diff options
Diffstat (limited to '8956-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 8956-0.txt | 13355 |
1 files changed, 13355 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/8956-0.txt b/8956-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60ef90f --- /dev/null +++ b/8956-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13355 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge + +Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge + +Editor: Henry Nelson Coleridge + +Release Date: August 30, 2003 [eBook #8956] +[Most recently updated: November 22, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Clytie Siddall and Distributed Proofreaders + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY REMAINS OF COLERIDGE *** + + + + +THE LITERARY REMAINS + +OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE + + + +VOLUME THE THIRD + + + +COLLECTED AND EDITED BY + +HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE. + + + +1838 + + + + +TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE THE THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES +OF COLERIDGE'S REMAINS ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + Preface + Formula Fidei de SS. Trinitate + Nightly Prayer + Notes on 'The Book of Common Prayer' + Notes on Hooker + Notes on Field + Notes on Donne + Notes on Henry More + Notes on Heinrichs + Notes on Hacket + Notes on Jeremy Taylor + Notes on 'The Pilgrim's Progress' + Notes on John Smith + Letter to a Godchild + + + + +PREFACE + +For a statement of the circumstances under which the collection of Mr. +Coleridge's Literary Remains was undertaken, the Reader is referred to +the Preface to the two preceding Volumes published in 1836. But the +graver character of the general contents of this Volume and of that +which will immediately follow it, seems to justify the Editor in +soliciting particular attention to a few additional remarks. + +Although the Author in his will contemplated the publication of some at +least of the numerous notes left by him on the margins and blank spaces +of books and pamphlets, he most certainly wrote the notes themselves +without any purpose beyond that of delivering his mind of the thoughts +and aspirations suggested by the text under perusal. His books, that is, +any person's books--even those from a circulating library--were to him, +whilst reading them, as dear friends; he conversed with them as with +their authors, praising, or censuring, or qualifying, as the open page +seemed to give him cause; little solicitous in so doing to draw +summaries or to strike balances of literary merit, but seeking rather to +detect and appreciate the moving principle or moral life, ever one and +single, of the work in reference to absolute truth. Thus employed he had +few reserves, but in general poured forth, as in a confessional, all his +mind upon every subject,--not keeping back any doubt or conjecture which +at the time and for the purpose seemed worthy of consideration. In +probing another's heart he laid his hand upon his own. He thought pious +frauds the worst of all frauds, and the system of economizing truth too +near akin to the corruption of it to be generally compatible with the +Job-like integrity of a true Christian's conscience. Further, he +distinguished so strongly between that internal faith which lies at the +base of, and supports, the whole moral and religious being of man, and +the belief, as historically true, of several incidents and relations +found or supposed to be found in the text of the Scriptures, that he +habitually exercised a liberty of criticism with respect to the latter, +which will probably seem objectionable to many of his readers in this +country. [1] + +His friends have always known this to be the fact; and he vindicated +this so openly that it would be folly to attempt to conceal it: nay, he +pleaded for it so earnestly--as the only middle path of safety and peace +between a godless disregard of the unique and transcendant character of +the Bible taken generally, and that scheme of interpretation, scarcely +less adverse to the pure spirit of Christian wisdom, which wildly arrays +our faith in opposition to our reason, and inculcates the sacrifice of +the latter to the former,--that to suppress this important part of his +solemn convictions would be to misrepresent and betray him. For he threw +up his hands in dismay at the language of some of our modern divinity on +this point;--as if a faith not founded on insight were aught else than a +specious name for wilful positiveness;--as if the Father of Lights could +require, or would accept, from the only one of his creatures whom he had +endowed with reason the sacrifice of fools! Did Coleridge, therefore, +mean that the doctrines revealed in the Scriptures were to be judged +according to their supposed harmony or discrepancy with the evidence of +the senses, or the deductions of the mere understanding from that +evidence? Exactly the reverse: he disdained to argue even against +Transubstantiation on such a ground, well knowing and loudly proclaiming +its utter weakness and instability. But it was a leading principle in +all his moral and intellectual views to assert the existence in all men +equally of a power or faculty superior to, and independent of, the +external senses: in this power or faculty he recognized that image of +God in which man was made; and he could as little understand how faith, +the indivisibly joint act or efflux of our reason and our will, should +be at variance with one of its factors or elements, as how the Author +and Upholder of all truth should be in contradiction to himself. He +trembled at the dreadful dogma which rests God's right to man's +obedience on the fact of his almighty power,--a position falsely +inferred from a misconceived illustration of St. Paul's, and which is +less humbling to the creature than blasphemous of the Creator; and of +the awless doctrine that God might, if he had so pleased, have given to +man a religion which to human intelligence should not be rational, and +exacted his faith in it--Coleridge's whole middle and later life was one +deep and solemn denial. He believed in no God in the very idea of whose +existence absolute truth, perfect goodness, and infinite wisdom, were +not elements essentially necessary and everlastingly copresent. + +Thus minded, he sought to justify the ways of God to man in the only way +in which they can be justified to any one who deals honestly with his +conscience, namely, by showing, where possible, their consequence from, +and in all cases their consistency with, the ideas or truths of the pure +reason which is the same in all men. With what success he laboured for +thirty years in this mighty cause of Christian philosophy, the readers +of his other works, especially the Aids to Reflection, will judge: if +measured by the number of resolved points of detail his progress may +seem small; but if tested by the weight and grasp of the principles +which he has established, it may be confidently said that since +Christianity had a name few men have gone so far. If ever we are to find +firm footing in Biblical criticism between the extremes (how often +meeting!) of Socinianism and Popery;--if the indisputable facts of +physical science are not for ever to be left in a sort of admitted +antagonism to the supposed assertions of Scripture;--if ever the +Christian duty of faith in God through Christ is to be reconciled with +the religious service of a being gifted by the same God with reason and +a will, and subjected to a conscience,--it must be effected by the aid, +and in the light, of those truths of deepest philosophy which in all Mr. +Coleridge's works, published or unpublished, present themselves to the +reader with an almost affecting reiteration. But to do justice to those +works and adequately to appreciate the Author's total mind upon any +given point, a cursory perusal is insufficient; study and comprehension +are requisite to an accurate estimate of the relative value of any +particular denial or assertion; and the apparently desultory and +discontinuous form of the observations now presented to the Reader more +especially calls for the exercise of his patience and thoughtful +circumspection. + +With this view the Reader is requested to observe the dates which, in +some instances, the Editor has been able to affix to the notes with +certainty. Most of those on Jeremy Taylor belong to the year 1810, and +were especially designed for the perusal of Charles Lamb. Those on Field +were written about 1814; on Racket in 1818; on Donne in 1812 and 1829; +on The Pilgrim's Progress in 1833; and on Hooker and the Book of Common +Prayer between 1820 and 1830. Coleridge's mind was a growing and +accumulating mind to the last, his whole life one of inquiry and +progressive insight, and the dates of his opinions are therefore in some +cases important, and in all interesting. + +The Editor is deeply sensible of his responsibility in publishing this +Volume; as to which he can only say, in addition to a reference to the +general authority given by the Author, that to the best of his knowledge +and judgment he has not permitted any thing to appear before the public +which Mr. Coleridge saw reason to retract; and further express his hope +and belief that, with such allowance for defects inherent in the nature +of the work as may rightfully be expected from every really liberal +mind, nothing contained in the following pages can fairly be a ground of +offence to any one. + +It only remains to be added that the materials used in the compilation +of this Volume were for the greatest part communicated by Mr. Gillman; +and that the rest were furnished by Mr. Wordsworth, the Rev. Derwent +Coleridge, the Rev. Edward Coleridge, and the Editor. + +Lincoln's Inn, March 26, 1838 + + + +[Footnote 1: See 'Table Talk', p. 178, 2nd edit.] + + + + +FORMULA FIDEI DE SANCTISSIMA TRINITATE. + +1830. + + +THE IDENTITY. + +The absolute subjectivity, whose only attribute is the Good; whose only +definition is--that which is essentially causative of all possible true +being; the ground; the absolute will; the adorable [Greek: pr_ópr_oton], +which, whatever is assumed as the first, must be presumed as its +antecedent; [Greek: theòs], without an article, and yet not as an +adjective. See John i. 18. [Greek: theòn oudeìs he_órake p_ópote] as +differenced from ib. 1, [Greek: kai theòs aen o lógos] + +But that which is essentially causative of all being must be causative +of its own,--'causa sui', [Greek: autopát_or]. Thence + + +THE IPSEITY. + +The eternally self-affirmant self-affirmed; the "I Am in that I Am," or +the "I shall be that I will to be;" the Father; the relatively +subjective, whose attribute is, the Holy One; whose definition is, the +essential finific in the form of the infinite; 'dat sibi fines'. + +But the absolute will, the absolute good, in the eternal act of +self-affirmation, the Good as the Holy One, co-eternally begets + + +THE ALTERITY. + +The supreme being; [Greek: ho ont'os 'on]; the supreme reason; the +Jehovah; the Son; the Word; whose attribute is the True (the truth, the +light, the 'fiat'); and whose definition is, the 'pleroma' of being, +whose essential poles are unity and distinctity; or the essential +infinite in the form of the finite;--lastly, the relatively objective, +'deitas objectiva' in relation to the I Am as the 'deitas subjectiva'; +the divine objectivity. + +N.B. The distinctities in the 'pleroma' are the eternal ideas, the +subsistential truths; each considered in itself, an infinite in the form +of the finite; but all considered as one with the unity, the eternal +Son, they are the energies of the finific; [Greek: pánta di' autou +egéneto--kaì ek tou plaer'ómatos autou haemeis pántes elábomen.] John +i. 3 and 16. + +But with the relatively subjective and the relatively objective, the +great idea needs only for its completion a co-eternal which is both, +that is, relatively objective to the subjective, relatively subjective +to the objective. Hence + + +THE COMMUNITY. + +The eternal life, which is love; the Spirit; relatively to the Father, +the Spirit of Holiness, the Holy Spirit; relatively to the Son, the +Spirit of truth, whose attribute is Wisdom; 'sancta sophia'; the Good in +the reality of the True, in the form of actual Life. Holy! Holy! Holy! +[Greek: hilásthaetí moi]. + + + + +A NIGHTLY PRAYER. + +1831. + +Almighty God, by thy eternal Word my Creator, Redeemer and Preserver! +who hast in thy free communicative goodness glorified me with the +capability of knowing thee, the one only absolute Good, the eternal I +Am, as the author of my being, and of desiring and seeking thee as its +ultimate end;--who, when I fell from thee into the mystery of the false +and evil will, didst not abandon me, poor self-lost creature, but in thy +condescending mercy didst provide an access and a return to thyself, +even to thee the Holy One, in thine only begotten Son, the way and the +truth from everlasting, and who took on himself humanity, yea, became +flesh, even the man Christ Jesus, that for man he might be the life and +the resurrection!--O Giver of all good gifts, who art thyself the one +only absolute Good, from whom I have received whatever good I have, +whatever capability of good there is in me, and from thee good +alone,--from myself and my own corrupted will all evil and the +consequents of evil,--with inward prostration of will, mind, and +affections I adore thy infinite majesty; I aspire to love thy +transcendant goodness!--In a deep sense of my unworthiness, and my +unfitness to present myself before thee, of eyes too pure to behold +iniquity, and whose light, the beatitude of spirits conformed to thy +will, is a consuming fire to all vanity and corruption;--but in the name +of the Lord Jesus, of the dear Son of thy love, in whose perfect +obedience thou deignest to behold as many as have received the seed of +Christ into the body of this death;--I offer this my bounden nightly +sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in humble trust, that the +fragrance of my Saviour's righteousness may remove from it the taint of +my mortal corruption. Thy mercies have followed me through all the hours +and moments of my life; and now I lift up my heart in awe and +thankfulness for the preservation of my life through the past day, for +the alleviation of my bodily sufferings and languors, for the manifold +comforts which thou hast reserved for me, yea, in thy fatherly +compassion hast rescued from the wreck of my own sins or sinful +infirmities;--for the kind and affectionate friends thou hast raised up +for me, especially for those of this household, for the mother and +mistress of this family whose love to me hath been great and faithful, +and for the dear friend, the supporter and sharer of my studies and +researches; but above all, for the heavenly Friend, the crucified +Saviour, the glorified Mediator, Christ Jesus, and for the heavenly +Comforter, source of all abiding comforts, thy Holy Spirit! O grant me +the aid of thy Spirit, that I may with a deeper faith, a more enkindled +love, bless thee, who through thy Son hast privileged me to call thee +Abba, Father! O, thou who hast revealed thyself in thy holy word as a +God that hearest prayer; before whose infinitude all differences cease +of great and small; who like a tender parent foreknowest all our wants, +yet listenest well-pleased to the humble petitions of thy children; who +hast not alone permitted, but taught us, to call on thee in all our +needs,--earnestly I implore the continuance of thy free mercy, of thy +protecting providence, through the coming night. Thou hearest every +prayer offered to thee believingly with a penitent and sincere heart. +For thou in withholding grantest, healest in inflicting the wound, yea, +turnest all to good for as many as truly seek thee through Christ, the +Mediator! Thy will be done! But if it be according to thy wise and +righteous ordinances, O shield me this night from the assaults of +disease, grant me refreshment of sleep unvexed by evil and distempered +dreams; and if the purpose and aspiration of my heart be upright before +thee who alone knowest the heart of man, O in thy mercy vouchsafe me yet +in this my decay of life an interval of ease and strength; if so (thy +grace disposing and assisting) I may make compensation to thy church for +the unused talents thou hast entrusted to me, for the neglected +opportunities, which thy loving-kindness had provided. O let me be found +a labourer in the vineyard, though of the late hour, when the Lord and +Heir of the vintage, Christ Jesus, calleth for his servant. + +'Our Father', &c. + +To thee, great omnipresent Spirit, whose mercy is over all thy works, +who now beholdest me, who hearest me, who hast framed my heart to seek +and to trust in thee, in the name of my Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, I +humbly commit and commend my body, soul, and spirit. + +Glory be to thee, O God! + + + + +NOTES ON THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. + + +PRAYER. + +A man may pray night and day, and yet deceive himself; but no man can be +assured of his sincerity, who does not pray. Prayer is faith passing +into act; a union of the will and the intellect realizing in an +intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is +wishing, or lip-work; a charm or a mummery. 'Pray always', says the +Apostle;--that is, have the habit of prayer, turning your thoughts into +acts by connecting them with the idea of the redeeming God, and even so +reconverting your actions into thoughts. + + +THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST. + +The best preparation for taking this sacrament, better than any or all +of the books or tracts composed for this end, is, to read over and over +again, and often on your knees--at all events, with a kneeling and +praying heart--the Gospel according to St. John, till your mind is +familiarized to the contemplation of Christ, the Redeemer and Mediator +of mankind, yea, and of every creature, as the living and +self-subsisting Word, the very truth of all true being, and the very +being of all enduring truth; the reality, which is the substance and +unity of all reality; 'the light which lighteth every man', so that what +we call reason, is itself a light from that light, 'lumen a luce', as +the Latin more distinctly expresses this fact. But it is not merely +light, but therein is life; and it is the life of Christ, the co-eternal +son of God, that is the only true life-giving light of men. We are +assured, and we believe that Christ is God; God manifested in the flesh. +As God, he must be present entire in every creature;--(for how can God, +or indeed any spirit, exist in parts?)--but he is said to dwell in the +regenerate, to come to them who receive him by faith in his name, that +is, in his power and influence; for this is the meaning of the word +'name' in Scripture when applied to God or his Christ. Where true belief +exists, Christ is not only present with or among us;--for so he is in +every man, even the most wicked;--but to us and for us. + + 'That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into + the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the + world knew him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power + to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name; + which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of + the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt + among us.' + + John i. 9-14. + +Again + + 'We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.' + + John xiv. 23. + +As truly and as really as your soul resides constitutively in your +living body, so truly, really, personally, and substantially does Christ +dwell in every regenerate man. + +After this course of study, you may then take up and peruse sentence by +sentence the communion service, the best of all comments on the +Scriptures appertaining to this mystery. And this is the preparation +which will prove, with God's grace, the surest preventive of, or +antidote against, the freezing poison, the lethargizing hemlock, of the +doctrine of the Sacramentaries, according to whom the Eucharist is a +mere practical metaphor, in which things are employed instead of +articulated sounds for the exclusive purpose of recalling to our minds +the historical fact of our Lord's crucifixion; in short--(the +profaneness is with them, not with me)--just the same as when +Protestants drink a glass of wine to the glorious memory of William III! +True it is, that the remembrance is one end of the sacrament; but it is, +'Do this in remembrance of me',--of all that Christ was and is, hath +done and is still doing for fallen mankind, and of course of his +crucifixion inclusively, but not of his crucifixion alone. + +14 December, 1827. + + +COMPANION TO THE ALTAR. + + + First then, that we may come to this heavenly feast holy, and adorned + with the wedding garment, Matt. xxii. 11, we must search our hearts, + and examine our consciences, not only till we see our sins, but until + we hate them. + +But what if a man, seeing his sin, earnestly desire to hate it? Shall he +not at the altar offer up at once his desire, and the yet lingering sin, +and seek for strength? Is not this sacrament medicine as well as food? +Is it an end only, and not likewise the means? Is it merely the +triumphal feast; or is it not even more truly a blessed refreshment for +and during the conflict? + + This confession of sins must not be in general terms only, that we are + sinners with the rest of mankind, but it must be a special declaration + to God of all our most heinous sins in thought, word, and deed. + +Luther was of a different judgment. He would have us feel and groan +under our sinfulness and utter incapability of redeeming ourselves from +the bondage, rather than hazard the pollution of our imaginations by a +recapitulation and renewing of sins and their images in detail. Do not, +he says, stand picking the flaws out one by one, but plunge into the +river, and drown them!--I venture to be of Luther's doctrine. + + +COMMUNION SERVICE. + +In the first Exhortation, before the words 'meritorious Cross and +Passion,' I should propose to insert 'his assumption of humanity, his +incarnation, and.' + +Likewise a little lower down, after the word 'sustenance,' I would +insert 'as.' + +For not in that sacrament exclusively, but in all the acts of +assimilative faith, of which the Eucharist is a solemn, eminent, and +representative instance, an instance and the symbol, Christ is our +spiritual food and sustenance. + + +MARRIAGE SERVICE. + +Marriage, simply as marriage, is not the means 'for the procreation of +children,' but for the humanization of the offspring procreated. + +Therefore in the Declaration at the beginning, after the words, +'procreation of children,' I would insert, 'and as the means for +securing to the children procreated enduring care, and that they may be' +&c. + + +COMMUNION OF THE SICK. + +Third rubric at the end. + + But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, &c. + +I think this rubric, in what I conceive to be its true meaning, a +precious document, as fully acquitting our Church of all Romish +superstition, respecting the nature of the Eucharist, in relation to the +whole scheme of man's redemption. But the latter part of it--'he doth +eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his +soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his +mouth'--seems to me very incautiously expressed, and scarcely to be +reconciled with the Church's own definition of a sacrament in general. +For in such a case, where is 'the outward and visible sign of the inward +and spiritual grace given?' [1] + + +[Footnote 1: + + 'Should it occur to any one that the doctrine blamed in the text, is + but in accordance with that of the Church of England, in her rubric + concerning spiritual communion, annexed to the Office for Communion of + the Sick: he may consider, whether that rubric, explained (as if + possible it must be) in consistency with the definition of a sacrament + in the Catechism, can be meant for any but rare and extraordinary + cases: cases as strong in regard of the Eucharist, as that of + martyrdom, or the premature death of a well-disposed catechumen, in + regard of Baptism.' + + Keble's Pref. to Hooker, p. 85, n. 70. Ed.] + + + + +XI SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. + +Epistle.--1 Cor. xv. 1. + + Brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you. + +Why should the obsolete, though faithful, Saxon translation of [Greek: +euaggélion] be retained? Why not 'good tidings?' Why thus change a most +appropriate and intelligible designation of the matter into a mere +conventional name of a particular book? + +Ib. + + ... how that Christ died for our sins. + +But the meaning of [Greek: upèr ton hamarti_on haem_on] is, that Christ +died through the sins, and for the sinners. He died through our sins, +and we live through his righteousness. + +Gospel, Luke xviii. 14. + + This man went down to his house justified rather than the other. + +Not simply justified, observe; but justified rather than the other, +[Greek: ae ekeinos],--that is, less remote from salvation. + + + +XXV. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. + +Collect. + + ... that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may + of thee be plenteously rewarded. ... + +Rather--"that with that enlarged capacity, which without thee we cannot +acquire, there may likewise be an increase of the gift, which from thee +alone we can wholly receive." + + + +PS. VIII. + +v. 2. + + 'Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained + strength, because of thine enemies; that thou mightest still the enemy + and the avenger'. + +To the dispensations of the twilight dawn, to the first messengers of +the redeeming word, the yet lisping utterers of light and life, a +strength and a power were given 'because of the enemies', greater and of +more immediate influence, than to the seers and proclaimers of a clearer +day:--even as the first re-appearing crescent of the eclipsed moon +shines for men with a keener brilliance, than the following larger +segments, previously to its total emersion. + +Ib. v. 5. + + 'Thou madest him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and + worship'. + +Power + idea = angel. +Idea - power = man, or Prometheus. + + + +PS. LXVIII. + +v. 34. + + 'Ascribe ye the power to God over Israel: his worship and strength is + in the clouds'. + +The 'clouds' in the symbolical language of the Scriptures mean the +events and course of things, seemingly effects of human will or chance, +but overruled by Providence. + + + +PS. LXXII. + +This Psalm admits no other interpretation but of Christ, as the Jehovah +incarnate. In any other sense, it would be a specimen of more than +Persian or Moghul hyperbole and bombast, of which there is no other +instance in Scripture, and which no Christian would dare to attribute to +an inspired writer. We know, too, that the elder Jewish Church ranked it +among the Messianic Psalms. N.B. The Word in St. John, and the Name of +the Most High in the Psalms, are equivalent terms. + +v. 1. + + 'Give the king thy judgments, O God; and thy righteousness unto the + king's son'. + +God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the only begotten, the +Son of God and God, King of Kings, and the Son of the King of Kings! + + + +PS. LXXIV. + +v. 2. + + 'O think upon thy congregation, whom thou hast purchased and redeemed + of old'. + +The Lamb sacrificed from the beginning of the world, the God-Man, the +Judge, the self-promised Redeemer to Adam in the garden! + +v. 15. + + 'Thou smotest the heads of Leviathan in pieces; and gavest him to be + meat for the people in the wilderness'. + +Does this allude to any real tradition? [1] The Psalm appears to have +been composed shortly before the captivity of Judah. + + +[Footnote 1: According to Bishop Horne, the allusion is to the +destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea.--Ed.] + + + +PS. LXXXII. vv. 6-7. + +The reference which our Lord made to these mysterious verses, gives them +an especial interest. The first apostasy, the fall of the angels, is, +perhaps, intimated. + + + +PS. LXXXVII. + +I would fain understand this Psalm; but first I must collate it word by +word with the original Hebrew. It seems clearly Messianic. + + +PS. LXXXVIII. + +vv. 10--12. + + 'Dost than shew wonders among the dead, or shall the dead rise up + again and praise thee?' &c. + +Compare Ezekiel xxxvii. + + + +PS. CIV. + +I think the Bible version might with advantage be substituted for this, +which in some parts is scarcely intelligible. + +v. 6. + + 'the waters stand in the hills.' + +No; 'stood above the mountains'. The reference is to the Deluge. + + + +PS. CV. + +v. 3. + + 'Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.' + +If even to seek the Lord be joy, what will it be to find him? Seek me, O +Lord, that I may be found by thee! + + + +PS. CX. + +v. 2. + + 'The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Sion'; (saying) + 'Rule', &c. + +v. 3. Understand: + + 'Thy people shall offer themselves willingly in the day of conflict in + holy clothing, in their best array, in their best arms and + accoutrements. As the dew from the womb of the morning, in number and + brightness like dew-drops; so shall be thy youth, or the youth of + thee, the young volunteer warriors.' + +v. 5. + + 'He shall shake,' + +concuss, 'concutiet reges die iræ suæ,' + +v. 6. For + + 'smite in sunder, or wound, the heads;' + +some word answering to the Latin 'conquassare'. + +v. 7. For 'therefore,' translate 'then shall he lift up his head again;' +that is, as a man languid and sinking from thirst and fatigue after +refreshment. + +N.B. I see no poetic discrepancy between vv. 1 and 5. + + + +PS. CXVIII. + +To be interpreted of Christ's church. + + + +PS. CXXVI. + +v. 5. + + 'As the rivers in the south.' + +Does this allude to the periodical rains? [1] + +As a transparency on some night of public rejoicing, seen by common day, +with the lamps from within removed--even such would the Psalms be to me +uninterpreted by the Gospel. O honored Mr. Hurwitz! Could I but make you +feel what grandeur, what magnificence, what an everlasting significance +and import Christianity gives to every fact of your national history--to +every page of your sacred records! + + +[Footnote 1: See Horne in loc. note.--Ed.] + + + +ARTICLES OF RELIGION. + +XX. + +It is mournful to think how many recent writers have criminated our +Church in consequence of their own ignorance and inadvertence in not +knowing, or not noticing, the contra-distinction here meant between +power and authority. Rites and ceremonies the Church may ordain 'jure +proprio': on matters of faith her judgment is to be received with +reverence, and not gainsaid but after repeated inquiries, and on weighty +grounds. + +XXXVII. + + It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the magistrate, + to wear weapons, and to serve in the wars. + +This is a very good instance of an unseemly matter neatly wrapped up. +The good men recoiled from the plain words: + + 'It is lawful for Christian men at the command of a king to slaughter + as many Christians as they can!' + +Well! I could most sincerely subscribe to all these articles. + +September, 1831. + + + + +NOTES ON HOOKER. [1] + + +'LIFE OF HOOKER' BY WALTON. + +p. 67. + + Mr. Travers excepted against Mr. Hooker, for that in one of his + sermons he declared, 'That the assurance of what we believe by the + word of God, is not to us so certain as that which we perceive by + sense.' And Mr. Hooker confesseth he said so, and endeavours to + justify it by the reasons following. + +There is, I confess, a shade of doubt on my mind as to this position of +Hooker's. Yet I do not deny that it expresses a truth. The question in +my mind is, only, whether it adequately expresses the whole truth. The +ground of my doubt lies in my inability to compare two things that +differ in kind. It is impossible that any conviction of the reason, even +where no act of the will advenes as a co-efficient, should possess the +vividness of an immediate object of the senses; for the vividness is +given by sensation. Equally impossible is it that any truth of the +super-sensuous reason should possess the evidence of the pure sense. +Even the mathematician does not find the same evidence in the results of +transcendental algebra as in the demonstrations of simple geometry. But +has he less assurance? In answer to Hooker's argument I say,--that God +refers to our sensible experience to aid our will by the vividness of +sensible impressions, and also to aid our understanding of the truths +revealed,--not to increase the conviction of their certainty where they +have been understood. + + + +WALTON'S APPENDIX. + +Ib. p. 116. + +It is a strange blind story this of the last three books, and of +Hooker's live relict, the Beast without Beauty. But Saravia?--If honest +Isaac's account of the tender, confidential, even confessional, +friendship of Hooker and Saravia be accurate, how chanced it that Hooker +did not entrust the manuscripts to his friend who stood beside him in +his last moments? At all events, Saravia must have known whether they +had or had not received the author's last hand. Why were not Mr. Charke +and the other Canterbury parson called to account, or questioned at +least as to the truth of Mrs. Joan's story? Verily, I cannot help +suspecting that the doubt cast on the authenticity of the latter books +by the high church party originated in their dislike of portions of the +contents.--In short, it is a blind story, a true Canterbury tale, dear +Isaac! [2] + + + +OF THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. + +Pref. c. iii. 7. p. 182. + + The next thing hereunto is, to impute all faults and corruptions, + wherewith the world aboundeth, unto the kind of ecclesiastical + government established. + +How readily would this, and indeed all the disputes respecting the +powers and constitution of Church government have been settled, or +perhaps prevented, had there been an insight into the distinct nature +and origin of the National Church and the Church under Christ! [3] To +the ignorance of this, all the fierce contentions between the Puritans +and the Episcopalians under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, all the errors +and exorbitant pretensions of the Church of Scotland, and the heats and +antipathies of our present Dissenters, may be demonstrably traced. + +Ib. 9. p. 183. + + Pythagoras, by bringing up his scholars in the speculative knowledge + of numbers, made their conceits therein so strong, that when they came + to the contemplation of things natural, they imagined that in every + particular thing they even beheld as it were with their eyes, how the + elements of number gave essence and being to the works of nature: a + thing in reason impossible; which notwithstanding, through their + mis-fashioned pre-conceit, appeared unto them no less certain, than if + nature had written it in the very foreheads of all the creatures of + God. + +I am not so conversant with the volumes of Duns Scotus as to be able to +pronounce positively whether he is an exception, but I can think of no +other instance of high metaphysical genius in an Englishman. Judgment, +solid sense, invention in specialties, fortunate anticipations and +instructive foretact of truth,--in these we can shew giants. It is +evident from this example from the Pythagorean school that not even our +incomparable Hooker could raise himself to the idea, so rich in truth, +which is contained in the words + + 'numero, pondere, et mensura generantur coeli et terra'. + +O, that Hooker had ever asked himself concerning will, absolute will, + + [Greek: ho arithmòs hyperaríthmiòs], + 'numerus omues numeros ponens, nunquam positus!' [4] + + +Ib. p. 183. + + When they of the 'Family of Love' have it once in their heads, that + Christ doth not signify any one person, but a quality whereof many are + partakers, &c. + +If the Familists thought of Christ as a quality, it was a grievous error +indeed. But I have my doubts whether this was not rather an inference +drawn by their persecutors. + + +Ib. 15. p. 191. + + When instruction doth them no good, let them feel but the least degree + of most mercifully-tempered severity, they fasten on the head of the + Lord's vicegerents here on earth, whatsoever they any where find + uttered against the cruelty of blood-thirsty men, and to themselves + they draw all the sentences which Scripture hath in favor of innocency + persecuted for the truth. + +How great the influence of the age on the strongest minds, when so +eminently wise a man as Richard Hooker could overlook the obvious +impolicy of inflicting punishments which the sufferer himself will +regard as merits, and all who have any need to be deterred will extol as +martyrdom! Even where the necessity could be plausibly pretended, it is +war, not punitive law;--and then Augustine's argument for Sarah! + + +Ib. c. iv. 1. p. 194. + + We require you to find out but one church upon the face of the whole + earth, that hath been ordered by your discipline, or hath not been + ordered by ours, that is to say, by episcopal regiment, sithence the + time that the blessed apostles were here conversant. + +Hooker was so good a man that it would be wicked to suspect him of +knowingly playing the sophist. And yet strange it is, that he should not +have been aware that it was prelacy, not primitive episcopacy, the +thing, not the name, that the reformers contended against, and, if the +Catholic Church and the national Clerisy were (as both parties unhappily +took for granted) one and the same, contended against with good reason. +Knox's ecclesiastical polity (worthy of Lycurgus), adopted bishops under +a different name, or rather under a translation instead of corruption of +the name [Greek: epáskapoi]. He would have had superintendents. + + +Ib. c. v. 2. p. 204. + + A law is the deed of the whole body politic, whereof if ye judge + yourselves to be any part, then is the law even your deed also. + +This is a fiction of law for the purpose of giving to that, which is +necessarily empirical, the form and consequence of a science, to the +reality of which a code of laws can only approximate by compressing all +liberty and individuality into a despotism. As Justinian to Alfred, and +Constantinople, the Consuls and Senate of Rome to the Lord Mayor, +Aldermen, and Common Council of London; so is the imperial Roman code to +the common and statute law of England. The advocates of the discipline +would, according to our present notions of civil rights, have been +justified in putting fact against fiction, and might have challenged +Hooker to shew, first, that the constitution of the Church in Christ was +a congruous subject of parliamentary legislation; that the legislators +were 'bona fide' determined by spiritual views, and that the jealousy +and arbitrary principles of the Queen, aided by motives of worldly state +policy,--for example, the desire of conciliating the Roman Catholic +potentates by retaining all she could of the exterior of the Romish +Church, its hierarchy, its ornaments, and its ceremonies,--were not the +substitutes for the Holy Spirit in influencing the majorities in the two +Houses of Parliament. It is my own belief that the Puritans and the +Prelatists divided the truth between them; and, as half-truths are whole +errors, were both equally in the wrong;--the Prelatists in contending +for that as incident to the Church in Christ, that is, the collective +number [Greek: t_on ekkaloumén_on] or 'ecclesia', which only belonged, +but which rightfully did belong, to the National Church as a component +estate of the realm, the 'enclesia';--the Puritans in requiring of the +'enclesia' what was only requisite or possible for the 'ecclesia'.[5] +Archbishop Grindal is an illustrious exception. He saw the whole truth, +and that the functions of the enclesiastic and those of the ecclesiastic +were not the less distinct, because both were capable of being exercised +by the same person; and _vice versa_, not the less compatible in the +same subject because distinct in themselves. The Lord Chief Justice of +the King's Bench is a Fellow of the Royal Society. + + +Ib. c. vi. 3. p. 209. + + God was not ignorant, that the priests and judges, whose sentence in + matters of controversy he ordained should stand, both might and + oftentimes would be deceived in their judgment. However, better it was + in the eye of His understanding, that sometime an erroneous sentence + definitive should prevail, till the same authority perceiving such + oversight, might afterwards correct or reverse it, than that strifes + should have respite to grow, and not come speedily to some end. + + +It is difficult to say, which most shines through this whole passage, +the spirit of wisdom or the spirit of meekness. The fatal error of the +Romish Church did not consist in the inappellability of the Councils, or +that an acquiescence in their decisions and decree was a duty binding on +the conscience of the dissentients,--not I say in contending for a +practical infallibility of Council or Pope; but in laying claim to an +actual and absolute immunity from error, and consequently for the +unrepealability of their decisions by any succeeding Council or Pope. +Hence, even wise decisions--wise under the particular circumstances and +times--degenerated into mischievous follies, by having the privilege of +immortality without any exemption from the dotage of superannuation. +Hence errors became like _glaciers_, or ice-bergs in the frozen +ocean, unthawed by summer, and growing from the fresh deposits of each +returning winter. + +Ib. 6. p. 212. + + An argument necessary and demonstrative is such, as being proposed + unto any man, and understood, the mind cannot choose but inwardly + assent. Any one such reason dischargeth, I grant, the conscience, and + setteth it at full liberty. + +I would not concede even so much as this. It may well chance that even +an argument demonstrative, if understood, may be adducible against some +one sentence of a whole liturgy; and yet the means of removing it +without a palpable overbalance of evil may not exist for a time; and +either there is no command against schism, or we are bound in such small +matters to offer the sacrifice of willing silence to the public peace of +the Church. This would not, however, prevent a minister from pointing +out the defect in his character as a doctor or learned theologian. + + +Ib. c. viii. 1. p. 2-20. + + For adventuring to erect the discipline of Christ without the leave of + the Christian magistrate, haply ye may condemn us as fools, in that we + hazard thereby our estates and persons further than you which are that + way more wise think necessary: but of any offence or sin therein + committed against God, with what conscience can you accuse us, when + your own positions are, that the things we observe should every of + them be dearer unto us than ten thousand lives; that they are the + peremptory commandments of God; that no mortal man can dispense with + them, and that the magistrate grievously sinneth in not constraining + thereunto? + +'Hoc argumentum ad invidiam nimis sycophanticum est quam ut mihi placeat +a tanto viro'. Besides, it contradicts Hooker's own very judicious rule, +that to discuss and represent is the office of the learned, as +individuals, because the truth may be entire in any one mind; but to do +belongs to the supreme power as the will of the whole body politic, and +in effective action individuals are mere fractions without any +legitimate referee to add them together. Hooker's objection from the +nobility and gentry of the realm is unanswerable and within half a +century afterwards proved insurmountable. Imagine a sun containing +within its proper atmosphere a multitude of transparent satellites, lost +in the glory, or all joining to form the visible 'phasis' or disk; and +then beyond the precincts of this sun a number of opake bodies at +various distances, and having a common center of their own round which +they revolve, and each more or less according to the lesser or greater +distance partaking of the light and natural warmth of the sun, which I +have been supposing; but not sharing in its peculiar influences, or in +the solar life sustainable only by the vital air of the solar +atmosphere. The opake bodies constitute the national churches, the sun +the churches spiritual. + +The defect of the simile, arising necessarily out of the +incompossibility of spiritual prerogatives with material bodies under +the proprieties and necessities of space, is, that it does not, as no +concrete or visual image can, represent the possible duplicity of the +individuals, the aggregate of whom constitutes the national church, so +that any one individual, or any number of such individuals, may at the +same time be, by an act of their own, members of the church spiritual, +and in every congregation may form an 'ecclesia' or Christian community; +and how to facilitate and favor this without any schism from the +'enclesia', and without any disturbance of the body politic, was the +problem which Grindal and the bishops of the first generation of the +Reformed Church sought to solve, and it is the problem which every +earnest Christian endued with competent gifts, and who is at the same +time a patriot and a philanthropist, ought to propose to himself, as the +'ingens desiderium proborum'. + +8th Sept, 1826. + + +Ib. c. viii. 7. p. 232. + + Baptizing of infants, although confessed by themselves, to have been + continued ever sithence the very apostles' own times, yet they + altogether condemned. + +'Quære'. I cannot say what the fanatic Anabaptists, of whom Hooker is +speaking, may have admitted; but the more sober and learned +Antipaedobaptists, who differed in this point only from the reformed +churches, have all, I believe, denied the practice of infant baptism +during the first century. + + +B.J. c. ii. 1. p. 249. + + That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth + moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and + measure, of working, the same we term a law. + +See the essays on method, in the 'Friend'. [6] Hooker's words literally +and grammatically interpreted seem to assert the antecedence of the +thing to its kind, that is, to its essential characters;--and to its +force together with its form and measure of working, that is, to its +specific and distinctive characters; in short, the words assert the +pre-existence of the thing to all its constituent powers, qualities, and +properties. + +Now this is either--first, equivalent to the assertion of a 'prima et +nuda materia', so happily ridiculed by the author of 'Hudibras', [7] and +which under any scheme of cosmogony is a mere phantom, having its whole +and sole substance in an impotent effort of the imagination or sensuous +fancy, but which is utterly precluded by the doctrine of creation which +it in like manner negatives:--or secondly, the words assert a +self-destroying absurdity, namely, the antecedence of a thing to itself; +as if having asserted that water consisted of hydrogen = 77, and oxygen += 23, I should talk of water as existing before the creation of hydrogen +and oxygen. + +All laws, indeed, are constitutive; and it would require a longer train +of argument than a note can contain, to shew what a thing is; but this +at least is quite certain, that in the order of thought it must be +posterior to the law that constitutes it. But such in fact was Hooker's +meaning, and the word, thing, is used 'proleptice' in favour of the +imagination, as appears from the sentences that follow, in which the +creative idea is declared to be the law of the things thereby created. A +productive idea, manifesting itself and its reality in the product is a +law; and when the product is phænomenal, (that is, an object of the +outward senses) it is a law of nature. The law is 'res noumenon'; the +thing is 'res phenomenon' [8] A physical law, in the right sense of the +term, is the sufficient cause of the appearance,--'causa sub-faciens'. + +P.S. What a deeply interesting volume might be written on the symbolic +import of the primary relations and dimensions of space--long, broad, +deep, or depth; surface; upper, under, above and below, right, left, +horizontal, perpendicular, oblique:--and then the order of causation, or +that which gives intelligibility, and the reverse order of effects, or +that which gives the conditions of actual existence! Without the higher +the lower would want its intelligibility: without the lower the higher +could not have existed. The infant is a riddle of which the man is the +solution; but the man could not exist but with the infant as his +antecedent. + + +Ib. 2. p. 250. + + In which essential Unity of God, a Trinity personal nevertheless + subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possibility of man's + conceit. + +If 'conceit' here means conception, the remark is most true; for the +Trinity is an idea, and no idea can be rendered by a conception. An idea +is essentially inconceivable. But if it be meant that the Trinity is +otherwise inconceivable than as the divine eternity and every attribute +of God is and must be, then neither the commonness of the language here +used, nor the high authority of the user, can deter me from denouncing +it as untrue and dangerous. So far is it from being true, that on the +contrary, the Trinity is the only form in which an idea of God is +possible, unless indeed it be a Spinosistic or World-God. + + +Ib. c. iv. 1. p. 264. + + But now that we may lift up our eyes (as it were) from the footstool + to the throne of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the + state of heavenly and divine, creatures: touching angels which are + spirits immaterial and intellectual, &c. + +All this disquisition on the angels confirms my remark that our +admirable Hooker was a giant of the race Aristotle 'versus' Plato. +Hooker was truly judicious,--the consummate 'synthesis' of understanding +and sense. An ample and most ordonnant conceptionist, to the tranquil +empyrean of ideas he had not ascended. Of the passages cited from +Scripture how few would bear a strict scrutiny; being either, + +1. divine appearances, Jehovah in human form; or +2. the imagery of visions and all symbolic; or +3. names of honor given to prophets, apostles, or bishops; or +lastly, mere accommodations to popular notions! + + +Ib. 3. p. 267. + + Since their fall, their practices have been the clean contrary unto + those before mentioned. For being dispersed, some in the air, some on + the earth, some in the water, some among the minerals, dens, and + caves, that are under the earth; they have, by all means laboured to + effect a universal rebellion against the laws, and as far as in them + lieth, utter destruction of the works of God. + +Childish; but the childishness of the age, without which neither Hooker +nor Luther could have acted on their contemporaries with the intense and +beneficent energy with which, they (God be praised!) did act. + + +Ib. p. 268. + + Thus much therefore may suffice for angels, the next unto whom in + degree are men. + +St. Augustine well remarks that only three distinct 'genera' of living +beings are conceivable: + +1. the infinite rational: +2. the finite rational: +3. the finite irrational: + +that is, God, man, brute animal. 'Ergo', angels can only be with wings +on their shoulders. Were our bodies transparent to our souls, we should +be angels. + + +Ib. c. x. 4. p. 303. + + It is no improbable opinion therefore which the arch-philosopher was + of. + +There are, and can be, only two schools of philosophy, differing in kind +and in source. Differences in degree and in accident, there may be many; +but these constitute schools kept by different teachers with different +degrees of genius, talent, and learning;--auditories of philosophizers, +not different philosophies. Schools of psilology (the love of empty +noise) and misosophy are here out of the question. Schools of real +philosophy there are but two,--best named by the arch-philosopher of +each, namely, Plato and Aristotle. Every man capable of philosophy at +all (and there are not many such) is a born Platonist or a born +Aristotelian. [9] Hooker, as may be discerned from the epithet of +arch-philosopher applied to the Stagyrite, 'sensu monarchico', was of +the latter family,--a comprehensive, vigorous, discreet, and discretive +conceptualist,--but not an ideist. + + +Ib. 8. p. 308. + + Of this point therefore we are to note, that sith men naturally have + no free and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, + therefore utterly without our consent, we could in such sort be at no + man's commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that + society whereof we are part hath at any time before consented, without + revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Wherefore as + any man's deed past is good as long as himself continueth; so the act + of a public society of men done five hundred years sithence standeth + as theirs who presently are of the same societies, because + corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and + they in their successors do live still. Laws therefore human, of what + kind soever, are available by consent. + + +No nobler or clearer example than this could be given of what an idea is +as contra-distinguished from a conception of the understanding, +correspondent to some fact or facts, 'quorum notæ communes +concapiuntur',--the common characters of which are taken together under +one distinct exponent, hence named a conception; and conceptions are +internal subjective words. Reflect on an original social contract, as an +event or historical fact; and its gross improbability, not to say +impossibility, will stare you in the face. But an ever originating +social contract as an idea, which exists and works continually and +efficaciously in the moral being of every free citizen, though in the +greater number unconsciously, or with a dim and confused +consciousness,--what a power it is! [10] As the vital power compared +with the mechanic; as a father compared with a moulder in wax or clay, +such is the power of ideas compared with the influence of conceptions +and notions. + + +Ib.15. p.316. + + ... I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better frame + themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour with + so great instancy gave us concerning peace and unity, if we did all + concur in desire to have the use of ancient Councils again renewed, + rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all + contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and that + of all other the worst, which is by sword. + +This is indeed a subject that deserves a serious consideration: and it +may be said in favour of Hooker's proposal, namely, that the use of +ancient Councils be renewed, that a deep and universal sense of the +abuse of Councils progressively from the Nicene to that of Trent, and +our knowledge of the causes, occasions, and mode of such abuse, are so +far presumptive for its non-recurrency as to render it less probable +that honest men will pervert them from ignorance, and more difficult for +unprincipled men to do so designedly. Something too must be allowed for +an honourable ambition on the part of the persons so assembled, to +disappoint the general expectation, and win for themselves the unique +title of the honest Council. But still comes the argument, the blow of +which I might more easily blunt than parry, that if Roman Catholic and +Protestant, or even Protestant Episcopalian and Protestant Presbyterian +divines were generally wise and charitable enough to form a Christian +General Council, there would be no need of one. + +N.B. The reasoning in this note, as far as it is in discouragement of a +recurrence to general Councils, does not, 'me saltem judice', conclude +against the suffering our Convocation to meet. The virtual abrogation of +this branch of our constitution I have long regarded as one of three or +four Whig patriotisms, that have succeeded in de-anglicizing the mind of +England. + + +Ib. c. xi. 4. p. 323. + + So that nature even in this life doth plainly claim and call for a + more divine perfection than either of these two that have been + mentioned. + + +Whenever I meet with an ambiguous or multivocal word, without its +meaning being shown and fixed, I stand on my guard against a sophism. I +dislike this term, 'nature,' in this place. If it mean the 'light that +lighteth every man that cometh into the world', it is an inapt term; for +reason is supernatural. Now that reason in man must have been first +actuated by a direct revelation from God, I have myself proved, and do +not therefore deny that faith as the means of salvation was first made +known by revelation; but that reason is incapable of seeing into the +fitness and superiority of these means, or that it is a mystery in any +other sense than as all spiritual truths are mysterious, I do deny and +deem it both a false and a dangerous doctrine. + +15 Sept. 1826. + + +Ib. 6. p.327. + + Concerning that faith, hope and charity, without which there can be no + salvation; was there ever any mention made saving only in that law + which God himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world + a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, + more than hath, been supernaturally received from the mouth of the + eternal God. + + +That reason could have discovered these divine truths is one thing; that +when discovered by revelation, it is capable of apprehending the beauty +and excellence of the things revealed is another. I may believe the +latter, while I utterly reject the former. That all these cognitions, +together with the fealty or faithfulness in the will whereby the mind of +the flesh is brought under captivity to the mind of the spirit (the +sensous understanding to the reason) are supernatural, I not only freely +grant, but fervently contend. But why the very perfection of reason, +namely, those ideas or truth-powers, in which both the spiritual light +and the spiritual life are co-inherent and one, should be called +super-rational, I do not see. For reason is practical as well as +theoretical; or even though I should exclude the practical reason, and +confine the term reason to the highest intellective power,--still I +should think it more correct to describe the mysteries of faith as +'plusquam rationalia' than super-rational. But the assertions that +provoke the remark arose for the greater part, and still arise, out of +the confounding of the reason with the understanding. In Hooker, and the +great divines of his age, it was merely an occasional carelessness in +the use of the terms that reason is ever put where they meant the +understanding; for, from other parts of their writings, it is evident +that they knew and asserted the distinction, nay, the diversity of the +things themselves; to wit, that there was in man another and higher +light than that of the faculty judging according to sense, that is our +understandings. But, alas! since the Revolution, it has ceased to be a +mere error of language, and in too many it now amounts to a denial of +reason! + + +B. ii. c. v.3. p.379. + + To urge any thing as part of that supernatural and celestially + revealed truth which God hath taught, and not to shew it in Scripture; + this did the ancient Fathers evermore think unlawful, impious, + execrable. + +Even this must be received 'cum grano salis.' To be sure, with the +licences of interpretation, which the Fathers of the first three or four +centuries allowed themselves, and with the 'arcana' of evolution by +word, letter, allegory, yea, punning, which they applied to detached +sentences or single phrases of Holy Writ, it would not be easy to +imagine a position which they could not 'shew in Scripture.' Let this be +elucidated by the texts even now cited by the Romish priests for the +truth of purgatory, indulgence, image-worship, invocation of dead men, +and the like. The assertion therefore must be thus qualified. The +ancient Fathers anathematized any doctrine not consentaneous with +Scripture and deducible from it, either 'pari ratione' or by +consequence; as when Scripture clearly commands an end, but leaves the +means to be determined according to the circumstances, as for example, +the frequent assembly of Christians. The appointment of a Sunday or +Lord's day is evidently the fittest and most effectual mean to this end; +but yet it was not practicable, that is the mean did not exist till the +Roman government became Christian. But as soon as this event took place, +the duty of keeping the Sunday holy is truly, though implicitly, +contained in the Apostolic text. + + +Ib. vi. 3. p. 392. + + + Again, with a negative argument, David is pressed concerning the + purpose he had to build a temple unto the Lord: 'Thus saith the + Lord, Thou shalt not build me a house to dwelt in. Wheresoever I have + walked with all Israel, spake I one word to any of the judges of + Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Why have ye not + built me a house?' + + +The wisdom of the divine goodness both in the negative, the not having +authorized any of the preceding Judges from Moses downwards to build a +temple--and in the positive, in having commanded David to prepare for +it, and Solomon to build it--I have not seen put in the full light in +which it so well deserves to be. The former or negative, or the evils of +a splendid temple-worship and its effects on the character of the +priesthood,--evils, when not changed to good by becoming the antidote +and preventive of far greater evils,--would require much thought both to +set forth and to comprehend. But to give any reflecting reader a sense +of the providential foresight evinced in the latter, and this foresight +beyond the reach of any but the Omniscient, it will be only necessary to +remind him of the separation of the ten tribes and the breaking up of +the realm into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel in the very next +reign. Without the continuity of succession provided for by this vast +and splendid temple, built and arranged under the divine sanction +attested by miracles--what criterion would there have existed for the +purity of this law and worship? what security for the preservation and +incorruption of the inspired writings? + + +Ib. vii. 3. p. 403. + + That there is a city of Rome, that Pius Quintus and Gregory the + Thirteenth, and others, have been Popes of Rome, I suppose we are + certainly enough persuaded. The ground of our persuasion, who never + saw the place nor persons before named, can be nothing but man's + testimony. Will any man here notwithstanding allege those mentioned + human infirmities as reasons why these things should be mistrusted or + doubted of? Yea, that which is more, utterly to infringe the force and + strength of man's testimony, were to shake the very fortress of God's + truth. + + +In a note on a passage in Skelton's 'Deism Revealed', [11] I have +detected the subtle sophism that lurks in this argument, as applied by +later divines in vindication of proof by testimony, in relation to the +miracles of the Old and New Testament. As thus applied, it is a [Greek: +metábasis eis allo génos], though so unobvious, that a very acute and +candid reasoner might use the argument without suspecting the +paralogism. It is not testimony, as testimony, that necessitates us to +conclude that there is such a city as Rome--but a reasoning, that forms +a branch of mathematical science. So far is our conviction from being +grounded on our confidence in human testimony that it proceeds on our +knowledge of its fallible character, and therefore can find no +sufficient reason for its coincidence on so vast a scale, but in the +real existence of the object. That a thousand lies told by as many +several and unconnected individuals should all be one and the same, is a +possibility expressible only by a fraction that is already, to all +intents and purposes, equal to nought. + + +B. iii. c. iii. 1. p. 447. + + The mixture of those things by speech, which by nature are divided, is + the mother of all error. + + +'The division in thought of those things which in nature are distinct, +yet one, that is, distinguished without breach of unity, is the +mother,'--so I should have framed the position. Will, reason, +life,--ideas in relation to the mind, are instances; 'entiæ indivise +interdistinctæ'; and the main arguments of the atheists, materialists, +deniers of our Lord's divinity and the like, all rest on the asserting +of division as a necessary consequence of distinction. + + +B. v. c. xix. 3. vol. ii. p. 87. + + Of both translations the better I willingly acknowledge that which + cometh nearer to the very letter of the original verity; yet so that + the other may likewise safely enough be read, without any peril at all + of gainsaying as much as the least jot or syllable of God's most + sacred and precious truth. + +Hooker had far better have rested on the impossibility and the +uselessness, if possible, of a faultless translation; and admitting +certain mistakes, and oversights, have recommended them for notice at +the next revision; and then asked, what objection such harmless trifles +could be to a Church that never pretended to infallibility! But in fact +the age was not ripe enough even for a Hooker to feel, much less with +safety to expose, the Protestants' idol, that is, their Bibliolatry. + + +Ib. c. xxii. 10. p. 125. + + Their only proper and direct proof of the thing in question had been + to shew, in what sort and how far man's salvation doth necessarily + depend upon the knowledge of the word of God; what conditions, + properties, and qualities there are, whereby sermons are distinguished + from other kinds of administering the word unto that purpose; and what + special property or quality that is, which being no where found but in + sermons, maketh them effectual to save souls, and leaveth all other + doctrinal means besides destitute of vital efficacy. + +Doubtless, Hooker was a theological Talus, with a club of iron against, +opponents with pasteboard helmets, and armed only with crabsticks! But +yet, I too, too often find occasion to complain of him as abusing his +superior strength. For in a good man it is an abuse of his intellectual +superiority, not to use a portion of it in stating his Christian +opponents' cause, his brethren's (though dissentient, and perhaps +erring, yet still brethren's,) side of the question, not as they had +stated and argued it, but as he himself with his higher gifts of logic +and foresight could have set it forth. But Hooker flies off to the +general, in which he is unassailable; and does not, as in candour he +should have done, inquire whether the question would not admit of, nay, +demand, a different answer, when applied solely or principally to the +circumstances, the condition and the needs of the English parishes, and +the population at large, at the particular time when the Puritan divines +wrote, and he, Hooker, replied to them. Now let the cause be tried in +this way, and I should not be afraid to attempt the proof of the +paramount efficacy of preaching on the scheme, and in the line of +argument laid down by himself in this section. In short, Hooker +frequently finds it convenient to forget the homely proverb; 'the proof +of the pudding is in the eating.' Whose parishes were the best +disciplined, whose flocks the best fed, the soberest livers, and the +most awakened and best informed Christians, those of the zealous +preaching divines, or those of the prelatic clergy with their readers? +In whose churches and parishes were all the other pastoral duties, +catechizing, visiting the poor and the like, most strictly practised? + + +Ib. 11. + + The people which have no way to come to the knowledge of God, no + prophesying, no teaching, perish. But that they should of necessity + perish, where any one way of knowledge lacketh, is more than the words + of Solomon import. + +But what was the fact? Were those congregations that had those readers +of whom the Puritans were speaking--were they, I say, equally well +acquainted with, and practically impressed by, the saving truths of the +Gospel? Were they not rather perishing for lack of knowledge? To +reply,--It was their own fault; they ought to have been more regular in +their attendance at church, and more attentive, when there, to what was +there read,--is to my mind too shocking, nay, antichristian. + + +Ib. 16. p.137. + + Now all these things being well considered, it shall be no intricate + matter for any man to judge with indifferency, on which part the good + of the church is most conveniently sought; whether on ours, whose + opinion is such as hath been shewed, or else on theirs, who leaving no + ordinary way of salvation for them unto whom the word of God is but + only read, do seldom name them but with great disdain and contempt, + who execute that service in the church of Christ. + +If so, they were much to be blamed. But surely this was not the case +with the better and wiser part of those who, clinging to the tenets and +feelings of the first Reformers, and honouring Archbishop Grindal as +much as they dreaded his Arminian successors, were denominated Puritans! +They limited their censures to exclusive reading,--to reading as the +substitute for, and too often for the purpose of doing away with, +preaching. + + +Ib. lxv. 8. p.415. + + Thus was the memory of that sign which they had in baptism a kind of + bar or prevention to keep them even from apostasy, whereinto the + frailty of flesh and blood, overmuch fearing to endure shame, might + peradventure the more easily otherwise have drawn them. + +I begin to fear that Hooker is not suited to my nature. I cannot bear +round-abouts for the purpose of evading the short cut straight before my +eyes. 'Exempli gratia;' I find myself tempted in this place to ejaculate +Psha! somewhat abruptly, and ask, 'How many in twenty millions of +Christian men and women ever reverted to the make-believe impression of +the Cross on their forehead in unconscious infancy, by the wetted tip of +the clergyman's finger as a preservative against anger and resentment? +'The whole church of God!' Was it not the same church which, neglecting +and concealing the Scriptures of God, introduced the adoration of the +Cross, the worshipping of relics, holy water, and all the other +countless mummeries of Popery? Something might be pretended for the +material images of the Cross worn at the bosom or hung up in the +bed-chamber. These may, and doubtless often do, serve as silent +monitors; but this eye-falsehood or pretence of making a mark that is +not made, is a gratuitous superstition, that cannot be practised without +serious danger of leading the vulgar to regard it as a charm. Hooker +should have asked--Has it hitherto had this effect on Christians +generally? Is it likely to produce this effect and this principally? In +common honesty he must have answered, No!--Do I then blame the Church of +England for retaining this ceremony? By no means. I justify it as a wise +and pious condescension to the inveterate habits of a people newly +dragged, rather than drawn, out of Papistry; and as a pledge that the +founders and fathers of the Reformation in England regarded innovation +as 'per se' an evil, and therefore requiring for its justification not +only a cause, but a weighty cause. They did well and piously in +deferring the removal of minor spots and stains to the time when the +good effects of the more important reforms had begun to shew themselves +in the minds and hearts of the laity.--But they do not act either wisely +or charitably who would eulogize these 'maculæ' as beauty-spots and +vindicate as good what their predecessors only tolerated as the lesser +evil. + +12th Aug. 1826. + + +Ib. 15. p. 424. + + For in actions of this kind we are more to respect what the greatest + part of men is commonly prone to conceive, than what some few men's + wits may devise in construction of their own particular meanings. + Plain it is, that a false opinion of some personal divine excellency + to be in those things which either nature or art hath framed causeth + always religious adoration. + +How strongly might this most judicious remark be turned against Hooker's +own mode of vindicating this ceremony! + + +Ib. lxvi. 2. p. 432. + + The Church had received from Christ a promise that such as have + believed in him these signs and tokens should follow them. + + 'To cast out devils, to speak with tongues, to drive away serpents, to + be free from the harm which any deadly poison could work, and to cure + diseases by imposition of hands.' + + 'Mark xvi'. + +The man who verily and sincerely believes the narrative in St. John's +Gospel of the feeding of five thousand persons with a few loaves and +small fishes, and of the raising of Lazarus, in the plain and literal +sense, cannot be reasonably suspected of rejecting, or doubting, any +narrative concerning Christ and his Apostles, simply as miraculous. I +trust, therefore, that no disbelief of, or prejudice against, miraculous +events and powers will be attributed to me, as the ground or cause of my +strong persuasion that the latter verses of the last chapter of St. +Mark's Gospel were an additament of a later age, for which St. Luke's +Acts of the Apostles misunderstood supplied the hints. + + +Ib. lxxii. 