a masterly confutation of\nthe Paleyo-Grotian evidences of the Gospel, and a decisive proof in what\nlight that system was regarded by the Church of England in its best age.\nLike Grotius himself, it is half way between Popery and Socinianism.\n\n\nB. i. c. 3. p. 5.\n\n  But men desired only to be like unto God in omniscience and the\n  general knowledge of all things which may be communicated to a\n  creature, as in Christ it is to his human soul.\n\nSurely this is more than doubtful; and even the instance given is\nirreconcilable with Christ's own assertion concerning the last day,\nwhich must be understood of his human soul, by all who hold the faith\ndelivered from the foundation, namely, his deity. Field seems to have\nexcerpted this incautiously from the Schoolmen, who on this premiss\ncould justify the communicability of adoration, as in the case of the\nsaints. Omniscience, it may be proved, implies omnipotence. The fourth\nof the arguments in this section, and, as closely connected with it, the\nfirst (only somewhat differently stated) seem the strongest, or rather\nthe only ones. For the second is a mere anticipation of the fourth, and\nall that is true in the third is involved in it.\n\n\nIb. c. 5. p. 9.\n\n  And began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them\n  utterance.\n\n\nThat is, I humbly apprehend, in other than the Hebrew and Syrochaldaic\nlanguages, which (with rare and reluctant exceptions in favor of the\nGreek) were appropriated to public prayer and exhortation, just as the\nLatin in the Romish Church. The new converts preached and prayed, each\nto his companions in his and their dialect;--they were all Jews, but had\nassembled from all the different provinces of the Roman and Parthian\nempires, as the Quakers among us to the yearly meeting in London; this\nwas a sign, not a miracle. The miracle consisted in the visible and\naudible descent of the Holy Ghost, and in the fulfilment of the prophecy\nof Joel, as explained by St. Peter himself. 'Acts' ii. 15.\n\n\nIb. p.10.\n\n  'Aliud est etymologia nominis et aliud significatio nominis.\n  Etymologia attenditur secundum id it quo imponitur nomen ad\n  significandum: nominis vero significatio secundum id ad quod\n  significandum imponitur.'\n\n  This passage from Aquinas would be an apt motto for a critique on\n  Horne Tooke's Diversions of Purley. The best service of etymology is,\n  when the sense of a word is still unsettled, and especially when two\n  words have each two meanings; A=a-b, and B=a-b, instead of A=a and\n  B=b. Thus reason and understanding as at present popularly confounded.\n  Here the 'etyma,--ratio,' the relative proportion of thoughts and\n  things,--and understanding, as the power which substantiates\n  'ph\u00e6nomena (substat eis)'--determine the proper sense. But most often\n  the 'etyma' being equivalent, we must proceed 'ex arbitrio,' as 'law\n  compels,' 'religion obliges;' or take up what had been begun in some\n  one derivative. Thus 'fanciful' and 'imaginative,' are\n  discriminated;--and this supplies the ground of choice for giving to\n  fancy and imagination, each its own sense. Cowley is a fanciful\n  writer, Milton an imaginative poet. Then I proceed with the\n  distinction, how ill fancy assorts with imagination, as instanced in\n  Milton's Limbo. [3]\n\n\nIb.\n\nI should rather express the difference between the faithful of the\nSynagogue and those of the Church, thus:--That the former hoped\ngenerally by an implicit faith;--\"It shall in all things be well with\nall that love the Lord; therefore it cannot but be good for us and well\nwith us to rest with our forefathers.\" But the Christian hath an assured\nhope by an explicit and particular faith, a hope because its object is\nfuture, not because it is uncertain. The one was on the road journeying\ntoward a friend of his father's, who had promised he would be kind to\nhim even to the third and fourth generation. He comforts himself on the\nroad, first, by means of the various places of refreshment, which that\nfriend had built for travellers and continued to supply; and secondly,\nby anticipation of a kind reception at the friend's own mansion-house.\nBut the other has received an express invitation to a banquet, beholds\nthe preparations, and has only to wash and put on the proper robes, in\norder to sit down.\n\n\nIb. p. 11.\n\n  The reason why our translators, in the beginning, did choose rather to\n  use the word 'congregation' than 'Church,' was not, as the adversary\n  maliciously imagineth, for that they feared the very name of the\n  Church; but because as by the name of religion and religious men,\n  ordinarily in former times, men understood nothing but _factitias\n  religiones_, as Gerson out of Anselme calleth them, that is, the\n  professions of monks and friars, so, &c.\n\nFor the same reason the word 'religion' for [Greek: Thraeskia] in St.\nJames [4] ought now to be altered to ceremony or ritual. The whole\nversion has by change of language become a dangerous mistranslation, and\nfurnishes a favorite text to our moral preachers, Church Socinians and\nother christened pagans now so rife amongst us. What was the substance\nof the ceremonial law is but the ceremonial part of the Christian\nreligion; but it is its solemn ceremonial law, and though not the same,\nyet one with it and inseparable, even as form and substance. Such is St.\nJames's doctrine, destroying at one blow Antinomianism and the Popish\npopular doctrine of good works.\n\n\nIb. c. 18. p. 27.\n\n  But if the Church of God remains in Corinth, where there were\n  'divisions, sects, emulations', &c. ... who dare deny those societies\n  to be the Churches of God, wherein the tenth part of these horrible\n  evils and abuses is not to be found?\n\n\nIt is rare to meet with sophistry in this sound divine; but here he\nseems to border on it. For first the Corinthian Church upon admonition\nrepented of its negligence; and secondly, the objection of the Puritans\nwas, that the constitution of the Church precluded discipline.\n\n\nB. II. c. 2. p. 31.\n\n'Miscreant' is twice used in this page in its original sense of\nmisbeliever.\n\n\nIb. c. 4. p. 35.\n\n'Discourse' is here used for the discursive acts of the understanding,\neven as 'discursive, is opposed to 'intuitive' by Milton [5] and others.\nThus understand Shakspeare's \"discourse of reason\" for those discursions\nof mind which are peculiar to rational beings.\n\n\nB. III. c. 1.p. 53.\n\n  The first publishers of the Gospel of Christ delivered a rule of faith\n  to the Christian Churches which they founded, comprehending all those\n  articles that are found in that 'epitome' of Christian religion, which\n  we call the Apostles' Creed.\n\n\nThis needs proof. I rather believe that the so called Apostles' Creed\nwas really the Creed of the Roman or Western church, (and possibly in\nits present form, the catechismal rather than the baptismal creed),--and\nthat other churches in the East had Creeds equally ancient, and, from\ntheir being earlier troubled with Anti Trinitarian heresies, more\nexpress on the divinity of Christ than the Roman.\n\n\nIb. p. 58.\n\n  Fourthly, that it is no less absurd to say, as the Papists do, that\n  our satisfaction is required as a condition, without which Christ's\n  satisfaction is not appliable unto us, than to say, Peter hath paid\n  the debt of John, and he to whom it was due accepteth of the same\n  payment, conditionally if he pay it himself also.\n\nThis [6] propriation of a metaphor, namely, forgiveness of sin and\nabolition of guilt through the redemptive power of Christ's love and of\nhis perfect obedience during his voluntary assumption of humanity,\nexpressed, on account of the sameness of the consequences in both cases,\nby the payment of a debt for another, which debt the payer had not\nhimself incurred,--the propriation of this, I say, by transferring the\nsameness from the consequents to the antecedents is the one point of\northodoxy (so called, I mean) in which I still remain at issue. It seems\nto me so evidently a [Greek: met\u00e1basis eis allo g\u00e9nos.] A metaphor is an\nillustration of something less known by a more or less partial\nidentification of it with something better understood. Thus St. Paul\nillustrates the consequences of the act of redemption by four different\nmetaphors drawn from things most familiar to those, for whom it was to\nbe illustrated, namely, sin-offerings or sacrificial expiation;\nreconciliation; ransom from slavery; satisfaction of a just creditor by\nvicarious payment of the debt. These all refer to the consequences of\nredemption.\n\nNow, St. John without any metaphor declares the mode by and in which it\nis effected; for he identifies it with a fact, not with a consequence,\nand a fact too not better understood in the one case than in the other,\nnamely, by generation and birth. There remains, therefore, only the\nredemptive act itself, and this is transcendant, ineffable, and 'a\nfortiori', therefore, inexplicable. Like the act of primal apostasy, it\nis in its own nature a mystery, known only through faith in the spirit.\n\nJames owes John \u00a3100, which (to prevent James's being sent to prison)\nHenry pays for him; and John has no longer any claim. But James is cruel\nand ungrateful to Mary, his tender mother. Henry, though no relation,\nacts the part of a loving and dutiful son to Mary. But will this satisfy\nthe mother's claims on James, or entitle him to her esteem, approbation,\nand blessing? If, indeed, by force of Henry's example or persuasion, or\nany more mysterious influence, James repents and becomes himself a good\nand dutiful child, then, indeed, Mary is wholly satisfied; but then the\ncase is no longer a question of debt in that sense in which it can be\npaid by another, though the effect, of which alone St. Paul was\nspeaking, is the same in both cases to James as the debtor, and to James\nas the undutiful son. He is in both cases liberated from the burthen,\nand in both cases he has to attribute his exoneration to the act of\nanother; as cause simply in the payment of the debt, or as likewise\n'causa caus\u00e6' in James's reformation. Such is my present opinion: God\ngrant me increase of light either to renounce or confirm it.\n\nPerhaps the different terms of the above position may be more clearly\nstated thus:\n\n1. 'agens causator'\n2. 'actus causativus:'\n3. 'effectus causatus:'\n4. 'consequentia ab effecto.'\n\n1. The co-eternal Son of the living God, incarnate, tempted, crucified,\nresurgent, communicant of his spirit, ascendant, and obtaining for his\nchurch the descent of the Holy Ghost.\n\n2. A spiritual and transcendant mystery.\n\n3. The being born anew, as before in the flesh to the world, so now in\nthe spirit to Christ: where the differences are, the spirit opposed to\nthe flesh, and Christ to the world; the 'punctum indifferens', or\ncombining term, remaining the same in both, namely, a birth.\n\n4. Sanctification from sin and liberation from the consequences of sin,\nwith all the means and process of sanctification, being the same for the\nsinner relatively to God and his own soul, as the satisfaction of a\ncreditor for a debt, or as the offering of an atoning sacrifice for a\ntransgressor of the law; as a reconciliation for a rebellious son or a\nsubject to his alienated parent or offended sovereign; and as a ransom\nis for a slave in a heavy captivity.\n\nNow my complaint is that our systematic divines transfer the paragraph 4\nto the paragraphs 2 and 3, interpreting 'proprio sensu et ad totum 'what\nis affirmed 'sensu metaphorico et ad partem', that is, 'ad consequentia\na regeneratione effecta per actum causativum primi agentis, uempe\n[Greek: Logou] redemptoris', and by this interpretation substituting an\nidentification absolute for an equation proportional.\n\n4th May, 1819.\n\n\n\nIb. p. 62.\n\n  Personality is nothing but the existence of nature itself.\n\nGod alone had his nature in himself; that is, God alone contains in\nhimself the ground of his own existence. But were this definition of\nField's right, we might predicate personality of a worm, or wherever we\nfind life. Better say,--personality is individuality existing in itself,\nbut with a nature as its ground.\n\n\nIb. p.66.\n\n  Accursing Eutyches as a heretic.\n\nIt puzzles me to understand what sense Field gave to the word, heresy.\nSurely every slight error, even though persevered in, is not to be held\na heresy, or its asserters accursed. The error ought at least to respect\nsome point of faith essential to the great ends of the Gospel. Thus the\nphrase 'cursing Eutyches,' is to me shockingly unchristian. I could not\ndare call even the opinion cursed, till I saw how it injured the faith\nin Christ, weakened our confidence in him, or lessened our love and\ngratitude.\n\n\nIb. p.71.\n\n  'If ye be circumcised ye are fallen from grace, and Christ\ncan profit you nothing.'\n\nIt seems impossible but that these words had a relation to the\nparticular state of feeling and belief, out of which the anxiety to be\ncircumcised did in those particular persons proceed, and not absolutely,\nand at all times to the act itself, seeing that St. Paul himself\ncircumcised Timothy from motives of charity and prudence.\n\n\nIb. c.3. p.76.\n\n  The things that pertain to the Christian faith and religion are of two\n  sorts; for there are some things 'explicite', some things\n  'implicite credenda'; that is, there are some things that must be\n  particularly and expressly known and believed, as that the Father is\n  God, the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God, and yet they are not three\n  Gods but one God; and some other, which though all men, at all times,\n  be not bound upon the peril of damnation to know and believe\n  expressly, yet whosoever will be saved must believe them at least\n  'implicite', and in generality, as that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus\n  fled into Egypt.\n\nMerciful Heaven! Eternal misery and the immitigable wrath of God, and\nthe inextinguishable fire of hell amid devils, parricides, and haters of\nGod and all goodness--this is the verdict which a Protestant divine\npasses against the man, who though sincerely believing the whole Nicene\ncreed and every doctrine and precept taught in the New Testament, and\nliving accordingly, should yet have convinced himself that the first\nchapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke were not parts of the original\nGospels!\n\n\nIb. p.77.\n\n  So in the beginning, Nestorius did not err, touching the unity of\n  Christ's person in the diversity of the natures of God and man; but\n  only disliked that Mary should be called the mother of God: which form\n  of speaking when some demonstrated to be very fitting and unavoidable,\n  if Christ were God and man in the unity of the same person, he chose\n  rather to deny the unity of Christ's person than to acknowledge his\n  temerity and rashness in reproving that form of speech, which the use\n  of the church had anciently received and allowed.\n\nA false charge grounded on a misconception of the Syriac terms.\nNestorius was perfectly justifiable in his rejection of the epithet\n[Greek: theot\u00f3kos], as applied to the mother of Jesus. The Church was\neven then only too ripe for the idolatrous 'hyper-dulia' of the\nVirgin. Not less weak is Field's defence of the propriety of the term.\nSet aside all reference to this holy mystery, and let me ask, I trust\nwithout offence, whether by the same logic a mule's dam might not be\ncalled [Greek: hippot\u00f3kos], because the horse and ass were united in one\nand the same subject. The difference in the perfect God and perfect man\ndoes not remove the objection: for an epithet, which conceals half of a\ntruth, the power and special concerningness of which, relatively to our\nredemption by Christ, depends on our knowledge of the whole, is a\ndeceptive and a dangerously deceptive epithet.\n\n\nIb. c.20. p.110.\n\n  Thus, then, the Fathers did sometimes, when they had particular\n  occasions to remember the Saints, and to speak of them, by way of\n  'apostrophe', turn themselves unto them, and use words of\n  doubtful compellation, praying them, if they have any sense of these\n  inferior things, to be remembrancers to God for them.\n\n\nThe distinct gradations of the process, by which commemoration and\nrhetorical apostrophes passed finally into idolatry, supply an analogy\nof mighty force against the heretical 'hypothesis 'of the modern\nUnitarians. Were it true, they would have been able to have traced the\nprogress of the Christolatry from the lowest sort of 'Christodulia'\nwith the same historical distinctness against the universal Church, that\nthe Protestants have that of hierolatry against the Romanists. The\ngentle and soft censures which our divines during the reign of the\nStuarts pass on the Roman Saint worship, or hieroduly, as an\ninconvenient superstition, must needs have alarmed the faithful\nadherents to the Protestantism of Edward VI. and the surviving exiles of\nbloody Queen Mary's times, and their disciples.\n\nIb. p.111.\n\n  The miracles that God wrought in times past by them made many to\n  attribute more to them than was fit, as if they had a generality of\n  presence, knowledge, and working; but the wisest and best advised\n  never durst attribute any such thing unto them.\n\n\nTo a truly pious mind awfully impressed with the surpassing excellency\nof God's ineffable love to fallen man, in the revelation of himself to\nthe inner man through the reason and conscience by the spiritual light\nand substantiality--(for the conscience is to the spirit or reason what\nthe understanding is to the sense, a substantiative power); this\nconsequence of miracles is so fearful, that it cannot but redouble his\nzeal against that fashion of modern theologists which would convert\nmiracles from a motive to attention and solicitous examination, and at\nbest from a negative condition of revelation, into the positive\nfoundation of Christian faith.\n\nIb. c.22. p.116.\n\n  But if this be as vile a slander as ever Satanist devised, the Lord\n  reward them that have been the authors and advisers of it according\n  to their works.\n\nO no! no! this the good man did not utter from his heart, but from his\npassion. A vile and wicked slander it was and is. O may God have turned\nthe hearts of those who uttered it, or may it be among their unknown\nsins done in ignorance, for which the infinite merits of Christ may\nsatisfy! I am most assured that if Dr. Field were now alive, or if any\none had but said this to him, he would have replied--\"I thank thee,\nbrother, for thy Christian admonition. Add thy prayer, and pray God to\nforgive me my inconsiderate zeal!\"\n\n\nIb. c. 23. p. 119.\n\n  For what rectitude is due to the specifical act of hating God? or what\n  rectitude is it capable of?\n\n\nIs this a possible act to any man understanding by the word God what we\nmean by God?\n\n\nIb. p. 129.\n\nIt is this complicated dispute, as to the origin and permission of evil,\nwhich supplies to atheism its most plausible, because its only moral,\narguments; but more especially to that species of atheism which existed\nin Greece in the form of polytheism, admitting moral and intelligent\nshapers and governors of the world, but denying an intelligent ground,\nor self-conscious Creator of the universe; their gods being themselves\nthe offspring of chaos and necessity, that is, of matter and its\nessential laws or properties.\n\nThe Leibnitzian distinction of the Eternal Reason, or nature of God,\n[Greek: t\u00f2 theion](the [Greek: nous ka\u00ec an\u00e1gkae] of Tim\u00e6us Locrus) from\nthe will or personal attributes of God--([Greek: th\u00e9laema ka\u00ec\nbo\u00falaesis--agathou patr\u00f2s agath\u00f2n bo\u00falaema])--planted the germ of the\nonly possible solution, or rather perhaps, in words less exceptionable\nand more likely to be endured in the schools of modern theology, brought\nforward the truth involved in Behmen's too bold distinction of God and\nthe ground of God;--who yet in this is to be excused, not only for his\ngood aim and his ignorance of scholastic terms, but likewise because\nsome of the Fathers expressed themselves no less crudely in the other\nextreme; though it is not improbable that the meaning was the same in\nboth.\n\nAt least Behmen constantly makes self-existence a positive act, so as\nthat by an eternal [Greek: perich_\u00f3raesis] or mysterious\nintercirculation God wills himself out of the 'ground' ([Greek: t\u00f2\ntheion--t\u00f2 h\u00e8n ka\u00ec pan],--'indifferentia absoluta realitatis infinit\u00e6 et\ninfinit\u00e6 potentialitatis')--and again by his will, as God existing,\ngives being to the ground, [Greek: autogen\u00e0es--autophyl\u00e0es--uhios\nheautou]. 'Solus Deus est;--itaque principium, qui ex seipso dedit sibi\nipse principium. Deus ipse sui origo est, su\u00e6que causa substanti\u00e6, id\nquod est, ex se et in se continens. Ex seipso procreatus ipse se fecit',\n&c., of Synesius, Jerome, Hilary, and Lactantius and others involve the\nsame conception.\n\n\nIb. c. 27. p. 140.\n\n  The seventh is the heresy of Sabellius, which he saith was revived by\n  Servetus. So it was indeed, that Servetus revived in our time the\n  damnable heresy of Sabellius, long since condemned in the first ages\n  of the Church. But what is that to us? How little approbation he found\n  amongst us, the just and honourable proceeding against him at Geneva\n  will witness to all posterity.\n\nShocking as this act must and ought to be to all Christians at present;\nyet this passage and a hundred still stronger from divines and Church\nletters contemporary with Calvin, prove Servetus' death not to be\nCalvin's guilt especially, but the common 'opprobrium' of all\nEuropean Christendom,--of the Romanists whose laws the Senate of Geneva\nfollowed, and from fear of whose reproaches (as if Protestants favoured\nheresy) they executed them,--and of the Protestant churches who\napplauded the act and returned thanks to Calvin and the Senate for\nit. [7]\n\n\nIb. c. 30. p. 143.\n\n  The twelfth heresy imputed to us is the heresy of Jovinian, concerning\n  whom we must observe, that Augustine ascribeth unto him two opinions\n  which Hierome mentioneth not; who yet was not likely to spare him, if\n  he might truly have been charged with them. The first, that Mary\n  ceased to be a virgin when she had borne Christ; the second, that all\n  sins are equal.\n\nNeither this nor that is worthy the name of opinion; it is mere\nunscriptural, nay, anti-scriptural gossiping. Are we to blame, or not\nrather to praise, the anxiety manifested by the great divines of the\nchurch of England under the Stuarts not to remove further than necessary\nfrom the Romish doctrines? Yet one wishes a bolder method; for example,\nas to Mary's private history after the conception and birth of Christ,\nwe neither know nor care about it.\n\n\nIb. c. 31. p. 146.\n\n  For the opinions wherewith Hierome chargeth him, this we briefly\n  answer. First, if he absolutely denied that the Saints departed do\n  pray for us, as it seemeth he did by Hierome's reprehension, we think\n  he erred.\n\nYet not heretically; and if he meant only that we being wholly ignorant,\nwhether they do or no, ought to act as if we knew they did not, he is\nperfectly right; for whatever ye do, do it in faith. As to the ubiquity\nof saints, it is Jerome who is the heretic, nay, idolater, if he reduced\nhis opinion to practice. It perplexes me, that Field speaks so\ndoubtingly on a matter so plain as the incommunicability of\nomnipresence.\n\n\nIb. c. 32. p. 147.\n\n  Touching the second objection, that Bucer and Calvin deny original\n  sin, though not generally, as did Zuinglius, yet at least in the\n  children of the faithful. If he had said that these men affirm the\n  earth doth move, and the heavens stand still, he might have as soon\n  justified it against them, as this he now saith.\n\nVery noticeable. A similar passage occurs even so late as in Sir Thomas\nBrown, just at the dawn of the Newtonian system, and after Kepler. What\na lesson of diffidence! [8]\n\n\nIb. p. 148.\n\n  For we do not deny the distinction of venial and mortal sins; but do\n  think, that some sins are rightly said to be mortal and some venial;\n  not for that some are worthy of eternal punishment and therefore named\n  mortal, others of temporal only, and therefore judged venial as the\n  Papists imagine: but for that some exclude grace out of that man in\n  which they are found and so leave him in a state wherein he hath\n  nothing in himself that can or will procure him pardon: and other,\n  which though in themselves considered, and never remitted, they be\n  worthy of eternal punishment, yet do not so far prevail as to banish\n  grace, the fountain of remission of all misdoings.\n\nWould not the necessary consequence of this be, that there are no\nactions that can be pronounced mortal sins by mortals; and that what we\nmight fancy venial might in individual cases be mortal and 'vice\nversa'.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  First, because every offence against God may justly be punished by him\n  in the strictness of his righteous judgments with eternal death, yea,\n  with annihilation; which appeareth to be most true, for that there is\n  no punishment so evil, and so much to be avoided, as the least sin\n  that may be imagined. So that a man should rather choose eternal\n  death, yea, utter annihilation, than commit the least offence in the\n  world.\n\n\nI admit this to be Scriptural; but what is wanted is, clearly to state\nthe difference between eternal death and annihilation. For who would not\nprefer the latter, if the former mean everlasting misery?\n\n\nIb. c. 41. p. 62.\n\n  But he will say, Cyprian calleth the Roman Church the principal Church\n  whence sacerdotal unity hath her spring; hereunto we answer, that the\n  Roman Church, not in power of overruling all, but in order is the\n  first and principal; and that therefore while she continueth to hold\n  the truth, and encroacheth not upon the right of other Churches, she\n  is to have the priority; but that in either of these cases she may be\n  forsaken without breach of that unity, which is essentially required\n  in the parts of the Church.\n\n\nThis is too large a concession. The real ground of the priority of the\nRoman see was that Rome, for the first three or perhaps four centuries,\nwas the metropolis of the Christian world. Afterwards for the very same\nreason the Patriarch of New Rome or Constantinople claimed it; and never\nceased to assert at least a co-equality. Had the Apostolic foundation\nbeen the cause, Jerusalem and Antioch must have had priority; not to add\nthat the Roman Church was not founded by either Paul or Peter as is\nevident from the epistle to the Romans.\n\n\nAppend. B. III. p. 205.\n\nI do not think the attack on Transubstantiation the most successful\npoint of the orthodox Protestant controversialists. The question is,\nwhat is meant in Scripture, as in 'John' vi. by Christ's body or flesh\nand blood. Surely not the visible, tangible, accidental body, that is, a\ncycle of images and sensations in the imagination of the beholders; but\nhis supersensual body, the 'noumenon' of his human nature which was\nunited to his divine nature.\n\nIn this sense I understand the Lutheran ubiquity. But may not the\n\"oblations\" referred to by Field in the old canon of the Mass, have\nmeant the alms, offerings always given at the Eucharist? If by\n\"substance\" in the enunciation of the article be meant 'id quod vere\nest', and if the divine nature be the sole 'ens vere ens', then it is\npossible to give a philosophically intelligible sense to Luther's\ndoctrine of consubstantiation; at least to a doctrine that might bear\nthe same name;--at all events the mystery is not greater than, if it be\nnot rather the same as, the assumption of the human by the divine\nnature.\n\nNow for the possible conception of this we must accurately discriminate\nthe 'incompossibile negativum' from the 'incompatibile privativum'. Of\nthe latter are all positive imperfections, as error, vice, and evil\npassions; of the former simple limitation.\n\nThus if '(per impossible)' human nature could make itself sinless and\nperfect, it would become or pass into God; and if God should abstract\nfrom human nature all imperfection, it might without impropriety be\naffirmed, even as Scripture doth affirm, that God assumed or took up\ninto himself the human nature.\n\nThus, to use a dim similitude and merely as a faint illustration, all\nmateriality abstracted from a circle, it would become space, and though\nnot infinite, yet one with infinite space. The mystery of omnipresence\ngreatly aids this conception; 'totus in omni parte': and in truth this\nis the divine character of all the Christian mysteries, that they aid\neach other, and many incomprehensibles render each of them, in a certain\nqualified sense, less incomprehensible.\n\n\nIb. p. 208.\n\n  But first, it is impious to think of destroying Christ in any sort.\n  For though it be true, that in sacrificing of Christ on the altar of\n  the cross, the destroying and killing of him was implied, and this his\n  death was the life of the world, yet all that concurred to the killing\n  of him, as the Jews, the Roman soldiers, Pilate, and Judas sinned\n  damnably, and so had done, though they had shed his blood with an\n  intention and desire, that by it the world might be redeemed.\n\nIs not this going too far? Would it not imply almost that Christ himself\ncould not righteously sacrifice himself, especially when we consider\nthat the Romanists would have a right to say, that Christ himself had\ncommanded it? But Bellarmine's conceit [9] is so absurd that it scarce\ndeserves the compliment of a serious confutation. For if sacramental\nbeing be opposed to natural or material, as 'noumenon' to 'ph\u00e6nomenon',\nplace is no attribute or possible accident of it 'in se'; consequently,\nno alteration of place relatively to us can affect, much less destroy,\nit; and even were it otherwise, yet translocation is not destruction;\nfor the body of Christ, according to themselves, doth indeed nourish our\nsouls, even as a fish eaten sustains another fish, but yet with this\nessential difference, that it ceases not to be and remain itself, and\ninstead of being converted converts; so that truly the only things\nsacrificed in the strict sense are all the evil qualities or\ndeficiencies which divide our souls from Christ.\n\n\nIb. p. 218.\n\n  That which we do is done in remembrance of that which was then done;\n  for he saith, 'Do this in remembrance of me.'\n\nThis is a 'metastasis' of Scripture. 'Do this in remembrance of\nme', that is, that which Christ was then doing. But Christ was not\nthen suffering, or dying on the cross.\n\n\nIb. p.223.\n\n  That the Saints do pray for us 'in genere', desiring God to be\n  merciful to us, and to do unto us whatsoever in any kind he knoweth\n  needful for our good, there is no question made by us.\n\nTo have placed this question in its true light, so as to have allowed\nthe full force to the Scriptures asserting the communion of Saints and\nthe efficacy of their intercession without undue concessions to the\n'hierolatria' of the Romish church, would have implied an\nacquaintance with the science of transcendental analysis, and an insight\ninto the philosophy of ideas not to be expected in Field, and which was\nthen only dawning in the mind of Lord Bacon. The proper reply to Brerely\nwould be this: the communion and intercession of Saints is an idea, and\nmust be kept such. But the Romish church has changed it away into the\ndetail of particular and individual conceptions, and imaginations, into\nnames and fancies.\n\nN.B. Instead of the 'Roman Catholic' read throughout in this and all\nother works, and everywhere and on all occasions, unless where the\nduties of formal courtesy forbid, say, the 'Romish anti-Catholic\nChurch;' Romish--to mark that the corruptions in discipline, doctrine\nand practice do for the worst and far larger part owe both their origin\nand their perpetuation to the court and local tribunals of the city of\nRome, and are not and never have been the catholic, that is, universal\nfaith of the Roman empire, or even of the whole Latin or Western church;\nand anti-Catholic,--because no other Church acts on so narrow and\nexcommunicative a principle, or is characterized by such a jealous\nspirit of monopoly and particularism, counterfeiting catholicity by a\nnegative totality and heretical self-circumscription, cutting off, or\ncutting herself off from, all the other members of Christ's Body.\n\n12th March, 1824.\n\nIt is of the utmost importance, wherever clear and distinct conceptions\nare required, to make out in the first instance whether the term in\nquestion, or the main terms of the question in dispute, represents or\nrepresent a fact or class of facts simply, or some self-established and\npreviously known idea or principle, of which the facts are instances and\nrealizations, or which is introduced in order to explain and account for\nthe facts. Now the term 'merits,' as applied to Abraham and the saints,\nbelongs to the former. It is a mere 'nomen appellativum' of the\nfacts.\n\n\nIb. c. 5. p. 252.\n\n  The Papists and we agree that original sin is the privation of\n  original righteousness; but they suppose there was in nature without\n  that addition of grace, a power to do good, &c.\n\nNothing seems wanting to this argument but a previous definition and\nexplanation of the term, 'nature.' Field appears to have seen the truth,\nnamely, that nature itself is a peccant (I had almost said an unnatural)\nstate, or rather no State at all, [Greek: ou st\u00e1sis all' ap\u00f3stasis].\n\n\nIb. c. 6. p. 269.\n\n  And surely the words of Augustine do not import that she had no sin,\n  but that she overcame it, which argueth a conflict; neither doth he\n  say he will acknowledge she was without sin, but that he will not move\n  any question touching her, in this dispute of sins and sinners.\n\nWhy not say at once, that this anti-Scriptural superstition had already\nbegun? I scarcely know whether to be pleased or grieved with that edging\non toward the Roman creed, that exceeding, almost Scriptural, tenderness\nfor the divines of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, which\ndistinguishes the Church of England dignitaries, from Elizabeth\ninclusively to our Revolution in 1688, from other Protestants.\n\n\nIb. c. 10. p. 279.\n\nDerwent! should this page chance to fall under your eye, for my sake\nread, fag, subdue, and take up into your proper mind this chapter 10 of\nFree Will.\n\n\nIb. p. 281.\n\n  Of these five kinds of liberty, the two first agree only to God, so\n  that in the highest degree [Greek: to autexo\u00fasion], that is, freedom\n  of will is proper to God only; and in this sense Calvin and Luther\n  rightly deny that the will of any creature is or ever was free.\n\n\nI add, except as in God, and God in us. Now the latter alone is will;\nfor it alone is 'ens super ens'. And here lies the mystery, which I dare\nnot openly and promiscuously reveal.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  Yet doth not God's working upon the will take from it the power of\n  dissenting, and doing the contrary; but so inclineth it, that having\n  liberty to do otherwise, yet she will actually determine so.\n\n\nThis will not do. Were it true, then my understanding would be free in a\nmathematical proportion; or the whole position amounts only to this,\nthat the will, though compelled, is still the will. Be it so; yet not a\nfree will. In short, Luther and Calvin are right so far. A creaturely\nwill cannot be free; but the will in a rational creature may cease to be\ncreaturely, and the creature, [Greek: ap\u00f3stasis], finally cease in\nconsequence; and this neither Luther nor Calvin seem to have seen. In\nshort, where omnipotence is on one side, what but utter impotence can\nremain for the other? To make freedom possible, the 'antithesis' must be\nremoved. The removal of this 'antithesis' of the creature to God is the\nobject of the Redemption, and forms the glorious liberty of the Gospel.\nMore than this I am not permitted to expose.\n\n\nIb. p. 283.\n\nIt is not given, nor is it wanting, to all men to have an insight into\nthe mystery of the human will and its mode of inherence on the will\nwhich is God, as the ineffable 'causa sui'; but this chapter will\nsuffice to convince you that the doctrines of Calvin were those of\nLuther in this point;--that they are intensely metaphysical, and that\nthey are diverse 'toto genere' from the merely moral and\npsychological--tenets of the modern Calvinists. Calvin would have\nexclaimed, 'fire and fagots!' before he had gotten through a hundred\npages of Dr. Williams's Modern Calvinism.\n\n\nIb. c. 11. p. 296.\n\n  Neither can Vega avoid the evidence of the testimonies of the Fathers,\n  and the decree of the Council of Trent, so that he must be forced to\n  confess that no man can so collectively fulfil the law as not to sin,\n  and consequently, that no man can perform that the law requireth.\n\nThe paralogism of Vega as to this perplexing question seems to lurk in\nthe position that God gives a law which it is impossible we should obey\ncollectively. But the truth is, that the law which God gave, and which\nfrom the essential holiness of his nature it is impossible he should not\nhave given, man deprived himself of the ability to obey. And was the law\nof God therefore to be annulled? Must the sun cease to shine because the\nearth has become a morass, so that even that very glory of the sun hath\nbecome a new cause of its steaming up clouds and vapors that strangle\nthe rays? God forbid! 'But for the law I had not sinned'. But had I not\nbeen sinful the law would not have occasioned me to sin, but would have\nclothed me with righteousness, by the transmission of its splendour.\n'Let God be just, and every man a liar'.\n\nB. iv. c. 4. p. 346.\n\n  The Church of God is named the 'Pillar of Truth;' not as if truth did\n  depend on the Church, &c.\n\n\nField might have strengthened his argument, by mention of the custom of\nnot only affixing records and testimonials to the pillars, but books, &c.\n\n\nIb. c. 7. p. 353.\n\n  Others therefore, to avoid this absurdity, run into that other before\n  mentioned, that we believe the things that are divine by the mere and\n  absolute command of our will, not finding any sufficient motives and\n  reasons of persuasion.\n\nField, nor Count Mirandula have penetrated to the heart of this most\nfundamental question. In all proper faith the will is the prime agent,\nbut not therefore the choice. You may call it reason if you will, but\nthen carefully distinguish the speculative from the practical reason,\nand the reason itself from the understanding.\n\n\nIb. c. 8. p. 356.\n\n  'Illius virtute' (saith he) 'illuminati, jam non aut nostro, aut\n  aliorum judicio credimus a Deo esse Scripturam, sed supra humanum\n  judicium certo certius constituimus, non secus ac si ipsius Dei numen\n  illic intueremur, hominum ministerio ab ipsissimo Dei ore fluxisse.'\n\nGreatly doth this fine passage need explanation, that knowing what it\ndoth mean, the reader may understand what it doth not mean, nor of\nnecessity imply. Without this insight, our faith may be terribly shaken\nby difficulties and objections. For example; If all the Scripture, then\neach component part; thence every faithful Christian infallible, and so\non.\n\n\nIb. p. 357.\n\n  In the second the light of divine reason causeth approbation of that\n  they believe: in the third sort, the purity of divine understanding\n  apprehendeth most certainly the things believed, and causeth a\n  foretasting of those things that hereafter more fully shall be enjoyed.\n\nHere too Field distinguishes the understanding from the reason, as\nexperience following perception of sense. But as perception through the\nmere presence of the object perceived, whether to the outward or inner\nsense, is not insight which belongs to the 'light of reason,' therefore\nField marks it by 'purity' that is unmixed with fleshly sensations or\nthe 'idola' of the bodily eye. Though Field is by no means consistent in\nhis 'epitheta' of the understanding, he seldom confounds the word\nitself. In theological Latin, the understanding, as influenced and\ncombined with the affections and desires, is most frequently expressed\nby 'cor', the heart. Doubtless the most convenient form of appropriating\nthe terms would be to consider the understanding as man's intelligential\nfaculty, whatever be its object, the sensible or the intelligible world;\nwhile reason is the tri-unity, as it were, of the spiritual eye, light,\nand object.\n\n\nIb. c. 10. p. 358.\n\n  Of the Papists preferring the Church's authority before the Scripture.\n\n\nField, from the nature and special purpose of his controversy, is\nreluctant to admit any error in the Fathers,--too much so indeed; and\nthis is an instance. We all know what we mean by the Scriptures, but how\nknow we what they mean by the Church, which is neither thing nor person?\nBut this is a very difficult subject.\n\n\nIb. p. 359.\n\n  First, so as if the Church might define contrary to the Scriptures, as\n  she may contrary to the writings of particular men, how great soever.\n\nVerbally, the more sober divines of the Church of Rome do not assert\nthis; but practically and by consequence they do. For if the Church\nassign a sense contradictory to the true sense of the Scripture, none\ndare gainsay it. [10]\n\n\nIb.\n\n  This we deny, and will in due place 'improve' their error herein.\n\nThat is, prove against, detect, or confute.\n\n\nIb. c. 11. p. 360.\n\n  If the comparison be made between the Church consisting of all the\n  believers that are and have been since Christ appeared in the flesh,\n  so including the Apostles, and their blessed assistants the\n  Evangelists, we deny not but that the Church is of greater authority,\n  antiquity, and excellency than the Scriptures of the New Testament, as\n  the witness is better than his testimony, and the law-giver greater\n  than the laws made by him, as Stapleton allegeth.\n\n\nThe Scriptures may be and are an intelligible and real one, but the\nChurch on earth can in no sense be such in and through itself, that is,\nits component parts, but only by their common adherence to the body of\ntruth made present in the Scripture. Surely you would not distinguish\nthe Scripture from its contents?\n\n\nIb. c. 12. p. 361.\n\n  For the better understanding whereof we must observe, as Occam fitly\n  noteth, that an article of faith is sometimes strictly taken only for\n  one of those divine verities, which are contained in the Creed of the\n  Apostles: sometimes generally for any catholic verity.\n\nI am persuaded, that this division will not bear to be expanded into all\nits legitimate consequences 'sine periculo vel fidei vel charitatis'. I\nshould substitute the following:\n\n1. The essentials of that saving faith, which having its root and its\nproper and primary seat in the moral will, that is, in the heart and\naffections, is necessary for each and every individual member of the\nchurch of Christ:--\n\n2. Those truths which are essential and necessary in order to the\nlogical and rational possibility of the former, and the belief and\nassertion of which are indispensable to the Church at large, as those\ntruths without which the body of believers, the Christian world, could\nnot have been and cannot be continued, though it be possible that in\nthis body this or that individual may be saved without the conscious\nknowledge of, or an explicit belief in, them.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  And therefore before and without such determination, men seeing\n  clearly the deduction of things of this nature from the former, and\n  refusing to believe them, are condemned of heretical pertinacy.\n\n\nRather, I should think, of a nondescript lunacy than of heretical\npravity. A child may explicitly know that 5 + 5 = 10, yet not see that\ntherefore 10 - 5 = 5; but when he has seen it how he can refrain from\nbelieving the latter as much as the former, I have no conception.\n\n\nIb. c. 16. p. 367.\n\n  And the third of jurisdiction; and so they that have supreme power,\n  that is, the Bishops assembled in a general Council, may interpret the\n  Scriptures, and by their authority suppress all them that shall\n  gainsay such interpretations, and subject every man that shall disobey\n  such determinations as they consent upon, to excommunication and\n  censures of like nature.\n\nThis would be satisfactory, if only Field had cleared the point of the\ncommunion in the Lord's Supper; whether taken spiritually, though in\nconsequence of excommunication not ritually, it yet sufficeth to\nsalvation. If so, excommunication is merely declarative, and the evil\nfollows not the declaration but that which is truly declared, as when\nRichard says that Francis deserves the gallows, as a robber. The gallows\ndepends on the fact of the robbery, not on Richard's saying.\n\n\nIb. c. 29. p. 391.\n\n  In the 1 Cor. 15. the Greek, that now is, hath in all copies; 'the\n  first man was of the earth, earthly; the second man is the Lord from\n  heaven'. The latter part of this sentence Tertullian supposeth to have\n  been corrupted, and altered by the Marcionites. Instead of that the\n  Latin text hath; 'the second man was from heaven, heavenly', as\n  Ambrose, Hierome, and many of the Fathers read also.\n\nThere ought to be, and with any man of taste there can be, no doubt that\nour version is the true one. That of Ambrose and Jerome is worthy of\nmere rhetoricians; a flat formal play of 'antithesis' instead of the\nweight and solemnity of the other. [11] According to the former the\nscales are even, in the latter the scale of Christ drops down at once,\nand the other flies to the beam like a feather weighed against a mass of\ngold.\n\nAppend. Part. I. s. 4. p. 752.\n\n  And again he saith, that every soul, immediately upon the departure\n  hence, is in this appointed invisible place, having there either pain,\n  or ease and refreshing; that there the rich man is in pain, and the\n  poor in a comfortable estate. For, saith he, why should we not think,\n  that the souls are tormented, or refreshed in this invisible place,\n  appointed for them in expectation of the future judgment?\n\nThis may be adduced as an instance, specially, of the evil consequences\nof introducing the 'idolon' of time as an 'ens reale' into\nspiritual doctrines, thus understanding literally what St. Paul had\nexpressed by figure and adaptation. Hence the doctrine of a middle\nstate, and hence Purgatory with all its abominations; and an instance,\ngenerally, of the incalculable possible importance of speculative errors\non the happiness and virtue of man-kind.\n\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Folio 1628.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: The following letter was written on, and addressed with,\nthe book to the Rev. Derwent Coleridge.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: 'P. L.' III. 487.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: i. 27. See 'Aids to Reflection'. 3d edit. p. 17. n.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 5:\n\n  ... whence the soul\n  Reason receives, and reason is her being,\n  Discursive or intuitive.\n\n'P. L.' v. 426.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 6: The reader of the 'Aids to Reflection' will recognize in\nthis note the rough original of the passages p. 313, &c. of the 3d\nedition of that work.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 7: See 'Table Talk', 2d edit. p. 283. Melancthon's words to\nCalvin are:\n\n  'Tuo judicio prorsus assentior. Affirmu etiam vestros magistratus\n  juste fecisse, quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata,\n  interfecerunt.'\n\n14th Oct. 1554.--Ed.\n\n\n[Footnote 8:\n\n  \"But to circle the earth, 'as the heavenly bodies do',' &c. 'So we may\n  see that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth,\n  which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to\n  any of the 'ph\u00e6nomena', yet 'natural history may correct'.\"\n\n  'Advancement of Learning', B. II.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 9: That Christ had a twofold being, natural and sacramental;\nthat the Jews destroyed and sacrificed his natural being, and that\nChristian priests destroy and sacrifice in the Mass his sacramental\nbeing.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 10:\n\n  'Fides catholica', says Bellarmine, 'docet omnem virtutem esse bonam,\n  omne vitium esse malum. Si autem erraret Papa pr\u00e6cipiendo vitia vel\n  prohibendo virtutes, teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona et\n  virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare.'\n\n'De Pont. Roman'. IV. 5.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 11: The ordinary Greek text is:\n\n  [Greek: ho de\u00fateros anthropos, ho Kyrios ex ouranou].\n\nThe Vulgate is:\n\n  'primus homo de terra, terrenus; secundus homo de coelis,\n  coelestis.'--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON DONNE. [1]\n\nThere have been many, and those illustrious, divines in our Church from\nElizabeth to the present day, who, overvaluing the accident of\nantiquity, and arbitrarily determining the appropriation of the words\n'ancient,' 'primitive,' and the like to a certain date, as for example,\nto all before the fourth, fifth, or sixth century, were resolute\nprotesters against the corruptions and tyranny of the Romish hierarch,\nand yet lagged behind Luther and the Reformers of the first generation.\nHence I have long seen the necessity or expedience of a threefold\ndivision of divines. There are many, whom God forbid that I should call\nPapistic, or, like Laud, Montague, Heylyn, and others, longing for a\nPope at Lambeth, whom yet I dare not name Apostolic. Therefore I divide\nour theologians into,\n\n1. Apostolic or Pauline:\n2. Patristic:\n3. Papal.\n\nEven in Donne, and still more in Bishops Andrews and Hackett, there is a\nstrong Patristic leaven. In Jeremy Taylor this taste for the Fathers and\nall the Saints and Schoolmen before the Reformation amounted to a\ndislike of the divines of the continental Protestant Churches, Lutheran\nor Calvinistic. But this must, in part at least, be attributed to\nTaylor's keen feelings as a Carlist, and a sufferer by the Puritan\nanti-prelatic party.\n\nI would thus class the pentad of operative Christianity:--\n\n\n                     'Prothesis'\n                   Christ, the Word\n\n\n\n   'Thesis'          'Mesothesis'       'Antithesis'\nThe Scriptures     The Holy Spirit       The Church\n\n\n\n                     'Synthesis'\n                    The Preacher\n\n\nThe Papacy elevated the Church to the virtual exclusion or suppression\nof the Scriptures: the modern Church of England, since Chillingworth,\nhas so raised up the Scriptures as to annul the Church; both alike have\nquenched the Holy Spirit, as the 'mesothesis' of the two, and\nsubstituted an alien compound for the genuine Preacher, who should be\nthe 'synthesis' of the Scriptures and the Church, and the sensible voice\nof the Holy Spirit.\n\n\nSerm. I. Coloss. i. 19, 20. p. 1.\nIb. E.\n\n  What could God pay for me? What could God suffer? God himself could\n  not; and therefore God hath taken a body that could.\n\nGod forgive me,--or those who first set abroad this strange [Greek:\nmet\u00e1basis eis allo g\u00e9nos], this debtor and creditor scheme of expounding\nthe mystery of Redemption, or both! But I never can read the words, 'God\nhimself could not; and therefore took a body that could'--without being\nreminded of the monkey that took the cat's paw to take the chestnuts out\nof the fire, and claimed the merit of puss's sufferings. I am sure,\nhowever, that the ludicrous images, under which this gloss of the\nCalvinists embodies itself to my fancy, never disturb my recollections\nof the adorable mystery itself. It is clear that a body, remaining a\nbody, can only suffer as a body: for no faith can enable us to believe\nthat the same thing can be at once A. and not A. Now that the body of\nour Lord was not transelemented or transnatured by the 'pleroma'\nindwelling, we are positively assured by Scripture. Therefore it would\nfollow from this most unscriptural doctrine, that the divine justice had\nsatisfaction made to it by the suffering of a body which had been\nbrought into existence for this special purpose, in lieu of the debt of\neternal misery due from, and leviable on, the bodies and souls of all\nmankind! It is to this gross perversion of the sublime idea of the\nRedemption by the cross, that we must attribute the rejection of the\ndoctrine of redemption by the Unitarian, and of the Gospel 'in toto' by\nthe more consequent Deist.\n\nIb. p. 2. C.\n\n  And yet, even this dwelling fullness, even in this person Christ\n  Jesus, by no title of merit in himself, but only 'quia complacuit',\n  because it pleased the Father it should be so.\n\nThis, in the intention of the preacher, may have been sound, but was it\nsafe, divinity? In order to the latter, methinks, a less equivocal word\nthan 'person' ought to have been adopted; as 'the body and soul of the\nman Jesus, considered abstractedly from the divine Logos, who in it took\nup humanity into deity, and was Christ Jesus.' Dare we say that there\nwas no self-subsistent, though we admit no self-originated, merit in the\nChrist? It seems plain to me, that in this and sundry other passages of\nSt. Paul, 'the Father' means the total triune Godhead.\n\nIt appears to me, that dividing the Church of England into two \u00e6ras--the\nfirst from Ridley to Field, or from Edward VI. to the commencement of\nthe latter third of the reign of James I, and the second ending with\nBull and Stillingfleet, we might characterize their comparative\nexcellences thus: That the divines of the first \u00e6ra had a deeper, more\ngenial, and a more practical insight into the mystery of Redemption, in\nthe relation of man toward both the act and the author, namely, in all\nthe inchoative states, the regeneration and the operations of saving\ngrace generally;--while those of the second \u00e6ra possessed clearer and\ndistincter views concerning the nature and necessity of Redemption, in\nthe relation of God toward man, and concerning the connection of\nRedemption with the article of Tri-unity; and above all, that they\nsurpassed their predecessors in a more safe and determinate scheme of\nthe divine economy of the three persons in the one undivided Godhead.\nThis indeed, was mainly owing to Bishop Bull's masterly work 'De Fide\nNic\u00e6na', [2] which in the next generation Waterland so admirably\nmaintained, on the one hand, against the philosophy of the Arians,--the\ncombat ending in the death and burial of Arianism, and its descent and\n'metempsychosis' into Socinianism, and thence again into modern\nUnitarianism,--and on the other extreme, against the oscillatory creed\nof Sherlock, now swinging to Tritheism in the recoil from Sabellianism,\nand again to Sabellianism in the recoil from Tritheism.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  First, we are to consider this fullness to have been in Christ, and\n  then, from this fullness arose his merits; we can consider no merit in\n  Christ himself before, whereby he should merit this fullness; for this\n  fullness was in him before he merited any thing; and but for this\n  fullness he had not so merited. 'Ille homo, ut in unitatem filii Dei\n  assumeretur, unde meruit'? How did that man (says St. Augustine,\n  speaking of Christ, as of the son of man), how did that man merit to\n  be united in one person with the eternal Son of God? 'Quid egit ante?\n  Quid credidit'? What had he done? Nay, what had he believed? Had he\n  either faith or works before that union of both natures?\n\nDr. Donne and St. Augustine said this without offence; but I much\nquestion whether the same would be endured now. That it is, however, in\nthe spirit of Paul and of the Gospel, I doubt not to affirm, and that\nthis great truth is obscured by what in my judgment is the\npost-Apostolic 'Christop\u00e6dia', I am inclined to think.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  What canst thou imagine he could foresee in thee? a propensness, a\n  disposition to goodness, when his grace should come? Either there is\n  no such propensness, no such disposition in thee, or, if there be,\n  even that propensness and disposition to the good use of grace, is\n  grace; it is an effect of former grace, and his grace wrought before\n  he saw any such propensness, any such disposition; grace was first,\n  and his grace is his, it is none of thine.\n\nOne of many instances in dogmatic theology, in which the half of a\ndivine truth has passed into a fearful error by being mistaken for the\nwhole truth.\n\n\nIb. p. 6. D.\n\n  God's justice required blood, but that blood is not spilt, but poured\n  from that head to our hearts, into the veins and wounds of our own\n  souls: there was blood shed, but no blood lost.\n\n\nIt is affecting to observe how this great man's mind sways and\noscillates between his reason, which demands in the word 'blood' a\nsymbolic meaning, a spiritual interpretation, and the habitual awe for\nthe letter; so that he himself seems uncertain whether he means the\nphysical lymph, 'serum,' and globules that trickled from the wounds\nof the nails and thorns down the sides and face of Jesus, or the blood\nof the Son of Man, which he who drinketh not cannot live. Yea, it is\nmost affecting to see the struggles of so great a mind to preserve its\ninborn fealty to the reason under the servitude to an accepted article\nof belief, which was, alas! confounded with the high obligations of\nfaith;--faith the co-adunation of the finite individual will with the\nuniversal reason, by the submission of the former to the latter. To\nreconcile redemption by the material blood of Jesus with the mind of the\nspirit, he seeks to spiritualize the material blood itself in all men!\nAnd a deep truth lies hidden even in this. Indeed the whole is a\nprofound subject, the true solution of which may best, God's grace\nassisting, be sought for in the collation of Paul with John, and\nspecially in St. Paul's assertion that we are baptized into the death of\nChrist, that we may be partakers of his resurrection and life. [3] It\nwas not on the visible cross, it was not directing attention to the\nblood-drops on his temples and sides, that our blessed Redeemer said,\n'This is my body', and 'this is my blood!\n\n\nIb. p. 9. A.\n\n  But if we consider those who are in heaven, and have been so from the\n  first minute of their creation, angels, why have they, or how have\n  they any reconciliation? &c.\n\nThe history and successive meanings of the term 'angels' in the Old and\nNew Testaments, and the idea that shall reconcile all as so many several\nforms, and as it were perspectives, of one and the same truth--this is\nstill a 'desideratum' in Christian theology.\n\n\nIb. C.\n\n  For, at the general resurrection, (which is rooted in the resurrection\n  of Christ, and so hath relation to him) the creature 'shall be\n  delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of\n  the children of God; for which the whole creation groans, and travails\n  in pain yet'. (Rom. viii. 21.) This deliverance then from this\n  bondage the whole creature hath by Christ, and that is their\n  reconciliation. And then are we reconciled by the blood of his cross,\n  when having crucified ourselves by a true repentance, we receive the\n  real reconciliation in his blood in the sacrament. But the most proper\n  and most literal sense of these words, is, that all things in heaven\n  and earth be reconciled to God (that is, to his glory, to a fitter\n  disposition to glorify him) by being reconciled to another in Christ;\n  that in him, as head of the church, they in heaven, and we upon earth,\n  be united together as one body in the communion of saints.\n\nA very meagre and inadequate interpretation of this sublime text. The\nphilosophy of life, which will be the 'corona et finis coronans' of the\nsciences of comparative anatomy and zoology, will hereafter supply a\nfuller and nobler comment.\n\n\nIb. p. 9. A. and B.\n\n  The blood of the sacrifices was brought by the high priest 'in sanctum\n  sanctorum', into the place of greatest holiness; but it was brought\n  but once, 'in festo expiationis', in the feast of expiation; but in\n  the other parts of the temple it was sprinkled every day. The blood of\n  the cross of Christ Jesus hath had this effect 'in sancto sanctorum',\n  &c. ... '(to)' Christ Jesus.\n\nA truly excellent and beautiful paragraph.\n\n\nIb. C.\n\n  If you will mingle a true religion, and a false religion, there is no\n  reconciling of God and Belial in this text. For the adhering of\n  persons born within the Church of Rome to the Church of Rome, our law\n  says nothing to them if they come; but for reconciling to the Church\n  of Rome, for persons born within the allegiance of the king, or for\n  persuading of men to be so reconciled, our law hath called by an\n  infamous and capital name of treason, and yet every tavern and\n  ordinary is full of such traitors, &c.\n\nA strange transition from the Gospel to the English statute-book! But I\nmay observe, that if this statement could be truly made under James I,\nthere was abundantly ampler ground for it in the following reign. And\nyet with what bitter spleen does Heylyn, Laud's creature, arraign the\nParliamentarians for making the same complaint!\n\n\nSerm. II. Isaiah vii. 14. p. 11.\n\nThe fear of giving offence, especially to good men, of whose faith in\nall essential points we are partakers, may reasonably induce us to be\nslow and cautious in making up our minds finally on a religious\nquestion, and may, and ought to, influence us to submit our conviction\nto repeated revisals and rehearings. But there may arrive a time of such\nperfect clearness of view respecting the particular point, as to\nsupersede all fear of man by the higher duty of declaring the whole\ntruth in Jesus. Therefore, having now overpassed six-sevenths of the\nordinary period allotted to human life,--resting my whole and sole hope\nof salvation and immortality on the divinity of Christ, and the\nredemption by his cross and passion, and holding the doctrine of the\nTriune God as the very ground and foundation of the Gospel faith,--I\nfeel myself enforced by conscience to declare and avow, that, in my\ndeliberate judgment, the 'Christop\u00e6dia' prefixed to the third Gospel and\nconcorporated with the first, but, according to my belief, in its\npresent form the latest of the four, was unknown to, or not recognized\nby, the Apostles Paul and John; and that, instead of supporting the\ndoctrine of the Trinity, and the Filial Godhead of the Incarnate Word,\nas set forth by John i 1, and by Paul, it, if not altogether\nirreconcilable with this faith, doth yet greatly weaken and bedim its\nevidence; and that, by the too palpable contradictions between the\nnarrative in the first Gospel and that in the third, it has been a\nfruitful magazine of doubts respecting the historic character of the\nGospels themselves. I have read most of the criticisms on this text, and\nmy impression is, that no learned Jew can be expected to receive the\ncommon interpretation as the true primary sense of the words. The\nseverely literal Aquila renders the Hebrew word [Greek: neanis]. But\nwere it asked of me: Do you then believe our Lord to have been the Son\nof Mary by Joseph? I reply: It is a point of religion with me to have no\nbelief one way or the other. I am in this way like St. Paul, more than\ncontent not to know Christ himself [Greek: kat\u00e0 s\u00e1rka]. It is enough for\nme to know that the Son of God 'became flesh', [Greek: s\u00e0rx eg\u00e9neto\ngen\u00f3menos ek gynaik\u00f2s] [4] and more than this, it appears to me, was\nunknown to the Apostles, or, if known, not taught by them as\nappertaining to a saving faith in Christ.\n\nOctober 1831.\n\n\nNote the affinity in sound of 'son' and 'sun', 'Sohn' and 'Sonne', which\nis not confined to the Saxon and German, or the Gothic dialects\ngenerally. And observe 'conciliare vers\u00f6hnen=confiliare, facere esse cum\nfilio', one with the Son.\n\n\nIb. p. 17. B.\n\n  It is a singular testimony, how acceptable to God that state of\n  virginity is. He does not dishonor physic that magnifies health; nor\n  does he dishonor marriage, that praises virginity; let them embrace\n  that state that can, &c.\n\nOne of the sad relics of Patristic super-moralization, aggravated by\nPapal ambition, which clung to too many divines, especially to those of\nthe second or third generation after Luther. Luther himself was too\nspiritual, of too heroic faith, to be thus blinded by the declamations\nof the Fathers, whom, with the exception of Augustine, he held in very\nlow esteem.\n\n\nIb. D.\n\n\n  And Helvidius said, she had children after.\n\n\n'Annon Scriptura ipsa'? And a 'heresy,' too! I think I might safely put\nthe question to any serious, spiritual-minded, Christian: What one\ninference tending to edification, in the discipline of will, mind, or\naffections, he can draw from the speculations of the last two or three\npages of this Sermon respecting Mary's pregnancy and parturition?\n_Can_--I write it emphatically--_can_ such points appertain to our faith\nas Christians, which every parent would decline speaking of before a\nfamily, and which, if the questions were propounded by another in the\npresence of my daughter, aye, or even of my, no less, in mind and\nimagination, innocent wife, I should resent as an indecency?