15 & 16. p.539. + +If Richard Hooker had written only these two precious paragraphs, I +should hold myself bound to thank the Father of lights and Giver of all +good gifts for his existence and the preservation of his writings. + + +B. viii. c. ix. 2. vol. iii. p. 537. + + As there could be in natural bodies no motion of anything, unless + there were some which moveth all things, and continueth immoveable; + even so in politic societies, there must be some unpunishable, or else + no man shall suffer punishment. + +It is most painful to connect the venerable, almost sacred, name of +Richard Hooker with such a specimen of puerile sophistry, scarcely +worthy of a court bishop's trencher chaplain in the slavering times of +our Scotch Solomon. It is, however, of some value, some interest at +least, as a striking example of the confusion of an idea with a +conception. Every conception has its sole reality in its being referable +to a thing or class of things, of which, or of the common characters of +which, it is a reflection. An idea is a power, [Greek: dúnamis noera], +which constitutes its own reality, and is in order of thought +necessarily antecedent to the things in which it is more or less +adequately realized, while a conception is as necessarily posterior. + + + + +SERMON OF THE CERTAINTY AND PERPETUITY OF FAITH IN THE ELECT. + + +Vol. iii. p. 583. + +The following truly admirable discourse is, I think, the concluding +sermon of a series unhappily not preserved. + + +Ib. p.584. + + If it were so in matters of faith, then, as all men have equal + certainty of this, so no believer should be more scrupulous and + doubtful than another. But we find the contrary. The angels and + spirits of the righteous in heaven have certainty most evident of + things spiritual: but this they have by the light of glory. That which + we see by the light of grace, though it be indeed more certain; yet it + is not to us so evidently certain, as that which sense or the light of + nature will not suffer a man to doubt of. + + +Hooker's meaning is right; but he falls into a sad confusion of words, +blending the thing and the relation of the mind to the thing. The fourth +moon of Jupiter is certain in itself; but evident only to the astronomer +with his telescope. + + +Ib. p. 585-588. + + The other, which we call the certainty of adherence, is when the heart + doth cleave and stick unto that which it doth believe. This certainty + is greater in us than the other ... ('down to') the fourth + question resteth, and so an end of this point. + + +These paragraphs should be written in gold. O! may these precious words +be written on my heart! + +1. That we all need to be redeemed, and that therefore we are all in +captivity to an evil: + +2. That there is a Redeemer: + +3. That the redemption relatively to each individual captive is, if not +effected under certain conditions, yet manifestable as far as is fitting +for the soul by certain signs and consequents:--and + +4. That these signs are in myself; that the conditions under which the +redemption offered to all men is promised to the individual, are +fulfilled in myself; + +these are the four great points of faith, in which the humble Christian +finds and feels a gradation from trembling hope to full assurance; yet +the will, the act of trust, is the same in all. Might I not almost say, +that it rather increases with the decrease of the consciously discerned +evidence? To assert that I have the same assurance of mind that I am +saved as that I need a Saviour, would be a contradiction to my own +feelings, and yet I may have an equal, that is, an equivalent assurance. +How is it possible that a sick man should have the same certainty of his +convalescence as of his sickness? Yet he may be assured of it. So again, +my faith in the skill and integrity of my physician may be complete, but +the application of it to my own case may be troubled by the sense of my +own imperfect obedience to his prescriptions. The sort of our beliefs +and assurances is necessarily modified by their different subjects. It +argues no want of saving faith on the whole, that I cannot have the same +trust in myself as I have in my God. That Christ's righteousness can +save me,--that Christ's righteousness alone can save--these are simple +positions, all the terms of which are steady and copresent to my mind. +But that I shall be so saved,--that of the many called I have been one +of the chosen,--this is no mere conclusion of mind on known or assured +premisses. I can remember no other discourse that sinks into and draws +up comfort from the depths of our being below our own distinct +consciousness, with the clearness and godly loving-kindness of this +truly evangelical God-to-be-thanked-for sermon. But how large, how +important a part of our spiritual life goes on like the circulation, +absorptions, and secretions of our bodily life, unrepresented by any +specific sensation, and yet the ground and condition of our total sense +of existence! + +While I feel, acknowledge, and revere the almost measureless superiority +of the sermons of the divines, who labored in the first, and even the +first two centuries of the Reformation, from Luther to Leighton, over +the prudential morals and apologizing theology that have characterized +the unfanatical clergy since the Revolution in 1688, I cannot but +regret, especially while I am listening to a Hooker, that they withheld +all light from the truths contained in the words 'Satan', 'the Serpent', +'the Evil Spirit', and this last used plurally. + + + + +A DISCOURSE OF JUSTIFICATION, WORKS, AND HOW THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH IS +OVERTHROWN. + + +Ib. s. 31. p. 659-661. + + But we say, our salvation is by Christ alone; therefore howsoever, or + whatsoever, we add unto Christ in the matter of salvation, we + overthrow Christ. Our case were very hard, if this argument, so + universally meant as it is proposed, were sound and good. We ourselves + do not teach Christ alone, excluding our own faith, unto + justification; Christ alone, excluding our own work, unto + sanctification; Christ alone, excluding the one or the other as + unnecessary unto salvation. ... As we have received, so we teach that + besides the bare and naked work, wherein Christ, without any other + associate, finished all the parts of our redemption and purchased + salvation himself alone; for conveyance of this eminent blessing unto + us, many things are required, as, to be known and chosen of God + _before_ the foundations of the world; _in_ the world to be called, + justified, sanctified; _after_ we have left the world to be received + into glory; Christ in every of these hath somewhat which he worketh + alone. &c. &c. + +No where out of the Holy Scripture have I found the root and pith of +Christian faith so clearly and purely propounded as in this section. +God, whose thoughts are eternal, beholdeth the end, and in the completed +work seeth and accepteth every stage of the process. I dislike only the +word 'purchased;'--not that it is not Scriptural, but because a metaphor +well and wisely used in the enforcement and varied elucidation of a +truth, is not therefore properly employed in its exact enunciation. I +will illustrate, amplify and _divide_ the word with Paul; but I will +propound it collectively with John. If in this admirable passage aught +else dare be wished otherwise, it is the division and yet confusion of +time and eternity, by giving an anteriority to the latter. + +I am persuaded, that the practice of the Romish church tendeth to make +vain the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ alone; but judging by +her most eminent divines, I can find nothing dissonant from the truth in +her express decisions on this article. Perhaps it would be safer to +say:--Christ alone saves us, working in us by the faith which includes +hope and love. + + +Ib. s. 34. p. 671. + + If it were not a strong deluding spirit which hath possession of their + hearts; were it possible but that they should see how plainly they do + herein gainsay the very ground of apostolic faith? ... The Apostle, as + if he had foreseen how the Church of Rome would abuse the world in + time by ambiguous terms, to declare in what sense the name of grace + must be taken, when we make it the cause of our salvation, saith, 'He + saved us according to his mercy', &c. + +In all Christian communities there have been and ever will be too many +Christians in name only;--too many in belief and notion only: but +likewise, I trust, in every acknowledged Church, Eastern or Western, +Greek, Roman, Protestant, many of those in belief, more or less +erroneous, who are Christians in faith and in spirit. And I neither do +nor can think, that any pious member of the Church of Rome did ever in +his heart attribute any merit to any work as being his work. [12] A +grievous error and a mischievous error there was practically in mooting +the question at all of the condignity of works and their rewards. In +short, to attribute merit to any agent but God in Christ, our faith as +Christians forbids us; and to dispute about the merit of works +abstracted from the agent, common sense ought to forbid us. + + + +A SUPPLICATION MADE TO THE COUNCIL BY MASTER WALTER TRAVERS. + + +Ib. p. 698. + + I said directly and plainly to all men's understanding, that it was + not indeed to be doubted, but many of the Fathers were saved; but the + means, said I, was not their ignorance, which excuseth no man with + God, but their knowledge and faith of the truth, which, it appeareth, + God vouchsafed them, by many notable monuments and records extant of + it in all ages. + +Not certainly, if the ignorance proceeded directly or indirectly from a +defect or sinful propensity of the will; but where no such cause is +imaginable, in such cases this position of Master Travers is little less +than blasphemous to the divine goodness, and in direct contradiction to +an assertion of St. Paul's, [13] and to an evident consequence from our +Saviour's own words on the polygamy of the fathers. [14] + + + +ANSWER TO TRAVERS. + + +Ib. p. 719. + + The next thing discovered, is an opinion about the assurance of men's + persuasion in matters of faith. I have taught, he saith, 'That the + assurance of things which we believe by the word, is not so certain as + of that we perceive by sense.' + +A useful instance to illustrate the importance of distinct, and the +mischief of equivocal or multivocal, terms. Had Hooker said that the +fundamental truths of religion, though perhaps even more certain, are +less evident than the facts of sense, there could have been no +misunderstanding. Thus the demonstrations of algebra possess equal +certainty with those of geometry, but cannot lay claim to the same +evidence. Certainty is positive, evidence relative; the former, strictly +taken, insusceptible of more or less, the latter capable of existing in +many different degrees. + +Writing a year or more after the preceding note, I am sorry to say that +Hooker's reasoning on this point seems to me sophistical throughout. +That a man must see what he sees is no persuasion at all, nor bears the +remotest analogy to any judgment of the mind. The question is, whether +men have a clearer conception and a more stedfast conviction of the +objective reality to which the image moving their eye appertains, than +of the objective reality of the things and states spiritually discovered +by faith. And this Travers had a right to question wherever a saving +faith existed. + +August, 1826. + + + +SERMON IV. A REMEDY AGAINST SORROW AND FEAR. + + +Ib. p. 801. + + In spirit I am with you to the world's end. + +O how grateful should I be to be made intuitive of the truth intended in +the words--'In spirit I am with you!' + + +Ib. p. 808. + + Touching the latter affection of fear, which respecteth evils to come, + as the other which we have spoken of doth present evils; first, in the + nature thereof it is plain that we are not every future evil afraid. + Perceive we not how they, whose tenderness shrinketh at the least rase + of a needle's point, do kiss the sword that pierceth their souls quite + thorow? + +In this and in sundry similar passages of this venerable writer there is +[Greek: h_os emoige dokei], a very plausible, but even therefore the +more dangerous, sophism; but the due detection and exposure of which +would exceed the scanty space of a marginal comment. Briefly, what does +Hooker comprehend in the term 'pain?' Whatsoever the soul finds adverse +to her well being, or incompatible with her free action? In this sense +Hooker's position is a mere truism. But if pain be applied exclusively +to the soul finding itself as life, then it is an error. + + +Ib. p. 811. + + Fear then in itself being mere nature cannot in itself be sin, which + sin is not nature, but therefore an accessary deprivation. + +I suspect a misprint, and that it should be depravation'. But if not +nature, then it must be a super-induced and incidental depravation of +nature. The principal, namely fear, is nature; but the sin, that is, +that it is a sinful fear, is but an accessary. + + + +[Footnote 1: The references are to Mr. Keble's edition (1836.)--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: But see Mr. Keble's statement (Pref. xxix.), and the +argument founded on discoveries and collation of MSS. since the note in +the text was written.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 3: See Mr. Coleridge's work 'On the constitution of the Church +and State according to the idea of each.'--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 4: See E. P. I. ii. 3. p. 252.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 5: See the 'Church and State,' in which the 'ecclesia' or +Church in Christ, is distinguished from the 'enclesia', or national +Church.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 6: See the essays generally from the fourth to the ninth, both +inclusively, in Vol. III. 3rd edition, more especially, the fifth +essay.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 7: Part I. c. i. vv. 151--6.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 8: See the essay on the idea of the Prometheus of Æschylus. +Literary Remains, Vol. II. p. 323.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 9: + + 'Every man is born an Aristotelian, or a Platonist. I do not think it + possible that any one born an Aristotelian can become a Platonist; and + I am sure no born Platonist can ever change into an Aristotelian. They + are the two classes of men, beside which it is next to impossible to + conceive a third. The one considers reason a quality, or attribute; + the other considers it a power. I believe that Aristotle never could + get to understand what Plato meant by an idea. ... Aristotle was, and + still is, the sovereign lord of the understanding; the faculty judging + by the senses. He was a conceptualist, and never could raise himself + into that higher state, which was natural to Plato, and has been so to + others, in which the understanding is distinctly contemplated, and, as + it were, looked down upon, from the throne of actual ideas, or living, + inborn, essential truths.' + +'Table Talk', 2d Edit. p. 95.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 10: See the 'Church and State,' c. i.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 11: See 'post'.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 12: But see the language of the Council of Trent: + + Si quis dixerit justitiam acceptam non conservari 'atque etiam augeri + coram. Deo per bona opera'; sed opera ipsa fructus solummodo et signa + esse justificationis adeptæ,' non autem ipsius augendæ causam'; + anathema sit. + + 'Sess'. VI. 'Can'. 24. + + ... Si quis dixerit hominis justificati 'bona opera' ita esse dona + Dei, 'ut non sint etiam bona ipsius justificati merita'; aut ipsum + justificatum 'bonis operibus', quæ ab eo per Dei gratiam, et Jesu + Christi meritum, cujus vivum membrum est, fiunt, 'non vere mereri + augmentum gratiæ, vitam æternam, et ipsius vitæ æternæ, si tamen in + gratia decesserit, conscecutionem atque etiam gloriæ augmentum', + anathema sit. + + 'Ib. Can.' 32.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 13: Rom. ii. 12.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 14: Matt. xix. 8.--Ed.] + + + + + +NOTES ON FIELD ON THE CHURCH. [1] + + 'Fly-leaf.--Hannah Scollock, her book, February 10', 1787. + + This, Hannah Scollock! may have been the case; + Your writing therefore I will not erase. + But now this book, once yours, belongs to me, + The Morning Post's and Courier's S. T. C.;-- + Elsewhere in College, knowledge, wit and scholerage + To friends and public known, as S. T. Coleridge. + Witness hereto my hand, on Ashly Green, + One thousand, twice four hundred, and fourteen + Year of our Lord--and of the month November, + The fifteenth day, if right I do remember. + + +28 March, 1819. [2] + +MY DEAR DERWENT, + +This one volume, thoroughly understood and appropriated, will place you +in the highest ranks of doctrinal Church of England divines (of such as +now are), and in no mean rank as a true doctrinal Church historian. + +Next to this I recommend Baxter's own Life, edited by Sylvester, with my +marginal notes. Here, more than in any of the prelatical and Arminian +divines from Laud to the death of Charles II, you will see the strength +and beauty of the Church of England, that is, its liturgy, homilies, and +articles. By contrasting, too, its present state with that which such +excellent men as Baxter, Calamy, and the so called Presbyterian or +Puritan divines, would have made it, you will bless it as the bulwark of +toleration. + +Thirdly, you must read Eichorn's Introduction to the Old and New +Testament, and the Apocrypha, and his comment on the Apocalypse; to all +which my notes and your own previous studies will supply whatever +antidote is wanting;--these will suffice for your Biblical learning, and +teach you to attach no more than the supportable weight to these and +such like outward evidences of our holy and spiritual religion. + +So having done, you will be in point of professional knowledge such a +clergyman as will make glad the heart of your loving father, + +S. T. COLERIDGE. + +N. B.--See Book iv Chap. 7, p. 351, both for a masterly confutation of +the Paleyo-Grotian evidences of the Gospel, and a decisive proof in what +light that system was regarded by the Church of England in its best age. +Like Grotius himself, it is half way between Popery and Socinianism. + + +B. i. c. 3. p. 5. + + But men desired only to be like unto God in omniscience and the + general knowledge of all things which may be communicated to a + creature, as in Christ it is to his human soul. + +Surely this is more than doubtful; and even the instance given is +irreconcilable with Christ's own assertion concerning the last day, +which must be understood of his human soul, by all who hold the faith +delivered from the foundation, namely, his deity. Field seems to have +excerpted this incautiously from the Schoolmen, who on this premiss +could justify the communicability of adoration, as in the case of the +saints. Omniscience, it may be proved, implies omnipotence. The fourth +of the arguments in this section, and, as closely connected with it, the +first (only somewhat differently stated) seem the strongest, or rather +the only ones. For the second is a mere anticipation of the fourth, and +all that is true in the third is involved in it. + + +Ib. c. 5. p. 9. + + And began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them + utterance. + + +That is, I humbly apprehend, in other than the Hebrew and Syrochaldaic +languages, which (with rare and reluctant exceptions in favor of the +Greek) were appropriated to public prayer and exhortation, just as the +Latin in the Romish Church. The new converts preached and prayed, each +to his companions in his and their dialect;--they were all Jews, but had +assembled from all the different provinces of the Roman and Parthian +empires, as the Quakers among us to the yearly meeting in London; this +was a sign, not a miracle. The miracle consisted in the visible and +audible descent of the Holy Ghost, and in the fulfilment of the prophecy +of Joel, as explained by St. Peter himself. 'Acts' ii. 15. + + +Ib. p.10. + + 'Aliud est etymologia nominis et aliud significatio nominis. + Etymologia attenditur secundum id it quo imponitur nomen ad + significandum: nominis vero significatio secundum id ad quod + significandum imponitur.' + + This passage from Aquinas would be an apt motto for a critique on + Horne Tooke's Diversions of Purley. The best service of etymology is, + when the sense of a word is still unsettled, and especially when two + words have each two meanings; A=a-b, and B=a-b, instead of A=a and + B=b. Thus reason and understanding as at present popularly confounded. + Here the 'etyma,--ratio,' the relative proportion of thoughts and + things,--and understanding, as the power which substantiates + 'phænomena (substat eis)'--determine the proper sense. But most often + the 'etyma' being equivalent, we must proceed 'ex arbitrio,' as 'law + compels,' 'religion obliges;' or take up what had been begun in some + one derivative. Thus 'fanciful' and 'imaginative,' are + discriminated;--and this supplies the ground of choice for giving to + fancy and imagination, each its own sense. Cowley is a fanciful + writer, Milton an imaginative poet. Then I proceed with the + distinction, how ill fancy assorts with imagination, as instanced in + Milton's Limbo. [3] + + +Ib. + +I should rather express the difference between the faithful of the +Synagogue and those of the Church, thus:--That the former hoped +generally by an implicit faith;--"It shall in all things be well with +all that love the Lord; therefore it cannot but be good for us and well +with us to rest with our forefathers." But the Christian hath an assured +hope by an explicit and particular faith, a hope because its object is +future, not because it is uncertain. The one was on the road journeying +toward a friend of his father's, who had promised he would be kind to +him even to the third and fourth generation. He comforts himself on the +road, first, by means of the various places of refreshment, which that +friend had built for travellers and continued to supply; and secondly, +by anticipation of a kind reception at the friend's own mansion-house. +But the other has received an express invitation to a banquet, beholds +the preparations, and has only to wash and put on the proper robes, in +order to sit down. + + +Ib. p. 11. + + The reason why our translators, in the beginning, did choose rather to + use the word 'congregation' than 'Church,' was not, as the adversary + maliciously imagineth, for that they feared the very name of the + Church; but because as by the name of religion and religious men, + ordinarily in former times, men understood nothing but _factitias + religiones_, as Gerson out of Anselme calleth them, that is, the + professions of monks and friars, so, &c. + +For the same reason the word 'religion' for [Greek: Thraeskia] in St. +James [4] ought now to be altered to ceremony or ritual. The whole +version has by change of language become a dangerous mistranslation, and +furnishes a favorite text to our moral preachers, Church Socinians and +other christened pagans now so rife amongst us. What was the substance +of the ceremonial law is but the ceremonial part of the Christian +religion; but it is its solemn ceremonial law, and though not the same, +yet one with it and inseparable, even as form and substance. Such is St. +James's doctrine, destroying at one blow Antinomianism and the Popish +popular doctrine of good works. + + +Ib. c. 18. p. 27. + + But if the Church of God remains in Corinth, where there were + 'divisions, sects, emulations', &c. ... who dare deny those societies + to be the Churches of God, wherein the tenth part of these horrible + evils and abuses is not to be found? + + +It is rare to meet with sophistry in this sound divine; but here he +seems to border on it. For first the Corinthian Church upon admonition +repented of its negligence; and secondly, the objection of the Puritans +was, that the constitution of the Church precluded discipline. + + +B. II. c. 2. p. 31. + +'Miscreant' is twice used in this page in its original sense of +misbeliever. + + +Ib. c. 4. p. 35. + +'Discourse' is here used for the discursive acts of the understanding, +even as 'discursive, is opposed to 'intuitive' by Milton [5] and others. +Thus understand Shakspeare's "discourse of reason" for those discursions +of mind which are peculiar to rational beings. + + +B. III. c. 1.p. 53. + + The first publishers of the Gospel of Christ delivered a rule of faith + to the Christian Churches which they founded, comprehending all those + articles that are found in that 'epitome' of Christian religion, which + we call the Apostles' Creed. + + +This needs proof. I rather believe that the so called Apostles' Creed +was really the Creed of the Roman or Western church, (and possibly in +its present form, the catechismal rather than the baptismal creed),--and +that other churches in the East had Creeds equally ancient, and, from +their being earlier troubled with Anti Trinitarian heresies, more +express on the divinity of Christ than the Roman. + + +Ib. p. 58. + + Fourthly, that it is no less absurd to say, as the Papists do, that + our satisfaction is required as a condition, without which Christ's + satisfaction is not appliable unto us, than to say, Peter hath paid + the debt of John, and he to whom it was due accepteth of the same + payment, conditionally if he pay it himself also. + +This [6] propriation of a metaphor, namely, forgiveness of sin and +abolition of guilt through the redemptive power of Christ's love and of +his perfect obedience during his voluntary assumption of humanity, +expressed, on account of the sameness of the consequences in both cases, +by the payment of a debt for another, which debt the payer had not +himself incurred,--the propriation of this, I say, by transferring the +sameness from the consequents to the antecedents is the one point of +orthodoxy (so called, I mean) in which I still remain at issue. It seems +to me so evidently a [Greek: metábasis eis allo génos.] A metaphor is an +illustration of something less known by a more or less partial +identification of it with something better understood. Thus St. Paul +illustrates the consequences of the act of redemption by four different +metaphors drawn from things most familiar to those, for whom it was to +be illustrated, namely, sin-offerings or sacrificial expiation; +reconciliation; ransom from slavery; satisfaction of a just creditor by +vicarious payment of the debt. These all refer to the consequences of +redemption. + +Now, St. John without any metaphor declares the mode by and in which it +is effected; for he identifies it with a fact, not with a consequence, +and a fact too not better understood in the one case than in the other, +namely, by generation and birth. There remains, therefore, only the +redemptive act itself, and this is transcendant, ineffable, and 'a +fortiori', therefore, inexplicable. Like the act of primal apostasy, it +is in its own nature a mystery, known only through faith in the spirit. + +James owes John £100, which (to prevent James's being sent to prison) +Henry pays for him; and John has no longer any claim. But James is cruel +and ungrateful to Mary, his tender mother. Henry, though no relation, +acts the part of a loving and dutiful son to Mary. But will this satisfy +the mother's claims on James, or entitle him to her esteem, approbation, +and blessing? If, indeed, by force of Henry's example or persuasion, or +any more mysterious influence, James repents and becomes himself a good +and dutiful child, then, indeed, Mary is wholly satisfied; but then the +case is no longer a question of debt in that sense in which it can be +paid by another, though the effect, of which alone St. Paul was +speaking, is the same in both cases to James as the debtor, and to James +as the undutiful son. He is in both cases liberated from the burthen, +and in both cases he has to attribute his exoneration to the act of +another; as cause simply in the payment of the debt, or as likewise +'causa causæ' in James's reformation. Such is my present opinion: God +grant me increase of light either to renounce or confirm it. + +Perhaps the different terms of the above position may be more clearly +stated thus: + +1. 'agens causator' +2. 'actus causativus:' +3. 'effectus causatus:' +4. 'consequentia ab effecto.' + +1. The co-eternal Son of the living God, incarnate, tempted, crucified, +resurgent, communicant of his spirit, ascendant, and obtaining for his +church the descent of the Holy Ghost. + +2. A spiritual and transcendant mystery. + +3. The being born anew, as before in the flesh to the world, so now in +the spirit to Christ: where the differences are, the spirit opposed to +the flesh, and Christ to the world; the 'punctum indifferens', or +combining term, remaining the same in both, namely, a birth. + +4. Sanctification from sin and liberation from the consequences of sin, +with all the means and process of sanctification, being the same for the +sinner relatively to God and his own soul, as the satisfaction of a +creditor for a debt, or as the offering of an atoning sacrifice for a +transgressor of the law; as a reconciliation for a rebellious son or a +subject to his alienated parent or offended sovereign; and as a ransom +is for a slave in a heavy captivity. + +Now my complaint is that our systematic divines transfer the paragraph 4 +to the paragraphs 2 and 3, interpreting 'proprio sensu et ad totum 'what +is affirmed 'sensu metaphorico et ad partem', that is, 'ad consequentia +a regeneratione effecta per actum causativum primi agentis, uempe +[Greek: Logou] redemptoris', and by this interpretation substituting an +identification absolute for an equation proportional. + +4th May, 1819. + + + +Ib. p. 62. + + Personality is nothing but the existence of nature itself. + +God alone had his nature in himself; that is, God alone contains in +himself the ground of his own existence. But were this definition of +Field's right, we might predicate personality of a worm, or wherever we +find life. Better say,--personality is individuality existing in itself, +but with a nature as its ground. + + +Ib. p.66. + + Accursing Eutyches as a heretic. + +It puzzles me to understand what sense Field gave to the word, heresy. +Surely every slight error, even though persevered in, is not to be held +a heresy, or its asserters accursed. The error ought at least to respect +some point of faith essential to the great ends of the Gospel. Thus the +phrase 'cursing Eutyches,' is to me shockingly unchristian. I could not +dare call even the opinion cursed, till I saw how it injured the faith +in Christ, weakened our confidence in him, or lessened our love and +gratitude. + + +Ib. p.71. + + 'If ye be circumcised ye are fallen from grace, and Christ +can profit you nothing.' + +It seems impossible but that these words had a relation to the +particular state of feeling and belief, out of which the anxiety to be +circumcised did in those particular persons proceed, and not absolutely, +and at all times to the act itself, seeing that St. Paul himself +circumcised Timothy from motives of charity and prudence. + + +Ib. c.3. p.76. + + The things that pertain to the Christian faith and religion are of two + sorts; for there are some things 'explicite', some things + 'implicite credenda'; that is, there are some things that must be + particularly and expressly known and believed, as that the Father is + God, the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God, and yet they are not three + Gods but one God; and some other, which though all men, at all times, + be not bound upon the peril of damnation to know and believe + expressly, yet whosoever will be saved must believe them at least + 'implicite', and in generality, as that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus + fled into Egypt. + +Merciful Heaven! Eternal misery and the immitigable wrath of God, and +the inextinguishable fire of hell amid devils, parricides, and haters of +God and all goodness--this is the verdict which a Protestant divine +passes against the man, who though sincerely believing the whole Nicene +creed and every doctrine and precept taught in the New Testament, and +living accordingly, should yet have convinced himself that the first +chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke were not parts of the original +Gospels! + + +Ib. p.77. + + So in the beginning, Nestorius did not err, touching the unity of + Christ's person in the diversity of the natures of God and man; but + only disliked that Mary should be called the mother of God: which form + of speaking when some demonstrated to be very fitting and unavoidable, + if Christ were God and man in the unity of the same person, he chose + rather to deny the unity of Christ's person than to acknowledge his + temerity and rashness in reproving that form of speech, which the use + of the church had anciently received and allowed. + +A false charge grounded on a misconception of the Syriac terms. +Nestorius was perfectly justifiable in his rejection of the epithet +[Greek: theotókos], as applied to the mother of Jesus. The Church was +even then only too ripe for the idolatrous 'hyper-dulia' of the +Virgin. Not less weak is Field's defence of the propriety of the term. +Set aside all reference to this holy mystery, and let me ask, I trust +without offence, whether by the same logic a mule's dam might not be +called [Greek: hippotókos], because the horse and ass were united in one +and the same subject. The difference in the perfect God and perfect man +does not remove the objection: for an epithet, which conceals half of a +truth, the power and special concerningness of which, relatively to our +redemption by Christ, depends on our knowledge of the whole, is a +deceptive and a dangerously deceptive epithet. + + +Ib. c.20. p.110. + + Thus, then, the Fathers did sometimes, when they had particular + occasions to remember the Saints, and to speak of them, by way of + 'apostrophe', turn themselves unto them, and use words of + doubtful compellation, praying them, if they have any sense of these + inferior things, to be remembrancers to God for them. + + +The distinct gradations of the process, by which commemoration and +rhetorical apostrophes passed finally into idolatry, supply an analogy +of mighty force against the heretical 'hypothesis 'of the modern +Unitarians. Were it true, they would have been able to have traced the +progress of the Christolatry from the lowest sort of 'Christodulia' +with the same historical distinctness against the universal Church, that +the Protestants have that of hierolatry against the Romanists. The +gentle and soft censures which our divines during the reign of the +Stuarts pass on the Roman Saint worship, or hieroduly, as an +inconvenient superstition, must needs have alarmed the faithful +adherents to the Protestantism of Edward VI. and the surviving exiles of +bloody Queen Mary's times, and their disciples. + +Ib. p.111. + + The miracles that God wrought in times past by them made many to + attribute more to them than was fit, as if they had a generality of + presence, knowledge, and working; but the wisest and best advised + never durst attribute any such thing unto them. + + +To a truly pious mind awfully impressed with the surpassing excellency +of God's ineffable love to fallen man, in the revelation of himself to +the inner man through the reason and conscience by the spiritual light +and substantiality--(for the conscience is to the spirit or reason what +the understanding is to the sense, a substantiative power); this +consequence of miracles is so fearful, that it cannot but redouble his +zeal against that fashion of modern theologists which would convert +miracles from a motive to attention and solicitous examination, and at +best from a negative condition of revelation, into the positive +foundation of Christian faith. + +Ib. c.22. p.116. + + But if this be as vile a slander as ever Satanist devised, the Lord + reward them that have been the authors and advisers of it according + to their works. + +O no! no! this the good man did not utter from his heart, but from his +passion. A vile and wicked slander it was and is. O may God have turned +the hearts of those who uttered it, or may it be among their unknown +sins done in ignorance, for which the infinite merits of Christ may +satisfy! I am most assured that if Dr. Field were now alive, or if any +one had but said this to him, he would have replied--"I thank thee, +brother, for thy Christian admonition. Add thy prayer, and pray God to +forgive me my inconsiderate zeal!" + + +Ib. c. 23. p. 119. + + For what rectitude is due to the specifical act of hating God? or what + rectitude is it capable of? + + +Is this a possible act to any man understanding by the word God what we +mean by God? + + +Ib. p. 129. + +It is this complicated dispute, as to the origin and permission of evil, +which supplies to atheism its most plausible, because its only moral, +arguments; but more especially to that species of atheism which existed +in Greece in the form of polytheism, admitting moral and intelligent +shapers and governors of the world, but denying an intelligent ground, +or self-conscious Creator of the universe; their gods being themselves +the offspring of chaos and necessity, that is, of matter and its +essential laws or properties. + +The Leibnitzian distinction of the Eternal Reason, or nature of God, +[Greek: tò theion](the [Greek: nous kaì anágkae] of Timæus Locrus) from +the will or personal attributes of God--([Greek: thélaema kaì +boúlaesis--agathou patròs agathòn boúlaema])--planted the germ of the +only possible solution, or rather perhaps, in words less exceptionable +and more likely to be endured in the schools of modern theology, brought +forward the truth involved in Behmen's too bold distinction of God and +the ground of God;--who yet in this is to be excused, not only for his +good aim and his ignorance of scholastic terms, but likewise because +some of the Fathers expressed themselves no less crudely in the other +extreme; though it is not improbable that the meaning was the same in +both. + +At least Behmen constantly makes self-existence a positive act, so as +that by an eternal [Greek: perich_óraesis] or mysterious +intercirculation God wills himself out of the 'ground' ([Greek: tò +theion--tò hèn kaì pan],--'indifferentia absoluta realitatis infinitæ et +infinitæ potentialitatis')--and again by his will, as God existing, +gives being to the ground, [Greek: autogenàes--autophylàes--uhios +heautou]. 'Solus Deus est;--itaque principium, qui ex seipso dedit sibi +ipse principium. Deus ipse sui origo est, suæque causa substantiæ, id +quod est, ex se et in se continens. Ex seipso procreatus ipse se fecit', +&c., of Synesius, Jerome, Hilary, and Lactantius and others involve the +same conception. + + +Ib. c. 27. p. 140. + + The seventh is the heresy of Sabellius, which he saith was revived by + Servetus. So it was indeed, that Servetus revived in our time the + damnable heresy of Sabellius, long since condemned in the first ages + of the Church. But what is that to us? How little approbation he found + amongst us, the just and honourable proceeding against him at Geneva + will witness to all posterity. + +Shocking as this act must and ought to be to all Christians at present; +yet this passage and a hundred still stronger from divines and Church +letters contemporary with Calvin, prove Servetus' death not to be +Calvin's guilt especially, but the common 'opprobrium' of all +European Christendom,--of the Romanists whose laws the Senate of Geneva +followed, and from fear of whose reproaches (as if Protestants favoured +heresy) they executed them,--and of the Protestant churches who +applauded the act and returned thanks to Calvin and the Senate for +it. [7] + + +Ib. c. 30. p. 143. + + The twelfth heresy imputed to us is the heresy of Jovinian, concerning + whom we must observe, that Augustine ascribeth unto him two opinions + which Hierome mentioneth not; who yet was not likely to spare him, if + he might truly have been charged with them. The first, that Mary + ceased to be a virgin when she had borne Christ; the second, that all + sins are equal. + +Neither this nor that is worthy the name of opinion; it is mere +unscriptural, nay, anti-scriptural gossiping. Are we to blame, or not +rather to praise, the anxiety manifested by the great divines of the +church of England under the Stuarts not to remove further than necessary +from the Romish doctrines? Yet one wishes a bolder method; for example, +as to Mary's private history after the conception and birth of Christ, +we neither know nor care about it. + + +Ib. c. 31. p. 146. + + For the opinions wherewith Hierome chargeth him, this we briefly + answer. First, if he absolutely denied that the Saints departed do + pray for us, as it seemeth he did by Hierome's reprehension, we think + he erred. + +Yet not heretically; and if he meant only that we being wholly ignorant, +whether they do or no, ought to act as if we knew they did not, he is +perfectly right; for whatever ye do, do it in faith. As to the ubiquity +of saints, it is Jerome who is the heretic, nay, idolater, if he reduced +his opinion to practice. It perplexes me, that Field speaks so +doubtingly on a matter so plain as the incommunicability of +omnipresence. + + +Ib. c. 32. p. 147. + + Touching the second objection, that Bucer and Calvin deny original + sin, though not generally, as did Zuinglius, yet at least in the + children of the faithful. If he had said that these men affirm the + earth doth move, and the heavens stand still, he might have as soon + justified it against them, as this he now saith. + +Very noticeable. A similar passage occurs even so late as in Sir Thomas +Brown, just at the dawn of the Newtonian system, and after Kepler. What +a lesson of diffidence! [8] + + +Ib. p. 148. + + For we do not deny the distinction of venial and mortal sins; but do + think, that some sins are rightly said to be mortal and some venial; + not for that some are worthy of eternal punishment and therefore named + mortal, others of temporal only, and therefore judged venial as the + Papists imagine: but for that some exclude grace out of that man in + which they are found and so leave him in a state wherein he hath + nothing in himself that can or will procure him pardon: and other, + which though in themselves considered, and never remitted, they be + worthy of eternal punishment, yet do not so far prevail as to banish + grace, the fountain of remission of all misdoings. + +Would not the necessary consequence of this be, that there are no +actions that can be pronounced mortal sins by mortals; and that what we +might fancy venial might in individual cases be mortal and 'vice +versa'. + + +Ib. + + First, because every offence against God may justly be punished by him + in the strictness of his righteous judgments with eternal death, yea, + with annihilation; which appeareth to be most true, for that there is + no punishment so evil, and so much to be avoided, as the least sin + that may be imagined. So that a man should rather choose eternal + death, yea, utter annihilation, than commit the least offence in the + world. + + +I admit this to be Scriptural; but what is wanted is, clearly to state +the difference between eternal death and annihilation. For who would not +prefer the latter, if the former mean everlasting misery? + + +Ib. c. 41. p. 62. + + But he will say, Cyprian calleth the Roman Church the principal Church + whence sacerdotal unity hath her spring; hereunto we answer, that the + Roman Church, not in power of overruling all, but in order is the + first and principal; and that therefore while she continueth to hold + the truth, and encroacheth not upon the right of other Churches, she + is to have the priority; but that in either of these cases she may be + forsaken without breach of that unity, which is essentially required + in the parts of the Church. + + +This is too large a concession. The real ground of the priority of the +Roman see was that Rome, for the first three or perhaps four centuries, +was the metropolis of the Christian world. Afterwards for the very same +reason the Patriarch of New Rome or Constantinople claimed it; and never +ceased to assert at least a co-equality. Had the Apostolic foundation +been the cause, Jerusalem and Antioch must have had priority; not to add +that the Roman Church was not founded by either Paul or Peter as is +evident from the epistle to the Romans. + + +Append. B. III. p. 205. + +I do not think the attack on Transubstantiation the most successful +point of the orthodox Protestant controversialists. The question is, +what is meant in Scripture, as in 'John' vi. by Christ's body or flesh +and blood. Surely not the visible, tangible, accidental body, that is, a +cycle of images and sensations in the imagination of the beholders; but +his supersensual body, the 'noumenon' of his human nature which was +united to his divine nature. + +In this sense I understand the Lutheran ubiquity. But may not the +"oblations" referred to by Field in the old canon of the Mass, have +meant the alms, offerings always given at the Eucharist? If by +"substance" in the enunciation of the article be meant 'id quod vere +est', and if the divine nature be the sole 'ens vere ens', then it is +possible to give a philosophically intelligible sense to Luther's +doctrine of consubstantiation; at least to a doctrine that might bear +the same name;--at all events the mystery is not greater than, if it be +not rather the same as, the assumption of the human by the divine +nature. + +Now for the possible conception of this we must accurately discriminate +the 'incompossibile negativum' from the 'incompatibile privativum'. Of +the latter are all positive imperfections, as error, vice, and evil +passions; of the former simple limitation. + +Thus if '(per impossible)' human nature could make itself sinless and +perfect, it would become or pass into God; and if God should abstract +from human nature all imperfection, it might without impropriety be +affirmed, even as Scripture doth affirm, that God assumed or took up +into himself the human nature. + +Thus, to use a dim similitude and merely as a faint illustration, all +materiality abstracted from a circle, it would become space, and though +not infinite, yet one with infinite space. The mystery of omnipresence +greatly aids this conception; 'totus in omni parte': and in truth this +is the divine character of all the Christian mysteries, that they aid +each other, and many incomprehensibles render each of them, in a certain +qualified sense, less incomprehensible. + + +Ib. p. 208. + + But first, it is impious to think of destroying Christ in any sort. + For though it be true, that in sacrificing of Christ on the altar of + the cross, the destroying and killing of him was implied, and this his + death was the life of the world, yet all that concurred to the killing + of him, as the Jews, the Roman soldiers, Pilate, and Judas sinned + damnably, and so had done, though they had shed his blood with an + intention and desire, that by it the world might be redeemed. + +Is not this going too far? Would it not imply almost that Christ himself +could not righteously sacrifice himself, especially when we consider +that the Romanists would have a right to say, that Christ himself had +commanded it? But Bellarmine's conceit [9] is so absurd that it scarce +deserves the compliment of a serious confutation. For if sacramental +being be opposed to natural or material, as 'noumenon' to 'phænomenon', +place is no attribute or possible accident of it 'in se'; consequently, +no alteration of place relatively to us can affect, much less destroy, +it; and even were it otherwise, yet translocation is not destruction; +for the body of Christ, according to themselves, doth indeed nourish our +souls, even as a fish eaten sustains another fish, but yet with this +essential difference, that it ceases not to be and remain itself, and +instead of being converted converts; so that truly the only things +sacrificed in the strict sense are all the evil qualities or +deficiencies which divide our souls from Christ. + + +Ib. p. 218. + + That which we do is done in remembrance of that which was then done; + for he saith, 'Do this in remembrance of me.' + +This is a 'metastasis' of Scripture. 'Do this in remembrance of +me', that is, that which Christ was then doing. But Christ was not +then suffering, or dying on the cross. + + +Ib. p.223. + + That the Saints do pray for us 'in genere', desiring God to be + merciful to us, and to do unto us whatsoever in any kind he knoweth + needful for our good, there is no question made by us. + +To have placed this question in its true light, so as to have allowed +the full force to the Scriptures asserting the communion of Saints and +the efficacy of their intercession without undue concessions to the +'hierolatria' of the Romish church, would have implied an +acquaintance with the science of transcendental analysis, and an insight +into the philosophy of ideas not to be expected in Field, and which was +then only dawning in the mind of Lord Bacon. The proper reply to Brerely +would be this: the communion and intercession of Saints is an idea, and +must be kept such. But the Romish church has changed it away into the +detail of particular and individual conceptions, and imaginations, into +names and fancies. + +N.B. Instead of the 'Roman Catholic' read throughout in this and all +other works, and everywhere and on all occasions, unless where the +duties of formal courtesy forbid, say, the 'Romish anti-Catholic +Church;' Romish--to mark that the corruptions in discipline, doctrine +and practice do for the worst and far larger part owe both their origin +and their perpetuation to the court and local tribunals of the city of +Rome, and are not and never have been the catholic, that is, universal +faith of the Roman empire, or even of the whole Latin or Western church; +and anti-Catholic,--because no other Church acts on so narrow and +excommunicative a principle, or is characterized by such a jealous +spirit of monopoly and particularism, counterfeiting catholicity by a +negative totality and heretical self-circumscription, cutting off, or +cutting herself off from, all the other members of Christ's Body. + +12th March, 1824. + +It is of the utmost importance, wherever clear and distinct conceptions +are required, to make out in the first instance whether the term in +question, or the main terms of the question in dispute, represents or +represent a fact or class of facts simply, or some self-established and +previously known idea or principle, of which the facts are instances and +realizations, or which is introduced in order to explain and account for +the facts. Now the term 'merits,' as applied to Abraham and the saints, +belongs to the former. It is a mere 'nomen appellativum' of the +facts. + + +Ib. c. 5. p. 252. + + The Papists and we agree that original sin is the privation of + original righteousness; but they suppose there was in nature without + that addition of grace, a power to do good, &c. + +Nothing seems wanting to this argument but a previous definition and +explanation of the term, 'nature.' Field appears to have seen the truth, +namely, that nature itself is a peccant (I had almost said an unnatural) +state, or rather no State at all, [Greek: ou stásis all' apóstasis]. + + +Ib. c. 6. p. 269. + + And surely the words of Augustine do not import that she had no sin, + but that she overcame it, which argueth a conflict; neither doth he + say he will acknowledge she was without sin, but that he will not move + any question touching her, in this dispute of sins and sinners. + +Why not say at once, that this anti-Scriptural superstition had already +begun? I scarcely know whether to be pleased or grieved with that edging +on toward the Roman creed, that exceeding, almost Scriptural, tenderness +for the divines of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, which +distinguishes the Church of England dignitaries, from Elizabeth +inclusively to our Revolution in 1688, from other Protestants. + + +Ib. c. 10. p. 279. + +Derwent! should this page chance to fall under your eye, for my sake +read, fag, subdue, and take up into your proper mind this chapter 10 of +Free Will. + + +Ib. p. 281. + + Of these five kinds of liberty, the two first agree only to God, so + that in the highest degree [Greek: to autexoúsion], that is, freedom + of will is proper to God only; and in this sense Calvin and Luther + rightly deny that the will of any creature is or ever was free. + + +I add, except as in God, and God in us. Now the latter alone is will; +for it alone is 'ens super ens'. And here lies the mystery, which I dare +not openly and promiscuously reveal. + + +Ib. + + Yet doth not God's working upon the will take from it the power of + dissenting, and doing the contrary; but so inclineth it, that having + liberty to do otherwise, yet she will actually determine so. + + +This will not do. Were it true, then my understanding would be free in a +mathematical proportion; or the whole position amounts only to this, +that the will, though compelled, is still the will. Be it so; yet not a +free will. In short, Luther and Calvin are right so far. A creaturely +will cannot be free; but the will in a rational creature may cease to be +creaturely, and the creature, [Greek: apóstasis], finally cease in +consequence; and this neither Luther nor Calvin seem to have seen. In +short, where omnipotence is on one side, what but utter impotence can +remain for the other? To make freedom possible, the 'antithesis' must be +removed. The removal of this 'antithesis' of the creature to God is the +object of the Redemption, and forms the glorious liberty of the Gospel. +More than this I am not permitted to expose. + + +Ib. p. 283. + +It is not given, nor is it wanting, to all men to have an insight into +the mystery of the human will and its mode of inherence on the will +which is God, as the ineffable 'causa sui'; but this chapter will +suffice to convince you that the doctrines of Calvin were those of +Luther in this point;--that they are intensely metaphysical, and that +they are diverse 'toto genere' from the merely moral and +psychological--tenets of the modern Calvinists. Calvin would have +exclaimed, 'fire and fagots!' before he had gotten through a hundred +pages of Dr. Williams's Modern Calvinism. + + +Ib. c. 11. p. 296. + + Neither can Vega avoid the evidence of the testimonies of the Fathers, + and the decree of the Council of Trent, so that he must be forced to + confess that no man can so collectively fulfil the law as not to sin, + and consequently, that no man can perform that the law requireth. + +The paralogism of Vega as to this perplexing question seems to lurk in +the position that God gives a law which it is impossible we should obey +collectively. But the truth is, that the law which God gave, and which +from the essential holiness of his nature it is impossible he should not +have given, man deprived himself of the ability to obey. And was the law +of God therefore to be annulled? Must the sun cease to shine because the +earth has become a morass, so that even that very glory of the sun hath +become a new cause of its steaming up clouds and vapors that strangle +the rays? God forbid! 'But for the law I had not sinned'. But had I not +been sinful the law would not have occasioned me to sin, but would have +clothed me with righteousness, by the transmission of its splendour. +'Let God be just, and every man a liar'. + +B. iv. c. 4. p. 346. + + The Church of God is named the 'Pillar of Truth;' not as if truth did + depend on the Church, &c. + + +Field might have strengthened his argument, by mention of the custom of +not only affixing records and testimonials to the pillars, but books, &c. + + +Ib. c. 7. p. 353. + + Others therefore, to avoid this absurdity, run into that other before + mentioned, that we believe the things that are divine by the mere and + absolute command of our will, not finding any sufficient motives and + reasons of persuasion. + +Field, nor Count Mirandula have penetrated to the heart of this most +fundamental question. In all proper faith the will is the prime agent, +but not therefore the choice. You may call it reason if you will, but +then carefully distinguish the speculative from the practical reason, +and the reason itself from the understanding. + + +Ib. c. 8. p. 356. + + 'Illius virtute' (saith he) 'illuminati, jam non aut nostro, aut + aliorum judicio credimus a Deo esse Scripturam, sed supra humanum + judicium certo certius constituimus, non secus ac si ipsius Dei numen + illic intueremur, hominum ministerio ab ipsissimo Dei ore fluxisse.' + +Greatly doth this fine passage need explanation, that knowing what it +doth mean, the reader may understand what it doth not mean, nor of +necessity imply. Without this insight, our faith may be terribly shaken +by difficulties and objections. For example; If all the Scripture, then +each component part; thence every faithful Christian infallible, and so +on. + + +Ib. p. 357. + + In the second the light of divine reason causeth approbation of that + they believe: in the third sort, the purity of divine understanding + apprehendeth most certainly the things believed, and causeth a + foretasting of those things that hereafter more fully shall be enjoyed. + +Here too Field distinguishes the understanding from the reason, as +experience following perception of sense. But as perception through the +mere presence of the object perceived, whether to the outward or inner +sense, is not insight which belongs to the 'light of reason,' therefore +Field marks it by 'purity' that is unmixed with fleshly sensations or +the 'idola' of the bodily eye. Though Field is by no means consistent in +his 'epitheta' of the understanding, he seldom confounds the word +itself. In theological Latin, the understanding, as influenced and +combined with the affections and desires, is most frequently expressed +by 'cor', the heart. Doubtless the most convenient form of appropriating +the terms would be to consider the understanding as man's intelligential +faculty, whatever be its object, the sensible or the intelligible world; +while reason is the tri-unity, as it were, of the spiritual eye, light, +and object. + + +Ib. c. 10. p. 358. + + Of the Papists preferring the Church's authority before the Scripture. + + +Field, from the nature and special purpose of his controversy, is +reluctant to admit any error in the Fathers,--too much so indeed; and +this is an instance. We all know what we mean by the Scriptures, but how +know we what they mean by the Church, which is neither thing nor person? +But this is a very difficult subject. + + +Ib. p. 359. + + First, so as if the Church might define contrary to the Scriptures, as + she may contrary to the writings of particular men, how great soever. + +Verbally, the more sober divines of the Church of Rome do not assert +this; but practically and by consequence they do. For if the Church +assign a sense contradictory to the true sense of the Scripture, none +dare gainsay it. [10] + + +Ib. + + This we deny, and will in due place 'improve' their error herein. + +That is, prove against, detect, or confute. + + +Ib. c. 11. p. 360. + + If the comparison be made between the Church consisting of all the + believers that are and have been since Christ appeared in the flesh, + so including the Apostles, and their blessed assistants the + Evangelists, we deny not but that the Church is of greater authority, + antiquity, and excellency than the Scriptures of the New Testament, as + the witness is better than his testimony, and the law-giver greater + than the laws made by him, as Stapleton allegeth. + + +The Scriptures may be and are an intelligible and real one, but the +Church on earth can in no sense be such in and through itself, that is, +its component parts, but only by their common adherence to the body of +truth made present in the Scripture. Surely you would not distinguish +the Scripture from its contents? + + +Ib. c. 12. p. 361. + + For the better understanding whereof we must observe, as Occam fitly + noteth, that an article of faith is sometimes strictly taken only for + one of those divine verities, which are contained in the Creed of the + Apostles: sometimes generally for any catholic verity. + +I am persuaded, that this division will not bear to be expanded into all +its legitimate consequences 'sine periculo vel fidei vel charitatis'. I +should substitute the following: + +1. The essentials of that saving faith, which having its root and its +proper and primary seat in the moral will, that is, in the heart and +affections, is necessary for each and every individual member of the +church of Christ:-- + +2. Those truths which are essential and necessary in order to the +logical and rational possibility of the former, and the belief and +assertion of which are indispensable to the Church at large, as those +truths without which the body of believers, the Christian world, could +not have been and cannot be continued, though it be possible that in +this body this or that individual may be saved without the conscious +knowledge of, or an explicit belief in, them. + + +Ib. + + And therefore before and without such determination, men seeing + clearly the deduction of things of this nature from the former, and + refusing to believe them, are condemned of heretical pertinacy. + + +Rather, I should think, of a nondescript lunacy than of heretical +pravity. A child may explicitly know that 5 + 5 = 10, yet not see that +therefore 10 - 5 = 5; but when he has seen it how he can refrain from +believing the latter as much as the former, I have no conception. + + +Ib. c. 16. p. 367. + + And the third of jurisdiction; and so they that have supreme power, + that is, the Bishops assembled in a general Council, may interpret the + Scriptures, and by their authority suppress all them that shall + gainsay such interpretations, and subject every man that shall disobey + such determinations as they consent upon, to excommunication and + censures of like nature. + +This would be satisfactory, if only Field had cleared the point of the +communion in the Lord's Supper; whether taken spiritually, though in +consequence of excommunication not ritually, it yet sufficeth to +salvation. If so, excommunication is merely declarative, and the evil +follows not the declaration but that which is truly declared, as when +Richard says that Francis deserves the gallows, as a robber. The gallows +depends on the fact of the robbery, not on Richard's saying. + + +Ib. c. 29. p. 391. + + In the 1 Cor. 15. the Greek, that now is, hath in all copies; 'the + first man was of the earth, earthly; the second man is the Lord from + heaven'. The latter part of this sentence Tertullian supposeth to have + been corrupted, and altered by the Marcionites. Instead of that the + Latin text hath; 'the second man was from heaven, heavenly', as + Ambrose, Hierome, and many of the Fathers read also. + +There ought to be, and with any man of taste there can be, no doubt that +our version is the true one. That of Ambrose and Jerome is worthy of +mere rhetoricians; a flat formal play of 'antithesis' instead of the +weight and solemnity of the other. [11] According to the former the +scales are even, in the latter the scale of Christ drops down at once, +and the other flies to the beam like a feather weighed against a mass of +gold. + +Append. Part. I. s. 4. p. 752. + + And again he saith, that every soul, immediately upon the departure + hence, is in this appointed invisible place, having there either pain, + or ease and refreshing; that there the rich man is in pain, and the + poor in a comfortable estate. For, saith he, why should we not think, + that the souls are tormented, or refreshed in this invisible place, + appointed for them in expectation of the future judgment? + +This may be adduced as an instance, specially, of the evil consequences +of introducing the 'idolon' of time as an 'ens reale' into +spiritual doctrines, thus understanding literally what St. Paul had +expressed by figure and adaptation. Hence the doctrine of a middle +state, and hence Purgatory with all its abominations; and an instance, +generally, of the incalculable possible importance of speculative errors +on the happiness and virtue of man-kind. + + + + +[Footnote 1: Folio 1628.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: The following letter was written on, and addressed with, +the book to the Rev. Derwent Coleridge.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 3: 'P. L.' III. 487.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 4: i. 27. See 'Aids to Reflection'. 3d edit. p. 17. n.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 5: + + ... whence the soul + Reason receives, and reason is her being, + Discursive or intuitive. + +'P. L.' v. 426.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 6: The reader of the 'Aids to Reflection' will recognize in +this note the rough original of the passages p. 313, &c. of the 3d +edition of that work.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 7: See 'Table Talk', 2d edit. p. 283. Melancthon's words to +Calvin are: + + 'Tuo judicio prorsus assentior. Affirmu etiam vestros magistratus + juste fecisse, quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata, + interfecerunt.' + +14th Oct. 1554.--Ed. + + +[Footnote 8: + + "But to circle the earth, 'as the heavenly bodies do',' &c. 'So we may + see that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth, + which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repugnant to + any of the 'phænomena', yet 'natural history may correct'." + + 'Advancement of Learning', B. II.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 9: That Christ had a twofold being, natural and sacramental; +that the Jews destroyed and sacrificed his natural being, and that +Christian priests destroy and sacrifice in the Mass his sacramental +being.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 10: + + 'Fides catholica', says Bellarmine, 'docet omnem virtutem esse bonam, + omne vitium esse malum. Si autem erraret Papa præcipiendo vitia vel + prohibendo virtutes, teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona et + virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare.' + +'De Pont. Roman'. IV. 5.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 11: The ordinary Greek text is: + + [Greek: ho deúteros anthropos, ho Kyrios ex ouranou]. + +The Vulgate is: + + 'primus homo de terra, terrenus; secundus homo de coelis, + coelestis.'--Ed.] + + + + + +NOTES ON DONNE. [1] + +There have been many, and those illustrious, divines in our Church from +Elizabeth to the present day, who, overvaluing the accident of +antiquity, and arbitrarily determining the appropriation of the words +'ancient,' 'primitive,' and the like to a certain date, as for example, +to all before the fourth, fifth, or sixth century, were resolute +protesters against the corruptions and tyranny of the Romish hierarch, +and yet lagged behind Luther and the Reformers of the first generation. +Hence I have long seen the necessity or expedience of a threefold +division of divines. There are many, whom God forbid that I should call +Papistic, or, like Laud, Montague, Heylyn, and others, longing for a +Pope at Lambeth, whom yet I dare not name Apostolic. Therefore I divide +our theologians into, + +1. Apostolic or Pauline: +2. Patristic: +3. Papal. + +Even in Donne, and still more in Bishops Andrews and Hackett, there is a +strong Patristic leaven. In Jeremy Taylor this taste for the Fathers and +all the Saints and Schoolmen before the Reformation amounted to a +dislike of the divines of the continental Protestant Churches, Lutheran +or Calvinistic. But this must, in part at least, be attributed to +Taylor's keen feelings as a Carlist, and a sufferer by the Puritan +anti-prelatic party. + +I would thus class the pentad of operative Christianity:-- + + + 'Prothesis' + Christ, the Word + + + + 'Thesis' 'Mesothesis' 'Antithesis' +The Scriptures The Holy Spirit The Church + + + + 'Synthesis' + The Preacher + + +The Papacy elevated the Church to the virtual exclusion or suppression +of the Scriptures: the modern Church of England, since Chillingworth, +has so raised up the Scriptures as to annul the Church; both alike have +quenched the Holy Spirit, as the 'mesothesis' of the two, and +substituted an alien compound for the genuine Preacher, who should be +the 'synthesis' of the Scriptures and the Church, and the sensible voice +of the Holy Spirit. + + +Serm. I. Coloss. i. 19, 20. p. 1. +Ib. E. + + What could God pay for me? What could God suffer? God himself could + not; and therefore God hath taken a body that could. + +God forgive me,--or those who first set abroad this strange [Greek: +metábasis eis allo génos], this debtor and creditor scheme of expounding +the mystery of Redemption, or both! But I never can read the words, 'God +himself could not; and therefore took a body that could'--without being +reminded of the monkey that took the cat's paw to take the chestnuts out +of the fire, and claimed the merit of puss's sufferings. I am sure, +however, that the ludicrous images, under which this gloss of the +Calvinists embodies itself to my fancy, never disturb my recollections +of the adorable mystery itself. It is clear that a body, remaining a +body, can only suffer as a body: for no faith can enable us to believe +that the same thing can be at once A. and not A. Now that the body of +our Lord was not transelemented or transnatured by the 'pleroma' +indwelling, we are positively assured by Scripture. Therefore it would +follow from this most unscriptural doctrine, that the divine justice had +satisfaction made to it by the suffering of a body which had been +brought into existence for this special purpose, in lieu of the debt of +eternal misery due from, and leviable on, the bodies and souls of all +mankind! It is to this gross perversion of the sublime idea of the +Redemption by the cross, that we must attribute the rejection of the +doctrine of redemption by the Unitarian, and of the Gospel 'in toto' by +the more consequent Deist. + +Ib. p. 2. C. + + And yet, even this dwelling fullness, even in this person Christ + Jesus, by no title of merit in himself, but only 'quia complacuit', + because it pleased the Father it should be so. + +This, in the intention of the preacher, may have been sound, but was it +safe, divinity? In order to the latter, methinks, a less equivocal word +than 'person' ought to have been adopted; as 'the body and soul of the +man Jesus, considered abstractedly from the divine Logos, who in it took +up humanity into deity, and was Christ Jesus.' Dare we say that there +was no self-subsistent, though we admit no self-originated, merit in the +Christ? It seems plain to me, that in this and sundry other passages of +St. Paul, 'the Father' means the total triune Godhead. + +It appears to me, that dividing the Church of England into two æras--the +first from Ridley to Field, or from Edward VI. to the commencement of +the latter third of the reign of James I, and the second ending with +Bull and Stillingfleet, we might characterize their comparative +excellences thus: That the divines of the first æra had a deeper, more +genial, and a more practical insight into the mystery of Redemption, in +the relation of man toward both the act and the author, namely, in all +the inchoative states, the regeneration and the operations of saving +grace generally;--while those of the second æra possessed clearer and +distincter views concerning the nature and necessity of Redemption, in +the relation of God toward man, and concerning the connection of +Redemption with the article of Tri-unity; and above all, that they +surpassed their predecessors in a more safe and determinate scheme of +the divine economy of the three persons in the one undivided Godhead. +This indeed, was mainly owing to Bishop Bull's masterly work 'De Fide +Nicæna', [2] which in the next generation Waterland so admirably +maintained, on the one hand, against the philosophy of the Arians,--the +combat ending in the death and burial of Arianism, and its descent and +'metempsychosis' into Socinianism, and thence again into modern +Unitarianism,--and on the other extreme, against the oscillatory creed +of Sherlock, now swinging to Tritheism in the recoil from Sabellianism, +and again to Sabellianism in the recoil from Tritheism. + + +Ib. + + First, we are to consider this fullness to have been in Christ, and + then, from this fullness arose his merits; we can consider no merit in + Christ himself before, whereby he should merit this fullness; for this + fullness was in him before he merited any thing; and but for this + fullness he had not so merited. 'Ille homo, ut in unitatem filii Dei + assumeretur, unde meruit'? How did that man (says St. Augustine, + speaking of Christ, as of the son of man), how did that man merit to + be united in one person with the eternal Son of God? 'Quid egit ante? + Quid credidit'? What had he done? Nay, what had he believed? Had he + either faith or works before that union of both natures? + +Dr. Donne and St. Augustine said this without offence; but I much +question whether the same would be endured now. That it is, however, in +the spirit of Paul and of the Gospel, I doubt not to affirm, and that +this great truth is obscured by what in my judgment is the +post-Apostolic 'Christopædia', I am inclined to think. + + +Ib. + + What canst thou imagine he could foresee in thee? a propensness, a + disposition to goodness, when his grace should come? Either there is + no such propensness, no such disposition in thee, or, if there be, + even that propensness and disposition to the good use of grace, is + grace; it is an effect of former grace, and his grace wrought before + he saw any such propensness, any such disposition; grace was first, + and his grace is his, it is none of thine. + +One of many instances in dogmatic theology, in which the half of a +divine truth has passed into a fearful error by being mistaken for the +whole truth. + + +Ib. p. 6. D. + + God's justice required blood, but that blood is not spilt, but poured + from that head to our hearts, into the veins and wounds of our own + souls: there was blood shed, but no blood lost. + + +It is affecting to observe how this great man's mind sways and +oscillates between his reason, which demands in the word 'blood' a +symbolic meaning, a spiritual interpretation, and the habitual awe for +the letter; so that he himself seems uncertain whether he means the +physical lymph, 'serum,' and globules that trickled from the wounds +of the nails and thorns down the sides and face of Jesus, or the blood +of the Son of Man, which he who drinketh not cannot live. Yea, it is +most affecting to see the struggles of so great a mind to preserve its +inborn fealty to the reason under the servitude to an accepted article +of belief, which was, alas! confounded with the high obligations of +faith;--faith the co-adunation of the finite individual will with the +universal reason, by the submission of the former to the latter. To +reconcile redemption by the material blood of Jesus with the mind of the +spirit, he seeks to spiritualize the material blood itself in all men! +And a deep truth lies hidden even in this. Indeed the whole is a +profound subject, the true solution of which may best, God's grace +assisting, be sought for in the collation of Paul with John, and +specially in St. Paul's assertion that we are baptized into the death of +Christ, that we may be partakers of his resurrection and life. [3] It +was not on the visible cross, it was not directing attention to the +blood-drops on his temples and sides, that our blessed Redeemer said, +'This is my body', and 'this is my blood! + + +Ib. p. 9. A. + + But if we consider those who are in heaven, and have been so from the + first minute of their creation, angels, why have they, or how have + they any reconciliation? &c. + +The history and successive meanings of the term 'angels' in the Old and +New Testaments, and the idea that shall reconcile all as so many several +forms, and as it were perspectives, of one and the same truth--this is +still a 'desideratum' in Christian theology. + + +Ib. C. + + For, at the general resurrection, (which is rooted in the resurrection + of Christ, and so hath relation to him) the creature 'shall be + delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of + the children of God; for which the whole creation groans, and travails + in pain yet'. (Rom. viii. 21.) This deliverance then from this + bondage the whole creature hath by Christ, and that is their + reconciliation. And then are we reconciled by the blood of his cross, + when having crucified ourselves by a true repentance, we receive the + real reconciliation in his blood in the sacrament. But the most proper + and most literal sense of these words, is, that all things in heaven + and earth be reconciled to God (that is, to his glory, to a fitter + disposition to glorify him) by being reconciled to another in Christ; + that in him, as head of the church, they in heaven, and we upon earth, + be united together as one body in the communion of saints. + +A very meagre and inadequate interpretation of this sublime text. The +philosophy of life, which will be the 'corona et finis coronans' of the +sciences of comparative anatomy and zoology, will hereafter supply a +fuller and nobler comment. + + +Ib. p. 9. A. and B. + + The blood of the sacrifices was brought by the high priest 'in sanctum + sanctorum', into the place of greatest holiness; but it was brought + but once, 'in festo expiationis', in the feast of expiation; but in + the other parts of the temple it was sprinkled every day. The blood of + the cross of Christ Jesus hath had this effect 'in sancto sanctorum', + &c. ... '(to)' Christ Jesus. + +A truly excellent and beautiful paragraph. + + +Ib. C. + + If you will mingle a true religion, and a false religion, there is no + reconciling of God and Belial in this text. For the adhering of + persons born within the Church of Rome to the Church of Rome, our law + says nothing to them if they come; but for reconciling to the Church + of Rome, for persons born within the allegiance of the king, or for + persuading of men to be so reconciled, our law hath called by an + infamous and capital name of treason, and yet every tavern and + ordinary is full of such traitors, &c. + +A strange transition from the Gospel to the English statute-book! But I +may observe, that if this statement could be truly made under James I, +there was abundantly ampler ground for it in the following reign. And +yet with what bitter spleen does Heylyn, Laud's creature, arraign the +Parliamentarians for making the same complaint! + + +Serm. II. Isaiah vii. 14. p. 11. + +The fear of giving offence, especially to good men, of whose faith in +all essential points we are partakers, may reasonably induce us to be +slow and cautious in making up our minds finally on a religious +question, and may, and ought to, influence us to submit our conviction +to repeated revisals and rehearings. But there may arrive a time of such +perfect clearness of view respecting the particular point, as to +supersede all fear of man by the higher duty of declaring the whole +truth in Jesus. Therefore, having now overpassed six-sevenths of the +ordinary period allotted to human life,--resting my whole and sole hope +of salvation and immortality on the divinity of Christ, and the +redemption by his cross and passion, and holding the doctrine of the +Triune God as the very ground and foundation of the Gospel faith,--I +feel myself enforced by conscience to declare and avow, that, in my +deliberate judgment, the 'Christopædia' prefixed to the third Gospel and +concorporated with the first, but, according to my belief, in its +present form the latest of the four, was unknown to, or not recognized +by, the Apostles Paul and John; and that, instead of supporting the +doctrine of the Trinity, and the Filial Godhead of the Incarnate Word, +as set forth by John i 1, and by Paul, it, if not altogether +irreconcilable with this faith, doth yet greatly weaken and bedim its +evidence; and that, by the too palpable contradictions between the +narrative in the first Gospel and that in the third, it has been a +fruitful magazine of doubts respecting the historic character of the +Gospels themselves. I have read most of the criticisms on this text, and +my impression is, that no learned Jew can be expected to receive the +common interpretation as the true primary sense of the words. The +severely literal Aquila renders the Hebrew word [Greek: neanis]. But +were it asked of me: Do you then believe our Lord to have been the Son +of Mary by Joseph? I reply: It is a point of religion with me to have no +belief one way or the other. I am in this way like St. Paul, more than +content not to know Christ himself [Greek: katà sárka]. It is enough for +me to know that the Son of God 'became flesh', [Greek: sàrx egéneto +genómenos ek gynaikòs] [4] and more than this, it appears to me, was +unknown to the Apostles, or, if known, not taught by them as +appertaining to a saving faith in Christ. + +October 1831. + + +Note the affinity in sound of 'son' and 'sun', 'Sohn' and 'Sonne', which +is not confined to the Saxon and German, or the Gothic dialects +generally. And observe 'conciliare versöhnen=confiliare, facere esse cum +filio', one with the Son. + + +Ib. p. 17. B. + + It is a singular testimony, how acceptable to God that state of + virginity is. He does not dishonor physic that magnifies health; nor + does he dishonor marriage, that praises virginity; let them embrace + that state that can, &c. + +One of the sad relics of Patristic super-moralization, aggravated by +Papal ambition, which clung to too many divines, especially to those of +the second or third generation after Luther. Luther himself was too +spiritual, of too heroic faith, to be thus blinded by the declamations +of the Fathers, whom, with the exception of Augustine, he held in very +low esteem. + + +Ib. D. + + + And Helvidius said, she had children after. + + +'Annon Scriptura ipsa'? And a 'heresy,' too! I think I might safely put +the question to any serious, spiritual-minded, Christian: What one +inference tending to edification, in the discipline of will, mind, or +affections, he can draw from the speculations of the last two or three +pages of this Sermon respecting Mary's pregnancy and parturition? +_Can_--I write it emphatically--_can_ such points appertain to our faith +as Christians, which every parent would decline speaking of before a +family, and which, if the questions were propounded by another in the +presence of my daughter, aye, or even of my, no less, in mind and +imagination, innocent wife, I should resent as an indecency? + + +Serm. III. Gal. iv. 4, 5. p. 20. + + 'God sent forth his Son made of a woman'. + + +I never can admit that [Greek: genómenon] and [Greek: egéneto] in St. +Paul and St. John are adequately, or even rightly, rendered by the +English 'made.' + + +Ib. p. 21, A. + + What miserable revolutions and changes, what downfalls, what + break-necks and precipitations may we justly think ourselves ordained + to, if we consider, that in our coming into this world out of our + mothers' womb, we do not make account that a child comes right, except + it come with the head forward, and thereby prefigure that headlong + falling into calamities which it must suffer after? + + +The taste for these forced and fantastic analogies, Donne, with the +greater number of the learned prelatic divines from James I. to the +Restoration, acquired from that too great partiality for the Fathers, +from Irenæus to Bernard, by which they sought to distinguish themselves +from the Puritans. + + +Ib. C. + + That now they (the Jews,) express a kind of conditional acknowledgment + of it, by this barbarous and inhuman custom of theirs, that they + always keep in readiness the blood of some Christian, with which they + anoint the body of any that dies amongst them, with these words; "If + Jesus Christ were the Messias, then may the blood of this Christian + avail thee to salvation!" + +Is it possible that Donne could have given credit to this absurd legend! +It was, I am aware, not an age of critical 'acumen'; grit, bran, +and flour, were swallowed in the unsifted mass of their erudition. Still +that a man like Donne should have imposed on himself such a set of idle +tales, as he has collected in the next paragraph for facts of history, +is scarcely credible; that he should have attempted to impose them on +others, is most melancholy. + + +Ib. p. 22. D. E. + + He takes the name of the son of a woman, and 'wanes' the miraculous + name of the son of a virgin.--Christ 'waned' the glorious name of Son + of God, and the miraculous name of Son of a virgin too; which is not + omitted to draw into doubt the perpetual virginity of the blessed + virgin, the mother of Christ, &c. + +Very ingenious; but likewise very presumptuous, this arbitrary +attribution of St. Paul's silence, and presumable ignorance of the +virginity of Mary, to Christ's own determination to have the fact passed +over. + +N.B. Is 'wane' a misprint for 'wave' or 'waive?' It occurs so often, as +to render its being an 'erratum' improbable; yet I do not remember +to have met elsewhere 'wane' used for 'decline' as a verb active. + + +Ib. p. 23. A. + + If there were reason for it, it were no miracle. + +The announcement of the first comet, that had ever been observed, might +excite doubt in the mind of an astronomer, to whom, from the place where +he lived, it had not been visible. But his reason could have been no +objection to it. Had God pleased, all women might have conceived, +[Greek: aneu tou andròs], as many of the 'polypi' and 'planariæ' do. Not +on any such ground do I suspend myself on this as an article of faith; +but because I doubt the evidence. + + +Ib. p. 25. A--E. + + Though we may think thus in the law of reason, yet, &c. + +It is, and has been, a misfortune, a grievous and manifold loss and +hindrance for the interests of moral and spiritual truth, that even our +best and most vigorous theologians and philosophers of the age from +Edward VI. to James II. so generally confound the terms, and so too +often confound the subjects themselves, reason and understanding; yet +the diversity, the difference in kind, was known to, and clearly +admitted by, many of them,--by Hooker for instance, and it is implied in +the whole of Bacon's 'Novum Organum'. Instead of the 'law of reason,' +Donne meant, and ought to have said, 'judging according to the ordinary +presumptions of the understanding,' that is, the faculty which, +generalizing particular experiences, judges of the future by analogy to +the past. + +Taking the words, however, in their vulgar sense, I most deliberately +protest against all the paragraphs in this page, from A to E, and should +cite them, with a host of others, as sad effects of the confusion of the +reason and the understanding, and of the consequent abdication of the +former, instead of the bounden submission of the latter to a higher +light. Faith itself is but an act of the will, assenting to the reason +on its own evidence without, and even against, the understanding. This +indeed is, I fully agree, to be brought into captivity to the faith. [5] + + +Ib. p. 26. A. B. + + And therefore to be 'under the Law,' signifies here thus much; to be a + debtor to the law of nature, to have a testimony in our hearts and + consciences, that there lies a law upon us, which we have no power in + ourselves to perform, &c. + + +This exposition of the term 'law' in the epistles of St. Paul is most +just and important. The whole should be adopted among the notes to the +epistle to the Romans, in every Bible printed with notes. + + +Ib. p. 27. A. + + And this was his first work, 'to redeem,' to vindicate them from the + usurper, to deliver them from the intruder, to emancipate them from + the tyrant, to cancel the covenant between hell and them, and restore + them so far to their liberty, as that they might come to their first + master, if they would; this was 'redeeming.' + +There is an absurdity in the notion of a finite divided from, and +superaddible to, the infinite,--of a particular 'quantum' of power +separated from, not included in, omnipotence, or all-power. But, alas! +we too generally use the terms that are meant to express the absolute, +as mere comparatives taken superlatively. In one thing only are we +permitted and bound to assert a diversity, namely, in God and 'Hades', +the good and the evil will. This awful mystery, this truth, at once +certain and incomprehensible, is at the bottom of all religion; and to +exhibit this truth free from the dark phantom of the Manicheans, or the +two co-eternal and co-ordinate principles of good and evil, is the glory +of the Christian religion. + +But this mysterious dividuity of the good and the evil will, the will of +the spirit and the will of the flesh, must not be carried beyond the +terms 'good' and 'evil.' There can be but one good will--the spirit in +all;--and even so, all evil wills are one evil will, the devil or evil +spirit. But then the One exists for us as finite intelligences, +necessarily in a two-fold relation, universal and particular. The same +Spirit within us pleads to the Spirit as without us; and in like manner +is every evil mind in communion with the evil spirit. But, O comfort! +the good alone is the actual, the evil essentially potential. Hence the +devil is most appropriately named the 'tempter,' and the evil hath its +essence in the will: it cannot pass out of it. Deeds are called evil in +reference to the individual will expressed in them; but in the great +scheme of Providence they are, only as far as they are good, coerced +under the conditions of all true being; and the devil is the drudge of +the All-good. + + +Serm. IV. Luke ii. 29, 30. p. 29. +Ib. p. 30. B. + + We shall consider that that preparation, and disposition, and + acquiescence, which Simeon had in his epiphany, in his visible seeing + of Christ then, is offered to us in this epiphany, in this + manifestation and application of Christ in the sacrament; and that + therefore every penitent, and devout, and reverent, and worthy + receiver hath had in that holy action his 'now'; there are all things + accomplished to him; and his 'for, for his eyes have seen his + salvation'; and so may be content, nay glad, 'to depart in peace'. + + +O! would that Donne, or rather that Luther before him, had carried out +this just conception to its legitimate consequences;--that as the +sacrament of the Eucharist is the epiphany for as many as receive it in +faith, so the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ himself +in the flesh, were the epiphanies, the sacramental acts and 'phænomena' +of the 'Deus patiens', the visible words of the invisible Word that was +in the beginning, symbols in time and historic fact of the redemptive +functions, passions, and procedures of the Lamb crucified from the +foundation of the world;--the incarnation, cross, and passion,--in +short, the whole life of Christ in the flesh, dwelling a man among men, +being essential and substantive parts of the process, the total of which +they represented; and on this account proper symbols of the acts and +passions of the Christ dwelling in man, as the Spirit of truth, and for +as many as in faith have received him, in Seth and Abraham no less +effectually than in John and Paul! For this is the true definition of a +symbol, as distinguished from the thing, on the one hand, and from a +mere metaphor, or conventional exponent of a thing, on the other. Had +Luther mastered this great idea, this master-truth, he would never have +entangled himself in that most mischievous Sacramentary controversy, or +had to seek a murky hiding-hole in the figment of Consubstantiation. + + +Ib. B. C. + + In the first part, then ... More he asks not, less he takes not for + any man, upon any pretence of any unconditional decree. + +A beautiful paragraph, well worth extracting, aye, and re-preaching. + + +Ib. p. 34. E. + + When thou comest to this seal of thy peace, the sacrament, pray that + God will give thee that light that may direct and establish thee in + necessary and fundamental things; that is, the light of faith to see + that the Body and Blood of Christ is applied to thee in that action; + but for the manner, how the Body and Blood of Christ is there, wait + his leisure, if he have not yet manifested that to thee: grieve not at + that, wonder not at that, press not for that; for he hath not + manifested that, not the way, not the manner of his presence in the + Sacrament to the Church. + + +O! I have ever felt, and for many years thought that this 'rem credimus, +modum nescimus,' is but a poor evasion. It seems to me an attempt so to +admit an irrational proposition as to have the credit of denying it, or +to separate an irrational proposition from its irrationality. I admit 2 ++ 2 = 5; how I do not pretend to know, but in some way not in +contradiction to the multiplication table. To spiritual operations the +very term 'mode' is perhaps inapplicable, for these are immediate. To +the linking of this with that, of A. with Z. by 'intermedia,' the term +'mode,'--the question 'how?' is properly applied. The assimilation of +the spirit of a man to the Son of God, to God as the Divine +Humanity,--this spiritual transubstantiation, like every other process +of operative grace, is necessarily modeless. The whole question is +concerning the transmutation of the sensible elements. Deny this, and to +what does the 'modum nescimus' refer? We cannot ask how that is done, +which we declare not done at all. Admit this transmutation, and you +necessarily admit by implication the Romish dogma, of the separation of +a sensible thing from the sensible accidents which constitute all we +ever meant by the thing. To rationalize this figment of his church, +Bossuet has recourse to Spinosism, and dares make God the substance and +sole 'ens reale' of all body, and by this very 'hypothesis' baffles his +own end, and does away all miracle in the particular instance. + + +Ib. p. 35. B. + + When I pray in my chamber, I build a temple there that hour; and that + minute, when I cast out a prayer in the street, I build a temple + there; and when my soul prays without any voice, my very body is then + a temple. + +Good; but it would be better to regard solitary, family, and templar +devotion as distinctions in sort, rather than differences in degree. All +three are necessary. + + +Ib. E. + + And that more fearful occasion of coming, when they came only to elude + the law, and proceeding in their treacherous and traitorous religion + in their heart, and yet communicating with us, draw God himself into + their conspiracies; and to mock us, make a mock of God, and his + religion too. + +What, then, was their guilt, who by terror and legal penalties tempted +their fellow Christians to this treacherous mockery? Donne should have +asked himself that question. + + +Serm. V. Exod. iv. 13. p. 39. + +Ib. p. 39. C. D. + + It hath been doubted, and disputed, and denied too, that this text, + 'O my Lord, send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt + send', hath any relation to the sending of the Messiah, to the + coming of Christ, to Christmas day; yet we forbear not to wait upon + the ancient Fathers, and as they said, to say, that Moses 'at + last' determines all in this, 'O my Lord', &c. It is a work, + next to the great work of the redemption of the whole world, to redeem + Israel out of Egypt; and therefore do both works at once, put both + into one hand, and 'mitte quem missurus es, Send him whom I know + thou wilt send'; him, whom, pursuing thine own decree, 'thou + shouldest send'; send Christ, send him now, to redeem Israel from + Egypt. + +This is one of the happier accommodations of the 'gnosis', that is, +the science of detecting the mysteries of faith in the simplest texts of +the Old Testament history, to the contempt or neglect of the literal and +contextual sense. It was, I conceive, in part at least, this +'gnosis', and not knowledge, as our translation has it, that St. +Paul warns against, and most wisely, as puffing up, inflating the heart +with self-conceit, and the head with idle fancies. + + +Ib. E. + + But as a thoughtful man, a pensive, a considerative man, that stands + still for a while with his eyes fixed upon the ground before his feet, + when he casts up his head, hath presently, instantly the sun or the + heavens for his object; he sees not a tree, nor a house, nor a steeple + by the way, but as soon as his eye is departed from the earth where it + was long fixed, the next thing he sees is the sun or the heavens;--so + when Moses had fixed himself long upon the consideration of his own + insufficiency for this service, when he took his eye from that low + piece of ground, himself, considered as he was then, he fell upon no + tree, no house, no steeple, no such consideration as this--God may + endow me, improve me, exalt me, enable me, qualify me with faculties + fit for this service, but his first object was that which presented an + infallibility with it, Christ Jesus himself, the Messias himself, &c. + +Beautifully imagined, and happily applied. + + +Ib. p. 40. B. + + That 'germen Jehovæ', as the prophet Esay calls Christ, that offspring + of Jehova, that bud, that blossom, that fruit of God himself, the Son + of God, the Messiah, the Redeemer, Christ Jesus, grows upon every tree + in this paradise, the Scripture; for Christ was the occasion before, + and is the consummation after, of all Scripture. + + +If this were meant to the exclusion or neglect of the primary sense,--if +we are required to believe that the sacred writers themselves had such +thoughts present to their minds,--it would, doubtless, throw the doors +wide open to every variety of folly and fanaticism. But it may admit of +a safe, sound, and profitable use, if we consider the Bible as one work, +intended by the Holy Spirit for the edification of the Church in all +ages, and having, as such, all its parts synoptically interpreted, the +eldest by the latest, the last by the first, and the middle by both. +Moses, or David, or Jeremiah (we might in this view affirm) meant so and +so, according to the context, and the light under which, and the +immediate or proximate purposes for which, he wrote: but we, who command +the whole scheme of the great dispensation, may see a higher and deeper +sense, of which the literal meaning was a symbol or type; and this we +may justifiably call the sense of the spirit. + + +Ib. p. 41. B. + + So in our liturgy 'we stand up at the profession of the creed' + thereby to declare to God and his Church our readiness to stand to, + and our readiness to proceed in, that profession. + + +Another Church might sit down, thereby denoting a resolve to abide in +this profession. These things are indifferent; but charity, love of +peace, and on indifferent points to prefer another's liking to our own, +and to observe an order once established for order's sake,--these are +not indifferent. + + +Ib. p. 42. C. + +This paragraph is excellent. Alas! how painfully applicable it is to +some of our day! + + +Ib. p. 46. C. + + Howsoever all intend that this is a name that denotes essence, being: + Being is the name of God, and of God only. + +Rather, I should say, 'the eternal antecedent of being;' 'I that shall +be in that I will to be'; the absolute will; the ground of being; the +self-affirming 'actus purissimus'. + + +Serm. VI. Isaiah liii. 1. p. 52. + +A noble sermon in thought and diction. + + +Ib. p. 59. E. + + Therefore we have a clearer light than this; 'firmiorem propheticum + sermonem', says St. Peter; 'we have a more sure word of the prophets'; + that is, as St. Augustine reads that place, 'clariorem', a more + manifest, a more evident, declaration in the prophets, than in nature, + of the will of God towards man, &c. + + +The sense of this text, as explained by the context, seems to me +this;--that, in consequence of the fulfilment of so large a proportion +of the oracles, the Christian Church has not only the additional light +given by the teaching and miracles of Christ, but even the light +vouchsafed to the old Church (the prophetic) stronger and clearer. + + +Ib. p. 60. A. + + He spake personally, and he spake aloud, in the declaration of + miracles; but 'quis credidit auditui Filii?' Who believed even his + report? Did they not call his preaching sedition, and call his + miracles conjuring? Therefore, we have a clearer, that is, a nearer + light than the written Gospel, that is, the Church. + +True; yet he who should now venture to assert this truth, or even +contend for a co-ordinateness of the Church and the Written Word, must +bear to be thought a semi-Papist, an 'ultra' high-Churchman. Still the +truth is the truth. + + +Serm. VII. John x. 10. p. 62. + +Since the Revolution in 1688 our Church has been chilled and starved too +generally by preachers and reasoners Stoic or Epicurean;--first, a sort +of pagan morality was substituted for the righteousness by faith, and +latterly, prudence or Paleyanism has been substituted even for morality. +A Christian preacher ought to preach Christ alone, and all things in him +and by him. If he find a dearth in this, if it seem to him a +circumscription, he does not know Christ, as the 'pleroma', the +fullness. It is not possible that there should be aught true, or seemly, +or beautiful, in thought, will, or deed, speculative or practical, which +may not, and which ought not to, be evolved out of Christ and the faith +in Christ;--no folly, no error, no evil to be exposed, or warred +against, which may not, and should not, be convicted and denounced from +its contrariancy and enmity to Christ. To the Christian preacher Christ +should be in all things, and all things in Christ: he should abjure +every argument that is not a link in the chain, of which Christ is the +staple and staple ring. + + +Ib. p. 64. + +In this page Donne passes into rhetorical extravagance, after the manner +of too many of the Fathers from Tertullian to Bernard. + + +Ib. p. 66. A. + + Some of the later authors in the Roman Church ... have noted ('in + several of the Fathers') some inclinations towards that opinion, that + the devil retaining still his faculty of free-will, is therefore + capable of repentance, and so of benefit by this coming of Christ. + +If this be assumed,--namely, the free-will of the devil,--as a +consequence would indeed follow his capability of repenting, and the +possibility that he may repent. But then he is no longer what we mean by +the devil; he is no longer the evil spirit, but simply a wicked soul. + + +Ib. p. 68. C. + + As though God had said 'Qui sum', my name is 'I am'; yet in truth it + is 'Qui ero', my name is 'I shall be'. + +Nay, 'I will or shall be in that I will to be'. I am that only one who +is self-originant, 'causa sui', whose will must be contemplated as +antecedent in idea to or deeper than his own co-eternal being. But +'antecedent,' 'deeper,' &c. are mere 'vocabula impropria', words of +accommodation, that may suggest the idea to a mind purified from the +intrusive phantoms of space and time, but falsify and extinguish the +truth, if taken as adequate exponents. + +Ib. p. 69. C. + + We affirm that it is not only as impious and irreligious a thing, but + as senseless and as absurd a thing, to deny that the Son of God hath + redeemed the world, as to deny that God hath created the world. + +A bold but a true saying. The man who, cannot see the redemptive agency +in the creation has but a dim apprehension of the creative power. + + +Ib. D. E. p. 70. A. + +These paragraphs exhibit a noble instance of giving importance to the +single words of a text, each word by itself a pregnant text. Here, too, +lies the excellence, the imitable, but alas! unimitated, excellence of +our divines from Elizabeth to William III. + + +Ib. D. + +O, that our clergy did but know and see that their tithes and glebes +belong to them as officers and functionaries of the nationalty,--as +clerks, and not exclusively as theologians, and not at all as ministers +of the Gospel;--but that they are likewise ministers of the Church of +Christ, and that their claims and the powers of that Church are no more +alienated or affected by their being at the same time the established +clergy, than they are by the common coincidence of being justices of the +peace, or heirs to an estate, or stockholders! [6] The Romish divines +placed the Church above the Scriptures; our present divines give it no +place at all. + +But Donne and his great contemporaries had not yet learnt to be afraid +of announcing and enforcing the claims of the Church, distinct from, and +coordinate with, the Scriptures. This is one evil consequence, though +most un-necessarily so, of the union of the Church of Christ with the +national Church, and of the claims of the Christian pastor and preacher +with the legal and constitutional rights and revenues of the officers of +the national clerisy. Our clergymen in thinking of their legal rights, +forget those rights of theirs which depend on no human law at all. + + +Ib. p. 71. A. + + This is the difference between God's mercy and his judgments, that + sometimes his judgments may he plural, complicated, enwrapped in one + another; but his mercies are always so, and cannot be otherwise. + +A just sentiment beautifully expressed. + + +Ib. C. + + Whereas the Christian religion is, as Gregory Nazianzen says, + 'simplex et nuda, nisi prave in artem difficillimam + converteretur': it is a plain, an easy, a perspicuous truth. + +A religion of ideas, spiritual truths, or truth-powers,--not of notions +and conceptions, the manufacture of the understanding,--is therefore +'simplex et nuda', that is, immediate; like the clear blue heaven of +Italy, deep and transparent, an ocean unfathomable in its depth, and yet +ground all the way. Still as meditation soars upwards, it meets the +arched firmament with all its suspended lamps of light. O, let not the +'simplex et nuda' of Gregory be perverted to the Socinian, 'plain and +easy for the meanest understandings!' The truth in Christ, like the +peace of Christ, passeth all understanding. If ever there was a +mischievous misuse of words, the confusion of the terms, 'reason' and +'understanding,' 'ideas' and 'notions,' or 'conceptions,' is most +mischievous; a Surinam toad with a swarm of toadlings sprouting out of +its back and sides. + + +Serm. VIII. Mat. v. 16. p. 77. + +Ib. C. + + Either of the names of this day were text enough for a sermon, + Purification or Candlemas. Join we them together, and raise we only + this one note from both, that all true purification is in the light, + &c. + + +The illustration of the name of the day contained in the first two or +three paragraphs of this sermon would be censured as quaint by our +modern critics. Would to heaven we had but even a few preachers capable +of such quaintnesses! + + +Ib. D. + + Every good work hath faith for the root; but every faith hath not good + works for the fruit thereof. + +Faith, that is, fidelity--the fealty of the finite will and +understanding to the reason, 'the light that lighteth every man that +cometh into the world', as one with, and representative of, the absolute +will, and to the ideas or truths of the pure reason, the supersensuous +truths, which in relation to the finite will, and as meant to determine +the will, are moral laws, the voice and dictates of the +conscience;--this faith is properly a state and disposition of the will, +or rather of the whole man, the I, or finite will, self-affirmed. It is +therefore the ground, the root, of which the actions, the works, the +believings, as acts of the will in the understanding, are the trunk and +the branches. But these must be in the light. The disposition to see +must have organs, objects, direction, and an outward light. The three +latter of these our Lord gives to his disciples in this blessed sermon +on the Mount, preparatorily, and, as Donne rightly goes on to observe, +presupposing faith as the ground and root. Indeed the whole of this and +the next page affords a noble specimen, how a minister of the Church of +England should preach the doctrine of good works, purified from the +poison of the practical Romish doctrine of works, as the mandioc is +evenomated by fire, and rendered safe, nutritious, a bread of life. To +Donne's exposition the heroic Solifidian, Martin Luther himself, would +have subscribed, hand and heart. + + +Ib. p. 78. C. + + And therefore our latter men of the Reformation are not to be blamed, + who for the most, pursuing St. Cyril's interpretation, interpret this + universal 'light that lighteneth every man' to be the light of + nature. + + +The error here, and it is a grievous error, consists in the word +'nature.' There is, there can be, no light of nature: there may be a +light in or upon nature; but this is the light that shineth down into +the darkness, that is, the nature, and the darkness comprehendeth it +not. All ideas, or spiritual truths, are supernatural. + + +Ib. p. 79. + +Throughout this page, Donne rather too much plays the rhetorician. If +the faith worketh the works, what is true of the former must be equally +affirmed of the latter;--'causa causæ causa causati'. Besides, he falls +into something like a confusion of faith with belief, taken as a +conviction or assent of the judgment. The faith and the righteousness of +a Christian are both alike his, and not his--the faith of Christ in him, +the righteousness in and for him. 'I am crucified with Christ: +nevertheless I live; yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life +which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who +loved me, and gave himself for me'. [7] + +Donne was a truly great man; but, after all, he did not possess that +full, steady, deep, and yet comprehensive, insight into the nature of +faith and works which was vouchsafed to Martin Luther. Donne had not +attained to the reconciling of distinctity with unity,--ours, yet God's; +God's, yet ours. + + +Ib. D. + + 'Velle et nolle nostrum est', to assent, or to dis-assent, is our own. + +Is not this, even with the saving afterwards, too nakedly expressed? + + +Ib. + + And certainly our works are more ours than our faith is; and man + concurs otherwise in the acting and perpetration of a good work, than + he doth in the reception and admission of faith. + +Why? Because Donne confounds the act of faith with the assent of the +fancy and understanding to certain words and conceptions. Indeed, with +all my reverence for Dr. Donne, I must warn against the contents of this +page, as scarcely tenable in logic, unsound in metaphysics, and unsafe, +slippery divinity; and principally in that he confounds faith-- +essentially an act, the fundamental work of the Spirit--with belief, +which is then only good when it is the effect and accompaniment of faith. + + +Ib. p. 80. D. + + Because things good in their institution may he depraved in their + practice--'ergone nihil ceremoniarum rudioribus dabitur, ad juvandam + eorum imperitiam?' + + +Some ceremonies may be for the conservation of order and civility, or to +prevent confusion and unseemliness; others are the natural or +conventional language of our feelings, as bending the knees, or bowing +the head; and to neither of these two sorts do I object. But as to the +'adjuvandam rudiorum imperitiam', I protest against all such ceremonies, +and the pretexts for them, 'in toto'. What? Can any ceremony be more +instructive than the words required to explain the ceremony? I make but +two exceptions, and those where the truths signified are so vital, so +momentous, that the very occasion and necessity of explaining the sign +are of the highest spiritual value. Yet, alas! to what gross and +calamitous superstitions have not even the visible signs in Baptism and +the Eucharist given occasion! + + +Ib. p. 81. E. + + Blessed St. Augustine reports, (if that epistle be St. Augustine's) + that when himself was writing to St. Hierome, to know his opinion of + the measure and quality of the joy and glory of heaven, suddenly in + his chamber there appeared 'ineffabile lumen', says he, an + unspeakable, an unexpressible light, ... and out of that light issued + this voice, 'Hieronymi anima sum', &c. + +The grave recital of this ridiculous legend is one instance of what I +have called the Patristic leaven in Donne, who assuredly had no belief +himself in the authenticity of this letter. But yet it served a purpose. +As to Master Conradus, just above, who could read at night by the light +at his fingers' ends, he must of course have very recently been shaking +hands with Lucifer. + + +Ib. p. 83. D. + + Eve's recognition upon the birth of her first son, 'Cain I have + gotten, I possess a man from the Lord.' + +'I have gotten the Jehovah-man', is, I believe, the true rendering +and sense of the Hebrew words. Eve, full of the promise, supposed her +first-born, the first-born on earth, to be the promised deliverer. + + + Ib. p. 84. D. E. + Serm. IX. Rom. xiii. 7. p. 86, +Admirable passages. Ib. p. 90. A. + + That soul that is accustomed, &c. + + Ib. p. 94. A. B. + + + +Serm. XII. Mat. v. 2. p. 112. +Ib. B. C. D. + +The disposition of our Church divines, under James I, to bring back the +stream of the Reformation to the channel and within the banks formed in +the first six centuries of the Church, and their alienation from the +great patriarchs of Protestantism, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, and +others, who held the Fathers of the 'ante'-Papal Church, with +exception of Augustine, in light esteem, this disposition betrays itself +here and in many other parts of Donne. For here Donne plays the Jesuit, +disguising the truth, that even as early as the third century the Church +had begun to Paganize Christianity, under the pretext, and no doubt in +the hope, of Christianizing Paganism. The mountain would not go to +Mahomet, and therefore Mahomet went to the mountain. + + +Ib. p. 115. A. + +An excellent passage. + + +Ib. p. 117. E. + + And therefore when the prophet says, 'Quis sapiens, et intelliget hæc? + Who is so wise as to find out this way'? he places this cleanness + which we inquire after in wisdom. What is wisdom? + +The primitive Church appropriated the name to the third 'hypostasis' of +the Trinity; hence 'Sancta Sophia' became the distinctive name of the +Holy Ghost; and the temple at Constantinople, dedicated by Justinian to +the Holy Ghost, is called the Church--alas! now the mosque--of Santa +Sophia. Now this suggests, or rather implies, a far better and more +precise definition of wisdom than Donne's. The distinctive title of the +Father, as the Supreme Will, is the Good; that of the only-begotten +Word, as the Supreme Reason, ('Ens Realissimum', [Greek: Ho_O N], the +Being) is the True; and the Spirit proceeding from the Good through the +True is the Wisdom. Goodness in the form of truth is wisdom. Wisdom is +the pure will, realizing itself intelligently, or the good manifesting +itself as the truth, and realized in the act. Wisdom, life, love, +beauty, the beauty of holiness, are all 'synonyma' of the Holy Spirit. + +6, December, 1831. + + +Ib. p. 121. A. + + The Arians' opinion, that God the Father only was invisible, but the + Son 'and the Holy Ghost' might be seen. + +Here we have an instance, one of many, of the inconveniences and +contradictions that arise out of the assumed contrary essences of body +and soul; both substances, and independent of each other, yet so +absolutely diverse as that the one is to be defined by the negation of +the other. + + +Serm. XIII. Job xvi. 17, 18, 19. p. 127. +Ib. p. 129. A. B. C. +Ib. pp. 134. 135. + +Truly excellent. + + +Serm. XV. 1 Cor. xv. 26. p. 144. +Ib. D. + + Who, then, is this enemy? an enemy that may thus far think himself + equal to God, that as no man ever saw God, and lived; so no man ever + saw this enemy, and lived; for it is death. + +This borders rather too closely on the Irish Franciscan's conclusion to +his sermon of thanksgiving: "Above all, brethren, let us thankfully laud +and extol God's transcendant mercy in putting death at the end of life, +and thereby giving us all time for repentance!" + +Dr. Donne was an eminently witty man in a very witty age; but to the +honour of his judgment let it be said, that though his great wit is +evinced in numberless passages, in a few only is it shown off. This +paragraph is one of those rare exceptions. + +N. B. Nothing in Scripture, nothing in reason, commands or authorizes us +to assume or suppose any bodiless creature. It is the incommunicable +attribute of God. But all bodies are not flesh, nor need we suppose that +all bodies are corruptible. 'There are bodies celestial'. In the three +following paragraphs of this sermon, we trace wild fantastic positions +grounded on the arbitrary notion of man as a mixture of heterogeneous +components, which Des Cartes shortly afterwards carried into its +extremes. On this doctrine the man is a mere phenomenal result, a sort +of brandy-sop or toddy-punch. It is a doctrine unsanctioned by, and +indeed inconsistent with, the Scriptures. It is not true that body +'plus' soul makes man. Man is not the 'syntheton' or composition of body +and soul, as the two component units. No; man is the unit, the +'prothesis', and body and soul are the two poles, the positive and +negative, the 'thesis' and 'antithesis' of the man; even as attraction +and repulsion are the two poles in and by which one and the same magnet +manifests itself. + + +Ib. p. 146. B. + + For it is not so great a depopulation to translate a city from + merchants to husbandmen, from shops to ploughs, as it is from many + husbandmen to one shepherd; and yet that hath been often done. + +For example, in the Highlands of Scotland in our own day. + + +Ib. p. 148. A. + + The ashes of an oak in the chimney are no epitaph of that oak, to tell + me how high or how large that was. It tells me not what flocks it + sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell. The dust + of great persons' graves is speechless too, it says nothing, it + distinguishes nothing. As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldst + not, as of a prince whom thou couldst not, look upon, will trouble + thine eyes, if the wind blow it thither; and when a whirlwind hath + blown the dust of the churchyard unto the church, and the man sweeps + out the dust of the church into the church-yard, who will undertake to + sift those dusts again, and to pronounce;--this is the patrician, this + is the noble, flour, and this the yeomanly, this the plebeian, bran. + [8] + + +Very beautiful indeed. + + +Ib. p. 149. C. + + But when I lie under the hands of that enemy, that hath reserved + himself to the last, to my last bed; then when I shall be able to stir + no limb in any other measure than a fever or a palsy shall shake them; + when everlasting darkness shall have an inchoation in the present + dimness of mine eyes, and the everlasting gnashing in the present + chattering of my teeth, and the everlasting worm in the present + gnawing of the agonies of my body and anguishes of my mind; when the + last enemy shall watch my remediless body, and my disconsolate soul + there,--there, where not the physician in his way, perchance not the + priest in his, shall be able to give any assistance; and when he hath + sported himself with my misery, &c. + +This is powerful; but is too much in the style of the monkish preachers: +'Papam redolet'. Contrast with this Job's description of death, [9] and +St. Paul's 'sleep in the Lord'. + + +Ib. p. 150. A. + + Neither doth Calvin carry those emphatical words which are so often + cited for a proof of the last resurrection,--'that he knows his + Redeemer lives, that he knows he shall stand the last man upon earth, + that though his body be destroyed, yet in his flesh and with his eyes + shall he see God'--to any higher sense than so, that how low soever he + be brought, to what desperate state soever he be reduced in the eyes + of the world, yet he assures himself of a resurrection, a reparation, + a restitution to his former bodily health, and worldly fortune which + he had before. And such a resurrection we all know Job had. + +I incline to Calvin's opinion, but am not decided. 'After my skin', must +be rendered 'according to, or as far as my skin is concerned.' 'Though +the flies and maggots in my ulcers have destroyed my skin, yet still, +and in my flesh, I shall see God as my Redeemer'. Now St. Paul says, +that flesh and blood cannot ([Greek: sàrx kaì aima--ou dynantai]) +inherit the kingdom of heaven, that is, the spiritual world. Besides how +is the passage, as commonly interpreted, consistent with the numerous +expressions of doubt and even of despondency in Job's speeches? [10] + + +Ib. B. C. (Ezekiel's vision xxxvii.) + +I cannot but think that Dr. Donne, by thus antedating the distinct +belief of the Jews in the resurrection, "which you all know already," +destroys in great measure the force and sublimity of this vision. +Besides, it does not seem, in the common people at least, to have been +much more than a mongrel Egyptian-catacomb sort of faith, or rather +superstition. + +_In fine_. This is one of Donne's least estimable discourses; the worst +sermon on the best text. Yet what a Donne-like passage is this that +follows! + + +P. 146. A. + + Let the whole world be in thy consideration as one house; and then + consider in that, in the peaceful harmony of creatures, in the + peaceful succession, and connexion of causes and effects, the peace of + nature. Let this kingdom, where God hath blessed thee with a being, be + the gallery, the best room of that house, and consider in the two + walls of that gallery, the Church and the state, the peace of a royal + and religious wisdom. Let thine own family be a cabinet in this + gallery, and find in all the boxes thereof, in the several duties of + wife and children, and servants, the peace of virtue, and of the + father and mother of all virtues, active discretion, passive + obedience; and then lastly, let thine own bosom be the secret box and + reserve in this cabinet, and then the gallery of the best home that + can be had, peace with the creature, peace in the Church, peace in the + state, peace in thy house, peace in thy heart, is a fair model, and a + lovely design even of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is _visio pacis_, + where there is no object but peace. + + +Serm. XVI. John xi. 35. p. 153. +Ib. C. + + The Masorites (the Masorites are the critics upon the Hebrew Bible, + the Old Testament) cannot tell us, who divided the chapters of the Old + Testament into verses: neither can any other tell, who did it in the + New Testament. [11] + +How should the Masorites, when the Hebrew Scriptures were not as far as +we know divided into verses at all in their time? The Jews seem to have +adopted the invention from the Christians, who were led to it in the +construction of Concordances. + + +Ib. p. 154. E. + + If they killed Lazarus, had not Christ done enough to let them see + that he could raise him again? + + +Malice, above all party-malice, is indeed a blind passion, but one can +scarcely conceive the chief priests such dolts as to think that Christ +could raise Lazarus again. Their malice blinded them as to the nature of +the incident, made them suppose a conspiracy between Jesus and the +family of Lazarus, a mock burial, in short; and this may be one, though +it is not, I think, the principal, reason for this greatest miracle +being omitted in the other Gospels. + + +Ib. p. 155. B. + + Christ might ungirt himself, and give more scope and liberty to his + passions than any other man; both because he had no original sin + within to drive him, &c. + +How then is he said to have 'condemned sin in the flesh'? Without guilt, +without actual sin, assuredly he was; but [Greek: egéneto sàrx], and +what can we mean by original sin relatively to the flesh, but that man +is born with an animal life and a material organism that render him +temptible to evil, and which tends to dispose the life of the will to +contradict the light of the reason? Did St. Paul by [Greek: homoi_ómati +sarkòs hamartiás] mean a deceptive resemblance? [12] + + +Ib. D. + +I can see no possible edification that can arise from these +_ultra_-Scriptural speculations respecting our Lord. + + +Ib. p. 157. A. + + Though the Godhead never departed from the carcase ... yet because the + human soul was departed from it, he was no man. + +Donne was a poor metaphysician; that is, he never closely questioned +himself as to the absolute meaning of his words. What did he mean by the +'soul?' what by the 'body?' [13] + + +Ib. D. + + And I know that there are authors of a middle nature, above the + philosophers, and below the Scriptures, the Apocryphal books. + +A whimsical instance of the disposition in the mind for every pair of +opposites to find an intermediate,--a 'mesothesis' for every 'thesis' +and 'antithesis'. Thus Scripture may be opposed to philosophy; and then +the Apocryphal books will be philosophy relatively to Scripture, and +Scripture relatively to philosophy. + + +Ib. p. 159. B. + + And therefore the same author (Epiphanius) says, that because they + thought it an uncomely thing for Christ to weep for any temporal + thing, some men have expunged and removed that verse out of St. Luke's + Gospel, that 'Jesus, when he saw that city, wept'. [14] + + +This, by the by, rather indiscreetly lets out the liberties, which the +early Christians took with their sacred writings. Origen, who, in answer +to Celsus's reproach on this ground, confines the practice to the +heretics, furnishes proofs of the contrary himself in his own comments. + + +Ib. p. 161. D. + + That world, which finds itself in an authumn in itself, finds itself + in a spring in our imaginations. + +Worthy almost of Shakspeare! + + +Serm. XVII. Matt. xix. 17. p. 163. +Ib. E. + + The words are part of a dialogue, of a conference, between Christ and + a man who proposed a question to him; to whom Christ makes an answer + by way of another question, 'Why callest thou me good?' &c. In the + words, and by occasion of them, we consider the text, the context, and + the pretext; not as three equal parts of the building; but the + context, as the situation and prospect of the house, the pretext, as + the access and entrance into the house, and then the text itself, as + the house itself, as the body of the building: in a word, in the text + the words; in the context the occasion of the words; in the pretext + the purpose, the disposition of him who gave the occasion. + +What a happy example of elegant division of a subject! And so also the +'compendium' of Christianity in the preceding paragraph (D). Our great +divines were not ashamed of the learned discipline to which they had +submitted their minds under Aristotle and Tully, but brought the +purified products as sacrificial gifts to Christ. They baptized the +logic and manly rhetoric of ancient Greece. + + +Ib. p. 164. A. B. + +Excellent illustration of fragmentary morality, in which each man takes +his choice of his virtues and vices. + + +Ib. D. + + Men perish with whispering sins, nay, with silent sins, sins that + never tell the conscience they are sins, as often as with crying sins. + + +Yea, I almost doubt whether the truth here so boldly asserted is not of +more general necessity for ordinary congregations, than the denunciation +of the large sins that cannot remain 'in incognito'. + + +Ib. p. 165. A. + + 'Venit procurrens, he came running'. Nicodemus came not so, Nicodemus + durst not avow his coming, and therefore he came creeping, and he came + softly, and he came seldom, and he came by night. + + +Ah! but we trust in God that he did in fact come. The adhesion, the +thankfulness, the love which arise and live after the having come, +whether from spontaneous liking, or from a beckoning hope, or from a +compelling good, are the truest 'criteria' of the man's Christianity. + +Ib. B. + + When I have just reason to think my superiors would have it thus, this + is music to my soul; when I hear them say they would have it thus, + this is rhetoric to my soul; when I see their laws enjoin it to be + thus, this is logic to my soul; but when I see them actually, really, + clearly, constantly do thus, this is a demonstration to my soul, and + demonstration is the powerfullest proof. The eloquence of inferiors is + in words, the eloquence of superiors is in action. + +A just representation, I doubt not, of the general feeling and principle +at the time Donne wrote. Men regarded the gradations of society as God's +ordinances, and had the elevation of a self-approving conscience in +every feeling and exhibition of respect for those of ranks superior to +their own. What a contrast with the present times! Is not the last +sentence beautiful? "The eloquence of inferiors is in words, the +eloquence of superiors is in action." + + +Ib. B. and C. + + He came to Christ, he ran to him; and when he was come, as St. Mark + relates it, 'he fell upon his knees to Christ'. He stood not then + Pharisaically upon his own legs, his own merits, though he had been a + diligent observer of the commandments before, &c. + + +All this paragraph is an independent truth; but I doubt whether in his +desire to make every particle exemplary, to draw some Christian moral +from it, Donne has not injudiciously attributed, _quasi per prolepsin_, +merits inconsistent with the finale of a wealthy would-be proselyte. At +all events, a more natural and, perhaps, not less instructive +interpretation might be made of the sundry movements of this religiously +earnest and zealous admirer of Christ, and worshipper of Mammon. O, I +have myself known such! + + +Ib. D. + + He was no ignorant man, and yet he acknowledged that he had somewhat + more to learn of Christ than he knew yet. Blessed are they that + inanimate all their knowledge, consummate all in Christ Jesus, &c. + +The whole paragraph is pure gold. Without being aware of this passage in +Donne, I expressed the same conviction, or rather declared the same +experience, in the appendix [15] to the Statesman's Manual. O! if only one +day in a week, Christians would consent to have the Bible as the only +book, and their minister's labour to make them find all substantial good +of all other books in their Bibles! + + +Ib. E. + + I remember one of the Panegyrics celebrates and magnifies one of the + Roman emperors for this, that he would marry when he was young; that + he would so soon confine and limit his pleasures, so soon determine + his affections in one person. + +It is surely some proof of the moral effect which Christianity has +produced, that in all Protestant countries, at least, a writer would be +ashamed to assign this as a ground of panegyric; as if promiscuous +intercourse with those of the other sex had been a natural good, a +privilege, which there was a great merit in foregoing! O! what do not +women owe to Christianity! As Christians only it is that they do, or +ordinarily can, cease to be things for men, instead of co-persons in one +spiritual union. + + +Ib. p. 166. A. + + But such is often the corrupt inordinateness of greatness, that it + only carries them so much beyond other men, but not so much nearer to + God. + +Like a balloon, away from earth, but not a whit nearer the arch of +heaven. There is a praiseworthy relativeness and life in the morality of +our best old divines. It is not a cold law in brass or stone; but "this +I may and should think of my neighbour, this of a great man," &c. + + +Ib. p. 167. A. + + Christ was pleased to redeem this man from this error, and bring him + to know truly what he was, that he was God. Christ therefore doth not + rebuke this man, by any denying that he himself was good; for Christ + doth assume that addition to himself, 'I am the good shepherd'. + Neither doth God forbid that those good parts which are in men should + be celebrated with condign praise. We see that God, as soon as he saw + that any thing was good, he said so, he uttered it, he declared it, + first of the light, and then of other creatures. God would be no + author, no example of smothering the due praise of good actions. For + surely that man hath no zeal to goodness in himself, that affords no + praise to goodness in other men. + + +Very fine. But I think another--not, however, a different--view might be +taken respecting our Lord's intention in these words. The young noble, +who came to him, had many praiseworthy traits of character; but he +failed in the ultimate end and aim. What ought only to have been valued +by him as means, was loved, and had a worth given to it, as an end in +itself. Our Lord, who knew the hearts of men, instantly in the first +words applies himself to this, and takes the occasion of an ordinary +phrase of courtesy addressed to himself, to make the young man aware of +the difference between a mere relative good and that which is absolutely +good; that which may be called good, when regarded as a mean to good, +but which must not be mistaken for, or confounded with, that which is +good, and itself the end. + + +Ib. B. C. D. + +All excellent, and D. most so. Thus, thus our old divines showed the +depth of their love and appreciation of the Scriptures, and thus led +their congregations to feel and see the same. Here is Donne's authority +(_Deus non est ens_, &c.) for what I have so earnestly endeavored to +show, that _Deus est ens super ens_, the ground of all being, but +therein likewise absolute Being, in that he is the eternal +self-affirmant, the I Am in that I Am; and that the key of this mystery +is given to us in the pure idea of the will, as the alone _Causa Sui_. + +O! compare this manhood of our Church divinity with the feeble dotage of +the Paleyan school, the 'natural' theology, or watchmaking scheme, that +knows nothing of the maker but what can be proved out of the watch, the +unknown nominative case of the verb impersonal _fit--et natura est_; the +'it,' in short, in 'it rains,' 'it snows,' 'it is cold,' and the +like. When, after reading the biographies of Walton and his +contemporaries, I reflect on the crowded congregations, on the +thousands, who with intense interest came to their hour and two hour +long sermons, I cannot but doubt the fact of any true progression, moral +or intellectual, in the mind of the many. The tone, the matter, the +anticipated sympathies in the sermons of an age form the best moral +criterion of the character of that age. + + +Ib. E. + + His name of Jehova we admire with a reverence. + +Say, rather, Jehova, his name. It is not so properly a name of God, as +God the Name,--God's name and God. + + +Ib. p. 169. A. + + Land, and money, and honour must be called goods, though but of + fortune, &c. + +We should distinguish between the conditions of our possessing goods and +the goods themselves. Health, for instance, is ordinarily a condition of +that working and rejoicing for and in God, which are goods in the end, +and of themselves. Health, competent fortune, and the like are good as +the negations of the preventives of good; as clear glass is good in +relation to the light, which it does not exclude. Health and ease +without the love of God are plate glass in the darkness. + + +Ib. p. 170. + +Much of this page consists of play on words; as, that which is useful as +rain, and that which is of use as rain on a garden after drouth. There +is also much sophistry in it. Pain is not necessarily an ultimate evil. +As the mean of ultimate good, it may be a relative good; but surely that +which makes pain, anguish, heaviness necessary in order to good, must be +evil. And so the Scripture determines. They are the _wages of sin_; but +God's infinite mercy raises them into sacraments, means of grace. Sin is +the only absolute evil; God the only absolute good. But as myriads of +things are good relatively through participation of God, so are many +things evil as the fruits of evil. What is the apostasy, or fall of +spirits? That that which from the essential perfection of the Absolute +Good could not but be possible, that is, have a potential being, but +never ought to have been actual, did nevertheless strive to be +actual?--But this involved an impossibility; and it actualized only its +own potentiality. + +What is the consequence of the apostasy? That no philosophy is possible +of man and nature but by assuming at once a zenith and a nadir, God and +'Hades'; and an ascension from the one through and with a condescension +from the other; that is, redemption by prevenient and then auxiliary +grace. + + +Ib. p. 171. B. + + So says St. Augustine, 'Audeo dicere', though it be boldly said, yet I + must say it, 'utile esse cadere in aliquod manifestum peccatum', &c. + +No doubt, a sound sense may be forced into these words: but why use +words, into which a sound sense must be forced? Besides, the subject is +too deep and too subtle for a sermon. In the two following paragraphs, +especially, Dr. Donne is too deep, and not deep enough. He treads +waters, and dangerous waters. N. B. The Familists. + + +Serm. XVIII. Acts, ii. 36. p. 175. +Ib. B. + +I would paraphrase, or rather lead the way to this text, something as +follows:-- + +Truth is a common interest; it is every man's duty to convey it to his +brother, if only it be a truth that concerns or may profit him, and he +be competent to receive it. For we are not bound to say the truth, where +we know that we cannot convey it, but very probably may impart a +falsehood instead; no falsehoods being more dangerous than truths +misunderstood, nay, the most mischievous errors on record having been +half-truths taken as the whole. + +But let it be supposed that the matter to be communicated is a fact of +general concernment, a truth of deep and universal interest, a momentous +truth involved in a most awe-striking fact, which all responsible +creatures are competent to understand, and of which no man can safely +remain in ignorance. Now this is the case with the matter, on which I am +about to speak; 'therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, +that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord +and Christ!' + + +Ib. p. 176. A. B. C. + +True Christian love not only permits, but enjoins, courtesy. God +himself, says Donne, gave us the example. + + +Ib. p. 177. A. C. E. + +All excellent, and E. of deeper worth. All that is wanting here is to +determine the true sense of 'knowing God,'--that sense in which it is +revealed that to know God is life ever-lasting. + + +Ib p. 178. A. + + Now the universality of this mercy hath God enlarged and extended very + far, in that he proposes it even to our knowledge; 'sciant', let all + know it. It is not only 'credant', let all believe it; for the + infusing of faith is not in our power; but God hath put it in our + power to satisfy their reason, &c. + +A question is here affirmatively started of highest importance and of +deepest interest, that is, faith so distinguished from reason, 'credat' +from 'sciat', that the former is an infused grace 'not in our power;' +the latter an inherent quality or faculty, on which we are able to +calculate as man with man. I know not what to say to this. Faith seems +to me the coadunation of the individual will with the reason, enforcing +adherence alike of thought, act, and affection to the Universal Will, +whether revealed in the conscience, or by the light of reason, however +the same may contravene, or apparently contradict, the will and mind of +the flesh, the presumed experience of the senses and of the +understanding, as the faculty, or intelligential yet animal instinct, by +which we generalize the notices of the senses, and substantiate their +'spectra' or 'phænomena'. In this sense, therefore, and in this only, I +agree with Donne. + +'No man cometh to Christ unless the' 'Father lead him'. The corrupt will +cannot, without prevenient as well as auxiliary grace, be unitively +subordinated to the reason, and again, without this union of the moral +will, the reason itself is latent. Nevertheless, I see no advantage in +not saying the 'will,' or in substituting the term 'faith' for it. But +the sad non-distinction of the reason and the understanding throughout +Donne, and the confusion of ideas and conceptions under the same term, +painfully inturbidates his theology. Till this distinction of the +[Greek: nous] and the [Greek: phrónaema sarkòs] be seen, nothing can be +seen aright. Till this great truth be mastered, and with the sight that +is insight, other truths may casually take possession of the mind, but +the mind cannot possess them. If you know not this, you know nothing; +for if you know not the diversity of reason from the understanding, you +know not reason; and reason alone is knowledge. + +All that follows in B. is admirable, worthy of a divine of the Church of +England, the National and the Christian, and indeed proves that Donne +was at least possessed by the truth which I have always labored to +enforce, namely, that faith is the 'apotheosis' of the reason in +man, the complement of reason, the will in the form of the reason. As +the basin-water to the fountain shaft, such is will to reason in faith. +The whole will shapes itself in the image of God wherein it had been +created, and shoots on high toward, and in the glories of, Heaven! + + +Ib. D. + + If we could have been in Paradise, and seen God take a clod of red + earth, and make that wretched clod of contemptible earth such a body + as should be fit to receive his breath, &c. + +A sort of pun on the Hebrew word 'Adam' or red earth, common in Donne's +age, but unworthy of Donne, who was worthy to have seen deeper into the +Scriptural sense of the 'ground,' the Hades, the multeity, the many +'absque numero el infra numerum', that which is below, as God is that +which transcends, intellect. + + +Ib. p. 179. B. + + We place in the School, for the most part, the infinite merit of + Christ Jesus ... rather 'in pacto' than 'in persona', rather that this + contract was thus made between the Father and the Son, than that + whatsoever that person, thus consisting of God and Man, should do, + should, only in respect of the person, be of an infinite value and + extension to that purpose, &c. + +O, this is sad misty divinity! far too scholastical for the pulpit, far +too vague and unphilosophic for the study. + + +Ib. p. 180. A. + + 'Quis nisi infidelis negaverit apud inferos fuisse Christum?' says St. + Augustine. + +Where? [16] Pearson expressly asserts and proves that the clause was in +none of the ancient creeds or confessions. And even now the sense of +these words, 'He descended into hell', is in no Reformed Church +determined as an article of faith. + + +Ib. p. 182. D. + + 'Audacter dicam', says St. Hierome, 'cum omnia posset Deus, suscitare + virginem post ruinam non potest.' + +One instance among hundreds of the wantonness of phrase and fancy in the +Fathers. What did Jerome mean? 'quod Deus membranam hymenis luniformem +reproducere nequit?' No; that were too absurd. What then?--that God +cannot make what has been not to have been? Well then, why not say that, +since that is all you can mean? + + +Serm. XIX. Rev. xx. 6. p. 183. + +The exposition of the text in this sermon is a lively instance how much +excellent good sense a wise man, like Donne, can bring forth on a +passage which he does not understand. For to say that it may mean either +X, or Y, or Z, is to confess he knows not what it means; but that if it +be X. then, &c.; if Y. then, &c.; and lastly if it be Z. then, &c.; that +is to say, that he understands X, Y, and Z; but does not understand the +text itself. + + +Ib. p. 185. B. + + Seas of blood and yet but brooks, tuns of blood and yet but basons, + compared with the sacrifices, the sacrifices of the blood of men, in + the persecutions of the primitive Church. For every ox of the Jew, the + Christian spent a man; and for every sheep and lamb, a mother and her + child, &c. + + +Whoo! Had the other nine so called persecutions been equal to the tenth, +that of Diocletian, Donne's assertion here would be extravagant. + + +Serra. XXXIV. Rom. viii. 16. p. 332. +Ib. p. 335. A. + + But by what manner comes He from them? By proceeding. + +If this mystery be considered as words, or rather sounds vibrating on +some certain ears, to which the belief of the hearers assigned a +supernatural cause, well and good! What else can be said? Such were the +sounds: what their meaning is, we know not; but such sounds not being in +the ordinary course of nature, we of course attribute them to something +extra-natural. + +But if God made man in his own image, therein as in a mirror, misty no +doubt at best, and now cracked by peculiar and in-herited defects--yet +still our only mirror--to contemplate all we can of God, this word +'proceeding' may admit of an easy sense. + +For if a man first used it to express as well as he could a notion found +in himself as man 'in genere', we have to look into ourselves, and there +we shall find that two facts of vital intelligence may be conceived; the +first, a necessary and eternal outgoing of intelligence ([Greek: nous]) +from being ([Greek:tò on]), with the will as an accompaniment, but not +from it as a cause,--in order, though not necessarily in time, +precedent. This is true filiation. + +The second is an act of the will and the reason, in their purity strict +identities, and therefore not begotten or filiated, but proceeding from +intelligent essence and essential intelligence combining in the act, +necessarily and coeternally. + +For the coexistence of absolute spontaneity with absolute necessity is +involved in the very idea of God, one of whose intellectual definitions +is, the 'synthesis, generative ad extra, et annihilative, etsi +inclusive, quoad se,' of all conceivable 'antitheses;' even as the best +moral definition--(and, O! how much more godlike to us in this state of +antithetic intellect is the moral beyond the intellectual!)--is, God is +love. + +This is to us the high prerogative of the moral, that all its dictates +immediately reveal the truths of intelligence, whereas the strictly +intellectual only by more distant and cold deductions carries us towards +the moral. + +For what is love? Union with the desire of union. God therefore is the +cohesion and the oneness of all things; and dark and dim is that system +of ethics, which does not take oneness as the root of all virtue. + +Being, Mind, Love in action, are ideas distinguishable though not +divisible; but Will is incapable of distinction or division: it is +equally implied in vital action, in essential intelligence, and in +effluent love or holy action. + +Now will is the true principle of identity, of selfness, even in our +common language. The will, therefore, being indistinguishably one, but +the possessive powers triply distinguishable, do perforce involve the +notion expressed by a Trinity of three Persons and one God. + +There are three Persons eternally coexisting, in whom the one Will is +totally all in each; the truth of which mystery we may know in our own +minds, but can understand by no analogy. + +For "the wind ministrant to divers at the same moment"--thence, to aid +the fancy--borrows or rather steals from the mind the idea of 'total 'in +omni parte',' which alone furnishes the analogy; but that both it and by +it a myriad of other material images do enwrap themselves 'in hac veste +non sua,' and would be even no objects of conception if they did not; +yea, that even the very words, 'conception,' 'comprehension,' and all in +all languages that answer to them, suppose this trans-impression from +the mind, is an argument better than all analogy. + + +Serm. XXXV. Mat. xii. 31. p. 341. +Ib. p. 342. B. + + First then, for the first term, 'sin,' we use to ask in the + school, whether any action of man's can have 'rationem demeriti;' + whether it can be said to offend God, or to deserve ill of God? for + whatsoever does so, must have some proportion with God. + +This appears to me to furnish an interesting example of the bad +consequences in reasoning, as well as in morals, of the 'cui bono? cui +malo?' system of ethics,--that system which places the good and evil +of actions in their painful or pleasurable effects on the sensuous or +passive nature of sentient beings, not in the will, the pure act itself. + +For, according to this system, God must be either a passible and +dependent being,--that is, not God,--or else he must have no interest, +arid therefore no motive or impulse, to reward virtue or punish vice. + +The veil which the Epicureans threw over their atheism was itself an +implicit atheism. Nay, the world itself could not have existed; and as +it does exist, the origin of evil (for if evil means no more than pain +'in genere', evil has a true being in the order of things) is not +only a difficulty of impossible solution, but is a fact necessarily +implying the non-existence of an omnipotent and infinite goodness,--that +is, of God. + +For to say that I believe in a God, but not that he is omnipotent, +omniscient, and all-good, is as mere a contradiction in terms as to say, +I believe in a circle, but not that all the rays from its centre to its +circumference are equal. + +I cannot read the profound truth so clearly expressed by Donne in the +next paragraph--"it does not only want that rectitude, but it should +have that rectitude, and therefore hath a sinful want"--without an +uneasy wonder at its incongruity with the preceding dogmas. + + +Serm. LXXI. Mat. iv. 18, 19, 20. p. 717. +Ib. p.725. A. + + But still consider, that they did but leave their nets, they did not + burn them. And consider, too, that they left but nets, those things + which might entangle them, and retard them in their following of + Christ, &c. + +An excellent paragraph grounded on a mere pun. Such was the taste of the +age; and it is an awful joy to observe, that not great learning, great +wit, great talent, not even (as far as without great virtue that can be) +great genius, were effectual to preserve the man from the contagion, but +only the deep and wise enthusiasm of moral feeling. Compare in this +light Donne's theological prose even with that of the honest Knox; and, +above all, compare Cowley with Milton. + + +Serm. LXXII. Mat. iv. 18, 19, 20. p. 726. +Ib. p.727. A.-E. + +It is amusing to see the use which the Christian divines make of the +very facts in favour of their own religion, with which they triumphantly +battered that of the heathens; namely, the gross and sinful +anthropomorphitism of their representations of the Deity; and yet the +heathen philosophers and priests--Plutarch for instance--tell us as +plainly as Donne or Aquinas can do, that these are only accommodations +to human modes of conception,--the divine nature being in itself +impassible;--how otherwise could it be the prime agent? + +Paganism needs a true philosophical judge. Condemned it will be, +perhaps, more heavily than by the present judges, but not from the same +statutes, nor on the same evidence. + + +'In fine.' + +If our old divines, in their homiletic expositions of Scripture, +wire-drew their text, in the anxiety to evolve out of the words the +fulness of the meaning expressed, implied, or suggested, our modern +preachers have erred more dangerously in the opposite extreme, by making +their text a mere theme, or 'motto', for their discourse. Both err in +degree; the old divines, especially the Puritans, by excess, the modern +by defect. But there is this difference to the disfavor of the latter, +that the defect in degree alters the kind. It was on God's holy word +that our Hookers, Donnes, Andrewses preached; it was Scripture bread +that they divided, according to the needs and seasons. The preacher of +our days expounds, or appears to expound, his own sentiments and +conclusions, and thinks himself evangelic enough if he can make the +Scripture seem in conformity with them. + +Above all, there is something to my mind at once elevating and soothing +in the idea of an order of learned men reading the many works of the +wise and great, in many languages, for the purpose of making one book +contain the life and virtue of all others, for their brethren's use who +have but that one to read. What, then, if that one book be such, that +the increase of learning is shown by more and more enabling the mind to +find them all in it! But such, according to my experience--hard as I am +on threescore--the Bible is, as far as all moral, spiritual, and +prudential,--all private, domestic, yea, even political, truths arid +interests are concerned. The astronomer, chemist, mineralogist, must go +elsewhere; but the Bible is the book for the man. + + + +[Footnote 1: The LXXX Sermons, fol. 1640.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: + + "Mr. Coleridge's admiration of Bull and Waterland as high theologians + was very great. Bull he used to read in the Latin 'Defensio Fidei + Nicoenoe', using the Jesuit Zola's edition of 1784, which, I think, + he bought at Rome. He told me once, that when he was reading a + Protestant English Bishop's work on the Trinity, in a copy edited by + an Italian Jesuit in Italy, he felt proud of the Church of England, + and in good humour with the Church of Rome." + +'Table Talk,' 2d edit. p. 41.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 3: Rom. vi. 3, 4, 5.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 4: John i 14. Gal. iv 4. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 5: See the whole argument on the difference of the reason and +the understanding, in the 'Aids to Reflection', 3d edit. pp. 206-227. +Ed.] + + +[Footnote 6: See the author's entire argument upon this subject in the +'Church and State'.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 7: Galat. ii 20.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 8: Compare 'Hamlet', Act V. sc. 1. This sermon was preached, +March 8, 1628-9.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 9: C. iii. 13, &c.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 10: See, however, the author's expressions at, I believe, a +rather later period. + + "I now think, after many doubts, that the passage; 'I know that my + Redeemer liveth', &c. may fairly be taken as a burst of determination, + a 'quasi' prophecy. I know not how this can be; but in spite of all my + difficulties, this I do know, that I shall be recompensed!" + +'Table Talk', 2d edit. p. 80.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 11: How so? Is it not admitted that Robert Stephens first +divided the New Testament into verses in 1551? See the testimony to that +effect of Henry Stephens, his son, in the Preface to his +Concordance.--Ed. ] + + +[Footnote 12: 'Rom'. viii. 3. Mr. C. afterwards expressed himself to the +same effect: + + "Christ's body, as mere body, or rather carcase (for body is an + associated word), was no more capable of sin or righteousness than + mine or yours; that his humanity had a capacity of sin, follows from + its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was tempted. How + could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being seduced?" + +'Table Talk', 2d edit. p. 261.