\n\n\nSerm. III. Gal. iv. 4, 5. p. 20.\n\n  'God sent forth his Son made of a woman'.\n\n\nI never can admit that [Greek: gen\u00f3menon] and [Greek: eg\u00e9neto] in St.\nPaul and St. John are adequately, or even rightly, rendered by the\nEnglish 'made.'\n\n\nIb. p. 21, A.\n\n  What miserable revolutions and changes, what downfalls, what\n  break-necks and precipitations may we justly think ourselves ordained\n  to, if we consider, that in our coming into this world out of our\n  mothers' womb, we do not make account that a child comes right, except\n  it come with the head forward, and thereby prefigure that headlong\n  falling into calamities which it must suffer after?\n\n\nThe taste for these forced and fantastic analogies, Donne, with the\ngreater number of the learned prelatic divines from James I. to the\nRestoration, acquired from that too great partiality for the Fathers,\nfrom Iren\u00e6us to Bernard, by which they sought to distinguish themselves\nfrom the Puritans.\n\n\nIb. C.\n\n  That now they (the Jews,) express a kind of conditional acknowledgment\n  of it, by this barbarous and inhuman custom of theirs, that they\n  always keep in readiness the blood of some Christian, with which they\n  anoint the body of any that dies amongst them, with these words; \"If\n  Jesus Christ were the Messias, then may the blood of this Christian\n  avail thee to salvation!\"\n\nIs it possible that Donne could have given credit to this absurd legend!\nIt was, I am aware, not an age of critical 'acumen'; grit, bran,\nand flour, were swallowed in the unsifted mass of their erudition. Still\nthat a man like Donne should have imposed on himself such a set of idle\ntales, as he has collected in the next paragraph for facts of history,\nis scarcely credible; that he should have attempted to impose them on\nothers, is most melancholy.\n\n\nIb. p. 22. D. E.\n\n  He takes the name of the son of a woman, and 'wanes' the miraculous\n  name of the son of a virgin.--Christ 'waned' the glorious name of Son\n  of God, and the miraculous name of Son of a virgin too; which is not\n  omitted to draw into doubt the perpetual virginity of the blessed\n  virgin, the mother of Christ, &c.\n\nVery ingenious; but likewise very presumptuous, this arbitrary\nattribution of St. Paul's silence, and presumable ignorance of the\nvirginity of Mary, to Christ's own determination to have the fact passed\nover.\n\nN.B. Is 'wane' a misprint for 'wave' or 'waive?' It occurs so often, as\nto render its being an 'erratum' improbable; yet I do not remember\nto have met elsewhere 'wane' used for 'decline' as a verb active.\n\n\nIb. p. 23. A.\n\n  If there were reason for it, it were no miracle.\n\nThe announcement of the first comet, that had ever been observed, might\nexcite doubt in the mind of an astronomer, to whom, from the place where\nhe lived, it had not been visible. But his reason could have been no\nobjection to it. Had God pleased, all women might have conceived,\n[Greek: aneu tou andr\u00f2s], as many of the 'polypi' and 'planari\u00e6' do. Not\non any such ground do I suspend myself on this as an article of faith;\nbut because I doubt the evidence.\n\n\nIb. p. 25. A--E.\n\n  Though we may think thus in the law of reason, yet, &c.\n\nIt is, and has been, a misfortune, a grievous and manifold loss and\nhindrance for the interests of moral and spiritual truth, that even our\nbest and most vigorous theologians and philosophers of the age from\nEdward VI. to James II. so generally confound the terms, and so too\noften confound the subjects themselves, reason and understanding; yet\nthe diversity, the difference in kind, was known to, and clearly\nadmitted by, many of them,--by Hooker for instance, and it is implied in\nthe whole of Bacon's 'Novum Organum'. Instead of the 'law of reason,'\nDonne meant, and ought to have said, 'judging according to the ordinary\npresumptions of the understanding,' that is, the faculty which,\ngeneralizing particular experiences, judges of the future by analogy to\nthe past.\n\nTaking the words, however, in their vulgar sense, I most deliberately\nprotest against all the paragraphs in this page, from A to E, and should\ncite them, with a host of others, as sad effects of the confusion of the\nreason and the understanding, and of the consequent abdication of the\nformer, instead of the bounden submission of the latter to a higher\nlight. Faith itself is but an act of the will, assenting to the reason\non its own evidence without, and even against, the understanding. This\nindeed is, I fully agree, to be brought into captivity to the faith. [5]\n\n\nIb. p. 26. A. B.\n\n  And therefore to be 'under the Law,' signifies here thus much; to be a\n  debtor to the law of nature, to have a testimony in our hearts and\n  consciences, that there lies a law upon us, which we have no power in\n  ourselves to perform, &c.\n\n\nThis exposition of the term 'law' in the epistles of St. Paul is most\njust and important. The whole should be adopted among the notes to the\nepistle to the Romans, in every Bible printed with notes.\n\n\nIb. p. 27. A.\n\n  And this was his first work, 'to redeem,' to vindicate them from the\n  usurper, to deliver them from the intruder, to emancipate them from\n  the tyrant, to cancel the covenant between hell and them, and restore\n  them so far to their liberty, as that they might come to their first\n  master, if they would; this was 'redeeming.'\n\nThere is an absurdity in the notion of a finite divided from, and\nsuperaddible to, the infinite,--of a particular 'quantum' of power\nseparated from, not included in, omnipotence, or all-power. But, alas!\nwe too generally use the terms that are meant to express the absolute,\nas mere comparatives taken superlatively. In one thing only are we\npermitted and bound to assert a diversity, namely, in God and 'Hades',\nthe good and the evil will. This awful mystery, this truth, at once\ncertain and incomprehensible, is at the bottom of all religion; and to\nexhibit this truth free from the dark phantom of the Manicheans, or the\ntwo co-eternal and co-ordinate principles of good and evil, is the glory\nof the Christian religion.\n\nBut this mysterious dividuity of the good and the evil will, the will of\nthe spirit and the will of the flesh, must not be carried beyond the\nterms 'good' and 'evil.' There can be but one good will--the spirit in\nall;--and even so, all evil wills are one evil will, the devil or evil\nspirit. But then the One exists for us as finite intelligences,\nnecessarily in a two-fold relation, universal and particular. The same\nSpirit within us pleads to the Spirit as without us; and in like manner\nis every evil mind in communion with the evil spirit. But, O comfort!\nthe good alone is the actual, the evil essentially potential. Hence the\ndevil is most appropriately named the 'tempter,' and the evil hath its\nessence in the will: it cannot pass out of it. Deeds are called evil in\nreference to the individual will expressed in them; but in the great\nscheme of Providence they are, only as far as they are good, coerced\nunder the conditions of all true being; and the devil is the drudge of\nthe All-good.\n\n\nSerm. IV. Luke ii. 29, 30. p. 29.\nIb. p. 30. B.\n\n  We shall consider that that preparation, and disposition, and\n  acquiescence, which Simeon had in his epiphany, in his visible seeing\n  of Christ then, is offered to us in this epiphany, in this\n  manifestation and application of Christ in the sacrament; and that\n  therefore every penitent, and devout, and reverent, and worthy\n  receiver hath had in that holy action his 'now'; there are all things\n  accomplished to him; and his 'for, for his eyes have seen his\n  salvation'; and so may be content, nay glad, 'to depart in peace'.\n\n\nO! would that Donne, or rather that Luther before him, had carried out\nthis just conception to its legitimate consequences;--that as the\nsacrament of the Eucharist is the epiphany for as many as receive it in\nfaith, so the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ himself\nin the flesh, were the epiphanies, the sacramental acts and 'ph\u00e6nomena'\nof the 'Deus patiens', the visible words of the invisible Word that was\nin the beginning, symbols in time and historic fact of the redemptive\nfunctions, passions, and procedures of the Lamb crucified from the\nfoundation of the world;--the incarnation, cross, and passion,--in\nshort, the whole life of Christ in the flesh, dwelling a man among men,\nbeing essential and substantive parts of the process, the total of which\nthey represented; and on this account proper symbols of the acts and\npassions of the Christ dwelling in man, as the Spirit of truth, and for\nas many as in faith have received him, in Seth and Abraham no less\neffectually than in John and Paul! For this is the true definition of a\nsymbol, as distinguished from the thing, on the one hand, and from a\nmere metaphor, or conventional exponent of a thing, on the other. Had\nLuther mastered this great idea, this master-truth, he would never have\nentangled himself in that most mischievous Sacramentary controversy, or\nhad to seek a murky hiding-hole in the figment of Consubstantiation.\n\n\nIb. B. C.\n\n  In the first part, then ... More he asks not, less he takes not for\n  any man, upon any pretence of any unconditional decree.\n\nA beautiful paragraph, well worth extracting, aye, and re-preaching.\n\n\nIb. p. 34. E.\n\n  When thou comest to this seal of thy peace, the sacrament, pray that\n  God will give thee that light that may direct and establish thee in\n  necessary and fundamental things; that is, the light of faith to see\n  that the Body and Blood of Christ is applied to thee in that action;\n  but for the manner, how the Body and Blood of Christ is there, wait\n  his leisure, if he have not yet manifested that to thee: grieve not at\n  that, wonder not at that, press not for that; for he hath not\n  manifested that, not the way, not the manner of his presence in the\n  Sacrament to the Church.\n\n\nO! I have ever felt, and for many years thought that this 'rem credimus,\nmodum nescimus,' is but a poor evasion. It seems to me an attempt so to\nadmit an irrational proposition as to have the credit of denying it, or\nto separate an irrational proposition from its irrationality. I admit 2\n+ 2 = 5; how I do not pretend to know, but in some way not in\ncontradiction to the multiplication table. To spiritual operations the\nvery term 'mode' is perhaps inapplicable, for these are immediate. To\nthe linking of this with that, of A. with Z. by 'intermedia,' the term\n'mode,'--the question 'how?' is properly applied. The assimilation of\nthe spirit of a man to the Son of God, to God as the Divine\nHumanity,--this spiritual transubstantiation, like every other process\nof operative grace, is necessarily modeless. The whole question is\nconcerning the transmutation of the sensible elements. Deny this, and to\nwhat does the 'modum nescimus' refer? We cannot ask how that is done,\nwhich we declare not done at all. Admit this transmutation, and you\nnecessarily admit by implication the Romish dogma, of the separation of\na sensible thing from the sensible accidents which constitute all we\never meant by the thing. To rationalize this figment of his church,\nBossuet has recourse to Spinosism, and dares make God the substance and\nsole 'ens reale' of all body, and by this very 'hypothesis' baffles his\nown end, and does away all miracle in the particular instance.\n\n\nIb. p. 35. B.\n\n  When I pray in my chamber, I build a temple there that hour; and that\n  minute, when I cast out a prayer in the street, I build a temple\n  there; and when my soul prays without any voice, my very body is then\n  a temple.\n\nGood; but it would be better to regard solitary, family, and templar\ndevotion as distinctions in sort, rather than differences in degree. All\nthree are necessary.\n\n\nIb. E.\n\n  And that more fearful occasion of coming, when they came only to elude\n  the law, and proceeding in their treacherous and traitorous religion\n  in their heart, and yet communicating with us, draw God himself into\n  their conspiracies; and to mock us, make a mock of God, and his\n  religion too.\n\nWhat, then, was their guilt, who by terror and legal penalties tempted\ntheir fellow Christians to this treacherous mockery? Donne should have\nasked himself that question.\n\n\nSerm. V. Exod. iv. 13. p. 39.\n\nIb. p. 39. C. D.\n\n  It hath been doubted, and disputed, and denied too, that this text,\n  'O my Lord, send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt\n  send', hath any relation to the sending of the Messiah, to the\n  coming of Christ, to Christmas day; yet we forbear not to wait upon\n  the ancient Fathers, and as they said, to say, that Moses 'at\n  last' determines all in this, 'O my Lord', &c. It is a work,\n  next to the great work of the redemption of the whole world, to redeem\n  Israel out of Egypt; and therefore do both works at once, put both\n  into one hand, and 'mitte quem missurus es, Send him whom I know\n  thou wilt send'; him, whom, pursuing thine own decree, 'thou\n  shouldest send'; send Christ, send him now, to redeem Israel from\n  Egypt.\n\nThis is one of the happier accommodations of the 'gnosis', that is,\nthe science of detecting the mysteries of faith in the simplest texts of\nthe Old Testament history, to the contempt or neglect of the literal and\ncontextual sense. It was, I conceive, in part at least, this\n'gnosis', and not knowledge, as our translation has it, that St.\nPaul warns against, and most wisely, as puffing up, inflating the heart\nwith self-conceit, and the head with idle fancies.\n\n\nIb. E.\n\n  But as a thoughtful man, a pensive, a considerative man, that stands\n  still for a while with his eyes fixed upon the ground before his feet,\n  when he casts up his head, hath presently, instantly the sun or the\n  heavens for his object; he sees not a tree, nor a house, nor a steeple\n  by the way, but as soon as his eye is departed from the earth where it\n  was long fixed, the next thing he sees is the sun or the heavens;--so\n  when Moses had fixed himself long upon the consideration of his own\n  insufficiency for this service, when he took his eye from that low\n  piece of ground, himself, considered as he was then, he fell upon no\n  tree, no house, no steeple, no such consideration as this--God may\n  endow me, improve me, exalt me, enable me, qualify me with faculties\n  fit for this service, but his first object was that which presented an\n  infallibility with it, Christ Jesus himself, the Messias himself, &c.\n\nBeautifully imagined, and happily applied.\n\n\nIb. p. 40. B.\n\n  That 'germen Jehov\u00e6', as the prophet Esay calls Christ, that offspring\n  of Jehova, that bud, that blossom, that fruit of God himself, the Son\n  of God, the Messiah, the Redeemer, Christ Jesus, grows upon every tree\n  in this paradise, the Scripture; for Christ was the occasion before,\n  and is the consummation after, of all Scripture.\n\n\nIf this were meant to the exclusion or neglect of the primary sense,--if\nwe are required to believe that the sacred writers themselves had such\nthoughts present to their minds,--it would, doubtless, throw the doors\nwide open to every variety of folly and fanaticism. But it may admit of\na safe, sound, and profitable use, if we consider the Bible as one work,\nintended by the Holy Spirit for the edification of the Church in all\nages, and having, as such, all its parts synoptically interpreted, the\neldest by the latest, the last by the first, and the middle by both.\nMoses, or David, or Jeremiah (we might in this view affirm) meant so and\nso, according to the context, and the light under which, and the\nimmediate or proximate purposes for which, he wrote: but we, who command\nthe whole scheme of the great dispensation, may see a higher and deeper\nsense, of which the literal meaning was a symbol or type; and this we\nmay justifiably call the sense of the spirit.\n\n\nIb. p. 41. B.\n\n  So in our liturgy 'we stand up at the profession of the creed'\n  thereby to declare to God and his Church our readiness to stand to,\n  and our readiness to proceed in, that profession.\n\n\nAnother Church might sit down, thereby denoting a resolve to abide in\nthis profession. These things are indifferent; but charity, love of\npeace, and on indifferent points to prefer another's liking to our own,\nand to observe an order once established for order's sake,--these are\nnot indifferent.\n\n\nIb. p. 42. C.\n\nThis paragraph is excellent. Alas! how painfully applicable it is to\nsome of our day!\n\n\nIb. p. 46. C.\n\n  Howsoever all intend that this is a name that denotes essence, being:\n  Being is the name of God, and of God only.\n\nRather, I should say, 'the eternal antecedent of being;' 'I that shall\nbe in that I will to be'; the absolute will; the ground of being; the\nself-affirming 'actus purissimus'.\n\n\nSerm. VI. Isaiah liii. 1. p. 52.\n\nA noble sermon in thought and diction.\n\n\nIb. p. 59. E.\n\n  Therefore we have a clearer light than this; 'firmiorem propheticum\n  sermonem', says St. Peter; 'we have a more sure word of the prophets';\n  that is, as St. Augustine reads that place, 'clariorem', a more\n  manifest, a more evident, declaration in the prophets, than in nature,\n  of the will of God towards man, &c.\n\n\nThe sense of this text, as explained by the context, seems to me\nthis;--that, in consequence of the fulfilment of so large a proportion\nof the oracles, the Christian Church has not only the additional light\ngiven by the teaching and miracles of Christ, but even the light\nvouchsafed to the old Church (the prophetic) stronger and clearer.\n\n\nIb. p. 60. A.\n\n  He spake personally, and he spake aloud, in the declaration of\n  miracles; but 'quis credidit auditui Filii?' Who believed even his\n  report? Did they not call his preaching sedition, and call his\n  miracles conjuring? Therefore, we have a clearer, that is, a nearer\n  light than the written Gospel, that is, the Church.\n\nTrue; yet he who should now venture to assert this truth, or even\ncontend for a co-ordinateness of the Church and the Written Word, must\nbear to be thought a semi-Papist, an 'ultra' high-Churchman. Still the\ntruth is the truth.\n\n\nSerm. VII. John x. 10. p. 62.\n\nSince the Revolution in 1688 our Church has been chilled and starved too\ngenerally by preachers and reasoners Stoic or Epicurean;--first, a sort\nof pagan morality was substituted for the righteousness by faith, and\nlatterly, prudence or Paleyanism has been substituted even for morality.\nA Christian preacher ought to preach Christ alone, and all things in him\nand by him. If he find a dearth in this, if it seem to him a\ncircumscription, he does not know Christ, as the 'pleroma', the\nfullness. It is not possible that there should be aught true, or seemly,\nor beautiful, in thought, will, or deed, speculative or practical, which\nmay not, and which ought not to, be evolved out of Christ and the faith\nin Christ;--no folly, no error, no evil to be exposed, or warred\nagainst, which may not, and should not, be convicted and denounced from\nits contrariancy and enmity to Christ. To the Christian preacher Christ\nshould be in all things, and all things in Christ: he should abjure\nevery argument that is not a link in the chain, of which Christ is the\nstaple and staple ring.\n\n\nIb. p. 64.\n\nIn this page Donne passes into rhetorical extravagance, after the manner\nof too many of the Fathers from Tertullian to Bernard.\n\n\nIb. p. 66. A.\n\n  Some of the later authors in the Roman Church ... have noted ('in\n  several of the Fathers') some inclinations towards that opinion, that\n  the devil retaining still his faculty of free-will, is therefore\n  capable of repentance, and so of benefit by this coming of Christ.\n\nIf this be assumed,--namely, the free-will of the devil,--as a\nconsequence would indeed follow his capability of repenting, and the\npossibility that he may repent. But then he is no longer what we mean by\nthe devil; he is no longer the evil spirit, but simply a wicked soul.\n\n\nIb. p. 68. C.\n\n  As though God had said 'Qui sum', my name is 'I am'; yet in truth it\n  is 'Qui ero', my name is 'I shall be'.\n\nNay, 'I will or shall be in that I will to be'. I am that only one who\nis self-originant, 'causa sui', whose will must be contemplated as\nantecedent in idea to or deeper than his own co-eternal being. But\n'antecedent,' 'deeper,' &c. are mere 'vocabula impropria', words of\naccommodation, that may suggest the idea to a mind purified from the\nintrusive phantoms of space and time, but falsify and extinguish the\ntruth, if taken as adequate exponents.\n\nIb. p. 69. C.\n\n  We affirm that it is not only as impious and irreligious a thing, but\n  as senseless and as absurd a thing, to deny that the Son of God hath\n  redeemed the world, as to deny that God hath created the world.\n\nA bold but a true saying. The man who, cannot see the redemptive agency\nin the creation has but a dim apprehension of the creative power.\n\n\nIb. D. E. p. 70. A.\n\nThese paragraphs exhibit a noble instance of giving importance to the\nsingle words of a text, each word by itself a pregnant text. Here, too,\nlies the excellence, the imitable, but alas! unimitated, excellence of\nour divines from Elizabeth to William III.\n\n\nIb. D.\n\nO, that our clergy did but know and see that their tithes and glebes\nbelong to them as officers and functionaries of the nationalty,--as\nclerks, and not exclusively as theologians, and not at all as ministers\nof the Gospel;--but that they are likewise ministers of the Church of\nChrist, and that their claims and the powers of that Church are no more\nalienated or affected by their being at the same time the established\nclergy, than they are by the common coincidence of being justices of the\npeace, or heirs to an estate, or stockholders! [6] The Romish divines\nplaced the Church above the Scriptures; our present divines give it no\nplace at all.\n\nBut Donne and his great contemporaries had not yet learnt to be afraid\nof announcing and enforcing the claims of the Church, distinct from, and\ncoordinate with, the Scriptures. This is one evil consequence, though\nmost un-necessarily so, of the union of the Church of Christ with the\nnational Church, and of the claims of the Christian pastor and preacher\nwith the legal and constitutional rights and revenues of the officers of\nthe national clerisy. Our clergymen in thinking of their legal rights,\nforget those rights of theirs which depend on no human law at all.\n\n\nIb. p. 71. A.\n\n  This is the difference between God's mercy and his judgments, that\n  sometimes his judgments may he plural, complicated, enwrapped in one\n  another; but his mercies are always so, and cannot be otherwise.\n\nA just sentiment beautifully expressed.\n\n\nIb. C.\n\n  Whereas the Christian religion is, as Gregory Nazianzen says,\n  'simplex et nuda, nisi prave in artem difficillimam\n  converteretur': it is a plain, an easy, a perspicuous truth.\n\nA religion of ideas, spiritual truths, or truth-powers,--not of notions\nand conceptions, the manufacture of the understanding,--is therefore\n'simplex et nuda', that is, immediate; like the clear blue heaven of\nItaly, deep and transparent, an ocean unfathomable in its depth, and yet\nground all the way. Still as meditation soars upwards, it meets the\narched firmament with all its suspended lamps of light. O, let not the\n'simplex et nuda' of Gregory be perverted to the Socinian, 'plain and\neasy for the meanest understandings!' The truth in Christ, like the\npeace of Christ, passeth all understanding. If ever there was a\nmischievous misuse of words, the confusion of the terms, 'reason' and\n'understanding,' 'ideas' and 'notions,' or 'conceptions,' is most\nmischievous; a Surinam toad with a swarm of toadlings sprouting out of\nits back and sides.\n\n\nSerm. VIII. Mat. v. 16. p. 77.\n\nIb. C.\n\n  Either of the names of this day were text enough for a sermon,\n  Purification or Candlemas. Join we them together, and raise we only\n  this one note from both, that all true purification is in the light,\n  &c.\n\n\nThe illustration of the name of the day contained in the first two or\nthree paragraphs of this sermon would be censured as quaint by our\nmodern critics. Would to heaven we had but even a few preachers capable\nof such quaintnesses!\n\n\nIb. D.\n\n  Every good work hath faith for the root; but every faith hath not good\n  works for the fruit thereof.\n\nFaith, that is, fidelity--the fealty of the finite will and\nunderstanding to the reason, 'the light that lighteth every man that\ncometh into the world', as one with, and representative of, the absolute\nwill, and to the ideas or truths of the pure reason, the supersensuous\ntruths, which in relation to the finite will, and as meant to determine\nthe will, are moral laws, the voice and dictates of the\nconscience;--this faith is properly a state and disposition of the will,\nor rather of the whole man, the I, or finite will, self-affirmed. It is\ntherefore the ground, the root, of which the actions, the works, the\nbelievings, as acts of the will in the understanding, are the trunk and\nthe branches. But these must be in the light. The disposition to see\nmust have organs, objects, direction, and an outward light. The three\nlatter of these our Lord gives to his disciples in this blessed sermon\non the Mount, preparatorily, and, as Donne rightly goes on to observe,\npresupposing faith as the ground and root. Indeed the whole of this and\nthe next page affords a noble specimen, how a minister of the Church of\nEngland should preach the doctrine of good works, purified from the\npoison of the practical Romish doctrine of works, as the mandioc is\nevenomated by fire, and rendered safe, nutritious, a bread of life. To\nDonne's exposition the heroic Solifidian, Martin Luther himself, would\nhave subscribed, hand and heart.\n\n\nIb. p. 78. C.\n\n  And therefore our latter men of the Reformation are not to be blamed,\n  who for the most, pursuing St. Cyril's interpretation, interpret this\n  universal 'light that lighteneth every man' to be the light of\n  nature.\n\n\nThe error here, and it is a grievous error, consists in the word\n'nature.' There is, there can be, no light of nature: there may be a\nlight in or upon nature; but this is the light that shineth down into\nthe darkness, that is, the nature, and the darkness comprehendeth it\nnot. All ideas, or spiritual truths, are supernatural.\n\n\nIb. p. 79.\n\nThroughout this page, Donne rather too much plays the rhetorician. If\nthe faith worketh the works, what is true of the former must be equally\naffirmed of the latter;--'causa caus\u00e6 causa causati'. Besides, he falls\ninto something like a confusion of faith with belief, taken as a\nconviction or assent of the judgment. The faith and the righteousness of\na Christian are both alike his, and not his--the faith of Christ in him,\nthe righteousness in and for him. 'I am crucified with Christ:\nnevertheless I live; yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life\nwhich I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who\nloved me, and gave himself for me'. [7]\n\nDonne was a truly great man; but, after all, he did not possess that\nfull, steady, deep, and yet comprehensive, insight into the nature of\nfaith and works which was vouchsafed to Martin Luther. Donne had not\nattained to the reconciling of distinctity with unity,--ours, yet God's;\nGod's, yet ours.\n\n\nIb. D.\n\n  'Velle et nolle nostrum est', to assent, or to dis-assent, is our own.\n\nIs not this, even with the saving afterwards, too nakedly expressed?\n\n\nIb.\n\n  And certainly our works are more ours than our faith is; and man\n  concurs otherwise in the acting and perpetration of a good work, than\n  he doth in the reception and admission of faith.\n\nWhy? Because Donne confounds the act of faith with the assent of the\nfancy and understanding to certain words and conceptions. Indeed, with\nall my reverence for Dr. Donne, I must warn against the contents of this\npage, as scarcely tenable in logic, unsound in metaphysics, and unsafe,\nslippery divinity; and principally in that he confounds faith--\nessentially an act, the fundamental work of the Spirit--with belief,\nwhich is then only good when it is the effect and accompaniment of faith.\n\n\nIb. p. 80. D.\n\n  Because things good in their institution may he depraved in their\n  practice--'ergone nihil ceremoniarum rudioribus dabitur, ad juvandam\n  eorum imperitiam?'\n\n\nSome ceremonies may be for the conservation of order and civility, or to\nprevent confusion and unseemliness; others are the natural or\nconventional language of our feelings, as bending the knees, or bowing\nthe head; and to neither of these two sorts do I object. But as to the\n'adjuvandam rudiorum imperitiam', I protest against all such ceremonies,\nand the pretexts for them, 'in toto'. What? Can any ceremony be more\ninstructive than the words required to explain the ceremony? I make but\ntwo exceptions, and those where the truths signified are so vital, so\nmomentous, that the very occasion and necessity of explaining the sign\nare of the highest spiritual value. Yet, alas! to what gross and\ncalamitous superstitions have not even the visible signs in Baptism and\nthe Eucharist given occasion!\n\n\nIb. p. 81. E.\n\n  Blessed St. Augustine reports, (if that epistle be St. Augustine's)\n  that when himself was writing to St. Hierome, to know his opinion of\n  the measure and quality of the joy and glory of heaven, suddenly in\n  his chamber there appeared 'ineffabile lumen', says he, an\n  unspeakable, an unexpressible light, ... and out of that light issued\n  this voice, 'Hieronymi anima sum', &c.\n\nThe grave recital of this ridiculous legend is one instance of what I\nhave called the Patristic leaven in Donne, who assuredly had no belief\nhimself in the authenticity of this letter. But yet it served a purpose.\nAs to Master Conradus, just above, who could read at night by the light\nat his fingers' ends, he must of course have very recently been shaking\nhands with Lucifer.\n\n\nIb. p. 83. D.\n\n  Eve's recognition upon the birth of her first son, 'Cain I have\n  gotten, I possess a man from the Lord.'\n\n'I have gotten the Jehovah-man', is, I believe, the true rendering\nand sense of the Hebrew words. Eve, full of the promise, supposed her\nfirst-born, the first-born on earth, to be the promised deliverer.\n\n\n                                   Ib. p. 84. D. E.\n                                   Serm. IX. Rom. xiii. 7. p. 86,\nAdmirable passages.                Ib. p. 90. A.\n\n                                      That soul that is accustomed, &c.\n\n                                   Ib. p. 94. A. B.\n\n\n\nSerm. XII. Mat. v. 2. p. 112.\nIb. B. C. D.\n\nThe disposition of our Church divines, under James I, to bring back the\nstream of the Reformation to the channel and within the banks formed in\nthe first six centuries of the Church, and their alienation from the\ngreat patriarchs of Protestantism, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, and\nothers, who held the Fathers of the 'ante'-Papal Church, with\nexception of Augustine, in light esteem, this disposition betrays itself\nhere and in many other parts of Donne. For here Donne plays the Jesuit,\ndisguising the truth, that even as early as the third century the Church\nhad begun to Paganize Christianity, under the pretext, and no doubt in\nthe hope, of Christianizing Paganism. The mountain would not go to\nMahomet, and therefore Mahomet went to the mountain.\n\n\nIb. p. 115. A.\n\nAn excellent passage.\n\n\nIb. p. 117. E.\n\n  And therefore when the prophet says, 'Quis sapiens, et intelliget h\u00e6c?\n  Who is so wise as to find out this way'? he places this cleanness\n  which we inquire after in wisdom. What is wisdom?\n\nThe primitive Church appropriated the name to the third 'hypostasis' of\nthe Trinity; hence 'Sancta Sophia' became the distinctive name of the\nHoly Ghost; and the temple at Constantinople, dedicated by Justinian to\nthe Holy Ghost, is called the Church--alas! now the mosque--of Santa\nSophia. Now this suggests, or rather implies, a far better and more\nprecise definition of wisdom than Donne's. The distinctive title of the\nFather, as the Supreme Will, is the Good; that of the only-begotten\nWord, as the Supreme Reason, ('Ens Realissimum', [Greek: Ho_O N], the\nBeing) is the True; and the Spirit proceeding from the Good through the\nTrue is the Wisdom. Goodness in the form of truth is wisdom. Wisdom is\nthe pure will, realizing itself intelligently, or the good manifesting\nitself as the truth, and realized in the act. Wisdom, life, love,\nbeauty, the beauty of holiness, are all 'synonyma' of the Holy Spirit.\n\n6, December, 1831.\n\n\nIb. p. 121. A.\n\n  The Arians' opinion, that God the Father only was invisible, but the\n  Son 'and the Holy Ghost' might be seen.\n\nHere we have an instance, one of many, of the inconveniences and\ncontradictions that arise out of the assumed contrary essences of body\nand soul; both substances, and independent of each other, yet so\nabsolutely diverse as that the one is to be defined by the negation of\nthe other.\n\n\nSerm. XIII. Job xvi. 17, 18, 19. p. 127.\nIb. p. 129. A. B. C.\nIb. pp. 134. 135.\n\nTruly excellent.\n\n\nSerm. XV. 1 Cor. xv. 26. p. 144.\nIb. D.\n\n  Who, then, is this enemy? an enemy that may thus far think himself\n  equal to God, that as no man ever saw God, and lived; so no man ever\n  saw this enemy, and lived; for it is death.\n\nThis borders rather too closely on the Irish Franciscan's conclusion to\nhis sermon of thanksgiving: \"Above all, brethren, let us thankfully laud\nand extol God's transcendant mercy in putting death at the end of life,\nand thereby giving us all time for repentance!\"\n\nDr. Donne was an eminently witty man in a very witty age; but to the\nhonour of his judgment let it be said, that though his great wit is\nevinced in numberless passages, in a few only is it shown off. This\nparagraph is one of those rare exceptions.\n\nN. B. Nothing in Scripture, nothing in reason, commands or authorizes us\nto assume or suppose any bodiless creature. It is the incommunicable\nattribute of God. But all bodies are not flesh, nor need we suppose that\nall bodies are corruptible. 'There are bodies celestial'. In the three\nfollowing paragraphs of this sermon, we trace wild fantastic positions\ngrounded on the arbitrary notion of man as a mixture of heterogeneous\ncomponents, which Des Cartes shortly afterwards carried into its\nextremes. On this doctrine the man is a mere phenomenal result, a sort\nof brandy-sop or toddy-punch. It is a doctrine unsanctioned by, and\nindeed inconsistent with, the Scriptures. It is not true that body\n'plus' soul makes man. Man is not the 'syntheton' or composition of body\nand soul, as the two component units. No; man is the unit, the\n'prothesis', and body and soul are the two poles, the positive and\nnegative, the 'thesis' and 'antithesis' of the man; even as attraction\nand repulsion are the two poles in and by which one and the same magnet\nmanifests itself.\n\n\nIb. p. 146. B.\n\n  For it is not so great a depopulation to translate a city from\n  merchants to husbandmen, from shops to ploughs, as it is from many\n  husbandmen to one shepherd; and yet that hath been often done.\n\nFor example, in the Highlands of Scotland in our own day.\n\n\nIb. p. 148. A.\n\n  The ashes of an oak in the chimney are no epitaph of that oak, to tell\n  me how high or how large that was. It tells me not what flocks it\n  sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell. The dust\n  of great persons' graves is speechless too, it says nothing, it\n  distinguishes nothing. As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldst\n  not, as of a prince whom thou couldst not, look upon, will trouble\n  thine eyes, if the wind blow it thither; and when a whirlwind hath\n  blown the dust of the churchyard unto the church, and the man sweeps\n  out the dust of the church into the church-yard, who will undertake to\n  sift those dusts again, and to pronounce;--this is the patrician, this\n  is the noble, flour, and this the yeomanly, this the plebeian, bran.\n  [8]\n\n\nVery beautiful indeed.\n\n\nIb. p. 149. C.\n\n  But when I lie under the hands of that enemy, that hath reserved\n  himself to the last, to my last bed; then when I shall be able to stir\n  no limb in any other measure than a fever or a palsy shall shake them;\n  when everlasting darkness shall have an inchoation in the present\n  dimness of mine eyes, and the everlasting gnashing in the present\n  chattering of my teeth, and the everlasting worm in the present\n  gnawing of the agonies of my body and anguishes of my mind; when the\n  last enemy shall watch my remediless body, and my disconsolate soul\n  there,--there, where not the physician in his way, perchance not the\n  priest in his, shall be able to give any assistance; and when he hath\n  sported himself with my misery, &c.\n\nThis is powerful; but is too much in the style of the monkish preachers:\n'Papam redolet'. Contrast with this Job's description of death, [9] and\nSt. Paul's 'sleep in the Lord'.\n\n\nIb. p. 150. A.\n\n  Neither doth Calvin carry those emphatical words which are so often\n  cited for a proof of the last resurrection,--'that he knows his\n  Redeemer lives, that he knows he shall stand the last man upon earth,\n  that though his body be destroyed, yet in his flesh and with his eyes\n  shall he see God'--to any higher sense than so, that how low soever he\n  be brought, to what desperate state soever he be reduced in the eyes\n  of the world, yet he assures himself of a resurrection, a reparation,\n  a restitution to his former bodily health, and worldly fortune which\n  he had before. And such a resurrection we all know Job had.\n\nI incline to Calvin's opinion, but am not decided. 'After my skin', must\nbe rendered 'according to, or as far as my skin is concerned.' 'Though\nthe flies and maggots in my ulcers have destroyed my skin, yet still,\nand in my flesh, I shall see God as my Redeemer'. Now St. Paul says,\nthat flesh and blood cannot ([Greek: s\u00e0rx ka\u00ec aima--ou dynantai])\ninherit the kingdom of heaven, that is, the spiritual world. Besides how\nis the passage, as commonly interpreted, consistent with the numerous\nexpressions of doubt and even of despondency in Job's speeches? [10]\n\n\nIb. B. C. (Ezekiel's vision xxxvii.)\n\nI cannot but think that Dr. Donne, by thus antedating the distinct\nbelief of the Jews in the resurrection, \"which you all know already,\"\ndestroys in great measure the force and sublimity of this vision.\nBesides, it does not seem, in the common people at least, to have been\nmuch more than a mongrel Egyptian-catacomb sort of faith, or rather\nsuperstition.\n\n_In fine_. This is one of Donne's least estimable discourses; the worst\nsermon on the best text. Yet what a Donne-like passage is this that\nfollows!\n\n\nP. 146. A.\n\n  Let the whole world be in thy consideration as one house; and then\n  consider in that, in the peaceful harmony of creatures, in the\n  peaceful succession, and connexion of causes and effects, the peace of\n  nature. Let this kingdom, where God hath blessed thee with a being, be\n  the gallery, the best room of that house, and consider in the two\n  walls of that gallery, the Church and the state, the peace of a royal\n  and religious wisdom. Let thine own family be a cabinet in this\n  gallery, and find in all the boxes thereof, in the several duties of\n  wife and children, and servants, the peace of virtue, and of the\n  father and mother of all virtues, active discretion, passive\n  obedience; and then lastly, let thine own bosom be the secret box and\n  reserve in this cabinet, and then the gallery of the best home that\n  can be had, peace with the creature, peace in the Church, peace in the\n  state, peace in thy house, peace in thy heart, is a fair model, and a\n  lovely design even of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is _visio pacis_,\n  where there is no object but peace.\n\n\nSerm. XVI. John xi. 35. p. 153.\nIb. C.\n\n  The Masorites (the Masorites are the critics upon the Hebrew Bible,\n  the Old Testament) cannot tell us, who divided the chapters of the Old\n  Testament into verses: neither can any other tell, who did it in the\n  New Testament. [11]\n\nHow should the Masorites, when the Hebrew Scriptures were not as far as\nwe know divided into verses at all in their time? The Jews seem to have\nadopted the invention from the Christians, who were led to it in the\nconstruction of Concordances.\n\n\nIb. p. 154. E.\n\n  If they killed Lazarus, had not Christ done enough to let them see\n  that he could raise him again?\n\n\nMalice, above all party-malice, is indeed a blind passion, but one can\nscarcely conceive the chief priests such dolts as to think that Christ\ncould raise Lazarus again. Their malice blinded them as to the nature of\nthe incident, made them suppose a conspiracy between Jesus and the\nfamily of Lazarus, a mock burial, in short; and this may be one, though\nit is not, I think, the principal, reason for this greatest miracle\nbeing omitted in the other Gospels.\n\n\nIb. p. 155. B.\n\n  Christ might ungirt himself, and give more scope and liberty to his\n  passions than any other man; both because he had no original sin\n  within to drive him, &c.\n\nHow then is he said to have 'condemned sin in the flesh'? Without guilt,\nwithout actual sin, assuredly he was; but [Greek: eg\u00e9neto s\u00e0rx], and\nwhat can we mean by original sin relatively to the flesh, but that man\nis born with an animal life and a material organism that render him\ntemptible to evil, and which tends to dispose the life of the will to\ncontradict the light of the reason? Did St. Paul by [Greek: homoi_\u00f3mati\nsark\u00f2s hamarti\u00e1s] mean a deceptive resemblance? [12]\n\n\nIb. D.\n\nI can see no possible edification that can arise from these\n_ultra_-Scriptural speculations respecting our Lord.\n\n\nIb. p. 157. A.\n\n  Though the Godhead never departed from the carcase ... yet because the\n  human soul was departed from it, he was no man.\n\nDonne was a poor metaphysician; that is, he never closely questioned\nhimself as to the absolute meaning of his words. What did he mean by the\n'soul?' what by the 'body?' [13]\n\n\nIb. D.\n\n  And I know that there are authors of a middle nature, above the\n  philosophers, and below the Scriptures, the Apocryphal books.\n\nA whimsical instance of the disposition in the mind for every pair of\nopposites to find an intermediate,--a 'mesothesis' for every 'thesis'\nand 'antithesis'. Thus Scripture may be opposed to philosophy; and then\nthe Apocryphal books will be philosophy relatively to Scripture, and\nScripture relatively to philosophy.\n\n\nIb. p. 159. B.\n\n  And therefore the same author (Epiphanius) says, that because they\n  thought it an uncomely thing for Christ to weep for any temporal\n  thing, some men have expunged and removed that verse out of St. Luke's\n  Gospel, that 'Jesus, when he saw that city, wept'. [14]\n\n\nThis, by the by, rather indiscreetly lets out the liberties, which the\nearly Christians took with their sacred writings. Origen, who, in answer\nto Celsus's reproach on this ground, confines the practice to the\nheretics, furnishes proofs of the contrary himself in his own comments.\n\n\nIb. p. 161. D.\n\n  That world, which finds itself in an authumn in itself, finds itself\n  in a spring in our imaginations.\n\nWorthy almost of Shakspeare!\n\n\nSerm. XVII. Matt. xix. 17. p. 163.\nIb. E.\n\n  The words are part of a dialogue, of a conference, between Christ and\n  a man who proposed a question to him; to whom Christ makes an answer\n  by way of another question, 'Why callest thou me good?' &c. In the\n  words, and by occasion of them, we consider the text, the context, and\n  the pretext; not as three equal parts of the building; but the\n  context, as the situation and prospect of the house, the pretext, as\n  the access and entrance into the house, and then the text itself, as\n  the house itself, as the body of the building: in a word, in the text\n  the words; in the context the occasion of the words; in the pretext\n  the purpose, the disposition of him who gave the occasion.\n\nWhat a happy example of elegant division of a subject! And so also the\n'compendium' of Christianity in the preceding paragraph (D). Our great\ndivines were not ashamed of the learned discipline to which they had\nsubmitted their minds under Aristotle and Tully, but brought the\npurified products as sacrificial gifts to Christ. They baptized the\nlogic and manly rhetoric of ancient Greece.\n\n\nIb. p. 164. A. B.\n\nExcellent illustration of fragmentary morality, in which each man takes\nhis choice of his virtues and vices.\n\n\nIb. D.\n\n  Men perish with whispering sins, nay, with silent sins, sins that\n  never tell the conscience they are sins, as often as with crying sins.\n\n\nYea, I almost doubt whether the truth here so boldly asserted is not of\nmore general necessity for ordinary congregations, than the denunciation\nof the large sins that cannot remain 'in incognito'.\n\n\nIb. p. 165. A.\n\n  'Venit procurrens, he came running'. Nicodemus came not so, Nicodemus\n  durst not avow his coming, and therefore he came creeping, and he came\n  softly, and he came seldom, and he came by night.\n\n\nAh! but we trust in God that he did in fact come. The adhesion, the\nthankfulness, the love which arise and live after the having come,\nwhether from spontaneous liking, or from a beckoning hope, or from a\ncompelling good, are the truest 'criteria' of the man's Christianity.\n\nIb. B.\n\n  When I have just reason to think my superiors would have it thus, this\n  is music to my soul; when I hear them say they would have it thus,\n  this is rhetoric to my soul; when I see their laws enjoin it to be\n  thus, this is logic to my soul; but when I see them actually, really,\n  clearly, constantly do thus, this is a demonstration to my soul, and\n  demonstration is the powerfullest proof. The eloquence of inferiors is\n  in words, the eloquence of superiors is in action.\n\nA just representation, I doubt not, of the general feeling and principle\nat the time Donne wrote. Men regarded the gradations of society as God's\nordinances, and had the elevation of a self-approving conscience in\nevery feeling and exhibition of respect for those of ranks superior to\ntheir own. What a contrast with the present times! Is not the last\nsentence beautiful? \"The eloquence of inferiors is in words, the\neloquence of superiors is in action.\"\n\n\nIb. B. and C.\n\n  He came to Christ, he ran to him; and when he was come, as St. Mark\n  relates it, 'he fell upon his knees to Christ'. He stood not then\n  Pharisaically upon his own legs, his own merits, though he had been a\n  diligent observer of the commandments before, &c.\n\n\nAll this paragraph is an independent truth; but I doubt whether in his\ndesire to make every particle exemplary, to draw some Christian moral\nfrom it, Donne has not injudiciously attributed, _quasi per prolepsin_,\nmerits inconsistent with the finale of a wealthy would-be proselyte. At\nall events, a more natural and, perhaps, not less instructive\ninterpretation might be made of the sundry movements of this religiously\nearnest and zealous admirer of Christ, and worshipper of Mammon. O, I\nhave myself known such!\n\n\nIb. D.\n\n  He was no ignorant man, and yet he acknowledged that he had somewhat\n  more to learn of Christ than he knew yet. Blessed are they that\n  inanimate all their knowledge, consummate all in Christ Jesus, &c.\n\nThe whole paragraph is pure gold. Without being aware of this passage in\nDonne, I expressed the same conviction, or rather declared the same\nexperience, in the appendix [15] to the Statesman's Manual. O! if only one\nday in a week, Christians would consent to have the Bible as the only\nbook, and their minister's labour to make them find all substantial good\nof all other books in their Bibles!\n\n\nIb. E.\n\n  I remember one of the Panegyrics celebrates and magnifies one of the\n  Roman emperors for this, that he would marry when he was young; that\n  he would so soon confine and limit his pleasures, so soon determine\n  his affections in one person.\n\nIt is surely some proof of the moral effect which Christianity has\nproduced, that in all Protestant countries, at least, a writer would be\nashamed to assign this as a ground of panegyric; as if promiscuous\nintercourse with those of the other sex had been a natural good, a\nprivilege, which there was a great merit in foregoing! O! what do not\nwomen owe to Christianity! As Christians only it is that they do, or\nordinarily can, cease to be things for men, instead of co-persons in one\nspiritual union.\n\n\nIb. p. 166. A.\n\n  But such is often the corrupt inordinateness of greatness, that it\n  only carries them so much beyond other men, but not so much nearer to\n  God.\n\nLike a balloon, away from earth, but not a whit nearer the arch of\nheaven. There is a praiseworthy relativeness and life in the morality of\nour best old divines. It is not a cold law in brass or stone; but \"this\nI may and should think of my neighbour, this of a great man,\" &c.\n\n\nIb. p. 167. A.\n\n  Christ was pleased to redeem this man from this error, and bring him\n  to know truly what he was, that he was God. Christ therefore doth not\n  rebuke this man, by any denying that he himself was good; for Christ\n  doth assume that addition to himself, 'I am the good shepherd'.\n  Neither doth God forbid that those good parts which are in men should\n  be celebrated with condign praise. We see that God, as soon as he saw\n  that any thing was good, he said so, he uttered it, he declared it,\n  first of the light, and then of other creatures. God would be no\n  author, no example of smothering the due praise of good actions. For\n  surely that man hath no zeal to goodness in himself, that affords no\n  praise to goodness in other men.\n\n\nVery fine. But I think another--not, however, a different--view might be\ntaken respecting our Lord's intention in these words. The young noble,\nwho came to him, had many praiseworthy traits of character; but he\nfailed in the ultimate end and aim. What ought only to have been valued\nby him as means, was loved, and had a worth given to it, as an end in\nitself. Our Lord, who knew the hearts of men, instantly in the first\nwords applies himself to this, and takes the occasion of an ordinary\nphrase of courtesy addressed to himself, to make the young man aware of\nthe difference between a mere relative good and that which is absolutely\ngood; that which may be called good, when regarded as a mean to good,\nbut which must not be mistaken for, or confounded with, that which is\ngood, and itself the end.\n\n\nIb. B. C. D.\n\nAll excellent, and D. most so. Thus, thus our old divines showed the\ndepth of their love and appreciation of the Scriptures, and thus led\ntheir congregations to feel and see the same. Here is Donne's authority\n(_Deus non est ens_, &c.) for what I have so earnestly endeavored to\nshow, that _Deus est ens super ens_, the ground of all being, but\ntherein likewise absolute Being, in that he is the eternal\nself-affirmant, the I Am in that I Am; and that the key of this mystery\nis given to us in the pure idea of the will, as the alone _Causa Sui_.\n\nO! compare this manhood of our Church divinity with the feeble dotage of\nthe Paleyan school, the 'natural' theology, or watchmaking scheme, that\nknows nothing of the maker but what can be proved out of the watch, the\nunknown nominative case of the verb impersonal _fit--et natura est_; the\n'it,' in short, in 'it rains,' 'it snows,' 'it is cold,' and the\nlike. When, after reading the biographies of Walton and his\ncontemporaries, I reflect on the crowded congregations, on the\nthousands, who with intense interest came to their hour and two hour\nlong sermons, I cannot but doubt the fact of any true progression, moral\nor intellectual, in the mind of the many. The tone, the matter, the\nanticipated sympathies in the sermons of an age form the best moral\ncriterion of the character of that age.\n\n\nIb. E.\n\n  His name of Jehova we admire with a reverence.\n\nSay, rather, Jehova, his name. It is not so properly a name of God, as\nGod the Name,--God's name and God.\n\n\nIb. p. 169. A.\n\n  Land, and money, and honour must be called goods, though but of\n  fortune, &c.\n\nWe should distinguish between the conditions of our possessing goods and\nthe goods themselves. Health, for instance, is ordinarily a condition of\nthat working and rejoicing for and in God, which are goods in the end,\nand of themselves. Health, competent fortune, and the like are good as\nthe negations of the preventives of good; as clear glass is good in\nrelation to the light, which it does not exclude. Health and ease\nwithout the love of God are plate glass in the darkness.\n\n\nIb. p. 170.\n\nMuch of this page consists of play on words; as, that which is useful as\nrain, and that which is of use as rain on a garden after drouth. There\nis also much sophistry in it. Pain is not necessarily an ultimate evil.\nAs the mean of ultimate good, it may be a relative good; but surely that\nwhich makes pain, anguish, heaviness necessary in order to good, must be\nevil. And so the Scripture determines. They are the _wages of sin_; but\nGod's infinite mercy raises them into sacraments, means of grace. Sin is\nthe only absolute evil; God the only absolute good. But as myriads of\nthings are good relatively through participation of God, so are many\nthings evil as the fruits of evil. What is the apostasy, or fall of\nspirits? That that which from the essential perfection of the Absolute\nGood could not but be possible, that is, have a potential being, but\nnever ought to have been actual, did nevertheless strive to be\nactual?--But this involved an impossibility; and it actualized only its\nown potentiality.\n\nWhat is the consequence of the apostasy? That no philosophy is possible\nof man and nature but by assuming at once a zenith and a nadir, God and\n'Hades'; and an ascension from the one through and with a condescension\nfrom the other; that is, redemption by prevenient and then auxiliary\ngrace.\n\n\nIb. p. 171. B.\n\n  So says St. Augustine, 'Audeo dicere', though it be boldly said, yet I\n  must say it, 'utile esse cadere in aliquod manifestum peccatum', &c.\n\nNo doubt, a sound sense may be forced into these words: but why use\nwords, into which a sound sense must be forced? Besides, the subject is\ntoo deep and too subtle for a sermon. In the two following paragraphs,\nespecially, Dr. Donne is too deep, and not deep enough. He treads\nwaters, and dangerous waters. N. B. The Familists.\n\n\nSerm. XVIII. Acts, ii. 36. p. 175.\nIb. B.\n\nI would paraphrase, or rather lead the way to this text, something as\nfollows:--\n\nTruth is a common interest; it is every man's duty to convey it to his\nbrother, if only it be a truth that concerns or may profit him, and he\nbe competent to receive it. For we are not bound to say the truth, where\nwe know that we cannot convey it, but very probably may impart a\nfalsehood instead; no falsehoods being more dangerous than truths\nmisunderstood, nay, the most mischievous errors on record having been\nhalf-truths taken as the whole.\n\nBut let it be supposed that the matter to be communicated is a fact of\ngeneral concernment, a truth of deep and universal interest, a momentous\ntruth involved in a most awe-striking fact, which all responsible\ncreatures are competent to understand, and of which no man can safely\nremain in ignorance. Now this is the case with the matter, on which I am\nabout to speak; 'therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly,\nthat God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord\nand Christ!'\n\n\nIb. p. 176. A. B. C.\n\nTrue Christian love not only permits, but enjoins, courtesy. God\nhimself, says Donne, gave us the example.\n\n\nIb. p. 177. A. C. E.\n\nAll excellent, and E. of deeper worth. All that is wanting here is to\ndetermine the true sense of 'knowing God,'--that sense in which it is\nrevealed that to know God is life ever-lasting.\n\n\nIb p. 178. A.\n\n  Now the universality of this mercy hath God enlarged and extended very\n  far, in that he proposes it even to our knowledge; 'sciant', let all\n  know it. It is not only 'credant', let all believe it; for the\n  infusing of faith is not in our power; but God hath put it in our\n  power to satisfy their reason, &c.\n\nA question is here affirmatively started of highest importance and of\ndeepest interest, that is, faith so distinguished from reason, 'credat'\nfrom 'sciat', that the former is an infused grace 'not in our power;'\nthe latter an inherent quality or faculty, on which we are able to\ncalculate as man with man. I know not what to say to this. Faith seems\nto me the coadunation of the individual will with the reason, enforcing\nadherence alike of thought, act, and affection to the Universal Will,\nwhether revealed in the conscience, or by the light of reason, however\nthe same may contravene, or apparently contradict, the will and mind of\nthe flesh, the presumed experience of the senses and of the\nunderstanding, as the faculty, or intelligential yet animal instinct, by\nwhich we generalize the notices of the senses, and substantiate their\n'spectra' or 'ph\u00e6nomena'. In this sense, therefore, and in this only, I\nagree with Donne.\n\n'No man cometh to Christ unless the' 'Father lead him'. The corrupt will\ncannot, without prevenient as well as auxiliary grace, be unitively\nsubordinated to the reason, and again, without this union of the moral\nwill, the reason itself is latent. Nevertheless, I see no advantage in\nnot saying the 'will,' or in substituting the term 'faith' for it. But\nthe sad non-distinction of the reason and the understanding throughout\nDonne, and the confusion of ideas and conceptions under the same term,\npainfully inturbidates his theology. Till this distinction of the\n[Greek: nous] and the [Greek: phr\u00f3naema sark\u00f2s] be seen, nothing can be\nseen aright. Till this great truth be mastered, and with the sight that\nis insight, other truths may casually take possession of the mind, but\nthe mind cannot possess them. If you know not this, you know nothing;\nfor if you know not the diversity of reason from the understanding, you\nknow not reason; and reason alone is knowledge.\n\nAll that follows in B. is admirable, worthy of a divine of the Church of\nEngland, the National and the Christian, and indeed proves that Donne\nwas at least possessed by the truth which I have always labored to\nenforce, namely, that faith is the 'apotheosis' of the reason in\nman, the complement of reason, the will in the form of the reason. As\nthe basin-water to the fountain shaft, such is will to reason in faith.\nThe whole will shapes itself in the image of God wherein it had been\ncreated, and shoots on high toward, and in the glories of, Heaven!\n\n\nIb. D.\n\n  If we could have been in Paradise, and seen God take a clod of red\n  earth, and make that wretched clod of contemptible earth such a body\n  as should be fit to receive his breath, &c.\n\nA sort of pun on the Hebrew word 'Adam' or red earth, common in Donne's\nage, but unworthy of Donne, who was worthy to have seen deeper into the\nScriptural sense of the 'ground,' the Hades, the multeity, the many\n'absque numero el infra numerum', that which is below, as God is that\nwhich transcends, intellect.\n\n\nIb. p. 179. B.\n\n  We place in the School, for the most part, the infinite merit of\n  Christ Jesus ... rather 'in pacto' than 'in persona', rather that this\n  contract was thus made between the Father and the Son, than that\n  whatsoever that person, thus consisting of God and Man, should do,\n  should, only in respect of the person, be of an infinite value and\n  extension to that purpose, &c.\n\nO, this is sad misty divinity! far too scholastical for the pulpit, far\ntoo vague and unphilosophic for the study.\n\n\nIb. p. 180. A.\n\n  'Quis nisi infidelis negaverit apud inferos fuisse Christum?' says St.\n  Augustine.\n\nWhere? [16] Pearson expressly asserts and proves that the clause was in\nnone of the ancient creeds or confessions. And even now the sense of\nthese words, 'He descended into hell', is in no Reformed Church\ndetermined as an article of faith.\n\n\nIb. p. 182. D.\n\n  'Audacter dicam', says St. Hierome, 'cum omnia posset Deus, suscitare\n  virginem post ruinam non potest.'\n\nOne instance among hundreds of the wantonness of phrase and fancy in the\nFathers. What did Jerome mean? 'quod Deus membranam hymenis luniformem\nreproducere nequit?' No; that were too absurd. What then?--that God\ncannot make what has been not to have been? Well then, why not say that,\nsince that is all you can mean?\n\n\nSerm. XIX. Rev. xx. 6. p. 183.\n\nThe exposition of the text in this sermon is a lively instance how much\nexcellent good sense a wise man, like Donne, can bring forth on a\npassage which he does not understand. For to say that it may mean either\nX, or Y, or Z, is to confess he knows not what it means; but that if it\nbe X. then, &c.; if Y. then, &c.; and lastly if it be Z. then, &c.; that\nis to say, that he understands X, Y, and Z; but does not understand the\ntext itself.\n\n\nIb. p. 185. B.\n\n  Seas of blood and yet but brooks, tuns of blood and yet but basons,\n  compared with the sacrifices, the sacrifices of the blood of men, in\n  the persecutions of the primitive Church. For every ox of the Jew, the\n  Christian spent a man; and for every sheep and lamb, a mother and her\n  child, &c.\n\n\nWhoo! Had the other nine so called persecutions been equal to the tenth,\nthat of Diocletian, Donne's assertion here would be extravagant.\n\n\nSerra. XXXIV. Rom. viii. 16. p. 332.\nIb. p. 335. A.\n\n  But by what manner comes He from them? By proceeding.\n\nIf this mystery be considered as words, or rather sounds vibrating on\nsome certain ears, to which the belief of the hearers assigned a\nsupernatural cause, well and good! What else can be said? Such were the\nsounds: what their meaning is, we know not; but such sounds not being in\nthe ordinary course of nature, we of course attribute them to something\nextra-natural.\n\nBut if God made man in his own image, therein as in a mirror, misty no\ndoubt at best, and now cracked by peculiar and in-herited defects--yet\nstill our only mirror--to contemplate all we can of God, this word\n'proceeding' may admit of an easy sense.\n\nFor if a man first used it to express as well as he could a notion found\nin himself as man 'in genere', we have to look into ourselves, and there\nwe shall find that two facts of vital intelligence may be conceived; the\nfirst, a necessary and eternal outgoing of intelligence ([Greek: nous])\nfrom being ([Greek:t\u00f2 on]), with the will as an accompaniment, but not\nfrom it as a cause,--in order, though not necessarily in time,\nprecedent. This is true filiation.\n\nThe second is an act of the will and the reason, in their purity strict\nidentities, and therefore not begotten or filiated, but proceeding from\nintelligent essence and essential intelligence combining in the act,\nnecessarily and coeternally.\n\nFor the coexistence of absolute spontaneity with absolute necessity is\ninvolved in the very idea of God, one of whose intellectual definitions\nis, the 'synthesis, generative ad extra, et annihilative, etsi\ninclusive, quoad se,' of all conceivable 'antitheses;' even as the best\nmoral definition--(and, O! how much more godlike to us in this state of\nantithetic intellect is the moral beyond the intellectual!)--is, God is\nlove.\n\nThis is to us the high prerogative of the moral, that all its dictates\nimmediately reveal the truths of intelligence, whereas the strictly\nintellectual only by more distant and cold deductions carries us towards\nthe moral.\n\nFor what is love? Union with the desire of union. God therefore is the\ncohesion and the oneness of all things; and dark and dim is that system\nof ethics, which does not take oneness as the root of all virtue.\n\nBeing, Mind, Love in action, are ideas distinguishable though not\ndivisible; but Will is incapable of distinction or division: it is\nequally implied in vital action, in essential intelligence, and in\neffluent love or holy action.\n\nNow will is the true principle of identity, of selfness, even in our\ncommon language. The will, therefore, being indistinguishably one, but\nthe possessive powers triply distinguishable, do perforce involve the\nnotion expressed by a Trinity of three Persons and one God.\n\nThere are three Persons eternally coexisting, in whom the one Will is\ntotally all in each; the truth of which mystery we may know in our own\nminds, but can understand by no analogy.\n\nFor \"the wind ministrant to divers at the same moment\"--thence, to aid\nthe fancy--borrows or rather steals from the mind the idea of 'total 'in\nomni parte',' which alone furnishes the analogy; but that both it and by\nit a myriad of other material images do enwrap themselves 'in hac veste\nnon sua,' and would be even no objects of conception if they did not;\nyea, that even the very words, 'conception,' 'comprehension,' and all in\nall languages that answer to them, suppose this trans-impression from\nthe mind, is an argument better than all analogy.\n\n\nSerm. XXXV. Mat. xii. 31. p. 341.\nIb. p. 342. B.\n\n  First then, for the first term, 'sin,' we use to ask in the\n  school, whether any action of man's can have 'rationem demeriti;'\n  whether it can be said to offend God, or to deserve ill of God? for\n  whatsoever does so, must have some proportion with God.