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 13: See Hooker's admirable declaration of the doctrine:-- + + "These natures from the moment of their first combination have been + and are for ever inseparable. For even when his soul forsook the + tabernacle of his body, his Deity forsook neither body nor soul. If it + had, then could we not truly hold either that the person of Christ was + buried, or that the person of Christ did raise up itself from the + dead. For the body separated from the Word can in no true sense be + termed the person of Christ; nor is it true to say that the Son of God + in raising up that body did raise up himself, if the body were not + both with him and of him even during the time it lay in the sepulchre. + The like is also to be said of the soul, otherwise we are plainly and + inevitably Nestorians. The very person of Christ therefore for ever + one and the self-same, was only touching bodily substance concluded + within the grave, his soul only from thence severed, but by personal + union his Deity still unseparably joined with both." + +E. P. V. 52. 4.--'Keble's edit'. Ed. ] + + +[Footnote 14: xix. 41.--Ed. ] + + +[Footnote 15: (C.) which should be (B.) + + "The object of the preceding discourse was to recommend the Bible as + the end and centre of our reading and meditation. I can truly affirm + of myself, that my studies have been profitable and availing to me + only so far, as I have endeavored to use all my other knowledge as a + glass enabling me to receive more light in a wider field of vision + from the Word of God." + +Ed.] + + +[Footnote 16: Ep. 99. See Pearson, Art. v.--Ed. ] + + + + + + + +HENRY MORE'S THEOLOGICAL WORKS. [1] + + +There are three principal causes to which the imperfections and errors +in the theological schemes and works of our elder divines, the glories +of our Church,--men of almost unparalleled learning and genius, the rich +and robust intellects from the reign of Elizabeth to the death of +Charles II,--may, I think, be reasonably attributed. And striking, +unusually striking, instances of all three abound in this volume; and in +the works of no other divine are they more worthy of being regretted: +for hence has arisen a depreciation of Henry More's theological +writings, which yet contain more original, enlarged, and elevating views +of the Christian dispensation than I have met with in any other single +volume. For More had both the philosophic and the poetic genius, +supported by immense erudition. But unfortunately the two did not +amalgamate. It was not his good fortune to discover, as in the preceding +generation William Shakspeare discovered, a mordaunt' or common base of +both, and in which both the poetic and the philosophical power blended +in one. + +These causes are,-- + +First, and foremost,--the want of that logical [Greek: propaidéia +dokimastikàe], that critique of the human intellect, which, previously +to the weighing and measuring of this or that, begins by assaying the +weights, measures, and scales themselves; that fulfilment of the +heaven-descended 'nosce teipsum', in respect to the intellective part of +man, which was commenced in a sort of tentative broadcast way by Lord +Bacon in his 'Novum Organum', and brought to a systematic completion by +Immanuel Kant in his 'Kritik der reinen Vernunft, der Urtheilskrajt, und +der metaphysiche Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft'. + +From the want of this searching logic, there is a perpetual confusion of +the subjective with the objective in the arguments of our divines, +together with a childish or anile overrating of human testimony, and an +ignorance in the art of sifting it, which necessarily engendered +credulity. + +Second,--the ignorance of natural science, their physiography scant in +fact, and stuffed out with fables; their physiology imbrangled with an +inapplicable logic and a misgrowth of 'entia rationalia', that is, +substantiated abstractions; and their physiogony a blank or dreams of +tradition, and such "intentional colours" as occupy space but cannot +fill it. Yet if Christianity is to be the religion of the world, if +Christ be that Logos or Word that 'was in the beginning', by whom all +things 'became'; if it was the same Christ who said, 'Let there be +light'; who in and by the creation commenced that great redemptive +process, the history of life which begins in its detachment from nature, +and is to end in its union with God;--if this be true, so true must it +be that the book of nature and the book of revelation, with the whole +history of man as the intermediate link, must be the integral and +coherent parts of one great work: and the conclusion is, that a scheme +of the Christian faith which does not arise out of, and shoot its beams +downward into, the scheme of nature, but stands aloof as an insulated +afterthought, must be false or distorted in all its particulars. In +confirmation of this position, I may challenge any opponent to adduce a +single instance in which the now exploded falsities of physical science, +through all its revolutions from the second to the seventeenth century +of the Christian æra, did not produce some corresponding warps in the +theological systems and dogmas of the several periods. + +The third and last cause, and especially operative in the writings of +this author, is the presence and regnancy of a false and fantastic +philosophy, yet shot through with refracted light from the not risen but +rising truth,--a scheme of physics and physiology compounded of +Cartesian mechanics and empiricism (for it was the credulous childhood +of experimentalism), and a corrupt, mystical, theurgical, +pseudo-Platonism, which infected the rarest minds under the Stuart +dynasty. The only not universal belief in witchcraft and apparitions, +and the vindication of such monster follies by such men as Sir M. Hale, +Glanville, Baxter, Henry More, and a host of others, are melancholy +proofs of my position. Hence, in the first chapters of this volume, the +most idle inventions of the ancients are sought to be made credible by +the most fantastic hypotheses and analogies. + +To the man who has habitually contemplated Christianity as interesting +all rational finite beings, as the very 'spirit of truth', the +application of the prophecies as so many fortune-tellings and +soothsayings to particular events and persons, must needs be felt as +childish--like faces seen in the moon, or the sediments of a teacup. But +reverse this, and a Pope and a Buonaparte can never be wanting,--the +molehill becomes an Andes. On the other hand, there are few writers +whose works could be so easily defecated as More's. Mere omission would +suffice; and perhaps one half (an unusually large proportion) would come +forth from the furnace pure gold; if but a fourth, how great a gain! + + +EXPLANATION OF THE GRAND MYSTERY OF GODLINESS. + +Dedication. 'Servorum illius omnium indignissimus.' + +'Servus indignissimus,' or 'omnino indignus', or any other positive +self-abasement before God, I can understand; but how an express avowal +of unworthiness, comparatively superlative, can consist with the +Job-like integrity and sincerity of profession especially required in a +solemn address to Him, to whom all hearts are open, this I do not +understand in the case of such men as Henry More, Jeremy Taylor, Richard +Baxter were, and by comparison at least with the multitude of evil +doers, must have believed themselves to be. + + +Ib. V. c.14. s.3. + + This makes me not so much wonder at that passage of Providence, which + allowed so much virtue to the bones of the martyr Babylas, once bishop + of Antioch, as to stop the mouth of Apollo Daphneus when Julian would + have enticed him to open it by many a fat sacrifice. To say nothing of + several other memorable miracles that were done by the reliques of + saints and martyrs in those times. + +Strange lingering of childish credulity in the most learned and in many +respects enlightened divines of the Protestant episcopal church even to +the time of James II! The Popish controversy at that time made a great +clearance. + + +Ib. s. 9. + +At one time Professor Eichorn had persuaded me that the Apocalypse was +authentic; that is, a Danielitic dramatic poem written by the Apostle +and Evangelist John, and not merely under his name. But the repeated +perusal of the vision has sadly unsettled my conclusion. The entire +absence of all spirituality perplexes me, as forming so strong a +contrast with the Gospel and Epistles of John; and then the too great +appearance of an allusion to the fable of Nero's return to life and +empire, to Simon Magus and Apollonius of Tyana on the one hand (that is +the Eichornian hypothesis), and the insurmountable difficulties of +Joseph Mede and others on to Bicheno and Faber on the other. In short, I +feel just as both Luther and Calvin felt,--that is, I know not what to +make of it, and so leave it alone. + +It is much to be regretted that we have no contemporary history of +Apollonius, or of the reports concerning him, and the popular notions in +his own time. For from the romance of Philostratus we cannot be sure as +to the fact of the lies themselves. It may be a lie, that there ever was +such or such a lie in circulation. + + +Ib. c. 15. s. 2. + + Fourthly. The 'little horn', Dan. vii, that rules 'for a time and + times and half a time', it is evident that it is not Antiochus + Epiphanes, because this 'little horn' is part of the fourth + beast--namely, the Roman. + +Is it quite clear that the Macedonian was not the fourth empire; + +1. the Assyrian; +2. the Median; +3. the Persian; +4. the Macedonian? + +However, what a strange prophecy, that, 'e confesso' having been +fulfilled, remains as obscure as before! + +Ib. s. 6 + + 'And ye shall have the tribulation of ten days',--that is, the utmost + extent of tribulation; beyond which there is nothing further, as there + is no number beyond ten. + +It means, I think, the very contrary. 'Decent dierum' is used even in +Terence for a very short time. [2] In the same way we say, a nine days' +wonder. + + +Ib. c. 16. s. 1. + + But for further conviction of the excellency of Mr. Mede's way above + that of Grotius, I shall compare some of their main interpretations. + +Hard to say which of the two, Mede's or Grotius', is the more +improbable. Beyond doubt, however, the Cherubim are meant as the scenic +ornature borrowed from the Temple. + + +Ib. s. 2. + + That this 'rider of the white horse' is Christ, they both agree + in. + +The 'white horse' is, I conceive, Victory or Triumph--that is, of the +Roman power--followed by Slaughter, Famine, and Pestilence. All this is +plain enough. The difficulty commences after the writer is deserted by +his historical facts, that is, after the sacking of Jerusalem. + + +Ib. s. 5. + +It would be no easy matter to decide, whether Mede plus More was at a +greater distance from the meaning, or Grotius from the poetry, of this +eleventh chapter of the Revelations; whether Mede was more wild, or +Grotius more tame, flat, and prosaic. + + +Ib. c. 17. s. 8. + + The Old and New Testament, which by a 'prosopopoeia' are here called + the 'two witnesses.' + +Where is the probability of this so long before the existence of the +collection since called the New Testament? + + +Ib. vi. c. l. s. 2. + +We may draw from this passage (1 'Thess'. iv. 16, 17.) the strongest +support of the fact of the ascension of Christ, or at least of St. +Paul's (and of course of the first generation of Christians') belief of +it. For had they not believed his ascent, whence could they have derived +the universal expectation of his descent,--his bodily, personal descent? +The only scruple is, that all these circumstances were parts of the +Jewish 'cabala' or idea of the Messiah by the spiritualists before the +Christian æra, and therefore taken for granted with respect to Jesus as +soon as he was admitted to be the Messiah. + + +Ib. s. 6. + + But light-minded men, whose hearts are made dark with infidelity, care + not what antic distortions they make in interpreting Scripture, so + they bring it to any show of compliance with their own fancy and + incredulity. + +Why so very harsh a censure? What moral or spiritual, or even what +physical, difference can be inferred from all men's dying, this of one +thing, that of another, a third, like the martyrs, burnt alive, or all +in the same way? In any case they all die, and all pass to judgment. + + +Ib. c. 15. + +With his 'semi'-Cartesian, 'semi'-Platonic, 'semi'-Christian notions, +Henry More makes a sad jumble in his assertion of chronochorhistorical +Christianity. One decisive reference to the ascension of the visible and +tangible Jesus from the surface of the earth upward through the clouds, +pointed out in the writings of St. Paul or in the Gospel, beginning as +it certainly did, and as in the copy according to Mark it now does, with +the baptism of John, or in the writings of the Apostle John, would have +been more effective in flooring Old Nic of Amsterdam [3] and his +familiars, than volumes of such "maybe's," "perhapses," and "should be +rendered," as these. + + +Ib. viii. c. 2. c. 6. + + I must confess our Saviour compiled no books, it being a piece of + pedantry below so noble and divine a person, &c. + + +Alas! all this is woefully beneath the dignity of Henry More, and +shockingly against the majesty of the High and Holy One, so very +unnecessarily compared with Hendrick Nicholas, of Amsterdam, mercer! + + +Ib. x. c. 13. s. 5, 6. + +A new sect naturally attracts to itself a portion of the madmen of the +time, and sets another portion into activity as alarmists and +oppugnants. I cannot therefore pretend to say what More might not have +found in the writings, or heard from the mouth, of some lunatic who +called himself a Quaker. But I do not recollect, in any work of an +acknowledged Friend, a denial of the facts narrated by the Evangelists, +as having really taken place in the same sense as any other facts of +history. If they were symbols of spiritual acts and processes, as Fox +and Penn contended, they must have been, or happened;--else how could +they be symbols? + +It is too true, however, that the positive creed of the Quakers is and +ever has been extremely vague and misty. The deification of the +conscience, under the name of the Spirit, seems the main article of +their faith; and of the rest they form no opinion at all, considering it +neither necessary nor desirable. I speak of Quakers in general. But what +a lesson of experience does not this thirteenth chapter of so great and +good a man as H. More afford to us, who know what the Quakers really +are! Had the followers of George Fox, or any number of them +collectively, acknowledged the mad notions of this Hendrick Nicholas? If +not---- + + + +INQUIRY INTO THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY. + +Part II. ii. c. 2. + + Confutation of Grotius on the 17th chapter of the Apocalypse. + +Has or has not Grotius been overrated? If Grotius applied these words +('magnus testis et historiarum diligentissimus inquisitor') to +Epiphanius in honest earnest, and not ironically, he must have been +greatly inferior in sound sense and critical tact both to Joseph +Scaliger and to Rhenferd. Strange, that to Henry More, a poet and a man +of fine imagination, it should never have occurred to ask himself, +whether this scene, Patmos, with which the drama commences, was not a +part of the poem, and, like all other parts, to be interpreted +symbolically? That the poetic--and I see no reason for doubting the +real--date of the Apocalypse is under Vespasian, is so evidently implied +in the five kings preceding (for Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, were +abortive emperors) that it seems to me quite lawless to deny it. That +[Greek: Lateinos] is the meaning of the 666, (c. xiii. 18.) and the +treasonable character of this, are both shown by Irenæus's pretended +rejection, and his proposal of the perfectly senseless 'Teitan' instead. + + + +[Footnote 1: Folio. 1708.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: 'Decem dierum vix mihi est familia'. Heaut. v. i.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 3: Hendrick Nicholas and the Family of Love.--Ed.] + + + + + +HEINRICHS'S COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE. [1] + +P. 245. + +It seems clear that Irenæus invented the unmeaning 'Teitan', in order to +save himself from the charge of treason, to which the 'Lateinos' might +have exposed him. See Rabelais 'passim'. + + +P.246. + + 'Nec magis blandiri poterit alterum illud nomen, Teitan, quod studiose + commendavit Irenoeus'. + +No! 'non studiose, sed ironice commendavit Irenæus'. Indeed it is +ridiculous to suppose that Irenæus was in earnest with 'Teitan'. His +meaning evidently is:--if not 'Lateinos', which has a meaning, it is +some one of the many names having the same numeral power, to which a +meaning is to be found by the fulfillment of the prophecy. My own +conviction is, that the whole is an ill-concerted conundrum, the secret +of which died with the author. The general purpose only can be +ascertained, namely, some test, partaking of religious obligation, of +allegiance to the sovereignty of the Roman Emperor. + +If I granted for a moment the truth of Heinrichs's supposition, namely, +that, according to the belief of the Apocalypt, the line of the Emperors +would cease in Titus the seventh or complete number (Galba, Otho, and +Vitellius, being omitted) by the advent of the Messiah;--if I found my +judgment more coerced by his arguments than it is,--then I should use +this book as evidence of the great and early discrepance between the +Jewish-Christian Church and the Pauline; and my present very serious +doubts respecting the identity of John the Theologian and John the +Evangelist would become fixed convictions of the contrary. + + +P. 91. Rev. xvii. 11. + +Among other grounds for doubting this interpretation (that 'the eighth' +in v.11. is Satan), I object, 1. that it almost necessitates the +substitution of the Coptic [Greek: aggelos] for [Greek: ogdoos] against +all the MSS., and without any Patristic hint. For it seems a play with +words unworthy the writer, to make Satan, who possessed all the seven, +himself an 'eighth', and still worse if 'the eighth': 2. that it is not +only a great and causeless inconcinnity in style, but a wanton adding of +obscurity to the obscure to have, first, so carefully distinguished (c. +xiii. 1-11.) the [Greek: drák_on] from the two [Greek: tháeria], and the +one [Greek: thaeríon] from the other, and then to make [Greek: thaeríon] +the appellative of the [Greek: drák_on]: as if having in one place told +of Nicholas 'senior', Dick and another Dick his cousin, I should soon +after talk of Dick, meaning old Nicholas by that name; that is, having +discriminated Nicholas from Dick, then to say Dick, meaning Nicholas! + + +Rev. xix. 9. + +These words might well bear a more recondite interpretation; that is, +[Greek: outoi] (these blessed ones) are the true [Greek: lógoi] or +[Greek: tékna Theou], as the Logos is the [Greek: huiòs Theou]. + + +Ib. 10. + +According to the law of symbolic poetry this sociable angel (the +Beatrice of the Hebrew Dante) ought to be, and I doubt not is, 'sensu +symbolico', an angel; that is, the angel of the Church of Ephesus, John +the Evangelist, according to the opinion of Eusebius. + + +P. 294. Rev. xx. 'Millennium'. + + 'Die vorzüglichsten Bekenner Jesu sollen auferstehen, die übrigen + Menschen sollen es nicht. Hiesse jenes, sie sollen noch nach ihrem + Tode fortwürken, so wäre das letztere falsch: denn auch die übrigen + würken nach ihrem Tode durch ihre schriften, ihre Andenken, ihre + Beispiel.' + + +'Euge! Heinrichi'. O, the sublime bathos of thy prosaism--the muddy +eddy of thy logic! Thou art the only man to understand a poet! + +I have too clearly before me the idea of a poet's genius to deem myself +other than a very humble poet; but in the very possession of the idea, I +know myself so far a poet as to feel assured that I can understand and +interpret a poem in the spirit of poetry, and with the poet's spirit. +Like the ostrich, I cannot fly, yet have I wings that give me the +feeling of flight; and as I sweep along the plain, can look up toward +the bird of Jove, and can follow him and say: + + "Sovereign of the air,--who descendest on thy nest in the cleft of the + inaccessible rock, who makest the mountain pinnacle thy perch and + halting-place, and, scanning with steady eye the orb of glory right + above thee, imprintest thy lordly talons in the stainless snows, that + shoot back and scatter round his glittering shafts,--I pay thee + homage. Thou art my king. I give honor due to the vulture, the falcon, + and all thy noble baronage; and no less to the lowly bird, the + sky-lark, whom thou permittest to visit thy court, and chant her matin + song within its cloudy curtains; yea the linnet, the thrush, the + swallow, are my brethren:--but still I am a bird, though but a bird of + the earth. + + "Monarch of our kind, I am a bird, even as thou; and I have shed + plumes, which have added beauty to the beautiful, and grace to terror, + waving over the maiden's brow and on the helmed head of the war-chief; + and majesty to grief, drooping o'er the car of death!" + + + +[Footnote 1: Göttingen, 1821. The few following notes are, something out +of order, inserted here in consequence of their connection with the +immediately preceding remarks in the text.--Ed.] + + + + + +LIFE OF BISHOP HACKET. [1] + + +Ib. p. 8. + + Yet he would often dispute the necessity of a country living for a + London minister to retire to in hot summer time, out of the sepulchral + air of a churchyard, where most of them are housed in the city, and + found for his own part that by Whitsuntide he did 'rus anhelare', and + unless he took fresh air in the vacation, he was stopt in his lungs + and could not speak clear after Michaelmas. + +A plausible reason certainly why A. and B. should occasionally change +posts, but a very weak one, methinks, for A.'s having both livings all +the year through. + + +Ib. p. 42-3. + + The Bishop was an enemy to all separation from the Church of England; + but their hypocrisy he thought superlative that allowed the doctrine, + and yet would separate for mislike of the discipline. ... And + therefore he wished that as of old all kings and other Christians + subscribed to the Conciliary Decrees, so now a law might pass that all + justices of peace should do so in England, and then they would be more + careful to punish the depravers of Church Orders. + +The little or no effect of recent experience and sufferings still more +recent, in curing the mania of persecution! How was it possible that a +man like Bishop Hacket should not have seen that if separation on +account of the imposition of things by himself admitted to be +indifferent, and as such justified, was criminal in those who did not +think them indifferent,--how doubly criminal must the imposition have +been, and how tenfold criminal the perseverance in occasioning +separation; how guilty the imprisoning, impoverishing, driving into +wildernesses their Christian brethren for admitted indifferentials in +direct contempt of St. Paul's positive command to the contrary! + + + + +HACKET'S SERMONS. + + +Serm. I. Luke ii. 7. + + Moreover as the woman Mary did bring forth the son who bruised the + serpent's head, which brought sin into the world by the woman Eve, so + the Virgin Mary was the occasion of grace as the Virgin Eve was the + cause of damnation. Eve had not known Adam as yet when she was + beguiled and seduced the man; so Mary, &c. + +A Rabbinical fable or gloss on Gen. iii. 1. Hacket is offensively fond +of these worse than silly vanities. + + +Ib. p. 5. + + The more to illustrate this, you must know that there was a twofold + root or foundation of the children of Israel for their temporal being: + Abraham was the root of the people; the kingdom was rent from Saul, + and therefore David was the root of the kingdom; among all the kings + in the pedigree none but he hath the name; and Jesse begat David the + king, and David the king begat Solomon; and therefore so often as God + did profess to spare the people, though he were angry, he says he + would do it for Abraham's sake: so often as he professeth to spare the + kingdom of Judah, he says he would do it for his servant David's sake; + so that 'ratione radicis', as Abraham and David are roots of the + people and kingdom, especially Christ is called the Son of David, the + Son of Abraham. + +A valuable remark, and confirmative of my convictions respecting the +conversion of the Jews, namely, that whatever was ordained for them as +'Abrahamidæ' is not repealed by Christianity, but only what appertained +to the republic, kingdom, or state. The modern conversions are, as it +seems to me, in the face of God's commands. + + +Ib. + + I come to the third strange condition of the birth; it was without + travel, or the pangs of woman, as I will shew you out of these words; + 'fasciis involvit', that 'she wrapt him in swaddling clouts, and laid + him in a manger. Ipsa genitrix fuit obstetrix', says St. Cyprian. Mary + was both the mother and the midwife of the child; far be it from us to + think that the weak hand of the woman could facilitate the work which + was guided only by the miraculous hand of God. The Virgin conceived + our Lord without the lusts of the flesh, and therefore she had not the + pangs and travel of woman upon her, she brought him forth without the + curse of the flesh. These be the Fathers' comparisons. As bees draw + honey from the flower without offending it, as Eve was taken out of + Adam's side without any grief to him, as a sprig issues out of the + bark of a tree, as the sparkling light from the brightness of the + star, such ease was it to Mary to bring forth her first born son; and + therefore having no weakness in her body, feeling no want of vigor, + she did not deliver him to any profane hand to be drest, but by a + special ability, above all that are newly delivered, she wrapt him in + swaddling clouts. 'Gravida, sed non gravabatur'; she had a burden in + her womb, before she was delivered, and yet she was not burdened for + her journey which she took so instantly before the time of the child's + birth. From Nazareth to Bethlem was above forty miles, and yet she + suffered it without weariness or complaint, for such was the power of + the Babe, that rather he did support the Mother's weakness than was + supported; and as he lighted his Mother's travel by the way from + Nazareth to Bethlem that it was not tedious to her tender age, so he + took away all her dolour and imbecility from her travel in + child-birth, and therefore 'she wrapt him in swaddling clouts'. + +A very different paragraph indeed, and quite on the cross road to Rome! +It really makes me melancholy; but it is one of a thousand instances of +the influence of Patristic learning, by which the Reformers of the Latin +Church were distinguished from the renovators of the Christian religion. + +Can we wonder that the strict Protestants were jealous of the +backsliding of the Arminian prelatical clergy and of Laud their leader, +when so strict a Calvinist as Bishop Hacket could trick himself up in +such fantastic rags and lappets of Popish monkery!--could skewer such +frippery patches, cribbed from the tyring room of Romish Parthenolatry, +on the sober gown and cassock of a Reformed and Scriptural Church! + + +Ib. p. 7. + + But to say the truth, was he not safer among the beasts than he could + be elsewhere in all the town of Bethlem? His enemies perchance would + say unto him, as Jael did to Sisera, 'Turn in, turn in, my Lord', when + she purposed to kill him; as the men of Keilah made a fair shew to + give David all courteous hospitality, but the issue would prove, if + God had not blessed him, that they meant to deliver him into the hands + of Saul that sought his blood. So there was no trusting of the + Bethlemites. Who knows, but that they would have prevented Judas, and + betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver unto Herod? More humanity is + to be expected from the beasts than from some men, and therefore she + laid him in a manger. + +Did not the life of Archbishop Williams prove otherwise, I should have +inferred from these Sermons that Hacket from his first boyhood had been +used to make themes, epigrams, copies of verses, and the like, on all +the Sunday feasts and festivals of the Church; had found abundant +nourishment for this humour of points, quirks, and quiddities in the +study of the Fathers and glossers; and remained a 'junior soph' all his +life long. I scarcely know what to say: on the one hand, there is a +triflingness, a shewman's or relique-hawker's gossip that stands in +offensive contrast with the momentous nature of the subject, and the +dignity of the ministerial office; as if a preacher having chosen the +Prophets for his theme should entertain his congregation by exhibiting a +traditional shaving rag of Isaiah's with the Prophet's stubble hair on +the dried soap-sud. And yet, on the other hand, there is an innocency in +it, a security of faith, a fulness evinced in the play and plash of its +overflowing, that at other times give one the same sort of pleasure as +the sight of blackberry bushes and children's handkerchief-gardens on +the slopes of a rampart, the promenade of some peaceful old town, that +stood the last siege in the Thirty Years' war! + + +Ib. Serm. II. Luke ii. 8. + + Tiberius propounded his mind to the senate of Rome, that Christ, the + great prophet in Jewry, should be had in the same honour with the + other gods which they worshipped in the Capitol. The motion did not + please them, says Eusebius; and this was all the fault, because he was + a god not of their own, but of Tiberius' invention. + +Here, I own, the negative evidence of the silence of Seneca and +Suetonius--above all, of Tacitus and Pliny--outweigh in my mind the +positive testimony of Eusebius, which rested, I suspect, on the same +ground with the letters of Pontius Pilate, so boldly appealed to by +Tertullian. [2] + + +Ib. Serm. III. Luke ii. 9. + + But our bodies shall revive out of that dust into which they were + dissolved, and live for ever in the resurrection of the righteous. + +I never could satisfy myself as to the continuance and catholicity of +this strange Egyptian tenet in the very face of St. Paul's indignant, +'Thou fool! not that, &c.' I have at times almost been tempted to +conjecture that Paul taught a different doctrine from the Palestine +disciples on this point, and that the Church preferred the sensuous and +therefore more popular belief of the Evangelists' [Greek: katà sárka] to +the more intelligible faith of the spiritual sage of the other Athens; +for so Tarsus was called. + +And was there no symptom of a commencing relapse to the errors of that +Church which had equalled the traditions of men, yea, the dreams of +phantasts with the revelations of God, when a chosen elder with the law +of truth before him, and professing to divide and distribute the bread +of life, could, paragraph after paragraph, place such unwholesome +vanities as these before his flock, without even a hint which might +apprize them that the gew-gaw comfits were not part of the manna from +heaven? All this superstitious trash about angels, which the Jews +learned from the Persian legends, asserted as confidently as if Hacket +had translated it word for word from one of the four Gospels! Salmasius, +if I mistake not, supposes the original word to have been bachelors, +young unmarried men. Others interpret angels as meaning the bishop and +elders of the Church. More probably it was a proverbial expression +derived from the Cherubim in the Temple: something as the country folks +used to say to children, Take care, the Fairies will hear you! It was a +common notion among the Jews, in the time of St. Paul, that their angels +were employed in carrying up their prayers to the throne of God. Of +course they must have been in special attendance in a house of prayer. + +After much search and much thought on the subject of angels as a diverse +kind of finite beings, I find no sufficing reason to hold it for a +revealed doctrine, and if not revealed it is assuredly no truth of +philosophy, which, as I have elsewhere remarked, can conceive but three +kinds; 1. the infinite reason; 2. the finite rational; and 3. the finite +irrational--that is, God, man, and beast. What indeed, even for the +vulgar, is or can an archangel be but a man with wings, better or worse +than the wingless species according as the feathers are white or black? +I would that the word had been translated instead of Anglicised in our +English Bible. + +The following paragraph is one of Hacket's sweetest passages. It is +really a beautiful little hymn. + + By this it appears how suitably a beam of admirable light did concur + in the angels' message to set out the majesty of the Son of God: and I + beseech you observe,--all you that would keep a good Christmas as you + ought,--that the glory of God is the best celebration of his Son's + nativity; and all your pastimes and mirth (which I disallow not, but + rather commend in moderate use) must so be managed, without riot, + without surfeiting, without excessive gaming, without pride and vain + pomp, in harmlessness, in sobriety, as if the glory of the Lord were + round about us. Christ was born to save them that were lost; but + frequently you abuse his nativity with so many vices, such disordered + outrages, that you make this happy time an occasion for your loss + rather than for your salvation. Praise him in the congregation of the + people! praise him in your inward heart! praise him with the sanctity + of your life! praise him in your charity to them that need and are in + want! This is the glory of God shining round, and the most Christian + solemnizing of the birth of Jesus. + + + + +SERMONS ON THE TEMPTATION. + + +As the Temptation is found in the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and +Luke, it must have formed part of the 'Prot-evangelion', or original +Gospel;--from the Apostles, therefore, it must have come, and from some +or all who had heard the account from our Lord himself. How, then, are +we to understand it? To confute the whims and superstitious nugacities +of these Sermons, and the hundred other comments and interpretations +'ejusdem farinæ', would be a sad waste of time. Yet some meaning, and +that worthy of Christ, it must have had. The struggle with the +suggestions of the evil principle, first, to force his way and compel +belief by a succession of miracles, disjoined from moral and spiritual +purpose,--miracles for miracles' sake;--second, doubts of his Messianic +character and divinity, and temptations to try it by some ordeal at the +risk of certain death;--third, to interpret his mission, as his +countrymen generally did, to be one of conquest and royalty;--these +perhaps--but I am lost in doubt. + + + + +SERMON ON THE TRANSFIGURATION. + +Luke IX. 33. + + 'I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, + my kinsmen according to the flesh'. + + Rom. ix. 3. + +St. Paul does not say, "I would desire to be accursed," nor does he +speak of any deliberated result of his consideration; but represents a +transient passion of his soul, an actual but undetermined impulse,--an +impulse existing in and for itself in the moment of its ebullience, and +not completed by an act and confirmation of the will,--as a striking +proof of the exceeding interest which he continued to feel in the +welfare of his countrymen, His heart so swelled with love and compassion +for them, that if it were possible, if reason and conscience permitted +it, 'Methinks,' says he, 'I could wish that myself were accursed, if so +they might be saved.' Might not a mother, figuring to herself as +possible and existing an impossible or not existing remedy for a dying +child, exclaim, 'Oh, I could fly to the end of the earth to procure it!' +Let it not be irreverent, if I refer to the fine passage in +Shakspeare--Hotspur's rapture-like reverie--so often ridiculed by +shallow wits. In great passion, the crust opake of present and existing +weakness and boundedness is, as it were, fused and vitrified for the +moment, and through the transparency the soul, catching a gleam of the +infinity of the potential in the will of man, reads the future for the +present. Percy is wrapt in the contemplation of the physical might +inherent in the concentrated will; the inspired Apostle in the sudden +sense of the depth of its moral strength. + + + + +SERMON ON THE RESURRECTION. + +Acts II. 4. + + Thirdly, the necessity of it: 'for it was not possible that he should + be holden of death'. + +One great error of textual divines is their inadvertence to the dates, +occasion, object and circumstances, at and under which the words were +written or spoken. Thus the simple assertion of one or two facts +introductory to the teaching of the Christian religion is taken as +comprising or constituting the Christian religion itself. Hence the +disproportionate weight laid on the simple fact of the resurrection of +Jesus, detached from the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption. + + +Ib. + + St. Austin says, that Tully, in his '3 lib. de Republica', disputed + against the reuniting of soul and body. His argument was, To what end? + Where should they remain together? For a body cannot be assumed into + heaven. I believe God caused those famous monuments of his wit to + perish, because of such impious opinions wherewith they were farced. + +I believe, however, that these books have recently themselves enjoyed a +resurrection by the labor of Angelo Mai. [3] + + +Ib. + + And let any equal auditor judge if Job were not an Anti-Socinian; Job + xix. 26. 'Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my + flesh shall I see God, whom I shall behold for myself, and mine eyes + shall see, and not another'. + +This text rightly rendered is perhaps nothing to the purpose, but may +refer to the dire cutaneous disease with which Job was afflicted. It may +be merely an expression of Job's confidence of his being justified in +the eyes of men, and in this life. [4] + +In the whole wide range of theological 'mirabilia', I know none stranger +than the general agreement of orthodox divines to forget to ask +themselves what they precisely meant by the word 'body.' Our Lord's and +St. Paul's meaning is evident enough, that is, the personality. + + +Ib. + + St. Chrysostom's judgment upon it ('having loosed the pains of death') + is, that when Christ came out of the grave, death itself was delivered + from pain and anxiety--[Greek: _odike katéchon autòn thánatos, kaì tà + deinà epasche.] Death knew it held him captive whom it ought not to + have seized upon, and therefore it suffered torments like a woman in + travail till it had given him up again. Thus he. But the Scripture + elsewhere testifies, that death was put to sorrow because it had lost + its sting, rather than released from sorrow by our Saviour's + resurrection. + +Most noticeable! See the influence of the surrounding myriotheism in the +'dea Mors!' + + +Ib. + +Let any competent judge read Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, and +then these Sermons, and so measure the stultifying, nugifying effect of +a blind and uncritical study of the Fathers, and the exclusive +prepossession in favor of their authority in the minds of many of our +Church dignitaries in the reign of Charles I. + + + + +HACKET'S LIFE OF LORD KEEPER WILLIAMS. [5] + +Prudence installed as virtue, instead of being employed as one of her +indispensable handmaids, and the products of this exemplified and +illustrated in the life of Archbishop Williams, as a work, I could +warmly recommend to my dearest Hartley. Williams was a man bred up to +the determination of being righteous, both honorably striving and +selfishly ambitious, but all within the bounds and permission of the +law, the reigning system of casuistry; in short, an egotist in morals, +and a worldling in impulses and motives. And yet by pride and by innate +nobleness of nature munificent and benevolent, with all the negative +virtues of temperance, chastity, and the like,--take this man on his +road to his own worldly aggrandizement. Winding his way through a grove +of powerful rogues, by flattery, professions of devoted attachment, and +by actual and zealous as well as able services, and at length becoming +in fact nearly as great a knave as the knaves (Duke of Buckingham for +example) whose favor and support he had been conciliating,--till at last +in some dilemma, some strait between conscience and fear, and increased +confidence in his own political strength, he opposes or hesitates to +further some too foolish or wicked project of his patron knave, or +affronts his pride by counselling a different course (not a less wicked, +but one more profitable and conducive to his Grace's elevation);-and +then is 'floored' or crushed by him, and falls unknown and unpitied. +Such was that truly wonderful scholar and statesman, Archbishop +Williams. + + +Part 1. s. 61. + + 'And God forbid that any other course, should be attempted. For this + liberty was settled on the subject, with such imprecations upon the + infringers, that if they should remove these great landmarks, they + must look for vengeance, as if entailed by public vows on them and + their posterity.' These were the Dean's instructions, &c. + +He deserves great credit for them. They put him in strong contrast with +Laud. + + +Ib. s. 80. + + Thus for them both together he solicits:--My most noble lord, what + true applause and admiration the King and your Honor have gained, &c. + +All this we, in the year 1833, should call abject and base; but was it +so in Bishop Williams? In the history of the morality of a people, +prudence, yea cunning, is the earliest form of virtue. This is expressed +in Jacob, and in Ulysses and all the most ancient fables. It will +require the true philosophic calm and serenity to distinguish and +appreciate the character of the morality of our great men from Henry +VIII to the close of James I,--'nullum numen abest, si sit +prudentia',--and of those of Charles I to the Restoration. The +difference almost amounts to contrast. + + +Ib. s. 81-2. + +How is it that any deeply-read historian should not see how imperfect +and precarious the rights of personal liberty were during this period; +or, seeing it, refuse to do justice to the patriots under Charles I? The +truth is, that from the reign of Edward I, (to go no farther backward), +there was a spirit of freedom in the people at large, which all our +kings in their senses were cautious not to awaken by too rudely treading +on it; but for individuals, as such, there was none till the conflict +with the Stuarts. + + +Ib. s. 84. + + Of such a conclusion of state, 'quæ aliquando incognita, semper + justa', &c. + +This perversion of words respecting the decrees of Providence to the +caprices of James and his beslobbered minion the Duke of Buckingham, is +somewhat nearer to blasphemy than even the euphuism of the age can +excuse. + + +Ib. s. 85. + + ... tuus, O Jacobe, quod optas + Explorare labor, mihi jussa capessere fas est. + + +In our times this would be pedantic wit: in the days of James I, and in +the mouth of Archbishop Williams it was witty pedantry. + + +Ib. s. 89. + + He that doth much in a short life products his mortality. + +'Products' for 'produces;' that is, lengthens out, 'ut apud geometros'. +But why Hacket did not say 'prolongs,' I know not. + + +Ib. + + See what a globe of light there is in natural reason, which is the + same in every man: but when it takes well, and riseth to perfection, + it is called wisdom in a few. + +The good affirming itself--(the will, I am)--begetteth the true, and +wisdom is the spirit proceeding. But in the popular acceptation, common +sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. + + +Ib. s. 92. + + A well-spirited clause, and agreeable to holy assurance, that truth is + more like to win than love. Could the light of such a Gospel as we + profess be eclipsed with the interposition of a single marriage? + +And yet Hacket must have lived to see the practical confutation of this +shallow Gnathonism in the result of the marriage with the Papist +Henrietta of France! + + +Ib. s. 96. + + "Floud," says the Lord Keeper, "since I am no Bishop in your opinion, + I will be no Bishop to you." + +I see the wit of this speech; but the wisdom, the Christianity, the +beseemingness of it in a Judge and a Bishop,--what am I to say of that? + + +Ib. + + And after the period of his presidency (of the Star Chamber), it is + too well known how far the enhancements were stretched. 'But the + wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood'. Prov. 30-33. + +We may learn from this and fifty other passages, that it did not require +the factious prejudices of Prynne or Burton to look with aversion on the +proceedings of Laud. Bishop Hacket was as hot a royalist as a loyal +Englishman could be, yet Laud was 'allii nimis'. + + +Ib. s. 97. + + New stars have appeared and vanished: the ancient asterisms remain; + there's not an old star missing. + +If they had been, they would not have been old. This therefore, like +many of Lord Bacon's illustrations, has more wit than meaning. But it is +a good trick of rhetoric. The vividness of the image, 'per se', makes +men overlook the imperfection of the simile. "You see my hand, the hand +of a poor, puny fellow-mortal; and will you pretend not to see the hand +of Providence in this business? He who sees a mouse must be wilfully +blind if he does not see an elephant!" + + +Ib. s. 100. + +The error of the first James,--an ever well-intending, well-resolving, +but, alas! ill-performing monarch, a kind-hearted, affectionate, and +fondling old man, really and extensively learned, yea, and as far as +quick wit and a shrewd judgment go to the making up of wisdom, wise in +his generation, and a pedant by the right of pedantry, conceded at that +time to all men of learning (Bacon for example),--his error, I say, +consisted in the notion, that because the stalk and foliage were +originally contained in the seed, and were derived from it, therefore +they remained so in point of right after their evolution. The kingly +power was the seed; the House of Commons and the municipal charters and +privileges the stock of foliage; the unity of the realm, or what we mean +by the constitution, is the root. Meanwhile the seed is gone, and +reappears as the crown and glorious flower of the plant. But James, in +my honest judgment, was an angel compared with his son and grandsons. As +Williams to Laud, so James I was to Charles I. + + +Ib. + + Restraint is not a medicine to cure epidemical diseases. + +A most judicious remark. + + +Ib. s. 103. + + The least connivance in the world towards the person of a Papist. + +It is clear to us that this illegal or 'præter'-legal and desultory +toleration by connivance at particular cases,--this precarious depending +on the momentary mood of the King, and this in a stretch of a questioned +prerogative,--could neither satisfy nor conciliate the Roman-Catholic +potentates abroad, but was sure to offend and alarm the Protestants at +home. Yet on the other hand, it is unfair as well as unwise to censure +the men of an age for want of that which was above their age. The true +principle, much more the practicable rules, of toleration were in +James's time obscure to the wisest; but by the many, laity no less than +clergy, would have been denounced as soul-murder and disguised atheism. +In fact--and a melancholy fact it is,--toleration then first becomes +practicable when indifference has deprived it of all merit. In the same +spirit I excuse the opposite party, the Puritans and Papaphobists. + + +Ib. s. 104. + +It was scarcely to be expected that the passions of James's age would +allow of this wise distinction between Papists, the intriguing restless +partizans of a foreign potentate, and simple Roman-Catholics, who +preferred the 'mumpsimus' of their grandsires to the corrected +'sumpsimus' of the Reformation. But that in our age this distinction +should have been neglected in the Roman-Catholic Emancipation Bill! + + +Ib. s. 105. + + But this invisible consistory shall be confusedly diffused over all + the kingdom, that many of the subjects shall, to the intolerable + exhausting of the wealth of the realm, pay double tithes, double + offerings, double fees, in regard of their double consistory. And if + Ireland be so poor as it is suggested, I hold, under correction, that + this invisible consistory is the principal cause of the exhausting + thereof. + +A memorable remark on the evil of the double priesthood in Ireland. + + +Ib. + + Dr. Bishop, the new Bishop of Chalcedon, is to come to London + privately, and I am much troubled at it, not knowing what to advise + his majesty as things stand at this present. If you were shipped with + the Infanta, the only counsel were to let the judges proceed with him + presently; hang him out of the way, and the King to blame my lord of + Canterbury or myself for it. + +Striking instance and illustration of the tricksy policy which in the +seventeenth century passed for state wisdom even with the comparatively +wise. But there must be a Ulysses before there can be an Aristides and +Phocion. + +Poor King James's main errors arose out of his superstitious notions of +a sovereignty inherent in the person of the king. Hence he would be a +sacred person, though in all other respects he might be a very devil. +Hence his yearning for the Spanish match; and the ill effects of his +toleration became rightly attributed by his subjects to foreign +influence, as being against his own acknowledged principle, not on a +principle. + + +Ib. s. 107. + +I have at times played with the thought, that our bishoprics, like most +of our college fellowships, might advantageously be confined to single +men, if only it were openly declared to be on ground of public +expediency, and on no supposed moral superiority of the single state. + + +Ib. s. 108. + + That a rector or vicar had not only an office in the church, but a + freehold for life, by the common law, in his benefice. + +O! if Archbishop Williams had but seen in a clear point of view what he +indistinctly aims at,--the essential distinction between the nationalty +and its trustees and holders, and the Christian Church and its +ministers. [6] + + +Ib. s. 111. + + I will represent him (the archbishop of Spalato) in a line or two, + that he was as indifferent, or rather dissolute, in practice as in + opinion. For in the same chapter, art. 35, this is his Nicolaitan + doctrine:--'A pluralitate uxorum natura humana non abhorret, imo + fortasse neque ab earum communitate.' + +How so? The words mean only that the human animal is not withholden by +any natural instinct from plurality or even community of females. It is +not asserted, that reason and revelation do not forbid both the one and +the other, or that man unwithholden would not be a Yahoo, morally +inferior to the swallow. The emphasis is to be laid on 'natura', not on +'humana'. Humanity forbids plural and promiscuous intercourse, not +however by the animal nature of man, but by the reason and religion that +constitute his moral and spiritual nature. + + +Ib. s. 112. + + But being thrown out into banishment, and hunted to be destroyed as a + partridge in the mountain, he subscribed against his own hand, which + yet did not prejudice Athanasius his innocency:--[Greek: tà gàr ek + basánon parà tàen ex archaes gn_ómaen gignómena, tauta ou t_on + phobaethént_on, alla t_on basanizónt_on estì bouláemata.] + + +I have ever said this of Sir John Cheke. I regret his recantation as one +of the cruelties suffered by him, and always see the guilt flying off +from him and settling on his persecutors. + + +Ib. s. 151. + + I conclude, therefore, that his Highness having admitted nothing in + these oaths or articles, either to the prejudice of the true, or the + equalizing or authorizing of the other, religion, but contained + himself wholly within the limits of penal statutes and connivances, + wherein the state hath ever challenged and usurped a directing power, + &c. + +Three points seem wanting to render the Lord Keeper's argument +air-tight;-- + +1. the proof that a king of England even then had a right to dispense, +not with the execution in individual cases of the laws, but with the +laws themselves 'in omne futurum'; that is, to repeal laws by his own +act; + +2. the proof that such a tooth-and-talon drawing of the laws did not +endanger the equalizing and final mastery of the unlawful religion; + +3. the utter want of all reciprocity on the part of the Spanish monarch. + +In short, it is pardonable in Hacket, but would be contemptible in any +other person, not to see this advice of the Lord Keeper's as a black +blotch in his character, both as a Protestant Bishop and as a councillor +of state in a free and Protestant country. + + +Ib. s. 152. + + Yet opinions were so various, that some spread it for a fame, that, &c. + +Was it not required of--at all events usual for--all present at a +Council to subscribe their names to the act of the majority? There is a +modern case in point, I think, that of Sir Arthur Wellesley's signature +to the Convention of Cintra. + + +Ib. s. 164. + + For to forbid judges against their oath, and justices of peace (sworn + likewise), not to execute the law of the land, is a thing + unprecedented in this kingdom. 'Durus sermo', a harsh and bitter pill + to be digested upon a sudden, and without some preparation. + +What a fine India-rubber conscience Hacket, as well as his patron, must +have had! Policy with innocency,' 'cunning with conscience,' lead up the +dance to the tune of ''Tantara' rogues all!' + +Upon my word, I can scarcely conceive a greater difficulty than for an +honest, warm-hearted man of principle of the present day so to +discipline his mind by reflection on the circumstances and received +moral system of the Stuarts' age (from Elizabeth to the death of Charles +I), and its proper place in the spiral line of ascension, as to be able +to regard the Duke of Buckingham as not a villain, and to resolve many +of the acts of those Princes into passions, conscience-warped and +hardened by half-truths and the secular creed of prudence, as being +itself virtue instead of one of her handmaids, when interpreted by minds +constitutionally and by their accidental circumstances imprudent and +rash, yet fearful and suspicious; and with casuists and codes of +casuistry as their conscience-leaders! One of the favorite works of +Charles I was Sanderson 'de Juramento'. + + +Ib. s. 200. + + Wherefore he waives the strong and full defence he had made upon + stopping of an original writ, and deprecates all offence by that maxim + of the law which admits of a mischief rather than an inconvenience: + which was as much as to say, that he thought it a far less evil to do + the lady the probability of an injury (in her own name) than to suffer + those two courts to clash together again. + +All this is a tangle of sophisms. The assumption is, it is better to +inflict a private wrong than a public one: we ought to wrong one rather +than many. But even then, it is badly stated. The principle is true only +where the tolerating of the private wrong is the only means of +preventing a greater public wrong. But in this case it was the certainty +of the wrong of one to avoid the chance of an inconvenience that might +perchance be the occasion of wrong to many, and which inconvenience both +easily might and should have been remedied by rightful measures, by +mutual agreement between the Bishop and Chancellor, and by the King, or +by an act of Parliament. + + +Ib. s. 203. + + 'Truly, Sir, this is my dark lantern, and I am not ashamed to inquire + of a Dalilah to resolve a riddle; for in my studies of divinity I have + gleaned up this maxim, 'licet uti alieno peccato';--though the Devil + make her a sinner, I may make good use of her sin.' Prince, merrily, + 'Do you deal in such ware?' 'In good faith, Sir,' says the Keeper, 'I + never saw her face.' + + +And Hacket's evident admiration, and not merely approbation, of this +base Jesuitry,--this divinity which had taught the Archbishop 'licere +uti alieno peccato'! But Charles himself was a student of such divinity, +and yet (as rogues of higher rank comfort the pride of their conscience +by despising inferior knaves) I suspect that the 'merrily' was the +Sardonic mirth of bitter contempt; only, however, because he disliked +Williams, who was simply a man of his age, his baseness being for us, +not for his contemporaries, or even for his own mind. But the worst of +all is the Archbishop's heartless disingenuousness and moon-like nodes +towards his kind old master the King. How much of truth was there in the +Spaniard's information respecting the intrigues of the Prince and the +Duke of Buckingham? If none, if they were mere slanders, if the Prince +had acted the filial part toward his father and King, and the Duke the +faithful part towards his master and only too fond and affectionate +benefactor, what more was needed than to expose the falsehoods? But if +Williams knew that there was too great a mixture of truth in the +charges, what a cowardly ingrate to his old friend to have thus curried +favor with the rising sun by this base jugglery! + + +Ib. s. 209. + + He was the topsail of the nobility, and in power and trust of offices + far above all the nobility. + +James I was no fool, and though through weakness of character an unwise +master, yet not an unthinking statesman; and I still want a satisfactory +solution of the accumulation of offices on Buckingham. + + +Ib. s. 212. + + Prudent men will continue the oblations of their forefathers' piety. + +The danger and mischief of going far back, and yet not half far enough! +Thus Hacket refers to the piety of individuals our forefathers as the +origin of Church property. Had he gone further back, and traced to the +source, he would have found these partial benefactions to have been mere +restitutions of rights co-original with their own property, and as a +national reserve for the purposes of national existence--the condition +'sine qua non' of the equity of their proprieties; for without +civilization a people cannot be, or continue to be, a nation. But, alas! +the ignorance of the essential distinction of a national clerisy, the +'Ecclesia', from the Christian Church. The 'Ecclesia' has been an +eclipse to the intellect of both Churchmen and Sectarians, even from +Elizabeth to the present day, 1833. + + +Ib. s. 214. + + And being threatened, his best mitigation was, that perhaps it was not + safe for him to deny so great a lord; yet it was safest for his + lordship to be denied. ... The king heard the noise of these crashes, + and was so pleased, that he thanked God, before many witnesses, that + he had put the Keeper into that place: 'For,' says he, 'he that will + not wrest justice for Buckingham's sake, whom I know he loves, will + never be corrupted with money, which he never loved.' + +Strange it must seem to us; yet it is evident that Hacket thought it +necessary to make a mid something, half apology and half eulogy, for the +Lord Keeper's timid half resistance to the insolence and iniquitous +interference of the minion Duke. What a portrait of the times! But the +dotage of the King in the maintenance of the man, whose insolence in +wresting justice he himself admits! Yet how many points, both of the +times and of the King's personal character, must be brought together +before we can fairly solve the intensity of James's minionism, his +kingly egotism, his weak kindheartedness, his vulgar coarseness of +temper, his systematic jealousy of the ancient nobles, his timidity, and +the like! + + +Ib. + + 'Sir,' says the Lord Keeper, 'will you be pleased to listen to me, + taking in the Prince's consent, of which I make no doubt, and I will + shew how you shall furnish the second and third brothers with + preferments sufficient to maintain them, that shall cost you nothing. + ... If they fall to their studies, design them to the bishoprics of + Durham and Winchester, when they become void. If that happen in their + nonage, which is probable, appoint commendatories to discharge the + duty for them for a laudable allowance, but gathering the fruits for + the support of your grandchildren, till they come to virility to be + consecrated,' &c. + +Williams could not have been in earnest in this villanous counsel, but +he knew his man. This conceit of dignifying dignities by the Simoniacal +prostitution of them to blood-royal was just suited to James's +fool-cunningness. + + +Part II. s. 74. + + ... To yield not only passive obedience (which is due) but active + also, &c. + + +'Which is due.' What in the name of common sense can this mean, that is, +speculatively? Practically, the meaning is clear enough, namely, that we +should do what we can to escape hanging; but the distinction is for +decorum, and so let it pass. + + +Ib. s. 75. + + This is the venom of this new doctrine, that by making us the King's + creatures, and in the state of minors or children, to take away all + our property; which would leave us nothing of our own, and lead us + (but that God hath given us just and gracious Princes) into slavery. + +And yet this just and gracious Prince prompts, sanctions, supports, and +openly rewards this envenomer, in flat contempt of both Houses of +Parliament,--protects and prefers him and others of the same principles +and professions on account of these professions! And the Parliament and +nation were inexcusable, forsooth, in not trusting to Charles's +assurances, or rather the assurances put in his mouth by Hyde, Falkland, +and others, that he had always abhorred these principles. + + +Ib. s. 136. + + When they saw he was not 'selfish' (it is a word of their own new + mint), &c. + +Singular! From this passage it would seem that our so very common word +'selfish' is no older than the latter part of the reign of Charles I. + + +Ib. s. 137. + + Their political aphorisms are far more dangerous, that His Majesty is + not the highest power in his realms; that he hath not absolute + sovereignty; and that a Parliament sitting is co-ordinate with him in + it. + +Hacket himself repeatedly implies as much; for would he deny that the +King with the Lords and Commons is not more than the King without them? +or that an act of Parliament is not more than a proclamation? + + +Ib. s.154. + + What a venomous spirit is in that serpent Milton, that black-mouthed + Zoilus, that blows his viper's breath upon those immortal devotions + from the beginning to the end! This is he that wrote with all + irreverence against the Fathers of our Church, and showed as little + duty to the father that begat him: the same that wrote for the + Pharisees, that it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for every + cause,--and against Christ, for not allowing divorces: the same, O + horrid! that defended the lawfulness of the greatest crime that ever + was committed, to put our thrice-excellent King to death: a petty + schoolboy scribbler, that durst grapple in such a cause with the + prince of the learned men of his age, Salmasius, [Greek: philosophiás + pásaes aphroditae kaì lyra], as Eunapius says of Ammonius, Plutarch's + scholar in Egypt, the delight, the music of all knowledge, who would + have scorned to drop a pen-full of ink against so base an adversary, + but to maintain the honor of so good a King ... Get thee behind me, + Milton! Thou savourest not the things that be of truth and loyalty, + but of pride, bitterness, and falsehood. There will be a time, though + such a Shimei, a dead dog in Abishai's phrase, escape for a while ... + It is no marvel if this canker-worm Milton, &c. + +A contemporary of Bishop Racket's designates Milton as the author of a +profane and lascivious poem entitled Paradise Lost. The biographer of +our divine bard ought to have made a collection of all such passages. A +German writer of a Life of Salmasius acknowledges that Milton had the +better in the conflict in these words: 'Hans (Jack) von Milton--not to +be compared in learning and genius with the incomparable Salmasius, yet +a shrewd and cunning lawyer,' &c. 'O sana posteritas!' + + +Ib. s. 178. + + Dare they not trust him that never broke with them? And I have heard + his nearest servants say, that no man could ever challenge him of the + least lie. + +What! this after the publication of Charles's letters to the Queen! Did +he not within a few months before his death enter into correspondence +with, and sign contradictory offers to, three different parties, not +meaning to keep any one of them; and at length did he not die with +something very like a falsehood in his mouth in allowing himself to be +represented as the author of the Icon Basilike? + + +Ib. s. 180. + + If an under-sheriff had arrested Harry Martin for debt, and pleaded + that he did not imprison his membership, but his Martinship, would the + Committee for privileges be fobbed off with that distinction? + + +To make this good in analogy, we must suppose that Harry Martin had +notoriously neglected all the duties, while he perverted and abused all +the privileges, of membership: and then I answer, that the Committee of +privileges would have done well and wisely in accepting the +under-sheriff's distinction, and, out of respect for the membership, +consigning the Martinship to the due course of law. + + +Ib. + + 'That every soul should be subject to the higher powers.' The higher + power under which they lived was the mere power and will of Cæsar, + bridled in by no law. + +False, if meant 'de jure'; and if 'de facto', the plural 'powers' would +apply to the Parliament far better than to the King, and to Cromwell as +well as to Nero. Every even decently good Emperor professed himself the +servant of the Roman Senate. The very term 'Imperator', as Gravina +observes, implies it; for it expresses a delegated and instrumental +power. Before the assumption of the Tribunitial character by Augustus, +by which he became the representative of the majority of the +people,--'majestatem indutus est,--Senatus consulit, Populus jubet, +imperent Consules', was the constitutional language. + + +Ib. s. 190. + + Yet so much dissonancy there was between his tongue and his heart, + that he triumphed in the murder of Cæsar, the only Roman that exceeded + all their race in nobleness, and was next to Tully in eloquence. + + +There is something so shameless in this self-contradiction as of itself +almost to extinguish the belief that the prelatic royalists were +conscientious in their conclusions. For if the Senate of Rome were not a +lawful power, what could be? And if Cæsar, the thrice perjured traitor, +was neither perjured nor traitor, only because he by his Gaulish troops +turned a republic into a monarchy,--with what face, under what pretext, +could Hacket abuse 'Sultan Cromwell?' + + + +[Footnote 1: By Thomas Plume. Folio, 1676.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: + + 'Ea omnia super Christo Pilatus, et ipse jam pro sua conscientia + Christianus, Cæsari tum Tiberio nuntiavit.' + +Apologet, ii. 624. See the account in Eusebius. Hist. Eccl. ii. 2.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 3: See 'M. T. Ciceronis de Republica quæ supersunt. Zell. +Stuttgardt'. 1827.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 4: See 'supra'.--Ed]. + + +[Footnote 5: Folio. 1693.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 6: See The Church and State.--Ed.] + + + + + +NOTES ON JEREMY TAYLOR. + +I have not seen the late Bishop Heber's edition of Jeremy Taylor's +'Works'; but I have been informed that he did little more than +contribute the 'Life', and that in all else it is a mere London +booksellers' job. This, if true, is greatly to be regretted. I know no +writer whose works more require, I need not say deserve, the +annotations, aye, and occasional animadversions, of a sound and learned +divine. One thing is especially desirable in reference to that most +important, because (with the exception perhaps of the 'Holy Living and +Dying') the most popular, of Taylor's works, 'The Liberty of +Prophesying'; and this is a careful collation of the different editions, +particularly of the first printed before the Restoration, and the last +published in Taylor's lifetime, and after his promotion to the episcopal +bench. Indeed, I regard this as so nearly concerning Taylor's character +as a man, that if I find that it has not been done in Heber's edition, +and if I find a first edition in the British Museum, or Sion College, or +Dr. Williams's library, I will, God permitting, do it myself. There +seems something cruel in giving the name, Anabaptist, to the English +Anti-pædo-baptists; but still worse in connecting this most innocent +opinion with the mad Jacobin ravings of the poor wretches who were +called Anabaptists, in Munster, as if the latter had ever formed part of +the Baptists' creeds. In short 'The Liberty of Prophesying' is an +admirable work, in many respects, and calculated to produce a much +greater effect on the many than Milton's treatise on the same subject: +on the other hand, Milton's is throughout unmixed truth; and the man who +in reading the two does not feel the contrast between the +single-mindedness of the one, and the 'strabismus' in the other, is--in +the road of preferment. + + + +GENERAL DEDICATION OF THE POLEMICAL DISCOURSES. [1] + +Vol. vii. p. ix. + + And the breath of the people is like the voice of an exterminating + angel, not so killing but so secret. + +That is, in such wise. It would be well to note, after what time 'as' +became the requisite correlative to 'so,' and even, as in this instance, +the preferable substitute. We should have written 'as' in both places +probably, but at all events in the latter, transplacing the sentences +'as secret though not so killing;' or 'not so killing, but quite as +secret.' It is not generally true that Taylor's punctuation is +arbitrary, or his periods reducible to the post-Revolutionary standard +of length by turning some of his colons or semi-colons into full stops. +There is a subtle yet just and systematic logic followed in his +pointing, as often as it is permitted by the higher principle, because +the proper and primary purpose, of our stops, and to which alone from +their paucity they are adequate,--that I mean of enabling the reader to +prepare and manage the proportions of his voice and breath. But for the +true scheme of punctuation, [Greek: h_os emoige dokei], see the blank +page over leaf which I will try to disblank into a prize of more worth +than can be got at the E.O.'s and little goes of Lindley Murray. [2] + + +Ib. p. xv. + + But the most complained that, in my ways to persuade a toleration, I + helped some men too far, and that I armed the Anabaptists with swords + instead of shields, with a power to offend us, besides the proper + defensitives of their own ... But wise men understand the thing and + are satisfied. But because all men are not of equal strength; I did + not only in a discourse on purpose demonstrate the true doctrine in + that question, but I have now in this edition of that book answered + all their pretensions, &c. + +No; in the might of his genius he called up a spirit which he has in +vain endeavored to lay, or exorcise from the conviction. + + +Ib. p. xvii. + + For episcopacy relies not upon the authority of Fathers and Councils, + but upon Scripture, upon the institution of Christ, or the institution + of the Apostles, upon a universal tradition, and a universal practice, + not upon the words and opinions of the doctors: it hath as great a + testimony as Scripture itself hath, &c. + +We must make allowance for the intoxication of recent triumph and final +victory over a triumphing and victorious enemy; or who but would start +back at the aweless temerity of this assertion? Not to mention the +evasion; for who ever denied the historical fact, or the Scriptural +occurrence of the word expressing the fact, namely, 'episcopi, +episcopatus?'? What was questioned by the opponents was, + +1;--Who and what these 'episcopi' were; whether essentially different +from the presbyter, or a presbyter by kind in his own 'ecclesia', and a +president or chairman by accident in a synod of presbyters: + +2;--That whatever the 'episcopi' of the Apostolic times were, yet were +they prelates, lordly diocesans; were they such as the Bishops of the +Church of England? Was there Scripture authority for Archbishops? + +3;--That the establishment of Bishops by the Apostle Paul being granted +(as who can deny it?)--yet was this done 'jure Apostolico' for the +universal Church in all places and ages; or only as expedient for that +time and under those circumstances; by Paul not as an Apostle, but as +the head and founder of those particular churches, and so entitled to +determine their bye laws? + + + +DEDICATION OF THE SACRED ORDER AND OFFICES OF EPISCOPACY. + +Ib. p. xxiii. + + But the interest of the Bishops is conjunct with the prosperity of the + King, besides the interest of their own security, by the obligation of + secular advantages. For they who have their livelihood from the King, + and are in expectance of their fortune from him, are more likely to + pay a tribute of exacter duty, than others, whose fortunes are not in + such immediate dependency on His Majesty. + +The cat out of the bag! Consult the whole reigns of Charles I. and II. +and the beginning of James II. Jeremy Taylor was at this time +(blamelessly for himself and most honourably for his patrons) ambling on +the high road of preferment; and to men so situated, however sagacious +in other respects, it is not given to read the signs of the times. +Little did Taylor foresee that to indiscreet avowals, like these, on the +part of the court clergy, the exauctorations of the Bishops and the +temporary overthrow of the Church itself would be in no small portion +attributable. But the scanty measure and obscurity (if not rather, for +so bright a luminary, the occultation) of his preferment after the +Restoration is a problem, of which perhaps his virtues present the most +probable solution. + + +Ib. p. xxv. + + A second return that episcopacy makes to royalty, is that which is the + duty of all Christians, the paying tributes and impositions. + +This is true; and it was an evil hour for the Church,--and led to the +loss of its Convocation, the greatest and, in an enlarged state-policy, +the most impolitic affront ever offered by a government to its own +established Church,--in which the clergy surrendered their right of +taxing themselves. + + +Ib. p. xxvii. + + I mean the conversion of the kingdom from Paganism by St. Augustine, + Archbishop of Canterbury; and the Reformation begun and promoted by + Bishops. + +From Paganism in part; but in part from primitive Christianity to +Popery. But neither this nor the following boast will bear narrow +looking into, I suspect. + + +'In fine.' + +Like all Taylor's dedications and dedicatory epistles, this is easy, +dignified, and pregnant. The happiest 'synthesis' of the divine, the +scholar, and the gentleman was perhaps exhibited in him and Bishop +Berkeley. + + +Introd. p.3. + + In all those accursed machinations, which the device and artifice of + hell hath invented for the supplanting of the Church, 'inimicus homo,' + that old superseminator of heresies and crude mischiefs, hath + endeavoured to be curiously compendious, and, with Tarquin's device, + 'putare summa papaverum.' + + Quoere-spiritualiter papaveratorurn? + + +Ib. + + His next onset was by Julian, and 'occidere presbyterium,' that was + his province. To shut up public schools, to force Christians to + ignorance, to impoverish and disgrace the clergy, to make them vile + and dishonorable, these are his arts; and he did the devil more + service in this fineness of undermining, than all the open battery of + ten great rams of persecution. + +What felicity, what vivacity of expression! Many years ago Mr. +Mackintosh gave it as an instance of my perverted taste, that I had +seriously contended that in order to form a style worthy of Englishmen, +Milton and Taylor must be studied instead of Johnson, Gibbon, and +Junius; and now I see by his introductory Lecture given at Lincoln's +Inn, and just published, he is himself imitating Jeremy Taylor, or +rather copying his semi-colon punctuation, as closely as he can. Amusing +it is to observe, how by the time the modern imitators are at the +half-way of the long breathed period, the asthmatic thoughts drop down, +and the rest is,--words! I have always been an obstinate hoper: and even +this is a 'datum' and a symptom of hope to me, that a better, an +ancestral, spirit is forming and will appear in the rising generation. + + +Ib. p. 5. + + First, because here is a concourse of times; for now after that these + times have been called the last times for 1600 years together, our + expectation of the great revelation is very near accomplishing. + +Rather a whimsical consequence, that because a certain party had been +deceiving themselves for sixteen centuries they were likely to be in the +right at the beginning of the seventeenth. But indeed I question whether +in all Taylor's voluminous writings there are to be found three other +paragraphs so vague and misty-magnific as this is. It almost reminds me +of the "very cloudy and mighty alarming" in Foote. + + +S. i. p. 4. + + If there be such a thing as the power of the keys, by Christ + concredited to his Church, for the binding and loosing delinquents and + penitents respectively on earth, then there is clearly a court erected + by Christ in his Church. + +We may, without any heretical division of person, economically +distinguish our Lord's character as Jesus, and as Christ, so far that +during his sojourn on earth, from his baptism at least to his +crucifixion, he was in some respects his own Elias, bringing back the +then existing Church to the point at which the Prophets had placed it; +that is, distinguishing the 'ethica' from the 'politica,' what was +binding on the Jews as descendants of Abraham and inheritors of the +patriarchal faith from the statutes obligatory on them as members of the +Jewish state. + +Jesus fulfilled the Law, which culminated in a pure religious morality +in principles, affections, and acts; and this he consolidated and +levelled into the ground-stead on which the new temple 'not made with +hands,' wherein Himself, even Christ the Lord, is the Shechinah, was to +rise and be raised. + +Thus he taught the spirit of the Mosaic Law, while by his acts, +sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, and demission of the +Comforter, he created and realized the contents, objects, and materials +of that redemptive faith, the everlasting Gospel, which from the day of +Pentecost his elect disciples, [Greek: t_on mystaeri_ón hierokáerykes], +Were Sent forth to disperse and promulgate with suitable gifts, powers, +and evidences. + +In this view, I interpret our Lord's sayings concerning the Church, as +applying wholly to the Synagogue or established Church then existing, +while the binding and loosing refers, immediately and primarily as I +conceive, to the miraculous gifts of healing diseases communicated to +the Apostles; and I am not afraid to avow the conviction, that the first +three Gospels are not the books of the New Testament, in which we should +expect to find the peculiar doctrines of the Christian faith explicitly +delivered, or forming the predominant subject or contents of the +writing. + + +S. viii. p. 25. + + Imposition of hands for Ordination does indeed give the Holy Ghost, + but not as he is that promise which is called 'the promise of the + truth'. + +Alas! but in what sense that does not imply some infusion of power or +light, something given and inwardly received, which would not have +existed in and for the recipient without this immission by the means or +act of the imposition of the hands? What sense that does not amount to +more and other than a mere delegation of office, a mere legitimating +acceptance and acknowledgment, with respect to the person, of that which +already is in him, can be attached to the words, 'Receive the Holy +Ghost', without shocking a pious and single-minded candidate? The +miraculous nature of the giving does not depend on the particular kind +or quality of the gift received, much less demand that it should be +confined to the power of working miracles. + +For "miraculous nature" read "supernatural character;" and I can +subscribe this pencil note written so many years ago, even at this +present time, 2d March, 1824. + + +S. xxi. p. 91. + + 'Postquam unusquisque eos quos baptizabat suos putabat esse, non + Christi, et diceretur in populis, Ego sum Pauli, Ego Apollo, Ego autem + Cephæ, in toto orbe decretum est ut unus de presbyteris electus + superponeretur cateris, ut schismatum semina tollerentur.' + +The natural inference would, methinks, be the contrary. There would be +more persons inclined and more likely to attach an ambition to their +belonging to a single eminent leader and head than to a body,--rather to +Cæsar, Marius, or Pompey, than to the Senate. But I have ever thought +that the best, safest, and at the same time sufficient, argument is, +that by the nature of human affairs and the appointments of God's +ordinary providence every assembly of functionaries will and must have a +president; that the same qualities which recommended the individual to +this dignity would naturally recommend him to the chief executive power +during the intervals of legislation, and at all times in all points +already ruled; that the most solemn acts, Confirmation and Ordination, +would as naturally be confined to the head of the executive in the state +ecclesiastic, as the sign manual and the like to the king in all limited +monarchies; and that in course of time when many presbyteries would +exist in the same district, Archbishops and Patriarchs would arise 'pari +ratione' as Bishops did in the first instance. Now it is admitted that +God's extraordinary appointments never repeal but rather perfect the +laws of his ordinary providence: and it is enough that all we find in +the New Testament tends to confirm and no where forbids, contradicts, or +invalidates the course of government, which the Church, we are certain, +did in fact pursue. + + +Ib. s. xxxvi. p. 171. + + But those things which Christianity, as it prescinds from the interest + of the republic, hath introduced, all them, and all the causes + emergent from them, the Bishop is judge of.... Receiving and disposing + the patrimony of the Church, and whatsoever is of the same + consideration according to the fortyfirst canon of the Apostles. + 'Præcipimus ut in potestate sua episcopus ecclesice res habeat'. Let + the Bishops have the disposing of the goods of the Church; adding this + reason: 'si enim animte hominum pretiosæ illi sint creditæ, multo + magis eum oportet curam pecuniarum gerere'. He that is intrusted with + our precious souls may much more be intrusted with the offertories of + faithful people. + +Let all these belong to the overseer of the Church: to whom else so +properly? but what is the nature of the power by which he is to enforce +his orders? By secular power? Then the Bishop's power is no derivative +from Christ's royalty; for his kingdom is not of the world; but the +monies are Cæsar's; and the 'cura pecuniarum' must be vested where the +donors direct, the law of the land permitting. + + +Ib. + + Such are the delinquencies of clergymen, who are both clergy and + subjects too; 'clerus Domini', and 'regis subditi': and for their + delinquencies, which are 'in materia justiæ', the secular tribunal + punishes, as being a violation of that right which the state must + defend; but because done by a person who is a member of the sacred + hierarchy, and hath also an obligation of special duty to his Bishop, + therefore the Bishop also may punish him; and when the commonwealth + hath inflicted a penalty, the Bishop also may impose a censure, for + every sin of a clergyman is two. + +But why of a clergyman only? Is not every sheep of his flock a part of +the Bishop's charge, and of course the possible object of his censure? +The clergy, you say, take the oath of obedience. Aye! but this is the +point in dispute. + + +Ib. p. 172. + + So that ever since then episcopal jurisdiction hath a double part, an + external and an internal: this is derived from Christ, that from the + king, which because it is concurrent in all acts of jurisdiction, + therefore it is that the king is supreme of the jurisdiction, namely, + that part of it which is the external compulsory. + +If Christ delegated no external compulsory power to the Bishops, how +came it the duty of princes to God to do so? It has been so since---yes! +since the first grand apostasy from Christ to Constantine. + + +Ib. s. xlviii. p. 248. + + Bishops 'ut sic' are not secular princes, must not seek for it; but + some secular princes may be Bishops, as in Germany and in other places + to this day they are. For it is as unlawful for a Bishop to have any + land, as to have a country; and a single acre is no more due to the + order than a province; but both these may be conjunct in the same + person, though still, by virtue of Christ's precept, the functions and + capacities must be distinguished. + +True; but who with more indignant scorn attacked this very distinction +when applied by the Presbyterians to the kingship, when they professed +to fight for the King against Charles? And yet they had on their side +both the spirit of the English constitution and the language of the law. +The King never dies; the King can do no wrong. Elsewhere, too, Taylor +could ridicule the Romish prelate, who fought and slew men as a captain +at the head of his vassals, and then in the character of a Bishop +absolved his other homicidal self. However, whatever St. Peter might +understand by Christ's words, St. Peter's three-crowned successors have +been quite of Taylor's opinion that they are to be paraphrased +thus:--"Simon Peter, as my Apostle, you are to make converts only by +humility, voluntary poverty, and the words of truth and meekness; but if +by your spiritual influence you can induce the Emperor Tiberius to make +you Tetrarch of Galilee or Prefect of Judaea, then +[Greek: katakyríeue]--you may lord it as loftily as you will, and +deliver as Tetrarch or Prefect those stiff-necked miscreants to the +flames for not having been converted by you as an Apostle." + + +Ib. p. 276. + + I end with the golden rule of Vincentius Lirinensis:--'magnopere + curandum est ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus + creditum est.' + +Alas! this golden rule comes full and round from the mouth; nor do I +deny that it is pure gold: but like too many other golden rules, in +order to make it cover the facts which the orthodox asserter of +episcopacy at least, and the chaplain of Archbishop Laud and King +Charles the Martyr must have held himself bound to bring under it, it +must be made to display another property of the sovereign metal, its +malleableness to wit; and must be beaten out so thin, that the weight of +truth in the portion appertaining to each several article in the +orthodox systems of theology will be so small, that it may better be +called gilt than gold; and if worth having at all, it will be for its +show, not for its substance. For instance, the 'aranea theologica' may +draw out the whole web of the Westminster Catechism from the simple +creed of the beloved Disciple,--'whoever believeth with his heart, and +professeth with his mouth, that Jesus is Lord and Christ,'--shall be +saved. If implicit faith only be required, doubtless certain doctrines, +from which all other articles of faith imposed by the Lutheran, Scotch, +or English Churches, may be deduced, have been believed 'ubique, semper, +et ab omnibus.' But if explicit and conscious belief be intended, I +would rather that the Bishop than I should defend the golden rule +against Semler. + + + + +APOLOGY FOR AUTHORIZED AND SET FORMS OF LITURGY. + +Preface, s. vi. p. 286. + + Not like women or children when they are affrighted with fire in their + clothes. We shaked off the coal indeed, but not our garments, lest we + should have exposed our Churches to that nakedness which the excellent + men of our sister Churches complained to be among themselves. + +O, what convenient things metaphors and similes are, so charmingly +indeterminate! On the general reader the literal sense operates: he +shivers in sympathy with the poor shift-less matron, the Church of +Geneva. To the objector the answer is ready--it was speaking +metaphorically, and only meant that she had no shift on the outside of +her gown, that she made a shift without an over-all. Compare this sixth +section with the manful, senseful, irrebuttable fourth section--a folio +volume in a single paragraph! But Jeremy Taylor would have been too +great for man, had he not occasionally fallen below himself. + + +Ib. s. x. p. 288. + + And since all that cast off the Roman yoke thought they had title + enough to be called Reformed, it was hard to have pleased all the + private interests and peevishness of men that called themselves + friends; and therefore that only in which the Church of Rome had + prevaricated against the word of God, or innovated against Apostolical + tradition, all that was pared away. + +Aye! here is the 'ovum,' as Sir Everard Home would say, the +'proto'-parent of the whole race of controversies between Protestant and +Protestant; and each had Gospel on their side. Whatever is not against +the word of God is for it,--thought the founders of the Church of +England. Whatever is not in the word of God is a word of man, a +will-worship presumptuous and usurping,--thought the founders of the +Church of Scotland and Geneva. The one proposed to themselves to be +reformers of the Latin Church, that is, to bring it back to the form +which it had during the first four centuries; the latter to be the +renovators of the Christian religion as it was preached and instituted +by the Apostles and immediate followers of Christ thereunto specially +inspired. Where the premisses are so different, who can wonder at the +difference in the conclusions? + + +Ib. s. xii. ib. + + It began early to discover its inconvenience; for when certain zealous + persons fled to Frankfort to avoid the funeral piles kindled by the + Roman Bishops in Queen Mary's time, as if they had not enemies enough + abroad, they fell foul with one another, and the quarrel was about the + Common Prayer Book. + +But who began the quarrel? Knox and his recent biographer lay it to +Dr. Cox and the Liturgists. + + +Ib. s. xiii. p. 289. + + Here therefore it became law, was established by an act of Parliament, + was made solemn by an appendant penalty against all that on either + hand did prevaricate a sanction of so long and so prudent + consideration. + +Truly evangelical way of solemnizing a party measure, and sapientizing +Calvin's 'tolerabiles ineptias' by making them 'ineptias usque ad +carcerem et verbera intolerantes!' + +Ib. s. xiv. ib. + + But the Common Prayer Book had the fate of St. Paul; for when it had + scaped the storms of the Roman See, yet a viper sprung out of Queen + Mary's fires, &c. + +As Knox and his friends confined themselves to the inspired word, +whether vipers or no, they were not adders at all events. + + +Ib. xxvi. p. 296. + + For, if we deny to the people a liberty of reading the Scriptures, may + they not complain, as Isaac did against the inhabitants of the land, + that the Philistines had spoiled his well and the fountains of living + water? If a free use to all of them and of all Scriptures were + permitted, should not the Church herself have more cause to complain + of the infinite licentiousness and looseness of interpretations, and + of the commencement of ten thousand errors, which would certainly be + consequent to such permission? Reason and religion will chide us in + the first, reason and experience in the latter ... The Church with + great wisdom hath first held this torch out; and though for great + reasons intervening and hindering, it cannot be reduced to practice, + yet the Church hath shewn her desire to avoid the evil that is on both + hands, and she hath shewn the way also, if it could have been insisted + in. + +If there were not, at the time this Preface, or this paragraph at least, +was written or published, some design on foot or 'sub lingua' of making +advances to the continental catholicism for the purpose of conciliating +the courts of Austria, France and Spain, in favor of the Cavalier and +Royalist party at home and abroad, this must be considered as a useless +and worse than useless avowal. The Papacy at the height of its influence +never asserted a higher or more anti-Protestant right than this of +dividing the Scriptures into permitted and forbidden portions. If there +be a functionary of divine institution, synodical or unipersonal, who +with the name of the 'Church' has the right, under circumstances of its +own determination, to forbid all but such and such parts of the Bible, +it must possess potentially, and under other circumstances, a right of +withdrawing the whole book from the unlearned, who yet cannot be +altogether unlearned; for the very prohibition supposes them able to do +what, a few centuries before, the majority of the clergy themselves were +not qualified to do, that is, read their Bible throughout. Surely it +would have been politic in the writer to have left out this sentence, +which his Puritan adversaries could not fail to translate into the +Church shewing her teeth though she dared not bite. I bitterly regret +these passages; neither our incomparable Liturgy, nor this full, +masterly, and unanswerable defence of it, requiring them. + + +Ib. s. xlv, p. 308. + + So that the Church of England, in these manners of dispensing the + power of the keys, does cut off all disputings and impertinent + wranglings, whether the priest's power were judicial or declarative; + for possibly it is both, and it is optative too, and something else + yet; for it is an emanation from all the parts of his ministry, and he + never absolves, but he preaches or prays, or administers a sacrament; + for this power of remission is a transcendent, passing through all the + parts of the priestly offices. For the keys of the kingdom of heaven + are the promises and the threatenings of the Scripture, and the + prayers of the Church, and the Word, and the Sacraments, and all these + are to be dispensed by the priest, and these keys are committed to his + ministry, and by the operation of them all he opens and shuts heaven's + gates ministerially. + +No more ingenious way of making nothing of a thing than by making it +every thing. Omnify the disputed point into a transcendant, and you may +defy the opponent to lay hold of it. He might as well attempt to grasp +an 'aura electrica'. + + +Apology, &c. s. ii. p. 320. + + And it may be when I am a little more used to it, I shall not wonder + at a synod, in which not one Bishop sits in the capacity of a Bishop, + though I am most certain this is the first example in England since it + was first christened. + +Is this quite fair? Is it not, at least logically considered and at the +commencement of an argument, too like a 'petitio principii' or +'presumptio rei litigatae'? The Westminster divines were confessedly not +prelates, but many in that assembly were, in all other points, orthodox +and affectionate members of the Establishment, who with Bedell, +Lightfoot, and Usher, held them to be Bishops in the primitive sense of +the term, and who yet had no wish to make any other change in the +hierarchy than that of denominating the existing English prelates +Archbishops. They thought that what at the bottom was little more than a +question of names among Episcopalians, ought not to have occasioned such +a dispute; but yet the evil having taken place, they held a change of +names not too great a sacrifice, if thus the things themselves could be +preserved, and Episcopacy maintained against the Independents and +Presbyterians. + + +Ib. s. v. p. 321. + +It is a thing of no present importance, but as a point of history, it is +worth a question whether there were any divines in the Westminster +Assembly who adopted by anticipation the notions of the Seekers, Quakers +and others 'ejusdem farinœ.' Baxter denies it. I understand the +controversy to have been, whether the examinations at the admission to +the ministry did or not supersede the necessity of any directive models +besides those found in the sacred volumes:--if not necessary, whether +there was any greater expedience in providing by authority forms of +prayer for the minister than forms of sermons. Reading, whether of +prayers or sermons, might be discouraged without encouraging +unpremeditated praying and preaching. But the whole question as between +the prelatists and the Assembly divines has like many others been best +solved by the trial. A vast majority among the Dissenters themselves +consider the antecedents to the sermon, with exception of their +congregational hymns, as the defective part of their public service, and +admit the superiority of our Liturgy. + +P.S.--It seems to me, I confess, that the controversy could never have +risen to the height it did, if all the parties had not thrown too far +into the back ground the distinction in nature and object between the +three equally necessary species of worship, that is, public, family, and +private or solitary, devotion. Though the very far larger proportion of +the blame falls on the anti-Liturgists, yet on the other hand, too many +of our Church divines--among others that exemplar' of a Churchman and a +Christian, the every way excellent George Herbert--were scared by the +growing fanaticism of the Geneva malcontents into the neighbourhood of +the opposite extreme; and in their dread of enthusiasm, will-worship, +insubordination, indecency, carried their preference of the established +public forms of prayer almost to superstition by exclusively both using +and requiring them even on their own sick-beds. This most assuredly was +neither the intention nor the wish of the first compilers. However, if +they erred in this, it was an error of filial love excused, and only not +sanctioned, by the love of peace and unity, and their keen sense of 'the +beauty of holiness' displayed in their mother Church. I mention this the +rather, because our Church, having in so incomparable a way provided for +our public devotions, and Taylor having himself enriched us with such +and so many models of private prayer and devotional exercise--(from +which, by the by, it is most desirable that a well arranged collection +should be made; a selection is requisite rather from the opulence, than +the inequality, of the store;)--we have nothing to wish for but a +collection of family and domestic prayers and thanksgivings equally (if +that be not too bold a wish) appropriate to the special object, as the +Common Prayer Book is for a Christian community, and the collection from +Taylor for the Christian in his closet or at his bed side. Here would +our author himself again furnish abundant materials for the work. For +surely, since the Apostolic age, never did the spirit of supplication +move on the deeps of a human soul with a more genial life, or more +profoundly impregnate the rich gifts of a happy nature, than in the +person of Jeremy Taylor! To render the fruits available for all, we need +only a combination of Christian experience with that finer sense of +propriety which we may venture to call devotional taste in the +individual choosing, or chosen, to select, arrange and methodize; and no +less in the dignitaries appointed to revise and sanction the collections. + +Perhaps another want is a scheme of Christian psalmody fit for all our +congregations, and which should not exceed 150 or 200 psalms and hymns. +Surely if the Church does not hesitate in the titles of the Psalms and +of the chapters of the Prophets to give the Christian sense and +application, there can be no consistent objection to do the same in its +spiritual songs. The effect on the morals, feelings, and information of +the people at large is not to be calculated. It is this more than any +other single cause that has saved the peasantry of Protestant Germany +from the contagion of infidelity. + + +Ib. s. xvii. p. 325. + + Thus the Holy Ghost brought to their memory all things which Jesus + spake and did, and, by that means, we come to know all that the Spirit + knew to be necessary for us. + +Alas! it is one of the sad effects or results of the enslaving Old +Bailey fashion of defending, or, as we may well call it, apologizing +for, Christianity,--introduced by Grotius and followed up by the modern +'Alogi', whose wordless, lifeless, spiritless, scheme of belief it alone +suits,--that we dare not ask, whether the passage here referred to must +necessarily be understood as asserting a miraculous remembrancing, +distinctly sensible by the Apostles; whether the gift had any especial +reference to the composition of the Gospels; whether the assumption is +indispensable to a well grounded and adequate confidence in the veracity +of the narrators or the verity of the narration; if not, whether it does +not unnecessarily entangle the faith of the acute and learned inquirer +in difficulties, which do not affect the credibility of history in its +common meaning--rather indeed confirm our reliance on its authority in +all the points of agreement, that is, in every point which we are in the +least concerned to know,--and expose the simple and unlearned Christian +to objections best fitted to perplex, because easiest to be understood, +and within the capacity of the shallowest infidel to bring forward and +exaggerate; and lastly, whether the Scriptures must not be read in that +faith which comes from higher sources than history, that is, if they are +read to any good and Christian purpose. God forbid that I should become +the advocate of mechanical infusions and possessions, superseding the +reason and responsible will. The light 'a priori', in which, according +to my conviction, the Scriptures must be read and tried, is no other +than the earnest, 'What shall I do to be saved?' with the inward +consciousness,--the gleam or flash let into the inner man through the +rent or cranny of the prison of sense, however produced by earthquake, +or by decay,--as the ground and antecedent of the question; and with a +predisposition towards, and an insight into, the 'a priori' probability +of the Christian dispensation as the necessary consequents. This is the +holy spirit in us praying to the Spirit, without which 'no man can say +that Jesus is the Lord:' a text which of itself seems to me sufficient +to cover the whole scheme of modern Unitarianism with confusion, when +compared with that other,--'I am the Lord (Jehovah): that is my name; +and my glory will I not give to another'. But in the Unitarian's sense +of 'Lord,' and on his scheme of evidence, it might with equal justice be +affirmed, that no man can say that Tiberius was the Emperor but by the +Holy Ghost. + + +Ib. s. xxix. p. 331. + + And that this is for this reason called 'a gift and grace,' or issue + of the Spirit, is so evident and notorious, that the speaking of an + ordinary revealed truth, is called in Scripture, 'a speaking by the + spirit', 1 Cor. xii. 8. 'No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by + the Holy Ghost'. For, though the world could not acknowledge Jesus for + the Lord without a revelation, yet now that we are taught this truth + by Scripture, and by the preaching of the Apostles, to which they were + enabled by the Holy Ghost, we need no revelation or enthusiasm to + confess this truth, which we are taught in our creeds and catechisms, + &c. + +I do not, nay I dare not, hesitate to denounce this assertion as false +in fact and the paralysis of all effective Christianity. A greater +violence offered to Scripture words is scarcely conceivable. St. Paul +asserts that 'no man can.' Nay, says Taylor, every man that knows his +catechism can; but unless some six or seven individuals had said it by +the Holy Ghost some seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago, no man +could say so. + + +Ib. s. xxxii. p. 334. + + And yet, because the Holy Ghost renewed their memory, improved their + understanding, supplied to some their want of human learning, and so + assisted them that they should not commit an error in fact or opinion, + neither in the narrative nor dogmatical parts, therefore they wrote by + the spirit. + +And where is the proof?--and to what purpose, unless a distinct and +plain diagnostic were given of the divinities and the humanities which +Taylor himself expressly admits in the text of the Scriptures? + +And even then what would it avail unless the interpreters and +translators, not to speak of the copyists in the first and second +centuries, were likewise assisted by inspiration? + +As to the larger part of the Prophetic books, and the whole of the +Apocalypse, we must receive them as inspired truths, or reject them as +simple inventions or enthusiastic delusions. + +But in what other book of Scripture does the writer assign his own work +to a miraculous dictation or infusion? Surely the contrary is implied in +St. Luke's preface. Does the hypothesis rest on one possible +construction of a single passage in St. Paul, 2 'Tim'. iii. 16.? + +And that construction resting materially on a [Greek: kai (theópneustos, +kai _ophélimos)] not found in the oldest MSS., when the context would +rather lead us to understand the words as parallel with the other +assertion of the Apostle, that all good works are given from God,--that +is, 'Every divinely inspired writing is profitable, &c'. + +Finally, will not the certainty of the competence and single mindedness +of the writers suffice; this too confirmed by the high probability, +bordering on certainty, that God's especial grace worked in them; and +that an especial providence watched over the preservation of writings, +which, we know, both are and have been of such pre-eminent importance to +Christianity, and yet by natural means? + +But alas! any thing will be pretended, rather than admit the necessity +of internal evidence, or than acknowledge, among the external proofs, +the convictions and spiritual experiences of believers, though they +should be common to all the faithful in all ages of the Church! + +But in all superstition there is a heart of unbelief, and, 'vice versa', +where an individual's belief is but a superficial acquiescence, +credulity is the natural result and accompaniment, if only he be not +required to sink into the depths of his being, where the sensual man can +no longer draw breath. It is not the profession of Socinian tenets, but +the spirit of Socinianism in the Church itself that alarms me. This, +this, is the dry rot in the beams and timbers of the Temple! + + +Ib. s. li. p. 348. + + So that let the devotion be ever so great, set forms of prayer will be + expressive enough of any desire, though importunate as extremity + itself. + +This, and much of the same import in this treatise, is far more than +Taylor, mature in experience and softened by afflictions, would have +written. Besides, it is in effect, though not in logic, a deserting of +his own strong and unshaken ground of the means and ends of public +worship. + + +Ib. s. s. lxix. lxx. pp. 359-60. + +These two sections are too much in the vague mythical style of the +Italian and Jesuit divines, and the argument gives to these a greater +advantage against our Church than it gains over the Sectarians in its +support. + +We well know who and how many the compilers of our Liturgy were under +Edward VI, and know too well what the weather-cock Parliaments were, +both then and under Elizabeth, by which the compilation was made law. +The argument therefore should be inverted;--not that the Church (A. B., +C. D., F. L., &c.) compiled it; 'ergo', it is unobjectionable; but (and +truly we may say it) it is so unobjectionable, so far transcending all +we were entitled to expect from a few men in that state of information +and such difficulties, that we are justified in concluding that the +compilers were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. + +But the same order holds good even with regard to the Scriptures. We +cannot rightly affirm they were inspired, and therefore they must be +believed; but they are worthy of belief, because excellent in so +universal a sense to ends commensurate with the whole moral, and +therefore the whole actual, world, that as sure as there is a moral +Governor of the world, they must have been in some sense or other, and +that too an efficient sense, inspired. + +Those who deny this, must be prepared to assert, that if they had what +appeared to them good historic evidence of a miracle, in the world of +the senses, they would receive the hideous immoral doctrines of Mahomet +or Brahma, and thus disobey the express commands both of the Old and New +Testament. Though an angel should come from heaven and work all +miracles, yet preach another doctrine, we are to hold him accursed. +'Gal.' i. 8. + + +Ib. s. lxxv. p. 356. + + When Christ was upon the Mount, he gave it for a pattern, &c. + +I cannot thoroughly agree with Taylor in all he says on this point. The +Lord's Prayer is an encyclopedia of prayer, and of all moral and +religious philosophy under the form of prayer. Besides this, that +nothing shall be wanting to its perfection, it is itself singly the best +and most divine of prayers. But had this been the main and primary +purpose, it must have been thenceforward the only prayer permitted to +Christians; and surely some distinct references to it would have been +found in the Apostolic writings. + + +Ib. s. lxxx. p. 358. + + Now then I demand, whether the prayer of Manasses be so good a prayer + as the Lord's prayer? Or is the prayer of Judith, or of Tobias, or of + Judas Maccabeus, or of the son of Sirach, is any of these so good? + Certainly no man will say they are; and the reason is, because we are + not sure they are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. + + +How inconsistent Taylor often is, the result of the system of +economizing truth! The true reason is the inverse. The prayers of Judith +and the rest are not worthy to be compared with the Lord's Prayer; +therefore neither is the spirit in which they were conceived worthy to +be compared with the spirit from which the Lord's Prayer proceeded: and +therefore with all fulness of satisfaction we receive the latter, as +indeed and in fact our Lord's dictation. + +In all men and in all works of great genius the characteristic fault +will be found in the characteristic excellence. Thus in Taylor, fulness, +overflow, superfluity. + +His arguments are a procession of all the nobles and magnates of the +land in their grandest, richest, and most splendid 'paraphernalia': but +the total impression is weakened by the multitudes of lacqueys and +ragged intruders running in and out between the ranks. + +As far as the Westminster divines were the antagonists to be +answered--and with the exception of these, and those who like Baxter, +Calamy, and Bishop Reynolds, contended for a reformation or correction +only of the Church Liturgy, there were none worth answering,--the +question was, not whether the use of one and the same set of prayers on +all days in all churches was innocent, but whether the exclusive +imposition of the same was comparatively expedient and conducive to +edification? + +Let us not too severely arraign the judgment or the intentions of the +good men who determined for the negative. If indeed we confined +ourselves to the comparison between our Liturgy, and any and all of the +proposed substitutes for it, we could not hesitate: but those good men, +in addition to their prejudices, had to compare the lives, the +conversation, and the religious affections and principles of the +prelatic and anti-prelatic parties in general. + +And do not we ourselves now do the like? Are we not, and with abundant +reason, thankful that Jacobinism is rendered comparatively feeble and +its deadly venom neutralized, by the profligacy and open irreligion of +the majority of its adherents? + +Add the recent cruelties of the Star Chamber under Laud;--(I do not say +the intolerance; for that which was common to both parties, must be +construed as an error in both, rather than a crime in either);--and do +not forget the one great inconvenience to which the prelatic divines +were exposed from the very position which it was the peculiar honor of +the Church of England to have taken and maintained, namely, the golden +mean;--(for in consequence of this their arguments as Churchmen would +often have the appearance of contrasting with their grounds of +controversy as Protestants,)--and we shall find enough to sanction our +charity as brethren, without detracting a tittle from our loyalty as +members of the established Church. + +As to this Apology, the victory doubtless remains with Taylor on the +whole; but to have rendered it full and triumphant, it would have been +necessary to do what perhaps could not at that time, and by Jeremy +Taylor, have been done with prudence; namely, not only to disprove in +part, but likewise in part to explain, the alleged difference of the +spiritual fruits in the ministerial labors of the high and low party in +the Church,--(for remember that at this period both parties were in the +Church, even as the Evangelical, Reformed and Pontifical parties before +the establishment of a schism by the actually schismatical Council of +Trent,)--and thus to demonstrate that the differences to the +disadvantage of the established Church, as far as they were real, were +as little attributable to the Liturgy, as the wound in the heel of +Achilles to the shield and breast-plate which his immortal mother had +provided for him from the forge divine. + + +Ib. s. lxxxvi. p. 361. + + That the Apostles did use the prayer their Lord taught them, I think + needs not much be questioned. + +'Ad contra', see above. But that they did not till the siege of +Jerusalem deviate unnecessarily from the established usage of the +Synagogue is beyond rational doubt. We may therefore safely maintain +that a set form was sanctioned by Apostolic practice; though the form +was probably settled after the converts from Paganism began to be the +majority of Christians. + + +Ib. s. lxxxvii. p. 361. + + Now that they tied themselves to recitation of the very words of + Christ's prayer 'pro loco et tempore', I am therefore easy to believe, + because I find they were strict to a scruple in retaining the + sacramental words which Christ spake when he instituted the blessed + Sacrament. + +Not a case in point. Besides it assumes the controverted sense of +[Greek: ohut_os] as "in these words" 'versus' "to this purport." Grotius +and Lightfoot, however, have settled this dispute by proving that the +Lord's prayer is a selection of prayers from the Jewish ritual: and a +most happy and valuable inference against novelties obtruded for +novelty's sake does Grotius draw from this fact. + +When I consider the manner in which the Jews usually quoted or referred +to particular passages of Scripture, it does not seem altogether +improbable that the several articles of the 'Oratio Dominica' might have +been the initial sentences of several prayers; but I have not the least +doubt that by the loud utterance of the 'My God! my God! why hast thou +forsaken me?' our blessed Redeemer referred to and recalled to John and +Mary that most wonderful and prophetic twenty-second Psalm. + +And what a glorious light does not this throw on the whole scene of the +crucifixion, and in what additional loveliness does it not present the +god-like character of the crucified Son of Man! + +With the very facts before them, of which the former and larger portion +of the Psalm referred to resembles a detailed history rather than a +prophecy,--with what force, and with what lively consolation and +infusion of stedfast hope and faith, when all human grounds of hope had +sunk from under them, must not the obvious and inevitable inference have +flashed on the convictions of the holy mother and the beloved disciple! + + "If all we now behold was pre-ordained and so distinctly predicted; if + the one mournful half of the prophecy has been so entirely and + minutely fulfilled, after so great a lapse of ages, dare we, can we, + doubt for a moment that the glorious remainder will with equal + fidelity be accomplished?" + +Thus to his very last moments did our Lord (setting as it beseemed the +sun of righteousness to set) manifest with a wider and wider face of +glory his self-oblivious love. In the act he was offering, he himself +was a sacrifice of love for the whole creation; and yet the cup +overflowed into particular streams; first, for his enemies, his +persecutors, and murderers; then for his friends and humanly nearest +relative; 'Woman, behold thy son!' O what a transfer! + +Nor does the proposed interpretation preclude any inward and mysterious +sense of the words 'My God! my God!'--though I confess I have never yet +met with a single plausible resolution of the words into any one of the +mysteries of the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or the Passion. Nay, were +there any necessity for supposing such an allusion, which there is not, +the obvious interpretation would, I fear, too dangerously favor the +heresy of those who divided and severed the divinity from the humanity; +so that not the incarnate God, very God of very God, would have atoned +for us on the cross, but the incarnating man; a heresy which either +denies or reduces to an absurdity the whole doctrine of redemption, that +is, Christianity itself, which rests on the two articles of faith; +first, the necessity, and secondly, the reality of a Redeemer--both +articles alike incompatible with redemption by a mere man. + + +Ib. s. lxxxviii. p. 362. + + And I the rather make the inference from the preceding argument + because of the cognation one hath with the other; for the Apostles did + also in the consecration of the Eucharist use the Lord's Prayer; and + that together with the words of institution was the only form of + consecration, saith St. Gregory; and St. Jerome affirms, that the + Apostles, by the command of their Lord, used this prayer in the + benediction of the elements. + +This section is an instance of impolitic management of a cause, into +which Jeremy Taylor was so often seduced by the fertility of his +intellect and the opulence of his erudition. An antagonist by exposing +the improbability of the tradition, (and most improbable it surely is), +and the little credit due to Saint Gregory and Saint Jerome (not +forgetting a Miltonic sneer at their saintship), might draw off the +attention from the unanswerable parts of Taylor's reasoning and leave an +impression of his having been confuted. + + +Ib. s. lxxxix. p. 362. + + But besides this, when the Apostles had received great measures of the + spirit, and by their gift of prayer composed more forms for the help + and comfort of the Church, &c. + +Who would not suppose, that the first two lines were an admitted point +of history, instead of a bare conjecture in the form of a bold +assertion? O, dearest man! so excellent a cause did not need such +Bellarminisms. + + +Ib. p. 363. + + And the Fathers of the Council of Antioch complain against Paulus + Samosatenus, 'quod Psalmos et cantus, qui ad Domini nostri Jesu + Christi honorem decantari solent, tanquam recentiores, et a viris + recentioris memoriœ editos, exploserit.' + + +This Sam-in-satin-hose, or Paul, the same-as-Satan-is, might, I think, +have found his confutation in Pliny's Letter to Trajan. 'Carmen Christo, +quasi Deo, dicere secum invicem.' + + +Ib. s. xc. p. 364. + + Which together with the [Greek: tà apomnaemoneúmata t_on propháeton], + the 'lectionarium' of the Church, the books of the Apostles and + Prophets spoken of by Justin Martyr, and said to be used in the + Christian congregations, are the constituent parts of liturgy. + + +An ingenious but not tenable solution of Justin Martyr's [Greek: +apomnaemoneúmata t_on apostól_on] which were presumably a Gospel not the +same, and yet so nearly the same, as our Matthew, that its history and +character involve one of the hardest problems of Christian antiquity. By +the by, one cause of the small impression--(small in proportion to their +vast superiority in knowledge and genius)--which Jeremy Taylor and his +compeers made on the religious part of the community by their +controversial writings during the life of Charles I is to be found in +their undue predilection for Patristic learning and authority. This +originated in the wish to baffle the Papists at their own weapons; but +it could not escape notice, that the latter, though regularly beaten, +were yet not so beaten, but that they always kept the field: and when +the same mode of warfare was employed against the Puritans, it was +suspected as Papistical. + + +Ib. s. xci. pp. 364-5. + + For the offices of prose we find but small mention of them in the very + first time, save only in general terms, and that such there were, and + that St. James, St. Mark, St. Peter, and others of the Apostles and + Apostolical men, made Liturgies; and if these which we have at this + day were not theirs, yet they make probation that these Apostles left + others, or else they were impudent people that prefixed their names so + early, and the Churches were very incurious to swallow such a bole, if + no pretension could have been reasonably made for their justification. + +A rash and dangerous argument. 1810. + +A many-edged weapon, which might too readily be turned against the +common faith by the common enemy. For if these Liturgies were rightly +attributed to St. James, St. Mark, St. Peter, and others of the Apostles +and Apostolical men, how could they have been superseded? How could the +Church have excluded them from the Canon? + +But if falsely, and yet for a time and at so early an age generally +believed to have been composed by St. James and the rest, it is to be +feared that the difference will not stop at the point to which Paul of +Samosata carried it;--a fearful consideration for a Christian of the +Grotian and Paleyan school. It would not, however, shake my nerves, I +confess. + +The Epistles of St. Paul, and the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse of +St. John, contain an evidence of their authenticity, which no +uncertainty of ecclesiastic history, no proof of the frequency and +success of forgery or ornamental titles (as the Wisdom of Solomon) +mistaken for matter of fact, can wrest from me; and with these for my +guides and sanctions, what one article of Christian faith could be taken +from me, or even unsettled? + +It seems to me, as it did to Luther, incomparably more probable that the +eloquent treatise, entitled an Epistle to the Hebrews, was written by +Apollos than by Paul; and what though it was written by neither? It is +demonstrable that it was composed before the siege of Jerusalem and the +destruction of the Temple; and scarcely less satisfactory is the +internal evidence that it was composed by an Alexandrian. + +These two 'data' are sufficient to establish the fact, that the Pauline +doctrine at large was common to all Christians at that early period, and +therefore the faith delivered by Christ. And this is all I want; nor +this for my own assurance, but as arming me with irrefragable arguments +against those psilanthropists who as falsely, as arrogantly, call +themselves Unitarians, on the one hand; and against the infidel fiction, +that Christianity owes its present shape to the genius and rabbinical +'cabala' of Paul on the other: while at the same time it weakens the +more important half of the objection to, or doubt concerning, the +authenticity of St. Peter's Epistles. + +To this too I attach a high controversial value (for the beauty and +excellence of the Epistles themselves are not affected by the question); +and I receive them as authentic, for they have all the circumstantial +evidence that I have any right to expect. + +But I feel how much more genial my conviction would become, should I +discover, or have pointed out to me, any positive internal evidence +equivalent to that which determines the date of the Epistle to the +Hebrews, or even to that which leaves no doubt on my mind that the +writer was an Alexandrian Jew. + +This, my dear Lamb, is one of the advantages which the previous evidence +supplied by the reason and the conscience secures for us. We learn what +in its nature 'passes all understanding', and what belongs to the +understanding, and on which, therefore, the understanding may and ought +to act freely and fearlessly: while those who will admit nothing above +the understanding ([Greek: phrónaema sarkòs]), which in its nature has +no legitimate object but history and outward 'phoenomena', stand in +slavish dread like a child at its house of cards, lest a single card +removed may endanger the whole foundationless edifice. 1819. + + +Ib. s. xcii. p. 365. + +Now here dear Jeremy Taylor begins to be himself again; for with all his +astonishing complexity, yet versatile agility, of powers, he was too +good and of too catholic a spirit to be a good polemic. Hence he so +continually is now breaking, now varying, the thread of the argument: +and hence he is so again and again forgetting that he is reasoning +against an antagonist, and falls into conversation with him as a +friend,--I might almost say, into the literary chit-chat and un with +holding frankness of a rich genius whose sands are seed-pearl. Of his +controversies, those against Popery are the most powerful, because there +he had subtleties and obscure reading to contend against; and his wit, +acuteness, and omnifarious learning found stuff to work on. Those on +Original Sin are the most eloquent. + +But in all alike it is the digressions, overgrowths, parenthetic 'obiter +et in transitu' sentences, and, above all, his anthropological +reflections and experiences--(for example, the inimitable account of a +religious dispute, from the first collision to the spark, and from the +spark to the world in flames, in his 'Dissuasive from Popery'),--these +are the costly gems which glitter, loosely set, on the chain armour of +his polemic Pegasus, that expands his wings chiefly to fly off from the +field of battle, the stroke of whose hoof the very rock cannot resist, +but beneath the stroke of which the opening rock sends forth a +Hippocrene. The work in which all his powers are confluent, in which +deep, yet gentle, the full stream of his genius winds onward, and still +forming peninsulas in its winding course--distinct parts that are only +not each a perfect whole--or in less figurative style--(yet what +language that does not partake of poetic eloquence can convey the +characteristics of a poet and an orator?)--the work which I read with +most admiration, but likewise with most apprehension and regret, is the +'Liberty of Prophesying'. + +If indeed, like some Thessalian drug, or the strong herb of Anticyra, + + ... that helps and harms, + Which life and death have sealed with counter charms-- + +it could be administered by special prescription, it might do good +service as a narcotic for zealotry, or a solvent for bigotry. + + +The substance of the preceding tract may be comprised as follows: + +1. During the period immediately following our Lord's Ascension, or the +so called Apostolic age, all the gifts of the Spirit, and of course the +gift of prayer, as graces bestowed, not merely or principally for the +benefit of the Apostles and their contemporaries, but likewise and +eminently for the advantage of all after-ages, and as means of +establishing the foundations of Christianity, differed in kind, degree, +mode, and object, from those ordinary graces promised to all true +believers of all times; and possessed a character of extraordinary +partaking of the nature of miracles, to which no believer under the +present and regular dispensations of the Spirit can make pretence +without folly and presumption. + +2. Yet it is certain that even the first miraculous gifts and graces +bestowed on the Apostles themselves supervened on, but did not +supersede, their natural faculties and acquired knowledge, nor enable +them to dispense with the ordinary means and instruments of cultivating +the one, and applying the other, by study, reading, past experience, and +whatever else Providence has appointed for all men as the conditions and +efficients of moral and intellectual progression. The capabilities of +deliberating, selecting, and aptly disposing of our thoughts and works +are God's good gifts to man, which the superadded graces of the Spirit, +vouchsafed to Christians, work on and with, call forth and perfect. +Therefore deliberation, selection, and method become duties, inasmuch as +they are the bases and recipients of the Spirit, even as the polished +crystal is of the light. + +But if the Prophets and Apostles did not (as Taylor demonstrates that +they did not) find in miraculous aids any such infusions of light as +precluded or rendered superfluous the exertion of their natural +faculties and personal attainments, then 'a fortiori' not the possessors +or legatees of the ordinary graces bequeathed by Christ to his Church as +the usufructuary property of all its members; and he who wilfully lays +aside all premeditation, selection, and ordonnance, that he may enter +unprepared on the highest and most awful function of the soul,--that of +public prayer,--is guilty of no less indecency and irreverence than if, +having to present a petition as the representative of a community before +the throne, he purposely put off his seemly garments in order to enter +into the presence of the monarch naked or in rags: and expects no less +an absurdity than to become a passive 'automaton', in which the Holy +Spirit is to play the ventriloquist. + +3. If, then, each congregation is to receive a prepared form of prayer +from its head or minister, why not rather from the collective wisdom of +the Church represented in the assembled heads and spiritual Fathers? + +4. This is admitted by implication by the Westminster Assembly. But they +are not contented with the existing form, and therefore substitute for +it a Directory as the fruits of their meditations and counsels. The +whole question, then, is now reduced to the comparative merits and +fitness of the Directory and the book of Common Prayer; and how complete +the victory of the latter, how glaring the defects, how many the +deficiencies, of the former, Jeremy Taylor evinces unanswerably. + +Such is the substance of this Tract. What the author proposed to prove +he has satisfactorily proved. + +The faults of the work are: + +1. The intermixture of weak and strong arguments, and the frequent +interruption of the stream of his logic by doubtful, trifling, and +impolitic interruptions; arguments resting in premisses denied by the +antagonists, and yet taken for granted; in short, appendages that +cumber, accessions that subtract, and confirmations that weaken:-- + +2. That he commences with a proper division of the subject into two +distinct branches, that is, extempore prayer as opposed to set forms, +and, The Directory, as prescribing a form opposed to the existing +Liturgy; but that in the sequel he blends and confuses and intermingles +one with the other, and presses most and most frequently on the first +point, which a vast majority of the party he is opposing had disowned +and reprobated no less than himself, and which, though easiest to +confute, scarcely required confutation. + + + +DISCOURSE OF THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING, WITH ITS JUST LIMITS AND +TEMPER. + +Epistle Dedicatory, p. cccciii. + + And first I answer, that whatsoever is against the foundation of faith + is out of the limits of my question, and does not pretend to + compliance or toleration. + +But as all truths hang together, what error is there which may not be +proved to be against the foundation of faith? An inquisitor might make +the same code of toleration, and in the next moment light the faggots +around a man who had denied the infallibility of Pope and Council. + + +Ib. p. ccccxxix. + + Indeed if by a heresy we mean that which is against an article of + creed, and breaks part of the covenant made between God and man by the + mediation of Jesus Christ, I grant it to be a very grievous crime, a + calling God's veracity into question, &c. + +How can he be said to question God's veracity, whose belief is that God +never declared it,--who perhaps disbelieves it, because he thinks it +opposite to God's honor? For example:--Original sin, in the literal +sense of the article, was held by both Papists and Protestants (with +exception of the Socinians) as the fundamental article of Christianity; +and yet our Jeremy Taylor himself attacked and reprobated it. Why? +because he thought it dishonored God. Why may not another man believe +the same of the Incarnation, and affirm that it is equal to a circle +assuming the essence of a square, and yet remaining a circle? But so it +is; we spoil our cause, because we dare not plead it 'in toto'; and a +half truth serves for a proof of the opposite falsehood. Jeremy Taylor +dared not carry his argument into all its consequences. + + + +LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING. + +S. i. p. 443. + + Of the nature of faith, and that its duty is completed in believing + the articles of the Apostle's creed. + +This section is for the most part as beautifully written as it was +charitably conceived; yet how vain the attempt! Jeremy Taylor ought to +have denied that Christian faith is at all intellectual primarily, but +only probably; as, 'coecteris paribus', it is probable that a man with a +pure heart will believe an intelligent Creator. But the faith resides in +the predisposing purity of heart, that is, in the obedience of the will +to the uncorrupted conscience. For take Taylor's instances; and I ask +whether the words or the sense be meant? Surely the latter. + +Well then, I understand, and so did the dear Bishop, by these texts the +doctrine of a Redeemer, who by his agonies of death actually altered the +relations of the spirits of all men to their Maker, redeemed them from +sin and death eternal, and brought life and immortality into the world. + +But the Socinian uses the same texts; and means only that a good and +gifted teacher of pure morality died a martyr to his opinions, and by +his resurrection proved the possibility of all men rising from the dead. +He did nothing;--he only taught and afforded evidence. Can two more +diverse opinions be conceived? God here; mere man there. Here a redeemer +from guilt and corruption, and a satisfaction for offended holiness; +there a mere declarer that God imputed no guilt wherever, with or +without Christ, the person had repented of it. + +What could Jeremy Taylor say for the necessity of his sense (which is +mine) but what might be said for the necessity of the Nicene Creed? And +then as to Rom. x. 9, how can the text mean any thing, unless we know +what St. Paul implied in the words 'the Lord Jesus'. From other parts of +his writings we know that he meant by the word 'Lord' his divinity or at +least essential superhumanity. But the Socinian will not allow this; or, +allowing it, denies St. Paul's authority in matters of speculative +faith. As well then might I say, it is sufficient for you to believe and +repeat the words 'forte miles reddens'; and though one of you mean by it +"Perhaps I may be balloted for the militia," and the other understands +it to mean, that "Reading is forty miles from London," you are still +co-symbolists and believers! While a third person may say, I believe, +but do not comprehend, the words; that is, I believe that the person who +first used them meant something that is true,--what I do not know; that +is, I believe his veracity. + +O! had this work been published when Charles I, Archbishop Laud, whose +chaplain Taylor was, and the other Star Chamber inquisitors, were +sentencing Prynne, Bastwick, Leighton, and others, to punishments that +have left a brand-mark on the Church of England, the sophistry might +have been forgiven for the sake of the motive, which would then have +been unquestionable. Or if Jeremy Taylor had not in effect retracted +after the Restoration;--if he had not, as soon as the Church had gained +its power, most basely disclaimed and disavowed the principle of +toleration, and apologized for the publication by declaring it to have +been a 'ruse de guerre', currying pardon for his past liberalism by +charging, and most probably slandering, himself with the guilt of +falsehood, treachery, and hypocrisy, his character as a man would at +least have been stainless. Alas, alas, most dearly do I love Jeremy +Taylor; most religiously do I venerate his memory! But this is too foul +a blotch of leprosy to be forgiven. He who pardons such an act in such a +man partakes of its guilt. + + +Ib. s. vii. p. 346-7. + + In the pursuance of this great truth, the Apostles, or the holy men, + their contemporaries and disciples, composed a creed to be a rule of + faith to all Christians; as appears in Irenæus, Tertullian, St. + Cyprian, St. Austin, Ruffinus, and divers others; which creed, unless + it had contained all the entire object of faith, and the foundation of + religion, &c. + +Jeremy Taylor does not appear to have been a critical scholar. His +reading had been oceanic; but he read rather to bring out the growths of +his own fertile and teeming mind than to inform himself respecting the +products of those of other men. Hence his reliance on the broad +assertions of the Fathers; yet it is strange that he should have been +ignorant that the Apostles' Creed was growing piecemeal for several +centuries. + + +Ib. p. 447. + + All catechumens in the Latin Church coming to baptism were + interrogated concerning their faith, and gave satisfaction on the + recitation of this Creed. + +I very much doubt this, and rather believe that our present Apostles' +Creed was no more than the first instruction of the catechumens prior to +baptism; and (as I conclude from Eusebius) that at baptism they +professed a more mysterious faith;--the one being the milk, the other +the strong meat. Where is the proof that Tertullian was speaking of this +Creed? Eusebius speaks in as high terms of the 'Symbolum Fidei', and, +defending himself against charges of heresy, says, "Did I not at my +baptism, in the 'Symbolum Fidei', declare my belief in Christ as God and +the co-eternal Word?" The true Creed it was impiety to write down; but +such was never the case with the present or initiating Creed. Strange, +too, that Jeremy Taylor, who has in this very work written so divinely +of tradition, should assume as a certainty that this Creed was in a +proper sense Apostolic. Is then the Creed of greater authority than the +inspired Scriptures? And can words in the Creed be more express than +those of St. Paul to the Colossians, speaking of Christ as the creative +mind of his Father, before all worlds, 'begotten before all things +created?' + + +Ib. s. x. p. 449. + +This paragraph is indeed a complexion, as Taylor might call it, of +sophisms. Thus;--unbelief from want of information or capacity, though +with the disposition of faith, is confounded with disbelief. The +question is not, whether it may not be safe for a man to believe simply +that Christ is his Saviour, but whether it be safe for a man to +disbelieve the article in any sense which supposes an essential +supra-humanity in Christ,--any sense that would not have been equally +applicable to John, had God chosen to raise him instead of his cousin? + + +Ib. s. xi. p. 450. + + Neither are we obliged to make these Articles more particular and + minute than the Creed. For since the Apostles, and indeed our blessed + Lord himself, promised heaven to them who believed him to be the + Christ that was to come into the world, and that he who believes in + him should be partaker of the resurrection and life eternal, he will + be as good as his word. Yet because this article was very general, and + a complexion rather than a single proposition, the Apostles and others + our Fathers in Christ did make it more explicit: and though they have + said no more than what lay entire and ready formed in the bosom of the + great Article, yet they made their extracts to great purpose and + absolute sufficiency; and therefore there needs no more deductions or + remoter consequences from the first great Article than the Creed of + the Apostles. + +Most true; but still the question returns, what was meant by the phrase +'the' Christ? Contraries cannot both be true. 'The Christ' could not be +both mere man and incarnate God. One or the other must believe falsely +on this great key-stone of all the intellectual faith in Christianity. +For so it is; alter it, and everything alters; as is proved in +Trinitarianism and Socinianism. No two religions can be more +different;--I know of no two equally so. + + +Ib. s. xii. p. 451. + + The Church hath power to intend our faith, but not to extend it; to + make our belief more evident, but not more large and comprehensive. + +This and the preceding pages are scarcely honest. For Jeremy Taylor +begins with admitting that the Creed might have been composed by others. +He has no proof of that most absurd fable of the twelve Apostles +clubbing to make it; yet here all he says assumes its inspiration as a +certain fact. + + +Ib. p. 454. + + But for the present there is no insecurity in ending there where the + Apostles ended, in building where they built, in resting where they + left us, unless the same infallibility which they had had still + continued, which I think I shall hereafter make evident it did not. + + +What a tangle of contradictions Taylor thrusts himself into by the +attempt to support a true system, a full third of which he was afraid to +mention, and another third was by the same fear induced to deny--at +least to take for granted the contrary: for example, the absolute +plenary inspiration and infallibility of the Apostles and Evangelists; +and yet that their whole function, as far as the consciences of their +followers were concerned, was to repeat the two or three sentences, that +'Jesus was Christ' (so says one of the Evangelists), 'the Christ of God' +(so says another), 'the Christ the Son of the living God' (so says a +third), that he rose from the dead, and for the remission of sins, to as +many as believed and professed that he was the Christ or the Lord, and +died and rose for the remission of sins. Surely no miraculous +communication of God's infallibility was necessary for this. + +But if this infallibility was stamped on all they said and wrote, is it +credible that any part should not be equally binding? I declare I can +make nothing out of this section, but that it is necessary for men to +believe the Apostles' Creed; but what they believe by it is of no +consequence. For instance; what if I chose to understand by the word +'dead' a state of trance or suspended animation;--language furnishing +plenty of analogies--dead in a swoon--dead drunk--and so on;--should I +still be a Christian? + +'Born of the Virgin Mary.' What if, as Priestley and others, I +interpreted it as if we should say, 'the former Miss Vincent was his +mother.' I need not say that I disagree with Taylor's premisses only +because they are not broad enough, and with his aim and principal +conclusion only because it does not go far enough. I would have the law +grounded wholly in the present life, religion only on the life to come. +Religion is debased by temporal motives, and law rendered the drudge of +prejudice and passion by pretending to spiritual aims. But putting this +aside, and judging of this work solely as a chain of reasoning, I seem +to find one leading error in it; namely, that Taylor takes the condition +of a first admission into the Church of Christ for the fullness of faith +which was to be gradually there acquired. The simple acknowledgment, +that they accepted Christ as their Lord and King was the first lisping +of the infant believer at which the doors were opened, and he began the +process of growth in the faith. + + +Ib. s. ii. p. 457. + + + The great heresy that troubled them was the doctrine of the necessity + of keeping the law of Moses, the necessity of circumcision, against + which doctrine they were therefore zealous, because it was a direct + overthrow to the very end and excellency of Christ's coming. + +The Jewish converts were still bound to the rite of circumcision, not +indeed as under the Law, or by the covenant of works, but as the +descendants of Abraham, and by that especial covenant which St. Paul +rightly contends was a covenant of grace and faith. But the heresy +consisted wholly in the attempt to impose this obligation on the Gentile +converts, in the infatuation of some of the Galatians, who, having no +pretension to be descendants of Abraham, could, as the Apostle urges, +only adopt the rite as binding themselves under the law of works, and +thereby apostatizing from the covenant of faith by free grace. And this +was the decision of the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem. Acts' xv. +Rhenferd, in his Treatise on the Ebionites and other pretended heretics +in Palestine, so grossly and so ignorantly calumniated by Epiphanius, +has written excellently well on this subject. Jeremy Taylor is mistaken +throughout. + + +Ib. s. iv. p. 459. + + + And so it was in this great question of circumcision. + +It is really wonderful that a man like Bishop Taylor could have read the +New Testament, and have entertained a doubt as to the decided opinion of +all the Apostles, that every born Jew was bound to be circumcised. +Opinion? The very doubt never suggested itself. When something like this +opinion was slanderously attributed to Paul, observe the almost +ostentatious practical contradiction of the calumny which was adopted by +him at the request and by the advice of the other Apostles. ('Acts', +xxi. 21-26.) The rite of circumcision, I say, was binding on all the +descendants of Abraham through Isaac for all time even to the end of the +world; but the whole law of Moses was binding on the Jewish Christians +till the heaven and the earth--that is, the Jewish priesthood and the +state--had passed away in the destruction of the temple and city; and +the Apostles observed every tittle of the Law. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 460. + + The heresy of the Nicolaitans. + +Heresy is not a proper term for a plainly anti-Christian sect. +Nicolaitans is the literal Greek translation of Balaamites; destroyers +of the people. 'Rev'. ii. 14, 15. + + +Ib. s. viii. p. 461. + + For heresy is not an error of the understanding, but an error of the + will. + + +Most excellent. To this Taylor should have adhered, and to its converse. +Faith is not an accuracy of logic, but a rectitude of heart. + + +Ib. p. 462. + + It was the heresy of the Gnostics, that it was no matter how men + lived, so they did but believe aright. + +I regard the extinction of all the writings of the Gnostics among the +heaviest losses of Ecclesiastical literature. We have only the account +of their inveterate enemies. Individual madmen there have been in all +ages, but I do not believe that any sect of Gnostics ever held this +opinion in the sense here supposed. + + +Ib. + + And, indeed, if we remember that St. Paul reckons heresy amongst the + works of the flesh, and ranks it with all manner of practical + impieties, we shall easily perceive that if a man mingles not a vice + with his opinion,--if he be innocent in his life, though deceived in + his doctrine,--his error is his misery not his crime; it makes him an + argument of weakness and an object of pity, but not a person sealed up + to ruin and reprobation. + + +O admirable! How could Taylor, after this, preach and publish his Sermon +in defence of persecution, at least against toleration! + + +Ib. s. xxii. p. 479. + + Ebion, Manes. + + +No such man as Ebion ever, as I can see, existed; [3] and Manes is +rather a doubtful 'ens'. + + +Ib. s. xxxi. p. 487. + + But I shall observe this, that although the Nicene Fathers in that + case, at that time, and in that conjuncture of circumstances, did + well, &c. + +What Bull and Waterland have urged in defence of the Nicene Fathers is +(like every thing else from such men) most worthy of all attention. They +contend that no other term but [Greek: homoousía] could secure the +Christian faith against both the two contrary errors, Tritheism with +subversion of the unity of the Godhead on the one hand, and +creature-worship on the other. For, to use Waterland's mode of argument, +[4] either Eusebius of Nicomedia with the four other dissenters at Nice +were right or wrong in their assertion, that Christ could not be of the +[Greek: ousía] of the self-originated First by derivation, as a son from +a father:--if they were right, they either must have discovered some +third distinct and intelligible form of origination in addition to +'begotten' and 'created', or they had not and could not. Now the latter +was notoriously the fact. Therefore to deny the [Greek: homoousía] was +implicitly to deny the generation of the second Person, and thus to +assert his creation. But if he was a creature, he could not be adorable +without idolatry. Nor did the chain of inevitable consequences stop +here. His characteristic functions of Redeemer, Mediator, King, and +final Judge, must all cease to be attributable to Christ; and the +conclusion is, that between the Homoousian scheme and mere +Psilanthropism there is no intelligible 'medium'. If this, then, be not +a fundamental article of faith, what can be? + +To this reasoning I really can discern no fair reply within the sphere +of conceptual logic, if it can be made evident that the term [Greek: +homooúsios] is really capable of achieving the end here set forth. One +objection to the term is, that it was not translatable into the language +of the Western Church. Consubstantial is not the translation: +'substantia' answers to [Greek: hypóstasis], not to [Greek: ousía]; and +hence, when [Greek: hypóstasis] was used by the Nicene Fathers in +distinction from [Greek: ousía], the Latin Church was obliged to render +it by some other word, and thus introduced that most unhappy and +improper term 'persona'. Would you know my own inward judgment on this +question, it is this: first, that this pregnant idea, the root and form +of all ideas, is not within the sphere of conceptual logic,--that is, of +the understanding,--and is therefore of necessity inexpressible; for no +idea can be adequately represented in words:--secondly, that I agree +with Bull and Waterland against Bishop Taylor, that there was need of a +public and solemn decision on this point:--but, lastly, that I am more +than doubtful respecting the fitness or expediency of the term [Greek: +homooúsios], and hold that the decision ought to have been negative. For +at first all parties agreed in the positive point, namely, that Christ +was the Son of God, and that the Son of God was truly God, "or very God +of very God." All that was necessary to be added was, that the only +begotten Son of God was not created nor begotten in time. More than this +might be possible, and subject of insight; but it was not determinable +by words, and was therefore to be left among the rewards of the Spirit +to the pure in heart in inward vision and silent contemplation. + + +Ib. s. xl. p. 495. + +All that is necessary to give a full and satistory import to this +excellent paragraph, and to secure it from all inconvenient +consequences, is to understand the distinction between the objective and +general revelation, by which the whole Church is walled around and kept +together ('principium totalitatis et cohæsionis'), and the subjective +revelation, the light from the life ('John' i. 4.), by which the +individual believers, each according to the grace given, grow in faith. +For the former, the Apostles' Creed, in its present form, is more than +enough; for the latter, it might be truly said in the words of the +fourth Gospel, that all the books which the world could contain would +not suffice to set forth explicitly that mystery in which all treasures +of knowledge are hidden, 'reconduntur'. + +From the Apostles' Creed, nevertheless, if regarded in the former point +of view, several clauses must be struck out, not as false, but as not +necessary. "I believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified under +Pontius Pilate, rose from the dead on the third day; and I receive him +as the Christ, the Son of the living God, who died for the remission of +the sins of as many as believe in the Father through him, in whom we +have the promise of life everlasting." This is the sufficient creed. +More than this belongs to the Catechism, and then to the study of the +Scriptures. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 506. + + So did the ancient Papias understand Christ's millenary reign upon + earth, and so depressed the hopes of Christianity and their desires to + the longing and expectation of temporal pleasures and satisfactions. + And he was followed by Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Tertullian, Lactantius, + and indeed, the whole Church generally, till St. Austin and St. + Jerome's time, who, first of any whose works are extant, did reprove + the error. + +Bishop Taylor is, I think, mistaken in two points; first, that the +Catholic Millenaries looked forward to carnal pleasures in the kingdom +of Christ;--for even the Jewish Rabbis of any note represented the +'Millenium' as the preparative and transitional state to perfect +spiritualization:--second, that the doctrine of Christ's reign upon +earth rested wholly or principally on the twentieth chapter of the +Revelations, which actually, in my judgment, opposes it. + +I more than suspect that Austin's and Jerome's strongest ground for +rejecting the second coming of our Lord in his kingly character, was, +that they were tired of waiting for it. How can we otherwise interpret +the third and fourth clauses of the Lord's Prayer, or, perhaps, the +[Greek: en toi kairoi toútoi], 'in hoc seculo', (x. 30) of St. Mark? If +the first three Gospels, joined with the unbroken faith and tradition of +the Church for nearly three centuries, can decide the question, the +Millenarians have the best of the argument. + + +Vol. viii. s. ix. p. 22. + + One thing only I observe (and we shall find it true in most writings, + whose authority is urged in questions of theology), that the authority + of the tradition is not it which moves the assent, but the nature of + the thing; and because such a canon is delivered, they do not + therefore believe the sanction or proposition so delivered, but + disbelieve the tradition if they do not like the matter, and so do not + judge of the matter by the tradition, but of the tradition by the + matter. + +This just and acute remark is, in fact, no less applicable to Scripture +in all doctrinal points, and if infidelity is not to overspread England +as well as France, the same criterion (that is, the internal evidence) +must be extended to all points, to the narratives no less than to the +precept. The written words must be tried by the Word from the beginning, +in which is life, and that life the light of men. Reduce it to the +noetic pentad, or universal form of contemplation, except where all the +terms are absolute, and consequently there is no 'punctum indifferens,--in +divinis tetras, in omnibus aliis pentas,' and the form stands thus. +[5] + + +Ib. s. iii. p. 36. + + So that it cannot make it divine and necessary to be heartily + believed. It may make it lawful, not make it true; that is, it may + possibly, by such means, become a law, but not a truth. + +This is a sophism which so evident a truth did not need. Apply the +reasoning to an act of Parliament previously to the royal sanction. Will +it hold good to say, if it was law after the sanction, it was law +before? The assertion of the Papal theologians is, that the divine +providence may possibly permit even the majority of a legally convened +Council to err; but by force of a divine promise cannot permit both a +majority and the Pope to err on the same point. The flaw in this is, +that the Romish divines rely on a conditional promise unconditionally. +To Taylor's next argument the Romish respondent would say, that an +exception, grounded on a specific evident necessity, does not invalidate +the rule in the absence of any equally evident necessity. + +Taylor's argument is a [Greek: metábasis eis allo génos]. It is not the +truth, but the sign or mark, by which the Church at large may know that +it is truth, which is here provided for; that is, not the truth simply, +but the obligation of receiving it as such. Ten thousand may apprehend +the latter, only ten of whom might be capable of determining the former. + + +Ib. 5. + + So that now (that we may apply this) there are seven general Councils, + which by the Church of Rome are condemned of error ... The council of + Ariminum, consisting of six hundred Bishops. + +It is the mark of a faction that it never hesitates to sacrifice a +greater good common to them and to their opponents to a lesser advantage +obtained over those opponents. Never was there a stranger instance of +imprudence, at least, than the act of the Athanasian party in condemning +so roundly the great Council of Ariminum as heretical, and for little +more than the charitable wish of the many hundred Bishops there +assembled to avoid a word that had set all Christendom by the ears. They +declared that [Greek: ho agénnaetos patàer, kaì ho achron_os gennaetòs +uhiòs, kaì tò pneuma ekporeuómenon] were substantially (hypostatik_os) +distinct, but nevertheless, one God; and though there might be some +incautious phrases used by them, the good Bishops declared that if their +decree was indeed Arian, or introduced aught to the derogation of the +Son's absolute divinity, it was against their knowledge and intention, +and that they renounced it. + + +Ib. s. x. p. 46. + + Gratian says, that the Council means by a concubine a wife married + 'sine dote et solennitate'; but this is daubing with untempered + mortar. + +Here I think Taylor wrong and Gratian right; for not a hundred years ago +the very same decree was passed by the Lutheran clergy in Prussia, +determining that left-hand marriages were to be discouraged, but did not +exclude from communion. These marriages were invented for the sake of +poor nobles: they could have but that one wife, and the children +followed the rank and title of the mother, not of the father. + + +Ib. s. vii. p. 56. + + Thirdly; for 'pasce oves', there is little in that allegation besides + the boldness of the objectors. + +I have ever thought that the derivation of the Papal monarchy from the +thrice repeated command, 'pasce oves', the most brazen of all the Pope's +bulls. It was because Peter had given too good proof that he was more +disposed to draw the sword for Christ than to perform the humble duties +of a shepherd, that our Lord here strongly, though tenderly, reminds him +of his besetting temptation. The words are most manifestly a reproof and +a warning, not a commission. In like manner the very letter of the +famous paronomastic text proves that Peter's confession, not Peter +himself, was the rock. His name was, perhaps, not so much stone as +stoner; not so much rock as rockman; and Jesus hearing this unexpected +confession of his mysterious Sonship (for this is one of the very few +cases in which the internal evidence decides for the superior fidelity +of the first Gospel), and recognizing in it an immediate revelation from +heaven, exclaims, "Well, art thou the man of the rock; 'and upon this +rock will I build my church,'" not on this man. Add too, that the law +revealed to Moses and the confession of the divine attributes, are named +the rock, both in the Pentateuch and in the Psalms. + +Mark has simply, 'Thou art the Christ'; Luke, 'The Christ of God'; [6] +but that Jesus was the Messiah had long been known by the Apostles, at +all events conjectured. Had not John so declared him at the baptism? +Besides, it was included among the opinions concerning our Lord which +led to his question, the aim of which was not simply as to the +Messiahship, but that the Messiah, instead of a mere descendant of +David, destined to reestablish and possess David's throne, was the +Jehovah himself, 'the Son of the living God; God manifested in the +flesh'. 1 'Tim'. iii. 16. + + +Ib. s. viii. p. 62. + + And yet again, another degree of uncertainty is, to whom the Bishops + of Rome do succeed. For St. Paul was as much Bishop of Rome as St. + Peter was; there he presided, there he preached, and he it was that + was the doctor of the uncircumcision and of the Gentiles, St. Peter of + the circumcision and of the Jews only; and therefore the converted + Jews at Rome might with better reason claim the privilege of St. + Peter, than the Romans and the Churches in her communion, who do not + derive from Jewish parents. + +I wonder that Taylor should have introduced so very strong an argument +merely 'obiter'. If St. Peter ever was at Rome, it must have been for +the Jewish converts or _convertendi_ exclusively, and on what do the +earliest Fathers rest the fact of Peter's being at Rome? Do they appeal +to any document? No; but to their own arbitrary and most improbable +interpretation of the word Babylon in St. Peter's first epistle. [7] I +am too deeply impressed with the general difficulty arising out of the +strange eclipse of all historic documents, of all particular events, +from the arrival of St. Paul at Rome as related by St. Luke and the time +when Justin Martyr begins to shed a scanty light, to press any +particular instance of it. Yet, if Peter really did arrive at Rome, and +was among those destroyed by Nero, it is strange that the Bishop and +Church of Rome should have preserved no record of the particulars. + + +Ib. s. xv. p. 71. + + But what shall we think of that decretal of Gregory the Third, who + wrote to Boniface his legate in Germany, 'quod illi, quorum uxores + infirmitate aliqua morbida debitum reddere noluerunt, aliis poterant + nubere.' + + +Supposing the 'noluerunt' to mean 'nequeunt', or at least any state of +mind and feeling that does not exclude moral attachment, I, as a +Protestant, abominate this decree of Gregory III; for I place the moral, +social, and spiritual helps and comforts as the proper and essential +ends of Christian marriage, and regard the begetting of children as a +contingent consequence. But on the contrary tenet of the Romish Church, +I do not see how Gregory could consistently decree otherwise. + + +Ib. s. iii. p. 82. + + Nor that Origen taught the pains of hell not to have an eternal + duration. + +And yet there can be no doubt that Taylor himself held with Origen on +this point. But, 'non licebat dogmatizare oppositum, quia determinatum +fuerat.' + + +Ib. p. 84. + + And except it be in the Apostles' Creed and articles of such nature, + there is nothing which may with any color be called a consent, much + less tradition universal. + +It may be well to remember, whenever Taylor speaks of the Apostles' +Creed, that Pearson's work on that Creed was not then published. Nothing +is more suspicious than copies of creeds in the early Fathers; it was so +notoriously the custom of the transcribers to make them square with +those in use in their own time. + + +Ib. s. iv. + + Such as makes no invasion upon their great reputation, which I desire + should be preserved as sacred as it ought. + +The vision of the mitre dawned on Taylor; and his recollection of Laud +came to the assistance of the Fathers; of many of whom in his heart +Taylor, I think, entertained a very mean opinion. How could such a man +do otherwise? I could forgive them their nonsense and even their +economical falsehoods; but their insatiable appetite for making +heresies, and thus occasioning the neglect or destruction of so many +valuable works, Origen's for instance, this I cannot forgive or forget. + + +Ib. s. i. p. 88. + + Of the incompetency of the Church, in its diffusive capacity, to be + judge of controversies; and the impertinency of that pretence of the + Spirit. + +Now here begin my serious differences with Jeremy Taylor, which may be +characterized in one sentence; ideas 'versus' conceptions and images. I +contend that the Church in the Christian sense is an idea;--not +therefore a chimera, or a fancy, but a real being and a most powerful +reality. Suppose the present state of science in this country, with this +only difference that the Royal and other scientific societies were not +founded: might I not speak of a scientific public, and its influence on +the community at large? Or should I be talking of a chimera, a shadow, +or a non-entity? Or when we speak with honest pride of the public spirit +of this country as the power which supported the nation through the +gigantic conflict with France, do we speak of nothing, because we cannot +say,--"It is in this place or in that catalogue of names?" At the same +time I most readily admit that no rule can be grounded formally on the +supposed assent of this ideal Church, the members of which are recorded +only in the book of life at any one moment. In Taylor's use and +application of the term, Church, the visible Christendom, and in reply +to the Romish divines, his arguments are irrefragable. + + +Ib. s. ii. p. 93, + + So that if they read, study, pray, search records, and use all the + means of art and industry in the pursuit of truth, it is not with a + resolution to follow that which shall seem truth to them, but to + confirm what before they did believe. + + +Alas, if Protestant and Papist were named by individuals answering or +not answering to this description, what a vast accession would not the +Pope's muster-roll receive! In the instance of the Council of Trent, the +iniquity of the Emperor and the Kings of France and Spain consisted in +their knowledge that the assembly at Trent had no pretence to be a +general Council, that is, a body representative of the Catholic or even +of the Latin Church. It may be, and in fact it is, very questionable +whether any Council, however large and fairly chosen, is not an +absurdity except under the universal faith that the Holy Ghost +miraculously dictates all the decrees: and this is irrational, where the +same superseding Spirit does not afford evidence of its presence by +producing unanimity. I know nothing, if I may so say, more ludicrous +than the supposition of the Holy Ghost contenting himself with a +majority, in questions respecting faith, or decrees binding men to +inward belief, which again binds a Christian to outward profession. +Matters of discipline and ceremony, having peace and temporal order for +their objects, are proper enough for a Council; but these do not need +any miraculous interference. Still if any Council is admitted in matters +of doctrine, those who have appealed to it must abide by the +determination of the majority, however they might prefer the opinion of +the minority, just as in acts of Parliament. + + +Ib. s. xi. p. 98. + + Of some causes of error in the exercise of reason, which are inculpate + in themselves. + +It is a lamentable misuse of the term, reason,--thus to call by that +name the mere faculty of guessing and babbling. The making reason a +faculty, instead of a light, and using the term as a mere synonyme of +the understanding, and the consequent ignorance of the true nature of +ideas, and that none but ideas are objects of faith--are the grounds of +all Jeremy Taylor's important errors. + + +Ib. + + But men may understand what they please, especially when they are to + expound oracles. + +If this sentence had occurred in Hume or Voltaire! + + +Ib. s. iii. p. 103. + + And then if ever truth be afflicted, she shall also be destroyed. + + +Here and in many other passages of his other works Jeremy Taylor very +unfairly states this argument of the anti-prelatic party. It was not +that the Church of England was afflicted (the Puritans themselves had +been much more afflicted by the prelates); but that having appealed to +the decision of the sword, the cause was determined against it. But in +fact it is false that the Puritans ever did argue as Taylor represents +them. Laud and his confederates had begun by incarcerating, scourging, +and inhumanly mutilating their fellow Christians for not acceding to +their fancies, and proceeded to goad and drive the King to levy or at +least maintain war against his Parliament: and the Parliamentary party +very naturally cited their defeat and the overthrow of the prelacy as a +judgment on their blood-thirstiness, not as a proof of their error in +questions of theology. + + +Ib. s. iv. p. 105. + + All that I shall say, &c. 'ad finem'. + +An admirable paragraph. Taylor is never more himself, never appears +greater, or wiser, than when he enters on this topic, namely, the many +and various causes beside truth which occasion men to hold an opinion +for truth. + + +Ib. s. vii. p. 111. + + Of such men as these it was said by St. Austin: 'Cæteram turbam non + intelligendi vivacitas, sed credendi simplicitas tutissimam facit.' + + +Such charity is indeed notable policy: salvation made easy for the +benefit of obedient dupes. + + +Ib. s. ii. p. 119. + + I deny not but certain and known idolatry, or any other sort of + practical impiety with its principiant doctrine, may be punished + corporally, because it is no other but matter of fact. + + +In the Jewish theocracy, I admit; because the fact of idolatry was a +crime, namely, 'crimen læsæ majestatis', an overt act subversive of the +fundamental law of the state, and breaking asunder the 'vinculum et +copulam unitatis et cohæsionis'. But in making the position general, +Taylor commits the 'sophisma omissi essentialis'; he omits the essential +of the predicate, namely, criminal;--not its being a fact rendering it +punishable, but its being a criminal fact. + +Ib. s. iii. + +Oh that this great and good man, who saw and has expressed so large a +portion of the truth,--(if by the Creed I might understand the true +Apostles', that is, the Baptismal Creed, free from the additions of the +first five centuries, I might indeed say the whole truth),--had but +brought it back to the great original end and purpose of historical +Christianity, and of the Church visible, as its exponent, not as a +'hortus siccus' of past revelations,--but an ever enlarging inclosed +'area' of the opportunity of individual conversion to, and reception of, +the spirit of truth! Then, instead of using this one truth to inspire a +despair of all truth, a reckless scepticism within, and a boundless +compliance without, he would have directed the believer to seek for +light where there was a certainty of finding it, as far as it was +profitable for him, that is, as far as it actually was light for him. +The visible Church would be a walled Academy, a pleasure garden, in +which the intrants having presented their 'symbolum portae', or +admission-contract, walk at large, each seeking private audience of the +invisible teacher,--alone now, now in groups,--meditating or +conversing,--gladly listening to some elder disciple, through whom (as +ascertained by his intelligibility to me) I feel that the common Master +is speaking to me,--or lovingly communing with a class-fellow, who, I +have discovered, has received the same lesson from the inward teaching +with myself,--while the only public concerns in which all, as a common +weal, exercised control and vigilance over each, are order, peace, +mutual courtesy and reverence, kindness, charity, love, and the fealty +and devotion of all and each to the common Master and Benefactor! + + +Ib. s. viii. p. 124. + +It is characteristic of the man and the age, Taylor's high-strained +reverential epithets to the names of the Fathers, and as rare and naked +mention of Luther, Melancthon, Calvin--the least of whom was not +inferior to St. Augustin, and worth a brigade of the Cyprians, +Firmilians, and the like. And observe, always 'Saint' Cyprian! + + +Ib. s. xii. p. 128-9. + +Gibbon's enumeration of the causes, not miraculous, of the spread of +Christianity during the first three centuries is far from complete. +This, however, is not the greatest defect of this celebrated chapter. +The proportions of importance are not truly assigned; nay, the most +effective causes are only not omitted--mentioned, indeed, but 'quasi in +transitu', not developed or distinctly brought out: for example, the +zealous despotism of the Cæsars, with the consequent exclusion of men of +all ranks from the great interests of the public weal, otherwise than as +servile instruments; in short, the direct contrary of that state and +character of men's minds, feelings, hopes and fancies, which elections, +Parliaments, Parliamentary reports, and newspapers produce in England; +and this extinction of patriotism aided by the melting down of states +and nations in the one vast yet heterogeneous Empire;--the number and +variety of the parts acting only to make each insignificant in its own +eyes, and yet sufficient to preclude all living interest in the peculiar +institutions and religious forms of Rome; which beginning in a petty +district, had, no less than the Greek republics, its mythology and +[Greek: thraeskeia] intimately connected with localities and local +events. The mere habit of staring or laughing at nine religions must +necessarily end in laughing at the tenth, that is, the religion of the +man's own birth-place. The first of these causes, that is, the +detachment of all love and hope from the things of the visible world, +and from temporal objects not merely selfish, must have produced in +thousands a tendency to, and a craving after, an internal religion, +while the latter occasioned an absolute necessity of a mundane as +opposed to a national or local religion. I am far from denying or +doubting the influence of the excellence of the Christian faith in the +propagation of the Christian Church or the power of its evidences; but +still I am persuaded that the necessity of some religion, and the +untenable nature and obsolete superannuated character of all the others, +occasioned the conversion of the largest though not the worthiest part +of the new-made Christians. Here, though exploded in physics, we have +recourse to the 'horror vacui' as an efficient cause. This view of the +subject can offend or startle those only who, in their passion for +wonderment, virtually exclude the agency of Providence from any share in +the realizing of its own benignant scheme; as if the disposition of +events by which the whole world of human history, from north and south, +east and west, directed their march to one central point, the +establishment of Christendom, were not the most stupendous of miracles! +It is a yet sadder consideration, that the same men who can find God's +presence and agency only in sensuous miracles, wholly misconceive the +characteristic purpose and proper objects of historic Christianity and +of the outward and visible Church, of which historic Christianity is the +ground and the indispensable condition; but this is a subject delicate +and dangerous, at all events requiring a less scanty space than the +margins of these honestly printed pages. + + +Ib. s. iv. p. 133. + + The death of Ananias and Sapphira, and the blindness of Elymas the + sorcerer, amount not to this, for they were miraculous inflictions. + +One great difficulty respecting, not the historic truth (of which there +can be no rational doubt), but the miraculous nature, of the sudden +deaths of Ananias and Sapphira is derived from the measure which gave +occasion to it, namely, the sale of their property by the new converts +of Palestine, in order to establish that community of goods, which, +according to a Rabbinical tradition, existed before the Deluge, and was +to be restored by the children of Seth (one of the names which the +Jewish Christians assumed) before the coming of the Son of Man. Now this +was a very gross and carnal, not to say fanatical, misunderstanding of +our Lord's words, and had the effect of reducing the Churches of the +Circumcision to beggary, and of making them an unnecessary burthen on +the new Churches in Greece and elsewhere. See Rhenferd as to this. + +The fact of Elymas, however, concludes the miraculous nature of the +deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, which, taken of themselves, would indeed +have always been supposed, but could scarcely have been proved, the +result of a miraculous or superhuman power. There are for me, I confess, +great difficulties in this incident, especially when it is compared with +our Lord's reply to the Apostles' proposal of calling down fire from +heaven. 'The Son of Man is not come to destroy', &c. At all events it is +a subject that demands and deserves deep consideration. + + +Ib. s. i. p. 141. + + The religion of Jesus Christ is 'the form of sound doctrine and + wholesome words', which is set down in Scripture indefinitely, + actually conveyed to us by plain places, and separated as for the + question of necessary or not necessary by the Symbol of the Apostles. + +I cannot refrain from again expressing my surprise at the frequency and +the undoubting positiveness of this assertion in so great a scholar, so +profound a Patrician, as Jeremy Taylor was. He appears 'bona fide' to +have believed the absurd fable of this Creed having been a pic-nic to +which each of the twelve Apostles contributed his 'symbolum'. Had Jeremy +Taylor taken it for granted so completely and at so early an age, that +he read without attending to the various passages in the Fathers and +ecclesiastical historians, which shew the gradual formation of this +Creed? It is certainly possible, and I see no other solution of the +problem. + + +Ib. s. ix. p. 153. + +'Judge not, that ye be not judged'. The dread of these words is, I fear, +more influential on my spirit than either the duty of charity or my +sense of Taylor's high merits, in enabling me to struggle against the +strong inclination to pass the sentence of dishonesty on the reasoning +in this paragraph. Had I met the passage in Richard Baxter or in Bishop +Hall, it would have made no such unfavourable impression. But Taylor was +so acute a logician, and had made himself so completely master of the +subject, that it is hard to conceive him blind to sophistry so glaring. +I am myself friendly to Infant Baptism, but for that reason feel more +impatience of any unfairness in its defenders. + + +Ib. Ad. iii. and xiii. p. 178. + + But then, that God is not as much before hand with Christian as with + Jewish infants is a thing which can never be believed by them who + understand that in the Gospel God opened all his treasures of mercies, + and unsealed the fountain itself; whereas, before, he poured forth + only rivulets of mercy and comfort. + +This is mere sophistry; and I doubt whether Taylor himself believed it a +sufficient reply to his own argument. There is no doubt that the primary +purpose of Circumcision was to peculiarize the Jews by an indelible +visible sign; and it was as necessary that Jewish infants should be +known to be Jews as Jewish men. Then humanity and mere safety determined +that the bloody rite should be performed in earliest infancy, as soon as +the babe might be supposed to have gotten over the fever of his birth. +This is clear; for women had no correspondent rite, but the same result +was obtained by the various severe laws concerning their marriage with +aliens and other actions. + + +Ib. p. 180. + + And as those persons who could not be circumcised (I mean the + females), yet were baptized, as is notorious in the Jews' books and + story. + +Yes, but by no command of God, but only their own fancies. + + +Ib. Ad. iv. p. 181. + + 'Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, + shall not enter therein': receive it as a little child receives it, + that is, with innocence, and without any let or hinderance. + +Is it not evident that Christ here converted negatives into positives? +As a babe is without malice negatively, so you must be positively and by +actuation, that is, full of love and meekness; as the babe is +unresisting, so must you be docile, and so on. + + +Ib. Ad. v. + +And yet, notwithstanding this terrible paragraph, Taylor believed that +infants were not a whit the worse off for not being baptized. Strange +contradiction! They are born in sin, and Baptism is the only way of +deliverance; and yet it is not. For the infant is 'de se' of the kingdom +of heaven. Christ blessed them, not in order to make them so, but +because they already were so. So that this argument seems more than all +others demonstrative for the Anabaptist, and to prove that Baptism +derives all its force if it be celestial magic, or all its meaning if it +be only a sacrament and symbol, from the presumption of actual sin in +the person baptized. + + +Ib. Ad. xv. p. 186. + + And he that hath without difference commanded that all nations should + be baptized, hath without difference commanded all sorts of persons. + +Even so our Lord commanded all men to repent, did he therefore include +babes of a month old? [8] Yes, when they became capable of repentance. +And even so babes are included in the general command of Baptism, that +is, as soon as they are baptizable. But Baptism supposed both repentance +and a promise; babes are not capable of either, and therefore not of +Baptism. For the physical element was surely only the sign and seal of a +promise by a counter promise and covenant. The rite of Circumcision is +wholly inapplicable; for there a covenant was between Abraham and God, +not between God and the infant. "Do so and so to all your male children, +and I will favor them. Mark them before the world as a peculiar and +separate race, and I will then consider them as my chosen people." But +Baptism is personal, and the baptized a subject not an object; not a +thing, but a person; that is, having reason, or actually and not merely +potentially. Besides, Jeremy Taylor was too sound a student of Erasmus +and Grotius not to know the danger of screwing up St. Paul's +accommodations of Jewish rites, meant doubtless as inducements of +rhetoric and innocent compliances with innocent and invincible +prejudices, into articles of faith. The conclusions are always true; but +all the arguments are not and were never intended to be reducible into +syllogisms demonstrative. + + +Ib. Ad. xviii. p. 191. + + But let us hear the answer. First, it is said, that Baptism and the + Spirit signify the same thing; for by water is meant the effect of the + Spirit. + +By the 'effect,' the Anabaptist clearly means the 'causa causans', the +'act of the Spirit.' As well might Taylor say that a thought is not +thinking, because it is the effect of thinking. Had Taylor been right, +the water to be an apt sign ought to have been dirty water; for that +would be the 'res effecta'. But it is pure water, therefore 'res agens'. + + +Ib. p. 192. + + For it is certain and evident, that regeneration or new birth is here + enjoined to all as of absolute and indispensable necessity. + + +Yet Taylor himself has denied it over and over again in his tracts on +Original Sin; and how is it in harmony with the words of Christ--'Of +such are the kingdom of heaven'? Are we not regenerated back to a state +of spiritual infancy? Yet for such Anti-pædobaptists as hold the dogma +of original guilt it is doubtless a fair argument; but Taylor ought not +to have used it as certain and evident in itself, and not merely 'ad +hominem et per accidens'. As making a bow is in England the understood +conventional mark or visible language of reverence, so in the East was +Baptism the understood outward and visible mark of conversion and +initiation. So much for the visible act: then for the particular meaning +affixed to it by Christ. This was [Greek: metánoia], an adoption of a +new principle of action and consequent reform of conduct; a cleansing, +but especially a cleansing away of the carnal film from the mind's eye. +Hence the primitive Church called baptism [Greek: ph_os], light, and the +Eucharist [Greek: z_oàe], life. Baptism, therefore, was properly the +sign, the 'precursor', or rather the first act, the 'initium', of that +regeneration of which the whole spiritual life of a Christian is the +complete process; the Eucharist indicating the means, namely, the +continued assimilation of and to the Divine Humanity. Hence the +Eucharist was called the continuation of the Incarnation. + + +Ib. + + And yet it does not follow that they should all be baptized with the + Holy Ghost and with fire. But it is meant only that that glorious + effect should be to them a sign of Christ's eminency above him; they + should see from him a Baptism greater than that of John. + +This is exactly of a piece with that gloss of the Socinians in evasion +of St. Paul's words concerning Christ's emptying himself of the form of +God, and becoming a servant, which all the world of Christians had +interpreted of the Incarnation. But no! it only referred to the miracle +of his transfiguration! + + ... 'credat Judæus Apella! + Non ego'. + +St. John could not mean this, unless he denied the distinct personality +of the Holy Ghost. For it was the Holy Ghost that then descended 'as the +substitute of Christ; nor does St. Luke even hint that it was understood +to be a Baptism, even if we suppose the 'tongues of fire' to be anything +visual, and not as we say, Victory sate on his helmet like an eagle. The +spirit of eloquence descended into them like a tongue of fire, and that +they spoke different languages is, I conceive, no where said; but only +that being rustic Galileans they yet spake a dialect intelligible to all +the Jews from the most different provinces. For it is clear they were +all Jews, and, as Jews, had doubtless a 'lingua communis' which all +understood when spoken, though persons of education only could speak it. +Even so a German boor understands, but yet cannot talk in, High German, +that is, the language of his Bible and Hymn-book. So it is with the +Scotch of Aberdeen with regard to pure English. In short Taylor's +arguments press on the Anabaptists, only as far as the Anabaptists +baptize at all; they are in fact attacks on Baptism; and it would only +follow from them that the Baptist is more rational than the Pædobaptist, +but that the Quaker is more consistent than either. To pull off your hat +is in Europe a mark of respect. What, if a parent in his last will +should command his children and posterity to pull off their hats to +their superiors,--and in course of time these children or descendants +emigrated to China, or some place, where the same ceremony either meant +nothing, or an insult. Should we not laugh at them if they did not +interpret the words into, Pay reverence to your superiors. Even so +Baptism was the Jewish custom, and natural to those countries; but with +us it would be a more significant rite if applied as penance for excess +of zeal and acts of bigotry, especially as sprinkling. + + +Ib. p. 196. + + But farther yet I demand, can infants receive Christ in the Eucharist? + +Surely the wafer and the tea-spoonful of wine might be swallowed by an +infant, as well as water be sprinkled upon him. But if the former is not +the Eucharist because without faith and repentance, so cannot the +latter, it would seem, be Baptism. For they are declared equal adjuncts +of both Sacraments. The argument therefore is a mere 'petitio principii +sub lite'. + + +Ib. Ad. ix. p. 197. + + The promise of the Holy Ghost is made to all, to us and to our + children: and if the Holy Ghost belongs to them, then Baptism belongs + to them also. + +If this be not rank enthusiasm I know not what is. The Spirit is +promised to them, first, as protection and providence, and as internal +operation when those faculties are developed, in and by which the Spirit +co-operates. Can Taylor shew an instance in Scripture in which the Holy +Spirit is said to operate simply, and without the co-operation of the +subject? + + +Ib. Ad. xix. p. 199. + + And when the boys in the street sang Hosanna to the Son of David, our + blessed Lord said that if they had held their peace, the stones of the + street would have cried out Hosanna. + + +By the same argument I could defend the sprinkling of mules and asses +with holy water, as is done yearly at Rome on St. Antony's day, I +believe. For they are capable of health and sickness, of restiveness and +of good temper, and these are all emanations from their Creator. Besides +in the great form of Baptism the words are not [Greek: en onómati], but +[Greek: eis tò onoma], and many learned men have shewn that they may +mean 'into the power or influence' of the Father, the Son, and the +Spirit. But spiritual influences suppose capability in act of receiving +them; and we must either pretend to believe that the soul of the babe, +that is, his consciousness, is acted on without his consciousness, or +that the instrumental cause is antecedent by years to its effect, which +would be a conjunction disjunctive with a vengeance. Again, Baptism is +nothing except as followed by the Spirit; but it is irrational to say, +that the Spirit acts on the mere potentialities of an infant. For +wherein is the Spirit, as used in Scripture in appropriation to +Christians, different from God's universal providence and goodness, but +that the latter like the sun may shine on the wicked and on the good, on +the passive and on those who by exercise increase its effect; whereas +the former always implies a co-operant subject, that is, a developed +reason. When God gave his Spirit miraculously to the young child, +Daniel, he at the same time miraculously hastened the development of his +understanding. + + +Ib. Ad. xxviii. p. 205. + + But we see also that although Christ required faith of them who came + to be healed, yet when any were brought, or came in behalf of others, + he only required faith of them who came, and their faith did benefit + to others.... + + But this instance is so certain a reproof of this objection of theirs, + which is their principal, which is their all, that it is a wonder to + me they should not all be convinced at the reading and observing of + it. + +So far from certainty, I find no strength at all in this reproof. +Doubtless Christ at a believer's request might heal his child's or his +servant's bodily sickness; for this was an act of power, requiring only +an object. But is it any where said, that at a believer's request he +gave the Spirit and the graces of faith to an unbeliever without any +mental act, or moral co-operation of the latter? This would have been a +proof indeed; but Taylor's instance is a mere 'ad aliud'. + + +Ib. Ad. xxxi. p. 207. + + And although there are some effects of the Holy Spirit which require + natural capacities to be their foundation; yet those are the [Greek: + energáemata] or powers of working: but the [Greek: charísmata], and + the inheritance and the title to the promises require nothing on our + part, but that we can receive them. + +The Bishop flutters about and about, but never fairly answers the +question, What does Baptism do? The Baptist says it attests forgiveness +of sins, as the reward of faith and repentance. This is intelligible; +but as to the [Greek: charísmata]--the children of believers, if so +taught and educated, are surely entitled to the promises; and what +analogy is there in this to any one act of power and gift of powers +mentioned as [Greek: charísmata], when the word is really used in +contradistinction from [Greek: energáemata] Baptism is spoken of many +times by St. Paul properly as well as metaphorically, and in the former +sense it is never described as a [Greek: chárisma] on a passive +recipient, while in the latter sense it always respects an [Greek: +enérgaema] of the Spirit of God, and a [Greek: synérgaema] in the spirit +of the recipient. All that Taylor can make out is, that Baptism effects +a potentiality in a potentiality, or a chalking of chalk to make white +white. + + +Ib. p. 210. + + And if it be questioned by wise men whether the want of it do not + occasion their eternal loss, and it is not questioned whether Baptism + does them any hurt or no, then certainly to baptize them is the surer + way without all peradventure. + +Now this is the strongest argument of all against Infant Baptism, and +that which alone weighed at one time with me, namely, that it supposes +and most certainly encourages a belief concerning God, the most +blasphemous and intolerable; and no human wit can express this more +forcibly and affectingly than Taylor himself has done in his Letter to a +Lady on Original Sin. It is too plain to be denied that the belief of +the strict necessity of Infant Baptism, and the absolute universality of +the practice did not commence till the dogma of original guilt had begun +to despotize in the Church: while that remained uncertain and sporadic, +Infant Baptism was so too; some did it, many did not. But as soon as +Original Sin in the sense of actual guilt became the popular creed, then +all did it. [9] + + +Ib. s. xvi. p. 224. + + And although they have done violence to all philosophy and the reason + of man, and undone and cancelled the principles of two or three + sciences, to bring in this article; yet they have a divine revelation, + whose literal and grammatical sense, if that sense were intended, + would warrant them to do violence to all the sciences in the circle. + And indeed that Transubstantiation is openly and violently against + natural reason is no argument to make them disbelieve it, who believe + the mystery of the Trinity in all those niceties of explication which + are in the School (and which now-a-days pass for the doctrine of the + Church), with as much violence to the principles of natural and + supernatural philosophy as can be imagined to be in the point of + Transubstantiation. + +This is one of the many passages in Taylor's works which lead me to +think that his private opinions were favorable to Socinianism. Observe, +to the views of Socinus, not to modern Unitarianism, as taught by +Priestley and Belsham. And doubtless Socinianism would much more easily +bear a doubt, whether the difference between it and the orthodox faith +was not more in words than in the things meant, than the Arian +hypothesis. A mere conceptualist, at least, might plausibly ask whether +either party, the Athanasian or the Socinian, had a sufficiently +distinct conception of what the one meant by the hypostatical union of +the Divine Logos with the man Jesus; or the other of his plenary, total, +perpetual, and continuous inspiration, to have any well-grounded +assurance, that they do not mean the same thing. + +Moreover, no one knew better than Jeremy Taylor that this apparent soar +of the hooded falcon, faith, to the very empyrean of bibliolatry +amounted in fact to a truism of which the following syllogism is a fair +illustration. All stones are men: all men think: 'ergo', all stones +think. The 'major' is taken for granted, the minor no one denies; and +then the conclusion is good logic, though a very foolish untruth. Or, if +an oval were demonstrated by Euclid to be a circle, it would be a +circle; and if it were a demonstrable circle, it would be a circle, +though the strait lines drawable from the centre to the circumference +are unequal. If we were quite certain that an omniscient Being, +incapable of deceiving, or being deceived, had assured us that 5 X 5 = 6 +X 3, and that the two sides of a certain triangle were together less +than the third, then we should be warranted in setting at nought the +science of arithmetic and geometry. On another occasion, as when it was +the good Bishop's object to expose the impudent assertions of the Romish +Church since the eleventh century, he would have been the first to have +replied by a counter syllogism. + +If we are quite certain that any writing pretending to divine origin +contains gross contradictions to demonstrable truths 'in eodem +genere', or commands that outrage the clearest principles of right +and wrong; then we may be equally certain that the pretence is a +blasphemous falsehood, inasmuch as the compatibility of a document with +the conclusions of self-evident reason, and with the laws of conscience, +is a condition 'a priori' of any evidence adequate to the proof of +its having been revealed by God. + +This principle is clearly laid down both by Moses and by St. Paul. If a +man pretended to be a prophet, he was to predict some definite event +that should take place at some definite time, at no unreasonable +distance: and if it were not fulfilled, he was to be punished as an +impostor. But if he accompanied his prophecy with any doctrine +subversive of the exclusive Deity and adorability of the one God of +heaven and earth, or any seduction to a breach of God's commandments, he +was to be put to death at once, all other proof of his guilt and +imposture being superfluous. [10] So St. Paul. If any man preach another +Gospel, though he should work all miracles, though he had the appearance +and evinced the superhuman powers of an angel from heaven--he was at +once, in contempt of all imaginable sensuous miracles, to be holden +accursed. [11] + + +Ib. s. xviii. p. 225. + + And now for any danger to men's persons for suffering such a doctrine, + this I shall say, that if they who do it are not formally guilty of + idolatry, there is no danger that they whom they persuade to it, + should be guilty ... When they believe it to be no idolatry, then + their so believing it is sufficient security from that crime, which + hath so great a tincture and residency in the will, that from thence + only it hath its being criminal. + + +Will not this argument justify all idolaters? For surely they believe +themselves worshippers either of the Supreme Being under a permitted +form, or of some son of God (as Apollo) to whom he has delegated such +and such powers. If this be the case, there is no such crime as +idolatry: yet the second commandment expressly makes the worshipping of +God in or before a visual image of him not only idolatry, but the most +hateful species of it. Now do they not worship God in the visible form +of bread, and prostrate themselves before pictures of the Trinity? Are +we so mad as to suppose that the pious heathens thought the statue of +Jupiter, Jove himself? No; and yet these heathens were idolaters. But +there was no such being as Jupiter. No! Was there no King of Kings and +Lord of Lords; and does the name Jove instead of Jehovah (perhaps the +same word too) make the difference? Were Marcus Antoninus and Epictetus +idolaters? + + + + +UNUM NECESSARIUM; OR THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF REPENTANCE. + +1. The first great divines among the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, and +their compeers and successors, had thrown the darkness of storms on an +awful fact of human nature, which in itself had only the darkness of +negations. What was certain, but incomprehensible, they rendered +contradictory and absurd by a vain attempt at explication. It was a +fundamental fact, and of course could not be comprehended; for to +comprehend, and thence to explain, is the same as to perceive, and +thence to point out, a something before the given fact, and Standing to +it in the relation of cause to effect. Thus they perverted original sin +into hereditary guilt, and made God act in the spirit of the cruellest +laws of jealous governments towards their enemies, upon the principle of +treason in the blood. This was brought in to explain their own +explanation of God's ways, and then too often God's alleged way in this +case was adduced to justify the cruel state law of treason in the blood. + +2. In process of time, good men and of active minds were shocked at +this; but, instead of passing back to the incomprehensible fact, with a +vault over the unhappy idol forged for its comprehension, they +identified the two in name; and while in truth their arguments applied +only to a false theory, they rejected the fact for the sake of the +mis-solution, and fell into far worse errors. For the mistaken theorist +had built upon a foundation, though but a superstructure of chaff and +straw; but the opponents built on nothing. Aghast at the superstructure, +these latter ran away from that which is the sole foundation of all +human religion. + +3. Then came the persecutions of the Arminians in Holland; then the +struggle in England against the Arminian Laud and all his +party--terrible persecutors in their turn of the Calvinists and +systematic divines; then the Civil War and the persecutions of the +Church by the Puritans in their turn; and just in this state of heated +feelings did Taylor write these Works, which contain dogmas subversive +of true Christian faith, namely, his 'Unum Necessarium', or Doctrine and +Practice of Repentance, which reduces the cross of Christ to nothing, +especially in the seventh chapter of the same, and the after defences of +it in his Letters on Original Sin to a Lady, and to the Bishop of +Rochester; and the Liberty of Prophesying, which, putting toleration on +a false ground, has left no ground at all for right or wrong in matters +of Christian faith. + +In the marginal notes, which I have written in these several treatises +on Repentance, I appear to myself to have demonstrated that Taylor's +system has no one advantage over the Lutheran in respect of God's +attributes; that it is 'bona fide' Pelagianism (though he denies +it; for let him define that grace which Pelagius would not accept, +because incompatible with free will and merit, and profess his belief in +it thus defined, and every one of his arguments against absolute decrees +tell against himself); and lastly, that its inevitable logical +consequences are Socinianism and 'quæ sequuntur'. In Tillotson the +face of Arminianism looked out fuller, and Christianity is represented +as a mere arbitrary contrivance of God, yet one without reason. Let not +the surpassing eloquence of Taylor dazzle you, nor his scholastic +retiary versatility of logic illaqueate your good sense. Above all do +not dwell too much on the apparent absurdity or horror of the dogma he +opposes, but examine what he puts in its place, and receive candidly the +few hints which I have admarginated for your assistance, being in the +love of truth and of Christ, + +Your Brother. + + +I have omitted one remark, probably from over fullness of intention to +have inserted it. + +1. The good man and eloquent expresses his conjectural belief that, if +Adam had not fallen, Christ would still have been necessary, though not +perhaps by Incarnation. Now, in the first place, this is only a play +thought of himself, and Scotus, and perhaps two or three others in the +Schools; no article of faith or of general presumption; consequently it +has little serious effect even on the guessers themselves. In the next +place, if it were granted, yet it would be a necessity wholly 'ex parte +Dei', not at all 'ex parte Hominis':--for what does it amount to but +this--that God having destined a creature for two states, the earthly +rational, and the heavenly spiritual, and having chosen to give him, in +the first instance, faculties sufficient only for the first state, must +afterwards superinduce those sufficient for the second state, or else +God would at once and the same time destine and not destine. This +therefore is a mere fancy, a theory, but not a binding religion; no +covenant. + +2. But the Incarnation, even after the fall of Adam, he clearly makes to +be specifically of no necessity. It was only not to take away peevishly +the estate of grace from the poor innocent children, because of the +father,--according to the good Bishop, a poor ignorant, who before he +ate the apple of knowledge did not know what right and wrong was; and +Christ's Incarnation would have been no more necessary then than it was +before, according to Taylor's belief. Here again the Incarnation is +wholly a contrivance 'ex parte Dei', and no way resulting from any +default of man. + +3. Consequently Taylor neither saw nor admitted any 'a priori' necessity +of the Incarnation from the nature of man, and which, being felt by man +in his own nature, is itself the greatest of proofs for the admission of +it, and the strongest pre-disposing cause of the admission of all proof +positive. Not having this, he was to seek 'ab extra' for proofs in +facts, in historical evidence in the world of sense. The same causes +produce the same effects. Hence Grotius, Taylor, and Baxter (then, as +appears in his Life, in a state of uneasy doubt), were the first three +writers of evidences of the Christian religion, such as have been since +followed up by hundreds,--nine-tenths of them Socinians or +Semi-Socinians, and which, taking head and tail, I call the +Grotio-Paleyan way. + +4. Hence the good man was ever craving for some morsel out of the +almsbasket of all external events, in order to prove to himself his own +immortality; and, with grief and shame I tell it, became evidence and +authority in Irish stories of ghosts, and apparitions, and witches. Let +those who are astonished refer to Glanville on Witches, and they will be +more astonished still. The fact now stated at once explains and +justifies my anxiety in detecting the errors of this great and excellent +genius at their fountain head,--the question of Original Sin: for how +important must that error be which ended in bringing Bishop Jeremy +Taylor forward as an examiner, judge, and witness in an Irish apparition +case! + + +Ib. s. xxxviii. p. 278. + + Although God exacts not an impossible law under eternal and + insufferable pains, yet he imposes great holiness in unlimited and + indefinite measures, with a design to give excellent proportions of + reward answerable to the greatness of our endeavour. Hell is not the + end of them that fail in the greatest measures of perfection; but + great degrees of heaven shall be their portion who do all that they + can always, and offend in the fewest instances. + +It is not to be denied that one if not more of the parables appears to +sanction this, but the same parables would by consequence seem to favour +a state of Purgatory. From John, Paul, and the philosophy of the +doctrine, I should gather a different faith, and find a sanction for +this too in one of the parables, namely, that of the labourer at the +eleventh hour. Heaven, bliss, union with God through Christ, do not seem +to me comparative terms, or conceptions susceptible of degree. But it is +a difficult question. The first Fathers of the Reformation, and the +early Fathers of the primitive Church, present different systems, and in +a very different spirit. + + +Ib. p. 324-328. + + Descriptions of repentance taken from the Holy Scriptures. + +This is a beautiful collection of texts. Still the pious but unconverted +Jew (a Moses Mendelsohn, for instance), has a right to ask, What then +did Christ teach or do, such and of such additional moment as to be +rightfully entitled the founder of a new law, instead of being, like +Isaiah and others, an enforcer and explainer of the old? If +Christianity, or the 'opus operans' of Redemption, was synchronous with +the Fall of man, then the same answer must be returned to the passages +here given from the Old Testament as to those from the New; namely, that +Sanctification is the result of Redemption, not its efficient cause or +previous condition. Assuredly [Greek: metanóaesis] and Sanctification +differ only as the plant and the growth or growing of the plant. But the +words of the Apostle (it will be said) are exhortative and dehortative. +Doubtless! and so would be the words of a wise physician addressed to a +convalescent. Would this prove that the patient's revalescence had been +independent of the medicines given him? The texts are addressed to the +free will, and therefore concerning possible objects of free will. No +doubt! Should that process, the end and virtue of which is to free the +will, destroy the free will? But I cannot make it out to my +understanding, how the two are compatible.--Answer; the spirit knows the +things of the spirit. Here lies the sole true ground of +Latitudinarianism, Arminian, or Socinian; and this is the sole and +sufficient confutation; 'spiritualia spiritus cognoscit'. Would you +understand with your ears instead of hearing with your understanding? +Now, as the ears to the understanding, so is the understanding to the +spirit. This Plato knew; and art thou a master in Israel, and knowest it +not? + + +Ib. p. 330. + + 'Who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the + blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, + and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace'. + +By this passage we must interpret the words "sin wilfully," in reference +to an unpardonable sin, in the preceding sentence. + + Of the moral capacity of sinful habits. + + +Ib. s. ii. p. 432. + +Probably from the holiness of his own life, Taylor has but just +fluttered about a bad habit, not fully described it. He has omitted, or +rather described contradictorily, the case of those with whom the +objections to sin are all strengthened, the dismal consequences more +glaring and always present to them as an avenging fury, the sin loathed, +detested, hated; and yet, spite of all this, nay, the more for all this, +perpetrated. Both lust and intemperance would furnish too many instances +of these most miserable victims. + + +Ib. s. xxxix. p. 456. + + For every vicious habit being radicated in the will, and being a + strong love, inclination and adhesion to sin, unless the natural being + of this love be taken off, the enmity against God remains. + +But the most important question is as to those vicious habits in which +there is no love to sin, but only a dread and recoiling from intolerable +pain, as in the case of the miserable drunkard! I trust that these +epileptic agonies are rather the punishments than the augumenters of his +guilt. The annihilation of the wicked is a fearful thought, yet it would +solve many difficulties both in natural religion and in Scripture. And +Taylor in his Arminian dread of Calvinism is always too shy of this +"grace of God:" he never denies, yet never admits, it any separate +operancy 'per se'. And this, I fancy, is the true distinction of +Arminianisrn and Calvinism in their moral effects. Arminianism is cruel +to individuals, for fear of damaging the race by false hopes and +improper confidences; while Calvinism is horrible for the race, but full +of consolation to the suffering individual. + +The next section is, taken together, one of the many instances that +confirm my opinion that Calvinism (Archbishop Leighton's for example), +compared with Taylor's Arminianism, is as the lamb in the wolf's skin to +the wolf in the lamb's skin: the one is cruel in the phrases, the other +in the doctrine. + + +Ib. s. lvi. p. 469. + + But if a single act of contrition cannot procure pardon of sins that + are habitual, then a wicked man that returns not till it be too late + to root out vicious habits, must despair of salvation. I answer, &c. + +Would not Taylor's purposes have been sufficiently attained by pressing +the contrast between attrition and contrition with faith, and the utter +improbability that the latter (which alone can be efficient), shall be +vouchsafed to a sinner who has continued in his sins in the flattery of +a death-bed repentance; a blasphemy that seems too near that against the +Holy Ghost? My objection to Taylor is, that he seems to reduce the death +of Christ almost to a cypher; a contrivance rather to reconcile the +attributes of God, than an act of infinite love to save sinners. But the +truth is, that this is the peccant part of Arminianism, and Tillotson is +yet more open than Taylor. Forbid me, common goodness, that I should +think Tillotson conscious of Socinianism! but that his tenets involved +it, I more than suspect. See his Discourses on Transubstantiation, and +those near it in the same volume. + + +Ib. lxiv. p. 478. + + Now there is no peradventure, but new-converted persons, heathens + newly giving up their names to Christ and being baptized, if they die + in an hour, and were baptized half an hour after they believe in + Christ, are heirs of salvation. + + +This granted, I should little doubt of confuting all the foregoing, as +far as I object to it. I would rather be 'durus pater infantum', like +Austin, than 'durus pater ægrotantium'. Taylor considers all Christians +who are so called. + + +Ib. s. lxvi. p. 481. + +All this paragraph is as just as it is fine and lively, but far from +confirming Taylor's doctrine. The case is as between one individual and +a general rule. I know God's mercy and Christ's merits; but whether your +heart has true faith in them, I cannot know. 'Be it unto thee according +to thy faith', said Christ: so should his ministers say. All these +passages, however, are utterly irreconcilable with the Roman doctrine, +that the priest's absolution is operant, and not simply declarative. As +to the decisions of Paulinus and Asterius, it is to be feared that they +had the mortmain bequests and compensations in view more than the words +of St. Paul, or the manifest purposes of redemption by faith. Yea, +Taylor himself has his 'redime peccata eleemosynis'. + +By the by, I know of few subjects that have been more handled and less +rationally treated than this of alms-giving. Every thing a rich man +purchases beyond absolute necessaries, ought to be purchased in the +spirit of alms, that is, as the most truly beneficial way of disparsing +that wealth, of which he is the steward, not owner. + + +Ib. + + St. Paul taught us this secret, that sins are properly made habitual + upon the stock of impunity. 'Sin taking occasion by the law wrought in + me all concupiscence'; [Greek: 'aphormàen labousa'], 'apprehending + impunity,' [Greek: 'dià taes entolaes'], 'by occasion of the + commandment,' that is, so expressed and established as it was; because + in the commandment forbidding to lust or covet, there was no penalty + annexed or threatened in the sanction or in the explication. Murder + was death, and so was adultery and rebellion. Theft was punished + severely too; and so other things in their proportion; but the desires + God left under a bare restraint, and affixed no penalty in the law. + Now sin, that is, men that had a mind to sin, taking occasion hence, + &c. + +This is a very ingenious and very plausible exposition of St. Paul's +words; but surely, surely, it is not the right one. I find both the +meaning and the truth of the Apostle's words in the vividness and +consequently attractive and ad-(or in-)sorbent power given to an image +or thought by the sense of its danger, by the consciousness of its being +forbidden,--which, in an unregenerate and unassisted will, struggling +with, or even exciting, the ever ready inclination of corrupted nature, +produces a perplexity and confusion which again increase the person's +susceptibility of the soliciting image or fancy so intensified. Guilt +and despair add a stimulus and sting to lust. See Iago in Shakspeare. + + +Ib. s. xi. p. 500. + + It was not well with thee when thou didst first enter into the suburbs + of hell by single actions of sin, &c. + +Aye! this is excellent indeed, and worthy of a guardian angel of the +Church. When Jeremy Taylor escapes from the Mononomian Romaism, which +netted him in his too eager recoil from the Antinomian boar, brought +forth and foddered (as he imagined) in Calvin's stye; when from this +wiry net he escapes into the devotional and the dietetic, as into a +green meadow-land, with springs, and rivulets, and sheltering groves, +where he leads his flock like a shepherd;--then it is that he is most +himself,--then only he is all himself, the whole Jeremy Taylor; or if +there be one other subject graced by the same total heautophany, it is +in the pouring forth of his profound common sense on the ways and +weaknesses of men and conflicting sects, as for instance, in the +admirable birth, parentage, growth, and consummation of a religious +controversy in his 'Dissuasive from Popery'. + + +Ib. s. xiii. p. 502. + + Let every old man that repents of the sins of his evil life be very + diligent in the search of the particulars; that by drawing them into a + heap, and spreading them before his eyes, he may be mightily ashamed + at their number and burthen. + + +I dare not condemn, but I am doubtful of this as a universal rule. If +there be a true hatred of sin, the precious time and the spiritual +'nisus' will, I think, be more profitably employed in enkindling +meditation on holiness, and thirstings after the mind of Christ. + + +Ib. ss. xxxi-xxxv. pp..517, 518. + +Scarce a word in all this but for form's sake concerning the merits and +sacrifice of the Incarnate God! Surely Luther would not have given this +advice to a dying penitent, but have directed him rather to employ his +little time in agony of prayer to Christ, or in earnest meditations on +the astounding mystery of his death. In Taylor man is to do every thing. + + +Vol. IX. s. xi. p. 5. + + For God was so exasperated with mankind, that being angry he would + still continue that punishment even to the lesser sins and sinners, + which he only had first threatened to Adam; and so Adam brought it + upon them. + +And such a phrase as this used by a man in a refutation of Original Sin, +on the ground of its incompatibility with God's attributes! +"Exasperated" with those whom Taylor declares to have been innocent and +most unfortunate, the two things that most conciliate love and pity! + + +Ib. p. 6. + +If the sequel of the paragraph, comparing God to David in one of his +worst actions, be not blasphemy, the reason is that the good man meant +it not as such. 'In facto est, sed non' in agents. + + +Ib. ss. xvi. xvii. pp. 8, 9. + + For the further explication of which it is observable that the word + 'sinner' and 'sin' in Scripture is used for any person, that hath a + fault or a legal impurky, a debt, a vitiosity, defect, or imposition, + &c. + + +These facts, instead of explaining away Original Sin, are +unintelligible, nay, absurd and immoral, except as shadows, types, and +symbols of it, and of the Redemption from it. Observe, too, that Taylor +never dares explain what he means by "Adam was mortal of himself and we +are mortal from him:" he did not dare affirm that soul and body are +alike material and perishable, even as the lute and the potentiality of +music in the lute. And yet if he believed the contrary, then, in his +construction of the doctrine of Original Sin, what has Christ done? St. +John died in the same sense as Abel died: and in the sense of the Church +of England neither died, but only slept in the Lord. + +This same system forced Taylor into the same error which Warburton +afterwards dressed up with such trappings and trammels of erudition, in +direct contempt of the plain meaning of the Church's article; and he +takes it for granted, in many places, that the Jews under Moses knew +only of temporal life and the death of the body. Lastly, he greatly +degrades the mind of man by causelessly representing death as an evil in +itself, which, if it be considered as a crisis, or phenomenal change, +incident to a progressive being, ought as little to be thought so, as +the casting of the caterpillar's skin to make room for the wings of the +butterfly. It is the unveiling of the Psyche. + +I do not affirm this as an article of Christian faith; but I say that no +candid writer ought to hide himself in double meanings. Either he should +have used the term 'death' ('ex Adamo') as loss of body, or as +change of mode of being and of its circumstances; and again this latter +as either evil for all, or as evil or good according to the moral habits +of each individual. + +Observe, however, once for all, that I do not pretend to account for +Original Sin. I declare it to be an unaccountable fact. How can we +explain a 'species', when we are wholly in the dark as to the +'genus'? Now guilt itself, as well as all other immediate facts of +free will, is absolutely inexplicable; of course original guilt. If we +will perversely confound the intelligible with the sensible world, +misapply the logic appropriate to _phænomena_ and the categories, or +forms, which are empty except as substantialized in facts of experience, +in order to use them as the Procrustes' bed of faith respecting noumena: +if in short, we will strive to understand that of which we can only know +[Greek: hoti estì], we may and must make as wild work with reason, will, +conscience, guilt, and virtue, as with Original Sin and Redemption. On +every subject first ask, Is it among the [Greek: aisthaetà], or the +[Greek: noúmena]? + + +Ib. s. xxiii. p. 12. + + It could not make us heirs of damnation. This I shall the less need to + insist upon, because, of itself, it seems so horrid to impute to the + goodness and justice of God to be author of so great calamity to + innocents, &c. + +Never was there a more hazardous way of reasoning, or rather of placing +human ignorance in the judgment seat over God's wisdom. The whole might +be closely parodied in support of Atheism: rather, this is but a +paraphrase of the old atheistic arguments. Either God could not, or +would not, prevent the moral and physical evils of the universe, +including the everlasting anguish of myriads of millions: therefore he +is either not all-powerful or not all-good: but a being deficient in +power or goodness is not God:--_Ergo, &c._ + + +Ib. s. xxv. p. 13. + + I deny not but all persons naturally are so, that they cannot arrive + at heaven; but unless some other principle be put into them, or some + great grace done for them, must for ever stand separate from seeing + the face of God. + +But this is but accidentally occasioned by the sin of Adam. Just so +might I say, that without the great grace of air done for them no living +beings could live. If it mean more, pray where was the grace in creating +a being, who without an especial grace must pass into utter misery? If +Taylor reply; but the grace was added in Christ: why so say the +Calvinists. According to Taylor there is no fall of man; but only an act +and punishment of a man, which punishment consisted in his living in the +kitchen garden, instead of the flower garden and orchard: and Cain was +as likely to have murdered Abel before, as after, the eating of the +forbidden fruit. But the very name of the fruit confutes Taylor. Adam +altered his nature by it. Cain did not. What Adam did, I doubt not, we +all do. Time is not with things of spirit. + + +Ib. s. xxvii. p. 14. + + Is hell so easy a pain, or are the souls of children of so cheap, so + contemptible a price, that God should so easily throw them into hell? + +This is an argument against the 'sine qua non' of Baptism, not against +Original Sin. + + +Ib. s. lxvii. p. 49. + + Origen said enough to be mistaken in the question. [Greek: Hharà tò + Adàm koinàe pánt'on esti. Kaì tà katà taes gynaikòs, ouk esti kath aes + ou légetai.] 'Adam's curse is common to all. And there is not a woman + on earth, to whom may not be said those things which were spoken to + this woman.' + +Origen's words ought to have prevented all mistake, for he plainly +enough overthrows the phantom of hereditary guilt; and as to guilt from +a corruption of nature, it is just such guilt as the carnivorous +appetites of a weaned lion, or the instinct of a brood of ducklings to +run to water. What then is it? It is an evil, and therefore seated in +the will; common to all men, the beginning of which no man can determine +in himself or in others. How comes this? It is a mystery, as the will +itself. Deeds are in time and space, therefore have a beginning. Pure +action, that is, the will, is a 'noumenon', and irreferable to time. +Thus Origen calls it neither hereditary nor original, but universal sin. +The curse of Adam is common to all men, because what Adam did, we all +do: and thus of Eve. You may substitute any woman in her place, and the +same words apply. This is the true solution of this unfortunate +question. The [Greek: pr'oton pseudos] is in the dividing the will from +the acts of the will. The will is 'ego-agens'. + + +Ib. s. lxxxii. p. 52. + +This paragraph, though very characteristic of the Author, is fitter for +a comedy than for a grave discourse. It puts one in mind of the +play--"More sacks in the mill! Heap, boys, heap!" + + +Ib. s. lxxxiv. p. 56. + + 'Præposterum est' (said Paulus the lawyer) 'ante nos locupletes dici + quam acquisiverimus'. We cannot be said to lose what we never had; and + our fathers' goods were not to descend upon us, unless they were his + at his death. + +Take away from me the knowledge that he was my father, dear Bishop, and +this will be true. But as it stands, the whole is, "says Paulus the +Lawyer;" and, "Well said, Lawyer!" say I. + + +Ib. p. 57. + + Which though it was natural, yet from Adam it began to be a curse; + just as the motion of a serpent upon his belly, which was concreated + with him, yet upon this story was changed into a malediction and an + evil adjunct. + +How? I should really like to understand this. + + +Ib. ch. vii. p. 73 'in initio'. + +In this most eloquent treatise we may detect sundry logical lapses, +sometimes in the statement, sometimes in the instances, and once or +twice in the conclusions. But the main and pervading error lies in the +treatment of the subject 'in genere' by the forms and rules of +conceptual logic; which deriving all its material from the senses, and +borrowing its forms from the sense ([Greek: aisthaesis katharà]) or +intuitive faculty, is necessarily inapplicable to spiritual mysteries, +the very definition or contra-distinguishing character of which is that +they transcend the sense, and therefore the understanding, the faculty, +as Archbishop Leighton and Immanuel Kant excellently define it, which +judges according to sense. In the Aids to Reflection, [12] I have shewn +that the proper function of the understanding or mediate faculty is to +collect individual or sensible concretes into kinds and sorts ('genera +et species') by means of their common characters ('notæ communes'); and +to fix and distinguish these conceptions (that is, generalized +perceptions) by words. Words are the only immediate objects of the +understanding. Spiritual verities, or truths of reason 'respective ad +realia', and herein distinguished from the merely formal, or so called +universal truths, are differenced from the conceptions of the +understanding by the immediatcy of the knowledge, and from the immediate +truths of sense,--that is, from both pure and mixed intuitions,--by not +being sensible, that is, not representable by figure, measurement or +weight; nor connected with any affection of our sensibility, such as +color, taste, odors, and the like. And such knowledges we, when we speak +correctly, name ideas. + +Now Original Sin, that is, sin that has its origin in itself, or in the +will of the sinner, but yet in a state or condition of the will not +peculiar to the individual agent, but common to the human race, is an +idea: and one diagnostic or contra-distinguishing mark appertaining to +all ideas, is, that they are not adequately expressible by words. An +idea can only be expressed (more correctly suggested) by two +contradictory positions; as for example; the soul is all in every +part;--nature is a sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, and its +circumference no where, and the like. + +Hence many of Bishop Taylor's objections, grounded on his expositions of +the doctrine, prove nothing more than that the doctrine concerns an +idea. But besides this, Taylor everywhere assumes the consequences of +Original Sin as superinduced on a pre-existing nature, in no essential +respect differing from our present nature;--for instance, on a material +body, with its inherent appetites and its passivity to material +agents;--in short, on an animal nature in man. But this very nature, as +the antagonist of the spirit or supernatural principle in man, is in +fact the Original Sin,--the product of the will indivisible from the act +producing it; just as in pure geometry the mental construction is +indivisible from the constructive act of the intuitive faculty. Original +Sin, as the product, is a fact concerning which we know by the light of +the idea itself, that it must originate in a self-determination of a +will. That which we do not know is how it originates, and this we cannot +explain; first, from the necessity of the subject, namely, the will; and +secondly, because it is an idea, and all ideas are inconceivable. It is +an idea, because it is not a conception. + + +Ib. s. ii. p. 74, 75. + + And they are injurious to Christ, who think that from Adam we might + have inherited immortality. Christ was the giver and preacher of it; + 'he brought life and immortality to light through the gospel'. It is a + singular benefit given by God to mankind through Jesus Christ. + +And none inherit it but those who are born of Christ; 'ergo', bad men +and infidels are not immortal. Immortality is one thing, a happy +immortality another. St. Paul meant the latter: Taylor either the +former, or his words have no meaning at all; for no man ever thought or +dreamed that we inherited heaven from Adam, but that as sons of Adam, +that is, as men, we have souls that do not perish with the body. I often +suspect that Taylor, in 'abditis fidei' [Greek: es_oterikaes], inclined +to the belief that there is no other immortality but heaven, and that +hell is a 'pæna damni negativa, haud privativa'. I own myself strongly +inclined to it;--but so many texts against it! I am confident that the +doctrine would be a far stronger motive than the present; for no man +will believe eternal misery of himself, but millions would admit, that +if they did not amend their lives they would be undeserving of living +for ever. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 77. + + [Greek: hina màe plaemmúra tòn en haemin katapontísae logismòn eis + tòn taes hamartiás buthón.] + +"Lest the tumultuous crowd throw the reason within us over bridge into +the gulf of sin." What a vivid figure! It is enough to make any man set +to work to read Chrysostom. + + +Ib. + + ... 'peccantes mente sub una.' + +Note Prudentius's use of 'mente sub una' for 'in one person.' + + +Ib. p. 78. + + For even now we see, by a sad experience, that the afflicted and the + miserable are not only apt to anger and envy, but have many more + desires and more weaknesses, and consequently more aptnesses to sin in + many instances than those who are less troubled. And this is that + which was said by Arnobius; 'proni ad culpas, et ad libidinis varios + appetitos vitio sumus infirmitatis ingenitæ'. + +No. Arnobius never said so good and wise a thing in his lifetime. His +quoted words have no such profound meaning. + + +Ib. s. vii. p. 78. + + That which remained was a reasonable soul, fitted for the actions of + life and reason, but not of anything that was supernatural. + +What Taylor calls reason I call understanding, and give the name reason +to that which Taylor would have called spirit. + + +Ib. s. xii. p. 84. + + And all that evil which is upon us, being not by any positive + infliction, but by privative, or the taking away gifts, and blessings, + and graces from us, which God, not having promised to give, was + neither naturally, nor by covenant, obliged to give,--it is certain he + could not be obliged to continue that to the sons of a sinning father, + which to an innocent father he was not obliged to give. + +Oh! certainly not, if hell were not attached to acts and omissions, +which without these very graces it is morally impossible for men to +avoid. Why will not Taylor speak out? + + +Ib. s. xiv. p. 85. + + The doctrine of the ancient Fathers was that free will remained in us + after the Fall. + +Yea! as the locomotive faculty in a man in a strait waistcoat. Neither +St. Augustine nor Calvin denied the remanence of the will in the fallen +spirit; but they, and Luther as well as they, objected to the flattering +epithet 'free' will. In the only Scriptural sense, as concerning the +unregenerate, it is implied in the word will, and in this sense, +therefore, it is superfluous and tautologic; and, in any other sense, it +is the fruit and final end of Redemption,--the glorious liberty of the +Gospel. + + +Ib. s. xvi. p. 92. + + For my part I believe this only as certain, that nature alone cannot + bring them to heaven, and that Adam left us in a state in which we + could not hope for it. + +This is likewise my belief, and that man must have had a Christ, even if +Adam had continued in Paradise--if indeed the history of Adam be not a +'mythos'; as, but for passages in St. Paul, we should most of us +believe; the serpent speaking, the names of the trees, and so on; and +the whole account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis seems +to me clearly to say:--"The literal fact you could not comprehend if it +were related to you; but you may conceive of it as if it had taken place +thus and thus." + + +Ib. s. 1. p. 166. + + That in some things our nature is cross to the divine commandment, is + not always imputable to us, because our natures were before the + commandment. + +This is what I most complain of in Jeremy Taylor's ethics; namely, that +he constantly refers us to the deeds or 'phenomena' in time, the +effluents from the source, or like the 'species' of Epicurus; while the +corrupt nature is declared guiltless and irresponsible; and this too on +the pretext that it was prior in time to the commandment, and therefore +not against it. But time is no more predicable of eternal reason than of +will; but not of will; for if a will be at all, it must be 'ens +spirituale'; and this is the first negative definition of +spiritual--whatever having true being is not contemplable in the forms +of time and space. Now the necessary consequence of Taylor's scheme is a +conscience-worrying, casuistical, monkish work-holiness. Deeply do I +feel the difficulty and danger that besets the opposite scheme; and +never would I preach it, except under such provisos as would render it +perfectly compatible with the positions previously established by Taylor +in this chapter, s. xliv. p. 158. 'Lastly; the regenerate not only hath +received the Spirit of God, but is wholly led by him,' &c. + + +Ib. + +If this Treatise of Repentance contain Bishop Taylor's habitual and +final convictions, I am persuaded that in some form or other he believed +in a Purgatory. In fact, dreams and apparitions may have been the +pretexts, and the immense addition of power and wealth which the belief +entailed on the priesthood, may have been their motives for patronizing +it; but the efficient cause of its reception by the churches is to be +found in the preceding Judaic legality and monk-moral of the Church, +according to which the fewer only could hope for the peace of heaven as +their next immediate state. The holiness that sufficed for this would +evince itself (it was believed) by the power of working miracles. + + +Ib. s. lii. p. 208. + + 'It shall not be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come'; + that is, neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles. For 'sæculum hoc', + this world, in Scripture, is the period of the Jews' synagogue, and + [Greek: mellon aion], the world to come, is taken for the Gospel, or + the age of the Messias, frequently among the Jews. + + +This is, I think, a great and grievous mistake. The Rabbis of best name +divide into two or three periods, the difference being wholly in the +words; for the dividers by three meant the same as those by two. + +The first was the 'dies expectationis', or 'hoc sæculum,' [Greek: en +touto kairo]: the second 'dies Messiæ', the time of the Messiah, that +is, the 'millenium': the third the 'sæculum futurum', or future state, +which last was absolutely spiritual and celestial. + +But many Rabbis made the 'dies Messiæ' part, that is, the consummation +of this world, the conclusive Sabbath of the great week, in which they +supposed the duration of the earth or world of the senses to be +comprised; but all agreed that the 'dies', or thousand years, of the +Messiah was a transitional state, during which the elect were gradually +defecated of body, and ripened for the final or spiritual state. + +During the 'millenium' the will of God will be done on earth, no less, +though in a lower glory, than it will be done hereafter in heaven. + +Now it is to be carefully observed that the Jewish doctors or Rabbis +(all such at least as remained unconverted) had no conception or belief +of a suffering Messiah, or of a period after the birth of the Messiah, +previous to the kingdom, and of course included in the time of +expectation. + +The appearance of the Messiah and his assumption of the throne of David +were to be contemporaneous. The Christian doctrine of a suffering +Messiah, or of Christ as the high priest and intercessor, has of course +introduced a modification of the Jewish scheme. + +But though there is a seeming discrepance in different texts in the +first three Gospels, yet the Lord's Prayer appears to determine the +question in favour of the elder and present Rabbinical belief; that is, +it does not date the 'dies Messiae,' or kingdom of the Lord, from his +Incarnation, but from a second coming in power and glory, and hence we +are taught to pray for it as an event yet future. + +Nay, our Lord himself repeatedly speaks of the Son of Man in the third +person, as yet to come. Assuredly our Lord ascended the throne and +became a King on his final departure from his disciples. But it was the +throne of his Father, and he an invisible King, the sovereign Providence +to whom all power was committed. + +And this celestial kingdom cannot be identified with that under which +the divine will will be done on earth as it is in heaven; that is, when +on this earth the Church militant shall be one in holiness with the +triumphant Church. + +The difficulties, I confess, are great; and for those who believe the +first Gospel (and this in its present state) to have been composed by +the Apostle Matthew, or at worst to be a literal and faithful +translation from a Hebrew (Syro-Chaldaic) Gospel written by him, and who +furthermore contend for its having been word by word dictated by an +infallible Spirit, the necessary duty of reconciling the different +passages in the first Gospel with each other, and with others in St. +Luke's, is, 'me saltern judice', a most Herculean one. + +The most consistent and rational scheme is, I am persuaded, that which +is adopted in the Apocalypse. The new creation, commencing with our +Lord's resurrection, and measured as the creation of this world ('hujus +sæculi', [Greek: toutou ai_onos]) was by the doctors of the Jewish +church--namely, as a week--divided into two principal epochs,--the six +sevenths or working days, during which the Gospel was gradually to be +preached in all the world, and the number of the elect filled up,--and +the seventh, the Sabbath of the Messiah, or the kingdom of Christ on +earth in a new Jerusalem. + +But as the Jewish doctors made the day (or one thousand years) of +Messiah, a part, because the consummation, of this world, [Greek: toutou +aionos toutou kairou], so the first Christians reversely made the +kingdom commence on the first (symbolical) day of the sacred week, the +last or seventh day of which was to be the complete and glorious +manifestation of this kingdom. If any one contends that the kingdom of +the Son of Man, and the re-descent of our Lord with his angels in the +clouds, are to be interpreted spiritually, + +I have no objection; only you cannot pretend that this was the +interpretation of the disciples. It may be the right, but it was not the +Apostolic belief. + + +Ib. s. 1. p. 257. + + For this was giving them pardon, by virtue of those words of Christ, + 'Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted;' that is, if ye, who are the + stewards of my family, shall admit any one to the kingdom of Christ on + earth, they shall be admitted to the participation of Christ's kingdom + in heaven; and what ye bind here shall be bound there; that is, if + they be unworthy to partake of Christ here, they shall be accounted + unworthy to partake of Christ hereafter. + +Then without such a gift of reading the hearts of men, as priests do not +now pretend to, this text means almost nothing. A wicked shall not, but +a good man shall, be admitted to heaven; for if you have with good +reason rejected any one here, I will reject him hereafter, amounts to no +more than the rejection or admission of men according to their moral +fitness or unfitness, the truth or unsoundness of their faith and +repentance. I rather think that the promise, like the miraculous insight +which it implies, was given to the Apostles and first disciples +exclusively, and that it referred almost wholly to the admission of +professed converts to the Church of Christ. + + +'In fine'. + +I have written but few marginal notes to this long Treatise, for the +whole is to my feeling and apprehension so Romish, so anti-Pauline, so +unctionless, that it makes my very heart as dry as the desert sands, +when I read it. Instead of partial animadversions, I prescribe the +chapter on the Law and the Gospel, in Luther's 'Table Talk', as the +general antidote. [13] + + + +VINDICATION OF THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES IN THE QUESTION OF +ORIGINAL SIN. + + +Ib. Obj. iv. p. 346. + + But if Original Sin be not a sin properly, why are children baptized? + And what benefit comes to them by Baptism? I answer, as much as they + need, and are capable of. + +The eloquent man has plucked just prickles enough out of the dogma of +Original Sin to make a thick and ample crown of thorns for his +opponents; and yet left enough to tear his own clothes off his back, and +pierce through the leather jerkin of his closeliest wrought logic. In +this answer to this objection he reminds me of the renowned squire, who +first scratched out his eyes in a quickset hedge, and then leaped back +and scratched them in again. So Jeremy Taylor first pulls out the very +eyes of the doctrine, leaves it blind and blank, and then leaps back +into it and scratches them in again, but with a most opulent squint that +looks a hundred ways at once, and no one can tell which it really looks +at. + + +Ib. + + By Baptism children are made partakers of the Holy Ghost and of the + grace of God; which I desire to be observed in opposition to the + Pelagian heresy, who did suppose nature to be so perfect, that the + grace of God was not necessary, and that by nature alone, they could + go to heaven; which because I affirm to be impossible, and that + Baptism is therefore necessary, because nature is insufficient and + Baptism is the great channel of grace, &c. + +What then of the poor heathens, that is, of five-sixths of all mankind. +Would more go to hell by nature alone? If so: where is God's justice in +Taylor's plan more than in Calvin's? + + +Ib. Obj. v. p. 355. + + Although I have shewn the great excess and abundance of grace by + Christ over the evil that did descend by Adam; yet the proportion and + comparison lies in the main emanation of death from one, and life from + the other. + +Does Jeremy Taylor then believe that the sentence of death on Adam and +his sons extended to the soul; that death was to be absolute cessation +of being! Scarcely I hope. But if bodily only, where is the difference +between 'ante' and 'post Christum?' + + +Ib. p. 356. + + Not that God could be the author of a sin to any, but that he + appointed the evil which is the consequent of sin, to be upon their + heads who descended from the sinner. + +Rare justice! and this too in a tract written to rescue God's justice +from the Supra- and Sub-lapsarians! How quickly would Taylor have +detected in an adversary the absurd realization contained in this and +the following passages of the abstract notion, sin, from the sinner: as +if sin were any thing but a man sinning, or a man who has sinned! As +well might a sin committed in Sirius or the planet Saturn justify the +infliction of conflagration on the earth and hell-fire on all its +rational inhabitants. Sin! the word sin! for abstracted from the sinner +it is no more: and if not abstracted from him, it remains separate from +all others. + + +Ib. p. 358. + + The consequent of this discourse must needs at least be this; that it + is impossible that the greatest part of mankind should be left in the + eternal bonds of hell by Adam; for then quite contrary to the + discourse of the Apostle, there had been abundance of sin, but a + scarcity of grace. + +And yet Jeremy Taylor will not be called a Pelagian. Why? Because +without grace superadded by Christ no man could be saved: that is, all +men must go to hell, and this not for any sin, but from a calamity, the +consequences of another man's sin, of which they were even ignorant. God +would not condemn them the sons of Adam for sin, but only inflicted on +them an evil, the necessary effect of which was that they should all +troop to the devil! And this is Jeremy Taylor's defence of God's +justice! The truth is Taylor was a Pelagian, believed that without +Christ thousands, Jews and heathens, lived wisely and holily, and went +to heaven; but this he did not dare say out, probably not even to +himself; and hence it is that he flounders backward and forward, now +upping and now downing. + +In truth, this eloquent Treatise may be compared to a statue of Janus, +with one face fixed on certain opponents, full of life and force, a +witty scorn on the lip, a brow at once bright and weighty with +satisfying reason: the other looking at the something instead of that +which had been confuted, maimed, noseless, and weather-bitten into a +sort of visionary confusion and indistinctness. [14] It looks like +this--aye and very like that--but how like it is, too, such another +thing! + + + +AN ANSWER TO A LETTER WRITTEN BY THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF +ROCHESTER, CONCERNING THE CHAPTER OF ORIGINAL SIN, IN THE "UNUM +NECESSARIUM." + + +Ib. p. 367. + + And they who are born eunuchs should be less infected by Adam's + pollution, by having less of concupiscence in the great instance of + desires. + +The fact happens to be false: and then the vulgarity, most unworthy of +our dear Jeremy Taylor, of taking the mode of the manifestation of the +disobedience of the will to the reason, for the disobedience itself. St. +James would have taught him that he who offendeth against one, offendeth +against all; and that there is some truth in the Stoic paradox that all +crimes are equal. Equal is indeed a false phrase; and therein consists +the paradox, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is the same as +the falsehood. The truth is they are all the same in kind; but unequal +in degree. They are all alike, though not equally, against the +conscience. + + +Ib. p. 369. + + So that there is no necessity of a third place; but it concludes only + that in the state of separation from God's presence there is great + variety of degrees and kinds of evil, and every one is not the + extreme. + +What is this? If hell be a state, and not a mere place, and a particular +state, its meaning must in common sense be a state of the worst sort. If +then there be a mere 'pæna damni', that is, the not being so blest as +some others may be; this is a different state 'in genere' from the 'pæna +sensus': 'ergo', not hell; 'ergo' rather a third state; or else heaven. +For every angel must be in it, than whom another angel is happier; that +is negatively damned, though positively very happy. + + +Ib. p. 370-1. + + Just so it is in infants: hell was not made for man, but for devils; + and therefore it must be something besides mere nature that can bear + any man thither: mere nature goes neither to heaven or hell. + +And how came the devils there? If it be hard to explain how Adam fell; +how much more hard to solve how purely spiritual beings could fall? And +nature! What? so much of nature, and no kind of attempt at a definition +of the word? Pray what is nature? + + +Ib. p. 371. + + I do not say that we, by that sin (original) deserved that death, + neither can death be properly a punishment of us, till we superadd + some evil of our own; yet Adam's sin deserved it, so that it was + justly left to fall upon us, we, as a consequent and punishment of his + sin, being reduced to our natural portion. + +How? What is this but flying to the old Supra-lapsarian blasphemy of a +right of property in God over all his creatures, and destroying that +sacred distinction between person and thing which is the light and the +life of all law human and divine? Mercy on us! Is not agony, is not the +stone, is not blindness, is not ignorance, are not headstrong, inherent, +innate, and connate, passions driving us to sin when reason is least +able to withhold us,--are not all these punishments, grievous +punishments, and are they not inflicted on the innocent babe? Is not +this the result infused into the 'milk not mingled' of St. Peter; [15] +spotting the immaculate begotten, souring and curdling the innocence +'without sin or malice'? [16] And if this be just, and compatible with +God's goodness, why all this outcry against St. Austin and the +Calvinists and the Lutherans, whose whole addition is a lame attempt to +believe guilt, where they cannot find it, in order to justify a +punishment which they do find? + + +Ib. p. 379. + + But then for the evil of punishment, that may pass further than the + action. If it passes upon the innocent, it is not a punishment to + them, but an evil inflicted by right of dominion; but yet by reason of + the relation of the afflicted to him that sinned, to him it is a + punishment. + +Here the snake peeps out, and now takes its tail into its mouth. Right +of dominion! Nonsense! Things are not objects of right or wrong. Power +of dominion I understand, and right of judgment I understand; but right +of dominion can have no immediate, but only a relative, sense. I have a +right of dominion over this estate, that is, relatively to all other +persons. But if there be a 'jus dominandi' over rational and free +agents, then why blame Calvin? For all attributes are then merged in +blind power: and God and fate are the same: + + [Greek: Zeùs kaì Moira kaì aeerophoitis Erinnús] + +Strange Trinity! God, Necessity, and the Devil. But Taylor's scheme has +far worse consequences than Calvin's: for it makes the whole scheme of +Redemption a theatrical scenery. Just restore our bodies and corporeal +passions to a perfect 'equilibrium' and fortunate instinct, and, there +being no guilt or defect in the soul, the Son of God, the Logos, and +Supreme Reason, might have remained unincarnate, uncrucified. In short, +Socinianism is as inevitable a deduction from Taylor's scheme as Deism +or Atheism is from Socinianism. + + +'In fine'. + +The whole of Taylor's confusion originated in this;--first, that he and +his adversaries confound original with hereditary sin; but chiefly that +neither he nor his adversaries had considered that guilt must be a +'noumenon'; but that our images, remembrances, and consciousnesses of +our actions are 'phænomena'. Now the 'phænomenon' is in time, and an +effect: but the 'noumenon' is not in time any more than it is in space. +The guilt has been before we are even conscious of the action; therefore +an original sin (that is, a sin universal and essential to man as man, +and yet guilt, and yet choice, and yet amenable to punishment), may be +at once true and yet in direct contradiction to all our reasonings +derived from 'phænomena', that is, facts of time and space. But we ought +not to apply the categories of appearance to the [Greek: ontos onta] of +the intelligible or causative world. This (I should say of Original Sin) +is mystery! We do not so properly believe it, as we know it. What is +actual must be possible. But if we will confound actuals with reals, and +apply the rules of the latter to cases of the former, we must blame +ourselves for the clouds and darkness and storms of opposing winds, +which the error will not fail to raise. By the same process an Atheist +may demonstrate the contradictory nature of eternity, of a being at once +infinite and of resistless causality, and yet intelligent. Jeremy Taylor +additionally puzzled himself with Adam, instead of looking into the fact +in himself. + +How came it that Taylor did not apply the same process to the congeneric +question of the freedom of the will? In half a dozen syllogisms he must +have gyved and hand-cuffed himself into blank necessity and mechanic +motions. All hangs together. Deny Original Sin, and you will soon deny +free will;--then virtue and vice;--and God becomes 'Abracadabra'; a +sound, nothing else. + + + +SECOND LETTER TO THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. + + +Ib. p. 390-1. + + To this it is answered as you see, there is a double guilt; a guilt of + person, and of nature. That is taken away, this is not: for sacraments + are given to persons, not to natures. + +I need no other passage but this to convince me that Jeremy Taylor, the +angle in which the two 'apices' of logic and rhetoric meet, +consummate in both, was yet no metaphysician. Learning, fancy, +discursive intellect, 'tria juncta in uno', and of each enough to +have alone immortalized a man, he had; but yet [Greek: ouden metà +physin]. Images, conceptions, notions, such as leave him but one rival, +Shakspeare, there were; but no ideas. Taylor was a Gassendist. O! that +he had but meditated in the silence of his spirit on the mystery of an +'I AM'! He would have seen that a person, 'quoad' person, can +have nothing common or generic; and that where this finds place, the +person is corrupted by introsusception of a nature, which becomes evil +thereby, and on this relation only is an evil nature. The nature itself, +like all other works of God, is good, and so is the person in a yet +higher sense of the word, good, like all offsprings of the Most High. +But the combination is evil, and this not the work of God; and one of +the main ends and results of the doctrine of Original Sin is to silence +and confute the blasphemy that makes God the author of sin, without +avoiding it by fleeing to the almost equal blasphemy against the +conscience, that sin in the sense of guilt does not exist. + + + +THE REAL PRESENCE AND SPIRITUAL OF CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, +PROVED AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. + +Perhaps the most wonderful of all Taylor's works. He seems, if I may so +say, to have transubstantiated his vast imagination and fancy into +subtlety not to be evaded, acuteness to which nothing remains +unpierceable, and indefatigable agility of argumentation. Add to these +an exhaustive erudition, and that all these are employed in the service +of reason and common sense; whereas in some of his Tracts he seems to +wield all sorts of wisdom and wit in defence of all sorts of folly and +stupidity. But these were 'ad popellum', and by virtue of the 'falsitas +dispensativa', which he allowed himself. + + +Epist. dedicatory. + + The question of transubstantiation. + +I have no doubt that if the Pythagorean bond had successfully +established itself, and become a powerful secular hierarchy, there would +have been no lack of furious partizans to assert, yea, and to damn and +burn such as dared deny, that one was the same as two; two being two in +the same sense as one is one; that consequently 2+2=2 and 1+1=4. But I +should most vehemently doubt that this was the intention of Pythagoras, +or the sense in which the mysterious dogma was understood by the +thinking part of his disciples, who nevertheless were its professed +believers. I should be prepared to find that the true import and purport +of the article was no more than this;--that the one in order to its +manifestation must appear in and as two; that the act of re-union was +simultaneous with that of the self-production, (in the geometrical use +of the word 'produce,' as when a point produces, or evolves, itself on +each side into a bipolar line), and that the Triad is therefore the +necessary form of the Monad. + +Even so is the dispute concerning Transubstantiation. I can easily +believe that a thousand monks and friars would pretend, as Taylor says, +to 'disbelieve their eyes and ears, and defy their own reason,' and to +receive the dogma in the sense, or rather in the nonsense, here ascribed +to it by him, namely, that the phenomenal bread and wine were the +phenomenal flesh and blood. But I likewise know that the respectable +Roman Catholic theologians state the article free from a contradiction +in terms at least; namely, that in the consecrated elements the +'noumena' of the phenomenal bread and wine are the same with that which +was the 'noumenon' of the phenomenal flesh and blood of Christ when on +earth. + +Let M represent a slab or plane of mahogany, +and m its ordinary supporter or under-prop; and +let S represent a slab or plane of silver, +and s its supporter. + +Now to affirm that M = S is a contradiction, +or that m = s; + +but it is no contradiction to say, that on certain occasions +(S having been removed) +s is substituted for m, +and that what was M/m, +is by the command of the common master changed into M/s. + +It may be false in fact, but it is not a self-contradiction in the +terms. + +The mode in which s subsists in M/s may be inconceivable, +but not more so than the mode in which m subsists in M/m, +or that in which s subsisted in S/s. + + +I honestly confess that I should confine my grounds of opposition to the +article thus stated to its unnecessariness, to the want of sufficient +proofs from Scripture that I am bound to believe or trouble my head with +it. I am sure that Bishop Bull, who really did believe the Trinity, +without either Tritheism or Sabellianism, could not consistently have +used the argument of Taylor or of Tillotson in proof of the absurdity of +Transubstantiation. + + +Ib. p. ccccxvi. + + But for our dear afflicted mother, she is under the portion of a child + in the state of discipline, her government indeed hindered, but her + worshippings the same, the articles as true, and those of the church + of Rome as false as ever. + +O how much there is in these few words,--the sweet and comely +sophistry, not of Taylor, but of human nature. Mother! child! state of +discipline! government hindered! that is to say, in how many instances, +scourgings hindered, dungeoning in dens foul as those of hell, +mutilation of ears and noses, and flattering the King mad with +assertions of his divine right to govern without a Parliament, hindered. +The best apology for Laud, Sheldon, and their fellows will ever be that +those whom they persecuted were as great persecutors as themselves, and +much less excusable. + + +Ib. s. ii. p. 422. + + 'In Synaxi Transubstantiationem sero definivit Ecclesia; diu satis + erat credere, sive sub pane consecrate, sive quocunque modo adesse + verum corpus Christi;' so said the great Erasmus. + +'Verum corpus,' that is, 'res ipsissima,' or the thing in its actual +self, opposed [Greek: to phainomen'o]. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 425. + + Now that the spiritual is also a real presence, and that they are + hugely consistent, is easily credible to them that believe the gifts + of the Holy Ghost are real graces, and a spirit is a proper substance. + +But how the body of Christ, as opposed to his Spirit and to his Godhead, +can be taken spiritually, 'hic labor, hoc opus est.' Plotinus says, +[Greek: kai hae hylae as'ómatos]; so we must say here [Greek: kaì tò +s'oma as'ómaton]. + + +Ib. s. vii. p. 426. + + So we may say of the blessed Sacrament; Christ is more truly and + really present in spiritual presence than in corporal; in the heavenly + effect than in the natural being. + +But the presence of Christ is not in question, but the presence of +Christ's body and blood. Now that Christ effected much for us by coming +in the body, which could not or would not have been effected had he not +assumed the body, we all, Socinians excepted, believe; but that his body +effected it, other than as Christ in the body, where shall we find? how +can we understand? + + +Ib. p. 427. + + So when it is said, 'Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of + God,' that is, corruption shall not inherit; and in the resurrection, + our bodies are said to be spiritual, that is, not in substance, but in + effect and operation. + +This is, in the first place, a wilful interpretation, and secondly, it +is absurd; for what sort of flesh and blood would incorruptible flesh +and blood be? As well might we speak of marble flesh and blood. But in +Taylor's mind, as seen throughout, the logician was predominant over the +philosopher, and the fancy outbustled the pure intuitive imagination. In +the sense of St. Paul, as of Plato and all other dynamic philosophers, +flesh and blood is 'ipso facto' corruption, that is, the spirit of life +in the mid or balancing state between fixation and reviviscence. 'Who +shall deliver me from the body of this death?' is a Hebraism for 'this +death which the body is.' For matter itself is but 'spiritus in +coagulo,' and organized matter the coagulum in the act of being +restored; it is then repotentiating. Stop its self-destruction as +matter, and you stop its self-reproduction as a vital organ. In short, +Taylor seems to fall into the very fault he reproves in Bellarmine, and +with this additional evil, that his reasoning looks more like tricking +or explaining away a mystery. For wherein does the Sacrament of the +Eucharist differ from that of Baptism, nay, even of grace before meat, +when performed fervently and in faith? Here too Christ is present in the +hearts of the faithful by blessing and grace. I see at present no other +way of interpreting the text so as not to make the Sacrament a mere +arbitrary 'memento,' but by an implied negative. In propriety, the word +is confined to no portion of corporality in particular. "This (the bread +and wine) are as truly my flesh and blood as the 'phænomena' which you +now behold and name as such." + + +Ib. s. ix. p. 429. + +From this paragraph I conclude, though not without some perplexity, that +by 'the body and blood verily and indeed taken,' we are not to +understand body and blood in their limited sense, as contradistinguished +from the soul or Godhead of Christ, but as a 'periphrasis' for Christ +himself, or at least Christ's humanity. Taylor, however, has +misconstrued Phavorinus' meaning though not his words. 'Spiritualia +eterna quoad spiritum.' But this is the very depth of the purified +Platonic philosophy. + + +Ib. s. x. p. 430. + + But because the words do perfectly declare our sense, and are owned + publicly in our doctrine and manner of speaking, it will be in vain to + object against us those words of the Fathers, which use the same + expressions: for if by virtue of those words 'really,' + 'substantially,' 'corporally,' 'verily and indeed,' and 'Christ's body + and blood,' the Fathers shall be supposed to speak for + Transubstantiation, they may as well suppose it to be our doctrine + too; for we use the same words, and therefore those authorities must + signify nothing against us, unless these words can be proved in them + to signify more than our sense of them does import; and by this truth, + many, very many of their pretences are evacuated. + +A sophism, dearest Jeremy. We use the words because these early Fathers +used them, and have forced our own definitions on them. But should we +have chosen these words to express our opinion by, if there had been no +controversy on the subject? But the Fathers chose and selected these +words as the most obvious and natural. + + +Ib. s. xi. p. 431. + + It is much insisted upou that it be inquired whether, when we say we + believe Christ's body to be really in the Sacrament, we mean 'that + body, that flesh, that was born of the Virgin Mary, that was + crucified, dead, and buried?' I answer, that I know none else that he + had or hath: there is but one body of Christ natural and glorified. + +This may be true, or at least intelligible, of Christ's humanity or +personal identity as [Greek: nóaeton ti], but applied to the phenomenal +flesh and blood, it is nonsense. For if every atom of the human frame be +changed by succession in eleven or twelve years, the body born of the +Virgin could not be the body crucified, much less the body crucified be +the body glorified, spiritual and incorruptible. I construe the words of +Clement of Alexandria, quoted by Taylor below, [17] literally, and they +perfectly express my opinion; namely, that Christ, both in the +institution of the Eucharist and in the sixth chapter of John, spoke of +his humanity as a 'noumenon,' not of the specific flesh and blood which +were its 'phænomena' at the last supper and on the cross. But Jeremy +Taylor was a semi-materialist, and though no man better managed the +logic of substance and accidents, he seems to have formed no clear +metaphysical notion of their actual meaning. Taken notionally, they are +mere interchangeable relations, as in concentric circles the outmost +circumference is the substance, the other circles its accidents; but if +I begin with the second and exclude the first from my thoughts, then +this is substance and the interior ones accidents, and so on; but taken +really, we mean the complex action of co-agents on our senses, and +accident as only an agent acting on us. Thus we say, the beer has turned +sour: sour is the accident of the substance beer. But, in fact, a new +agent, oxygen, has united itself with other agents in the joint +composition, the essence of which new comer is to be sour: at all +events, Taylor's construction is a mere assertion, meaning no more than +'in this sense only can I subscribe to the words of Bertram, Jerome, and +Clement.' + +If a re-union of the Lutheran and English Churches with the Roman were +desirable and practicable, the best way, [Greek: h_os emoige dokei,] +would be, that any remarkable number should offer union on a given +profession of faith chiefly negative, as we protest against the +authority of the Church in temporals; that the words agreed to by Beza +and Espencoeus, on the part of the Reformers and Romanists respectively, +at Poissy, used with implicit faith, shall suffice. 'Credimus in usu +coentæ Dominicæ vere, reipsa, substantialiter, seu in substantia, verum +corpus et sanguinem Christi spirituali et ineffabili modo esse, +exhiberi, sumi a fidelibus communicantibus.' + + +Ib. s. in. p. 434. + + The other Schoolman I am to reckon in this account, is Gabriel Biel. + +Taylor should have informed the reader that Gabriel Biel is but the echo +of Occam, and that both were ante-Lutheran Protestants in heart, and as +far as they dared, in word likewise. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 436. + + So that if, according to the Casuists, especially of the Jesuits' + order, it be lawful to follow the opinion of any one probable doctor, + here we have five good men and true, besides Occam, Bassolis, and + Mechior Camus, to acquit us from our search after this question in + Scripture. + +Taylor might have added Erasmus, who, in one of his letters, speaking of +Oecolampadius's writings on the Eucharist, says '"ut seduci posse +videantur etiam electi,"' and adds, that he should have embraced his +interpretations, '"nisi obstaret consensus Ecclesiæ;"' that is, +Oecolampadius has convinced me, and I should avow my conviction, but for +motives of personal prudence and regard for the public peace. + + + + +OF THE SIXTH CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL. + +Ib. p. 436. + +I cannot but think that the same mysterious truth, whatever it be, is +referred to in the Eucharist and in this chapter of St. John; and I +wonder that Taylor, who makes the Eucharist a spiritual sumption of +Christ, should object to it. A = C and B = C, therefore A = B. [18] + + +Ib. s. iv. p. 440. + +The error on both sides, Roman and Protestant, originates in the +confusion of sign or figure with symbol, which latter is always an +essential part of that, of the whole of which it is the representative. +Not seeing this, and therefore seeing no 'medium' between the whole +thing and the mere metaphor of the thing, the Romanists took the former +or positive pole of the error, the Protestants the latter or negative +pole. The Eucharist is a symbolic, or solemnizing and 'totum in parte' +acting of an act, which in a true member of Christ's body is supposed to +be perpetual. Thus the husband and wife exercise the duties of their +marriage contract of love, protection, obedience, and the like, all the +year long, and yet solemnize it by a more deliberate and reflecting act +of the same love on the anniversary of their marriage. + + +Ib. s. ix p. 447-8. + + That which neither can feel or be felt, see or be seen, move or be + moved, change or be changed, neither do or suffer corporally, cannot + certainly be eaten corporally; but so they affirm concerning the body + of our blessed Lord; it cannot do or suffer corporally in the + Sacrament, therefore it cannot be eaten corporally, any more than a + man can chew a spirit, or eat a meditation, or swallow a syllogism + into his belly. + +Absurd as the doctrine of Transubstantiation may thus be made, yet +Taylor here evidently confounds a spirit, 'ens realissimum,' with a mere +notion or 'ens logicum.' On this ground of the spirituality of all +powers [Greek: donámeis], it would not be difficult to evade many of +Taylor's most plausible arguments. Enough, however, and more than enough +would be left in their full force. + + +Ib. p. 448. + + Besides this, I say this corporal union of our bodies to the body of + God incarnate, which these great and witty dreamers dream of, would + make man to be God. + +But yet not God, nor absolutely. 'I am in my Father, even so ye are in +me.' + + +Ib. s. xxii. p. 456. + + By this time I hope I may conclude, that Transubstantiation is not + taught by our blessed Lord in the sixth chapter of St. John: 'Johannes + de tertia et Eucharistica cæna nihil quidem scribit, eo quod cæteri + tres Evangelistæ ante ilium eam plene descripsissent.' They are the + words of Stapleton and are good evidence against them. + +I cannot satisfy my mind with this reason, though the one commonly +assigned both before and since Stapleton: and yet ignorant, when, why, +and for whom John wrote his Gospel, I cannot substitute a better or more +probable one. That John believed the command of the Eucharist to have +ceased with the destruction of the Jewish state, and the obligation of +the cup of blessing among the Jews,--or that he wrote it for the Greeks, +unacquainted with the Jewish custom,--would be not improbable, did we +not know that the Eastern Church, that of Ephesus included, not only +continued this Sacrament, but rivalled the Western Church in the +superstition thereof. + + +Ib. s. i. p. 503. + + Now I argue thus: if we eat Christ's natural body, we eat it either + naturally or spiritually: if it be eaten only spiritually, then it is + spiritually digested, &c. + +What an absurdity in the word 'it' in this passage and throughout! + + +Vol. X. s. iii. p. 3. + + The accidents, proper to a substance, are for the manifestation, a + notice of the substance, not of themselves; for as the man feels, but + the means by which he feels is the sensitive faculty, so that which is + felt, is the substance, and the means by which it is felt is the + accident. + +This is the language of common sense, rightly so called, that is, truth +without regard or reference to error; thus only differing from the +language of genuine philosophy, which is truth intentionally guarded +against error. But then in order to have supported it against an acute +antagonist, Taylor must, I suspect, have renounced his Gassendis and +other Christian 'Epicuri.' His antagonist would tell him; when a man +strikes me with a stick, I feel the stick, and infer the man; but 'pari +ratione,' I feel the blow, and infer the stick; and this is tantamount +to,--I feel, and by a mechanism of my thinking organ attribute causation +to precedent or co-existent images; and this no less in states in which +you call the images unreal, that is, in dreams, than when they are +asserted by you to have an outward reality. + + +Ib. p. 4. + + But when a man, by the ministry of the senses, is led into the + apprehension of a wrong object, or the belief of a false proposition, + then he is made to believe a lie, &c. + +There are no means by which a man without chemical knowledge could +distinguish two similarly shaped lumps, one of sugar and another of +sugar of lead. Well! a lump of sugar of lead lies among other artefacts +on the shelf of a collector; and with it a label, "Take care! this is +not sugar, though it looks so, but crystallized oxide of lead, and it is +a deadly poison." A man reads this label, and yet takes and swallows the +lump. Would Taylor assert that the man was made to swallow a poison? Now +this (would the Romanist say) is precisely the case of the consecrated +elements, only putting food and antidote for poison; that is, as far as +this argument of Jeremy Taylor is concerned. + + +Ib. p. 5. + + Just upon this account it is, that St. John's argument had been just + nothing in behalf of the whole religion: for that God was incarnate, + that Jesus Christ did such miracles, that he was crucified, that he + arose again, and ascended into heaven, that he preached these sermons, + that he gave such commandments, he was made to believe by sounds, by + shapes, by figures, by motions, by likenesses, and appearances, of all + the proper accidents. + +A Socinian might turn this argument with equal force at least, but I +think with far greater, against the Incarnation. But it is a sophism, +that actually did lead, to Socinianism: for surely bread and wine are +less disparate from flesh and blood, than a human body from the +Omnipresent Spirit. The disciples would, according to Taylor, Tillotson, +and the other Latitudinarian common sense divines, have been justified +in answering: "All our senses tell us you are only a man: how should, we +believe you when you say the contrary? If we are not to believe all our +senses, much less can we believe that we actually hear you." + +And Taylor in my humble judgment gives a force and extension to the +words of St. John, quoted before,--'That which was from the beginning, +which we have seen with our eyes, which we have beheld, and our hands +have handled of the word of life' (1 Ep.1.),--far greater than they +either can, or were meant to, bear. It is beyond all doubt, that the +words refer to, and were intended to confute, the heresy which was soon +after a prominent doctrine of the Gnostics; namely, that the body of +Christ was a phantom. To this St. John replies: I have myself had every +proof to the contrary: first, the proof of the senses; secondly, +Christ's own assurance. Now this was unanswerable by the Gnostics, +without one or the other of two pretences; either that St. John and the +other known and appointed Apostles and delegates of the Word were liars; +or that the Epistle was spurious. The first was too intolerable: +therefore they adopted the second. Observe, the heretics, whom St. John +confutes, did not deny the actual presence of the Word with the +appearance of a human body, much less the truth of the wonders performed +by the Word in this super-human and unearthly 'vice-corpus,' or 'quasi +corpus:' least of all, would they assert either that the assurances of +the Word were false in themselves, or that the sense of hearing might +have been permitted to deceive the beloved Apostle, (which would have +been virtual falsehood and a subornation of falsehood), however liable +to deception the senses might be generally, and as sole and primary +proofs unsupported by antecedent grounds, 'præcognitis vel +preconcessis.' And that St. John never thought of advancing the senses +to any such dignity and self-sufficiency as proofs, it would be easy to +shew from twenty passages of his Gospel. I say, again and again, that I +myself greatly prefer the general doctrine of our own Church respecting +the Eucharist,--'rem credimus, modum nescimus,'--to either Tran- (or +Con-) substantiation, on the one hand, or to the mere 'signum memoriæ +causa' of the Sacramentaries. But nevertheless, I think that the +Protestant divines laid too much stress on the abjuration of the +metaphysical part of the Roman article; as if, even with the admission +of Transubstantiation, the adoration was not forbidden and made +idolatrous by the second commandment. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 9. + + And yet no sense can be deceived in that which it always perceives + alike: 'The touch can never be deceived.' + +Every common juggler falsifies this assertion when he makes the pressure +from a shilling seem the shilling itself. "Are you sure you feel it?" +"Yes." "Then open your hand. Presto! 'Tis gone." From this I gather that +neither Taylor nor Aristotle ever had the nightmare. + + +Ib. p.10. + + The purpose of which discourse is this: that no notices are more + evident and more certain than the notices of sense; but if we conclude + contrary to the true dictate of senses, the fault is in the + understanding, collecting false conclusions from right premises. It + follows, therefore, that in the matter of the Eucharist we ought to + judge that which our senses tell us. + +Very unusually lax reasoning for Jeremy Taylor, whose logic is commonly +legitimate even where his metaphysic is unsatisfactory. What Romanist +ever asserted that a communicant's palate deceived him, when it reported +the taste of bread or of wine in the elements? + + +Ib. s. i. p. 16. + + When we discourse of mysteries of faith and articles of religion, it + is certain that the greatest reason in the world, to which all other + reasons must yield, is this--'God hath said it, therefore it is true.' + +Doubtless: it is a syllogism demonstrative. All that God says is truth, +is necessarily true. But God hath said this; 'ergo,' &c. But how is the +'minor' to be proved, that God hath said this? By reason? But it is +against reason. By the senses? But it is against the senses. + + +Ib. s. xii. p. 27. + + First; for Christ's body, his natural body, is changed into a + spiritual body, and it is not now a natural body, but a spiritual, and + therefore cannot be now in the Sacrament after a natural manner, + because it is so no where, and therefore not there: 'It is sown a + natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.' + +But mercy on me! was this said of the resurgent body of Jesus? a +spiritual body, of which Jesus said it was not a spirit. If tangible by +Thomas's fingers, why not by his teeth, that is, manducable? + + +Ib. s. xxviii. p. 44. + + So that if there were a plain revelation of Transubstantiation, then + this argument were good ... when there are so many seeming + impossibilities brought against the Holy Trinity ... And therefore we + have found difficulties, and shall for ever, till, in this article, + the Church returns to her ancient simplicity of expression. + +Taylor should have said, it would have very greatly increased the +difficulty of proving that it was really revealed, but supposing that +certain, then doubtless it must be believed as far as nonsense can be +believed, that is, negatively. From the Apostles' Creed it may be +possible to deduce the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity; but assuredly +it is not fully expressed therein: and what can Taylor mean by the +Church returning to her first simplicity in this article? What less +could she say if she taught the doctrine at all, than that the Word and +the Spirit are spoken of every where in Scripture as individuals, each +distinct from the other, and both from the Father: that of both all the +divine attributes are predicated, except self-origination; that the +Spirit is God, and the Word is God, and that they with the Father are +the one God? And what more does she say now? But Taylor, like Swift, had +a strong tendency to Sabellianism. + +It is most dangerous, and, in its distant consequences, subversive of +all Christianity to admit, as Taylor does, that the doctrine of the +Trinity is at all against, or even above, human reason in any other +sense, than as eternity and Deity itself are above it. In the former, as +well as the latter, we can prove that so it must be, and form clear +notions by negatives and oppositions. + + +Ib. s. xxix. p. 45. + + Now concerning this, it is certain it implies a contradiction, that + two bodies should be in one place, or possess the place of another, + till that be cast forth. + +So far from it that I believe the contrary; and it would puzzle Taylor +to explain a thousand 'phænomena' in chemistry on his certainty. +But Taylor assumed matter to be wholly quantitative, which granted, his +opinion would become certain. + + +Ib. s. xxxii. p. 49. + + The door might be made to yield to his Creator as easily as water, + which is fluid, be made firm under his feet; for consistence or + lability are not essential to wood and water. + +Here the common basis of water, ice, vapour, steam, 'aqua crystallina', +and (possibly) water-gas is called water, and confounded with the +species water, that is, the common base 'plus' a given proportion of +caloric. To the species water continuity and lability are essential. + + +Ib. p. 50. + + The words in the text are [Greek: kekleismén_on t_on thyr_on] in the + past tense, the gates or doors having been shut; but that they were + shut in the instant of Christ's entry, it says not: they might of + course, if Christ had so pleased, have been insensibly opened, and + shut in like manner again; and, if the words be observed, it will + appear that St. John mentioned the shutting the doors in relation to + the Apostles' fear, not to Christ's entering: he intended not (so far + as appears) to declare a miracle. + +Thank God! Here comes common sense. + + +Ib. ss. xvi-xvii. pp. 71-73. + +All most excellent; but O! that Taylor's stupendous wit, subtlety, +acuteness, learning and inexhaustible copiousness of argumentation would +but tell us what he himself, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, means by eating Christ's +body by faith: his body, not his soul or Godhead. Eat a body by faith! + + + + +A DISSUASIVE FROM POPERY. + +Part I. + +Ib. s. ii. p. 137. + + The sentence of the Fathers in the third general Council, that at + Ephesus;--'that it should not be lawful for any man to publish or + compose another faith or creed than that which was defined by the + Nicene Council.' + +Upon what ground then does the Church of England reconcile with this +decree its reception of the so called Athanasian creed? + + +Ib. s. iv. p. 145. + + We consider that the doctrines upon which it (Purgatory) is pretended + reasonable, are all dubious, and disputable at the very best. Such are + ... that the taking away the guilt of sins does not suppose the taking + away the obligation to punishment; that is, that when a man's sin is + pardoned, he may be punished without the guilt of that sin as justly + as with it. + +The taking away the guilt does not, however, imply of necessity the +natural removal of the consequences of sin. And in this sense, I +suppose, the subtler Romanists would defend this accursed doctrine. A +man may have bitterly repented and thoroughly reformed the sin of +drunkenness, and by this genuine 'metanoia' and faith in Christ +crucified have obtained forgiveness of the guilt, and yet continue to +suffer a heavy punishment in a schirrous liver or incurable dyspepsy. +But who authorized the Popes to extend this to the soul? + + +Ib. p. 153. + + St. Ambrose saith that 'death is a haven of rest.' + +Consider the strange and oftentimes awful dreams accompanying the +presence of irritating matter in the lower abdomen, and the seeming +appropriation of particular sorts of dream images and incidents to +affections of particular organs and 'viscera.' Do the material causes +act positively, so that with the removal of the body by death the total +cause is removed, and of course the effects? Or only negatively and +indirectly, by lessening and suspending that continuous texture of +organic sensation, which, by drawing outward the attention of the soul, +sheaths her from her own state and its corresponding activities?--A +fearful question, which I too often agitate, and which agitates me even +in my dreams, when most commonly I am in one of Swedenborg's hells, +doubtful whether I am once more to be awaked, and thinking our dreams to +be the true state of the soul disembodied when not united with Christ. +On awaking from such dreams, I never fail to find some local pain, +'circa-' or 'infra-'umbilical, with kidney affections, and at the base +of the bladder. + + +PART II.--INTRODUCTION. + + +P. 227. + + But yet because I will humour J.S. for this once; even here also 'The + Dissuasive' relies upon a first and self-evident principle as any is + in Christianity, and that is, 'Quod primum verum.' + +I am surprised to meet such an assertion in so acute a logician and so +prudent an advocate as Jeremy Taylor. If the 'quod primum verum' mean +the first preaching or first institution of Christianity by its divine +Founder, it is doubtless an evident inference from the assumed truth of +Christianity, or, if you please, evidently implied therein; but surely +the truth of the Christian system, composed of historical narrations, +doctrines, precepts, and arguments, is no self-evident position, still +less, if there be any tenable distinction between the words, a primary +truth. How then can an inference from a particular, a variously +proveable and proof-requiring, position be itself a universal and +self-evident one? + +But if 'quod primum verum' means 'quod prius verius,' this again is far +from being of universal application, much less self-evident. Astrology +was prior to astronomy; the Ptolemaic to the Newtonian scheme. It must +therefore be confined to history: yet even thus, it is not for any +practicable purpose necessarily or always true. Increase in other +knowledge, physical, anthropological, and psychological, may enable an +historian of A.D. 1800 to give a much truer account of certain events +and characters than the contemporary chroniclers had given, who lived in +an age of ignorance and superstition. + +But confine the position within yet narrower bounds, namely, to +Christian antiquity. In addition to all other objections, it has this +great defect; that it takes for granted the very point in dispute, +whether Christianity was an 'opus simul et in toto perfectum,' or +whether the great foundations only were laid by Christ while on earth, +and by the Apostles, and the superstructure or progression of the work +entrusted to the successors of the Apostles; and whether for that +purpose Christ had not promised that his Spirit should be always with +the Church. + +Now this growth of truth, not only in each individual Christian who is +indeed a Christian, but likewise in the Church of Christ, from age to +age, has been affirmed and defended by sundry Latitudinarian, Grotian +and Sociman divines even among Protestants: the contrary, therefore, and +an inference from the supposition of the contrary, can never be +pronounced self-evident or primary. + +Jeremy Taylor had nothing to do with these mock axioms, but to ridicule +them, as in other instances he has so effectually done. It was +sufficient and easy to shew, that, true or false, the position was +utterly inapplicable to the facts of the Roman Church; that, instead of +passing, like the science of the material heaven, from dim to clear, +from guess to demonstration, from mischievous fancies to guiding, +profitable and powerful truths, it had overbuilt the divinest truths by +the silliest and not seldom wicked forgeries, usurpations and +superstitions. J.S.'s very notion of proving a mass of histories by +simple logic, he would have found exposed to his hand with exquisite +truth and humour by Lucian. + +1810. + + +In the preceding note I think I took Taylor's words in too literal a +sense; the remarks, however, on the common maxim, 'In rebus fidei, quod +prius verius,' seem to me just and valuable. 2. March, 1824. + + +Ib. p. 297. + + When he talks of being infallible, if the notion be applied to his + Church, then he means an infallibility antecedent, absolute, + unconditionate, such as will not permit the Church ever to err. + +Taylor himself was infected with the spirit of casuistry, by which +saving faith is placed in the understanding, and the moral act in the +outward deed. How infinitely safer the true Lutheran doctrine: God +cannot be mocked; neither will truth, as a mere conviction of the +understanding, save, nor error condemn;--to love truth sincerely is +spiritually to have truth; and an error becomes a personal error, not by +its aberration from logic or history, but so far as the causes of such +error are in the heart, or may be traced back to some antecedent +un-Christian wish or habit;--to watch over the secret movements of the +heart, remembering ever how deceitful a thing it is, and that God cannot +be mocked, though we may easily dupe ourselves: these, as the +ground-work with prayer, study of the Scriptures, and tenderness to all +around us, as the consequents, are the Christian's rule, and supersede +all books of casuistry, which latter serve only to harden our feelings +and pollute the imagination. To judge from the Roman casuists, nay, I +ought to say, from Taylor's own 'Ductor Dubitantium,' one would suppose +that a man's points of belief and smallest determinations of outward +conduct,--however pure and charitable his intentions, and however holy +or blameless the inward source of those intentions or convictions in his +past and present state of moral being,--were like the performance of an +electrical experiment, and would blow a man's salvation into atoms from +a mere unconscious mistake in the arrangement and management of the +apparatus. + +See Livy's account of Tullus Hostilius's unfortunate experiment with one +of Numa's sacrificial ceremonies. The trick not being performed +'secundum artem,' Jupiter enraged shot him dead.[A] Before God our +deeds, which for him can have no value, gain acceptance in proportion as +they are evolutions of our spiritual life. He beholds our deeds in our +principles. For men our deeds have value as efficient causes, worth as +symptoms. They infer our principles from our deeds. Now, as religion or +the love of God cannot subsist apart from charity or the love of our +neighbour, our conduct must be conformable to both. + + +Ib. p. 305. + + Only for their comfort this they might have also observed in that + book,--that there is not half so much excuse for the Papists as there + is for the Anabaptists; and yet it was but an excuse at the best, as + appears in those full answers I have given to all their arguments, in + the last edition of that book, among the polemical discourses in + folio. + +Nay, dear Bishop! but such an excuse, as compared with your after +attempt to evacuate it, resembles a coat of mail of your own forging, +which you boil, in order to melt it away into invisibility. You only +hide it by foam and bubbles, by wavelets and steam-clouds, of ebullient +rhetoric: I speak of the Anabaptists as Anti-pædobaptists. + + +Ib. s. i. p. 337. + + 'Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what + his Lord doth; but I have called you friends, for all things I have + heard from the Father I have made known to you.' + +I never thought of this text before, but it seems to me a stronger +passage in favour of Psilanthropism, or modern Socinianism,--a doctrine +which of all heresies I deem the most fundamental and the worst (the +impurities of madmen out of the question),--than I have ever seen, and +far stronger than that concerning the day of judgment, which in its +apparent sense is clearly high Arianism, or teaching the +super-angelical, yet infra-divine, nature of Christ. We must interpret +it [Greek: kat' analogían píste_os], not as 'all things' absolutely, but +as 'all things' concerning your interests, 'all things' that it behoves +you to know. Else it would contradict Christ's words, 'None knoweth the +Father but the Son,' that is, truly and totally. For Christ does not +promise in this life to give us the same degree of knowledge as he +himself possessed, but only a 'quantum sufficit' of the kind. This is +clear by St. John's 'all things,' which assuredly did not include either +the discoveries of Newton or of Davy. + +14 August, 1811. + + +Ib. s. iii. p. 348. + + The Churches have troubled themselves with infinite variety of + questions, and divided their precious unity, and destroyed charity, + and instead of contending against the devil and all his crafty + methods, they have contended against one another, and excommunicated + one another, and anathematized and damned one another; and no man is + the better after all, but most men are very much the worse; and the + Churches are in the world still divided about questions that commenced + twelve or thirteen ages since, and they are like to be so for ever, + till Elias come, &c. + +I remember no passages of the Fathers nearer to inspired Scripture than +this and similar ones of Jeremy Taylor, in which, quitting the acute +logician, he combines his heart with his head, and utters general, and +inclusive, and reconciling truths of charity and of common sense. All +amounts but to this:--what is binding on all must be possible to all. +But conformity of intellectual conclusions is not possible. Faith +therefore cannot reside totally in the understanding. But to do what we +believe we ought to do is possible to all, therefore binding on all; +therefore the 'unum necessarium' of Christian faith. Talk not of bad +conscience; it is like bad sense, that is, no sense; and we all know +that we may wilfully lie till we involuntarily believe the lie as truth; +but 'causa causæ est causa vera causati.' + + +Ib. p. 347. + + But if you mean the Catholic Church, then, if you mean her, an + abstracted separate being from all particulars, you pursue a cloud, + and fall in love with an idea and a child of fancy. + +Here Taylor uses 'idea' as opposed to image or distinct phantasm; and +this is with few exceptions his general sense, and even the exceptions +are only metaphors from the general sense, that is, images so faint, +indefinite and fluctuating as to be almost no images, that is, ideas; as +we say of a very thin body, it is a ghost or spirit, the lowest degree +of one kind being expressed by the opposite kind. + + +Ib. p. 380. + + 'Miracles' were, in the beginning of Christianity, a note of true + believers: Christ told us so. And he also taught us that Anti-Christ + should be revealed in lying signs and wonders, and commanded us, by + that token, to take heed of them. + +An excellent distinction between a note or mark by which a thing already +proved may be known, and the proofs of the thing. Thus the poisonous +qualities of the nightshade are established by the proper proofs, and +the marks by which a plant may be known to be the nightshade, are the +number, position, colour, and so on, of its filaments, petals, and the +rest. + + +Ib. + + The 'spirit of prophecy' is also a pretty sure note of the true + Church, and yet...I deny not but there have been some prophets in the + Church of Rome: Johannes de Rupe Scissa, Anselmus, Marsicanus, Robert + Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln, St. Hildegardis, Abbot Joachim, whose + prophecies and pictures prophetical were published by Theophrastus + Paracelsus, and John Adrasder, and by Paschalinus Regiselmus, at + Venice, 1589; but (as Ahab said concerning Micaiah) these do not + prophesy good concerning Rome, but evil, &c. + + +This paragraph is an exquisite specimen of grave and dignified irony, +'telum quod cedere simulat retorquentis'. In contrast with this stands +the paragraph on note 15, (p. 381.) which is a coarse though not +unmerited sneer, or, as a German would have expressed himself, 'an +of-Jeremy-Taylor-unworthy,though a-not-of-the-Roman-Catholic-Papicolar- +polemics-unmerited, sneer.' + + +Ib. p. 381. + + ... excepting only some Popes have been remarked by their own + histories for funest and direful deaths. + +In the adoption of this word 'funest' into the English language by +'apocope' of the final 'us', Taylor is supported by 'honest' and +'modest;' but then the necessity of pronouncing funest should have +excluded it, the superlative final being an objection to all of them, +though outweighed in the others. A common reader would pronounce it +'funest,' and perhaps mistake it for 'funniest.' + + +Ib. p. 382. + + ... sacraments, 'which to be seven', is with them an article of faith. + +The fastidious exclusion of this and similar idioms in modern writing +occasions unnecessary embarrassment for the writer, both in narration +and argumenting, and contributes to the monotony of our style. + + +Ib. + + The Fathers and Schoolmen differ greatly in the definition of a + Sacrament. + + +Had it been in other respects advisable, it would, I think, have been +theologically convenient, if our Reformers had contra-distinguished +Baptism and the Lord's Supper by the term Mysteries, and allowed the +name of Sacrament to Ordination, Confirmation, and Marriage. + + +Ib. s. iii. p. 388. + + And he did so to the Jews ... tradition was not relied upon; it was + not trusted with any law of faith or manners. + +This all the later Jews deny, affirming an oral communication from Moses +to the Seventy, on as lame pretences as the Roman Catholics, and for the +same vile purposes as reproved by Christ, who, if he had believed the +story, would not have condemned traditions of men generally without +exception, and would not have proved the immortality of the Patriarchs +by a text which seems to have had no such primary intention, though it +may contain the deduction 'potentialiter'. + +But Taylor's 1st and 7th arguments following are, the former weak and +incorrect, the latter 'dictum et vulgatum, sed non probatum, ne dicam +improbatum'. Who doubts that all that is indispensable to the salvation +of each and every one is contained in the New Testament? + +But is it not contained in the first chapter of St. John's Gospel? Is it +not contained in the eleventh of the Acts, and in a score other +separable portions? Necessary, indispensable, and the like, are +multivocal terms. Dogs have survived (and without any noticeable injury) +the excision of the spleen. + +Dare we conclude from this fact that the spleen is not necessary to the +continuance of the canine race? What is not indispensable for even the +majority of individual believers may be necessary for the Church. + +Instead, therefore, of these terms, put 'true,' 'important,' and +'constitutive,' that is, appertaining to the chain ('ad catenam auream') +of truths interdependent and rendered mutually intelligible, which +constitute the system of the Christian religion, including not alone the +faith and morals of individuals, but the 'organismus' likewise of the +Church, as a body spiritual, yet outward and historical; and this again +not as an aggregate or sum total, like a corn-sheaf, but a unity. + +Let the question, I say, be thus restated, and then let the cause come +to trial between the Romish and the Protestant divines. + + +N. B. As a running comment on all these marginal notes, let it be +understood that I hold the far greater part--the only not all of what +our great Author urges, to apply with irrefutable force against the +doctrine and practice of the Romish Church, as it in fact exists, and no +less against the Familists and 'istius farinæ enthusiastas'. + +I contend only, that he himself, in several assertions, lies open to +attack from the supporters of a scheme of faith, as unlike either the +Romish or the Fanatical, as Taylor's own, and which scheme, namely, the +co-ordinate authority of the Word, the Spirit and the Church, I believe +to be the true Apostolic and Catholic doctrine, and that to this scheme +his objections do not apply. + +When I can bring myself to believe that from the mere perusal of the New +Testament a man might have sketched out by anticipation the +constitution, discipline, creeds, and sacramental ritual of the +Episcopal Reformed Church of England; or that it is not a true and +orthodox Church, because this is incredible; then I may perhaps be +inclined to echo Chillingworth. + +As I cannot think that it detracts from a dial that in order to tell the +time the sun must shine upon it; so neither does it detract from the +Scriptures, that though the best and holiest they are yet Scripture, and +require a pure heart and the consequent assistances of God's +enlightening grace in order to understand them to edification. + +1812. + + +I still agree with the preceding note, and add that Jeremy Taylor should +have cited the Arians and Socinians on the other side. But the Romish +Papal hierarchy cannot for shame say, or only from want of shame can +pretend to say, what a Catholic would be entitled to urge on the triple +link of the Scripture, the Spirit, and the Church. + +27 April, 1826. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 392. + + From this principle, as it is promoted by the Fanatics, they derive a + wandering, unsettled, and a dissolute religion, &c. + +The evils of the Fanatic persuasion here so powerfully, so exquisitely, +stated and enforced by our all-eloquent Bishop, supply no proof or even +presumption against the tenet of the Spirit rightly expressed. For +catholicity is the distinctive mark, the 'conditio sine qua non', of a +spiritual teaching; and if men that dream with their eyes open mistake +for this the very contrary, that is, their own particular fancies, or +perhaps sensations, who can help it? + + +Ib. s. vii. p. 394. + + They affirm that the Scriptures are full, that they are a perfect + rule, that they contain all things necessary to salvation; and from + hence they confuted all heresies. + +Yes, the heretics were so confuted, I grant; because these would not +acknowledge any other authority but that of the Scriptures, and these +too forged or corrupted by themselves; but by the Scriptures that +remained unaltered the early Fathers of the Church both demonstrated the +omissions and interpolations of the heretical canons and the false +doctrines of the heresy itself. But so far from following the same rule +to the members of the true Church, they made the applicability of this +way of proof the criterion of a heretic. + + +Ib. p. 394. + + 'Which truly they then preached, but afterwards by the will of God + delivered to us in the Scriptures, which was to be the pillar and + ground to our faith.' + +Lessing has shown this to be a false and even ungrammatical rendering of +Irenæus's words. The 'columen et fundamentum fidei', are the Creed, or +economy of salvation. + + +Ib. vii. p. 395. Extracts from Clement's 'Stromata'. + +It would require a volume to shew the qualifications with which these +'excerpta' must be read. There is no one source of error and endless +controversy more fruitful than this custom of quoting detached +sentences. I would pledge myself in the course of a single morning to +bring an equal number of passages from the same (Ante-Nicene) Fathers in +proof of the Roman Catholic theory. One palpable cheat in these +transcripts is the neglect of appreciating the words, 'inspired,' 'a +'Spiritu dicta'', and the like, in the Patristic use; as if the Fathers +did not frequently apply the same terms to the discourses of the +Bishops, their contemporaries, and to writings not canonical. It is +wonderful how so acute and learned a man as Taylor could have read +Tertullian, Irenæus and Clemens Alexandrinus, and not have seen that the +passages are all against him so far as they all make the Scriptures +subsidiary only to the Spirit in the Church and the Baptismal creed, the +[Greek: kan_òn píste_os], 'regula fidei', or 'æconomia salutis'. + + +Ib. p. 396. + + ... that the tradition ecclesiastical, that is, the whole doctrine + taught by the Church of God, and preached to all men, is in the + Scripture. + +It is only by the whole context and purpose of the work, and this too +interpreted by the known doctrine of the age, that the intent of the +sentences here quoted can be determined, relatively to the point in +question. But even as they stand here, they do not assert that the +'Traditio Ecclesiastica' was grounded on, or had been deduced from, the +Scriptures; nor that by Scripture Clemens meant principally the New +Testament; and that the Scriptures contain the Tradition Ecclesiastical +or Catholic Faith the Romish divines admit and contend. + + +Ib. p. 399. Extract from Origen. + + As our Saviour imposed silence upon the Sadducees by the word of his + doctrine, and faithfully convinced that false opinion which they + thought to be truth; so also shall the followers of Christ do, by the + examples of Scripture, by which according to sound doctrine every + voice of Pharaoh ought to be silent. + +Does not this prove too much; namely, that nothing exists in the New +which does not likewise exist in the Old Testament? + +One objection to Jeremy Taylor's argument here must, I think, strike +every reflecting mind; namely, that in order to a fair and full view of +the sentiments of the Fathers of the first four centuries, all they +declare of the Church, and her powers and prerogatives, ought to have +been likewise given. + +As soon as I receive any writing as inspired by the Spirit of Truth, of +course I must believe it on its own authority. But how am I assured that +it is an inspired work? Now do not these Fathers reply, By the Church? +To the Church it belongs to declare what books are Holy Scriptures, and +to interpret their right sense. Is not this the common doctrine among +the Fathers? And how was the Church to judge? + +First, by the same spirit surviving in her; and secondly by the +accordance of the Book itself with the canon of faith, that is the +Baptismal Creed. And what was this? 