\n\nThis appears to me to furnish an interesting example of the bad\nconsequences in reasoning, as well as in morals, of the 'cui bono? cui\nmalo?' system of ethics,--that system which places the good and evil\nof actions in their painful or pleasurable effects on the sensuous or\npassive nature of sentient beings, not in the will, the pure act itself.\n\nFor, according to this system, God must be either a passible and\ndependent being,--that is, not God,--or else he must have no interest,\narid therefore no motive or impulse, to reward virtue or punish vice.\n\nThe veil which the Epicureans threw over their atheism was itself an\nimplicit atheism. Nay, the world itself could not have existed; and as\nit does exist, the origin of evil (for if evil means no more than pain\n'in genere', evil has a true being in the order of things) is not\nonly a difficulty of impossible solution, but is a fact necessarily\nimplying the non-existence of an omnipotent and infinite goodness,--that\nis, of God.\n\nFor to say that I believe in a God, but not that he is omnipotent,\nomniscient, and all-good, is as mere a contradiction in terms as to say,\nI believe in a circle, but not that all the rays from its centre to its\ncircumference are equal.\n\nI cannot read the profound truth so clearly expressed by Donne in the\nnext paragraph--\"it does not only want that rectitude, but it should\nhave that rectitude, and therefore hath a sinful want\"--without an\nuneasy wonder at its incongruity with the preceding dogmas.\n\n\nSerm. LXXI. Mat. iv. 18, 19, 20. p. 717.\nIb. p.725. A.\n\n  But still consider, that they did but leave their nets, they did not\n  burn them. And consider, too, that they left but nets, those things\n  which might entangle them, and retard them in their following of\n  Christ, &c.\n\nAn excellent paragraph grounded on a mere pun. Such was the taste of the\nage; and it is an awful joy to observe, that not great learning, great\nwit, great talent, not even (as far as without great virtue that can be)\ngreat genius, were effectual to preserve the man from the contagion, but\nonly the deep and wise enthusiasm of moral feeling. Compare in this\nlight Donne's theological prose even with that of the honest Knox; and,\nabove all, compare Cowley with Milton.\n\n\nSerm. LXXII. Mat. iv. 18, 19, 20. p. 726.\nIb. p.727. A.-E.\n\nIt is amusing to see the use which the Christian divines make of the\nvery facts in favour of their own religion, with which they triumphantly\nbattered that of the heathens; namely, the gross and sinful\nanthropomorphitism of their representations of the Deity; and yet the\nheathen philosophers and priests--Plutarch for instance--tell us as\nplainly as Donne or Aquinas can do, that these are only accommodations\nto human modes of conception,--the divine nature being in itself\nimpassible;--how otherwise could it be the prime agent?\n\nPaganism needs a true philosophical judge. Condemned it will be,\nperhaps, more heavily than by the present judges, but not from the same\nstatutes, nor on the same evidence.\n\n\n'In fine.'\n\nIf our old divines, in their homiletic expositions of Scripture,\nwire-drew their text, in the anxiety to evolve out of the words the\nfulness of the meaning expressed, implied, or suggested, our modern\npreachers have erred more dangerously in the opposite extreme, by making\ntheir text a mere theme, or 'motto', for their discourse. Both err in\ndegree; the old divines, especially the Puritans, by excess, the modern\nby defect. But there is this difference to the disfavor of the latter,\nthat the defect in degree alters the kind. It was on God's holy word\nthat our Hookers, Donnes, Andrewses preached; it was Scripture bread\nthat they divided, according to the needs and seasons. The preacher of\nour days expounds, or appears to expound, his own sentiments and\nconclusions, and thinks himself evangelic enough if he can make the\nScripture seem in conformity with them.\n\nAbove all, there is something to my mind at once elevating and soothing\nin the idea of an order of learned men reading the many works of the\nwise and great, in many languages, for the purpose of making one book\ncontain the life and virtue of all others, for their brethren's use who\nhave but that one to read. What, then, if that one book be such, that\nthe increase of learning is shown by more and more enabling the mind to\nfind them all in it! But such, according to my experience--hard as I am\non threescore--the Bible is, as far as all moral, spiritual, and\nprudential,--all private, domestic, yea, even political, truths arid\ninterests are concerned. The astronomer, chemist, mineralogist, must go\nelsewhere; but the Bible is the book for the man.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The LXXX Sermons, fol. 1640.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2:\n\n  \"Mr. Coleridge's admiration of Bull and Waterland as high theologians\n  was very great. Bull he used to read in the Latin 'Defensio Fidei\n  Nicoenoe', using the Jesuit Zola's edition of 1784, which, I think,\n  he bought at Rome. He told me once, that when he was reading a\n  Protestant English Bishop's work on the Trinity, in a copy edited by\n  an Italian Jesuit in Italy, he felt proud of the Church of England,\n  and in good humour with the Church of Rome.\"\n\n'Table Talk,' 2d edit. p. 41.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: Rom. vi. 3, 4, 5.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: John i 14. Gal. iv 4. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 5: See the whole argument on the difference of the reason and\nthe understanding, in the 'Aids to Reflection', 3d edit. pp. 206-227.\nEd.]\n\n\n[Footnote 6: See the author's entire argument upon this subject in the\n'Church and State'.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 7: Galat. ii 20.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 8: Compare 'Hamlet', Act V. sc. 1. This sermon was preached,\nMarch 8, 1628-9.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 9: C. iii. 13, &c.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 10: See, however, the author's expressions at, I believe, a\nrather later period.\n\n  \"I now think, after many doubts, that the passage; 'I know that my\n  Redeemer liveth', &c. may fairly be taken as a burst of determination,\n  a 'quasi' prophecy. I know not how this can be; but in spite of all my\n  difficulties, this I do know, that I shall be recompensed!\"\n\n'Table Talk', 2d edit. p. 80.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 11: How so? Is it not admitted that Robert Stephens first\ndivided the New Testament into verses in 1551? See the testimony to that\neffect of Henry Stephens, his son, in the Preface to his\nConcordance.--Ed. ]\n\n\n[Footnote 12: 'Rom'. viii. 3. Mr. C. afterwards expressed himself to the\nsame effect:\n\n  \"Christ's body, as mere body, or rather carcase (for body is an\n  associated word), was no more capable of sin or righteousness than\n  mine or yours; that his humanity had a capacity of sin, follows from\n  its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was tempted. How\n  could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being seduced?\"\n\n'Table Talk', 2d edit. p. 261.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 13: See Hooker's admirable declaration of the doctrine:--\n\n  \"These natures from the moment of their first combination have been\n  and are for ever inseparable. For even when his soul forsook the\n  tabernacle of his body, his Deity forsook neither body nor soul. If it\n  had, then could we not truly hold either that the person of Christ was\n  buried, or that the person of Christ did raise up itself from the\n  dead. For the body separated from the Word can in no true sense be\n  termed the person of Christ; nor is it true to say that the Son of God\n  in raising up that body did raise up himself, if the body were not\n  both with him and of him even during the time it lay in the sepulchre.\n  The like is also to be said of the soul, otherwise we are plainly and\n  inevitably Nestorians. The very person of Christ therefore for ever\n  one and the self-same, was only touching bodily substance concluded\n  within the grave, his soul only from thence severed, but by personal\n  union his Deity still unseparably joined with both.\"\n\nE. P. V. 52. 4.--'Keble's edit'. Ed. ]\n\n\n[Footnote 14: xix. 41.--Ed. ]\n\n\n[Footnote 15: (C.) which should be (B.)\n\n  \"The object of the preceding discourse was to recommend the Bible as\n  the end and centre of our reading and meditation. I can truly affirm\n  of myself, that my studies have been profitable and availing to me\n  only so far, as I have endeavored to use all my other knowledge as a\n  glass enabling me to receive more light in a wider field of vision\n  from the Word of God.\"\n\nEd.]\n\n\n[Footnote 16: Ep. 99. See Pearson, Art. v.--Ed. ]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHENRY MORE'S THEOLOGICAL WORKS. [1]\n\n\nThere are three principal causes to which the imperfections and errors\nin the theological schemes and works of our elder divines, the glories\nof our Church,--men of almost unparalleled learning and genius, the rich\nand robust intellects from the reign of Elizabeth to the death of\nCharles II,--may, I think, be reasonably attributed. And striking,\nunusually striking, instances of all three abound in this volume; and in\nthe works of no other divine are they more worthy of being regretted:\nfor hence has arisen a depreciation of Henry More's theological\nwritings, which yet contain more original, enlarged, and elevating views\nof the Christian dispensation than I have met with in any other single\nvolume. For More had both the philosophic and the poetic genius,\nsupported by immense erudition. But unfortunately the two did not\namalgamate. It was not his good fortune to discover, as in the preceding\ngeneration William Shakspeare discovered, a mordaunt' or common base of\nboth, and in which both the poetic and the philosophical power blended\nin one.\n\nThese causes are,--\n\nFirst, and foremost,--the want of that logical [Greek: propaid\u00e9ia\ndokimastik\u00e0e], that critique of the human intellect, which, previously\nto the weighing and measuring of this or that, begins by assaying the\nweights, measures, and scales themselves; that fulfilment of the\nheaven-descended 'nosce teipsum', in respect to the intellective part of\nman, which was commenced in a sort of tentative broadcast way by Lord\nBacon in his 'Novum Organum', and brought to a systematic completion by\nImmanuel Kant in his 'Kritik der reinen Vernunft, der Urtheilskrajt, und\nder metaphysiche Anfangsgr\u00fcnde der Naturwissenschaft'.\n\nFrom the want of this searching logic, there is a perpetual confusion of\nthe subjective with the objective in the arguments of our divines,\ntogether with a childish or anile overrating of human testimony, and an\nignorance in the art of sifting it, which necessarily engendered\ncredulity.\n\nSecond,--the ignorance of natural science, their physiography scant in\nfact, and stuffed out with fables; their physiology imbrangled with an\ninapplicable logic and a misgrowth of 'entia rationalia', that is,\nsubstantiated abstractions; and their physiogony a blank or dreams of\ntradition, and such \"intentional colours\" as occupy space but cannot\nfill it. Yet if Christianity is to be the religion of the world, if\nChrist be that Logos or Word that 'was in the beginning', by whom all\nthings 'became'; if it was the same Christ who said, 'Let there be\nlight'; who in and by the creation commenced that great redemptive\nprocess, the history of life which begins in its detachment from nature,\nand is to end in its union with God;--if this be true, so true must it\nbe that the book of nature and the book of revelation, with the whole\nhistory of man as the intermediate link, must be the integral and\ncoherent parts of one great work: and the conclusion is, that a scheme\nof the Christian faith which does not arise out of, and shoot its beams\ndownward into, the scheme of nature, but stands aloof as an insulated\nafterthought, must be false or distorted in all its particulars. In\nconfirmation of this position, I may challenge any opponent to adduce a\nsingle instance in which the now exploded falsities of physical science,\nthrough all its revolutions from the second to the seventeenth century\nof the Christian \u00e6ra, did not produce some corresponding warps in the\ntheological systems and dogmas of the several periods.\n\nThe third and last cause, and especially operative in the writings of\nthis author, is the presence and regnancy of a false and fantastic\nphilosophy, yet shot through with refracted light from the not risen but\nrising truth,--a scheme of physics and physiology compounded of\nCartesian mechanics and empiricism (for it was the credulous childhood\nof experimentalism), and a corrupt, mystical, theurgical,\npseudo-Platonism, which infected the rarest minds under the Stuart\ndynasty. The only not universal belief in witchcraft and apparitions,\nand the vindication of such monster follies by such men as Sir M. Hale,\nGlanville, Baxter, Henry More, and a host of others, are melancholy\nproofs of my position. Hence, in the first chapters of this volume, the\nmost idle inventions of the ancients are sought to be made credible by\nthe most fantastic hypotheses and analogies.\n\nTo the man who has habitually contemplated Christianity as interesting\nall rational finite beings, as the very 'spirit of truth', the\napplication of the prophecies as so many fortune-tellings and\nsoothsayings to particular events and persons, must needs be felt as\nchildish--like faces seen in the moon, or the sediments of a teacup. But\nreverse this, and a Pope and a Buonaparte can never be wanting,--the\nmolehill becomes an Andes. On the other hand, there are few writers\nwhose works could be so easily defecated as More's. Mere omission would\nsuffice; and perhaps one half (an unusually large proportion) would come\nforth from the furnace pure gold; if but a fourth, how great a gain!\n\n\nEXPLANATION OF THE GRAND MYSTERY OF GODLINESS.\n\nDedication. 'Servorum illius omnium indignissimus.'\n\n'Servus indignissimus,' or 'omnino indignus', or any other positive\nself-abasement before God, I can understand; but how an express avowal\nof unworthiness, comparatively superlative, can consist with the\nJob-like integrity and sincerity of profession especially required in a\nsolemn address to Him, to whom all hearts are open, this I do not\nunderstand in the case of such men as Henry More, Jeremy Taylor, Richard\nBaxter were, and by comparison at least with the multitude of evil\ndoers, must have believed themselves to be.\n\n\nIb. V. c.14. s.3.\n\n  This makes me not so much wonder at that passage of Providence, which\n  allowed so much virtue to the bones of the martyr Babylas, once bishop\n  of Antioch, as to stop the mouth of Apollo Daphneus when Julian would\n  have enticed him to open it by many a fat sacrifice. To say nothing of\n  several other memorable miracles that were done by the reliques of\n  saints and martyrs in those times.\n\nStrange lingering of childish credulity in the most learned and in many\nrespects enlightened divines of the Protestant episcopal church even to\nthe time of James II! The Popish controversy at that time made a great\nclearance.\n\n\nIb. s. 9.\n\nAt one time Professor Eichorn had persuaded me that the Apocalypse was\nauthentic; that is, a Danielitic dramatic poem written by the Apostle\nand Evangelist John, and not merely under his name. But the repeated\nperusal of the vision has sadly unsettled my conclusion. The entire\nabsence of all spirituality perplexes me, as forming so strong a\ncontrast with the Gospel and Epistles of John; and then the too great\nappearance of an allusion to the fable of Nero's return to life and\nempire, to Simon Magus and Apollonius of Tyana on the one hand (that is\nthe Eichornian hypothesis), and the insurmountable difficulties of\nJoseph Mede and others on to Bicheno and Faber on the other. In short, I\nfeel just as both Luther and Calvin felt,--that is, I know not what to\nmake of it, and so leave it alone.\n\nIt is much to be regretted that we have no contemporary history of\nApollonius, or of the reports concerning him, and the popular notions in\nhis own time. For from the romance of Philostratus we cannot be sure as\nto the fact of the lies themselves. It may be a lie, that there ever was\nsuch or such a lie in circulation.\n\n\nIb. c. 15. s. 2.\n\n  Fourthly. The 'little horn', Dan. vii, that rules 'for a time and\n  times and half a time', it is evident that it is not Antiochus\n  Epiphanes, because this 'little horn' is part of the fourth\n  beast--namely, the Roman.\n\nIs it quite clear that the Macedonian was not the fourth empire;\n\n1. the Assyrian;\n2. the Median;\n3. the Persian;\n4. the Macedonian?\n\nHowever, what a strange prophecy, that, 'e confesso' having been\nfulfilled, remains as obscure as before!\n\nIb. s. 6\n\n  'And ye shall have the tribulation of ten days',--that is, the utmost\n  extent of tribulation; beyond which there is nothing further, as there\n  is no number beyond ten.\n\nIt means, I think, the very contrary. 'Decent dierum' is used even in\nTerence for a very short time. [2] In the same way we say, a nine days'\nwonder.\n\n\nIb. c. 16. s. 1.\n\n  But for further conviction of the excellency of Mr. Mede's way above\n  that of Grotius, I shall compare some of their main interpretations.\n\nHard to say which of the two, Mede's or Grotius', is the more\nimprobable. Beyond doubt, however, the Cherubim are meant as the scenic\nornature borrowed from the Temple.\n\n\nIb. s. 2.\n\n  That this 'rider of the white horse' is Christ, they both agree\n  in.\n\nThe 'white horse' is, I conceive, Victory or Triumph--that is, of the\nRoman power--followed by Slaughter, Famine, and Pestilence. All this is\nplain enough. The difficulty commences after the writer is deserted by\nhis historical facts, that is, after the sacking of Jerusalem.\n\n\nIb. s. 5.\n\nIt would be no easy matter to decide, whether Mede plus More was at a\ngreater distance from the meaning, or Grotius from the poetry, of this\neleventh chapter of the Revelations; whether Mede was more wild, or\nGrotius more tame, flat, and prosaic.\n\n\nIb. c. 17. s. 8.\n\n  The Old and New Testament, which by a 'prosopopoeia' are here called\n  the 'two witnesses.'\n\nWhere is the probability of this so long before the existence of the\ncollection since called the New Testament?\n\n\nIb. vi. c. l. s. 2.\n\nWe may draw from this passage (1 'Thess'. iv. 16, 17.) the strongest\nsupport of the fact of the ascension of Christ, or at least of St.\nPaul's (and of course of the first generation of Christians') belief of\nit. For had they not believed his ascent, whence could they have derived\nthe universal expectation of his descent,--his bodily, personal descent?\nThe only scruple is, that all these circumstances were parts of the\nJewish 'cabala' or idea of the Messiah by the spiritualists before the\nChristian \u00e6ra, and therefore taken for granted with respect to Jesus as\nsoon as he was admitted to be the Messiah.\n\n\nIb. s. 6.\n\n  But light-minded men, whose hearts are made dark with infidelity, care\n  not what antic distortions they make in interpreting Scripture, so\n  they bring it to any show of compliance with their own fancy and\n  incredulity.\n\nWhy so very harsh a censure? What moral or spiritual, or even what\nphysical, difference can be inferred from all men's dying, this of one\nthing, that of another, a third, like the martyrs, burnt alive, or all\nin the same way? In any case they all die, and all pass to judgment.\n\n\nIb. c. 15.\n\nWith his 'semi'-Cartesian, 'semi'-Platonic, 'semi'-Christian notions,\nHenry More makes a sad jumble in his assertion of chronochorhistorical\nChristianity. One decisive reference to the ascension of the visible and\ntangible Jesus from the surface of the earth upward through the clouds,\npointed out in the writings of St. Paul or in the Gospel, beginning as\nit certainly did, and as in the copy according to Mark it now does, with\nthe baptism of John, or in the writings of the Apostle John, would have\nbeen more effective in flooring Old Nic of Amsterdam [3] and his\nfamiliars, than volumes of such \"maybe's,\" \"perhapses,\" and \"should be\nrendered,\" as these.\n\n\nIb. viii. c. 2. c. 6.\n\n  I must confess our Saviour compiled no books, it being a piece of\n  pedantry below so noble and divine a person, &c.\n\n\nAlas! all this is woefully beneath the dignity of Henry More, and\nshockingly against the majesty of the High and Holy One, so very\nunnecessarily compared with Hendrick Nicholas, of Amsterdam, mercer!\n\n\nIb. x. c. 13. s. 5, 6.\n\nA new sect naturally attracts to itself a portion of the madmen of the\ntime, and sets another portion into activity as alarmists and\noppugnants. I cannot therefore pretend to say what More might not have\nfound in the writings, or heard from the mouth, of some lunatic who\ncalled himself a Quaker. But I do not recollect, in any work of an\nacknowledged Friend, a denial of the facts narrated by the Evangelists,\nas having really taken place in the same sense as any other facts of\nhistory. If they were symbols of spiritual acts and processes, as Fox\nand Penn contended, they must have been, or happened;--else how could\nthey be symbols?\n\nIt is too true, however, that the positive creed of the Quakers is and\never has been extremely vague and misty. The deification of the\nconscience, under the name of the Spirit, seems the main article of\ntheir faith; and of the rest they form no opinion at all, considering it\nneither necessary nor desirable. I speak of Quakers in general. But what\na lesson of experience does not this thirteenth chapter of so great and\ngood a man as H. More afford to us, who know what the Quakers really\nare! Had the followers of George Fox, or any number of them\ncollectively, acknowledged the mad notions of this Hendrick Nicholas? If\nnot----\n\n\n\nINQUIRY INTO THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY.\n\nPart II. ii. c. 2.\n\n  Confutation of Grotius on the 17th chapter of the Apocalypse.\n\nHas or has not Grotius been overrated? If Grotius applied these words\n('magnus testis et historiarum diligentissimus inquisitor') to\nEpiphanius in honest earnest, and not ironically, he must have been\ngreatly inferior in sound sense and critical tact both to Joseph\nScaliger and to Rhenferd. Strange, that to Henry More, a poet and a man\nof fine imagination, it should never have occurred to ask himself,\nwhether this scene, Patmos, with which the drama commences, was not a\npart of the poem, and, like all other parts, to be interpreted\nsymbolically? That the poetic--and I see no reason for doubting the\nreal--date of the Apocalypse is under Vespasian, is so evidently implied\nin the five kings preceding (for Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, were\nabortive emperors) that it seems to me quite lawless to deny it. That\n[Greek: Lateinos] is the meaning of the 666, (c. xiii. 18.) and the\ntreasonable character of this, are both shown by Iren\u00e6us's pretended\nrejection, and his proposal of the perfectly senseless 'Teitan' instead.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Folio. 1708.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Decem dierum vix mihi est familia'. Heaut. v. i.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: Hendrick Nicholas and the Family of Love.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\nHEINRICHS'S COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE. [1]\n\nP. 245.\n\nIt seems clear that Iren\u00e6us invented the unmeaning 'Teitan', in order to\nsave himself from the charge of treason, to which the 'Lateinos' might\nhave exposed him. See Rabelais 'passim'.\n\n\nP.246.\n\n  'Nec magis blandiri poterit alterum illud nomen, Teitan, quod studiose\n  commendavit Irenoeus'.\n\nNo! 'non studiose, sed ironice commendavit Iren\u00e6us'. Indeed it is\nridiculous to suppose that Iren\u00e6us was in earnest with 'Teitan'. His\nmeaning evidently is:--if not 'Lateinos', which has a meaning, it is\nsome one of the many names having the same numeral power, to which a\nmeaning is to be found by the fulfillment of the prophecy. My own\nconviction is, that the whole is an ill-concerted conundrum, the secret\nof which died with the author. The general purpose only can be\nascertained, namely, some test, partaking of religious obligation, of\nallegiance to the sovereignty of the Roman Emperor.\n\nIf I granted for a moment the truth of Heinrichs's supposition, namely,\nthat, according to the belief of the Apocalypt, the line of the Emperors\nwould cease in Titus the seventh or complete number (Galba, Otho, and\nVitellius, being omitted) by the advent of the Messiah;--if I found my\njudgment more coerced by his arguments than it is,--then I should use\nthis book as evidence of the great and early discrepance between the\nJewish-Christian Church and the Pauline; and my present very serious\ndoubts respecting the identity of John the Theologian and John the\nEvangelist would become fixed convictions of the contrary.\n\n\nP. 91. Rev. xvii. 11.\n\nAmong other grounds for doubting this interpretation (that 'the eighth'\nin v.11. is Satan), I object, 1. that it almost necessitates the\nsubstitution of the Coptic [Greek: aggelos] for [Greek: ogdoos] against\nall the MSS., and without any Patristic hint. For it seems a play with\nwords unworthy the writer, to make Satan, who possessed all the seven,\nhimself an 'eighth', and still worse if 'the eighth': 2. that it is not\nonly a great and causeless inconcinnity in style, but a wanton adding of\nobscurity to the obscure to have, first, so carefully distinguished (c.\nxiii. 1-11.) the [Greek: dr\u00e1k_on] from the two [Greek: th\u00e1eria], and the\none [Greek: thaer\u00edon] from the other, and then to make [Greek: thaer\u00edon]\nthe appellative of the [Greek: dr\u00e1k_on]: as if having in one place told\nof Nicholas 'senior', Dick and another Dick his cousin, I should soon\nafter talk of Dick, meaning old Nicholas by that name; that is, having\ndiscriminated Nicholas from Dick, then to say Dick, meaning Nicholas!\n\n\nRev. xix. 9.\n\nThese words might well bear a more recondite interpretation; that is,\n[Greek: outoi] (these blessed ones) are the true [Greek: l\u00f3goi] or\n[Greek: t\u00e9kna Theou], as the Logos is the [Greek: hui\u00f2s Theou].\n\n\nIb. 10.\n\nAccording to the law of symbolic poetry this sociable angel (the\nBeatrice of the Hebrew Dante) ought to be, and I doubt not is, 'sensu\nsymbolico', an angel; that is, the angel of the Church of Ephesus, John\nthe Evangelist, according to the opinion of Eusebius.\n\n\nP. 294. Rev. xx. 'Millennium'.\n\n  'Die vorz\u00fcglichsten Bekenner Jesu sollen auferstehen, die \u00fcbrigen\n  Menschen sollen es nicht. Hiesse jenes, sie sollen noch nach ihrem\n  Tode fortw\u00fcrken, so w\u00e4re das letztere falsch: denn auch die \u00fcbrigen\n  w\u00fcrken nach ihrem Tode durch ihre schriften, ihre Andenken, ihre\n  Beispiel.'\n\n\n'Euge! Heinrichi'. O, the sublime bathos of thy prosaism--the muddy\neddy of thy logic! Thou art the only man to understand a poet!\n\nI have too clearly before me the idea of a poet's genius to deem myself\nother than a very humble poet; but in the very possession of the idea, I\nknow myself so far a poet as to feel assured that I can understand and\ninterpret a poem in the spirit of poetry, and with the poet's spirit.\nLike the ostrich, I cannot fly, yet have I wings that give me the\nfeeling of flight; and as I sweep along the plain, can look up toward\nthe bird of Jove, and can follow him and say:\n\n  \"Sovereign of the air,--who descendest on thy nest in the cleft of the\n  inaccessible rock, who makest the mountain pinnacle thy perch and\n  halting-place, and, scanning with steady eye the orb of glory right\n  above thee, imprintest thy lordly talons in the stainless snows, that\n  shoot back and scatter round his glittering shafts,--I pay thee\n  homage. Thou art my king. I give honor due to the vulture, the falcon,\n  and all thy noble baronage; and no less to the lowly bird, the\n  sky-lark, whom thou permittest to visit thy court, and chant her matin\n  song within its cloudy curtains; yea the linnet, the thrush, the\n  swallow, are my brethren:--but still I am a bird, though but a bird of\n  the earth.\n\n  \"Monarch of our kind, I am a bird, even as thou; and I have shed\n  plumes, which have added beauty to the beautiful, and grace to terror,\n  waving over the maiden's brow and on the helmed head of the war-chief;\n  and majesty to grief, drooping o'er the car of death!\"\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: G\u00f6ttingen, 1821. The few following notes are, something out\nof order, inserted here in consequence of their connection with the\nimmediately preceding remarks in the text.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\nLIFE OF BISHOP HACKET. [1]\n\n\nIb. p. 8.\n\n  Yet he would often dispute the necessity of a country living for a\n  London minister to retire to in hot summer time, out of the sepulchral\n  air of a churchyard, where most of them are housed in the city, and\n  found for his own part that by Whitsuntide he did 'rus anhelare', and\n  unless he took fresh air in the vacation, he was stopt in his lungs\n  and could not speak clear after Michaelmas.\n\nA plausible reason certainly why A. and B. should occasionally change\nposts, but a very weak one, methinks, for A.'s having both livings all\nthe year through.\n\n\nIb. p. 42-3.\n\n  The Bishop was an enemy to all separation from the Church of England;\n  but their hypocrisy he thought superlative that allowed the doctrine,\n  and yet would separate for mislike of the discipline. ... And\n  therefore he wished that as of old all kings and other Christians\n  subscribed to the Conciliary Decrees, so now a law might pass that all\n  justices of peace should do so in England, and then they would be more\n  careful to punish the depravers of Church Orders.\n\nThe little or no effect of recent experience and sufferings still more\nrecent, in curing the mania of persecution! How was it possible that a\nman like Bishop Hacket should not have seen that if separation on\naccount of the imposition of things by himself admitted to be\nindifferent, and as such justified, was criminal in those who did not\nthink them indifferent,--how doubly criminal must the imposition have\nbeen, and how tenfold criminal the perseverance in occasioning\nseparation; how guilty the imprisoning, impoverishing, driving into\nwildernesses their Christian brethren for admitted indifferentials in\ndirect contempt of St. Paul's positive command to the contrary!\n\n\n\n\nHACKET'S SERMONS.\n\n\nSerm. I. Luke ii. 7.\n\n  Moreover as the woman Mary did bring forth the son who bruised the\n  serpent's head, which brought sin into the world by the woman Eve, so\n  the Virgin Mary was the occasion of grace as the Virgin Eve was the\n  cause of damnation. Eve had not known Adam as yet when she was\n  beguiled and seduced the man; so Mary, &c.\n\nA Rabbinical fable or gloss on Gen. iii. 1. Hacket is offensively fond\nof these worse than silly vanities.\n\n\nIb. p. 5.\n\n  The more to illustrate this, you must know that there was a twofold\n  root or foundation of the children of Israel for their temporal being:\n  Abraham was the root of the people; the kingdom was rent from Saul,\n  and therefore David was the root of the kingdom; among all the kings\n  in the pedigree none but he hath the name; and Jesse begat David the\n  king, and David the king begat Solomon; and therefore so often as God\n  did profess to spare the people, though he were angry, he says he\n  would do it for Abraham's sake: so often as he professeth to spare the\n  kingdom of Judah, he says he would do it for his servant David's sake;\n  so that 'ratione radicis', as Abraham and David are roots of the\n  people and kingdom, especially Christ is called the Son of David, the\n  Son of Abraham.\n\nA valuable remark, and confirmative of my convictions respecting the\nconversion of the Jews, namely, that whatever was ordained for them as\n'Abrahamid\u00e6' is not repealed by Christianity, but only what appertained\nto the republic, kingdom, or state. The modern conversions are, as it\nseems to me, in the face of God's commands.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  I come to the third strange condition of the birth; it was without\n  travel, or the pangs of woman, as I will shew you out of these words;\n  'fasciis involvit', that 'she wrapt him in swaddling clouts, and laid\n  him in a manger. Ipsa genitrix fuit obstetrix', says St. Cyprian. Mary\n  was both the mother and the midwife of the child; far be it from us to\n  think that the weak hand of the woman could facilitate the work which\n  was guided only by the miraculous hand of God. The Virgin conceived\n  our Lord without the lusts of the flesh, and therefore she had not the\n  pangs and travel of woman upon her, she brought him forth without the\n  curse of the flesh. These be the Fathers' comparisons. As bees draw\n  honey from the flower without offending it, as Eve was taken out of\n  Adam's side without any grief to him, as a sprig issues out of the\n  bark of a tree, as the sparkling light from the brightness of the\n  star, such ease was it to Mary to bring forth her first born son; and\n  therefore having no weakness in her body, feeling no want of vigor,\n  she did not deliver him to any profane hand to be drest, but by a\n  special ability, above all that are newly delivered, she wrapt him in\n  swaddling clouts. 'Gravida, sed non gravabatur'; she had a burden in\n  her womb, before she was delivered, and yet she was not burdened for\n  her journey which she took so instantly before the time of the child's\n  birth. From Nazareth to Bethlem was above forty miles, and yet she\n  suffered it without weariness or complaint, for such was the power of\n  the Babe, that rather he did support the Mother's weakness than was\n  supported; and as he lighted his Mother's travel by the way from\n  Nazareth to Bethlem that it was not tedious to her tender age, so he\n  took away all her dolour and imbecility from her travel in\n  child-birth, and therefore 'she wrapt him in swaddling clouts'.\n\nA very different paragraph indeed, and quite on the cross road to Rome!\nIt really makes me melancholy; but it is one of a thousand instances of\nthe influence of Patristic learning, by which the Reformers of the Latin\nChurch were distinguished from the renovators of the Christian religion.\n\nCan we wonder that the strict Protestants were jealous of the\nbacksliding of the Arminian prelatical clergy and of Laud their leader,\nwhen so strict a Calvinist as Bishop Hacket could trick himself up in\nsuch fantastic rags and lappets of Popish monkery!--could skewer such\nfrippery patches, cribbed from the tyring room of Romish Parthenolatry,\non the sober gown and cassock of a Reformed and Scriptural Church!\n\n\nIb. p. 7.\n\n  But to say the truth, was he not safer among the beasts than he could\n  be elsewhere in all the town of Bethlem? His enemies perchance would\n  say unto him, as Jael did to Sisera, 'Turn in, turn in, my Lord', when\n  she purposed to kill him; as the men of Keilah made a fair shew to\n  give David all courteous hospitality, but the issue would prove, if\n  God had not blessed him, that they meant to deliver him into the hands\n  of Saul that sought his blood. So there was no trusting of the\n  Bethlemites. Who knows, but that they would have prevented Judas, and\n  betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver unto Herod? More humanity is\n  to be expected from the beasts than from some men, and therefore she\n  laid him in a manger.\n\nDid not the life of Archbishop Williams prove otherwise, I should have\ninferred from these Sermons that Hacket from his first boyhood had been\nused to make themes, epigrams, copies of verses, and the like, on all\nthe Sunday feasts and festivals of the Church; had found abundant\nnourishment for this humour of points, quirks, and quiddities in the\nstudy of the Fathers and glossers; and remained a 'junior soph' all his\nlife long. I scarcely know what to say: on the one hand, there is a\ntriflingness, a shewman's or relique-hawker's gossip that stands in\noffensive contrast with the momentous nature of the subject, and the\ndignity of the ministerial office; as if a preacher having chosen the\nProphets for his theme should entertain his congregation by exhibiting a\ntraditional shaving rag of Isaiah's with the Prophet's stubble hair on\nthe dried soap-sud. And yet, on the other hand, there is an innocency in\nit, a security of faith, a fulness evinced in the play and plash of its\noverflowing, that at other times give one the same sort of pleasure as\nthe sight of blackberry bushes and children's handkerchief-gardens on\nthe slopes of a rampart, the promenade of some peaceful old town, that\nstood the last siege in the Thirty Years' war!\n\n\nIb. Serm. II. Luke ii. 8.\n\n  Tiberius propounded his mind to the senate of Rome, that Christ, the\n  great prophet in Jewry, should be had in the same honour with the\n  other gods which they worshipped in the Capitol. The motion did not\n  please them, says Eusebius; and this was all the fault, because he was\n  a god not of their own, but of Tiberius' invention.\n\nHere, I own, the negative evidence of the silence of Seneca and\nSuetonius--above all, of Tacitus and Pliny--outweigh in my mind the\npositive testimony of Eusebius, which rested, I suspect, on the same\nground with the letters of Pontius Pilate, so boldly appealed to by\nTertullian. [2]\n\n\nIb. Serm. III. Luke ii. 9.\n\n  But our bodies shall revive out of that dust into which they were\n  dissolved, and live for ever in the resurrection of the righteous.\n\nI never could satisfy myself as to the continuance and catholicity of\nthis strange Egyptian tenet in the very face of St. Paul's indignant,\n'Thou fool! not that, &c.' I have at times almost been tempted to\nconjecture that Paul taught a different doctrine from the Palestine\ndisciples on this point, and that the Church preferred the sensuous and\ntherefore more popular belief of the Evangelists' [Greek: kat\u00e0 s\u00e1rka] to\nthe more intelligible faith of the spiritual sage of the other Athens;\nfor so Tarsus was called.\n\nAnd was there no symptom of a commencing relapse to the errors of that\nChurch which had equalled the traditions of men, yea, the dreams of\nphantasts with the revelations of God, when a chosen elder with the law\nof truth before him, and professing to divide and distribute the bread\nof life, could, paragraph after paragraph, place such unwholesome\nvanities as these before his flock, without even a hint which might\napprize them that the gew-gaw comfits were not part of the manna from\nheaven? All this superstitious trash about angels, which the Jews\nlearned from the Persian legends, asserted as confidently as if Hacket\nhad translated it word for word from one of the four Gospels! Salmasius,\nif I mistake not, supposes the original word to have been bachelors,\nyoung unmarried men. Others interpret angels as meaning the bishop and\nelders of the Church. More probably it was a proverbial expression\nderived from the Cherubim in the Temple: something as the country folks\nused to say to children, Take care, the Fairies will hear you! It was a\ncommon notion among the Jews, in the time of St. Paul, that their angels\nwere employed in carrying up their prayers to the throne of God. Of\ncourse they must have been in special attendance in a house of prayer.\n\nAfter much search and much thought on the subject of angels as a diverse\nkind of finite beings, I find no sufficing reason to hold it for a\nrevealed doctrine, and if not revealed it is assuredly no truth of\nphilosophy, which, as I have elsewhere remarked, can conceive but three\nkinds; 1. the infinite reason; 2. the finite rational; and 3. the finite\nirrational--that is, God, man, and beast. What indeed, even for the\nvulgar, is or can an archangel be but a man with wings, better or worse\nthan the wingless species according as the feathers are white or black?\nI would that the word had been translated instead of Anglicised in our\nEnglish Bible.\n\nThe following paragraph is one of Hacket's sweetest passages. It is\nreally a beautiful little hymn.\n\n  By this it appears how suitably a beam of admirable light did concur\n  in the angels' message to set out the majesty of the Son of God: and I\n  beseech you observe,--all you that would keep a good Christmas as you\n  ought,--that the glory of God is the best celebration of his Son's\n  nativity; and all your pastimes and mirth (which I disallow not, but\n  rather commend in moderate use) must so be managed, without riot,\n  without surfeiting, without excessive gaming, without pride and vain\n  pomp, in harmlessness, in sobriety, as if the glory of the Lord were\n  round about us. Christ was born to save them that were lost; but\n  frequently you abuse his nativity with so many vices, such disordered\n  outrages, that you make this happy time an occasion for your loss\n  rather than for your salvation. Praise him in the congregation of the\n  people! praise him in your inward heart! praise him with the sanctity\n  of your life! praise him in your charity to them that need and are in\n  want! This is the glory of God shining round, and the most Christian\n  solemnizing of the birth of Jesus.\n\n\n\n\nSERMONS ON THE TEMPTATION.\n\n\nAs the Temptation is found in the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and\nLuke, it must have formed part of the 'Prot-evangelion', or original\nGospel;--from the Apostles, therefore, it must have come, and from some\nor all who had heard the account from our Lord himself. How, then, are\nwe to understand it? To confute the whims and superstitious nugacities\nof these Sermons, and the hundred other comments and interpretations\n'ejusdem farin\u00e6', would be a sad waste of time. Yet some meaning, and\nthat worthy of Christ, it must have had. The struggle with the\nsuggestions of the evil principle, first, to force his way and compel\nbelief by a succession of miracles, disjoined from moral and spiritual\npurpose,--miracles for miracles' sake;--second, doubts of his Messianic\ncharacter and divinity, and temptations to try it by some ordeal at the\nrisk of certain death;--third, to interpret his mission, as his\ncountrymen generally did, to be one of conquest and royalty;--these\nperhaps--but I am lost in doubt.\n\n\n\n\nSERMON ON THE TRANSFIGURATION.\n\nLuke IX. 33.\n\n  'I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren,\n  my kinsmen according to the flesh'.\n\n  Rom. ix. 3.\n\nSt. Paul does not say, \"I would desire to be accursed,\" nor does he\nspeak of any deliberated result of his consideration; but represents a\ntransient passion of his soul, an actual but undetermined impulse,--an\nimpulse existing in and for itself in the moment of its ebullience, and\nnot completed by an act and confirmation of the will,--as a striking\nproof of the exceeding interest which he continued to feel in the\nwelfare of his countrymen, His heart so swelled with love and compassion\nfor them, that if it were possible, if reason and conscience permitted\nit, 'Methinks,' says he, 'I could wish that myself were accursed, if so\nthey might be saved.' Might not a mother, figuring to herself as\npossible and existing an impossible or not existing remedy for a dying\nchild, exclaim, 'Oh, I could fly to the end of the earth to procure it!'\nLet it not be irreverent, if I refer to the fine passage in\nShakspeare--Hotspur's rapture-like reverie--so often ridiculed by\nshallow wits. In great passion, the crust opake of present and existing\nweakness and boundedness is, as it were, fused and vitrified for the\nmoment, and through the transparency the soul, catching a gleam of the\ninfinity of the potential in the will of man, reads the future for the\npresent. Percy is wrapt in the contemplation of the physical might\ninherent in the concentrated will; the inspired Apostle in the sudden\nsense of the depth of its moral strength.\n\n\n\n\nSERMON ON THE RESURRECTION.\n\nActs II. 4.\n\n  Thirdly, the necessity of it: 'for it was not possible that he should\n  be holden of death'.\n\nOne great error of textual divines is their inadvertence to the dates,\noccasion, object and circumstances, at and under which the words were\nwritten or spoken. Thus the simple assertion of one or two facts\nintroductory to the teaching of the Christian religion is taken as\ncomprising or constituting the Christian religion itself. Hence the\ndisproportionate weight laid on the simple fact of the resurrection of\nJesus, detached from the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  St. Austin says, that Tully, in his '3 lib. de Republica', disputed\n  against the reuniting of soul and body. His argument was, To what end?\n  Where should they remain together? For a body cannot be assumed into\n  heaven. I believe God caused those famous monuments of his wit to\n  perish, because of such impious opinions wherewith they were farced.\n\nI believe, however, that these books have recently themselves enjoyed a\nresurrection by the labor of Angelo Mai. [3]\n\n\nIb.\n\n  And let any equal auditor judge if Job were not an Anti-Socinian; Job\n  xix. 26. 'Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my\n  flesh shall I see God, whom I shall behold for myself, and mine eyes\n  shall see, and not another'.\n\nThis text rightly rendered is perhaps nothing to the purpose, but may\nrefer to the dire cutaneous disease with which Job was afflicted. It may\nbe merely an expression of Job's confidence of his being justified in\nthe eyes of men, and in this life. [4]\n\nIn the whole wide range of theological 'mirabilia', I know none stranger\nthan the general agreement of orthodox divines to forget to ask\nthemselves what they precisely meant by the word 'body.' Our Lord's and\nSt. Paul's meaning is evident enough, that is, the personality.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  St. Chrysostom's judgment upon it ('having loosed the pains of death')\n  is, that when Christ came out of the grave, death itself was delivered\n  from pain and anxiety--[Greek: _odike kat\u00e9chon aut\u00f2n th\u00e1natos, ka\u00ec t\u00e0\n  dein\u00e0 epasche.] Death knew it held him captive whom it ought not to\n  have seized upon, and therefore it suffered torments like a woman in\n  travail till it had given him up again. Thus he. But the Scripture\n  elsewhere testifies, that death was put to sorrow because it had lost\n  its sting, rather than released from sorrow by our Saviour's\n  resurrection.\n\nMost noticeable! See the influence of the surrounding myriotheism in the\n'dea Mors!'\n\n\nIb.\n\nLet any competent judge read Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, and\nthen these Sermons, and so measure the stultifying, nugifying effect of\na blind and uncritical study of the Fathers, and the exclusive\nprepossession in favor of their authority in the minds of many of our\nChurch dignitaries in the reign of Charles I.\n\n\n\n\nHACKET'S LIFE OF LORD KEEPER WILLIAMS. [5]\n\nPrudence installed as virtue, instead of being employed as one of her\nindispensable handmaids, and the products of this exemplified and\nillustrated in the life of Archbishop Williams, as a work, I could\nwarmly recommend to my dearest Hartley. Williams was a man bred up to\nthe determination of being righteous, both honorably striving and\nselfishly ambitious, but all within the bounds and permission of the\nlaw, the reigning system of casuistry; in short, an egotist in morals,\nand a worldling in impulses and motives. And yet by pride and by innate\nnobleness of nature munificent and benevolent, with all the negative\nvirtues of temperance, chastity, and the like,--take this man on his\nroad to his own worldly aggrandizement. Winding his way through a grove\nof powerful rogues, by flattery, professions of devoted attachment, and\nby actual and zealous as well as able services, and at length becoming\nin fact nearly as great a knave as the knaves (Duke of Buckingham for\nexample) whose favor and support he had been conciliating,--till at last\nin some dilemma, some strait between conscience and fear, and increased\nconfidence in his own political strength, he opposes or hesitates to\nfurther some too foolish or wicked project of his patron knave, or\naffronts his pride by counselling a different course (not a less wicked,\nbut one more profitable and conducive to his Grace's elevation);-and\nthen is 'floored' or crushed by him, and falls unknown and unpitied.\nSuch was that truly wonderful scholar and statesman, Archbishop\nWilliams.\n\n\nPart 1. s. 61.\n\n  'And God forbid that any other course, should be attempted. For this\n  liberty was settled on the subject, with such imprecations upon the\n  infringers, that if they should remove these great landmarks, they\n  must look for vengeance, as if entailed by public vows on them and\n  their posterity.' These were the Dean's instructions, &c.\n\nHe deserves great credit for them. They put him in strong contrast with\nLaud.\n\n\nIb. s. 80.\n\n  Thus for them both together he solicits:--My most noble lord, what\n  true applause and admiration the King and your Honor have gained, &c.\n\nAll this we, in the year 1833, should call abject and base; but was it\nso in Bishop Williams? In the history of the morality of a people,\nprudence, yea cunning, is the earliest form of virtue. This is expressed\nin Jacob, and in Ulysses and all the most ancient fables. It will\nrequire the true philosophic calm and serenity to distinguish and\nappreciate the character of the morality of our great men from Henry\nVIII to the close of James I,--'nullum numen abest, si sit\nprudentia',--and of those of Charles I to the Restoration. The\ndifference almost amounts to contrast.\n\n\nIb. s. 81-2.\n\nHow is it that any deeply-read historian should not see how imperfect\nand precarious the rights of personal liberty were during this period;\nor, seeing it, refuse to do justice to the patriots under Charles I? The\ntruth is, that from the reign of Edward I, (to go no farther backward),\nthere was a spirit of freedom in the people at large, which all our\nkings in their senses were cautious not to awaken by too rudely treading\non it; but for individuals, as such, there was none till the conflict\nwith the Stuarts.\n\n\nIb. s. 84.\n\n  Of such a conclusion of state, 'qu\u00e6 aliquando incognita, semper\n  justa', &c.\n\nThis perversion of words respecting the decrees of Providence to the\ncaprices of James and his beslobbered minion the Duke of Buckingham, is\nsomewhat nearer to blasphemy than even the euphuism of the age can\nexcuse.\n\n\nIb. s. 85.\n\n                 ... tuus, O Jacobe, quod optas\n  Explorare labor, mihi jussa capessere fas est.\n\n\nIn our times this would be pedantic wit: in the days of James I, and in\nthe mouth of Archbishop Williams it was witty pedantry.\n\n\nIb. s. 89.\n\n  He that doth much in a short life products his mortality.\n\n'Products' for 'produces;' that is, lengthens out, 'ut apud geometros'.\nBut why Hacket did not say 'prolongs,' I know not.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  See what a globe of light there is in natural reason, which is the\n  same in every man: but when it takes well, and riseth to perfection,\n  it is called wisdom in a few.\n\nThe good affirming itself--(the will, I am)--begetteth the true, and\nwisdom is the spirit proceeding. But in the popular acceptation, common\nsense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.\n\n\nIb. s. 92.\n\n  A well-spirited clause, and agreeable to holy assurance, that truth is\n  more like to win than love. Could the light of such a Gospel as we\n  profess be eclipsed with the interposition of a single marriage?\n\nAnd yet Hacket must have lived to see the practical confutation of this\nshallow Gnathonism in the result of the marriage with the Papist\nHenrietta of France!\n\n\nIb. s. 96.\n\n  \"Floud,\" says the Lord Keeper, \"since I am no Bishop in your opinion,\n  I will be no Bishop to you.\"\n\nI see the wit of this speech; but the wisdom, the Christianity, the\nbeseemingness of it in a Judge and a Bishop,--what am I to say of that?\n\n\nIb.\n\n  And after the period of his presidency (of the Star Chamber), it is\n  too well known how far the enhancements were stretched. 'But the\n  wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood'. Prov. 30-33.\n\nWe may learn from this and fifty other passages, that it did not require\nthe factious prejudices of Prynne or Burton to look with aversion on the\nproceedings of Laud. Bishop Hacket was as hot a royalist as a loyal\nEnglishman could be, yet Laud was 'allii nimis'.\n\n\nIb. s. 97.\n\n  New stars have appeared and vanished: the ancient asterisms remain;\n  there's not an old star missing.\n\nIf they had been, they would not have been old. This therefore, like\nmany of Lord Bacon's illustrations, has more wit than meaning. But it is\na good trick of rhetoric. The vividness of the image, 'per se', makes\nmen overlook the imperfection of the simile. \"You see my hand, the hand\nof a poor, puny fellow-mortal; and will you pretend not to see the hand\nof Providence in this business? He who sees a mouse must be wilfully\nblind if he does not see an elephant!\"\n\n\nIb. s. 100.\n\nThe error of the first James,--an ever well-intending, well-resolving,\nbut, alas! ill-performing monarch, a kind-hearted, affectionate, and\nfondling old man, really and extensively learned, yea, and as far as\nquick wit and a shrewd judgment go to the making up of wisdom, wise in\nhis generation, and a pedant by the right of pedantry, conceded at that\ntime to all men of learning (Bacon for example),--his error, I say,\nconsisted in the notion, that because the stalk and foliage were\noriginally contained in the seed, and were derived from it, therefore\nthey remained so in point of right after their evolution. The kingly\npower was the seed; the House of Commons and the municipal charters and\nprivileges the stock of foliage; the unity of the realm, or what we mean\nby the constitution, is the root. Meanwhile the seed is gone, and\nreappears as the crown and glorious flower of the plant. But James, in\nmy honest judgment, was an angel compared with his son and grandsons. As\nWilliams to Laud, so James I was to Charles I.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  Restraint is not a medicine to cure epidemical diseases.\n\nA most judicious remark.\n\n\nIb. s. 103.\n\n  The least connivance in the world towards the person of a Papist.\n\nIt is clear to us that this illegal or 'pr\u00e6ter'-legal and desultory\ntoleration by connivance at particular cases,--this precarious depending\non the momentary mood of the King, and this in a stretch of a questioned\nprerogative,--could neither satisfy nor conciliate the Roman-Catholic\npotentates abroad, but was sure to offend and alarm the Protestants at\nhome. Yet on the other hand, it is unfair as well as unwise to censure\nthe men of an age for want of that which was above their age. The true\nprinciple, much more the practicable rules, of toleration were in\nJames's time obscure to the wisest; but by the many, laity no less than\nclergy, would have been denounced as soul-murder and disguised atheism.\nIn fact--and a melancholy fact it is,--toleration then first becomes\npracticable when indifference has deprived it of all merit. In the same\nspirit I excuse the opposite party, the Puritans and Papaphobists.\n\n\nIb. s. 104.\n\nIt was scarcely to be expected that the passions of James's age would\nallow of this wise distinction between Papists, the intriguing restless\npartizans of a foreign potentate, and simple Roman-Catholics, who\npreferred the 'mumpsimus' of their grandsires to the corrected\n'sumpsimus' of the Reformation. But that in our age this distinction\nshould have been neglected in the Roman-Catholic Emancipation Bill!\n\n\nIb. s. 105.\n\n  But this invisible consistory shall be confusedly diffused over all\n  the kingdom, that many of the subjects shall, to the intolerable\n  exhausting of the wealth of the realm, pay double tithes, double\n  offerings, double fees, in regard of their double consistory. And if\n  Ireland be so poor as it is suggested, I hold, under correction, that\n  this invisible consistory is the principal cause of the exhausting\n  thereof.\n\nA memorable remark on the evil of the double priesthood in Ireland.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  Dr. Bishop, the new Bishop of Chalcedon, is to come to London\n  privately, and I am much troubled at it, not knowing what to advise\n  his majesty as things stand at this present. If you were shipped with\n  the Infanta, the only counsel were to let the judges proceed with him\n  presently; hang him out of the way, and the King to blame my lord of\n  Canterbury or myself for it.\n\nStriking instance and illustration of the tricksy policy which in the\nseventeenth century passed for state wisdom even with the comparatively\nwise. But there must be a Ulysses before there can be an Aristides and\nPhocion.\n\nPoor King James's main errors arose out of his superstitious notions of\na sovereignty inherent in the person of the king. Hence he would be a\nsacred person, though in all other respects he might be a very devil.\nHence his yearning for the Spanish match; and the ill effects of his\ntoleration became rightly attributed by his subjects to foreign\ninfluence, as being against his own acknowledged principle, not on a\nprinciple.\n\n\nIb. s. 107.\n\nI have at times played with the thought, that our bishoprics, like most\nof our college fellowships, might advantageously be confined to single\nmen, if only it were openly declared to be on ground of public\nexpediency, and on no supposed moral superiority of the single state.\n\n\nIb. s. 108.\n\n  That a rector or vicar had not only an office in the church, but a\n  freehold for life, by the common law, in his benefice.\n\nO! if Archbishop Williams had but seen in a clear point of view what he\nindistinctly aims at,--the essential distinction between the nationalty\nand its trustees and holders, and the Christian Church and its\nministers. [6]\n\n\nIb. s. 111.\n\n  I will represent him (the archbishop of Spalato) in a line or two,\n  that he was as indifferent, or rather dissolute, in practice as in\n  opinion. For in the same chapter, art. 35, this is his Nicolaitan\n  doctrine:--'A pluralitate uxorum natura humana non abhorret, imo\n  fortasse neque ab earum communitate.'\n\nHow so? The words mean only that the human animal is not withholden by\nany natural instinct from plurality or even community of females. It is\nnot asserted, that reason and revelation do not forbid both the one and\nthe other, or that man unwithholden would not be a Yahoo, morally\ninferior to the swallow. The emphasis is to be laid on 'natura', not on\n'humana'. Humanity forbids plural and promiscuous intercourse, not\nhowever by the animal nature of man, but by the reason and religion that\nconstitute his moral and spiritual nature.\n\n\nIb. s. 112.\n\n  But being thrown out into banishment, and hunted to be destroyed as a\n  partridge in the mountain, he subscribed against his own hand, which\n  yet did not prejudice Athanasius his innocency:--[Greek: t\u00e0 g\u00e0r ek\n  bas\u00e1non par\u00e0 t\u00e0en ex archaes gn_\u00f3maen gign\u00f3mena, tauta ou t_on\n  phobaeth\u00e9nt_on, alla t_on basaniz\u00f3nt_on est\u00ec boul\u00e1emata.]\n\n\nI have ever said this of Sir John Cheke. I regret his recantation as one\nof the cruelties suffered by him, and always see the guilt flying off\nfrom him and settling on his persecutors.\n\n\nIb. s. 151.\n\n  I conclude, therefore, that his Highness having admitted nothing in\n  these oaths or articles, either to the prejudice of the true, or the\n  equalizing or authorizing of the other, religion, but contained\n  himself wholly within the limits of penal statutes and connivances,\n  wherein the state hath ever challenged and usurped a directing power,\n  &c.\n\nThree points seem wanting to render the Lord Keeper's argument\nair-tight;--\n\n1. the proof that a king of England even then had a right to dispense,\nnot with the execution in individual cases of the laws, but with the\nlaws themselves 'in omne futurum'; that is, to repeal laws by his own\nact;\n\n2. the proof that such a tooth-and-talon drawing of the laws did not\nendanger the equalizing and final mastery of the unlawful religion;\n\n3. the utter want of all reciprocity on the part of the Spanish monarch.\n\nIn short, it is pardonable in Hacket, but would be contemptible in any\nother person, not to see this advice of the Lord Keeper's as a black\nblotch in his character, both as a Protestant Bishop and as a councillor\nof state in a free and Protestant country.\n\n\nIb. s. 152.\n\n  Yet opinions were so various, that some spread it for a fame, that, &c.\n\nWas it not required of--at all events usual for--all present at a\nCouncil to subscribe their names to the act of the majority? There is a\nmodern case in point, I think, that of Sir Arthur Wellesley's signature\nto the Convention of Cintra.\n\n\nIb. s. 164.\n\n  For to forbid judges against their oath, and justices of peace (sworn\n  likewise), not to execute the law of the land, is a thing\n  unprecedented in this kingdom. 'Durus sermo', a harsh and bitter pill\n  to be digested upon a sudden, and without some preparation.\n\nWhat a fine India-rubber conscience Hacket, as well as his patron, must\nhave had! Policy with innocency,' 'cunning with conscience,' lead up the\ndance to the tune of ''Tantara' rogues all!'\n\nUpon my word, I can scarcely conceive a greater difficulty than for an\nhonest, warm-hearted man of principle of the present day so to\ndiscipline his mind by reflection on the circumstances and received\nmoral system of the Stuarts' age (from Elizabeth to the death of Charles\nI), and its proper place in the spiral line of ascension, as to be able\nto regard the Duke of Buckingham as not a villain, and to resolve many\nof the acts of those Princes into passions, conscience-warped and\nhardened by half-truths and the secular creed of prudence, as being\nitself virtue instead of one of her handmaids, when interpreted by minds\nconstitutionally and by their accidental circumstances imprudent and\nrash, yet fearful and suspicious; and with casuists and codes of\ncasuistry as their conscience-leaders! One of the favorite works of\nCharles I was Sanderson 'de Juramento'.\n\n\nIb. s. 200.\n\n  Wherefore he waives the strong and full defence he had made upon\n  stopping of an original writ, and deprecates all offence by that maxim\n  of the law which admits of a mischief rather than an inconvenience:\n  which was as much as to say, that he thought it a far less evil to do\n  the lady the probability of an injury (in her own name) than to suffer\n  those two courts to clash together again.\n\nAll this is a tangle of sophisms. The assumption is, it is better to\ninflict a private wrong than a public one: we ought to wrong one rather\nthan many. But even then, it is badly stated. The principle is true only\nwhere the tolerating of the private wrong is the only means of\npreventing a greater public wrong. But in this case it was the certainty\nof the wrong of one to avoid the chance of an inconvenience that might\nperchance be the occasion of wrong to many, and which inconvenience both\neasily might and should have been remedied by rightful measures, by\nmutual agreement between the Bishop and Chancellor, and by the King, or\nby an act of Parliament.\n\n\nIb. s. 203.\n\n  'Truly, Sir, this is my dark lantern, and I am not ashamed to inquire\n  of a Dalilah to resolve a riddle; for in my studies of divinity I have\n  gleaned up this maxim, 'licet uti alieno peccato';--though the Devil\n  make her a sinner, I may make good use of her sin.' Prince, merrily,\n  'Do you deal in such ware?' 'In good faith, Sir,' says the Keeper, 'I\n  never saw her face.'\n\n\nAnd Hacket's evident admiration, and not merely approbation, of this\nbase Jesuitry,--this divinity which had taught the Archbishop 'licere\nuti alieno peccato'! But Charles himself was a student of such divinity,\nand yet (as rogues of higher rank comfort the pride of their conscience\nby despising inferior knaves) I suspect that the 'merrily' was the\nSardonic mirth of bitter contempt; only, however, because he disliked\nWilliams, who was simply a man of his age, his baseness being for us,\nnot for his contemporaries, or even for his own mind. But the worst of\nall is the Archbishop's heartless disingenuousness and moon-like nodes\ntowards his kind old master the King. How much of truth was there in the\nSpaniard's information respecting the intrigues of the Prince and the\nDuke of Buckingham? If none, if they were mere slanders, if the Prince\nhad acted the filial part toward his father and King, and the Duke the\nfaithful part towards his master and only too fond and affectionate\nbenefactor, what more was needed than to expose the falsehoods? But if\nWilliams knew that there was too great a mixture of truth in the\ncharges, what a cowardly ingrate to his old friend to have thus curried\nfavor with the rising sun by this base jugglery!\n\n\nIb. s. 209.\n\n  He was the topsail of the nobility, and in power and trust of offices\n  far above all the nobility.\n\nJames I was no fool, and though through weakness of character an unwise\nmaster, yet not an unthinking statesman; and I still want a satisfactory\nsolution of the accumulation of offices on Buckingham.\n\n\nIb. s. 212.\n\n  Prudent men will continue the oblations of their forefathers' piety.\n\nThe danger and mischief of going far back, and yet not half far enough!\nThus Hacket refers to the piety of individuals our forefathers as the\norigin of Church property. Had he gone further back, and traced to the\nsource, he would have found these partial benefactions to have been mere\nrestitutions of rights co-original with their own property, and as a\nnational reserve for the purposes of national existence--the condition\n'sine qua non' of the equity of their proprieties; for without\ncivilization a people cannot be, or continue to be, a nation. But, alas!\nthe ignorance of the essential distinction of a national clerisy, the\n'Ecclesia', from the Christian Church. The 'Ecclesia' has been an\neclipse to the intellect of both Churchmen and Sectarians, even from\nElizabeth to the present day, 1833.\n\n\nIb. s. 214.\n\n  And being threatened, his best mitigation was, that perhaps it was not\n  safe for him to deny so great a lord; yet it was safest for his\n  lordship to be denied. ... The king heard the noise of these crashes,\n  and was so pleased, that he thanked God, before many witnesses, that\n  he had put the Keeper into that place: 'For,' says he, 'he that will\n  not wrest justice for Buckingham's sake, whom I know he loves, will\n  never be corrupted with money, which he never loved.'\n\nStrange it must seem to us; yet it is evident that Hacket thought it\nnecessary to make a mid something, half apology and half eulogy, for the\nLord Keeper's timid half resistance to the insolence and iniquitous\ninterference of the minion Duke. What a portrait of the times! But the\ndotage of the King in the maintenance of the man, whose insolence in\nwresting justice he himself admits! Yet how many points, both of the\ntimes and of the King's personal character, must be brought together\nbefore we can fairly solve the intensity of James's minionism, his\nkingly egotism, his weak kindheartedness, his vulgar coarseness of\ntemper, his systematic jealousy of the ancient nobles, his timidity, and\nthe like!\n\n\nIb.\n\n  'Sir,' says the Lord Keeper, 'will you be pleased to listen to me,\n  taking in the Prince's consent, of which I make no doubt, and I will\n  shew how you shall furnish the second and third brothers with\n  preferments sufficient to maintain them, that shall cost you nothing.\n  ... If they fall to their studies, design them to the bishoprics of\n  Durham and Winchester, when they become void. If that happen in their\n  nonage, which is probable, appoint commendatories to discharge the\n  duty for them for a laudable allowance, but gathering the fruits for\n  the support of your grandchildren, till they come to virility to be\n  consecrated,' &c.\n\nWilliams could not have been in earnest in this villanous counsel, but\nhe knew his man. This conceit of dignifying dignities by the Simoniacal\nprostitution of them to blood-royal was just suited to James's\nfool-cunningness.\n\n\nPart II. s. 74.\n\n  ... To yield not only passive obedience (which is due) but active\n  also, &c.\n\n\n'Which is due.' What in the name of common sense can this mean, that is,\nspeculatively? Practically, the meaning is clear enough, namely, that we\nshould do what we can to escape hanging; but the distinction is for\ndecorum, and so let it pass.\n\n\nIb. s. 75.\n\n  This is the venom of this new doctrine, that by making us the King's\n  creatures, and in the state of minors or children, to take away all\n  our property; which would leave us nothing of our own, and lead us\n  (but that God hath given us just and gracious Princes) into slavery.\n\nAnd yet this just and gracious Prince prompts, sanctions, supports, and\nopenly rewards this envenomer, in flat contempt of both Houses of\nParliament,--protects and prefers him and others of the same principles\nand professions on account of these professions! And the Parliament and\nnation were inexcusable, forsooth, in not trusting to Charles's\nassurances, or rather the assurances put in his mouth by Hyde, Falkland,\nand others, that he had always abhorred these principles.\n\n\nIb. s. 136.\n\n  When they saw he was not 'selfish' (it is a word of their own new\n  mint), &c.\n\nSingular! From this passage it would seem that our so very common word\n'selfish' is no older than the latter part of the reign of Charles I.\n\n\nIb. s. 137.\n\n  Their political aphorisms are far more dangerous, that His Majesty is\n  not the highest power in his realms; that he hath not absolute\n  sovereignty; and that a Parliament sitting is co-ordinate with him in\n  it.\n\nHacket himself repeatedly implies as much; for would he deny that the\nKing with the Lords and Commons is not more than the King without them?\nor that an act of Parliament is not more than a proclamation?\n\n\nIb. s.154.\n\n  What a venomous spirit is in that serpent Milton, that black-mouthed\n  Zoilus, that blows his viper's breath upon those immortal devotions\n  from the beginning to the end! This is he that wrote with all\n  irreverence against the Fathers of our Church, and showed as little\n  duty to the father that begat him: the same that wrote for the\n  Pharisees, that it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for every\n  cause,--and against Christ, for not allowing divorces: the same, O\n  horrid! that defended the lawfulness of the greatest crime that ever\n  was committed, to put our thrice-excellent King to death: a petty\n  schoolboy scribbler, that durst grapple in such a cause with the\n  prince of the learned men of his age, Salmasius, [Greek: philosophi\u00e1s\n  p\u00e1saes aphroditae ka\u00ec lyra], as Eunapius says of Ammonius, Plutarch's\n  scholar in Egypt, the delight, the music of all knowledge, who would\n  have scorned to drop a pen-full of ink against so base an adversary,\n  but to maintain the honor of so good a King ... Get thee behind me,\n  Milton! Thou savourest not the things that be of truth and loyalty,\n  but of pride, bitterness, and falsehood. There will be a time, though\n  such a Shimei, a dead dog in Abishai's phrase, escape for a while ...\n  It is no marvel if this canker-worm Milton, &c.\n\nA contemporary of Bishop Racket's designates Milton as the author of a\nprofane and lascivious poem entitled Paradise Lost. The biographer of\nour divine bard ought to have made a collection of all such passages. A\nGerman writer of a Life of Salmasius acknowledges that Milton had the\nbetter in the conflict in these words: 'Hans (Jack) von Milton--not to\nbe compared in learning and genius with the incomparable Salmasius, yet\na shrewd and cunning lawyer,' &c. 'O sana posteritas!'\n\n\nIb. s. 178.\n\n  Dare they not trust him that never broke with them? And I have heard\n  his nearest servants say, that no man could ever challenge him of the\n  least lie.\n\nWhat! this after the publication of Charles's letters to the Queen! Did\nhe not within a few months before his death enter into correspondence\nwith, and sign contradictory offers to, three different parties, not\nmeaning to keep any one of them; and at length did he not die with\nsomething very like a falsehood in his mouth in allowing himself to be\nrepresented as the author of the Icon Basilike?\n\n\nIb. s. 180.\n\n  If an under-sheriff had arrested Harry Martin for debt, and pleaded\n  that he did not imprison his membership, but his Martinship, would the\n  Committee for privileges be fobbed off with that distinction?\n\n\nTo make this good in analogy, we must suppose that Harry Martin had\nnotoriously neglected all the duties, while he perverted and abused all\nthe privileges, of membership: and then I answer, that the Committee of\nprivileges would have done well and wisely in accepting the\nunder-sheriff's distinction, and, out of respect for the membership,\nconsigning the Martinship to the due course of law.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  'That every soul should be subject to the higher powers.' The higher\n  power under which they lived was the mere power and will of C\u00e6sar,\n  bridled in by no law.\n\nFalse, if meant 'de jure'; and if 'de facto', the plural 'powers' would\napply to the Parliament far better than to the King, and to Cromwell as\nwell as to Nero. Every even decently good Emperor professed himself the\nservant of the Roman Senate. The very term 'Imperator', as Gravina\nobserves, implies it; for it expresses a delegated and instrumental\npower. Before the assumption of the Tribunitial character by Augustus,\nby which he became the representative of the majority of the\npeople,--'majestatem indutus est,--Senatus consulit, Populus jubet,\nimperent Consules', was the constitutional language.\n\n\nIb. s. 190.\n\n  Yet so much dissonancy there was between his tongue and his heart,\n  that he triumphed in the murder of C\u00e6sar, the only Roman that exceeded\n  all their race in nobleness, and was next to Tully in eloquence.\n\n\nThere is something so shameless in this self-contradiction as of itself\nalmost to extinguish the belief that the prelatic royalists were\nconscientious in their conclusions. For if the Senate of Rome were not a\nlawful power, what could be? And if C\u00e6sar, the thrice perjured traitor,\nwas neither perjured nor traitor, only because he by his Gaulish troops\nturned a republic into a monarchy,--with what face, under what pretext,\ncould Hacket abuse 'Sultan Cromwell?'\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: By Thomas Plume. Folio, 1676.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2:\n\n  'Ea omnia super Christo Pilatus, et ipse jam pro sua conscientia\n  Christianus, C\u00e6sari tum Tiberio nuntiavit.'\n\nApologet, ii. 624. See the account in Eusebius. Hist. Eccl. ii. 2.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: See 'M. T. Ciceronis de Republica qu\u00e6 supersunt. Zell.\nStuttgardt'. 1827.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: See 'supra'.--Ed].\n\n\n[Footnote 5: Folio. 1693.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 6: See The Church and State.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON JEREMY TAYLOR.\n\nI have not seen the late Bishop Heber's edition of Jeremy Taylor's\n'Works'; but I have been informed that he did little more than\ncontribute the 'Life', and that in all else it is a mere London\nbooksellers' job. This, if true, is greatly to be regretted. I know no\nwriter whose works more require, I need not say deserve, the\nannotations, aye, and occasional animadversions, of a sound and learned\ndivine. One thing is especially desirable in reference to that most\nimportant, because (with the exception perhaps of the 'Holy Living and\nDying') the most popular, of Taylor's works, 'The Liberty of\nProphesying'; and this is a careful collation of the different editions,\nparticularly of the first printed before the Restoration, and the last\npublished in Taylor's lifetime, and after his promotion to the episcopal\nbench. Indeed, I regard this as so nearly concerning Taylor's character\nas a man, that if I find that it has not been done in Heber's edition,\nand if I find a first edition in the British Museum, or Sion College, or\nDr. Williams's library, I will, God permitting, do it myself. There\nseems something cruel in giving the name, Anabaptist, to the English\nAnti-p\u00e6do-baptists; but still worse in connecting this most innocent\nopinion with the mad Jacobin ravings of the poor wretches who were\ncalled Anabaptists, in Munster, as if the latter had ever formed part of\nthe Baptists' creeds. In short 'The Liberty of Prophesying' is an\nadmirable work, in many respects, and calculated to produce a much\ngreater effect on the many than Milton's treatise on the same subject:\non the other hand, Milton's is throughout unmixed truth; and the man who\nin reading the two does not feel the contrast between the\nsingle-mindedness of the one, and the 'strabismus' in the other, is--in\nthe road of preferment.\n\n\n\nGENERAL DEDICATION OF THE POLEMICAL DISCOURSES. [1]\n\nVol. vii. p. ix.\n\n  And the breath of the people is like the voice of an exterminating\n  angel, not so killing but so secret.\n\nThat is, in such wise. It would be well to note, after what time 'as'\nbecame the requisite correlative to 'so,' and even, as in this instance,\nthe preferable substitute. We should have written 'as' in both places\nprobably, but at all events in the latter, transplacing the sentences\n'as secret though not so killing;' or 'not so killing, but quite as\nsecret.' It is not generally true that Taylor's punctuation is\narbitrary, or his periods reducible to the post-Revolutionary standard\nof length by turning some of his colons or semi-colons into full stops.\nThere is a subtle yet just and systematic logic followed in his\npointing, as often as it is permitted by the higher principle, because\nthe proper and primary purpose, of our stops, and to which alone from\ntheir paucity they are adequate,--that I mean of enabling the reader to\nprepare and manage the proportions of his voice and breath. But for the\ntrue scheme of punctuation, [Greek: h_os emoige dokei], see the blank\npage over leaf which I will try to disblank into a prize of more worth\nthan can be got at the E.O.'s and little goes of Lindley Murray. [2]\n\n\nIb. p. xv.\n\n  But the most complained that, in my ways to persuade a toleration, I\n  helped some men too far, and that I armed the Anabaptists with swords\n  instead of shields, with a power to offend us, besides the proper\n  defensitives of their own ... But wise men understand the thing and\n  are satisfied. But because all men are not of equal strength; I did\n  not only in a discourse on purpose demonstrate the true doctrine in\n  that question, but I have now in this edition of that book answered\n  all their pretensions, &c.\n\nNo; in the might of his genius he called up a spirit which he has in\nvain endeavored to lay, or exorcise from the conviction.\n\n\nIb. p. xvii.\n\n  For episcopacy relies not upon the authority of Fathers and Councils,\n  but upon Scripture, upon the institution of Christ, or the institution\n  of the Apostles, upon a universal tradition, and a universal practice,\n  not upon the words and opinions of the doctors: it hath as great a\n  testimony as Scripture itself hath, &c.\n\nWe must make allowance for the intoxication of recent triumph and final\nvictory over a triumphing and victorious enemy; or who but would start\nback at the aweless temerity of this assertion? Not to mention the\nevasion; for who ever denied the historical fact, or the Scriptural\noccurrence of the word expressing the fact, namely, 'episcopi,\nepiscopatus?'? What was questioned by the opponents was,\n\n1;--Who and what these 'episcopi' were; whether essentially different\nfrom the presbyter, or a presbyter by kind in his own 'ecclesia', and a\npresident or chairman by accident in a synod of presbyters:\n\n2;--That whatever the 'episcopi' of the Apostolic times were, yet were\nthey prelates, lordly diocesans; were they such as the Bishops of the\nChurch of England? Was there Scripture authority for Archbishops?\n\n3;--That the establishment of Bishops by the Apostle Paul being granted\n(as who can deny it?)--yet was this done 'jure Apostolico' for the\nuniversal Church in all places and ages; or only as expedient for that\ntime and under those circumstances; by Paul not as an Apostle, but as\nthe head and founder of those particular churches, and so entitled to\ndetermine their bye laws?\n\n\n\nDEDICATION OF THE SACRED ORDER AND OFFICES OF EPISCOPACY.\n\nIb. p. xxiii.\n\n  But the interest of the Bishops is conjunct with the prosperity of the\n  King, besides the interest of their own security, by the obligation of\n  secular advantages. For they who have their livelihood from the King,\n  and are in expectance of their fortune from him, are more likely to\n  pay a tribute of exacter duty, than others, whose fortunes are not in\n  such immediate dependency on His Majesty.\n\nThe cat out of the bag! Consult the whole reigns of Charles I. and II.\nand the beginning of James II. Jeremy Taylor was at this time\n(blamelessly for himself and most honourably for his patrons) ambling on\nthe high road of preferment; and to men so situated, however sagacious\nin other respects, it is not given to read the signs of the times.\nLittle did Taylor foresee that to indiscreet avowals, like these, on the\npart of the court clergy, the exauctorations of the Bishops and the\ntemporary overthrow of the Church itself would be in no small portion\nattributable. But the scanty measure and obscurity (if not rather, for\nso bright a luminary, the occultation) of his preferment after the\nRestoration is a problem, of which perhaps his virtues present the most\nprobable solution.\n\n\nIb. p. xxv.\n\n  A second return that episcopacy makes to royalty, is that which is the\n  duty of all Christians, the paying tributes and impositions.\n\nThis is true; and it was an evil hour for the Church,--and led to the\nloss of its Convocation, the greatest and, in an enlarged state-policy,\nthe most impolitic affront ever offered by a government to its own\nestablished Church,--in which the clergy surrendered their right of\ntaxing themselves.\n\n\nIb. p. xxvii.\n\n  I mean the conversion of the kingdom from Paganism by St. Augustine,\n  Archbishop of Canterbury; and the Reformation begun and promoted by\n  Bishops.\n\nFrom Paganism in part; but in part from primitive Christianity to\nPopery. But neither this nor the following boast will bear narrow\nlooking into, I suspect.\n\n\n'In fine.'\n\nLike all Taylor's dedications and dedicatory epistles, this is easy,\ndignified, and pregnant. The happiest 'synthesis' of the divine, the\nscholar, and the gentleman was perhaps exhibited in him and Bishop\nBerkeley.\n\n\nIntrod. p.3.\n\n  In all those accursed machinations, which the device and artifice of\n  hell hath invented for the supplanting of the Church, 'inimicus homo,'\n  that old superseminator of heresies and crude mischiefs, hath\n  endeavoured to be curiously compendious, and, with Tarquin's device,\n  'putare summa papaverum.'\n\n  Quoere-spiritualiter papaveratorurn?\n\n\nIb.\n\n  His next onset was by Julian, and 'occidere presbyterium,' that was\n  his province. To shut up public schools, to force Christians to\n  ignorance, to impoverish and disgrace the clergy, to make them vile\n  and dishonorable, these are his arts; and he did the devil more\n  service in this fineness of undermining, than all the open battery of\n  ten great rams of persecution.\n\nWhat felicity, what vivacity of expression! Many years ago Mr.\nMackintosh gave it as an instance of my perverted taste, that I had\nseriously contended that in order to form a style worthy of Englishmen,\nMilton and Taylor must be studied instead of Johnson, Gibbon, and\nJunius; and now I see by his introductory Lecture given at Lincoln's\nInn, and just published, he is himself imitating Jeremy Taylor, or\nrather copying his semi-colon punctuation, as closely as he can. Amusing\nit is to observe, how by the time the modern imitators are at the\nhalf-way of the long breathed period, the asthmatic thoughts drop down,\nand the rest is,--words! I have always been an obstinate hoper: and even\nthis is a 'datum' and a symptom of hope to me, that a better, an\nancestral, spirit is forming and will appear in the rising generation.\n\n\nIb. p. 5.\n\n  First, because here is a concourse of times; for now after that these\n  times have been called the last times for 1600 years together, our\n  expectation of the great revelation is very near accomplishing.\n\nRather a whimsical consequence, that because a certain party had been\ndeceiving themselves for sixteen centuries they were likely to be in the\nright at the beginning of the seventeenth. But indeed I question whether\nin all Taylor's voluminous writings there are to be found three other\nparagraphs so vague and misty-magnific as this is. It almost reminds me\nof the \"very cloudy and mighty alarming\" in Foote.\n\n\nS. i. p. 4.\n\n  If there be such a thing as the power of the keys, by Christ\n  concredited to his Church, for the binding and loosing delinquents and\n  penitents respectively on earth, then there is clearly a court erected\n  by Christ in his Church.\n\nWe may, without any heretical division of person, economically\ndistinguish our Lord's character as Jesus, and as Christ, so far that\nduring his sojourn on earth, from his baptism at least to his\ncrucifixion, he was in some respects his own Elias, bringing back the\nthen existing Church to the point at which the Prophets had placed it;\nthat is, distinguishing the 'ethica' from the 'politica,' what was\nbinding on the Jews as descendants of Abraham and inheritors of the\npatriarchal faith from the statutes obligatory on them as members of the\nJewish state.\n\nJesus fulfilled the Law, which culminated in a pure religious morality\nin principles, affections, and acts; and this he consolidated and\nlevelled into the ground-stead on which the new temple 'not made with\nhands,' wherein Himself, even Christ the Lord, is the Shechinah, was to\nrise and be raised.\n\nThus he taught the spirit of the Mosaic Law, while by his acts,\nsufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, and demission of the\nComforter, he created and realized the contents, objects, and materials\nof that redemptive faith, the everlasting Gospel, which from the day of\nPentecost his elect disciples, [Greek: t_on mystaeri_\u00f3n hierok\u00e1erykes],\nWere Sent forth to disperse and promulgate with suitable gifts, powers,\nand evidences.\n\nIn this view, I interpret our Lord's sayings concerning the Church, as\napplying wholly to the Synagogue or established Church then existing,\nwhile the binding and loosing refers, immediately and primarily as I\nconceive, to the miraculous gifts of healing diseases communicated to\nthe Apostles; and I am not afraid to avow the conviction, that the first\nthree Gospels are not the books of the New Testament, in which we should\nexpect to find the peculiar doctrines of the Christian faith explicitly\ndelivered, or forming the predominant subject or contents of the\nwriting.\n\n\nS. viii. p. 25.\n\n  Imposition of hands for Ordination does indeed give the Holy Ghost,\n  but not as he is that promise which is called 'the promise of the\n  truth'.\n\nAlas! but in what sense that does not imply some infusion of power or\nlight, something given and inwardly received, which would not have\nexisted in and for the recipient without this immission by the means or\nact of the imposition of the hands? What sense that does not amount to\nmore and other than a mere delegation of office, a mere legitimating\nacceptance and acknowledgment, with respect to the person, of that which\nalready is in him, can be attached to the words, 'Receive the Holy\nGhost', without shocking a pious and single-minded candidate? The\nmiraculous nature of the giving does not depend on the particular kind\nor quality of the gift received, much less demand that it should be\nconfined to the power of working miracles.\n\nFor \"miraculous nature\" read \"supernatural character;\" and I can\nsubscribe this pencil note written so many years ago, even at this\npresent time, 2d March, 1824.\n\n\nS. xxi. p. 91.\n\n  'Postquam unusquisque eos quos baptizabat suos putabat esse, non\n  Christi, et diceretur in populis, Ego sum Pauli, Ego Apollo, Ego autem\n  Ceph\u00e6, in toto orbe decretum est ut unus de presbyteris electus\n  superponeretur cateris, ut schismatum semina tollerentur.'\n\nThe natural inference would, methinks, be the contrary. There would be\nmore persons inclined and more likely to attach an ambition to their\nbelonging to a single eminent leader and head than to a body,--rather to\nC\u00e6sar, Marius, or Pompey, than to the Senate. But I have ever thought\nthat the best, safest, and at the same time sufficient, argument is,\nthat by the nature of human affairs and the appointments of God's\nordinary providence every assembly of functionaries will and must have a\npresident; that the same qualities which recommended the individual to\nthis dignity would naturally recommend him to the chief executive power\nduring the intervals of legislation, and at all times in all points\nalready ruled; that the most solemn acts, Confirmation and Ordination,\nwould as naturally be confined to the head of the executive in the state\necclesiastic, as the sign manual and the like to the king in all limited\nmonarchies; and that in course of time when many presbyteries would\nexist in the same district, Archbishops and Patriarchs would arise 'pari\nratione' as Bishops did in the first instance. Now it is admitted that\nGod's extraordinary appointments never repeal but rather perfect the\nlaws of his ordinary providence: and it is enough that all we find in\nthe New Testament tends to confirm and no where forbids, contradicts, or\ninvalidates the course of government, which the Church, we are certain,\ndid in fact pursue.\n\n\nIb. s. xxxvi. p. 171.\n\n  But those things which Christianity, as it prescinds from the interest\n  of the republic, hath introduced, all them, and all the causes\n  emergent from them, the Bishop is judge of.... Receiving and disposing\n  the patrimony of the Church, and whatsoever is of the same\n  consideration according to the fortyfirst canon of the Apostles.\n  'Pr\u00e6cipimus ut in potestate sua episcopus ecclesice res habeat'. Let\n  the Bishops have the disposing of the goods of the Church; adding this\n  reason: 'si enim animte hominum pretios\u00e6 illi sint credit\u00e6, multo\n  magis eum oportet curam pecuniarum gerere'. He that is intrusted with\n  our precious souls may much more be intrusted with the offertories of\n  faithful people.\n\nLet all these belong to the overseer of the Church: to whom else so\nproperly? but what is the nature of the power by which he is to enforce\nhis orders? By secular power? Then the Bishop's power is no derivative\nfrom Christ's royalty; for his kingdom is not of the world; but the\nmonies are C\u00e6sar's; and the 'cura pecuniarum' must be vested where the\ndonors direct, the law of the land permitting.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  Such are the delinquencies of clergymen, who are both clergy and\n  subjects too; 'clerus Domini', and 'regis subditi': and for their\n  delinquencies, which are 'in materia justi\u00e6', the secular tribunal\n  punishes, as being a violation of that right which the state must\n  defend; but because done by a person who is a member of the sacred\n  hierarchy, and hath also an obligation of special duty to his Bishop,\n  therefore the Bishop also may punish him; and when the commonwealth\n  hath inflicted a penalty, the Bishop also may impose a censure, for\n  every sin of a clergyman is two.\n\nBut why of a clergyman only? Is not every sheep of his flock a part of\nthe Bishop's charge, and of course the possible object of his censure?\nThe clergy, you say, take the oath of obedience. Aye! but this is the\npoint in dispute.\n\n\nIb. p. 172.\n\n  So that ever since then episcopal jurisdiction hath a double part, an\n  external and an internal: this is derived from Christ, that from the\n  king, which because it is concurrent in all acts of jurisdiction,\n  therefore it is that the king is supreme of the jurisdiction, namely,\n  that part of it which is the external compulsory.\n\nIf Christ delegated no external compulsory power to the Bishops, how\ncame it the duty of princes to God to do so? It has been so since---yes!\nsince the first grand apostasy from Christ to Constantine.\n\n\nIb. s. xlviii. p. 248.\n\n  Bishops 'ut sic' are not secular princes, must not seek for it; but\n  some secular princes may be Bishops, as in Germany and in other places\n  to this day they are. For it is as unlawful for a Bishop to have any\n  land, as to have a country; and a single acre is no more due to the\n  order than a province; but both these may be conjunct in the same\n  person, though still, by virtue of Christ's precept, the functions and\n  capacities must be distinguished.\n\nTrue; but who with more indignant scorn attacked this very distinction\nwhen applied by the Presbyterians to the kingship, when they professed\nto fight for the King against Charles? And yet they had on their side\nboth the spirit of the English constitution and the language of the law.\nThe King never dies; the King can do no wrong. Elsewhere, too, Taylor\ncould ridicule the Romish prelate, who fought and slew men as a captain\nat the head of his vassals, and then in the character of a Bishop\nabsolved his other homicidal self. However, whatever St. Peter might\nunderstand by Christ's words, St. Peter's three-crowned successors have\nbeen quite of Taylor's opinion that they are to be paraphrased\nthus:--\"Simon Peter, as my Apostle, you are to make converts only by\nhumility, voluntary poverty, and the words of truth and meekness; but if\nby your spiritual influence you can induce the Emperor Tiberius to make\nyou Tetrarch of Galilee or Prefect of Judaea, then\n[Greek: katakyr\u00edeue]--you may lord it as loftily as you will, and\ndeliver as Tetrarch or Prefect those stiff-necked miscreants to the\nflames for not having been converted by you as an Apostle.\"\n\n\nIb. p. 276.\n\n  I end with the golden rule of Vincentius Lirinensis:--'magnopere\n  curandum est ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus\n  creditum est.'\n\nAlas! this golden rule comes full and round from the mouth; nor do I\ndeny that it is pure gold: but like too many other golden rules, in\norder to make it cover the facts which the orthodox asserter of\nepiscopacy at least, and the chaplain of Archbishop Laud and King\nCharles the Martyr must have held himself bound to bring under it, it\nmust be made to display another property of the sovereign metal, its\nmalleableness to wit; and must be beaten out so thin, that the weight of\ntruth in the portion appertaining to each several article in the\northodox systems of theology will be so small, that it may better be\ncalled gilt than gold; and if worth having at all, it will be for its\nshow, not for its substance. For instance, the 'aranea theologica' may\ndraw out the whole web of the Westminster Catechism from the simple\ncreed of the beloved Disciple,--'whoever believeth with his heart, and\nprofesseth with his mouth, that Jesus is Lord and Christ,'--shall be\nsaved. If implicit faith only be required, doubtless certain doctrines,\nfrom which all other articles of faith imposed by the Lutheran, Scotch,\nor English Churches, may be deduced, have been believed 'ubique, semper,\net ab omnibus.' But if explicit and conscious belief be intended, I\nwould rather that the Bishop than I should defend the golden rule\nagainst Semler.\n\n\n\n\nAPOLOGY FOR AUTHORIZED AND SET FORMS OF LITURGY.\n\nPreface, s. vi. p. 286.\n\n  Not like women or children when they are affrighted with fire in their\n  clothes. We shaked off the coal indeed, but not our garments, lest we\n  should have exposed our Churches to that nakedness which the excellent\n  men of our sister Churches complained to be among themselves.\n\nO, what convenient things metaphors and similes are, so charmingly\nindeterminate! On the general reader the literal sense operates: he\nshivers in sympathy with the poor shift-less matron, the Church of\nGeneva. To the objector the answer is ready--it was speaking\nmetaphorically, and only meant that she had no shift on the outside of\nher gown, that she made a shift without an over-all. Compare this sixth\nsection with the manful, senseful, irrebuttable fourth section--a folio\nvolume in a single paragraph! But Jeremy Taylor would have been too\ngreat for man, had he not occasionally fallen below himself.\n\n\nIb. s. x. p. 288.\n\n  And since all that cast off the Roman yoke thought they had title\n  enough to be called Reformed, it was hard to have pleased all the\n  private interests and peevishness of men that called themselves\n  friends; and therefore that only in which the Church of Rome had\n  prevaricated against the word of God, or innovated against Apostolical\n  tradition, all that was pared away.\n\nAye! here is the 'ovum,' as Sir Everard Home would say, the\n'proto'-parent of the whole race of controversies between Protestant and\nProtestant; and each had Gospel on their side. Whatever is not against\nthe word of God is for it,--thought the founders of the Church of\nEngland. Whatever is not in the word of God is a word of man, a\nwill-worship presumptuous and usurping,--thought the founders of the\nChurch of Scotland and Geneva. The one proposed to themselves to be\nreformers of the Latin Church, that is, to bring it back to the form\nwhich it had during the first four centuries; the latter to be the\nrenovators of the Christian religion as it was preached and instituted\nby the Apostles and immediate followers of Christ thereunto specially\ninspired. Where the premisses are so different, who can wonder at the\ndifference in the conclusions?\n\n\nIb. s. xii. ib.\n\n  It began early to discover its inconvenience; for when certain zealous\n  persons fled to Frankfort to avoid the funeral piles kindled by the\n  Roman Bishops in Queen Mary's time, as if they had not enemies enough\n  abroad, they fell foul with one another, and the quarrel was about the\n  Common Prayer Book.\n\nBut who began the quarrel? Knox and his recent biographer lay it to\nDr. Cox and the Liturgists.\n\n\nIb. s. xiii. p. 289.\n\n  Here therefore it became law, was established by an act of Parliament,\n  was made solemn by an appendant penalty against all that on either\n  hand did prevaricate a sanction of so long and so prudent\n  consideration.\n\nTruly evangelical way of solemnizing a party measure, and sapientizing\nCalvin's 'tolerabiles ineptias' by making them 'ineptias usque ad\ncarcerem et verbera intolerantes!'\n\nIb. s. xiv. ib.\n\n  But the Common Prayer Book had the fate of St. Paul; for when it had\n  scaped the storms of the Roman See, yet a viper sprung out of Queen\n  Mary's fires, &c.\n\nAs Knox and his friends confined themselves to the inspired word,\nwhether vipers or no, they were not adders at all events.\n\n\nIb. xxvi. p. 296.\n\n  For, if we deny to the people a liberty of reading the Scriptures, may\n  they not complain, as Isaac did against the inhabitants of the land,\n  that the Philistines had spoiled his well and the fountains of living\n  water? If a free use to all of them and of all Scriptures were\n  permitted, should not the Church herself have more cause to complain\n  of the infinite licentiousness and looseness of interpretations, and\n  of the commencement of ten thousand errors, which would certainly be\n  consequent to such permission? Reason and religion will chide us in\n  the first, reason and experience in the latter ... The Church with\n  great wisdom hath first held this torch out; and though for great\n  reasons intervening and hindering, it cannot be reduced to practice,\n  yet the Church hath shewn her desire to avoid the evil that is on both\n  hands, and she hath shewn the way also, if it could have been insisted\n  in.\n\nIf there were not, at the time this Preface, or this paragraph at least,\nwas written or published, some design on foot or 'sub lingua' of making\nadvances to the continental catholicism for the purpose of conciliating\nthe courts of Austria, France and Spain, in favor of the Cavalier and\nRoyalist party at home and abroad, this must be considered as a useless\nand worse than useless avowal. The Papacy at the height of its influence\nnever asserted a higher or more anti-Protestant right than this of\ndividing the Scriptures into permitted and forbidden portions. If there\nbe a functionary of divine institution, synodical or unipersonal, who\nwith the name of the 'Church' has the right, under circumstances of its\nown determination, to forbid all but such and such parts of the Bible,\nit must possess potentially, and under other circumstances, a right of\nwithdrawing the whole book from the unlearned, who yet cannot be\naltogether unlearned; for the very prohibition supposes them able to do\nwhat, a few centuries before, the majority of the clergy themselves were\nnot qualified to do, that is, read their Bible throughout. Surely it\nwould have been politic in the writer to have left out this sentence,\nwhich his Puritan adversaries could not fail to translate into the\nChurch shewing her teeth though she dared not bite. I bitterly regret\nthese passages; neither our incomparable Liturgy, nor this full,\nmasterly, and unanswerable defence of it, requiring them.\n\n\nIb. s. xlv, p. 308.\n\n  So that the Church of England, in these manners of dispensing the\n  power of the keys, does cut off all disputings and impertinent\n  wranglings, whether the priest's power were judicial or declarative;\n  for possibly it is both, and it is optative too, and something else\n  yet; for it is an emanation from all the parts of his ministry, and he\n  never absolves, but he preaches or prays, or administers a sacrament;\n  for this power of remission is a transcendent, passing through all the\n  parts of the priestly offices. For the keys of the kingdom of heaven\n  are the promises and the threatenings of the Scripture, and the\n  prayers of the Church, and the Word, and the Sacraments, and all these\n  are to be dispensed by the priest, and these keys are committed to his\n  ministry, and by the operation of them all he opens and shuts heaven's\n  gates ministerially.\n\nNo more ingenious way of making nothing of a thing than by making it\nevery thing. Omnify the disputed point into a transcendant, and you may\ndefy the opponent to lay hold of it. He might as well attempt to grasp\nan 'aura electrica'.\n\n\nApology, &c. s. ii. p. 320.\n\n  And it may be when I am a little more used to it, I shall not wonder\n  at a synod, in which not one Bishop sits in the capacity of a Bishop,\n  though I am most certain this is the first example in England since it\n  was first christened.\n\nIs this quite fair? Is it not, at least logically considered and at the\ncommencement of an argument, too like a 'petitio principii' or\n'presumptio rei litigatae'? The Westminster divines were confessedly not\nprelates, but many in that assembly were, in all other points, orthodox\nand affectionate members of the Establishment, who with Bedell,\nLightfoot, and Usher, held them to be Bishops in the primitive sense of\nthe term, and who yet had no wish to make any other change in the\nhierarchy than that of denominating the existing English prelates\nArchbishops. They thought that what at the bottom was little more than a\nquestion of names among Episcopalians, ought not to have occasioned such\na dispute; but yet the evil having taken place, they held a change of\nnames not too great a sacrifice, if thus the things themselves could be\npreserved, and Episcopacy maintained against the Independents and\nPresbyterians.\n\n\nIb. s. v. p. 321.\n\nIt is a thing of no present importance, but as a point of history, it is\nworth a question whether there were any divines in the Westminster\nAssembly who adopted by anticipation the notions of the Seekers, Quakers\nand others 'ejusdem farin\u0153.' Baxter denies it. I understand the\ncontroversy to have been, whether the examinations at the admission to\nthe ministry did or not supersede the necessity of any directive models\nbesides those found in the sacred volumes:--if not necessary, whether\nthere was any greater expedience in providing by authority forms of\nprayer for the minister than forms of sermons. Reading, whether of\nprayers or sermons, might be discouraged without encouraging\nunpremeditated praying and preaching. But the whole question as between\nthe prelatists and the Assembly divines has like many others been best\nsolved by the trial. A vast majority among the Dissenters themselves\nconsider the antecedents to the sermon, with exception of their\ncongregational hymns, as the defective part of their public service, and\nadmit the superiority of our Liturgy.\n\nP.S.--It seems to me, I confess, that the controversy could never have\nrisen to the height it did, if all the parties had not thrown too far\ninto the back ground the distinction in nature and object between the\nthree equally necessary species of worship, that is, public, family, and\nprivate or solitary, devotion. Though the very far larger proportion of\nthe blame falls on the anti-Liturgists, yet on the other hand, too many\nof our Church divines--among others that exemplar' of a Churchman and a\nChristian, the every way excellent George Herbert--were scared by the\ngrowing fanaticism of the Geneva malcontents into the neighbourhood of\nthe opposite extreme; and in their dread of enthusiasm, will-worship,\ninsubordination, indecency, carried their preference of the established\npublic forms of prayer almost to superstition by exclusively both using\nand requiring them even on their own sick-beds. This most assuredly was\nneither the intention nor the wish of the first compilers. However, if\nthey erred in this, it was an error of filial love excused, and only not\nsanctioned, by the love of peace and unity, and their keen sense of 'the\nbeauty of holiness' displayed in their mother Church. I mention this the\nrather, because our Church, having in so incomparable a way provided for\nour public devotions, and Taylor having himself enriched us with such\nand so many models of private prayer and devotional exercise--(from\nwhich, by the by, it is most desirable that a well arranged collection\nshould be made; a selection is requisite rather from the opulence, than\nthe inequality, of the store;)--we have nothing to wish for but a\ncollection of family and domestic prayers and thanksgivings equally (if\nthat be not too bold a wish) appropriate to the special object, as the\nCommon Prayer Book is for a Christian community, and the collection from\nTaylor for the Christian in his closet or at his bed side. Here would\nour author himself again furnish abundant materials for the work. For\nsurely, since the Apostolic age, never did the spirit of supplication\nmove on the deeps of a human soul with a more genial life, or more\nprofoundly impregnate the rich gifts of a happy nature, than in the\nperson of Jeremy Taylor! To render the fruits available for all, we need\nonly a combination of Christian experience with that finer sense of\npropriety which we may venture to call devotional taste in the\nindividual choosing, or chosen, to select, arrange and methodize; and no\nless in the dignitaries appointed to revise and sanction the collections.\n\nPerhaps another want is a scheme of Christian psalmody fit for all our\ncongregations, and which should not exceed 150 or 200 psalms and hymns.\nSurely if the Church does not hesitate in the titles of the Psalms and\nof the chapters of the Prophets to give the Christian sense and\napplication, there can be no consistent objection to do the same in its\nspiritual songs. The effect on the morals, feelings, and information of\nthe people at large is not to be calculated. It is this more than any\nother single cause that has saved the peasantry of Protestant Germany\nfrom the contagion of infidelity.\n\n\nIb. s. xvii. p. 325.\n\n  Thus the Holy Ghost brought to their memory all things which Jesus\n  spake and did, and, by that means, we come to know all that the Spirit\n  knew to be necessary for us.\n\nAlas! it is one of the sad effects or results of the enslaving Old\nBailey fashion of defending, or, as we may well call it, apologizing\nfor, Christianity,--introduced by Grotius and followed up by the modern\n'Alogi', whose wordless, lifeless, spiritless, scheme of belief it alone\nsuits,--that we dare not ask, whether the passage here referred to must\nnecessarily be understood as asserting a miraculous remembrancing,\ndistinctly sensible by the Apostles; whether the gift had any especial\nreference to the composition of the Gospels; whether the assumption is\nindispensable to a well grounded and adequate confidence in the veracity\nof the narrators or the verity of the narration; if not, whether it does\nnot unnecessarily entangle the faith of the acute and learned inquirer\nin difficulties, which do not affect the credibility of history in its\ncommon meaning--rather indeed confirm our reliance on its authority in\nall the points of agreement, that is, in every point which we are in the\nleast concerned to know,--and expose the simple and unlearned Christian\nto objections best fitted to perplex, because easiest to be understood,\nand within the capacity of the shallowest infidel to bring forward and\nexaggerate; and lastly, whether the Scriptures must not be read in that\nfaith which comes from higher sources than history, that is, if they are\nread to any good and Christian purpose. God forbid that I should become\nthe advocate of mechanical infusions and possessions, superseding the\nreason and responsible will. The light 'a priori', in which, according\nto my conviction, the Scriptures must be read and tried, is no other\nthan the earnest, 'What shall I do to be saved?' with the inward\nconsciousness,--the gleam or flash let into the inner man through the\nrent or cranny of the prison of sense, however produced by earthquake,\nor by decay,--as the ground and antecedent of the question; and with a\npredisposition towards, and an insight into, the 'a priori' probability\nof the Christian dispensation as the necessary consequents. This is the\nholy spirit in us praying to the Spirit, without which 'no man can say\nthat Jesus is the Lord:' a text which of itself seems to me sufficient\nto cover the whole scheme of modern Unitarianism with confusion, when\ncompared with that other,--'I am the Lord (Jehovah): that is my name;\nand my glory will I not give to another'. But in the Unitarian's sense\nof 'Lord,' and on his scheme of evidence, it might with equal justice be\naffirmed, that no man can say that Tiberius was the Emperor but by the\nHoly Ghost.\n\n\nIb. s. xxix. p. 331.\n\n  And that this is for this reason called 'a gift and grace,' or issue\n  of the Spirit, is so evident and notorious, that the speaking of an\n  ordinary revealed truth, is called in Scripture, 'a speaking by the\n  spirit', 1 Cor. xii. 8. 'No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by\n  the Holy Ghost'. For, though the world could not acknowledge Jesus for\n  the Lord without a revelation, yet now that we are taught this truth\n  by Scripture, and by the preaching of the Apostles, to which they were\n  enabled by the Holy Ghost, we need no revelation or enthusiasm to\n  confess this truth, which we are taught in our creeds and catechisms,\n  &c.\n\nI do not, nay I dare not, hesitate to denounce this assertion as false\nin fact and the paralysis of all effective Christianity. A greater\nviolence offered to Scripture words is scarcely conceivable. St. Paul\nasserts that 'no man can.' Nay, says Taylor, every man that knows his\ncatechism can; but unless some six or seven individuals had said it by\nthe Holy Ghost some seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago, no man\ncould say so.\n\n\nIb. s. xxxii. p. 334.\n\n  And yet, because the Holy Ghost renewed their memory, improved their\n  understanding, supplied to some their want of human learning, and so\n  assisted them that they should not commit an error in fact or opinion,\n  neither in the narrative nor dogmatical parts, therefore they wrote by\n  the spirit.\n\nAnd where is the proof?--and to what purpose, unless a distinct and\nplain diagnostic were given of the divinities and the humanities which\nTaylor himself expressly admits in the text of the Scriptures?\n\nAnd even then what would it avail unless the interpreters and\ntranslators, not to speak of the copyists in the first and second\ncenturies, were likewise assisted by inspiration?\n\nAs to the larger part of the Prophetic books, and the whole of the\nApocalypse, we must receive them as inspired truths, or reject them as\nsimple inventions or enthusiastic delusions.\n\nBut in what other book of Scripture does the writer assign his own work\nto a miraculous dictation or infusion? Surely the contrary is implied in\nSt. Luke's preface. Does the hypothesis rest on one possible\nconstruction of a single passage in St. Paul, 2 'Tim'. iii. 16.?\n\nAnd that construction resting materially on a [Greek: kai (the\u00f3pneustos,\nkai _oph\u00e9limos)] not found in the oldest MSS., when the context would\nrather lead us to understand the words as parallel with the other\nassertion of the Apostle, that all good works are given from God,--that\nis, 'Every divinely inspired writing is profitable, &c'.\n\nFinally, will not the certainty of the competence and single mindedness\nof the writers suffice; this too confirmed by the high probability,\nbordering on certainty, that God's especial grace worked in them; and\nthat an especial providence watched over the preservation of writings,\nwhich, we know, both are and have been of such pre-eminent importance to\nChristianity, and yet by natural means?\n\nBut alas! any thing will be pretended, rather than admit the necessity\nof internal evidence, or than acknowledge, among the external proofs,\nthe convictions and spiritual experiences of believers, though they\nshould be common to all the faithful in all ages of the Church!\n\nBut in all superstition there is a heart of unbelief, and, 'vice versa',\nwhere an individual's belief is but a superficial acquiescence,\ncredulity is the natural result and accompaniment, if only he be not\nrequired to sink into the depths of his being, where the sensual man can\nno longer draw breath. It is not the profession of Socinian tenets, but\nthe spirit of Socinianism in the Church itself that alarms me. This,\nthis, is the dry rot in the beams and timbers of the Temple!\n\n\nIb. s. li. p. 348.\n\n  So that let the devotion be ever so great, set forms of prayer will be\n  expressive enough of any desire, though importunate as extremity\n  itself.\n\nThis, and much of the same import in this treatise, is far more than\nTaylor, mature in experience and softened by afflictions, would have\nwritten. Besides, it is in effect, though not in logic, a deserting of\nhis own strong and unshaken ground of the means and ends of public\nworship.\n\n\nIb. s. s. lxix. lxx. pp. 359-60.\n\nThese two sections are too much in the vague mythical style of the\nItalian and Jesuit divines, and the argument gives to these a greater\nadvantage against our Church than it gains over the Sectarians in its\nsupport.\n\nWe well know who and how many the compilers of our Liturgy were under\nEdward VI, and know too well what the weather-cock Parliaments were,\nboth then and under Elizabeth, by which the compilation was made law.\nThe argument therefore should be inverted;--not that the Church (A. B.,\nC. D., F. L., &c.) compiled it; 'ergo', it is unobjectionable; but (and\ntruly we may say it) it is so unobjectionable, so far transcending all\nwe were entitled to expect from a few men in that state of information\nand such difficulties, that we are justified in concluding that the\ncompilers were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.\n\nBut the same order holds good even with regard to the Scriptures. We\ncannot rightly affirm they were inspired, and therefore they must be\nbelieved; but they are worthy of belief, because excellent in so\nuniversal a sense to ends commensurate with the whole moral, and\ntherefore the whole actual, world, that as sure as there is a moral\nGovernor of the world, they must have been in some sense or other, and\nthat too an efficient sense, inspired.\n\nThose who deny this, must be prepared to assert, that if they had what\nappeared to them good historic evidence of a miracle, in the world of\nthe senses, they would receive the hideous immoral doctrines of Mahomet\nor Brahma, and thus disobey the express commands both of the Old and New\nTestament. Though an angel should come from heaven and work all\nmiracles, yet preach another doctrine, we are to hold him accursed.\n'Gal.' i. 8.\n\n\nIb. s. lxxv. p. 356.\n\n  When Christ was upon the Mount, he gave it for a pattern, &c.\n\nI cannot thoroughly agree with Taylor in all he says on this point. The\nLord's Prayer is an encyclopedia of prayer, and of all moral and\nreligious philosophy under the form of prayer. Besides this, that\nnothing shall be wanting to its perfection, it is itself singly the best\nand most divine of prayers. But had this been the main and primary\npurpose, it must have been thenceforward the only prayer permitted to\nChristians; and surely some distinct references to it would have been\nfound in the Apostolic writings.\n\n\nIb. s. lxxx. p. 358.\n\n  Now then I demand, whether the prayer of Manasses be so good a prayer\n  as the Lord's prayer? Or is the prayer of Judith, or of Tobias, or of\n  Judas Maccabeus, or of the son of Sirach, is any of these so good?\n  Certainly no man will say they are; and the reason is, because we are\n  not sure they are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.\n\n\nHow inconsistent Taylor often is, the result of the system of\neconomizing truth! The true reason is the inverse. The prayers of Judith\nand the rest are not worthy to be compared with the Lord's Prayer;\ntherefore neither is the spirit in which they were conceived worthy to\nbe compared with the spirit from which the Lord's Prayer proceeded: and\ntherefore with all fulness of satisfaction we receive the latter, as\nindeed and in fact our Lord's dictation.\n\nIn all men and in all works of great genius the characteristic fault\nwill be found in the characteristic excellence. Thus in Taylor, fulness,\noverflow, superfluity.\n\nHis arguments are a procession of all the nobles and magnates of the\nland in their grandest, richest, and most splendid 'paraphernalia': but\nthe total impression is weakened by the multitudes of lacqueys and\nragged intruders running in and out between the ranks.\n\nAs far as the Westminster divines were the antagonists to be\nanswered--and with the exception of these, and those who like Baxter,\nCalamy, and Bishop Reynolds, contended for a reformation or correction\nonly of the Church Liturgy, there were none worth answering,--the\nquestion was, not whether the use of one and the same set of prayers on\nall days in all churches was innocent, but whether the exclusive\nimposition of the same was comparatively expedient and conducive to\nedification?\n\nLet us not too severely arraign the judgment or the intentions of the\ngood men who determined for the negative. If indeed we confined\nourselves to the comparison between our Liturgy, and any and all of the\nproposed substitutes for it, we could not hesitate: but those good men,\nin addition to their prejudices, had to compare the lives, the\nconversation, and the religious affections and principles of the\nprelatic and anti-prelatic parties in general.\n\nAnd do not we ourselves now do the like? Are we not, and with abundant\nreason, thankful that Jacobinism is rendered comparatively feeble and\nits deadly venom neutralized, by the profligacy and open irreligion of\nthe majority of its adherents?\n\nAdd the recent cruelties of the Star Chamber under Laud;--(I do not say\nthe intolerance; for that which was common to both parties, must be\nconstrued as an error in both, rather than a crime in either);--and do\nnot forget the one great inconvenience to which the prelatic divines\nwere exposed from the very position which it was the peculiar honor of\nthe Church of England to have taken and maintained, namely, the golden\nmean;--(for in consequence of this their arguments as Churchmen would\noften have the appearance of contrasting with their grounds of\ncontroversy as Protestants,)--and we shall find enough to sanction our\ncharity as brethren, without detracting a tittle from our loyalty as\nmembers of the established Church.\n\nAs to this Apology, the victory doubtless remains with Taylor on the\nwhole; but to have rendered it full and triumphant, it would have been\nnecessary to do what perhaps could not at that time, and by Jeremy\nTaylor, have been done with prudence; namely, not only to disprove in\npart, but likewise in part to explain, the alleged difference of the\nspiritual fruits in the ministerial labors of the high and low party in\nthe Church,--(for remember that at this period both parties were in the\nChurch, even as the Evangelical, Reformed and Pontifical parties before\nthe establishment of a schism by the actually schismatical Council of\nTrent,)--and thus to demonstrate that the differences to the\ndisadvantage of the established Church, as far as they were real, were\nas little attributable to the Liturgy, as the wound in the heel of\nAchilles to the shield and breast-plate which his immortal mother had\nprovided for him from the forge divine.\n\n\nIb. s. lxxxvi. p. 361.\n\n  That the Apostles did use the prayer their Lord taught them, I think\n  needs not much be questioned.\n\n'Ad contra', see above. But that they did not till the siege of\nJerusalem deviate unnecessarily from the established usage of the\nSynagogue is beyond rational doubt. We may therefore safely maintain\nthat a set form was sanctioned by Apostolic practice; though the form\nwas probably settled after the converts from Paganism began to be the\nmajority of Christians.\n\n\nIb. s. lxxxvii. p. 361.\n\n  Now that they tied themselves to recitation of the very words of\n  Christ's prayer 'pro loco et tempore', I am therefore easy to believe,\n  because I find they were strict to a scruple in retaining the\n  sacramental words which Christ spake when he instituted the blessed\n  Sacrament.\n\nNot a case in point. Besides it assumes the controverted sense of\n[Greek: ohut_os] as \"in these words\" 'versus' \"to this purport.\" Grotius\nand Lightfoot, however, have settled this dispute by proving that the\nLord's prayer is a selection of prayers from the Jewish ritual: and a\nmost happy and valuable inference against novelties obtruded for\nnovelty's sake does Grotius draw from this fact.\n\nWhen I consider the manner in which the Jews usually quoted or referred\nto particular passages of Scripture, it does not seem altogether\nimprobable that the several articles of the 'Oratio Dominica' might have\nbeen the initial sentences of several prayers; but I have not the least\ndoubt that by the loud utterance of the 'My God! my God! why hast thou\nforsaken me?' our blessed Redeemer referred to and recalled to John and\nMary that most wonderful and prophetic twenty-second Psalm.\n\nAnd what a glorious light does not this throw on the whole scene of the\ncrucifixion, and in what additional loveliness does it not present the\ngod-like character of the crucified Son of Man!\n\nWith the very facts before them, of which the former and larger portion\nof the Psalm referred to resembles a detailed history rather than a\nprophecy,--with what force, and with what lively consolation and\ninfusion of stedfast hope and faith, when all human grounds of hope had\nsunk from under them, must not the obvious and inevitable inference have\nflashed on the convictions of the holy mother and the beloved disciple!\n\n  \"If all we now behold was pre-ordained and so distinctly predicted; if\n  the one mournful half of the prophecy has been so entirely and\n  minutely fulfilled, after so great a lapse of ages, dare we, can we,\n  doubt for a moment that the glorious remainder will with equal\n  fidelity be accomplished?\"\n\nThus to his very last moments did our Lord (setting as it beseemed the\nsun of righteousness to set) manifest with a wider and wider face of\nglory his self-oblivious love. In the act he was offering, he himself\nwas a sacrifice of love for the whole creation; and yet the cup\noverflowed into particular streams; first, for his enemies, his\npersecutors, and murderers; then for his friends and humanly nearest\nrelative; 'Woman, behold thy son!' O what a transfer!\n\nNor does the proposed interpretation preclude any inward and mysterious\nsense of the words 'My God! my God!'--though I confess I have never yet\nmet with a single plausible resolution of the words into any one of the\nmysteries of the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or the Passion. Nay, were\nthere any necessity for supposing such an allusion, which there is not,\nthe obvious interpretation would, I fear, too dangerously favor the\nheresy of those who divided and severed the divinity from the humanity;\nso that not the incarnate God, very God of very God, would have atoned\nfor us on the cross, but the incarnating man; a heresy which either\ndenies or reduces to an absurdity the whole doctrine of redemption, that\nis, Christianity itself, which rests on the two articles of faith;\nfirst, the necessity, and secondly, the reality of a Redeemer--both\narticles alike incompatible with redemption by a mere man.\n\n\nIb. s. lxxxviii. p. 362.\n\n  And I the rather make the inference from the preceding argument\n  because of the cognation one hath with the other; for the Apostles did\n  also in the consecration of the Eucharist use the Lord's Prayer; and\n  that together with the words of institution was the only form of\n  consecration, saith St. Gregory; and St. Jerome affirms, that the\n  Apostles, by the command of their Lord, used this prayer in the\n  benediction of the elements.\n\nThis section is an instance of impolitic management of a cause, into\nwhich Jeremy Taylor was so often seduced by the fertility of his\nintellect and the opulence of his erudition. An antagonist by exposing\nthe improbability of the tradition, (and most improbable it surely is),\nand the little credit due to Saint Gregory and Saint Jerome (not\nforgetting a Miltonic sneer at their saintship), might draw off the\nattention from the unanswerable parts of Taylor's reasoning and leave an\nimpression of his having been confuted.\n\n\nIb. s. lxxxix. p. 362.\n\n  But besides this, when the Apostles had received great measures of the\n  spirit, and by their gift of prayer composed more forms for the help\n  and comfort of the Church, &c.\n\nWho would not suppose, that the first two lines were an admitted point\nof history, instead of a bare conjecture in the form of a bold\nassertion? O, dearest man! so excellent a cause did not need such\nBellarminisms.\n\n\nIb. p. 363.\n\n  And the Fathers of the Council of Antioch complain against Paulus\n  Samosatenus, 'quod Psalmos et cantus, qui ad Domini nostri Jesu\n  Christi honorem decantari solent, tanquam recentiores, et a viris\n  recentioris memori\u0153 editos, exploserit.'\n\n\nThis Sam-in-satin-hose, or Paul, the same-as-Satan-is, might, I think,\nhave found his confutation in Pliny's Letter to Trajan. 'Carmen Christo,\nquasi Deo, dicere secum invicem.'\n\n\nIb. s. xc. p. 364.\n\n  Which together with the [Greek: t\u00e0 apomnaemone\u00famata t_on proph\u00e1eton],\n  the 'lectionarium' of the Church, the books of the Apostles and\n  Prophets spoken of by Justin Martyr, and said to be used in the\n  Christian congregations, are the constituent parts of liturgy.\n\n\nAn ingenious but not tenable solution of Justin Martyr's [Greek:\napomnaemone\u00famata t_on apost\u00f3l_on] which were presumably a Gospel not the\nsame, and yet so nearly the same, as our Matthew, that its history and\ncharacter involve one of the hardest problems of Christian antiquity. By\nthe by, one cause of the small impression--(small in proportion to their\nvast superiority in knowledge and genius)--which Jeremy Taylor and his\ncompeers made on the religious part of the community by their\ncontroversial writings during the life of Charles I is to be found in\ntheir undue predilection for Patristic learning and authority. This\noriginated in the wish to baffle the Papists at their own weapons; but\nit could not escape notice, that the latter, though regularly beaten,\nwere yet not so beaten, but that they always kept the field: and when\nthe same mode of warfare was employed against the Puritans, it was\nsuspected as Papistical.\n\n\nIb. s. xci. pp. 364-5.\n\n  For the offices of prose we find but small mention of them in the very\n  first time, save only in general terms, and that such there were, and\n  that St. James, St. Mark, St. Peter, and others of the Apostles and\n  Apostolical men, made Liturgies; and if these which we have at this\n  day were not theirs, yet they make probation that these Apostles left\n  others, or else they were impudent people that prefixed their names so\n  early, and the Churches were very incurious to swallow such a bole, if\n  no pretension could have been reasonably made for their justification.\n\nA rash and dangerous argument. 1810.\n\nA many-edged weapon, which might too readily be turned against the\ncommon faith by the common enemy. For if these Liturgies were rightly\nattributed to St. James, St. Mark, St. Peter, and others of the Apostles\nand Apostolical men, how could they have been superseded? How could the\nChurch have excluded them from the Canon?\n\nBut if falsely, and yet for a time and at so early an age generally\nbelieved to have been composed by St. James and the rest, it is to be\nfeared that the difference will not stop at the point to which Paul of\nSamosata carried it;--a fearful consideration for a Christian of the\nGrotian and Paleyan school. It would not, however, shake my nerves, I\nconfess.\n\nThe Epistles of St. Paul, and the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse of\nSt. John, contain an evidence of their authenticity, which no\nuncertainty of ecclesiastic history, no proof of the frequency and\nsuccess of forgery or ornamental titles (as the Wisdom of Solomon)\nmistaken for matter of fact, can wrest from me; and with these for my\nguides and sanctions, what one article of Christian faith could be taken\nfrom me, or even unsettled?\n\nIt seems to me, as it did to Luther, incomparably more probable that the\neloquent treatise, entitled an Epistle to the Hebrews, was written by\nApollos than by Paul; and what though it was written by neither? It is\ndemonstrable that it was composed before the siege of Jerusalem and the\ndestruction of the Temple; and scarcely less satisfactory is the\ninternal evidence that it was composed by an Alexandrian.\n\nThese two 'data' are sufficient to establish the fact, that the Pauline\ndoctrine at large was common to all Christians at that early period, and\ntherefore the faith delivered by Christ. And this is all I want; nor\nthis for my own assurance, but as arming me with irrefragable arguments\nagainst those psilanthropists who as falsely, as arrogantly, call\nthemselves Unitarians, on the one hand; and against the infidel fiction,\nthat Christianity owes its present shape to the genius and rabbinical\n'cabala' of Paul on the other: while at the same time it weakens the\nmore important half of the objection to, or doubt concerning, the\nauthenticity of St. Peter's Epistles.\n\nTo this too I attach a high controversial value (for the beauty and\nexcellence of the Epistles themselves are not affected by the question);\nand I receive them as authentic, for they have all the circumstantial\nevidence that I have any right to expect.\n\nBut I feel how much more genial my conviction would become, should I\ndiscover, or have pointed out to me, any positive internal evidence\nequivalent to that which determines the date of the Epistle to the\nHebrews, or even to that which leaves no doubt on my mind that the\nwriter was an Alexandrian Jew.\n\nThis, my dear Lamb, is one of the advantages which the previous evidence\nsupplied by the reason and the conscience secures for us. We learn what\nin its nature 'passes all understanding', and what belongs to the\nunderstanding, and on which, therefore, the understanding may and ought\nto act freely and fearlessly: while those who will admit nothing above\nthe understanding ([Greek: phr\u00f3naema sark\u00f2s]), which in its nature has\nno legitimate object but history and outward 'phoenomena', stand in\nslavish dread like a child at its house of cards, lest a single card\nremoved may endanger the whole foundationless edifice. 1819.\n\n\nIb. s. xcii. p. 365.\n\nNow here dear Jeremy Taylor begins to be himself again; for with all his\nastonishing complexity, yet versatile agility, of powers, he was too\ngood and of too catholic a spirit to be a good polemic. Hence he so\ncontinually is now breaking, now varying, the thread of the argument:\nand hence he is so again and again forgetting that he is reasoning\nagainst an antagonist, and falls into conversation with him as a\nfriend,--I might almost say, into the literary chit-chat and un with\nholding frankness of a rich genius whose sands are seed-pearl. Of his\ncontroversies, those against Popery are the most powerful, because there\nhe had subtleties and obscure reading to contend against; and his wit,\nacuteness, and omnifarious learning found stuff to work on. Those on\nOriginal Sin are the most eloquent.\n\nBut in all alike it is the digressions, overgrowths, parenthetic 'obiter\net in transitu' sentences, and, above all, his anthropological\nreflections and experiences--(for example, the inimitable account of a\nreligious dispute, from the first collision to the spark, and from the\nspark to the world in flames, in his 'Dissuasive from Popery'),--these\nare the costly gems which glitter, loosely set, on the chain armour of\nhis polemic Pegasus, that expands his wings chiefly to fly off from the\nfield of battle, the stroke of whose hoof the very rock cannot resist,\nbut beneath the stroke of which the opening rock sends forth a\nHippocrene. The work in which all his powers are confluent, in which\ndeep, yet gentle, the full stream of his genius winds onward, and still\nforming peninsulas in its winding course--distinct parts that are only\nnot each a perfect whole--or in less figurative style--(yet what\nlanguage that does not partake of poetic eloquence can convey the\ncharacteristics of a poet and an orator?)--the work which I read with\nmost admiration, but likewise with most apprehension and regret, is the\n'Liberty of Prophesying'.\n\nIf indeed, like some Thessalian drug, or the strong herb of Anticyra,\n\n                             ... that helps and harms,\n  Which life and death have sealed with counter charms--\n\nit could be administered by special prescription, it might do good\nservice as a narcotic for zealotry, or a solvent for bigotry.\n\n\nThe substance of the preceding tract may be comprised as follows:\n\n1. During the period immediately following our Lord's Ascension, or the\nso called Apostolic age, all the gifts of the Spirit, and of course the\ngift of prayer, as graces bestowed, not merely or principally for the\nbenefit of the Apostles and their contemporaries, but likewise and\neminently for the advantage of all after-ages, and as means of\nestablishing the foundations of Christianity, differed in kind, degree,\nmode, and object, from those ordinary graces promised to all true\nbelievers of all times; and possessed a character of extraordinary\npartaking of the nature of miracles, to which no believer under the\npresent and regular dispensations of the Spirit can make pretence\nwithout folly and presumption.\n\n2. Yet it is certain that even the first miraculous gifts and graces\nbestowed on the Apostles themselves supervened on, but did not\nsupersede, their natural faculties and acquired knowledge, nor enable\nthem to dispense with the ordinary means and instruments of cultivating\nthe one, and applying the other, by study, reading, past experience, and\nwhatever else Providence has appointed for all men as the conditions and\nefficients of moral and intellectual progression. The capabilities of\ndeliberating, selecting, and aptly disposing of our thoughts and works\nare God's good gifts to man, which the superadded graces of the Spirit,\nvouchsafed to Christians, work on and with, call forth and perfect.\nTherefore deliberation, selection, and method become duties, inasmuch as\nthey are the bases and recipients of the Spirit, even as the polished\ncrystal is of the light.\n\nBut if the Prophets and Apostles did not (as Taylor demonstrates that\nthey did not) find in miraculous aids any such infusions of light as\nprecluded or rendered superfluous the exertion of their natural\nfaculties and personal attainments, then 'a fortiori' not the possessors\nor legatees of the ordinary graces bequeathed by Christ to his Church as\nthe usufructuary property of all its members; and he who wilfully lays\naside all premeditation, selection, and ordonnance, that he may enter\nunprepared on the highest and most awful function of the soul,--that of\npublic prayer,--is guilty of no less indecency and irreverence than if,\nhaving to present a petition as the representative of a community before\nthe throne, he purposely put off his seemly garments in order to enter\ninto the presence of the monarch naked or in rags: and expects no less\nan absurdity than to become a passive 'automaton', in which the Holy\nSpirit is to play the ventriloquist.\n\n3. If, then, each congregation is to receive a prepared form of prayer\nfrom its head or minister, why not rather from the collective wisdom of\nthe Church represented in the assembled heads and spiritual Fathers?\n\n4. This is admitted by implication by the Westminster Assembly. But they\nare not contented with the existing form, and therefore substitute for\nit a Directory as the fruits of their meditations and counsels. The\nwhole question, then, is now reduced to the comparative merits and\nfitness of the Directory and the book of Common Prayer; and how complete\nthe victory of the latter, how glaring the defects, how many the\ndeficiencies, of the former, Jeremy Taylor evinces unanswerably.\n\nSuch is the substance of this Tract. What the author proposed to prove\nhe has satisfactorily proved.\n\nThe faults of the work are:\n\n1. The intermixture of weak and strong arguments, and the frequent\ninterruption of the stream of his logic by doubtful, trifling, and\nimpolitic interruptions; arguments resting in premisses denied by the\nantagonists, and yet taken for granted; in short, appendages that\ncumber, accessions that subtract, and confirmations that weaken:--\n\n2. That he commences with a proper division of the subject into two\ndistinct branches, that is, extempore prayer as opposed to set forms,\nand, The Directory, as prescribing a form opposed to the existing\nLiturgy; but that in the sequel he blends and confuses and intermingles\none with the other, and presses most and most frequently on the first\npoint, which a vast majority of the party he is opposing had disowned\nand reprobated no less than himself, and which, though easiest to\nconfute, scarcely required confutation.\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE OF THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING, WITH ITS JUST LIMITS AND\nTEMPER.\n\nEpistle Dedicatory, p. cccciii.\n\n  And first I answer, that whatsoever is against the foundation of faith\n  is out of the limits of my question, and does not pretend to\n  compliance or toleration.\n\nBut as all truths hang together, what error is there which may not be\nproved to be against the foundation of faith? An inquisitor might make\nthe same code of toleration, and in the next moment light the faggots\naround a man who had denied the infallibility of Pope and Council.\n\n\nIb. p. ccccxxix.\n\n  Indeed if by a heresy we mean that which is against an article of\n  creed, and breaks part of the covenant made between God and man by the\n  mediation of Jesus Christ, I grant it to be a very grievous crime, a\n  calling God's veracity into question, &c.\n\nHow can he be said to question God's veracity, whose belief is that God\nnever declared it,--who perhaps disbelieves it, because he thinks it\nopposite to God's honor? For example:--Original sin, in the literal\nsense of the article, was held by both Papists and Protestants (with\nexception of the Socinians) as the fundamental article of Christianity;\nand yet our Jeremy Taylor himself attacked and reprobated it. Why?\nbecause he thought it dishonored God. Why may not another man believe\nthe same of the Incarnation, and affirm that it is equal to a circle\nassuming the essence of a square, and yet remaining a circle? But so it\nis; we spoil our cause, because we dare not plead it 'in toto'; and a\nhalf truth serves for a proof of the opposite falsehood. Jeremy Taylor\ndared not carry his argument into all its consequences.\n\n\n\nLIBERTY OF PROPHESYING.\n\nS. i. p. 443.\n\n  Of the nature of faith, and that its duty is completed in believing\n  the articles of the Apostle's creed.\n\nThis section is for the most part as beautifully written as it was\ncharitably conceived; yet how vain the attempt! Jeremy Taylor ought to\nhave denied that Christian faith is at all intellectual primarily, but\nonly probably; as, 'coecteris paribus', it is probable that a man with a\npure heart will believe an intelligent Creator. But the faith resides in\nthe predisposing purity of heart, that is, in the obedience of the will\nto the uncorrupted conscience. For take Taylor's instances; and I ask\nwhether the words or the sense be meant? Surely the latter.\n\nWell then, I understand, and so did the dear Bishop, by these texts the\ndoctrine of a Redeemer, who by his agonies of death actually altered the\nrelations of the spirits of all men to their Maker, redeemed them from\nsin and death eternal, and brought life and immortality into the world.\n\nBut the Socinian uses the same texts; and means only that a good and\ngifted teacher of pure morality died a martyr to his opinions, and by\nhis resurrection proved the possibility of all men rising from the dead.\nHe did nothing;--he only taught and afforded evidence. Can two more\ndiverse opinions be conceived? God here; mere man there. Here a redeemer\nfrom guilt and corruption, and a satisfaction for offended holiness;\nthere a mere declarer that God imputed no guilt wherever, with or\nwithout Christ, the person had repented of it.\n\nWhat could Jeremy Taylor say for the necessity of his sense (which is\nmine) but what might be said for the necessity of the Nicene Creed? And\nthen as to Rom. x. 9, how can the text mean any thing, unless we know\nwhat St. Paul implied in the words 'the Lord Jesus'. From other parts of\nhis writings we know that he meant by the word 'Lord' his divinity or at\nleast essential superhumanity. But the Socinian will not allow this; or,\nallowing it, denies St. Paul's authority in matters of speculative\nfaith. As well then might I say, it is sufficient for you to believe and\nrepeat the words 'forte miles reddens'; and though one of you mean by it\n\"Perhaps I may be balloted for the militia,\" and the other understands\nit to mean, that \"Reading is forty miles from London,\" you are still\nco-symbolists and believers! While a third person may say, I believe,\nbut do not comprehend, the words; that is, I believe that the person who\nfirst used them meant something that is true,--what I do not know; that\nis, I believe his veracity.\n\nO! had this work been published when Charles I, Archbishop Laud, whose\nchaplain Taylor was, and the other Star Chamber inquisitors, were\nsentencing Prynne, Bastwick, Leighton, and others, to punishments that\nhave left a brand-mark on the Church of England, the sophistry might\nhave been forgiven for the sake of the motive, which would then have\nbeen unquestionable. Or if Jeremy Taylor had not in effect retracted\nafter the Restoration;--if he had not, as soon as the Church had gained\nits power, most basely disclaimed and disavowed the principle of\ntoleration, and apologized for the publication by declaring it to have\nbeen a 'ruse de guerre', currying pardon for his past liberalism by\ncharging, and most probably slandering, himself with the guilt of\nfalsehood, treachery, and hypocrisy, his character as a man would at\nleast have been stainless. Alas, alas, most dearly do I love Jeremy\nTaylor; most religiously do I venerate his memory! But this is too foul\na blotch of leprosy to be forgiven. He who pardons such an act in such a\nman partakes of its guilt.\n\n\nIb. s. vii. p. 346-7.\n\n  In the pursuance of this great truth, the Apostles, or the holy men,\n  their contemporaries and disciples, composed a creed to be a rule of\n  faith to all Christians; as appears in Iren\u00e6us, Tertullian, St.\n  Cyprian, St. Austin, Ruffinus, and divers others; which creed, unless\n  it had contained all the entire object of faith, and the foundation of\n  religion, &c.\n\nJeremy Taylor does not appear to have been a critical scholar. His\nreading had been oceanic; but he read rather to bring out the growths of\nhis own fertile and teeming mind than to inform himself respecting the\nproducts of those of other men. Hence his reliance on the broad\nassertions of the Fathers; yet it is strange that he should have been\nignorant that the Apostles' Creed was growing piecemeal for several\ncenturies.\n\n\nIb. p. 447.\n\n  All catechumens in the Latin Church coming to baptism were\n  interrogated concerning their faith, and gave satisfaction on the\n  recitation of this Creed.\n\nI very much doubt this, and rather believe that our present Apostles'\nCreed was no more than the first instruction of the catechumens prior to\nbaptism; and (as I conclude from Eusebius) that at baptism they\nprofessed a more mysterious faith;--the one being the milk, the other\nthe strong meat. Where is the proof that Tertullian was speaking of this\nCreed? Eusebius speaks in as high terms of the 'Symbolum Fidei', and,\ndefending himself against charges of heresy, says, \"Did I not at my\nbaptism, in the 'Symbolum Fidei', declare my belief in Christ as God and\nthe co-eternal Word?\" The true Creed it was impiety to write down; but\nsuch was never the case with the present or initiating Creed. Strange,\ntoo, that Jeremy Taylor, who has in this very work written so divinely\nof tradition, should assume as a certainty that this Creed was in a\nproper sense Apostolic. Is then the Creed of greater authority than the\ninspired Scriptures? And can words in the Creed be more express than\nthose of St. Paul to the Colossians, speaking of Christ as the creative\nmind of his Father, before all worlds, 'begotten before all things\ncreated?'\n\n\nIb. s. x. p. 449.\n\nThis paragraph is indeed a complexion, as Taylor might call it, of\nsophisms. Thus;--unbelief from want of information or capacity, though\nwith the disposition of faith, is confounded with disbelief. The\nquestion is not, whether it may not be safe for a man to believe simply\nthat Christ is his Saviour, but whether it be safe for a man to\ndisbelieve the article in any sense which supposes an essential\nsupra-humanity in Christ,--any sense that would not have been equally\napplicable to John, had God chosen to raise him instead of his cousin?\n\n\nIb. s. xi. p. 450.\n\n  Neither are we obliged to make these Articles more particular and\n  minute than the Creed. For since the Apostles, and indeed our blessed\n  Lord himself, promised heaven to them who believed him to be the\n  Christ that was to come into the world, and that he who believes in\n  him should be partaker of the resurrection and life eternal, he will\n  be as good as his word. Yet because this article was very general, and\n  a complexion rather than a single proposition, the Apostles and others\n  our Fathers in Christ did make it more explicit: and though they have\n  said no more than what lay entire and ready formed in the bosom of the\n  great Article, yet they made their extracts to great purpose and\n  absolute sufficiency; and therefore there needs no more deductions or\n  remoter consequences from the first great Article than the Creed of\n  the Apostles.\n\nMost true; but still the question returns, what was meant by the phrase\n'the' Christ? Contraries cannot both be true. 'The Christ' could not be\nboth mere man and incarnate God. One or the other must believe falsely\non this great key-stone of all the intellectual faith in Christianity.\nFor so it is; alter it, and everything alters; as is proved in\nTrinitarianism and Socinianism. No two religions can be more\ndifferent;--I know of no two equally so.\n\n\nIb. s. xii. p. 451.\n\n  The Church hath power to intend our faith, but not to extend it; to\n  make our belief more evident, but not more large and comprehensive.\n\nThis and the preceding pages are scarcely honest. For Jeremy Taylor\nbegins with admitting that the Creed might have been composed by others.\nHe has no proof of that most absurd fable of the twelve Apostles\nclubbing to make it; yet here all he says assumes its inspiration as a\ncertain fact.\n\n\nIb. p. 454.\n\n  But for the present there is no insecurity in ending there where the\n  Apostles ended, in building where they built, in resting where they\n  left us, unless the same infallibility which they had had still\n  continued, which I think I shall hereafter make evident it did not.\n\n\nWhat a tangle of contradictions Taylor thrusts himself into by the\nattempt to support a true system, a full third of which he was afraid to\nmention, and another third was by the same fear induced to deny--at\nleast to take for granted the contrary: for example, the absolute\nplenary inspiration and infallibility of the Apostles and Evangelists;\nand yet that their whole function, as far as the consciences of their\nfollowers were concerned, was to repeat the two or three sentences, that\n'Jesus was Christ' (so says one of the Evangelists), 'the Christ of God'\n(so says another), 'the Christ the Son of the living God' (so says a\nthird), that he rose from the dead, and for the remission of sins, to as\nmany as believed and professed that he was the Christ or the Lord, and\ndied and rose for the remission of sins. Surely no miraculous\ncommunication of God's infallibility was necessary for this.\n\nBut if this infallibility was stamped on all they said and wrote, is it\ncredible that any part should not be equally binding? I declare I can\nmake nothing out of this section, but that it is necessary for men to\nbelieve the Apostles' Creed; but what they believe by it is of no\nconsequence. For instance; what if I chose to understand by the word\n'dead' a state of trance or suspended animation;--language furnishing\nplenty of analogies--dead in a swoon--dead drunk--and so on;--should I\nstill be a Christian?\n\n'Born of the Virgin Mary.' What if, as Priestley and others, I\ninterpreted it as if we should say, 'the former Miss Vincent was his\nmother.' I need not say that I disagree with Taylor's premisses only\nbecause they are not broad enough, and with his aim and principal\nconclusion only because it does not go far enough. I would have the law\ngrounded wholly in the present life, religion only on the life to come.\nReligion is debased by temporal motives, and law rendered the drudge of\nprejudice and passion by pretending to spiritual aims. But putting this\naside, and judging of this work solely as a chain of reasoning, I seem\nto find one leading error in it; namely, that Taylor takes the condition\nof a first admission into the Church of Christ for the fullness of faith\nwhich was to be gradually there acquired. The simple acknowledgment,\nthat they accepted Christ as their Lord and King was the first lisping\nof the infant believer at which the doors were opened, and he began the\nprocess of growth in the faith.\n\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 457.\n\n\n  The great heresy that troubled them was the doctrine of the necessity\n  of keeping the law of Moses, the necessity of circumcision, against\n  which doctrine they were therefore zealous, because it was a direct\n  overthrow to the very end and excellency of Christ's coming.\n\nThe Jewish converts were still bound to the rite of circumcision, not\nindeed as under the Law, or by the covenant of works, but as the\ndescendants of Abraham, and by that especial covenant which St. Paul\nrightly contends was a covenant of grace and faith. But the heresy\nconsisted wholly in the attempt to impose this obligation on the Gentile\nconverts, in the infatuation of some of the Galatians, who, having no\npretension to be descendants of Abraham, could, as the Apostle urges,\nonly adopt the rite as binding themselves under the law of works, and\nthereby apostatizing from the covenant of faith by free grace. And this\nwas the decision of the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem. Acts' xv.\nRhenferd, in his Treatise on the Ebionites and other pretended heretics\nin Palestine, so grossly and so ignorantly calumniated by Epiphanius,\nhas written excellently well on this subject. Jeremy Taylor is mistaken\nthroughout.\n\n\nIb. s. iv. p. 459.\n\n\n  And so it was in this great question of circumcision.\n\nIt is really wonderful that a man like Bishop Taylor could have read the\nNew Testament, and have entertained a doubt as to the decided opinion of\nall the Apostles, that every born Jew was bound to be circumcised.\nOpinion? The very doubt never suggested itself. When something like this\nopinion was slanderously attributed to Paul, observe the almost\nostentatious practical contradiction of the calumny which was adopted by\nhim at the request and by the advice of the other Apostles. ('Acts',\nxxi. 21-26.) The rite of circumcision, I say, was binding on all the\ndescendants of Abraham through Isaac for all time even to the end of the\nworld; but the whole law of Moses was binding on the Jewish Christians\ntill the heaven and the earth--that is, the Jewish priesthood and the\nstate--had passed away in the destruction of the temple and city; and\nthe Apostles observed every tittle of the Law.\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 460.\n\n  The heresy of the Nicolaitans.\n\nHeresy is not a proper term for a plainly anti-Christian sect.\nNicolaitans is the literal Greek translation of Balaamites; destroyers\nof the people. 'Rev'. ii. 14, 15.\n\n\nIb. s. viii. p. 461.\n\n  For heresy is not an error of the understanding, but an error of the\n  will.\n\n\nMost excellent. To this Taylor should have adhered, and to its converse.\nFaith is not an accuracy of logic, but a rectitude of heart.\n\n\nIb. p. 462.\n\n  It was the heresy of the Gnostics, that it was no matter how men\n  lived, so they did but believe aright.\n\nI regard the extinction of all the writings of the Gnostics among the\nheaviest losses of Ecclesiastical literature. We have only the account\nof their inveterate enemies. Individual madmen there have been in all\nages, but I do not believe that any sect of Gnostics ever held this\nopinion in the sense here supposed.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  And, indeed, if we remember that St. Paul reckons heresy amongst the\n  works of the flesh, and ranks it with all manner of practical\n  impieties, we shall easily perceive that if a man mingles not a vice\n  with his opinion,--if he be innocent in his life, though deceived in\n  his doctrine,--his error is his misery not his crime; it makes him an\n  argument of weakness and an object of pity, but not a person sealed up\n  to ruin and reprobation.\n\n\nO admirable! How could Taylor, after this, preach and publish his Sermon\nin defence of persecution, at least against toleration!\n\n\nIb. s. xxii. p. 479.\n\n  Ebion, Manes.\n\n\nNo such man as Ebion ever, as I can see, existed; [3] and Manes is\nrather a doubtful 'ens'.\n\n\nIb. s. xxxi. p. 487.\n\n  But I shall observe this, that although the Nicene Fathers in that\n  case, at that time, and in that conjuncture of circumstances, did\n  well, &c.\n\nWhat Bull and Waterland have urged in defence of the Nicene Fathers is\n(like every thing else from such men) most worthy of all attention. They\ncontend that no other term but [Greek: homoous\u00eda] could secure the\nChristian faith against both the two contrary errors, Tritheism with\nsubversion of the unity of the Godhead on the one hand, and\ncreature-worship on the other. For, to use Waterland's mode of argument,\n[4] either Eusebius of Nicomedia with the four other dissenters at Nice\nwere right or wrong in their assertion, that Christ could not be of the\n[Greek: ous\u00eda] of the self-originated First by derivation, as a son from\na father:--if they were right, they either must have discovered some\nthird distinct and intelligible form of origination in addition to\n'begotten' and 'created', or they had not and could not. Now the latter\nwas notoriously the fact. Therefore to deny the [Greek: homoous\u00eda] was\nimplicitly to deny the generation of the second Person, and thus to\nassert his creation. But if he was a creature, he could not be adorable\nwithout idolatry. Nor did the chain of inevitable consequences stop\nhere. His characteristic functions of Redeemer, Mediator, King, and\nfinal Judge, must all cease to be attributable to Christ; and the\nconclusion is, that between the Homoousian scheme and mere\nPsilanthropism there is no intelligible 'medium'. If this, then, be not\na fundamental article of faith, what can be?\n\nTo this reasoning I really can discern no fair reply within the sphere\nof conceptual logic, if it can be made evident that the term [Greek:\nhomoo\u00fasios] is really capable of achieving the end here set forth. One\nobjection to the term is, that it was not translatable into the language\nof the Western Church. Consubstantial is not the translation:\n'substantia' answers to [Greek: hyp\u00f3stasis], not to [Greek: ous\u00eda]; and\nhence, when [Greek: hyp\u00f3stasis] was used by the Nicene Fathers in\ndistinction from [Greek: ous\u00eda], the Latin Church was obliged to render\nit by some other word, and thus introduced that most unhappy and\nimproper term 'persona'. Would you know my own inward judgment on this\nquestion, it is this: first, that this pregnant idea, the root and form\nof all ideas, is not within the sphere of conceptual logic,--that is, of\nthe understanding,--and is therefore of necessity inexpressible; for no\nidea can be adequately represented in words:--secondly, that I agree\nwith Bull and Waterland against Bishop Taylor, that there was need of a\npublic and solemn decision on this point:--but, lastly, that I am more\nthan doubtful respecting the fitness or expediency of the term [Greek:\nhomoo\u00fasios], and hold that the decision ought to have been negative. For\nat first all parties agreed in the positive point, namely, that Christ\nwas the Son of God, and that the Son of God was truly God, \"or very God\nof very God.\" All that was necessary to be added was, that the only\nbegotten Son of God was not created nor begotten in time. More than this\nmight be possible, and subject of insight; but it was not determinable\nby words, and was therefore to be left among the rewards of the Spirit\nto the pure in heart in inward vision and silent contemplation.\n\n\nIb. s. xl. p. 495.\n\nAll that is necessary to give a full and satistory import to this\nexcellent paragraph, and to secure it from all inconvenient\nconsequences, is to understand the distinction between the objective and\ngeneral revelation, by which the whole Church is walled around and kept\ntogether ('principium totalitatis et coh\u00e6sionis'), and the subjective\nrevelation, the light from the life ('John' i. 4.), by which the\nindividual believers, each according to the grace given, grow in faith.\nFor the former, the Apostles' Creed, in its present form, is more than\nenough; for the latter, it might be truly said in the words of the\nfourth Gospel, that all the books which the world could contain would\nnot suffice to set forth explicitly that mystery in which all treasures\nof knowledge are hidden, 'reconduntur'.\n\nFrom the Apostles' Creed, nevertheless, if regarded in the former point\nof view, several clauses must be struck out, not as false, but as not\nnecessary. \"I believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified under\nPontius Pilate, rose from the dead on the third day; and I receive him\nas the Christ, the Son of the living God, who died for the remission of\nthe sins of as many as believe in the Father through him, in whom we\nhave the promise of life everlasting.\" This is the sufficient creed.\nMore than this belongs to the Catechism, and then to the study of the\nScriptures.\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 506.\n\n  So did the ancient Papias understand Christ's millenary reign upon\n  earth, and so depressed the hopes of Christianity and their desires to\n  the longing and expectation of temporal pleasures and satisfactions.\n  And he was followed by Justin Martyr, Iren\u00e6us, Tertullian, Lactantius,\n  and indeed, the whole Church generally, till St. Austin and St.\n  Jerome's time, who, first of any whose works are extant, did reprove\n  the error.\n\nBishop Taylor is, I think, mistaken in two points; first, that the\nCatholic Millenaries looked forward to carnal pleasures in the kingdom\nof Christ;--for even the Jewish Rabbis of any note represented the\n'Millenium' as the preparative and transitional state to perfect\nspiritualization:--second, that the doctrine of Christ's reign upon\nearth rested wholly or principally on the twentieth chapter of the\nRevelations, which actually, in my judgment, opposes it.\n\nI more than suspect that Austin's and Jerome's strongest ground for\nrejecting the second coming of our Lord in his kingly character, was,\nthat they were tired of waiting for it. How can we otherwise interpret\nthe third and fourth clauses of the Lord's Prayer, or, perhaps, the\n[Greek: en toi kairoi to\u00fatoi], 'in hoc seculo', (x. 30) of St. Mark? If\nthe first three Gospels, joined with the unbroken faith and tradition of\nthe Church for nearly three centuries, can decide the question, the\nMillenarians have the best of the argument.\n\n\nVol. viii. s. ix. p. 22.\n\n  One thing only I observe (and we shall find it true in most writings,\n  whose authority is urged in questions of theology), that the authority\n  of the tradition is not it which moves the assent, but the nature of\n  the thing; and because such a canon is delivered, they do not\n  therefore believe the sanction or proposition so delivered, but\n  disbelieve the tradition if they do not like the matter, and so do not\n  judge of the matter by the tradition, but of the tradition by the\n  matter.\n\nThis just and acute remark is, in fact, no less applicable to Scripture\nin all doctrinal points, and if infidelity is not to overspread England\nas well as France, the same criterion (that is, the internal evidence)\nmust be extended to all points, to the narratives no less than to the\nprecept. The written words must be tried by the Word from the beginning,\nin which is life, and that life the light of men. Reduce it to the\nnoetic pentad, or universal form of contemplation, except where all the\nterms are absolute, and consequently there is no 'punctum indifferens,--in\ndivinis tetras, in omnibus aliis pentas,' and the form stands thus.\n[5]\n\n\nIb. s. iii. p. 36.\n\n  So that it cannot make it divine and necessary to be heartily\n  believed. It may make it lawful, not make it true; that is, it may\n  possibly, by such means, become a law, but not a truth.\n\nThis is a sophism which so evident a truth did not need. Apply the\nreasoning to an act of Parliament previously to the royal sanction. Will\nit hold good to say, if it was law after the sanction, it was law\nbefore? The assertion of the Papal theologians is, that the divine\nprovidence may possibly permit even the majority of a legally convened\nCouncil to err; but by force of a divine promise cannot permit both a\nmajority and the Pope to err on the same point. The flaw in this is,\nthat the Romish divines rely on a conditional promise unconditionally.\nTo Taylor's next argument the Romish respondent would say, that an\nexception, grounded on a specific evident necessity, does not invalidate\nthe rule in the absence of any equally evident necessity.\n\nTaylor's argument is a [Greek: met\u00e1basis eis allo g\u00e9nos]. It is not the\ntruth, but the sign or mark, by which the Church at large may know that\nit is truth, which is here provided for; that is, not the truth simply,\nbut the obligation of receiving it as such. Ten thousand may apprehend\nthe latter, only ten of whom might be capable of determining the former.\n\n\nIb. 5.\n\n  So that now (that we may apply this) there are seven general Councils,\n  which by the Church of Rome are condemned of error ... The council of\n  Ariminum, consisting of six hundred Bishops.\n\nIt is the mark of a faction that it never hesitates to sacrifice a\ngreater good common to them and to their opponents to a lesser advantage\nobtained over those opponents. Never was there a stranger instance of\nimprudence, at least, than the act of the Athanasian party in condemning\nso roundly the great Council of Ariminum as heretical, and for little\nmore than the charitable wish of the many hundred Bishops there\nassembled to avoid a word that had set all Christendom by the ears. They\ndeclared that [Greek: ho ag\u00e9nnaetos pat\u00e0er, ka\u00ec ho achron_os gennaet\u00f2s\nuhi\u00f2s, ka\u00ec t\u00f2 pneuma ekporeu\u00f3menon] were substantially (hypostatik_os)\ndistinct, but nevertheless, one God; and though there might be some\nincautious phrases used by them, the good Bishops declared that if their\ndecree was indeed Arian, or introduced aught to the derogation of the\nSon's absolute divinity, it was against their knowledge and intention,\nand that they renounced it.\n\n\nIb. s. x. p. 46.\n\n  Gratian says, that the Council means by a concubine a wife married\n  'sine dote et solennitate'; but this is daubing with untempered\n  mortar.\n\nHere I think Taylor wrong and Gratian right; for not a hundred years ago\nthe very same decree was passed by the Lutheran clergy in Prussia,\ndetermining that left-hand marriages were to be discouraged, but did not\nexclude from communion. These marriages were invented for the sake of\npoor nobles: they could have but that one wife, and the children\nfollowed the rank and title of the mother, not of the father.\n\n\nIb. s. vii. p. 56.\n\n  Thirdly; for 'pasce oves', there is little in that allegation besides\n  the boldness of the objectors.\n\nI have ever thought that the derivation of the Papal monarchy from the\nthrice repeated command, 'pasce oves', the most brazen of all the Pope's\nbulls. It was because Peter had given too good proof that he was more\ndisposed to draw the sword for Christ than to perform the humble duties\nof a shepherd, that our Lord here strongly, though tenderly, reminds him\nof his besetting temptation. The words are most manifestly a reproof and\na warning, not a commission. In like manner the very letter of the\nfamous paronomastic text proves that Peter's confession, not Peter\nhimself, was the rock. His name was, perhaps, not so much stone as\nstoner; not so much rock as rockman; and Jesus hearing this unexpected\nconfession of his mysterious Sonship (for this is one of the very few\ncases in which the internal evidence decides for the superior fidelity\nof the first Gospel), and recognizing in it an immediate revelation from\nheaven, exclaims, \"Well, art thou the man of the rock; 'and upon this\nrock will I build my church,'\" not on this man. Add too, that the law\nrevealed to Moses and the confession of the divine attributes, are named\nthe rock, both in the Pentateuch and in the Psalms.\n\nMark has simply, 'Thou art the Christ'; Luke, 'The Christ of God'; [6]\nbut that Jesus was the Messiah had long been known by the Apostles, at\nall events conjectured. Had not John so declared him at the baptism?\nBesides, it was included among the opinions concerning our Lord which\nled to his question, the aim of which was not simply as to the\nMessiahship, but that the Messiah, instead of a mere descendant of\nDavid, destined to reestablish and possess David's throne, was the\nJehovah himself, 'the Son of the living God; God manifested in the\nflesh'. 1 'Tim'. iii. 16.\n\n\nIb. s. viii. p. 62.\n\n  And yet again, another degree of uncertainty is, to whom the Bishops\n  of Rome do succeed. For St. Paul was as much Bishop of Rome as St.\n  Peter was; there he presided, there he preached, and he it was that\n  was the doctor of the uncircumcision and of the Gentiles, St. Peter of\n  the circumcision and of the Jews only; and therefore the converted\n  Jews at Rome might with better reason claim the privilege of St.\n  Peter, than the Romans and the Churches in her communion, who do not\n  derive from Jewish parents.\n\nI wonder that Taylor should have introduced so very strong an argument\nmerely 'obiter'. If St. Peter ever was at Rome, it must have been for\nthe Jewish converts or _convertendi_ exclusively, and on what do the\nearliest Fathers rest the fact of Peter's being at Rome? Do they appeal\nto any document? No; but to their own arbitrary and most improbable\ninterpretation of the word Babylon in St. Peter's first epistle. [7] I\nam too deeply impressed with the general difficulty arising out of the\nstrange eclipse of all historic documents, of all particular events,\nfrom the arrival of St. Paul at Rome as related by St. Luke and the time\nwhen Justin Martyr begins to shed a scanty light, to press any\nparticular instance of it. Yet, if Peter really did arrive at Rome, and\nwas among those destroyed by Nero, it is strange that the Bishop and\nChurch of Rome should have preserved no record of the particulars.\n\n\nIb. s. xv. p. 71.\n\n  But what shall we think of that decretal of Gregory the Third, who\n  wrote to Boniface his legate in Germany, 'quod illi, quorum uxores\n  infirmitate aliqua morbida debitum reddere noluerunt, aliis poterant\n  nubere.'\n\n\nSupposing the 'noluerunt' to mean 'nequeunt', or at least any state of\nmind and feeling that does not exclude moral attachment, I, as a\nProtestant, abominate this decree of Gregory III; for I place the moral,\nsocial, and spiritual helps and comforts as the proper and essential\nends of Christian marriage, and regard the begetting of children as a\ncontingent consequence. But on the contrary tenet of the Romish Church,\nI do not see how Gregory could consistently decree otherwise.\n\n\nIb. s. iii. p. 82.\n\n  Nor that Origen taught the pains of hell not to have an eternal\n  duration.\n\nAnd yet there can be no doubt that Taylor himself held with Origen on\nthis point. But, 'non licebat dogmatizare oppositum, quia determinatum\nfuerat.'\n\n\nIb. p. 84.\n\n  And except it be in the Apostles' Creed and articles of such nature,\n  there is nothing which may with any color be called a consent, much\n  less tradition universal.\n\nIt may be well to remember, whenever Taylor speaks of the Apostles'\nCreed, that Pearson's work on that Creed was not then published. Nothing\nis more suspicious than copies of creeds in the early Fathers; it was so\nnotoriously the custom of the transcribers to make them square with\nthose in use in their own time.\n\n\nIb. s. iv.\n\n  Such as makes no invasion upon their great reputation, which I desire\n  should be preserved as sacred as it ought.\n\nThe vision of the mitre dawned on Taylor; and his recollection of Laud\ncame to the assistance of the Fathers; of many of whom in his heart\nTaylor, I think, entertained a very mean opinion. How could such a man\ndo otherwise? I could forgive them their nonsense and even their\neconomical falsehoods; but their insatiable appetite for making\nheresies, and thus occasioning the neglect or destruction of so many\nvaluable works, Origen's for instance, this I cannot forgive or forget.\n\n\nIb. s. i. p. 88.\n\n  Of the incompetency of the Church, in its diffusive capacity, to be\n  judge of controversies; and the impertinency of that pretence of the\n  Spirit.\n\nNow here begin my serious differences with Jeremy Taylor, which may be\ncharacterized in one sentence; ideas 'versus' conceptions and images. I\ncontend that the Church in the Christian sense is an idea;--not\ntherefore a chimera, or a fancy, but a real being and a most powerful\nreality. Suppose the present state of science in this country, with this\nonly difference that the Royal and other scientific societies were not\nfounded: might I not speak of a scientific public, and its influence on\nthe community at large? Or should I be talking of a chimera, a shadow,\nor a non-entity? Or when we speak with honest pride of the public spirit\nof this country as the power which supported the nation through the\ngigantic conflict with France, do we speak of nothing, because we cannot\nsay,--\"It is in this place or in that catalogue of names?\" At the same\ntime I most readily admit that no rule can be grounded formally on the\nsupposed assent of this ideal Church, the members of which are recorded\nonly in the book of life at any one moment. In Taylor's use and\napplication of the term, Church, the visible Christendom, and in reply\nto the Romish divines, his arguments are irrefragable.\n\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 93,\n\n  So that if they read, study, pray, search records, and use all the\n  means of art and industry in the pursuit of truth, it is not with a\n  resolution to follow that which shall seem truth to them, but to\n  confirm what before they did believe.\n\n\nAlas, if Protestant and Papist were named by individuals answering or\nnot answering to this description, what a vast accession would not the\nPope's muster-roll receive! In the instance of the Council of Trent, the\niniquity of the Emperor and the Kings of France and Spain consisted in\ntheir knowledge that the assembly at Trent had no pretence to be a\ngeneral Council, that is, a body representative of the Catholic or even\nof the Latin Church. It may be, and in fact it is, very questionable\nwhether any Council, however large and fairly chosen, is not an\nabsurdity except under the universal faith that the Holy Ghost\nmiraculously dictates all the decrees: and this is irrational, where the\nsame superseding Spirit does not afford evidence of its presence by\nproducing unanimity. I know nothing, if I may so say, more ludicrous\nthan the supposition of the Holy Ghost contenting himself with a\nmajority, in questions respecting faith, or decrees binding men to\ninward belief, which again binds a Christian to outward profession.\nMatters of discipline and ceremony, having peace and temporal order for\ntheir objects, are proper enough for a Council; but these do not need\nany miraculous interference. Still if any Council is admitted in matters\nof doctrine, those who have appealed to it must abide by the\ndetermination of the majority, however they might prefer the opinion of\nthe minority, just as in acts of Parliament.\n\n\nIb. s. xi. p. 98.\n\n  Of some causes of error in the exercise of reason, which are inculpate\n  in themselves.\n\nIt is a lamentable misuse of the term, reason,--thus to call by that\nname the mere faculty of guessing and babbling. The making reason a\nfaculty, instead of a light, and using the term as a mere synonyme of\nthe understanding, and the consequent ignorance of the true nature of\nideas, and that none but ideas are objects of faith--are the grounds of\nall Jeremy Taylor's important errors.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  But men may understand what they please, especially when they are to\n  expound oracles.\n\nIf this sentence had occurred in Hume or Voltaire!\n\n\nIb. s. iii. p. 103.\n\n  And then if ever truth be afflicted, she shall also be destroyed.\n\n\nHere and in many other passages of his other works Jeremy Taylor very\nunfairly states this argument of the anti-prelatic party. It was not\nthat the Church of England was afflicted (the Puritans themselves had\nbeen much more afflicted by the prelates); but that having appealed to\nthe decision of the sword, the cause was determined against it. But in\nfact it is false that the Puritans ever did argue as Taylor represents\nthem. Laud and his confederates had begun by incarcerating, scourging,\nand inhumanly mutilating their fellow Christians for not acceding to\ntheir fancies, and proceeded to goad and drive the King to levy or at\nleast maintain war against his Parliament: and the Parliamentary party\nvery naturally cited their defeat and the overthrow of the prelacy as a\njudgment on their blood-thirstiness, not as a proof of their error in\nquestions of theology.\n\n\nIb. s. iv. p. 105.\n\n  All that I shall say, &c. 'ad finem'.\n\nAn admirable paragraph. Taylor is never more himself, never appears\ngreater, or wiser, than when he enters on this topic, namely, the many\nand various causes beside truth which occasion men to hold an opinion\nfor truth.\n\n\nIb. s. vii. p. 111.\n\n  Of such men as these it was said by St. Austin: 'C\u00e6teram turbam non\n  intelligendi vivacitas, sed credendi simplicitas tutissimam facit.'\n\n\nSuch charity is indeed notable policy: salvation made easy for the\nbenefit of obedient dupes.\n\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 119.\n\n  I deny not but certain and known idolatry, or any other sort of\n  practical impiety with its principiant doctrine, may be punished\n  corporally, because it is no other but matter of fact.\n\n\nIn the Jewish theocracy, I admit; because the fact of idolatry was a\ncrime, namely, 'crimen l\u00e6s\u00e6 majestatis', an overt act subversive of the\nfundamental law of the state, and breaking asunder the 'vinculum et\ncopulam unitatis et coh\u00e6sionis'. But in making the position general,\nTaylor commits the 'sophisma omissi essentialis'; he omits the essential\nof the predicate, namely, criminal;--not its being a fact rendering it\npunishable, but its being a criminal fact.\n\nIb. s. iii.\n\nOh that this great and good man, who saw and has expressed so large a\nportion of the truth,--(if by the Creed I might understand the true\nApostles', that is, the Baptismal Creed, free from the additions of the\nfirst five centuries, I might indeed say the whole truth),--had but\nbrought it back to the great original end and purpose of historical\nChristianity, and of the Church visible, as its exponent, not as a\n'hortus siccus' of past revelations,--but an ever enlarging inclosed\n'area' of the opportunity of individual conversion to, and reception of,\nthe spirit of truth! Then, instead of using this one truth to inspire a\ndespair of all truth, a reckless scepticism within, and a boundless\ncompliance without, he would have directed the believer to seek for\nlight where there was a certainty of finding it, as far as it was\nprofitable for him, that is, as far as it actually was light for him.\nThe visible Church would be a walled Academy, a pleasure garden, in\nwhich the intrants having presented their 'symbolum portae', or\nadmission-contract, walk at large, each seeking private audience of the\ninvisible teacher,--alone now, now in groups,--meditating or\nconversing,--gladly listening to some elder disciple, through whom (as\nascertained by his intelligibility to me) I feel that the common Master\nis speaking to me,--or lovingly communing with a class-fellow, who, I\nhave discovered, has received the same lesson from the inward teaching\nwith myself,--while the only public concerns in which all, as a common\nweal, exercised control and vigilance over each, are order, peace,\nmutual courtesy and reverence, kindness, charity, love, and the fealty\nand devotion of all and each to the common Master and Benefactor!\n\n\nIb. s. viii. p. 124.\n\nIt is characteristic of the man and the age, Taylor's high-strained\nreverential epithets to the names of the Fathers, and as rare and naked\nmention of Luther, Melancthon, Calvin--the least of whom was not\ninferior to St. Augustin, and worth a brigade of the Cyprians,\nFirmilians, and the like. And observe, always 'Saint' Cyprian!\n\n\nIb. s. xii. p. 128-9.\n\nGibbon's enumeration of the causes, not miraculous, of the spread of\nChristianity during the first three centuries is far from complete.\nThis, however, is not the greatest defect of this celebrated chapter.\nThe proportions of importance are not truly assigned; nay, the most\neffective causes are only not omitted--mentioned, indeed, but 'quasi in\ntransitu', not developed or distinctly brought out: for example, the\nzealous despotism of the C\u00e6sars, with the consequent exclusion of men of\nall ranks from the great interests of the public weal, otherwise than as\nservile instruments; in short, the direct contrary of that state and\ncharacter of men's minds, feelings, hopes and fancies, which elections,\nParliaments, Parliamentary reports, and newspapers produce in England;\nand this extinction of patriotism aided by the melting down of states\nand nations in the one vast yet heterogeneous Empire;--the number and\nvariety of the parts acting only to make each insignificant in its own\neyes, and yet sufficient to preclude all living interest in the peculiar\ninstitutions and religious forms of Rome; which beginning in a petty\ndistrict, had, no less than the Greek republics, its mythology and\n[Greek: thraeskeia] intimately connected with localities and local\nevents. The mere habit of staring or laughing at nine religions must\nnecessarily end in laughing at the tenth, that is, the religion of the\nman's own birth-place. The first of these causes, that is, the\ndetachment of all love and hope from the things of the visible world,\nand from temporal objects not merely selfish, must have produced in\nthousands a tendency to, and a craving after, an internal religion,\nwhile the latter occasioned an absolute necessity of a mundane as\nopposed to a national or local religion. I am far from denying or\ndoubting the influence of the excellence of the Christian faith in the\npropagation of the Christian Church or the power of its evidences; but\nstill I am persuaded that the necessity of some religion, and the\nuntenable nature and obsolete superannuated character of all the others,\noccasioned the conversion of the largest though not the worthiest part\nof the new-made Christians. Here, though exploded in physics, we have\nrecourse to the 'horror vacui' as an efficient cause. This view of the\nsubject can offend or startle those only who, in their passion for\nwonderment, virtually exclude the agency of Providence from any share in\nthe realizing of its own benignant scheme; as if the disposition of\nevents by which the whole world of human history, from north and south,\neast and west, directed their march to one central point, the\nestablishment of Christendom, were not the most stupendous of miracles!\nIt is a yet sadder consideration, that the same men who can find God's\npresence and agency only in sensuous miracles, wholly misconceive the\ncharacteristic purpose and proper objects of historic Christianity and\nof the outward and visible Church, of which historic Christianity is the\nground and the indispensable condition; but this is a subject delicate\nand dangerous, at all events requiring a less scanty space than the\nmargins of these honestly printed pages.\n\n\nIb. s. iv. p. 133.\n\n  The death of Ananias and Sapphira, and the blindness of Elymas the\n  sorcerer, amount not to this, for they were miraculous inflictions.\n\nOne great difficulty respecting, not the historic truth (of which there\ncan be no rational doubt), but the miraculous nature, of the sudden\ndeaths of Ananias and Sapphira is derived from the measure which gave\noccasion to it, namely, the sale of their property by the new converts\nof Palestine, in order to establish that community of goods, which,\naccording to a Rabbinical tradition, existed before the Deluge, and was\nto be restored by the children of Seth (one of the names which the\nJewish Christians assumed) before the coming of the Son of Man. Now this\nwas a very gross and carnal, not to say fanatical, misunderstanding of\nour Lord's words, and had the effect of reducing the Churches of the\nCircumcision to beggary, and of making them an unnecessary burthen on\nthe new Churches in Greece and elsewhere. See Rhenferd as to this.\n\nThe fact of Elymas, however, concludes the miraculous nature of the\ndeaths of Ananias and Sapphira, which, taken of themselves, would indeed\nhave always been supposed, but could scarcely have been proved, the\nresult of a miraculous or superhuman power. There are for me, I confess,\ngreat difficulties in this incident, especially when it is compared with\nour Lord's reply to the Apostles' proposal of calling down fire from\nheaven. 'The Son of Man is not come to destroy', &c. At all events it is\na subject that demands and deserves deep consideration.\n\n\nIb. s. i. p. 141.\n\n  The religion of Jesus Christ is 'the form of sound doctrine and\n  wholesome words', which is set down in Scripture indefinitely,\n  actually conveyed to us by plain places, and separated as for the\n  question of necessary or not necessary by the Symbol of the Apostles.\n\nI cannot refrain from again expressing my surprise at the frequency and\nthe undoubting positiveness of this assertion in so great a scholar, so\nprofound a Patrician, as Jeremy Taylor was. He appears 'bona fide' to\nhave believed the absurd fable of this Creed having been a pic-nic to\nwhich each of the twelve Apostles contributed his 'symbolum'. Had Jeremy\nTaylor taken it for granted so completely and at so early an age, that\nhe read without attending to the various passages in the Fathers and\necclesiastical historians, which shew the gradual formation of this\nCreed? It is certainly possible, and I see no other solution of the\nproblem.\n\n\nIb. s. ix. p. 153.\n\n'Judge not, that ye be not judged'. The dread of these words is, I fear,\nmore influential on my spirit than either the duty of charity or my\nsense of Taylor's high merits, in enabling me to struggle against the\nstrong inclination to pass the sentence of dishonesty on the reasoning\nin this paragraph. Had I met the passage in Richard Baxter or in Bishop\nHall, it would have made no such unfavourable impression. But Taylor was\nso acute a logician, and had made himself so completely master of the\nsubject, that it is hard to conceive him blind to sophistry so glaring.\nI am myself friendly to Infant Baptism, but for that reason feel more\nimpatience of any unfairness in its defenders.\n\n\nIb. Ad. iii. and xiii. p. 178.\n\n  But then, that God is not as much before hand with Christian as with\n  Jewish infants is a thing which can never be believed by them who\n  understand that in the Gospel God opened all his treasures of mercies,\n  and unsealed the fountain itself; whereas, before, he poured forth\n  only rivulets of mercy and comfort.\n\nThis is mere sophistry; and I doubt whether Taylor himself believed it a\nsufficient reply to his own argument. There is no doubt that the primary\npurpose of Circumcision was to peculiarize the Jews by an indelible\nvisible sign; and it was as necessary that Jewish infants should be\nknown to be Jews as Jewish men. Then humanity and mere safety determined\nthat the bloody rite should be performed in earliest infancy, as soon as\nthe babe might be supposed to have gotten over the fever of his birth.\nThis is clear; for women had no correspondent rite, but the same result\nwas obtained by the various severe laws concerning their marriage with\naliens and other actions.\n\n\nIb. p. 180.\n\n  And as those persons who could not be circumcised (I mean the\n  females), yet were baptized, as is notorious in the Jews' books and\n  story.\n\nYes, but by no command of God, but only their own fancies.\n\n\nIb. Ad. iv. p. 181.\n\n  'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,\n  shall not enter therein': receive it as a little child receives it,\n  that is, with innocence, and without any let or hinderance.\n\nIs it not evident that Christ here converted negatives into positives?\nAs a babe is without malice negatively, so you must be positively and by\nactuation, that is, full of love and meekness; as the babe is\nunresisting, so must you be docile, and so on.\n\n\nIb. Ad. v.\n\nAnd yet, notwithstanding this terrible paragraph, Taylor believed that\ninfants were not a whit the worse off for not being baptized. Strange\ncontradiction! They are born in sin, and Baptism is the only way of\ndeliverance; and yet it is not. For the infant is 'de se' of the kingdom\nof heaven. Christ blessed them, not in order to make them so, but\nbecause they already were so. So that this argument seems more than all\nothers demonstrative for the Anabaptist, and to prove that Baptism\nderives all its force if it be celestial magic, or all its meaning if it\nbe only a sacrament and symbol, from the presumption of actual sin in\nthe person baptized.\n\n\nIb. Ad. xv. p. 186.\n\n  And he that hath without difference commanded that all nations should\n  be baptized, hath without difference commanded all sorts of persons.\n\nEven so our Lord commanded all men to repent, did he therefore include\nbabes of a month old? [8] Yes, when they became capable of repentance.\nAnd even so babes are included in the general command of Baptism, that\nis, as soon as they are baptizable. But Baptism supposed both repentance\nand a promise; babes are not capable of either, and therefore not of\nBaptism. For the physical element was surely only the sign and seal of a\npromise by a counter promise and covenant. The rite of Circumcision is\nwholly inapplicable; for there a covenant was between Abraham and God,\nnot between God and the infant. \"Do so and so to all your male children,\nand I will favor them. Mark them before the world as a peculiar and\nseparate race, and I will then consider them as my chosen people.\" But\nBaptism is personal, and the baptized a subject not an object; not a\nthing, but a person; that is, having reason, or actually and not merely\npotentially. Besides, Jeremy Taylor was too sound a student of Erasmus\nand Grotius not to know the danger of screwing up St. Paul's\naccommodations of Jewish rites, meant doubtless as inducements of\nrhetoric and innocent compliances with innocent and invincible\nprejudices, into articles of faith. The conclusions are always true; but\nall the arguments are not and were never intended to be reducible into\nsyllogisms demonstrative.\n\n\nIb. Ad. xviii. p. 191.\n\n  But let us hear the answer. First, it is said, that Baptism and the\n  Spirit signify the same thing; for by water is meant the effect of the\n  Spirit.\n\nBy the 'effect,' the Anabaptist clearly means the 'causa causans', the\n'act of the Spirit.' As well might Taylor say that a thought is not\nthinking, because it is the effect of thinking. Had Taylor been right,\nthe water to be an apt sign ought to have been dirty water; for that\nwould be the 'res effecta'. But it is pure water, therefore 'res agens'.\n\n\nIb. p. 192.\n\n  For it is certain and evident, that regeneration or new birth is here\n  enjoined to all as of absolute and indispensable necessity.\n\n\nYet Taylor himself has denied it over and over again in his tracts on\nOriginal Sin; and how is it in harmony with the words of Christ--'Of\nsuch are the kingdom of heaven'? Are we not regenerated back to a state\nof spiritual infancy? Yet for such Anti-p\u00e6dobaptists as hold the dogma\nof original guilt it is doubtless a fair argument; but Taylor ought not\nto have used it as certain and evident in itself, and not merely 'ad\nhominem et per accidens'. As making a bow is in England the understood\nconventional mark or visible language of reverence, so in the East was\nBaptism the understood outward and visible mark of conversion and\ninitiation. So much for the visible act: then for the particular meaning\naffixed to it by Christ. This was [Greek: met\u00e1noia], an adoption of a\nnew principle of action and consequent reform of conduct; a cleansing,\nbut especially a cleansing away of the carnal film from the mind's eye.\nHence the primitive Church called baptism [Greek: ph_os], light, and the\nEucharist [Greek: z_o\u00e0e], life. Baptism, therefore, was properly the\nsign, the 'precursor', or rather the first act, the 'initium', of that\nregeneration of which the whole spiritual life of a Christian is the\ncomplete process; the Eucharist indicating the means, namely, the\ncontinued assimilation of and to the Divine Humanity. Hence the\nEucharist was called the continuation of the Incarnation.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  And yet it does not follow that they should all be baptized with the\n  Holy Ghost and with fire. But it is meant only that that glorious\n  effect should be to them a sign of Christ's eminency above him; they\n  should see from him a Baptism greater than that of John.\n\nThis is exactly of a piece with that gloss of the Socinians in evasion\nof St. Paul's words concerning Christ's emptying himself of the form of\nGod, and becoming a servant, which all the world of Christians had\ninterpreted of the Incarnation. But no! it only referred to the miracle\nof his transfiguration!\n\n      ... 'credat Jud\u00e6us Apella!\n  Non ego'.\n\nSt. John could not mean this, unless he denied the distinct personality\nof the Holy Ghost. For it was the Holy Ghost that then descended 'as the\nsubstitute of Christ; nor does St. Luke even hint that it was understood\nto be a Baptism, even if we suppose the 'tongues of fire' to be anything\nvisual, and not as we say, Victory sate on his helmet like an eagle. The\nspirit of eloquence descended into them like a tongue of fire, and that\nthey spoke different languages is, I conceive, no where said; but only\nthat being rustic Galileans they yet spake a dialect intelligible to all\nthe Jews from the most different provinces. For it is clear they were\nall Jews, and, as Jews, had doubtless a 'lingua communis' which all\nunderstood when spoken, though persons of education only could speak it.\nEven so a German boor understands, but yet cannot talk in, High German,\nthat is, the language of his Bible and Hymn-book. So it is with the\nScotch of Aberdeen with regard to pure English. In short Taylor's\narguments press on the Anabaptists, only as far as the Anabaptists\nbaptize at all; they are in fact attacks on Baptism; and it would only\nfollow from them that the Baptist is more rational than the P\u00e6dobaptist,\nbut that the Quaker is more consistent than either. To pull off your hat\nis in Europe a mark of respect. What, if a parent in his last will\nshould command his children and posterity to pull off their hats to\ntheir superiors,--and in course of time these children or descendants\nemigrated to China, or some place, where the same ceremony either meant\nnothing, or an insult. Should we not laugh at them if they did not\ninterpret the words into, Pay reverence to your superiors. Even so\nBaptism was the Jewish custom, and natural to those countries; but with\nus it would be a more significant rite if applied as penance for excess\nof zeal and acts of bigotry, especially as sprinkling.\n\n\nIb. p. 196.\n\n  But farther yet I demand, can infants receive Christ in the Eucharist?\n\nSurely the wafer and the tea-spoonful of wine might be swallowed by an\ninfant, as well as water be sprinkled upon him. But if the former is not\nthe Eucharist because without faith and repentance, so cannot the\nlatter, it would seem, be Baptism. For they are declared equal adjuncts\nof both Sacraments. The argument therefore is a mere 'petitio principii\nsub lite'.\n\n\nIb. Ad. ix. p. 197.\n\n  The promise of the Holy Ghost is made to all, to us and to our\n  children: and if the Holy Ghost belongs to them, then Baptism belongs\n  to them also.\n\nIf this be not rank enthusiasm I know not what is. The Spirit is\npromised to them, first, as protection and providence, and as internal\noperation when those faculties are developed, in and by which the Spirit\nco-operates. Can Taylor shew an instance in Scripture in which the Holy\nSpirit is said to operate simply, and without the co-operation of the\nsubject?\n\n\nIb. Ad. xix. p. 199.\n\n  And when the boys in the street sang Hosanna to the Son of David, our\n  blessed Lord said that if they had held their peace, the stones of the\n  street would have cried out Hosanna.\n\n\nBy the same argument I could defend the sprinkling of mules and asses\nwith holy water, as is done yearly at Rome on St. Antony's day, I\nbelieve. For they are capable of health and sickness, of restiveness and\nof good temper, and these are all emanations from their Creator. Besides\nin the great form of Baptism the words are not [Greek: en on\u00f3mati], but\n[Greek: eis t\u00f2 onoma], and many learned men have shewn that they may\nmean 'into the power or influence' of the Father, the Son, and the\nSpirit. But spiritual influences suppose capability in act of receiving\nthem; and we must either pretend to believe that the soul of the babe,\nthat is, his consciousness, is acted on without his consciousness, or\nthat the instrumental cause is antecedent by years to its effect, which\nwould be a conjunction disjunctive with a vengeance. Again, Baptism is\nnothing except as followed by the Spirit; but it is irrational to say,\nthat the Spirit acts on the mere potentialities of an infant. For\nwherein is the Spirit, as used in Scripture in appropriation to\nChristians, different from God's universal providence and goodness, but\nthat the latter like the sun may shine on the wicked and on the good, on\nthe passive and on those who by exercise increase its effect; whereas\nthe former always implies a co-operant subject, that is, a developed\nreason. When God gave his Spirit miraculously to the young child,\nDaniel, he at the same time miraculously hastened the development of his\nunderstanding.\n\n\nIb. Ad. xxviii. p. 205.\n\n  But we see also that although Christ required faith of them who came\n  to be healed, yet when any were brought, or came in behalf of others,\n  he only required faith of them who came, and their faith did benefit\n  to others....\n\n  But this instance is so certain a reproof of this objection of theirs,\n  which is their principal, which is their all, that it is a wonder to\n  me they should not all be convinced at the reading and observing of\n  it.\n\nSo far from certainty, I find no strength at all in this reproof.\nDoubtless Christ at a believer's request might heal his child's or his\nservant's bodily sickness; for this was an act of power, requiring only\nan object. But is it any where said, that at a believer's request he\ngave the Spirit and the graces of faith to an unbeliever without any\nmental act, or moral co-operation of the latter? This would have been a\nproof indeed; but Taylor's instance is a mere 'ad aliud'.\n\n\nIb. Ad. xxxi. p. 207.\n\n  And although there are some effects of the Holy Spirit which require\n  natural capacities to be their foundation; yet those are the [Greek:\n  energ\u00e1emata] or powers of working: but the [Greek: char\u00edsmata], and\n  the inheritance and the title to the promises require nothing on our\n  part, but that we can receive them.\n\nThe Bishop flutters about and about, but never fairly answers the\nquestion, What does Baptism do? The Baptist says it attests forgiveness\nof sins, as the reward of faith and repentance. This is intelligible;\nbut as to the [Greek: char\u00edsmata]--the children of believers, if so\ntaught and educated, are surely entitled to the promises; and what\nanalogy is there in this to any one act of power and gift of powers\nmentioned as [Greek: char\u00edsmata], when the word is really used in\ncontradistinction from [Greek: energ\u00e1emata] Baptism is spoken of many\ntimes by St. Paul properly as well as metaphorically, and in the former\nsense it is never described as a [Greek: ch\u00e1risma] on a passive\nrecipient, while in the latter sense it always respects an  [Greek:\nen\u00e9rgaema] of the Spirit of God, and a [Greek: syn\u00e9rgaema] in the spirit\nof the recipient. All that Taylor can make out is, that Baptism effects\na potentiality in a potentiality, or a chalking of chalk to make white\nwhite.\n\n\nIb. p. 210.\n\n  And if it be questioned by wise men whether the want of it do not\n  occasion their eternal loss, and it is not questioned whether Baptism\n  does them any hurt or no, then certainly to baptize them is the surer\n  way without all peradventure.\n\nNow this is the strongest argument of all against Infant Baptism, and\nthat which alone weighed at one time with me, namely, that it supposes\nand most certainly encourages a belief concerning God, the most\nblasphemous and intolerable; and no human wit can express this more\nforcibly and affectingly than Taylor himself has done in his Letter to a\nLady on Original Sin. It is too plain to be denied that the belief of\nthe strict necessity of Infant Baptism, and the absolute universality of\nthe practice did not commence till the dogma of original guilt had begun\nto despotize in the Church: while that remained uncertain and sporadic,\nInfant Baptism was so too; some did it, many did not. But as soon as\nOriginal Sin in the sense of actual guilt became the popular creed, then\nall did it. [9]\n\n\nIb. s. xvi. p. 224.\n\n  And although they have done violence to all philosophy and the reason\n  of man, and undone and cancelled the principles of two or three\n  sciences, to bring in this article; yet they have a divine revelation,\n  whose literal and grammatical sense, if that sense were intended,\n  would warrant them to do violence to all the sciences in the circle.\n  And indeed that Transubstantiation is openly and violently against\n  natural reason is no argument to make them disbelieve it, who believe\n  the mystery of the Trinity in all those niceties of explication which\n  are in the School (and which now-a-days pass for the doctrine of the\n  Church), with as much violence to the principles of natural and\n  supernatural philosophy as can be imagined to be in the point of\n  Transubstantiation.\n\nThis is one of the many passages in Taylor's works which lead me to\nthink that his private opinions were favorable to Socinianism. Observe,\nto the views of Socinus, not to modern Unitarianism, as taught by\nPriestley and Belsham. And doubtless Socinianism would much more easily\nbear a doubt, whether the difference between it and the orthodox faith\nwas not more in words than in the things meant, than the Arian\nhypothesis. A mere conceptualist, at least, might plausibly ask whether\neither party, the Athanasian or the Socinian, had a sufficiently\ndistinct conception of what the one meant by the hypostatical union of\nthe Divine Logos with the man Jesus; or the other of his plenary, total,\nperpetual, and continuous inspiration, to have any well-grounded\nassurance, that they do not mean the same thing.\n\nMoreover, no one knew better than Jeremy Taylor that this apparent soar\nof the hooded falcon, faith, to the very empyrean of bibliolatry\namounted in fact to a truism of which the following syllogism is a fair\nillustration. All stones are men: all men think: 'ergo', all stones\nthink. The 'major' is taken for granted, the minor no one denies; and\nthen the conclusion is good logic, though a very foolish untruth. Or, if\nan oval were demonstrated by Euclid to be a circle, it would be a\ncircle; and if it were a demonstrable circle, it would be a circle,\nthough the strait lines drawable from the centre to the circumference\nare unequal. If we were quite certain that an omniscient Being,\nincapable of deceiving, or being deceived, had assured us that 5 X 5 = 6\nX 3, and that the two sides of a certain triangle were together less\nthan the third, then we should be warranted in setting at nought the\nscience of arithmetic and geometry. On another occasion, as when it was\nthe good Bishop's object to expose the impudent assertions of the Romish\nChurch since the eleventh century, he would have been the first to have\nreplied by a counter syllogism.\n\nIf we are quite certain that any writing pretending to divine origin\ncontains gross contradictions to demonstrable truths 'in eodem\ngenere', or commands that outrage the clearest principles of right\nand wrong; then we may be equally certain that the pretence is a\nblasphemous falsehood, inasmuch as the compatibility of a document with\nthe conclusions of self-evident reason, and with the laws of conscience,\nis a condition 'a priori' of any evidence adequate to the proof of\nits having been revealed by God.\n\nThis principle is clearly laid down both by Moses and by St. Paul. If a\nman pretended to be a prophet, he was to predict some definite event\nthat should take place at some definite time, at no unreasonable\ndistance: and if it were not fulfilled, he was to be punished as an\nimpostor. But if he accompanied his prophecy with any doctrine\nsubversive of the exclusive Deity and adorability of the one God of\nheaven and earth, or any seduction to a breach of God's commandments, he\nwas to be put to death at once, all other proof of his guilt and\nimposture being superfluous. [10] So St. Paul. If any man preach another\nGospel, though he should work all miracles, though he had the appearance\nand evinced the superhuman powers of an angel from heaven--he was at\nonce, in contempt of all imaginable sensuous miracles, to be holden\naccursed. [11]\n\n\nIb. s. xviii. p. 225.\n\n  And now for any danger to men's persons for suffering such a doctrine,\n  this I shall say, that if they who do it are not formally guilty of\n  idolatry, there is no danger that they whom they persuade to it,\n  should be guilty ... When they believe it to be no idolatry, then\n  their so believing it is sufficient security from that crime, which\n  hath so great a tincture and residency in the will, that from thence\n  only it hath its being criminal.\n\n\nWill not this argument justify all idolaters? For surely they believe\nthemselves worshippers either of the Supreme Being under a permitted\nform, or of some son of God (as Apollo) to whom he has delegated such\nand such powers. If this be the case, there is no such crime as\nidolatry: yet the second commandment expressly makes the worshipping of\nGod in or before a visual image of him not only idolatry, but the most\nhateful species of it. Now do they not worship God in the visible form\nof bread, and prostrate themselves before pictures of the Trinity? Are\nwe so mad as to suppose that the pious heathens thought the statue of\nJupiter, Jove himself? No; and yet these heathens were idolaters. But\nthere was no such being as Jupiter. No! Was there no King of Kings and\nLord of Lords; and does the name Jove instead of Jehovah (perhaps the\nsame word too) make the difference? Were Marcus Antoninus and Epictetus\nidolaters?\n\n\n\n\nUNUM NECESSARIUM; OR THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF REPENTANCE.\n\n1. The first great divines among the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, and\ntheir compeers and successors, had thrown the darkness of storms on an\nawful fact of human nature, which in itself had only the darkness of\nnegations. What was certain, but incomprehensible, they rendered\ncontradictory and absurd by a vain attempt at explication. It was a\nfundamental fact, and of course could not be comprehended; for to\ncomprehend, and thence to explain, is the same as to perceive, and\nthence to point out, a something before the given fact, and Standing to\nit in the relation of cause to effect. Thus they perverted original sin\ninto hereditary guilt, and made God act in the spirit of the cruellest\nlaws of jealous governments towards their enemies, upon the principle of\ntreason in the blood. This was brought in to explain their own\nexplanation of God's ways, and then too often God's alleged way in this\ncase was adduced to justify the cruel state law of treason in the blood.\n\n2. In process of time, good men and of active minds were shocked at\nthis; but, instead of passing back to the incomprehensible fact, with a\nvault over the unhappy idol forged for its comprehension, they\nidentified the two in name; and while in truth their arguments applied\nonly to a false theory, they rejected the fact for the sake of the\nmis-solution, and fell into far worse errors. For the mistaken theorist\nhad built upon a foundation, though but a superstructure of chaff and\nstraw; but the opponents built on nothing. Aghast at the superstructure,\nthese latter ran away from that which is the sole foundation of all\nhuman religion.\n\n3. Then came the persecutions of the Arminians in Holland; then the\nstruggle in England against the Arminian Laud and all his\nparty--terrible persecutors in their turn of the Calvinists and\nsystematic divines; then the Civil War and the persecutions of the\nChurch by the Puritans in their turn; and just in this state of heated\nfeelings did Taylor write these Works, which contain dogmas subversive\nof true Christian faith, namely, his 'Unum Necessarium', or Doctrine and\nPractice of Repentance, which reduces the cross of Christ to nothing,\nespecially in the seventh chapter of the same, and the after defences of\nit in his Letters on Original Sin to a Lady, and to the Bishop of\nRochester; and the Liberty of Prophesying, which, putting toleration on\na false ground, has left no ground at all for right or wrong in matters\nof Christian faith.\n\nIn the marginal notes, which I have written in these several treatises\non Repentance, I appear to myself to have demonstrated that Taylor's\nsystem has no one advantage over the Lutheran in respect of God's\nattributes; that it is 'bona fide' Pelagianism (though he denies\nit; for let him define that grace which Pelagius would not accept,\nbecause incompatible with free will and merit, and profess his belief in\nit thus defined, and every one of his arguments against absolute decrees\ntell against himself); and lastly, that its inevitable logical\nconsequences are Socinianism and 'qu\u00e6 sequuntur'. In Tillotson the\nface of Arminianism looked out fuller, and Christianity is represented\nas a mere arbitrary contrivance of God, yet one without reason. Let not\nthe surpassing eloquence of Taylor dazzle you, nor his scholastic\nretiary versatility of logic illaqueate your good sense. Above all do\nnot dwell too much on the apparent absurdity or horror of the dogma he\nopposes, but examine what he puts in its place, and receive candidly the\nfew hints which I have admarginated for your assistance, being in the\nlove of truth and of Christ,\n\nYour Brother.\n\n\nI have omitted one remark, probably from over fullness of intention to\nhave inserted it.\n\n1. The good man and eloquent expresses his conjectural belief that, if\nAdam had not fallen, Christ would still have been necessary, though not\nperhaps by Incarnation. Now, in the first place, this is only a play\nthought of himself, and Scotus, and perhaps two or three others in the\nSchools; no article of faith or of general presumption; consequently it\nhas little serious effect even on the guessers themselves. In the next\nplace, if it were granted, yet it would be a necessity wholly 'ex parte\nDei', not at all 'ex parte Hominis':--for what does it amount to but\nthis--that God having destined a creature for two states, the earthly\nrational, and the heavenly spiritual, and having chosen to give him, in\nthe first instance, faculties sufficient only for the first state, must\nafterwards superinduce those sufficient for the second state, or else\nGod would at once and the same time destine and not destine. This\ntherefore is a mere fancy, a theory, but not a binding religion; no\ncovenant.\n\n2. But the Incarnation, even after the fall of Adam, he clearly makes to\nbe specifically of no necessity. It was only not to take away peevishly\nthe estate of grace from the poor innocent children, because of the\nfather,--according to the good Bishop, a poor ignorant, who before he\nate the apple of knowledge did not know what right and wrong was; and\nChrist's Incarnation would have been no more necessary then than it was\nbefore, according to Taylor's belief. Here again the Incarnation is\nwholly a contrivance 'ex parte Dei', and no way resulting from any\ndefault of man.\n\n3. Consequently Taylor neither saw nor admitted any 'a priori' necessity\nof the Incarnation from the nature of man, and which, being felt by man\nin his own nature, is itself the greatest of proofs for the admission of\nit, and the strongest pre-disposing cause of the admission of all proof\npositive. Not having this, he was to seek 'ab extra' for proofs in\nfacts, in historical evidence in the world of sense. The same causes\nproduce the same effects. Hence Grotius, Taylor, and Baxter (then, as\nappears in his Life, in a state of uneasy doubt), were the first three\nwriters of evidences of the Christian religion, such as have been since\nfollowed up by hundreds,--nine-tenths of them Socinians or\nSemi-Socinians, and which, taking head and tail, I call the\nGrotio-Paleyan way.\n\n4. Hence the good man was ever craving for some morsel out of the\nalmsbasket of all external events, in order to prove to himself his own\nimmortality; and, with grief and shame I tell it, became evidence and\nauthority in Irish stories of ghosts, and apparitions, and witches. Let\nthose who are astonished refer to Glanville on Witches, and they will be\nmore astonished still. The fact now stated at once explains and\njustifies my anxiety in detecting the errors of this great and excellent\ngenius at their fountain head,--the question of Original Sin: for how\nimportant must that error be which ended in bringing Bishop Jeremy\nTaylor forward as an examiner, judge, and witness in an Irish apparition\ncase!\n\n\nIb. s. xxxviii. p. 278.\n\n  Although God exacts not an impossible law under eternal and\n  insufferable pains, yet he imposes great holiness in unlimited and\n  indefinite measures, with a design to give excellent proportions of\n  reward answerable to the greatness of our endeavour. Hell is not the\n  end of them that fail in the greatest measures of perfection; but\n  great degrees of heaven shall be their portion who do all that they\n  can always, and offend in the fewest instances.\n\nIt is not to be denied that one if not more of the parables appears to\nsanction this, but the same parables would by consequence seem to favour\na state of Purgatory. From John, Paul, and the philosophy of the\ndoctrine, I should gather a different faith, and find a sanction for\nthis too in one of the parables, namely, that of the labourer at the\neleventh hour. Heaven, bliss, union with God through Christ, do not seem\nto me comparative terms, or conceptions susceptible of degree. But it is\na difficult question. The first Fathers of the Reformation, and the\nearly Fathers of the primitive Church, present different systems, and in\na very different spirit.\n\n\nIb. p. 324-328.\n\n  Descriptions of repentance taken from the Holy Scriptures.\n\nThis is a beautiful collection of texts. Still the pious but unconverted\nJew (a Moses Mendelsohn, for instance), has a right to ask, What then\ndid Christ teach or do, such and of such additional moment as to be\nrightfully entitled the founder of a new law, instead of being, like\nIsaiah and others, an enforcer and explainer of the old? If\nChristianity, or the 'opus operans' of Redemption, was synchronous with\nthe Fall of man, then the same answer must be returned to the passages\nhere given from the Old Testament as to those from the New; namely, that\nSanctification is the result of Redemption, not its efficient cause or\nprevious condition. Assuredly [Greek: metan\u00f3aesis] and Sanctification\ndiffer only as the plant and the growth or growing of the plant. But the\nwords of the Apostle (it will be said) are exhortative and dehortative.\nDoubtless! and so would be the words of a wise physician addressed to a\nconvalescent. Would this prove that the patient's revalescence had been\nindependent of the medicines given him? The texts are addressed to the\nfree will, and therefore concerning possible objects of free will. No\ndoubt! Should that process, the end and virtue of which is to free the\nwill, destroy the free will? But I cannot make it out to my\nunderstanding, how the two are compatible.--Answer; the spirit knows the\nthings of the spirit. Here lies the sole true ground of\nLatitudinarianism, Arminian, or Socinian; and this is the sole and\nsufficient confutation; 'spiritualia spiritus cognoscit'. Would you\nunderstand with your ears instead of hearing with your understanding?\nNow, as the ears to the understanding, so is the understanding to the\nspirit. This Plato knew; and art thou a master in Israel, and knowest it\nnot?\n\n\nIb. p. 330.\n\n  'Who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the\n  blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing,\n  and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace'.\n\nBy this passage we must interpret the words \"sin wilfully,\" in reference\nto an unpardonable sin, in the preceding sentence.\n\n  Of the moral capacity of sinful habits.\n\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 432.\n\nProbably from the holiness of his own life, Taylor has but just\nfluttered about a bad habit, not fully described it. He has omitted, or\nrather described contradictorily, the case of those with whom the\nobjections to sin are all strengthened, the dismal consequences more\nglaring and always present to them as an avenging fury, the sin loathed,\ndetested, hated; and yet, spite of all this, nay, the more for all this,\nperpetrated. Both lust and intemperance would furnish too many instances\nof these most miserable victims.\n\n\nIb. s. xxxix. p. 456.\n\n  For every vicious habit being radicated in the will, and being a\n  strong love, inclination and adhesion to sin, unless the natural being\n  of this love be taken off, the enmity against God remains.\n\nBut the most important question is as to those vicious habits in which\nthere is no love to sin, but only a dread and recoiling from intolerable\npain, as in the case of the miserable drunkard! I trust that these\nepileptic agonies are rather the punishments than the augumenters of his\nguilt. The annihilation of the wicked is a fearful thought, yet it would\nsolve many difficulties both in natural religion and in Scripture. And\nTaylor in his Arminian dread of Calvinism is always too shy of this\n\"grace of God:\" he never denies, yet never admits, it any separate\noperancy 'per se'. And this, I fancy, is the true distinction of\nArminianisrn and Calvinism in their moral effects. Arminianism is cruel\nto individuals, for fear of damaging the race by false hopes and\nimproper confidences; while Calvinism is horrible for the race, but full\nof consolation to the suffering individual.\n\nThe next section is, taken together, one of the many instances that\nconfirm my opinion that Calvinism (Archbishop Leighton's for example),\ncompared with Taylor's Arminianism, is as the lamb in the wolf's skin to\nthe wolf in the lamb's skin: the one is cruel in the phrases, the other\nin the doctrine.\n\n\nIb. s. lvi. p. 469.\n\n  But if a single act of contrition cannot procure pardon of sins that\n  are habitual, then a wicked man that returns not till it be too late\n  to root out vicious habits, must despair of salvation. I answer, &c.\n\nWould not Taylor's purposes have been sufficiently attained by pressing\nthe contrast between attrition and contrition with faith, and the utter\nimprobability that the latter (which alone can be efficient), shall be\nvouchsafed to a sinner who has continued in his sins in the flattery of\na death-bed repentance; a blasphemy that seems too near that against the\nHoly Ghost? My objection to Taylor is, that he seems to reduce the death\nof Christ almost to a cypher; a contrivance rather to reconcile the\nattributes of God, than an act of infinite love to save sinners. But the\ntruth is, that this is the peccant part of Arminianism, and Tillotson is\nyet more open than Taylor. Forbid me, common goodness, that I should\nthink Tillotson conscious of Socinianism! but that his tenets involved\nit, I more than suspect. See his Discourses on Transubstantiation, and\nthose near it in the same volume.\n\n\nIb. lxiv. p. 478.\n\n  Now there is no peradventure, but new-converted persons, heathens\n  newly giving up their names to Christ and being baptized, if they die\n  in an hour, and were baptized half an hour after they believe in\n  Christ, are heirs of salvation.\n\n\nThis granted, I should little doubt of confuting all the foregoing, as\nfar as I object to it. I would rather be 'durus pater infantum', like\nAustin, than 'durus pater \u00e6grotantium'. Taylor considers all Christians\nwho are so called.\n\n\nIb. s. lxvi. p. 481.\n\nAll this paragraph is as just as it is fine and lively, but far from\nconfirming Taylor's doctrine. The case is as between one individual and\na general rule. I know God's mercy and Christ's merits; but whether your\nheart has true faith in them, I cannot know. 'Be it unto thee according\nto thy faith', said Christ: so should his ministers say. All these\npassages, however, are utterly irreconcilable with the Roman doctrine,\nthat the priest's absolution is operant, and not simply declarative. As\nto the decisions of Paulinus and Asterius, it is to be feared that they\nhad the mortmain bequests and compensations in view more than the words\nof St. Paul, or the manifest purposes of redemption by faith. Yea,\nTaylor himself has his 'redime peccata eleemosynis'.\n\nBy the by, I know of few subjects that have been more handled and less\nrationally treated than this of alms-giving. Every thing a rich man\npurchases beyond absolute necessaries, ought to be purchased in the\nspirit of alms, that is, as the most truly beneficial way of disparsing\nthat wealth, of which he is the steward, not owner.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  St. Paul taught us this secret, that sins are properly made habitual\n  upon the stock of impunity. 'Sin taking occasion by the law wrought in\n  me all concupiscence'; [Greek: 'aphorm\u00e0en labousa'], 'apprehending\n  impunity,' [Greek: 'di\u00e0 taes entolaes'], 'by occasion of the\n  commandment,' that is, so expressed and established as it was; because\n  in the commandment forbidding to lust or covet, there was no penalty\n  annexed or threatened in the sanction or in the explication. Murder\n  was death, and so was adultery and rebellion. Theft was punished\n  severely too; and so other things in their proportion; but the desires\n  God left under a bare restraint, and affixed no penalty in the law.\n  Now sin, that is, men that had a mind to sin, taking occasion hence,\n  &c.\n\nThis is a very ingenious and very plausible exposition of St. Paul's\nwords; but surely, surely, it is not the right one. I find both the\nmeaning and the truth of the Apostle's words in the vividness and\nconsequently attractive and ad-(or in-)sorbent power given to an image\nor thought by the sense of its danger, by the consciousness of its being\nforbidden,--which, in an unregenerate and unassisted will, struggling\nwith, or even exciting, the ever ready inclination of corrupted nature,\nproduces a perplexity and confusion which again increase the person's\nsusceptibility of the soliciting image or fancy so intensified. Guilt\nand despair add a stimulus and sting to lust. See Iago in Shakspeare.\n\n\nIb. s. xi. p. 500.\n\n  It was not well with thee when thou didst first enter into the suburbs\n  of hell by single actions of sin, &c.\n\nAye! this is excellent indeed, and worthy of a guardian angel of the\nChurch. When Jeremy Taylor escapes from the Mononomian Romaism, which\nnetted him in his too eager recoil from the Antinomian boar, brought\nforth and foddered (as he imagined) in Calvin's stye; when from this\nwiry net he escapes into the devotional and the dietetic, as into a\ngreen meadow-land, with springs, and rivulets, and sheltering groves,\nwhere he leads his flock like a shepherd;--then it is that he is most\nhimself,--then only he is all himself, the whole Jeremy Taylor; or if\nthere be one other subject graced by the same total heautophany, it is\nin the pouring forth of his profound common sense on the ways and\nweaknesses of men and conflicting sects, as for instance, in the\nadmirable birth, parentage, growth, and consummation of a religious\ncontroversy in his 'Dissuasive from Popery'.\n\n\nIb. s. xiii. p. 502.\n\n  Let every old man that repents of the sins of his evil life be very\n  diligent in the search of the particulars; that by drawing them into a\n  heap, and spreading them before his eyes, he may be mightily ashamed\n  at their number and burthen.\n\n\nI dare not condemn, but I am doubtful of this as a universal rule. If\nthere be a true hatred of sin, the precious time and the spiritual\n'nisus' will, I think, be more profitably employed in enkindling\nmeditation on holiness, and thirstings after the mind of Christ.\n\n\nIb. ss. xxxi-xxxv. pp..517, 518.\n\nScarce a word in all this but for form's sake concerning the merits and\nsacrifice of the Incarnate God! Surely Luther would not have given this\nadvice to a dying penitent, but have directed him rather to employ his\nlittle time in agony of prayer to Christ, or in earnest meditations on\nthe astounding mystery of his death. In Taylor man is to do every thing.\n\n\nVol. IX. s. xi. p. 5.\n\n  For God was so exasperated with mankind, that being angry he would\n  still continue that punishment even to the lesser sins and sinners,\n  which he only had first threatened to Adam; and so Adam brought it\n  upon them.\n\nAnd such a phrase as this used by a man in a refutation of Original Sin,\non the ground of its incompatibility with God's attributes!\n\"Exasperated\" with those whom Taylor declares to have been innocent and\nmost unfortunate, the two things that most conciliate love and pity!\n\n\nIb. p. 6.\n\nIf the sequel of the paragraph, comparing God to David in one of his\nworst actions, be not blasphemy, the reason is that the good man meant\nit not as such. 'In facto est, sed non' in agents.\n\n\nIb. ss. xvi. xvii. pp. 8, 9.\n\n  For the further explication of which it is observable that the word\n  'sinner' and 'sin' in Scripture is used for any person, that hath a\n  fault or a legal impurky, a debt, a vitiosity, defect, or imposition,\n  &c.\n\n\nThese facts, instead of explaining away Original Sin, are\nunintelligible, nay, absurd and immoral, except as shadows, types, and\nsymbols of it, and of the Redemption from it. Observe, too, that Taylor\nnever dares explain what he means by \"Adam was mortal of himself and we\nare mortal from him:\" he did not dare affirm that soul and body are\nalike material and perishable, even as the lute and the potentiality of\nmusic in the lute. And yet if he believed the contrary, then, in his\nconstruction of the doctrine of Original Sin, what has Christ done? St.\nJohn died in the same sense as Abel died: and in the sense of the Church\nof England neither died, but only slept in the Lord.\n\nThis same system forced Taylor into the same error which Warburton\nafterwards dressed up with such trappings and trammels of erudition, in\ndirect contempt of the plain meaning of the Church's article; and he\ntakes it for granted, in many places, that the Jews under Moses knew\nonly of temporal life and the death of the body. Lastly, he greatly\ndegrades the mind of man by causelessly representing death as an evil in\nitself, which, if it be considered as a crisis, or phenomenal change,\nincident to a progressive being, ought as little to be thought so, as\nthe casting of the caterpillar's skin to make room for the wings of the\nbutterfly. It is the unveiling of the Psyche.\n\nI do not affirm this as an article of Christian faith; but I say that no\ncandid writer ought to hide himself in double meanings. Either he should\nhave used the term 'death' ('ex Adamo') as loss of body, or as\nchange of mode of being and of its circumstances; and again this latter\nas either evil for all, or as evil or good according to the moral habits\nof each individual.\n\nObserve, however, once for all, that I do not pretend to account for\nOriginal Sin. I declare it to be an unaccountable fact. How can we\nexplain a 'species', when we are wholly in the dark as to the\n'genus'? Now guilt itself, as well as all other immediate facts of\nfree will, is absolutely inexplicable; of course original guilt. If we\nwill perversely confound the intelligible with the sensible world,\nmisapply the logic appropriate to _ph\u00e6nomena_ and the categories, or\nforms, which are empty except as substantialized in facts of experience,\nin order to use them as the Procrustes' bed of faith respecting noumena:\nif in short, we will strive to understand that of which we can only know\n[Greek: hoti est\u00ec], we may and must make as wild work with reason, will,\nconscience, guilt, and virtue, as with Original Sin and Redemption. On\nevery subject first ask, Is it among the [Greek: aisthaet\u00e0], or the\n[Greek: no\u00famena]?\n\n\nIb. s. xxiii. p. 12.\n\n  It could not make us heirs of damnation. This I shall the less need to\n  insist upon, because, of itself, it seems so horrid to impute to the\n  goodness and justice of God to be author of so great calamity to\n  innocents, &c.\n\nNever was there a more hazardous way of reasoning, or rather of placing\nhuman ignorance in the judgment seat over God's wisdom. The whole might\nbe closely parodied in support of Atheism: rather, this is but a\nparaphrase of the old atheistic arguments. Either God could not, or\nwould not, prevent the moral and physical evils of the universe,\nincluding the everlasting anguish of myriads of millions: therefore he\nis either not all-powerful or not all-good: but a being deficient in\npower or goodness is not God:--_Ergo, &c._\n\n\nIb. s. xxv. p. 13.\n\n  I deny not but all persons naturally are so, that they cannot arrive\n  at heaven; but unless some other principle be put into them, or some\n  great grace done for them, must for ever stand separate from seeing\n  the face of God.\n\nBut this is but accidentally occasioned by the sin of Adam. Just so\nmight I say, that without the great grace of air done for them no living\nbeings could live. If it mean more, pray where was the grace in creating\na being, who without an especial grace must pass into utter misery? If\nTaylor reply; but the grace was added in Christ: why so say the\nCalvinists. According to Taylor there is no fall of man; but only an act\nand punishment of a man, which punishment consisted in his living in the\nkitchen garden, instead of the flower garden and orchard: and Cain was\nas likely to have murdered Abel before, as after, the eating of the\nforbidden fruit. But the very name of the fruit confutes Taylor. Adam\naltered his nature by it. Cain did not. What Adam did, I doubt not, we\nall do. Time is not with things of spirit.\n\n\nIb. s. xxvii. p. 14.\n\n  Is hell so easy a pain, or are the souls of children of so cheap, so\n  contemptible a price, that God should so easily throw them into hell?\n\nThis is an argument against the 'sine qua non' of Baptism, not against\nOriginal Sin.\n\n\nIb. s. lxvii. p. 49.\n\n  Origen said enough to be mistaken in the question.  [Greek: Hhar\u00e0 t\u00f2\n  Ad\u00e0m koin\u00e0e p\u00e1nt'on esti. Ka\u00ec t\u00e0 kat\u00e0 taes gynaik\u00f2s, ouk esti kath aes\n  ou l\u00e9getai.] 'Adam's curse is common to all. And there is not a woman\n  on earth, to whom may not be said those things which were spoken to\n  this woman.'\n\nOrigen's words ought to have prevented all mistake, for he plainly\nenough overthrows the phantom of hereditary guilt; and as to guilt from\na corruption of nature, it is just such guilt as the carnivorous\nappetites of a weaned lion, or the instinct of a brood of ducklings to\nrun to water. What then is it? It is an evil, and therefore seated in\nthe will; common to all men, the beginning of which no man can determine\nin himself or in others. How comes this? It is a mystery, as the will\nitself. Deeds are in time and space, therefore have a beginning. Pure\naction, that is, the will, is a 'noumenon', and irreferable to time.\nThus Origen calls it neither hereditary nor original, but universal sin.\nThe curse of Adam is common to all men, because what Adam did, we all\ndo: and thus of Eve. You may substitute any woman in her place, and the\nsame words apply. This is the true solution of this unfortunate\nquestion. The [Greek: pr'oton pseudos] is in the dividing the will from\nthe acts of the will. The will is 'ego-agens'.\n\n\nIb. s. lxxxii. p. 52.\n\nThis paragraph, though very characteristic of the Author, is fitter for\na comedy than for a grave discourse. It puts one in mind of the\nplay--\"More sacks in the mill! Heap, boys, heap!\"\n\n\nIb. s. lxxxiv. p. 56.\n\n  'Pr\u00e6posterum est' (said Paulus the lawyer) 'ante nos locupletes dici\n  quam acquisiverimus'. We cannot be said to lose what we never had; and\n  our fathers' goods were not to descend upon us, unless they were his\n  at his death.\n\nTake away from me the knowledge that he was my father, dear Bishop, and\nthis will be true. But as it stands, the whole is, \"says Paulus the\nLawyer;\" and, \"Well said, Lawyer!\" say I.\n\n\nIb. p. 57.\n\n  Which though it was natural, yet from Adam it began to be a curse;\n  just as the motion of a serpent upon his belly, which was concreated\n  with him, yet upon this story was changed into a malediction and an\n  evil adjunct.\n\nHow? I should really like to understand this.\n\n\nIb. ch. vii. p. 73 'in initio'.\n\nIn this most eloquent treatise we may detect sundry logical lapses,\nsometimes in the statement, sometimes in the instances, and once or\ntwice in the conclusions. But the main and pervading error lies in the\ntreatment of the subject 'in genere' by the forms and rules of\nconceptual logic; which deriving all its material from the senses, and\nborrowing its forms from the sense ([Greek: aisthaesis kathar\u00e0]) or\nintuitive faculty, is necessarily inapplicable to spiritual mysteries,\nthe very definition or contra-distinguishing character of which is that\nthey transcend the sense, and therefore the understanding, the faculty,\nas Archbishop Leighton and Immanuel Kant excellently define it, which\njudges according to sense. In the Aids to Reflection, [12] I have shewn\nthat the proper function of the understanding or mediate faculty is to\ncollect individual or sensible concretes into kinds and sorts ('genera\net species') by means of their common characters ('not\u00e6 communes'); and\nto fix and distinguish these conceptions (that is, generalized\nperceptions) by words. Words are the only immediate objects of the\nunderstanding. Spiritual verities, or truths of reason 'respective ad\nrealia', and herein distinguished from the merely formal, or so called\nuniversal truths, are differenced from the conceptions of the\nunderstanding by the immediatcy of the knowledge, and from the immediate\ntruths of sense,--that is, from both pure and mixed intuitions,--by not\nbeing sensible, that is, not representable by figure, measurement or\nweight; nor connected with any affection of our sensibility, such as\ncolor, taste, odors, and the like. And such knowledges we, when we speak\ncorrectly, name ideas.\n\nNow Original Sin, that is, sin that has its origin in itself, or in the\nwill of the sinner, but yet in a state or condition of the will not\npeculiar to the individual agent, but common to the human race, is an\nidea: and one diagnostic or contra-distinguishing mark appertaining to\nall ideas, is, that they are not adequately expressible by words. An\nidea can only be expressed (more correctly suggested) by two\ncontradictory positions; as for example; the soul is all in every\npart;--nature is a sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, and its\ncircumference no where, and the like.\n\nHence many of Bishop Taylor's objections, grounded on his expositions of\nthe doctrine, prove nothing more than that the doctrine concerns an\nidea. But besides this, Taylor everywhere assumes the consequences of\nOriginal Sin as superinduced on a pre-existing nature, in no essential\nrespect differing from our present nature;--for instance, on a material\nbody, with its inherent appetites and its passivity to material\nagents;--in short, on an animal nature in man. But this very nature, as\nthe antagonist of the spirit or supernatural principle in man, is in\nfact the Original Sin,--the product of the will indivisible from the act\nproducing it; just as in pure geometry the mental construction is\nindivisible from the constructive act of the intuitive faculty. Original\nSin, as the product, is a fact concerning which we know by the light of\nthe idea itself, that it must originate in a self-determination of a\nwill. That which we do not know is how it originates, and this we cannot\nexplain; first, from the necessity of the subject, namely, the will; and\nsecondly, because it is an idea, and all ideas are inconceivable. It is\nan idea, because it is not a conception.\n\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 74, 75.\n\n  And they are injurious to Christ, who think that from Adam we might\n  have inherited immortality. Christ was the giver and preacher of it;\n  'he brought life and immortality to light through the gospel'. It is a\n  singular benefit given by God to mankind through Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd none inherit it but those who are born of Christ; 'ergo', bad men\nand infidels are not immortal. Immortality is one thing, a happy\nimmortality another. St. Paul meant the latter: Taylor either the\nformer, or his words have no meaning at all; for no man ever thought or\ndreamed that we inherited heaven from Adam, but that as sons of Adam,\nthat is, as men, we have souls that do not perish with the body. I often\nsuspect that Taylor, in 'abditis fidei' [Greek: es_oterikaes], inclined\nto the belief that there is no other immortality but heaven, and that\nhell is a 'p\u00e6na damni negativa, haud privativa'. I own myself strongly\ninclined to it;--but so many texts against it! I am confident that the\ndoctrine would be a far stronger motive than the present; for no man\nwill believe eternal misery of himself, but millions would admit, that\nif they did not amend their lives they would be undeserving of living\nfor ever.\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 77.\n\n  [Greek: hina m\u00e0e plaemm\u00fara t\u00f2n en haemin katapont\u00edsae logism\u00f2n eis\n  t\u00f2n taes hamarti\u00e1s buth\u00f3n.]\n\n\"Lest the tumultuous crowd throw the reason within us over bridge into\nthe gulf of sin.\" What a vivid figure! It is enough to make any man set\nto work to read Chrysostom.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  ... 'peccantes mente sub una.'\n\nNote Prudentius's use of 'mente sub una' for 'in one person.'\n\n\nIb. p. 78.\n\n  For even now we see, by a sad experience, that the afflicted and the\n  miserable are not only apt to anger and envy, but have many more\n  desires and more weaknesses, and consequently more aptnesses to sin in\n  many instances than those who are less troubled. And this is that\n  which was said by Arnobius; 'proni ad culpas, et ad libidinis varios\n  appetitos vitio sumus infirmitatis ingenit\u00e6'.\n\nNo. Arnobius never said so good and wise a thing in his lifetime. His\nquoted words have no such profound meaning.\n\n\nIb. s. vii. p. 78.\n\n  That which remained was a reasonable soul, fitted for the actions of\n  life and reason, but not of anything that was supernatural.\n\nWhat Taylor calls reason I call understanding, and give the name reason\nto that which Taylor would have called spirit.\n\n\nIb. s. xii. p. 84.\n\n  And all that evil which is upon us, being not by any positive\n  infliction, but by privative, or the taking away gifts, and blessings,\n  and graces from us, which God, not having promised to give, was\n  neither naturally, nor by covenant, obliged to give,--it is certain he\n  could not be obliged to continue that to the sons of a sinning father,\n  which to an innocent father he was not obliged to give.\n\nOh! certainly not, if hell were not attached to acts and omissions,\nwhich without these very graces it is morally impossible for men to\navoid. Why will not Taylor speak out?\n\n\nIb. s. xiv. p. 85.\n\n  The doctrine of the ancient Fathers was that free will remained in us\n  after the Fall.\n\nYea! as the locomotive faculty in a man in a strait waistcoat. Neither\nSt. Augustine nor Calvin denied the remanence of the will in the fallen\nspirit; but they, and Luther as well as they, objected to the flattering\nepithet 'free' will. In the only Scriptural sense, as concerning the\nunregenerate, it is implied in the word will, and in this sense,\ntherefore, it is superfluous and tautologic; and, in any other sense, it\nis the fruit and final end of Redemption,--the glorious liberty of the\nGospel.\n\n\nIb. s. xvi. p. 92.\n\n  For my part I believe this only as certain, that nature alone cannot\n  bring them to heaven, and that Adam left us in a state in which we\n  could not hope for it.\n\nThis is likewise my belief, and that man must have had a Christ, even if\nAdam had continued in Paradise--if indeed the history of Adam be not a\n'mythos'; as, but for passages in St. Paul, we should most of us\nbelieve; the serpent speaking, the names of the trees, and so on; and\nthe whole account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis seems\nto me clearly to say:--\"The literal fact you could not comprehend if it\nwere related to you; but you may conceive of it as if it had taken place\nthus and thus.\"\n\n\nIb. s. 1. p. 166.\n\n  That in some things our nature is cross to the divine commandment, is\n  not always imputable to us, because our natures were before the\n  commandment.\n\nThis is what I most complain of in Jeremy Taylor's ethics; namely, that\nhe constantly refers us to the deeds or 'phenomena' in time, the\neffluents from the source, or like the 'species' of Epicurus; while the\ncorrupt nature is declared guiltless and irresponsible; and this too on\nthe pretext that it was prior in time to the commandment, and therefore\nnot against it. But time is no more predicable of eternal reason than of\nwill; but not of will; for if a will be at all, it must be 'ens\nspirituale'; and this is the first negative definition of\nspiritual--whatever having true being is not contemplable in the forms\nof time and space. Now the necessary consequence of Taylor's scheme is a\nconscience-worrying, casuistical, monkish work-holiness. Deeply do I\nfeel the difficulty and danger that besets the opposite scheme; and\nnever would I preach it, except under such provisos as would render it\nperfectly compatible with the positions previously established by Taylor\nin this chapter, s. xliv. p. 158. 'Lastly; the regenerate not only hath\nreceived the Spirit of God, but is wholly led by him,' &c.\n\n\nIb.\n\nIf this Treatise of Repentance contain Bishop Taylor's habitual and\nfinal convictions, I am persuaded that in some form or other he believed\nin a Purgatory. In fact, dreams and apparitions may have been the\npretexts, and the immense addition of power and wealth which the belief\nentailed on the priesthood, may have been their motives for patronizing\nit; but the efficient cause of its reception by the churches is to be\nfound in the preceding Judaic legality and monk-moral of the Church,\naccording to which the fewer only could hope for the peace of heaven as\ntheir next immediate state. The holiness that sufficed for this would\nevince itself (it was believed) by the power of working miracles.\n\n\nIb. s. lii. p. 208.\n\n  'It shall not be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come';\n  that is, neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles. For 's\u00e6culum hoc',\n  this world, in Scripture, is the period of the Jews' synagogue, and\n  [Greek: mellon aion], the world to come, is taken for the Gospel, or\n  the age of the Messias, frequently among the Jews.\n\n\nThis is, I think, a great and grievous mistake. The Rabbis of best name\ndivide into two or three periods, the difference being wholly in the\nwords; for the dividers by three meant the same as those by two.\n\nThe first was the 'dies expectationis', or 'hoc s\u00e6culum,' [Greek: en\ntouto kairo]: the second 'dies Messi\u00e6', the time of the Messiah, that\nis, the 'millenium': the third the 's\u00e6culum futurum', or future state,\nwhich last was absolutely spiritual and celestial.\n\nBut many Rabbis made the 'dies Messi\u00e6' part, that is, the consummation\nof this world, the conclusive Sabbath of the great week, in which they\nsupposed the duration of the earth or world of the senses to be\ncomprised; but all agreed that the 'dies', or thousand years, of the\nMessiah was a transitional state, during which the elect were gradually\ndefecated of body, and ripened for the final or spiritual state.\n\nDuring the 'millenium' the will of God will be done on earth, no less,\nthough in a lower glory, than it will be done hereafter in heaven.\n\nNow it is to be carefully observed that the Jewish doctors or Rabbis\n(all such at least as remained unconverted) had no conception or belief\nof a suffering Messiah, or of a period after the birth of the Messiah,\nprevious to the kingdom, and of course included in the time of\nexpectation.\n\nThe appearance of the Messiah and his assumption of the throne of David\nwere to be contemporaneous. The Christian doctrine of a suffering\nMessiah, or of Christ as the high priest and intercessor, has of course\nintroduced a modification of the Jewish scheme.\n\nBut though there is a seeming discrepance in different texts in the\nfirst three Gospels, yet the Lord's Prayer appears to determine the\nquestion in favour of the elder and present Rabbinical belief; that is,\nit does not date the 'dies Messiae,' or kingdom of the Lord, from his\nIncarnation, but from a second coming in power and glory, and hence we\nare taught to pray for it as an event yet future.\n\nNay, our Lord himself repeatedly speaks of the Son of Man in the third\nperson, as yet to come. Assuredly our Lord ascended the throne and\nbecame a King on his final departure from his disciples. But it was the\nthrone of his Father, and he an invisible King, the sovereign Providence\nto whom all power was committed.\n\nAnd this celestial kingdom cannot be identified with that under which\nthe divine will will be done on earth as it is in heaven; that is, when\non this earth the Church militant shall be one in holiness with the\ntriumphant Church.\n\nThe difficulties, I confess, are great; and for those who believe the\nfirst Gospel (and this in its present state) to have been composed by\nthe Apostle Matthew, or at worst to be a literal and faithful\ntranslation from a Hebrew (Syro-Chaldaic) Gospel written by him, and who\nfurthermore contend for its having been word by word dictated by an\ninfallible Spirit, the necessary duty of reconciling the different\npassages in the first Gospel with each other, and with others in St.\nLuke's, is, 'me saltern judice', a most Herculean one.\n\nThe most consistent and rational scheme is, I am persuaded, that which\nis adopted in the Apocalypse. The new creation, commencing with our\nLord's resurrection, and measured as the creation of this world ('hujus\ns\u00e6culi', [Greek: toutou ai_onos]) was by the doctors of the Jewish\nchurch--namely, as a week--divided into two principal epochs,--the six\nsevenths or working days, during which the Gospel was gradually to be\npreached in all the world, and the number of the elect filled up,--and\nthe seventh, the Sabbath of the Messiah, or the kingdom of Christ on\nearth in a new Jerusalem.\n\nBut as the Jewish doctors made the day (or one thousand years) of\nMessiah, a part, because the consummation, of this world, [Greek: toutou\naionos toutou kairou], so the first Christians reversely made the\nkingdom commence on the first (symbolical) day of the sacred week, the\nlast or seventh day of which was to be the complete and glorious\nmanifestation of this kingdom. If any one contends that the kingdom of\nthe Son of Man, and the re-descent of our Lord with his angels in the\nclouds, are to be interpreted spiritually,\n\nI have no objection; only you cannot pretend that this was the\ninterpretation of the disciples. It may be the right, but it was not the\nApostolic belief.\n\n\nIb. s. 1. p. 257.\n\n  For this was giving them pardon, by virtue of those words of Christ,\n  'Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted;' that is, if ye, who are the\n  stewards of my family, shall admit any one to the kingdom of Christ on\n  earth, they shall be admitted to the participation of Christ's kingdom\n  in heaven; and what ye bind here shall be bound there; that is, if\n  they be unworthy to partake of Christ here, they shall be accounted\n  unworthy to partake of Christ hereafter.\n\nThen without such a gift of reading the hearts of men, as priests do not\nnow pretend to, this text means almost nothing. A wicked shall not, but\na good man shall, be admitted to heaven; for if you have with good\nreason rejected any one here, I will reject him hereafter, amounts to no\nmore than the rejection or admission of men according to their moral\nfitness or unfitness, the truth or unsoundness of their faith and\nrepentance. I rather think that the promise, like the miraculous insight\nwhich it implies, was given to the Apostles and first disciples\nexclusively, and that it referred almost wholly to the admission of\nprofessed converts to the Church of Christ.\n\n\n'In fine'.\n\nI have written but few marginal notes to this long Treatise, for the\nwhole is to my feeling and apprehension so Romish, so anti-Pauline, so\nunctionless, that it makes my very heart as dry as the desert sands,\nwhen I read it. Instead of partial animadversions, I prescribe the\nchapter on the Law and the Gospel, in Luther's 'Table Talk', as the\ngeneral antidote. [13]\n\n\n\nVINDICATION OF THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES IN THE QUESTION OF\nORIGINAL SIN.\n\n\nIb. Obj. iv. p. 346.\n\n  But if Original Sin be not a sin properly, why are children baptized?\n  And what benefit comes to them by Baptism? I answer, as much as they\n  need, and are capable of.\n\nThe eloquent man has plucked just prickles enough out of the dogma of\nOriginal Sin to make a thick and ample crown of thorns for his\nopponents; and yet left enough to tear his own clothes off his back, and\npierce through the leather jerkin of his closeliest wrought logic. In\nthis answer to this objection he reminds me of the renowned squire, who\nfirst scratched out his eyes in a quickset hedge, and then leaped back\nand scratched them in again. So Jeremy Taylor first pulls out the very\neyes of the doctrine, leaves it blind and blank, and then leaps back\ninto it and scratches them in again, but with a most opulent squint that\nlooks a hundred ways at once, and no one can tell which it really looks\nat.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  By Baptism children are made partakers of the Holy Ghost and of the\n  grace of God; which I desire to be observed in opposition to the\n  Pelagian heresy, who did suppose nature to be so perfect, that the\n  grace of God was not necessary, and that by nature alone, they could\n  go to heaven; which because I affirm to be impossible, and that\n  Baptism is therefore necessary, because nature is insufficient and\n  Baptism is the great channel of grace, &c.\n\nWhat then of the poor heathens, that is, of five-sixths of all mankind.\nWould more go to hell by nature alone? If so: where is God's justice in\nTaylor's plan more than in Calvin's?\n\n\nIb. Obj. v. p. 355.\n\n  Although I have shewn the great excess and abundance of grace by\n  Christ over the evil that did descend by Adam; yet the proportion and\n  comparison lies in the main emanation of death from one, and life from\n  the other.\n\nDoes Jeremy Taylor then believe that the sentence of death on Adam and\nhis sons extended to the soul; that death was to be absolute cessation\nof being! Scarcely I hope. But if bodily only, where is the difference\nbetween 'ante' and 'post Christum?'\n\n\nIb. p. 356.\n\n  Not that God could be the author of a sin to any, but that he\n  appointed the evil which is the consequent of sin, to be upon their\n  heads who descended from the sinner.\n\nRare justice! and this too in a tract written to rescue God's justice\nfrom the Supra- and Sub-lapsarians! How quickly would Taylor have\ndetected in an adversary the absurd realization contained in this and\nthe following passages of the abstract notion, sin, from the sinner: as\nif sin were any thing but a man sinning, or a man who has sinned! As\nwell might a sin committed in Sirius or the planet Saturn justify the\ninfliction of conflagration on the earth and hell-fire on all its\nrational inhabitants. Sin! the word sin! for abstracted from the sinner\nit is no more: and if not abstracted from him, it remains separate from\nall others.\n\n\nIb. p. 358.\n\n  The consequent of this discourse must needs at least be this; that it\n  is impossible that the greatest part of mankind should be left in the\n  eternal bonds of hell by Adam; for then quite contrary to the\n  discourse of the Apostle, there had been abundance of sin, but a\n  scarcity of grace.\n\nAnd yet Jeremy Taylor will not be called a Pelagian. Why? Because\nwithout grace superadded by Christ no man could be saved: that is, all\nmen must go to hell, and this not for any sin, but from a calamity, the\nconsequences of another man's sin, of which they were even ignorant. God\nwould not condemn them the sons of Adam for sin, but only inflicted on\nthem an evil, the necessary effect of which was that they should all\ntroop to the devil! And this is Jeremy Taylor's defence of God's\njustice! The truth is Taylor was a Pelagian, believed that without\nChrist thousands, Jews and heathens, lived wisely and holily, and went\nto heaven; but this he did not dare say out, probably not even to\nhimself; and hence it is that he flounders backward and forward, now\nupping and now downing.\n\nIn truth, this eloquent Treatise may be compared to a statue of Janus,\nwith one face fixed on certain opponents, full of life and force, a\nwitty scorn on the lip, a brow at once bright and weighty with\nsatisfying reason: the other looking at the something instead of that\nwhich had been confuted, maimed, noseless, and weather-bitten into a\nsort of visionary confusion and indistinctness. [14] It looks like\nthis--aye and very like that--but how like it is, too, such another\nthing!\n\n\n\nAN ANSWER TO A LETTER WRITTEN BY THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF\nROCHESTER, CONCERNING THE CHAPTER OF ORIGINAL SIN, IN THE \"UNUM\nNECESSARIUM.\"\n\n\nIb. p. 367.\n\n  And they who are born eunuchs should be less infected by Adam's\n  pollution, by having less of concupiscence in the great instance of\n  desires.\n\nThe fact happens to be false: and then the vulgarity, most unworthy of\nour dear Jeremy Taylor, of taking the mode of the manifestation of the\ndisobedience of the will to the reason, for the disobedience itself. St.\nJames would have taught him that he who offendeth against one, offendeth\nagainst all; and that there is some truth in the Stoic paradox that all\ncrimes are equal. Equal is indeed a false phrase; and therein consists\nthe paradox, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is the same as\nthe falsehood. The truth is they are all the same in kind; but unequal\nin degree. They are all alike, though not equally, against the\nconscience.\n\n\nIb. p. 369.\n\n  So that there is no necessity of a third place; but it concludes only\n  that in the state of separation from God's presence there is great\n  variety of degrees and kinds of evil, and every one is not the\n  extreme.\n\nWhat is this? If hell be a state, and not a mere place, and a particular\nstate, its meaning must in common sense be a state of the worst sort. If\nthen there be a mere 'p\u00e6na damni', that is, the not being so blest as\nsome others may be; this is a different state 'in genere' from the 'p\u00e6na\nsensus': 'ergo', not hell; 'ergo' rather a third state; or else heaven.\nFor every angel must be in it, than whom another angel is happier; that\nis negatively damned, though positively very happy.\n\n\nIb. p. 370-1.\n\n  Just so it is in infants: hell was not made for man, but for devils;\n  and therefore it must be something besides mere nature that can bear\n  any man thither: mere nature goes neither to heaven or hell.\n\nAnd how came the devils there? If it be hard to explain how Adam fell;\nhow much more hard to solve how purely spiritual beings could fall? And\nnature! What? so much of nature, and no kind of attempt at a definition\nof the word? Pray what is nature?\n\n\nIb. p. 371.\n\n  I do not say that we, by that sin (original) deserved that death,\n  neither can death be properly a punishment of us, till we superadd\n  some evil of our own; yet Adam's sin deserved it, so that it was\n  justly left to fall upon us, we, as a consequent and punishment of his\n  sin, being reduced to our natural portion.\n\nHow? What is this but flying to the old Supra-lapsarian blasphemy of a\nright of property in God over all his creatures, and destroying that\nsacred distinction between person and thing which is the light and the\nlife of all law human and divine? Mercy on us! Is not agony, is not the\nstone, is not blindness, is not ignorance, are not headstrong, inherent,\ninnate, and connate, passions driving us to sin when reason is least\nable to withhold us,--are not all these punishments, grievous\npunishments, and are they not inflicted on the innocent babe? Is not\nthis the result infused into the 'milk not mingled' of St. Peter; [15]\nspotting the immaculate begotten, souring and curdling the innocence\n'without sin or malice'? [16] And if this be just, and compatible with\nGod's goodness, why all this outcry against St. Austin and the\nCalvinists and the Lutherans, whose whole addition is a lame attempt to\nbelieve guilt, where they cannot find it, in order to justify a\npunishment which they do find?\n\n\nIb. p. 379.\n\n  But then for the evil of punishment, that may pass further than the\n  action. If it passes upon the innocent, it is not a punishment to\n  them, but an evil inflicted by right of dominion; but yet by reason of\n  the relation of the afflicted to him that sinned, to him it is a\n  punishment.\n\nHere the snake peeps out, and now takes its tail into its mouth. Right\nof dominion! Nonsense! Things are not objects of right or wrong. Power\nof dominion I understand, and right of judgment I understand; but right\nof dominion can have no immediate, but only a relative, sense. I have a\nright of dominion over this estate, that is, relatively to all other\npersons. But if there be a 'jus dominandi' over rational and free\nagents, then why blame Calvin? For all attributes are then merged in\nblind power: and God and fate are the same:\n\n  [Greek: Ze\u00f9s ka\u00ec Moira ka\u00ec aeerophoitis Erinn\u00fas]\n\nStrange Trinity! God, Necessity, and the Devil. But Taylor's scheme has\nfar worse consequences than Calvin's: for it makes the whole scheme of\nRedemption a theatrical scenery. Just restore our bodies and corporeal\npassions to a perfect 'equilibrium' and fortunate instinct, and, there\nbeing no guilt or defect in the soul, the Son of God, the Logos, and\nSupreme Reason, might have remained unincarnate, uncrucified. In short,\nSocinianism is as inevitable a deduction from Taylor's scheme as Deism\nor Atheism is from Socinianism.\n\n\n'In fine'.\n\nThe whole of Taylor's confusion originated in this;--first, that he and\nhis adversaries confound original with hereditary sin; but chiefly that\nneither he nor his adversaries had considered that guilt must be a\n'noumenon'; but that our images, remembrances, and consciousnesses of\nour actions are 'ph\u00e6nomena'. Now the 'ph\u00e6nomenon' is in time, and an\neffect: but the 'noumenon' is not in time any more than it is in space.\nThe guilt has been before we are even conscious of the action; therefore\nan original sin (that is, a sin universal and essential to man as man,\nand yet guilt, and yet choice, and yet amenable to punishment), may be\nat once true and yet in direct contradiction to all our reasonings\nderived from 'ph\u00e6nomena', that is, facts of time and space. But we ought\nnot to apply the categories of appearance to the [Greek: ontos onta] of\nthe intelligible or causative world. This (I should say of Original Sin)\nis mystery! We do not so properly believe it, as we know it. What is\nactual must be possible. But if we will confound actuals with reals, and\napply the rules of the latter to cases of the former, we must blame\nourselves for the clouds and darkness and storms of opposing winds,\nwhich the error will not fail to raise. By the same process an Atheist\nmay demonstrate the contradictory nature of eternity, of a being at once\ninfinite and of resistless causality, and yet intelligent. Jeremy Taylor\nadditionally puzzled himself with Adam, instead of looking into the fact\nin himself.\n\nHow came it that Taylor did not apply the same process to the congeneric\nquestion of the freedom of the will? In half a dozen syllogisms he must\nhave gyved and hand-cuffed himself into blank necessity and mechanic\nmotions. All hangs together. Deny Original Sin, and you will soon deny\nfree will;--then virtue and vice;--and God becomes 'Abracadabra'; a\nsound, nothing else.\n\n\n\nSECOND LETTER TO THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.\n\n\nIb. p. 390-1.\n\n  To this it is answered as you see, there is a double guilt; a guilt of\n  person, and of nature. That is taken away, this is not: for sacraments\n  are given to persons, not to natures.\n\nI need no other passage but this to convince me that Jeremy Taylor, the\nangle in which the two 'apices' of logic and rhetoric meet,\nconsummate in both, was yet no metaphysician. Learning, fancy,\ndiscursive intellect, 'tria juncta in uno', and of each enough to\nhave alone immortalized a man, he had; but yet [Greek:  ouden met\u00e0\nphysin]. Images, conceptions, notions, such as leave him but one rival,\nShakspeare, there were; but no ideas. Taylor was a Gassendist. O! that\nhe had but meditated in the silence of his spirit on the mystery of an\n'I AM'! He would have seen that a person, 'quoad' person, can\nhave nothing common or generic; and that where this finds place, the\nperson is corrupted by introsusception of a nature, which becomes evil\nthereby, and on this relation only is an evil nature. The nature itself,\nlike all other works of God, is good, and so is the person in a yet\nhigher sense of the word, good, like all offsprings of the Most High.\nBut the combination is evil, and this not the work of God; and one of\nthe main ends and results of the doctrine of Original Sin is to silence\nand confute the blasphemy that makes God the author of sin, without\navoiding it by fleeing to the almost equal blasphemy against the\nconscience, that sin in the sense of guilt does not exist.\n\n\n\nTHE REAL PRESENCE AND SPIRITUAL OF CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT,\nPROVED AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION.\n\nPerhaps the most wonderful of all Taylor's works. He seems, if I may so\nsay, to have transubstantiated his vast imagination and fancy into\nsubtlety not to be evaded, acuteness to which nothing remains\nunpierceable, and indefatigable agility of argumentation. Add to these\nan exhaustive erudition, and that all these are employed in the service\nof reason and common sense; whereas in some of his Tracts he seems to\nwield all sorts of wisdom and wit in defence of all sorts of folly and\nstupidity. But these were 'ad popellum', and by virtue of the 'falsitas\ndispensativa', which he allowed himself.\n\n\nEpist. dedicatory.\n\n  The question of transubstantiation.\n\nI have no doubt that if the Pythagorean bond had successfully\nestablished itself, and become a powerful secular hierarchy, there would\nhave been no lack of furious partizans to assert, yea, and to damn and\nburn such as dared deny, that one was the same as two; two being two in\nthe same sense as one is one; that consequently 2+2=2 and 1+1=4. But I\nshould most vehemently doubt that this was the intention of Pythagoras,\nor the sense in which the mysterious dogma was understood by the\nthinking part of his disciples, who nevertheless were its professed\nbelievers. I should be prepared to find that the true import and purport\nof the article was no more than this;--that the one in order to its\nmanifestation must appear in and as two; that the act of re-union was\nsimultaneous with that of the self-production, (in the geometrical use\nof the word 'produce,' as when a point produces, or evolves, itself on\neach side into a bipolar line), and that the Triad is therefore the\nnecessary form of the Monad.\n\nEven so is the dispute concerning Transubstantiation. I can easily\nbelieve that a thousand monks and friars would pretend, as Taylor says,\nto 'disbelieve their eyes and ears, and defy their own reason,' and to\nreceive the dogma in the sense, or rather in the nonsense, here ascribed\nto it by him, namely, that the phenomenal bread and wine were the\nphenomenal flesh and blood. But I likewise know that the respectable\nRoman Catholic theologians state the article free from a contradiction\nin terms at least; namely, that in the consecrated elements the\n'noumena' of the phenomenal bread and wine are the same with that which\nwas the 'noumenon' of the phenomenal flesh and blood of Christ when on\nearth.\n\nLet M represent a slab or plane of mahogany,\nand m its ordinary supporter or under-prop; and\nlet S represent a slab or plane of silver,\nand s its supporter.\n\nNow to affirm that M = S is a contradiction,\nor that m = s;\n\nbut it is no contradiction to say, that on certain occasions\n(S having been removed)\ns is substituted for m,\nand that what was M/m,\nis by the command of the common master changed into M/s.\n\nIt may be false in fact, but it is not a self-contradiction in the\nterms.\n\nThe mode in which s subsists in M/s may be inconceivable,\nbut not more so than the mode in which m  subsists in M/m,\nor that in which s subsisted in S/s.\n\n\nI honestly confess that I should confine my grounds of opposition to the\narticle thus stated to its unnecessariness, to the want of sufficient\nproofs from Scripture that I am bound to believe or trouble my head with\nit. I am sure that Bishop Bull, who really did believe the Trinity,\nwithout either Tritheism or Sabellianism, could not consistently have\nused the argument of Taylor or of Tillotson in proof of the absurdity of\nTransubstantiation.\n\n\nIb. p. ccccxvi.\n\n  But for our dear afflicted mother, she is under the portion of a child\n  in the state of discipline, her government indeed hindered, but her\n  worshippings the same, the articles as true, and those of the church\n  of Rome as false as ever.\n\nO how much there is in these few words,--the sweet and comely\nsophistry, not of Taylor, but of human nature. Mother! child! state of\ndiscipline! government hindered! that is to say, in how many instances,\nscourgings hindered, dungeoning in dens foul as those of hell,\nmutilation of ears and noses, and flattering the King mad with\nassertions of his divine right to govern without a Parliament, hindered.\nThe best apology for Laud, Sheldon, and their fellows will ever be that\nthose whom they persecuted were as great persecutors as themselves, and\nmuch less excusable.\n\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 422.\n\n  'In Synaxi Transubstantiationem sero definivit Ecclesia; diu satis\n  erat credere, sive sub pane consecrate, sive quocunque modo adesse\n  verum corpus Christi;' so said the great Erasmus.\n\n'Verum corpus,' that is, 'res ipsissima,' or the thing in its actual\nself, opposed [Greek: to phainomen'o].\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 425.\n\n  Now that the spiritual is also a real presence, and that they are\n  hugely consistent, is easily credible to them that believe the gifts\n  of the Holy Ghost are real graces, and a spirit is a proper substance.\n\nBut how the body of Christ, as opposed to his Spirit and to his Godhead,\ncan be taken spiritually, 'hic labor, hoc opus est.' Plotinus says,\n[Greek: kai hae hylae as'\u00f3matos]; so we must say here [Greek: ka\u00ec t\u00f2\ns'oma as'\u00f3maton].\n\n\nIb. s. vii. p. 426.\n\n  So we may say of the blessed Sacrament; Christ is more truly and\n  really present in spiritual presence than in corporal; in the heavenly\n  effect than in the natural being.\n\nBut the presence of Christ is not in question, but the presence of\nChrist's body and blood. Now that Christ effected much for us by coming\nin the body, which could not or would not have been effected had he not\nassumed the body, we all, Socinians excepted, believe; but that his body\neffected it, other than as Christ in the body, where shall we find? how\ncan we understand?\n\n\nIb. p. 427.\n\n  So when it is said, 'Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of\n  God,' that is, corruption shall not inherit; and in the resurrection,\n  our bodies are said to be spiritual, that is, not in substance, but in\n  effect and operation.\n\nThis is, in the first place, a wilful interpretation, and secondly, it\nis absurd; for what sort of flesh and blood would incorruptible flesh\nand blood be? As well might we speak of marble flesh and blood. But in\nTaylor's mind, as seen throughout, the logician was predominant over the\nphilosopher, and the fancy outbustled the pure intuitive imagination. In\nthe sense of St. Paul, as of Plato and all other dynamic philosophers,\nflesh and blood is 'ipso facto' corruption, that is, the spirit of life\nin the mid or balancing state between fixation and reviviscence. 'Who\nshall deliver me from the body of this death?' is a Hebraism for 'this\ndeath which the body is.' For matter itself is but 'spiritus in\ncoagulo,' and organized matter the coagulum in the act of being\nrestored; it is then repotentiating. Stop its self-destruction as\nmatter, and you stop its self-reproduction as a vital organ. In short,\nTaylor seems to fall into the very fault he reproves in Bellarmine, and\nwith this additional evil, that his reasoning looks more like tricking\nor explaining away a mystery. For wherein does the Sacrament of the\nEucharist differ from that of Baptism, nay, even of grace before meat,\nwhen performed fervently and in faith? Here too Christ is present in the\nhearts of the faithful by blessing and grace. I see at present no other\nway of interpreting the text so as not to make the Sacrament a mere\narbitrary 'memento,' but by an implied negative. In propriety, the word\nis confined to no portion of corporality in particular. \"This (the bread\nand wine) are as truly my flesh and blood as the 'ph\u00e6nomena' which you\nnow behold and name as such.\"\n\n\nIb. s. ix. p. 429.\n\nFrom this paragraph I conclude, though not without some perplexity, that\nby 'the body and blood verily and indeed taken,' we are not to\nunderstand body and blood in their limited sense, as contradistinguished\nfrom the soul or Godhead of Christ, but as a 'periphrasis' for Christ\nhimself, or at least Christ's humanity. Taylor, however, has\nmisconstrued Phavorinus' meaning though not his words. 'Spiritualia\neterna quoad spiritum.' But this is the very depth of the purified\nPlatonic philosophy.\n\n\nIb. s. x. p. 430.\n\n  But because the words do perfectly declare our sense, and are owned\n  publicly in our doctrine and manner of speaking, it will be in vain to\n  object against us those words of the Fathers, which use the same\n  expressions: for if by virtue of those words 'really,'\n  'substantially,' 'corporally,' 'verily and indeed,' and 'Christ's body\n  and blood,' the Fathers shall be supposed to speak for\n  Transubstantiation, they may as well suppose it to be our doctrine\n  too; for we use the same words, and therefore those authorities must\n  signify nothing against us, unless these words can be proved in them\n  to signify more than our sense of them does import; and by this truth,\n  many, very many of their pretences are evacuated.\n\nA sophism, dearest Jeremy. We use the words because these early Fathers\nused them, and have forced our own definitions on them. But should we\nhave chosen these words to express our opinion by, if there had been no\ncontroversy on the subject? But the Fathers chose and selected these\nwords as the most obvious and natural.\n\n\nIb. s. xi. p. 431.\n\n  It is much insisted upou that it be inquired whether, when we say we\n  believe Christ's body to be really in the Sacrament, we mean 'that\n  body, that flesh, that was born of the Virgin Mary, that was\n  crucified, dead, and buried?' I answer, that I know none else that he\n  had or hath: there is but one body of Christ natural and glorified.\n\nThis may be true, or at least intelligible, of Christ's humanity or\npersonal identity as [Greek: n\u00f3aeton ti], but applied to the phenomenal\nflesh and blood, it is nonsense. For if every atom of the human frame be\nchanged by succession in eleven or twelve years, the body born of the\nVirgin could not be the body crucified, much less the body crucified be\nthe body glorified, spiritual and incorruptible. I construe the words of\nClement of Alexandria, quoted by Taylor below, [17] literally, and they\nperfectly express my opinion; namely, that Christ, both in the\ninstitution of the Eucharist and in the sixth chapter of John, spoke of\nhis humanity as a 'noumenon,' not of the specific flesh and blood which\nwere its 'ph\u00e6nomena' at the last supper and on the cross. But Jeremy\nTaylor was a semi-materialist, and though no man better managed the\nlogic of substance and accidents, he seems to have formed no clear\nmetaphysical notion of their actual meaning. Taken notionally, they are\nmere interchangeable relations, as in concentric circles the outmost\ncircumference is the substance, the other circles its accidents; but if\nI begin with the second and exclude the first from my thoughts, then\nthis is substance and the interior ones accidents, and so on; but taken\nreally, we mean the complex action of co-agents on our senses, and\naccident as only an agent acting on us. Thus we say, the beer has turned\nsour: sour is the accident of the substance beer. But, in fact, a new\nagent, oxygen, has united itself with other agents in the joint\ncomposition, the essence of which new comer is to be sour: at all\nevents, Taylor's construction is a mere assertion, meaning no more than\n'in this sense only can I subscribe to the words of Bertram, Jerome, and\nClement.'\n\nIf a re-union of the Lutheran and English Churches with the Roman were\ndesirable and practicable, the best way, [Greek: h_os emoige dokei,]\nwould be, that any remarkable number should offer union on a given\nprofession of faith chiefly negative, as we protest against the\nauthority of the Church in temporals; that the words agreed to by Beza\nand Espencoeus, on the part of the Reformers and Romanists respectively,\nat Poissy, used with implicit faith, shall suffice. 'Credimus in usu\ncoent\u00e6 Dominic\u00e6 vere, reipsa, substantialiter, seu in substantia, verum\ncorpus et sanguinem Christi spirituali et ineffabili modo esse,\nexhiberi, sumi a fidelibus communicantibus.'\n\n\nIb. s. in. p. 434.\n\n  The other Schoolman I am to reckon in this account, is Gabriel Biel.\n\nTaylor should have informed the reader that Gabriel Biel is but the echo\nof Occam, and that both were ante-Lutheran Protestants in heart, and as\nfar as they dared, in word likewise.\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 436.\n\n  So that if, according to the Casuists, especially of the Jesuits'\n  order, it be lawful to follow the opinion of any one probable doctor,\n  here we have five good men and true, besides Occam, Bassolis, and\n  Mechior Camus, to acquit us from our search after this question in\n  Scripture.\n\nTaylor might have added Erasmus, who, in one of his letters, speaking of\nOecolampadius's writings on the Eucharist, says '\"ut seduci posse\nvideantur etiam electi,\"' and adds, that he should have embraced his\ninterpretations, '\"nisi obstaret consensus Ecclesi\u00e6;\"' that is,\nOecolampadius has convinced me, and I should avow my conviction, but for\nmotives of personal prudence and regard for the public peace.\n\n\n\n\nOF THE SIXTH CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.\n\nIb. p. 436.\n\nI cannot but think that the same mysterious truth, whatever it be, is\nreferred to in the Eucharist and in this chapter of St. John; and I\nwonder that Taylor, who makes the Eucharist a spiritual sumption of\nChrist, should object to it. A = C and B = C, therefore A = B. [18]\n\n\nIb. s. iv. p. 440.\n\nThe error on both sides, Roman and Protestant, originates in the\nconfusion of sign or figure with symbol, which latter is always an\nessential part of that, of the whole of which it is the representative.\nNot seeing this, and therefore seeing no 'medium' between the whole\nthing and the mere metaphor of the thing, the Romanists took the former\nor positive pole of the error, the Protestants the latter or negative\npole. The Eucharist is a symbolic, or solemnizing and 'totum in parte'\nacting of an act, which in a true member of Christ's body is supposed to\nbe perpetual. Thus the husband and wife exercise the duties of their\nmarriage contract of love, protection, obedience, and the like, all the\nyear long, and yet solemnize it by a more deliberate and reflecting act\nof the same love on the anniversary of their marriage.\n\n\nIb. s. ix p. 447-8.\n\n  That which neither can feel or be felt, see or be seen, move or be\n  moved, change or be changed, neither do or suffer corporally, cannot\n  certainly be eaten corporally; but so they affirm concerning the body\n  of our blessed Lord; it cannot do or suffer corporally in the\n  Sacrament, therefore it cannot be eaten corporally, any more than a\n  man can chew a spirit, or eat a meditation, or swallow a syllogism\n  into his belly.\n\nAbsurd as the doctrine of Transubstantiation may thus be made, yet\nTaylor here evidently confounds a spirit, 'ens realissimum,' with a mere\nnotion or 'ens logicum.' On this ground of the spirituality of all\npowers [Greek: don\u00e1meis], it would not be difficult to evade many of\nTaylor's most plausible arguments. Enough, however, and more than enough\nwould be left in their full force.\n\n\nIb. p. 448.\n\n  Besides this, I say this corporal union of our bodies to the body of\n  God incarnate, which these great and witty dreamers dream of, would\n  make man to be God.\n\nBut yet not God, nor absolutely. 'I am in my Father, even so ye are in\nme.'\n\n\nIb. s. xxii. p. 456.\n\n  By this time I hope I may conclude, that Transubstantiation is not\n  taught by our blessed Lord in the sixth chapter of St. John: 'Johannes\n  de tertia et Eucharistica c\u00e6na nihil quidem scribit, eo quod c\u00e6teri\n  tres Evangelist\u00e6 ante ilium eam plene descripsissent.' They are the\n  words of Stapleton and are good evidence against them.\n\nI cannot satisfy my mind with this reason, though the one commonly\nassigned both before and since Stapleton: and yet ignorant, when, why,\nand for whom John wrote his Gospel, I cannot substitute a better or more\nprobable one. That John believed the command of the Eucharist to have\nceased with the destruction of the Jewish state, and the obligation of\nthe cup of blessing among the Jews,--or that he wrote it for the Greeks,\nunacquainted with the Jewish custom,--would be not improbable, did we\nnot know that the Eastern Church, that of Ephesus included, not only\ncontinued this Sacrament, but rivalled the Western Church in the\nsuperstition thereof.\n\n\nIb. s. i. p. 503.\n\n  Now I argue thus: if we eat Christ's natural body, we eat it either\n  naturally or spiritually: if it be eaten only spiritually, then it is\n  spiritually digested, &c.\n\nWhat an absurdity in the word 'it' in this passage and throughout!\n\n\nVol. X. s. iii. p. 3.\n\n  The accidents, proper to a substance, are for the manifestation, a\n  notice of the substance, not of themselves; for as the man feels, but\n  the means by which he feels is the sensitive faculty, so that which is\n  felt, is the substance, and the means by which it is felt is the\n  accident.\n\nThis is the language of common sense, rightly so called, that is, truth\nwithout regard or reference to error; thus only differing from the\nlanguage of genuine philosophy, which is truth intentionally guarded\nagainst error. But then in order to have supported it against an acute\nantagonist, Taylor must, I suspect, have renounced his Gassendis and\nother Christian 'Epicuri.' His antagonist would tell him; when a man\nstrikes me with a stick, I feel the stick, and infer the man; but 'pari\nratione,' I feel the blow, and infer the stick; and this is tantamount\nto,--I feel, and by a mechanism of my thinking organ attribute causation\nto precedent or co-existent images; and this no less in states in which\nyou call the images unreal, that is, in dreams, than when they are\nasserted by you to have an outward reality.\n\n\nIb. p. 4.\n\n  But when a man, by the ministry of the senses, is led into the\n  apprehension of a wrong object, or the belief of a false proposition,\n  then he is made to believe a lie, &c.\n\nThere are no means by which a man without chemical knowledge could\ndistinguish two similarly shaped lumps, one of sugar and another of\nsugar of lead. Well! a lump of sugar of lead lies among other artefacts\non the shelf of a collector; and with it a label, \"Take care! this is\nnot sugar, though it looks so, but crystallized oxide of lead, and it is\na deadly poison.\" A man reads this label, and yet takes and swallows the\nlump. Would Taylor assert that the man was made to swallow a poison? Now\nthis (would the Romanist say) is precisely the case of the consecrated\nelements, only putting food and antidote for poison; that is, as far as\nthis argument of Jeremy Taylor is concerned.\n\n\nIb. p. 5.\n\n  Just upon this account it is, that St. John's argument had been just\n  nothing in behalf of the whole religion: for that God was incarnate,\n  that Jesus Christ did such miracles, that he was crucified, that he\n  arose again, and ascended into heaven, that he preached these sermons,\n  that he gave such commandments, he was made to believe by sounds, by\n  shapes, by figures, by motions, by likenesses, and appearances, of all\n  the proper accidents.\n\nA Socinian might turn this argument with equal force at least, but I\nthink with far greater, against the Incarnation. But it is a sophism,\nthat actually did lead, to Socinianism: for surely bread and wine are\nless disparate from flesh and blood, than a human body from the\nOmnipresent Spirit. The disciples would, according to Taylor, Tillotson,\nand the other Latitudinarian common sense divines, have been justified\nin answering: \"All our senses tell us you are only a man: how should, we\nbelieve you when you say the contrary? If we are not to believe all our\nsenses, much less can we believe that we actually hear you.\"\n\nAnd Taylor in my humble judgment gives a force and extension to the\nwords of St. John, quoted before,--'That which was from the beginning,\nwhich we have seen with our eyes, which we have beheld, and our hands\nhave handled of the word of life' (1 Ep.1.),--far greater than they\neither can, or were meant to, bear. It is beyond all doubt, that the\nwords refer to, and were intended to confute, the heresy which was soon\nafter a prominent doctrine of the Gnostics; namely, that the body of\nChrist was a phantom. To this St. John replies: I have myself had every\nproof to the contrary: first, the proof of the senses; secondly,\nChrist's own assurance. Now this was unanswerable by the Gnostics,\nwithout one or the other of two pretences; either that St. John and the\nother known and appointed Apostles and delegates of the Word were liars;\nor that the Epistle was spurious. The first was too intolerable:\ntherefore they adopted the second. Observe, the heretics, whom St. John\nconfutes, did not deny the actual presence of the Word with the\nappearance of a human body, much less the truth of the wonders performed\nby the Word in this super-human and unearthly 'vice-corpus,' or 'quasi\ncorpus:' least of all, would they assert either that the assurances of\nthe Word were false in themselves, or that the sense of hearing might\nhave been permitted to deceive the beloved Apostle, (which would have\nbeen virtual falsehood and a subornation of falsehood), however liable\nto deception the senses might be generally, and as sole and primary\nproofs unsupported by antecedent grounds, 'pr\u00e6cognitis vel\npreconcessis.' And that St. John never thought of advancing the senses\nto any such dignity and self-sufficiency as proofs, it would be easy to\nshew from twenty passages of his Gospel. I say, again and again, that I\nmyself greatly prefer the general doctrine of our own Church respecting\nthe Eucharist,--'rem credimus, modum nescimus,'--to either Tran- (or\nCon-) substantiation, on the one hand, or to the mere 'signum memori\u00e6\ncausa' of the Sacramentaries. But nevertheless, I think that the\nProtestant divines laid too much stress on the abjuration of the\nmetaphysical part of the Roman article; as if, even with the admission\nof Transubstantiation, the adoration was not forbidden and made\nidolatrous by the second commandment.\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 9.\n\n  And yet no sense can be deceived in that which it always perceives\n  alike: 'The touch can never be deceived.'\n\nEvery common juggler falsifies this assertion when he makes the pressure\nfrom a shilling seem the shilling itself. \"Are you sure you feel it?\"\n\"Yes.\" \"Then open your hand. Presto! 'Tis gone.\" From this I gather that\nneither Taylor nor Aristotle ever had the nightmare.\n\n\nIb. p.10.\n\n  The purpose of which discourse is this: that no notices are more\n  evident and more certain than the notices of sense; but if we conclude\n  contrary to the true dictate of senses, the fault is in the\n  understanding, collecting false conclusions from right premises. It\n  follows, therefore, that in the matter of the Eucharist we ought to\n  judge that which our senses tell us.\n\nVery unusually lax reasoning for Jeremy Taylor, whose logic is commonly\nlegitimate even where his metaphysic is unsatisfactory. What Romanist\never asserted that a communicant's palate deceived him, when it reported\nthe taste of bread or of wine in the elements?\n\n\nIb. s. i. p. 16.\n\n  When we discourse of mysteries of faith and articles of religion, it\n  is certain that the greatest reason in the world, to which all other\n  reasons must yield, is this--'God hath said it, therefore it is true.'\n\nDoubtless: it is a syllogism demonstrative. All that God says is truth,\nis necessarily true. But God hath said this; 'ergo,' &c. But how is the\n'minor' to be proved, that God hath said this? By reason? But it is\nagainst reason. By the senses? But it is against the senses.\n\n\nIb. s. xii. p. 27.\n\n  First; for Christ's body, his natural body, is changed into a\n  spiritual body, and it is not now a natural body, but a spiritual, and\n  therefore cannot be now in the Sacrament after a natural manner,\n  because it is so no where, and therefore not there: 'It is sown a\n  natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.'\n\nBut mercy on me! was this said of the resurgent body of Jesus? a\nspiritual body, of which Jesus said it was not a spirit. If tangible by\nThomas's fingers, why not by his teeth, that is, manducable?\n\n\nIb. s. xxviii. p. 44.\n\n  So that if there were a plain revelation of Transubstantiation, then\n  this argument were good ... when there are so many seeming\n  impossibilities brought against the Holy Trinity ... And therefore we\n  have found difficulties, and shall for ever, till, in this article,\n  the Church returns to her ancient simplicity of expression.\n\nTaylor should have said, it would have very greatly increased the\ndifficulty of proving that it was really revealed, but supposing that\ncertain, then doubtless it must be believed as far as nonsense can be\nbelieved, that is, negatively. From the Apostles' Creed it may be\npossible to deduce the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity; but assuredly\nit is not fully expressed therein: and what can Taylor mean by the\nChurch returning to her first simplicity in this article? What less\ncould she say if she taught the doctrine at all, than that the Word and\nthe Spirit are spoken of every where in Scripture as individuals, each\ndistinct from the other, and both from the Father: that of both all the\ndivine attributes are predicated, except self-origination; that the\nSpirit is God, and the Word is God, and that they with the Father are\nthe one God? And what more does she say now? But Taylor, like Swift, had\na strong tendency to Sabellianism.\n\nIt is most dangerous, and, in its distant consequences, subversive of\nall Christianity to admit, as Taylor does, that the doctrine of the\nTrinity is at all against, or even above, human reason in any other\nsense, than as eternity and Deity itself are above it. In the former, as\nwell as the latter, we can prove that so it must be, and form clear\nnotions by negatives and oppositions.\n\n\nIb. s. xxix. p. 45.\n\n  Now concerning this, it is certain it implies a contradiction, that\n  two bodies should be in one place, or possess the place of another,\n  till that be cast forth.\n\nSo far from it that I believe the contrary; and it would puzzle Taylor\nto explain a thousand 'ph\u00e6nomena' in chemistry on his certainty.\nBut Taylor assumed matter to be wholly quantitative, which granted, his\nopinion would become certain.\n\n\nIb. s. xxxii. p. 49.\n\n  The door might be made to yield to his Creator as easily as water,\n  which is fluid, be made firm under his feet; for consistence or\n  lability are not essential to wood and water.\n\nHere the common basis of water, ice, vapour, steam, 'aqua crystallina',\nand (possibly) water-gas is called water, and confounded with the\nspecies water, that is, the common base 'plus' a given proportion of\ncaloric. To the species water continuity and lability are essential.\n\n\nIb. p. 50.\n\n  The words in the text are [Greek: kekleism\u00e9n_on t_on thyr_on] in the\n  past tense, the gates or doors having been shut; but that they were\n  shut in the instant of Christ's entry, it says not: they might of\n  course, if Christ had so pleased, have been insensibly opened, and\n  shut in like manner again; and, if the words be observed, it will\n  appear that St. John mentioned the shutting the doors in relation to\n  the Apostles' fear, not to Christ's entering: he intended not (so far\n  as appears) to declare a miracle.\n\nThank God! Here comes common sense.\n\n\nIb. ss. xvi-xvii. pp. 71-73.\n\nAll most excellent; but O! that Taylor's stupendous wit, subtlety,\nacuteness, learning and inexhaustible copiousness of argumentation would\nbut tell us what he himself, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, means by eating Christ's\nbody by faith: his body, not his soul or Godhead. Eat a body by faith!\n\n\n\n\nA DISSUASIVE FROM POPERY.\n\nPart I.\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 137.\n\n  The sentence of the Fathers in the third general Council, that at\n  Ephesus;--'that it should not be lawful for any man to publish or\n  compose another faith or creed than that which was defined by the\n  Nicene Council.'\n\nUpon what ground then does the Church of England reconcile with this\ndecree its reception of the so called Athanasian creed?\n\n\nIb. s. iv. p. 145.\n\n  We consider that the doctrines upon which it (Purgatory) is pretended\n  reasonable, are all dubious, and disputable at the very best. Such are\n  ... that the taking away the guilt of sins does not suppose the taking\n  away the obligation to punishment; that is, that when a man's sin is\n  pardoned, he may be punished without the guilt of that sin as justly\n  as with it.\n\nThe taking away the guilt does not, however, imply of necessity the\nnatural removal of the consequences of sin. And in this sense, I\nsuppose, the subtler Romanists would defend this accursed doctrine. A\nman may have bitterly repented and thoroughly reformed the sin of\ndrunkenness, and by this genuine 'metanoia' and faith in Christ\ncrucified have obtained forgiveness of the guilt, and yet continue to\nsuffer a heavy punishment in a schirrous liver or incurable dyspepsy.\nBut who authorized the Popes to extend this to the soul?\n\n\nIb. p. 153.\n\n  St. Ambrose saith that 'death is a haven of rest.'\n\nConsider the strange and oftentimes awful dreams accompanying the\npresence of irritating matter in the lower abdomen, and the seeming\nappropriation of particular sorts of dream images and incidents to\naffections of particular organs and 'viscera.' Do the material causes\nact positively, so that with the removal of the body by death the total\ncause is removed, and of course the effects? Or only negatively and\nindirectly, by lessening and suspending that continuous texture of\norganic sensation, which, by drawing outward the attention of the soul,\nsheaths her from her own state and its corresponding activities?--A\nfearful question, which I too often agitate, and which agitates me even\nin my dreams, when most commonly I am in one of Swedenborg's hells,\ndoubtful whether I am once more to be awaked, and thinking our dreams to\nbe the true state of the soul disembodied when not united with Christ.\nOn awaking from such dreams, I never fail to find some local pain,\n'circa-' or 'infra-'umbilical, with kidney affections, and at the base\nof the bladder.\n\n\nPART II.--INTRODUCTION.\n\n\nP. 227.\n\n  But yet because I will humour J.S. for this once; even here also 'The\n  Dissuasive' relies upon a first and self-evident principle as any is\n  in Christianity, and that is, 'Quod primum verum.'\n\nI am surprised to meet such an assertion in so acute a logician and so\nprudent an advocate as Jeremy Taylor. If the 'quod primum verum' mean\nthe first preaching or first institution of Christianity by its divine\nFounder, it is doubtless an evident inference from the assumed truth of\nChristianity, or, if you please, evidently implied therein; but surely\nthe truth of the Christian system, composed of historical narrations,\ndoctrines, precepts, and arguments, is no self-evident position, still\nless, if there be any tenable distinction between the words, a primary\ntruth. How then can an inference from a particular, a variously\nproveable and proof-requiring, position be itself a universal and\nself-evident one?\n\nBut if 'quod primum verum' means 'quod prius verius,' this again is far\nfrom being of universal application, much less self-evident. Astrology\nwas prior to astronomy; the Ptolemaic to the Newtonian scheme. It must\ntherefore be confined to history: yet even thus, it is not for any\npracticable purpose necessarily or always true. Increase in other\nknowledge, physical, anthropological, and psychological, may enable an\nhistorian of A.D. 1800 to give a much truer account of certain events\nand characters than the contemporary chroniclers had given, who lived in\nan age of ignorance and superstition.\n\nBut confine the position within yet narrower bounds, namely, to\nChristian antiquity. In addition to all other objections, it has this\ngreat defect; that it takes for granted the very point in dispute,\nwhether Christianity was an 'opus simul et in toto perfectum,' or\nwhether the great foundations only were laid by Christ while on earth,\nand by the Apostles, and the superstructure or progression of the work\nentrusted to the successors of the Apostles; and whether for that\npurpose Christ had not promised that his Spirit should be always with\nthe Church.\n\nNow this growth of truth, not only in each individual Christian who is\nindeed a Christian, but likewise in the Church of Christ, from age to\nage, has been affirmed and defended by sundry Latitudinarian, Grotian\nand Sociman divines even among Protestants: the contrary, therefore, and\nan inference from the supposition of the contrary, can never be\npronounced self-evident or primary.\n\nJeremy Taylor had nothing to do with these mock axioms, but to ridicule\nthem, as in other instances he has so effectually done. It was\nsufficient and easy to shew, that, true or false, the position was\nutterly inapplicable to the facts of the Roman Church; that, instead of\npassing, like the science of the material heaven, from dim to clear,\nfrom guess to demonstration, from mischievous fancies to guiding,\nprofitable and powerful truths, it had overbuilt the divinest truths by\nthe silliest and not seldom wicked forgeries, usurpations and\nsuperstitions. J.S.'s very notion of proving a mass of histories by\nsimple logic, he would have found exposed to his hand with exquisite\ntruth and humour by Lucian.\n\n1810.\n\n\nIn the preceding note I think I took Taylor's words in too literal a\nsense; the remarks, however, on the common maxim, 'In rebus fidei, quod\nprius verius,' seem to me just and valuable. 2. March, 1824.\n\n\nIb. p. 297.\n\n  When he talks of being infallible, if the notion be applied to his\n  Church, then he means an infallibility antecedent, absolute,\n  unconditionate, such as will not permit the Church ever to err.\n\nTaylor himself was infected with the spirit of casuistry, by which\nsaving faith is placed in the understanding, and the moral act in the\noutward deed. How infinitely safer the true Lutheran doctrine: God\ncannot be mocked; neither will truth, as a mere conviction of the\nunderstanding, save, nor error condemn;--to love truth sincerely is\nspiritually to have truth; and an error becomes a personal error, not by\nits aberration from logic or history, but so far as the causes of such\nerror are in the heart, or may be traced back to some antecedent\nun-Christian wish or habit;--to watch over the secret movements of the\nheart, remembering ever how deceitful a thing it is, and that God cannot\nbe mocked, though we may easily dupe ourselves: these, as the\nground-work with prayer, study of the Scriptures, and tenderness to all\naround us, as the consequents, are the Christian's rule, and supersede\nall books of casuistry, which latter serve only to harden our feelings\nand pollute the imagination. To judge from the Roman casuists, nay, I\nought to say, from Taylor's own 'Ductor Dubitantium,' one would suppose\nthat a man's points of belief and smallest determinations of outward\nconduct,--however pure and charitable his intentions, and however holy\nor blameless the inward source of those intentions or convictions in his\npast and present state of moral being,--were like the performance of an\nelectrical experiment, and would blow a man's salvation into atoms from\na mere unconscious mistake in the arrangement and management of the\napparatus.\n\nSee Livy's account of Tullus Hostilius's unfortunate experiment with one\nof Numa's sacrificial ceremonies. The trick not being performed\n'secundum artem,' Jupiter enraged shot him dead.[A] Before God our\ndeeds, which for him can have no value, gain acceptance in proportion as\nthey are evolutions of our spiritual life. He beholds our deeds in our\nprinciples. For men our deeds have value as efficient causes, worth as\nsymptoms. They infer our principles from our deeds. Now, as religion or\nthe love of God cannot subsist apart from charity or the love of our\nneighbour, our conduct must be conformable to both.\n\n\nIb. p. 305.\n\n  Only for their comfort this they might have also observed in that\n  book,--that there is not half so much excuse for the Papists as there\n  is for the Anabaptists; and yet it was but an excuse at the best, as\n  appears in those full answers I have given to all their arguments, in\n  the last edition of that book, among the polemical discourses in\n  folio.\n\nNay, dear Bishop! but such an excuse, as compared with your after\nattempt to evacuate it, resembles a coat of mail of your own forging,\nwhich you boil, in order to melt it away into invisibility. You only\nhide it by foam and bubbles, by wavelets and steam-clouds, of ebullient\nrhetoric: I speak of the Anabaptists as Anti-p\u00e6dobaptists.\n\n\nIb. s. i. p. 337.\n\n  'Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what\n  his Lord doth; but I have called you friends, for all things I have\n  heard from the Father I have made known to you.'\n\nI never thought of this text before, but it seems to me a stronger\npassage in favour of Psilanthropism, or modern Socinianism,--a doctrine\nwhich of all heresies I deem the most fundamental and the worst (the\nimpurities of madmen out of the question),--than I have ever seen, and\nfar stronger than that concerning the day of judgment, which in its\napparent sense is clearly high Arianism, or teaching the\nsuper-angelical, yet infra-divine, nature of Christ. We must interpret\nit [Greek: kat' analog\u00edan p\u00edste_os], not as 'all things' absolutely, but\nas 'all things' concerning your interests, 'all things' that it behoves\nyou to know. Else it would contradict Christ's words, 'None knoweth the\nFather but the Son,' that is, truly and totally. For Christ does not\npromise in this life to give us the same degree of knowledge as he\nhimself possessed, but only a 'quantum sufficit' of the kind. This is\nclear by St. John's 'all things,' which assuredly did not include either\nthe discoveries of Newton or of Davy.\n\n14 August, 1811.\n\n\nIb. s. iii. p. 348.\n\n  The Churches have troubled themselves with infinite variety of\n  questions, and divided their precious unity, and destroyed charity,\n  and instead of contending against the devil and all his crafty\n  methods, they have contended against one another, and excommunicated\n  one another, and anathematized and damned one another; and no man is\n  the better after all, but most men are very much the worse; and the\n  Churches are in the world still divided about questions that commenced\n  twelve or thirteen ages since, and they are like to be so for ever,\n  till Elias come, &c.\n\nI remember no passages of the Fathers nearer to inspired Scripture than\nthis and similar ones of Jeremy Taylor, in which, quitting the acute\nlogician, he combines his heart with his head, and utters general, and\ninclusive, and reconciling truths of charity and of common sense. All\namounts but to this:--what is binding on all must be possible to all.\nBut conformity of intellectual conclusions is not possible. Faith\ntherefore cannot reside totally in the understanding. But to do what we\nbelieve we ought to do is possible to all, therefore binding on all;\ntherefore the 'unum necessarium' of Christian faith. Talk not of bad\nconscience; it is like bad sense, that is, no sense; and we all know\nthat we may wilfully lie till we involuntarily believe the lie as truth;\nbut 'causa caus\u00e6 est causa vera causati.'\n\n\nIb. p. 347.\n\n  But if you mean the Catholic Church, then, if you mean her, an\n  abstracted separate being from all particulars, you pursue a cloud,\n  and fall in love with an idea and a child of fancy.\n\nHere Taylor uses 'idea' as opposed to image or distinct phantasm; and\nthis is with few exceptions his general sense, and even the exceptions\nare only metaphors from the general sense, that is, images so faint,\nindefinite and fluctuating as to be almost no images, that is, ideas; as\nwe say of a very thin body, it is a ghost or spirit, the lowest degree\nof one kind being expressed by the opposite kind.\n\n\nIb. p. 380.\n\n  'Miracles' were, in the beginning of Christianity, a note of true\n  believers: Christ told us so. And he also taught us that Anti-Christ\n  should be revealed in lying signs and wonders, and commanded us, by\n  that token, to take heed of them.\n\nAn excellent distinction between a note or mark by which a thing already\nproved may be known, and the proofs of the thing. Thus the poisonous\nqualities of the nightshade are established by the proper proofs, and\nthe marks by which a plant may be known to be the nightshade, are the\nnumber, position, colour, and so on, of its filaments, petals, and the\nrest.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  The 'spirit of prophecy' is also a pretty sure note of the true\n  Church, and yet...I deny not but there have been some prophets in the\n  Church of Rome: Johannes de Rupe Scissa, Anselmus, Marsicanus, Robert\n  Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln, St. Hildegardis, Abbot Joachim, whose\n  prophecies and pictures prophetical were published by Theophrastus\n  Paracelsus, and John Adrasder, and by Paschalinus Regiselmus, at\n  Venice, 1589; but (as Ahab said concerning Micaiah) these do not\n  prophesy good concerning Rome, but evil, &c.\n\n\nThis paragraph is an exquisite specimen of grave and dignified irony,\n'telum quod cedere simulat retorquentis'. In contrast with this stands\nthe paragraph on note 15, (p. 381.) which is a coarse though not\nunmerited sneer, or, as a German would have expressed himself, 'an\nof-Jeremy-Taylor-unworthy,though a-not-of-the-Roman-Catholic-Papicolar-\npolemics-unmerited, sneer.'\n\n\nIb. p. 381.\n\n  ... excepting only some Popes have been remarked by their own\n  histories for funest and direful deaths.\n\nIn the adoption of this word 'funest' into the English language by\n'apocope' of the final 'us', Taylor is supported by 'honest' and\n'modest;' but then the necessity of pronouncing funest should have\nexcluded it, the superlative final being an objection to all of them,\nthough outweighed in the others. A common reader would pronounce it\n'funest,' and perhaps mistake it for 'funniest.'\n\n\nIb. p. 382.\n\n  ... sacraments, 'which to be seven', is with them an article of faith.\n\nThe fastidious exclusion of this and similar idioms in modern writing\noccasions unnecessary embarrassment for the writer, both in narration\nand argumenting, and contributes to the monotony of our style.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  The Fathers and Schoolmen differ greatly in the definition of a\n  Sacrament.\n\n\nHad it been in other respects advisable, it would, I think, have been\ntheologically convenient, if our Reformers had contra-distinguished\nBaptism and the Lord's Supper by the term Mysteries, and allowed the\nname of Sacrament to Ordination, Confirmation, and Marriage.\n\n\nIb. s. iii. p. 388.\n\n  And he did so to the Jews ... tradition was not relied upon; it was\n  not trusted with any law of faith or manners.\n\nThis all the later Jews deny, affirming an oral communication from Moses\nto the Seventy, on as lame pretences as the Roman Catholics, and for the\nsame vile purposes as reproved by Christ, who, if he had believed the\nstory, would not have condemned traditions of men generally without\nexception, and would not have proved the immortality of the Patriarchs\nby a text which seems to have had no such primary intention, though it\nmay contain the deduction 'potentialiter'.\n\nBut Taylor's 1st and 7th arguments following are, the former weak and\nincorrect, the latter 'dictum et vulgatum, sed non probatum, ne dicam\nimprobatum'. Who doubts that all that is indispensable to the salvation\nof each and every one is contained in the New Testament?\n\nBut is it not contained in the first chapter of St. John's Gospel? Is it\nnot contained in the eleventh of the Acts, and in a score other\nseparable portions? Necessary, indispensable, and the like, are\nmultivocal terms. Dogs have survived (and without any noticeable injury)\nthe excision of the spleen.\n\nDare we conclude from this fact that the spleen is not necessary to the\ncontinuance of the canine race? What is not indispensable for even the\nmajority of individual believers may be necessary for the Church.\n\nInstead, therefore, of these terms, put 'true,' 'important,' and\n'constitutive,' that is, appertaining to the chain ('ad catenam auream')\nof truths interdependent and rendered mutually intelligible, which\nconstitute the system of the Christian religion, including not alone the\nfaith and morals of individuals, but the 'organismus' likewise of the\nChurch, as a body spiritual, yet outward and historical; and this again\nnot as an aggregate or sum total, like a corn-sheaf, but a unity.\n\nLet the question, I say, be thus restated, and then let the cause come\nto trial between the Romish and the Protestant divines.\n\n\nN. B. As a running comment on all these marginal notes, let it be\nunderstood that I hold the far greater part--the only not all of what\nour great Author urges, to apply with irrefutable force against the\ndoctrine and practice of the Romish Church, as it in fact exists, and no\nless against the Familists and 'istius farin\u00e6 enthusiastas'.\n\nI contend only, that he himself, in several assertions, lies open to\nattack from the supporters of a scheme of faith, as unlike either the\nRomish or the Fanatical, as Taylor's own, and which scheme, namely, the\nco-ordinate authority of the Word, the Spirit and the Church, I believe\nto be the true Apostolic and Catholic doctrine, and that to this scheme\nhis objections do not apply.\n\nWhen I can bring myself to believe that from the mere perusal of the New\nTestament a man might have sketched out by anticipation the\nconstitution, discipline, creeds, and sacramental ritual of the\nEpiscopal Reformed Church of England; or that it is not a true and\northodox Church, because this is incredible; then I may perhaps be\ninclined to echo Chillingworth.\n\nAs I cannot think that it detracts from a dial that in order to tell the\ntime the sun must shine upon it; so neither does it detract from the\nScriptures, that though the best and holiest they are yet Scripture, and\nrequire a pure heart and the consequent assistances of God's\nenlightening grace in order to understand them to edification.\n\n1812.\n\n\nI still agree with the preceding note, and add that Jeremy Taylor should\nhave cited the Arians and Socinians on the other side. But the Romish\nPapal hierarchy cannot for shame say, or only from want of shame can\npretend to say, what a Catholic would be entitled to urge on the triple\nlink of the Scripture, the Spirit, and the Church.\n\n27 April, 1826.\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 392.\n\n  From this principle, as it is promoted by the Fanatics, they derive a\n  wandering, unsettled, and a dissolute religion, &c.\n\nThe evils of the Fanatic persuasion here so powerfully, so exquisitely,\nstated and enforced by our all-eloquent Bishop, supply no proof or even\npresumption against the tenet of the Spirit rightly expressed. For\ncatholicity is the distinctive mark, the 'conditio sine qua non', of a\nspiritual teaching; and if men that dream with their eyes open mistake\nfor this the very contrary, that is, their own particular fancies, or\nperhaps sensations, who can help it?\n\n\nIb. s. vii. p. 394.\n\n  They affirm that the Scriptures are full, that they are a perfect\n  rule, that they contain all things necessary to salvation; and from\n  hence they confuted all heresies.\n\nYes, the heretics were so confuted, I grant; because these would not\nacknowledge any other authority but that of the Scriptures, and these\ntoo forged or corrupted by themselves; but by the Scriptures that\nremained unaltered the early Fathers of the Church both demonstrated the\nomissions and interpolations of the heretical canons and the false\ndoctrines of the heresy itself. But so far from following the same rule\nto the members of the true Church, they made the applicability of this\nway of proof the criterion of a heretic.\n\n\nIb. p. 394.\n\n  'Which truly they then preached, but afterwards by the will of God\n  delivered to us in the Scriptures, which was to be the pillar and\n  ground to our faith.'\n\nLessing has shown this to be a false and even ungrammatical rendering of\nIren\u00e6us's words. The 'columen et fundamentum fidei', are the Creed, or\neconomy of salvation.\n\n\nIb. vii. p. 395. Extracts from Clement's 'Stromata'.\n\nIt would require a volume to shew the qualifications with which these\n'excerpta' must be read. There is no one source of error and endless\ncontroversy more fruitful than this custom of quoting detached\nsentences. I would pledge myself in the course of a single morning to\nbring an equal number of passages from the same (Ante-Nicene) Fathers in\nproof of the Roman Catholic theory. One palpable cheat in these\ntranscripts is the neglect of appreciating the words, 'inspired,' 'a\n'Spiritu dicta'', and the like, in the Patristic use; as if the Fathers\ndid not frequently apply the same terms to the discourses of the\nBishops, their contemporaries, and to writings not canonical. It is\nwonderful how so acute and learned a man as Taylor could have read\nTertullian, Iren\u00e6us and Clemens Alexandrinus, and not have seen that the\npassages are all against him so far as they all make the Scriptures\nsubsidiary only to the Spirit in the Church and the Baptismal creed, the\n[Greek: kan_\u00f2n p\u00edste_os], 'regula fidei', or '\u00e6conomia salutis'.\n\n\nIb. p. 396.\n\n  ... that the tradition ecclesiastical, that is, the whole doctrine\n  taught by the Church of God, and preached to all men, is in the\n  Scripture.\n\nIt is only by the whole context and purpose of the work, and this too\ninterpreted by the known doctrine of the age, that the intent of the\nsentences here quoted can be determined, relatively to the point in\nquestion. But even as they stand here, they do not assert that the\n'Traditio Ecclesiastica' was grounded on, or had been deduced from, the\nScriptures; nor that by Scripture Clemens meant principally the New\nTestament; and that the Scriptures contain the Tradition Ecclesiastical\nor Catholic Faith the Romish divines admit and contend.\n\n\nIb. p. 399. Extract from Origen.\n\n  As our Saviour imposed silence upon the Sadducees by the word of his\n  doctrine, and faithfully convinced that false opinion which they\n  thought to be truth; so also shall the followers of Christ do, by the\n  examples of Scripture, by which according to sound doctrine every\n  voice of Pharaoh ought to be silent.\n\nDoes not this prove too much; namely, that nothing exists in the New\nwhich does not likewise exist in the Old Testament?\n\nOne objection to Jeremy Taylor's argument here must, I think, strike\nevery reflecting mind; namely, that in order to a fair and full view of\nthe sentiments of the Fathers of the first four centuries, all they\ndeclare of the Church, and her powers and prerogatives, ought to have\nbeen likewise given.\n\nAs soon as I receive any writing as inspired by the Spirit of Truth, of\ncourse I must believe it on its own authority. But how am I assured that\nit is an inspired work? Now do not these Fathers reply, By the Church?\nTo the Church it belongs to declare what books are Holy Scriptures, and\nto interpret their right sense. Is not this the common doctrine among\nthe Fathers? And how was the Church to judge?\n\nFirst, by the same spirit surviving in her; and secondly by the\naccordance of the Book itself with the canon of faith, that is the\nBaptismal Creed. And what was this? 'Traditio Ecclesiastica'. As to\nmyself, I agree with Taylor against the Romanists, that the Bible is for\nus the only rule of faith; but I do not adopt his mode of proving it.\n\nIn the earliest period of Christianity the Scriptures of the New\nTestament and the Ecclesiastical Tradition were reciprocally tests of\neach other; but for the Christians of the second century the Scriptures\nwere tried by the Ecclesiastical Tradition, while for us the order is\nreversed, and we must try the Ecclesiastical Tradition by the\nScriptures. Therefore I do not expect to find the proofs of the\nsupremacy of Scripture in the early Fathers, nor do we need their\nauthority. Our proofs are stronger without it.\n\n\nIb. p. 403.\n\n  Which words I the rather remark, because this article of the\n  consubstantiality of Christ with the Father is brought as an instance\n  (by the Romanists) of the necessity of tradition, to make up the\n  insufficiency of Scripture.\n\nHow shall I make this rhyme to Taylor's own assertion, in the last\nparagraph of sect. xix. of his Episcopacy Asserted, [20] in which he\nclearly refers to this very question as relying on tradition for its\nclearness? Jeremy Taylor was a true Father of the Church, and would\nfurnish as fine a subject for a 'concordantia discordantiarum' as St.\nAustin himself. For the exoteric and esoteric he was a very Pythagoras.\n\n\nIb. p. 406.\n\n  ... for one or two of them say, Theophilus spake against Origen, for\n  broaching fopperies of his own, and particularly, that Christ's flesh\n  was consubstantial with the Godhead.\n\nOrigen doubtless meant the 'caro noumenon', and was quite right. But\nnever was a great man so misunderstood as Origen.\n\n\nIb. p. 408. n.\n\n  'Sed et alia, quoe absque auctoritate et testimoniis Scripturarum,\n  quasi traditione Apostolica, sponte reperiunt atque contingunt,\n  percutit gladius Dei'.\n\n  \"Those things which they make and find, as it were, by Apostolical\n  tradition, without the authority and testimonies of Scripture, the\n  word of God smites.\"\n\nIs it clear that 'Scripturarum' depends on 'auctoritate'? It may well\nmean they who without the authority of the Church, or Scriptural\ntestimony pretend to an Apostolical Tradition.\n\n\nIb. p. 411.\n\n  But lastly, if in the plain words of Scripture be contained all that\n  is simply necessary to all, then it is clear, by Bellarmine's\n  confession, that St. Austin affirmed that the plain places of\n  Scripture are sufficient to all laics and all idiots, or private\n  persons, and then it is very ill done to keep them from the knowledge\n  and use of the Scriptures, which contain all their duty both of faith\n  and good life; so it is very unnecessary to trouble them with any\n  thing else, there being in the world no such treasure and repository\n  of faith and manners, and that so plain, that it was intended for all\n  men, and for all such men is sufficient. \"Read the Holy Scriptures\n  wherein you shall find some things to be holden, and some to be\n  avoided.\"\n\nAnd yet in the preface to his Apology for authorized and set forms of\nLiturgy, [21] Taylor regrets that the Church of England was not able to\nconfine the laity to such selections of Holy Writ as are in her Liturgy.\nBut Laud was then alive: and Taylor partook of his 'trepidatiuncul\u00e6'\ntowards the Church of Rome.\n\n\nIb. p. 412.\n\n  And all these are nothing else, but a full subscription to, and an\n  excellent commentary upon, those words of St. Paul, 'Let no man\n  pretend to be wise above what is written.'\n\nHad St. Paul anything beyond the Law and the Prophets in his mind?\n\n\nIb. p. 416.\n\n  St. Paul's way of teaching us to expound Scripture is, that he that\n  prophesies should do it [Greek: kat' analog\u00edan p\u00edste_os], according to\n  the analogy of faith.\n\nYet in his Liberty of Prophesying [22] Taylor turns this way into mere\nridicule. I love thee, Jeremy! but an arrant theological barrister that\nthou wast, though thy only fees were thy desires of doing good in\n'questionibus singulis'.\n\n\nIb. s. iii. p. 419.\n\n  Only, because we are sure there was some false dealing in this matter,\n  and we know there might be much more than we have discovered, we have\n  no reason to rely upon any tradition for any part of our faith, any\n  more than we could do upon Scripture, if one book or chapter of it\n  should be detected to be imposture.\n\nWhat says Jeremy Taylor then to the story of the woman taken in\nadultery, ('John, c. viii. 3-11'.) which Chrysostom disdains to comment\non? If true, how could it be omitted in so many, and these the most\nauthentic, copies? And if this for fear of scandal, why not others? And\nwho does not know that falsehood may be effected as well by omissions as\nby interpolations? But if false,--then--but Taylor draws the consequence\nhimself.\n\n\nIb. p. 427.\n\n  So that the tradition concerning the Scriptures being extrinsical to\n  Scripture is also extrinsical to the question: this tradition cannot\n  be an objection against the sufficiency of Scripture to salvation, but\n  must go before this question. For no man inquires whether the\n  Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation, unless he\n  believe that there are Scriptures, that these are they, and that they\n  are the word of God. All this comes to us by tradition, that is, by\n  universal undeniable testimony.\n\nVery just, and yet this idle argument is the favourite, both shield and\nsword, of the Romanists: as if I should pretend to learn the Roman\nhistory from tradition, because by tradition I know such histories to\nhave been written by Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus!\n\n\nIb. p. 435.\n\n  The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either\n  mistaken or uncertain, or not an article of faith (which is rather to\n  be hoped, lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as infidels or\n  perverse heretics), or else that it can be derived from Scripture,\n  which last is indeed the most probable, and pursuant to the doctrine\n  of those wiser Latins who examined things by reason and not by\n  prejudice.\n\nIt is remarkable that both Stillingfleet and Taylor favoured the Greek\nopinion. But Bull's 'Defensio Fidei Nic\u00e6n\u00e6' was not yet published. It is\nto me evident that if the Holy Ghost does not proceed through and from\nthe Son as well as from the Father, then the Son is not the adequate\nsubstantial idea of the Father. But according to St. Paul, he is--'ergo,\n&c'. N.B. These \"'ergos, &c'.\" in legitimate syllogisms, where the\n'major' and 'minor' have been conceded, are binding on all human beings,\nwith the single anomaly of the Quakers. For with them nothing is more\ncommon than to admit both 'major' and 'minor', and, when you add the\ninevitable consequence, to say \"Nay! I do not think so, Friend! Thou art\nworldly wise, Friend!\" For example: 'major', it is agreed on both sides\nthat we ought not to withhold from a man what he has a just right to:\n'minor', property in land being the creature of law, a just right in\nrespect of landed property is determined by the law of the\nland:--\"agreed, such is the fact:\" 'ergo:' the clergyman has a just\nright to the tithe. \"Nay, nay; this is vanity, and tithes an abomination\nof Judaism!\"\n\n\nIb. s. v. p. 492.\n\n  And since that villain of a man, Pope Hildebrand, as Cardinal Beno\n  relates in his Life, could, by shaking of his sleeve make sparks of\n  fire fly from it.\n\nIf this was fact, was it an idiosyncrasy, as I have known those who by\ncombing their hair can elicit sparks with a crackling as from a cat's\nback rubbed. It is very possible that the sleeve might be silk,\ntightened either on a very hairy arm, or else on woollen, and by shaking\nit might be meant stripping the silk suddenly off, which would doubtless\nproduce flashes and sparks.\n\n\nVol. XI. s. x. p. 1.\n\nAs a general remark suggested indeed by this section, but applicable to\nvery many parts of Taylor's controversial writings, both against the\nanti-Prelatic and the Romish divines, especially to those in which our\nincomparable Church-aspist attempts, not always successfully, to\ndemonstrate the difference between the dogmas and discipline of the\nancient Church, and those which the Romish doctors vindicate by them,--I\nwould say once for all, that it was the fashion of the Arminian court\ndivines of Taylor's age, that is, of the High Church party, headed by\nArchbishop Laud, to extol, and (in my humble judgment) egregiously to\noverrate, the example and authority of the first four, nay, of the first\nsix centuries; and at all events to take for granted the Evangelical and\nApostolical character of the Church to the death of Athanasius.\n\nNow so far am I from conceding this, that before the first Council of\nNicaea, I believe myself to find the seeds and seedlings of all the\nworst corruptions of the Latin Church of the thirteenth century, and not\na few of these even before the close of the second.\n\nOne pernicious error of the primitive Church was the conversion of the\nethical ideas, indispensable to the science of morals and religion, into\nfixed practical laws and rules for all Christians, in all stages of\nspiritual growth, and under all circumstances; and with this the\ndegradation of free and individual acts into corporate Church\nobligations.\n\nAnother not less pernicious was the gradual concentration of the Church\ninto a priesthood, and the consequent rendering of the reciprocal\nfunctions of love and redemption and counsel between Christian and\nChristian exclusively official, and between disparates, namely, the\npriest and the layman.\n\n\nIb. B. II. s. ii. p. 58.\n\nOften have I welcomed, and often have I wrestled with, the thought of\nwriting an essay on the day of judgment. Are the passages in St. Peter's\nEpistle respecting the circumstances of the last day and the final\nconflagration, and even St. Paul's, to be regarded as apocalyptic and a\npart of the revelation by Christ, or are they, like the dogma of a\npersonal Satan, accommodations of the current popular creed which they\ncontinued to believe?\n\n\nIb. s. iii. p. 105.\n\n  And therefore St. Paul left an excellent precept to the Church to\n  avoid 'profanas vocum novitates', 'the prophane newness of words;'\n  that is, it is fit that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be\n  preached and taught in the words of the Scripture, and with that\n  simplicity, openness, easiness, and candor, and not with new and\n  unhallowed words, such as that of Transubstantiation.\n\nAre not then Trinity, Tri-unity, 'hypostasis, perichoresis, diphysis',\nand others, excluded? Yet Waterland very ingeniously, nay more, very\nhonestly and sensibly, shews the necessity of these terms 'per\naccidens'. The 'profanum' fell back on the heretics who had occasioned\nthe necessity.\n\n\nIb. p. 106.\n\n  \"The oblation of a cake was a figure of the Eucharistical bread which\n  the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion.\" These are\n  Justin's words in that place.\n\nJustin Martyr could have meant no more, and the Greek construction means\nno more, than that the cake we offer is the representative, substitute,\nand 'fac-simile' of the bread which Christ broke and delivered.\n\nI find no necessary absurdity in Transubstantiation. For substance is\nbut a notion 'thought on' to the aggregate of\naccidents--'hinzugedacht'--conceived, not perceived, and conceived\nalways in universals, never in 'concreto'.\n\nTherefore, X. Y. Z. being unknown quantities, Y. may be as well annexed\nby the choice of the mind as the imagined 'substratum' as X. For we\ncannot distinguish substance from substance any more than X. from X.\n\nThe substrate or 'causa invisibilis' may be the 'noumenon' or actuality,\n'das Ding in sich', of Christ's humanity, as well as the 'Ding in sich'\nof which the sensation, bread, is the appearance.\n\nBut then, on the other hand, there is not a word of sense possible to\nprove that it is really so; and from the not impossible to the real is a\nstrange 'ultra'-Rhodian leap.\n\nAnd it is opposite both to the simplicity of Evangelical meaning, and\nanomalous from the interpretation of all analogous phrases which all men\nexpound as figures,--'I am the gate, I am the way, I am the vine', and\nthe like,--and to Christ's own declarations that his words were to be\nunderstood spiritually, that is, figuratively.\n\n\nIb. s. vi. p. 164.\n\n  However, if you will not commit downright idolatry, as some of their\n  saints teach you, then you must be careful to observe these plain\n  distinctions; and first be sure to remember that when you worship an\n  image, you do it not materially but formally; not as it is of such a\n  substance, but as it is a sign; next take care that you observe what\n  sort of image it is, and then proportion your right kind to it, that\n  you do not give 'latria' to that where 'hyperdulia' is only due; and\n  be careful that if 'dulia' only be due, that your worship be not\n  'hyperdulical', &c.\n\nA masterly specimen of grave dignified irony. Indeed, Jeremy Taylor's\n'Works' would be of more service to an English barrister than those of\nDemosthenes, \u00c6schines, and Cicero taken together.\n\n\nIb. s. vii. p. 168.\n\n  A man cannot well understand an essence, and hath no idea of it in his\n  mind, much less can a painter's pencil do it.\n\nNoticeable, that this is the only instance I have met in any English\nclassic before the Revolution of the word 'idea' used as synonymous\nwith a mental image. Taylor himself has repeatedly placed the two in\nopposition; and even here I doubt whether he has done otherwise. I\nrather think he meant by the word 'idea' a notion under an indefinite\nand confused form, such as Kant calls a 'schema'or vague outline, an\nimperfect embryo of a concrete, to the individuation of which the mind\ngives no conscious attention; just as when I say--\"any thing,\" I may\nimagine a poker or a plate; but I pay no attention to its being this\nrather than that; and the very image itself is so wandering and unstable\nthat at this moment it may be a dim shadow of the one, and in the next\nof some other thing. In this sense, idea is opposed to image in degree\ninstead of kind; yet still contra-distinguished, as is evident by the\nsequel, \"much less can a painter's pencil do it:\" for were it an image,\n'individui et concreti', then the painter's pencil could do it as well\nas his fancy or better.\n\n\n\nA DISCOURSE OF CONFIRMATION.\n\nOf all Taylor's works, the Discourse of Confirmation seems to me the\nleast judicious; and yet that is not the right word either. I mean,\nhowever, that one is puzzled to know for what class of readers or\nauditors it was intended.\n\nHe announces his subject as one of such lofty claims; he begins with\npositions taken on such high ground, no less than the superior dignity\nand spiritual importance of Confirmation above Baptism itself--whether\nconsidered as a sacramental rite and mystery distinct from Baptism, or\nas its completory and crowning part (the 'finis coronans opus')--that we\nare eager to hear the proof.\n\nBut proofs differ in their value according to our previous valuation of\nauthorities. What would pass for a very sufficient proof, because\ngrounded on a reverend authority, with a Romanist, would be a mere\nfancy-medal and of no currency with a Bible Protestant.\n\nAnd yet for Protestants, and those too laymen (for we can hardly suppose\nthat Taylor thought his Episcopal brethren in need of it), must this\nDiscourse have been intended; and in this point of view, surely never\ndid so wise a man adopt means so unsuitable to his end, or frame a\ndiscourse so inappropriate to his audience.\n\nThe authorities of the Fathers are, indeed, as strong and decisive in\nfavour of the Bishop's position as the warmest advocate of Confirmation\ncould wish; but this very circumstance was calculated to create a\nprejudice against the doctrine in the mind of a zealous Protestant, from\nthe contrast in which the unequivocal and explicit declarations of the\nFathers stand with the remote, arbitrary, and fine-drawn inferences from\nthe few passages of the New Testament which can be forced into an\nimplied sanction of a rite no where mentioned, and as a distinct and\nseparate ministration, utterly, as I conceive, unknown in the Apostolic\nage.\n\nHow much more rational and convincing (as to me it seems) would it have\nbeen to have shewn, that when from various causes the practice of Infant\nBaptism became general in the Church, Confirmation or the acknowledgment\n'in propria persona' of the obligations that had been incurred by proxy\nwas introduced; and needed no other justification than its own evident\nnecessity, as substantiating the preceding form as to the intended\neffects of Baptism on the believer himself, and then to have shewn the\ngreat uses and spiritual benefits of the institution.\n\nBut this would not do. Such was the spirit of the age that nothing less\nthan the assertion of a divine origin,--of a formal and positive\ninstitution by Christ himself, or by the Apostles in their Apostolic\ncapacity as legislators for the universal Church in all ages, could\nserve; and accordingly Bishops, liturgies, tithes, monarchy, and what\nnot, were, 'de jure divino', with celestial patents, wrapped up in the\nwomb of this or that text of Scripture to be exforcipated by the\nlogico-obstetric skill of High Church doctors and ultra-loyal court\nchaplains.\n\n\n\nTHE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO THE DUKE OF ORMONDE.\n\nIb. p. ccxvii.\n\n  This very poor church.\n\nWith the exception of Spain, the Church establishment in Ireland is now,\nI conceive, the richest in Europe; though by the most iniquitous measure\nof the Irish Parliament, most iniquitously permitted to acquire the\nforce of law at the Union, the Irish Church was robbed of the tithes\nfrom all pasture lands. What occasioned so great a change in its favour\nsince the time of Charles II?\n\n1810.\n\n\nIb. p. ccxviii.\n\n  And amidst these and very many more inconveniences it was greatly\n  necessary that God should send us such a king.\n\nSuch a king! O sorrow and shame! Why, why, O Genius! didst thou suffer\nthy darling son to crush the fairest flower of thy garland beneath a\nmitre of Charles's putting on!\n\n\nIb. p. ccxix.\n\n  For besides that the great usefulness of this ministry will greatly\n  endear the Episcopal order, to which (that I may use St. Hierom's\n  words) \"if there be not attributed a more than common power and\n  authority, there will be as many schisms as priests,\" &c.\n\nOn this ground the Romish divines justify the Papacy. The fact of the\nScottish Church is the sufficient answer to both. Episcopacy needs not\nrash assertions for its support.\n\n\nIb. p. ccxx.\n\n  For it is a sure rule in our religion, and is of an eternal truth,\n  that \"they who keep not the unity of the Church, have not the Spirit\n  of God.\"\n\nContrast with this our xixth and xxth Articles on the Church. The Irish\nRoman Catholic Bishops, methinks, must have read this with delight. What\nan over hasty simpleton that James II. was! Had he waited and caressed\nthe Bishops, they would have taken the work off his hands.\n\n\nIb. p. 229. Introduction.\n\nIt has been my conviction that in respect of the theory of the Faith,\n(though God be praised! not in the practical result,) the Papal and the\nProtestant communions are equi-distant from the true idea of the Gospel\nInstitute, though erring from opposite directions.\n\nThe Romanists sacrifice the Scripture to the Church virtually annulling\nthe former: the Protestants reversed this practically, and even in\ntheory, (see the above-mentioned Articles,) annulling the latter.\n\nThe consequence has been, as might have been predicted, the extinction\nof the Spirit (the indifference or 'mesothesis') in both considered as\nbodies: for I doubt not that numerous individuals in both Churches live\nin communion with the Spirit.\n\nTowards the close of the reign of our first James, and during the period\nfrom the accession of Charles I to the restoration of his profligate\nson, there arose a party of divines, Arminians (and many of them\nLatitudinarians) in their creed, but devotees of the throne and the\naltar, soaring High Churchmen and ultra royalists.\n\nMuch as I dislike their scheme of doctrine and detest their principles\nof government both in Church and State, I cannot but allow that they\nformed a galaxy of learning and talent, and that among them the Church\nof England finds her stars of the first magnitude.\n\nInstead of regarding the Reformation established under Edward VI as\nimperfect, they accused the Reformers, some of them openly, but all in\ntheir private opinions, of having gone too far; and while they were\nwilling to keep down (and if they could not reduce him to a primacy of\nhonor to keep out) the Pope, and to prune away the innovations in\ndoctrine brought in under the Papal domination, they were zealous to\nrestore the hierarchy, and to substitute the authority of the Fathers,\nCanonists and Councils of the first six or seven centuries, and the\nleast Papistic of the later Doctors and Schoolmen, for the names of\nLuther, Melancthon, Bucer, Calvin and the systematic theologians who\nrejected all testimony but that of their Bible.\n\nAs far as the principle, on which Archbishop Laud and his followers\nacted, went to re-actuate the idea of the Church, as a co-ordinate and\nliving Power by right of Christ's institution and express promise, I go\nalong with them; but I soon discover that by the Church they meant the\nClergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and then I fly off from them in a\ntangent.\n\nFor it is this very interpretation of the Church that, according to my\nconviction, constituted the first and fundamental apostasy; and I hold\nit for one of the greatest mistakes of our polemic divines in their\ncontroversies with the Romanists, that they trace all the corruptions of\nthe Gospel faith to the Papacy.\n\nMeantime can we be surprised that our forefathers under the Stuarts were\nalarmed, and imagined that the Bishops and court preachers were marching\nin quick time with their faces towards Rome, when, to take one instance\nof a thousand, a great and famous divine, like Bishop Taylor, asserts\nthe inferiority, in rank and efficacy, of Baptism to Confirmation, and\ngrounds this assertion so strange to all Scriptural Protestants on a\ntext of Cabasilas--a saying of Rupertus--a phrase of St. Denis--and a\nsentence of Saint Bernard in a Life of Saint Malachias!--for no\nBenedictine can be more liberal in his attribution of saintship than\nJeremy Taylor, or more reverently observant of the beatifications and\ncanonizations of the Old Lady of the scarlet petticoat.\n\nP. S. If the reader need other illustrations, I refer him to Bishop\nHackett's 'Sermons on the Advent and Nativity', which might almost pass\nfor the orations of a Franciscan brother, whose reading had been\nconfined to the 'Aurea Legenda'. It would be uncandid not to add that\nthis indiscreet traffickery with Romish wares was in part owing to the\nimmense reading of these divines.\n\n\nIb. s. i. p. 247. Acts viii. 14-17.\n\nThis is an argument indeed, and one that of itself would suffice to\ndecide the question, if only it could be proved, or even made probable,\nthat by the Holy Ghost in this place was meant that receiving of the\nSpirit to which Confirmation is by our Church declared to be the means\nand vehicle.\n\nBut this I suspect cannot be done. The whole passage to which sundry\nchapters in St. Paul's Epistles seem to supply the comment, inclines and\nalmost compels me to understand by the Holy Ghost in this narrative the\nmiraculous gifts, [Greek: tas dyn\u00e1meis], collectively.\n\nAnd in no other sense can I understand the sentence 'the Holy Ghost was\nnot yet fallen upon any of them'. But the subject is beset with\ndifficulties from the paucity of particular instances recorded by the\ninspired historian, and from the multitude and character of these\ninstances found in the Fathers and Ecclesiastical historians.\n\n\nIb. s. ii. p. 254.\n\nStill they are all [Greek: dyn\u00e1meis], exhibitable powers, faculties.\nWere it otherwise what strange and fearful consequences would follow\nfrom the assertion, 'the Holy Spirit was not yet fallen upon any of\nthem'.\n\nThat we misunderstand the gift of tongues, and that it did not mean the\npower of speaking foreign languages unlearnt, I am strongly persuaded.\n\nYea, but this is not the question. If my heart, bears me witness that I\nlove my brother, that I love my merciful Saviour, and call Jesus Lord\nand the Anointed of God with joy of heart, I am encouraged by Scripture\nto infer that the Spirit abideth in me; besides that I know that of\nmyself, and estranged from the Holy Spirit, I cannot even think a\nthought acceptable before God.\n\nBut how will this help me to believe that I received this Spirit through\nthe Bishop's hands laid on my head at Confirmation: when perhaps I am\ndistinctly conscious, that I loved my Saviour, freely forgave, nay,\ntenderly yearned for the weal of, them that hated me before my\nConfirmation,--when, indeed, I must have been the most uncharitable of\nmen if I did not admit instances of the most exemplary faith, charity,\nand devotion in Christians who do not practise the imposition of hands\nin their Churches. What! did those Christians, of whom St. Luke speaks,\nnot love their brethren?\n\n\n'In fine'.\n\nI have had too frequent experience of professional divines, and how they\nidentify themselves with the theological scheme to which they have been\narticled, and I understand too well the nature and the power, the effect\nand the consequences, of a wilful faith,--where the sensation of\npositiveness is substituted for the sense of certainty, and the stubborn\nclutch for quiet insight,--to wonder at any degree of hardihood in\nmatters of belief.\n\nTherefore the instant and deep-toned affirmative to\nthe question\n\n  \"And do you actually believe the presence of the material water in the\n  baptizing of infants or adults is essential to their salvation, so\n  indispensably so that the omission of the water in the Baptism of an\n  infant who should die the day after would exclude that infant from the\n  kingdom of heaven, and whatever else is implied in the loss of\n  salvation?\"\n\nI should not be surprised, I say, to hear this question answered with an\nemphatic,\n\n  \"Yes, Sir! I do actually believe this, for thus I find it written, and\n  herein begins my right to the name of a Christian, that I have\n  exchanged my reason for the Holy Scriptures: I acknowledge no reason\n  but the Bible.\"\n\nBut as this intrepid respondent, though he may dispense with reason,\ncannot quite so easily free himself from the obligations of common sense\nand the canons of logic,--both of which demand consistency, and like\nconsequences from like premisses 'in rebus ejusdem generis', in subjects\nof the same class,--I do find myself tempted to wonder, some small deal,\nat the unscrupulous substitution of a few drops of water sprinkled on\nthe face for the Baptism, that is, immersion or dipping, of the whole\nperson, even if the rivers or running waters had been thought\nnon-essential.\n\nAnd yet where every word in any and in all the four narratives is so\nplaced under the logical press as it is in this Discourse by Jeremy\nTaylor, and each and every incident pronounced exemplary, and for the\npurpose of being imitated, I should hold even this hazardous.\n\nBut I must wonder a very great deal, and in downright earnest, at the\ncontemptuous language which the same men employ in their controversies\nwith the Romish Church, respecting the corporal presence in the\nconsecrated bread and wine, and the efficacy of extreme unction.\n\nFor my own part, the assertion that what is phenomenally bread and wine\nis substantially the Body and Blood of Christ, does not shock my common\nsense more than that a few drops of water sprinkled on the face should\nproduce a momentous change, even a regeneration, in the soul; and does\nnot outrage my moral feelings half as much.\n\nP. S. There is one error of very ill consequence to the reputation of\nthe Christian community, which Taylor shares with the Romish divines,\nnamely, the quoting of opinions, and even of rhetorical flights, from\nthe writings of this and that individual, with 'Saint' prefixed to his\nname, as expressing the faith of the Church during the first five or six\ncenturies.\n\nWhereas it would not, perhaps, be very difficult to convince\nan unprejudiced man and a sincere Christian of the impossibility that\neven the decrees of the General Councils should represent the Catholic\nfaith, that is, the belief essential to, or necessarily consequent on,\nthe faith in Christ common to all the elect.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The references are here given to Heber's edition, 1822. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: The page however remains a blank. But a little essay on\npunctuation by the Author is in the Editor's possession, and will be\npublished hereafter.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: See Euseb. 'Hist.' iii. 27.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: 'Vindication, &c. Quer.' 13, 14, 15.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 5: See the form previously exhibited in this volume,\np. 93.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Mark' viii. 29. 'Luke' ix. 20.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 7: 1 'Pet'. v. 13.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 8: Lightfoot and Wall use this strong argument for the\nlawfulness and implied duty of Infant Baptism in the Christian Church.\nIt was the universal practice of the Jews to baptize the infant children\nof proselytes as well as their parents. Instead, therefore, of Christ's\nsilence as to infants by name in his commission to baptize all nations\nbeing an argument that he meant to exclude them, it is a sign that he\nmeant to include them. For it was natural that the precedent custom\nshould prevail, unless it were expressly forbidden. The force of this,\nhowever, is limited to the ceremony;--its character and efficacy are not\nestablished by it.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 9: The Author's views of Baptism are stated more fully and\nmethodically in the 'Aids to Reflection'; but even that statement is\nimperfect, and consequently open to objection, as was frequently\nadmitted by Mr. C. himself. The Editor is unable to say what precise\nspiritual efficacy the Author ultimately ascribed to Infant Baptism; but\nhe was certainly an advocate for the practice, and appeared as sponsor\nat the font for more than one of his friends' children. See his 'Letter\nto a Godchild', printed, for this purpose, at the end of this volume;\nhis 'Sonnet on his Baptismal Birthday', ('Poet. Works', ii. p. 151.) in\nthe tenth line of which, in many copies, there was a misprint of 'heart'\nfor 'front;' and the 'Table Talk', 2nd edit. p. 183. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 10: 'Deut.' xiii. 1-5. xviii. 22.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 11: 'Galat.' i. 8, 9.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 12: Pp. 206-227. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 13: With reference to all these notes on Original Sin, see\n'Aids to Reflection', p. 250-286.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 14: 'Aids to Reflection', p. 274.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 15: Ante. 'Vindication, &c.' p. 357-8.]\n\n\n[Footnote 16: Ibid.]\n\n\n[Footnote 17:\n\n  'Dupliciter vero sanguis Christi et caro intelligitur, spiritualis\n  ilia atque divina, de qua ipse dixit, Caro mea vere est cibus, &c.,\n  vel caro et sanguis, qu\u00e6 crucifixa est, et qui militis effusus est\n  lancea.'\n\nIn 'Epist. Ephes.' c.i.]\n\n\n[Footnote 18: See 'Table Talk', p. 72, second edit. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 19:\n\n  'Ipsum regem tradunt, volventem commentaries Num\u00e6, quum ibi occulta\n  solennia sacrificia Jovi Elicio facta invenisset, operatum his sacris\n  se abdidisse; sed non rite initum aut curatum id sacrum esse; nee\n  solum nullam ei oblatam C\u00e6lestium speciem, sed ira Jovis, sollicitati\n  prava religione, fulmine ictum cum domo conflagrasse.'\n\nL. i. c. xxxi.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 20:\n\n  \"This also rests upon the practice apostolical and traditive\n  interpretation of holy Church, and yet cannot be denied that so it\n  ought to be, by any man that would not have his Christendom suspected.\n  To these I add the communion of women, the distinction of books\n  apocryphal from canonical, that such books were written by such\n  Evangelists and Apostles, the whole tradition of Scripture itself, the\n  Apostles' Creed, &c. ... These and divers others of greater\n  consequence, (which I dare not specify for fear of being\n  misunderstood,) rely but upon equal faith with this of Episcopacy,\"\n\n&c.--Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 21: S. xxvi.]\n\n\n[Footnote 22: S. iv. 4.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.\n\nI know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I,\naccording to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as\nteaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that\nwas in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction,\nincomparably the best 'Summa Theologi\u00e6 Evangelic\u00e6' ever produced by\na writer not miraculously inspired.\n\nJune 14, 1830.\n\n\nIt disappointed, nay surprised me, to find Robert Southey express\nhimself so coldly respecting the style and diction of the Pilgrim's\nProgress. I can find nothing homely in it but a few phrases and single\nwords. The conversation between Faithful and Talkative [1] is a model of\nunaffected dignity and rhythmical flow.\n\n\n\n\nSOUTHEY'S LIFE OF BUNYAN.\n\nP. xiv.\n\n  \"We intended not,\" says Baxter, \"to dig down the banks, or pull up the\n  hedge, and lay all waste and common, when we desired the Prelates'\n  tyranny might cease.\" No; for the intention had been under the pretext\n  of abating one tyranny to establish a far severer and more galling in\n  its stead: in doing this the banks had been thrown down, and the hedge\n  destroyed; and while the bestial herd who broke in rejoiced in the\n  havoc, Baxter, and other such erring though good men, stood marvelling\n  at the mischief, which never could have been effected, if they had not\n  mainly assisted in it.\n\nBut the question is, would these 'erring good' men have been either\nwilling or able to assist in this work, if the more erring Lauds and\nSheldons had not run riot in the opposite direction? And as for the\n'bestial herd,'--compare the whole body of Parliamentarians, all the\nfanatical sects included, with the royal and prelatical party in the\nreign of Charles II. These were, indeed, a bestial herd. See Baxter's\nunwilling and Burnet's honest description of the moral discipline\nthroughout the realm under Cromwell.\n\n\nIb. p. xv.\n\n  They passed with equal facility from strict Puritanism to the utmost\n  license of practical and theoretical impiety, as Antinomians or as\n  Atheists, and from extreme profligacy to extreme superstition in any\n  of its forms.\n\n'They!' How many? and of these how many that would not have been in\nBedlam, or fit for it, under some other form? A madman falls into love\nor religion, and then, forsooth! it is love or religion that drove him\nmad.\n\n\nIb. p. xxi.\n\n  In an evil hour were the doctrines of the Gospel sophisticated with\n  questions which should have been left in the Schools for those who are\n  unwise enough to employ themselves in excogitations of useless\n  subtlety.\n\nBut what, at any rate, had Bunyan to do with the Schools? His\nperplexities clearly rose out of the operations of his own active but\nunarmed mind on the words of the Apostle. If anything is to be\narraigned, it must be the Bible in English, the reading of which is\nimposed (and, in my judgment, well and wisely imposed) as a duty on all\nwho can read. Though Protestants, we are not ignorant of the occasional\nand partial evils of promiscuous Bible-reading; but we see them vanish\nwhen we place them beside the good.\n\n\nIb. p. xxiv.\n\n  False notions of that corruption of our nature which it is almost as\n  perilous to exaggerate as to dissemble.\n\nI would have said \"which it is almost as perilous to misunderstand as to\ndeny.\"\n\n\nIb. p. xli. &c.\n\n  But the wickedness of the tinker has been greatly over-charged; and it\n  is taking the language of self-accusation too literally, to pronounce\n  of John Bunyan that he was at any time depraved. The worst of what he\n  was in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word ... he had\n  been a blackguard, &c.\n\nAll this narrative, with the reflections on the facts, is admirable and\nworthy of Robert Southey: full of good sense and kind feeling--the\nwisdom of love.\n\n\nIb. p. lxi.\n\n  But the Sectaries had kept their countrymen from it (the Common Prayer\n  Book), while they had the power, and Bunyan himself in his sphere\n  laboured to dissuade them from it.\n\nSurely the fault lay in the want, or in the feeble and inconsistent\nmanner, of determining and supporting the proper powers of the Church.\nIn fact, the Prelates and leading divines of the Church were not only at\nvariance with each other, but each with himself.\n\nOne party, the more faithful and less modified disciples of the first\nReformers, were afraid of bringing anything into even a semblance of a\nco-ordination with the Scriptures; and, with the _terriculum_ of Popery\never before their eyes, timidly and sparingly allowed to the Church any\neven subordinate power beyond that of interpreting the Scriptures; that\nis, of finding the ordinances of the Church implicitly contained in the\nordinances of the inspired writers.\n\nBut as they did not assume infallibility in their interpretations, it\namounted to nothing for the consciences of such men as Bunyan and a\nthousand others.\n\nThe opposite party, Laud, Taylor, and the rest, with a sufficient\ndislike of the Pope (that is, at Rome) and of the grosser theological\ncorruptions of the Romish Church, yet in their hearts as much averse to\nthe sentiments and proceedings of Luther, Calvin, John Knox, Zuinglius,\nand their fellows, and proudly conscious of their superior learning,\nsought to maintain their ordinances by appeals to the Fathers, to the\nrecorded traditions and doctrine of the Catholic priesthood during the\nfirst five or six centuries, and contended for so much that virtually\nthe Scriptures were subordinated to the Church, which yet they did not\ndare distinctly to say out.\n\nThe result was that the Anti-Prelatists answered them in the gross by\nsetting at nought their foundation, that is, the worth, authority and\nvalue of the Fathers.\n\nSo much for their variance with each other. But each vindicator of our\nestablished Liturgy and Discipline was divided in himself: he minced\nthis out of fear of being charged with Popery, and that he dared not\naffirm for fear of being charged with disloyalty to the King as the head\nof the Church.\n\nThe distinction between the Church of which the king is the rightful\nhead, and the Church which hath no head but Christ, never occurred\neither to them or to their antagonists; and as little did they succeed\nin appropriating to Scripture what belonged to Scripture, and to the\nChurch what belonged to the Church.\n\nAll things in which the temporal is concerned may be reduced to a\npentad, namely, prothesis, thesis, antithesis, mesothesis and synthesis.\nSo here--\n\n\n                     'Prothesis'\n                   Christ, the Word\n\n\n\n   'Thesis'          'Mesothesis'       'Antithesis'\nThe Scriptures     The Holy Spirit       The Church\n\n\n\n                     'Synthesis'\n                    The Preacher\n\n[2]\n\n\nIb. p. lxiii.\n\n  \"But there are two ways of obeying,\" he observed; \"the one to do that\n  which I in my conscience do believe that I am bound to do, actively;\n  and where I cannot obey actively, there I am willing to lie down, and\n  to suffer what they shall do unto me.\"\n\nGenuine Christianity worthy of John and Paul!\n\n\nIb. p. lxv.\n\nI am not conscious of any warping power that could have acted for so\nvery long a period; but from sixteen to now, sixty years of age, I have\nretained the very same convictions respecting the Stuarts and their\nadherents. Even to Lord Clarendon I never could quite reconcile myself.\n\nHow often the pen becomes the tongue of a systematic dream,--a\nsomniloquist! The sunshine, that is, the comparative power, the distinct\ncontra-distinguishing judgment of realities as other than mere thoughts,\nis suspended. During this state of continuous, not single-mindedness,\nbut one-side-mindedness, writing is manual somnambulism; the somnial\nmagic superinduced on, without suspending, the active powers of the mind.\n\n\nIb. p. lxxix.\n\n  \"They that will have heaven, they must run for it, because the devil,\n  the law, sin, death and hell, follow them. There is never a poor soul\n  that is going to heaven, but the devil, the law, sin, death and hell\n  make after that soul. 'The devil, your adversary, as a roaring lion,\n  goeth about seeking whom he may devour.' And I will assure you the\n  devil is nimble; he can run apace; he is light of foot; he hath\n  overtaken many; he hath turned up their heels, and hath given them an\n  everlasting fall. Also the law! that can shoot a great way: have a\n  care thou keep out of the reach of those great guns the Ten\n  Commandments! Hell also hath a wide mouth,\" &c.\n\nIt is the fashion of the day to call every man, who in his writings or\ndiscourses gives a prominence to the doctrines on which, beyond all\nothers, the first Reformers separated from the Romish communion, a\nCalvinist. Bunyan may have been one, but I have met with nothing in his\nwritings (except his Anti-p\u00e6dobaptism, to which too he assigns no saving\nimportance) that is not much more characteristically Lutheran; for\ninstance, this passage is the very echo of the chapter on the Law and\nGospel, in Luther's 'Table Talk'.\n\nIt would be interesting, and I doubt not, instructive, to know the\ndistinction in Bunyan's mind between the devil and hell.\n\n\nIb. p. xcvii.\n\n  Bunyan concludes with something like a promise of a third part. There\n  appeared one after his death, and it has had the fortune to be\n  included in many editions of the original work.\n\nIt is remarkable that Southey should not have seen, or having seen, have\nforgotten to notice, that this third part is evidently written by some\nRomish priest or missionary in disguise.\n\n\n\n\nLIFE OF BUNYAN. [3]\n\n  The early part of his life was an open course of wickedness.\n\nSouthey, in the Life prefixed to his edition of the Pilgrim's Progress,\nhas, in a manner worthy of his head and heart, reduced this oft repeated\ncharge to its proper value. Bunyan was never, in our received sense of\nthe word, wicked. He was chaste, sober, honest; but he was a bitter\nblackguard; that is, damned his own and his neighbour's eyes on slight\nor no occasion, and was fond of a row. In this our excellent Laureate\nhas performed an important service to morality. For the transmutation of\nactual reprobates into saints is doubtless possible; but like the many\nrecorded facts of corporeal alchemy, it is not supported by modern\nexperiments.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.\n\nPart i. p. II.\n\n  As I walked through the wilderness of this world.\n\nThat in the Apocalypse the wilderness is the symbol of the world, or\nrather of the worldly life, Bunyan discovered by the instinct of a\nsimilar genius. The whole Jewish history, indeed, in all its details is\nso admirably adapted to, and suggestive of, symbolical use, as to\njustify the belief that the spiritual application, the interior and\npermanent sense, was in the original intention of the inspiring Spirit,\nthough it might not have been present, as an object of distinct\nconsciousness, to the inspired writers.\n\n\nIb.\n\n    ... where was a den.\n\nThe jail. Mr. Bunyan wrote this precious book in Bedford jail, where he\nwas confined on account of his religion. The following anecdote is\nrelated of him. A Quaker came to the jail, and thus addressed him:\n\n  \"Friend Bunyan, the Lord sent me to seek for thee, and I have been\n  through several counties in search of thee, and now I am glad I have\n  found thee.\"\n\nTo which Mr. Bunyan replied,\n\n  \"Friend, thou dost not speak the truth in saying the Lord sent thee to\n  seek me; for the Lord well knows that I have been in this jail for\n  some years; and if he had sent thee, he would have sent thee here\n  directly.\"\n\n'Note in Edwards'.\n\nThis is a valuable anecdote, for it proves, what might have been\nconcluded 'a priori', that Bunyan was a man of too much genius to be a\nfanatic. No two qualities are more contrary than genius and fanaticism.\nEnthusiasm, indeed, [Greek: o the\u00f2s en haemin], is almost a synonyme of\ngenius; the moral life in the intellectual light, the will in the\nreason; and without it, says Seneca, nothing truly great was ever\nachieved by man.\n\n\nIb. p. 12.\n\n  And not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable\n  cry, saying, \"What shall I do?\"\n\n  Reader, was this ever your case? Did you ever see your sins, and feel\n  the burden of them, so as to cry out in the anguish of your soul, What\n  must I do to be saved? If not, you will look on this precious book as\n  a romance or history, which no way concerns you; you can no more\n  understand the meaning of it than if it were wrote in an unknown\n  tongue, for you are yet carnal, dead in your sins, lying in the arms\n  of the wicked one in false security. But this book is spiritual; it\n  can only be understood by spiritually quickened souls who have\n  experienced that salvation in the heart, which begins with a sight of\n  sin, a sense of sin, a fear of destruction and dread of damnation.\n  Such and such only commence Pilgrims from the City of Destruction to\n  the heavenly kingdom.\n\n'Note in Edwards'.\n\nMost true. It is one thing to perceive and acknowledge this and that\nparticular deed to be sinful, that is, contrary to the law of reason or\nthe commandment of God in Scripture, and another thing to feel sin\nwithin us independent of particular actions, except as the common ground\nof them. And it is this latter without which no man can become a\nChristian.\n\n\nIb. p. 39.\n\n  Now whereas thou sawest that as soon as the first began to sweep, the\n  dust did so fly about that the room by him could not be cleansed, but\n  that thou wast almost choked therewith; this is to show thee, that the\n  Law, instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, doth\n  revive, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it\n  doth discover and forbid it; for it doth not give power to subdue.\n\n\nSee Luther's 'Table Talk'. The chapters in that work named \"Law and\nGospel,\" contain the very marrow of divinity. Still, however, there\nremains much to be done on this subject; namely, to show how the\ndiscovery of sin by the Law tends to strengthen the sin; and why it must\nnecessarily have this effect, the mode of its action on the appetites\nand impetites through the imagination and understanding; and to\nexemplify all this in our actual experience.\n\n\nIb. p. 40.\n\n  Then I saw that one came to Passion, and brought him a bag of\n  treasure, and poured it down at his feet; the which he took up, and\n  rejoiced therein, and withal laughed Patience to scorn; but I beheld\n  but awhile, and he had lavished all away, and had nothing left him but\n  rags.\n\nOne of the not many instances of faulty allegory in 'The Pilgrim's\nProgress'; that is, it is no allegory. The beholding \"but awhile,\" and\nthe change into \"nothing but rags,\" is not legitimately imaginable. A\nlonger time and more interlinks are requisite. It is a hybrid compost of\nusual images and generalized words, like the Nile-born nondescript, with\na head or tail of organized flesh, and a lump of semi-mud for the body.\nYet, perhaps, these very defects are practically excellencies in\nrelation to the intended readers of 'The Pilgrim's Progress'.\n\n\nIb. p. 43.\n\n  The Interpreter answered, \"This is Christ, who continually, with the\n  oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart; by\n  the means of which, notwithstanding what the Devil can do, the souls\n  of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the\n  man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, this is to teach thee,\n  that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is\n  maintained in the soul.\"\n\nThis is beautiful; yet I cannot but think it would have been still more\nappropriate, if the waterpourer had been a Mr. Legality, a prudentialist\noffering his calculation of consequences as the moral antidote to guilt\nand crime; and if the oil-instillator, out of sight and from within, had\nrepresented the corrupt nature of man, that is, the spiritual will\ncorrupted by taking up a nature into itself.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  What, then, has the sinner who is the subject of grace no hand in\n  keeping up the work of grace in the heart? No! It is plain Mr. Bunyan\n  was not an Arminian.\n\n'Note in Edwards'.\n\nIf by metaphysics we mean those truths of the pure reason which always\ntranscend, and not seldom appear to contradict, the understanding, or\n(in the words of the great Apostle) spiritual verities which can only be\nspiritually discerned--and this is the true and legitimate meaning of\nmetaphysics, [Greek: met\u00e0 t\u00e0 physik\u00e0]--then I affirm, that this very\ncontroversy between the Arminians and the Calvinists, in which both are\npartially right in what they affirm, and both wholly wrong in what they\ndeny, is a proof that without metaphysics there can be no light of faith.\n\n\nIb. p. 45.\n\n  I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my\n  lusts\n\nThis single paragraph proves, in opposition to the assertion in the\npreceding note in Edwards, that in Bunyan's judgment there must be at\nleast a negative co-operation of the will of man with the divine grace,\nan energy of non-resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit. But the\nerror of the Calvinists is, that they divide the regenerate will in man\nfrom the will of God, instead of including it.\n\n\nIb. p. 49.\n\n  So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross,\n  his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back,\n  and began to tumble; and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth\n  of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.\n\n'We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an\nunderstanding' (or discernment of reason) 'that we may know him that is\ntrue, and we are in him that is true, even in his son Jesus Christ. This\nis the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from\nidols'. 1. John, v. 20, 21.\n\nAlas! how many Protestants make a mental idol of the Cross, scarcely\nless injurious to the true faith in the Son of God than the wooden\ncrosses and crucifixes of the Romanists!--and this, because they have\nnot been taught that Jesus was both the Christ and the great symbol of\nChrist.\n\nStrange, that we can explain spiritually, what to take up the cross of\nChrist, to be crucified with Christ, means;--yet never ask what the\nCrucifixion itself signifies, but rest satisfied in the historic image.\n\nThat one declaration of the Apostle, that by wilful sin we 'crucify the\nSon of God afresh', might have roused us to nobler thoughts.\n\n\nIb. p. 52.\n\n  And besides, say they, if we get into the way, what matters which way\n  we get in? If we are in, we are in. Thou art but in the way, who, as\n  we perceive, came in at the gate: and we are also in the way, that\n  came tumbling over the wall: wherein now is thy condition better than\n  ours?\n\nThe allegory is clearly defective, inasmuch as 'the way' represents two\ndiverse meanings;\n\n1. the outward profession of Christianity, and\n2. the inward and spiritual grace.\n\nBut it would be very difficult to mend it.\n\n1830.\n\n\nIn this instance (and it is, I believe, the only one in the work,) the\nallegory degenerates into a sort of pun, that is, in the two senses of\nthe word 'way,' and thus supplies Formal and Hypocrite with an argument\nwhich Christian cannot fairly answer, or rather one to which Bunyan\ncould not make his Christian return the proper answer without\ncontradicting the allegoric image.\n\nFor the obvious and only proper answer is: No! you are not in the same\n'way' with me, though you are walking on the same 'road.'\n\nBut it has a worse defect, namely, that it leaves the reader uncertain\nas to what the writer precisely meant, or wished to be understood, by\nthe allegory.\n\nDid Bunyan refer to the Quakers as rejecting the outward Sacraments of\nBaptism and the Lord's Supper?\n\nIf so, it is the only unspiritual passage in the whole beautiful\nallegory, the only trait of sectarian narrow-mindedness, and, in\nBunyan's own language, of legality.\n\nBut I do not think that this was Bunyan's intention. I rather suppose\nthat he refers to the Arminians and other Pelagians, who rely on the\ncoincidence of their actions with the Gospel precepts for their\nsalvation, whatever the ground or root of their conduct may be; who\nplace, in short, the saving virtue in the stream, with little or no\nreference to the source.\n\nBut it is the faith acting in our poor imperfect deeds that alone saves\nus; and even this faith is not ours, but the faith of the Son of God in\nus.\n\n  'I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but\n  Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live\n  by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.'\n\n  Gal. ii. 20.\n\nIllustrate this by a simile. Labouring under chronic 'bronchitis', I am\ntold to inhale chlorine as a specific remedy; but I can do this only by\ndissolving a saturated solution of the gas in warm water, and then\nbreathing the vapour. Now what the aqueous vapour or steam is to the\nchlorine, that our deeds, our outward life, [Greek: b\u00edos], is to faith.\n\n\nIb. p. 55.\n\n  And the other took directly up the way to Destruction, which led him\n  into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell,\n  and rose no more.\n\nThis requires a comment. A wide field full of mountains and of dark\nmountains, where Hypocrite stumbled and fell! The images here are\nunusually obscure.\n\n\nIb. p. 70.\n\n  They showed him Moses' rod, the hammer and nail with which Jael slew\n  Sisera.\n\nI question whether it would be possible to instance more strikingly the\npower of a predominant idea (that true mental kaleidoscope with\nrichly-coloured glass) on every object brought before the eye of the\nmind through its medium, than this conjunction of Moses' rod with the\nhammer of the treacherous assassin Jael, and similar encomiastic\nreferences to the same detestable murder, by Bunyan and men like Bunyan,\ngood, pious, purely-affectioned disciples of the meek and holy Jesus;\nyet the erroneous preconception that whatever is uttered by a Scripture\npersonage is, in fact, uttered by the infallible Spirit of God, makes\nDeborahs of them all.\n\nBut what besides ought we to infer from this and similar facts? Surely,\nthat the faith in the heart overpowers and renders innocent the errors\nof the understanding and the delusions of the imagination, and that\nsincerely pious men purchase, by inconsistency, exemption from the\npractical consequences of particular errors.\n\n\nIb. p. 76.\n\n  All this is true, and much more which thou hast left out, &c. This is\n  the best way; to own Satan's charges, if they be true; yea, to\n  exaggerate them also, to exalt the riches of the grace of Christ above\n  all, in pardoning all of them freely.\n\n'Note in Edwards'.\n\nThat is, to say what we do not believe to be true! 'Will ye speak\nwickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for him?' said righteous Job.\n\n\nIb. p. 83.\n\n  One thing I would not let slip: I took notice that now poor Christian\n  was so confounded, that he did not know his own voice; and thus I\n  perceived it: just when he was come over against the mouth of the\n  burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up\n  softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to\n  him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind.\n\nThere is a very beautiful letter of Archbishop Leighton's to a lady\nunder a similar distemperature of the imagination. [4] In fact, it can\nscarcely not happen under any weakness and consequent irritability of\nthe nerves to persons continually occupied with spiritual\nself-examination. No part of the pastoral duties requires more\ndiscretion, a greater practical psychological science. In this, as in\nwhat not?\n\nLuther is the great model; ever reminding the individual that not he,\nbut Christ, is to redeem him; and that the way to be redeemed is to\nthink with will, mind, and affections on Christ, and not on himself. I\nam a sin-laden being, and Christ has promised to loose the whole burden\nif I but entirely trust in him.\n\nTo torment myself with the detail of the noisome contents of the fardel\nwill but make it stick the closer, first to my imagination and then to\nmy unwilling will.\n\n\nIb.\n\n  For that he perceived God was with them, though in that dark and\n  dismal state; and why not, thought he, with me, though by reason of\n  the impediment that attends this place, I cannot perceive it? But it\n  may be asked, Why doth the Lord suffer his children to walk in such\n  darkness? It is for his glory: it tries their faith in him, and\n  excites prayer to him: but his love abates not in the least towards\n  them, since he lovingly inquires after them, 'Who is there among you\n  that feareth the Lord and walketh in darkness, and hath no light?'\n  Then he gives most precious advice to them: 'Let him trust in the\n  Lord', and 'stay himself upon his God'.\n\nYes! even in the sincerest believers, being men of reflecting and\ninquiring minds, there will sometimes come a wintry season, when the\nvital sap of faith retires to the root, that is, to atheism of the will.\n'But though he slay me, yet will I cling to him.'\n\n\nIb. p. 85.\n\n  And as for the other (Pope), though he be yet alive, he is, by reason\n  of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his\n  younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now\n  do little more than sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at pilgrims as\n  they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them.\n\nO that Blanco White would write in Spanish the progress of a pilgrim\nfrom the Pope's cave to the Evangelist's wicket-gate and the\nInterpreter's house!\n\n1836.\n\n\nIb. p. 104.\n\n  And let us assure ourselves that, at the day of doom, men shall be\n  judged according to their fruit. It will not be said then, \"Did you\n  believe?\" but \"Were you doers or talkers only?\" and accordingly shall\n  be judged.\n\nAll the doctors of the Sorbonne could not have better stated the Gospel\n'medium' between Pelagianism and Antinomian-Solifidianism, more properly\nnamed Sterilifidianism. It is, indeed, faith alone that saves us; but it\nis such a faith as cannot be alone. Purity and beneficence are the\n'epidermis,' faith and love the 'cutis vera' of Christianity. Morality\nis the outward cloth, faith the lining; both together form the\nwedding-garment given to the true believer in Christ, even his own\ngarment of righteousness, which, like the loaves and fishes, he\nmysteriously multiplies. The images of the sun in the earthly dew-drops\nare unsubstantial phantoms; but God's thoughts are things: the images of\nGod, of the Sun of Righteousness, in the spiritual dew-drops are\nsubstances, imperishable substances.\n\n\nIb. p. 154.\n\n  Fine-spun speculations and curious reasonings lead men from simple\n  truth and implicit faith into many dangerous and destructive errors.\n  The Word records many instances of such for our caution. Be warned to\n  study simplicity and godly sincerity.\n\n  'Note in Edwards on Doubting Castle.'\n\nAnd pray what does implicit faith lead men into? Transubstantiation and\nall the abominations of priest-worship. And where is the Scriptural\nauthority for this implicit faith? Assuredly not in St. John, who tells\nus that Christ's life is and manifests itself in us as the light of man;\nthat he came to bring light as well as immortality. Assuredly not in St.\nPaul, who declares all faith imperfect and perilous without insight and\nunderstanding; who prays for us that we may comprehend the deep things\neven of God himself. For the Spirit discerned, and the Spirit by which\nwe discern, are both God; the Spirit of truth through and in Christ from\nthe Father.\n\nMournful are the errors into which the zealous but unlearned preachers\namong the dissenting Calvinists have fallen respecting absolute\nelection, and discriminative, yet reasonless, grace:--fearful this\ndivorcement of the Holy Will, the one only Absolute Good, that,\neternally affirming itself as the I AM, eternally generateth the Word,\nthe absolute Being, the Supreme Reason, the Being of all Truth, the\nTruth of all Being:--fearful the divorcement from the reason; fearful\nthe doctrine which maketh God a power of darkness, instead of the God of\nlight, the Father of the light which lighteth every man that cometh into\nthe world!\n\nThis we know and this we are taught by the holy Apostle Paul; that\nwithout will there is no ground or base of sin; that without the law\nthis ground or base cannot become sin; (hence we do not impute sin to\nthe wolf or the tiger, as being without or below the law;) but that with\nthe law cometh light into the will; and by this light the will becometh\na free, and therefore a responsible, will.\n\nYea! the law is itself light, and the divine light becomes law by its\nrelation and opposition to the darkness; the will of God revealed in its\nopposition to the dark and alien will of the fallen Spirit. This\nfreedom, then, is the free gift of God; but does it therefore cease to\nbe freedom?\n\nAll the sophistry of the Predestinarians rests on the false notion of\neternity as a sort of time antecedent to time. It is timeless, present\nwith and in all times.\n\nThere is an excellent discourse of the great Hooker's, affixed with two\nor three others to his Ecclesiastical Polity, on the final perseverance\nof Saints; [5] but yet I am very desirous to meet with some judicious\nexperimental treatise, in which the doctrine, with the Scriptures on\nwhich it is grounded, is set forth more at large; as likewise the rules\nby which it may be applied to the purposes of support and comfort,\nwithout danger of causing presumption and without diminishing the dread\nof sin.\n\nAbove all, I am anxious to see the subject treated with as little\nreference as possible to the divine predestination and foresight; the\nargument from the latter being a mere identical proposition followed by\nan assertion of God's prescience.\n\nThose who will persevere, will persevere, and God foresees; and as to\nthe proof from predestination, that is, that he who predestines the end\nnecessarily predestines the adequate means, I can more readily imagine\nlogical consequences adverse to the sense of responsibility than\nChristian consequences, such as an individual may apply for his own\nedification.\n\nAnd I am persuaded that the doctrine does not need these supports,\naccording, I mean, to the ordinary notion of predestination. The\npredestinative force of a free agent's own will in certain absolute\nacts, determinations, or elections, and in respect of which acts it is\none either with the divine or the devilish will; and if the former, the\nconclusions to be drawn from God's goodness, faithfulness, and spiritual\npresence; these supply grounds of argument of a very different\ncharacter, especially where the mind has been prepared by an insight\ninto the error and hollowness of the antithesis between liberty and\nnecessity.\n\n\nIb. p. 178.\n\n  But how contrary to this is the walk and conduct of some who profess\n  to be pilgrims, and yet can wilfully and deliberately go upon the\n  Devil's ground, and indulge themselves in carnal pleasures and sinful\n  diversions.\n\n  'Note in Edwards on the Enchanted Ground'.\n\nBut what pleasures are carnal,--what are sinful diversions,--so I mean\nas that I may be able to determine what are not? Shew us the criterion,\nthe general principle; at least explain whether each individual case is\nto be decided for the individual by his own experience of the effects of\nthe pleasure or the diversion, in dulling or distracting his religious\nfeelings; or can a list, a complete list, of all such pleasures be made\nbeforehand?\n\n\n\nPART III.\n\n'In initio'.\n\nI strongly suspect that this third part, which ought not to have been\nthus conjoined with Bunyan's work, was written by a Roman Catholic\npriest, for the very purpose of counteracting the doctrine of faith so\nstrongly enforced in the genuine Progress.\n\n\nIb. p. 443, in Edwards.\n\n  Against all which evils fasting is the proper remedy.\n\nIt would have been well if the writer had explained exactly what he\nmeant by the fasting, here so strongly recommended; during what period\nof time abstinence from food is to continue and so on. The effects, I\nimagine, must in good measure depend on the health of the individual. In\nsome constitutions, fasting so disorders the stomach as to produce the\nvery contrary of good;--confusion of mind, loose imaginations against\nthe man's own will, and the like.\n\n\n'In fine'.\n\nOne of the most influential arguments, one of those the force of which I\nfeel even more than I see, for the divinity of the New Testament, and\nwith especial weight in the writings of John and Paul, is the\nunspeakable difference between them and all other the earliest extant\nwritings of the Christian Church, even those of the same age (as, for\nexample, the Epistle of Barnabas,) or of the next following,--a\ndifference that transcends all degree, and is truly a difference in\nkind. Nay, the catalogue of the works written by the Reformers and in\nthe two centuries after the Reformation, contain many many volumes far\nsuperior in Christian light and unction to the best of the Fathers. How\npoor and unevangelic is Hermas in comparison with our Pilgrim's\nProgress!\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: P. 98, &c. of the edition by Murray and Major, 1830  Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: See 'ante'. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: Prefixed to an edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, by R.\nEdwards, 1820. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: The second of two 'Letters written to persons under trouble\nof mind.' Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 5: Sermon of the certainty and perpetuity of faith in the\nelect. Vol. iii. p. 583. Keale's edit. Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON SELECT DISCOURSES BY JOHN SMITH. [1]\n\nIt would make a delightful and instructive essay, to draw up a critical\nand (where possible) biographical account of the Latitudinarian party at\nCambridge, from the close of the reign of James I to the latter half of\nCharles II.\n\nThe greater number were Platonists, so called at least, and such they\nbelieved themselves to be, but more truly Plotinists. Thus Cudworth, Dr.\nJackson (chaplain of Charles I, and vicar of Newcastle-on-Tyne), Henry\nMore, this John Smith, and some others. Taylor was a Gassendist, or\n'inter Epicureos evangelizantes', and, as far as I know, he is the only\nexception.\n\nThey were all alike admirers of Grotius, which in Jeremy Taylor was\nconsistent with the tone of his philosophy. The whole party, however,\nand a more amiable never existed, were scared and disgusted into this by\nthe catachrestic language and skeleton half-truths of the systematic\ndivines of the Synod of Dort on the one hand, and by the sickly\nbroodings of the Pietists and Solomon's-Song preachers on the other.\n\nWhat they all wanted was a pre-inquisition into the mind, as part organ,\npart constituent, of all knowledge, an examination of the scales,\nweights and measures themselves abstracted from the objects to be\nweighed or measured by them; in short, a transcendental \u00e6sthetic, logic,\nand noetic. Lord Herbert was at the entrance of, nay, already some paces\nwithin, the shaft and adit of the mine, but he turned abruptly back, and\nthe honour of establishing a complete [Greek: propaide\u00eda] of philosophy\nwas reserved for Immanuel Kant, a century or more afterwards.\n\nFrom the confounding of Plotinism with Platonism, the Latitudinarian\ndivines fell into the mistake of finding in the Greek philosophy many\nanticipations of the Christian Faith, which in fact were but its echoes.\nThe inference is as perilous as inevitable, namely, that even the\nmysteries of Christianity needed no revelation, having been previously\ndiscovered and set forth by unaided reason.\n\n...\n\nThe argument from the mere universality of the belief, appears to me far\nstronger in favour of a surviving soul and a state after death, than for\nthe existence of the Supreme Being. In the former, it is one doctrine in\nthe Englishman and in the Hottentot; the differences are accidents not\naffecting the subject, otherwise than as different seals would affect\nthe same wax, though Molly, the maid, used her thimble, and Lady\n'Virtuosa' an 'intaglio' of the most exquisite workmanship.\n\nFar otherwise in the latter. 'Mumbo Jumbo', or the 'cercocheronychous\nNick-Senior', or whatever score or score thousand invisible huge men\nfear and fancy engender in the brain of ignorance to be hatched by the\nnightmare of defenceless and self-conscious weakness--these are not the\nsame as, but are 'toto genere' diverse from, the 'una et unica\nsubstantia' of Spinosa, or the World-God of the Stoics.\n\nAnd each of these again is as diverse from the living Lord God, the\ncreator of heaven and earth. Nay, this equivoque on God is as\nmischievous as it is illogical: it is the sword and buckler of Deism.\n\n\n\n\nOF THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF GOD.\n\n  Besides, when we review our own immortal souls and their dependency\n  upon some Almighty mind, we know that we neither did nor could produce\n  ourselves, and withal know that all that power which lies within the\n  compass of ourselves will serve for no other purpose than to apply\n  several pre-existent things one to another, from whence all\n  generations and mutations arise, which are nothing else but the events\n  of different applications and complications of bodies that were\n  existent before; and therefore that which produced that substantial\n  life and mind by which we know ourselves, must be something much more\n  mighty than we are, and can be no less indeed than omnipotent, and\n  must also be the first architect and [Greek: daemiourg\u00f2s] of all other\n  beings, and the perpetual supporter of them.\n\nA Rhodian leap! Where our knowledge of a cause is derived from our\nknowledge of the effect, which is falsely (I think) here supposed,\nnothing can be logically, that is, apodeictically, inferred, but the\nadequacy of the former to the latter. The mistake, common to Smith, with\na hundred other writers, arises out of an equivocal use of the word\n'know.' In the scientific sense, as implying insight, and which ought to\nbe the sense of the word in this place, we might be more truly said to\nknow the soul by God, than to know God by the soul.\n\n...\n\n  So the Sibyl was noted by Heraclitus as [Greek: mainom\u00e9n_o st\u00f3mati\n  gelast\u00e0 ka\u00ec akall_\u00f3pista phtheggom\u00e9nae] 'as one speaking ridiculous\n  and unseemly speeches with her furious mouth.'\n\nThis fragment is misquoted and misunderstood: for--[Greek: gelast\u00e0] it\nshould be [Greek: amurist\u00e0]. unperfumed, inornate lays, not redolent of\nart.--Render it thus:\n\n                             ... Not her's\n  To win the sense by words of rhetoric,\n  Lip-blossoms breathing perishable sweets;\n  But by the power of the informing Word\n  Roll sounding onward through a thousand years\n  Her deep prophetic bodements.\n\n[Greek: St\u00f3mati mainom\u00e9n_o] is with ecstatic mouth.\n\n...\n\nIf the ascetic virtues, or disciplinary exercises, derived from the\nschools of philosophy (Pythagorean, Platonic and Stoic) were carried to\nan extreme in the middle ages, it is most certain that they are at\npresent in a far more grievous disproportion underrated and neglected.\nThe 'regula maxima' of the ancient [Greek: askaesis] was to conquer the\nbody by abstracting the attention from it. Our maxim is to conciliate\nthe body by attending to it, and counteracting or precluding one set of\nsensations by another, the servile dependence of the mind on the body\nremaining the same. Instead of the due subservience of the body to the\nmind (the favorite language of our Sidneys and Miltons) we hear nothing\nat present but of health, good digestion, pleasurable state of general\nfeeling, and the like.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Of Queen's College, Cambridge, 1660.]\n\n\n\n\n\nTO ADAM STEINMETZ K------. [1]\n\n\nMY DEAR GODCHILD,\n\nI offer up the same fervent prayer for you now, as I did kneeling before\nthe altar, when you were baptized into Christ, and solemnly received as\na living member of His spiritual body, the Church.\n\nYears must pass before you will be able to read with an understanding\nheart what I now write; but I trust that the all-gracious God, the\nFather of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, who, by his only\nbegotten Son, (all mercies in one sovereign mercy!) has redeemed you\nfrom the evil ground, and willed you to be born out of darkness, but\ninto light--out of death, but into life--out of sin, but into\nrighteousness, even into the 'Lord our Righteousness'; I trust that He\nwill graciously hear the prayers of your dear parents, and be with you\nas the spirit of health and growth in body and mind.\n\nMy dear Godchild!--You received from Christ's minister at the baptismal\nfont, as your Christian name, the name of a most dear friend of your\nfather's, and who was to me even as a son, the late Adam Steinmetz,\nwhose fervent aspiration and ever-paramount aim, even from early youth,\nwas to be a Christian in thought, word, and deed--in will, mind, and\naffections.\n\nI too, your Godfather, have known what the enjoyments and advantages of\nthis life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and\nintellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience which more\nthan threescore years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure,\ndeclare to you (and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act\non the conviction) that health is a great blessing,--competence obtained\nby honorable industry a great blessing,--and a great blessing it is to\nhave kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the\ngreatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all\nprivileges, is to be indeed a Christian. But I have been likewise,\nthrough a large portion of my later life, a sufferer, sorely afflicted\nwith bodily pains, languors, and bodily infirmities; and, for the last\nthree or four years, have, with few and brief intervals, been confined\nto a sick-room, and at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness,\nwrite from a sick-bed, hopeless of a recovery, yet without prospect of a\nspeedy recovery; and I, thus on the very brink of the grave, solemnly\nbear witness to you that the Almighty Redeemer, most gracious in His\npromises to them that truly seek Him, is faithful to perform what He\nhath promised, and has preserved, under all my pains and infirmities,\nthe inward peace that passeth all understanding, with the supporting\nassurance of a reconciled God, who will not withdraw His Spirit from me\nin the conflict, and in His own time will deliver me from the Evil One!\n\nO, my dear Godchild! eminently blessed are those who begin early to\nseek, fear, and love their God, trusting wholly in the righteousness and\nmediation of their Lord, Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest,\nJesus Christ!\n\nO, preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen Godfather and\nfriend,\n\nS. T. COLERIDGE.\n\nJuly 13, 1834. [2]\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: See 'ante', p. 291. Ed.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: He died on the 25th day of the same month.]\n\n\n\n\nEND OF VOL. III.\n\n\n\n\nCORRIGENDA.\n\nPages 32, 33, insert _men_ between the pages.\n\nPage 41. N. after _see post_, add _Vol. IV._\n\n330, line 7 from bottom, _for_ result _read_ rennet.","title":"The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 3","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":103377}