'Traditio Ecclesiastica'. As to +myself, I agree with Taylor against the Romanists, that the Bible is for +us the only rule of faith; but I do not adopt his mode of proving it. + +In the earliest period of Christianity the Scriptures of the New +Testament and the Ecclesiastical Tradition were reciprocally tests of +each other; but for the Christians of the second century the Scriptures +were tried by the Ecclesiastical Tradition, while for us the order is +reversed, and we must try the Ecclesiastical Tradition by the +Scriptures. Therefore I do not expect to find the proofs of the +supremacy of Scripture in the early Fathers, nor do we need their +authority. Our proofs are stronger without it. + + +Ib. p. 403. + + Which words I the rather remark, because this article of the + consubstantiality of Christ with the Father is brought as an instance + (by the Romanists) of the necessity of tradition, to make up the + insufficiency of Scripture. + +How shall I make this rhyme to Taylor's own assertion, in the last +paragraph of sect. xix. of his Episcopacy Asserted, [20] in which he +clearly refers to this very question as relying on tradition for its +clearness? Jeremy Taylor was a true Father of the Church, and would +furnish as fine a subject for a 'concordantia discordantiarum' as St. +Austin himself. For the exoteric and esoteric he was a very Pythagoras. + + +Ib. p. 406. + + ... for one or two of them say, Theophilus spake against Origen, for + broaching fopperies of his own, and particularly, that Christ's flesh + was consubstantial with the Godhead. + +Origen doubtless meant the 'caro noumenon', and was quite right. But +never was a great man so misunderstood as Origen. + + +Ib. p. 408. n. + + 'Sed et alia, quoe absque auctoritate et testimoniis Scripturarum, + quasi traditione Apostolica, sponte reperiunt atque contingunt, + percutit gladius Dei'. + + "Those things which they make and find, as it were, by Apostolical + tradition, without the authority and testimonies of Scripture, the + word of God smites." + +Is it clear that 'Scripturarum' depends on 'auctoritate'? It may well +mean they who without the authority of the Church, or Scriptural +testimony pretend to an Apostolical Tradition. + + +Ib. p. 411. + + But lastly, if in the plain words of Scripture be contained all that + is simply necessary to all, then it is clear, by Bellarmine's + confession, that St. Austin affirmed that the plain places of + Scripture are sufficient to all laics and all idiots, or private + persons, and then it is very ill done to keep them from the knowledge + and use of the Scriptures, which contain all their duty both of faith + and good life; so it is very unnecessary to trouble them with any + thing else, there being in the world no such treasure and repository + of faith and manners, and that so plain, that it was intended for all + men, and for all such men is sufficient. "Read the Holy Scriptures + wherein you shall find some things to be holden, and some to be + avoided." + +And yet in the preface to his Apology for authorized and set forms of +Liturgy, [21] Taylor regrets that the Church of England was not able to +confine the laity to such selections of Holy Writ as are in her Liturgy. +But Laud was then alive: and Taylor partook of his 'trepidatiunculæ' +towards the Church of Rome. + + +Ib. p. 412. + + And all these are nothing else, but a full subscription to, and an + excellent commentary upon, those words of St. Paul, 'Let no man + pretend to be wise above what is written.' + +Had St. Paul anything beyond the Law and the Prophets in his mind? + + +Ib. p. 416. + + St. Paul's way of teaching us to expound Scripture is, that he that + prophesies should do it [Greek: kat' analogían píste_os], according to + the analogy of faith. + +Yet in his Liberty of Prophesying [22] Taylor turns this way into mere +ridicule. I love thee, Jeremy! but an arrant theological barrister that +thou wast, though thy only fees were thy desires of doing good in +'questionibus singulis'. + + +Ib. s. iii. p. 419. + + Only, because we are sure there was some false dealing in this matter, + and we know there might be much more than we have discovered, we have + no reason to rely upon any tradition for any part of our faith, any + more than we could do upon Scripture, if one book or chapter of it + should be detected to be imposture. + +What says Jeremy Taylor then to the story of the woman taken in +adultery, ('John, c. viii. 3-11'.) which Chrysostom disdains to comment +on? If true, how could it be omitted in so many, and these the most +authentic, copies? And if this for fear of scandal, why not others? And +who does not know that falsehood may be effected as well by omissions as +by interpolations? But if false,--then--but Taylor draws the consequence +himself. + + +Ib. p. 427. + + So that the tradition concerning the Scriptures being extrinsical to + Scripture is also extrinsical to the question: this tradition cannot + be an objection against the sufficiency of Scripture to salvation, but + must go before this question. For no man inquires whether the + Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation, unless he + believe that there are Scriptures, that these are they, and that they + are the word of God. All this comes to us by tradition, that is, by + universal undeniable testimony. + +Very just, and yet this idle argument is the favourite, both shield and +sword, of the Romanists: as if I should pretend to learn the Roman +history from tradition, because by tradition I know such histories to +have been written by Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus! + + +Ib. p. 435. + + The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either + mistaken or uncertain, or not an article of faith (which is rather to + be hoped, lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as infidels or + perverse heretics), or else that it can be derived from Scripture, + which last is indeed the most probable, and pursuant to the doctrine + of those wiser Latins who examined things by reason and not by + prejudice. + +It is remarkable that both Stillingfleet and Taylor favoured the Greek +opinion. But Bull's 'Defensio Fidei Nicænæ' was not yet published. It is +to me evident that if the Holy Ghost does not proceed through and from +the Son as well as from the Father, then the Son is not the adequate +substantial idea of the Father. But according to St. Paul, he is--'ergo, +&c'. N.B. These "'ergos, &c'." in legitimate syllogisms, where the +'major' and 'minor' have been conceded, are binding on all human beings, +with the single anomaly of the Quakers. For with them nothing is more +common than to admit both 'major' and 'minor', and, when you add the +inevitable consequence, to say "Nay! I do not think so, Friend! Thou art +worldly wise, Friend!" For example: 'major', it is agreed on both sides +that we ought not to withhold from a man what he has a just right to: +'minor', property in land being the creature of law, a just right in +respect of landed property is determined by the law of the +land:--"agreed, such is the fact:" 'ergo:' the clergyman has a just +right to the tithe. "Nay, nay; this is vanity, and tithes an abomination +of Judaism!" + + +Ib. s. v. p. 492. + + And since that villain of a man, Pope Hildebrand, as Cardinal Beno + relates in his Life, could, by shaking of his sleeve make sparks of + fire fly from it. + +If this was fact, was it an idiosyncrasy, as I have known those who by +combing their hair can elicit sparks with a crackling as from a cat's +back rubbed. It is very possible that the sleeve might be silk, +tightened either on a very hairy arm, or else on woollen, and by shaking +it might be meant stripping the silk suddenly off, which would doubtless +produce flashes and sparks. + + +Vol. XI. s. x. p. 1. + +As a general remark suggested indeed by this section, but applicable to +very many parts of Taylor's controversial writings, both against the +anti-Prelatic and the Romish divines, especially to those in which our +incomparable Church-aspist attempts, not always successfully, to +demonstrate the difference between the dogmas and discipline of the +ancient Church, and those which the Romish doctors vindicate by them,--I +would say once for all, that it was the fashion of the Arminian court +divines of Taylor's age, that is, of the High Church party, headed by +Archbishop Laud, to extol, and (in my humble judgment) egregiously to +overrate, the example and authority of the first four, nay, of the first +six centuries; and at all events to take for granted the Evangelical and +Apostolical character of the Church to the death of Athanasius. + +Now so far am I from conceding this, that before the first Council of +Nicaea, I believe myself to find the seeds and seedlings of all the +worst corruptions of the Latin Church of the thirteenth century, and not +a few of these even before the close of the second. + +One pernicious error of the primitive Church was the conversion of the +ethical ideas, indispensable to the science of morals and religion, into +fixed practical laws and rules for all Christians, in all stages of +spiritual growth, and under all circumstances; and with this the +degradation of free and individual acts into corporate Church +obligations. + +Another not less pernicious was the gradual concentration of the Church +into a priesthood, and the consequent rendering of the reciprocal +functions of love and redemption and counsel between Christian and +Christian exclusively official, and between disparates, namely, the +priest and the layman. + + +Ib. B. II. s. ii. p. 58. + +Often have I welcomed, and often have I wrestled with, the thought of +writing an essay on the day of judgment. Are the passages in St. Peter's +Epistle respecting the circumstances of the last day and the final +conflagration, and even St. Paul's, to be regarded as apocalyptic and a +part of the revelation by Christ, or are they, like the dogma of a +personal Satan, accommodations of the current popular creed which they +continued to believe? + + +Ib. s. iii. p. 105. + + And therefore St. Paul left an excellent precept to the Church to + avoid 'profanas vocum novitates', 'the prophane newness of words;' + that is, it is fit that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be + preached and taught in the words of the Scripture, and with that + simplicity, openness, easiness, and candor, and not with new and + unhallowed words, such as that of Transubstantiation. + +Are not then Trinity, Tri-unity, 'hypostasis, perichoresis, diphysis', +and others, excluded? Yet Waterland very ingeniously, nay more, very +honestly and sensibly, shews the necessity of these terms 'per +accidens'. The 'profanum' fell back on the heretics who had occasioned +the necessity. + + +Ib. p. 106. + + "The oblation of a cake was a figure of the Eucharistical bread which + the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion." These are + Justin's words in that place. + +Justin Martyr could have meant no more, and the Greek construction means +no more, than that the cake we offer is the representative, substitute, +and 'fac-simile' of the bread which Christ broke and delivered. + +I find no necessary absurdity in Transubstantiation. For substance is +but a notion 'thought on' to the aggregate of +accidents--'hinzugedacht'--conceived, not perceived, and conceived +always in universals, never in 'concreto'. + +Therefore, X. Y. Z. being unknown quantities, Y. may be as well annexed +by the choice of the mind as the imagined 'substratum' as X. For we +cannot distinguish substance from substance any more than X. from X. + +The substrate or 'causa invisibilis' may be the 'noumenon' or actuality, +'das Ding in sich', of Christ's humanity, as well as the 'Ding in sich' +of which the sensation, bread, is the appearance. + +But then, on the other hand, there is not a word of sense possible to +prove that it is really so; and from the not impossible to the real is a +strange 'ultra'-Rhodian leap. + +And it is opposite both to the simplicity of Evangelical meaning, and +anomalous from the interpretation of all analogous phrases which all men +expound as figures,--'I am the gate, I am the way, I am the vine', and +the like,--and to Christ's own declarations that his words were to be +understood spiritually, that is, figuratively. + + +Ib. s. vi. p. 164. + + However, if you will not commit downright idolatry, as some of their + saints teach you, then you must be careful to observe these plain + distinctions; and first be sure to remember that when you worship an + image, you do it not materially but formally; not as it is of such a + substance, but as it is a sign; next take care that you observe what + sort of image it is, and then proportion your right kind to it, that + you do not give 'latria' to that where 'hyperdulia' is only due; and + be careful that if 'dulia' only be due, that your worship be not + 'hyperdulical', &c. + +A masterly specimen of grave dignified irony. Indeed, Jeremy Taylor's +'Works' would be of more service to an English barrister than those of +Demosthenes, Æschines, and Cicero taken together. + + +Ib. s. vii. p. 168. + + A man cannot well understand an essence, and hath no idea of it in his + mind, much less can a painter's pencil do it. + +Noticeable, that this is the only instance I have met in any English +classic before the Revolution of the word 'idea' used as synonymous +with a mental image. Taylor himself has repeatedly placed the two in +opposition; and even here I doubt whether he has done otherwise. I +rather think he meant by the word 'idea' a notion under an indefinite +and confused form, such as Kant calls a 'schema'or vague outline, an +imperfect embryo of a concrete, to the individuation of which the mind +gives no conscious attention; just as when I say--"any thing," I may +imagine a poker or a plate; but I pay no attention to its being this +rather than that; and the very image itself is so wandering and unstable +that at this moment it may be a dim shadow of the one, and in the next +of some other thing. In this sense, idea is opposed to image in degree +instead of kind; yet still contra-distinguished, as is evident by the +sequel, "much less can a painter's pencil do it:" for were it an image, +'individui et concreti', then the painter's pencil could do it as well +as his fancy or better. + + + +A DISCOURSE OF CONFIRMATION. + +Of all Taylor's works, the Discourse of Confirmation seems to me the +least judicious; and yet that is not the right word either. I mean, +however, that one is puzzled to know for what class of readers or +auditors it was intended. + +He announces his subject as one of such lofty claims; he begins with +positions taken on such high ground, no less than the superior dignity +and spiritual importance of Confirmation above Baptism itself--whether +considered as a sacramental rite and mystery distinct from Baptism, or +as its completory and crowning part (the 'finis coronans opus')--that we +are eager to hear the proof. + +But proofs differ in their value according to our previous valuation of +authorities. What would pass for a very sufficient proof, because +grounded on a reverend authority, with a Romanist, would be a mere +fancy-medal and of no currency with a Bible Protestant. + +And yet for Protestants, and those too laymen (for we can hardly suppose +that Taylor thought his Episcopal brethren in need of it), must this +Discourse have been intended; and in this point of view, surely never +did so wise a man adopt means so unsuitable to his end, or frame a +discourse so inappropriate to his audience. + +The authorities of the Fathers are, indeed, as strong and decisive in +favour of the Bishop's position as the warmest advocate of Confirmation +could wish; but this very circumstance was calculated to create a +prejudice against the doctrine in the mind of a zealous Protestant, from +the contrast in which the unequivocal and explicit declarations of the +Fathers stand with the remote, arbitrary, and fine-drawn inferences from +the few passages of the New Testament which can be forced into an +implied sanction of a rite no where mentioned, and as a distinct and +separate ministration, utterly, as I conceive, unknown in the Apostolic +age. + +How much more rational and convincing (as to me it seems) would it have +been to have shewn, that when from various causes the practice of Infant +Baptism became general in the Church, Confirmation or the acknowledgment +'in propria persona' of the obligations that had been incurred by proxy +was introduced; and needed no other justification than its own evident +necessity, as substantiating the preceding form as to the intended +effects of Baptism on the believer himself, and then to have shewn the +great uses and spiritual benefits of the institution. + +But this would not do. Such was the spirit of the age that nothing less +than the assertion of a divine origin,--of a formal and positive +institution by Christ himself, or by the Apostles in their Apostolic +capacity as legislators for the universal Church in all ages, could +serve; and accordingly Bishops, liturgies, tithes, monarchy, and what +not, were, 'de jure divino', with celestial patents, wrapped up in the +womb of this or that text of Scripture to be exforcipated by the +logico-obstetric skill of High Church doctors and ultra-loyal court +chaplains. + + + +THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO THE DUKE OF ORMONDE. + +Ib. p. ccxvii. + + This very poor church. + +With the exception of Spain, the Church establishment in Ireland is now, +I conceive, the richest in Europe; though by the most iniquitous measure +of the Irish Parliament, most iniquitously permitted to acquire the +force of law at the Union, the Irish Church was robbed of the tithes +from all pasture lands. What occasioned so great a change in its favour +since the time of Charles II? + +1810. + + +Ib. p. ccxviii. + + And amidst these and very many more inconveniences it was greatly + necessary that God should send us such a king. + +Such a king! O sorrow and shame! Why, why, O Genius! didst thou suffer +thy darling son to crush the fairest flower of thy garland beneath a +mitre of Charles's putting on! + + +Ib. p. ccxix. + + For besides that the great usefulness of this ministry will greatly + endear the Episcopal order, to which (that I may use St. Hierom's + words) "if there be not attributed a more than common power and + authority, there will be as many schisms as priests," &c. + +On this ground the Romish divines justify the Papacy. The fact of the +Scottish Church is the sufficient answer to both. Episcopacy needs not +rash assertions for its support. + + +Ib. p. ccxx. + + For it is a sure rule in our religion, and is of an eternal truth, + that "they who keep not the unity of the Church, have not the Spirit + of God." + +Contrast with this our xixth and xxth Articles on the Church. The Irish +Roman Catholic Bishops, methinks, must have read this with delight. What +an over hasty simpleton that James II. was! Had he waited and caressed +the Bishops, they would have taken the work off his hands. + + +Ib. p. 229. Introduction. + +It has been my conviction that in respect of the theory of the Faith, +(though God be praised! not in the practical result,) the Papal and the +Protestant communions are equi-distant from the true idea of the Gospel +Institute, though erring from opposite directions. + +The Romanists sacrifice the Scripture to the Church virtually annulling +the former: the Protestants reversed this practically, and even in +theory, (see the above-mentioned Articles,) annulling the latter. + +The consequence has been, as might have been predicted, the extinction +of the Spirit (the indifference or 'mesothesis') in both considered as +bodies: for I doubt not that numerous individuals in both Churches live +in communion with the Spirit. + +Towards the close of the reign of our first James, and during the period +from the accession of Charles I to the restoration of his profligate +son, there arose a party of divines, Arminians (and many of them +Latitudinarians) in their creed, but devotees of the throne and the +altar, soaring High Churchmen and ultra royalists. + +Much as I dislike their scheme of doctrine and detest their principles +of government both in Church and State, I cannot but allow that they +formed a galaxy of learning and talent, and that among them the Church +of England finds her stars of the first magnitude. + +Instead of regarding the Reformation established under Edward VI as +imperfect, they accused the Reformers, some of them openly, but all in +their private opinions, of having gone too far; and while they were +willing to keep down (and if they could not reduce him to a primacy of +honor to keep out) the Pope, and to prune away the innovations in +doctrine brought in under the Papal domination, they were zealous to +restore the hierarchy, and to substitute the authority of the Fathers, +Canonists and Councils of the first six or seven centuries, and the +least Papistic of the later Doctors and Schoolmen, for the names of +Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, Calvin and the systematic theologians who +rejected all testimony but that of their Bible. + +As far as the principle, on which Archbishop Laud and his followers +acted, went to re-actuate the idea of the Church, as a co-ordinate and +living Power by right of Christ's institution and express promise, I go +along with them; but I soon discover that by the Church they meant the +Clergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and then I fly off from them in a +tangent. + +For it is this very interpretation of the Church that, according to my +conviction, constituted the first and fundamental apostasy; and I hold +it for one of the greatest mistakes of our polemic divines in their +controversies with the Romanists, that they trace all the corruptions of +the Gospel faith to the Papacy. + +Meantime can we be surprised that our forefathers under the Stuarts were +alarmed, and imagined that the Bishops and court preachers were marching +in quick time with their faces towards Rome, when, to take one instance +of a thousand, a great and famous divine, like Bishop Taylor, asserts +the inferiority, in rank and efficacy, of Baptism to Confirmation, and +grounds this assertion so strange to all Scriptural Protestants on a +text of Cabasilas--a saying of Rupertus--a phrase of St. Denis--and a +sentence of Saint Bernard in a Life of Saint Malachias!--for no +Benedictine can be more liberal in his attribution of saintship than +Jeremy Taylor, or more reverently observant of the beatifications and +canonizations of the Old Lady of the scarlet petticoat. + +P. S. If the reader need other illustrations, I refer him to Bishop +Hackett's 'Sermons on the Advent and Nativity', which might almost pass +for the orations of a Franciscan brother, whose reading had been +confined to the 'Aurea Legenda'. It would be uncandid not to add that +this indiscreet traffickery with Romish wares was in part owing to the +immense reading of these divines. + + +Ib. s. i. p. 247. Acts viii. 14-17. + +This is an argument indeed, and one that of itself would suffice to +decide the question, if only it could be proved, or even made probable, +that by the Holy Ghost in this place was meant that receiving of the +Spirit to which Confirmation is by our Church declared to be the means +and vehicle. + +But this I suspect cannot be done. The whole passage to which sundry +chapters in St. Paul's Epistles seem to supply the comment, inclines and +almost compels me to understand by the Holy Ghost in this narrative the +miraculous gifts, [Greek: tas dynámeis], collectively. + +And in no other sense can I understand the sentence 'the Holy Ghost was +not yet fallen upon any of them'. But the subject is beset with +difficulties from the paucity of particular instances recorded by the +inspired historian, and from the multitude and character of these +instances found in the Fathers and Ecclesiastical historians. + + +Ib. s. ii. p. 254. + +Still they are all [Greek: dynámeis], exhibitable powers, faculties. +Were it otherwise what strange and fearful consequences would follow +from the assertion, 'the Holy Spirit was not yet fallen upon any of +them'. + +That we misunderstand the gift of tongues, and that it did not mean the +power of speaking foreign languages unlearnt, I am strongly persuaded. + +Yea, but this is not the question. If my heart, bears me witness that I +love my brother, that I love my merciful Saviour, and call Jesus Lord +and the Anointed of God with joy of heart, I am encouraged by Scripture +to infer that the Spirit abideth in me; besides that I know that of +myself, and estranged from the Holy Spirit, I cannot even think a +thought acceptable before God. + +But how will this help me to believe that I received this Spirit through +the Bishop's hands laid on my head at Confirmation: when perhaps I am +distinctly conscious, that I loved my Saviour, freely forgave, nay, +tenderly yearned for the weal of, them that hated me before my +Confirmation,--when, indeed, I must have been the most uncharitable of +men if I did not admit instances of the most exemplary faith, charity, +and devotion in Christians who do not practise the imposition of hands +in their Churches. What! did those Christians, of whom St. Luke speaks, +not love their brethren? + + +'In fine'. + +I have had too frequent experience of professional divines, and how they +identify themselves with the theological scheme to which they have been +articled, and I understand too well the nature and the power, the effect +and the consequences, of a wilful faith,--where the sensation of +positiveness is substituted for the sense of certainty, and the stubborn +clutch for quiet insight,--to wonder at any degree of hardihood in +matters of belief. + +Therefore the instant and deep-toned affirmative to +the question + + "And do you actually believe the presence of the material water in the + baptizing of infants or adults is essential to their salvation, so + indispensably so that the omission of the water in the Baptism of an + infant who should die the day after would exclude that infant from the + kingdom of heaven, and whatever else is implied in the loss of + salvation?" + +I should not be surprised, I say, to hear this question answered with an +emphatic, + + "Yes, Sir! I do actually believe this, for thus I find it written, and + herein begins my right to the name of a Christian, that I have + exchanged my reason for the Holy Scriptures: I acknowledge no reason + but the Bible." + +But as this intrepid respondent, though he may dispense with reason, +cannot quite so easily free himself from the obligations of common sense +and the canons of logic,--both of which demand consistency, and like +consequences from like premisses 'in rebus ejusdem generis', in subjects +of the same class,--I do find myself tempted to wonder, some small deal, +at the unscrupulous substitution of a few drops of water sprinkled on +the face for the Baptism, that is, immersion or dipping, of the whole +person, even if the rivers or running waters had been thought +non-essential. + +And yet where every word in any and in all the four narratives is so +placed under the logical press as it is in this Discourse by Jeremy +Taylor, and each and every incident pronounced exemplary, and for the +purpose of being imitated, I should hold even this hazardous. + +But I must wonder a very great deal, and in downright earnest, at the +contemptuous language which the same men employ in their controversies +with the Romish Church, respecting the corporal presence in the +consecrated bread and wine, and the efficacy of extreme unction. + +For my own part, the assertion that what is phenomenally bread and wine +is substantially the Body and Blood of Christ, does not shock my common +sense more than that a few drops of water sprinkled on the face should +produce a momentous change, even a regeneration, in the soul; and does +not outrage my moral feelings half as much. + +P. S. There is one error of very ill consequence to the reputation of +the Christian community, which Taylor shares with the Romish divines, +namely, the quoting of opinions, and even of rhetorical flights, from +the writings of this and that individual, with 'Saint' prefixed to his +name, as expressing the faith of the Church during the first five or six +centuries. + +Whereas it would not, perhaps, be very difficult to convince +an unprejudiced man and a sincere Christian of the impossibility that +even the decrees of the General Councils should represent the Catholic +faith, that is, the belief essential to, or necessarily consequent on, +the faith in Christ common to all the elect. + + + +[Footnote 1: The references are here given to Heber's edition, 1822. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: The page however remains a blank. But a little essay on +punctuation by the Author is in the Editor's possession, and will be +published hereafter.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 3: See Euseb. 'Hist.' iii. 27.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 4: 'Vindication, &c. Quer.' 13, 14, 15.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 5: See the form previously exhibited in this volume, +p. 93.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 6: 'Mark' viii. 29. 'Luke' ix. 20.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 7: 1 'Pet'. v. 13.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 8: Lightfoot and Wall use this strong argument for the +lawfulness and implied duty of Infant Baptism in the Christian Church. +It was the universal practice of the Jews to baptize the infant children +of proselytes as well as their parents. Instead, therefore, of Christ's +silence as to infants by name in his commission to baptize all nations +being an argument that he meant to exclude them, it is a sign that he +meant to include them. For it was natural that the precedent custom +should prevail, unless it were expressly forbidden. The force of this, +however, is limited to the ceremony;--its character and efficacy are not +established by it.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 9: The Author's views of Baptism are stated more fully and +methodically in the 'Aids to Reflection'; but even that statement is +imperfect, and consequently open to objection, as was frequently +admitted by Mr. C. himself. The Editor is unable to say what precise +spiritual efficacy the Author ultimately ascribed to Infant Baptism; but +he was certainly an advocate for the practice, and appeared as sponsor +at the font for more than one of his friends' children. See his 'Letter +to a Godchild', printed, for this purpose, at the end of this volume; +his 'Sonnet on his Baptismal Birthday', ('Poet. Works', ii. p. 151.) in +the tenth line of which, in many copies, there was a misprint of 'heart' +for 'front;' and the 'Table Talk', 2nd edit. p. 183. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 10: 'Deut.' xiii. 1-5. xviii. 22.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 11: 'Galat.' i. 8, 9.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 12: Pp. 206-227. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 13: With reference to all these notes on Original Sin, see +'Aids to Reflection', p. 250-286.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 14: 'Aids to Reflection', p. 274.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 15: Ante. 'Vindication, &c.' p. 357-8.] + + +[Footnote 16: Ibid.] + + +[Footnote 17: + + 'Dupliciter vero sanguis Christi et caro intelligitur, spiritualis + ilia atque divina, de qua ipse dixit, Caro mea vere est cibus, &c., + vel caro et sanguis, quæ crucifixa est, et qui militis effusus est + lancea.' + +In 'Epist. Ephes.' c.i.] + + +[Footnote 18: See 'Table Talk', p. 72, second edit. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 19: + + 'Ipsum regem tradunt, volventem commentaries Numæ, quum ibi occulta + solennia sacrificia Jovi Elicio facta invenisset, operatum his sacris + se abdidisse; sed non rite initum aut curatum id sacrum esse; nee + solum nullam ei oblatam Cælestium speciem, sed ira Jovis, sollicitati + prava religione, fulmine ictum cum domo conflagrasse.' + +L. i. c. xxxi.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 20: + + "This also rests upon the practice apostolical and traditive + interpretation of holy Church, and yet cannot be denied that so it + ought to be, by any man that would not have his Christendom suspected. + To these I add the communion of women, the distinction of books + apocryphal from canonical, that such books were written by such + Evangelists and Apostles, the whole tradition of Scripture itself, the + Apostles' Creed, &c. ... These and divers others of greater + consequence, (which I dare not specify for fear of being + misunderstood,) rely but upon equal faith with this of Episcopacy," + +&c.--Ed.] + + +[Footnote 21: S. xxvi.] + + +[Footnote 22: S. iv. 4.--Ed.] + + + + + +NOTES ON THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. + +I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, +according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as +teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that +was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, +incomparably the best 'Summa Theologiæ Evangelicæ' ever produced by +a writer not miraculously inspired. + +June 14, 1830. + + +It disappointed, nay surprised me, to find Robert Southey express +himself so coldly respecting the style and diction of the Pilgrim's +Progress. I can find nothing homely in it but a few phrases and single +words. The conversation between Faithful and Talkative [1] is a model of +unaffected dignity and rhythmical flow. + + + + +SOUTHEY'S LIFE OF BUNYAN. + +P. xiv. + + "We intended not," says Baxter, "to dig down the banks, or pull up the + hedge, and lay all waste and common, when we desired the Prelates' + tyranny might cease." No; for the intention had been under the pretext + of abating one tyranny to establish a far severer and more galling in + its stead: in doing this the banks had been thrown down, and the hedge + destroyed; and while the bestial herd who broke in rejoiced in the + havoc, Baxter, and other such erring though good men, stood marvelling + at the mischief, which never could have been effected, if they had not + mainly assisted in it. + +But the question is, would these 'erring good' men have been either +willing or able to assist in this work, if the more erring Lauds and +Sheldons had not run riot in the opposite direction? And as for the +'bestial herd,'--compare the whole body of Parliamentarians, all the +fanatical sects included, with the royal and prelatical party in the +reign of Charles II. These were, indeed, a bestial herd. See Baxter's +unwilling and Burnet's honest description of the moral discipline +throughout the realm under Cromwell. + + +Ib. p. xv. + + They passed with equal facility from strict Puritanism to the utmost + license of practical and theoretical impiety, as Antinomians or as + Atheists, and from extreme profligacy to extreme superstition in any + of its forms. + +'They!' How many? and of these how many that would not have been in +Bedlam, or fit for it, under some other form? A madman falls into love +or religion, and then, forsooth! it is love or religion that drove him +mad. + + +Ib. p. xxi. + + In an evil hour were the doctrines of the Gospel sophisticated with + questions which should have been left in the Schools for those who are + unwise enough to employ themselves in excogitations of useless + subtlety. + +But what, at any rate, had Bunyan to do with the Schools? His +perplexities clearly rose out of the operations of his own active but +unarmed mind on the words of the Apostle. If anything is to be +arraigned, it must be the Bible in English, the reading of which is +imposed (and, in my judgment, well and wisely imposed) as a duty on all +who can read. Though Protestants, we are not ignorant of the occasional +and partial evils of promiscuous Bible-reading; but we see them vanish +when we place them beside the good. + + +Ib. p. xxiv. + + False notions of that corruption of our nature which it is almost as + perilous to exaggerate as to dissemble. + +I would have said "which it is almost as perilous to misunderstand as to +deny." + + +Ib. p. xli. &c. + + But the wickedness of the tinker has been greatly over-charged; and it + is taking the language of self-accusation too literally, to pronounce + of John Bunyan that he was at any time depraved. The worst of what he + was in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word ... he had + been a blackguard, &c. + +All this narrative, with the reflections on the facts, is admirable and +worthy of Robert Southey: full of good sense and kind feeling--the +wisdom of love. + + +Ib. p. lxi. + + But the Sectaries had kept their countrymen from it (the Common Prayer + Book), while they had the power, and Bunyan himself in his sphere + laboured to dissuade them from it. + +Surely the fault lay in the want, or in the feeble and inconsistent +manner, of determining and supporting the proper powers of the Church. +In fact, the Prelates and leading divines of the Church were not only at +variance with each other, but each with himself. + +One party, the more faithful and less modified disciples of the first +Reformers, were afraid of bringing anything into even a semblance of a +co-ordination with the Scriptures; and, with the _terriculum_ of Popery +ever before their eyes, timidly and sparingly allowed to the Church any +even subordinate power beyond that of interpreting the Scriptures; that +is, of finding the ordinances of the Church implicitly contained in the +ordinances of the inspired writers. + +But as they did not assume infallibility in their interpretations, it +amounted to nothing for the consciences of such men as Bunyan and a +thousand others. + +The opposite party, Laud, Taylor, and the rest, with a sufficient +dislike of the Pope (that is, at Rome) and of the grosser theological +corruptions of the Romish Church, yet in their hearts as much averse to +the sentiments and proceedings of Luther, Calvin, John Knox, Zuinglius, +and their fellows, and proudly conscious of their superior learning, +sought to maintain their ordinances by appeals to the Fathers, to the +recorded traditions and doctrine of the Catholic priesthood during the +first five or six centuries, and contended for so much that virtually +the Scriptures were subordinated to the Church, which yet they did not +dare distinctly to say out. + +The result was that the Anti-Prelatists answered them in the gross by +setting at nought their foundation, that is, the worth, authority and +value of the Fathers. + +So much for their variance with each other. But each vindicator of our +established Liturgy and Discipline was divided in himself: he minced +this out of fear of being charged with Popery, and that he dared not +affirm for fear of being charged with disloyalty to the King as the head +of the Church. + +The distinction between the Church of which the king is the rightful +head, and the Church which hath no head but Christ, never occurred +either to them or to their antagonists; and as little did they succeed +in appropriating to Scripture what belonged to Scripture, and to the +Church what belonged to the Church. + +All things in which the temporal is concerned may be reduced to a +pentad, namely, prothesis, thesis, antithesis, mesothesis and synthesis. +So here-- + + + 'Prothesis' + Christ, the Word + + + + 'Thesis' 'Mesothesis' 'Antithesis' +The Scriptures The Holy Spirit The Church + + + + 'Synthesis' + The Preacher + +[2] + + +Ib. p. lxiii. + + "But there are two ways of obeying," he observed; "the one to do that + which I in my conscience do believe that I am bound to do, actively; + and where I cannot obey actively, there I am willing to lie down, and + to suffer what they shall do unto me." + +Genuine Christianity worthy of John and Paul! + + +Ib. p. lxv. + +I am not conscious of any warping power that could have acted for so +very long a period; but from sixteen to now, sixty years of age, I have +retained the very same convictions respecting the Stuarts and their +adherents. Even to Lord Clarendon I never could quite reconcile myself. + +How often the pen becomes the tongue of a systematic dream,--a +somniloquist! The sunshine, that is, the comparative power, the distinct +contra-distinguishing judgment of realities as other than mere thoughts, +is suspended. During this state of continuous, not single-mindedness, +but one-side-mindedness, writing is manual somnambulism; the somnial +magic superinduced on, without suspending, the active powers of the mind. + + +Ib. p. lxxix. + + "They that will have heaven, they must run for it, because the devil, + the law, sin, death and hell, follow them. There is never a poor soul + that is going to heaven, but the devil, the law, sin, death and hell + make after that soul. 'The devil, your adversary, as a roaring lion, + goeth about seeking whom he may devour.' And I will assure you the + devil is nimble; he can run apace; he is light of foot; he hath + overtaken many; he hath turned up their heels, and hath given them an + everlasting fall. Also the law! that can shoot a great way: have a + care thou keep out of the reach of those great guns the Ten + Commandments! Hell also hath a wide mouth," &c. + +It is the fashion of the day to call every man, who in his writings or +discourses gives a prominence to the doctrines on which, beyond all +others, the first Reformers separated from the Romish communion, a +Calvinist. Bunyan may have been one, but I have met with nothing in his +writings (except his Anti-pædobaptism, to which too he assigns no saving +importance) that is not much more characteristically Lutheran; for +instance, this passage is the very echo of the chapter on the Law and +Gospel, in Luther's 'Table Talk'. + +It would be interesting, and I doubt not, instructive, to know the +distinction in Bunyan's mind between the devil and hell. + + +Ib. p. xcvii. + + Bunyan concludes with something like a promise of a third part. There + appeared one after his death, and it has had the fortune to be + included in many editions of the original work. + +It is remarkable that Southey should not have seen, or having seen, have +forgotten to notice, that this third part is evidently written by some +Romish priest or missionary in disguise. + + + + +LIFE OF BUNYAN. [3] + + The early part of his life was an open course of wickedness. + +Southey, in the Life prefixed to his edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, +has, in a manner worthy of his head and heart, reduced this oft repeated +charge to its proper value. Bunyan was never, in our received sense of +the word, wicked. He was chaste, sober, honest; but he was a bitter +blackguard; that is, damned his own and his neighbour's eyes on slight +or no occasion, and was fond of a row. In this our excellent Laureate +has performed an important service to morality. For the transmutation of +actual reprobates into saints is doubtless possible; but like the many +recorded facts of corporeal alchemy, it is not supported by modern +experiments. + + + + +THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. + +Part i. p. II. + + As I walked through the wilderness of this world. + +That in the Apocalypse the wilderness is the symbol of the world, or +rather of the worldly life, Bunyan discovered by the instinct of a +similar genius. The whole Jewish history, indeed, in all its details is +so admirably adapted to, and suggestive of, symbolical use, as to +justify the belief that the spiritual application, the interior and +permanent sense, was in the original intention of the inspiring Spirit, +though it might not have been present, as an object of distinct +consciousness, to the inspired writers. + + +Ib. + + ... where was a den. + +The jail. Mr. Bunyan wrote this precious book in Bedford jail, where he +was confined on account of his religion. The following anecdote is +related of him. A Quaker came to the jail, and thus addressed him: + + "Friend Bunyan, the Lord sent me to seek for thee, and I have been + through several counties in search of thee, and now I am glad I have + found thee." + +To which Mr. Bunyan replied, + + "Friend, thou dost not speak the truth in saying the Lord sent thee to + seek me; for the Lord well knows that I have been in this jail for + some years; and if he had sent thee, he would have sent thee here + directly." + +'Note in Edwards'. + +This is a valuable anecdote, for it proves, what might have been +concluded 'a priori', that Bunyan was a man of too much genius to be a +fanatic. No two qualities are more contrary than genius and fanaticism. +Enthusiasm, indeed, [Greek: o theòs en haemin], is almost a synonyme of +genius; the moral life in the intellectual light, the will in the +reason; and without it, says Seneca, nothing truly great was ever +achieved by man. + + +Ib. p. 12. + + And not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable + cry, saying, "What shall I do?" + + Reader, was this ever your case? Did you ever see your sins, and feel + the burden of them, so as to cry out in the anguish of your soul, What + must I do to be saved? If not, you will look on this precious book as + a romance or history, which no way concerns you; you can no more + understand the meaning of it than if it were wrote in an unknown + tongue, for you are yet carnal, dead in your sins, lying in the arms + of the wicked one in false security. But this book is spiritual; it + can only be understood by spiritually quickened souls who have + experienced that salvation in the heart, which begins with a sight of + sin, a sense of sin, a fear of destruction and dread of damnation. + Such and such only commence Pilgrims from the City of Destruction to + the heavenly kingdom. + +'Note in Edwards'. + +Most true. It is one thing to perceive and acknowledge this and that +particular deed to be sinful, that is, contrary to the law of reason or +the commandment of God in Scripture, and another thing to feel sin +within us independent of particular actions, except as the common ground +of them. And it is this latter without which no man can become a +Christian. + + +Ib. p. 39. + + Now whereas thou sawest that as soon as the first began to sweep, the + dust did so fly about that the room by him could not be cleansed, but + that thou wast almost choked therewith; this is to show thee, that the + Law, instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, doth + revive, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it + doth discover and forbid it; for it doth not give power to subdue. + + +See Luther's 'Table Talk'. The chapters in that work named "Law and +Gospel," contain the very marrow of divinity. Still, however, there +remains much to be done on this subject; namely, to show how the +discovery of sin by the Law tends to strengthen the sin; and why it must +necessarily have this effect, the mode of its action on the appetites +and impetites through the imagination and understanding; and to +exemplify all this in our actual experience. + + +Ib. p. 40. + + Then I saw that one came to Passion, and brought him a bag of + treasure, and poured it down at his feet; the which he took up, and + rejoiced therein, and withal laughed Patience to scorn; but I beheld + but awhile, and he had lavished all away, and had nothing left him but + rags. + +One of the not many instances of faulty allegory in 'The Pilgrim's +Progress'; that is, it is no allegory. The beholding "but awhile," and +the change into "nothing but rags," is not legitimately imaginable. A +longer time and more interlinks are requisite. It is a hybrid compost of +usual images and generalized words, like the Nile-born nondescript, with +a head or tail of organized flesh, and a lump of semi-mud for the body. +Yet, perhaps, these very defects are practically excellencies in +relation to the intended readers of 'The Pilgrim's Progress'. + + +Ib. p. 43. + + The Interpreter answered, "This is Christ, who continually, with the + oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart; by + the means of which, notwithstanding what the Devil can do, the souls + of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the + man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, this is to teach thee, + that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is + maintained in the soul." + +This is beautiful; yet I cannot but think it would have been still more +appropriate, if the waterpourer had been a Mr. Legality, a prudentialist +offering his calculation of consequences as the moral antidote to guilt +and crime; and if the oil-instillator, out of sight and from within, had +represented the corrupt nature of man, that is, the spiritual will +corrupted by taking up a nature into itself. + + +Ib. + + What, then, has the sinner who is the subject of grace no hand in + keeping up the work of grace in the heart? No! It is plain Mr. Bunyan + was not an Arminian. + +'Note in Edwards'. + +If by metaphysics we mean those truths of the pure reason which always +transcend, and not seldom appear to contradict, the understanding, or +(in the words of the great Apostle) spiritual verities which can only be +spiritually discerned--and this is the true and legitimate meaning of +metaphysics, [Greek: metà tà physikà]--then I affirm, that this very +controversy between the Arminians and the Calvinists, in which both are +partially right in what they affirm, and both wholly wrong in what they +deny, is a proof that without metaphysics there can be no light of faith. + + +Ib. p. 45. + + I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my + lusts + +This single paragraph proves, in opposition to the assertion in the +preceding note in Edwards, that in Bunyan's judgment there must be at +least a negative co-operation of the will of man with the divine grace, +an energy of non-resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit. But the +error of the Calvinists is, that they divide the regenerate will in man +from the will of God, instead of including it. + + +Ib. p. 49. + + So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, + his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, + and began to tumble; and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth + of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. + +'We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an +understanding' (or discernment of reason) 'that we may know him that is +true, and we are in him that is true, even in his son Jesus Christ. This +is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from +idols'. 1. John, v. 20, 21. + +Alas! how many Protestants make a mental idol of the Cross, scarcely +less injurious to the true faith in the Son of God than the wooden +crosses and crucifixes of the Romanists!--and this, because they have +not been taught that Jesus was both the Christ and the great symbol of +Christ. + +Strange, that we can explain spiritually, what to take up the cross of +Christ, to be crucified with Christ, means;--yet never ask what the +Crucifixion itself signifies, but rest satisfied in the historic image. + +That one declaration of the Apostle, that by wilful sin we 'crucify the +Son of God afresh', might have roused us to nobler thoughts. + + +Ib. p. 52. + + And besides, say they, if we get into the way, what matters which way + we get in? If we are in, we are in. Thou art but in the way, who, as + we perceive, came in at the gate: and we are also in the way, that + came tumbling over the wall: wherein now is thy condition better than + ours? + +The allegory is clearly defective, inasmuch as 'the way' represents two +diverse meanings; + +1. the outward profession of Christianity, and +2. the inward and spiritual grace. + +But it would be very difficult to mend it. + +1830. + + +In this instance (and it is, I believe, the only one in the work,) the +allegory degenerates into a sort of pun, that is, in the two senses of +the word 'way,' and thus supplies Formal and Hypocrite with an argument +which Christian cannot fairly answer, or rather one to which Bunyan +could not make his Christian return the proper answer without +contradicting the allegoric image. + +For the obvious and only proper answer is: No! you are not in the same +'way' with me, though you are walking on the same 'road.' + +But it has a worse defect, namely, that it leaves the reader uncertain +as to what the writer precisely meant, or wished to be understood, by +the allegory. + +Did Bunyan refer to the Quakers as rejecting the outward Sacraments of +Baptism and the Lord's Supper? + +If so, it is the only unspiritual passage in the whole beautiful +allegory, the only trait of sectarian narrow-mindedness, and, in +Bunyan's own language, of legality. + +But I do not think that this was Bunyan's intention. I rather suppose +that he refers to the Arminians and other Pelagians, who rely on the +coincidence of their actions with the Gospel precepts for their +salvation, whatever the ground or root of their conduct may be; who +place, in short, the saving virtue in the stream, with little or no +reference to the source. + +But it is the faith acting in our poor imperfect deeds that alone saves +us; and even this faith is not ours, but the faith of the Son of God in +us. + + 'I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but + Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live + by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.' + + Gal. ii. 20. + +Illustrate this by a simile. Labouring under chronic 'bronchitis', I am +told to inhale chlorine as a specific remedy; but I can do this only by +dissolving a saturated solution of the gas in warm water, and then +breathing the vapour. Now what the aqueous vapour or steam is to the +chlorine, that our deeds, our outward life, [Greek: bíos], is to faith. + + +Ib. p. 55. + + And the other took directly up the way to Destruction, which led him + into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell, + and rose no more. + +This requires a comment. A wide field full of mountains and of dark +mountains, where Hypocrite stumbled and fell! The images here are +unusually obscure. + + +Ib. p. 70. + + They showed him Moses' rod, the hammer and nail with which Jael slew + Sisera. + +I question whether it would be possible to instance more strikingly the +power of a predominant idea (that true mental kaleidoscope with +richly-coloured glass) on every object brought before the eye of the +mind through its medium, than this conjunction of Moses' rod with the +hammer of the treacherous assassin Jael, and similar encomiastic +references to the same detestable murder, by Bunyan and men like Bunyan, +good, pious, purely-affectioned disciples of the meek and holy Jesus; +yet the erroneous preconception that whatever is uttered by a Scripture +personage is, in fact, uttered by the infallible Spirit of God, makes +Deborahs of them all. + +But what besides ought we to infer from this and similar facts? Surely, +that the faith in the heart overpowers and renders innocent the errors +of the understanding and the delusions of the imagination, and that +sincerely pious men purchase, by inconsistency, exemption from the +practical consequences of particular errors. + + +Ib. p. 76. + + All this is true, and much more which thou hast left out, &c. This is + the best way; to own Satan's charges, if they be true; yea, to + exaggerate them also, to exalt the riches of the grace of Christ above + all, in pardoning all of them freely. + +'Note in Edwards'. + +That is, to say what we do not believe to be true! 'Will ye speak +wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for him?' said righteous Job. + + +Ib. p. 83. + + One thing I would not let slip: I took notice that now poor Christian + was so confounded, that he did not know his own voice; and thus I + perceived it: just when he was come over against the mouth of the + burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up + softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to + him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind. + +There is a very beautiful letter of Archbishop Leighton's to a lady +under a similar distemperature of the imagination. [4] In fact, it can +scarcely not happen under any weakness and consequent irritability of +the nerves to persons continually occupied with spiritual +self-examination. No part of the pastoral duties requires more +discretion, a greater practical psychological science. In this, as in +what not? + +Luther is the great model; ever reminding the individual that not he, +but Christ, is to redeem him; and that the way to be redeemed is to +think with will, mind, and affections on Christ, and not on himself. I +am a sin-laden being, and Christ has promised to loose the whole burden +if I but entirely trust in him. + +To torment myself with the detail of the noisome contents of the fardel +will but make it stick the closer, first to my imagination and then to +my unwilling will. + + +Ib. + + For that he perceived God was with them, though in that dark and + dismal state; and why not, thought he, with me, though by reason of + the impediment that attends this place, I cannot perceive it? But it + may be asked, Why doth the Lord suffer his children to walk in such + darkness? It is for his glory: it tries their faith in him, and + excites prayer to him: but his love abates not in the least towards + them, since he lovingly inquires after them, 'Who is there among you + that feareth the Lord and walketh in darkness, and hath no light?' + Then he gives most precious advice to them: 'Let him trust in the + Lord', and 'stay himself upon his God'. + +Yes! even in the sincerest believers, being men of reflecting and +inquiring minds, there will sometimes come a wintry season, when the +vital sap of faith retires to the root, that is, to atheism of the will. +'But though he slay me, yet will I cling to him.' + + +Ib. p. 85. + + And as for the other (Pope), though he be yet alive, he is, by reason + of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his + younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now + do little more than sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at pilgrims as + they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them. + +O that Blanco White would write in Spanish the progress of a pilgrim +from the Pope's cave to the Evangelist's wicket-gate and the +Interpreter's house! + +1836. + + +Ib. p. 104. + + And let us assure ourselves that, at the day of doom, men shall be + judged according to their fruit. It will not be said then, "Did you + believe?" but "Were you doers or talkers only?" and accordingly shall + be judged. + +All the doctors of the Sorbonne could not have better stated the Gospel +'medium' between Pelagianism and Antinomian-Solifidianism, more properly +named Sterilifidianism. It is, indeed, faith alone that saves us; but it +is such a faith as cannot be alone. Purity and beneficence are the +'epidermis,' faith and love the 'cutis vera' of Christianity. Morality +is the outward cloth, faith the lining; both together form the +wedding-garment given to the true believer in Christ, even his own +garment of righteousness, which, like the loaves and fishes, he +mysteriously multiplies. The images of the sun in the earthly dew-drops +are unsubstantial phantoms; but God's thoughts are things: the images of +God, of the Sun of Righteousness, in the spiritual dew-drops are +substances, imperishable substances. + + +Ib. p. 154. + + Fine-spun speculations and curious reasonings lead men from simple + truth and implicit faith into many dangerous and destructive errors. + The Word records many instances of such for our caution. Be warned to + study simplicity and godly sincerity. + + 'Note in Edwards on Doubting Castle.' + +And pray what does implicit faith lead men into? Transubstantiation and +all the abominations of priest-worship. And where is the Scriptural +authority for this implicit faith? Assuredly not in St. John, who tells +us that Christ's life is and manifests itself in us as the light of man; +that he came to bring light as well as immortality. Assuredly not in St. +Paul, who declares all faith imperfect and perilous without insight and +understanding; who prays for us that we may comprehend the deep things +even of God himself. For the Spirit discerned, and the Spirit by which +we discern, are both God; the Spirit of truth through and in Christ from +the Father. + +Mournful are the errors into which the zealous but unlearned preachers +among the dissenting Calvinists have fallen respecting absolute +election, and discriminative, yet reasonless, grace:--fearful this +divorcement of the Holy Will, the one only Absolute Good, that, +eternally affirming itself as the I AM, eternally generateth the Word, +the absolute Being, the Supreme Reason, the Being of all Truth, the +Truth of all Being:--fearful the divorcement from the reason; fearful +the doctrine which maketh God a power of darkness, instead of the God of +light, the Father of the light which lighteth every man that cometh into +the world! + +This we know and this we are taught by the holy Apostle Paul; that +without will there is no ground or base of sin; that without the law +this ground or base cannot become sin; (hence we do not impute sin to +the wolf or the tiger, as being without or below the law;) but that with +the law cometh light into the will; and by this light the will becometh +a free, and therefore a responsible, will. + +Yea! the law is itself light, and the divine light becomes law by its +relation and opposition to the darkness; the will of God revealed in its +opposition to the dark and alien will of the fallen Spirit. This +freedom, then, is the free gift of God; but does it therefore cease to +be freedom? + +All the sophistry of the Predestinarians rests on the false notion of +eternity as a sort of time antecedent to time. It is timeless, present +with and in all times. + +There is an excellent discourse of the great Hooker's, affixed with two +or three others to his Ecclesiastical Polity, on the final perseverance +of Saints; [5] but yet I am very desirous to meet with some judicious +experimental treatise, in which the doctrine, with the Scriptures on +which it is grounded, is set forth more at large; as likewise the rules +by which it may be applied to the purposes of support and comfort, +without danger of causing presumption and without diminishing the dread +of sin. + +Above all, I am anxious to see the subject treated with as little +reference as possible to the divine predestination and foresight; the +argument from the latter being a mere identical proposition followed by +an assertion of God's prescience. + +Those who will persevere, will persevere, and God foresees; and as to +the proof from predestination, that is, that he who predestines the end +necessarily predestines the adequate means, I can more readily imagine +logical consequences adverse to the sense of responsibility than +Christian consequences, such as an individual may apply for his own +edification. + +And I am persuaded that the doctrine does not need these supports, +according, I mean, to the ordinary notion of predestination. The +predestinative force of a free agent's own will in certain absolute +acts, determinations, or elections, and in respect of which acts it is +one either with the divine or the devilish will; and if the former, the +conclusions to be drawn from God's goodness, faithfulness, and spiritual +presence; these supply grounds of argument of a very different +character, especially where the mind has been prepared by an insight +into the error and hollowness of the antithesis between liberty and +necessity. + + +Ib. p. 178. + + But how contrary to this is the walk and conduct of some who profess + to be pilgrims, and yet can wilfully and deliberately go upon the + Devil's ground, and indulge themselves in carnal pleasures and sinful + diversions. + + 'Note in Edwards on the Enchanted Ground'. + +But what pleasures are carnal,--what are sinful diversions,--so I mean +as that I may be able to determine what are not? Shew us the criterion, +the general principle; at least explain whether each individual case is +to be decided for the individual by his own experience of the effects of +the pleasure or the diversion, in dulling or distracting his religious +feelings; or can a list, a complete list, of all such pleasures be made +beforehand? + + + +PART III. + +'In initio'. + +I strongly suspect that this third part, which ought not to have been +thus conjoined with Bunyan's work, was written by a Roman Catholic +priest, for the very purpose of counteracting the doctrine of faith so +strongly enforced in the genuine Progress. + + +Ib. p. 443, in Edwards. + + Against all which evils fasting is the proper remedy. + +It would have been well if the writer had explained exactly what he +meant by the fasting, here so strongly recommended; during what period +of time abstinence from food is to continue and so on. The effects, I +imagine, must in good measure depend on the health of the individual. In +some constitutions, fasting so disorders the stomach as to produce the +very contrary of good;--confusion of mind, loose imaginations against +the man's own will, and the like. + + +'In fine'. + +One of the most influential arguments, one of those the force of which I +feel even more than I see, for the divinity of the New Testament, and +with especial weight in the writings of John and Paul, is the +unspeakable difference between them and all other the earliest extant +writings of the Christian Church, even those of the same age (as, for +example, the Epistle of Barnabas,) or of the next following,--a +difference that transcends all degree, and is truly a difference in +kind. Nay, the catalogue of the works written by the Reformers and in +the two centuries after the Reformation, contain many many volumes far +superior in Christian light and unction to the best of the Fathers. How +poor and unevangelic is Hermas in comparison with our Pilgrim's +Progress! + + + +[Footnote 1: P. 98, &c. of the edition by Murray and Major, 1830 Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: See 'ante'. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 3: Prefixed to an edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, by R. +Edwards, 1820. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 4: The second of two 'Letters written to persons under trouble +of mind.' Ed.] + + +[Footnote 5: Sermon of the certainty and perpetuity of faith in the +elect. Vol. iii. p. 583. Keale's edit. Ed.] + + + + + +NOTES ON SELECT DISCOURSES BY JOHN SMITH. [1] + +It would make a delightful and instructive essay, to draw up a critical +and (where possible) biographical account of the Latitudinarian party at +Cambridge, from the close of the reign of James I to the latter half of +Charles II. + +The greater number were Platonists, so called at least, and such they +believed themselves to be, but more truly Plotinists. Thus Cudworth, Dr. +Jackson (chaplain of Charles I, and vicar of Newcastle-on-Tyne), Henry +More, this John Smith, and some others. Taylor was a Gassendist, or +'inter Epicureos evangelizantes', and, as far as I know, he is the only +exception. + +They were all alike admirers of Grotius, which in Jeremy Taylor was +consistent with the tone of his philosophy. The whole party, however, +and a more amiable never existed, were scared and disgusted into this by +the catachrestic language and skeleton half-truths of the systematic +divines of the Synod of Dort on the one hand, and by the sickly +broodings of the Pietists and Solomon's-Song preachers on the other. + +What they all wanted was a pre-inquisition into the mind, as part organ, +part constituent, of all knowledge, an examination of the scales, +weights and measures themselves abstracted from the objects to be +weighed or measured by them; in short, a transcendental æsthetic, logic, +and noetic. Lord Herbert was at the entrance of, nay, already some paces +within, the shaft and adit of the mine, but he turned abruptly back, and +the honour of establishing a complete [Greek: propaideía] of philosophy +was reserved for Immanuel Kant, a century or more afterwards. + +From the confounding of Plotinism with Platonism, the Latitudinarian +divines fell into the mistake of finding in the Greek philosophy many +anticipations of the Christian Faith, which in fact were but its echoes. +The inference is as perilous as inevitable, namely, that even the +mysteries of Christianity needed no revelation, having been previously +discovered and set forth by unaided reason. + +... + +The argument from the mere universality of the belief, appears to me far +stronger in favour of a surviving soul and a state after death, than for +the existence of the Supreme Being. In the former, it is one doctrine in +the Englishman and in the Hottentot; the differences are accidents not +affecting the subject, otherwise than as different seals would affect +the same wax, though Molly, the maid, used her thimble, and Lady +'Virtuosa' an 'intaglio' of the most exquisite workmanship. + +Far otherwise in the latter. 'Mumbo Jumbo', or the 'cercocheronychous +Nick-Senior', or whatever score or score thousand invisible huge men +fear and fancy engender in the brain of ignorance to be hatched by the +nightmare of defenceless and self-conscious weakness--these are not the +same as, but are 'toto genere' diverse from, the 'una et unica +substantia' of Spinosa, or the World-God of the Stoics. + +And each of these again is as diverse from the living Lord God, the +creator of heaven and earth. Nay, this equivoque on God is as +mischievous as it is illogical: it is the sword and buckler of Deism. + + + + +OF THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF GOD. + + Besides, when we review our own immortal souls and their dependency + upon some Almighty mind, we know that we neither did nor could produce + ourselves, and withal know that all that power which lies within the + compass of ourselves will serve for no other purpose than to apply + several pre-existent things one to another, from whence all + generations and mutations arise, which are nothing else but the events + of different applications and complications of bodies that were + existent before; and therefore that which produced that substantial + life and mind by which we know ourselves, must be something much more + mighty than we are, and can be no less indeed than omnipotent, and + must also be the first architect and [Greek: daemiourgòs] of all other + beings, and the perpetual supporter of them. + +A Rhodian leap! Where our knowledge of a cause is derived from our +knowledge of the effect, which is falsely (I think) here supposed, +nothing can be logically, that is, apodeictically, inferred, but the +adequacy of the former to the latter. The mistake, common to Smith, with +a hundred other writers, arises out of an equivocal use of the word +'know.' In the scientific sense, as implying insight, and which ought to +be the sense of the word in this place, we might be more truly said to +know the soul by God, than to know God by the soul. + +... + + So the Sibyl was noted by Heraclitus as [Greek: mainomén_o stómati + gelastà kaì akall_ópista phtheggoménae] 'as one speaking ridiculous + and unseemly speeches with her furious mouth.' + +This fragment is misquoted and misunderstood: for--[Greek: gelastà] it +should be [Greek: amuristà]. unperfumed, inornate lays, not redolent of +art.--Render it thus: + + ... Not her's + To win the sense by words of rhetoric, + Lip-blossoms breathing perishable sweets; + But by the power of the informing Word + Roll sounding onward through a thousand years + Her deep prophetic bodements. + +[Greek: Stómati mainomén_o] is with ecstatic mouth. + +... + +If the ascetic virtues, or disciplinary exercises, derived from the +schools of philosophy (Pythagorean, Platonic and Stoic) were carried to +an extreme in the middle ages, it is most certain that they are at +present in a far more grievous disproportion underrated and neglected. +The 'regula maxima' of the ancient [Greek: askaesis] was to conquer the +body by abstracting the attention from it. Our maxim is to conciliate +the body by attending to it, and counteracting or precluding one set of +sensations by another, the servile dependence of the mind on the body +remaining the same. Instead of the due subservience of the body to the +mind (the favorite language of our Sidneys and Miltons) we hear nothing +at present but of health, good digestion, pleasurable state of general +feeling, and the like. + + +[Footnote 1: Of Queen's College, Cambridge, 1660.] + + + + + +TO ADAM STEINMETZ K------. [1] + + +MY DEAR GODCHILD, + +I offer up the same fervent prayer for you now, as I did kneeling before +the altar, when you were baptized into Christ, and solemnly received as +a living member of His spiritual body, the Church. + +Years must pass before you will be able to read with an understanding +heart what I now write; but I trust that the all-gracious God, the +Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, who, by his only +begotten Son, (all mercies in one sovereign mercy!) has redeemed you +from the evil ground, and willed you to be born out of darkness, but +into light--out of death, but into life--out of sin, but into +righteousness, even into the 'Lord our Righteousness'; I trust that He +will graciously hear the prayers of your dear parents, and be with you +as the spirit of health and growth in body and mind. + +My dear Godchild!--You received from Christ's minister at the baptismal +font, as your Christian name, the name of a most dear friend of your +father's, and who was to me even as a son, the late Adam Steinmetz, +whose fervent aspiration and ever-paramount aim, even from early youth, +was to be a Christian in thought, word, and deed--in will, mind, and +affections. + +I too, your Godfather, have known what the enjoyments and advantages of +this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and +intellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience which more +than threescore years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure, +declare to you (and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live and act +on the conviction) that health is a great blessing,--competence obtained +by honorable industry a great blessing,--and a great blessing it is to +have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the +greatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all +privileges, is to be indeed a Christian. But I have been likewise, +through a large portion of my later life, a sufferer, sorely afflicted +with bodily pains, languors, and bodily infirmities; and, for the last +three or four years, have, with few and brief intervals, been confined +to a sick-room, and at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness, +write from a sick-bed, hopeless of a recovery, yet without prospect of a +speedy recovery; and I, thus on the very brink of the grave, solemnly +bear witness to you that the Almighty Redeemer, most gracious in His +promises to them that truly seek Him, is faithful to perform what He +hath promised, and has preserved, under all my pains and infirmities, +the inward peace that passeth all understanding, with the supporting +assurance of a reconciled God, who will not withdraw His Spirit from me +in the conflict, and in His own time will deliver me from the Evil One! + +O, my dear Godchild! eminently blessed are those who begin early to +seek, fear, and love their God, trusting wholly in the righteousness and +mediation of their Lord, Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest, +Jesus Christ! + +O, preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen Godfather and +friend, + +S. T. COLERIDGE. + +July 13, 1834. [2] + + + +[Footnote 1: See 'ante', p. 291. Ed.] + + +[Footnote 2: He died on the 25th day of the same month.] + + + + +END OF VOL. III. + + + + +CORRIGENDA. + +Pages 32, 33, insert _men_ between the pages. + +Page 41. N. after _see post_, add _Vol. IV._ + +330, line 7 from bottom, _for_ result _read_ rennet. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY REMAINS OF COLERIDGE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where + you are located before using this eBook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that: + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without +widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + |