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 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
This makes, that whatsoever here befalls, 
 Tou in the region of yourself remain 
 Neighb'ring on heaven ; and that no foreign land. 
 
 Daniel. 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOE COLEELDGE. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 THE EEV. DERWENT COLERIDGE, M.A. 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 EDWAED MOXON, DOVEE STEEET. 
 
 1854. 
 
LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AND ETANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
 $2-£ff<i{ 
 

 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The present Edition of the " Aids to Reflection" 
 is a corrected reprint from the last,* with several 
 additional Notes by the Author, interesting in 
 themselves, and valuable in their connection with 
 the text. 
 
 It has been deemed of paramount importance to 
 reduce the size and cost of this Edition, so as to 
 bring the work itself within the reach of as large a 
 number, and as various a description, of readers as 
 possible. All extraneous matter has consequently- 
 been withdrawn. 
 
 The preliminary Essay by Dr. Marsh, able and 
 judicious as it is, is no longer so needful, nor 
 indeed quite so applicable, as when it first appeared. 
 The Editor cannot, however, set it aside without 
 
 * The references marked Ed. are to be assigned to the editor of the 
 first posthumous edition, Henry Nelson Coleridge, whose critical care 
 and judgment every succeeding editor is bound to acknowledge. 
 
 /• ' 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 paying a tribute of respect to the memory of the 
 writer, while he expresses his obligations both to 
 him and to other learned and enlightened Americans, 
 by whom the name of Coleridge is held in honour, 
 and who have variously contributed to spread the 
 knowledge and facilitate the reception of his 
 religious philosophy. 
 
 The "Essay on Eationalism," by the late Mrs. 
 Henry Nelson Coleridge, will, it is hoped, be re- 
 produced as an independent treatise with the other 
 literary remains of the lamented writer. 
 
 The observations on Instinct by Mr. Green, 
 being referred to in the text, are retained. "With 
 this exception, the Author is now left to speak 
 for himself. 
 
 There is some advantage in this. The " Aids to 
 Reflection" has been long before the world. The 
 subject matter has passed into the public mind 
 through various channels and with divers modifica- 
 tions. A text-book, without comment, may be 
 useful to those who wish to correct or to verify 
 from the original the impressions which they 
 have received at second hand. 
 
 And as regards the younger student, to whom 
 these " Aids" are more particularly, though by no 
 means exclusively, addressed, — the work has a 
 
ADVEBTISEMENT. vii 
 
 method of its own, and it may be well that the 
 reader should find his way through it strictly in 
 the manner prescribed. It is a hand-booh, capable 
 indeed of indefinite expansion and elucidation, but 
 complete in itself; chargeable with no obscurity, 
 relatively to the subject, and presenting no difficulty 
 separable from the act of reflection. A certain 
 process has to be passed through. It is not 
 needful, and perhaps it is not altogether desirable, 
 that the attention should be directed, or the judg- 
 ment anticipated, by any prestatement, still less by 
 any defence or explanation of the results. 
 
 DERWENT COLERIDGE. 
 
 St. Mark's College, Chelsea. 
 January, 1854. 
 
ADVEETISEMENT 
 
 TO THE FOURTH AND FIFTH EDITIONS. 
 
 This corrected Edition of the Aids to Eeflection is 
 commended to Christian readers, in the hope and the 
 trust that the power which the book has already exer- 
 cised over hundreds, it may, by God's furtherance, here- 
 after exercise over thousands. No age, since Christianity 
 had a name, has more pointedly needed the mental 
 discipline taught in this work than that in which we 
 now live ; when, in the Author's own words, all the 
 great ideas or verities of religion seem in danger of 
 being condensed into idols, or evaporated into meta- 
 phors. Between the encroachments, on the one hand, 
 of those who so magnify means that they practically 
 impeach the supremacy of the ends which those means 
 were meant to subserve ; and of those, on the other 
 hand, who, engrossed in the contemplation of the great 
 .Redemptive Act, rashly disregard or depreciate the 
 appointed ordinances of grace ; — between those who, 
 confounding the sensuous Understanding, varying in 
 every individual, with the universal Eeason, the image 
 of God, the same in all men, inculcate a so-called faith, 
 having no demonstrated harmony with the attributes 
 of God, or the essential laws of humanity, and being 
 sometimes inconsistent with both ; and those again 
 who requiring a logical proof of that which, though 
 
ADVEETISEMENT. ix 
 
 not contradicting, does in its very kind, transcend, our 
 reason, virtually deny the existence of true, faith, 
 altogether ; — between these almost equal enemies of 
 the truth, Coleridge, — in all his works, but pre- 
 eminently in this — has kindled an inextinguishable 
 beacon of warning and of guidance. In so doing, he 
 has taken his stand on the sure word of Scripture, 
 and is supported by the authority of almost every one 
 of our great divines, before the prevalence of that 
 system of philosophy (Locke's), which no consistent 
 reasoner can possibly reconcile with the undoubted 
 meaning of the Articles and Formularies of the English 
 Church : — 
 
 In causaqite valet, causamque juvantibus armis. 
 %Wh April, 1839. 
 
 This is the fifth Edition of the Aids to Eeflection 
 published in England ; and there have been three in 
 the United States of America. It deserves note, less 
 with reference to the Author himself, than to the 
 moral and religious history of this age. Since 1824, 
 when the Work first appeared, the tone has changed, 
 and the senseless imputation of obscurity, and vague- 
 ness, and Germanism — so general then — is now but 
 faintly heard, and in the mouths of sciolists alone. 
 Those who buy this Volume, buy seriously, and because 
 they staud in need. It is found to be clear, and 
 particular, and practical by minds seeking light to 
 enlighten ; and now that the evil side of modem 
 Germanism in religion, — its Pantheistic spirit — is 
 better understood, it will be seen that here is contained 
 its most striking confutation by the side of the firmest 
 
x ADVEKTISEMENT. 
 
 assertion of the Evangelical truth. But the Aids to 
 Eeflection did not at first suit all the views of High 
 Churchmen, nor all the views of Low Churchmen ; and 
 it will not suit them now. This is an antagonism, the 
 issue whereof cannot yet be known. 
 
 Meantime, the cause of religious philosophy has 
 suffered a great loss in America, by the recent death 
 of Dr. Marsh, who, if longer life and better health had 
 been granted him, might have done much. But there 
 are others — fellow-countrymen and pupils of his — upon 
 whom his mantle has fallen. May they prosper ! 
 
 H. N. C. 
 
 25th October, 1842. 
 
THE 
 
 AUTHOE'S ADDEESS TO THE EEADEE. 
 
 Fellow-Christian ! the wish to be admired as a fine 
 writer held a very subordinate place in my thoughts 
 and feelings in the composition of this "Volume. Let 
 then its comparative merits and demerits, in respect of 
 style and stimulancy, possess a proportional weight, and 
 no more, in determining your judgment for or against 
 its contents. Eead it through : then compare the state 
 of your mind with the state in which your mind was 
 when you first opened the book. Has it led you to 
 reflect ? Has it supplied or suggested fresh subjects 
 for reflection 1 Has it given you any new information ? 
 Has it removed any obstacle to a lively conviction of 
 your responsibility as a moral agent 1 Has it solved 
 any difficulties, which had impeded your faith as a 
 Christian 1 Lastly, has it increased your power of 
 thinking connectedly — especially on the scheme and 
 purpose of the Eedemption by Christ? If it have 
 done none of these things, condemn it aloud as worth- 
 less : and strive to compensate for your own loss of 
 time, by preventing others from wasting theirs. But 
 if your conscience dictates an affirmative answer to all 
 or any of the preceding questions, declare this too 
 aloud, and endeavour to extend my utility. 
 
MABINU8. 
 
 Ornnis divince atque humance eruditionis elementa tria, None, 
 Telle, Posse; quorum principium unum Mens ; cujusoculus Ratio; 
 cui lumen * * prasbet Deus. 
 
 VICO. 
 
 Naturam hominis hanc Deus ipse voluit, ut duarum, rerum 
 cupidus et appetens esset, religionis et sapientice. Sed homines ideo 
 falluntur, quod aut religionem suscipiunt omissa sapientia ; aut 
 sapientice soli student omissa religione ; cum alterum sine altero 
 esse non possit verwn. 
 
 LACTANTIUS. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 An Author has three points to settle : to what sort 
 his work belongs, for what description of readers it is 
 intended, and the specific end or object, which it is to 
 answer. There is indeed a preliminary question re- 
 specting the end which the writer himself has in view, 
 whether the number of purchasers, or the benefit of 
 the readers. But this may be safely passed by ; since 
 where the book itself or the known principles of the 
 writer do not supersede the question, there will seldom 
 be sufficient strength of character for good or for evil 
 to afford much chance of its being either distinctly put 
 or fairly answered. 
 
 I shall proceed, therefore, to state, as briefly as 
 possible, the intentions of the present Volume in 
 reference to the three first-mentioned points, namely, 
 What ? For whom 1 For what 1 
 
 I. What 1 The answer is contained in the title- 
 page. It belongs to the class of didactic works. 
 Consequently, those who neither wish instruction for 
 themselves, nor assistance in instructing others, have 
 no interest in its contents. 
 
 Sis sus, sis Dims : sum caltka, et non tibi spiro. 
 
 II. For whom 1 Generally, for as many in all classes 
 as wish for aid in disciplining their minds to habits of 
 
xiv THE AUTHOBS PKEFACE. 
 
 reflection ; for all, who desirous of building up a manly 
 character in the light of distinct consciousness, are 
 content to study the principles of moral architecture 
 on the several grounds of prudence, morality, and 
 religion. And lastly, for all who feel an interest in 
 the position which I have undertaken to defend, this, 
 namely, that the Christian Faith is the perfection of 
 human intelligence, — an interest sufficiently strong to 
 insure a patient attention to the arguments brought in 
 its support. 
 
 But if I am to mention any particular class or 
 description of readers, who were prominent in my 
 thought during the composition of the volume, my 
 reply must be ; that it was especially designed for 
 the studious young at the close of their education or 
 on their first entrance into the duties of manhood and 
 the rights of self-government. And of these, again, in 
 thought and wish I destined the work (the latter and 
 larger portion, at least) yet more particularly to 
 students intended for the ministry ; first, as in duty 
 bound, to the members of our Universities : secondly, 
 (but only in respect of this mental precedency second) 
 to all alike of whatever name, who have dedicated 
 their future lives to the cultivation of their race, as 
 pastors, preachers, missionaries, or instructors of youth . 
 
 III. For what 1 The worth of an author is esti- 
 mated by the ends, the attainment of which he pro- 
 posed to himself by the particular work; while the 
 value of the work depends on its fitness, as the 
 means. The objects of the present volume are the 
 following, ai*ranged in the order of their comparative 
 importance. 
 
 1. To direct the reader's attention to the value of 
 the science of words, their use and abuse, and the 
 incalculable advantages attached to the habit of using 
 
THE AUTHORS PREFACE. xv 
 
 them appropriately, and with a distinct knowledge of 
 their primary, derivative, and metaphorical senses. 
 And in furtherance of this object I have neglected no 
 occasion of enforcing the maxim, that to expose a 
 sophism and to detect the equivocal or double meaning 
 of a word is, in the great majority of cases, one and the 
 same thing. Home Tooke entitled his celebrated 
 work, "'Eirea Trrep6evra, winged words : or language, not 
 only the vehicle of thought, but the wheels. "With my 
 convictions and views, for eirea I should substitute 
 \6yoi, that is, words select and determinate, and for 
 vrep6evTa. (doi/res, that is, living words. The wheels of 
 the intellect I admit them to be : but such as Ezekiel 
 beheld in the visions of God as he sate among the 
 captives by the river of Chebar. Whithersoever the 
 Spirit was to go, the wheels went, and thither was their 
 Spirit to go : for the Spirit of the living creature was in 
 the wheels also. 
 
 2. To establish the distinct characters of prudence, 
 morality, and religion : and to impress the conviction, 
 that though the second requires the first, and the third 
 contains and supposes both the former ; yet still moral 
 goodness is other and more than prudence on the 
 principle of expediency ; and religion more and higher 
 than morality. For this distinction the better Schools 
 even of Pagan Philosophy contended. 
 
 3. To substantiate and set forth at large the mo- 
 mentous distinction between reason and understanding. 
 Whatever is achievable by the understanding for the 
 purposes of worldly interest, private or public, has in 
 the present age been pursued with an activity and a 
 success beyond all former experience, and to an extent 
 which equally demands my admiration and excites my 
 wonder. But likewise it is, and long has been, my 
 conviction, that in no age since the first dawning of 
 
xvi THE AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 science and philosophy in this island have the truths, 
 interests, and studies which especially belong to the 
 reason, contemplative or practical, sunk into such utter 
 neglect, not to say contempt, as during the last century. 
 It is therefore one main object of this volume to 
 establish the position, that whoever transfers to the 
 understanding the primacy due to the reason, loses the 
 one and spoils the other. 
 
 4. To exhibit a full and consistent scheme of the 
 Christian Dispensation, and more largely of all the 
 peculiar doctrines of the Christian Faith ; and to 
 answer all the objections to the same, which do not 
 originate in a corrupt will rather than an erring judg- 
 ment ; and to do this in a manner intelligible for all 
 who, possessing the ordinary advantages of education, 
 do in good earnest desire to form their religious creed 
 in the light of their own convictions, and to have a 
 reason for the faith which they profess. There are 
 indeed mysteries, in evidence of which no reasons can 
 be brought. But it has been my endeavour to show, 
 that the true solution of this problem is, that these 
 mysteries are reason, reason in its highest form of self- 
 affirmation. 
 
 Such are the special objects of these Aids to Re- 
 flection. Concerning the general character of the 
 work, let me be permitted to add the few following 
 sentences. St. Augustine, in one of his Sermons, dis- 
 coursing on a high point of theology, tells his auditors 
 — Sic accipite, ut mereamini intelligere. Fides enim debet 
 prcecedere intellectum, ut sit intellectus fidei prcemium. 
 Now without a certain portion of gratuitous and (as it 
 were) experimentative faith in the writer, a reader 
 will scarcely give that degree of continued attention, 
 without which no didactic work worth reading can be 
 read to any wise or profitable purpose. In this sense, 
 
THE AUTHOR S PREFACE. xvii 
 
 therefore, and to this extent, every author, who is com- 
 petent to the office he has undertaken, may without 
 arrogance repeat St. Augustine's words in his own 
 right, and advance a similar claim on similar grounds. 
 But I venture no further than to intimate the sentiment 
 at a humble distance, by avowing my belief that he, 
 who seeks instruction in the following pages, will not 
 fail to find entertainment likewise ; but that whoever 
 seeks entertainment only will find neither. 
 
 Reader ! — You have been bred in a land abounding 
 with men, able in arts, learning, and knowledges 
 manifold, this man in one, this in another, few in 
 many, none in all. But there is one art, of which every 
 man should be master, the art of reflection. If you are 
 not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at 
 all 1 In like manner, there is one knowledge, which it 
 is every man's interest and duty to acquire, namely, 
 self-knowledge ; or to what end was man alone, of all 
 animals, endued by the Creator with the faculty of 
 self-consciousness ? Truly said the Pagan moralist, 
 
 e ccelo descendii, TvaBt a-iuuTcv. 
 
 But you are likewise born in a Christian land : and 
 Revelation has provided for you new subjects for 
 reflection, and new treasures of knowledge, never to 
 be unlocked by him who remains self-ignorant. Self- 
 knowledge is the key to this casket ; and by reflection 
 alone can it be obtained. Reflect on your own thoughts, 
 actions, circumstances, and — which will be of especial 
 aid to you in forming a habit of reflection, — accustom 
 yourself to reflect on the words you use, hear, or read, 
 their birth, derivation, and history. For if words are 
 not things, they are living powers, by which the things 
 of most importance to mankind are actuated, combined, 
 
xviii THE AUTHOES PREFACE. 
 
 and humanised. Finally, by reflection you may draw 
 from the fleeting facts of your worldly trade, art, or 
 profession, a science permanent as your immortal soul ; 
 and make even these subsidiary and preparative to the 
 reception of spiritual truth, " doing as the dyers do, 
 who having first dipt their silks in colours of less 
 value, then give them the last tincture of crimson in 
 grain." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT V 
 
 „ TO THE FOURTH AND FIFTH EDITIONS . viii 
 
 AUTHOR'S ADDRESS TO THE READER . . . . si 
 
 „ PREFACE xiii 
 
 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS 1 
 
 ON SENSIBILITY 25 
 
 PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS 30 
 
 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS . . . . 39 
 
 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY ... 99 
 
 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION . . . . 108 
 
 APHORISMS ON THAT WHICH IS INDEED SPIRITUAL 
 
 RELIGION 114 
 
 ON THE DIFFERENCE IN KIND OF REASON AND THE 
 
 UNDERSTANDING 167 
 
 ON INSTINCT IN CONNECTION WITH THE UNDER- 
 STANDING 194 
 
 ON ORIGINAL SIN . 205 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 Pago 
 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ON REDEMPTION . " 274 
 
 ON BAPTISM 298 
 
 CONCLUSION . . 321 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ON REASON AND THE 
 
 UNDERSTANDING 344 
 
 B. ON INSTINCT; BY J. H. GREEN . . . .345 
 
AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 
 
 APHORISM I. 
 
 In philosophy equally as in poetry, it is the highest 
 and most useful prerogative of genius to produce 
 the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues 
 admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very 
 circumstance of their universal admission. Extremes 
 meet. Truths, of all others the most awful and in- 
 teresting, are too often considered as so true, that 
 they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in 
 the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most 
 despised and exploded errors. 
 
 APHORISM II. 
 
 There is one sure way of giving freshness and im- 
 portance to the most common-place maxims — that of 
 reflecting on them in direct reference to our own 
 state and conduct, to our own past and future being. 
 
 APHORISM III. 
 To restore a common-place truth to its first 
 
 B 
 
 (P 
 
2 AIDS TO KEFLECTJON. 
 
 uncommon lustre, you need only translate it into 
 action. But to do this, you must have reflected on 
 its truth. 
 
 APHORISM IV. 
 
 LEIGHTON ASTD COLERIDGE. 
 
 It is the advice of the wise man, " Dwell at home," 
 or, with yourself ; and though there are very few that 
 do this, yet it is surprising that the greatest part of 
 mankind cannot be prevailed upon, at least to visit 
 themselves sometimes ; but, according to the saying 
 of the wise Solomon, The eyes of the fool are in the 
 ends of the earth. 
 
 A reflecting mind, says an ancient writer, is the 
 spring and source of every good thing. " Omnis boni 
 principium intellectns cogitabundus." It is at once 
 the disgrace and the misery of men, that they live 
 without forethought. Suppose yourself fronting a 
 mirror. Now what the objects behind you are to 
 their images at the same apparent distance before you, 
 such is reflection to fore-thought. As a man without 
 fore-thought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so 
 fore-thought without reflection is but a metaphorical 
 phrase for the instinct of a beast. 
 
 APHORISM V. 
 
 As a fruit-tree is more valuable than any one of its 
 fruits singly, or even than all its fruits of a single 
 season, so the noblest object of reflection is the mind 
 itself, by which we reflect. 
 
 And as the blossoms, the green and the ripe fruit 
 of an orange-tree are more beautiful to behold when 
 on the tree and seen as one with it, than the same 
 growth detached and seen successively, after their 
 importation into another country and different clime ; 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. O 
 
 so it is with the manifold objects of reflection, when 
 they are considered principally in reference to the 
 reflective power, and as part and parcel of the same. 
 No object, of whatever value our passions may repre- 
 sent it, but becomes foreign to us as soon as it is 
 altogether unconnected with our intellectual, moral, 
 and spiritual life. To be ours, it must be referred to 
 the mind, either as motive, or consequence, or 
 symptom. 
 
 APHORISM VI. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 He who teaches men the principles and precepts of 
 spiritual wisdom, before their minds are called off 
 from foreign objects, and turned inward upon them- 
 selves, might as well write his instructions, as the 
 Sibyl wrote her prophecies, on the loose leaves of 
 trees, and commit them to the mercy of the incon- 
 stant winds. 
 
 APHORISM VII. 
 
 In order to learn, we must attend : in order to 
 profit by what we have learnt, we must think — that 
 is, reflect. He only thinks who reflects. * 
 
 APHORISM VIII. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 It is a matter of great difficulty, and requires no 
 ordinary skill and address, to fix the attention of 
 
 * The indisposition, nay, the angry aversion to think, 
 even in persons who are most willing to attend, and on the 
 subjects to which they are giving studious attention, as 
 political economy, Biblical theology, classical antiquities, 
 and the like, — is the fact that forces itself on my notice 
 afresh, every time I enter into the society of persons in the 
 
 b2 
 
4 AIDS TO EEFLEOTION. 
 
 men on the world within them, to induce them to 
 study the processes and superintend the works which 
 they are themselves carrying on in their own minds ; 
 in short, to awaken in them both the faculty of 
 thought* and the inclination to exercise it. For, 
 alas ! the largest part of mankind are nowhere 
 greater strangers than at home. 
 
 APHORISM IX. 
 
 Life is the one universal soul, which, by virtue of 
 the enlivening Breath, and the informing Word, all 
 organised bodies have in common, each after its 
 kind. This, therefore, all animals possess, and man 
 as an animal. But, in addition to this, God trans- 
 fused into man a higher gift, and specially im- 
 
 higher ranks. To assign a feeling and a determination of 
 will, as a satisfactory reason for embracing or rejecting this 
 or that opinion or belief, is of ordinary occurrence, and 
 sure to obtain the sympathy and the suffrages of the com- 
 pany. And yet to me this seems little less irrational than to 
 apply the nose to a picture, and to decide on its genuineness 
 by the sense of smell. 
 
 * Distinction between Thought and Attention. — By 
 Thought is here meant the voluntary reproduction in our 
 minds of those states of consciousness, to which, as to his 
 best and most authentic documents, the teacher of moral or 
 religious truth refers us. In attention, we keep the mind 
 passive : in thought we rouse it into activity. In the 
 former, we submit to an impression— we keep the mind 
 steady, in order to receive the stamp. In the latter, we 
 seek to imitate the artist, while we ourselves make a copy or 
 duplicate of his work. We may learn arithmetic or the 
 elements of geometry by continued attention alone; but 
 self-knowledge, or an insight into the laws and constitution 
 of the human mind and the grounds of religion and true 
 morality, in addition to the effort of attention, requires the 
 energy of thought. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 5 
 
 breathed : — even a living (that is, self-subsisting) 
 soul, a soul having its life in itself. And man be- 
 came a living soul. He did not merely possess it, 
 he became it. It was his proper being, his truest 
 self, the man in the man. None then, not one of 
 human kind, so poor and destitute, but there is pro- 
 vided for him, even in his present state, a house not 
 built with hands; ay, and spite of the philosophy 
 (falsely so called) -which mistakes the causes, the 
 conditions, and the occasions of our becoming con- 
 scious of certain truths and realities for the truths 
 and realities themselves — a house gloriously fur- 
 nished. Nothing is wanted but the eye, which is 
 the light of this house, the light which is the eye of 
 this soul. This seeing light, this enlightening eye, 
 is reflection.* It is more, indeed, than is ordinarily 
 meant by that word ; but it is what a Christian 
 ought to mean by it, and to know too, whence it first 
 came, and still continues to come — of what light even 
 this light is but a reflection. This, too, is thought ; 
 and all thought is but unthinking that does not flow 
 out of this, or tend towards it. 
 
 APHORISM X. 
 
 Self-superintendence ! that any thing should over- 
 look itself! Is not this a paradox, and hard to 
 understand ? It is, indeed, difficult, and to the im- 
 bruted sensualist a direct contradiction : and yet 
 most truly does the poet exclaim, 
 
 ■ Unless above himself he can 
 
 Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ! 
 
 * The tiidvoia of Sb. John, 1 v. 20, inadequately rendered 
 understanding in our translation. To exhibit the full force 
 of the Greek word, we must say, a power of discernment by 
 reason. 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XI. 
 
 An hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest 
 prayer, or the conflict with, and conquest over, a 
 single passion or " subtle bosom sin," will teach us 
 more of thought, will more effectually awaken the 
 faculty, and form the habit, of reflection, than a 
 year's study in the Schools without them. 
 
 APHORISM XII. 
 
 In a world, the opinions of which are drawn from 
 outside shows, many things may be paradoxical, 
 (that is, contrary to the common notion) and never- 
 theless true : nay, because they are true. How 
 should it be otherwise, as long as the imagination of 
 the worldling is wholly occupied by surfaces, while 
 the Christian's thoughts are fixed on the substance, 
 that which is and abides, and which, because it is 
 the substance,* the outward senses cannot recognise. 
 Tertullian had good reason for his assertion, that 
 the simplest Christian (if indeed a Christian) knows 
 more than the most accomplished irreligious philo- 
 sopher. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Let it not, however, be forgotten, that the powers 
 of the understanding and the intellectual graces are 
 
 * Quod stat subtus, that which stands beneath, and (as it 
 were) supports, the appearance. In a language like ours, so 
 many words of which are derived from other languages, there 
 are few modes of instruction more useful or more amusing 
 than that of accustoming young people to seek for the 
 etymology, or primary meaning of the words they use. 
 There are cases, in which more knowledge of more value 
 may be conveyed by the history of a word, than by the 
 history of a campaign. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 7 
 
 precious gifts of God ; and that every Christian, ac- 
 cording to the opportunities vouchsafed to him, is 
 bound to cultivate the one and to acquire the other. 
 Indeed, he is scarcely a Christian who wilfully neg- 
 lects so to do. What says the Apostle ? Add to your 
 faith knowledge, and to knowledge manly energy, — 
 
 APHORISM XIII. 
 
 Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine 
 Word (by whom light, as well as immortality, was 
 brought into the world), which did not expand the 
 intellect, while it purified the heart ; — which did not 
 multiply the aims and objects of the understanding, 
 while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and 
 passions.f 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 If acquiescence without insight ; if warmth with- 
 out light ; if an immunity from doubt, given and 
 guaranteed by a resolute ignorance ; if the habit of 
 taking for granted the words of a catechism, remem- 
 bered or forgotten ; if a mere sensation of positive- 
 ness substituted — I will not say for the sense of cer- 
 tainty, but — for that calm assurance, the very means 
 
 * 2 Pet, ii. 5.— Ed. 
 T The effects of a zealous ministry on the intellects and 
 acquirements of the labouring classes are not only attested 
 by Baxter, and the Presbyterian divines, but admitted by 
 Bishop Burnet, who, during his mission in the west of Scot- 
 land, was " amazed to find a poor commonalty so able to 
 argue," &c. But we need not go to a sister church for proof 
 or example. The diffusion of light and knowledge through 
 this kingdom, by the exertions of the bishops and clergy, by 
 Episcopalians and Puritans, from Bdward VI. to the Resto- 
 ration, was as wonderful as it is praiseworthy, and may be 
 justly placed among the most remarkable facts in history. 
 
O AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 and conditions of which it supersedes ; if a belief 
 that seeks the darkness, and yet strikes no root, im- 
 moveable as the limpet from the rock, and, like the 
 limpet, fixed there by mere force of adhesion ; — if 
 these suffice to make men Christians, in what sense 
 could the Apostle affirm that believers receive, not 
 indeed worldly wisdom, which comes to nought, but 
 the wisdom of God, that we might know and com- 
 prehend the things that are freely given to us of 
 God? On what grounds could he denounce the 
 sincerest fervour of spirit as defective, where it does 
 not likewise bring forth fruits in the understanding ? 
 
 APHORISM XIV. 
 
 In our present state, it is little less than impossible 
 that the affections should be kept constant to an 
 object which gives no employment to the under- 
 standing, and yet cannot be made manifest to the 
 senses. The exercise of the reasoning and reflecting 
 powers, increasing insight, and enlarging views, are 
 requisite to keep alive the substantial faith in the 
 heart. 
 
 APHORISM XV. 
 
 In the state of perfection, perhaps, all other fa- 
 culties may be swallowed up in love, or superseded 
 by immediate vision ; but it is on the wings of the 
 cherubim, that is (according to the interpretation of 
 the ancient Hebrew doctors), the intellectual powers 
 and energies, that we must first be borne up to the 
 " pure empyrean." It must be seraphs, and not the 
 hearts of imperfect mortals, that can burn unfuelled 
 and self-fed. Give me understanding (is the prayer 
 of the royal Psalmist), and I shall observe thy law 
 with my whole heart. — Thy law is exceeding broad 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 
 
 — that is, comprehensive, pregnant, containing far 
 more than the apparent import of the words on a first 
 perusal. — It is my meditation all the day.* 
 
 It is worthy of especial observation, that the Scrip- 
 tures are distinguished from all other writings pre- 
 tending to inspiration, by the strong and frequent 
 recommendations of knowledge, and a spirit of in- 
 quiry. Without reflection, it is evident that neither 
 the one can be acquired nor the other exercised. 
 
 APHORISM XVI. 
 
 The word rational has been strangely abused of late 
 times. This must not, however, disincline us to the 
 weighty consideration, that thoughtfulness, and a 
 desire to bottom all our convictions on grounds of 
 right reason, are inseparable from the character of a 
 Christian. 
 
 APHORISM XVII. 
 
 A reflecting mind is not a flower that grows wild, 
 or comes up of its own accord. The difficulty is 
 indeed greater than many, who mistake quick recol- 
 lection for thought, are disposed to admit ; but how 
 much less than it would be, had we not been born 
 and bred in a Christian and Protestant land, few of 
 us are sufficiently aware. Truly may we, and thank- 
 fully ought we to, exclaim with the Psalmist : The 
 entrance of thy words giveth light ; it giveth under- 
 standing to the simple.f 
 
 APHORISM XVIII. 
 Examine the journals of our zealous missionaries, 
 
 * Ps. cxix.— Ed. t Ps. cxix.— Ed. 
 
10 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 I will not say among the Hottentots or Esquimaux, 
 but in the highly civilised, though fearfully uncul- 
 tivated, inhabitants of ancient India. How often, 
 and how feelingly, do they describe the difficulty of 
 rendering the simplest chain of thought intelligible 
 to tbe ordinary natives, the rapid exhaustion of their 
 whole power of attention, and with what distressful 
 effort it is exerted while it lasts ! Yet it is among 
 these that the hideous practices of self-torture chiefly 
 prevail. if folly were no easier than wisdom, it 
 being often so very much more grievous, how cer- 
 tainly might these unhappy slaves of superstition be 
 converted to Christianity ! But, alas ! to swing by 
 hooks passed through the back, or to walk in shoes 
 with nails of iron pointed upwards through the soles 
 — all this is so much less difficult, demands so much 
 less exertion of the will than to reflect, and by re- 
 flection to gain knowledge and tranquillity ! 
 
 It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion 
 of the advantages of truth and knowledge. They con- 
 fess, they see and bear witness too, these advantages 
 in the conduct, the immunities, and the superior 
 powers of the possessors. Were they attainable by 
 pilgrimages the most toilsome, or penances the most 
 painful, we should assuredly have as many pilgrims 
 and self-tormentors in the service of true religion, as 
 now exist under the tyranny of Papal or Brahman 
 superstition. 
 
 APHORISM XIX. 
 
 In countries enlightened by the Gospel, however, 
 the most formidable and (it is to be feared) the most 
 frequent impediment to men's turning their minds in- 
 wards upon themselves, is that they are afraid of what 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 11 
 
 they shall find there. There is an aching hollowness 
 in the bosom, a dark cold speck at the heart, an 
 obscure and boding sense of a somewhat, that must 
 be kept out of sight of the conscience ; some secret 
 lodger, whom they can neither resolve to eject or 
 retain.* 
 
 Few are so obdurate, few have sufficient strength of 
 character, to be able to draw forth an evil tendency 
 or immoral practice into distinct consciousness, 
 without bringing it in the same moment before an 
 awaking conscience. But for this very reason it be- 
 comes a duty of conscience to form the mind to a 
 habit of distinct consciousness. An unreflecting 
 Christian walks in twilight among snares and pit- 
 falls ! He entreats the heavenly Father not to lead 
 him into temptation, and yet places himself on the 
 very edge of it, because he will not kindle the torch 
 
 * The following Sonnet from Herbert's "Temple" may 
 serve as a forcible comment on the words in the text : — 
 
 GRACES VOUCHSAFED IN A CHRISTIAN LAND. 
 
 Lord ! with what care hast thou begirt us round ! 
 Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters 
 Deliver us to laws. They send us bound 
 To rules of reason. Holy messengers ; 
 Pulpits and Sundays ; sorrow dogging sin ; 
 Afflictions sorted ; anguish of all sizes ; 
 Fine nets and' stratagems to catch us in ! 
 Bibles laid open; millions of surprises; 
 Blessings beforehand ; ties of gratefulness ; 
 The sound of glory ringing in our ears : 
 Without, our shame; within, our consciences; 
 Angels and grace ; eternal hopes and fears ! 
 Yet all these fences, and their whole array, 
 One cunning bosom sin blows quite away. 
 
12 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 which his Father had given into his hands, as a mean 
 of prevention, and lest he should pray too late. 
 
 APHOKISM XX. 
 
 Among the various undertakings of men, can there 
 he mentioned one more important, can there be con- 
 ceived one more sublime, than an intention to form 
 the human mind anew after the Divine Image ? The 
 very intention, if it be sincere, is a ray of its dawning. 
 The requisites for the execution of this high intent 
 may be comprised under three heads ; the prudential, 
 the moral, and the spiritual. 
 
 APHORISM XXI. 
 
 First, Religious Prudence. — What this is, will be 
 best explained by its effects and operations. Pru- 
 dence, in the service of religion, consists in the pre- 
 vention or abatement of hindrances and distractions ; 
 and consequently in avoiding, or removing, all such 
 circumstances as, by diverting the attention of the 
 workman, retard the progress and hazard the safety 
 of the work. It is likewise (I deny not) a part of 
 this unworldly prudence, to place ourselves as much 
 and as often as it is in our power so to do, in cir- 
 cumstances directly favourable to our great design ; 
 and to avail ourselves of all the positive helps aud 
 furtherances which these circumstances afford. But 
 neither dare we, as Christians, forget whose and 
 under what dominion the tbings are, qua, nos cir- 
 cumstant, that is, which stand around us. We are 
 to remember, that it is the world that constitutes our 
 outward circumstances ; that in the form of the 
 world which is evermore at variance with the divine 
 form or idea, they are cast and moulded ; and that 
 of the means and measures which prudence requires 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 13 
 
 in the forming anew of the divine image in the soul, 
 the greatest part supposes the world at enmity with 
 our design. We are to avoid its snares, to repel its 
 attacks, to suspect its aids and succours, and even 
 when compelled to receive them as allies within our 
 trenches, yet to commit the outworks alone to their 
 charge, and to keep them at a jealous distance from 
 the citadel. The powers of the world are often 
 christened, but seldom christianised. They are but 
 proselytes of the outer gate : or, like the Saxons of 
 old, enter the land as auxiliaries, and remain in it as 
 conquerors and lords. 
 
 APHORISM XXII. 
 
 The rules of prudence, in general, like the laws of 
 the stone tables, are for the most part prohibitive. 
 Thou shalt not is their characteristic formula : and 
 it is an especial part of Christian prudence that it 
 should be so. Nor would it be difficult to bring under 
 this head all the social obligations that arise out of 
 the relations of the present life, which the sensual 
 understanding (to <ppovr]fj,a ttjs o-apubs, Rom. viii. 6.) 
 is of itself able to discover, and the performance 
 of which, under favourable circumstances, the merest 
 worldly self-interest, without love or faith, is sufficient 
 to enforce ; but which Christian prudence enlivens by 
 a higher principle, and renders symbolic and sacra- 
 mental. (Eph. v. 32.) 
 
 This, then, under the appellation of prudential 
 requisites, comes first under consideration ; and may 
 be regarded as the shrine and framework for the 
 divine image, into which the worldly human is to be 
 transformed. We are next to bring out the divine 
 
14 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 portrait itself, tlie distinct features of its countenance, 
 as a sojourner among men ; its benign aspect turned 
 towards its fellow-pilgrims, the extended arm, and 
 the hand that blesseth and healeth. 
 
 APHORISM XXIII. 
 
 The outward service (6pr]<TK.eia*)of ancient religion, 
 the rites, ceremonies, and ceremonial vestments of 
 the old law, had morality for their substance. They 
 were the letter, of which morality was the spirit ; the 
 enigma, of which morality was the meaning. But 
 morality itself is the service and ceremonial (cultus 
 exterior, 6pr}<jKeia) of the Christian religion. The 
 scheme of grace and truth that became \ through 
 
 * See the epistle of St. James, i. 26, 27, where, in the 
 authorised version, the Greek word Bprio-iceia is rendered 
 religion. This is, or at all events, for the English reader of 
 our times, has the effect of an erroneous translation. It not 
 only obscures the connexion of the passage, and weakens 
 the peculiar force and sublimity of the thought,, rendering it 
 comparatively flat and trivial, almost indeed tautological, 
 but has occasioned this particular verse to be perverted into 
 a support of a very dangerous error ; and the whole epistle 
 to be considered as a set-off against the epistles and declara- 
 tions of St. Paul, instead of (what in fact it is) a masterly 
 comment and confirmation of the same. I need not inform 
 the reader, that James i. 27, is the favourite text and most 
 boasted authority of those divines who represent the Re- 
 deemer of the world as little more than a moral reformer, 
 and the Christian faith as a code of ethics, differing from the 
 moral system of Moses and the Prophets by an additional 
 motive, or rather by the additional strength and clearness 
 which the historical fact of the resurrection has given to the 
 same motive. 
 
 f The Greek word iyevero unites in itself the two senses 
 of began to exist and was made to exist. It exemplifies the 
 force of the middle voice, in distinction from the verb reflex. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 15 
 
 Jesus Christ, the faith that looks * down into the 
 perfect law of liberty, has light for its garment ; its 
 very robe is righteousness. 
 
 The same word is used in the same sense by Aristophanes in 
 that famous parody on the cosmogonies of the mythic poets, 
 or the creation of the finite, as delivered, or supposed to be 
 delivered, in the Cabiric or Samothracian mysteries, in the 
 Comedy of the Birds. 
 
 yever' Ovpavos 'Q.Keav6s re 
 
 Kal Tr). 
 
 * James i. 25. 'O 5e irapaicvtyas els v6fiou reXeiov rbv tjjs 
 iKevdepias. Tlapaicfyas signifies the incurvation or bending 
 of the body in the act of looking down into ; as, for instance, 
 in the endeavour to see the reflected image of a star in the 
 water at the bottom of a well. A more happy or forcible 
 word could not have been chosen to express the nature and 
 ultimate object of reflection, and to enforce the necessity of 
 it, in order to discover the living fountain and spring-head 
 of the evidence of the Christian faith in the believer himself, 
 and at the same time to point out the seat and region 
 where alone it is to be found. Quantum sumus scimus. That 
 which we find within ourselves, which is more than ourselves, 
 and yet the ground of whatever is good and permanent 
 therein, is the substance and life of all other knowledge. 
 
 N.B. The Familists of the sixteenth century, and similar 
 enthusiasts of later date, overlooked the essential point, that 
 it was a law, and a law that involved its own end (teAos), 
 a perfect law (reKeios) or law that perfects or completes 
 itself; and therefore its obligations are called, in reference 
 to human statutes, imperfect duties, that is, incoercible from 
 without. They overlooked that it was a law that portions 
 out (v6/xq_s from ve/xw to allot, or make division of) to each 
 man the sphere and limits, within which it is to be ex- 
 ercised — which as St. Peter notices of certain profound pas- 
 sages in the writings of St. Paul (2 Pet. hi. 16), ol afiadels Kal 
 affT-fiptKTOi, ffrpe^\ov(Tiv, &s Kal ras Koliras ypa<pct,s, irpbs t\\v 
 iSiav avruu hizdiXeiav. 
 
 Additional note. For a rational agent the obligation of a 
 
16 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Herein the Apostle places the pre-eminence, the 
 peculiar and distinguishing excellence, of the Chris- 
 tian religion. The ritual is of the same kind, 
 (6jjloov(tlov) though not of the same order, with the 
 religion itself — not arbitrary or conventional, as types 
 and hieroglyphics are in relation to the things ex- 
 pressed by them ; but inseparable, consubstantiated 
 (as it were), and partaking therefore of the same life, 
 permanence, and intrinsic worth with its spirit and 
 principle. 
 
 APHORISM XXIV. 
 
 Morality is the body, of which the faith in Christ 
 is the soul — so far indeed its earthly body, as it is 
 adapted to its state of warfare on earth, and the 
 appointed form and instrument of its communion with 
 the present world ; yet not " terrestrial," nor of the 
 world, but a celestial body, and capable of being 
 transfigured from glory to glory, in accordance with 
 the varying circumstances and outward relations of 
 its moving and informing spirit. 
 
 APHORISM XXV. 
 
 Woe to the man, who will believe neither power, 
 freedom, nor morality, because he nowhere finds 
 either entire, or unmixed with sin, thraldom and in- 
 firmity. In the natural and intellectual realms, we 
 
 law is coeval and commensurate with the perception of its 
 lawfulness. Only on this ground is he a moral agent : in 
 this consists the possibility of any morality at all. The 
 mind can scarcely conceive a grosser absurdity, than to 
 separate the Law and the Obligation, to seek the source and 
 seat of the one in the divine of our nature, and of the other 
 in the beast. 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 17 
 
 distinguish what we cannot separate ; and in the 
 moral world, we must distinguish in order to separate. 
 Yea, in the clear distinction of good from evil the 
 process of separation commences. 
 
 It was customary with religious men in former 
 times, to make a rule of taking every morning some 
 text, or aphorism,* for their occasional meditation 
 during the day, and thus to fill up the intervals of their 
 attention to business. I do not point it out for imi- 
 tation, as knowing too well, how apt these self-imposed 
 rules are to degenerate into superstition or hollowness; 
 otherwise I would have recommended the following 
 as the first exercise. 
 
 APHORISM XXVI. 
 
 It is a dull and obtuse mind, that must divide in 
 order to distinguish ; but it is a still worse, that dis- 
 tinguishes in order to divide. In the former, we may 
 contemplate the source of superstition and idolatry ; f 
 
 * Aphorism, determinate position, from a<popi£eiv, to bound, 
 or limit ; whence our horizon. — In order to get the full 
 sense of a word, we should first present to our minds the 
 visual image that forms its primary meaning. Draw lines 
 of different colours round the different counties of England, 
 and then cut out each separately, as in the common play-maps 
 that children take to pieces and put together — so that each 
 district can be contemplated apart from the rest, as a whole 
 in itself. This twofold act of circumscribing, and detaching, 
 when it is exerted by the mind on subjects of reflection and 
 reason, is to aphorise, and the result an aphorism. 
 
 *f" T?> v6y\Tov §it\pi)K.a.(nv els tcoWuiv 6eS>v iSioryiras. — Damasc. 
 de Myst. Egypt. ; that is, They divided the intelligible into 
 many and several individualities. 
 
18 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 in the latter of schism, heresy, and a seditious and 
 sectarian spirit.* 
 
 APHORISM XXVII. 
 
 Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest 
 and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of 
 aphorisms : and the greatest and best of men is but 
 an aphorism. 
 
 APHORISM XXVIII. 
 
 On the prudential influence which the fear or foresight of 
 the consequences of his actions, in respect of his own loss 
 or gain, may exert on a newly converted believer. 
 
 Precautionary remark. — I meddle not with the 
 dispute respecting conversion, whether, and in what 
 sense, necessary in all Christians. It is sufficient 
 for my purpose, that a very large number of men, 
 even in Christian countries, need to be converted, 
 and that not a few, I trust, have been. The tenet 
 becomes fanatical and dangerous, only when rare and 
 extraordinary exceptions are made to be the general 
 rule ; — when what was vouchsafed to the Apostle of 
 the Gentiles by especial grace, and for an especial 
 purpose, namely, a conversion f begun and completed 
 
 * I mean these words in their large and philosophic sense 
 in relation to the spirit, or originating temper and tendency, 
 and not to any one mode under which, br to any one class 
 in or by which, it may be displayed. A seditious spirit 
 may (it is possible, though not probable) exist in the council- 
 chamber of a palace as strongly as in a mob in Palace-yard ; 
 and a sectarian spirit in a cathedral, no less than in a con- 
 venticle. 
 
 f " In this sense, especially, doth St. Paul call himself 
 abortivum, a person born out of season, that whereas Christ's 
 other disciples and apostles had a breeding under him, and 
 came first ad discipulatum, and then ad apostolatum, first to 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 19 
 
 in the same moment, is demanded or expected of all 
 men, as a necessary sign and pledge of their election. 
 Late observations have shown, that under many cir- 
 cumstances the magnetic needle, even after the 
 disturbing influence has been removed, will continue 
 wavering, and require many days before it points 
 aright, and remains steady to the pole. So is it ordi- 
 narily with the soul, after it has begun to free itself 
 from the disturbing forces of the flesh, and the world, 
 and to convert * itself towards God. 
 
 APHORISM XXIX. 
 
 Awakened by the cock-crow — (a sermon, a cala- 
 mity, a sick-bed, or a providential escape) — the 
 Christian pilgrim sets out in the morning twilight, 
 while yet the truth (the vojxos rekecos 6 rrjs €kev8e- 
 pias) is below the horizon. Certain necessary con- 
 sequences of his past life and his present undertaking 
 will be seen by the refraction of its light : more will 
 be apprehended and conjectured. The phantasms, 
 that had predominated during the hours of darkness, 
 are still busy. Though they no longer present them- 
 selves as distinct forms, they yet remain as formative 
 motions in the pilgrim's soul, unconscious of its own 
 activity and over-mastered by its own workmanship. 
 
 be disciples, and after to be apostles. St. Paul was born a 
 man, an apostle ; not carved out as the rest, in time, but a 
 fusile apostle, an apostle poured out and cast in a mould. 
 As Adam was- a perfect man in an instant, so was St. Paul 
 an apostle as soon as Christ took him in hand." Donne's 
 Serm. (vol. ii. p. 299. Alford's edit. Ed.) The same spirit 
 was the lightning that melted, and the mould that received 
 and shaped him. 
 
 * That is, by an act of the will to turn towards the true 
 pole, at the same time that the understanding is convinced 
 and made aware of its existence and direction. 
 
 c2 
 
20 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Things take the signature of thought. The shapes of 
 the recent dream become a mould for the objects in 
 the distance, and these again give an outwardness and 
 sensation of reality to the shapings of the dream. 
 The bodings inspired by the long habit of selfishness, 
 and self-seeking cunning, though they are now com- 
 mencing the process of their purification into that 
 fear which is the beginning of wisdom, and which, as 
 such, is ordained to be our guide and safeguard, till 
 the sun of love, the perfect law of liberty, is fully 
 arisen — these bodings will set the fancy at work, and 
 haply, for a time, transform the mists of dim and 
 imperfect knowledge into determinate superstitions. 
 But in either case, whether seen clearly or dimly, 
 whether beholden or only imagined, the consequences 
 contemplated in their bearings on the individual's 
 inherent * desire of happiness and dread of pain 
 
 * The following extract from the second of Leighton's 
 " Theological Lectures," may serve as a comment on this 
 sentence : — 
 
 " Yet the human mind, however stunned and weakened 
 by so dreadful a fall, still retains some faint idea, some con- 
 fused and obscure notions, of the good it has lost, and some 
 remaining seeds of its heavenly original. It has also still 
 remaining a kind of languid sense of its misery and indi- 
 gence, with affections suitable to those obscure notions. 
 This at least is beyond all doubt and indisputable, that all 
 men wish well to themselves; nor can the mind of man 
 divest itself of this propensity, without divesting itself of 
 its being. This is what the Schoolmen mean when in their 
 manner of expression they say, that ' the will (voluntas not 
 arbitrium) is carried towards happiness, not simply as will, 
 but as nature.' " 
 
 I venture to remark that this position, if not more cer- 
 tainly, would be more evidently, true, if instead of beatitude 
 the word indolentia (that is, freedom from pain, negative 
 happiness) had been used. But this depends on the exact 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 2L 
 
 become motives ; and, unless all distinction in the 
 words be done away with, and either prudence or 
 virtue be reduced to a superfluous synonyme, a redun- 
 dancy in all the languages of the civilised world, 
 these motives and the acts and forbearances directly 
 proceeding from them fall under the head of Prudence, 
 as belonging to one or other of its four very distinct 
 species. 
 
 I. It may be a prudence, that stands in opposition 
 to a higher moral life, and tends to preclude it, and to 
 prevent the soul from ever arriving at the hatred of 
 sin for its own exceeding sinfulness {Rom. vii. 13) : 
 and this is an evil prudence. 
 
 II. Or it may be a neutral prudence, not incom- 
 patible with spiritual growth : and to this we may, with 
 especial propriety, apply the words of our Lord, What 
 is not against us is for us. It is therefore an innocent, 
 and (being such) a proper, and commendable prudence. 
 
 III. Or it may lead and be subservient to a higher 
 principle than itself. The mind and conscience of 
 the individual may be reconciled to it, in the fore- 
 knowledge of the higher principle, and with yearning 
 towards it that implies a foretaste of future freedom. 
 The enfeebled convalescent is reconciled to his 
 
 meaning attached to the term " self,"' of which more in 
 another place. One conclusion, however, follows inevitably 
 from the preceding position ; namely, that this propensity 
 can never be legitimately made the principle of morality, 
 even because it is no part or appurtenance of the moral will; 
 and because the proper object of the moral principle is to 
 limit and control this propensity, and to determine in what 
 it may be, and what it ought to be, gratified ; while it is the 
 business of philosophy to instruct the understanding, and 
 the office of religion to convince the whole man, that other- 
 wise than as a regulated, and of course therefore a subordi- 
 nate, end, this propensity, innate and inalienable though it 
 be, can never be realised or fulfilled. 
 
22 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 crutches, and thankfully makes use of them, not only 
 because they are necessary for his immediate support, 
 but likewise, because they are the means and condi- 
 tions of exercise, and by exercise, of establishing, 
 gradatim paulatim, that strength, flexibility, and 
 almost spontaneous obedience of the muscles, which 
 the idea and cheering presentiment of health hold 
 out to him. He finds their value in their present 
 necessity, and their worth as they are the instruments 
 of finally superseding it. This is a faithful, a wise 
 prudence, having, indeed, its birth-place in the world, 
 and the wisdom of this world for its father ; but natu- 
 ralised in a better land, and having the wisdom from 
 above for its sponsor and spiritual parents. To steal 
 a dropt feather from the spicy nest of the phoenix, 
 (the fond humour, I mean, of the mystic divines and 
 allegorisers of Holy Writ) — it is the son of Terah 
 from Ur of the Chaldees, who gives a tithe of all to 
 the King of Righteousness, without father, without 
 mother, without descent (vofxos avTovofjLOs), and 
 receives a blessing on the remainder. 
 
 IV. Lastly, there is a prudence that co-exists with 
 morality, as morality co-exists with the spiritual life : 
 a prudence that is the organ of both, as the. under- 
 standing is to the reason and the will, or as the lungs 
 are to the heart and brain. This is a holy prudence, 
 the steward faithful and discreet (oIkov6[xos tthttos 
 ical <f)p6vtiJ.os, Luke xii. 42) the eldest servant in the 
 family of faith, born in the house, and made the ruler 
 over his lord's household. 
 
 Let not then, I entreat you, my purpose be misun- 
 derstood ; as if, in distinguishing virtue from pru- 
 dence, I wished to divide the one from the other. 
 True morality is hostile to that prudence only, which 
 is preclusive of true morality. The teacher, who sub- 
 ordinates prudence to virtue, cannot be supposed to 
 
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. 23 
 
 dispense with virtue ; and he, who teaches the proper 
 connexion of the one with the other, does not depre- 
 ciate the lower in any sense ; while, by making it a 
 link of the same chain with the higher, and receiving 
 the same influence, he raises it. 
 
 In general, morality may be compared to the con- 
 sonant ; prudence to the vowel. The former cannot 
 be uttered (reduced to practice) but by means of the 
 latter. 
 
 APHORISM XXX. 
 
 What the duties of morality are, the Apostle instructs 
 the believer in full, comprising them under the two 
 heads of negative and positive ; negative, to keep 
 himself pure from the world ; and positive, beneficence 
 from loving-kindness, that is, love of his fellow-men 
 (his kind) as himself. 
 
 APHORISM XXXI. 
 
 Last and highest come the spiritual, comprising all 
 the truths, acts, and duties, that have an especial 
 reference to the timeless, the permanent, the eternal, 
 to the sincere love of the true as truth, of the good as 
 good, and of God as both in one. It comprehends 
 the whole ascent from uprightness (morality, virtue, 
 inward rectitude) to godlikeness, with all the acts, 
 exercises, and disciplines of mind, will, and affection, 
 that are requisite or conducive to the great design 
 of our redemption from the form of the evil One, and 
 of our second creation or birth in the divine image.* 
 
 * It is worthy of observation, and may furnish a fruitful 
 subject for future reflection, how nearly the Scriptural divi- 
 sion coincides with the Platonic, which commencing with the 
 prudential, or the habit of act and purpose proceeding from 
 enlightened self-interest [qui animi imperio, corporis servitio, 
 rerum auxilio, inproprium sui commodwm et sibi providus utitwr, 
 hzunc esse prudentem statuimus~], ascends to the moral, that is, 
 
24 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 APHOKISM XXXII. 
 
 It may be an additional aid to reflection, to distin- 
 guish the three kinds severally, according to the 
 faculty to which each corresponds, the part of our 
 human nature which is more particularly its organ. 
 Thus : the prudential corresponds to the sens e and 
 the understanding ; the moral to the heart and the 
 conscience ; the spiritual to the will and the reason, 
 that is, to the finite will reduced to harmony with, and 
 in subordination to, the reason, as a ray from that true 
 light which is both reason and will, universal reason, 
 and will absolute. 
 
 to the purifying and remedial virtues ; and seeks its summit 
 in the imitation of the divine nature. In this last division, 
 answering to that which we have called the spiritual, Plato 
 includes all those inward acts and aspirations, waitings, and 
 watchings, which have a growth in godlikeness for their 
 immediate purpose, and the union of the human soul with 
 the supreme good as their ultimate object. Nor was it 
 altogether without grounds that several of the Fathers 
 ventured to believe that Plato had some dim conception of 
 the necessity of a divine Mediator; — whether through some 
 indistinct echo of the Patriarchal faith, or some rays of light 
 refracted from the Hebrew Prophets through the Phoenician 
 medium (to which he may possibly have referred in his 
 phrase 6eoirapa86Tos ao<f>ia, the wisdom delivered from God), 
 or by his own sense of the mysterious contradiction in human 
 nature between the will and the reason, the natural appe- 
 tences and the not less innate law of conscience (Bomans ii. 
 14, 15), we shall in vain attempt to determine. It is not 
 impossible that all three may have co-operated in partially 
 unveiling these awful truths to this plank from the wreck of 
 Paradise thrown on the shores of idolatrous Greece, to this 
 divine philosopher, 
 
 Che'n quella schiera undo piu presso al segno 
 Al qual aggiunge, a cki dal cielo e dato. 
 
 Petrarch. Trionfo della Fama, cap. hi. 5, 6. 
 
25 
 
 REFLECTIONS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY TO 
 
 MOEAL AND EELIGIOUS APHOKISLfS. 
 
 ON SENSIBILITY. 
 
 If Prudence, though practically inseparable from 
 morality, is not to be confounded with the moral 
 principle ; still less may Sensibility, that is, a con- 
 stitutional quickness of sympathy with pain and 
 pleasure, and a keen sense of the gratifications that 
 accompany social intercourse, mutual endearments, 
 and reciprocal preferences, be mistaken, or deemed 
 a substitute, for either. Sensibility is not even a 
 sure pledge of a good heart, though among the most 
 common meanings of that many-meaning and too 
 commonly misapplied expression. 
 
 So far from being either morality, or one with the 
 moral principle, it ought not even to be placed in the 
 same rank with prudence. For prudence is at least 
 an offspring of the understanding ; but sensibility 
 (the sensibility, I mean, here spoken of), is for the 
 greater part a quality of the nerves, and a result of 
 individual bodily temperament. 
 
 Prudence is an active principle, and implies a sa- 
 crifice of self, though only to the same self projected, 
 as it were, to a distance. But the very term sensi- 
 bility marks its passive nature ; and in its mere self, 
 apart from choice and reflection, it proves little more 
 
*J(5 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 than the coincidence or contagion of pleasurable or 
 painful sensations in different persons. 
 
 Alas ! how many are there in this over- stimulated 
 age, — in which the occurrence of excessive and un- 
 healthy sensitiveness is so frequent, as even to have 
 reversed the current meaning of the word, nervous, — 
 how many are there whose sensibility prompts them 
 to remove those evils alone, which by hideous spec- 
 tacle or clamorous outcry are present to their senses 
 and disturb their selfish enjoyments ! Provided the 
 dunghill is not before their parlour-window, they are 
 well contented to know that it exists, and perhaps as 
 the hotbed on which their own luxuries are reared. 
 Sensibility is not necessarily benevolence. Nay, by 
 rendering us tremblingly alive to trifling misfortunes, 
 it frequently prevents it, and induces an effeminate 
 selfishness instead, 
 
 pampering the coward heart 
 
 With feelings all too delicate for use. 
 
 Sweet are the tears, that from a Howard's eye 
 
 Drop on the cheek of one, he lifts from earth : 
 
 And he, who works me good with unmoved face, 
 
 Does it but half : he chills me, while he aids, 
 
 My benefactor, not my brother man. 
 
 But even this, this cold benevolence, 
 
 Seems worth, seems manhood, when there rise before me 
 
 The sluggard pity's vision-weaving tribe, 
 
 Who sigh for wretchedness yet shun the wretched, 
 
 Nursing in some delicious solitude 
 
 Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies.* 
 
 Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and 
 becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it 
 may almost be said to becomef virtue. But sensibility 
 
 * Poems, 1797, p. 103; Poems, 1852, p. 233; with a 
 slight difference of expression in each case. — Ed. 
 
 f There sometimes occurs an apparent play on words, 
 
SENSIBILITY. 27 
 
 and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, 
 and too often have become, the pandars of vice, and 
 the instruments of seduction. 
 
 So must it needs be -with all qualities that have 
 their rise only in parts and fragments of our nature. 
 A man of warm passions may sacrifice half his estate 
 to rescue a friend from prison : for he is naturally 
 sympathetic, and the more social part of his nature 
 happened to be uppermost. The same man shall 
 afterwards exhibit the same disregard of money in an 
 attempt to seduce that friend's wife or daughter. 
 
 All the evil achieved by Hobbes and the whole 
 school of materialists will appear inconsiderable if it 
 be compared with the mischief effected and occasioned 
 by the sentimental philosophy of Sterne, and his 
 numerous imitators. The vilest appetites and the 
 most remorseless inconstancy towards their objects, 
 acquired the titles of the heart, the irresistible feelings, 
 the too tender sensibility : and if the frosts of prudence, 
 the icy chains of human law thawed and vanished 
 at the genial warmth of human nature, who could help 
 it ? It was an amiable weakness ! 
 
 About this time, too, the profanation of the word, 
 Love, rose to its height. The French naturalists, 
 Buffon and others, borrowed it from the sentimental 
 novelists : the Swedish and English philosophers 
 took the contagion ; and the Muse of science conde- 
 scended to seek admission into the saloons of fashion 
 
 which not only to the moraliser, but even to the philoso- 
 phical etymologist, appears more than a mere play. Thus in 
 the double sense of the word, become. I have known persons 
 so anxious to have their dress become them, as to convert it 
 at length into their proper self, and thus actually to become 
 the dress. Such a one (safeliest spoken of by the neuter pro- 
 noun), I consider as but a suit of live finery. It is indifferent 
 whether we say — it becomes he, or, he becomes it. 
 
28 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 and frivolity, rouged like a harlot, and with the har- 
 lot's wanton leer. I know not how the annals of guilt 
 could be better forced into the service of virtue, than 
 by such a comment on the present paragraph, as 
 would be afforded by a selection from the sentimental 
 correspondence produced in courts of justice within 
 the last thirty years, fairly translated into the true 
 meaning of the words, and the actual object and 
 purpose of the infamous writers. 
 
 Do you in good earnest aim at dignity of character ? 
 By all the treasures of a peaceful mind, by all the 
 charms of an open countenance, I conjure you, 
 youth, turn away from those who live in the twilight 
 between vice and virtue. Are not reason, discrimi- 
 nation, law, and deliberate choice, the distinguishing 
 characters of humanity ? Can aught, then, worthy 
 of a human being proceed from a habit of soul, which 
 would exclude all these and (to borrow a metaphor 
 from paganism) prefer the den of Trophonius to the 
 temple and oracles of the God of light ? Can anything 
 manly, I say, proceed from those, who for law and 
 light would substitute shapeless feelings, sentiments, 
 impulses, which as far as they differ from the vital 
 workings in the brute animals owe the difference to 
 their former connexion with the proper virtues of 
 humanity ; as dendrites derive the outlines, that 
 constitute their value above other clay-stones, from 
 the casual neighbourhood and pressure of the plants, 
 the names of which they assume. Remember, that 
 love itself in its highest earthly bearing, as the ground 
 of the marriage union,* becomes love by an inward 
 
 * It might be a mean of preventing many unhappy mar- 
 riages, if the youth of both sexes had it early impressed on 
 their minds, that marriage contracted between Christians is 
 a true and perfect symbol or mystery ; that is, the actualising 
 faith being supposed to exist in the receivers, it is an outward 
 
SENSIBILITY. 29 
 
 fiat of the will, by a completing and sealing act of 
 moral election, and lays claim to permanence only 
 under the form of duty.* 
 
 sign co-essential with that which it signifies, or a living part 
 of that, the whole of which it represents. Marriage there- 
 fore, in the Christian sense (Ephesians v. 22—23), as symbo- 
 lical of the union of the soul with Christ the Mediator, and 
 with God through Christ, is perfectly a sacramental ordi- 
 nance, and not retained at the Reformation as one of the 
 sacraments, for two reasons ; first, that the sign is not dis- 
 tinctive of the Church of Christ, and the ordinance not 
 peculiar, nor owing its origin to the Gospel dispensation ; 
 secondly, that it is not of universal obligation, nor a means 
 of grace enjoined on all Christians. In other and plainer 
 words, marriage does not contain in itself an open profession 
 of Christ, and it is not a sacrament of the Church, but only 
 of certain individual members of the Church. It is evident, 
 however, that neither of these reasons affects or diminishes 
 the religious nature and dedicative force of the marriage vow, 
 or detracts from the solemnity in the Apostolic declaration : 
 This is a great mystery. 
 
 The interest, which the State has in the appropriation of 
 one woman to one man, and the civil obligations therefrom 
 resulting, form an altogether distinct consideration. When 
 I meditate on the words of the Apostle, confirmed and illus- 
 trated as they are, by so many harmonies in the spiritual 
 structure of our proper humanity, — (in the image of God, 
 male and female created he the man) — and then reflect how 
 little claim so large a number of legal cohabitations have to 
 the name of Christian marriages — I feel inclined to doubt, 
 whether the plan of celebrating marriages universally by the 
 civil magistrate, in the first instance, and leaving the religious 
 covenant and sacramental pledge to the election of the parties 
 themselves, adopted during the Commonwealth in England, 
 and in our own times by the French legislature, was not in fact, 
 whatever it might be in intention, reverential to Christianity. 
 At all events, it was their own act and choice, if the parties 
 made bad worse by the profanation of a Gospel mystery. 
 
 * See the beautiful passages, Poems, pp. 347 — 348. — Ed. 
 
30 
 
 PETJDEJNTIAL APHOEISMS. 
 
 APHORISM I. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 With respect to any final aim or end, the greater 
 part of mankind live at hazard. They have no certain 
 harbour in view, nor direct their course by any fixed 
 star. But to him that knoweth not the port to which 
 he is bound, no wind can be favourable ; neither can 
 he, who has not yet determined at what mark he is 
 to shoot, direct his arrow aright. 
 
 It is not, however, the less true that there is a 
 proper object to aim at ; and if this object be meant 
 by the term happiness, (though I think that not the 
 most appropriate term for a state, the perfection of 
 which consists in the exclusion of all hap, that is, 
 chance), I assert that there is such a thing as human 
 happiness, a summum bonum, or ultimate good. What 
 this is, the Bible alone shows clearly and certainly, 
 and points out the way that leads to the attainment 
 of it. This is that which prevailed with St. Augustine 
 to study the Scriptures, and engaged his affection to 
 them. " In Cicero, and Plato, and other such writers," 
 says he, " I meet with many things acutely said, and 
 things that excite a certain warmth of emotion, but 
 in none of them do I find these words, Come unto 
 me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." * 
 
 * Apud Ciceronern et Platonem, aliosque ejusmodi scriptores, 
 
PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS. 31 
 
 Felicity, in its proper sense, is but another word 
 for fortunateness, or happiness ; and I can see no 
 advantage in the improper use of words, when proper 
 terms are to be found, but, on the contrary, much 
 mischief. For, by familiarising the mind to equi- 
 vocal expressions, that is, such as may be taken in 
 two or more different meanings, we introduce con- 
 fusion of thought, and furnish the sophist with his 
 best and handiest tools. For the juggle of sophistry 
 consists, for the greater part, in using a word in one 
 sense in the premiss, and in another sense in the 
 conclusion. We should accustom ourselves to think, 
 and reason in precise and stedfast terms, even when 
 custom, or the deficiency, or the corruption of the 
 language will not permit the same strictness in 
 speaking. The mathematician finds this so necessary 
 to the truths which he is seeking, that his science 
 begins with, and is founded on, the definition of his 
 terms. The botanist, the chemist, the anatomist, 
 feel and submit to this necessity at all costs, even at 
 the risk of exposing their several pursuits to the 
 ridicule of the many, by technical terms, hard to be 
 remembered, and alike quarrelsome to the ear and 
 the tongue. In the business of moral and religious 
 reflection, in the acquisition of clear and distinct 
 conceptions of our duties, and of the relations in 
 which we stand to God, our neighbour, and ourselves, 
 no such difficulties occur. At the utmost we have 
 only to rescue words, already existing and familiar, 
 from the false or vague meanings imposed on them 
 by carelessness, or by the clipping and debasing 
 
 multa sunt acute dicta, et leniter calentia, sed in Us omnibus 
 hoc non invenio, Venite ad me, &c. [Matt. xii. 28.] (See Confess. 
 vii. xxi. 27.— Ed.) 
 
32 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 misusage of the market. And surely happiness, duty, 
 faith, truth, and final blessedness, are matters of 
 deeper and dearer interest for all men, than circles to 
 the geometrician, or the characters of plants to the 
 botanist, or the affinities and combining principle of 
 the elements of bodies to the chemist, or even than 
 the mechanism (fearful and wonderful though it be !) 
 of the perishable tabernacle of the soul can be to the 
 anatomist. Among the aids to reflection, place the 
 following maxim prominent : let distinctness in ex- 
 pression advance side by side with distinction in 
 thought. For one useless subtlety in our elder divines 
 and moralists, I will produce ten sophisms of equi- 
 vocation in the writings of our modern preceptors : 
 and for one error resulting from excess in distinguish- 
 ing the indifferent, I could show ten mischievous 
 delusions from the habit of confounding the diverse. 
 
 Whether you are reflecting for yourself, or reason- 
 ing with another, make it a rule to ask yourself the 
 precise meaning of the word, on which the point in 
 question appears to turn ; and if it may be (that is, 
 by writers of authority has been) used in several 
 senses, then ask which of these the word is at present 
 intended to convey. By this mean, and scarcely 
 without it, you will at length acquire a facility in 
 detecting the quid pro quo. And believe me, in so 
 doing you will enable yourself to disarm and expose 
 four-fifths of the main arguments of our most re- 
 nowned irreligious philosophers, ancient and modern. 
 For the quid pro quo is at once the rock and quarry, 
 on and with which the strongholds of disbelief, ma- 
 terialism, and (more pernicious still) Epicurean 
 morality, are built. 
 
PBTTDENTIAL APHOEISMS. 33 
 
 APHOEISM II. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 If we seriously consider what religion is, we shall 
 find the saying of the wise king Solomon to be unex- 
 ceptionably true : Her ways are ways of pleasantness, 
 and all her paths are peace * 
 
 Doth religion require anything of us more than 
 that we live soberly, righteously, and godly in this 
 present world ? Now what, I pray, can be more 
 pleasant or peaceable than these? Temperance is 
 always at leisure, luxury always in a hurry : the latter 
 weakens the body and pollutes the soul ; the former 
 is the sanctity, purity, and sound state of both. It is 
 one of Epicurus's fixed maxims, " That life can never 
 be pleasant without virtue." 
 
 In the works of moralists, both Christian and 
 Pagan, it is often asserted — (indeed there are few 
 commonplaces of more frequent recurrence) — that the 
 happiness even of this life consists solely, or princi- 
 pally, in virtue ; that virtue is the only happiness of 
 this life ; that virtue is the truest pleasure, and the like. 
 
 I doubt not that the meaning, which the writers 
 intended to convey by these and the like expressions, 
 was true and wise. But I deem it safer to say, that 
 in all the outward relations of this life, in all our 
 outward conduct and actions, both in what we should 
 do, and in what we should abstain from, the dictates 
 of virtue are the very same with those of self-interest ; 
 tending to, though they do not proceed from, the 
 same point. For the outward object of virtue being 
 the greatest producible sum of- happiness of all men, 
 it must needs include the object of an intelligent 
 
 * Prov. iii. 19.— Ed. 
 
34 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 self-love, which is the greatest possible happiness of 
 one individual ; for what is true of all must be true 
 of each. Hence, you cannot become better, that is, 
 more virtuous, but you will become happier : and you 
 cannot become worse, that is, more vicious, without 
 an increase of misery, or at the best a proportional 
 loss of enjoyment as the consequence. If the thing 
 were not inconsistent with our well-being, and known 
 to be so, it would not have been classed as a vice. 
 Thus what in an enfeebled and disordered mind is 
 called prudence, is the voice of nature in a healthful 
 state : as is proved by the known fact, that the 
 prudential duties, that is, those actions which are 
 commanded by virtue because they are prescribed by 
 prudence, brute animals fulfil by natural instinct. 
 
 The pleasure that accompanies or depends on a 
 healthy and vigorous body will be the consequence 
 and reward of a temperate life and habits of active 
 industry, whether this pleasure were or were not the 
 chief or only determining motive thereto. Virtue 
 may, possibly, add to the pleasure a good of another 
 kind, a higher good, perhaps, than the worldly mind 
 is capable of understanding, a spiritual complacency, 
 of which in your present sensualised state you can 
 form no idea. It may add, I say, but it cannot 
 detract from it. Thus the reflected rays of the sun 
 that give light, distinction, and endless multiformity 
 to the mind, give at the same time the pleasurable 
 sensation of warmth to the body. 
 
 If then the time has not yet come for any thing 
 higher, act on the maxim of seeking the most plea- 
 sure with the least pain : and, if only you do not 
 seek where you yourself know it will not be found, 
 this very pleasure and this freedom from the dis- 
 quietude of pain may produce in you a state of being 
 directly and indirectly favourable to the germination 
 
PEUDENTIAL APHOEISMS. 35 
 
 and up-spring of a nobler seed. If it be true, that 
 men are miserable because they are wicked, it is like- 
 wise true, that many are wicked because they are mi- 
 serable. Health, cheerfulness, and easy circumstances, 
 the ordinary consequences of temperance and industry, 
 will at least leave the field clear and open, will tend to 
 preserve the scales of the judgment even : while the 
 consciousness of possessing tbe esteem, respect, and 
 sympathy of your neigbbours, and the sense of your 
 own increasing power and influence, can scarcely 
 fail to give a tone of dignity to your mind, and in- 
 cline you to hope nobly of your own being. And 
 thus they may prepare and predispose you to the 
 sense and acknowledgment of a principle differing, 
 not merely in degree but in kind, from the faculties 
 and instincts of tbe higher and more intelligent spe- 
 cies of animals, (the ant, the beaver, the elephant,) 
 and which principle is therefore your proper huma- 
 nity. And on this account and with this view alone 
 may certain modes of pleasurable or agreeable sen- 
 sation, without confusion of terms, be honoured with 
 the title of refined, intellectual, ennobling pleasures. 
 For pleasure — (and happiness in its proper sense is 
 but the continuity and sum total of the pleasure 
 which is allotted or happens to a man, and hence by 
 the Greeks called evTvy^ia, that is, good hap, or more 
 religiously, evSai/xozna, that is, favourable providence) 
 — pleasure, I say, consists in the harmony between 
 the specific excitability of a living creature, and the 
 exciting causes correspondent thereto. Considered 
 therefore exclusively in and for itself, the only ques- 
 tion is quantum, not quale ? How much on the 
 whole? the contrary, that is, tbe painful and disa- 
 greeable, having been subtracted. The quality is a 
 matter of taste : et de gustibus non est disputandum. 
 No man can judge for another. 
 
 d 2 
 
36 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 This, I repeat, appears to me a safer language 
 than the sentences quoted above — (that virtue alone 
 is happiness ; that happiness consists in virtue, and 
 the like) — sayings which I find it hard to reconcile 
 with other positions of still more frequent occurrence 
 in the same divines, or with the declaration of St. 
 Paul : If in this life only we have hope, we are of all 
 men most miserable.* 
 
 At all events, I should rely far more confidently 
 on the converse, namely, that to be vicious is to be 
 miserable. Few men are so utterly reprobate, so 
 imbruted by their vices, as not to have some lucid, 
 or at least quiet and sober, intervals ; and in such a 
 moment, dum desceviunt irce, few can stand up un- 
 shaken against the appeal to their own experience 
 — What have been the wages of sin ? What has the 
 devil done for you ? What sort of master have you 
 found him ? Then let us in befitting detail, and by a 
 series of questions that ask so loud, and are secure 
 against any false answer, urge home the proof of 
 the position, that to be vicious is to be wretched; 
 adding the fearful corollary, that if even in the body, 
 which as long as life is in it can never be wholly be- 
 reaved of pleasurable sensations, vice is found to be 
 misery, what must it not be in the world to come ? 
 There, where even the crime is no longer possible, 
 much less the gratifications that once attended it ; — 
 where nothing of vice remains but its guilt and its 
 misery — vice must be misery itself, all and utter 
 misery. — So best, if I err not, may the motives of pru- 
 dence be held forth, and the impulses of self-love be 
 awakened, in alliance with truth, and free from the 
 danger of confounding things (the laws of duty, I 
 mean, and the maxims of interest) which it deeply 
 
 * 1 Cor. xv. 19.— Ed. 
 
PEUDENTIAL APHOKISMS. 37 
 
 concerns us to keep distinct ; inasmuch as this dis- 
 tinction and the faith therein are essential to our 
 moral nature, and this again the ground-work and 
 pre-condition of the spiritual state, in which the 
 humanity strives after godliness, and in the name and 
 power, and through the prevenient and assisting 
 grace, of the Mediator, will not strive in vain. 
 
 The advantages of a life passed in conformity with 
 the precepts of virtue and religion, and in how many 
 and various respects they recommend virtue and 
 religion even on grounds of prudence, form a delight- 
 ful subject of meditation, and a source of refreshing 
 thought to good and pious men. Nor is it strange 
 if, transported with the view, such persons should 
 sometimes discourse on the charm of forms and 
 colours to men whose eyes are not yet couched ; or 
 that they occasionally seem to invert the relations of 
 cause and effect, and forget that there are acts and 
 determinations of the will and affections, the conse- 
 quences of which may be plainly foreseen, and yet 
 cannot be made our proper and primary motives for 
 such acts and determinations, without destroying or 
 entirely altering the distinct nature and character of 
 the latter. Sophron is well informed that wealth 
 and extensive patronage will be the consequence of 
 his obtaining the love and esteem of Constantia. But 
 if the foreknowledge of this consequence were, and 
 were found out to be, Sophron's main and determining 
 motive for seeking this love and esteem ; and if 
 Constantia were a woman that merited, or was capa- 
 ble of feeling, either the one or the other ; would not 
 Sophron find (and deservedly too) aversion and con- 
 tempt in their stead ? Wherein, if not in this, differs 
 the friendship of worldlings from true friendship ? 
 Without kind offices and useful services, wherever 
 the power and opportunity occur, love would be a 
 
38 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 hollow pretence. Yet what noble mind would not 
 be offended, if he were thought to value the love for 
 the sake of the services, and not rather the services 
 for the sake of the love ? 
 
 APHORISM III. 
 
 Though prudence in itself is neither virtue nor 
 spiritual holiness, yet without prudence, or in oppo- 
 sition to it, neither virtue nor holiness can exist. 
 
 APHORISM IV. 
 
 Art thou under the tyranny of sin — a slave to 
 vicious habits — at enmity with God, and a skulking 
 fugitive from thine own conscience? 0, how idle 
 the dispute, whether the listening to the dictates of 
 prudence from prudential and self-interested motives 
 be virtue or merit, when the not listening is guilt, 
 misery, madness, and despair ! The best, the most 
 Christian-like, pity thou canst show, is to take pity 
 on thy own soul. The best and most acceptable 
 service thou canst render, is to do justice and show 
 mercy to thyself. 
 
39 
 
 MOEAL AND EELIGIOUS APHOEISMS. 
 
 APHORISM I. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 What the Apostles 'were in an extraordinary way, 
 befitting the first annunciation of a religion for all man- 
 kind, this all teachers of moral truth, who aim to 
 prepare for its reception by calling the attention of 
 men to the law in their own hearts, may, without 
 presumption, consider themselves to be underordinary 
 gifts and circumstances : namely, ambassadors for the 
 greatest of kings, and upon no mean employment, the 
 great treaty of peace and reconcilement betwixt him 
 and mankind. 
 
 APHORISM II. 
 
 OF THE FEELINGS NATURAL TO INGENUOUS MINDS TOWARDS 
 ■ THOSE WHO HAVE FIRST LED THEM TO REFLECT. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Though divine truths are to be received equally from 
 every minister alike, yet it must be acknowledged 
 that there is something (we know not what to call it) 
 of a more acceptable reception of those which at first 
 were the means of bringing men to God, than of 
 others ; like the opinion some have of physicians, 
 whom they love. 
 
 APHORISM III. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLEEIDGE. 
 
 The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion 
 to the worth and value of its object. What, then, is 
 the best knowledge ? 
 
 The exactest knowledge of things is, to know them 
 
40 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 in their causes ; it is then an excellent thing, and 
 worthy of their endeavours who are most desirous of 
 knowledge, to know the hest things in their highest 
 causes ; and the happiest way of attaining to this 
 knowledge is, to possess those things, and to know 
 them in experience. 
 
 APHORISM IV. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 It is one main point of happiness, that he that is 
 happy doth know and judge himself to be so. This 
 being the peculiar good of a reasonable creature, it is 
 to be enjoyed in a reasonable way. It is not as the 
 dull resting of a stone, or any other natural body in 
 its natural place ; but the knowledge and considera- 
 tion of it is the fruition of it, the very relishing and 
 tasting of its sweetness. 
 
 As in a Christian land we receive the lessons of 
 morality in connexion with the doctrines of revealed 
 religion, we cannot too early free the mind from pre- 
 judices widely spread, in part through the abuse, but 
 far more from ignorance, of the true meaning of doc- 
 trinal terms, which, however they may have been 
 perverted to the purposes of fanaticism, are not only 
 Scriptural, but of too frequent occurrence in Scripture 
 to be overlooked or passed by in silence. The fol- 
 lowing extract, therefore, deserves attention, as clear- 
 ing the doctrine of salvation, in connexion with the 
 divine foreknowledge, from all objections on the 
 score of morality, by the just and impressive view 
 which the Archbishop here gives of those occasional 
 revolutionary moments, that turn of the tide in the 
 mind and character of certain individuals, which 
 
MOEAL AND EELIGIOUS APHOEISMS. 41 
 
 (taking a religious course, and referred immediately 
 to the Author of all good) were in his day, more 
 generally than at present, entitled Effectual Calling. 
 The theological interpretation and the philosophic 
 validity of this Apostolic triad, election, salvation, 
 and effectual calling, (the latter being the interme- 
 diate,) will be found, among the comments on the 
 Aphorisms of spiritual import. For my present pur- 
 pose it will be sufficient if only I prove that the 
 doctrines are in themselves innocuous, and may be 
 both holden and taught without any practical ill 
 consequences, and without detriment to the moral 
 frame. 
 
 APHORISM V. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Two links of the chain (namely, Election and Sal- 
 vation) are up in heaven in God's own hand ; but 
 this middle one (that is, Effectual Calling) is let down 
 to earth, into the hearts of his children, and they lay- 
 ing hold on it have sure hold on the other two : for 
 no power can sever them. If, therefore, they can read 
 the characters of God's image in their own souls, those 
 are the counterpart of the golden characters of his 
 love, in which their names are written in the book of 
 life. Their believing writes their names under the 
 promises of the revealed book of life (the Scriptures) 
 and thus ascertains them, that the same names are in 
 the secret book of life which God hath by himself 
 from eternity. So that finding the stream of grace 
 in their hearts, though they see not the fountain 
 whence it flows, nor the ocean into which it returns, 
 yet they know that it hath its source in their eternal 
 election, and shall empty itself into the ocean of their 
 eternal salvation. 
 
 If Election, Effectual Calling, and Salvation, be 
 
42 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 inseparably linked together, then, by any one of them 
 a man may lay hold upon all the rest, and may know 
 that his hold is sure ; and this is the way wherein we 
 may attain, and ought to seek, the comfortable as- 
 surance of the love of God. Therefore, make your 
 calling sure, and by that your election ; for that be- 
 ing done, this follows of itself. We are not to pry 
 immediately into the decree, but to read it in the per- 
 formance. Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, 
 yet the needle of the compass which points to it, tells 
 him which way he sails : thus the heart that is touched 
 with the loadstone of divine love, trembling with godly 
 fear, and yet still looking towards God by fixed be- 
 lieving, interprets the fear by the love in the fear, and 
 tells the soul that its course is heavenward, towards 
 the haven of eternal rest. He that loves, may be 
 sure he was loved first ; and he that chooses God for 
 his delight and portion, may conclude confidently, 
 that God hath chosen him to be one of those that 
 shall enjoy him, and be happy in him for ever : for 
 that our love and electing of him is but the return 
 and repercussion of the beams of his love shining 
 upon us. 
 
 Although from present unsanctification, a man can- 
 not infer that he is not elected ; for the decree may, 
 for part of a man's life, run (as it were) underground ; 
 yet this is sure, that that estate leads to death, and 
 unless it be broken, will prove the black line of repro- 
 bation. A man hath no portion amongst the children 
 of God, nor can read one word of comfort in all the 
 promises that belong to them, while he remains un- 
 holy. 
 
 In addition to the preceding, I select the following 
 paragraphs, as having no where seen the terms, Spirit, 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 48 
 
 the Gifts of the Spirit, and the like, so effectually vin- 
 dicated from the sneers of the sciolist on the one hand, 
 and protected from the perversions of the fanatic on 
 the other. In these paragraphs the Archbishop at 
 once shatters and precipitates the only drawbridge 
 between the fanatical and the orthodox doctrine of 
 grace, and the gifts of the Spirit. In Scripture the 
 term Spirit, as a power or property seated in the 
 human soul, never stands singly, but is always speci- 
 fied by a genitive case following ; this being a He- 
 braism instead of the adjective which the writer would 
 have used if he had thought, as well as written, in 
 Greek. It is the spirit of meekness (a meek spirit), 
 or the spirit of chastity, and the like. The moral 
 result, the specific form and character in which the 
 Spirit manifests its presence, is the only sure pledge 
 and token of its presence ; which is to be, and which 
 safely may be, inferred from its practical effects, but 
 of which an immediate knowledge or consciousness 
 is impossible ; and every pretence to such knowledge 
 is either hypocrisy or fanatical delusion. 
 
 APHORISM VI. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 If any pretend that they have the Spirit, and so 
 turn away from the straight rule of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, they have a spirit indeed, but it is a fanatical 
 spirit, the spirit of delusion and giddiness : but the 
 Spirit of God, that leads his children in the way of 
 truth, and is for that purpose sent them from heaven 
 to guide them thither, squares their thoughts and ways 
 to that rule whereof it is author, and that word which 
 was inspired by it, and sanctifies them to obedience. 
 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his com- 
 mandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 
 (1 John ii. 4.) 
 
44 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Now this Spirit which sanctifieth, and sanctifieth 
 to obedience, is within us the evidence of our election, 
 and the earnest of our salvation. And whoso are not 
 sanctified and led by this Spirit, the Apostle tells us 
 what is their condition : If any man have not the 
 Spirit of Christ, he is none of his* The stones 
 which are appointed for that glorious temple above, 
 are hewn, and polished, and prepared for it here ; as 
 the stones were wrought and prepared in the moun- 
 tains, for building the temple at Jerusalem. 
 
 There are many serious and sincere Christians who 
 have not attained to a fulness of knowledge and in- 
 sight, but are well and judiciously employed in pre- 
 paring for it. Even these may study the master- works 
 of our elder divines with safety and advantage, if they 
 will accustom themselves to translate the theological 
 terms into their moral equivalents ; saying to them- 
 selves — This may not be all that is meant, but this 
 is meant, and it is that portion of the meaning, which 
 belongs to me in the present stage of my progress. 
 For example : render the words, sanctification of 
 the Spirit, or the sanctifying influences of the Spirit, 
 by purity in life and action from a pure principle. 
 
 He needs only reflect on his own experience to be 
 convinced, that the man makes the motive, and not 
 the motive the man. What is a strong motive to one 
 man, is no motive at all to another. If, then, the 
 man determines the motive, what determines the 
 man — to a good and worthy act, we will say, or a 
 virtuous course of conduct ? The intelligent will, or 
 the self-determining power ? True, in part it is ; 
 and therefore the will is, pre-eminently, the spiritual 
 
 * Rom. viii. 9.— Ed. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 45 
 
 constituent in our being. But will any reflecting man 
 admit, that his own will is the only and sufficient de- 
 terminant of all he is, and all he does ? Is nothing to 
 be attributed to the harmony of the system to which 
 he belongs, and to the pre-established fitness of the 
 objects and agents, known and unknown, that sur- 
 round him, as acting on the will, though, doubtless, 
 with it likewise ? — a process, which the co-instanta- 
 neous yet reciprocal action of the air and the vital 
 energy of the lungs in breathing, may help to render 
 intelligible. 
 
 Again : in the world we see everywhere evidences 
 of a unity, which the component parts are so far from 
 explaining, that they necessarily pre-suppose it as the 
 cause and condition of their existing as those parts ; 
 or even of their existing at all. This antecedent 
 unity, or cause and principle of each union, it has 
 since the time of Bacon and Kepler been customary 
 to call a law. This crocus, for instance, or any other 
 flower, the reader may have in sight, or choose to 
 bring before his fancy. That the root, stem, leaves, 
 petals, &c. cohere to one plant, is owing to an ante- 
 cedent power or principle in the seed, which existed 
 before a single particle of the matters that constitute 
 the size and visibility of the crocus, had been attracted 
 from the surrounding soil, air, and moisture. Shall 
 we turn to the seed ? Here too the same necessity 
 meets us. An antecedent unity — (I speak not of the 
 parent plant, but of an agency antecedent in the 
 order of operance, yet remaining present as the con- 
 servative and reproductive power) — must here too be 
 supposed. Analyse the seed with the finest tools, 
 and let the solar microscope come in aid of your 
 senses, — what do you find ? Means and instruments, 
 a wonderous fairy tale of nature, magazines of food, 
 stores of various sorts, pipes, spiracles, defences — a 
 
46 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 house of many chambers, and the owner and inhabi- 
 tant invisible ! Reflect further on the countless rail- 
 lions of seeds of the same name, each more than 
 numerically differenced from every other : and further 
 yet, reflect on the requisite harmony of all surround- 
 ing things, each of which necessitates the same pro- 
 cess of thought, and the coherence of all of which to 
 a system, a world, demands its own adequate ante- 
 cedent unity, which must therefore of necessity be 
 present to all and in all, yet in no wise excluding or 
 suspending the individual law or principle of union 
 in each. Now, will reason, will common sense, en- 
 dure the assumption, that it is highly reasonable to 
 believe a universal power, as the cause and pre-con- 
 dition of the harmony of all particular wholes, each 
 of which involves the working principle of its own 
 union — that it is reasonable, I say, to believe this 
 respecting the aggregate of objects, which, without a 
 subject, (that is, a sentient and intelligent existence) 
 would be purposeless ; and yet unreasonable and even 
 superstitious or enthusiastic to entertain a similar 
 belief in relation to the system of intelligent and self- 
 conscious beings, to the moral and personal world ? 
 But if in this too, in the great community of persons, 
 it is rational to infer a one universal presence, a one 
 present to all and in all, is it not most irrational to 
 suppose that a finite will can exclude it ? 
 
 Whenever, therefore, the man is determined (that 
 is, impelled and directed) to act in harmony of inter- 
 communion, must not something be attributed to this 
 all-present power as acting in the will ? And by what 
 fitter names can we call this than the law, as em- 
 powering ; the word, as informing ; and the spirit, 
 as actuating ? 
 
 What has been here said amounts, I am aware, 
 only to a negative conception ; but this is all that is 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 47 
 
 required for a mind at that period of its growth which 
 we are now supposing, and as long as religion is con- 
 templated under the form of morality. A positive in- 
 sight belongs to a more advanced stage : for spiritual 
 truths can only spiritually be discerned. This we 
 know from revelation, and (the existence of spiritual 
 truths being granted) philosophy is compelled to draw 
 the same conclusion. But though merely negative, 
 it is sufficient to render the union of religion and mo- 
 rality conceivable; sufficient to satisfy an unprejudiced 
 inquirer, that the spiritual doctrines of the Christian 
 religion are not at war with the reasoning faculty, 
 and that if they do not run on the same line, or radius, 
 with the understanding, yet neither do they cut or 
 cross it. It is sufficient, in short, to prove, that some 
 distinct and consistent meaning may be attached to 
 the assertion of the learned and philosophic Apostle, 
 that the Spirit beareth xvitness with our spirit* that 
 is, with the will, as the supernatural in man and the 
 principle of our personality — of that I mean, by which 
 we are responsible agents ; persons, and not merely 
 living things. f 
 
 It will suffice to satisfy a reflecting mind, that even 
 at the porch and threshold of revealed truth there is 
 a great and worthy sense in which we may believe 
 
 * Rom. viii. 16.—^. 
 ■f* Whatever is comprised in the chain and mechanism of 
 cause and effect, of course necessitated, and having its neces- 
 sity in some other thing, antecedent or concurrent — this is 
 said to be natural ; and the aggregate and system of all such 
 things is Nature. It is, therefore, a contradiction in terms 
 to include in this the free-will, of which the verbal definition 
 is — that which originates an act or state of being. In this 
 sense, therefore, which is the sense of St. Paul, and indeed 
 of the New Testament throughout, spiritual and supernatural 
 are synonymous. 
 
48 AIDS TO EE FLECTION. 
 
 the Apostld's assurance, that not only doth the Spirit 
 help our infirmities ;* that is, act on the will by a pre- 
 disposing influence from without, as it were, though 
 in a spiritual manner, and without suspending or 
 destroying its freedom — (the possibility of which is 
 proved to us in the influences of education, providen- 
 tial occurrences, and, above all, of example) — but that 
 in regenerate souls it may act in the will ; that unit- 
 ing and becoming one f with our will or spirit it may 
 make intercession for us :t nay, in this intimate 
 union taking upon itself the form of our infirmities, 
 may intercede for us with groanings that cannot be 
 uttered.^ Nor is there any danger of fanaticism 
 or enthusiasm as the consequence of such a belief, if 
 only the attention be carefully and earnestly drawn to 
 the concluding words of the sentence ; if only the 
 due force and the full import be given to the term 
 unutterable or incommunicable, — aAaA^rois — in St. 
 Paul's use of it. In this the strictest and most 
 proper use of the term, it signifies, that the subject, 
 of which it is predicated, is something which I cannot, 
 which from the nature of the thing it is impossible 
 that I should, communicate to any human mind (even 
 of a person under the same conditions with myself) so 
 as to make it in itself the object of his direct and 
 immediate consciousness. It cannot be the object of 
 my own direct and immediate consciousness ; but must 
 
 * Rom. viii. 26.— Ed. 
 
 ■f Some distant and faint similitude of this, that merely as 
 a similitude may be innocently used to quiet the fancy, pro- 
 vided it be not imposed on the understanding as an analogous 
 fact, or as identical in kind, is presented to us in the power 
 of the magnet to awaken and strengthen the magnetic power 
 in a bar of iron, and (in the instance of the compound magnet) 
 of its acting in and with the latter. 
 
 t Rom. viii. 26.— Ed. § Ibid. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 49 
 
 be inferred. Inferred it may be from its workings ; 
 it cannot be perceived in tbem. And tbanks to God ! 
 in all points in which the knowledge is of high and 
 necessary concern to our moral and religious welfare, 
 from tbe effects it may safely be inferred by us, from 
 the workings it may be assuredly known ; and the 
 Scriptures furnish the clear and unfailing rules for 
 directing the inquiry, and for drawing the conclusion. 
 If any reflecting mind be surprised that the aids of 
 the Divine Spirit should be deeper than our conscious- 
 ness can reach, it must arise from the not having at- 
 tended sufficiently to the nature and necessary limits 
 of human consciousness. For the same impossibility 
 exists as to the first acts and movements of our own 
 will; — the farthest distance our recollection can follow 
 back the traces never leads us to the first foot-mark ; 
 the lowest depth that the light of our consciousness 
 can visit even with a doubtful glimmering, is still at 
 an unknown distance from the ground : and so, indeed, 
 must it be with all truths, and all modes of being, that 
 can neither be counted, coloured, nor delineated. Be- 
 fore and after, when applied to such subjects, are but 
 allegories, which the sense or imagination supplies 
 to the understanding. The position of the Aristote- 
 leans, nihil in intellects, quod non prius in sensu, on 
 which Locke's Essay is grounded, is irrefragable : 
 Locke erred only in taking half the truth for a whole 
 truth. Conception is consequent on perception. What 
 we cannot imagine, we cannot, in the proper sense of 
 the word, conceive. 
 
 I have already given one definition of Nature. 
 Another, and differing from the former in words only, 
 is this : Whatever is representable in the forms of 
 time and space, is Nature. But whatever is compre- 
 hended in time and space, is included in the mechanism 
 of cause and effect. And conversely, whatever, by 
 
 E 
 
QU aids to eeflection. 
 
 whatever means, has its principle in itself, so far as 
 to originate its actions, cannot be contemplated in any 
 of the forms of space and time ; it must, therefore, be 
 considered as spirit or spiritual by a mind in that 
 stage of its development which is here supposed, and 
 which we have agreed to understand under the name 
 of morality or the moral state : for in this stage we are 
 concerned only with the forming of negative concep- 
 tions, negative convictions ; and by spiritual I do not 
 pretend to determine what the will is, but what it is 
 not — namely that it is not nature. And as no man 
 who admits a will at all, (for we may safely presume 
 that no man, not meaning to speak figuratively, would 
 call the shifting current of a stream the will* of the 
 T'iver), can suppose it below nature, we may safely 
 add, that it is supernatural ; and this without the least 
 pretence to any positive notion or insight. 
 
 Now Morality accompanied with convictions like 
 these, I have ventured to call Religious Morality. Of 
 the importance I attach to the state of mind implied 
 in these convictions, for its own sake, and as the na- 
 tural preparation for a yet higher state and a more 
 substantive knowledge, proof more than sufficient, 
 perhaps, has been given in the length and minuteness 
 of this introductory discussion, and in the foreseen 
 risk which I run of exposing the Volume at large to 
 the censure which every work, or rather which every 
 writer, must be prepared to undergo, who, treating of 
 subjects that cannot be seen, touched, or in any other 
 way made matters of outward sense, is yet anxious to 
 
 * " The river glideth at his own sweet will." 
 Wordsworth's exquisite Sonnet onWestminster-bridge at sunrise. 
 But who does not see that here the poetic charm arises 
 from the known and felt impropriety of the expression, in 
 the technical sense of the word, impropriety, among gram- 
 marians ? 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 51 
 
 convey a distinct meaning by the words lie makes use 
 of — the censure of being dry, abstract, and — (of all 
 qualities most scaring and opprobrious to the ears of 
 the present generation) — metaphysical : though how 
 it is possible that a work not physical, that is, em- 
 ployed on objects known or believed on the evidence 
 of senses, should be other than metaphysical, that is, 
 treating on subjects, the evidence of which is not 
 derived from the senses, is a problem which critics 
 of this order find it convenient to leave unsolved. 
 
 I shall, indeed, have reason to think nryself fortunate, 
 if this be all the charge. How many smart quotations, 
 which (duly cemented by personal allusions to the 
 author's supposed pursuits, attachments, and infir- 
 mities), would of themselves make up a review of this 
 Volume, might be supplied from the works of Butler, 
 Swift, and Warburton ! For instance: " It may not 
 be amiss to inform the public, that the compiler of the 
 Aids to Reflection, and commenter on a Scotch Bishop's 
 Platonico-Calvinistic commentary on St. Peter, be- 
 longs to the sect of the iEolists, whose fruitful imagi- 
 nations led them into certain notions, which although 
 in appearance very unaccountable, are not without 
 their mysteries and their meanings : furnishing plenty 
 of matter for such, whose converting imaginations dis- 
 pose them to reduce all things into types ; who can 
 make shadows, no thanks to the sun ; and then mould 
 them into substances, no thanks to philosophy ; whose 
 peculiar talent lies in fixing tropes and allegories to 
 the letter, and refining what is literal into figure and 
 mystery. 
 
 And would it were my lot to meet with a critic, 
 who, in the might of his own convictions, and with 
 arms of equal point and efficiency from his own forge, 
 would come forth as my assailant ; or who, as a friend 
 to my purpose, would set forth the objections to the 
 
 e 2 
 
52 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 matter and pervading spirit of these Aphorisms, and 
 the accompanying elucidations. Were it my task to 
 form the mind of a young man of talent, desirous to 
 establish his belief on solid principles, and in the light 
 of distinct understanding, I would commence his 
 theological studies, or, at least, that most important 
 part of them respecting the aid which religion pro- 
 mises in our attempts to realise the ideas of morality, 
 by bringing together all the passages scattered 
 throughout the writings of Swift and Butler, that 
 bear on enthusiasm, spiritual operations, and pretences 
 to the gifts of the Spirit, with the whole train of new 
 lights, raptures, experiences, and the like. For all 
 that the richest wit, in intimate union with profound 
 sense and steady observation, can supply on these 
 topics, is to be found in the works of these satirists ; 
 though unhappily alloyed with much that can only 
 tend to pollute the imagination. 
 
 Without stopping to estimate the degree of carica- 
 ture in the portraits sketched by these bold masters, 
 and without attempting to determine in how many of 
 the enthusiasts brought forward by them in proof of 
 the influence of false doctrines, a constitutional in- 
 sanity, that would probably have shown itself in some 
 other form, would be the truer solution, I would direct 
 my pupil's attention to one feature common to the 
 whole group — the pretence, namely, of possessing, or 
 a belief and expectation grounded on other men's as- 
 surances of their possessing, an immediate conscious- 
 ness, a sensible experience, of the Spirit in and during 
 its operation on the soul. It is not enough that you 
 grant them a consciousness of the gifts and graces in- 
 fused, or an assurance of the spiritual origin of the 
 same, grounded on their correspondence to the Scrip- 
 ture promises, and their conformity with the idea 
 of the divine Giver. No ! they all alike, it will 
 
M0BAL AND KELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 53 
 
 be found, lay claim, or at least look forward, to an 
 inward perception of the Spirit itself and of its 
 operating. 
 
 Whatever must be misrepresented in order to be 
 ridiculed, is in fact not ridiculed ; but the thing sub- 
 stituted for it. It is a satire on something else, coupled 
 with a lie on the part of the satirist, who knowing, or 
 having the means of knowing the truth, chose to call 
 one thing by the name of another. The pretensions to 
 the supernatural, pilloried by Butler, sent to Bedlam 
 by Swift, and (on their re-appearance in public) gib- 
 betted by Warburton, and anatomised by Bishop 
 Lavington,* one and all, have this for their essential 
 character, that the Spirit is made the immediate object 
 of sense or sensation. Whether the spiritual presence 
 and agency are supposed cognisable by indescribable 
 feeling or unimaginable vision by some specific visual 
 energy ; whether seen or heard, or touched, smelt, 
 and tasted — for in those vast store-houses of fana- 
 tical assertion, — the volumes of ecclesiastical history 
 and religious auto-biography, — instances are not 
 wanting even of the three latter extravagancies ; 
 — this variety in the mode may render the several 
 pretensions more or less offensive to the taste ; but 
 with the same absurdity for the reason, this being de- 
 rived from a contradiction in terms common and radi- 
 cal to them all alike, — the assumption of a something 
 essentially supersensual, which is nevertheless the 
 object of sense, that is not supersensual. 
 
 Well then ! — for let me be allowed still to suppose 
 the Reader present to me, and that I am addressing 
 him in the character of companion and guide — the 
 positions recommended for your examination not only 
 
 * " A Comparison between the enthusiasm of Methodists 
 and of Papists." — Ed. 
 
54 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 do not involve, but exclude, this inconsistency. And 
 for aught that hitherto appears, we may see with com- 
 placency the arrows of satire feathered with wit, 
 weighted with sense, and discharged by a strong arm, 
 fly home to their mark. Our conceptions of a pos- 
 sible spiritual communion, though they are but nega- 
 tive, and only preparatory to a faith in its actual 
 existence, stand neither in the level nor the direction 
 of the shafts. 
 
 If it be objected, that Swift and Warburton did not 
 choose openly to set up the interpretations of later 
 and more rational divines against the decisions of their 
 own Church, and from prudential considerations did 
 not attack the doctrine in toto : that is their concern 
 (I would answer), and it is more charitable to think 
 otherwise. But we are in the silent school of reflec- 
 tion, in the secret confessional of thought. Should 
 we lie for God, and that to our own thoughts ? — 
 They, indeed, who dare do the one, will soon be able 
 to do the other. So did the comforters of Job: and 
 to the divines, who resemble Job's comforters, we will 
 leave both attempts. 
 
 But, it may be said, a possible conception is not 
 necessarily a true one ; nor even a probable one, 
 where the facts can be otherwise explained. In the 
 name of the supposed pupil I would reply — That is 
 the very question I am preparing myself to examine; 
 and am now seeking the vantage ground where I may 
 best command the facts. In my own person, I would 
 ask the objector, whether he counted the declarations 
 of Scripture among the facts to be explained. But 
 both for myself and my pupil, and in behalf of all 
 rational inquiry, I would demand that the decision 
 should not be such, in itself or in its effects, as would 
 prevent our becoming acquainted with the most im- 
 portant of these facts; nay, such as would for the 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 55 
 
 miud of the decider, preclude their very existence. 
 Unless ye believe, says the prophet, ye cannot under- 
 stand. Suppose (what is at least possible) that the 
 facts should be consequent on the belief, it is clear 
 that without the belief the materials, on which the 
 understanding is to exert itself, would be wanting. 
 
 The reflections that naturally arise out of this last 
 remark, are those that best suit the stage at which we 
 last halted, and from which we now recommence our 
 progress — the state of a moral man, who has already 
 welcomed certain truths of religion, and is inquiring 
 after other and more special doctrines : still, however, 
 as a moralist, desirous, indeed, to receive them into 
 combination with morality, but to receive them as its 
 aid, not as its substitute. Now, to such a man I 
 say; — Before you reject the opinions and doctrines 
 asserted and enforced in the following extract from 
 Leighton, and before you give way to the emotions of 
 distaste or ridicule, which the prejudices of the circle 
 in which you move, or your own familiarity with the 
 mad perversions of the doctrine by fanatics in all 
 ages, have connected with the very words, spirit, 
 grace, gifts, operations, and the like, re-examine the 
 arguments advanced in the first pages of this intro- 
 ductory comment, and the simple and sober view of 
 the doctrine, contemplated in the first instance as a 
 mere idea of the reason, flowing naturally from the 
 admission of an infinite omnipresent mind as the 
 ground of the universe. Reflect again and again, 
 and be sure that you understand the doctrine before 
 you determine on rejecting it. That no false judg- 
 ments, not extravagant conceits, no practical ill-conse- 
 quences need arise out of the belief of the Spirit, and 
 its possible communion with the spiritual principle 
 in man, or can arise out of the right belief, or are 
 compatible with the doctrine truly and Scripturally 
 
56 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 explained, Leighton, and almost every single period in 
 the passage here transcribed from him, will suffice to 
 convince you. 
 
 On the other hand, reflect on the consequences of 
 rejecting it. For surely it is not the act of a reflect- 
 ing mind, nor the part of a man of sense, to disown 
 and cast out one tenet, and yet persevere in admitting 
 and clinging to another that has neither sense nor 
 purpose, but what supposes and rests on the truth 
 and reality of the former. If you have resolved that 
 all belief of a divine Comforter present to our inmost 
 being and aiding our infirmities, is fond and fanati- 
 cal, — if the Scriptures promising and asserting such 
 communion are to be explained away into the action 
 of circumstances, and the necessary movements of 
 the vast machine, in one of the circulating chains of 
 which the human will is a petty link ; — in what bet- 
 ter light can prayer appear to you, than the groans 
 of a wounded lion in his solitary den, or the howl of 
 a dog with his eyes on the moon ? At the best, you 
 can regard it only as a transient bewilderment of the 
 social instinct, as a social habit misapplied. Unless 
 indeed you should adopt the theory which I remem- 
 ber to have read in the writings of the late Bishop 
 Jebb, and for some supposed beneficial re-action of 
 praying on the prayer's own mind, should practise it 
 as a species of animal-magnetism to be brought about 
 by a wilful eclipse of the reason, and a temporary 
 make-believe on the part of the self-magnetiser ! 
 
 At all events, do not pre-judge a doctrine, the utter 
 rejection of which must oppose a formidable obstacle 
 to your acceptance of Christianity itself, when the 
 books, from which alone we can learn what Chris- 
 tianity is and what it teaches, are so strangely written, 
 that in a series of the most concerning points, inclu- 
 ding (historical facts excepted) all the peculiar tenets 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 57 
 
 of the religion, the plain and obvious meaning of the 
 words, that in which they were understood by learned 
 and simple, for at least sixteen centuries, during the 
 larger part of which the language was a living lan- 
 guage, is no sufficient guide to their actual sense or 
 to the writer's own meaning ! And tbis too, where 
 the literal and received sense involves nothing impos- 
 sible, or immoral, or contrary to reason. With such 
 a persuasion, Deism would be a more consistent creed. 
 But, alas ! even this will fail you. The utter rejec- 
 tion of all present and living communion with the uni- 
 versal Spirit impoverishes Deism itself, and renders it 
 as cheerless as Atheism, from which indeed it would 
 differ only by an obscure impersonation of what the 
 atheist receives unpersonified under the name of Fate 
 or Nature. 
 
 APHOKISM VII. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 The proper and natural effect, and in the absence of 
 all disturbing or intercepting forces, the certain and 
 sensible accompaniment of peace or reconcilement 
 with God, is our own inward peace, a calm and quiet 
 temper of mind. And where there is a consciousness 
 of earnestly desiring, and of having sincerely striven 
 after the former, the latter may be considered as a 
 sense of its presence. In this case, I say, and for 
 a soul watchful and under the discipline of the Gospel, 
 the peace with a man's self may be the medium or 
 organ through which the assurance of his peace with 
 God is conveyed. We will not therefore condemn 
 this mode of speaking, though we dare not greatly 
 recommend it. Be it, that there is, truly and in 
 sobriety of speech, enough of just analogy in the sub- 
 jects meant, to make this use of the words, if less 
 than proper, yet something more than metaphorical ; 
 
58 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 still we must be cautious not to transfer to the object 
 the defects or the deficiency of the organ, which must 
 needs partake of the imperfections of the imperfect 
 beings to whom it belongs. Not without the co-as- 
 surance of other senses and of the same sense in 
 other men, dare we affirm that what our eye beholds 
 is verily there to be beholden. Much less may we 
 conclude negatively, and from the inadequacy, or the 
 suspension, or from any other affection of sight infer 
 the non-existence, or departure, or changes of the 
 thing itseif. The chameleon darkens in the shade of 
 him that bends over it to ascertain its colours. In 
 like manner, but with yet greater caution, ought we 
 to think respecting a tranquil habit of the inward 
 life, considered as a spiritual sense, — a medial organ 
 in and by which our peace with God, and the lively 
 working of his grace on our spirit, are perceived by 
 us. This peace which we have with God in Christ 
 is inviolable ; but because the sense and persuasion 
 of it may be interrupted, the soul that is truly at 
 peace with God may for a time be disquieted in itself, 
 through weakness of faith, or the strength of temp- 
 tation, or the darkness of desertion, losing sight of 
 that grace, that love and light of God's countenance, 
 on which its tranquillity and joy depend. Thou didst 
 hide thy face, saith David, and I was troubled. 
 But when these eclipses are over, the soul is revived 
 with new consolation, as the face of the earth is 
 renewed and made to smile with the return of the 
 sun in the spring ; and this ought always to uphold 
 Christians in the saddest times, namely, that the 
 grace and love of God towards them depend not on 
 their sense, nor upon any thing in them, but is still 
 in itself, incapable of the smallest alteration. 
 
 A holy heart that gladly entertains grace, shall 
 find that it and peace cannot dwell asunder ; while 
 
MOEAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 59 
 
 an ungodly man may sleep to death in the lethargy 
 of carnal presumption and impenitency ; but a true, 
 lively, solid peace, he cannot have. There is no 
 peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Isa. lvii. 21. 
 
 APHORISM VIII. 
 
 WORLDLY HOPES. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Worldly hopes are not living, but lying hopes ; 
 they die often before us, and we live to bury them, 
 and see our own folly and infelicity in trusting to 
 them ; but at the utmost, they die with us when we 
 die, and can accompany us no further. But the 
 lively hope, which is the Christian's portion, answers 
 expectation to the full, and much beyond it, and 
 deceives no way but in that happy way of far exceed- 
 ing it. 
 
 A living hope, living in death itself! The world 
 dares say no more for its device, than Dum spiro 
 spero : but the children of God can add, by virtue of 
 this living hope, Dum exspiro spero. 
 
 APHORISM IX. 
 
 THE WORLDLING'S FEAR. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 It is a fearful thing when a man and all his hopes 
 die together. Thus saith Solomon of the wicked, 
 Prov. xi. 7 — When he dieth, then die his hopes ; 
 (many of thembefore, but at the utmost then, all of 
 them ;) but the righteous hath hope in his death. 
 Prov. xiv. 32.* 
 
 * One of the numerous proofs against those who with a 
 strange inconsistency hold the Old Testament to have been 
 inspired throughout, and yet deny that the doctrine of a 
 future state is taught therein. 
 
60 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM X. 
 
 WORLDLY MIRTH. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, 
 and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth 
 songs to a heavy heart. Prov. xxv. 20. Worldly 
 mirth is so far from curing spiritual grief, that even 
 worldly grief, where it is great and takes deep root, 
 is not allayed but increased by it. A man who is full 
 of inward heaviness, the more he is encompassed 
 about with mirth, it exasperates and enrages his grief 
 the more ; like ineffectual weak physic, which removes 
 not the humour, but stirs it and makes it more un- 
 quiet. But spiritual joy is seasonable for all estates ; 
 in prosperity, it is pertinent to crown and sanctify all 
 other enjoyments, with this which so far surpasses 
 them ; and in distress, it is the only Nepenthe, the 
 cordial of fainting spirits : so Psal. iv. 7, He hath 
 put joy into my heart. This mirth makes way for 
 itself, which other mirth cannot do. These songs 
 are sweetest in the night of distress. 
 
 There is something exquisitely beautiful and touch- 
 ing in the first of these similies : and the second, 
 though less pleasing to the imagination, has the charm 
 of propriety, and expresses the transition with equal 
 force and liveliness. A grief of recent birth is a sick 
 infant that must have its medicine administered in 
 its milk, and sad thoughts are the sorrowful heart's 
 natural food. This is a complaint that is not to be 
 cured by opposites, which for the most part only 
 reverse the symptoms while they exasperate the 
 disease — or like a rock in the mid channel of a river 
 swoln by a sudden rain-flush from the mountain, 
 which only detains the excess of waters from their 
 proper outlet, and makes them foam, roar, and eddy. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 61 
 
 The soul in her desolation hugs the sorrow close to 
 her, as her sole remaining garment : and this must 
 be drawn off so gradually, and the garment to be put 
 in its stead so gradually slipt on and feel so like the 
 former, that the sufferer shall be sensible of the 
 change only by the refreshment. The true spirit of 
 consolation is well content to detain the tear in the 
 eye, and finds a surer pledge of its success in the 
 smile of resignation that dawns through that, than in 
 the liveliest shows of a forced and alien exhilaration. 
 
 APHORISM XI. 
 
 Plotinus thanked God, that his soul was not tied 
 to an immortal body. 
 
 APHORISM XII. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 What a full confession do we make of our dissatis- 
 faction with the objects of our bodily senses, that in 
 our attempts to express what we conceive the best of 
 beings, and the greatest of felicities to be, we de- 
 scribe by the exact contraries of all that we experi- 
 ence here — the one as infinite, incomprehensible, 
 immutable; the other as incorruptible, undefiled, 
 and that passeth not away. At all events, this co- 
 incidence, say rather, identity of attributes, is suffi- 
 cient to apprise us, that to be inheritors of bliss, we 
 must become the children of God. 
 
 This remark of Leighton's is ingenious and start- 
 ling. Another, and more fruitful, perhaps more solid, 
 inference from the fact would be, that there is some- 
 thing in the human mind which makes it know (as 
 soon as it is sufficiently awakened to reflect on its 
 own thoughts and notices), that in all finite quantity 
 there is an infinite, in all measure of time an eternal ; 
 
62 AIDS TO E INFLECTION. 
 
 that the latter are the basis, the substance, the true 
 and abiding reality of the former ; and that as we 
 truly are, only as far as God is with us, so neither 
 can we truly possess — that is, enjoy — our being or 
 any other real good, but by living in the sense of his 
 holy presence. 
 
 A life of wickedness is a life of lies ; and an evil 
 being, or the being of evil, the last and darkest 
 mystery. 
 
 APHORISM XIII. 
 
 THE WISEST USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 It is not altogether unprofitable, — yea, it is great 
 wisdom in Christians to be arming themselves against 
 such temptations as may befall them hereafter, though 
 they have not as yet met with them ; to labour to 
 overcome them before-hand, to suppose the hardest 
 things that may be incident to them, and to put on 
 the strongest resolutions they can attain unto. Yet 
 all that is but an imaginary effort ; and therefore there 
 is no assurance that the victory is any more than 
 imaginary too, till it come to action, and then, they 
 that have spoken and thought very confidently, may 
 prove but (as one. said of the Atheuians) fortes in 
 tabula, patient and .courageous in picture or fancy; 
 and, notwithstanding all their arms, and dexterity in 
 handling them by way of exercise, may be foully 
 defeated when they are to fight in earnest. 
 
 APHORISM XIV. 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 The word of God speaks to men, and therefore it 
 speaks the language of the children of men. This 
 just and pregnant thought was suggested to Leighton 
 
MOEAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 63 
 
 by Gen. xxii. 12. The same text has led me to 
 unfold and expand the remark. — On moral subjects, 
 the Scriptures speak in the language of the affections 
 which they excite in us; on sensible objects, neither 
 metaphysically, as they are known by superior intel- 
 ligences; nor theoretically, as they would be seen by 
 us were we placed in the sun ; but as they are repre- 
 sented by our human senses in our present relative 
 position. Lastly, from no vain, or worse than vain, 
 ambition of seeming to walk on the sea of mystery 
 in my way to truth, but in the hope of removing a 
 difficulty that presses heavily on the minds of many 
 who in heart and desire are believers, and which 
 long pressed on my own mind, I venture to add : 
 that on spiritual things, and allusively to the myste- 
 rious union or conspiration of the divine with the 
 human in the spirits of the just, spoken of in Rom. 
 viii. 27, the word of God attributes the language of 
 the spirit sanctified to the Holy One, the Sanctifier. 
 
 Now the spirit in man (that is, the will) knows its 
 own state in and by its acts alone : even as in geo- 
 metrical reasoning the mind knows its constructive 
 faculty in the act of constructing, and contemplates 
 the act in the product (that is, the mental figure or 
 diagram) which is inseparable from the act and co- 
 instantaneous. 
 
 Let the reader join these two positions : first, that 
 the divine Spirit acting in the human will is described 
 as one with the will so filled and actuated : secondly, 
 that our actions are the means, by which alone the 
 will becomes assured of its own state : and he will 
 understand, though he may not perhaps adopt my 
 suggestion, that the verse, in which God speaking of 
 himself, says to Abraham, Now I know that thou 
 fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, 
 thy only son, from me — may be more than merely 
 
64 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 figurative. An accommodation I grant: but in the 
 thing expressed, and not altogether in the expres- 
 sions. In arguing with infidels, or with the weak in 
 faith, it is a part of religious prudence, no less than 
 of religious morality, to avoid whatever looks like an 
 evasion. To retain the literal sense, wherever the 
 harmony of Scripture permits, and reason does not 
 forbid, is ever the honester, and, nine times in ten, 
 the more rational and pregnant interpretation. The 
 contrary plan is an easy and approved way of getting 
 rid of a difficulty ; but nine times in ten a bad way 
 of solving it. But alas ! there have been too many 
 commentators who are content not to understand a 
 text themselves, if only they can make the reader 
 believe they do. 
 
 Of the figures of speech in the sacred Volume, that 
 are only figures of speech, the one of most frequent 
 occurrence is that which describes an effect by the 
 name of its most usual and best known cause : the pas- 
 sages, for instance, in which grief, fury, repentance, 
 and the like, are attributed to the Deity. But these 
 are far enough from justifying the (I had almost said, 
 dishonest) fashion of metaphorical glosses, in as well 
 as out of the Church ; and which our fashionable divines 
 have carried to such an extent, as in the doctrinal part 
 of their creed, to leave little else but metaphors.* 
 
 APHORISM XV. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN NO STOIC. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 Seek not altogether to dry up the stream of sorrow, 
 but to bound it and keep it within its banks. Keligion 
 doth not destroy the life of nature, but adds to it a 
 life more excellent ; yea, it doth not only permit, 
 
 * See Lit. Remains, i. p. 321. — Ed. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. G5 
 
 but requires some feeling of afflictions. Instead of 
 patience, there is in some men an affected pride of 
 spirit, suitable only to the doctrine of the Stoics as it 
 is usually taken. They strive not to feel at all the 
 afflictions that are on them ; but where there is no 
 feeling at all, there can be no patience. 
 
 Of the sects of ancient philosophy the Stoic is, 
 perhaps, the nearest to Christianity. Yet even to 
 this sect Christianity is fundamentally opposite. For 
 the Stoic attaches the highest honour (or rather, 
 attaches honour solely) to the person that acts vir- 
 tuously in spite of his feelings, or who has raised 
 himself above the conflict by their extinction ; while 
 Christianity instructs us to place small reliance on a 
 virtue that does not begin by bringing the feelings to 
 a conformity with the commands of the conscience. 
 Its especial aim, its characteristic operation, is to 
 moralize the affections. The feelings that oppose a 
 right act must be wrong feelings. The act, indeed, 
 whatever the agent's feelings might be, Christianity 
 would command : and under certain circumstances 
 would both command and commend it — commend it, 
 as a healthful symptom in a sick patient ; and com- 
 mand it, as one of the ways and means of changing 
 the feelings, or displacing them by calling up the 
 opposite. 
 
 COROLLARIES TO APHORISM XV. 
 
 I. The more consciousness in our thoughts and 
 words, and the less in our impulses and general 
 actions, the better and more healthful the state both 
 of head and heart. As the flowers from an orange 
 tree in its time of blossoming, that burgeon forth, 
 expand, fall, and are momently replaced, such is the 
 sequence of hourly and momently charities in a pure 
 and gracious soul. The modern fiction which depic- 
 
66 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 tures the son of Cytherea with a bandage round his 
 eyes, is not without a spiritual meaning. There is a 
 sweet and holy blindness in Christian love even as 
 there is a blindness of life, yea, and of genius too, in 
 the moment of productive energy. 
 
 II. Motives are symptoms of weakness, and sup- 
 plements for the deficient energy of the living prin- 
 ciple, the law within us. Let them then be reserved 
 for those momentous acts and duties in which the 
 strongest and best balanced natures must feel them- 
 selves deficient, and where humility, no less than 
 prudence, prescribes deliberation. We find a simi- 
 litude of this, I had almost said a remote analogy, in 
 organised bodies. The lowest class of animals or 
 protozoa, the polypi for instance, have neither brain 
 nor nerves. Their motive powers are all from without. 
 The sun, light, the warmth, the air, are their nerves 
 and brain. As life ascends, nerves appear; but 
 still only as the conductors of an external influence; 
 next are seen the knots or ganglions, as so many foci 
 of instinctive agency, which imperfectly imitate the 
 yet wanting centre. And now the promise and token 
 of a true individuality are disclosed ; both the reservoir 
 of sensibility and the imitative power tbat actuates 
 the organs of motion (the muscles) with the network 
 of conductors, are all taken inward and appropriated ; 
 the spontaneous rises into the voluntary, and finally 
 after various steps and a long ascent, the material 
 and animal means and conditions are prepared for the 
 manifestations of a free will, having its law within 
 itself and its motive in the law — and thus bound to 
 originate its own acts, not only without, but even 
 against, alien stimulants. That in our present state 
 we have only the dawning of this inward sun (the 
 perfect law of liberty) will sufficiently limit and 
 qualify the preceding position, if only it have been 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 67 
 
 allowed to produce its two-fold consequence — the 
 excitement of hope and the repression of vanity.* 
 
 APHOEISM XVI. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 As excessive eating or drinking both makes the 
 body sickly and lazy, fit for nothing but sleep, and 
 besots the mind, as it clogs up with crudities the way 
 through which the spirits should pass,t bemiring 
 them, and making them move heavily, as a coach in 
 a deep way ; thus doth all immoderate use of the 
 world and its delights wrong the soul in its spiritual 
 condition, makes it sickly and feeble, full of spiritual 
 distempers and inactivity, benumbs the graces of the 
 Spirit, and fills the soul with sleepy vapours, makes 
 it grow secure and heavy in spiritual exercises, and 
 obstructs the way and motion of the Spirit of God, 
 in the soul. Therefore, if you would be spiritual, 
 healthful and vigorous, and enjoy much of the conso- 
 lations of Heaven, be sparing and sober in those of 
 the earth, and what you abate of the one, shall be 
 certainly made up in the other. 
 
 * The reader is referred, upon the subject of this remark- 
 able paragraph, to Mr. Joseph Henry Green's Recapitulatory 
 Lecture, p. 110, Vital Dynamics, 1840 ; — a volume of singular 
 worth and importance. — Ed. 
 
 f Technical phrases of an obsolete system will yet retain 
 their places, nay, acquire universal currency, and become 
 sterling in the language, when they at once represent the feel- 
 ings, and give an apparent solution of them by visual images 
 easily managed by the fancy. Such are many terms and 
 phrases from the humoral physiology long exploded, but 
 which are far more popular than any description would be 
 from the theory that has taken its place. 
 
 f2 
 
AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XVII. 
 
 INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 LEtGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 It is a most unseemly and unpleasant thing, to see 
 a man's life full of ups and downs, one step like a 
 Christian, and another like a worldling ; it cannot 
 choose but both pain himself and mar the edification 
 of others. 
 
 The same sentiment, only with a special applica- 
 tion to the maxims and measures of our cabinet states- 
 men, has been finely expressed by a sage poet of the 
 preceding generation, in lines 'which no generation 
 will find inapplicable or superannuated. 
 
 God and the world we worship both together, 
 
 Draw not our laws to Him, but His to ours ; 
 Untrue to both, so prosperous in neither, 
 
 The imperfect will brings forth but barren flowers ! 
 Unwise as all distracted interests be, 
 Strangers to God, fools in humanity : 
 Too good for great things, and too great for good, 
 While still "I dare not" waits upon " I wou'd." 
 
 APHORISM XVII. CONTINUED. 
 
 THE ORDINARY MOTIVE TO INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 What though the polite man count thy fashion a 
 little odd and too precise, it is because he knows 
 nothing above that model of goodness which he hath 
 set himself, and therefore approves of nothing beyond 
 it : he knows not God, and therefore doth not discern 
 and esteem what is most like Him. When courtiers 
 come down into the country, the common home-bred 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 69 
 
 people possibly think their habit strange ; but they 
 care not for that, it is the fashion at court. What 
 need, then, that Christians should be so tender-fore- 
 headed, as to be put out of countenance because the 
 world looks on holiness as a singularity; it is tbeonly 
 fashion in the highest court, yea, of the King of 
 kings himself. 
 
 APHORISM XVIII. 
 
 SUPERFICIAL RECONCILIATIONS, AND SELF-DECEIT IN 
 FORGIVING. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 When, after variances, men are brought to an 
 agreement, they are much subject to this, rather to 
 cover their remaining malices with superficial verbal 
 forgiveness, than to dislodge them and free the heart 
 of them. This is a poor self-deceit. As the philoso- 
 pher said to him, who being ashamed that he was 
 espied by him in a tavern in the outer-room, with- 
 drew himself to the inner, " That is not the way out; 
 the more you go that way, you will be the further 
 in :" — so when hatreds are upon admonition not 
 thrown out, but retire inward to hide themselves, 
 they grow deeper and stronger than before ; and those 
 constrained semblances of reconcilement are but a 
 false healing, do but skin the wound over, and there- 
 fore it usually breaks forth worse again. 
 
 APHORISM XIX. 
 
 OF THE WORTH AND THE DUTIES OF THE PREACHER. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 The stream of custom and our profession bring us 
 to the preaching of the Word, and we sit out our hour 
 under the sound ; but how few consider and prize it 
 
70 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 as the great ordinance of God for the salvation of 
 souls, the beginner and the sustainer of the divine 
 life of grace within us ! And certainly, until we have 
 these thoughts of it, and seek to feel it thus ourselves, 
 although we hear it most frequently, and let slip no 
 occasion, yea, hear it with attention and some present 
 delight, yet still we miss the right use of it, and turn 
 it from its true end, while we take it not as that in- 
 grafted word which is able to save our souls. (James 
 i. 21.) 
 
 Thus ought they who preach to speak the word ; 
 to endeavour their utmost to accommodate it to this 
 end, that sinners may be converted, begotten again, 
 and believers nourished and strengthened in their 
 spiritual life ; to regard no lower end, but aim steadily 
 at that mark. Their hearts and tongues ought to 
 be set on fire with holy zeal for God and love to 
 souls, kindled by the Holy Ghost, that came down on 
 the Apostles in the shape of fiery tongues. 
 
 And those that hear should remember this as the 
 end of their hearing, that they may receive spiritual 
 life and strength by the word. For though it seems 
 a poor despicable business, that a frail sinful man 
 like yourselves should speak a few words in your 
 hearing, yet, look upon it as the way wherein God 
 communicates happiness to those who believe, and 
 works that believing unto happiness, alters the whole 
 frame of the soul, and makes a new creation as it 
 begets it again to the inheritance of glory, — consider 
 it thus, which is its true notion ; and then what can 
 be so precious ? 
 
 APHORISM XX. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 The difference is great in our natural life, in some 
 persons especially ; that they who in infancy were so 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 71 
 
 feeble, and wrapped up as others in swaddling clothes, 
 yet afterwards come to excel in wisdom and in the 
 knowledge of sciences, or to be commanders of great 
 armies, or to be kings : but the distance is far greater 
 and more admirable betwixt the small beginnings 
 of grace, and our after.-perfection, that fulness of 
 knowledge that we look for, and tbat crown of 
 immortality, which all they are born to who are born 
 to God. 
 
 But as in the faces or actions of some children, 
 characters and presages of tbeir after-greatness have 
 appeared — as a singular beauty in Moses' face, as 
 they write of him, and as Cyrus was made king 
 among the shepherds' children with whom he was 
 brought up, — so also, certainly, in these children of 
 God, there be some characters and evidences that 
 they are born for Heaven by their new birth. That 
 holiness and meekness, that patience and faith which 
 shine in the actions and sufferings of the saints, are 
 characters of their Father's image, and show their 
 high original, and foretel their glory to come ; such a 
 glory as doth not only surpass the world's thoughts, 
 but the thoughts of the children of God themselves. 
 1 John hi. 2. 
 
 This Aphorism would, it may seem, have been 
 placed more fitly in the Chapter following. In 
 placing it here, I have been determined by the fol- 
 lowing convictions : 1. Every state, and consequently 
 that which we have described as the state of religious 
 morality, which is not progressive, is dead or retro- 
 grade. 2. As a pledge of this progression, or, at 
 least, as the form in which the propulsive tendency 
 shows itself, there are certain hopes, aspirations, 
 yearnings, that with more or less of consciousness 
 
73 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 rise and stir in the heart of true morality as naturally 
 as the sap in the full-formed stem of a rose flows 
 towards the bud, within which the flower is maturing. 
 3. No one, whose own experience authorises him to 
 confirm the truth of this statement, can have been 
 conversant with the volumes of religious biography, 
 can have perused for instance the lives of Cranmer, 
 Eidley, Latimer, Wishart, Sir Thomas More, Bernard 
 Gilpin, Bishop Bedel, or of Egede, Swartz, and tbe 
 missionaries of the frozen world, without an occasional 
 conviction, that these men lived under extraordinary 
 influences', which in each instance and in all ages of 
 the Christian sera, bear the same characters, and 
 both in the accompaniments and the results evidently 
 refer to a common origin. And what can this be ? is 
 the question that must needs force itself on the mind 
 in the first moment of reflection on a fact so interest- 
 ing and apparently so anomalous. The answer is as 
 necessarily contained in one or the other of two 
 assumptions. These influences are either the product 
 of delusion — insania amabilis, and the reaction of 
 disordered nerves — or they argue the existence of a 
 relation to some real agency, distinct from what is 
 experienced or acknowledged by the world at large, 
 for which as not merely natural on the one hand, 
 and yet not assumed to be miraculous* on the 
 other, we have no apter name than spiritual. 
 Now, if neither analogy justifies, nor the moral 
 feelings permit, the former assumption, and we 
 decide therefore in favour of the reality of a state 
 other and higher than the mere moral man, whose 
 
 * In check of fanatical pretensions, it is expedient to 
 confine the term miraculous, to cases where the senses are 
 appealed to, in proof of something that transcends the expe- 
 rience derived from the senses. 
 
MOEAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 7d 
 
 religion * consists in morality, has attained under 
 these convictions ; can the existence of a transitional 
 state appear other than probable ; or that these very 
 convictions, when accompanied by correspondent dis- 
 positions and stirrings of the heart, are among the 
 marks and indications of such a state ? And thinking 
 it not unlikely that among the readers of this Volume, 
 there may be found some individuals, whose inward 
 state, though disquieted by doubts and oftener still 
 perhaps by blank misgivings, may, nevertheless, be- 
 token the commencement of a transition from a not 
 irreligious morality to a spiritual religion, — with a 
 view to their interests I placed this Aphorism under 
 the present head. 
 
 APHORISM XXI. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 The most approved teachers of wisdom, in a human 
 way, have required of their scholars, that to the end 
 their minds might be capable of it, they should be 
 purified from vice and wickedness. And it was 
 Socrates' custom, when any one asked him a question, 
 seeking to be informed by him, before he would 
 answer them, he asked them concerning their own 
 qualities and course of life, 
 
 * -For let it not be forgotten, that Morality, as distinguished 
 from Prudence, implying (it matters not under what name, 
 whether of honour, or duty, or conscience, still, I say, im- 
 plying), and being grounded in, an awe of the invisible and 
 a confidence therein beyond (nay, occasionally in apparent 
 contradiction to) the inductions of outward experience, is 
 essentially religious. 
 
74 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XXII. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE NOT THE ULTIMATE END OF RELIGIOUS PURSUITS. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 The hearing and reading of the word, under which 
 I comprise theological studies generally, are alike 
 defective when pursued without increase of knowledge, 
 and when pursued chiefly for increase of know- 
 ledge. To seek no more than a present delight, that 
 evanishes with the sound of the words that die in the 
 air, is not to desire the word as meat, hut as music, 
 as God tells the prophet Ezekiel of his people. 
 Ezek. xxxiii. 32. And lo, thou art unto them as a 
 very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, 
 and can play well upon an instrument; for they hear 
 thy words, and they do them not. To desire the 
 word for the increase of knowledge, although this is 
 necessary and commendable, and, being rightly qua- 
 lified, is a part of spiritual accretion, yet, take it as 
 going no further, it is not the true end of the word. 
 Nor is the venting of that knowledge in speech and 
 frequent discourse of the word and the divine truths 
 that are in it; which, where it is governed with 
 Christian prudence, is not to be despised, but com- 
 mended ; yet, certainly, the highest knowledge, and 
 the most frequent and skilful speaking of the word 
 severed from the growth here mentioned, misses the 
 true end of the word. If any one's head or tongue 
 should grow apace, and all the rest stand at a stay, 
 it would certainly make him a monster ; and they are 
 no other, who are knowing and discoursing Christians, 
 and grow daily in that respect, but not at all in holi- 
 ness of heart and life, which is the proper growth of 
 the children of God. Apposite to their case is 
 Epictetus's comparison of the sheep; they return not 
 what they eat in grass, but in wool. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 75 
 
 APHORISM XXIII. 
 
 THE SUM OF CHUKCH HISTORY. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 In times of peace, the Church may dilate more, 
 and build as it were into breadth, but in times of 
 trouble, it arises more in height ; it is then built 
 upwards : as in cities where men are straitened, 
 they build usually higher than in the country. 
 
 APHORISM XXIY. 
 
 WORTHY TO BE FRAMED AND HUNG UP IN THE LIBRARY OF 
 EVERY THEOLOGICAL STUDENT. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLEEIDGE. 
 
 Where there is a great deal of smoke and no 
 clear flame, it argues much moisture in the matter, 
 yet it witnesseth certainly that there is fire there ; 
 and therefore dubious questioning is a much better 
 evidence, than that senseless deadness which most 
 take for believing. Men that know nothing in 
 sciences, have no doubts. He never truly believed, 
 who was not made first sensible and convinced of 
 unbelief. 
 
 Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the 
 disposition to believe, and doubt in order that you 
 may end in believing the truth. I will venture to 
 add in my own name and from my own conviction 
 the following : 
 
 APHORISM XXV. 
 
 He, who begins by loving Christianity better than 
 truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church 
 better than Christianity, and end in loving himself 
 better than all. 
 
76 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XXVI. 
 
 THE ABSENCE OP DISPUTES, AND A GENERAL AVERSION 
 TO RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES, NO PROOF OP TRUE 
 UNANIMITY. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 The boasted peaceableness about questions of faith 
 too often proceeds from a superficial temper, and 
 not seldom from a supercilious disdain of whatever 
 has no marketable use or value, and from indifference 
 < to religion itself. Toleration is a herb of spontaneous 
 growth in the soil of indifference ; but the weed has 
 none of the virtues of the medicinal plant, reared by 
 humility in the garden of zeal. Those, who regard 
 religions as matters of taste, may consistently include 
 all religious differences in the old adage, De gustibus 
 non est disputandum. And many there be among 
 these of Gallio's temper, who care for none of these 
 things, and who account all questions in religion, as 
 he did, but matter of words and names. And by this 
 all religions may agree together. But that were not 
 a natural union produced by the active heat of the 
 spirit, but a confusion rather, arising from the want 
 of it ; not a knitting together, but a freezing together, 
 as cold congregates all bodies how heterogeneous 
 soever, sticks, stones, and water ; but heat makes first 
 a separation of different things, and then unites those 
 that are of the same nature. 
 
 Much of our common union of minds, I fear, pro- 
 ceeds from no other than the aforementioned causes, 
 want of knowledge, and want of affection to religion. 
 You that boast you live conformably to the appoint- 
 ments of the Church, and that no one hears of your 
 noise, we may thank the ignorance of jour minds for 
 that kind of quietness. 
 
 The preceding extract is particularly entitled to 
 our serious reflections, as in a tenfold degree more 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 77 
 
 applicable to the present times than to the age in 
 which it was written. We all know, that lovers are 
 apt to take offence and wrangle on occasions that per- 
 haps are but trifles, and which assuredly would appear 
 such to those who regard love itself as folly. These 
 quarrels may, indeed, be no proo£ of wisdom ; but 
 still, in the imperfect state of our nature the entire 
 absence of the same, and this too on far more serious 
 provocations, would excite a strong suspicion of a 
 comparative indifference in the parties who can love 
 so coolly where they profess to love so well. I shall 
 believe our present religious tolerancy to proceed from 
 the abundance of our charity and good sense, when I 
 see proofs that we are equally cool and forbearing as 
 litigants and political partisans. 
 
 APHORISM XXVII. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WOELDLT VIEWS (OR WHAT ARE CALLED 
 A man's PROSPECTS IN LIFE), THE BANE OF THE CHRIS- 
 TIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 It is a base, poor thing for a man to seek himself : 
 far below that royal dignity that is here put upon 
 Christians, and that priesthood joined with it. Under 
 the law, those who were squint-eyed were incapable 
 of the priesthood : truly, this squinting toward our 
 own interest, the looking aside to that, in God's affairs 
 especially, so deforms the face of the soul, that it 
 makes it altogether unworthy the honour of this 
 spiritual priesthood. Oh ! this is a large task, an 
 infinite task. The several creatures bear their part 
 in this ; the sun says somewhat, and moon and stars, 
 yea, the lowest have some share in it ; the very 
 plants and herbs of the field speak of God ; and yet, 
 the very highest and best, yea all of them together, 
 the whole concert of heaven and earth cannot show 
 
tb AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 forth all His praise to the full. No, it is but a 
 part, the smallest part of that glory, which they can 
 reach. 
 
 APHORISM XXVIII. 
 
 DESPISE NONE '. DESPAIR OF NONE. 
 
 LEIGHTOS. 
 
 The Jews would not willingly tread upon the 
 smallest piece of paper in their way, but took it up : 
 for possibly, said they, the name of God may be on 
 it. Though there was a little superstition in this, 
 yet truly there is nothing but good religion in it, if 
 we apply it to men. Trample not on any ; there 
 may be some work of grace there, that thou knowest 
 not of. The name of God may be written upon that 
 soul thou treadest on ; it may be a soul that Christ 
 thought so much of, as to give His precious blood for 
 it; therefore despise it not. 
 
 APHORISM XXIX. 
 
 MEN OP LEAST MERIT MOST APT TO BE CONTEMPTUOUS BE- 
 CAUSE MOST IGNORANT AND MOST OVERWEENING OF 
 THEMSELVES. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Too many take the ready course to deceive them- 
 selves; for they look with both eyes on the failings 
 and defects of others, and scarcely give their good 
 qualities half an eye, while, on the contrary, in 
 themselves, they study to the full their own advan- 
 tages, and their weaknesses and defects (as one says), 
 they skip over, as children do their hard words in 
 their lesson, that are troublesome to read : and 
 making this uneven parallel, what wonder if the result 
 be a gross mistake of themselves ! 
 
MORAL AND EELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 79 
 
 APHORISM XXX. 
 
 VANITY MAT STRUT IN RAGS, AND HUMILITY BE ARRAYED IN 
 PURPLE AND PINE LINEN. LEIGHT ON. 
 
 It is not impossible that there may be in some an 
 affected pride in the meanness of apparel, and in 
 others, under either neat or rich attire, a very humble 
 unaffected mind : using it upon some of the afore- 
 mentioned engagements, or such like, and yet, the 
 heart not at all upon it. Magnus qui fictilibus utittir 
 tanquam argento, nee ille minor qui argento tanquam 
 fictilibus, says Seneca : Great is he who enjoys his 
 earthenware as if it were plate, and not less great 
 is the man to whom all his plate is no more than 
 earthenware. 
 
 APHORISM XXXI. 
 
 OP DETRACTION AMONG RELIGIOUS PROFESSORS. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 They who have attained to a self-pleasing pitch of 
 civility or formal religion, have usually that point of 
 presumption with it, that they make their own size 
 the model and rule to examine all by. What is 
 below it, they condemn indeed as profane ; but what 
 is beyond it, they account needless and affected 
 preciseness : and therefore are as ready as others to 
 let fly invectives or bitter taunts against it, which are 
 the keen and poisoned shafts of the tongue, and a 
 persecution that shall be called to a strict account. 
 
 The slanders, perchance, may not be altogether 
 forged or untrue ; they may be the implements, not 
 the inventions, of malice. But they do not on this 
 account escape the guilt of detraction. Rather, it is 
 characteristic of the evil spirit in question, to work 
 by the advantage of real faults ; but these stretched 
 
80 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 and aggravated to the utmost. It is not expressible 
 
 HOW DEEP A WOUND A TONGUE SHARPENED TO THIS 
 WORK WILL GIVE, WITH NO NOISE AND A VERY LITTLE 
 
 word. This is the true white gunpowder, which the 
 dreaming projectors of silent mischiefs and insensible 
 poisons sought for in the laboratories of art and 
 nature, in a world of good ; but which was to be found 
 in its most destructive form, in the world of evil, the 
 tongue. 
 
 APHORISM XXXII. 
 
 THE REMEDY. LEIGHTON. 
 
 All true remedy must begin at the heart ; other- 
 wise it will be but a mountebank cure, a false imagined 
 conquest. The weights and wheels are there, and 
 the clock strikes according to their motion. Even 
 he that speaks contrary to what is within him, guile- 
 fully contrary to his inward conviction and knowledge, 
 yet speaks conformably to what is within him in the 
 temper and frame of his heart, which is double, a 
 heart and a heart, as the Psalmist hath it, Psal. 
 xii. 2. 
 
 APHORISM XXXIII. 
 
 LEIGHTOK AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 It is an argument of a candid ingenuous mind, to 
 delight in the good name and commendations of 
 others ; to pass by their defects and take notice of 
 their virtues; and to speak and hear of those willingly, 
 and not. endure either to speak or hear of the other ; 
 for in this indeed you may be little less guilty than 
 the evil speaker, in taking* pleasure in it, though you 
 speak it not. He that willingly drinks in tales and 
 calumnies, will, from the delight he hath in evil 
 hearing, slide insensibly into the humour of evil 
 speaking. It is strange how most persons dispense 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 81 
 
 with themselves in this point, and that in scarcely 
 any societies shall we find a hatred of this ill, but 
 rather some tokens of taking pleasure in it ; and 
 until a Christian sets himself to an inward 'watchful- 
 ness over his heart, not suffering in it any thought 
 that is uncharitable, or vain self-esteem, upon the 
 sight of others' frailties, he will still be subject to 
 somewhat of this, in the tongue or ear at least. So, 
 then, as for the evil of guile in the tongue, a sincere 
 heart, truth in the inward parts, powerfully redresses 
 it ; therefore it is expressed, Psal. xv. 2, That 
 speaketh the truth from his heart ; thence it flows. 
 Seek much after this, to speak nothing with God, nor 
 men, but what is the sense of a single unfeigned heart. 
 O sweet truth ! excellent but rare sincerity ! He that 
 loves that truth within, and who is Himself at once 
 the truth and the life, He alone can work it there ! 
 Seek it of him. 
 
 It is characteristic of the Eoman dignity and so- 
 briety that, in the Latin, to favour with the tongue 
 {favere lingua) means, to be silent. We say, Hold 
 your tongue ! as if it were an injunction, that could 
 not be carried into effect but by manual force, or the 
 pincers of tbe forefinger and thumb ! And verily — J 
 blush to say it — it is not women and Frenchmen 
 only that would rather have their tongues bitten than 
 bitted, and feel their souls in a strait- waistcoat, when 
 they are obliged to remain silent. 
 
 APHORISM XXXIV. 
 
 ON THE PASSION FOR NEW AND STRIKING THOUGHTS. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 In conversation seek not so much either to vent 
 thy knowledge, or to increase it, as to know more 
 spiritually and effectually what thou dost know. And 
 in this way those mean despised truths, that every 
 
 G 
 
82 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 one thinks he is sufficiently seen in, will have a new 
 sweetness and use in them, which thou didst not so 
 well perceive before — (for these flowers cannot be 
 sucked dry) ; and in this humble sincere way thou 
 shalt grow in grace and in knowledge too. 
 
 APHORISM XXXV. 
 
 THE RADICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GOOD MAN AND 
 THE VICIOUS MAN. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 The godly man hates the evil he possibly by 
 temptation hath been drawn to do, and loves the good 
 he is frustrated of, and, having intended, hath not 
 attained to do. The sinner, who hath his denomi- 1 
 nation from sin as his course, hates the good which 
 sometimes he is forced to do, and loves that sin 
 which many times he does not, either wanting occa- 
 sion and means, so that he cannot do it, or through 
 the check of an enlightened conscience possibly dares 
 not do ; and though so bound up from the act, as a 
 dog in a chain, yet the habit, the natural inclination 
 and desire in him, is still the same, the strength of 
 his affection is carried to sin. So in the weakest 
 sincere Christian, there is that predominant sincerity 
 and desire of holy walking, according to which he is 
 called a righteous person : the Lord is pleased to 
 give him that name, and account him so, being 
 upright in heart though often failing. 
 
 Leighton adds, "There is a righteousness of a higher 
 strain." I do not ask the reader's full assent to this 
 position : I do not suppose him as yet prepared to yield 
 it. But thus much he will readily admit, that here, 
 if any where, we are to seek the fine line which, like 
 stripes of light in light, distinguishes, not divides, the 
 summit of religious morality from spiritual religion. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 83 
 
 " A righteousness (Leighton continues), that is not 
 in him, but upon him. He is clothed with it." This, 
 Reader ! is the controverted doctrine, so warmly as- 
 serted and so bitterly decried . under the name of 
 imputed righteousness. Our learned archbishop, 
 you see, adopts it ; and it is on this account princi- 
 pally, that by many of our leading churchmen his 
 orthodoxy has been more than questioned, and his 
 name put in the list of proscribed divines, as a 
 Calvinist. That Leighton attached a definite sense 
 to the words above quoted, it would be uncandid to 
 doubt ; and the general spirit of his writings leads me 
 to presume that it was compatible with the eternal 
 distinction between things and persons, and therefore 
 opposed to modern Calvinism. But what it was, I 
 have not, I own, been able to discover. The sense, 
 however, in which I think he might have received 
 this doctrine, and in which I avow myself a believer 
 in it, I shall have an opportunity of showing in 
 another place. My present object is to open out the 
 road by the removal of prejudices, so far at least as 
 to throw some disturbing doubts on the secure taking- 
 for-granted, that the peculiar tenets of the Christian 
 faith asserted in the Articles and Homilies of our 
 national Church are in contradiction to the common 
 sense of mankind. And with this view (and not in 
 the arrogant expectation or wish, that a mere ipse 
 dixit should be received for argument) — I here avow 
 my conviction, that the doctrine of imputed righteous- 
 ness, rightly and Scripturally interpreted, is so far 
 from being either irrational or immoral, that reason 
 itself prescribes the idea in order to give a meaning 
 and an ultimate object to morality; and that the moral 
 law in the conscience demands its reception in order 
 to give reality and substantive existence to the idea 
 presented by the reason. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XXXVI. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Your blessedness is not, — no, believe it, it is not 
 where most of you seek it, in things below you. How 
 can that be ? It must be a higher good to make you 
 happy. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale 
 of creation, leaves death behind it or under it. The 
 metal at its height of being seems a mute prophecy 
 of the coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of 
 which it crystallises. The blossom and flower, the 
 acme of vegetable life, divides into correspondent 
 organs with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive 
 motions and approximations seems impatient of that 
 fixure, by which it is differenced in kind from the 
 flower-shaped Psyche, that flutters with free wing 
 above it. And wonderfully in the insect realm doth 
 the irritability, the proper seat of instinct, while yet 
 the nascent sensibility is subordinated thereto — most 
 wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular life in the 
 insect, and the musculo-arterial in the bird, imitate 
 and typically rehearse the adaptive understanding, 
 yea, and the moral affections and charities, of man. 
 Let us carry ourselves back, in spirit, to the myste- 
 rious week, the teeming work-days of the Creator; 
 as they rose in vision before the eye of the inspired 
 historian of the generations of the heavens and of the 
 earth, in the day that the Lord God made the earth 
 and the heavens.'* And who that hath watched their 
 ways with an understanding heart, could, as the 
 vision evolving still advanced towards him, contem- 
 plate the filial and loyal Bee ; the home-building, 
 
 * Gen. ii. 4. — Ed. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 85 
 
 wedded, and divorceless Swallow; and above all the 
 manifoldly intelligent* Ant tribes, with their com- 
 monwealths and confederacies, their warriors and 
 miners, the husbandfolk, that fold in their tiny 
 flocks on the honeyed-leaf, and the virgin sisters with 
 the holy instincts of maternal love, detached and in 
 selfless purity — and not say to himself, Behold the 
 shadow of approaching humanity, the sun rising from 
 behind, in the kindling morn of creation ! Thus all 
 lower natures find their highest good in semblances 
 and seekings of that which is higher and better. 
 All things strive to ascend, and ascend in their 
 striving. And shall man alone stoop ? Shall his 
 pursuits and desires, the reflections of his inward 
 life, be like the reflected image of a tree on the edge 
 of a pool, that grows downward, and seeks a mock 
 heaven in the unstable element beneath it, in neigh- 
 bourhood with the slim water weeds and oozy bottom- 
 grass that are yet better than itself and more noble, 
 in as far as substances that appear as shadows are 
 preferable to shadows mistaken for substance ! No ! 
 it must be a higher good to make you happy. While 
 you labour for any thing below your proper humanity, 
 you seek a happy life in the region of death. Well 
 saith the moral poet — 
 
 Unless above himself he can 
 Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ! 
 
 APHOKISM XXXVII. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 There is an imitation of men that is impious and 
 wicked, which consists in taking the copy of their 
 sins. Again, there is an imitation which though not 
 
 * See Huber on Bees, and on Ants. 
 
86 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 so grossly evil, yet is poor and servile, being in mean 
 things, yea, sometimes descending to imitate the 
 very imperfections of others, as fancying some come- 
 liness in them : as some of Basil's scholars, who 
 imitated his slow speaking, which he had a little in 
 the extreme, and could not help. But this is 
 always laudable, and worthy of the best minds, to be 
 imitators of that which is good, wheresoever they find 
 it ; for that stays not in any man's person, as the 
 ultimate pattern, but rises to the highest grace, being 
 man's nearest likeness to God, His image and re- 
 semblance, bearing His stamp and superscription, and 
 belonging peculiarly to Him, in what hand soever it 
 be found, as carrying the mark of no other owner 
 *than Him. 
 
 APHORISM XXXVIII. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Those who think themselves high-spirited, and 
 will bear least, as tbey speak, are often, even by 
 that, forced to bow most, or to burst under it ; while 
 humility and meekness escape many a burden, and 
 many a blow, always keeping peace within, and often 
 without too. 
 
 APHORISM XXXIX. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Our condition is universally exposed to fears and 
 troubles, and no man is so stupid but he studies and 
 projects for some fence against them, some bulwark 
 to break the incursion of evils, and so to bring his 
 mind to some ease, ridding it of tbe fear of them. 
 Thus, men seek safety in the greatness, or multitude, 
 or supposed faithfulness, of friends ; they seek by 
 any means to be strongly underset this way, to have 
 many, and powerful, and trust-worthy friends. But 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 87 
 
 wiser men, perceiving the unsafety and vanity of 
 these and all external things, have cast about for 
 some higher course. They see a necessity of with- 
 drawing a man from externals, which do nothing but 
 mock and deceive those most who trust most to them ; 
 but they cannot tell whither to direct him. The best 
 of them bring him into himself, and think to quiet 
 him so, but the truth is, he finds as little to support 
 him there ; there is nothing truly strong enough 
 within him, to hold out against the many sorrows and 
 fears which still from without do assault him. So 
 then, though it is well done, to call off a man from 
 outward things, as moving sands, that he build not 
 on them, yet this is not enough ; for his own spirit 
 is as unsettled a piece as is in all the world, and 
 must have some higher strength than its own, to 
 fortify and fix it. This is the way that is here taught, 
 Fear not their fear, but sanctify the Lord your God 
 in your hearts ; and if you can attain this latter, the 
 former will follow of itself. 
 
 APHORISM XL. 
 
 WORLDLY TROUBLES IDOLS. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 The too ardent love or self-willed desire of power, 
 or wealth, or credit in the world, is (an Apostle has 
 assured us) idolatry. Now among the words or 
 synonymes for idols in the Hebrew language, there 
 is one that in its primary sense signifies troubles 
 (tegirim), other two that signify terrors {miphletzeth 
 and emim). And so it is certainly. All our idols 
 prove so to us. They fill us with nothing but anguish 
 and troubles, with cares and fears, that are good for 
 nothing but to be fit punishments of the folly, out 
 of which they arise. 
 
88 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XLI. 
 
 ON THE RIGHT TREATMENT OF INFIDELS. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 A regardless contempt of infidel writings is 
 usually the fittest answer ; Spreta vilescerent. But 
 where the holy profession of Christians is likely to 
 receive either the main or the indirect blow, and a 
 word of defence may do any thing to ward it off, there 
 we ought not to spare to do it. 
 
 Christian prudence goes a great way in the regu- 
 lating of this. Some are not capable of receiving 
 rational answers, especially in divine things ; they 
 were not only lost upon them, but religion dishonoured 
 by the contest. 
 
 Of this sort are the vulgar railers at religion, the 
 foul-mouthed beliers of the Christian faith and his- 
 tory. Impudently false and slanderous assertions 
 can be met only by assertions of their impudent and 
 slanderous falsehood : and Christians will not, must 
 not, condescend to this. How can mere railing be 
 answered by them who are forbidden to return a rail- 
 ing answer ? Whether, or on what provocations, 
 such offenders may be punished or coerced on the 
 score of incivility, and ill-neighbourhood, and for 
 abatement of a nuisance, as in the case of other scolds 
 and endangerers of the public peace, must be trusted 
 to the discretion of the civil magistrate. Even then 
 there is danger of giving them importance, and 
 flattering their vanity, by attracting attention to their 
 works, if the punishment be slight ; and if severe, of 
 spreading far and wide their reputation as martyrs, 
 as the smell of a dead dog at a distance is said to 
 change into that of musk. Experience hitherto 
 seems to favour the plan of treating these betes puantes 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 89 
 
 and enfans de Diable, as their four-footed brethren, 
 the skink and squash, are treated* by American 
 woodmen, who turn their backs upon the fetid 
 intruder, and make appear not to see him, even at 
 the cost of suffering him to regale on the favourite 
 viand of these animals, the brains of a stray goose 
 or crested thraso of the dunghill. At all events, it 
 is degrading to the majesty, and injurious to the 
 character, of religion, to make its safety the plea for 
 their punishment, or at all to connect the name of 
 Christianity with the castigation of indecencies that 
 properly belong to the beadle, and the perpetrators 
 of which would have equally deserved his lash, 
 though the religion of their fellow-citizens, thus as- 
 sailed by them, had been that of Fo or of Juggernaut. 
 On the other hand, we are to answer every one 
 that inquires a reason, or an account; which sup- 
 poses something receptive of it. We ought to judge 
 ourselves engaged to give it, be it an enemy, if he 
 will hear ; if it gain him not, it may in part convince 
 and cool him; much more, should it be one who 
 ingenuously inquires for satisfaction, and possibly 
 inclines to receive the truth, but has been prejudiced 
 by misrepresentations of it. 
 
 * " About the end of the same year (says Kalm), another 
 of these animals (Mephitis Americana) crept into our cellar; 
 but did not exhale the smallest scent, because it was not 
 disturbed. A foolish old woman, however, who perceived it at 
 night, by the shining, and thought, I suppose, that it would set 
 the world on fire, hilled it : and at that moment its stench began 
 to spread." 
 
 I recommend this anecdote to the consideration of sundry 
 old women, on this side of the Atlantic, who, though they 
 do not wear the appropriate garment, are worthy to sit in 
 their committee-room, like BickerstafF in the Tatler, under 
 the canopy of their grandam's hoop-petticoat. 
 
90 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XLII. 
 
 PASSION NO FRIEND TO TRUTH. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Truth needs not the service of passion ; yea, 
 nothing so disserves it, as passion when set to serve 
 it. The Spirit of truth is withal the Spirit of meek- 
 ness. The Dove that rested on that great champion 
 of truth, who is The Truth itself, is from Him 
 derived to the lovers of truth, and they ought to seek 
 the participation of it. Imprudence makes some kind 
 of Christians lose much of their labour in speaking 
 for religion, and drive those further off, whom they 
 would draw into it. 
 
 The confidence that attends a Christian's belief 
 makes the believer not fear men, to whom he answers, 
 but still he fears his God, for whom he answers, and 
 whose interest is chief in those things he speaks of. 
 The soul that hath the deepest sense of spiritual 
 things, and the truest knowledge of God, is most 
 afraid to miscarry in speaking of Him, most tender 
 and wary how to acquit itself when engaged to speak 
 of and for God.* 
 
 * To the same purpose are the two following sentences 
 from Hilary : — ■ 
 
 Etiam quce pro religions dicimus, cum grandi metu et dis- 
 ciplina dicere debemus. — Hilarius de Trinit. Lib. 7. 
 
 Non relictus est hominum eloquiis de Dei rebus alius quam 
 Dei sermo. — lb. 
 
 The latter, however, must be taken with certain qualifi- 
 cations and exceptions : as when any two or more texts are 
 in apparent contradiction, and it is required to state a truth 
 that comprehends and reconciles both, and which, of course, 
 cannot be expressed in the words of either : — for example, 
 the Filial subordination (My Father is greater than 1), in the 
 equal Deity (My Father and 1 are one). 
 
MORAL ANT) RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 91 
 
 APHOKISM XLIII. 
 
 ON THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 It is a fruitless verbal debate, whether Conscience 
 be a faculty or a habit. When all is examined, con- 
 science will be found to be no other than the mind 
 of a man, under the notion of a particular reference 
 to himself and his own actions. 
 
 I rather think that conscience is the ground and 
 antecedent of human (or self-) consciousness, and not 
 any modification of the latter. I have selected the 
 preceding extract as an exercise for reflection ; and 
 because I think that in too closely following Thomas 
 a Kempis, the Archbishop has strayed from his own 
 judgment. The definition, for instance, seems to say 
 all, and in fact says nothing ; for if I asked, How do 
 you define the human mind? the answer must at 
 least contain, if not consist of, the words, " a mind 
 capable of conscience." For conscience is no syno- 
 nyme of consciousness, nor any mere expression of 
 the same as modified by the particular object. On 
 the contrary, a consciousness properly human (that 
 is, self-consciousness), with the sense of moral re- 
 sponsibility, pre-supposes the conscience as its ante- 
 cedent condition and ground. — Lastly, the sentence, 
 " It is a fruitless verbal debate," — is an assertion of 
 the same complexion with the contemptuous sneers 
 at verbal criticism by the contemporaries of Bentley. 
 In questions of philosophy or divinity that have 
 occupied the learned and been the subjects of many 
 successive controversies, for one instance of mere 
 logomachy I could bring ten instances of logodsedaly, 
 or verbal legerdemain, which have perilously con- 
 
92 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 firmed prejudices, and withstood the advancement of 
 truth, in consequence of the neglect of verbal debate, 
 that is, strict discussion of terms. In whatever sense, 
 however, the term Conscience may be used, the fol- 
 lowing Aphorism is equally true and important. It 
 is worth noticing, likewise, that Leighton himself in 
 a following page, tells us, that a good conscience is 
 the root of a good conversation, and then quotes 
 from St. Paul a text, Titus i. 15, in which the Mind 
 and the Conscience are expressly distinguished. 
 
 APHORISM XLIV. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE A NECESSARY ACCOMPANIMENT OP 
 A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 If you would have a good conscience, you must by 
 all means have so much light, so much knowledge of 
 the will of G-od, as may regulate you, and show you 
 your way, may teach you how to do, and speak, and 
 think, as in His presence. 
 
 APHORISM XLV. 
 
 YET THE KNOWLEDGE OP THE RULE, THOUGH ACCOMPANIED 
 BY AN ENDEAVOUR TO ACCOMMODATE OUR CONDUCT TO 
 THIS RULE, WILL NOT OP ITSELP FORM A GOOD CON- 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 To set the outward actions right, though with an 
 honest intention, and not so to regard and find out 
 the inward disorder of the heart, whence that in the 
 actions flows, is but to be still putting the index of a 
 clock right with your finger, while it is foul or out 
 of order within, which is a continual business and 
 does no good. Oh ! but a purified conscience, a soul 
 renewed and refined in its temper and affections, will 
 make things go right without, in all the duties and 
 acts of our calling. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 93 
 
 APHORISM XLVI. 
 
 THE DEPTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 How deeply seated the Conscience is in the human 
 soul, is seen in the effect which sudden calamities 
 produce on guilty men, even when unaided by any 
 determinate notion or fears of punishment after 
 death. The wretched criminal, as one rudely awa- 
 kened from a long sleep, bewildered with the new 
 light, and half recollecting, half striving to recollect, 
 a fearful something, he knows not what, but which 
 he will recognise as soon as he hears the name, 
 already interprets the calamities into judgments, 
 executions of a sentence passed by an invisible judge ; 
 as if the vast pyre of the last judgment were already 
 kindled in an unknown distance, and some flashes of 
 it, darting forth at intervals beyond the rest, were 
 flying and lighting upon the face of his soul. The 
 calamity may consist in loss of fortune, or character, 
 or reputation ; but you hear no regrets from him. 
 Remorse extinguishes all regret ; and remorse is the 
 implicit creed of the guilty. 
 
 APHORISM XLVII. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 God hath suited every creature He hath made with 
 a convenient good to which it tends, and in the 
 obtainment of which it rests and is satisfied. Natural 
 bodies have all their own natural place, whither, if 
 not hindered, they move incessantly till they be in it; 
 and they declare, by resting there, that they are (as 
 I may say) where they would be. Sensitive creatures 
 are carried to seek a sensitive good, as agreeable to 
 their rank in being, and, attaining that, aim no 
 
»4 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 further. Now in this is the excellency of man, that 
 he is made capable of a communion with his Maker, 
 and, because capable of it, is unsatisfied without it : 
 the soul, being cut out (so to speak) to that largeness, 
 cannot be filled with less. Though he is fallen from 
 his right to that good, and from all right desire of it, 
 yet not from a capacity of it, no, nor from a necessity 
 of it, for the answering and filling of his capacity. 
 
 Though the heart once gone from God turns con- 
 tinually further away from Him, and moves not 
 towards Him till it be renewed, yet, even in that 
 wandering, it retains that natural relation to God, as 
 its centre, that it hath no true rest elsewhere, nor can 
 by any means find it. It is made for Him, and is 
 therefore still restless till it meet with Him. 
 
 It is true, the natural man takes much pains to 
 quiet his heart by other things, and digests many 
 vexations with hopes of contentment in the end and 
 accomplishment of some design he hath ; but still the 
 heart misgives. Many times he attains not the 
 thing he seeks; but if he do, yet he never attains 
 the satisfaction he seeks and expects in it, but only 
 learns from that to desire something further, and still 
 hunts on after a fancy, drives his own shadow before 
 him, and never overtakes it ; and if he did, yet it is 
 but a shadow. And so, in running from God, 
 besides the sad end, he carries an interwoven punish- 
 ment with his sin, the natural disquiet and vexation 
 of his spirit, fluttering to and fro, and finding no rest 
 for the sole of his foot ; the waters of inconstancy 
 and vanity covering the whole face of the earth. 
 
 These things are too gross and heavy. The soul, 
 the immortal soul, descended from heaven, must 
 either be more happy or remain miserable. The 
 highest, the uncreated Spirit, is the proper good, the 
 Father of spirits, that pure and full Good which 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 95 
 
 raises the soul above itself ; whereas all other things 
 draw it down below itself. So, then, it is never 
 well with the soul, but when it is near unto God, 
 yea, in its union with Him, married to Him : mis- 
 matching itself elsewhere it hath never anything but 
 6hame and sorrow. All that forsake Thee shall be 
 ashamed, says the prophet, Jer. xvii. 13 ; and the 
 Psalmist, They that are far off from Thee shall perish. 
 Psal. lxxiii. 27. And this is indeed our natural 
 miserable condition, and it is often expressed this 
 way, by estrangedness and distance from God. 
 
 The same sentiments are to be found in the works 
 of Pagan philosophers and moralists. Well then 
 may they be made a subject of reflection in our days. 
 And well may the pious Deist, if such a character 
 now exists, reflect that Christianity alone both 
 teaches the way, and provides the means, of fulfilling 
 the obscure promises of this great instinct for all 
 men, which the philosophy of boldest pretensions 
 confined to the sacred few. 
 
 APHORISM XL VIII. 
 
 A CONTRACTED SPHERE, OR WHAT IS CALLED RETIRING FROM 
 THE BUSINESS OP THE WORLD, NO SECURITY FROM THE 
 SPIRIT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 The heart may be engaged in a little business as 
 much, if thou watch it not, as in many and great affairs; 
 A man may drown in a little brook or pool, as well as 
 in a great river, if he be down and plunge himself into 
 it, and put his head under water. Some care thou must 
 have, that thou mayst not care. Those things that are 
 thorns indeed, thou must make a hedge of them, to 
 keep out those temptations that accompany sloth, and 
 extreme want that waits on it ; but let them be the 
 hedge : suffer them not to grow within the garden. 
 
96 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHOEISM XLIX. 
 
 CHURCH-GOING, AS A PART OF RELIGIOUS MORALITY, 
 WHEN NOT IN REFERENCE TO A SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 It is a strange folly in multitudes of us, to set our- 
 selves no mark, to propound no end in the hearing of 
 the Gospel. The merchant sails not merely that he 
 may sail, but for traffic, and traffics that he may be 
 rich. The husbandman plows not merely to keep 
 himself busy, with no further end, but plows that he 
 may sow, and sows that he may reap with advantage. 
 And shall we do the most excellent and fruitful 
 work fruitlessly — hear, only to hear, and look no 
 further ? This is indeed a great vanity and a great 
 misery, to lose that labour, and gain nothing by it, 
 which, duly used, would be of all others most advan- 
 tageous and gainful ; and yet all meetings are full of 
 this! 
 
 APHOEISM L. 
 
 ON THE HOPES AND SELF-SATISFACTION OF A RELIGIOUS 
 MORALIST, INDEPENDENT OF A SPIRITUAL FAITH — ON 
 WHAT ARE THEY GROUNDED? 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 There have been great disputes one way or another, 
 about the merit of good works ; but I truly think 
 they who have laboriously engaged in them have been 
 very idly, though very eagerly, employed about 
 nothing, since the more sober of the Schoolmen 
 themselves acknowledge there can be no such thing 
 as meriting from the blessed God, in the human, or, 
 to speak more accurately, in any created nature what- 
 soever; nay, so far from any possibility of merit, 
 there can be no room for reward any otherwise than 
 of the sovereign pleasure and gracious kindness of 
 God ; and the more ancient writers, when they use 
 
MORAL AND BELIGIOUS APHORISMS. 97 
 
 the word merit, mean nothing by it but a certain 
 correlate to that reward which God both promises 
 and bestows of mere grace and benignity. Other- 
 wise, in order to constitute what is properly called 
 merit, many things must concur, which no man in 
 his senses will presume to attribute to human works, 
 though ever so excellent ; particularly, that the thing 
 done must not previously be matter of debt, and that 
 it be entire, or our own act, unassisted by foreign 
 aid ; it must also be perfectly good, and it must bear 
 an adequate proportion to the reward claimed in con 
 sequence of it. If all these things do not concur, the 
 act cannot possibly amount to merit. Whereas I 
 think no one will venture to assert, that any one of 
 these can take place in any human action whatever. 
 But why should I enlarge here, when one single cir- 
 cumstance overthrows all those titles*? The most 
 righteous of mankind would not be able to stand, if 
 his works were weighed in the balance of strict 
 justice ; how much less then could they deserve that 
 immense glory which is now in question ! Nor is 
 this to be denied only concerning the unbeliever and 
 the sinner, but concerning the righteous and pious 
 believer, who is not only free from all the guilt of 
 his former impenitence and rebellion, but endowed 
 with the gift of the. Spirit. For the time is come that 
 judgment must begin at the house of God : and if it 
 first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that 
 obey not the Gospel of God ? And if the righteous 
 scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the 
 sinner appear? 1 Peter iv. 17, 18. The Apostle's 
 interrogation expresses the most vehement negation, 
 and signifies that no mortal, in whatever degree he is 
 placed, if he be called to the strict examination of divine 
 justice, without daily and repeated forgiveness, could 
 be able to keep his standing, and much less could he 
 
98 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 arise to that glorious height. " That merit," says 
 Bernard, " on which my hope relies, consists in these 
 three things ; the love of adoption, the truth of the 
 promise, and the power of its performance." This is 
 the threefold cord which cannot be broken. 
 
 Often have I heard it said by advocates for the 
 Socinian scheme — True ! we are all sinners ; but 
 even in the Old Testament God has promised for- 
 giveness on repentance. One of the Fathers (I 
 forget which) supplies the retort — True! God has 
 promised pardon on penitence ; but has he promised 
 penitence on sin ? — He that repenteth shall be for- 
 given ; but where is it said, He that sinneth shall 
 repent? But repentance, perhaps, the repentance 
 required in Scripture, the passing into a new and 
 contrary principle of action, this metanoia, is in the 
 sinner's own power ? at his own liking ? He has 
 but to open his eyes to the sin, and the tears are 
 close at hand to wash it away ? — Verily, the tenet of 
 Transubstantiation is scarcely at greater variance with 
 the common sense and experience of mankind, or 
 borders more closely on a contradiction in terms than 
 this volunteer transmentation, this self-change, as the 
 easy means of self-salvation ! But the reflections of 
 our evangelical Author on this subject will appro- 
 priately commence the Aphorisms relating to Spiritual 
 Religion. 
 
ELEMENTS OF EELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 PRELIMINARY TO THE 
 
 APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 Philip saith unto him : Lord, show us the Father, and it 
 sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, He that hath seen 
 me hath seen the Father : and how sayest thou then, 
 Show us the Father 1 Believest thou not that I am in 
 the Father and the Father in me 1 And I will pray the 
 Father and he shall give you another Comforter, even the 
 Spirit of Truth : whom the world cannot receive, because 
 it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye know 
 him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. And 
 in that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye 
 in me, and I in you. — John, xiv. 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 20. 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 If there be aught spiritual in man, the Will must 
 be such. 
 
 If there be a Will, there must be a spirituality in 
 man. 
 
 I suppose both positions granted. The Reader 
 admits the reality of the power, agency, or mode of 
 being expressed in the term, Spirit ; and the actual 
 existence of a Will. He sees clearly, that the idea 
 of the former is necessary to the conceivability of the 
 latter ; and that, vice versa, in asserting the fact of 
 the latter he presumes and instances the truth of the 
 former ; — just as in our common and received sys- 
 tems of natural philosophy, the being of imponderable 
 matter is assumed to render the lode-stone intelli- 
 
 h 2 
 
100 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 gible, and the fact of the lode-stone adduced to prove 
 the reality of imponderable matter. 
 
 In short, I suppose the Eeader, whom I now invite 
 to the third and last division of this "Work, already 
 disposed to reject for himself and his human brethren 
 the insidious title of "Nature's noblest animal," or 
 to retort it as the unconscious irony of the Epicurean 
 poet on the animalising tendency of his own philo- 
 sophy. I suppose him convinced, that there is more 
 in man than can be rationally referred to the life of 
 nature and the mechanism of organisation ; that he 
 has a will not included in this mechanism ; and that 
 the will is in an especial and pre-eminent sense the 
 spiritual part of our humanity. 
 
 Unless, then, we have some distinct notion of the 
 Will, and some acquaintance with the prevalent 
 errors respecting the same, an insight into the nature 
 of spiritual religion is scarcely possible ; and our 
 reflections on the particular truths and evidences of a 
 spiritual state will remain obscure, perplexed, and un- 
 safe. To place my Reader on this requisite vantage- 
 ground, is the purpose of the following exposition. 
 
 We have begun, as in geometry, with defining our 
 terms; and we proceed, like the geometricians, with 
 stating our postulates ; the difference being, that the 
 postulates of geometry no man can deny, those of 
 moral science are such as no good man will deny. 
 For it is not in our power to disclaim our nature as 
 sentient beings ; but it is in our power to disclaim 
 our nature as moral beings. It is possible — (barely 
 possible, I admit) — that a man may have remained 
 ignorant or unconscious of the moral law within him : 
 and a man need only persist in disobeying the law of 
 conscience to make it possible for himself to deny 
 its existence, or to reject and repel it as a phantom 
 of superstition. Were it otherwise, the Creed would 
 
ELEMENTS OF KELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 101 
 
 stand in the same relation to morality as the multi- 
 plication table. 
 
 This then is the distinction of moral philosophy — 
 not that I begin with one or more assumptions ; for 
 this is common to all science ; but — that I assume a 
 something, the proof of which no man can give to 
 another, yet every man may find for himself. If any 
 man assert that he cannot find it, I am bound to 
 disbelieve him. I cannot do otherwise without un- 
 settling the very foundations of my own moral nature. 
 For I either find it as an essential of the humanity 
 common to him and me : or I have not found it at 
 all, except as a hypochondriast finds glass legs. If, 
 on the other hand, he will not find it, he excommu- 
 nicates himself. He forfeits his personal rights, and 
 becomes a thing : that is, one who may rightfully be 
 employed, or used, as* means to an end, against his 
 will, and without regard to his interest. 
 
 All the significant objections of the Materialist 
 and Necessitarian are contained in the term, Morality ; 
 all the objections of the Infidel, in the term, Keligion. 
 The very terms, I say, imply a something granted, 
 which the objection supposes not granted. The term 
 presumes what the objection denies, and in denying 
 
 * On this principle alone is it possible to justify capital or 
 ignominious punishments, or indeed any punishment not 
 having the reformation of the criminal as one of its objects. 
 Such punishments, like those inflicted on suicides, must be 
 regarded as posthumous : the wilful extinction of the moral 
 and personal life being, for the purposes of punitive justice, 
 equivalent to a wilful destruction of the natural life. If the 
 speech of Judge Burnet to the horse-stealer, — (You are not 
 hanged for stealing a horse ; but, that horses may not be 
 stolen) — can be vindicated at all, it must be on this prin- 
 ciple ; and not on the all-unsettling scheme of expedience, 
 which is the anarchy of morals. 
 
102 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 presumes the contrary. For it is most important to 
 observe that the reasoners on both sides commence 
 by taking something for granted, our assent to which 
 they ask or demand. : that is, both set off with an 
 assumption in the form of a postulate. But the 
 Epicurean assumes what according to himself he 
 neither is nor can be under any obligation to assume, 
 and demands what he can have no right to demand : 
 for he denies the reality of all moral obligation, the 
 existence of any right. If he use the words, right 
 and obligation, he does it deceptively, and means 
 only power and compulsion. To overthrow the faith 
 in aught higher or other than nature and physical 
 necessity, is the very purpose of his argument. He 
 desires you only to take for granted, that all reality 
 is included in nature, and he may then safely defy 
 you to ward off his conclusion — that nothing is 
 excluded ! 
 
 But as he cannot morally demand, neither can he 
 rationally expect, your assent to this premiss: for 
 he cannot be ignorant, that the best and greatest of 
 men have devoted their lives to the enforcement of 
 the contrary ; that the vast majority of the human 
 race in all ages and in all nations have believed in 
 the contrary; and that there is not a language on 
 earth, in which he could argue, for ten minutes, in 
 support of his scheme, without sliding into words and 
 phrases that imply the contrary. It has been said, 
 that the Arabic has a thousand names for a lion ; 
 but this would be a trifle compared with the number 
 of superfluous words and useless synonymes that 
 would be found in an index expurgatorius of any 
 European dictionary constructed on the principles of 
 a consistent and strictly consequential Materialism. 
 
 The Christian likewise grounds his philosophy on 
 assertions : but with the best of all reasons for 
 
ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 103 
 
 making them — namely, that he ought so to do. He 
 asserts what he can neither prove, nor account for, 
 nor himself comprehend; but with the strongest 
 inducements, that of understanding thereby whatever 
 else it most concerns him to understand aright. And 
 yet his assertions have nothing in them of theory or 
 hypothesis : but are in immediate reference to three 
 ultimate facts; namely, the reality of the law of 
 conscience ; the existence of a responsible will, as 
 the subject of that law ; and lastly, the existence of 
 evil — of evil essentially such, not by accident of 
 outward circumstances, not derived from its physical 
 consequences, nor from any cause out of itself. The 
 first is a fact of consciousness ; the second a fact of 
 reason necessarily concluded from the first ; and the 
 third a fact of history interpreted by both. 
 
 Omnia exeunt in mysterium, says a schoolman ; 
 that is, There is nothing, the absolute ground of 
 which is not a mystery. The contrary were indeed 
 a contradiction in terms : for how can that, which is 
 to explain all things, be susceptible of an explana- 
 tion ? It would be to suppose the same thing first 
 and second at the same time. 
 
 If I rested here, I should merely have placed my 
 creed in direct opposition to that of the Necessita- 
 rians, who assume — (for observe, both parties begin 
 in an assumption and cannot do otherwise) — that 
 motives act on the will, as bodies act on bodies ; and 
 that whether mind and matter are essentially the 
 same, or essentially different, they are both alike 
 under one and the same law of compulsory causation. 
 But this is far from exhausting my intention. I 
 mean at the same time to oppose the disciples of 
 Shaftesbury and those who, substituting one faith for 
 another, have been well called the pious Deists of 
 the last century, in order to distinguish them from 
 
104 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 the infidels of the present age, who persuade them- 
 selves, — (for the thing itself is not possible) — that 
 they reject all faith. I declare my dissent from these 
 two, because they imposed upon themselves an idea 
 for a fact : a most sublime idea indeed, and so 
 necessary to human nature, that without it no virtue 
 is conceivable ; but still an idea. In contradiction 
 to their splendid but delusory tenets, I profess a 
 deep conviction that man was and is a- fallen creature, 
 not by accidents of bodily constitution or any other 
 cause, which human wisdom in a course of ages 
 might be supposed capable of removing ; but as 
 diseased in his will, in that will which is the true 
 and only strict synonyme of the word, I, or the 
 intelligent Self. Thus at each of these two oppo- 
 site roads (the philosophy of Hobbes and that of 
 Shaftesbury), I have placed a directing post, informing 
 my fellow-travellers, that on neither of these roads 
 can they see the truths to which I would direct their 
 attention. 
 
 But the place of starting was at the meeting of 
 four roads, and one only was the right road. I 
 proceed therefore to preclude the opinion of those 
 likewise, who indeed agree with me as to the moral 
 responsibility of man in opposition to Hobbes and 
 the anti-moralists, and that he is a fallen creature, 
 essentially diseased, in opposition to Shaftesbury and 
 the mis-interpreters of Plato ; but who differ from me 
 in exaggerating the diseased weakness of the will 
 into an absolute privation of all freedom, thereby 
 making moral responsibility not a mystery above 
 comprehension, but a direct contradiction, of which 
 we do distinctly comprehend the absurdity. Among 
 the consequences of this doctrine, is that direful one 
 of swallowing up all the attributes of the Supreme 
 Being in the one attribute of infinite power, and 
 
ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 105 
 
 thence deducing that things are good and wise 
 because they were created, and not created through 
 wisdom and goodness. Thence too the awful attri- 
 bute of justice is explained away into a mere right 
 of absolute property ; the sacred distinction between 
 things and persons 'is erased ; and the selection of 
 persons for virtue and vice in this life, and for 
 eternal happiness or misery in the next, is repre- 
 sented as the result of a mere will, acting in the 
 blindness and solitude of its own infinity. The title 
 of a work written by the great and pious Boyle is, 
 " Of the awe which the human mind owes to the 
 Supreme Eeason." This, in the language of these 
 gloomy doctors, must be translated into — " The 
 horror, which a being capable of eternal pleasure or 
 pain is compelled to feel at the idea of an Infinite 
 Power, about to inflict the latter on an immense 
 majority of human souls, without any power on their 
 part either to prevent it or the actions which are (not 
 indeed its causes but) its assigned signals, and pre- 
 ceding links of the same iron chain ! " 
 
 Against these tenets I maintain, that a will con- 
 ceived separately from intelligence is a nonentity, 
 and a mere phantasm of abstraction ; and that a will, 
 the state of which does in no sense originate in its 
 own act, is an absolute contradiction. It might be 
 an instinct, an impulse, a plastic power, and, if ac- 
 companied with consciousness, a desire ; but a will it 
 could not be. And this every human being knows 
 with equal clearness, though different minds may 
 reflect on it with different degrees of distinctness ; 
 for who would not smile at the notion of a rose 
 willing to put forth its buds and expand them into 
 flowers? That such a phrase would be deemed a 
 poetic license proves the difference in the things : 
 for all metaphors are grounded on an apparent 
 
106 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 likeness of things essentially different. I utterly 
 disclaim the notion, that any human intelligence, 
 with whatever power it might manifest itself, is 
 alone adequate to the office of restoring health to 
 the will : but at the same time I deem it impious 
 and absurd to hold that the Creator would have 
 given us the faculty of reason, or that the Redeemer 
 would in so many varied forms of argument and 
 persuasion have appealed to it, if it had been either 
 totally useless or wholly impotent. Lastly, I find 
 all these several truths reconciled and united in the 
 belief, that the imperfect human understanding can 
 be effectually exerted only in subordination to, and 
 in a dependent alliance with, the means and aidances 
 supplied by the All-perfect and Supreme Reason; 
 but that under these conditions it is not only an ad- 
 missible, but a necessary, instrument of bettering 
 both ourselves and others. 
 
 We may now proceed to our reflections on the 
 Spirit of Religion. The first three or four Aphorisms 
 I have selected from the theological works of Dr. 
 Henry More, a contemporary of Archbishop Leighton, 
 and, like him, held in suspicion by the Calvinists 
 of that time as a Latitudinarian and Platonising 
 divine, and who probably, like him, would have 
 been arraigned as a Calvinist by the Latitudinarians 
 (I cannot say, Platonists) of this day, had the suspicion 
 been equally groundless. One or two I have ventured 
 to add from my own reflections. The purpose, how- 
 ever, is the same in all — that of declaring, in the 
 first place, what spiritual religion is not, what is not 
 a religious spirit, and what are not to be deemed 
 influences of the Spirit. If after these disclaimers I 
 shall without proof be charged by any with renewing 
 or favouring the errors of the Familists, Vanists, 
 Seekers, Behmenists, or by whatever other names 
 
ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 107 
 
 Church history records the poor bewildered enthu- 
 siasts, who in the swarming time of our Eepublic, 
 turned the facts of the Gospel into allegories, and 
 superseded the written ordinances of Christ by a 
 pretended teaching and sensible presence of the 
 Spirit, I appeal against them to their own con- 
 sciences as wilful slanderers. But if with proof, I 
 have in these Aphorisms signed and sealed my own 
 condemnation. 
 
 " These things I could not forbear to write. For 
 the light within me, that is, my reason and con- 
 science, does assure me, that the ancient and Apos- 
 tolic faith, according to the historical meaning thereof, 
 and in the literal sense of the Creed, is solid and 
 true : and that Familism * in its fairest form and 
 under whatever disguise, is a smooth tale to seduce 
 the simple from their allegiance to Christ." 
 
 Henry MoRE.f 
 
 * The Family of Love, a sect founded by Henry Nicholas 
 in Holland in 1555. — Ed. 
 
 t Myst. of Godliness, vi. — Ed. 
 
108 
 
 APHOEISMS 
 
 ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 And here it will not be impertinent to observe, that what 
 the eldest Greek philosophy entitled the Reason (NOT2) 
 and ideas, the philosophic Apostle names the Spirit and 
 truths spiritually discerned : while to those who, in the 
 pride of learning or in the overweening meanness of 
 modem metaphysics, decry the doctrine of the Spirit in 
 man and its possible communion with the Holy Spirit as 
 vulgar enthusiasm, I submit the following sentences 
 from a Pagan philosopher, a nobleman and a minister of 
 state — "Ita dico, Lucili, sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet, 
 malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator ei custos. Hie 
 prout a nobis tractatus est, ita nos ipse tractat. Bonus vir 
 sine Deo nemo est." — Seneca, Epist. xli. 
 
 APHORISM I. 
 
 Every one is to give a reason of his faith ; but 
 priests and ministers more punctually than any, their 
 province being to make good every sentence of the 
 Bible to a rational inquirer into the truth of these 
 oracles. Enthusiasts find it an easy thing to heat 
 the fancies of unlearned and unreflecting hearers ; 
 but when a sober man would be satisfied of the 
 grounds from whence they speak, he shall not have 
 one syllable or the least tittle of a pertinent answer. 
 Only they will talk big of the Spirit, and inveigh 
 against reason with bitter reproaches, calling it carnal 
 or fleshly, though it be indeed no soft flesh, but 
 enduring and penetrant steel, even the sword of the 
 Spirit, and such as pierces to the heart. 
 
ON SPIBITUAL KELIGION. 109 
 
 APHOEISM II. 
 
 H. MORE. 
 
 There are two very bad things in this resolving of 
 men's faith and practice into the immediate sugges- 
 tion of a Spirit not acting on our understandings, or 
 rather into the illumination of such a Spirit as they 
 can give no account of, such as does not enlighten 
 their reason or enable them to render their doc- 
 trine intelligible to others. First, it defaces and 
 makes useless that part of the image of G-od in us, 
 which we call reason : and, secondly, it takes away 
 that advantage, which raises Christianity above all 
 other religions, that she dares appeal to so solid a 
 faculty. 
 
 APHORISM III. 
 
 It is the glory of the Gospel charter and the 
 Christian constitution, that its author and head is 
 the Spirit of truth, essential Reason as well as 
 absolute and incomprehensible Will. Like a just 
 monarch, he refers even his own causes to the 
 judgment of his high courts. — He has his King's 
 Bench in the reason, his Court of Equity in the 
 conscience ; that the representative of his majesty 
 and universal justice, this the nearest to the king's 
 heart, and the dispenser of his particular decrees. 
 He has likewise his Court of Common Pleas in the 
 understanding, his Court of Exchequer in the pru- 
 dence. The laws are his laws. And though by 
 signs and miracles he has mercifully condescended 
 to interline here and there with his own hand the 
 great statute-book, which he had dictated to his 
 amanuensis, Nature ; yet has he been graciously 
 pleased to forbid our receiving as the king's man- 
 dates aught that is not stamped with the Great Seal 
 of the Conscience, and countersigned by the Reason. 
 
110 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM IV. 
 
 ON AN UNLEARNED MINISTRY, UNDER PRETENCE OP A CALL 
 OF THE SPIRIT, AND INWARD GRACES SUPERSEDING OUT- 
 WARD HELPS. 
 
 H. MOKE. 
 
 Tell me, ye high-flown perfectionists, ye boasters 
 of the light within you, could the highest perfection 
 of your inward light ever show to you the history of 
 past ages, the state of the world at present, the know- 
 ledge of arts and tongues, without books or teachers ? 
 How then can you understand the providence of God, 
 or the age, the purpose, the fulfilment of prophecies, 
 or distinguish such as have been fulfilled from those 
 to the fulfilment of which we are to look forward ? 
 How can you judge concerning the authenticity and 
 uncorruptedness of the Gospels, and the other sacred 
 Scriptures ? And how, without this knowledge, can 
 you support the truth of Christianity ? How can 
 you either have, or give a reason for, the faith which 
 you profess ? This light within, that loves dark- 
 ness, and would exclude those excellent gifts of God 
 to mankind, knowledge and understanding, what is it 
 but a sullen self-sufficiency within you, engendering 
 contempt of superiors, pride and a spirit of division, 
 and inducing you to reject for yourselves, and to un- 
 dervalue in others, the helps without, which the grace 
 of God has provided and appointed for his Church — 
 nay, to make them grounds or pretexts of your 
 dislike or suspicion of Christ's ministers who have 
 fruitfully availed themselves of the helps afforded 
 them? 
 
 APHORISM V. 
 
 H. MOKE. 
 
 There are wanderers, whom neither pride nor a 
 perverse humour have led astray ; and whose condi- 
 tion is such, that I think few more worthy of a 
 
ON SPIRITUAL EELTGION. Ill 
 
 man's best directions. For the more imperious sects 
 having put such unhandsome vizards on Christianity, 
 and the sincere milk of the word having been every- 
 where so sophisticated by the humours and inventions 
 of men, it has driven these anxious melancholists 
 to seek for a teacher that cannot deceive, the 
 voice of the eternal Word within them ; to which if 
 they be faithful, they assure themselves it will be 
 faithful to them in return. Nor would this be a 
 groundless presumption, if they had sought this voice 
 in the reason and the conscience, with the Scripture 
 articulating the same, instead of giving heed to their 
 fancy and mistaking bodily disturbances, and the 
 vapours resulting therefrom, for inspiration and the 
 teaching of the Spirit. 
 
 APHORISM VI. 
 
 HACKET. 
 
 When every man is his own end, all things will 
 come to a bad end. Blessed were those days, when 
 every man thought himself rich and fortunate by the 
 good success of the public wealth and glory. We 
 want public souls, we want them. I speak it with 
 compassion : there is no sin and abuse in the world 
 that affects my thoughts so much. Every man 
 thinks, that he is a whole commonwealth in his 
 private family. Omnes quce sua sunt qumrunt. All 
 seek their own. 
 
 Selfishness is common to all ages and countries. 
 In all ages self-seeking is the rule, and self-sacrifice 
 the exception. But if to seek our private advantage 
 in harmony with, and by the furtherance of, the 
 public prosperity, and to derive a portion of our 
 happiness from sympathy with the prosperity of our 
 
119 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 fellow-men — if this be public spirit, it would be 
 morose and querulous to pretend that there is any 
 want of it in this country and at the present time. 
 On the contrary, the number of "public souls" and 
 the general readiness to contribute to the public 
 good, in science and in religion, in patriotism and in 
 philanthropy, stand prominent * among the charac- 
 teristics of this and the preceding generation. The 
 habit of referring actions and opinions to fixed laws ; 
 convictions rooted in principles ; thought, insight, 
 system ; — these, had the good Bishop lived in our 
 times, would have been his desiderata, and the theme 
 of his complaints. " We want thinking souls, we 
 want them." 
 
 This and the three preceding extracts will suffice 
 as precautionary Aphorisms. And here, again, the 
 Reader may exemplify the great advantages to be 
 
 * The very marked, positive as well as comparative, mag- 
 nitude and prominence of the bump, entitled benevolence 
 (see Spurzheim's map of the human skull) on the head of the 
 late Mr. John Thurtel, has woefully unsettled the faith of 
 many ardent phrenologists, and strengthened the previous 
 doubts of a still greater number into utter disbelief. On my 
 mind this fact (for a fact it is) produced the directly contrary 
 effect ; and inclined me to suspect, for the first time, that 
 there may be some truth in the Spurzheimian scheme. 
 Whether future craniologists may not see cause to new-name 
 this and one or two other of these convex gnomons, is quite a 
 different question. At present, and according to the present 
 use of words, any such change would be premature : and we 
 must be content to say, that Mr. Thurtel's benevolence was 
 insufficiently modified by the unprotrusive and unindicated 
 convolutes of the brain, that secrete honesty and common- 
 sense. The organ of destructiveness was indirectly poten- 
 tiated by the absence or imperfect development of the 
 glands of reason and conscience, in this " unfortunate 
 gentleman ! " 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 113 
 
 obtained from the habit of tracing the proper meaning 
 and history of words. We need only recollect the 
 common and idiomatic phrases in which the word 
 " spirit " occurs in a physical or material sense (as, 
 fruit has lost its spirit and flavour), to be convinced 
 that its property is to improve, enliven, actuate some 
 other thing, not constitute a thing in its own name. 
 The enthusiast may find one exception to this where 
 the material itself is called spirit. And when he 
 calls to mind, how this spirit acts when taken alone 
 by the unhappy persons who in their first exultation 
 will boast that it is meat, drink, fire, and clothing to 
 them, all in one — when he reflects, that its properties 
 are to inflame, intoxicate, madden, with exhaustion, 
 lethargy, and atrophy for the sequels ; — well for him, 
 if in some lucid interval he should fairly put the 
 question to his own mind, how far this is analogous 
 to his own case, and whether the exception does not 
 confirm the rule. The letter without the spirit killeth; 
 but does it follow, that the spirit is to kill the letter ? 
 To kill that which it is its appropriate office to 
 enliven '? 
 
 However, where the ministry is not invaded, and 
 the plain sense of the Scriptures is left undisturbed, 
 and the believer looks for the suggestions of the 
 Spirit only or chiefly in applying particular passages 
 to his own individual case and exigencies ; though in 
 this there may be much weakness, some delusion 
 and imminent danger of more, I cannot but join with 
 Henry More in avowing, that I feel knit to such a 
 man in the bonds of a common faith far more closely, 
 than to those who receive neither the letter nor the 
 Spirit, turning the one into metaphor and oriental 
 hyperbole, in order to explain away the other into 
 the influence of motives suggested by their own un- 
 derstandings, and realised by their own strength. 
 
114 
 
 APHOEISMS 
 
 ON THAT WHICH IS INDEED SPIRITUAL 
 RELIGION. 
 
 In the selection of the extracts that form the 
 remainder of this volume, and of the comments 
 affixed, I had the following objects principally in 
 view : — first, to exhibit the true and Scriptural 
 meaning and intent of several articles of faith, that 
 are rightly classed among the mysteries and peculiar 
 doctrines of Christianity : — secondly, to show the 
 perfect rationality of these doctrines, and their 
 freedom from all just objection when examined by 
 their proper organ, the reason and conscience of 
 man : — lastly, to exhibit from the works of Leighton, 
 who perhaps of all our learned Protestant theologians 
 best deserves the title of a spiritual divine, an in 
 structive and affecting picture of the contemplations, 
 reflections, conflicts, consolations, and monitory expe- 
 riences of a philosophic and richly-gifted mind, amply 
 stored with all the knowledge that books and long 
 intercourse with men of the most discordant characters 
 could give, under the convictions, impi*essions, and 
 habits of a spiritual religion. 
 
 To obviate a possible disappointment in any of my 
 Readers, who may chance to be engaged in theolo- 
 gical studies, it may be well to notice, that in vindi- 
 cating the peculiar tenets of our Faith, I have not 
 entered on the doctrine of the Trinity, or the still 
 profounder mystery of the origin of moral Evil — and 
 this for the reasons following. I. These doctrines 
 are not, in strictness, subjects of reflection, in the 
 
ON SPIKITUAL RELIGION. 115 
 
 proper sense of this word : and both of them demand 
 a power and persistency of abstraction, and a pre- 
 vious discipline in the highest forms of human 
 thought, which it would be unwise, if not presump- 
 tuous, to expect from any, who require aids to reflec- 
 tion, or would be likely to seek them in the present 
 Work. 2. In my intercourse with men of various 
 ranks and ages, I have found the far larger number 
 of serious and inquiring persons little, if at all, dis- 
 quieted by doubts respecting articles of faith simply 
 above their comprehension. It is only where the 
 belief required of them jars with their moral feelings : 
 where a doctrine, in the sense in which they have 
 been taught to receive it, appears to contradict their 
 clear notions of right and wrong, or to be at variance 
 with the divine attributes of goodness and justice, 
 that these men are surprised, perplexed, and alas ! 
 not seldom offended and alienated. Such are the 
 doctrines of arbitrary election and reprobation ; the 
 sentence to everlasting torment by an eternal and 
 necessitating decree ; vicarious atonement, and the 
 necessity of the abasement, agony and ignominious 
 death of a most holy and meritorious person, to appease 
 the wrath of God. Now it is more especially for 
 such persons, unwilling sceptics, who, believing ear- 
 nestly, ask help for their unbelief, that this Volume 
 was compiled, and the Comments written : and there- 
 fore, to the Scripture doctrines intended by the 
 above-mentioned, my principal attention has been 
 directed. 
 
 APHORISM I. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Where, if not in Christ, is the power that can 
 persuade a sinner to return, that can bring home a 
 heart to God ? 
 
 i 2 
 
116 AIDS TO KEFLECTJON. 
 
 Common mercies of God, though they have a 
 leading faculty to repentance (Rom. ii. 4), yet the 
 rebellious heart will not he led by them. The judg- 
 ments of God, public or personal, though they ought 
 to drive us to God, yet the heart, unchanged, runs 
 the further from God. Do we not see it by ourselves 
 and other sinners about us ? They look not at all 
 towards Him who smites, much less do they return ; 
 or if any more serious thoughts of returning arise 
 upon the surprise of an affliction, how soon vanish 
 they, either the stroke abating, or the heart, by time, 
 growing hard and senseless under it ! Leave Christ 
 out, I say, and all other means work not this way ; 
 neither the works nor the word of God sounding daily 
 in his ear, Return, return. Let the noise of the rod 
 speak it too, and both join together to make the cry 
 the louder, yet the wicked will do wickedly. (Dan. 
 xi. 10.) 
 
 By the phrase "in Christ," I understand all the 
 supernatural aids vouchsafed and conditionally pro- 
 mised in the Christian dispensation : and among them 
 the spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive, 
 were it only that the knowledge of spiritual truth is 
 of necessity immediate and intuitive ; and the world 
 or natural man possesses no higher intuitions than 
 those of the pure sense, which are the subjects of 
 mathematical science. But aids, observe : — there- 
 fore, not by the will of man alone; but neither 
 without the will. The doctrine of modern Calvinism, 
 as laid down by Jonathan Edwards, and the late 
 Dr. Williams, which represents a will absolutely 
 passive, clay in the hands of a potter, destroys all 
 will, takes away its essence and definition, as effec- 
 tually as in saying — This circle is square — I should 
 
ON SPIEITUAL RELIGION. 117 
 
 deny the figure to be a circle at all. It was in strict 
 consistency, therefore, that these writers supported 
 the Necessitarian scheme, and made the relation of 
 cause and effect the law of the universe, subjecting 
 to its mechanism the moral world no less than the 
 material or physical. It follows that all is nature. 
 Thus, though few writers use the term Spirit more 
 frequently, they in effect deny its existence, and 
 evacuate the term of all its proper meaning. With 
 such a system not the wit of man nor all the theodi- 
 cies ever framed by human ingenuity, before and since 
 the attempt of the celebrated Leibnitz, can reconcile 
 the sense of responsibility, nor the fact of the difference 
 in kind between regret and remorse. The same com- 
 pulsion of consequence drove the fathers of modern 
 (or pseudo) Calvinism to the origination of holiness 
 in power, of justice in right of property, and what- 
 ever other outrages on the common sense and moral 
 feelings of mankind they have sought to cover under 
 the fair name of Sovereign Grace. 
 
 I will not take on me to defend sundry harsh 
 and inconvenient expressions in the works of Calvin. 
 Phrases equally strong, and assertions not less rash 
 and startling, are no rarities in the writings of Luther : 
 for catachresis was the favourite figure of speech in 
 that age. But let not the opinions of either on this 
 most fundamental subject be confounded with the 
 New-England system, now entitled Calvinistic. The 
 fact is simply this. Luther considered the preten- 
 sions to free-will boastful, and better suited to the 
 "budge doctors of the Stoic Fur," than to the 
 preachers of the Gospel, whose great theme is the 
 redemption of the will from slavery ; the restoration 
 of the will to perfect freedom being the end and con- 
 summation of the redemptive process, and the same 
 with the entrance of the soul into glory, that is, its 
 
118 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 union with Christ; " glory " (John xvii. 5) being one 
 of the names or tokens or symbols of tbe spiritual 
 Messiah. Prospectively to this we are to understand 
 the words of our Lord, At that day ye shall know that 
 I am in my Father, and ye in me, (Jobn xiv. 20 :) the 
 freedom of a finite will being possible under this con- 
 dition only, that it has become one with the will of 
 God. Now as the difference of a captive and enslaved 
 will, and no will at all, such is the difference between 
 the Lutheranism of Calvin and the Calvinism of 
 Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 APHORISM II. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Tbere is nothing in religion farther out of nature's 
 reach, and more remote from the natural man's liking 
 and believing, than the doctrine of redemption by a 
 Saviour, and by a crucified Saviour. It is compara- 
 tively easy to persuade men of the necessity of an 
 amendment of conduct ; it is more difficult to make 
 them see the necessity of repentance in the Gospel 
 sense, the necessity of a change in the principle of 
 action ; but to convince men of the necessity of the 
 death of Christ is the most difficult of all. And yet 
 the first is but varnish and whitewash without the 
 second ; and the second but a barren notion without 
 the last. Alas ! of those who admit the doctrine in 
 words, how large a number evade it in fact, and 
 empty it of all its substance and efficacy, making the 
 effect the efficient cause, or attributing their election 
 to salvation to supposed foresight of their faith and 
 obedience. But it is most vain to imagine a faith in 
 such and such men, which, being foreseen by God, 
 determined him to elect them for salvation : were it 
 only that nothing at all is future, or can have this 
 
ON SPIRITUAL EELIGION. 119 
 
 imagined futurition, but as it is decreed, and because 
 it is decreed, by God so to be. 
 
 COMMENT. 
 
 No impartial person, competently acquainted with 
 the history of the Reformation, and the works of the 
 earlier Protestant divines at home and abroad, even 
 to the close of Elizabeth's reign, will deny that the 
 doctrines of Calvin on redemption and the natural 
 state of fallen man, are in all essential points the 
 same as those of Luther, Zuinglius, and the first 
 Reformers collectively. These doctrines have, how- 
 ever, since the re-establishment of the Episcopal 
 Church at the return of Charles II., been as gene- 
 rally* exchanged for what is commonly entitled 
 
 * At a period in which Bishop Marsh and Dr. Wordsworth 
 have, by the zealous on one side, been charged with Popish 
 principles on account of their anti-bibliolatry, and, on the 
 other, the sturdy adherents of the doctrines common to 
 Luther and Calvin, and the literal interpreters of the Articles 
 and Homilies, are — (I wish I could say, altogether without 
 any fault of their own) — regarded by the Clergy generally as 
 virtual schismatics, dividers of, though not from, the Church, 
 — it is serving the cause of charity to assist in circulating the 
 following instructive passage from the Life of Bishop Hacket, 
 respecting the disputes between the Augustinians, or 
 Luthero-Calvinistic divines, and the Grotians of his age : in 
 which controversy (says his biographer) he, Hacket, "was 
 ever very moderate." 
 
 "But having been bred under Bishop Davenant and 
 Dr. Ward in Cambridge, he was addicted to their sentiments. 
 Archbishop Ussher would say, that Davenant understood 
 those controversies better than ever any man did since 
 St. Augustine. But he (Bishop Hacket) used to say, that he 
 was sure he had three excellent men of his opinion in this 
 controversy ; 1. Padre Paolo (Father Paul) whose letter is 
 extant in Heinsius, anno 1604. 2. Thomas Aquinas. 3. St. 
 Augustine. But besides and above them all, he believed in 
 
120 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 Arminianism, but which, taken as a complete and 
 explicit scheme of belief, it would be both histo- 
 rically and theologically more accurate to call Gro- 
 tianism, or Christianity according to Grotius. The 
 change was not, we may readily believe, effected 
 without a struggle. In the Romish Church this 
 latitudinarian system, patronised by the Jesuits, was 
 manfully resisted by Jansenius, Arnauld, and Pascal ; 
 in our own Church by the Bishops Davenant, 
 Sanderson, Hall, and the Archbishops Ussher and 
 Leighton : and in the latter half of the preceding 
 Aphorism the Reader has a specimen of the reason- 
 ings by which Leighton strove to invalidate or coun- 
 terpoise the reasonings of the innovators. 
 
 Passages of this sort are, however, of rare occur- 
 rence in Leighton 's works. Happily for thousands, 
 he was more usefully employed in making his readers 
 feel that the doctrines in question, Scripturally treated 
 and taken as co-organised parts of a great organic 
 whole, need no such reasonings. And better still 
 would it have been, had he left them altogether for 
 
 his conscience that St. Paul was of the same mind likewise. 
 Yet at the same time he would profess that, he disliked no 
 Arminians but such as revile and defame every one who is 
 not so ; and he would often commend Arminius himself for 
 his excellent wit and parts, but only tax his want of reading 
 and knowledge in antiquity. And he ever held, it was the 
 foolishest thing in the world to say the Arminians were 
 Popishly inclined, when so many Dominicans and Jansenists 
 were rigid followers of Augustine in these points : and no 
 less foolish to say that the Anti- Arminians were Puritans and 
 Presbyterians, when Ward, and Davenant, and Prideaux, 
 and Browning, those stout champions for Episcopacy, were 
 decided Anti- Arminians : while Arminius himself was ever 
 a Presbyterian. Therefore he greatly commended the mo- 
 deration of our Church, which extended equal communion 
 to both." 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 121 
 
 those, who, severally detaching the great features of 
 Kevelation from the living context of Scripture, do 
 by that very act destroy their life and purpose. And 
 then, like the eyes of the Indian spider,* they 
 become clouded microscopes, to exaggerate and dis- 
 tort all the other parts and proportions. No offence 
 then will be occasioned, I trust, by the frank avowal 
 that I have given to the preceding passage a place 
 among the spiritual Aphorisms for the sake of com- 
 ment : the following remarks having been the first 
 marginal note I had pencilled on Leighton's pages, 
 and thus (remotely, at least), the occasion of the 
 present Work. 
 
 Leighton, I observed, throughout his inestimable 
 Work, avoids all metaphysical views of Election, 
 relatively to God, and confines himself to the doc- 
 trine in its relation to man ; and in that sense too, 
 in which every Christian may judge of it who strives 
 to be sincere with his own heart. The following 
 may, I think, be taken as a safe and useful rule in 
 religious inquiries. Ideas, that derive their origin 
 and substance from the moral being, and to the re- 
 ception of which as true objectively (that is, as corre- 
 sponding to a reality out of the human mind) we are 
 determined by a practical interest exclusively, may 
 not, like theoretical positions, be pressed onward 
 into all their logical consequences. f The law of 
 
 * Aranea prodigiosa. See Baker's Microscopic Expe- 
 riments. 
 
 + Perhaps this rule may be expressed more intelligibly (to 
 a mathematician at least) thus : — Reasoning from finite to 
 finite on a basis of truth; also, reasoning from infinite to 
 infinite on a basis of truth, — will alwayslead to truth as intelli- 
 giblyas the basis onwhichsuch truths respectively rest. While 
 reasoning from finite to infinite, or from infinite to finite, will 
 lead to apparent absurdity, although the basis be true : and 
 
122 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 conscience, and not the canons of discursive reasoning, 
 must decide in such cases. At least, the latter have 
 no validity, which the single veto of the former is not 
 sufficient to nullify. The most pious conclusion is 
 here the most legitimate. 
 
 It is too seldom considered, though most worthy of 
 consideration, how far even those ideas or theories of 
 pure speculation, that bear the same name with the 
 objects of religious faith, are indeed the same. Out 
 of the principles necessarily presumed in all discur- 
 sive thinking, and which being, in the first place, 
 universal, and secondly, antecedent to every parti- 
 cular exercise of the understanding, are therefore 
 referred to the reason, the human mind (wherever its 
 powers are sufficiently developed, and its attention 
 strongly directed to speculative or theoretical inqui- 
 ries) forms certain essences, to which for its own 
 purposes it gives a sort of notional subsistence. 
 Hence they are called entia rationalia : the conversion 
 of which into entia realia, or real objects, by aid of 
 the imagination, has in all times been the fruitful 
 stock of empty theories and mischievous superstitions, 
 of surreptitious premisses and extravagant conclusions. 
 For as these substantiated notions were in many 
 instances expressed by the same terms as the objects 
 of religious faith; as in most instances they were 
 applied, though deceptively, to the explanation of 
 real experiences; and lastly, from the gratifications 
 which the pride and ambition of man received from 
 the supposed extension of his knowledge and insight; 
 it was too easily forgotten or overlooked, that the 
 stablest and most indispensable of those notional 
 beings were but the necessary forms of thinking, 
 taken abstractedly : and that like the breadthless lines, 
 
 is not such apparent absurdity another expression for " truth 
 unintelligible by a finite mind V 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 123 
 
 depthless surfaces, and perfect circles of geometry, 
 they subsist wholly and solely in and for the mind 
 that contemplates them. Where the evidence of the 
 senses fails us, and beyond the precincts of sensible 
 experience, there is no reality attributable to any 
 notion, but what is given to it by Eevelation, or the law 
 of conscience, or the necessary interests of morality. 
 
 Take an instance : 
 
 It is the office, and as it were, the instinct of 
 reason, to bring a unity into all our conceptions and 
 several knowledges. On this all system depends ; 
 and without this we could reflect connectedly neither 
 on nature nor our own minds. Now this is possible 
 only on the assumption or hypothesis of a One as the 
 ground and cause of the universe, and which, in all 
 succession and through all changes, is the subject 
 neither of time nor change. The One must be con- 
 templated as eternal and immutable. 
 
 Well! the idea, which is the basis of religion, 
 commanded by the conscience and required by mo- 
 rality, contains the same truths, or at least truths 
 that can be expressed in no other terms ; but this 
 idea presents itself to our mind with additional attri- 
 butes, and those too not formed by mere abstraction 
 and negation — with the attributes of holiness, pro- 
 vidence, love, justice, and mercy. It comprehends, 
 moreover, the independent (extra-mundane) existence 
 and personality of the Supreme One, as our Creator, 
 Lord, and Judge. 
 
 The hypothesis of a one ground and principle of 
 the universe (necessary as an hypothesis, but having 
 only a logical and conditional necessity), is thus raised 
 into the idea of the Living God, the supreme object 
 of our faith, love, fear, and adoration. Keligion and 
 morality do indeed constrain us to declare him eter- 
 nal and immutable. But if from the eternity of the 
 
124 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Supreme Being a reasoner should deduce the impos- 
 sibility of a creation ; or conclude with Aristotle, that 
 the creation was co-eternal ; or, like the later Plato- 
 nists, should turn creation into emanation, and make 
 the universe proceed from the Deity, as the sunbeams 
 from the solar orb ; — or if from the divine immuta- 
 bility he should infer that all prayer and supplication 
 must be vain and superstitious ; then however evident 
 and logically necessary such conclusions may appear, 
 it is scarcely worth our while to examine, whether they 
 are so or not. The positions must be false. For 
 were they true, the idea would lose the sole ground 
 of its reality. It would be no longer the idea in- 
 tended by the believer in his premiss — in the 
 premiss, with which alone religion and morality are 
 concerned. The very subject of the discussion would 
 be changed. It would no longer be the God, in 
 whom we believe ; but a stoical Fate, or the super- 
 essential One of Plotinus, to whom neither intelli- 
 gence, nor self-consciousness, nor life, nor even being 
 can be attributed ; or lastly, the World itself, the 
 indivisible one and only substance (substantia una et 
 unicd) of Spinoza, of which all phenomena, all parti- 
 cular and individual things, lives, minds, thoughts, 
 and actions are but modifications. 
 
 Let the believer never be alarmed by objections 
 wholly speculative, however plausible on speculative 
 grounds such objections may appeal', if he can but 
 satisfy himself, that the result is repugnant to the 
 dictates of conscience, and irreconcilable with the 
 interests of morality. For to baffle the objector we 
 have only to demand of him, by what right and 
 under what authority he converts a thought into a 
 substance, or asserts the existence of a real some- 
 what corresponding to a notion not derived from 
 the experience of his senses. It will be to no 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 125 
 
 purpose for him to answer that it is a legitimate 
 notion. The notion may have its mould in the 
 understanding ; but its realisation must be the work 
 of the fancy. 
 
 A reflecting reader will easily apply these remarks 
 to the subject of Election, one of the stumbling stones 
 in the ordinary conceptions of the Christian Faith, 
 to which the Infidel points in scorn, and which far 
 better men pass by in silent perplexity. Yet, surely, 
 from mistaken conceptions of the doctrine. I suppose 
 the person, with whom I am arguing, already so far 
 a believer, as to have convinced himself, both that a 
 state of enduring bliss is attainable under certain 
 conditions ; and that these conditions consist in his 
 compliance with the directions given and rules pre- 
 scribed in the Christian Scriptures. These rules he 
 likewise admits to be such, that, by the very law and 
 constitution of the human mind, a full and faithful 
 compliance with them cannot but have consequences 
 of some sort or other. But these consequences are 
 moreover distinctly described, enumerated, and pro- 
 mised in the same Scriptures, in which the conditions 
 are recorded ; and though some of them may be 
 apparent to God only, yet the greater number of 
 them are of such a nature that they cannot exist 
 unknown to the individual, in and for whom they 
 exist. As little possible is it, that he should find 
 these consequences in himself, and not find in them 
 the sure marks and the safe pledges that he is at the 
 time in the right road to the life promised under 
 these conditions. Now I dare assert that no such 
 man, however fervent his charity, and however deep 
 his humility may be, can peruse the records of 
 history with a reflecting spirit, or look round the 
 world with an observant eye, and not find himself 
 compelled to admit, that all men are not on the right 
 
136 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 road. He cannot help judging that even in Christian 
 countries many, — a fearful many, — have not their 
 faces turned toward it. 
 
 This then is a mere matter of fact. Now comes 
 the question. Shall the believer, who thus hopes 
 on the appointed grounds of hope, attribute this 
 distinction exclusively to his own resolves and 
 strivings, — or if not exclusively, yet primarily and 
 principally ? Shall he refer the first movements 
 and preparations to his own will and under- 
 standing, and bottom his claim to the promises on 
 his own comparative excellence ? If not, if no man 
 dare take this honour to himself, to whom shall he 
 assign it, if not to that Being in whom the promise 
 originated, and on whom its fulfilment depends ? If 
 he stop here, who shall blame him ? By what 
 argument shall his reasoning be invalidated, that 
 might not be urged with equal force against any' 
 essential difference between obedient and disobedient, 
 Christian and worldling ; — that would not imply 
 that both sorts alike are, in the sight of God, the 
 sons of God by adoption ? If he stop here, I say, 
 who shall drive him from his position? For thus 
 far he is practically concerned ; — this the conscience 
 requires ; this the highest interests of morality 
 demand. It is a question of facts, of the will and 
 the deed, to argue against which on the abstract 
 notions and possibilities of the speculative reason, is 
 as unreasonable as an attempt to decide a question 
 of colours by pure geometry, or to unsettle the classes 
 and specific characters of natural history by the doc- 
 trine of fluxions. 
 
 But if the self-examinant will abandon this posi- 
 tion, and exchange the safe circle of religion and 
 practical reason for the shifting sand-wastes and 
 mirages of speculative theology; if instead of seeking 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 127 
 
 after the marks of Election in himself, be undertakes 
 to determine the ground and origin, the possibility 
 and mode of Election itself in relation to God ; — in 
 tbis case, and whether be does it for the satisfaction 
 of curiosity, or from tbe ambition of answering those, 
 wbo would call God himself to account, wby and by 
 what right certain souls were born in Africa instead 
 of England ; or why — (seeing that it is against all 
 reason and goodness to choose a worse, when, being 
 omnipotent, He could have created a better) — God 
 did not create beasts men, and men angels ; — or why 
 God created any men but with foreknowledge of their 
 obedience, and left any occasion for Election ; — in 
 tbis case, I say, we can only regret that tbe inquirer 
 had not been better instructed in the nature, the 
 bounds, tbe true purposes and proper objects of his 
 intellectual faculties, and that he had not previously 
 asked himself, by what appropriate sense, or organ 
 of knowledge, he hoped to secure an insight into a 
 nature which was neither an object of bis senses, 
 nor a part of his self-consciousness ; and so leave 
 him to ward off shadowy spears with the shadow of a 
 shield, and to retaliate tbe nonsense of blasphemy 
 with the abracadabra of presumption. He that will 
 fly without wings must fly in bis dreams : and till 
 he awakes, will not find out that to fly in a dream is 
 but to dream of flying. 
 
 Thus then the doctrine of Election is in itself a 
 necessary inference from an undeniable fact — neces- 
 sary at least for all who hold that the best of men 
 are what they are through the grace of God. In 
 relation to the believer it is a hope, which if it spring 
 out of Christian principles, be examined by the 
 tests and nourished by the means prescribed in 
 Scripture, will become a lively and an assured hope, 
 but which cannot in this life pass into knowledge, 
 
128 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 much less certainty of foreknowledge. The contrary 
 belief does indeed make the article of Election both 
 tool and parcel of a mad and mischievous fanaticism. 
 But with what force and clearness does not the Apostle 
 confute, disclaim, and prohibit the pretence, treating 
 it as a downright contradiction in terms ! See Rom. 
 viii. 24. 
 
 But though I hold the doctrine handled as 
 Leighton handles it (that is practically, morally, 
 humanly), rational, safe, and of essential importance, 
 I see reasons* resulting from the peculiar circum- 
 stances, under which St. Paul preached and wrote, 
 why a discreet minister of the Gospel should avoid 
 the frequent use of the term, and express the 
 meaning in other words perfectly equivalent and 
 equally Scriptural ; lest in saying truth he may convey 
 error. 
 
 Had my purpose been confined to one particular 
 
 * For example : at the date of St. Paul's Epistles, the 
 Eoman world may be resembled to a mass in the furnace in 
 the first moment of fusion, here a speck and there a spot of 
 the melted metal shining pure and brilliant amid the scum 
 and dross. To have received the name of Christian was a 
 privilege, a high and distinguishing favour. No wonder 
 therefore, that in St. Paul's writings the words, Elect and 
 Election often, nay, most often, mean the same as eKKa.Kov/j.ei'oi, 
 ecclesia, that is, those who have been called out of the world : 
 and it is a dangerous perversion of the Apostle's word to 
 interpret it in the sense, in which it was used by our Lord, 
 viz. in opposition to the called. (Many are called but few 
 chosen.) In St. Paul's sense and at that time the believers 
 collectively formed a small and select number ; and every 
 Christian, real or nominal, was one of the elect. Add too, 
 that this ambiguity is increased by the accidental circum- 
 stance, that the Kyriac, cedes Dominica, Lord's House, Mrk ; 
 and ecclesia, the sum total of the eKica\ovfj.eyoi, evocati, called 
 out ; are both rendered by the same word, Church. 
 
ON SPIEITUAL RELIGION. 129 
 
 tenet, an apology might be required for so long a 
 comment. But the Reader will, I trust, have already, 
 perceived, that my object has been to establish a 
 general rule of interpretation and vindication appli- 
 cable to all doctrinal tenets, and especially to the (so 
 called) mysteries of the Christian Faith : to provide 
 a safety-lamp for religious inquirers. Now this I find 
 in the principle, that all revealed truths are to be 
 judged of by us, so far only as they are possible sub- 
 jects of human conception, or grounds of practice, or 
 in some way connected with our moral and spiritual 
 interests. In order to have a reason for forming a 
 judgment on any given article, we must be sure that 
 we possess a reason, by and according to which a 
 judgment may be formed. Now in respect of all 
 truths, to which a real independent existence is 
 assigned, and which yet are not contained in, or to be 
 imagined under, any form of space or time, it is 
 strictly demonstrable, that the human reason, consi- 
 dered abstractly, as the source of positive science 
 and theoretical insight, is not such a reason. At the 
 utmost, it has only a negative voice. In other words, 
 nothing can be allowed as true for the human mind, 
 which directly contradicts this reason. But even 
 here, before we admit the existence of any such con- 
 tradiction, we must be careful to ascertain, that there 
 is no equivocation in play, that two different subjects 
 are not confounded under one and the same word. 
 A striking instance of this has been adduced in the 
 difference between the notional One of the Ontolo- 
 gists, and the idea of the living God. 
 
 But if not the abstract or speculative reason, and 
 yet a reason there must be in order to a rational 
 belief — then it must be the practical reason of man, 
 comprehending the will, the conscience, the moral 
 being with its inseparable interests and affections — 
 
130 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 that reason, namely, which is the organ of wisdom, 
 and, as far as man is concerned, the source of living 
 and actual truths. 
 
 From these premisses we may further deduce, that 
 every doctrine is to be interpreted in reference to 
 those, to whom it has been revealed, or who have or 
 have had the means of knowing or hearing the same. 
 For instance : the doctrine that there is no name 
 under heaven, by ivhich a man can be saved, but the 
 name of Jesus. If the word here rendered name, 
 may be understood — (as it well may, and as in other 
 texts it must be) — as meaning the power, or origina- 
 ting cause, I see no objection on the part of the 
 practical reason to our belief of the declaration in its 
 whole extent. It is true universally or not true at 
 all. If there be any redemptive power not contained 
 in the power of Jesus, then Jesus is not the Redeemer: 
 not the Redeemer of the world, not the Jesus, that is, 
 Saviour of mankind. But if with Tertullian and 
 Augustine we make the text assert the condemnation 
 and misery of all who are not Christians by Baptism 
 and explicit belief in the revelation of the New 
 Covenant — then, I say, the doctrine is ..true to all 
 intents and purposes. It is true, in every respect, in 
 which any practical, moral, or spiritual interest or 
 end can be connected with its truth. It is true in 
 respect to every man who has had, or who might 
 have had, the Gospel preached to him. It is true 
 and obligatory for every Christian community and for 
 every individual believer, wherever the opportunity is 
 afforded of spreading the light of the Gospel, and 
 making known the name of the only Saviour and 
 Redeemer. For even though the uninformed Hea- 
 thens should not perish, the guilt of their perishing 
 will attach to those who not only had no certainty of 
 their safety, but who are commanded to act on the 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 131 
 
 supposition of the contrary. But if, on the other 
 hand, a theological dogmatist should attempt to per- 
 suade me that this text was intended to give us an 
 historical knowledge of God's future actions and 
 dealings — and for the gratification of our curiosity to 
 inform us, that. Socrates and Phocion, together with 
 all the savages in the woods and wilds of Africa and 
 America, will be sent to keep company with the 
 Devil and his angels in everlasting torments — I 
 should remind him, that the purpose of Scripture 
 was to teach us our duty, not to enable us to sit in 
 judgment on the souls of our fellow creatures. 
 
 One other instance will, I trust, prevent all mis- 
 conception of my meaning. I am clearly convinced, 
 that the Scriptural and only true* idea of God will, 
 in its development, be found to involve the idea of the 
 Tri-unity. But I am likewise convinced that previ- 
 ously to the promulgation of the Gospel the doctrine 
 had no claim on the faith of mankind : though it 
 might have been a legitimate contemplation for a 
 speculative philosopher, a theorem in metaphysics 
 valid in the Schools. 
 
 I form a certain notion in my mind, and say :. 
 This is what I understand by the term, God. From 
 books and conversation I find that the learned gene- 
 rally connect the same notion with the same word. I 
 then apply the rules laid down by the masters of 
 logic, for the involution and evolution of terms, and 
 prove (to as many as agree with me in my premisses) 
 that the notion, God, involves the notion, Trinity. I 
 now pass out of the Schools, and enter into discourse 
 
 * Or, I may add, any idea which does not either identify 
 the Creator with the creation ; or else represent the Supreme 
 Being as a mere impersonal Law or ordo ordinans, differing 
 from the law of gravitation only by its universality. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 AIDS TO EEFLECTIOX. 
 
 with some friend or neighbour, unversed in the formal 
 sciences, unused to the process of abstraction, neither 
 logician nor metaphysician ; but sensible and single- 
 minded, an Israelite indeed, trusting in the Lord God 
 of his fathers, even the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
 and of Jacob. If I speak of God to him, what will 
 he understand me to be speaking of? What does 
 he mean, and suppose me to mean, by the word? An 
 accident or product of the reasoning faculty, or an 
 abstraction which the human mind forms by reflect- 
 ing on its own thoughts and forms of thinking ? No. 
 By God he understands me to mean an existing and 
 self subsisting reality,* a real and personal Being — 
 
 * I have elsewhere remarked on the assistance which 
 those that labour after distinct conceptions would receive 
 from the reintroduction of the terms objective and subjective, 
 objective and subjective reality, and the like, as substitutes for 
 real and notional, and to the exclusion of the false antithesis 
 between real and ideal. For the student in that noblest of 
 the sciences, the scire teipsum, the advantage would be espe- 
 cially great.* The few sentences that follow, in illustration 
 of the terms here advocated, will not, I trust, be a waste of 
 'the reader's time. 
 
 The celebrated Euler having demonstrated certain pro- 
 perties of arches, adds : " All experience is in contradiction 
 to this ; but this is no reason for doubting its truth." The 
 words sound paradoxical ; but mean no more than this — 
 that the mathematical properties of figure and space are not 
 less certainly the properties of figure and space because 
 they can never be perfectly realised, in wood, stone, or iron. 
 Now this assertion of Euler's might be expressed at once, 
 bx-iefly and simply, by saying, that the properties in question 
 were subjectively true, though not objectively — or that the 
 
 * See the "Selection from Mr. Coleridge's Literary 
 Correspondence," Letter II., reprinted in " Lectures on 
 Shakespeare," vol. ii., pp. 281 — 305. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 133 
 
 even the Person, the i am, who sent Moses to his 
 forefathers in Egypt. Of the actual existence of this 
 divine Being he has the same historical assurance as 
 
 mathematical arch possessed a subjective reality though 
 incapable of being realised objectively. 
 
 In like manner if I had to express my conviction that 
 space was not itself a thing, but a mode or form of per- 
 ceiving, or the inward ground and condition in the perci- 
 pient, in consequence of which things are seen as outward 
 and co-existing, I convey this at once by the words : — Space 
 is subjective, or space is real in and for the subject alone. 
 
 If I am asked, Why not say, in and for the mind, which 
 every one would understand ? I reply : we know indeed, 
 that all minds are subjects ; but are by no means certain 
 that all subjects are minds. For a mind is a subject that 
 knows itself, or a subject that is its own object.* 
 
 The inward principle of growth and individual form in 
 every seed and plant is a subject, and without any exertion 
 of poetic privilege poets may speak of the soul of the 
 flower. But the man would be a dreamer, who otherwise 
 than poetically should speak of roses and lilies as self- 
 conscious subjects. Lastly, by the assistance of the terms, 
 Object and Subject, thus used as correspondent opposites, 
 or as negative and positive in physics, — (for example, 
 negative and positive electricity,) — we may arrive at the 
 distinct import and proper use of the strangely misused 
 word, Idea. And as the forms of logic are all borrowed 
 from geometiy — (ratiocinatio discursiva formas suas site 
 canonas recipit db intuitu)— I may be permitted thence to 
 elucidate my present meaning. Every line may be, and by 
 
 * Additional note. — Nay, the distinction has an important 
 function in science as supplying the clearest and simplest 
 definition of Life as distinguished from Mind : viz., Mind is 
 a subject that has its object in itself: Zife, a subject endued 
 with the tendency to produce an object for itself; and the 
 finding of itself therein is sensation. 
 
 Empfindung. How do you find yourself? 
 
134 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of theirs ; confirmed indeed by the hook of Nature, 
 as soon and as far as that stronger and better light 
 has taught him to read and construe it — confirmed 
 
 the ancient Geometricians was, considered as a point pro- 
 duced, the two extremes being its poles, while the point 
 itself remains in, or is at least represented by, tbe mid 
 point, the indifference of the two poles or correlative oppo- 
 sites. Logically applied, the two extremes or poles are 
 named thesis and antithesis. Thus in the line, 
 I 
 
 T A 
 
 we have Tz=t7iesis, A= antithesis, and l=punctumindifferens 
 sive amphotericum, which latter is to be conceived as both in 
 as far as it may be either of the two former. Observe : not 
 both at the same time in the same relation : for this would 
 be the identity of T and A, not the indifference ; but so, 
 that relatively to A, I is equal to T, and relatively to T, it 
 becomes — A. For the purposes of the universal Noetic, in 
 which we require terms of most comprehension and least 
 specific import, the Noetic Pentad might, perhaps, be, — 
 1. Prothesis. 
 2. Thesis. 4. Mesothesis. 3. Antithesis. 
 
 5. Synthesis. 
 Prothesis. 
 Sum. 
 Thesis. Mesothesis. Antithesis. 
 
 Res. Agere. Ago, Patior. 
 
 Synthesis. 
 A gens. 
 
 1. Verb substantive = Prothesis, as expressing the identity 
 or co-inherence of act and being. 
 
 2. Substantive = Thesis, expressing being. 3. Verb = An- 
 tithesis, expressing act. 4. Infinitive = Mesothesis, as being 
 either substantive or verb, or both at once, only in different 
 relations. 5. Participle = Synthesis. Thus, in chemistry, 
 sulphuretted hydrogen is an acid relatively to the more 
 powerful alkalis, and an alkali relatively to a powerful acid. 
 Yet one other remark and I pass to the question. In order 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 135 
 
 by it, I say, but not derived from it. Now by wbat 
 right can I require this man — (and of such men the 
 great majority of serious believers consisted previously 
 
 to render the constructions of pure mathematics applicable 
 to philosophy, the Pythagoreans, I imagine, represented the 
 line as generated, or, as it were, radiated, by a point not 
 contained in the line but independent, and (in the language 
 of that School) transcendant to all production, which it 
 caused but did not partake in. Facit, non patitur. This was 
 the punctum invisibile et prcesuppositum : and in this way the 
 Pythagoreans guarded against the error of Pantheism, into 
 which the later Schools fell. The assumption of this point I 
 call the logical prothesis. We have now therefore four relations 
 of thought expressed : 1. Prothesis, or the identity of T and 
 A, which is neither, because in it, as the transcendant of both, 
 both are contained and exist as one. Taken absolutely, this 
 finds its application in the Supreme Being alone, the Pytha- 
 gorean Tetractys ; the ineffable name, to which no image can 
 be attached; the point, which has no (real) opposite or counter- 
 point. But relatively taken and inadequately, the germinal 
 power of every seed might be generalised under the relation 
 of Identity. 2. Tliesis, or position. 3. Antithesis, or oppo- 
 sition. 4. Indifference. To which when we add the Synthesis 
 or composition, in its several forms of equilibrium, as in 
 quiescent electricity ; of neutralisation, as of oxygen and 
 hydrogen in water ; and of predominance, as of hydrogen 
 and carbon with hydrogen predominant, in pure alcohol ; or 
 of carbon and hydrogen, with the comparative predominance 
 of the carbon, in oil ; we complete the five most general 
 forms or preconceptions of constructive logic. 
 
 And now for the answer to the question, what is an Idea, 
 if it mean neither an impression on the senses, nor a definite 
 conception, nor an abstract notion ? (And if it does mean 
 any one of these, the word is superfluous : and while it 
 remains undetermined which of these is meant by the word, 
 or whether it is not which you please, it is worse than super- 
 fluous.)* But supposing the word to have a meaning of its 
 
 See the "Statesman's Manual," Appendix adfinem. — Ed. 
 
136 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 to the light of the Gospel) — to receive a notion 
 of mine, wholly alien from his habits of thinking, 
 because it may be logically deduced from another 
 notion, with which he was almost as little ac- 
 quainted, and not at all concerned ? Grant for a 
 moment, that the latter (that is, the notion, with 
 which I first set out) as soon as it is combined with 
 the assurance of a corresponding reality becomes 
 identical with the true and effective Idea of God ! 
 Grant, that in thus realising the notion I am war- 
 ranted by revelation, the law of conscience, and the 
 interests and necessities of my moral being ! Yet 
 by what authority, by what inducement, am I entitled 
 to attach the same reality to a second notion, a notion 
 drawn from a notion ? It is evident, that if I have 
 the same right, it must be on the same grounds. 
 Eevelation must have assured it, my conscience 
 required it — or in some way or other I must have an 
 interest in this belief. It must concern me, as a 
 moral and responsible being. Now these grounds 
 were first given in the redemption of mankind by 
 Christ, the Saviour and Mediator : and by the utter 
 incompatibility of these offices with a mere creature. 
 On the doctrine of Eedemption depends the faith, 
 the duty, of believing in the divinity of our Lord. 
 And this again is the strongest ground for the reality 
 
 own, what does it mean? What is an idea? In answer to 
 this I commence with the absolutely Eeal as the prothesis ; 
 the subjectively Real as the thesis ; the objectively Real as 
 the antithesis; and I affirm, that Idea is the indifference of 
 the two — so namely, that if it be conceived as in the subject, 
 the idea is an object, and possesses objective truth ; but if in 
 an object, it is then a subject and is necessarily thought of as 
 exercising the powers of a subject. Thus an idea conceived 
 as subsisting in an object becomes a law ; and a law contem. 
 plated subjectively in a mind is an idea. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 137 
 
 of that Idea, in which alone this divinity can be 
 received without breach of the faith in the unity of 
 the Godhead. But such is the Idea of the Trinity. 
 Strong as the motives are that induce me to defer 
 the full discussion of this great article of the Christian 
 Creed, I cannot withstand the request of several 
 divines, whose situation and extensive services entitle 
 them to the utmost deference, that I should so far 
 deviate from my first intention as at least to indicate 
 the point on which I stand, and to prevent the mis- 
 conception of my purpose : as if I held the doctrine 
 of the Trinity for a truth which men could be called 
 on to believe by mere force of reasoning, indepen- 
 dently of any positive Revelation. Now though it 
 might be sufficient to say, that I regard the very 
 phrase " Revealed Religion " as a pleonasm, inasmuch 
 as a religion not revealed is, in my judgment, no 
 religion at all ; I have no objection to announce more 
 particularly and distinctly what I do and what I do 
 not maintain on this point : provided that in the 
 following paragraph, with this view inserted, the 
 Reader will look for nothing more than a plain 
 statement of my opinions. The grounds on which 
 they rest, and the arguments by which they are to be 
 vindicated, are for another place. 
 
 I hold then, it is true, that all the so called de- 
 monstrations of a God either prove too little, as that 
 from the order and apparent purpose in nature ; or 
 too much, namely, that the World is itself God : or 
 they clandestinely involve the conclusion in the pre- 
 misses, passing off the mere analysis or explication of 
 an assertion for the proof of it, — a species of logical 
 legerdemain not unlike that of the jugglers at a fair, 
 who putting into their mouths what seems to be a 
 walnut, draw out a score yards of ribbon. On 
 this Sophism rest the pretended demonstrations 
 
138 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of a God grounded on the postulate of a First 
 Cause.* And lastly, in all these demonstrations 
 the demonstrators presuppose the idea or concep- 
 tion of a God without being able to authenticate 
 it, that is, to give an account whence they obtained 
 it. For it is clear, that the proof first mentioned and 
 the most natural and convincing of all — (the cosmo- 
 logical, I mean, or that from the order in nature) — 
 presupposes the ontological — that is the proof of a 
 God from the necessity and necessary objectivity of the 
 Idea. If the latter can assure us of a God as an exist- 
 ing reality, the former will go far to prove his power, 
 wisdom, and benevolence. f All this I hold. But I 
 
 * A dditional note. — The position is, as 5 : A " ; c : X, — b..c 
 being the two products, and A, X, the producent causes, i. e., 
 as a Watch to the Human Intelligence, so the World to the 
 Divine Intelligence. The sceptic objects that neither the 
 products nor the producents are ejusdem generis, consequently 
 not subjects of analogy ; — A existing only as A + y, and X 
 as X— y. — X y d may differ from Z — yd; namely by y : and 
 yet we may reason by analogy from X to Z : thus — H I /, 
 similar in kind to E F y, are products of Z by virtue 
 of d. But if y were the necessary condition of d, d is pre- 
 cluded by- y, and between X—y—d a,ndZ — y—d there is no 
 analogy, X= man, y = finiteness, d = intelligence, Z = God, 
 — ?/ = Infinity. 
 
 *f* Additional note. — When the cosmological Proof goes 
 further, viz., to prove the existence of a Supreme Being, it 
 proceeds on an analogy questionable in both its * factors. 
 
 First the Sceptic impugns the conclusion from things 
 made to things that grow (from a watch to a sun-flower) or 
 to things that have no known beginning (the metals, for 
 instance), and likewise the inference from the cause of the 
 composition of a whole, to the cause of the existence of its 
 ultimate particles, as a /jLeT<ifia<ns els &Wo yevos. And again, 
 he objects that the difference of the known from the inferred 
 
 * Viz. the Products and the Productors. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 139 
 
 also hold, that this truth, the hardest to demonstrate, 
 is the one which of all others least needs to be de- 
 monstrated ; that though there may be no conclusive 
 demonstrations of a good, wise, living, and personal 
 God, there are so many convincing reasons for it, 
 within and without — a grain of sand sufficing, and 
 a whole universe at hand to echo the decision ! — that 
 for every mind not devoid of all reason, and despe- 
 rately conscience-proof, the truth which it is the least 
 possible to prove, it is little less than impossible not 
 to believe ; — only indeed just so much short of impos- 
 sible, as to leave some room for the will and the moral 
 election, and thereby to keep it a truth of religion, and 
 the possible subject of a commandment.* 
 
 agent, viz., the finiteness of man contrasted with the infinity 
 of God, is the condition and co-efficient cause of that intelli- 
 gence in the former which is to constitute the similarity ; 
 consequently, the supposed analogy fails in the positive 
 Ingredient, i.e., the point of likeness. It is no analogy. You 
 infer (Spinosa might say) pure intelligence in a finite being, 
 as the cause of a time-piece, an intelligence in an infinite 
 being asthe cause of a world. But the very intelligence from 
 which you draw that inference, is wholly conditioned, and 
 in part constituted by that finiteness. 
 
 . To invalidate this plea, we must refer to an Idea of in- 
 telligence, having its evidence in itself, and which must be 
 shown to be the necessary apposition and antecedent of the 
 intelligence, our conception of which is generalised from the 
 understandings of men. We must assert an intelligence that 
 neither supposes nor requires a finiteness by imperfection, 
 i. e., Reason. But in the attempt we pass out of the cos- 
 mological Proof, the Proof a posteriori, and from the facts, 
 into the ontological, or the Proof a priori, and from the 
 Idea. 
 
 * In a letter to a friend on the mathematical Atheists of 
 the French Revolution, La Lande and others, or rather on 
 a young man of distinguished abilities, but an avowed 
 
140 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 On this account I do not demand of a Deist, that 
 he should adopt the doctrine of the Trinity. For he 
 might very well be justified in replying, that he re- 
 jected the doctrine, not because it could not be de- 
 monstrated, nor yet on the score of any incompre- 
 hensibilities and seeming contradictions that might be 
 objected to it, as knowing that these might be, and 
 in fact had been, urged with equal force against a 
 personal God under any form capable of love and 
 veneration ; but because he had not the same theo- 
 retical necessity, the same interests and instincts of 
 reason for the one hypothesis as for the other. It is 
 not enough, the Deist might justly say, that there 
 is no cogent reason why I should not believe the 
 Trinity ; you must show me some cogent reason why 
 I should. 
 
 But the case is quite different with a Christian, 
 who accepts the Scriptures as the word of God, yet 
 refuses his assent to the plainest declarations of these 
 Scriptures, and explains away the most express texts 
 
 and proselyting partizan of their tenets, I concluded with 
 these words: "The man who will believe nothing but by 
 force of demonstrative evidence — (even though it is strictly 
 demonstrable that the demonstrability required would coun- 
 tervene all the purposes of the truth in question, all that 
 render the belief of the same desirable or obligatory) — is not 
 in a state of mind to be reasoned with on any subject. But 
 if he further denies the fact of the law of conscience, and the 
 essential difference between right and wrong, I confess, he 
 puzzles me. I cannot without gross inconsistency appeal to 
 his conscience and moral sense, or I should admonish him 
 that, as an honest man, he ought to advertise himself with a 
 Cavete omnes/ Scelus sum. And as an honest man myself, I 
 dare not advise him on prudential grounds to keep his 
 opinions secret, lest I should make myself his accomplice, 
 and be helping him on with a wrap rascal." - 
 
ON SPIKITUAL RELIGION. 141 
 
 into metaphor and hyperbole, because the literal and 
 obvious interpretation is (according to his notions) 
 absurd and contrary to reason. He is bound to show, 
 that it is so in any sense, not equally applicable to 
 the texts asserting the being, infinity, and personality 
 of God the Father, the Eternal and Omnipresent One, 
 who created the heaven and the earth. And the more 
 is he bound to do this, and the greater is my right to 
 demand it of him, because the doctrine of Redemp- 
 tion from sin supplies the Christian with motives and 
 reasons for the divinity of the Redeemer far more 
 concerning and coercive subjectively, that is, in the 
 economy of his own soul, than are all the inducements 
 that can influence the Deist objectively, that is, in 
 the interpretation of nature. 
 
 Do 1 then utterly exclude the speculative reason 
 from theology ? No ! It is its office and rightful pri- 
 vilege to determine on the negative truth of whatever 
 we are required to believe. The doctrine must not 
 coutradict any universal principle : for this would be 
 a doctrine that contradicted itself. Or philosophy ? 
 No. It may be and has been the servant and pioneer 
 of faith by convincing the mind that a doctrine is 
 cogitable, that the soul can present the idea to itself; 
 and that if we determine to contemplate, or think of, 
 the subject at all, so and in no other form can this 
 be effected. So far are both logic and philosophy to 
 be received and trusted. But the duty, and in some 
 cases and for some persons even the right, of think- 
 ing on subjects beyond the bounds of sensible expe- 
 rience ; the grounds of the real truth ; the life, the 
 substance, the hope, the love, in one word, the faith ; 
 — these are derivatives from the practical, moral, and 
 spiritual nature and being of man. 
 
142 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 APHOKISM III. 
 
 BURNET AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 That Eeligion is designed to improve the nature and 
 faculties of man, in order to the right governing of 
 our actions, to the securing the peace and progress, 
 external and internal, of individuals and of commu- 
 nities, and lastly, to the rendering us capable of a 
 more perfect state, entitled the kingdom of God, to 
 which the present life is probationary — this is a truth, 
 which all who have truth only in view, will receive 
 on its own evidence. If such then be the main end 
 of religion altogether (the improvement namely of our 
 nature and faculties), it is plain, that every part of 
 religion is to be judged by its relation to this main 
 end. And since the Christian scheme is religion in 
 its most perfect and effective form, a revealed religion, 
 and, therefore, in a special sense proceeding from that 
 Being who made us and knows what we are, of course 
 therefore adapted to the needs and capabilities of hu- 
 man nature ; nothing can be a part of this holy Faith 
 that is not duly proportioned to this end. 
 
 This Aphorism should be borne in mind, whenever 
 a theological resolve is proposed to us as an article of 
 faith. Take, for instance, the determinations passed 
 at the Synod of Dort, concerning the absolute decrees 
 of God in connection with his omniscience and fore- 
 knowledge. Or take the decision in the Council of 
 Trent on Transubstantiation, founded on the difference 
 between its two kinds ; the one in which both the 
 substance and the accidents are changed, the same 
 matter remaining — as in the conversion of water into 
 
ON SPIRITUAL EELIGION. 143 
 
 wine at Cana : the other, in which the matter and the 
 substance are changed, the accidents remaining un- 
 altered as in the Eucharist — this latter being Tran- 
 substantiation par eminence: * — and further that it is 
 indispensable to a saving faith carefully to distinguish 
 the one kind from the other, and to believe both, and 
 to believe the necessity of believing both in order to 
 salvation ! For each of these extra- Scriptural articles 
 of faith the preceding Aphorism supplies a safe crite 
 rion. Will the belief tend to the improvement of any 
 of my moral or intellectual faculties? But before I 
 can be convinced that a faculty will be improved, I 
 must be assured that it exists. On all these dark say- 
 ings, therefore, of Dort or Trent, it is quite sufficient 
 to ask, by what faculty, organ, or inlet of knowledge, 
 we are to assure ourselves that the words mean any 
 thing, or correspond to any object out of our own 
 
 * ■ ideo persuasum semper in Ecclesia Dei fuit, idque 
 
 nunc denuo sancta hose Synodus declarat, per consecrationem 
 panis et vini conversionem fieri totius substantia panis in sub- 
 stantiam corporis Christi Domini nostri, et totius substantias 
 vini in substantiam sanguinis ejus. — Sess. xii. c. 4. 
 
 Totus — et integer Christus sub panis specie, et sub quavis ipsius 
 speciei parte, totus item sub vini specie, et sub ejus partibus 
 existit. — lb. c. 3. 
 
 Si quis dixerit, in sacrosancto Eucharistios Sacramento 
 remanere substantiam panis et vini una cum corpore et sanguine 
 Domini nostri Jesu Christi, negaveritque mirabilam illam et 
 singularem conversionem totius substantia panis in corpus, et 
 totius substantias vini in sanguinem, manentibus duntaxat spe- 
 ciebus panis et vini; quam quidem conversionem Catholica 
 Ecclesia Transsubstantiationem appellat — Anathema sit. — lb. 
 Can. 12. 
 
 Si quis negaverit, in venerabili Sacramento Eucliaristiw sub 
 unaquaque specie, et sub singulis cujusque speciei partibus, sepa- 
 ration facta, totum Christum^ contincri — Anathema sit. — lb. 
 Can. B.—Ed. 
 
144 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 mind or even in it : unless indeed the mere craving 
 and striving to think on, after all the materials for 
 thinking have been exhausted, can be called an ob- 
 ject. When a number of trust-worthy persons as- 
 sure me, that a portion of fluid which they saw to be 
 water, by some change in the fluid itself or in their 
 senses, suddenly acquired the colour, taste, smell, 
 and exhilarating property of wine, I perfectly under- 
 stand what they tell me, and likewise by what facul- 
 ties they might have come to the knowledge of the 
 fact. But if any one of the number, not satisfied 
 with my acquiescence in the fact, should insist on 
 my believing that the matter remained the same, the 
 substance and the accidents having been removed in 
 order to make way for a different substance with dif- 
 ferent accidents, I must entreat his permission to wait 
 till I can discover in myself any faculty, by which 
 there can be presented to me a matter distinguishable 
 from accidents, and a substance that is different from 
 both. It is true, I have a faculty of articulation ; but 
 I do not see that it can be improved by my using it 
 for the formation of words without meaning, or at 
 best, for the utterance of thoughts, that mean only 
 the act of so thinking, or of trying so to think. But 
 the end of religion is the improvement of our nature 
 and faculties. I sum up the whole in one great 
 practical maxim. The object of religious contempla- 
 tion, and of a truly spiritual faith, is " the ways of 
 God to man." Of the workings of the Godhead God 
 himself has told us, My ways are not as your ivays, 
 nor my thoughts as your thoughts. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 145 
 
 APHORISM IV. 
 
 THE CHARACTERISTIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DISCIPLINE 
 OF THE ANCIEUT PHILOSOPHERS AND THE DISPENSATION 
 OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 By undeceiving, enlarging, and informing the intel- 
 lect, Philosophy sought to purify and to elevate the 
 moral character. Of course, those alone could receive 
 the latter and incomparably greater benefit, who by 
 natural capacity and favourable contingencies of for- 
 tune were fit recipients of the former. How small 
 the number, we scarcely need the evidence of history 
 to assure us. Across the night of Paganism, Philo- 
 sophy flitted on, like the lantern-fly of the Tropics, a 
 light to itself, and an ornament, but alas ! no more 
 than an ornament, of the surrounding darkness. 
 
 Christianity reversed the order. By means acces- 
 sible to all, by inducements operative on all, and by 
 convictions, the grounds and materials of which all 
 men might find in themselves, her first step was to 
 cleanse the heart. But the benefit did not stop here. 
 In preventing the rank vapours that steam up from 
 the corrupt heart, Christianity restores the intellect 
 likewise to its natural clearness. By relieving the 
 mind from the distractions and importunities of the 
 unruly passions, she improves the quality of the un- 
 derstanding : while at the same time she presents for 
 its contemplations objects so great and so bright as 
 cannot but enlarge the organ, by which they are con- 
 templated. The fears, the hopes, the remembrances, 
 the anticipations, the inward and outward experience, 
 the belief and the faith, of a Christian, form of them- 
 selves a philosophy and a sum of knowledge, which 
 a life spent in the Grove of Academus, or the painted 
 Porch, could not have attained or collected. The 
 
146 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 result is contained in the fact of a wide and still 
 widening Christendom. 
 
 Yet I dare not say that the effects have heen pro- 
 portionate to the divine wisdom of the scheme. Too 
 soon did the Doctors of the Church forget that the 
 heart, the moral nature, was the beginning and the 
 end; and that truth, knowledge, and insight were 
 comprehended in its expansion. This was the true 
 and first apostasy — when in council and synod the 
 divine humanities of the Gospel gave way to specu- 
 lative systems, and religion became a science of sha- 
 dows under the name of theology, or at best a bare 
 skeleton of truth, without life or interest, alike inac- 
 cessible and unintelligible to the majority of Chris- 
 tians. For these therefore there remained only rites 
 and ceremonies and spectacles, shows and semblances. 
 Thus among the learned the substance of things hoped 
 for (Heb. xi. 1.) passed off into notions ; and for the 
 unlearned the surfaces of things became * substance. 
 The Christian world was for centuries divided into the 
 many, that did not think at all, and the few who did 
 nothing but think — both alike unreflecting, the one 
 from defect of the act, the other from the absence of 
 an object. 
 
 APHORISM V. 
 
 There is small chance of truth at the goal where 
 there is not a child-like humility at the starting-post. 
 
 Humility is the safest ground of docility, and do- 
 cility the surest promise of docibility. Where there 
 is no working of self-love in the heart that secures a 
 leaning before hand ; where the great magnet of the 
 
 * Viriumet proprietatum, quce non nisi de sub-stantibus prce- 
 dicari possunt, formis superstantibus attributio, est Superstitio. 
 
 T 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 147 
 
 planet is not overwhelmed or obscured by partial 
 masses of iron in close neighbourhood to the com- 
 pass of the judgment though hidden or unnoticed ; 
 there will this great desideratum be found of a child- 
 like humility. Do I then say, that I am to be 
 influenced by no interest ? Far from it ! There is an 
 interest of truth : or how could there be a love of 
 truth ? And that a love of truth for its own sake, 
 and merely as truth, is possible, my soul bears wit- 
 ness to itself in its inmost recesses. But there are 
 other interests — those of goodness, of beauty, of uti- 
 lity. It would be a sorry proof of the humility I am 
 extolling, were I to ask for angel's wings to overfly 
 my own human nature. I exclude none of these. 
 It is enough if the '' lene clinamen,'" the gentle bias, 
 be given by no interest that concerns myself other 
 than as I am a man, and included in the great family 
 of mankind ; but which does therefore especially con- 
 cern me, because being a common interest of all men 
 it must needs concern the very essentials of my 
 being, and because these essentials, as existing in 
 me, are especially intrusted to my particular charge. 
 Widely different from this social and truth-attracted 
 bias, different both in its nature and its effects, is the 
 interest connected with the desire of distinguishing 
 yourself from other men, in order to be distinguished 
 by them. Hoc revera est inter te et veritatem. This 
 interest does indeed stand between thee and truth. 
 I might add between thee and thy own soul. It is 
 scarcely more at variance with the love of truth than 
 it is unfriendly to the attainment of it. By your own 
 act you have appointed the many as your judges and 
 appraisers : for the anxiety to be admired is a love- 
 less passion, ever strongest with regard to those by 
 whom we are least known and least cared for, loud on ' 
 the hustings, gay in the ball-room, mute and sullen | 
 
 l 2 
 
148 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 I at the family fireside. What you have acquired by 
 ("patient thought and cautious discrimination, demands 
 a portion of the same effort in those who are to 
 receive it from you. But applause and preference 
 are things of barter; and if you trade in them, expe- 
 rience will soon teach you that there are easier and 
 less unsuitable ways to win golden judgments than 
 by at once taxing the patience and humiliating the 
 jjself-opinion of your judges. To obtain your end, 
 your words must be as indefinite as their thoughts ; 
 and how vague and general these are even on objects 
 of sense, the few who at a mature age have seriously 
 set about the discipline of their faculties, and have 
 honestly taken stock, best know by recollection of 
 their own state. To be admired you must make 
 your auditors believe at least that they understand 
 what you say; which, be assured, they never will, 
 under such circumstances, if it be worth understand- 
 ing, or if you understand your own soul. But while 
 your prevailing motive is to be compared and appre- 
 ciated, is it credible, is it possible, that you should in 
 earnest seek for a knowledge which is and must 
 remain a hidden light, a secret treasure ? Have you 
 children, or have you lived among children, and do 
 you not know, that in all things, in food, in medicine, 
 in all their doings and abstainings they must believe 
 in order to acquire a reason for their belief ? But so 
 is it with religious truths for all men. These we 
 must all learn as children. The ground of the pre- 
 vailing error on this point is the ignorance, that in 
 spiritual concernments to believe and to understand 
 are not diverse things, but the same thing in different 
 periods of its growth. Belief is the seed, received 
 into the will, of which the understanding or know- 
 ledge is the flower, and the thing believed is the 
 fruit. Unless ye believe ye cannot understand : and 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 149 
 
 unless ye be humble as children, ye not only will not, 
 but ye cannot believe. Of such therefore is the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. Yea, blessed is the calamity 
 that makes us humble : though so repugnant thereto 
 is our nature, in our present state, that after a while, 
 it is to be feared, a second and sharper calamity 
 would be wanted to cure us of our pride in having 
 become so humble. 
 
 Lastly, there are among us, though fewer and less 
 in fashion than among our ancestors, persons who, 
 like Shaftesbury, do not belong to " the herd of 
 Epicurus," yet prefer a philosophic paganism to the 
 morality of the Gospel. Now it would conduce, me- 
 thinks, to the child-like humility we have been dis- 
 coursing of, if the use of the term, virtue, in that 
 high, comprehensive, and notional sense in which it 
 was used by the ancient Stoics, were abandoned, as a 
 relic of Paganism, to these modern Pagans : and if 
 Christians restoring the word to its original import, 
 namely, manhood or manliness, used it exclusively to 
 express the quality of fortitude ; strength of character 
 in relation to the resistance opposed by nature and 
 the irrational passions to the dictates of reason : 
 energy of will in preserving the line of rectitude 
 tense and firm against the warping forces and trea- 
 cheries of temptation. Surely, it were far less 
 unseemly to value ourselves on this moral strength 
 than on strength of body, or even strength of intellect. 
 But we will rather value it for ourselves : and bearing 
 in mind the old query, — Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? 
 — we will value it the more, yea, then only will we 
 allow it true spiritual worth, when we possess it as a 
 gift of grace, a boon of mercy undeserved, a fulfilment 
 of a free promise (] Cor. x. 13). What more is 
 meant in this last paragraph, let the venerable 
 Hooker say for me in the following : — 
 
150 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM VI. 
 
 What is virtue but a medicine, and vice but a 
 wound? Yea, we have so often deeply wounded 
 ourselves with medicine, that God hath been fain to 
 make wounds medicinable ; to secure by vice where 
 virtue hath stricken ; to suffer the just man to fall, 
 that being raised he may be taught what power it was 
 which upheld him standing. I am not afraid to 
 affirm it boldly with St. Augustine, that men puffed 
 up through a proud opinion of their own sanctity and 
 holiness receive a benefit at the hands of God, and 
 are assisted with his grace when with his grace they 
 are not assisted, but permitted (and that grievously) 
 to transgress. Whereby, as they were through over- 
 great liking of themselves supplanted [tripped up), so 
 the dislike of that which did supplant them may 
 establish them afterwards the surer. Ask the very 
 soul of Peter, and it shall undoubtedly itself make 
 you this answer : My eager protestations made in the 
 glory of my spiritual strength I am ashamed of. But 
 my shame and the tears, with which my presumption 
 and my weakness were bewailed, recur in the songs 
 of my thanksgiving. My strength had been my 
 ruin, my fall hath proved my stay. 
 
 APHORISM VII. 
 
 The being and providence of One Living God, holy, 
 gracious, merciful, the Creator and Preserver of all 
 things, and a Father of the righteous ; the Moral 
 Law in its 1 utmost height, breadth and purity; a 
 state of retribution after death; the 2 resurrection of 
 the dead ; and a day of Judgment — all these were 
 known and received by the Jewish people, as esta- 
 blished articles of the national Faith, at or before the 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 151 
 
 proclaiming of Christ by the Baptist. They are the 
 ground-work of Christianity, and essentials in the 
 Christian Faith, but not its characteristic and pecu- 
 liar doctrines : except indeed as they are confirmed, 
 enlivened, realised and brought home to the whole 
 being of man, head, heart, and spirit, by the truths 
 and influences of the Gospel. 
 Peculiar to Christianity are : 
 
 I. The belief that a Mean of Salvation has been 
 effected and provided for the human race by the in- 
 carnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus 
 Christ; and that his life on earth, his sufferings, 
 death, and resurrection, are not only proofs and 
 manifestations, but likewise essential and effective 
 parts of the great redemptive act, whereby also the 
 obstacle from the corruption of our nature is rendered 
 no longer insurmountable. 
 
 II. The belief in the possible appropriation of this 
 benefit by repentance and faith, including the aids 
 that render an effective faith and repentance them- 
 selves possible. 
 
 III. The belief in the reception (by as many as 
 shall be heirs of salvation) of a living and spiritual 
 principle, a seed of life capable of surviving this 
 natural life, and of existing in a divine and immortal 
 state. 
 
 IV. The belief in the awakening of the spirit in 
 them that truly believe, and in the communion of the 
 spirit, thus awakened, with the Holy Spirit. 
 
 V. The belief in the accompanying and consequent 
 gifts, graces, comforts, and privileges of the Spirit, 
 which acting primarily on the heart and will cannot 
 but manifest themselves in suitable works of love and 
 obedience, that is, in right acts with right affections, 
 from right principles. 
 
 VI. Further, as Christians we are taught, that 
 
152 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 these Works are the appointed signs and evidences 
 of our Faith ; and that, under limitation of the power, 
 the means, and the opportunities afforded us indivi* 
 dually, they are the rule and measure, hy which we 
 are bound and enabled to judge, of what spirit we are. 
 VII. All these, together with the doctrine of the 
 Fathers re-proclaimed in the everlasting Gospel, we 
 receive in the full assurance, that God beholds and 
 will finally judge us with a merciful consideration of 
 our infirmities, a gracious acceptance of our sincere 
 though imperfect strivings, a forgiveness of our de- 
 fects, through the mediation, and a completion of our 
 deficiencies by the perfect righteousness, of the Man 
 Christ Jesus, even the Word that was in the begin- 
 ning with God, and who, being God, became man for 
 the redemption of mankind. 
 
 I earnestly entreat the Eeader to pause awhile, 
 and to join with me in reflecting on the preceding 
 Aphorism. It has been my aim throughout this 
 Work to enforce two points : 1. That Morality arising 
 out of the reason and conscience of men, and 
 Prudence, which in like manner flows out of the 
 understanding and the natural wants t and desires of 
 the individual, are two distinct things. 2. That 
 morality with prudence as its instrument has, consi- 
 dered abstractedly, not only a value but a worth 
 in itself. Now the question is (and it is a question 
 which every man must answer for himself) — From 
 what you know of yourself; of your own heart and 
 strength ; and from what history and personal expe- 
 rience have led you to conclude of mankind generally; 
 dare you trust to it? Dare you trust to it ? To it, 
 and to it alone? If so, well! It is at your own 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 153 
 
 risk. I judge you not. Before Him, -who cannot be 
 mocked, you stand or fall. But if not, if you have had 
 too good reason to know that your heart is deceitful 
 and your strength weakness : if you are disposed 
 to exclaim with Paul — The Law indeed is holy, just, 
 good, spiritual ; but I am carnal, sold under sin : for 
 that which I do, I allow not, and what I would, that 
 I do not! — in this case, there is a Voice that says, 
 Come unto me ; and I will give you rest. This is the 
 voice of Christ : and the conditions, under which the 
 promise was given by him, are that you believe in 
 him, and believe his words. And he has further 
 assured you, that if you do so, you will obey him. 
 You are, in short, to embrace the Christian Faith as 
 your religion — those truths which St. Paul believed 
 after his conversion, and not those only which he 
 believed no less undoubtingly while he was persecut- 
 ing Christ and an enemy of the Christian Religion. 
 With what consistency could I offer you this Volume 
 as aids to reflection, if I did not call on you to ascer- 
 tain in the first instance what these truths are ! But 
 these I could not lay before you without first enume- 
 rating certain other points of belief, which though 
 truths, indispensable truths, and truths compre- 
 hended or rather pre-supposed in the Christian 
 scheme, are yet not these truths. (John i. 17.) 
 
 While doing this, I was aware that the positions, 
 in the first paragraph of the preceding Aphorism, to 
 which the numerical marks are affixed, will startle 
 some of my readers. Let the following sentences 
 serve for the notes corresponding to the marks : 
 
 1 Ye shall be holy ; for I the Lord your God am 
 holy* He hath shewed thee, man, what is good : 
 and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
 
 * Lev. xix. 2.— Ed. 
 
154 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy 
 God ? * To these summary passages from Moses and 
 the Prophet (the first exhibiting the closed, the second 
 the expanded, hand of the Moral law) I might add 
 the authorities of Grotius and other more orthodox 
 and not less learned divines, for the opinion that the 
 Lord's Prayer was a selection, and the famous passage 
 [The hour is coming, &c. John v. 28, 29.] a citation 
 by our Lord from the Liturgy of the Jewish Church. 
 But it will be sufficient to remind the reader, that the 
 apparent difference between the prominent moral 
 truths of the Old and those of the New Testament 
 results from the latter having been written in Greek; 
 while the conversations recorded by the Evangelists 
 took place in Syro-Chaldaic or Aramaic. Hence it 
 happened that where our Lord cited the original text, 
 his biographers substituted the Septuagint Version, 
 while our English Version is in both instances im- 
 mediate and literal — in the Old Testament from the 
 Hebrew Original, in the New Testament from the 
 freer Greek translation. The text, I give you a new 
 commandment, has no connection with the present 
 subject. 
 
 2 There is a current mistake on this point likewise, 
 though this article of the Jewish belief is not only as- 
 serted by St. Paul, but is elsewhere spoken of as com- 
 mon to the Twelve Tribes. The mistake consists in 
 supposing the Pharisees to have been a distinct sect 
 in doctrine, and in strangely over-rating the number 
 of the Sadducees. The former were distinguished not 
 by holding, as matters of religious belief, articles dif- 
 ferent from the Jewish Church at large ; but by their 
 pretences to a more rigid orthodoxy, a more scrupu- 
 lous performance. They were the strict professors 
 
 * Micah, vi. 8. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 155 
 
 of the day. The latter, the Sadducees, whose opi- 
 nions much more nearly resembled those of the Stoics 
 than the Epicureans — (a remark that will appear pa- 
 radoxical to those only who have abstracted their no- 
 tions of the Stoic philosophy from Epictetus, Mark 
 Antonine, and certain brilliant inconsistencies of 
 Seneca), — were a handful of rich men, Komanised 
 Jews, not more numerous than Infidels among us, 
 and holden by the people at large in at least equal 
 abhorrence. Their great argument was : that the 
 belief of a future state of rewards and punishments 
 injured or destroyed the purity of the Moral Law for 
 the more enlightened classes, and weakened the in- 
 fluence of the laws of the land for the people, the 
 vulgar multitude. 
 
 I will now suppose the reader to have thoughtfully 
 reperused the paragraph containing the tenets pecu- 
 liar to Christianity, and if he have his religious 
 principles yet to form, I should expect to overhear a 
 troubled murmur : How can I comprehend this ? 
 How is this to be proved ? To the first question I 
 should answer : Christianity is not a theory, or a 
 speculation ; but a life ; — not a philosophy of life, but 
 a life and a living process. To the second : Try it. 
 It has been eighteen hundred years in existence : and 
 has one individual left a record, like the following : — 
 " I tried it : and it did not answer. I made the ex- 
 periment faithfully according to the directions ; and 
 the result has been, a conviction of my own credu- 
 lity?" Have you, in your own experience, met with 
 any one in whose words you could place full confi- 
 dence, and who has seriously affirmed : — " I have 
 given Christianity a fair trial. I was aware, that 
 its promises were made only conditionally. But my 
 heart bears me witness, that I have to the utmost 
 
156 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of my power complied with these conditions. Both 
 outwardly and in the discipline of my inward acts 
 and affections, I have performed the duties which it 
 enjoins, and I have used the means which it pre- 
 scribes. Yet my assurance of its truth has received 
 no increase. Its promises have not been fulfilled : 
 and I repent of my delusion ? " If neither your own 
 experience nor the history of almost two thousand 
 years has presented a single testimony to this pur- 
 port ; and if you have read and heard of many who 
 have lived and died bearing witness to the contrary: 
 and if you have yourself met with some one, in whom 
 on any other point you would place unqualified trust, 
 who has on his own experience made report to you, 
 that He is faithful who promised, and what He pro- 
 mised He has proved Himself able to perform : is it 
 bigotry, if I fear that the unbelief, which prejudges 
 and prevents the experiment, has its source else- 
 where than in the uncorrupted judgment : that not 
 the strong free mind, but the enslaved will, is the 
 true original infidel in this instance ? It would not 
 be the first time, that a treacherous bosom-sin had 
 suborned the understandings of men to bear false 
 witness against its avowed enemy, the right though 
 unreceived owner of the house, who had long warned 
 that sin out, and waited only for its ejection to enter 
 and take possession of the same. 
 
 I have elsewhere in the present Work explained 
 the difference between the Understanding and the 
 Reason, by reason meaning exclusively the speculative 
 or scientific power so called, the vovs, or mens of the 
 ancients. And wider still is the distinction between 
 the understanding and the spiritual mind. But no 
 gift of God does or can contradict any other gift, 
 except by misuse or misdirection. Most readily 
 therefore do I admit, that there can be no contrariety 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 157 
 
 between revelation and the understanding ; unless you 
 call the fact, that the skin, though sensible of the 
 warmth of the sun, can convey no notion of its figure 
 or its joj'ous light, or of the colours which it impresses 
 on the clouds, a contrariety between the skin and the 
 eye : or infer that the cutaneous and the optic nerves 
 contradict each other. 
 
 But we have grounds to believe, that there are yet 
 other rays or effluences from the sun, which neither 
 feeling nor sight can apprehend, but which are to be 
 inferred from the effects. And were it even so with 
 regard to the spiritual sun, how would this contradict 
 the understanding or the reason ? It is a sufficient 
 proof of the contrary, that the mysteries in question 
 are not in the direction of the understanding or the 
 (speculative) reason. They do not move on the same 
 line or plane with them, and therefore cannot con- 
 tradict them. But besides this, in the mystery that 
 most immediately concerns the believer, that of the 
 birth into a new and spiritual life, the common sense 
 and experience of mankind come in aid of their faith. 
 The analogous facts, which we know to be true, not 
 only facilitate the apprehension of the facts promised 
 to us, and expressed by the same words in conjunc- 
 tion with a distinctive epithet ; but being confessedly 
 not less incomprehensible, the certain knowledge of 
 the one disposes us to the belief of the other. It 
 removes at least all objections to the truth of the 
 doctrine derived from the mysteriousness of its 
 subject. The life, we seek after, is a mystery; but 
 so both in itself and in its origin is the life we have. 
 In order to meet this question, however, with minds 
 duly prepared, there are two preliminary inquiries to 
 be decided ; the first respecting the purport, the 
 second respecting the language, of the Gospel. 
 
 First then, of the purport, namely, what the Gospel 
 
158 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 does not, and what it does profess to be. The 
 Gospel is not a system of theology, nor a syntagma 
 of theoretical propositions and conclusions for the 
 enlargement of speculative knowledge, ethical or 
 metaphysical. But it is a history, a series of facts 
 and events related or announced. These do indeed 
 involve, or rather I should say they at the same time 
 are, most important doctrinal truths ; but still facts 
 and declarations of facts. 
 
 Secondly, of the language. This is a wide subject. 
 But the point, to which I chiefly advert, is the ne- 
 cessity of thoroughly understanding the distinction 
 between analogous and metaphorical language. Ana- 
 logies are used in aid of conviction ; metaphors, as 
 means of illustration. The language is analogous, 
 wherever a thing, power, or principle in a higher 
 dignity is expressed by the same thing, power, or 
 principle in a lower but more known form. Such, 
 for instance, is the language of John hi. 6. That 
 which is born of the flesh, is flesh ; that which is bom 
 of the Spirit, is Spirit. The latter half of the verse 
 contains the fact asserted ; the former half the analo- 
 gous fact, by which it is rendered intelligible. If 
 any man choose to call this metaphorical or figurative, 
 I ask him whether with Hobbes and Bolingbroke he 
 applies the same rule to the moral attributes of the 
 Deity ? Whether he regards the divine justice, for 
 instance, as a metaphorical term, a mere figure of 
 speech ? If he disclaims this, then I answer, neither 
 do I regard the phrase born again, or spiritual life, 
 as a figure or metaphor. I have only to add, that 
 these analogies are the material, or (to speak chemi- 
 cally) the base, of symbols and symbolical expres- 
 sions ; the nature of which is always tautegorical, that 
 is, expressing the same subject but with a difference, 
 in contra-distinction from metaphors and similitudes, 
 
ON SPIKITDAL RELIGION. 159 
 
 which are always allegorical, that is, expressing a 
 different subject but with a resemblance.* 
 
 Of metaphorical language, on the other hand, let 
 the following be taken as instance and illustration. 
 I am speaking, we will suppose, of an act, which in 
 its own nature, and as a producing and efficient 
 cause, is transcendant ; but which produces sundry 
 effects, each of which is the same in kind with an 
 effect produced by a cause well known and of ordinary 
 occurrence. Now when I characterise or designate 
 this transcendant act, in exclusive reference to these 
 its effects, by a succession of names borrowed from 
 their ordinary causes ; not for the purpose of rendering 
 the act itself, or the manner of the agency, conceivable, 
 but in order to show the nature and magnitude of the 
 benefits received from it, and thus to excite the due 
 admiration, gratitude, and love in the receivers ; in 
 this case I should be rightly described as speaking 
 metaphorically. And in this case to confound the 
 similarity, in respect of the effects relatively to the 
 recipients, with an identity in respect of the causes 
 or modes of causation relatively to tbe transcendant 
 act or the Divine Agent, is a confusion of metaphor 
 with analogy, and of figurative with literal ; and has 
 been and continues to be a fruitful source of supersti- 
 tion or enthusiasm in believers, and of objections and 
 prejudices to infidels and sceptics. But each of these 
 points is worthy of a separate consideration : and apt 
 occasions will be found of reverting to them severally 
 in the following Aphorisms, or the comments thereto 
 attached. 
 
 * See the " Statesman's Manual/' p. 230, 2nd edit.— Ed. 
 
160 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM VIII. 
 
 Faith elevates the soul not only above sense and 
 sensible things, but above reason itself. As reason 
 corrects the errors which sense might occasion, so 
 supernatural faith corrects the errors of natural reason 
 judging according to sense. 
 
 My remarks on this Aphorism from Leighton can- 
 not be better introduced, or their purport more dis- 
 tinctly announced, than by the following sentence 
 from Harrington, with no other change than is neces- 
 sary to make the words express, without aid of the 
 context, what from the context it is evident was the 
 writer's meaning. " The definition and proper cha- 
 racter of man — that, namely, which should contra- 
 distinguish him from other animals — is to be taken 
 from his reason rather than from his understanding : 
 in regard that in other creatures there may be some- 
 thing of understanding, but there is nothing of 
 reason." 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, in his Beligio Medici, com- 
 plains, that there are not impossibilities enough in 
 religion for his active faith ; and adopts by choice 
 and in free preference such interpretations of certain 
 texts and declarations of Holy Writ, as place them 
 in irreconcilable contradiction to the demonstrations 
 of science and the experience of mankind, because 
 (says he) " I love to lose myself in a mystery, and 
 'tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension 
 with those involved enigmas and riddles of the 
 Trinity and Incarnation ; " — and because he delights 
 (as thinking it no vulgar part of faith) to believe a 
 
 i 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 161 
 
 thing not only above but contrary to reason, and 
 against tbe evidence of our proper senses. For the 
 worthy knight could answer all the objections of the 
 Devil and reason " with the old resolution he had 
 learnt of Tertullian : Certum est quia impossible est. 
 It is certainly true because it is quite impossible ! " 
 Now this I call Ultra-fidianism.* 
 
 * There is this advantage in the occasional use of a 
 newly minted term or title, expressing the doctrinal schemes 
 of particular sects or parties, that it avoids the inconvenience 
 that presses on either side, whether we adopt the name 
 which the party itself has taken up by which to express its 
 peculiar tenets, or that by which the same party is desig- 
 nated by its opponents. If we take the latter, it most often 
 happens that either the persons are invidiously aimed at in 
 the designation of the principles, or that the name implies 
 some consequence or occasional accompaniment of the prin- 
 ciples denied by the parties themselves, as applicable to 
 them collectively. On the other hand, convinced as I am, 
 that current appellations are never wholly indifferent or 
 inert : and that, when employed to express the characteristic 
 belief or object of a religious confederacy, they exert on the 
 many a great and constant, though insensible, influence ; I 
 cannot but fear that in adopting the former I may be sacri- 
 ficing the interests of truth beyond what the duties of 
 courtesy can demand or justify. I have elsewhere stated 
 my objections to the word Unitarians, as a name which in 
 its proper sense can belong only to the maintainers of the 
 truth impugned by the persons who have chosen it as their 
 designation. For unity or unition, and indistinguishable 
 unicity or sameness, are incompatible terms. We never speak 
 of the unity of attraction, or the unity of repulsion ; but of 
 the unity of attraction and repulsion in each corpuscle. 
 Indeed, the essential diversity of the conceptions, unity and 
 sameness, was among the elementary principles of the old 
 logicians ; and Leibnitz, in his critique on Wissowatius, has 
 ably exposed the sophisms grounded on the confusion of the 
 two terms. But in the exclusive sense, in which the name, 
 
 M 
 
162 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Again, there is a scheme constructed on the prin- 
 ciple of retaining the social sympathies, that attend 
 on the name of believer, at the least possible expen- 
 
 Unitarian, is appropriated by the Sect, and in which they 
 mean it to be understood, it is a presumptuous boast and an 
 uncharitable calumny. No one of the Churches to which 
 they on this article of the Christian Faith stand opposed, 
 Greek or Latin, ever adopted the term, Trini — or Tri-uni- 
 tarians as their ordinary and proper name : and had it been 
 otherwise, yet unity is assuredly no logical opposite to Tri- 
 unity, which expressly includes it. The triple alliance is a 
 fortiori an alliance. The true designation of their character- 
 istic tenet, and which would simply and inoffensively express 
 a fact admitted on all sides, is Psilanthropism, or the asser- 
 tion of the mere humanity of Christ.* 
 
 I dare not hesitate to avow my regret that any scheme of 
 doctrines or tenets should be the subject of penal law : 
 though I can easily conceive, that any scheme, however 
 excellent in itself, may be propagated, and however false or 
 injurious, may be assailed, in a manner and by means that 
 would make the advocate or assailant justly punishable. But 
 then it is the manner, the means, that constitute the crime. 
 The merit or demerit of the opinions themselves depends on 
 their originating and determining causes, which may differ 
 in every different believer, and are certainly known to Him 
 alone, who commanded us, Judge not, lest ye be judged. At 
 all events, in the present state of the law, I do not see where 
 we can begin, or where we can stop, without inconsistency 
 and consequent hardship. Judging by all that we can pre- 
 tend to know or are entitled to infer, who among us will 
 take on himself to deny that the late Dr. Priestley was a 
 good and benevolent man, as sincere in his love, as he was 
 intrepid and indefatigable in his pursuit, of truth ? Now let 
 us construct three parallel tables, the first containing the 
 articles of belief, moral and theological, maintained by the 
 venerable Hooker, as the representative of the Established 
 
 See the second Lay Sermon, p. 367, 2nd edit. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 163 
 
 diture of belief; a scheme of picking and choosing 
 Scripture texts for the support of doctrines, that have 
 been learned beforehand from the higher oracle of 
 
 Church, each article being distinctly lined and numbered ; 
 the second the tenets and persuasions of Lord Herbert, as 
 the representative of the Platonizing Deists ; and the third, 
 those of Dr. Priestley. Let the points, in which the second 
 and third agree with or differ from the first, be considered 
 as to the comparative number modified by the comparative 
 weight and importance of the several points — and let any 
 competent and upright man be appointed the arbiter, to 
 decide according to his best judgment, without any reference 
 to the truth of the opinions, which of the two differed from 
 the first more widely. I say this, well aware that it would 
 be abundantly more prudent to leave it unsaid. But I say 
 it in the conviction, that the adoption of admitted mis- 
 nomers in the naming of doctrinal systems, if only they have 
 been negatively legalised, is but an equivocal proof of 
 liberality towards the persons who dissent from us. On the 
 contrary, I more than suspect that the former liberality 
 does in too many men arise from a latent pre-disposition to 
 transfer their reprobation and intolerance from the doctarines 
 to the doctors, from the belief to the believers. Indecency, 
 abuse, scoffing on subjects dear and awful to a multitude 
 of our fellow-citizens, appeals to the vanity, appetites, and 
 malignant passions of ignorant and incompetent judges — 
 these are flagrant overt-acts, condemned by the law written 
 in the heart of every honest man, Jew, Turk, and Christian. 
 These are points respecting which the humblest honest man 
 feels it his duty to hold himself infallible, and dares not 
 hesitate in giving utterance to the verdict of his conscience 
 in the jury-box as fearlessly as by his fireside. It is far 
 otherwise with respect to matters of faith and inward con- 
 viction : and with respect to these I say — Tolerate no belief 
 that you judge false and of injurious tendency : and arraign 
 no believer. The man is more and other than his belief : 
 and God only knows, how small or how large a part of him 
 the belief in question may be, for good or for evil. Kesist 
 
 m 2 
 
164 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 common sense ; which, as applied to the truths of 
 religion, means the popular part of the philosophy 
 
 every false doctrine : and call no man heretic. The false 
 doctrine does not necessarily make the man a heretic ; but 
 an evil heart can make any doctrine heretical. 
 
 Actuated by these principles, I have objected to a false 
 and deceptive designation in the case of one system. Per- 
 suaded that the doctrines, enumerated in pp. 145 — 6, are not 
 only essential to the Christian religion, but those which 
 contra-distinguish the religion as Christian, I merely repeat 
 this persuasion in another form, when I assert, that (in my 
 sense of the word, Christian) Unitarianism is not Christian- 
 ity. But do I say, that those who call themselves Unitarians 
 are not Christians? God forbid ! I would not think, much 
 less promulgate, a judgment at once so presumptuous and so 
 uncharitable.* Let a friendly antagonist retort on my scheme 
 of faith in the like manner : I shall respect him ali the more 
 for his consistency as a reasoner, and not confide the less in 
 his kindness towards me as his neighbour and fellow- 
 Christian. This latter and most endearing name I scarcely 
 know how to withhold even from my friend, Hyman 
 Hurwitz, as often as I read what every reverer of Holy Writ 
 and of the English Bible ought to read, his admirable Vin- 
 dicice Hebraicce. It has trembled on the verge, as it were, of 
 my lips, every time I have conversed with that pious, learned, 
 strong-minded, and single-hearted Jew, an Israelite indeed, 
 and without guile — 
 
 Cujus cura sequi naturam, legibus uti, 
 
 Et mentem vitiis, ora negare dolis : 
 Virtutes opibus, verum prwponere falso, 
 
 Nil vacuum sensu dicere, nil facere. 
 Post obitum vivam secum,f secum requiescam, 
 
 Nee fat melior sors mea sorte sua/f 
 
 From a poem of Hildebert on his Master, 
 the persecuted Berengarius. 
 
 * "See Table Talk," p. 155, 2nd edit.— Ed. 
 f I do not answer for the corrupt Latin. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 165 
 
 in fashion. Of course, the scheme differs at different 
 times and in different individuals in the number of 
 
 Under the same feelings I conclude this aid to reflection 
 by applying the principle to another misnomer not less 
 inappropriate and far more influential. Of those, whom I 
 have found most reason to respect and value, many have 
 been members of the Church of Rome ; and certainly I did 
 not honour those the least, who scrupled even in common 
 parlance to call our Church a reformed Church. A similar 
 scruple would not, methinks, disgrace a Protestant as to the 
 use of the words, Catholic or Roman Catholic ; and if (tacitly 
 at least, and in thought) he remembered that the Romish 
 anti-Catholic Church would more truly express the fact. 
 Romish, to mark that the corruptions in discipline, doctrine, 
 and practice do, for the larger part, owe both their origin and 
 perpetuation to the Romish Court, and the local tribunals 
 of the City of Rome ; and neither are or ever have been 
 Catholic, that is, universal, throughout the Roman Empire, 
 or even in the whole Latin or Western Church — and anti- 
 Catholic, because no other Church acts on so narrow and 
 excommunicative a principle, or is characterised by such a 
 jealous spirit of monopoly. Instead of a Catholic (universal) 
 spirit, it may be truly described as a spirit of particularism 
 counterfeiting Catholicity by a negative totality, and heretical 
 self-circumscription — in the first instances cutting off, and 
 since then cutting herself off from, all the other members of 
 Christ's body. For the rest, I think as that man of true 
 catholic spirit and apostolic zeal, Richard Baxter, thought ; 
 and my readers will thank me for conveying my reflections in 
 his own words, in the following golden passage from his Life, 
 " faithfully published from his own original MSS. by Matthew 
 Silvester, 1696." 
 
 " My censures of the Papists do much differ from what 
 they were at first. I then thought that their errors in the 
 doctrines of faith were their most dangerous mistakes. But 
 now I am assured that their misexpressions and misunder- 
 standing of us, with our mistakings of them, and inconvenient 
 expressing of our own opinions, have made the difference in 
 
166 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 articles excluded; but, it may always be recognised 
 by this permanent character, that its object is to draw 
 religion clown to the believer's intellect, instead of 
 raising his intellect up to religion. And this extreme 
 I call Minimi-fidianism. 
 
 Now if there be one preventive of both these ex- 
 tremes more efficacious than another, and preliminary 
 to all the rest, it is the being made fully aware of 
 the diversity of Reason and the Understanding. And 
 this is the more expedient, because though there is no 
 want of authorities ancient and modern for the distinc- 
 tion of the faculties, and the distinct appropriation 
 of the terms, yet our best writers too often confound 
 the one with the other. Even Lord Bacon himself, 
 
 most points appear much greater than it is ; and that in some 
 it is next to none at all. But the great and unreconcileable 
 differences lie in their Church tyranny ; in the usurpations of 
 their hierarchy, and priesthood, under the name of spiritual 
 authority exercising a temporal lordship ; in their corrup- 
 tions and abasement of God's worship ; but above all in their 
 systematic befriending of ignorance and vice. 
 
 " At first I thought that Mr. Perkins well proved that a 
 Papist cannot go beyond a reprobate ; but now I doubt not 
 that God hath many sanctified ones among them, who have 
 received the true doctrine of Christianity so practically, that 
 their contradictory errors prevail not against them, to hinder 
 their love of God and their salvation : but that their errors 
 are like a conquerable dose of poison, which a healthful 
 nature doth overcome. And I can never believe that a man 
 may not be saved by thai religion, which doth but bring him to 
 the true love of God and to a heavenly mind and life : nor that 
 God will ever cast a soul into hell that truly loveth him. Also at 
 first it would disgrace any doctrine with me, if I did but hear 
 it called Popery and anti-Christian ; but I have long learned 
 to be more impartial, and to know that Satan can use even 
 the names of Popery and Antichrist, to bring a truth into 
 suspicion and discredit." — Baxter's Life, Part I. p. 131. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 167 
 
 who in his Novum Organum has so incomparably set 
 forth the nature of the difference, and the unfitness 
 of the latter faculty for the objects of the former, 
 does nevertheless in sundry places use the term 
 reason where he means the understanding, and 
 sometimes, though less frequently, understanding for 
 reason.* In consequence of thus confounding the 
 two terms, or rather of wasting both words for the 
 expression of one and the same faculty, he left 
 himself no appropriate term for the other and higher 
 gift of reason, and was thus under the necessity of 
 adopting fantastical and mystical phrases, for example, 
 the dry light (lumen siccum), the lucific vision, and 
 the like, meaning thereby nothing more than reason 
 in contradistinction from the understanding. Thus too 
 in the preceding Aphorism, by reason Leighton means 
 the human understanding, the explanation annexed 
 to it being (by a noticeable coincidence) word for 
 word, the very definition which the founder of the 
 Critical Philosophy gives of the understanding — 
 namely, "the faculty judging according to sense." 
 
 ON THE DIFFERENCE IN KIND OF REASON 
 AND THE UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 SCHEME OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 On the contrary, Keason is the power of universal 
 and necessary convictions, the source and substance 
 of truths above sense, and having their evidence in 
 themselves. Its presence is always marked by the 
 necessity of the position affirmed : this necessity 
 being conditional, when a truth of reason is applied 
 
 * See the Friend, I. pp. 206—217 ; III. Essays VIII. and 
 IX. 3rd edit— Ed. 
 
168 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 to facts of experience, or to the rules and maxims of 
 the understanding; but absolute, when the subject 
 matter is itself the growth or offspring of reason. 
 Hence arises a distinction in reason itself, derived 
 from the different mode of applying it, and from the 
 objects to which it is directed : accordingly as we 
 consider one and the same gift, now as the ground 
 of formal principles, and now as the origin of ideas. 
 Contemplated distinctively in reference to formal (or 
 abstract) truth, it is the Speculative Reason ; but in 
 reference to actual (or moral) truth, as the fountain 
 of ideas and the light of the conscience, we name it 
 the Practical Reason. Whenever by self-subjection 
 to this universal light, the will of the individual, the 
 particular will, has become a will of reason, the man 
 is regenerate : and reason is then the spirit of the 
 regenerated man, whereby the person is capable of a 
 quickening intercommunion with the Divine Spirit. 
 And herein consists the mystery of Redemption, that 
 this has been rendered possible for us. And so it is 
 written ; the first man Adam teas made a living soul, 
 the last Adam a quickening Spirit. (1 Cor. xv. 45.) 
 We need only compare the passages in the writings 
 of the Apostles Paul and John, concerning the Spirit 
 and spiritual gifts, with those in the Proverbs and in 
 the Wisdom of Solomon respecting Reason, to be 
 convinced that the terms are synonymous.* In this 
 at once most comprehensive and most appropriate 
 acceptation of the word, Reason is pre-eminently 
 spiritual, and a spirit, even our spirit, through an 
 effluence of the same grace by which we are privileged 
 to say, Our Father ! 
 
 On the other hand, the judgments of the Under- 
 standing are binding only in relation to the objects 
 
 * See Wisd. of Sol. c.vii. 22, 23, 27.— Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. L69 
 
 of our senses, which we reflect under the forms of 
 the understanding. It is, as Leighton rightly defines 
 it, " the faculty judging according to sense." Hence 
 we add the epithet human without tautology : and 
 speak of the human understanding in disjunction 
 from that of beings higher or lower than man. But 
 there is, in this sense, no human reason. There 
 neither is nor can be but one reason, one and the 
 same ; even the light that lighteth every man's in- 
 dividual understanding (discursus), and thus maketh 
 it a reasonable understanding, discourse of reason — 
 one only, yet manifold : it goeth through all under- 
 standing, and remaining in itself regenerateth all 
 other powers. The same writer calls it likewise 
 an influence from the Glory of the Almighty, this 
 being one of the names of the Messiah, as the Logos, 
 or co-eternal Filial Word. And most noticeable for 
 its coincidence is a fragment of Heraclitus, as I have 
 indeed already noticed elsewhere ; — " To discourse 
 rationally it behoves us to derive strength from 
 that which is common to all men : for all human 
 understandings are nourished by the one Divine 
 Word." 
 
 Beasts, I have said, partake of understanding. If 
 any man deny this, there is a ready way of settling 
 the question. Let him give a careful perusal to 
 Hiiber's two small volumes on bees and ants (espe- 
 cially the latter), and to Kirby and Spence's Intro- 
 duction to Entomology : and one or other of two 
 things must follow. He will either change his 
 opinion as irreconcileable with the facts ; or he must 
 deny the facts ; which yet I cannot suppose, inasmuch 
 as the denial would be tantamount to the no less 
 extravagant than uncharitable assertion, that Huber, 
 and the several eminent naturalists, French and 
 English, Swiss, German, and Italian, by whom 
 
170 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 Hiiber's observations and experiments have been 
 repeated and confirmed, have all conspired to impose 
 a series of falsehoods and fairy-tales on the world. I 
 see no way, at least, by which he can get out of this 
 dilemma, but by over-leaping the admitted rules and 
 fences of all legitimate discussion, and either trans- 
 ferring to the word, Understanding, the definition 
 already appropriated to Reason, or defining under- 
 standing in genere by the specific and accessional 
 perfections which the human understanding derives 
 from its co-existence with reason and free-will in the 
 same individual person ; in plainer words, from its 
 being exercised by a self-conscious and responsible 
 creature. And, after all, the supporter of Harrington's 
 position would have a right to ask him, by what 
 other name he would designate the faculty in the 
 instances referred to ? If it be not understanding, 
 what is it ? 
 
 In no former part of this Volume have I felt the 
 same anxiety to obtain a patient attention. For I 
 do not hesitate to avow, that on my success in 
 establishing the validity and importance of the dis- 
 tinction between Reason and the Understanding, rest 
 my hopes of carrying the Reader along with me 
 through all that is to follow. Let the student but 
 clearly see and comprehend the diversity in the 
 things themselves, and the expediency of a correspon- 
 dent distinction and appropriation of the words will 
 follow of itself. Turn back for a moment to the 
 Aphorism, and having re-perused the first paragraph 
 of this Comment thereon, regard the two following 
 narratives as the illustration. I do not say proof: 
 for I take these from a multitude of facts equally 
 striking for the one only purpose of placing my 
 meaning out of all doubt. 
 
 I. Hiiber put a dozen humble-bees under a bell- 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 171 
 
 glass along with a comb of about ten silken cocoons 
 so unequal in height as not to be capable of stand- 
 ing steadily. To remedy this, two or three of the 
 humble-bees got upon the comb, stretched themselves 
 over its edge, and with their heads downwards fixed 
 their forefeet on the table on which the comb stood, 
 and so with their hind feet kept the comb from 
 falling. When these were weary others took their 
 places. In this constrained and painful posture, 
 fresh bees relieving their comrades at intervals, and 
 each working in its turn, did these affectionate little 
 insects support the comb for nearly three days : at 
 the end of which they had prepared sufficient wax to 
 build pillars with. But these pillars having acciden- 
 tally got displaced, the bees had recourse again to 
 the same manoeuvre, till Hiiber, pitying their hard 
 case, &c. 
 
 II. " I shall at present describe the operations of 
 a single ant that I observed sufficiently long to satisfy 
 my curiosity. 
 
 " One rainy day I observed a laborer digging the 
 ground near the aperture which gave entrance to the 
 ant-hill. It placed in a heap the several fragments 
 it had scraped up, and formed them into small pellets, 
 which it deposited here and there upon the nest. 
 It returned constantly to the same place, and ap- 
 peared to have a marked design, for it labored with 
 ardor and perseverance. I remarked a slight furrow, 
 excavated in the ground in a straight line, represent- 
 ing the plan of a path or gallery. The laborer, the 
 whole of whose movements fell under my immediate 
 observation, gave it greater depth and breadth, and 
 cleared out its borders : and I saw at length, in 
 which I could not be deceived, that it had the inten- 
 tion of establishing an avenue which was to lead 
 from one of the stories to the underground chambers. 
 
172 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 This path, which was about two or three inches in 
 length, and formed by a single ant, was opened above 
 and bordered on each side by a buttress of earth ; 
 its concavity en forme de goiittiere was of the most 
 perfect regularity, for the architect had not left an 
 atom too much. The work of this ant was so well 
 followed and understood, that I could almost to a 
 certainty guess its next proceeding, and the very 
 fragment it was about to remove. At the side of the 
 opening where this path terminated, was a second 
 opening to which it was necessary to arrive by some 
 road. The same ant engaged in and executed alone 
 this undertaking. It furrowed out and opened another 
 path, parallel to the first, leaving between each a 
 little wall of three or four lines in height. Those 
 ants who lay the foundation of a wall, chamber, or 
 gallery, from working separately occasion, now and 
 then, a want of coincidence in the parts of the same 
 or different objects. Such examples are of no unfre- 
 quent occurrence, but they by no means embarrass 
 them. What follows proves that the workman, on 
 discovering his error, knew how to rectify it. A 
 wall had been erected with the view of sustaining a 
 vaulted ceiling, still incomplete, that had been pro- 
 jected from the wall of the opposite chamber. The 
 workman who began constructing it, had given it too 
 little elevation to meet the opposite partition upon 
 which it was to rest. Had it been continued on the 
 original plan, it must infallibly have met the wall at 
 about one-half of its height, and this it was necessary 
 to avoid. This state of things very forcibly claimed 
 my attention, when one of the ants arriving at the 
 place, and visiting the works, appeared to be struck by 
 the difficulty which presented itself; but this it as soon 
 obviated, by taking down the ceiling and raising the 
 wall upon which it reposed. It then, in my presence, 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 173 
 
 constructed a new ceiling with the fragments of the 
 former one."— Huber's Natural History of Ants, pp. 
 38—41. 
 
 Now I assert, that the faculty manifested in the 
 acts here narrated does not differ in kind from un- 
 derstanding, and that it does so differ from reason. 
 What I conceive the former to be, physiologically 
 considered, will be shown hereafter. In this place 
 I take the understanding as it exists in men, and in 
 exclusive reference to its intelligential functions ; 
 and it is in this sense of the word that I am to 
 prove the necessity of contra-distinguishing it from 
 reason. 
 
 Premising then, that two or more subjects having 
 the same essential characters are said to fall under 
 the same general definition, I lay it down, as a self- 
 evident truth — (it is, in fact, an identical proposition) 
 — that whatever subjects fall under one and the same 
 general definition are of one and the same kind : 
 consequently, that which does not fall under this 
 definition, must differ in kind from each and all of 
 those that do. Difference in degree does indeed 
 suppose sameness in kind ; and difference in kind 
 precludes distinction from difference of degree. 
 Heterogenea non comparari, ergo nee distingui, pos- 
 sunt. The inattention to this rule gives rise to the 
 numerous sophisms comprised by Aristotle under the 
 head of fj,eTa/3acris ets aAAo yivos, that is, transition 
 into a new kind, or the falsely applying to X what had 
 been truly asserted of A, and might have been true of 
 X, had it differed from A in its degree only. The 
 sophistry consists in the omission to notice what not 
 being noticed will be supposed not to exist ; and 
 where the silence respecting the difference in kind is 
 tantamount to an assertion that the difference is 
 merely in degree. But the fraud is especially gross, 
 
174 
 
 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 where the heterogeneous subject, thus clandestinely 
 slipt in, is in its own nature insusceptible of degree : 
 such as, for instance, certainty or circularity, con- 
 trasted with strength, or magnitude. 
 
 To apply these remarks for our present purpose, 
 we have only to describe Understanding and Eeason, 
 each by its characteristic qualities. The comparison 
 will show the difference. 
 
 UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 1. Understanding is 
 discursive. 
 
 2. The Understanding 
 in all its judgments refers 
 to some other faculty as 
 its ultimate authority. 
 
 3. Understanding is 
 the faculty of reflection. 
 
 REASON. 
 
 1. Reason is fixed. 
 
 2. The Reason in all 
 its decisions appeals to 
 itself as the ground and 
 substance of their truth. 
 (Heb. vi. 13.) 
 
 3." Reason of contem- 
 plation. Reason indeed 
 is much nearer to Sense 
 than to Understanding : 
 for Reason (says our great 
 Hooker) is a direct aspect 
 of truth, an inward be- 
 holding, having a similar 
 relation to the intelligible 
 or spiritual, as Sense has 
 to the material or pheno- 
 menal. 
 
 The result is, that neither falls under the defini- 
 tion of the other. They differ in kind : and had my 
 object been confined to the establishment of this 
 fact, the preceding columns would have superseded 
 all further disquisition. But I have ever in view 
 the especial interest of my youthful readers, whose 
 
ON SPIEITUAL RELIGION. 175 
 
 reflective power is to be cultivated, as well as 
 their particular reflections to be called forth and 
 guided. Now the main chance of their reflecting on 
 religious subjects aright, and of their attaining to the 
 contemplation of spiritual truths at all rests on their 
 insight into the nature of this disparity still more 
 than on their conviction of its existence. I now, 
 therefore, proceed to a brief analysis of the Under- 
 standing, in elucidation of the definitions already- 
 given. 
 
 The Understanding, then, considered exclusively 
 as an organ of human intelligence, is the faculty by 
 which we reflect and generalise. Take, for instance, 
 any object consisting of many parts, a house, or a 
 group of houses : and if it be contemplated, as a 
 whole, that is, as many constituting a one, it forms 
 what, in the technical language of psychology, is 
 called a total impression. Among the various com- 
 ponent parts of this, we direct our attention especially^ 
 to such as we recollect to have noticed in other total \ 
 impressions. Then, by a voluntary act, we withhold 
 our attention from all the rest to reflect exclusively 
 on these ; and these we henceforward use as common 
 characters, by virtue of which the several objects are 
 referred to one and the same sort.* Thus, the 
 whole process may be reduced to three acts, all de- 
 pending on and supposing a previous impression on 
 the senses : . first, the appropriation of our attention ; 
 
 * Accordingly as we attend more or less to the differences, 
 the sort becomes, of course, more or less comprehensive. 
 Hence there arises for the systematic naturalist the necessity 
 of subdividing the sorts into orders, classes, families, &c. : 
 all which, however, resolve themselves for the mere logician 
 into the conception of genus and species, that is, the compre- 
 hending and the comprehended. 
 
176 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 second, (and in order to the continuance of the first) 
 abstraction, or the voluntary withholding of the atten- 
 tion ; and, third, generalisation. And these are the 
 proper functions of the Understanding : and the power 
 of so doing, is what we mean, when we say we possess 
 understanding, or are created with the faculty of 
 understanding.* 
 
 * It is obvious, that the third function includes the act of 
 comparing one object with another. The act of comparing 
 supposes in the comparing faculty certain inherent forms, 
 that is, modes of reflecting not referable to the objects 
 reflected on, but pre-determined by the constitution and 
 mechanism of the understanding itself. And under some 
 one or other of these forms, the resemblances and differ- 
 ences must be subsumed in order to be conceivable and a 
 fortiori therefore in order to be comparable. The senses 
 do not compare, but merely furnish the materials for 
 comparison. 
 
 Were it not so, how could the first comparison have been 
 possible? It would involve the absurdity of measuring a 
 thing by itself. But if we think on some one thing, the 
 length of our own foot, or of our hand and arm from the 
 elbow joint, it is evident that in order to do this, we must 
 have the conception of measure. Now these antecedent and 
 most general conceptions are what is meant by the consti- 
 tuent forms of the understanding : we call them constituent 
 because they are not acquired by the understanding, but are 
 implied in its constitution. As rationally might a circle be 
 said to acquire a centre and circumference, as the under- 
 standing to acquire these its inherent forms or ways of 
 conceiving. This is what Leibnitz meant, when to the old 
 adage of the Peripatetics, Nihil in intellectu quod non prius 
 in sensu — there is nothing in the understanding not derived 
 from the senses, or — there is nothing conceived that was not 
 previously perceived,— he replied — prater intcllectum ipsum, 
 except the understanding itself. 
 
 And here let me remark for once and all : whoever would 
 reflect to any purpose— whoever is in earnest in his pursuit 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 177 
 
 Now when a person speaking to us of any parti- 
 cular object or appearance refers it by means of 
 
 of self-knowledge, and of one of the principal means to this, 
 an insight into the meaning of the words he uses, and the 
 different meanings properly or improperly conveyed by one 
 and the same word, accordingly as it is used in the schools 
 or the market, — accordingly as the Jcind or a high degree is 
 intended (for example, heat, weight, and the like, as employed 
 scientifically, compared with the same word used popularly) 
 — whoever, I say, seriously, proposes this as his object, must 
 so far overcome his dislike of pedantry, and his dread of 
 being sneered at as a pedant, as not to quarrel with an 
 uncouth word or phrase, till he is quite sure that some other 
 and more familiar one would not only have expressed the 
 precise meaning with equal clearness, but have been as likely 
 to draw attention to this meaning exclusively. The ordinary 
 language of a philosopher in conversation or popular writings, 
 compared with the language he uses in strict reasoning, is as 
 his watch compared with the chronometer in his observa- 
 tory. He sets the former by the town clock, or even, 
 perhaps by the Dutch clock in his kitchen, not because he 
 believes it right, but because his neighbours and his cook go 
 by it. To afford the reader an opportunity for exercising the 
 forbearance here recommended, I turn back to the phrase, 
 " most general conceptions," and observe, that in strict and 
 severe propriety of language I should have said generalise 
 or generific rather than general, and concipiences or concep- 
 tive acts rather than conceptions. 
 
 It is an old complaint, that a man of genius no sooner 
 appears, but the host of dunces are up in arms to repel the 
 invading alien. This observation would have made more 
 converts to its truth, I suspect, had it been worded more 
 dispassionately and with a less contemptuous antithesis. For 
 "dunces," let us substitute "the many," or the " ovros 
 k6(Tjmos " (this world) of the Apostle, and we shall perhaps find 
 no great difficulty in accounting for the fact. To arrive at 
 the root, indeed, and last ground of the problem, it would 
 be necessary to investigate the nature and effects of the sense 
 
 N 
 
178 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 some common character to a known class (which he 
 does in giving it a name), we say, that we understand 
 
 of difference on the human mind where ifc is not holden in 
 check by reason and reflection. We need not go to the 
 savage tribes of North America, or the yet ruder natives of 
 the Indian Isles, to learn how slight a degree of difference 
 will, in uncultivated minds, call up a sense of diversity, and 
 inward perplexity and contradiction, as if the strangers were, 
 and yet were not, of the same kind with themselves. Who 
 has not had occasion to observe the effect which the gesticu- 
 lations and nasal tones of a Frenchman produce on our own 
 vulgar ] Here we may see the origin and primary import of 
 our unkindness. It is a sense of imkind, and not the mere 
 negation but the positive opposite of the sense of kind. Aliena- 
 tion, aggravated now by fear, now by contempt, and not seldom 
 by a mixture of both, aversion, hatred, enmity, are so many 
 successive shapes of its growth and metamorphosis. In applica- 
 tion to the present case, it is sufficient to say, that Pindar's 
 remark on sweet music holds equally true of genius : as many 
 as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. 
 The beholder either recognises it as a projected form of his 
 own being, that moves before him with a glory round its head, 
 or recoils from it as from a spectre. But this speculation would 
 lead me too far ; I must be content with having referred to 
 it as the ultimate ground of the fact, and pass to the more 
 obvious and proximate causes. And as the first, I would 
 rank the person's not understanding what yet he expects to 
 understand, and as if he had a right to do so. An original 
 mathematical work, or any other that requires peculiar and 
 technical remarks and symbols, will excite no uneasy feelings 
 — not in the mind of a competent reader, for he understands 
 it ; and not with others, because they neither expect nor are 
 expected to understand it. The second place we may assign 
 to the misunderstanding, which is almost sure to follow in 
 cases where the incompetent person, finding no outward 
 marks (diagrams, arbitrary signs, and the like) to inform him 
 at first sight, that the subject is one which he does not pre- 
 tend to understand, and to be ignorant of which does not 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 179 
 
 him; that is, we understand his words. The name 
 of a thing, in the original sense of the word name, 
 
 detract from his estimation as a man of abilities generally, 
 will attach some meaning to what he hears or reads ; and as 
 he is out of humour with the author, it will most often be 
 such a meaning as he can quarrel with and exhibit in a 
 ridiculous or offensive point of view. 
 
 But above all, the whole world almost of minds, as far 
 as we regard intellectual efforts, may be divided into two 
 classes of the busy-indolent and lazy-indolent. To both 
 alike all thinking is painful, and all attempts to rouse them 
 to think, whether in the re-examination of their existing 
 convictions, or for the reception of new light, are irritating. 
 " It may all be very deep and clever ; but really one ought 
 to be quite sure of it before one wrenches one's brain to find 
 out what it is. I take up a book as a companion, with whom 
 I can have an easy cheerful chit-chat on what we both know 
 beforehand, or else matters of fact. In our leisure hours we 
 have a right to relaxation and amusement." 
 
 Well ! but in their studious hours, when their bow is to be 
 bent, when they are apud Musas, or amidst the Muses 1 
 Alas ! it is just the same. The same craving for amusement, 
 that is, to be away from the Muses ; for relaxation, that is, 
 the unbending of a bow which in fact had never been strung 1 
 There are two ways of obtaining their applause. The first 
 is : enable them to reconcile in one and the same occupation 
 the love of sloth and the hatred of vacancy. Gratify indo- 
 lence, and yet save them from ennui — in plain English, from 
 themselves. For, spite of their antipathy to dry reading, 
 the keeping company with themselves is, after all, the in- 
 sufferable annoyance : and the true secret of their dislike to 
 a work of thought and inquiry lies in its tendency to make 
 them acquainted with their own permanent being. The 
 other road to their favor is, to introduce to them their own 
 thoughts and predilections, tricked out in the fine language, 
 in which it would gratify their vanity to express them in 
 their own conversation, and with which they can imagine 
 themselves showing off: and this (as has been elsewhere 
 
 n 2 
 
180 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 (nomen, vov[j,€Vov, to inteUigibile, id quod intelligitur) 
 expresses that which is understood in an appearance, 
 that which we place (or make to stand) under it, 
 as the condition of its real existence, and in proof 
 that it is not an accident of the senses, or affection 
 of the individual, not a phantom or apparition, that 
 is, an appearance which is only an appearance. (See 
 Gen. ii. 19, 20, and in Psalm xx. 1, and in many other 
 places of the Bible, the identity of nomen with numen, 
 
 remarked) is the characteristic difference between the second- 
 rate writers of the last two or three generations, and the 
 same class under Elizabeth and the Stuarts. In the latter 
 we find the most far-fetched and singular thoughts in the 
 simplest and most native language ; in the former, the most 
 obvious and commonplace thoughts in the most far-fetched 
 and motley language. But lastly, and as the sine qua non of 
 their patronage, a sufficient arc must be left for the reader's 
 mind to oscillate in — freedom of choice, 
 
 To make the shifting cloud be what you please, 
 
 save only where the attraction of curiosity determines the 
 line of motion. The attention must not be fastened down : 
 and this every work of genius, not simply narrative, must do 
 before it can be justly appreciated. 
 
 In former times a popular work meant one that adapted 
 the results of studious meditation or scientific research to 
 the capacity of the people, presenting in the concrete, by 
 instances and examples, what had been ascertained in the 
 abstract and by discovery of the law. Now, on the other 
 hand, that is a popular work which gives back to the people 
 their own errors and prejudices, and flatters the many by 
 creating them, under the title of the public, into a supreme 
 and inappellable tribunal of intellectual excellence. 
 """ P.S. In a continuous work, the frequent insertion and 
 length of notes would need an apology : in a book like this, 
 of aphorisms and detached comments none is necessary, it 
 being understood beforehand that the sauce and the garnish 
 are to occupy the greater part of the dish. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 181 
 
 that is, invisible power and presence, the nomen sub- 
 stantivum of all real objects, and the ground of their 
 reality, independently of the affections of sense in 
 the percipient). In like manner, in a connected 
 succession of names, as the speaker passes from one 
 to the other, we say that we understand his discourse, 
 discursio intellectus, discursus, his passing from one 
 thing to another. Thus, in all instances, it is words, 
 names, or, if images, yet images used as words or 
 names, that are the only and exclusive subjects of 
 understanding. In no instance do we understand a 
 thing in itself; but only the name to which it is re- 
 ferred. Sometimes indeed, when several classes are 
 recalled conjointly, we identify the words with the 
 object — though by courtesy of idiom rather than in 
 strict propriety of language. Thus we may say that 
 we understand a rainbow, when recalling successively 
 the several names for the several sorts of colours, 
 we know that they are to be applied to one and the 
 same phenomenon, at once distinctly and simulta- 
 neously ; but even in common speech we should not 
 say this of a single colour. No one would say he 
 undei'stands red or blue. He sees the colour, and had 
 seen it before in a vast number and variety of objects ; 
 and he understands the word red, as referring his 
 fancy or memory to this his collective experience. 
 
 If this be so, and so it most assuredly is — if the 
 proper functions of the understanding be that of ge- 
 neralising the notices received from the senses in order 
 to the construction of names : of referring particular 
 notices, that is, impressions or sensations, to their 
 proper names ; and, vice versa, names to their cor- 
 respondent class or kind of notices — then it follows 
 of necessity, that the Understanding is truly and ac- 
 curately defined in the words of Leighton and Kant, a 
 faculty judging according to sense. 
 
182 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 Now whether in defining the speculative Reason, — 
 (that is, the reason considered abstractedly as an in- 
 tellective power) — we call it " the source of necessary 
 and universal principles, according to which the no- 
 tices of the senses are either affirmed or denied ; " or 
 describe it as " the power by which we are enabled 
 to draw from particular and contingent appearances 
 universal and necessary conclusions :"* it is equally 
 
 * Take a familiar illustration. My sight and touch convey- 
 to me a certain impression, to which my understanding 
 applies its preconceptions (conceptus antecedentes et generalis- 
 simi) of quantity and relation, and thus refers it to the class 
 and name of three-cornered bodies — -we will suppose it the 
 iron of a turf-spade. It compares the sides, and finds that 
 any two measured as one are greater than the third ; and 
 according to a law of the imagination, there arises a pre- 
 sumption that in all other bodies of the same figure (that is, 
 three-cornered and equilateral) the same proportion exists. 
 After this, the senses have been directed successively to a 
 number of three-cornered bodies of unequal sides — and in 
 these too the same proportion has been found without ex- 
 ception, till at length it becomes a fact of experience, that 
 in all triangles hitherto seen, the two sides together are 
 greater than the third: and there will exist no ground 
 or analogy for anticipating an exception to a rule, gene- 
 ralised from so vast a number of particular instances. So 
 far and no farther could the understanding carry us : and 
 as far as this " the faculty, judging according to sense," 
 conducts many of the inferior animals, if not in the same, 
 yet in instances analogous and fully equivalent. 
 
 The reason supersedes the whole process, and on the first 
 conception presented by the understanding in consequence 
 of the first sight of a triangular figure, of whatever sort 
 it might chance to be, it affirms with an assurance incapable 
 of future increase, with a perfect certainty, that in all pos- 
 sible triangles any two of the inclosing lines will and must 
 be greater than the third. In short, understanding in its 
 highest form of experience remains commensurate with the 
 
ON SPIKITUAL RELIGION. 183 
 
 evident that the two definitions differ in their essential 
 characters, and consequently the subjects differ in 
 kind. 
 
 experimental notices of the senses from which it is gene- 
 ralised. Reason, on the other hand, either predetermines 
 experience, or avails itself of a past experience to supersede 
 its necessity in all future time ; and affirms truths which no 
 sense could perceive, nor experiment verify, nor experience 
 confirm. 
 
 Yea, this is the test and character of a truth so affirmed, 
 that in its own proper form it is inconceivable. For to 
 conceive is a function of the understanding, which can be 
 exercised only on subjects subordinate thereto. And yet to 
 the forms of the understanding, all truth must be reduced, 
 that is to be fixed as an object of reflection, and to be 
 rendered expressible. And here we have a second test and 
 sign of a truth so affirmed, that it can come forth out of the 
 moulds of the understanding only in the disguise of two 
 contradictory conceptions, each of which is partially true, 
 and the conjunction of both conceptions becomes the repre- 
 sentative or expression (the exponent) of a truth beyond 
 conception and inexpressible. Examples : Before Abraham, 
 was, I am. — God is a circle, the centre of which is every- 
 where, and circumference nowhere. — The soul is all in 
 every part. 
 
 If this appear extravagant, it is an extravagance which no 
 man can indeed learn from another, but which (were this 
 possible), I might have learnt from Plato, Kepler, and 
 Bacon ; from Luther, Hooker, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Fenelon. 
 But in this last paragraph I have, I see, unwittingly over- 
 stepped my purpose, according to which we were to take 
 reason as a simply intellectual power. Yet even as such, 
 and with all the disadvantage of a technical and arbitrary 
 abstraction, it has been made evident : — 1. That there is an 
 intuition or immediate beholding, accompanied by a con- 
 viction of the necessity and universality of the truth so 
 beholden not derived from the senses, which intuition, when 
 it is construed by pure sense, gives birth to the science of 
 
184= AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 The dependence of the Understanding on the re- 
 presentations of the senses, and its consequent pos- 
 
 mathematics, and when applied to objects supersensuous or 
 spiritual is the organ of theology and philosophy : — and 
 2. That there is likewise a reflective and discursive faculty, 
 or mediate apprehension which, taken by itself and unin- 
 fluenced by the former, depends on the senses for the 
 materials on which it is exercised, and is contained within 
 the sphere of the senses. And this faculty it is, which in 
 generalising the notices of the senses constitutes sensible 
 experience, and gives rise to maxims or rules which may 
 become more and more general, but can never be raised into 
 universal verities, or beget a consciousness of absolute 
 certainty ; though they may be sufficient to extinguish all 
 doubt. (Putting revelation out of view, take our first pro- 
 genitor in the 50th or 100th year of his existence. His 
 experience would probably have freed him from all doubt, 
 as the sun sank in the horizon, that it would re-appear the 
 next morning. But compare this state of assurance with 
 that which the same man would have had of the 47th pro- 
 position of Euclid, supposing him like Pythagoras to have 
 discovered the demonstration.) Now is it expedient, I ask, 
 or conformable to the laws and purposes of language, to 
 call two so altogether disparate subjects by one and the 
 same name ? Or, having two names in our language, should 
 we call each of the two diverse subjects by both — that is, by 
 either name, as caprice might dictate ? If not, then as we 
 have the two words, reason and understanding (as indeed 
 what language of cultivated man has not]), — what should 
 prevent us from appropriating the former to the power dis- 
 tinctive of humanity 1 We need only place the derivatives 
 from the two terms in opposition (for example, " A and B 
 are both rational beings; but there is no comparison 
 between them in point of intelligence," or "She always 
 concludes rationally, though not a woman of much under- 
 standing ") to see that we cannot reverse the order — that is, 
 call the higher gift understanding, and the lower reason. 
 What should prevent us 1 I asked. Alas ! that which has 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 185 
 
 teriority thereto, as contrasted with the independence 
 and antecedency of Eeason, are strikingly exemplified 
 in the Ptolemaic System — that truly wonderful product 
 and highest boast of the faculty, judging according 
 to the senses — compared with the Newtonian, as the 
 offspring of a yet higher power, arranging, correcting, 
 and annulling the representations of the senses ac- 
 cording to its own inherent laws and constitutive 
 ideas. 
 
 APHORISM IX. 
 
 In wonder all philosophy began ; in wonder it 
 ends : and admiration fills up the interspace. But 
 the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance : the 
 last is the parent of adoration. The first is the birth- 
 throe of our knowledge : the last is its euthanasy and 
 apotheosis. 
 
 prevented us — the cause of this confusion in the terms — is 
 only too obvious ; namely, inattention to the momentous 
 distinction in the things, and generally, to the duty and 
 habit recommended in the fifth introductory Aphorism of 
 this volume. But the cause of this, and of all its lamentable 
 effects and subcauses, false doctrine, blindness of heart, and 
 contempt of the word, is best declared by the philosophic 
 Apostle : they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, 
 •(Rom. i. 28,) and though they could not extinguish the light 
 that lighteth every man, and which shone in the darkness ; yet 
 because the darkness could not comprehend the light, they 
 refused to bear witness of it and worshipped, instead, the 
 shaping mist, which the light had drawn upward from the 
 ground (that is, from the mere animal nature and instinct), 
 and which that light alone had made visible, that is, by 
 superinducing on the animal instinct the principle of self- 
 consciousness. 
 
186 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 SEQUELS : OB THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE PRECEDING 
 APHORISM. 
 
 As in respect of the first wonder we are all on the 
 same level, how comes it that the philosophic mind 
 should, in all ages, be the privilege of a few ? The 
 most obvious reason is this. The wonder takes place 
 before the pei'iod of reflection, and (with the great 
 mass of mankind) long before the individual is ca- 
 pable of directing his attention freely and consciously 
 to the feeling, or even to its exciting causes. Sur- 
 prise (the form and dress which the wonder of igno- 
 rance usually puts on) is worn away, if not precluded, 
 by custom and familiarity. So is it with the objects 
 of the senses, and the ways and fashions of the world 
 around us ; even as with the beat of our own hearts, 
 which we notice only in moments of fear and pertur- 
 bation. But with regard to the concerns of our inward 
 being, there is yet another cause that acts in concert 
 with the power in custom to prevent a fair and equal 
 exertion of reflective thought. The great funda- 
 mental truths and doctrines of religion, the existence 
 and attributes of God and the life after death, are in 
 Christian countries taught so early, under such cir- 
 cumstances, and in such close and vital association 
 with whatever makes or marks reality for our infant 
 minds, that the words ever after represent sensations, 
 feelings, vital assurances, sense of reality — rather 
 than thoughts, or any distinct conception. Associated, 
 I had almost said identified, with the parental voice, 
 look, touch, with the living warmth and pressure of 
 the mother, on whose lap the child is first made to 
 kneel, within whose palms its little hands are folded, 
 and the motion of whose eyes its eyes follow and 
 imitate — (yea, what the blue sky is to the mother, 
 the mother's upraised eyes and brow are to the child, 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. J 87 
 
 the type and symbol of an invisible heaven ! ) — from 
 within and without these great first truths, these good 
 and gracious tidings, these holy and humanising 
 spells, in the preconformity to which our very huma- 
 nity may be said to consist, are so infused that it 
 were but a tame and inadequate expression to say, we 
 all take them for granted. At a later period, in 
 youth or early manhood, most of us, indeed, (in the 
 higher and middle classes at least) read or hear certain 
 proofs of these truths — which we commonly listen to, 
 when we listen at all, with much the same feelings as 
 a popular prince on his coronation day, in the centre 
 of a fond and rejoicing nation, may be supposed to 
 hear the champion's challenge to all the non-existents, 
 that deny or dispute his rights and royalty. In 
 fact, the order of proof is most often reversed or trans- 
 posed. As far at least as I dare judge from the goings 
 on in my own mind, when with keen delight I first 
 read the works of Derham, Nieuwentiet, and Lyonet, 
 I should say that the full and life-like conviction of a 
 gracious Creator is the proof (at all events, performs 
 the office and answers all the purpose of a proof) of 
 the wisdom and benevolence in the construction of 
 the creature. 
 
 Do I blame this ? Do I wish it to be otherwise ? 
 God forbid ! It is only one of its accidental, but too 
 frequent, consequences, of which I complain, and 
 against which I protest. I regret nothing that tends 
 to make the light become the life of men, even as 
 the life in the eternal Word is their only and single 
 true light. But I do regret, that in after years — when 
 by occasion of some new dispute on some old heresy, 
 or any other accident, the attention has for the first 
 time been distinctly attracted to the superstructure 
 raised on these fundamental truths, or to truths of 
 later revelation supplemental of these and not less 
 
188 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 important — all the doubts and difficulties, that can- 
 not but arise -where the understanding, the mind of 
 the flesh, is made the measure of spiritual things ; 
 all the sense of strangeness and seeming contradiction 
 in terms ; all the marvel and the mystery, that be- 
 long equally to both, are first thought of and applied 
 in objection exclusively to the latter. I would disturb 
 no man's faith in the great articles of the (falsely so 
 called) religion of nature. But before a man re- 
 jects, and calls on other men to reject, the revelations 
 of the Gospel and the religion of all Christendom, 
 I would have him place himself in the state and under 
 all the privations of a Simonides, when in the fortieth 
 day of his meditation the sage and philosophic poet 
 abandoned the problem in despair. Ever and anon 
 he seemed to have hold of the truth ; but when he 
 asked himself what he meant by it, it escaped from 
 him, or resolved itself into meanings, that destroyed 
 each other. I would have the sceptic, while yet a 
 sceptic only, seriously consider whether a doctrine, 
 of the truth of which a Socrates could obtain no other 
 assurance than what he derived from his strong wish 
 that it should be true; and which Plato found a 
 mystery hard to discover, and when discovered, com- 
 municable only to the fewest of men ; can, conso- 
 nantly with history or common sense, be classed 
 among the articles, the belief of which is insured to 
 all men by their mere common sense ? Whether with- 
 out gross outrage to fact, they can be said to consti- 
 tute a religion of nature, or a natural theology ante- 
 cedent to revelation, or superseding its necessity ? * 
 
 * A dditional note. — N.B. These remarks on a religion of 
 Nature apply to the Belief in the existence, the personality 
 and the providence of a one only God, and to the Belief of a 
 Future State in connection with and dependence on the Belief 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 189 
 
 Yes ! in prevention (for there is little chance, I fear, 
 of a cure) of the pugnacious dogmatism of partial 
 reflection, I would prescribe to every man who feels a 
 commencing alienation from the Catholic faith, and 
 whose studies and attainments authorise him to argue 
 on the subject at all, a patient and thoughtful perusal 
 of the arguments and representations which Bayle 
 supposes to have passed through the mind of Simo- 
 nides. Or I should be fully satisfied if I could in- 
 duce these eschewers of mystery to give a patient, 
 manly, and impartial perusal to the single treatise of 
 Pomponatius, De Fato.* 
 
 When they have fairly and satisfactorily overthrown 
 the objections and cleared away the difficulties urged 
 by this sharp-witted Italian against the doctrines 
 which they profess to retain, then let them commence 
 their attack on those which they reject. As far as 
 the supposed irrationality of the latter is the ground 
 of argument, I am much deceived if, on reviewing 
 their forces, they would not find the ranks woefully 
 thinned by the success of their own fire in the preced- 
 ing engagement — unless, indeed, by-pure heat of con- 
 troversy, and to storm the lines of their antagonists, 
 
 of God as a moral Judge — and not to the mere assurance of 
 a Soul that survives the Body. This latter is, I doubt not, 
 natural to man. (See Aphorism xxiii. and Comment.) It 
 may therefore be called a " Faith of Nature," but it is not a 
 Religion of Nature— or rather, it is not Religion at all. 
 
 * The philosopher, whom the Inquisition would have 
 burnt alive as an Atheist, had not Leo X. and Cardinal 
 Bembo decided that the work might be formidable to those 
 semi-pagan Christians who regarded revelation as a mere 
 make-weight to their boasted religion of nature ; but con- 
 tained nothing dangerous to the Catholic Church or offensive 
 to a true believer. (He was born at Mantua in 1462 and 
 died in im.—Ed.) 
 
190 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 they can bring to life again the arguments which they 
 had themselves killed off in the defence of their own 
 positions. In vain shall we seek for any other mode 
 of meeting the broad facts of the scientific Epicurean, 
 or the requisitions and queries of the all-analysing 
 Pyrrhonist, than by challenging the tribunal to which 
 they appeal, as incompetent to try the question. In 
 order to non-suit the infidel plaintiff, we must remove 
 the cause from the faculty, that judges according to 
 sense, and whose judgments, therefore, are valid only 
 on objects of sense, to the superior courts of conscience 
 and intuitive reason. The words I speak unto you, 
 are Spirit, and such only are life, that is, have an 
 inward and actual power abiding in them. 
 
 But the same truth is at once shield and bow. The 
 shaft of Atheism glances aside from it to strike and 
 pierce the breast-plate of the heretic. Well for the 
 latter, if, plucking the weapon from the wound, he re- 
 cognises an arrow from his own quiver, and abandons 
 a cause that connects him with such confederates ! 
 An insight into the proper functions and subaltern 
 rank of the understanding may not, indeed, disarm the 
 Psilantbropist of his metaphorical glosses, or of his 
 versions fresh from the forge, with no other stamp 
 than the private mark of the individual manufacturer ; 
 but it will deprive him of the only rational pretext for 
 having recourse to tools so liable to abuse, and of 
 such perilous example. ■ 
 
 Since the preceding pages were composed, and dur- 
 ing an interim of depression and disqualification, I 
 heard with a delight and an interest which I might 
 without hyperbole call medicinal, that the contradis- 
 tinction of the understanding from reason, — for which 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 191 
 
 during twenty years I have been contending, casting 
 my bread upon the waters with a perseverance which 
 in the existing state of the public taste, nothing but 
 the deepest conviction of its importance could have 
 inspired — has been lately sanctioned by the present 
 distinguished Professor of Anatomy, in the course of 
 lectures given by him at the Royal College of Surgeons, 
 on the zoological part of natural history ; and, if I am 
 rightly informed, in one of the eloquent and impressive 
 introductory discourses.* In explaining the nature of 
 Instinct, as deduced from the actions and tendencies 
 of animals successively presented to the observation 
 of the comparative physiologist in the ascending scale 
 of organic life — or rather, I should have said, in an 
 attempt to determine that precise import of the term, 
 which is required by the facts f — the professor ex- 
 
 * The allusion is to Mr. Green ; and the passage to which 
 the Author refers, will be found in an Appendix, reprinted 
 from the " Vital Dynamics." — Ed. 
 
 + The word, Instinct, brings together a number of facts 
 into one class by the assertion of a common ground, the 
 nature of which ground it determines negatively only, — that 
 is, the word does not explain what this common ground is ; 
 but simply indicates that there is such a ground, and that it 
 is different in kind from that in which the responsible and 
 consciously voluntary actions of men originate. Thus, in its 
 true and primary import, Instinct stands in antithesis to 
 Reason ; and the perplexity and contradictory statements 
 into which so many meritorious naturalists, and popular 
 writers on natural history (Priscilla Wakefield, Kirby, 
 Spence, Huber, and even Reimarus) have fallen on this 
 subject, arise wholly from their taking the word in opposition 
 to Understanding. I notice this, because I would not lose 
 any opportunity of impressing on the mind of my youthful 
 readers the important truth that language as the embodied 
 and articulated spirit of the race, as the growth and emana- 
 tion of a people, and not the work of any individual wit or 
 
192 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 plained the nature of what I have elsewhere called the 
 adaptive power, that is, the faculty of adapting means 
 to a proximate end. I mean here a relative end — that 
 which relatively to one thing is an end, though rela- 
 tively to some other it is in itself a mean. It is to be 
 regretted that we have no single word to express those 
 ends, that are not the end : for the distinction between 
 those and an end in the proper sense of the term is 
 an important one. The Professor, I say, not only 
 explained, first, the nature of the adaptive power in 
 genere, and, secondly, the distinct character of the same 
 power as it exists specifically and exclusively in the hu- 
 man being, and acquires the name of understanding ; 
 but he did it in a way which gave the whole sum and 
 substance of my convictions, of all I had so long 
 wished, and so often, but with such imperfect success, 
 attempted to convey, free from all semblance of para- 
 doxy, and from all occasion of offence — omnem of- 
 fendiculi ansam pracidens* It is, indeed for the 
 
 will, is often inadequate, sometimes deficient, but never 
 false or delusive. We have only to master the true origin 
 and original import of any native and abiding word, to find 
 in it, if not the solution of the facts expressed by it, yet a 
 finger-mark pointing to the road on which this solution is to 
 be sought. 
 
 * Neque quicquam addubito, quin ea candidis omnibus faciat 
 satis. Quid autem facias istis qui vel ob ingenii pertinaciam 
 sibi satisfieri nolint, vel stupidiores sint quam ut satisfactionem 
 intelligant ? Nam quemadmodum Simonides dixit, Thessalos 
 hebetiores esse quam ut possint a se decipi, ita quosdam videos 
 stupidiores quam ut placari queant. Adhuc non viirum est 
 invenire quod calumnietur qui nihil aliud qucerit nisi quod 
 calumnietur. (Erasmi Epist. ad Dorpium.) At all events, the 
 paragraph passing through the medium of my own prepos- 
 sessions, if any fault be found with it, the fault probably, 
 and the blame certainly, belongs to the reporter. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 193 
 
 fragmentary reader only that I have any scruple. In 
 those who have had the patience to accompany me so 
 far on the up-hill road to manly principles, I can have 
 no reason to guard against that disposition to hasty 
 offence from anticipation of consequences — that faith- 
 less and loveless spirit of fear which plunged Galileo 
 into a prison ; * — a spirit most unworthy of an edu- 
 cated man, who ought to have learnt that the mistakes 
 of scientific men have never injured Christianity, 
 while every new truth discovered by them has either 
 added to its evidence, or prepared the mind for its 
 reception. 
 
 * And which (I may add) in a more enlightened age, and 
 in a Protestant country, impelled more than one German 
 University to anathematise Fr. Hoffman's discovery of 
 carbonic acid gas, and of its effects on animal life, as hostile 
 to religion and tending to atheism ! Three or four students 
 at the University of Jena, in the attempt to raise a spirit for 
 the discovery of a supposed hidden treasure, were strangled 
 or poisoned by the fumes of the charcoal they had been 
 burning in a close garden-house of a vineyard near Jena, 
 while employed in their magic fumigations and charms. One 
 only was restored to life ; and from his account of the noises 
 and spectres (in his ears and eyes) as he was losing his senses, 
 it was taken for granted that the bad spirit had destroyed 
 them. Frederick Hoffman admitted that it was a very bad 
 spirit that had tempted them, the spirit of avarice and folly; 
 and that a very noxious spirit (gas, or Geist) was the imme- 
 diate cause of their death. But he contended that this latter 
 spirit was the spirit of charcoal, which would have produced 
 the same effect, had the young men been chaunting psalms 
 instead of incantations ; and acquitted the Devil of all direct 
 concern in the business. The theological faculty took the 
 alarm : even physicians pretended to be horror-stricken at 
 Hoffman's audacity. The controversy and its appendages 
 embittered several years of this great and good man's life. 
 
194 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 ON INSTINCT IN CONNEXION WITH THE UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 It is evident that the definition of a genus or class 
 is an adequate definition only of the lowest species of 
 that genus : for each higher species is distinguished 
 from the lower by some additional character, while the 
 • general definition includes only the characters common 
 to all the species. Consequently it describes the 
 lowest only. Now I distinguish a genus or kind of 
 powers under the name of adaptive power, and give 
 as its generic definition — the power of selecting and 
 adapting means to proximate ends ; and as an instance 
 of the lowest species of this genus, I take the stomach 
 of a caterpillar. I ask myself, under what words I 
 can generalise the action of this organ : and I see, 
 that it selects and adapts the appropriate means (that 
 is, the assimilable part of the vegetable congesta) to 
 the proximate end, that is, the growth or reproduction 
 of the insect's body. This we call Vital Power, or 
 vita propria of the stomach ; and this being the lowest 
 species, its definition is the same with the definition 
 of the kind. 
 
 Well ! from the power of the stomach I pass to the 
 power exerted by the whole animal. I trace it wan- 
 dering from spot to spot, and plant to plant, till it 
 finds the appropriate vegetable ; and again on this 
 chosen vegetable, I mark it seeking out and fixing on 
 the part of the plant, bark, leaf, or petal, suited to its 
 nourishment : or (should the animal have assumed the 
 butterfly form), to the deposition of its eggs, and the 
 sustentation of the future larva. Here I see a power 
 of selecting and adapting means to proximate ends 
 according to circumstances : and this higher species 
 of adaptive power we call Instinct. 
 
 Lastly, I reflect on the facts narrated and de- 
 
ON SPIEITUAL RELIGION. 195 
 
 scribed in the preceding extracts from Huber, and 
 see a power of selecting and adapting the proper 
 means to the proximate ends, according to varying 
 circumstances. And what shall we call this yet 
 higher species ? We name the former, Instinct : we 
 must call this Instinctive Intelligence. 
 
 Here then we have three powers of the same 
 kind ; life, instinct, and instinctive intelligence : the 
 essential characters that define the genus existing 
 equally in all three. But in addition to these, I 
 find one other character common to the highest and 
 lowest : namely, that the purposes are all manifestly 
 predetermined by the peculiar organisation of the 
 animals ; and though it may not be possible to discover 
 any such immediate dependency in all the actions, 
 yet the actions being determined by the purposes, 
 the result is equivalent ; and both the actions and 
 the purposes are all in a necessitated reference to 
 the preservation and continuance of the particular 
 animal or the progeny. There is selection, but not 
 choice ; volition rather than will. The possible know- 
 ledge of a thing, or the desire to have that thing 
 represen table by a distinct correspondent thought, 
 does not, in the animal, suffice to render the thing 
 an object, or the ground of a purpose. I select and 
 adapt the proper means to the separation of a stone 
 from a rock, which I neither Can, nor desire to use 
 for food, shelter, or ornament : because, perhaps, I 
 wish to measure the angles of its primary crystals, 
 or, perhaps, for no better reason than the apparent 
 difficulty of loosening the stone — sit pro ratione 
 voluntas — and thus make a motive out of the absence 
 of all motive, and a reason out of the arbitrary will to 
 act without any reason. 
 
 Now what is the conclusion from these premisses ? 
 Evidently this : that if I suppose the adaptive power 
 
 o2 
 
196 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 in its highest species, or form of instinctive intelli- 
 gence, to co-exist with reason, free will, and self- 
 consciousness, it instantly becomes Understanding : 
 in other words, that understanding differs indeed 
 from the noblest form of instinct, but not in itself or 
 in its own essential properties, but in consequence of 
 its co-existence with far higher powers of a diverse 
 kind in one and the same subject. Instinct in a 
 rational, responsible, and self-conscious animal, is 
 Understanding. 
 
 Such I apprehend to be the true view and expo- 
 sition of Instinct ; and in confirmation of its truth, I 
 would merely request my readers, from the numerous 
 well-authenticated instances on record, to recall some 
 one of the extraordinary actions of dogs for the pre- 
 servation of their masters' lives, and even for the 
 avenging of their deaths. In these instances we 
 have the third species of the adaptive power in con- 
 nexion with an apparently moral end — with an end 
 in the proper sense of the word. Here the adaptive 
 power co-exists with a purpose apparently voluntary, 
 and the action seems neither pre-determined by the 
 organisation of the animal, nor in any direct reference 
 to his own preservation, nor to the continuance of 
 his race. It is united with an imposing semblance 
 of gratitude, fidelity, and disinterested love. We not 
 only value the faithful brute ; we attribute worth to 
 him. This, I admit, is a problem, of which I have 
 no solution to offer. One of the wisest of uninspired 
 men has not hesitated to declare the dog a great 
 mystery, on account of this dawning of a moral 
 nature, unaccompanied by any the least evidence of 
 reason, in whichever of tbe two senses we interpret 
 the word — whether as the practical reason, that is, 
 the power of proposing an ultimate end, the deter- 
 minability of the will by ideas ; or as the sciential 
 
ON SPIEITUAL KELIGION. 197 
 
 reason, that is, the faculty of concluding universal 
 and necessary truths from particular and contingent 
 appearances. But in a question respecting the pos- 
 session of reason, the absence of all proof is tanta- 
 mount to a proof of the contrary. It is, however, by 
 no means equally clear to me, that the dog may not 
 possess an analogon of words, which I have elsewhere 
 shown to be the proper objects of the "faculty, 
 judging according to sense." 
 
 But to return to my purpose : I entreat the Reader 
 to reflect on any one fact of this kind, whether occur- 
 ring in his own experience, or selected from the 
 numerous anecdotes of the Dog preserved in the 
 writings of zoologists. I will then confidently appeal 
 to him, whether it is in his power not to consider 
 the faculty displayed in these actions as the same in 
 kind with the understanding, however inferior in 
 degree. Or should he even in these instances prefer 
 calling it instinct, and this in confra-distinction from 
 understanding, I call on him to point out the boun- 
 dary between the two, the chasm or partition- wall that 
 divides or separates the one from the other. If he 
 can, he will have done what none before him have 
 been able to do, though many and eminent men have 
 tried hard for it : and my recantation shall be among 
 the first trophies of his success. If he cannot, I must 
 infer that he is controlled by his dread of the con- 
 sequences, by an apprehension of some injury re- 
 sulting to religion or morality from this opinion ; 
 and I shall console myself with the hope, that in the 
 sequel of this Work he will find proofs of the directly 
 contrary tendency. Not only in this view of the 
 Understanding, as differing in degree from Instinct, 
 and in kind from Reason, innocent in its possible 
 influences on the religious character, but it is an in- 
 dispensable preliminary to the removal of the most 
 
198 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 formidable obstacles to an intelligent belief of the 
 peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, of the characteristic 
 articles of the Christian Faith, with which the advo- 
 cates of the truth in Christ have to contend ; the evil 
 heart of unbelief alone excepted. 
 
 REFLECTIONS INTRODUCTORY TO APHORISM X. 
 
 The most momentous question a man can ask is, 
 Have I a Saviour ? And yet as far as the individual 
 querist is concerned, it is premature and to no 
 purpose, unless another question has been previously 
 put and answered, (alas ! too generally put after the 
 wounded conscience has already given the answer !) 
 namely, Have I any need of a Saviour ? For him 
 who needs none (0 bitter irony of the evil Spirit, 
 whose whispers the proud soul takes for its own 
 thoughts, and knows not how the tempter is scoffing 
 the while !) there is none, as long as he feels no 
 need. On the other hand, it is scarcely possible to 
 have answered this question in the affirmative, and 
 not ask — first, in what the necessity consists — 
 secondly, whence it proceeded — and, thirdly, how 
 far the answer to this second question is or is not 
 contained in the answer to the first. I entreat the 
 intelligent Eeader, who has taken me as his tempo- 
 rary guide on the straight, but yet, from the number 
 of cross roads, difficult way of religious inquiry, to 
 halt a moment, and consider the main points which, 
 in this last division of my Work, have been already 
 offered for his reflection. I have attempted, then, 
 to fix the proper meaning of the words, Nature and 
 Spirit, the one being the antithesis to the other : so 
 that the most general and negative definition of 
 nature is, whatever is not spirit ; and vice versa of 
 spirit, that which is not comprehended in nature ; or 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 199 
 
 in the language of our elder divines, that which 
 transcends nature. But Nature is the term in which 
 we comprehend all things that are representable in 
 the forms of time and space, and subjected to the 
 relations of cause and effect : and the cause of the 
 existence of which, therefore, is to be sought for 
 perpetually in something antecedent. The word 
 itself expresses this in the strongest manner possible: 
 Natura, that which is about to be born, that which 
 is always becoming. It follows, therefore, that what- 
 ever originates its own acts, or in any sense contains 
 in itself the cause of its own state, must be spiritual, 
 and consequently supernatural : yet not on that 
 account necessarily miraculous. And such must the 
 responsible Will in us be, if it be at all. 
 
 A prior step has been to remove all misconceptions 
 from the subject ; to show the reasonableness of a 
 belief in the reality and real influence of a universal 
 and divine Spirit; the compatibility and possible 
 communion of such a spirit with the spiritual in 
 principle ; and the analogy offered by the most unde- 
 niable truths of natural philosophy.* 
 
 * It has in its consequences proved no trifling evil to the 
 Christian world, that Aristotle's definitions of Nature are all 
 grounded on the petty and rather rhetorical than philo- 
 sophical antithesis of nature to art — a conception inadequate 
 to the demands even of his philosophy. Hence in the 
 progress of his reasoning, he confounds the natura naturata 
 (that is, the sum total of the facts and phenomena of the 
 senses) with an hypothetical natura naturans, a Goddess 
 Nature, that has no better claim to a place in any sober 
 system of natural philosophy than the Goddess Multitudo ; 
 yet to which Aristotle not rarely gives the name and attri- 
 butes of the Supreme Being. The result was, that the idea 
 of God thus identified with this hypothetical nature becomes 
 itself but an hypothesis, or at best but a precarious inference 
 
200 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 These views of the Spirit, and of the Will as 
 spiritual, form the ground-work of my scheme. 
 Among the numerous corollaries or appendents, the 
 first that presented itself respects the question : — 
 whether there is any faculty in man by which a 
 knowledge of spiritual truths, or of any truths not 
 abstracted from nature, is rendered possible ; and an 
 answer is attempted in the comment on Aphorism 
 VIII. And here I beg leave to remark, that in this 
 comment the only novelty, and if there be merit, the 
 only merit is — that there being two very different 
 meanings, and two different words, I have here and 
 in former works appropriated one meaning to one of 
 the words, and the other to the other — instead of 
 using the words indifferently and by hap-hazard : a 
 confusion, the ill effects of which in this instance are 
 so great and of such frequent occurrence in the works 
 of our ablest philosophers and divines, that I should 
 select it before all others in proof of Hobbes' maxim : 
 that it is a short down-hill passage from errors in 
 words to errors in things. The difference of the 
 Keason from the Understanding, and the imperfec- 
 tion and limited sphere of the latter, have been 
 asserted by many both before and since Lord Bacon;* 
 
 from incommensurate premisses and on disputable principles : 
 while in other passages, God is confounded with (and every- 
 where, in Aristotle's genuine works) included in the universe : 
 which most grievous error it is the great and characteristic 
 merit of Plato to have avoided and denounced. 
 
 * Take one passage among many from the Posthumous 
 Tracts (1660) of John Smith, not the least star in that bright 
 constellation of Cambridge men, the contemporaries of 
 Jeremy Taylor. " While we reflect on our own idea of 
 Reason, we know that our souls are not it, but only 
 partake of it; and that we have it /carcfe fiiQe^iv and not 
 Kar" ov<xii]v, Neither can it be called a faculty, but far rather 
 
ON SPIKITUAL RELIGION. 201 
 
 but still the habit of using reason and understanding 
 as synonymes acted as a disturbing force. Some it 
 led into mysticism, others it set on explaining away 
 a clear difference in kind into a mere superiority in 
 degree : and it partially eclipsed the truth for all. 
 
 In close connexion with this, and therefore forming 
 the comment on the Aphorism next following, is the 
 subject of the legitimate exercise of the Understand- 
 ing, and its limitation to objects of sense ; with the 
 errors both of unbelief and of misbelief, which result 
 from its extension beyond the sphere of possible ex- 
 perience. Wherever the forms of reasoning appropriate 
 only to the natural world are applied to spiritual 
 realities, it may be truly said, that the more strictly 
 logical the reasoning is in all its parts, the more 
 irrational it is as a whole. 
 
 To the reader thus armed and prepared, I now ven- 
 ture to present the so-called mysteries of Faith, that 
 is, the peculiar tenets and especial constituents of 
 Christianity, or religion in spirit and in truth. In 
 right order I must have commenced with the articles 
 of the Trinity and Apostasy, including the question 
 respecting the origin of Evil, and the Incarnation of 
 the Wokd. And could I have followed this order, 
 some difficulties that now press on me would have 
 been obviated. But the limits of the present Volume 
 rendered it alike impracticable and inexpedient ; for 
 the necessity of my argument would have called forth 
 certain hard though most true sayings, respecting 
 
 a light, which we enjoy, but the source of which is not in 
 ourselves, nor rightly by any individual to be denominated 
 mine." This pure intelligence he then proceeds to contrast 
 with the discursive faculty, that is, the Understanding. 
 (See the notes on this remarkable writer in the Author's 
 "Literary Remains," vol. iii. p. 416. — Ed.) 
 
202 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 the hollowness and tricksy sophistry of the so-called 
 "natural theology," "religion of nature," "light of 
 nature," and the like, which a brief exposition could 
 not save from innocent misconceptions, much less 
 protect against plausible misinterpretation. And yet 
 both reason and experience have convinced me, that 
 in the greater number of our Alogi, who feed on the 
 husks of Christianity, the disbelief of the Trinity, 
 the divinity of Christ included, has its origin and 
 support in the assumed self-evidence of this natural 
 theology, and in their ignorance of the insurmount- 
 able difficulties which on the same mode of reason- 
 ing press upon the fundamental articles of their 
 own remnant of a creed. But, arguments, which 
 would prove the falsehood of a known truth, must 
 themselves be false, and can prove the falsehood of 
 no other position in eodem genere. 
 
 This hint I have thrown out as a spark that may 
 perhaps fall where it will kindle. And worthily 
 might the wisest of men make inquisition into the 
 three momentous points here spoken of, for the pur- 
 poses of speculative insight, and for the formation of 
 enlarged and systematic views of the destination of 
 Man, and the dispensation of God. But the practical 
 Inquirer — (I speak not of those who inquire for the 
 gratification of curiosity, and still less of those who 
 labour as students only to shine as disputants ; but 
 of one, who seeks the truth, because he feels the 
 want of it,) — the practical inquirer, I say, hath al- 
 ready placed his foot on the rock, if he have satisfied 
 himself that whoever needs not a Redeemer is more 
 than human. Remove from him the difficulties and 
 objections that oppose or perplex his belief of a cru- 
 cified Saviour; convince him of the reality of sin, 
 which is impossible without a knowledge of its true 
 nature and inevitable consequences ; and then satisfy 
 
ON SPIKITUAL KELIGION. 203 
 
 him as to the fact historically, and as to the truth 
 spiritually, of a redemption therefrom by Christ ; do 
 this for him, and there is little fear that he will 
 permit either logical quirks or metaphysical puzzles 
 to contravene the plain dictate of his common sense, 
 that the sinless One who redeemed mankind from sin, 
 must have been more than man ; and that He who 
 brought light and immortality into the world, could 
 not in his own nature have been an inheritor of death 
 and darkness. It is morally impossible that a man 
 with these convictions should suffer the objection of 
 incomprehensibility, and this on a subject of faith, to 
 overbalance the manifest absurdity and contradiction 
 in the notion of a Mediator between God and the hu- 
 man race, at the same infinite distance from God as 
 the race for whom he mediates. 
 
 The origin of Evil, meanwhile, is a question inter- 
 esting only to the metaphysician, and in a system of 
 moral and religious philosophy. The man of sober 
 mind who seeks for truths that possess a moral and 
 practical interest, is content to be certain, first, that 
 evil must have had a beginning, since otherwise it 
 must either be God, or a co-eternal and co-equal rival 
 of God ; both impious notions, and the latter foolish 
 to boot : — secondly that it could not originate in 
 God ; for if so, it would be at once evil and not evil, 
 or God would be at once God, that is, infinite good- 
 ness, and not God — both alike impossible positions. 
 Instead, therefore, of troubling himself with this 
 barren controversy, he more profitably turns his 
 inquiries to that evil which most concerns himself, 
 and of which he may find the origin. 
 
 The entire scheme of necessary Faith may be re- 
 duced to two heads ; first the object and occasion, 
 and secondly, the fact and effect, — of our redemption 
 by Christ : and to this view does the order of the 
 
204 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 following Comments correspond. I have begun with 
 Original Sin, and proceeded in the following Aphorism 
 to the doctrine of Redemption. The Comments on 
 the remaining Aphorisms are all subsidiary to these, 
 or written in the hope of making the minor tenets of 
 general belief be believed in a spirit worthy of these. 
 They are, in short, intended to supply a febrifuge 
 against aguish scruples and horrors, the hectic of the 
 soul ; — and, in Milton's words, " for servile and 
 thrall-like fear, to substitute that adoptive and cheer- 
 ful boldness, which our new alliance with God re- 
 quires of us as Christians." Not the origin of evil, 
 not the chronology of sin, or the chronicles of the 
 original sinner ; but sin originant, underived from 
 without, and no passive link in the adamantine chain 
 of effects, each of which is in its turn an instrument 
 of causation, but no one of them a cause ; — not with 
 sin, inflicted, which would be a calamity : — not with 
 sin (that is, an evil tendency) implanted, for which 
 let the planter be responsible ; — but I begin with 
 original sin. And for this purpose I have selected 
 the Aphorism from the ablest and most formidable 
 antagonist of this doctrine, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, 
 and from the most eloquent work of this most elo- 
 quent of divines.* Had I said, of men, Cicero would 
 forgive me, and Demosthenes nod assent ! f 
 
 * See the notes on J. Taylor, "Literary Remains," iii. 
 pp. 295, 334.—^. 
 
 "f* It does not appear that the Church of England demands 
 the literal understanding of the document contained in the 
 second (from verse 8) and third chapters of Genesis as a 
 point of faith, or regards a different interpretation as affecting 
 the orthodoxy of the interpreter ; * divines of the most 
 unimpeachable orthodoxy, and the most averse to the alle- 
 
 See Bp. Horsley's Sermon xvi. ; 2 Peter i. 20, 21. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 205 
 
 APHORISM Z. 
 
 ON OKIGINA.L SIN. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 The question is not whether there be any such 
 thing as original Sin : for it is certain, and confessed 
 on all hands almost. For my part I cannot but con- 
 
 gorising of Scripture history in general, having from the 
 earliest ages of the Christian Church adopted or permitted 
 it in this instance. And indeed no unprejudiced man can 
 pretend to doubt, that if in any other work of Eastern origin 
 he met with trees of life and of knowledge ; or talking and 
 conversable snakes, 
 
 Inque rei signum serpentem serpere jussum ; 
 
 he would want no other proofs that it was an allegory he 
 was reading, and intended to be understood as such. Nor, 
 if we suppose him conversant with Oriental works of any- 
 thing like the same antiquity, could it surprise him to find 
 events of true history in connexion with, or historical 
 personages among the actors and interlocutors of, the 
 parable. In the temple-language of Egypt the serpent was 
 the symbol of the understanding in its twofold function, 
 namely, as the faculty of means to proximate or medial ends, 
 analogous to the instinct of the more intelligent animals, 
 ant, bee, beaver, and the like, and opposed to the practical 
 reason, as the determinant of the ultimate end; and again, 
 as the discursive and logical faculty possessed individually 
 by each individual — the Aoyos eV l/catr-r^, in distinction from 
 the vovs, that is, intuitive reason, the source of ideas and 
 absolute truths, and the principle of the necessary and the 
 universal in our affirmations and conclusions. Without or 
 in contravention to the reason — (that is, the spiritual mind 
 of St. Paul, and the light that lighteth every man of St. John) 
 — this understanding (<pp6vr)iia ffapicbs, or carnal mind) 
 becomes the sophistic principle, the wily tempter to evil by 
 counterfeit good ; the pander and advocate of the passions 
 and appetites : ever in league with, and always first applying 
 
206 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 fess that to be, which I feel and groan under, and by 
 which all the world is miserable. 
 
 to, the desire, as tbe inferior nature in man, the woman in 
 our humanity; and through the desire prevailing on the will 
 (the manhood, virtus) against the command of the universal 
 reason, and against the light of reason in the will itself. 
 This essential inherence of an intelligential principle (<p£>s 
 voep6v) in the will (apxh Qe\i)Tuet\), or rather the Will itself 
 thus considered, the Greeks expressed by an appropriate 
 word, I3ov\t). This, but little differing from Origen's inter- 
 pretation or hypothesis, is supported and confirmed by the 
 very old tradition of the homo androgynus, that is, that the 
 original man, the individual first created, was bi-sexual; 
 a chimsera, of which, and of many other mythological 
 traditions, the most probable explanation is, that they were 
 originally symbolical glyphs or sculptures, and afterwards 
 translated into words, yet literally, that is, into the common 
 names of the several figures and images composing the 
 symbol ; while the symbolic meaning was left to be decy- 
 phered as before, and sacred to the initiate. As to the 
 abstruseness and subtlety of the conceptions, this is so far 
 from being an objection to this oldest gloss on this venerable 
 relic of Semitic, not impossibly antediluvian, philosophy, 
 that to those who have carried their researches farthest back 
 into Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Indian antiquity, it will 
 seem a strong confirmation. Or if I chose to address the 
 sceptic in the language of the day, I might remind him that 
 as alchemy went before chemistry, and astrology before 
 astronomy, so in all countries of civilised man have meta- 
 physics outrun common sense. Fortunately for us that they 
 have so ! For from all we know of the unmetaphysical 
 tribes of New Holland and elsewhere, a common sense not 
 preceded by metaphysics is no very enviable possession. 0, 
 be not cheated, my youthful Reader, by this shallow prate ! 
 The creed of true common sense is composed of the results 
 of scientific meditation, observation, and experiment, as far 
 as they are generally intelligible. It differs, therefore, in 
 different countries, and in every different age of the same 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 207 
 
 Adam turned his back upon the sun, and dwelt in 
 the dark and the shadow. He sinned and fell into 
 
 country. The common sense of a people is the moveable 
 index of its average judgment and information. Without 
 metaphysics science could have had no language, and 
 common sense no materials. 
 
 But to return to my subject. It cannot be denied that 
 the Mosaic narrative, thus interpreted, gives a just and 
 faithful exposition of the birth and parentage, and successive 
 moments of phenomenal sin (peccatum phenomenon; crimen 
 jprimarium et commime), that is, of sin as it reveals itself in 
 time, and is an immediate object of consciousness. And in 
 this sense most truly does the Apostle assert, that in Adam 
 we all fell. The first human sinner is the adequate repre- 
 sentative of all his successors. And with no less truth may 
 it be said, that it is the same Adam that falls in every man, 
 and from the same reluctance to abandon the too dear and 
 undivorceable Eve ; and the same Eve tempted by the same 
 serpentine and perverted understanding, which, framed 
 originally to be the interpreter of the reason and the minis- 
 tering angel of the spirit, is henceforth sentenced and bound 
 over to the service of the animal nature, its needs and its 
 cravings, dependent on the senses for all its materials, with 
 the world of sense for its appointed sphere : Upon thy belly 
 shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 
 I have shown elsewhere, that as the instinct of the mere 
 intelligence differs in degree, not in kind, and circum- 
 stantially, not essentially, from the vis vita, or vital power in 
 the assimilative and digestive functions of the stomach and 
 other organs of nutrition, even so the Understanding in itself, 
 and distinct fr«m the Reason and Conscience, differs in degree 
 only from the instinct in the animal. It is still but a beast 
 of the field, though more subtle than any beast of the field, and 
 therefore in its corruption and perversion cursed above any ; 
 — a pregnant word ! of which if the reader wants an expo- 
 sition or paraphrase, he may find one more than two thousand 
 years old among the fragments of the poet Menander. This 
 is the understanding which in its every thought is to be brought 
 
208 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 God's displeasure, and was made naked of all his su- 
 pernatural endowments, was ashamed and sentenced 
 
 under obedience to faith ; which it can scarcely fail to be, if 
 only it be first subjected to the reason, of which spiritual 
 faith is even the blossoming and the fructifying process. For it 
 is indifferent whether I say that Faith is the interpenetration 
 of the Reason and the Will, or that it is at once the assurance 
 and the commencement of the approaching union between 
 the reason and the intelligible realities, the living and sub- 
 stantial truths, that are even in this life its most proper 
 objects. 
 
 I have thus put the reader in possession of my own 
 opinions respecting the narrative in Gen. ii. and iii. /Ectiv 
 oilv S^i, ws efioiye Soice?, 'lepos fivQos, aKriOeararov Kat apxcuSrarov 
 <pi\ocr6<pr)fxa, eixrefiecri jxev cre^aafia, crvveTois re <pa>vaw is Se 
 rb vav epfvfivews x aT ' l C ei - Or I might ask with Augustine, 
 why not both ? Why not at once symbol and history ? Or 
 rather how should it be otherwise ) Must not of necessity 
 the first man be a symbol of mankind in the fullest force of 
 the word symbol, rightly defined ; — a sign included in the 
 idea which it represents ; — that is, an actual part chosen to 
 represent the whole, as a lip with a chin prominent is a 
 symbol of man ; or a lower form or species of a higher in the 
 same kind ; thus magnetism is the symbol of vegetation, and 
 of the vegetative and reproductive power in animals; the 
 instinct of the ant-tribe or the bee is a symbol of the human 
 understanding. And this definition of the word is of great 
 practical importance, inasmuch as the symbolical is hereby 
 distinguished toto genere from the allegoric and metaphorical. 
 But, perhaps, parables, allegories, and allegorical or typical 
 applications, are incompatible with inspired Scripture ! The 
 writings of St. Paul are sufficient proof cf the contrary. Yet 
 I readily acknowledge that allegorical applications are one 
 thing, and allegorical interpretation another ; and that where 
 there is no ground for supposing such a sense to have entered 
 into the intent and purpose of the sacred penman, they are 
 not to be commended. So far indeed am I from entertaining 
 any predilection for them, or any favourable opinion of the 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 209 
 
 to death, and deprived of the means of long life, and 
 of the sacrament and instrument of immortality, I 
 mean the tree of life.* He then fell under the evils 
 of a sickly body, and a passionate, ignorant, and unin- 
 structed soul. His sin made him sickly, his sickness 
 made him peevish : his sin left him ignorant, his ig- 
 norance made him foolish and unreasonable. His sin 
 left him to his nature : and by his nature, whoever 
 was to be born at all, was to be born a child, and to 
 do before he could understand, and to be bred under 
 laws to which he was always bound, but which could 
 not always be exacted ; and he was to choose when 
 he eould not reason, and had passions most strong 
 when he had his understanding most weak ; and the 
 more need he had of a curb, the less strength he had 
 to use it ! And this being the case of all the world, 
 what was every man's evil became all men's greater 
 evil ; and though alone it was very bad, yet when 
 they came together it was made much worse. Like 
 ships in a storm, every one alone hath enough to do 
 to outride it ; but when they meet, besides the evils of 
 
 Rabbinical commentators and tradition ists, from whom the 
 fashion was derived, that in carrying it as far as our own 
 Church has carried it, I follow her judgment, not my own. 
 Indeed I know but one other part of the Scriptures not 
 universally held to be parabolical, which, not without the 
 sanction of great authorities, I am disposed to regard as an 
 apologue or parable, namely, the book of Jonah ; the reasons 
 for believing the Jewish Nation collectively to be therein 
 impersonated seeming to me unanswerable. And it is my 
 deliberate and conscientious conviction, that the proofs of 
 such interpretation having been the intention of the inspired 
 writer or compiler of the book of Genesis lie on the face of 
 the narrative itself. 
 
 * Rom. v. 14. — Who were they who had not sinned after 
 the similitude of Adam's transgression; and over whom, 
 notwithstanding, death reigned ? 
 
210 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the storm, they find the intolerable calamity of their 
 mutual concussion ; and every ship that is ready to 
 be oppressed with the tempest, is a worse tempest to 
 every vessel against which it is violently dashed. So 
 it is in mankind. Every man hath evil enough of 
 his own, and it is hard for a man to live up to the 
 rule of his own reason and conscience. But when he 
 hath parents and children, friends and enemies, 
 buyers and sellers, lawyers and clients, a family and 
 a neighbourhood — then it is tbat every man dashes 
 against another, and one relation requires what 
 another denies ; and when one speaks another will 
 contradict him ; and that which is well spoken is 
 sometimes innocently mistaken ; and that upon a good 
 cause produces an evil effect ; and by these, and ten 
 thousand other concurrent causes, man is made more 
 than most miserable.* 
 
 The first question we should put to ourselves, 
 when we have to read a passage that perplexes us in 
 a work of authority, is : What does the writer mean 
 by all this ? And the second question should be, 
 What does he intend by all this ? In the passage 
 before us, Taylor's meaning is not quite clear. A sin 
 is an evil which has its ground or origin in tbe agent, 
 and not in the compulsion of circumstances. Cir- 
 cumstances are compulsory from the absence of a 
 power to resist or control them : and if this absence 
 likewise be the effect of circumstance (that is, if it 
 have been neither directly nor indirectly caused by the 
 agent himself), the evil derives from the circumstances; 
 and therefore (in the Apostle's sense of the word, sin, 
 
 * Deus Justificatus, with some slight omissions and altera- 
 tions. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 811 
 
 when he speaks of the exceeding sinfulness of sin) 
 such evil is not sin ; and the person who suffers it, 
 or who is the compelled instrument of its infliction 
 on others, may feel regret, but cannot feel remorse. 
 So likewise of the word origin, original, or originant. 
 The Reader cannot too early be warned that it is not 
 applicable, and, without abuse of language, can never 
 be applied to a mere link in a chain of effects, where 
 each, indeed, stands in the relation of a cause to those 
 that follow, but is at the same time the effect of all 
 that precede. For in these cases a cause amounts to 
 little more than an antecedent. At the utmost it 
 means only a conductor of the causative influence ; 
 and the old axiom, causa causes, causa causati, applies 
 with a never-ending regress to each several link, up 
 the whole chain of nature. But this is Nature : and 
 no natural thing or act can be called originant, or be 
 truly said to have an origin * in any other. The 
 
 * This sense of the word is implied even in its meta- 
 phorical or figurative use. Thus we may say of a river that 
 it originates in such or such a fountain ; but the water of 
 a canal is derived from such or such a river. The power 
 which we call Nature, maybe thus defined : a power subject 
 to the law of continuity, (lex continui ,■ nam in natura non 
 datur saltus) which law the human understanding, by a 
 necessity arising out of its own constitution, can conceive 
 only under the form of cause and effect. That this form or 
 law of cause and effect is, relatively to the world without, or 
 to things as they subsist independently of our perceptions, 
 only a form or mode of thinking ; that it is a law inherent 
 in the understanding itself just as the symmetry of the 
 miscellaneous objects seen by the kaleidoscope inheres in, 
 or results from, the mechanism of the kaleidoscope itself — 
 this becomes evident as soon as we attempt to apply the 
 preconception directly to any operation of nature. For in 
 this ca3e we are forced to represent the cause as being at the 
 same instant the effect, and vice versd the effect as being the 
 
 p2 
 
212 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 moment we assume an origin in nature, a true begin- 
 ning, an actual first — that moment we rise above 
 
 cause — a relation which we seek to express by the terms 
 action and re-action; but for which the term reciprocal 
 action or the law of reciprocity ( Wechsdwirhung) would be 
 both more accurate and more expressive. 
 
 These are truths which can scarcely be too frequently 
 impressed on the mind that is in earnest in the wish to 
 reflect aright. Nature is a line in constant and continuous 
 evolution. Its beginning is lost in the supernatural : and 
 for our understanding therefore it must appear as a con- 
 tinuous line without beginning or end. But where there is 
 no discontinuity there can be no origination, and every 
 appearance of origination in nature is but a shadow of our 
 own casting. It is a reflection from our own will or spirit. 
 Herein, indeed, the will consists. This is the essential 
 character by which Will is opposed to Nature, as spirit, and 
 raised above nature as self-determining spirit — this namely, 
 that it is a power of originating an act or state. 
 
 A young friend, or as he was pleased to describe himself, 
 a pupil of mine, who is beginning to learn to think, asked 
 me to explain by an instance what is meant by " originating 
 an act or state." My answer was — This morning I awoke 
 with a dull pain, which I knew from experience the getting 
 up would remove : and yet by adding to the drowsiness and 
 by weakening or depressing the volition {voluntas sensorialis 
 seu meckanica) the very pain seemed to hold me back, to fix 
 me, as it were, to the bed. After a peevish ineffectual 
 quarrel with this painful disinclination, I said to myself: 
 Let me count twenty, and the moment I come to nineteen 
 I will leap out of bed. So said, and so done. Now should 
 you ever find yourself in the same or in a similar state, and 
 should attend to the goings-on within you, you will learn 
 what I mean by originating an act. At the same time you 
 will see that it belongs exclusively to the will (arbitrium) ; 
 that there is nothing analogous to it in outward experiences ; 
 and that I had, therefore, no way of explaining it but by 
 , referring you to an act of your own, and to the peculiar 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 213 
 
 nature, and are compelled to assume a supernatural 
 power. {Gen. i. 1.) 
 
 self-consciousness preceding and accompanying it. As we 
 know what life is by being, so we know what will is by 
 acting. That in willing, replied my friend, we appear to 
 ourselves to constitute an actual beginning, and that this 
 seems unique, and without any example in our sensible 
 experience, or in the phcenomena of nature, is an undeniable 
 fact. But may it not be an illusion arising from our igno- 
 rance of the antecedent causes ? You may suppose this, I 
 rejoined : — that the soul of every man should impose a lie 
 on itself; and that this lie, and the acting on the faith of its 
 being the most important of all truths, and the most real of 
 all realities, should form the main contra-distinctive character 
 of humanity, and the only basis of that distinction between 
 things and persons on which our whole moral and criminal 
 law is grounded; — you may suppose this; — I cannot, as I 
 could in the case of an arithmetical or geometrical propo- 
 sition, render it impossible for you to suppose it. Whether 
 you can reconcile such a supposition with the belief of an 
 all-wise Creator is another question. But, taken singly, it is 
 doubtless in your power to suppose this. Were it not, the 
 belief of the contrary would be no subject of a command, no 
 part of a moral or religious duty. You would not, however, 
 suppose it without a reason. But all the pretexts that ever 
 have been or ever can be offered for this supposition, are 
 built on certain notions of the understanding that have been 
 generalised from conceptions ; which conceptions, again, are 
 themselves generalised or abstracted from objects of sense. 
 Neither the one nor the other, therefore, have any force 
 except in application to objects of sense, and within the 
 sphere of sensible experience. What but absurdity can 
 follow, if you decide on spirit by the laws of matter; — if 
 you judge that, which if it be at all must be supersensual, 
 by that faculty of your mind, the very definition of which is 
 " the faculty judging according to sense ? " These then are 
 unworthy the name of reasons : they are only pretexts. But 
 without reason to contradict your own consciousness in 
 
214 . AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 It will be an equal convenience to myself and to 
 my Reader, to let it be agreed between us, that we 
 will generalise the word circumstance, so as to under- 
 stand by it, as often as it occurs in this Comment, all 
 and every thing not connected with the Will, past or 
 present, of a free agent. Even though it were the 
 blood in the chambers of his heart, or his own inmost 
 sensations, we will regard them as circumstantial, 
 extrinsic, or from without. 
 
 defiance of your own conscience, is contrary to reason. Such 
 and such writers, you say, have made a great sensation. If 
 so, I am sorry for it ; but the fact I take to be this. From 
 a variety of causes the more austere sciences have fallen into 
 discredit, and impostors have taken advantage of the general 
 ignorance to give a sort of mysterious and terrific importance 
 to a parcel of trashy sophistry, the authors of which would 
 not have employed themselves more irrationally in submit- 
 ting the works of Raffaelle or Titian to canons of criticism 
 deduced from the sense of smell. Nay, less so. For here 
 the objects and the organs are only disparate: while in the 
 other case they are absolutely diverse. I conclude this note 
 by reminding the Reader, that my first object is to make 
 myself understood. When he is in full possession of my 
 meaning, then let him consider whether it deserves to be 
 received as the truth. Had it been my immediate purpose 
 to make him believe me as well as understand me, I should 
 have thought it necessary to warn him that a finite will 
 does indeed originate an act, and may originate a state of 
 being ; but yet only in and for the agent himself. A finite 
 will constitutes a true beginning ; but with regard to the 
 series of motions and changes by which the free act is 
 manifested and made effectual, the finite will gives a begin- 
 ning only by coincidence with that Absolute Will, which is 
 at the same time Infinite Power. Such is the language of 
 religion, and of philosophy too in the last instance. But I 
 express the same truth in ordinary language when I say, that 
 a finite will, or the will of a finite free-agent, acts outwardly 
 by confluence with the laws of nature. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 215 
 
 In this sense of the word, original, and in the sense 
 before given of sin, it is evident that the phrase, 
 Original Sin, is a pleonasm, the epithet not adding to 
 the thought, but only enforcing it. For if it be sin, 
 it must be original ; and a state or act, that has not 
 its origin in the will, may be calamity, deformity, 
 disease, or mischief ; but a sin it cannot be. It is 
 not enough that the act appears voluntary, or that it 
 is intentional ; or that it has the most hateful pas- 
 sions or debasing appetite for its proximate cause and 
 accompaniment. All these may be found in a mad- 
 house, where neither law nor humanity permit us to 
 condemn the actor of sin. The reason of law declares 
 the maniac not a free-agent ; and the verdict follows 
 of course — Not guilty. Now mania, as distinguished 
 from idiocy, frenzy, delirium, hypochondria, and 
 derangement (the last term used specifically to ex- 
 press a suspension or disordered state of the under- 
 standing or adaptive power), is the occultation or 
 eclipse of reason, as the power of ultimate ends. The 
 maniac, it is well known, is often found clever and 
 inventive in the selection and adaptation of means to 
 his ends ; but his ends are madness. He has lost 
 his reason. For though reason, in finite beings, is 
 not the will — or how could the will be opposed to the 
 reason ? — yet it is the condition, the sine qua non of 
 a free will. 
 
 We will now return to the extract from Taylor on 
 a theme of deep interest in itself, and trebly import- 
 ant from its bearings. For without just and distinct 
 views respecting the Article of Original Sin, it is 
 impossible to understand aright any one of the 
 peculiar doctrines of Christianity. Now my first 
 complaint is, that the eloquent Bishop, while he admits 
 the fact as established beyond controversy by uni- 
 versal experience, yet leaves us wholly in the dark as 
 
216 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 to the main point, supplies us with no answer to the 
 principal question — why he names it Original Sin. 
 It cannot be said, We know what the Bishop means, 
 and what matters the name — for the nature of the 
 fact, and in what light it should be regarded by us, 
 depends on the nature of our answer to the question, 
 whether Original Sin is or is not the right and proper 
 designation. I can imagine the same quantum of 
 sufferings, and yet if I had reason to regard them as 
 symptoms of a commencing change, as pains of 
 growth, the temporary deformity and misproportions 
 of immaturity, or (as in the final sloughing of the 
 caterpillar) the throes and struggles of the waxing or 
 evolving Psyche, I should think it no Stoical flight 
 to doubt, how far I was authorised to declare the 
 circumstance an evil at all. Most assuredly I would 
 not express or describe the fact as an evil having an 
 origin in the sufferers themselves, or as sin. 
 
 Let us, however, waive this objection. Let it be 
 supposed that the Bishop uses the word in a different 
 and more' comprehensive sense, and that by Sin he 
 understands evil of all kind connected with or result- 
 ing from actions — though I do not see how we can 
 represent the properties even of inanimate bodies (of 
 poisonous substances for instance) except as acts 
 resulting from the constitution of such bodies. Or 
 if this sense, though not unknown to the mystic 
 divines, should be too comprehensive and remote, I 
 will suppose the Bishop to comprise under the term 
 Sin, the evil accompanying or consequent on human 
 actions and purposes : — though here, too, I have a 
 right to be informed, for what reason and on what 
 grounds sin is thus limited to human agency ? And 
 truly, I should be at no loss to assign the reason. 
 But then this reason would instantly bring me back 
 to my first definition ; and any other reason, than that 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 217 
 
 the human agent is endowed with reason, and with a 
 will which can place itself either in subjection or in 
 opposition to his reason — in other words, that man 
 is alone of all known animals a responsible creature — 
 I neither know nor can imagine. 
 
 Thus, then, the sense which Taylor — and with 
 him the antagonists generally of this Article as 
 propounded by the first Eeformers — attaches to the 
 words, Original Sin, needs only be carried on into 
 its next consequence, and it will be found to imply 
 the sense which I have given — namely, that sin is 
 evil having an origin. But inasmuch as it is evil, 
 in God it cannot originate : and yet in some Spirit 
 (that is, in some supernatural power) it must. For 
 in nature there is no origin. Sin therefore is spiritual 
 evil : but the spiritual in man is the will. Now 
 when we do not refer to any particular sins, but to 
 that state and constitution of the will, which is the 
 ground, condition, and common cause of all sins ; 
 and when we would further express the truth, that 
 this corrupt nature of the will must in some sense or 
 other be considered as its own act, that the corruption 
 must have been self-originated ; — in this case and for 
 this purpose we may, with no less propriety than 
 force, entitle this dire spiritual evil and source of 
 all evil, which is absolutely such, Original Sin. I 
 have said, the corrupt nature of the will. I might 
 add, that the admission of a nature into a spiritual 
 essence by its own act is a corruption. 
 
 Such, I repeat, would be the inevitable conclusion, 
 if Taylor's sense of the term were carried on into its 
 immediate consequences. But the wbole of his most 
 eloquent Treatise makes it certain that Taylor did 
 not carry it on : and consequently Original Sin, 
 according to his conception, is a calamity, which being 
 common to all men must be supposed to result from 
 
218 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 their common nature ; in other words, the universal 
 calamity of human nature. 
 
 Can we wonder, then, that a mind, a heart, like 
 Taylor's, should reject, that he should strain his 
 faculties to explain away the belief that this calamity, 
 so dire in itself, should appear to the All-merciful 
 God a rightful cause and motive for inflicting on the 
 wretched sufferers a calamity infinitely more tremen- 
 dous ; — nay, that it should be incompatible with Divine 
 Justice not to punish it by everlasting torment ? Or 
 need we be surprised if he found nothing that could 
 reconcile his mind to such a belief, in the circum- 
 stance that the acts now consequent on this calamity, 
 and either directly or indirectly effects of the same, 
 were, five or six thousand years ago in the instance of 
 a certain individual and his accomplice, anterior to 
 the calamity, and the cause or occasion of the same ; 
 — that what in all other men is disease, in these two 
 persons was guilt ; — that what in us is hereditary, 
 and consequently nature, in them was original, and 
 consequently sin ? Lastly, might it not be presumed, 
 that so enlightened, and at the same time so affec- 
 tionate, a divine would even fervently disclaim and 
 reject the pretended justifications of God grounded 
 on flimsy analogies drawn from the imperfections of 
 human ordinances and human justice-courts — some 
 of very doubtful character even as human institutes, 
 and all of them just only as far as they are necessary, 
 and rendered necessary chiefly by the weakness and 
 wickedness, the limited powers and corrupt passions, 
 of mankind? The more confidently might this be 
 presumed of so acute and practised a logician, as 
 Taylor, in addition to his other extraordinary gifts, is 
 known to have been, when it is demonstrable that the 
 most current of these justifications rests on a palpable 
 equivocation : namely, the gross misuse of the word 
 
ON SPIEITUAL EELIGION. 219 
 
 Eight.* An instance will explain my meaning. In 
 as far as, from the known frequency of dishonest or 
 
 * It may conduce to the readier comprehension of this 
 point if I say, that the equivoque consists in confounding 
 the almost technical sense of the noun substantive, right, 
 (a sense most often determined by the genitive case fol- 
 lowing, as the right of property, the right of husbands to 
 chastise their wives, and so forth) with the popular sense of 
 the adjective, right : though this likewise has, if not a 
 double sense, yet a double application ; — the first, when it ia 
 used to express the fitness of a mean to a relative end ; for 
 example, "the right way to obtain the right distance at 
 which a picture should be examined," and the like ; and the 
 other, when it expresses a perfect conformity and commen- 
 surateness with the immutable idea of equity, or perfect 
 rectitude. Hence the close connection between the words 
 righteousness and godliness, that is, godlikeness. 
 
 I Bhould be tempted to subjoin a few words on a pre- 
 dominating doctrine closely connected with the present 
 argument — the Paleyan principle of general consequences ; 
 but the inadequacy of this principle as a criterion of right 
 and wrong, and above all its utter unfitness as a moral 
 guide, have been elsewhere so fully stated {Friend, vol. ii. 
 essay xi. 3rd edit.), that even in again referring to the 
 subject I must shelter myself under Seneca's rule, that 
 what we cannot too frequently think of, we cannot too often 
 be made to recollect. It is, however, of immediate import- 
 ance to the point in discussion, that the reader should be 
 made to see how altogether incompatible the principle of 
 judging by general consequences is with the idea of an 
 Eternal, Omnipresent, and Omniscient Being ; — that he 
 should be made aware of the absurdity of attributing any 
 form of generalisation to the All-perfect Mind. To gene- 
 ralise is a faculty and function of the human understanding, 
 and from the imperfection and limitation of the under- 
 standing are the use and the necessity of generalising 
 derived. Generalisation is a substitute for intuition, for the 
 power of intuitive, that is, immediate knowledge. As a 
 
220 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 mischievous persons, it may have been found neces- 
 sary, in so far is the law justifiable in giving land- 
 owners the right of proceeding against a neighbour 
 or fellow-citizen for even a slight trespass on that 
 which the law has made their property : — nay, of 
 proceeding in sundry instances criminally and even 
 capitally. But surely, either there is no religion in 
 the world, and nothing obligatory in tbe precepts of 
 the Gospel, or there are occasions in which it would 
 be very wrong in the proprietor to exercise the right, 
 which yet it may be highly expedient that he should 
 possess. On this ground it is, that religion is the 
 sustaining opposite of law. 
 
 That Taylor, therefore, should have striven fervently 
 against the Article so interpreted and so vindicated, 
 is (for me at least) a subject neither of surprise nor of 
 complaint. It is the doctrine which he substitutes ; 
 it is the weakness and inconsistency betrayed in the 
 defence of this substitute; it is the unfairness with 
 which he blackens the established Article — for to give 
 it, as it had been caricatured by a few Ultra-Calvin- 
 ists during the fever of the (so called) Quinquarticular 
 controversy, was in effect to blacken it — and then 
 imposes another scheme, to which the same objections 
 apply with even increased force, a scheme which 
 seems to differ from the former only by adding fraud 
 and mockery to injustice ; — these are the things 
 that excite my wonder; it is of these that I complain. 
 
 substitute, it is a gift of inestimable value to a finite intelli- 
 gence, such, as man m his present state is endowed with and 
 capable of exercising; but yet a substitute only, and an 
 imperfect one to boot. To attribute it to God is the 
 grossest anthropomorphism : and grosser instances of anthro- 
 pomorphism than are to be found in the controversial writings 
 on Original Sin and Vicarious Satisfaction, the records of 
 superstition do not supply. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 221 
 
 For what does the Bishop's scheme amount to ? God, 
 he tells us, required of Adam a perfect obedience, 
 and made it possible by endowing him " with perfect 
 rectitude and super-natural heights of grace " propor- 
 tionate to the obedience which he required. As a 
 consequence of his disobedience, Adam lost this 
 rectitude, this perfect sanity and proportionateness of 
 his intellectual, moral and corporeal state, powers 
 and impulses ; and as the penalty of his crime, he 
 was deprived of all supernatural aids and graces. 
 The death, with whatever is comprised in the Scrip- 
 tural sense of the word, death, began from that 
 moment to work in him, and this consequence he 
 conveyed to his offspring, and through them to all 
 his posterity, that is, to all mankind. They were 
 born diseased in mind, body and will. For what less 
 than disease can we call a necessity of error and a 
 predisposition to sin and sickness? Taylor, indeed, 
 asserts, that though perfect obedience became incom- 
 parably more difficult, it was not, however, absolutely 
 impossible. Yet he himself admits that the contrary 
 was universal ; that of the countless millions of 
 Adam's posterity, not a single individual ever realised, 
 or approached to the realisation of, this possibility ; 
 and (if my memory * does not deceive me) Taylor 
 
 * I have, since this page was written, met with several 
 passages in the Treatise on Repentance, the Holy Living 
 and Dying, and the Worthy Communicant, in which the 
 Bishop asserts without scruple the impossibility of total 
 obedience ; and on the same grounds as I have given. 
 
 [See the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, c. I. s. 2. 
 " — who — conclude that it is possible to keep the com- 
 mandments, though as yet no man ever did, but He that 
 did it for us all." xv. " But in the moral sense, that is, 
 when we consider what man is, and what are his strengths, 
 and how many his enemies, and how soon he falls, and that 
 
222 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 himself has elsewhere exposed — and if he has not, 
 yet common-sense will do it for him — the sophistry in 
 asserting of a whole what may be true of the whole, 
 but is in fact true only of each of its component parts. 
 Any one may snap a horse-hair : therefore, any one 
 may perform the same feat with the horse's tail. On 
 a level floor (on the hardened sand for instance, of a 
 sea-beach) I chalk two parallel straight lines, with a 
 width of eight inches. It is possible for a man, 
 with a bandage over his eyes, to keep within the path 
 for two or three paces : therefore, it is possible for 
 him to walk blindfold for two or three leagues 
 without a single deviation ! And this possibility 
 would suffice to acquit me of injustice, though I had 
 placed man-traps within an inch of one line, and 
 knew that there were pit-falls and deep wells beside 
 the other ! 
 
 This assertion, therefore, without adverting to its 
 discordance with, if not direct contradiction to, the 
 tenth and thirteenth Articles of our Church, I shall 
 not, I trust, be thought to rate below its true value, 
 if I treat it as an infinitesimal possibility that may be 
 safely dropped in the calculation : and so proceed with 
 the argument. The consequence then of Adam's 
 crime was, by a natural necessity, inherited by persons 
 who could not (the Bishop affirms) in any sense 
 have been accomplices in the crime or partakers in 
 the guilt : and yet consistently with the divine 
 holiness, it was not possible that the same perfect 
 obedience should not be required of them. Now 
 
 he forgets when he should remember, and his faculties are 
 asleep when they should be awake, and he is hindered by 
 intervening accidents, and weakened and determined by 
 superinduced qualities, habits and necessities, — the keeping 
 of the commandments is morally impossible." xxxiv, — Ed.] 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 223 
 
 what would the idea of equity, what would the law 
 inscribed by the Creator on the heart of man, seem 
 to dictate in this case? Surely, that the supple- 
 mentary aids, the supernatural graces correspondent 
 to a law above nature, should be increased in propor- 
 tion to the diminished strength of the agents, and 
 the increased resistance to be overcome by them. 
 But no ! not only the consequence of Adam's act, 
 but the penalty due to his crime, was perpetuated. 
 His descendants were despoiled or left destitute of 
 these aids and graces, while the obligation to perfect 
 obedience was continued ; an obligation too, the 
 non-fulfilment of which brought with it death and 
 the unutterable woe that cleaves to an immortal soul 
 for ever alienated from its Creator. 
 
 Observe that all these results of Adam's fall enter 
 into Bishop Taylor's scheme of Original Sin equally 
 as into that of the first Reformers. In this respect 
 the Bishop's doctrine is the same with that laid down 
 in the Articles and Homilies of the English Church. 
 The only difference that has hitherto appeared, con- 
 sists in the aforesaid mathematical possibility of 
 fulfilling the whole law, which in the Bishop's scheme 
 is affirmed to remain still in human nature,* or (as it 
 is elsewhere expressed) in the nature of the human 
 
 * " There is a natural possibility and a moral : there are 
 abilities in every man to do anything that is there com- 
 manded, and he that can do well to-day, may do so to- 
 morrow ; in the nature of things this is true : and since every 
 sin is a breach of law, which a man might and ought to have 
 kept, it is naturally certain, that whenever any man did 
 break the commandment, he might have done otherwise. 
 In man, therefore, speaking naturally and of the physical 
 possibilities of things, there is by those assistances which are 
 given in the Gospel, ability to keep the commandments 
 evangelical. But in the moral sense," &c. ubi supra. — Ed. 
 
224 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 will.* But though it were possible to grant this 
 existence of a power in all men, which in no man 
 was ever exemplified, and where the non-actualisation 
 of such power is, a priori, so certain, that the belief 
 or imagination of the contrary in any individual is 
 expressly given us by the Holy Spirit as a test, 
 whereby it may be known that the truth is not in him, 
 as an infallible sign of imposture or self-delusion ! — 
 
 * Availing himself of the equivocal sense, and (I most 
 readily admit) the injudicious use of the word " free " in the 
 — even on this account — faulty phrase, " free only to sin," 
 Taylor treats the notion of a power in the will of deter- 
 mining itself to evil without an equal power of determining 
 itself to good, as a " foolery." I would this had been the 
 only instance in his Deus Justificatus of that inconsiderate 
 contempt so frequent in the polemic treatises of minor 
 divines, who will have ideas of reason, spiritual truths that 
 can only be spiritually discerned, translated for them into 
 adequate conceptions of the understanding. The great 
 articles of Corruption and Redemption are propounded to 
 us as spiritual mysteries; ,and every interpretation that 
 pretends to explain them into comprehensible notions, does 
 by its very success furnish presumptive proof of its failure. 
 The acuteness and logical dexterity, with which Taylor has 
 brought out the falsehood, or semblance of falsehood, in the 
 Calvinistic scheme, are truly admirable. Had he next con- 
 centred his thoughts in tranquil meditation, and asked 
 himself : what then is the truth 1 — if a Will be at all, what 
 must a Will be 1 — he might, I think, have seen that a nature 
 in a will implies already a corruption of that will ; that a 
 nature is as inconsistent with freedom as free choice with 
 an incapacity of choosing aught but evil. And lastly, a free 
 power in a nature to fulfil a law above nature ! — I, who 
 love and honor this good and great man with all the 
 reverence that can dwell " on this side idolatry," dare not 
 retort on this assertion the charge of foolery; but I find it 
 a paradox as startling to my reason as any of the hard 
 sayings of the Dort divines were to his understanding. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 225 
 
 though it were possible to grant this, which, con- 
 sistently with Scripture and the principles of reasoning 
 which we apply in all other cases, it is not possible 
 to grant ; — and though it were possible likewise to 
 overlook the glaring sophistry of concluding in relation 
 to a series of indeterminate length, that whoever can 
 do any one, can therefore do all ; a conclusion, the 
 futility of which must force itself on the common- 
 sense of every man who understands the proposition ; 
 still the question will arise — Why, and on what 
 principle of equity, were the unoffending sentenced to 
 be born with so fearful a disproportion of their powers 
 to their duties ? Why were they subjected to a law, 
 the fulfilment of which was all but impossible, yet 
 the penalty on the failure tremendous ? Admit that 
 for those who had never enjoyed a happier lot, it was 
 no punishment to be made to inhabit a ground which 
 the Creator had cursed, and to have been born with' 
 a body prone to sickness, and a soul surrounded with 
 temptation, and having the worst temptation within 
 itself in its own temptibility ; — to have the duties of 
 a Spirit 'with the wants and appetites of an Animal ! 
 Yet on such imperfect creatures, with means so scanty 
 and impediments so numerous, to impose the same 
 task-work that had been required of a creature with 
 a pure and entire nature, and provided with super- 
 natural aids — if this be not to inflict a penalty ; yet 
 to be placed under a law, the difficulty of obeying 
 which is infinite, and to have momently to struggle 
 with this difficulty, and to live momently in hazard 
 of these consequences — if this be no punishment ; — 
 words have no correspondence with thoughts, and 
 thoughts are but shadows of each other, shadows 
 that own no substance for their antitype. 
 
 Of such an outrage on common sense Taylor was 
 incapable. He himself calls it a penalty; he admits 
 
326 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 that in effect it is a punishment : nor does he seek 
 to suppress the question that so naturally arises out 
 of this admission ; — on what principle of equity -were 
 the innocent offspring of Adam punished at all ? He 
 meets it, and puts in an answer. He states the pro- 
 blem, and gives his solution — namely, that " God on 
 Adam's account was so exasperated with mankind, 
 that being angry he would still continue the punish- 
 ment ! " — "The case" (says the Bishop) "is this: 
 Jonathan and Michal were Saul's children. It came 
 to pass, that seven of Saul's issue were to be hanged: 
 all equally innocent, equally culpable." [Before I 
 quote further, I feel myself called on to remind the 
 reader, that these last two words were added by 
 Taylor, without the least grounds in Scripture, ac- 
 cording to which (2 Sam. xxi.) no crime was laid to 
 their charge, no blame imputed to them. Without 
 any pretence of culpable conduct on their part, they 
 were arraigned as children of Saul, and sacrificed to 
 a point of state-expedience. In recommencing the 
 quotation, therefore, the reader ought to let the sen- 
 tence conclude with the words — ] " all equally inno- 
 cent. David took the five sons of Michal, for she 
 had left him unhandsomely. Jonathan was his friend : 
 and therefore he spared his son, Mephibosheth. Now 
 here it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons 
 (bear in mind, Reader, that no guilt was attached to 
 any of them !) whether David should take the sons 
 of Michal, or Jonathan's ; but it is likely that as upon 
 the kindness that David had to Jonathan, he spared 
 his son ; so upon the just provocation of Michal, he 
 made that evil fall upon them, which, it may be, 
 they should not have suffered, if their mother had 
 been kind. Adam was to God, as Michal to David."* 
 
 Vol. ix. pp. 5, 6. Heber's edit. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL EELIGrON. 227 
 
 This answer, this solution, proceeding too from a 
 divine so pre-eminently gifted, and occurring (with 
 other passages not less startling) in a vehement re- 
 futation of the received doctrine, on the express 
 ground of its opposition to the clearest conceptions 
 and best feelings of mankind — this it is that surprises 
 me. It is of this that I complain. The Almighty- 
 Father exasperated with those, whom the Bishop has 
 himself in the same Treatise described as " innocent 
 and most unfortunate " — the two things best fitted to 
 conciliate love and pity ! Or though they did not 
 remain innocent, yet those whose abandonment to a 
 mere nature, while they were left amenable to a law 
 above nature, he affirms to be the irresistible cause, 
 that they one and all did sin ! And this decree illus- 
 trated and justified by its analogy to one of the worst 
 actions of an imperfect mortal ! From such of my 
 Headers as will give a thoughtful perusal to these 
 words of Taylor, I dare anticipate a concurrence with 
 the judgment which I here transcribe from the blank 
 space at the end of the Deus Justificatus in my own 
 copy : and which, though twenty years have elapsed 
 since it was written, I have never seen reason to 
 recant or modify. " This most eloquent Treatise 
 may be compared to a statue of Janus, with the one 
 face, which we must suppose fronting the Calvinistic 
 tenet, entire and fresh, as from the master's hand ; 
 beaming with life and force, witty scorn on the lip, 
 and a brow at once bright and weighty with satisfying 
 reason : — the other, looking toward the ' something 
 to be put in its place,' maimed, featureless, and 
 weather-bitten into an almost visionary confusion and 
 indistinctness." * 
 
 With these expositions I hasten to contrast the 
 
 * See Notes on English Divines, vol. i. pp. 275 — 278. 
 
 Q2 
 
228 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 Scriptural article respecting original Sin, or the cor- 
 rupt and sinful nature of the human Will, and the 
 belief which alone is required of us as Christians. 
 And here the first thing to be considered, and which 
 will at once remove a world of error, is, that this is no 
 tenet first introduced or imposed by Christianity, and, 
 which, should a man see reason to disclaim the authority 
 of the Gospel, would no longer have any claim on his 
 attention. It is no perplexity that a man may get 
 rid of by ceasing to be a Christian, and which has no 
 existence for a philosophic Deist. It is a fact affirmed, 
 indeed, in the Christian Scriptures alone with the 
 force and frequency proportioned to its consummate 
 importance ; but a fact acknowledged in every religion 
 that retains the least glimmering of the patriarchal 
 faith in a God iafinite, yet personal : — a fact assumed 
 or implied as the basis of every religion, of which 
 any relics remain of earlier date than the last and 
 total apostasy of the Pagan world, when the faith in 
 the great I Am, the Creator, was extinguished in the 
 sensual Polytheism, which is inevitably the final result 
 of Pantheism, or tbe worship of Nature ; and the only 
 form under which the Pantheistic scheme — that, ac- 
 cording to which the World is God, and the material 
 universe itself the one only absolute Being — can exist 
 for a people, or become the popular creed. Thus in 
 the most ancient books of the Brahmins, the deep 
 sense of this fact, and the doctrines grounded on 
 obscure traditions of the promised remedy, are seen 
 struggling, and now gleaming, now flashing, through 
 the mist of Pantheism, and producing the incon- 
 gruities and gross contradictions of the Brahmin 
 Mythology : while in the rival sect — in that most 
 strange phenomenon, the religious Atheism of the 
 Buddhists, with whom God is only universal matter 
 considered abstractedly from all particular forms — 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 229 
 
 the fact is placed among the delusions natural to man, 
 which together with other superstitions grounded on 
 a supposed essential difference between right and 
 wrong, the sage is to decompose and precipitate from 
 the menstruum of his more refined apprehensions ! 
 Thus in denying the fact, they virtually acknow- 
 ledge it. 
 
 From the remote East turn to the mythology of 
 the Lesser Asia, to the descendants of Javan, who 
 dwelt in the tents of Shem, and possessed the isles. 
 Here, again, and in the usual form of an historic 
 solution, we find the same fact, and as characteristic 
 of the human race, stated in that earliest and most 
 venerable mythus, or symbolic parable, of Prometheus 
 — that truly wonderful fable, in which the characters 
 of the rebellious Spirit and of the Divine Friend of 
 mankind (0eos (fitkavOpcairos) are united in the same 
 person ; * thus in the most striking manner noting 
 the forced amalgamation of the Patriarchal tradition 
 with the incongruous scheme of Pantheism. This 
 and the connected tale of Io, which is but the sequel 
 of the Prometheus, stand alone in the Greek Mytho- 
 logy, in which elsewhere both gods and men are 
 mere powers and products of nature. And most 
 noticeable it is, that soon after the promulgation and 
 spread of the Gospel had awakened the moral sense, 
 and had opened the eyes even of its wiser enemies to 
 the necessity of providing some solution of this great 
 problem of the moral world, the beautiful parable of 
 Cupid and Psyche was brought forward as a rival Fall 
 of Man : and the fact of a moral corruption conna- 
 tural with the human race was again recognised. In 
 the assertion of Original Sin the Greek Mythology 
 rose and set. 
 
 * See Lectures on Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 182. — Ed. 
 
230 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 But not only was the fact acknowledged of a law 
 in the nature of man resisting the law of God ; (and 
 whatever is placed in active and direct oppugnancy 
 to the good is, ipso facto, positive evil ;) it was like- 
 wise an acknowledged mystery, and one which by the 
 nature of the subject must ever remain such — a 
 problem, of which any other solution than the state- 
 ment of the fact itself, was demonstrably impossible. 
 That it is so, the least reflection will suffice to con- 
 vince every man, who has previously satisfied himself 
 that he is a responsible being. It follows necessarily 
 from the postulate of a responsible will. Refuse to 
 grant this, and I have not a word to say. Concede 
 this, and you concede all. For this is the essential 
 attribute of a will, and contained in the very idea, 
 that whatever determines the will acquires this power 
 from a previous determination of the will itself. The 
 will is ultimately self-determined, or it is no longer 
 a will under the law of perfect freedom, but a nature 
 under the mechanism of cause and effect. And if by 
 an act, to which it had determined itself, it has sub- 
 jected itself to the determination of nature (in the 
 language of St. Paul, to the law of the flesh), it 
 receives a nature into itself, and so far it becomes a 
 nature : and this is a corruption of the will and a 
 corrupt nature. It is also a fall of man, inasmuch 
 as his will is the condition of his personality ; the 
 ground and condition of the attribute which consti- 
 tutes him man. And the ground-work of personal 
 being is a capacity of acknowledging the moral law 
 (the law of the spirit, the law of freedom, the Divine 
 Will) as that which should, of itself, suffice to de- 
 termine the will to a free obedience of the law, the 
 law working therein by its own exceeding lawfulness.* 
 
 * If the law worked on the will, it would be the working 
 
ON SPIEITUAL KELIGION. 231 
 
 This, and this alone, is positive good ; good in itself, 
 and' independent of all relations. Whatever resists, 
 and, as a positive force, opposes this in the will, is 
 therefore evil. But an evil in the will is an evil will ; 
 and as all moral evil (that is, all evil that is evil 
 without reference to its contingent physical conse- 
 quences) is of the will, this evil will must have its 
 source in the will. And thus we might go back from 
 act to . act, from evil to evil, ad infinitum, without 
 advancing a step. 
 
 We call an individual a bad man, not because an 
 action of his is contrary to the law, but because it 
 has led us to conclude from it some principle opposed 
 to the law, some private maxim or by-law in his will 
 contrary to the universal law of right reason in 
 the conscience, as the ground of the action. But 
 this evil principle again must be grounded in some 
 other principle which has been made determinant of 
 his will by the will's own self-determination. For 
 if not, it must have its ground in some necessity of 
 nature, in some instinct or propensity imposed, not 
 acquired, another's work not his own. Consequently 
 neither act nor principle could be imputed ; and 
 relatively to the agent, not original, not sin. 
 
 Now let the grounds on which the fact of an evil 
 inherent in the will is affirmable in the instance of 
 any one man, be supposed equally applicable in every 
 instance, and concerning all men : so that the fact 
 is asserted of the individual, not because he has 
 committed this or that crime, or because he has shown 
 himself to be this or that man, but simply because he 
 is a man. Let the evil be supposed such as to imply 
 the impossibility of an individual's referring to any 
 particular time at which it might be conceived to 
 
 of an extrinsic and alien force, and, as St. Paul profoundly 
 argues, would prove the will sinful. 
 
232 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 have commenced, or to any period of his existence at 
 which it was not existing. Let it be supposed, in 
 short, that the subject stands in no relation whatever 
 to time, can neither be called in time nor out of time ; 
 but that all relations of time are as alien and he- 
 terogeneous in this question, as the relations and 
 attributes of space (north or south, round or square, 
 thick or thin) are to our affections and moral feelings. 
 Let the Reader suppose this, and he will have before 
 him the precise import of the Scriptural doctrine of 
 Original Sin ; or rather of the fact acknowledged in 
 all ages, and recognised, but not originating, in the 
 Christian Scriptures. 
 
 i In addition to this it will be well to remind the 
 inquirer, that the stedfast conviction of the existence, 
 personality, and moral attributes of God, is presup- 
 posed in the acceptance of the G-ospel, or required as 
 its indispensable preliminary. It is taken for granted 
 as a point which the hearer had already decided for 
 himself, a point finally settled and put at rest : not 
 by the removal of all difficulties, or by any such 
 increase of insight as enabled him to meet every 
 objection of the Epicurean or the Sceptic with a full 
 and precise answer ; but because he had convinced 
 himself that it was folly as well as presumption in so 
 imperfect a creature to expect it ; and because these 
 difficulties and doubts disappeared at the beam, when 
 tried against the weight and convictive power of the 
 reasons in the other scale. It is, therefore, most 
 unfair to attack Christianity, or any article which 
 the Church has declared a Christian doctrine, by 
 arguments, which, if valid, are valid against all 
 religion. Is there a disputant who scorns a mere 
 postulate, as the basis of any argument in support 
 of the faith; who is too high-minded to beg his 
 ground, and will take it by a strong hand ? Let 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGrON. 233 
 
 him fight it out with the Atheists, or the Mani- 
 cheans ; but not stoop to pick up their arrows, and 
 then run away to discharge them at Christianity or 
 the Church ! 
 
 The only true way is to state the doctrine, believed 
 as well by Saul of Tarsus, yet breathing out threaten,' 
 ings and slaughter against the Church of Christ, as 
 by Paul the Apostle, fully preaching the Gospel of 
 Christ. A moral evil is an evil that has its origin in 
 a will. An evil common to all must have a ground 
 common to all. But the actual existence of moral 
 evil we are bound in conscience to admit ; and that 
 there is an evil common to all is a fact ; and this evil 
 must therefore have a common ground. Now this 
 evil ground cannot originate in the Divine Will : it 
 must therefore be referred to the will of man. And 
 this evil ground we call original sin. It is a mys- 
 tery, that is, a fact, which we see, but cannot explain ; 
 and the doctrine a truth which we apprehend, but 
 can neither comprehend nor communicate. And such 
 by the quality of the subject (namely, a responsible 
 will) it must be, if it be truth at all. 
 
 A sick man, whose complaint was as obscure as his 
 sufferings were severe and notorious, was thus ad- 
 dressed by a humane stranger : " My poor Friend ! 
 I find you dangerously ill, and on this account only, 
 and having certain information of your being so, and 
 that you have not wherewithal to pay for a physician, 
 I have come to you. Respecting your disease, indeed, 
 I can tell you nothing that you are capable of un- 
 derstanding, more than you know already, or can 
 only be taught by reflection on your own experience. 
 But I have rendered the disease no longer irreme- 
 diable. I have brought the remedy with me : and I 
 now offer you the means of immediate relief, with 
 the assurance of gradual convalescence, and a final 
 
234 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 perfect cure : nothing more being required on your 
 part, but your best endeavours to follow the prescrip- 
 tions I shall leave with you. It is, indeed, too pro- 
 bable, from the nature of your disease, that you will 
 occasionally neglect or transgress them. But even 
 this has been calculated on in the plan of your cure, 
 and the remedies provided, if only you are sincere 
 and in right earnest with yourself, and have your 
 heart in the work. Ask me not how such a disease 
 can be conceived possible. Enough for the present 
 that you know it to be real : and I come to cure the 
 disease, not to explain it." 
 
 Now, what if the patient or some of his neighbours 
 should charge this good Samaritan with having given 
 rise to the mischievous notion of an inexplicable dis- 
 ease, involving the honour of the king of the 
 country ; — should inveigh against him as the author 
 and first introducer of the notion, though of the 
 numerous medical works composed ages before his 
 arrival, and by physicians of the most venerable 
 authority, it was scarcely possible to open a single 
 volume without finding some description of the 
 disease, or some lamentation of its malignant and 
 epidemic character; — and, lastly, what if certain 
 pretended friends of this good Samaritan, in their 
 zeal to vindicate him against this absurd charge, 
 should assert that he was a perfect stranger to this 
 disease, and boldly deny that he had ever said or 
 done any thing connected with it, or that implied its 
 existence ? 
 
 In this apologue or imaginary case, Header ! you 
 have the true bearings of Christianity on the fact 
 and doctrine of Original Sin. The doctrine (that is, 
 the confession of a known fact) Christianity has only 
 in common with every religion, and with every philo- 
 sophy, in which the reality of a responsible will, and 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 235 
 
 the essential difference between good and evil, have 
 been recognised. Peculiar to the Christian religion 
 are the remedy and (for all purposes but those of a 
 merely speculative curiosity) the solution. By the 
 annunciation of the remedy it affords all the solution 
 which our moral interests require ; and even in that 
 which remains, and must remain, unfathomable, the 
 Christian finds a new motive to walk humbly with 
 the Lord his God. 
 
 Should a professed believer ask you, whether that 
 which is the ground of responsible action in your will 
 could in any way be responsibly present in the will 
 of Adam, — answer him in these words : " You, Sir ! 
 can no more demonstrate the negative, than I can 
 conceive the affirmative. The corruption of my will 
 may very warrantably be spoken of as a consequence 
 of Adam's fall, even as my birth of Adam's existence ; 
 as a consequence, a link in the historic chain of 
 instances, whereof Adam is the first. But that it is 
 on account of Adam ; or that this evil principle was, 
 d priori, inserted or infused into my will by the will 
 of another — which is indeed a contradiction in terms, 
 my will in such case being no will — this is nowhere 
 asserted in Scripture explicitly or by implication." 
 It belongs to the very essence of the doctrine, that 
 in respect of original sin every man is the adequate 
 representative of all men. What wonder, then, that 
 where no inward ground of preference existed, the 
 choice should be determined by outward relations, 
 and that the first in time should be taken as the 
 diagram ? Even in the book of Genesis the word 
 Adam, is distinguished from a proper name by an 
 article before it. It is the Adam, so as to express 
 the genus, not the individual — or rather, perhaps, 
 I should say, as well as the individual. But that 
 the word with its equivalent, the old man, is used 
 
236 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 symbolically and universally by St. Paul, (1 Cor. xv. 
 22, 45. Eph. iv. 22. Col. iii. 9. Rom. vi. 6,) is too 
 evident to need any proof. 
 
 I conclude "with this remark. The doctrine of 
 Original Sin concerns all men. But it concerns 
 Christians in particular no otherwise than by its 
 connexion with the doctrine of Redemption ; and with 
 the divinity and divine humanity of the Redeemer, as 
 a corollary or necessary inference from both mysteries. 
 Beware of arguments against Christianity, -which 
 cannot stop there, and consequently ought not to 
 have commenced there. Something I might have 
 added to the clearness of the preceding views, if the 
 limits of the Work had permitted me to clear away 
 the several delusive and fanciful assertions respecting 
 the state * of our first parents, their wisdom, science, 
 and angelic faculties, assertions without the slightest 
 ground in Scripture: — or, if consistently with the 
 wants and preparatory studies of those, for whose use 
 this Volume was especially intended, I could have 
 entered into the momentous subject of a spiritual 
 fall or apostasy antecedent to the formation of man — 
 a belief the Scriptural grounds of which are few and 
 of diverse interpretation, but which has been almost 
 universal in the Christian Church. Enough however 
 has been given, I trust, for the Reader to see and 
 (as far as the subject is capable of being understood) 
 to understand this long controverted article, in the 
 sense in which alone it is binding on his faith. Sup- 
 posing him therefore to know the meaning of Original 
 
 * For a specimen of these Rabbinical dotages, I refer, 
 not to the writings of mystics and enthusiasts, but to the 
 shrewd and witty Dr. South, one of whose most elaborate 
 sermons stands prominent among the many splendid extra- 
 vaganzas on this subject. (See Sermons, II. Gen. i. 27. — Ed.) 
 
ON SPIKITUAL RELIGION. 237 
 
 Sin, and to have decided for himself on the fact of its 
 actual existence, as the antecedent ground and occasion 
 of Christianity, we may now proceed to Christianity 
 itself, as the edifice raised on this ground, that is, to 
 the great constituent article of the faith in Christ, 
 as the remedy of the disease — the doctrine of 
 Redemption. 
 
 But before I proceed to this great doctrine, let me 
 briefly remind the young and friendly pupil, to whom 
 I would still be supposed to address myself, that in 
 the following Aphorisms the word science is used in 
 its strict and narrowest sense. By a science I here 
 mean any chain of truths which are either absolutely 
 certain, or necessarily true for the human mind, from 
 the laws and constitution of the mind itself. In 
 neither case is our conviction derived, or capable of 
 receiving any addition, from outward experience, or 
 empirical data — that is, matters of fact given to us 
 through the medium of the senses — though these 
 data may have been the occasion, or may even be 
 an indispensable condition, of our reflecting on the 
 former, and thereby becoming conscious of the same. 
 On the other hand, a connected series of conclusions 
 grounded on empirical data, in contra-distinction from 
 science, I beg leave (no better term occurring) in this 
 place and for this purpose to denominate a scheme. 
 
 APHORISM XI. 
 
 In whatever age and country it is the prevailing 
 mind and character of the nation to regard the 
 present life as subordinate to a life to come, and to 
 mark the present state, the world of their senses, by 
 signs, instruments, and mementos of its connexion 
 with a future state and a spiritual world ; — where 
 the mysteries of faith are brought within the hold of 
 
238 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 the people at large, not by being explained away in 
 the vain hope of accommodating them to the average 
 of their understanding, but by being made the 
 objects of love by their combination with events and 
 epochs of history, with national traditions, with the 
 monuments and dedications of ancestral faith and 
 zeal, with memorial and symbolical observances, with 
 the realising influences of social devotion, and above 
 all, by early and habitual association with acts of the 
 will, — there Religion is. There, however obscured 
 by the hay and straw of human will-work, the founda- 
 tion is safe. In that country and under the pre- 
 dominance of such maxims, the National Church is 
 no mere State-institute. ■ It is the state itself in its 
 intensest federal union ; yet at the same moment the 
 guardian and representative of all personal individu- 
 ality. For the Church is the shrine of morality : 
 and in morality alone the citizen asserts and reclaims 
 his personal independence, his integrity. Our out- 
 ward acts are efficient, and most often possible, only 
 by coalition. As an efficient power, the agent is but 
 a fraction of unity ; he becomes an integer only in 
 the recognition and performance of the moral law. 
 Nevertheless it is most true (and a truth which cannot 
 with safety be overlooked) that morality, as morality, 
 has no existence for a people. It is either absorbed 
 and lost in the quicksands of prudential calculus, or 
 it is taken up and transfigured into the duties and 
 mysteries of religion. And no wonder : since 
 morality (including the personal being, the I am, as 
 its subject) is itself a mystery, and the ground and 
 suppositum of all other mysteries, relatively to man. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 239 
 
 APHORISM XII. 
 
 PALBT NOT A MORALIST. 
 
 Schemes of conduct, grounded on calculations of 
 self-interest, or on the average consequences of 
 actions, supposed to be general, form a branch 
 of Political Economy, to which let all due honour be 
 given. Their utility is not here questioned. But 
 however estimable within their own sphere such 
 schemes, or any one of them in particular, may be, 
 they do not belong to moral science, to which, both 
 in kind and purpose, they are in all cases foreign, 
 and wben substituted for it, hostile. Ethics, or the 
 science of Morality, does indeed in no wise exclude 
 the consideration of action ; but it contemplates the 
 same in its originating spiritual source, without 
 reference to space, or time, or sensible existence. 
 Whatever springs out of the perfect law of freedom, 
 which exists only by its unity with the will of God, 
 its inherence in the Word of God, and its communion 
 with the Spirit of God — that (according to the 
 principles of moral science) is good — it is light and 
 righteousness and very truth. Whatever seeks to 
 separate itself from the divine principle, and pro- 
 ceeds from a false centre in the agent's particular 
 will, is evil — a work of darkness and contradiction. 
 It is sin and essential falsehood. Not the outward 
 deed, constructive, destructive, or neutral, — not the 
 deed as a possible object of the senses, — is the object 
 of ethical science. For this is no compost, collec- 
 torium or inventory of single duties ; nor does it 
 seek in the multitudinous sea, in the predetermined 
 wave, and tides and currents of nature, that freedom 
 which is exclusively an attribute of spirit. Like 
 all other pure sciences, whatever it enunciates, and 
 
240 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 whatever it concludes, it enunciates and concludes 
 absolutely. Strictness is its essential character ; 
 and its first proposition is, Whosoever shall keep the 
 whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of 
 all. For as the will or spirit, the source and substance 
 of moral good, is one and all in every part ; so must 
 it be the totality, the whole articulated series of 
 single acts, taken as unity, that can alone, in the 
 severity of science, be recognised as the proper 
 counterpart and adequate representative of a good 
 will. Is it in this or that limb, or not rather in the 
 whole body, the entire organismus, that the law of 
 Life reflects itself? Much less, then, can the law 
 of the Spirit work in fragments. 
 
 APHORISM XIII. 
 
 Wherever there exists a permanent * learned class, 
 having authority, and possessing the respect and con- 
 fidence of the country ; and wherever the science of 
 ethics is acknowledged and taught in this class, as a 
 regular part of a learned education, to its future 
 
 * A learned order must be supposed to consist of three 
 classes. First, those who are employed in adding to the 
 existing sum of power and knowledge. Second, and most 
 numerous class, those whose office it is to diffuse through the 
 community at large the practical results of science, and that 
 kind and degree of knowledge and cultivation, which for 
 all is requisite or clearly useful. Third, the formers and 
 instructors of the second — in schools, halls, and universities, 
 or through the medium of the press. The second class 
 includes not only the Parochial Clergy, and all others duly 
 ordained to the ministerial office ; but likewise all the 
 members of the legal and medical professions, who have 
 received a learned education under accredited and responsible 
 teachers. (See the Church and State, p. 45, &c. 3rd edit. — Ed.) 
 
ON SPIBITUAL RELIGION. 241 
 
 members generally, but as the special study and 
 indispensable ground-work of such as are intended 
 for holy orders ; — there the article of Original Sin 
 will be an axiom of faith in all classes. Among 
 the learned an undisputed truth, and with the people 
 a fact, which no man imagines it possible to deny : 
 and the doctrine, thus inwoven in the faith of all, 
 and coeval with the consciousness of each, will, for 
 each and all, possess a reality, subjective indeed, yet 
 virtually equivalent to that which we intuitively give 
 to the objects of our senses. 
 
 With the learned this will be the case, because the 
 article is the first — I had almost said spontaneous — 
 product of the application of moral science to history, 
 of which it is the interpreter. A mystery in its own 
 right, and by the necessity and essential character of 
 its subject — (for the will, like the life, in every act 
 and product pre-supposes to itself a past always 
 present, a present that evermore resolves itself into 
 a past) — the doctrine of Original Sin gives to all the 
 other mysteries of religion a common basis, a connec- 
 tion of dependency, an intelligibility of relation, and 
 a total harmony, which supersede extrinsic proof. 
 There is here that same proof from unity of purpose, 
 that same evidence of symmetry, which in the con- 
 templation of a human skeleton flashed conviction 
 on the mind of Galen, and kindled meditation into 
 a hymn of praise. 
 
 Meanwhile the people, not goaded into doubt by 
 the lessons and examples of their teachers and 
 superiors ; not drawn away from the fixed stars of 
 heaven — the form and magnitude of which are the 
 same for the naked eye of the shepherd as for the 
 telescope of the sage — from the immediate truths, 
 I mean of Reason and Conscience, to an exercise to 
 which they have not been trained, — of a faculty 
 
2 12 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 which has been imperfectly developed, — on a subject 
 not within tbe sphere of the faculty, nor in any way 
 amenable to its judgment; — the people will need no 
 arguments to receive a doctrine confirmed by their 
 own experience from within and from without, and 
 intimately blended with the most venerable traditions 
 common to all races, and the traces of which linger 
 in the latest twilight of civilisation. 
 
 Among the revulsions consequent on the brute 
 bewilderments of a Godless revolution, a great and 
 active zeal for the interests of religion may be one. 
 I dare not trust it, till I have seen what it is that 
 gives religion this interest, till I am satisfied that it 
 is not the interests of this world ; necessary and 
 laudable interests, perhaps, but which may, I dare 
 believe, be secured as effectually and more suitably 
 bj r the prudence of this world, and by this world's 
 powers and motives. At all events, I find nothing 
 in the fashion of the day to deter me from adding, 
 that the reverse of the preceding — that where religion 
 is valued and patronised as a supplement of Law, or 
 an aid extraordinary of Police ; where' moral science 
 is exploded as the mystic jargon of dark ages ; where 
 a lax system of consequences, by which every iniquity 
 on earth may be (and how many have been !) denounced 
 and defended with equal plausibility, is publicly and 
 authoritatively taught as Moral Philosophy ; where 
 the mysteries of religion, and truths supersensual, 
 are either cut and squared for the comprehension of 
 the Understanding, the faculty judging according to 
 sense, or desperately torn asunder from the Reason, 
 nay fanatically opposed to it; lastly where private* 
 
 * The Author of the " Statesman's Manual " must be the 
 most inconsistent of men, if he can be justly suspected of 
 a leaning to the Romish Church ; or if it be necessary for 
 
ON SPIEITUAL KELIGION. 243 
 
 interpretation is every thing, and the Church nothing 
 — there the mystery of Original Sin will be either 
 rejected, or evaded, or perverted into the monstrous 
 fiction of hereditary sin, — guilt inherited ; in the 
 mystery of Eedemption metaphors will be obtruded 
 for the reality ; and in the mysterious appurtenants 
 and symbols of Eedemption (regeneration, grace, the 
 Eucharist, and spiritual communion) the realities will 
 be evaporated into metaphors. 
 
 him to repeat his fervent Amen to the wish and prayer of our 
 late good old king, that " every adult in the British Empire 
 should be able to read his Bible, and have a Bible to read ! " 
 Nevertheless, it may not be superfluous to declare, that in 
 thus protesting against the liceuse of private interpretation, 
 I do not mean to condemn the exercise or deny the l-ight of 
 individual judgment. I condemn only the pretended right 
 of every individual, competent and incompetent, to interpret 
 Scripture in a sense of his own, in opposition to the judgment 
 of the Church, without knowledge of the originals, or of the 
 languages, the history, customs, opinions, and controversies 
 of the age and country in which they were written ; and 
 where the interpreter judges in ignorance or in contempt of 
 uninterrupted tradition, the unanimous consent of Fathers 
 and Councils, and the universal faith of the Church in all 
 ages. It is not the attempt to form a judgment, which is 
 here called in question ; but the grounds, or rather the 
 no-grounds on which the judgment is formed and relied on. 
 My fixed principle is : that a Christianity without a Church 
 exercising spiritual authority is vanity and dissolution. And 
 my belief is, that when Popery is rushing in on us like an 
 inundation, the nation will find it to be so. I say Popery : 
 for this too I hold for a delusion, that Romanism or Roman 
 Catholicism is separable from Popery. Almost as readily 
 could I suppose a circle without a centre. 
 
 k2 
 
244 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XIV. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 As in great maps or pictures you will see the 
 border decorated with meadows, fountains, flowers, 
 and the like, represented in it, but in the middle you 
 have the main design : so among the works of God is 
 it with the fore-orclained redemption of man. All his 
 other works in the world, all the beauty of the crea- 
 tures, the succession of ages, and the things that 
 come to pass in them, are but as the border to this as 
 the mainpiece. But as a foolish unskilful beholder, 
 not discerning the excellency of the principal piece 
 in such maps or pictures, gazes only on the fair 
 border, and goes no farther — thus do the greatest 
 part of us as to this great work of God, the redemp- 
 tion of our personal being, and the re-union of the 
 human with the divine, by and through the divine 
 humanity of the Incarnate Word. 
 
 APHOKISM XV. 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 It is a hard matter, yea, an impossible thing for 
 thy human strength, whosoever thou art, (without 
 God's assistance,) at such a time when Moses setteth 
 on thee with the Law (see Aphorism XII.), — when 
 the holy Law written in thy heart accuseth and con- 
 demneth thee, forcing thee to a comparison of thy 
 heart therewith, and convicting thee of the incom- 
 patibleness of thy will and nature with Heaven and 
 holiness and an immediate God — that then thou 
 shouldst be able to be of such a mind as if no law nor 
 sin had ever been ! I say it is in a manner impos- 
 sible that a human creature, when he feeleth himself 
 assaulted with trials and temptations, and the con- 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 245 
 
 science hath to do with God, and the tempted man 
 knoweth that the root of temptation is within him, 
 should obtain such mastery over his thoughts as then 
 to think no otherwise than that from everlasting 
 nothing hath been but only and alone Christ, alto- 
 gether grace and deliverance ! 
 
 In irrational agents, namely, the brute animals, 
 the will is hidden or absorbed in the law. The law 
 is their nature. In the original purity of a rational 
 agent the uncorrupted will is identical with the law. 
 Nay, inasmuch as a will perfectly identical with the 
 law is one with the Divine Will, we may say, that in 
 the unfallen rational agent the will constitutes the 
 law.* But it is evident that the holy and spi- 
 ritual power and light, which by a prolepsis or antici- 
 pation we have named law, is a grace, an inward 
 perfection, and without the commanding, binding, 
 and menacing character which belongs to a law, 
 acting as a master or sovereign distinct from, and 
 existing, as it were, externally for, the agent who is 
 
 * In fewer words thus : For the brute animals, their 
 nature is their law ; — for what other third law can be 
 imagined, in addition to the law of nature, and the law 
 of reason ] Therefore : in irrational agents the law consti- 
 tutes the will. In moral and rational agents the will con- 
 stitutes, or ought to constitute, the law : I speak of moral 
 agents, unfallen. For the personal will comprehends the 
 idea, as a reason, and it gives causative force to the idea, as 
 a practical reason. But idea with the power of realising 
 the same is a law ; or say : — the spirit comprehends the 
 moral idea, by virtue of its rationality, and it gives to the 
 idea causative power, as a will. In every sense, therefore, it 
 constitutes the law, supplying both the elements of which 
 it consists, namely, the idea, and the realising power. 
 
246 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 bound to obey it. Now this is St. Paul's sense of the 
 word, and on this he grounds his whole reasoning. 
 And hence too arises the obscurity and apparent 
 paradoxy of several texts. That the law is a law for 
 you ; that it acts on the will not in it ; that it exer- 
 cises an agency from without, by fear and coercion ; 
 proves the corruption of your will, and presupposes it. 
 Sin in this sense came by the law : for it has its 
 essence, as sin, in that counter-position of the holy 
 principle to the will, which occasions this principle to 
 be a law. Exactly (as in all other points) consonant 
 with the Pauline doctrine is the assertion of John, 
 when — speaking of the re-adoption of the redeemed 
 to be sons of God, and the consequent resumption 
 (I had almost said re-absorption) of the law into the 
 will (vofiov reAeioy tov rrjs ekevOepCas, James i. 25,) 
 — he says, For the laiv was given by Moses, but grace 
 and truth came by Jesus Christ.* That by the law 
 St. Paul meant only the ceremonial law, is a notion 
 that could originate only in utter inattention to the 
 whole strain and bent of the Apostle's argument. 
 
 APHOEISM XVI. 
 
 LEIGHTON AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 Clrrist's death was both voluntary and violent. 
 There was external violence : and that was the accom- 
 paniment, or at most the occasion, of his death. But 
 there was internal willingness, the spiritual will, the 
 will of the Spirit, and this was the proper cause. By 
 this Spirit he was restored from death : neither 
 indeed was it possible for him to be holden of it. 
 Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
 Spirit, says St. Peter. But he is likewise declared 
 
 * John i. 17.— Ed. 
 
ON* SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 247 
 
 elsewhere to have died by that same Spirit, which 
 here, in opposition to the violence, is said to quicken 
 him. Thus Heb. ix. 14. Through the eternal Spirit 
 he offered himself. And even from Peter's words, 
 and without the epithet eternal, to aid the interpreta- 
 tion, it is evident that the Sjririt, here opposed to the 
 flesh by body or animal life, is of a higher nature and 
 power than the individual soul, which cannot of itself 
 return to reinhabit or quicken the body. 
 
 If these points were niceties, and an over refining 
 in doctrine, is it to be believed that the Apostles, 
 John, Peter and Paul, with the author of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, would have laid so great a stress on 
 them? But the true life of Christians is to eye 
 Christ in every step of his life — not only as their 
 rale but as their strength : looking to him as their 
 pattern both in doing and in suffering, and drawing 
 power from him for going through both : being with- 
 out him able for nothing. Take comfort, then, thou 
 that believest ! It is he that lifts up the soul from the 
 gates of death : and he hath said, I will raise thee up 
 at the last day. Thou that believest in him, believe 
 him and take comfort. Yea, when thou art most 
 sunk in thy sad apprehensions, and he far off to thy 
 thinking, then is he nearest to raise and comfort 
 thee : as sometimes it grows darkest immediately 
 before day. 
 
 APHOEISM XVII. 
 
 LEIGHTON ASD COLERIDGE. 
 
 Would any of you be cm-ed of that common disease, 
 the fear of death ? Yet this is not the right name of 
 the disease, as a mere reference to our armies and 
 navies is sufficient to prove : nor can the fear of 
 death, either as loss of life or pain of dying, be justly 
 
248 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 held a common disease. But would you be cured of 
 the fear and fearful questionings connected with the 
 approach of death ? Look this way, and you shall 
 find more than you seek. Christ, the Word that was 
 from the beginning, and was made flesh and dwelt 
 among men, died. And he, who dying conquered 
 death in his own person, conquered sin and death, 
 which is the wages of sin, for thee. And of this thou 
 mayest be assured, if only thou believe in him, and 
 love him. I need not add, keep his commandments : 
 since where faith and love are, obedience in its three- 
 fold character, as effect, reward, and criterion, follows 
 by that moral necessity which is the highest form of 
 freedom. The grave is thy bed of rest, and no longer 
 the cold bed: for thy Saviour has warmed it, and 
 made it fragrant. 
 
 If then it be health and comfort to the faithful that 
 Christ descended into the grave, with especial confi- 
 dence may we meditate on his return from thence, 
 quickened by the Spirit ; this being to those who are 
 in him the certain pledge, yea, the effectual cause of 
 that blessed resurrection for which they themselves 
 hope. There is that union betwixt them and their 
 Redeemer, that they shall rise by the communication 
 and virtue of his rising : not simply by his power — 
 for so the wicked likewise to their grief shall be 
 raised ; but they by his life as their life. 
 
 COMMENT 
 ON THE THREE PRECEDING APHORISMS. 
 
 To the Reader, who has consented to submit his 
 mind to my temporary guidance, and who permits me 
 to regard him as my pupil or junior fellow-student, I 
 continue to address myself. Should he exist only in 
 my imagination, let the bread float on the waters! 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION., 249 
 
 If it be the Bread of Life, it will not have been 
 utterly cast away. 
 
 Let us pause a moment, and review the road we 
 have passed over since the transit from Religious 
 Morality to Spiritual Religion. My first attempt was 
 to satisfy you, that there is a spiritual principle in 
 man, and to expose the sophistry of the arguments in 
 support of the contrary. Our next step was to clear 
 the road of all counterfeits, by showing what is not 
 the Spirit, what is not spiritual religion. And this 
 was followed by an attempt to establish a difference 
 in kind between religious truths and the deductions 
 of speculative science ; yet so as to prove, that the 
 former are not only equally rational with the latter, 
 but that they alone appeal to reason in the fulness 
 and living reality of their power. This and the state 
 of mind requisite for the formation of right convic- 
 tions respecting spiritual truths, afterwards employed 
 our attention. Having then enumerated the Articles 
 of the Christian Faith peculiar to Christianity, I 
 entered on the great object of the present Work : 
 namely, the removal of all valid objections to these 
 articles on grounds of right reason or conscience. 
 But to render this practicable, it was necessary, first, 
 to present each article in its true Scriptural purity, 
 by exposure of the caricatures of misinterpreters ; and 
 this, again, could not be satisfactorily done till we 
 were agreed respecting the faculty entitled to sit in 
 judgment on such questions. I early foresaw that my 
 best chance (I will not say, of giving an insight into 
 the surpassing worth and transcendant reasonableness 
 of the Christian scheme ; but) of rendering the very 
 question intelligible, depended on my success in 
 determining the true nature and limits of the hu- 
 man Understanding, and in evincing its diversity 
 from Reason. In pursuing this momentous subject, 
 
250 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 I was tempted, in two or three instances into disquisi- 
 tions, which if not beyond the comprehension, were 
 yet unsuited to the taste, of the persons for whom the 
 Work was principally intended. These, however, I 
 have separated from the running text, and compressed 
 into notes. The Reader will at worst, I hope, pass 
 them by as a leaf or two of waste paper, willingly given 
 by him to those for whom it may not be paper wasted. 
 Nevertheless, I cannot conceal that the subject itself 
 supposes, on the part of the Reader, a steadiness in 
 self- questioning, a pleasure in referring to his own 
 inward experience for the facts asserted by the 
 Author, which can only be expected from a person 
 who has fairly set his heart on arriving at clear and 
 fixed conclusions in matters of faith. But where this 
 interest is felt, nothing more than a. common capa- 
 city, with the ordinary advantages of education, is 
 required for the complete comprehension both of the 
 argument and the result. Let but one thoughtful 
 hour be devoted to the pages 167 — 176. In all that 
 follows, the Reader will find no difficulty in under- 
 standing my meaning, whatever he may have in 
 adopting it. 
 
 The two great moments of the Christian Religion 
 are, Original Sin and Redemption ; that the ground, 
 this the superstructure of our faith. The former I 
 have exhibited, first, according to the scheme of the 
 Westminster Divines and the Synod of Dort ; then, 
 according to the * scheme of a contemporary Arminian 
 
 * To escape the consequences of this scheme, some 
 Arminian divines have asserted that the penalty inflicted 
 on Adam, and continued in his posterity, was simply the 
 loss of immortality — death as the utter extinction of per- 
 sonal being : immortality being regarded by them (and not, 
 I think, without good reason) as a supernatural attribute, 
 and its loss therefore involved in the forfeiture of super- 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 251 
 
 divine ; and lastly, in contrast with both schemes, I 
 have placed what I firmly believe to be the Scrip- 
 natural graces. This theory has its golden side : and, as a 
 private opinion, is said to have the countenance of more 
 than one dignitary of our Church, whose general orthodoxy 
 is beyond impeachment. For here the penalty resolves 
 itself into the consequence, and this the natural and naturally 
 inevitable consequence of Adam's crime. For Adam, in- 
 deed, it was a positive punishment : a punishment of his 
 guilt, the justice of which who could have dared arraign ? 
 "While for the offspring of Adam it was simply a not super- 
 adding to their nature the privilege by which the original 
 man was contradistinguished from the brute creation — a 
 mere negation of which they had no more right to complain 
 than any other species of animals. God in this view appears 
 only in his attribute of mercy, as averting by supernatural 
 interposition a consequence naturally inevitable. This is 
 the golden side of the theory. But if we approach to it 
 from the opposite direction, it first excites a just scruple, 
 from the countenance it seems to give to the doctrine of 
 Materialism. The supporters of this scheme do not, I 
 presume, contend that Adam's offspring would not have 
 been born men, but have formed a new species of beasts ! 
 And if not, the notion of a rational and self-conscious soul, 
 perishing utterly with the dissolution of the organised body, 
 seems to require, nay, almost involves, the opinion that the 
 soul is a quality or accident of the body — a mere harmony 
 resulting from organisation. 
 
 But let this pass unquestioned. Whatever else the 
 descendants of Adam might have been without the inter- 
 cession of Christ, yet (this intercession having been effectually 
 made) they are now endowed with souls that are not extin- 
 guished together with the material body. Now unless these 
 divines teach likewise the Romish figment of Purgatory, and 
 to an extent in which the Church of Rome herself would 
 denounce the doctrine as an impious heresy : unless they 
 hold, that a punishment temporary and remedial is the 
 worst evil that the impenitent have to apprehend in a future 
 state ; and that the spiritual death declared and foretold by 
 
252 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 tural sense of this article, and vindicated its entire 
 conformity with reason and experience. I now pro- 
 ceed to the other momentous article — from the 
 necessitating occasion of the Christian dispensation to 
 
 Christ, the death eternal where the worm never dies, is neither 
 death nor eternal, but a certain quantum of suffering in a 
 state of faith, hope, and progressive amendment — unless 
 they go these lengths (and the divines here intended are 
 orthodox Churchmen, men who would not knowingly advance 
 even a step on the road towards them) — then I fear that 
 any advantage their theoiy might possess over the Calvinistic 
 scheme in the article of Original Sin, would be dearly pur- 
 chased by increased difficulties, and an ultra-Calvinistic 
 narrowness in the article of Redemption. ' I at least find it 
 impossible, with my present human feelings, not to imagine 
 that even in heaven it would be a fearful thing to know, that 
 in order to my elevation to a lot infinitely more desirable than 
 by nature it would have been, the lot of so vast a multi- 
 tude had been rendered infinitely more calamitous ; and that 
 my felicity had been purchased by the everlasting misery 
 of the majority of my fellow men, who, if no redemption 
 had been provided, after inheriting the pains and pleasures 
 of earthly existence during the numbered hours, and the 
 few and evil — evil yet few — days of the years of their mortal 
 life, would have fallen asleep to wake no more, — would 
 have sunk into the dreamless sleep of the grave, and have 
 been as the murmur and the plaint, and the exulting swell 
 and the sharp scream, which the unequal gust of yesterday 
 snatched from the strings of a wind-harp. 
 
 In another place I have ventured to question the spirit 
 and tendency of Taylor's Work on Repentance.* But I 
 ought to have added, that to discover and keep the true 
 medium in expounding and applying the efficacy of Christ's 
 Cross and Passion, is beyond comparison the most difficult 
 and delicate point of practical divinity — and that which 
 especially needs a guidance from above. 
 
 * See also " Notes on English Divines," vol. L pp. 247 — 272. 
 — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 253 
 
 Christianity itself. For Christianity and Bedemption 
 are equivalent terms. And here my comment -will be 
 comprised in a few sentences : for I confine my views 
 to the one object of clearing this awful mystery from 
 those too current misrepresentations of its nature and 
 import, that have laid it open to scruples and objec- 
 tions, not to such as shoot forth from an unbelieving 
 heart — (against these a sick bed will be a more effec- 
 tual antidote than all the argument in the world) — 
 but to such scruples as have their birth-place in the 
 reason and moral sense. Not that it is a mystery — 
 not that it passeth all understanding ; if the doctrine 
 be more than a hyperbolical phrase, it must do so ; 
 — but that it is at variance with the law revealed in 
 the conscience; that it contradicts our moral instincts 
 and intuitions — this is the difficulty which alone is 
 worthy of an answer. And what better way is there 
 of correcting the misconceptions than by laying open 
 the source and occasion of them ? What surer way 
 of removing the scruples and prejudices, to which 
 these misconceptions have given rise, than by pro- 
 pounding the mystery itself — namely, the Redemptive 
 Act, as the transcendant cause of salvation — in the 
 express and definite words in which it was enunciated 
 by the Redeemer Himself? 
 
 But here, in addition to the three Aphorisms pre- 
 ceding, I interpose a view of Redemption as appro- 
 priated by faith, coincident with Leighton's, though 
 for the. greater part expressed in my own words. 
 This I propose as the right view. Then follow a few 
 sentences transcribed from Field (an excellent divine 
 of the reign of James I., of whose work on the 
 Church,* it would be difficult to speak too highly), 
 containing the questions to be solved, and which are 
 
 * See "Xotes on English Divines," vol. i. pp. 35 — 64. — Ed. 
 
254 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 numbered as an Aphorism, rather to preserve the 
 uniformity of appearance, than as being strictly such. 
 Then follows the Comment : as part and commence- 
 ment of which the Reader will consider the two para- 
 graphs of pp. 158-9, written for this purpose, and in 
 the foresight of the present inquiry : and I entreat 
 him therefore to begin the Comment by re-perusing 
 these. 
 
 APHORISM XVIII. 
 
 Stedfast by faith. This is absolutely necessary 
 for resistance to the evil principle. There is no 
 standing out without some firm ground to stand on : 
 and this faith alone supplies. By faith in the love 
 of Christ the power of God becomes ours. When 
 the soul is beleaguered by enemies, weakness on the 
 walls, treachery at the gates, and corruption in the 
 citadel, then by faith she says — Lamb of God slain 
 from the foundation of the world ! Thou art my 
 strength ! I look to thee for deliverance ! And thus 
 she overcomes. The pollution [miasma) of sin is 
 precipitated by his blood, the power of sin is con- 
 quered by his Spirit. The Apostle says not — sted- 
 fast by your own resolutions and purposes ; but — 
 stedfast by faith. Nor yet stedfast in your will, but 
 stedfast in the faith. We are not to be looking to, 
 or brooding over ourselves, either for accusation or 
 for confidence, or (by a deep yet too frequent self- 
 delusion) to obtain the latter by making a merit to 
 ourselves of the former. But we are to look to 
 Christ and him crucified. The law that is very nigh 
 to thee, even in thy heart : the law that condemneth 
 and hath no promise ; that stoppeth the guilty past 
 in its swift flight, and maketh it disown its name; 
 the law will accuse thee enough.* Linger not in the 
 
 * Additional note. — This and one or two other similar 
 
OK SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 255 
 
 justice-court listening to thy indictment. Loiter not 
 in waiting to hear the sentence. No, anticipate the 
 
 passages were written for the purpose of accustoming the 
 young Student to St. Paul's style of thought and expression. 
 The impersonation of the Act is in imitation of the Apostle's 
 impersonations of Sin, Law, &c, and the following remarks 
 may show that they are more than Hebraisms or Figures of 
 Rhetoric. 
 
 It is not the criminal Deed (= Factum), but the sinful 
 Act (= Facinus) that wounds the Conscience. But the Act 
 is inseparable from its spiritual source. See Aph. XII. 
 
 It is one with the sinful Will, one therefore with the 
 Agent, the man himself sensu eminenti. As long as the Will 
 remains the same (in theological language as long as the 
 man is unregenerate) the Act is evermore present in the 
 Will, even when through spiritual lethargy it is not present 
 to the Conscience. It is the Deed only that can be rightly 
 spoken of as the past, id quod factum fuit. Still, however, 
 among the trials and devices of self-delusion, the Act (= the 
 Agent thus abstracted) would fain lose itself in the Deed ; 
 and under the impulse it usurps the name, and transfers 
 to itself the predicates, or proper characters of the Deed, 
 ex. gr. its singleness, its detachability for the imagination, 
 its particularity and above all, its pastness. In the language 
 of the day we should express all this by saying, that the 
 Sinner cheats himself by transferring his attention from the 
 corrupt state of his Moral Being, to some one or more con- 
 tingent result, product, or symptom, of that state. 
 
 Now the Law in the Conscience working remorse, detects 
 and unmasks this imposture, compelling the Act (i. e., the 
 Sinner considered abstractedly in relation to the Sin) to feel 
 and confess its continuing and abiding presentness. 
 
 In the very act of Remorse, the guilty person finds and is 
 made to know, that the Act is present in its abiding Principle 
 and as one with — its Principles. 
 
 Even to the inmost mind, the guilty Act is constrained by 
 the Law to disown its name, as past : as long as the corrupt 
 source remains unregenerate. But the regenerate Will 
 (which the Apostle aptly calls the New Man) is by Grace 
 
256 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 verdict. Appeal to Caesar. Haste to the king for a 
 pardon. Struggle thitherward, though in fetters ; 
 and cry aloud, and collect the whole remaining 
 strength of thy will in the outcry — I believe ; Lord, 
 help my unbelief ! Disclaim all right of property in 
 thy fetters. Say that they belong to the old man, 
 and that thou dost hut carry them to the grave to be 
 buried with their owner ! Fix thy thought on what 
 Christ did, what Christ suffered, what Christ is — 
 as if thou wouldst fill the hollowness of thy soul with 
 Christ. If he emptied himself of glory to become sin 
 for thy salvation, must not thou be emptied of thy 
 sinful self to become righteousness in and through 
 his agony and the effective merits of his Cross?* 
 
 and not by the Law. Does not Experience confirm and 
 bear witness to the truth of this doctrine 1 Remorse can 
 torment, but Remorse without Hope never yet reformed a 
 Sinner. Remorse is no Purgatory Angel. It is a light 
 that burns. Now there is no true Hope but in and through 
 Christ. 
 
 * God manifested in the flesh is eternity in the form of 
 time. But eternity in relation to time is as the absolute to 
 the conditional, or the real to the apparent, and Redemption 
 must partake of both ; — always perfected, for it is a Fiat of 
 the Eternal ; — continuous, for it is a process in relation to 
 man ; the former the alone objectively, and therefore uni- 
 versally, true. That Redemption is an opus perfectum, a 
 finished work, the claim to which is conferred in Baptism : 
 that a Christian cannot speak or think as if his redemption by 
 the blood, and his justification by the righteousness of Christ 
 alone, were future or contingent events, but must both say 
 and think, I have been redeemed, I am justified ; lastly, 
 that for as many as are received into his Church by Baptism, 
 Christ has condemned sin in the flesh, has made it dead in 
 law, that is, no longer imputable as guilt, has destroyed the 
 objective reality of sin : — these are truths, which all the 
 Reformed Churches, Swedish, Danish, Evangelical, (or 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 257 
 
 By what other means, in what other form, is it pos- 
 sible for thee to stand in the presence of the Holy 
 
 Lutheran,) the Reformed, (the Calvinistic in mid-Germany, 
 Holland, France, and Geneva, so called,) lastly, the Church 
 of England, and the Church of Scotland — nay, the best and 
 most learned divines of the Roman Catholic Church have 
 united in upholding as most certain and necessary articles 
 of faith, and the effectual preaching of which Luther 
 declares to be the appropriate criterion stands vel cadentis 
 Ecclesice. The Church is standing or falling, according as 
 this doctrine is supported, or overlooked, or countervened. 
 Nor has the contrary doctrine, according to which the 
 baptised are yet each individually to be called, converted, 
 and chosen, with all the corollaries from this assumption, 
 the watching for signs and sensible assurances, the frames, 
 and the states, and the feelings, and the sudden conversions, 
 the contagious fever-boils of the (most unfitly, so called) 
 Evangelicals, and Arminian Methodists of the day, been in 
 any age taught or countenanced by any known and accredited 
 Christian Church, or by any body and succession of learned 
 divines. On the other hand, it has rarely happened that 
 the Church has not been troubled by Pharisaic and fanatical 
 individuals, who have sought, by working on the fears and 
 feelings of the weak and unsteady, that celebrity which they 
 could not obtain by learning and orthodoxy ; and alas ! so 
 subtle is the poison, and so malignant in its operation, that 
 it is almost hopeless to attempt the cure of any person once 
 infected, more particularly when, as most often happens, 
 the patient is a woman. Nor does Luther, in his numerous 
 and admirable discourses on this point, conceal or palliate 
 the difficulties which the carnal mind, that works under 
 many and different disguises, throws in the way to prevent 
 the laying firm hold of the truth. One most mischiev.otts 
 and very popular mis-belief must be cleared away in the first 
 instance — the presumption, I mean, that whatever is not 
 quite simple, and what any plain body can understand at 
 the first hearing, cannot be of necessaiy belief, or among 
 the fundamental articles or essentials of Christian faith. A 
 docile child-like mind, a deference to the authority of the 
 
958 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 One ? With what mind wouldst thou come before 
 God, if not with the mind of Him, in whom alone 
 God loveth the world ? With good advice, perhaps, 
 and a little assistance, thou wouldst rather cleanse 
 and patch up a mind of thy own, and offer it as thy 
 admission-right, thy qualification, to Him who charged 
 his angels with folly ! Oh ! take counsel of thy 
 reason. It will show thee how impossible it is that 
 even a world should merit the love of eternal wisdom 
 and all-sufficing beatitude, otherwise than as it is 
 contained in that all-perfect Idea, in which the 
 Supreme Spirit contemplateth himself and the pleni- 
 tude of his infinity — the Only-Begotten before all 
 
 Churches, a presumption of the truth of doctrines that have 
 been received and taught as true by the whole Church in all 
 times; reliance on the positive declarations of the Apostle — 
 in short, all the convictions of the truth of a doctrine that 
 are previous to a perfect insight into its truth, because these 
 convictions, with the affections and dispositions accom- 
 panying them, are the very means and conditions of attaining 
 to that insight — and study of, and quiet meditation on, 
 them with a gradual growth of spiritual knowledge and 
 earnest prayer for its increase ; all these, to each and all of 
 which the young Christian is so repeatedly and fervently 
 exhorted by St. Paul, are to be superseded, because, forsooth, 
 truths needful for all men must be quite simple and easy, 
 and adapted to the capacity of all, even of the plainest and 
 dullest understanding ! What cannot be poured all at 
 once on a man, can only be supererogatory drops from the 
 emptied shower-bath of religious instruction ! But surely, 
 the more rational inference would be, that the faith, which 
 is to save the whole man, must have its roots and justifying 
 grounds in the very depths of our being. And he who can 
 read the writings of the Apostles, John and Paul, without 
 finding in almost every page a confirmation of this, must 
 have looked at them, as at the sun in an eclipse, through 
 blackened glasses. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 259 
 
 ages, the beloved Son, in whom the Father is indeed 
 well pleased f 
 
 And as the mind, so the body with which it is to 
 be clothed ; as the indweller, so the house in which 
 it is to be the abiding-place.* There is but one 
 
 * St. Paul blends both forms of expression, and asserts 
 the same doctrine, when speaking of the celestial body pro- 
 vided for the new man in the spiritual flesh and blood, (that 
 is, the informing power and vivific life of the incarnate 
 Word : for the blood is the life, and the flesh the power) — 
 when speaking, I say, of this celestial body, as a house not 
 made with hands, eternal in the heavens, yet brought down to 
 us, made appropriable by faith, and ours — he adds, for in 
 this earthly house (that is, this mortal life, as the inward 
 principle or energy of our tabernacle, or outward and 
 sensible body) we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon 
 ivith our house which is from heaven : not that we would be 
 unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed 
 up of life. — 2 Cor. v. 1 — 4. 
 
 The last four words of the first verse {eternal in the 
 heavens) compared with the conclusion of v. 2, {which is from 
 heaven) present a coincidence with John iii. 13, "And no man 
 hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, 
 even the Son of Man, which is in heaven." Would not the 
 coincidence be more apparent if the words of John had been 
 rendered word for word, even to a disregard of the English 
 idiom, and with what would be servile and superstitious 
 fidelity in the translation of a common classic ] I can see 
 no reason why the ovdels, so frequent in St. John, should 
 not be rendered literally, no one; and there may be a reason 
 why it should. I have some doubt likewise respecting the 
 omission of the definite articles rbv, rod, tSi — and a greater 
 as to the 6 &v, both in this place and in John i. 18, being 
 adequately rendered by our which is. What sense some of 
 the Greek Fathers attached to, or inferred from, St. Paul's in 
 the heavens, the theological student (and to theologians is 
 this note principally addressed) may find in Waterland's 
 Letters to a Country Clergyman — a divine, whose judgment 
 
 s2 
 
260 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 wedding-garment, in which we can sit down at the 
 marriage feast of Heaven : and that is the bride- 
 
 and strong sound sense are as unquestionable as his learning 
 and orthodoxy. A clergyman, in full orders, who has never 
 read the works of Bull and Waterland, has a duty yet to 
 perform. 
 
 Let it not be objected, that, forgetful of my own professed 
 aversion to allegorical interpretations, I have, in this note, 
 fallen into the fond humour of the mystic divines, and alle- 
 gorisers of Holy Writ. There is, believe me, a wide difference 
 between symbolical and allegorical. If I say that the flesh 
 and blood (corpus noumenon) of the Incarnate Word are 
 power and life, I say likewise that this mysterious power 
 and life are verily and actually the flesh and blood of Christ. 
 They are the allegorisers who turn the sixth chapter of the 
 Gospel according to St. John, the hard saying, — who can hear 
 it? — after which time many of Christ's disciples, who had 
 been eye-witnesses of his mighty miracles, who had heard 
 the sublime morality of his Sermon on the Mount, had 
 glorified God for the wisdom which they had heard, and had 
 been prepared to acknowledge, This is indeed the Christ,— 
 went back and walked no more with him ! — the hard sayings, 
 which even the Twelve were not yet competent to under- 
 stand farther than that they were to be spiritually under- 
 stood ; and which the chief of the Apostles was content to 
 receive with an implicit and anticipative faith ! — they, I 
 repeat, are the allegorisers who moralise these hard sayings, 
 these high words of mystery, into a hyperbolical metaphor 
 per catachresin, which only means a belief of the doctrine 
 which Paul believed, an obedience to the law respecting which 
 Paul was blameless, before the voice called him on the road 
 to Damascus ! What every parent, every humane preceptor, 
 would do when a child had misunderstood a metaphor or 
 apologue in a literal sense, we all know. But the meek and 
 merciful Jesus suffered many of his disciples to fall off from 
 eternal life, when, to retain them, he had only to say, — ye 
 simple ones ! why are ye offended 1 ? My words, indeed, 
 sound strange ; but I mean no more than what you have 
 often and often heard from me before, with delight and entire 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 261 
 
 groom's own gift, when he gave himself for us, that 
 we might live in him and he in us. There is but one 
 robe of righteousness, even the spiritual body, formed 
 by the assimilative power of faith, for whoever eateth 
 the flesh of the Son of Man, and drinketh his blood. 
 Did Christ come from Heaven, did the Son of God 
 leave the glory which he had with his Father before 
 the world began, only to show us a way to life, 
 to teach truths, to tell us of a resurrection ? Or 
 saith he not, i" am the way — I am the truth — I am 
 the resurrection and the life ? 
 
 APHORISM XIX. 
 
 FIELD. 
 
 The Romanists teach that sins committed after 
 Baptism (that is, for the immense majority of Chris- 
 tians having Christian parents, all their sins from 
 the cradle to the grave) are not so remitted for 
 Christ's sake, but that we must suffer that extremity 
 of punishment which they deserve : and therefore 
 either we must afflict ourselves in such sort and 
 degree of extremity as may answer the demerit of 
 our sins, or be punished by God, here, or in the 
 world to come, in such degree and sort that his 
 justice may be satisfied. [As the encysted venom, 
 or poison-bag, beneath the adder's fang, so does this 
 doctrine lie beneath the tremendous power of the 
 Romish Hierarchy. The demoralising influence of 
 this dogma, and that it curdled the very life-blood 
 
 acquiescence. — Credat Judceus I Non ego. It is sufficient for 
 me to know that I have used the language of Paul and 
 John, as it was understood and interpreted by Justin Martyr, 
 Tertullian, Irenseus, and (if he does not err) by the whole 
 Christian Church then existing. (See " Table Talk/' p. 72. 
 2nd edit.— Ed.) 
 
262 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 in the veins of Christendom, it was given to Luther, 
 beyond all men since Paul, to see, feel, and promul- 
 gate. And yet in his large Treatise on Repentance, 
 how near to the spirit of this doctrine — even to the 
 very walls and gates of Babylon — was Jeremy Taylor 
 driven, in recoiling from the fanatical extremes of 
 the opposite error !] But they that are orthodox, 
 teach that it is injustice to require the paying of one 
 debt twice.* * * It is no less absurd to say, as the 
 Papists do, that our satisfaction is required as a con- 
 dition, without which Christ's satisfaction is not ap- 
 plicable unto us, than to say, Pe'ter hath paid the 
 debt of John, and he to whom it was due accepteth of 
 the payment on the condition that John pay it 
 himself also.* * * The satisfaction of Christ is 
 communicated and applied unto us without suffering 
 the punishment that sin deserveth, [and essentially 
 involveth,] upon the condition of our faith and re- 
 pentance. [To which I would add ; Without faith 
 there is no power of repentance : without a com- 
 mencing repentance no power to faith : and that it 
 is in the power of the will either to repent or to 
 have faith in the Gospel sense of the words, is itself 
 a consequence of the redemption of mankind, a free 
 gift of the Redeemer : the guilt of its rejection, the 
 refusing to avail ourselves of the power, being all 
 that we can consider as exclusively attributable to 
 our own act.] 
 
 (containing an application of the principles laid down- 
 in pp. 158-159). 
 
 Forgiveness of sin, the abolition of guilt, through 
 the redemptive power of Christ's love, and of his 
 perfect obedience during his voluntary assumption of 
 humanity, is expressed, on account of the resemblance 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 263 
 
 of the consequences in both cases, by the payment of 
 a debt for another, which debt the payer had not 
 himself incurred. Now the impropriation of this me- 
 taphor — (that is, the taking it literally) — by trans- 
 ferring the sameness from the consequents to the 
 antecedents, or inferring the identity of the causes 
 from a resemblance in the effects — this is the point 
 on which I am at issue : and the view or scheme of 
 Redemption grounded on this confusion I believe to 
 be altogether un-Scriptural. 
 
 Indeed, I know not in what other instance I could 
 better exemplify the species of sophistry noticed in 
 p. 173, as the Aristotelean fj.eTafiacns ets aAAo 
 yivos, or clandestine passing over into a diverse 
 kind. The purpose of a metaphor is to illustrate a 
 something less known by a partial identification of it 
 with some other thing better understood, or at least 
 more familiar. Now the article of Redemption may 
 be considered in a twofold relation — in relation to 
 the antecedent, that is, the Redeemer's act, as the 
 efficient cause and condition of redemption ; and in 
 relation to the consequent, that is, the effects in and 
 for the Redeemed. Now it is the latter relation, in 
 which the subject is treated of, set forth, expanded, 
 and enforced by St. Paul. The mysterious act, the 
 operative cause, is transcendant. Factum est : and 
 beyond the information contained in the enunciation 
 of the fact, it can be characterised only by the conse- 
 quences. It is the consequences of the act of Re- 
 demption, which the zealous Apostle would bring 
 home to the minds and affections both of Jews and 
 Gentiles. Now the Apostle's opponents and gain- 
 sayers were principally of the former class. They 
 were Jews : not only Jews unconverted, but such as 
 had partially received the Gospel, and who, sheltering 
 their national prejudices under the pretended authority 
 
264 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of Christ's original Apostles and the Church in 
 Jerusalem, set themselves up against Paul as fol- 
 lowers of Cephas. Add too, that Paul himself was 
 a Hebrew of the Hebrews ; intimately versed in the 
 Jews' religion above many his equals in his oivn 
 nation, and above measure zealous of the traditions 
 of his fathers. It might, therefore, have been anti- 
 cipated that his reasoning would receive its outward 
 forms and language, that it would take its predomi- 
 nant colours, from his own past, and his opponents' 
 present, habits of thinking; and that his figures, 
 images, analogies, and references would be taken 
 preferably from- objects, opinions, events, and ritual 
 observances ever uppermost in the imaginations of 
 his own countrymen. And such we find them ; — yet 
 so judiciously selected, that the prominent forms, 
 the figures of most frequent recurrence, are drawn 
 from points of belief and practice, forms, laws, rites 
 and customs, which then prevailed through the 
 whole Eoman world, and were common to Jew and 
 Gentile. 
 
 Now it would be difficult if not impossible to 
 select points better suited to this purpose, as being 
 equally familiar to all, and yet having a special 
 interest for the Jewish converts, than those are from 
 which the learned Apostle has drawn the four prin- 
 cipal metaphors, by which he illustrates the blessed 
 consequences of Christ's redemption of mankind. 
 These are ; 1. Sin offerings, sacrificial expiation. 
 2. Reconciliation, atonement, KaTakkayi].* 3. Ran- 
 
 * Thi3 word occurs but once in the New Testament, 
 Rom. v. 11, the marginal rendering being reconciliation. 
 The pei'sonal noun, KaraWaKT^s is still in use with the 
 modern Greeks for a money-changer, or one who takes the 
 debased currency, so general in countries under a despotic 
 or other dishonest government, in exchange for sterling coin 
 
ON SPIEITUAL RELIGION. 265 
 
 som from slavery, redemption, the buying back again, 
 or being bought back. 4. Satisfaction of a creditor's 
 claims by a payment of the debt. To one or other 
 of these four heads all the numerous forms and 
 exponents of Christ's mediation in St. Paul's writings 
 
 or bullion ; the purchaser paying the KaraX^ayi], that is, the 
 difference. In the elder Greek writers, the verb means to 
 exchange for an opposite, as KaraWaaireTo -r))v ex^P r l v Tots 
 ffraffidirais — He exchanged within himself enmity for friend- 
 ship, (that is, he reconciled himself) with his party ; — or, as 
 we say, made it up with them, an idiom which (with what- 
 ever loss of dignity) gives the exact force of the word. He 
 made up the difference. The Hebrew word, of very frequent 
 occurrence in the Pentateuch, which we render by the sub- 
 stantive atonement, has its radical or visual image in copher, 
 pitch. Gm. vi. 14. Thou shah pitch it within and without 
 with pitch ; — hence, to unite, to fill up a breach or leak, the 
 word expressing both the act, namely the bringing together 
 what had been previously separated, and the means, or 
 material, by which the re-union is effected, as in our English 
 verbs, to caulk, to solder, to poy or pay (from poix, pitch), 
 and the French suiver. Thence, metaphorically, expiation, 
 the piacula having the same root, and being grounded on 
 another property or use of gums and resins, the supposed 
 cleansing powers of their fumigation ; Numb. viii. 21 : made 
 atonement for the Levites to cleanse them. — Lastly (or if we are 
 to believe the Hebrew Lexicons, properly and most fre- 
 quently) it means ransom. But if by proper, the interpreters 
 mean primary and radical, the assertion does not need a con- 
 futation : all radicals belonging to one or other of three 
 classes; — 1. Interjections, or sounds expressing sensations 
 or passions. 2. Imitations of sounds, as splash, roar, whiz, 
 &c. 3. And principally, visual images, objects of sight. But 
 as to frequency, in all the numerous (fifty I believe,) instances 
 of the word in the Old Testament, I have not found one in 
 Which it can, or at least need, be rendered by ransom : 
 though beyond all doubt, ransom is used in the Epistle to 
 Timothy as an equivalent term. 
 
266 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 may be referred. And the very number and variety 
 of the words or periphrases used by him to express 
 one and the same thing, furnish the strongest pre- 
 sumptive proof that all alike were used metaphorically. 
 [In the following notation, let the small letters 
 represent the effects or consequences, and the capitals 
 the efficient causes or antecedents. Whether by 
 causes we mean acts or agents, is indifferent. Now 
 let X signify a transcendant, that is, a cause beyond our 
 comprehension, and not within the sphere of sensible 
 experience ; and on the other hand, let A, B, C, and 
 D represent each one known and familiar cause, in 
 reference to some single and characteristic effect : 
 namely, A in reference to k, B to 1, C to m, and 
 D ton. Then I say X + k 1 m n is in different places 
 expressed by A + k; B-fl; C + m; D-j-n- And 
 these I should call metaphorical exponents of X.] 
 
 Now John, the beloved disciple, who leaned on the 
 Lord's bosom, the Evangelist Kara Trvevfxa, that is, 
 according to the spirit, the inner and substantial 
 truth of the Christian Creed — John, recording the 
 Kedeemer's own words, enunciates the fact itself, to 
 the full extent in which it is enunciable for the 
 human mind, simply and without any metaphor, by 
 identifying it in kind with a fact of hourly occurrence 
 — expressing it, I say, by a familiar fact the same in 
 kind with that intended, though of a far lower 
 dignity; — by a fact of every man's experience, known to 
 all, yet not better understood than the fact described 
 by it. In the redeemed it is a re-generation, a 
 birth, a spiritual seed impregnated and evolved, the 
 germinal principle of a higher and enduring life, 
 of a spiritual life — that is, a life the actuality of 
 which is not dependent on the material body, or 
 limited by the circumstances and processes indispen- 
 sable to its organisation and subsistence. Briefly, it 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 267 
 
 is the differential of immortality, of which the 
 assimilative power of faith and love is the integrant, 
 and the life in Christ the integration. 
 
 But even this would be an imperfect statement, if 
 we omitted the awful truth, that besides that dissolu- 
 tion of our earthly tabernacle which we call death, 
 there is another death, not the mere negation of life, 
 but its positive opposite. And as there is a mystery 
 of life, and an assimilation to the principle of life, 
 even to him who is the Life ; so is there a mystery 
 of death, and an assimilation to the principle of evil ; 
 a fructifying of the corrupt seed, of which death is 
 the germination. Thus the regeneration to spiritual 
 life is at the same time a redemption from the spiritual 
 death. 
 
 Respecting the Redemptive Act itself, and the 
 Divine Agent, we know from revelation that he was 
 made a quickening (^lcottoiovv, life-making) Siririt : 
 and that in order to this it was necessary that God 
 should be manifested in the flesh ; that the Eternal 
 Word, through whom and by whom the world (k6<t[xos, 
 the order, beauty, and sustaining law of visible 
 natures) was and is, should be made flesh, assume 
 our humanity personally, fulfil all righteousness, and 
 so suffer and so die for us, as in dying to conquer 
 death for as many as should receive him. More than 
 this, the mode, the possibility, we are not competent 
 to know. It is, as hath been already observed con- 
 cerning the primal act of apostasy, a mystery by the 
 necessity of the subject — a mystery, which at all 
 events it will be time enough for us to seek and 
 expect to understand, when we understand the 
 mystery of our natural life, and its conjunction with 
 mind and will and personal identity. Even the 
 truths that are given to us to know, we can know 
 only through faith in the spirit. They are spiritual 
 
268 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 tilings which must be spiritually discerned. Such, 
 however, being the means and the effects of our 
 redemption, well might the fervent Apostle associate 
 it with whatever was eminently dear and precious to 
 erring and afflicted mortals, and (where no expression 
 could be commensurate, no single title be other tban 
 imperfect) seek from similitude of effect to describe 
 the superlative boon, by successively transferring to 
 it, as by a superior claim, the name of each several 
 act and ordinance, habitually connected in the minds 
 of all his hearers with feelings of joy, confidence, and 
 gratitude. 
 
 Do you rejoice when the atonement made by the 
 priest has removed the civil stain from your name, 
 restored you to your privileges as a son of Abraham, 
 and replaced you in the respect of your brethren ? — 
 Here is an atonement which takes away a deeper and 
 worse stain, and eating canker-spot in the very heart 
 of your personal being. This, to as many as receive 
 it, gives the privilege to become sons of God (John i. 
 12) ; this will admit you to the society of angels, and 
 insure to you the rights of brotherhood with spirits 
 made perfect. {Heb. xii. 22.) Here is a sacrifice, 
 a sin-offering for the whole world : and a High Priest, 
 who is indeed a Mediator; who, not in type or 
 shadow, but in very truth, and in his own right, 
 stands in the place of Man to God, and of God to 
 Man ; and who receives as a Judge what he offered 
 as an advocate. 
 
 Would you be grateful to one who had ransomed 
 you from slavery under a bitter foe, or who brought 
 you out of captivity? Here is redemption from a far 
 direr slavery, the slavery of sin unto death; and he 
 who gave himself for the ransom, has taken captivity 
 captive. 
 
 Had you by your own fault alienated yourself from 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 269 
 
 your best, your only sure friend ; — had you, like a 
 prodigal, cast yourself out of your Father's house ; — 
 would you not love the good Samaritan, who should 
 reconcile you to your friend '? "Would you not prize 
 above all price the intercession, which had brought 
 you back from husks, and the tending of swine, and 
 restored you to your father's arms, and seated you at 
 your father's table? 
 
 Had you involved yourself in a heavy debt for cer- 
 tain gewgaws, for high seasoned meats, and intoxi- 
 cating drinks, and glistering apparel, and in default 
 of payment had made yourself over as a bondsman to 
 a hard creditor, who, it was foreknown, would enforce 
 the bond of judgment to the last tittle ; — with what 
 emotions would you not receive the glad tidings that 
 a stranger, or a friend whom in the days of your wan- 
 tonness you had neglected and reviled, had paid the 
 debt for you, had made satisfaction to your creditor ? 
 But you have incurred a debt of death to the evil 
 nature ; you have sold yourself over to sin ; and, 
 relatively to you, and to all your means and re- 
 sources, the seal on the bond is the seal of necessity. 
 Its stamp is the nature of evil. But the stranger has 
 appeared, the forgiving friend has come, even the Son 
 of God from heaven : and to as many as have faith 
 in his name, I say — the debt is paid for you ; — the 
 satisfaction has been made. 
 
 Now, to simplify the argument, and at the same 
 time to bring the question to the test, we will confine 
 our attention to the figure last mentioned, namely, 
 the satisfaction of a debt. Passing by our modern 
 Alogi, who find nothing but metaphors in either 
 Apostle, let us suppose for a moment, with certain 
 divines, that our Lord's words, recorded by John, and 
 which in all places repeat and assert the same ana- 
 logy are to be regarded as metaphorical ; and that 
 
270 AIDS TO KEFLECXION. 
 
 it is the varied expressions of St. Paul that are to be 
 literally interpreted : for example, that sin is, or 
 involves, an infinite debt, (in the proper and law- 
 court sense of the word, debt) — a debt owing by us to 
 the vindictive justice of God the Father, which can 
 only be liquidated by the everlasting misery of Adam 
 and all his posterity, or by a sum of suffering equal 
 to this. Likewise, that God the Father, by his 
 absolute decree, or (as some divines teach) through the 
 necessity of his unchangeable justice, had determined 
 to exact the full sum ; which must, therefore, be paid 
 either by ourselves or by some other in our name and 
 behalf. But besides the debt which all mankind con- 
 tracted in and through Adam, as a homo publicus, 
 even as a nation is bound by the acts of its head or 
 its plenipotentiary, every man (say these divines) is 
 an insolvent debtor on his own score. In this fear- 
 ful predicament the Son of God took compassion on 
 mankind, and resolved to pay the debt for us, and to 
 satisfy the divine justice by a perfect equivalent. 
 Accordingly, by a strange yet strict consequence, it 
 has been holden by more than one of these divines, 
 that the agonies suffered by Christ were equal in 
 amount to the sum total of the torments of all man- 
 kind here and hereafter, or to the infinite debt, which 
 in an endless succession of instalments we should 
 have been paying to the divine justice, had it not 
 been paid in full by the Son of God incarnate ! 
 
 It is easy to say — " but I do not hold this, or 
 we do not make this an article of our belief! " The 
 true question is; "Do you take any part of it; and 
 can you reject the rest without being inconsequent?" 
 Are debt, satisfaction, payment in full, creditor's 
 rights, and the like, nomina propria, by which the 
 very nature of Redemption and its occasion are 
 expressed ; — or are they, with several others, figures 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 271 
 
 of speech for the purpose of illustrating the nature 
 and extent of the consequences and effects of the 
 Redemptive Act, and to excite in the receivers a due 
 sense of the magnitude and manifold operation of the 
 boon, and of the love and gratitude due to the Re- 
 deemer ? If still you reply, the former : then, as 
 your whole theory is grounded on a notion of justice, 
 I ask you — Is this justice a moral attribute ? But 
 morality commences with, and begins in, the sacred 
 distinction between thing and person. On this dis- 
 tinction all law, human and divine, is grounded : 
 consequently, the law of justice. If you attach any 
 meaning to the term justice, as applied to God, it 
 must be the same to which you refer when you affirm 
 or deny it of any other personal agent — save only, 
 that in its attribution to God, you speak of it as 
 unmixed and perfect. For if not, what do you mean? 
 And why do you call it by the same name ? I may, 
 therefore, with all right and reason, put the case as 
 between man and man. For should it be found irre- 
 concileable with the justice which the light of reason, 
 made law in the conscience, dictates to man, how 
 much more must it be incongruous with the all- 
 perfect justice of God ! Whatever case I should 
 imagine would be felt by the reader as below the 
 dignity of the subject, and in some measure jarring 
 with his feelings ; and in other respects the more 
 familiar the case, the better suited to the present 
 purpose. 
 
 A sum of 1000L is due from James to Peter, for 
 which James has given a bond. He is insolvent, and 
 the bond is on the point of being put in suit against 
 him, to James's utter ruin. At this moment Matthew 
 steps in, pays Peter the thousand pounds, and dis- 
 charges the bond. In this case, no man would 
 hesitate to admit, that a complete satisfaction had 
 
272 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 been made to Peter. Matthew's 1000Z. is a perfect 
 equivalent for the sum which James was bound to 
 have paid, and which Peter had lent. It is the same 
 thing, and this is altogether a question of things. 
 Now instead of James's being indebted to Peter in a 
 sum of money which (he having become insolvent) 
 Matthew pays for him, let me put the case, that 
 James had been guilty of the basest and most hard- 
 hearted ingratitude to a most worthy and affectionate 
 mother, who had not only performed all the duties 
 and tender offices of a mother, but whose whole heart 
 was bound up in this her only child — who had fore- 
 gone all the pleasures and amusements of life in 
 watching over his sickly childhood, had sacrificed her 
 health and the far greater part of her resources to 
 rescue him from the consequences of his follies and 
 excesses during his youth and early manhood ; and 
 to procure for him the means of his present rank 
 and affluence — all which he had repaid by neglect, 
 desertion, and open profligacy. Here the mother 
 stands in the relation of the creditor : and here too, 
 I will suppose the same generous friend to interfere, 
 and to perform with the greatest tenderness and con- 
 stancy all those duties of a grateful and affectionate 
 son, which James ought to have performed. Will 
 this satisfy the mother's claims on James, or entitle 
 him to her esteem, approbation, and blessing ? Or 
 what if Matthew the vicarious son, should at length 
 address her in words to this purpose : " Now, I trust 
 you are appeased, and will be henceforward recon- 
 ciled to James. I have satisfied all your claims on 
 him. I have paid his debt in full : and you are too 
 just to require the same debt to be paid twice over. 
 You will therefore regard him with the same compla- 
 cency, and receive him into your presence with the 
 same love, as if there had been no difference between 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 273 
 
 him and you. For I have made it up." What other 
 reply could the swelling heart of the mother dictate 
 than this : " misery ! and is it possible that you 
 are in league with my unnatural child to insult me ? 
 Must not the very necessity of your abandonment of 
 your proper sphere form an additional evidence of his 
 guilt ? Must not the sense of your goodness teach 
 me more fully to comprehend, more vividly to feel, 
 the evil in him ? Must not the contrast of your 
 merits magnify his demerit in his mother's eye, and 
 at once recall and embitter the conviction of the 
 canker-worm in his soul ? " 
 
 If indeed by the force of Matthew's example, by 
 persuasion, or by additional and more mysterious 
 influences, or by an inward co-agency, compatible 
 with the existence of a personal will, James should be 
 led to repent ; if through admiration and love of this 
 great goodness gradually assimilating his mind to the 
 mind of his benefactor, he should in his own person 
 become a grateful and dutiful child — then doubtless 
 the mother would be wholly satisfied ? But then the 
 case is no longer a question of things, or a matter of 
 debt payable by another. Nevertheless, the effect, — 
 and the Reader will remember that it is the effects 
 and consequences of Christ's mediation, on which St. 
 Paul is dilating — the effect to James is similar in 
 both cases, that is in the case of James, the debtor, and 
 of James, the undutiful son. In both cases, James 
 is liberated from a grievous burthen : and in both 
 cases, he has to attribute his liberation to the act and 
 free grace of another. The only difference is, that 
 in the former case (namely, the payment of the debt) 
 the beneficial act is, singly and without requiring 
 any re-action or co-agency on the part of James, the 
 efficient cause of his liberation ; while in the latter 
 case (namely, that of Redemption) the beneficial act 
 
274 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 is the first, the indispensable condition, and then, the 
 co-efficient. - 
 
 The professional student of theology will, perhaps, 
 understand the different positions asserted in the pre- 
 ceding argument more readily if they are presented 
 synoptically, that is, brought at once within his view, 
 in the form of answers to four questions, comprising 
 the constituent parts of the Scriptural doctrine of 
 Redemption. And I trust that my lay readers of 
 both sexes will not allow themselves to be scared 
 from the perusal of the following short catechism, 
 by half a dozen Latin words, or rather words with 
 Latin endings, that translate themselves into English, 
 when I dare assure them, that they will encounter no 
 other obstacle to their full and easy comprehension of 
 the contents. 
 
 Synopsis of the constituent points in the doctrine of 
 Redemption, in four questions, with correspondent 
 answers. 
 
 Questions. 
 
 fl. Agens causator? 
 
 Wh ( WVi +"i " fl J ^' -d- c t us causativus ? 
 ^ ' | 3. Affectum causatum ? 
 
 |^4. Consequentia ab effecto ? 
 
 Answers. 
 
 I. The agent and personal Cause of the Redemp- 
 tion of mankind is — the co-eternal Word and only 
 begotten Son of the Living God, incarnate, tempted, 
 agonising (agonistes dycoju^b'/xeyos), crucified, sub- 
 mitting to death, resurgent, communicant of his 
 Spirit, ascendent, and obtaining for his Church the 
 descent and communion of the Holy Spirit, the 
 Comforter. 
 
ON SPIBITUAL EELIGION. 275 
 
 IT. The Causative Act is — a spiritual and trans- 
 cendent mystery, that passeth all understanding. 
 
 III. The Effect Caused is — the being born anew : 
 as before in the flesh to the world, so now born in the 
 spirit to Christ. 
 
 IV. The Consequences from the Effect are — sanc- 
 tification from sin, and liberation from the inherent 
 and penal consequences of sin in the world to come, 
 with all the means and processes of sanctification by 
 the Word and the Spirit : these consequents being the 
 same for the sinner relatively to God and his own soul, 
 as the satisfaction of a debt for a debtor relatively to 
 his creditor ; as the sacrificial atonement made by the 
 priest for the transgressor of the Mosaic Law ; as the 
 reconciliation to an alienated parent for a son who had 
 estranged himself from his father's house and presence ; 
 and as a redemptive ransom for a slave or captive. 
 
 Now I complain, that this metaphorical naming of 
 the transcendent causative act through the medium of 
 its proper effects from actions and causes of familiar 
 occurrence connected with the former by similarity of 
 result, has been mistaken for an intended designation 
 of the essential character of the causative act itself; 
 and that thus divines have interpreted de omni what 
 was spoken de singulo, and magnified a partial equa- 
 tion into a total identity. 
 
 I will merely hint to my more learned readers, and 
 to the professional students of theology, that the origin 
 of this error is to be sought for in the discussions of 
 the Greek Fathers, and (at a later period) of the School- 
 men, on the obscure and abysmal subject of the divine 
 A-seity,* and the distinction between the 6eX.nfMa 
 and the ^ovX-q, that is, the Absolute Will, as the 
 universal ground of all being, and the election and 
 
 * A-se-itas = self-origination. Literally from-itself-ness. 
 — D. C. 
 
 t 2 
 
276 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 purpose of God in the Personal Idea, as the Father. 
 And this view would have allowed me to express what 
 I believe to be the true import and Scriptural idea of 
 Kedemption in terms much more nearly resembling 
 those used ordinarily by the Calvinistic divines, and 
 with a conciliative show of coincidence. But this 
 motive was outweighed by the reflection, that I could 
 not rationally have expected to be understood by 
 those, to whom I most wish to be intelligible : et si 
 non vis intelligi, cur vis legi? 
 
 Not to countervene the purpose of a Synopsis, I 
 have detached the confirmative or explanatory remarks 
 from the answers to questions II. and III., and place 
 them below as scholia. A single glance of the eye 
 will enable the Eeader to re-connect each with the 
 sentence it is supposed to follow. 
 
 SCHOLIUM TO ANS. II. 
 
 Nevertheless, the fact or actual truth having been 
 assured to us by revelation, it is not impossible, by 
 stedfast meditation on the idea and supernatural 
 character of a personal Will, for a mind spiritually 
 disciplined to satisfy itself, that the redemptive Act 
 supposes (and that our redemption is even negatively 
 conceivable only on the supposition of) an Agent who 
 can at once act on the Will as an exciting cause, 
 quasi ab extra ; and in the Will, as the condition of 
 its potential, and the ground of its actual, being. 
 
 SCHOLIUM TO ANS. LU. 
 
 Where two subjects, that stand to each other in 
 the relation of antithesis or contradistinction, are con- 
 nected by a middle term common to both, the sense 
 of this middle term is indifferently determinable by 
 either ; the preferability of the one or the other in 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. '277 
 
 any given case being decided by tbe circumstance of 
 our more frequent experience of, or greater familiarity 
 vvitb, tbe term in this connection. Thus, if I put 
 hydrogen and oxygen gas, as opposite poles, the 
 term gas is common to both ; and it is a matter of 
 indifference by which of the two bodies I ascertain 
 the sense of the term. But if, for the conjoint pur- 
 poses of connection and contrast, I oppose transparent 
 crystallised alumen to opaque derb or uncrystallised 
 alumen ; — it may easily happen to be far more con- 
 venient for me to shew the sense of the middle term, 
 that is alumen, by a piece of pipe-clay than by a 
 sapphire or ruby ; especially if I should be describing 
 the beauty and preciousness of the latter to a peasant 
 woman, or in a district where a ruby was a rarity 
 which the fewest only had an opportunity of seeing. 
 This is a plain rule of common logic directed in its 
 application by common sense. 
 
 Now let us apply this to the case in hand. The 
 two opposites here are Flesh and Spirit : this in 
 relation to Christ, that in relation to the world ; and 
 these two opposites are connected by the middle 
 term, Birth, which is of course common to both. 
 But for the same reason, as in the instance last- 
 mentioned, the interpretation of the common term is 
 to be ascertained from its known sense, in the more 
 familiar connection — birth, namely, in relation to our 
 natural life and to the organised body, by which we 
 belong to the present world. Whatever the word 
 signifies in this connection, the same essentially in kind, 
 though not in dignity and value, must be its signifi- 
 cation in the other. How else could it be (what yet 
 in this text it undeniably is), the punctum indifferens, 
 or nota communis of the thesis, Flesh or the World, 
 and the antithesis Spirit or Christ ? We might 
 therefore, upon the supposition of a writer having 
 
278 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 been speaking of river-water in distinction from rain- 
 water, as rationally pretend that in the latter phrase 
 the term, water, was to be understood metaphorically, 
 as that the word, Birth, is a metaphor, and means 
 only so and so in the Gospel according to St. John. 
 
 There is, I am aware, a numerous and powerful 
 party in our Church, so numerous and powerful as 
 not seldom to be entitled the Church, who hold and 
 publicly teach, that " Regeneration is only Baptism." 
 Nay, the writer of the article on the lives of Scott 
 and Newton, in our ablest and most respectable 
 Review, is but one among many who do not hesitate 
 to brand the contrary opinion as heterodoxy, and 
 schismatical superstition.* I trust that I think as 
 seriously as most men of the evil of schism; but 
 with every disposition to pay the utmost deference to 
 an acknowledged majority, including, it is said, a very 
 large proportion of the present dignitaries of our 
 Church, I cannot but think it a sufficient reply, that 
 if Eegeneration means Baptism, Baptism must mean 
 Regeneration; and this too, as Christ himself has 
 declared, a regeneration in the Spirit. Now I would 
 ask these divines this simple question : Do they 
 believingly suppose a spiritual regenerative power 
 and agency inhering in or accompanying the sprink- 
 ling of a few drops of water on an infant's face ? 
 They cannot evade the question by saying that 
 Baptism is a type or sign. For this would be to 
 supplant their own assertion, that Regeneration means 
 Baptism, by the contradictory admission, that Rege- 
 neration is the significatum, of which Baptism is the 
 significant. Unless, indeed, they would incur the 
 absurdity of saying, that Regeneration is a type of 
 Regeneration, and Baptism a type of itself — or that 
 
 * See Quart, Review, vol. xxxi. p. 26. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 279 
 
 Baptism only means Baptism ! And this indeed is the 
 plain consequence to which they might be driven, 
 should they answer the above question in the negative. 
 
 But if their answer be, "Yes ! we do suppose and 
 believe this efficiency in the Baptismal act" — I have 
 not another word to say. Only, perhaps, T might be 
 permitted to express a hope that, for consistency's 
 sake, they would speak less slightingly of the insuffla- 
 tion, and extreme unction, used in the Romish Church ; 
 notwithstanding the not easily to be answered argu- 
 ments of our Christian Mercury, the all-eloquent 
 Jeremy Taylor, respecting the latter, — " which, since 
 it is used when the man is above half dead, when he 
 can exercise no act of understanding, it must needs 
 be nothing. For no rational man can think, that 
 any ceremony can make a spiritual change without a 
 spiritual act of him that is to be changed ; nor that 
 it can work by way of nature, or by charm, but morally 
 and after the manner of reasonable creatures." * 
 
 It is too obvious to require suggestion, that these 
 words here quoted apply with yet greater force and 
 propriety to the point in question ; as the babe is an 
 unconscious subject, which the dying man need not 
 be supposed to be. My avowed convictions respecting 
 Regeneration, with the Spiritual Baptism, as its con- 
 dition and initiative (Luke in. 16; Matt. i. 7 ; Matt. 
 iii. 11), and of which the sacramental rite, the Bap- 
 tism of John, was appointed by Christ to remain as 
 the sign and figure ; and still more, perhaps, my 
 belief respecting the mystery of the Eucharist, — 
 concerning which I hold the same opinions as 
 Bucer, f Peter Martyr, and presumably, Cranmer 
 himself — these convictions and this belief will, I doubt 
 
 * Dedicat. to Holy Dying. — Ed. 
 f Strype — Cranmer, Append. — Ed. 
 
280 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 not, be deemed by the orthodox de more Grotii, who 
 improve the letter of Arminius with the spirit of 
 Socinus, sufficient data to bring me in guilty of 
 irrational and superstitious mysticism. But I abide 
 by a maxim which I learned at an early period of my 
 theological studies, from Benedict Spinoza. Where 
 the alternative lies between the absurd and the 
 incomprehensible, no wise man can be at a loss which 
 of the two to prefer. To be called irrational, is a 
 trifle : to be so, and in matters of religion, is far 
 otherwise : and whether the irrationality consists in 
 men's believing (that is, in having persuaded them- 
 selves that they believe) against reason, or without 
 reason, I have been early instructed to consider it as 
 a sad and serious evil, pregnant with mischiefs, poli- 
 tical and moral. And by none of my numerous 
 instructors so impressively as by that great and shin- 
 ing light of our Church in the sera of her intellectual 
 splendor, Bishop Jeremy Taylor : from one of whose 
 works,* and that of especial authority for the safety 
 as well as for the importance of the principle, inas- 
 much as it was written expressly ad populum, I will 
 now, both for its own intrinsic worth, and to relieve 
 the attention, wearied, perhaps, by the length and 
 argumentative character of the preceding discussion, 
 interpose the following Aphorism. 
 
 APHORISM XX. 
 
 TAYLOR. 
 
 Whatever is against right reason, that no faith can 
 oblige us to believe. For though reason is not the 
 positive and affirmative measure of our faith, and our 
 faith ought to be larger than (speculative) reason, 
 and take something into her heart, that reason can 
 
 * Worthy Communicant, c. iii. s. 5. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 281 
 
 never take into her eye ; yet in all our creed there 
 can be nothing against reason. If reason justly con- 
 tradicts an article, it is not of the household of faith. 
 In this there is no difficulty, but that in practice we 
 take care that we do not call that reason, which is 
 not so.* For although reason is a right judge, f yet 
 it ought not to pass sentence in an inquiry of faith, 
 until all the information be brought in ; all that is 
 within, and all that is without, all that is above, and 
 all that is below ; all that concerns it in experience, 
 and all that concerns it in act ; whatsoever is of per- 
 tinent observation, and whatsoever is revealed. For 
 else reason may argue very well, and yet conclude 
 falsely. It may conclude well in logic, and yet infer 
 a false proposition in theology. { But when our 
 judge is fully and truly informed in all that whence 
 she is to make her judgment, we may safely follow 
 her whithersoever she invites us. 
 
 APHORISM XXI. 
 
 TATLOB. 
 
 He that speaks against his own reason, speaks 
 against his own conscience : and therefore it is cer- 
 tain, no man serves God with a good conscience, who 
 serves him against his reason. 
 
 * See ante, pp. 141 and 166 — Ed. 
 
 t Which it could not be in respect of spiritual truths and 
 objects super-sensuous, if it were the same with, and merely 
 another name for the faculty judging according to sense — 
 that is, the understanding, or (as Taylor most often calls it 
 in distinction from reason) discourse (discwsus seu facultas 
 discursiva vel discwrsorid). The reason, so instructed and so 
 actuated as Taylor requires in the sentences immediately 
 following, is what I have called the spirit. (See ante, pp. 
 167— 9.— -Ed.) 
 
 % See ante, pp. 130-1.— Ed. 
 
282 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 APHORISM XXII. 
 
 By the eye of reason through the telescope of 
 faith, that is, revelation, we may see what without 
 this telescope we could never have known to exist. 
 But as one that shuts the eye hard, and with violence 
 curls the eye-lid, forces a fantastic fire from the 
 crystalline humour, and espies a light that never 
 shines, and sees thousands of little fires that never 
 burn ; so is he that blinds the eye of reason, and pre- 
 tends to see by an eye of faith. He makes little 
 images of notions, and some atoms dance before him ; 
 but he is not guided by the light, nor instructed by 
 the proposition, but sees like a man in his sleep. In 
 no case can true reason and a right faith oppose each 
 other. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 PREFATORY TO APHORISM XXIIL 
 
 Less on my own account, than in the hope of 
 fore-arming my youthful friends, I add one other 
 transcript from Bishop Taylor, as from a writer to 
 whose name no taint or suspicion of Calvinistic or 
 schismatical tenets can attach, and for the purpose of 
 softening the offence which, I cannot but foresee, 
 will be taken at the positions asserted in the first 
 paragraph of Aphorism VII. p. 150, and the docu- 
 mental proofs of the same in pp. 153 — 5 : and this 
 by a formidable party composed of men ostensibly of 
 the most dissimilar creeds, regular Church-divines, 
 voted orthodox by a great majority of suffrages, and 
 the so-called free-thinking Christians, and Unitarian 
 divines. It is the former class alone that I wish to 
 conciliate : so far at least as it may be done by 
 removing the aggravation of novelty from the offen- 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 283 
 
 sive article. And surely the simple re-assertion of 
 one of " the two great things," which Bishop Taylor 
 could assert as a fact, — which, he took for granted, 
 that no Christian would think of controverting, — 
 should at least be controverted without bitterness by 
 his successors in the Church. That which was per- 
 fectly safe and orthodox in 1657, in the judgment of 
 a devoted Royalist and Episcopalian, ought to be at 
 most but a venial heterodoxy in 1825. For the rest, 
 I am prepared to hear in answer — what has already 
 been so often and with such theatrical effect dropped 
 as an extinguisher on my arguments — the famous 
 concluding period of the fourth book of Paley's 
 Moral and Political Philosophy, declared by Dr. Parr 
 to be the finest prose passage in English literature. 
 Be it so. I bow to so great an authority. But if 
 the learned doctor would impose it on me as the 
 truest as well as the finest, or expect me to admire 
 the logic equally with the rhetoric — a^LarafxaL — I 
 start off. As I have been un-English enough to find 
 in Pope's tomb-epigram on Sir Isaac Newton nothing 
 better than a gross and wrongful falsehood, conveyed 
 in an enormous and irreverent hyperbole ; so with 
 regard to this passage in question, free as it is from 
 all faults of taste, I have yet the hardihood to 
 confess, that in the sense in which the words 
 'discover' and ' prove,' are here used and intended, 
 I am not convinced of the truth of the principle, (that 
 he alone discovers who proves), and I question the 
 correctness of the particular case, brought as instance 
 and confirmation. I doubt the validity of the asser- 
 tion as a general rule ; and I deny it, as applied to 
 matters of faith, to the verities of religion, in the 
 belief of which there must always be somewhat of 
 moral election, " an act of the will in it as well as 
 of the understanding, as much love in it as discursive 
 
384 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 power. True Christian faith must have in it some- 
 thing of in-evidence, something that must be made 
 up by duty and by obedience."* — But most readily 
 do I admit, and most fervently do I contend, that 
 the miracles worked by Christ, both as miracles and 
 as fulfilments of prophecy, both as signs and as 
 wonders, ma'de plain discovery, and gave unques- 
 tionable proof, of his divine character and authority ; 
 that they were to the whole Jewish nation true and 
 appropriate evidences, that He was indeed come 
 who had promised and declared to their forefathers, 
 Behold your God will come with vengeance, even 
 God with a recompense. He will come and save 
 you.f I receive them as proofs, therefore, of the 
 truth of every word which he taught who was himself 
 The Word ; and as sure evidences of the final victory 
 over death and of the life to come, in that they were 
 manifestations of Him, who said : I am the resurrec- 
 tion and the life ! 
 
 The obvious inference from the passage in ques- 
 tion, if not its express import, is : Miracula experi- 
 menta crucis esse, quibus solis probandum erat, ho- 
 mines non, pecudum instar, omnino perituros esse. 
 Now this doctrine I hold to be altogether alien from 
 the spirit, and without authority in the letter, of 
 Scripture. I can recall nothing in the history of 
 human belief that should induce me, I find nothing 
 in my own moral being that enables me, to under- 
 stand it. I can, however, perfectly well understand, 
 the readiness of those divines in hoc Paleii dictum 
 ore pleno jurare, qui nihil aliud in toto Evangelio 
 invenire posse profitentur. The most unqualified ad- 
 
 * J. Taylor's Worthy Communicant. — Ed. 
 t Isaiah xxxiv. compared with Matt. x. 34, and Luke xii. 
 49.— Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 285 
 
 miration of this superlative passage I find perfectly 
 in character for those, who while Socinianism and 
 Ultra- Socinianism are spreading like the roots of an 
 elm, on and just below the surface, through the whole 
 land, and here and there at least have even dipped 
 under the garden-fence of the Church, and blunted 
 the edge of the labourer's spade in the gayest 
 parterres of our Baal-hamon, — who, — while heresies, 
 to which the framers and compilers of our Liturgy, 
 Homilies, and Articles would have refused the very 
 name of Christianity, meet their eyes on the list of 
 religious denominations for every city and large town 
 throughout the kingdom — can yet congratulate them- 
 selves with Dr. Paley, in his book on the Evidences,* 
 that the rent has not reached the foundation ; — that 
 is, that the corruption of man's will ; that the 
 responsibility of man in any sense in which it is not 
 equally predicable of dogs and horses ; that the 
 divinity of our Lord, and even his pre-existence ; 
 that sin, and redemption through the merits of 
 Christ ; and grace ; and the especial aids of the 
 Spirit*; and the efficacy of prayer; and the sub- 
 sistency of the Holy Ghost; may all be extruded 
 without breach or rent in the essentials of Christian 
 Faith ; — that a man may deny and renounce them 
 all, and remain a fundamental Christian, notwith- 
 standing ! But there are many who cannot keep up 
 with Latitudinarians of such a stride ; and I trust 
 that the majority of serious believers are in this 
 predicament. Now for all these it would seem more 
 in character to be of Bishop Taylor's opinion, that 
 the belief in question is presupposed in a convert to 
 the truth in Christ — but at all events not to circulate 
 in the great whispering gallery of the religious Public 
 
 * Conclusion, Part III. c. 8. — Ed. 
 
286 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 suspicions and hard thoughts of those who, like 
 myself, are of this opinion ; who do not dare decry 
 the religious instincts of humanity as a baseless 
 dream ; who hold, that to excavate the ground under 
 the faith of all mankind, is a very questionable 
 method of building up our faith as Christians ; who 
 fear, that instead of adding to, they should detract 
 from, the honour of the Incarnate Word by dispa- 
 raging the light of the Word, that was in the begin- 
 ning, and which lighteth every man ; and who, under 
 these convictions, can tranquilly leave it to be dis- 
 puted, in some new Dialogues in the shades, between 
 the fathers of the Unitarian Church on the one 
 side, and Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, and 
 Lessing on the other, whether the famous passage 
 in Paley does or does not contain the three dia- 
 lectic flaws, petitio principii, argumentum in circulo, 
 and argumentum contra rem a prem.isso rem ipsam 
 includente. 
 
 Yes ! fervently do I contend, that to satisfy the 
 understanding that there is a future state, was not 
 the specific object of the Christian Dispensation ; and 
 that neither the belief of a future state, nor the 
 rationality of this belief, is the exclusive attribute of 
 the Christian religion. An essential, a fundamental, 
 article of all religion it is, and therefore of the 
 Christian; but otherwise than as in connexion with 
 the salvation of mankind from the terrors of that 
 state, among the essential articles peculiar to the 
 Gospel Creed (those, for instance, by which it is 
 contra-distinguished from the creed of a religious 
 Jew) I do not place it. And before sentence is 
 passed against me, as heterodox, on this ground, let 
 not my judges forget who it was that assured us, that 
 if a man did not believe in a state of retribution 
 after death, previously and on other grounds, neither 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 287 
 
 would he believe, though a man should be raised from 
 the dead. 
 
 Again, I am questioned as to my proofs of a future 
 state by men who are so far, and only so far, professed 
 believers, that they admit a God and the existence of 
 a law from God. I give them: and the questioners 
 turn from me with a scoff or incredulous smile. Now 
 should others of a less scanty creed infer the weak- 
 ness of the reasons assigned, by me from their failure 
 in convincing these men; may I not remind them, 
 who it was, to whom a similar question was proposed 
 by men of the same class ? But at all events it will 
 be enough for my own support to remember it ; and 
 to know that He held such questioners, who could 
 not find a sufficing proof of this great all-concerning 
 verity in the words, The God of Abraham, the God 
 of Isaac, and the God of Jacob unworthy of any 
 other answer — men not to be satisfied by any proof 
 — by any such proofs, at least, as are compatible 
 with the ends and purposes of all religious convic- 
 tion ; — by any proofs that would not destroy the faith 
 they were intended to confirm, and reverse the whole 
 character and quality of its effects and influences. 
 But if, notwithstanding all here offered in defence of 
 my opinion, I must still be adjudged heterodox and 
 in error, — what can I say but that malo cum Platone 
 errare, and take refuge behind the ample shield of 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor ? 
 
 APHORISM XXIII. 
 
 TAYLOR. 
 
 In order to his own glory, and for the manifesta- 
 tion, of his goodness, and that the accidents of this 
 world might not overmuch trouble those good men 
 who suffered evil things, God was pleased to do two 
 
288 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 great things. The one was : that he sent his Son 
 into the world to take upon him our nature, that 
 every man might submit to a necessity, from which 
 God's own Son was not exempt, when it behoved even 
 Christ to suffer, and so to enter into glory. The 
 other great thing was : that God did not only by 
 revelation and the sermons of the Prophets to his 
 Church, but even to all mankind competently teach, 
 and effectively persuade, that the soul of man does 
 not die ; that though things were ill here, yet to the 
 good who usually feel most of the evils of this life, 
 they should end in honour and advantages. And 
 therefore Cicero had reason on his side to conclude, 
 that there is a time and place after this life, wherein 
 the wicked shall be punished, and the virtuous 
 rewarded ; when he considered that Orpheus and 
 Socrates, and many others, just men and benefactors 
 of mankind, were either slain or oppressed to death 
 by evil men. And all these received not the promise. 
 But when virtue made men poor, and free speaking 
 of brave truths made the wise to lose their liberty : 
 when an excellent life hastened an opprobrious death, 
 and the obeying reason and our conscience lost us 
 our lives, or at least all the means and conditions of 
 enjoying them : it was but time to look about for 
 another state of things where justice should rule, 
 and virtue find her own portion. And therefore 
 men cast out every line, and turned every stone, 
 and tried every argument : and sometimes proved it 
 well, and when they did not, yet they believed 
 strongly ; and they were sure of the thing, when they 
 were not sure of the argument.* 
 
 * Sermon at the Funeral of Sir George Dalston. — Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 989 
 
 A fact may be truly stated, and yet the cause or 
 reason assigned for it mistaken, or inadequate, or 
 pars pro toto, — one only or few of many that might 
 or should have been adduced. The preceding 
 Aphorism is an instance in point. The phenomenon 
 here brought forward by the Bishop, as the ground 
 and occasion of men's belief of a future state — 
 namely, the frequent, not to say ordinary, dispropor- 
 tion between moral worth and worldly prosperity, 
 must, indeed, at all times and in all countries of the 
 civilised world have led the observant and reflecting 
 few, the men of meditative habits and strong feelings 
 of natural equity, to a nicer consideration of the 
 current belief, whether instinctive or traditional. By 
 forcing the soul in upon herself, this enigma of Saint 
 and Sage from Job, David and Solomon, to Claudian 
 and Boetius, — this perplexing disparity of success 
 and desert, — has, I doubt not, with such men been the 
 occasion of a steadier and more distinct consciousness 
 of a something in man different in kind, and which 
 not merely distinguishes but contra-distinguishes him 
 from brute animals — at the same time that it has 
 brought into closer view an enigma of yet harder 
 solution — the fact, I mean, of a contradiction in the 
 human being, of which no traces are observable else- 
 where in animated or inanimate nature : a struggle 
 of jarring impulses ; a mysterious diversity between 
 the injunctions of the mind and the elections of 
 the will ; and (last not least) the utter incom- 
 mensurateness and the unsatisfying qualities of the 
 things around us, that, yet are the only objects which 
 our senses discover, or our appetites require us to 
 pursue : — hence for the finer and more contemplative 
 
 u 
 
290 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 spirits the ever-strengthening suspicion, that the two 
 phenomena must in some way or other stand in close 
 connection with each other, and that the riddle of for- 
 tune and circumstance is but a form or effluence of 
 the riddle of man : and hence again, the persuasion, 
 that the solution of both problems is to be sought for 
 — hence the presentiment, that this solution will be 
 found — in the contra-distinctive constituent of hu- 
 manity, in the something of human nature which is 
 exclusively human : — and — as' the objects discover- 
 able by the senses, as all the bodies and substances 
 that we can touch, measure, and weigh, are either 
 mere totals, the unity of which results from the parts, 
 and is of course only apparent ; or substances, the 
 unity of action of which is owing to the nature or 
 arrangement of the partible bodies which they actuate 
 or set in motion, (steam for instance, in a steam- 
 engine); — as on the one hand the conditions and 
 known or conceivable properties of all the objects 
 which perish and utterly cease to be, together with 
 all the properties which we ourselves have in com- 
 mon with these perishable things, differ in kind from 
 the acts and properties peculiar to our humanity, so 
 that the former cannot even be conceived, cannot 
 without a contradiction in terms be predicated, of the 
 proper and immediate subject of the latter — (for who 
 would not smile at an ounce of truth, or a square foot 
 of honour?) — and as, on the other hand, whatever 
 things in visible nature have the character of perma- 
 nence, and endure amid continual flux unchanged 
 like a rainbow in a fast-flying shower, (for example, 
 beauty, order, harmony, finality, law,) are all akin to 
 the peculia of humanity, are all congenera of mind 
 and will, without which indeed they would not only 
 exist in vain, as pictures for moles, but actually not 
 exist at all ; — hence, finally, the conclusion that the 
 
ON SPIKITUAL RELIGION. 291 
 
 soul of man, as the subject of mind and will must 
 likewise possess a principle of permanence, and be 
 destined to endure. And were these grounds lighter 
 than they are, yet as a small weight will make a scale 
 descend, where there is nothing in the opposite scale, 
 or painted weights, which have only an illusive relief 
 or prominence ; so in the scale of immortality slight 
 reasons are in effect weighty, and sufficient to deter- 
 mine the judgment, there being no counter- weight, 
 no reasons against them, and no facts in proof of the 
 contrary, that would not prove equally well the cessa- 
 tion of the eye on the removal or diffraction of 
 the eye-glass, and the dissolution or incapacity of the 
 musician on the fracture of his instrument or its 
 strings. 
 
 But though T agree with Taylor so far, as not to 
 doubt that the misallotment of worldly goods and for- 
 tunes was one principal occasion, exciting well-dis- 
 posed and spiritually-awakened natures by reflections 
 and reasonings, such as I have here supposed, to 
 mature the presentiment of immortality into full con- 
 sciousness, into a principle of action and a well-spring 
 of strength and consolation; I cannot concede to this 
 circumstance any thing like the importance and extent 
 of efficacy which he in this passage attributes to it. 
 I am persuaded, that as the belief of all mankind, of 
 all * tribes, and nations, and languages, in all ages, 
 
 * I say all; for the accounts of one or two travelling 
 French philosophers, professed atheists and partisans of infi- 
 delity, respecting one or two African hordes, Caffres, and 
 poor outlawed Boschmen, hunted out of their humanity, 
 ought not to be regarded as exceptions. And as to Hearne's 
 assertion respecting the non-existence and rejection of the 
 belief among the Copper-Indians, it is not only hazarded on 
 very weak and insufficient grounds, but he himself, in another 
 part of his work, unconsciously supplies data, from whence 
 
 u 2 
 
292 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 and in all states of social union, it must be referred 
 to far deeper grounds, common to man as man ; and 
 that its fibres are to be traced to the tap-root of hu- 
 manity. I have long entertained, and do not hesitate 
 to avow, the conviction that the argument from- uni- 
 versality of belief urged by Barrow and others in 
 proof of the first article of the Creed, is neither in 
 point of fact — for two very different objects may be 
 intended, and two or more diverse and even contra- 
 dictory conceptions may be expressed, by the same 
 name — nor in legitimacy of conclusion as strong and 
 unexceptionable, as the argument from the same 
 ground for the continuance of our personal being after 
 death. The bull-calf butts with smooth and unarmed 
 brow. Throughout animated nature, of each cha- 
 racteristic organ and faculty there exists a pre- 
 assurance, an instinctive and practical anticipation ; 
 and no pre-assurance common to a whole species does 
 in any instance prove delusive.* All other prophecies 
 of nature have their exact fulfilment — in every other 
 ingrafted word of promise, Nature is found true to 
 her word ; and is it in her noblest creature, that she 
 tells her first lie ? — (The Header will, of course, 
 
 the contrary may safely be concluded. Hearne, perhaps, 
 put down his friend Motannabbi's Fort-philosophy for the 
 opinion of his tribe ; and from his high appreciation of the 
 moral character of this murderous gymnosophist, it might, I 
 fear, be inferred, that Hearne himself was not the very 
 person one would, of all others, have chosen for the purpose 
 of instituting the inquiry. 
 
 * See Baron Field's Letters from New South Wales. The 
 poor natives, the lowest in the scale of humanity, evince no 
 symptom of any religion, or the belief of any superior power 
 as the maker of the world ; but yet have no doubt that the 
 spirits of their ancestors survive in the forni of porpoises, 
 and mindful of their descendants, with imperishable affec- 
 tion, drive the whales ashore for them to featt on. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 293 
 
 understand, that I am here speaking in the assumed 
 character of a mere naturalist, to whom no light of 
 revelation had been vouchsafed ; one, who — 
 
 with, gentle heart 
 
 Had worshipp'd Nature in the hill and valley, 
 Not knowing what he loved, but loved it all.) 
 
 Whether, however, the introductory part of the 
 Bishop's argument is to be received with more or less 
 qualification, the fact itself, as stated in the conclud- 
 ing sentence of the Aphorism, remains unaffected, and 
 is beyond exception true. 
 
 If other argument and yet higher authority were 
 required, I might refer to St. Paul's Epistle to the 
 Komans, and to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which 
 whether written by Paul, or, as Luther conjectured, 
 by Apollos, is out of all doubt the work of an Apos- 
 tolic man filled with the Holy Spirit, and composed 
 while the Temple and the glories of the Temple wor- 
 ship were yet in existence. Several of the Jewish 
 and still Judaisiug converts had begun to vacillate in 
 their faith, and to stumble at the stumbling-stone of 
 the contrast between the pomp and splendour of the 
 old Law, and the simplicity and humility of the 
 Christian Church. To break this sensual charm, to 
 unfascinate these bedazzled brethren, the writer to 
 the Hebrews institutes a comparison between the two 
 religions, and demonstrates the superior spiritual 
 grandeur, the greater intrinsic worth and dignity of 
 the religion of Christ. On the other hand, at Rome 
 where the Jews formed a numerous, powerful, and 
 privileged class (many of them, too, by their proselyt- 
 ing zeal and frequent disputations with the priests 
 and philosophers trained and exercised polemics), the 
 recently- founded Christian Church was, it appears, in 
 greater danger from the reasonings of the Jewish 
 
294 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 doctors and even of its own Judaising members, res- 
 pecting the use of the new revelation. Thus the 
 object of the Epistle to the Hebrews was to prove the 
 superiority of the Christian religion ; the object of 
 the Epistle to the Eomans to prove its necessity. 
 Now there was one argument extremely well cal- 
 culated to stagger a faith newly transplanted and still 
 loose at its roots, and which if allowed, seemed to 
 preclude the possibility of the Christian religion, as 
 an especial and immediate revelation from God — on 
 the high grounds, at least, on which the Apostle of 
 the Gentiles placed it, and with the exclusive rights 
 and superseding character, which he claimed for it. 
 "You admit" (said they) "the divine origin and 
 authority of the Law given to Moses, proclaimed 
 with thunders and lightnings and the voice of the 
 Most High heard by all the people from Mount Sinai, 
 and introduced, enforced, and perpetuated by a series 
 of the most stupendous miracles. Our religion, then, 
 was given by God ; and can God give a perishable 
 imperfect religion ? If not perishable, how can it 
 have a successor? If perfect, how can it need to be 
 superseded ? The entire argument is indeed com- 
 prised in the latter attribute of our law. We kuow, 
 from an authority which you yourselves acknowledge 
 for divine, that our religion is perfect. He is the rock, 
 and his work is perfect. (Deut. xxxii. 4.) If then 
 the religion revealed by God himself to our forefathers 
 is perfect, what need have we of another ? " — This 
 objection, both from its importance and from its ex- 
 treme plausibility, for the persons at least to whom it 
 was addressed, required an answer in both Epistles. 
 And accordingly the answer is included in the one 
 (that to the Hebrews) and it is the especial purpose 
 and main subject of the other. And how does the 
 Apostle answer it? Suppose — and the case is not 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 295 
 
 impossible * — a man of sense, who had studied the 
 evidences of Priestley and Paley with Warburton's 
 Divine Legation, but who should be a perfect stranger 
 to the writings of St. Paul, and that I put this ques- 
 tion to him : — " What do you think, will St. Paul's 
 answer be?" "Nothing," he would reply, "can be 
 more obvious. It is in vain, the Apostle will urge, 
 that you bring your notions of probability and infe- 
 rences from the arbitrary interpretation of a word in 
 an absolute rather than a relative sense, to invali- 
 date a known fact. It is a fact, that your religion is 
 (in your sense of the word) not perfect : for it is de- 
 ficient in one of the two essential constituents of all 
 true religion, the belief of a future state on solid and 
 sufficient grounds. Had the doctrine indeed been 
 revealed, the stupendous mu*acles, which you most 
 truly affirm to have accompanied and attested the 
 first promulgation of your religion, would have 
 supplied the requisite proof, But the doctrine was not 
 
 * The case here supposed actually occurred in my own 
 experience in the person of a Spanish refugee, of English 
 parents, but from his tenth year resident in Spain, and bred 
 in a family of wealthy, but ignorant and bigoted, Roman 
 Catholics. In mature manhood he returned to England, 
 disgusted with the conduct of the priests and monks, which 
 had indeed for some years produced on his mind its so 
 common effect among the better-informed natives of the 
 South of Europe — a tendency to Deism. The results, how- 
 ever, of the infidel system in France, with his opportunities 
 of observing the effects of irreligion on the French officers in 
 Spain, on the one hand ; and the undeniable moral and 
 intellectual superiority of Protestant Britain on the other, 
 had not been lost on him ; and here he began to think for 
 himself and resolved to study the subject. He had gone 
 through Bishop Warburton's Divine Legation, and Paley's 
 Evidences ; but had never read the Gospels consecutively, 
 and the Epistles not at all. 
 
296 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 revealed ; and your belief of a future state rests on 
 no solid grounds. You believe it as far as you believe 
 it, and as many of you as profess this belief, without 
 revelation, and without the only proper and sufficient 
 evidence of its truth. Your religion, therefore, though 
 of divine origin, is (if taken in disjunction from the 
 new revelation, which I am commissioned to proclaim) 
 but a religio dimidiata ; and the main purpose, the 
 proper character, and the paramount object of Christ's 
 mission and miracles, is to supply the missing half 
 by a clear discovery of a future state ; and (since ' he 
 alone discovers who proves') by proving the truth of 
 the doctrine now for the first time declared with the 
 requisite authority, by the requisite, appropriate, and 
 alone satisfactory evidences." 
 
 But is this the Apostle's answer to the Jewish op- 
 pugners, and the Judaising false brethren, of the 
 Church of Christ ? It is not the answer, it does not 
 resemble the answer, returned by the Apostle. It is 
 neither parallel nor corradial with the line of argu- 
 ment in either of the two Epistles, or with any one 
 line ; but it is a chord that traverses them all, and 
 only touches where it cuts across. In the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, the directly contrary position is re- 
 peatedly asserted : and in the Epistle to the Romans, 
 it is every where supposed. The death to which the 
 Law sentenced all sinners (and which even the Gen- 
 tiles without the revealed law had announced to them 
 by their consciences, the judgment of God having been 
 made knoivn even to them) must be the same death, 
 from which they were saved by the faith of the Son 
 of God ; or the Apostle's reasoning would be sense- 
 less, his antithesis a mere 'equivoque, a play on a word, 
 quod idem sonat, aliud vult. Christ redeemed mankind 
 from the curse of the law ; and we all know that it was 
 not from temporal death, or the penalties and afflic- 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION, 297 
 
 tions of the present life, that believers have been 
 redeemed. The Law of which the inspired sage of 
 Tarsus is speaking, from which no man can plead 
 excuse ; the Law, miraculously delivered in thunders 
 from Mount Sinai, which was inscribed on tables of 
 stone for the Jews, and written in the hearts of all 
 men (Rom. xi. 15), the law holy and spiritual! What 
 was the great point, of which this law, in its own 
 name offered no solution : the mystery, which it left 
 behind the veil, or in the cloudy tabernacle of types 
 and figurative sacrifices ? Whether there was a judg- 
 ment to come, and souls to suffer the dread sentence? 
 Or was it not far rather — what are the means 
 of escape ; where may grace be found and redemp- 
 tion ? St. Paul . says, the latter. The law brings 
 condemnation : but the conscience-sentenced trans- 
 gressor's question, " What shall I do to be saved ? 
 Who will intercede for me ?" it dismisses as beyond 
 its jurisdiction and takes no cognisance thereof, save 
 in prophetic murmurs or mute out-shadowings of 
 mystic ordinances and sacrificial types. Not therefore, 
 that there is a life to come, and a future state ; but 
 what each individual soul may hope for itself therein; 
 and on what grounds : and that this state has been 
 rendered an object of aspiration and fervent desire, 
 and a source of thanksgiving and exceeding great 
 joy ; and by whom, and through whom, and for whom, 
 and by what means, and under what conditions — 
 these are the peculiar and distinguishing fundamen- 
 tals of the Christian faith. These are the revealed 
 lights and obtained privileges of the Christian Dis- 
 pensation. Not alone the knowledge of the boon, 
 but the precious inestimable boon itself, is the grace 
 and truth that came by Jesus Christ. I believe Moses, 
 I believe Paul ; but I believe in Christ. 
 
298 AIDS TO EEFLECTTOX. 
 
 APHORISM XXIV. 
 
 ON BAPTISM. ' 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching. 
 — It will suffice for our present purpose, if by these* 
 words we direct the attention to the origin, or at 
 least first Scriptural record, of Baptism, and to the 
 combinement of preaching therewith ; their aspect 
 each to the other, and their concurrence to one 
 excellent end ; the word unfolding the sacrament, 
 and the sacrament sealing the word ; the word, as a 
 light, informing and clearing the sense of the seal ; 
 and this again as a seal, confirming and ratifying the 
 truth of the word ; as you see some significant seals, 
 or engraven signets, have a word about them express- 
 ing their sense. 
 
 But truly the word is a light, and the sacraments 
 have in them of the same light illuminating them. 
 This sacrament of Baptism, the ancients do particu- 
 larly express by light. Yet are they both nothing 
 but darkness to us, till the same light shine in our 
 hearts ; for till then we are nothing but darkness 
 ourselves ; and therefore the most luminous things 
 are so to us. Noonday is as midnight to a blind 
 man. x\nd we see these ordinances, the word and 
 
 * By certain Biblical philologists of the Teutonic school 
 (men distinguished by learning, but still more charac- 
 teristically by hardihood in conjecture, and who suppose the 
 Gospels to have undergone several successive revisions and 
 enlargements by, or under the authority of, the sacred 
 historians) these words are contended to have been, in the 
 first delivery, the common commencement of all the Gospels 
 Kara ffdpKa (that is, according to the flesh), in distinction from 
 St. John's, or the Gospel Kara irvev/u.a (that is, according to 
 the Spirit). 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 299 
 
 the sacrament, without profit or comfort for the most 
 part, because we have not that divine light within us. 
 And we have it not, because we ask it not. 
 
 COMMENT, 
 
 Or an aid to reflection in the forming of a sound 
 judgment respecting the purport and purpose of the 
 Baptismal rite, and a just appreciation of its value 
 and importance. 
 
 A born and bred Baptist, and paternally descended 
 from the old orthodox Non-conformists, and both in 
 his own and in his fatber's right a very dear friend of 
 mine, had married a member of the National Church. 
 In consequence of an anxious wish expressed by his 
 lady for the Baptism of their first child, he solicited 
 me to put him in possession of my views respecting 
 tbis controversy ; though principally as to the degree 
 of importance which I attached to it. For as to 
 the point itself, his natural prepossession in favour 
 of the persuasion in which he was born had been 
 confirmed by a conscientious examination of the ar- 
 guments on both sides. As the comment on the 
 preceding Aphorism, or rather as an expansion of its 
 subject-matter, I will give the substance of the con- 
 versation : and amply shall I have been remunerated, 
 should it be read with the interest and satisfaction 
 with which it was heard. More particularly, should 
 any of my Readers find themselves under the same 
 or similar circumstances. 
 
 Our discussion is rendered shorter and more easy 
 by our perfect agreement in certain preliminary points. 
 We both disclaim alike every attempt to explain any 
 thing into Scripture, and every attempt to explain 
 any thing out of Scripture. Or if we regard either 
 
300 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 with a livelier aversion it is the latter, as being the 
 more fashionable and prevalent. I mean the practice 
 of both high and low Grotian divines to explain away 
 positive assertions of Scripture on the pretext, that 
 the literal sense is not agreeable to reason, that is, 
 their particular reason. And inasmuch as (in the 
 only right sense of the word) there is no such thing 
 as a particular reason, they must, and in fact they do, 
 mean that the literal sense is not accordant to their 
 understanding, that is, to the notions which their 
 understandings have been taught and accustomed to 
 form in their school of philosophy. Thus a Platonist 
 who should become a Christian would at once, even 
 in texts susceptible of a different interpretation, re- 
 cognise, because he would expect to find, several 
 doctrines which the disciple of the Epicurean or me- 
 chanic school will not receive on the most positive 
 declarations of the divine word. And as we agree 
 in the opinion that the Minimi-fidian party err 
 grievously in the latter point, so I must concede to 
 you, that too many Psedo-baptists (assertors of Infant 
 Baptism] have erred, though less grossly, in the 
 former. I have, I confess, no eye for these smoke- 
 like wreaths of inference, this ever-widening spiral 
 ergo from the narrow aperture of perhaps a single 
 text ; or rather an interpretation forced into it by 
 construing an idiomatic phrase in an artless narrative 
 with the same absoluteness, as if it had formed part 
 of a mathematical problem. I start back from these 
 inverted pyramids, where the apex is the base. If I 
 should inform any one that I had called at a friend's 
 house, but had found nobody at home, the family 
 having all gone to the play ; and if he on the strength 
 of this information should take occasion to asperse 
 my friend's wife for unmotherly conduct in taking an 
 infant six months old to a crowded theatre ; would 
 
OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 301 
 
 you allow him to press on the words "nobody" and 
 "all the family," in justification of the slander? 
 Would you not tell him, that the words were to be 
 interpreted by the nature of the subject, the purpose 
 of the speaker, and their ordinary acceptation ; and 
 that he must or might have known, that infants of 
 that age would not be admitted into the theatre? 
 Exactly so, with regard to the words, he and all his 
 household. Had Baptism of infants at that early 
 period of the Gospel been a known practice, or had 
 this been previously demonstrated, then indeed the 
 argument, that in all probability there were infants 
 or young children in so large a family, would be no 
 otherwise objectionable than as being superfluous, and 
 a sort of anticlimax in logic. But if the words are 
 cited as the proof, it would be a clear petitio principii, 
 though there had been nothing else against it. But 
 when we turn back to the Scriptures preceding the 
 narrative, and find repentance and belief demanded 
 as the terms and indispensable conditions of Baptism 
 — then the case above imagined applies in its full 
 force. Equally vain is the pretended analogy from 
 Circumcision, which was no Sacrament at all; but 
 the means and mark of national distinction. In the 
 first instance it was, doubtless, a privilege or mark 
 of superior rank conferred on the descendants of 
 Abraham. In the Patriarchal times this rite was 
 confined (the first governments being theocracies) to 
 the priesthood, who were set apart to that office from 
 their birth. At a later period this token of the 
 premier class was extended to kings. And thus, 
 when it was re-ordained by Moses for the whole 
 Jewish nation, it was at the time said — Ye are all 
 priests and kings ; ye are a consecrated people. In 
 addition to this, or rather in aid of this, Circumcisiou 
 was intended to distinguish the Jews by some 
 
302 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 indelible sign : and it was no less necessary that Jewish 
 children should be recognisable as Jews than Jewish 
 adults — not to mention the greater safety of the rite 
 in infancy. Nor was it ever pretended that any 
 grace was conferred with it, or that the rite was sig- 
 nificant of any inward or spiritual operation. In 
 short, an unprejudiced and competent reader need 
 only peruse the first thirty-three paragraphs of the 
 eighteenth section of Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying ; 
 and then compare with these the remainder of the 
 section added by him after the Restoration : those, 
 namely, in which he attempts to overthrow his own 
 arguments. I had almost said, affects : for such is 
 the feebleness, and so palpable the sophistry, of his 
 answers, that I find it difficult to imagine that Taylor 
 himself could have been satisfied with them. » The 
 only plausible arguments apply with equal force to 
 Baptist and Psedo-baptist ; and would prove, if they 
 proved any thing, that both were wrong, and the 
 Quakers only in the right. 
 
 Now, in the first place, it is obvious, that nothing 
 conclusive can be drawn from the silence of the New 
 Testament respecting a practice, which, if we suppose 
 it already in use, must yet, from the character of the 
 first converts, have been of comparatively rare oc- 
 currence ; and which, from the predominant and more 
 concerning objects and functions of the Apostolic 
 writers (1 Cor. i. 17.) was not likely to have been 
 mentioned otherwise than incidentally, and very pro- 
 bably therefore might not have occurred to them to 
 mention at all. But, secondly, admitting that the 
 practice was introduced at a later period than that in 
 which the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles 
 were composed : I should yet be fully satisfied, that 
 the Church exercised herein a sound * discretion. 
 
 * That every the least permissible form and ordinance, 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 
 
 303 
 
 On either supposition, therefore, it is never without 
 regret that I see a divine of our Church attempting 
 to erect forts on a position so evidently commanded 
 hy the stronghold of his antagonists. I dread the 
 use which the Socinians may make of their example, 
 and the Papists of their failure. Let me not, how- 
 ever, deceive you. (The Reader understands, that I 
 suppose myself conyersing with a Baptist.) I am 
 of opinion, that the divines on your side are charge- 
 able with a far more grievous mistake, that of 
 giving a carnal and Judaising interpretation to the 
 various Gospel texts in which the terms, baptism and 
 baptise, occur, contrary to the express and earnest 
 admonitions of the Apostle Paul. And this I say 
 without in the least retracting my former concession, 
 that, the texts appealed to, as commanding or 
 authorising Infant Baptism, are all without exception 
 made to hear a sense neither contained nor deducible : 
 and likewise that (historically considered) there exists 
 
 which at different times it might be expedient for the 
 Church to enact, are pre-enacted in the New Testament; 
 and that whatever is not to be found there, ought to be 
 allowed nowhere — this has been asserted. But that it has 
 been proved, or even rendered plausible ; or that the tenet 
 is not to be placed among the revulsionary results of the 
 Scripture-slighting will-worship of the Komish Church ; it 
 will be more sincere to say I disbelieve, than that I doubt. 
 It was chiefly, if not exclusively, in reference to the extra- 
 vagances built on this tenet, that the great Selden ventured 
 to declare, that the words, Scrutamini Scripturas, had set the 
 world in an uproar. 
 
 Extremes appear to generate each other ; but if we look 
 steadily, there will most often be found some common error, 
 that produces both as its positive and negative poles. Thus 
 superstitions go by pairs, like the two Hungarian sisters, 
 always quarrelling and inveterately averse, but yet joined 
 at the trunk. 
 
304 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 no sufficient positive evidence that the Baptism of 
 infants was instituted by the Apostles in the practice 
 of the Apostolic age.* 
 
 Lastly, we both coincide in the full conviction, that 
 it is neither the outward ceremony of Baptism, under 
 any form or circumstances, nor any other ceremony, 
 but such a faith in Christ as tends to produce a con- 
 formity to his holy doctrines and example in heart 
 and life, and which faith is itself a declared mean 
 and condition of our partaking of his spiritual body, 
 and of being clothed upon with his righteousness, — 
 that properly makes us Christians, and can alone be 
 enjoined as an article of faith necessary to salvation, 
 so that the denial thereof may be denounced as a 
 damnable heresy. In the strictest sense of essential, 
 this alone is the essential in Christianity, that the 
 same spirit should be growing in us which was in the 
 fulness of all perfection in Christ Jesus. Whatever 
 else is named essential, is such because, and only as 
 far as, it is instrumental to this, or evidently implied 
 
 * More than this I do not consider as necessary for the 
 argument. And as to Robinson's assertions in his History of 
 Baptism, that Infant Baptism did not commence till the 
 time of Cyprian, who, condemning it as a general practice, 
 allowed it in particular cases by a dispensation of charity : 
 and that it did not actually become the ordinary rule of the 
 Church, till Augustine, in the fever of his Anti-Pelagian 
 dispute, had introduced the Calvinistic interpretation of 
 Original Sin, and the dire state of infants dying uubaptised — 
 I am so far from acceding to them, that I reject the whole 
 statement as rash, and not only unwarranted by the autho- 
 rities he cites, but unanswerably confuted by Baxter, Wall, 
 and many other learned Psedo-baptists before and since the 
 publication of his work. I confine myself to the assertion — 
 not that Infant Baptism was not — but that there exist no suf- 
 ficient proofs that it was — the practice of the Apostolic age. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 305 
 
 herein. If the Baptists hold the visible rite to be 
 indispensable to salvation, with what terror must they 
 not regard every disease tbat befalls their children 
 between youth and infancy ! But if they are saved 
 by the faith of the parent, then tbe outward rite is 
 not essential to salvation, otherwise tban as the omis- 
 sion should arise from a spirit of disobedience : and 
 in this case it is the cause not the effect, the wilful 
 and unbaptised heart, not the unbaptising band, that 
 perils it. And surely it looks very like an inconsis- 
 tency to admit the vicarious faith of the parents, and 
 the therein implied promise, that the child shall be 
 Christianly bred up, and as much as in them lies 
 prepared for tbe communion of saints — to admit this, 
 as safe and sufficient in their own instance, and yet 
 to denounce the same belief and practice as hazardous 
 and unavailing in the Church — the same, I say, 
 essentially, and only differing from their own by 
 the presence of two or three Christian friends as 
 additional securities, and by the promise being 
 expressed ! 
 
 But you, my filial friend ! have studied Christ 
 under a better teacher — the spirit of adoption, even 
 the spirit that was in Paul, and which still speaks to 
 us out of his writings. You remember and admire 
 the saying of an old divine, that a ceremony duly 
 instituted is a chain of gold around the neck of faith ; 
 but if in the wish to make it co-essential and consub- 
 stantial, you draw it closer and closer, it may strangle 
 the faith it was meant to deck and designate. You 
 are not so unretentive a scholar as to have forgotten 
 the pateris et auro of your Virgil : or if you were, 
 you are not so inconsistent a reasoner as to translate 
 the Hebraism, spirit and fire in one place by spiritual 
 fire, and yet refuse to translate water and spirit by 
 spiritual water in another place ; or if, as I myself 
 
306 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 think, the different position marks a different sense, 
 yet that the former must be ejusdem generis with 
 the latter — the water of repentance, reformation 
 in conduct ; and the spirit that which purifies 
 the inmost principle of action, as fire purges the 
 metal substantially, and not cleansing the surface 
 only. 
 
 But in this instance, it will be said, the ceremony, 
 the outward and visible sign, is a Scripture ordinance. 
 I will not reply that the Romish priest says the same 
 of the anointing of the sick with oil and the imposi- 
 tion of hands. No, my answer is : that this is a very 
 sufficient reason for the continued observance of a 
 ceremonial rite so derived and sanctioned, even 
 though its own beauty, simplicity, and natural signi- 
 ficancy had pleaded less strongly in its behalf. But 
 it is no reason why the Church should forget that 
 the perpetuation of a thing does not alter the nature 
 of the thing, and that a ceremony to be perpetuated 
 is to be perpetuated as a ceremony. It is no reason 
 why, knowing and experiencing even in the majority 
 of her own members the proneness of the human 
 mind to * superstition, the Church might not right- 
 fully and piously adopt the measures best calculated 
 to check this tendency, and to correct the abuse to 
 which it had led in any particular rite. But of 
 superstitious notions respecting the Baptismal cere- 
 mony, and of abuse resulting, the instances were 
 flagrant and notorious. Such, for instance, was the 
 frequent deferring of the Baptismal rite to a late 
 period of life, and even to the deathbed, in the belief 
 
 * Let me be permitted to repeat and apply the note in a 
 former page. Superstition may be denned as superstantium 
 (cujusmodi sunt ceremonies et signa externa quae, nisi in signi- 
 ficando nihili sunt et pcene nihil) substantiatio. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 307 
 
 that the mystic water 'would cleanse the baptised 
 person from all sin, and (if he died immediately after 
 the performance of the ceremony,) send him pure and 
 spotless into the other world. 
 
 Nor is this all. The preventive remedy applied by 
 the Church is legitimated as well as additionally 
 recommended by the following consideration. Where 
 a ceremony answered and was intended to answer 
 several purposes, which purposes at its first institu- 
 tion were blended in respect of the time, but which 
 afterwards by change of circumstances (as when, for 
 instance, a large and ever-increasing proportion of 
 the members of the Church, or those who at least 
 bore the Christian name, were of Christian parents) 
 were necessarily dis-united — then either the Church 
 has no power or authority delegated to her (which is 
 shifting the ground of controversy), or she must be 
 authorised to choose and determine, to which of the 
 several purposes the ceremony should be attached. 
 Now one of the purposes of Baptism was — the 
 making it publicly manifest, first, what individuals 
 were to be regarded by the World (Phil. ii. 15.) as 
 belonging to the visible communion of Christians : 
 inasmuch as by their demeanour and apparent con- 
 dition, the general estimation of the city set on a hill 
 and not to be hid (Matth. v. 14.) could not but be 
 affected — the city that even in the midst of a crooked 
 and perverse nation was bound not only to give no 
 cause, but by all innocent means, to prevent every 
 occasion, of rebuke. Secondly, to mark out, for the 
 Church itself, those that were entitled to that espe- 
 cial dearness, that watchful and disciplinary love and 
 loving-kindness, which over and above the affections 
 and duties of philanthropy, and universal charity, 
 Christ himself had enjoined, and with an emphasis 
 and in a form significant of its great and especial 
 
 x 2 
 
308 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 importance, — A new commandment I give unto you, 
 that ye love one another. By a charity wide as sun- 
 shine, and comprehending the whole human race, 
 the body of Christians was to be placed in contrast 
 with the proverbial misanthropy and bigotry of the 
 Jewish Church and people : while yet they were to 
 be distinguished and known to all men, by the 
 peculiar love and affection displayed by them towards 
 the members of their own community ; thus exhibit- 
 ing the intensity of sectarian attachment, yet by the 
 no less notorious and exemplary practice of the duties 
 of universal benevolence, secured from the charge so 
 commonly brought against it, of being narrow and 
 exclusive. " How kind these Christians are to the 
 poor and afflicted, without distinction of religion or 
 country ; but how they love each other ! " 
 
 Now combine with this the consideration before 
 urged — the duty, I mean, and necessity of checking 
 the superstitious abuse of the Baptismal rite : and I 
 then ask, with confidence, in what way could the 
 Church have exercised a sound discretion more wisely, 
 piously, or effectively, than by fixing, from among the 
 several ends and purposes of Baptism, the outward 
 ceremony to the purposes here mentioned ? How 
 could the great body of Christians be more plainly 
 instructed as to the true nature of all outward ordi- 
 nances ? What can be conceived better calculated 
 to prevent the ceremony from being regarded as 
 other and more than a ceremony, if not the adminis- 
 tration of the same on an object (yea, a dear and 
 precious object) of spiritual duties, though the con- 
 scious subject of spiritual operations and graces only 
 by anticipation and in hope ; — a subject unconscious 
 as a flower of the dew falling on it, or the early rain, 
 and thus emblematic of the myriads who (as in our 
 Indian empire, and henceforward, I trust, in Africa) 
 
ON SPIRITUAL KELIGION. 309 
 
 are temporally and even morally benefited by the 
 outward existence of Christianity, though as yet 
 ignorant of its saving truth ? And yet, on the other 
 hand, what more reverential than the application of 
 this the common initiatory rite of the East sanc- 
 tioned and appropriated by Christ — its application, 
 I say, to the very subjects, whom he himself com- 
 manded to be brought to him — the children in arms, 
 respecting whom Jesus was much displeased with his 
 disciples, who had rebuked those that brought them ? 
 What more expressive of the true character of that 
 originant yet generic stain, from which the Son of 
 God, by his mysterious Incarnation and Agony and 
 Death and Resurrection, and by the Baptism of the 
 Spirit, came to cleanse the children of Adam, than 
 the exhibition of the outward element to infants, free 
 from and incapable of crime, in whom the evil prin- 
 ciple was present only as potential being, and whose 
 outward semblance represented the kingdom of 
 Heaven ? And can it — to a man, who would hold 
 himself deserving of anathema maranatha (1 Cor. 
 xvi. 22) if he did not love the Lord Jesus — can it be 
 nothing to such a man, that the introduction and 
 commendation of a new inmate, a new spiritual ward, 
 to the assembled brethren in Christ ( — and this, as 
 I have shown above, was one purpose of the Bap- 
 tismal ceremony — ) does in the Baptism of an infant 
 recall our Lord's own presentation in the Temple on 
 the eighth day after his birth ? Add to all these 
 considerations the known fact of the frequent exposure 
 and the general light regard of infants, at the time 
 when Infant Baptism is by the Baptists supposed to 
 have been first ruled by the Catholic Church, not 
 overlooking the humane and charitable motives, that 
 influenced Cyprian's decision in its favour. And then 
 make present to jour imagination, and meditatively 
 
310 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 contemplate the still continuing tendency, the pro- 
 fitable, the beautiful effects of this ordinance, now 
 and for so many centuries back, on the great mass of 
 the population throughout Christendom — the soften- 
 ing, elevating exercise of faith, and the conquest over 
 the senses, while in the form of a helpless crying 
 babe the presence, and the unutterable worth and 
 value, of an immortal being made capable of ever- 
 lasting bliss are solemnly proclaimed and carried 
 home to the mind and heart of the hearers and 
 beholders ! Nor will you forget the probable 
 influence on the future education of the child, the 
 opportunity of instructing and impressing the friends, 
 relatives, and parents in their best and most docile 
 mood. These are, indeed, the mollia tempora fandi. 
 It is true, that by an unforeseen accident, and 
 through the propensity of all zealots to caricature 
 partial truth into total falsehood — it is too true, that 
 a tree the very contrary in quality of that shown to 
 Moses (Exod. xv. 25.) was afterwards cast into the 
 sweet waters from this fountain, and made them like 
 the waters of Marah, too bitter to be drunk. I 
 allude to the Pelagian controversy, the perversion 
 of the article of Original Sin by Augustine, and the 
 frightful conclusions which this durus pater infantum 
 drew from the article thus perverted. It is not, how- 
 ever, to the predecessors of this African, whoever 
 they were that authorised Paedo-Baptism, and at 
 whatever period it first became general — it is not to 
 the Church at the time being, that these consequences 
 are justly imputable. She had done her best to pre- 
 clude every superstition, by allowing, in urgent 
 cases, any and every adult, man and woman, to ad- 
 minister the ceremonial part, the outward rite of 
 Baptism : but reserving to the highest functionary of 
 the Church (even to the exclusion of the co-presbyters) 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 311 
 
 the more proper and spiritual purpose, namely, the 
 declaration of repentance and belief, the free choice 
 of Christ as his Lord, and the open profession of the 
 Christian title by an individual in his own name and 
 by his own deliberate act. This office of religion, the 
 essentially moral and spiritual nature of which could 
 not be mistaken, this most solemn office the Bishop 
 alone was to perform. 
 
 Thus — as soon as the purposes of the ceremonial 
 rite were by change of circumstances divided, that is, 
 took place at different periods of the believer's life — 
 to the outward purposes, where the effect was to be 
 produced on the consciousness of others, the Church 
 continued to affix the outward rite ; while to the sub- 
 stantial and spiritual purpose, where the effect was to 
 be produced on the individual's own mind, she gave 
 it beseeming dignity by an ordinance not figurative, 
 but standing in the direct cause and relation of means 
 to the end. 
 
 In fine, there are two great purposes to be 
 answered, each having its own subordinate purposes 
 and desirable consequences. The Church answers 
 both, the Baptists one only. If, nevertheless, you 
 would still prefer the union of the Baptismal rite 
 with the Confirmation, and that the presentation of 
 infants to the assembled Church had formed a sepa- 
 rate institution, avowedly prospective — I answer, first, 
 that such for a long time and to a late period was 
 my own judgment. But even then it seemed to me 
 a point, as to which an indifference would be less in- 
 consistent in a lover of truth, than a zeal to separation 
 in a professed lover of peace. And secondly, I would 
 revert to the history of the Preformation, and the ca- 
 lamitous accident of the Peasants' War: when the 
 poor ignorant multitude, driven frantic by the into- 
 lerable oppressions of their feudal lords, rehearsed all 
 
312 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 the outrages that were acted in our own times by the 
 Parisian populace headed by Danton, Marat, and 
 Robespierre ; and on the same outrageous principles, 
 and in assertion of the same rights of brutes to the 
 subversion of all the duties of men. In our times, 
 most fortunately for the interest of religion and mo- 
 rality, or of their prudential substitutes at least, the 
 name of Jacobin was everywhere associated with that 
 of Atheist and Infidel. Or rather, Jacobinism and 
 Infidelity were the two heads of the revolutionary 
 Geryon — connatural misgrowths of the same monster- 
 trunk. In the German convulsion, on the contrary, 
 by a mere but most unfortunate accident, the same 
 code of Caliban jurisprudence, the same sensual and 
 murderous excesses, were connected with the name 
 of Anabaptist. The abolition of magistracy, commu- 
 nity of goods, the right of plunder, polygamy, and 
 whatever else was fanatical, were comprised in the 
 word Anabaptism. It is not to be imagined that the 
 Fathers of the Reformation could, without a miracu- 
 lous influence, have taken up the question of Infant 
 Baptism with the requisite calmness and freedom of 
 spirit. It is not to be wished that they should have 
 entered on the discussion. Nay, I will go farther. 
 Unless the abolition of Infant Baptism can be shown 
 to be involved in some fundamental article of faith, 
 unless the practice could be proved fatal or immi- 
 nently perilous to salvation, the Reformers would not 
 have been justified in exposing the yet tender and 
 struggling cause of Protestantism to such certain 
 and violent prejudices as this innovation would have 
 excited. Nothing less than the whole substance and 
 efficacy of the Gospel Faith was the prize, which they 
 had wrestled for and won ; but won from enemies 
 still in the field, and on the watch to retake, at all 
 costs, the sacred treasure, and consign it once again 
 
ON SPIRITUAL KELIGION. 313 
 
 to darkness and oblivion. If there be a time for all 
 things, this was not the time for an innovation that 
 would and must have been followed by the triumph 
 of the enemies of Scriptural Christianity, and the 
 alienation of the governments that had espoused and 
 protected it. 
 
 Remember I say this on the supposition of the 
 question's not being what you do not pretend it to 
 be, an essential of the Faith by which we are saved. 
 But should it likewise be conceded that it is a dis- 
 putable point — and that in point of fact it is and has 
 been disputed by divines whom no pious Cbristian of 
 any denomination will deny to have been faithful and 
 eminent servants of Christ ; should it, I say, be like- 
 wise conceded that the question of Infant Baptism is 
 a point, on which two Christians, who perhaps differ 
 on this point only, may differ without giving just 
 ground for impeaching the piety or competence of 
 either ; in this case I am obliged to infer that the 
 person who at any time can regard this difference as 
 singly warranting a separation from a religious com- 
 munity, must think of schism under another point of 
 view than that in which I have been taught to con- 
 template it by St. Paul in his Epistles to the Corin- 
 thians. 
 
 Let me add a few words on a diversity of doctrine 
 closely connected with this : — the opinions of Doctors 
 Mant and D'Oyly as opposed to those of the (so 
 called) Evangelical clergy. " The Church of Eng- 
 land (says Wall*) does not require assent and con- 
 
 * Conference between Two Men that had Doubts about 
 Infant Baptism. By W. Wall, Author of the History of 
 Infant Baptism, and Vicar of Shoreham, in Kent. A very 
 sensible little tract, and written in an excellent spirit ; but it 
 failed, I confess, in satisfying my mind as to the existence of 
 
314 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 sent" to either opinion " in order to lay communion." 
 But I will suppose the person a minister : but mi- 
 
 any decisive proofs or documents of Infant Baptism having 
 been an Apostolic usage, 'or specially intended in any part of 
 the New Testament ; though deducible generally from many 
 passages, and in perfect accordance with the spirit of the 
 whole. 
 
 A mighty wrestler in the cause of spiritual religion and 
 Gospel morality, in whom more than in any other contem- 
 porary I seem to see the spirit of Luther revived, expressed 
 to me his doubts whether we have a right to deny that an 
 infant is capable of a spiritual influence. To such a man I 
 could not feel justified in returning an answer ex tempore, or 
 without having first submitted my convictions to a fresh 
 revisal. I owe him, however, a deliberate answer ; and take 
 this opportunity of discharging the debt. 
 
 The objection supposes and assumes the very point which 
 is denied, or at least disputed — namely, that Infant Baptism 
 is specially enjoined in the Scriptures. If an express passage 
 to this purport had existed in the New Testament— the 
 other passages, which evidently imply a spiritual operation 
 under the condition of a preceding spiritual act on the part 
 of the person baptised, remaining as now — then indeed, as 
 the only way of removing the apparent contradiction, it 
 might be allowable to call on the Anti-psedobaptist to prove 
 the negative — namely, that an infant a week old is not a 
 subject capable or susceptible of spiritual agency. And, vice 
 versd, should it be made known to us, that infants are not 
 without reflection and self-consciousnes3 — then, doubtless, we 
 should be entitled to infer that they were capable of a 
 spiritual operation, and consequently of that which is signified 
 in the Baptismal rite administered to adults. But what does 
 this prove for those who not only cannot show, but who do 
 not themselves profess to believe, the self-consciousness of a 
 new-born babe, but who rest the defence of Infant Baptism on 
 the assertion, that God was pleased to affix the performance 
 of this rite to his offer of salvation, as the indispensable, 
 though arbitrary, condition of the infant's salvability 1 — As 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 315 
 
 nister of a Church which has expressly disclaimed 
 all pretence to infallibility; a Church which in the 
 construction of its Liturgy and Articles is known to 
 have worded certain passages for the purpose of ren- 
 dering them suhscribable by both A and Z — that is, 
 the opposite parties as to the points in controversy. 
 I suppose this person's convictions those of Z, and 
 that out of five passages there are three, the more 
 natural and obvious sense of which is in his favor ; 
 and two of which, though not absolutely precluding 
 a different sense, yet the more probable interpreta- 
 tion is in favor of A, that is, of those who do not 
 consider the Baptism of an infant as prospective, but 
 hold it to be an opits operans et in prcesenti. Then I 
 say, that if such a person regards these two sentences 
 or single passages as obliging or warranting him to 
 abandon the flock entrusted to his charge, and either 
 to join such as are the avowed enemies of the Church 
 on the double ground of its particular constitution 
 and of its being an establishment, or to set up a 
 separate church for himself — I cannot avoid the con- 
 clusion, that either his conscience is morbidly sensi- 
 tive in one speck to the exhaustion of the sensibility 
 
 kings, in former ages, when they conferred lands in per- 
 petuity, would sometimes, as the condition of the tenure, 
 exact from the beneficiary a hawk, or some trifling ceremony 
 as the putting on or off of their sandals, or whatever royal 
 caprice, or the whim of the moment, might suggest. But 
 you, honored Irving, are as little disposed as I am, to favor 
 euch doctrine ! 
 
 Friend pure of heart and fervent ! we have learnt 
 A different lore. We may not thus profane 
 The idea and name of Him whose absolute will 
 Is reason, truth supreme, essential order.* 
 
 [See Church and State, p. 152-4, note. 3d_edit.- Ed.] 
 
316 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 in a far larger portion : or that he must have dis- 
 covered some mode, beyond the reach of my con- 
 jectural powers, of interpreting the Scriptures enu- 
 merated in the following excerpt from the popular 
 Tract before cited, in which the writer expresses 
 an opinion to which I assent with my whole heart, 
 namely : 
 
 " That all Christians in the world that hold the 
 same fundamentals ought to make one Church, 
 though differing in lesser opinions : and that the sin, 
 the mischief, and danger to the souls of men, that 
 divide into those many sects and parties among us, 
 does (for the most of them) consist not so much in 
 the opinions themselves, as in their dividing and 
 separating for them. And in support of this tenet, 
 I will refer you to some plain places of Scripture, 
 which if you please now to peruse, I will be silent 
 the while. See what our Saviour himself says, 
 John x. 16. John xvi. 11. And what the primitive 
 Christians practised, Acts ii. 46, and iv. 32. And 
 what St. Paul says, 1 Cor. i. 10, 11, 12, and 2, 3, 4. 
 also the whole 12th chapter: Eph. ii. 17, &c. to the 
 end. Where the Jewish and Gentile Christians are 
 showed to be one body, one household, one temple 
 fithj framed together : and these were of different 
 opinions in several matters. Likewise chap. hi. 6. 
 iv. 1 — 13. Phil. ii. 1, 2. where he uses the most 
 solemn adjurations to this purpose. But I would 
 more especially recommend to you the reading of 
 Gal. v. 20, 21. Phil. hi. 15, 16, the 14th chapter 
 to the Romans, and part of the 15th, to verse 7, and 
 also Rom. xv. 17. 
 
 " Are not these passages plain, full, and earnest ? 
 Do you find any of the controverted points to be 
 determined by Scripture in words nigh so plain or 
 pathetic ? " 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 317 
 
 If I had addressed the ministers recently seceded, 
 I would have first proved from Scripture and reason 
 the justness of their doctrines concerning Baptism 
 and conversion. 2. I would have shown, that even 
 in respect of the Prayer-book and Homilies of the 
 Church of England, taken as a whole, their opponents 
 were comparatively as ill off as themselves, if not 
 worse. 3. That the few mistakes or inconvenient 
 phrases of the Baptismal Service did not impose on 
 the conscience the necessity of resigning the pastoral 
 office. 4. That even if they did, this would by no 
 means justify schism from lay-membership : or else 
 there could be no schism except from an immaculate 
 and infallible Church. Now, as our Articles have 
 declared that no Church is or ever was such, it would 
 follow that there is no such sin as that of schism, 
 that is, that St. Paul wrote falsely or idly. 5. That 
 the escape through the channel of dissent is from the 
 frying-pan to the fire — or, to use a less worn and 
 vulgar simile, the escape of a leech from a glass-jar 
 of water into the naked and open air. But never, 
 never, would I in one breath allow my Church to be 
 fallible, and in the next contend for her absolute 
 freedom from all error — never confine inspiration 
 and perfect truth to the Scriptures, and then scold 
 for the perfect truth of each and every word in the 
 Prayer-book. Enough for me, if in my heart of 
 hearts, free from all fear of man and all lust of pre- 
 ferment, I believe (as I do) the Church of England 
 to be the most Apostolic Church ; that its doctrines 
 and ceremonies contain nothing dangerous to righte- 
 ousness or salvation ; and that the imperfections in 
 its Liturgy are spots indeed, but spots on the sun, 
 which impede neither its light nor its heat, so as to 
 prevent the good seed from growing in a good soil, 
 and producing fruits of redemption. 
 
318 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 [* " 8 May, 1828. I see the necessity of greatly 
 expanding and clearing up the chapter on Baptism 
 in the Aids to Reflection, and of proving the sub- 
 stantial accordance of rny scheme with that of our 
 Church. 
 
 " I still say that an assertion of an act of the Spirit 
 in time — that at the moment of the uttering of the 
 words, I baptise thee in the name, &c, it may be 
 declared, ' Now the Spirit begins to act' — is false in 
 philosophy, and contrary to Scripture, and that our 
 Church Service needs no such hypothesis. Further, 
 I still say that the communication of the Spirit as of 
 a power in principle not yet possessed to an uncon- 
 scious agent by human ministry, is without precedent 
 or warrant in Scripture ; — that the nature of the Spirit 
 communicated by the Apostles by imposition of hands, 
 is a very difficult question ; and that the reasons for 
 supposing it to be certain miraculous gifts of the 
 Spirit, peculiar to the first age of Christianity, and 
 during the formation of the Church, are neither few 
 nor insignificant. 
 
 " Further, I say that in itself it might be indif- 
 ferent, whether, the outward Rite of Baptism formed 
 the initiation into the Baptismal period, eis to 
 (frcoTL&iv, or the finale and coronation : — that from 
 the necessity of the circumstances, that is, the non- 
 existence of the Church as the sponsor and security 
 for the undertaking of the enlightening process, and 
 the adult age of the persons to be baptised, the 
 latter was, and could not but be, the practice of the 
 
 * The paragraphs which, the Editor has, after some con- 
 sideration, thought it advisable to print within brackets in' 
 the text of this edition of the Aids to Reflection, are taken 
 from one of the deeply interesting Note Books, kept by 
 Mr. Coleridge with great care during the later years of his 
 life.— Ed. 
 
ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 319 
 
 Apostolic age : — but that in after times both the com- 
 mencement and the close were ritually solemnised ; — 
 in the first, the Church conferring all the privileges 
 of Christianity ; — in the second, the donee acknow- 
 ledging the gift, and declaring his consent to the 
 conditions, and the Church confirming the gift and re- 
 ceiving the individual as, r/bi] Tre^concr/xez/oz/, [already 
 enlightened] and no longer iv r<5 (pa)Ti£ecrdai, as one 
 being enlightened. Now it is notorious that during 
 the first two centuries, the catechumens generally 
 were not baptised, and that their baptism was im- 
 mediately followed by admission to the Eucharist. 
 And such was the force of custom, that when the 
 baptism of infants became the rule of the Church, 
 the Eucharist was administered to them ; — a practice 
 which greatly obscured, if it did not destroy, the 
 beautiful harmony and distinct significancy of the two 
 Rites as symbolic, — the one of the Light of the Word, 
 the other of the Life ; and therefore with great reason 
 was the practice discontinued. 
 
 " Observe, I do not deny — God forbid ! the pos- 
 sibility or the reality of the influence of the Spirit on 
 the soul of the infant. His first smile bespeaks a 
 reason — the Light from the Life of the Word — as 
 already existent ; and where the Word is, there will 
 the Spirit act. Still less do I think lightly of the 
 graces which the child receives, as a living part of the 
 Church, and whatever flows from the Communion of 
 Saints, and the Trtpbxatprjcris of the Spirit. Our 
 Church most wisely and scripturally precludes all the 
 mischievous fanaticism of moments of conversion. 
 Except the time when the Church receives the subject 
 into her own body, and co-organises the person there- 
 with, no time can be specified for the Spirit's descent 
 and in-coming. For the operations of the Spirit are as 
 little referable to Time as to Space : but in reference 
 
320 AIDS TO BEFLECTION. 
 
 to our principles of conduct toward, and judgment 
 concerning, our neighbours, the Church declares, that 
 before the time of the Baptism there is no authority 
 for asserting, — and that since the time there is no 
 authority for denying, — that gift and regenerate pre- 
 sence of the Holy Spirit, promised by an especial 
 covenant to the members of Christ's mystical body : 
 and consequently, no just pretence for expecting or 
 requiring another new initiation or birth into the state 
 of Grace."] 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 I am not so ignorant of the temper and tendency 
 of the age in which I live, as either to be unprepared 
 for the sort of remarks which the literal interpreta- 
 tion of the Evangelist will call forth, or to attempt 
 an answer to them. Visionary ravings, obsolete 
 whimsies, transcendental trash, and the like, I leave 
 to pass at the price current among those who are 
 willing to receive abusive phrases as substitutes for 
 argument. Should any suborner of anonymous criti 
 cism have engaged some literary bravo or buffoon 
 beforehand to vilify this Work, as in former instances, 
 I would give a friendly hint to the operative critic, 
 that he may compile an excellent article for the occa- 
 sion, and with very little trouble, out of Warburton's 
 Tract on Grace and the Spirit, and the Preface to the 
 same. There is, however, one objection, which will 
 so often be heard from men, whose talents and re- 
 puted moderation must give a weight to their words, 
 that I owe it both to my own character and to the 
 interests of iny readers, not to leave it unnoticed. 
 The charge will probably be worded in this way : — 
 There is nothing new in all this. (As if novelty were 
 any merit in questions of revealed religion !) It is 
 mysticism, all taken out of William Law, after he 
 had lost his senses in brooding over the visions of a 
 delirious German cobbler, Jacob Bohme. 
 
 Of poor Jacob Bohme I have delivered my senti- 
 ments at large in another work. Those who have 
 
322 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 condescended to look into his writings must know 
 that his characteristic errors are : first, the mistaking 
 the accidents and peculiarities of his own overwrought 
 mind for realities and modes of thinking common to 
 all minds : and secondly, the confusion of Nature, 
 that is, the active powers communicated to matter, 
 with God the Creator. And if the same persons 
 have done more than merely looked into the present 
 Volume, they must have seen, that to eradicate, and, 
 if possible, to preclude both the one and the other, 
 stands prominent among its avowed objects. 
 
 Of William Law's Works I am acquainted with the 
 Serious Call ; and besides this I remember to have 
 read a small Tract on Prayer, if I mistake not, as I 
 easily may, it being at least six-and-twenty years 
 since I saw it. He may in this or in other tracts 
 have quoted the same passages from the fourth Gospel 
 which I have done. But surely this affords no pre- 
 sumption that my conclusions are the same with his ; 
 still less, that they are drawn from the same pre- 
 misses ; and least of all, that they were adopted from 
 his writings. Whether Law has used the phrase, 
 assimilation by faith, I know not ; but I know that I 
 should expose myself to a just charge of an idle 
 parade of my reading, if I recapitulated the tenth 
 part of the authors, ancient and modern, Romish and 
 Reformed, from Law to Clemens Alexandrinus and 
 Irenaeus, in whose works the same phrase occurs in 
 the same sense. And after all, on such a subject, 
 how worse than childish is the whole dispute ! 
 
 Is the fourth Gospel authentic ? Aud is the inter- 
 pretation I have given true or false ? These are the 
 only questions which a wise man would put, or a 
 Christian be anxious to answer. I not only believe it 
 to be the true sense of the texts ; but I assert that 
 it is the only true, rational, and. even tolerable sense. 
 
CONCLUSION. 323 
 
 And this position alone I conceive myself interested 
 in defending. I have studied with an open and fear- 
 less spirit the attempts of sundry learned critics of 
 the Continent to invalidate the authenticity of this 
 Gospel, before and since Eichorn's Vindication. The 
 result has been a clearer assurance and (as far as 
 this was possible) a yet deeper conviction of the 
 genuineness of all the writings which the Church has 
 attributed to this Apostle. That those, who have 
 formed an opposite conclusion, should object to the 
 use of expressions which they had ranked among the 
 most obvious marks of spuriousness, follows as a 
 matter of course. But that men, who with a clear 
 and cloudless assent receive the sixth chapter of this 
 Gospel as a faithful, nay, inspired record of an actual 
 discourse, should take offence at the repetition of 
 words which the Redeemer himself, in the perfect 
 foreknowledge that they would confirm the disbeliev- 
 ing, alienate the unsteadfast, and transcend the 
 present capacity even of his own elect, had chosen as 
 the most appropriate ; and which, after the most 
 decisive proofs that they were misinterpreted by the 
 greater number of his hearers, and not understood 
 by any, he nevertheless repeated with stronger em- 
 phasis and without comment as the only appropriate 
 symbols of the great truth he was declaring, and to 
 realise which iyivero crap£ ; * — that in their own 
 
 * Of which our he was made flesJo, is a very inadequate 
 translation. The Church of England in this as in other 
 doctrinal points has preserved the golden mean between the 
 superstitious reverence of the Romanists, and the avowed 
 contempt of the Sectarians, for the writings of the Fathers, 
 and the authority and unimpeached traditions of the Church 
 during the first three or four centuries. And how, con- 
 sistently with this honourable characteristic of our Church, 
 a minister of the same could, on the Sacramentary scheme 
 
 T 2 
 
324 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 discourses these men should hang back from all 
 express reference to these words, as if they were afraid 
 or ashamed of them, though the earliest recorded 
 ceremonies and liturgical forms of the primitive 
 Church are absolutely inexplicable, except in con- 
 nection with this discourse, and with the mysterious 
 and spiritual, not allegorical and merely ethical, 
 import of the same ; and though this import is 
 solemnly and in the most unequivocal terms asserted 
 and taught by their own Church, even in her Cate- 
 chism, or compendium of doctrines necessary for all 
 her members ; — this I may perhaps understand ; 
 but this I am not able to vindicate or excuse. 
 
 There is, however, one opprobrious phrase which 
 it may be profitable for my younger readers that I 
 should explain, namely, Mysticism. And for this 
 purpose I will quote a sentence or two from a dialogue 
 which, had my prescribed limits permitted, I should 
 have attached to the present work ; but which with 
 an Essay* on the Church, as instituted by Christ, 
 and as an establishment of the State, and a series of 
 Letters f on the right and the superstitious use and 
 estimation of the Bible, will hereafter appear by 
 themselves, should the reception given to the present 
 Volume encourage or permit the publication. 
 
 now in fashion, return even a plausible answer to Arnauld's 
 great work on Transubstantiation, (not without reason 
 the boast of the Romish Church, ) exceeds my powers of 
 conjecture. 
 
 * See the Church and State, 3rd edit.— Ed. 
 
 *r See Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. 1840. — Ed. 
 
CONCLUSION. 325 
 
 MYSTICS AND MYSTICISM. 
 
 Antinous. — ''What do you call Mysticism? And 
 do you use the word in a good or in a bad sense ? " 
 
 Nous. — " In the latter only ; as far, at least, as we 
 are now concerned with it. When a man refers to 
 inward feelings and experiences of which mankind 
 at large are not conscious as evidences of the truth 
 of any opinion — such a man I call a Mystic : and the 
 grounding of any theory or belief on accidents and 
 anomalies of individual sensations or fancies, and the 
 use of peculiar terms invented, or perverted from 
 their ordinary significations, for the purpose of ex- 
 pressing these idiosyncracies and pretended facts of 
 interior consciousness, I name Mysticism. Where 
 the error consists simply in the Mystic's attaching 
 to these anomalies of his individual temperament the 
 character of reality, and in receiving them as per- 
 manent truths, having a subsistence in the Divine 
 Mind, though revealed to himself alone ; but enter- 
 tains this persuasion without demanding or expecting 
 the same faith in his neighbours — I should regard it 
 as a species of enthusiasm, always indeed to be depre- 
 cated, but yet capable of co-existing with many 
 excellent qualities both of head and heart. But 
 when the Mystic, by ambition or still meaner passions, 
 or (as sometimes is the case) by an uneasy and self- 
 doubting state of mind which seeks confirmation in 
 outward sympathy, is led to impose his faith, as a 
 duty, on mankind generally : and when with such 
 views he asserts that the same experiences would be 
 vouchsafed, the same truths revealed to every man, 
 but for his secret wickedness and unholy will ; — such 
 a Mystic is a fanatic, and in certain states of the 
 public mind, a dangerous member of society. And 
 
326 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 most so in those ages and countries in which fanatics 
 of elder standing are allowed to persecute the fresh 
 competitor. For under these predicaments, Mys- 
 ticism, though originating in the singularities of an 
 individual nature, and therefore essentially anomalous, 
 is nevertheless highly contagious. It is apt to collect 
 a swarm and cluster circum fana, around the new 
 fane ; and therefore merits the name of fanaticism, 
 or as the Germans say, Schwcirmerey, that is, swarm- 
 making." 
 
 We will return to the harmless species, the enthu- 
 siastic Mystics ; — a species that may again be subdi- 
 vided into two ranks. And it will not be other than 
 germane to the subject, if I endeavour to describe 
 them in a sort of allegory or parable. Let us 
 imagine a poor pilgrim benighted in a wilderness or 
 desart, and pursuing his way in the starless dark with 
 a lantern in his hand. Chance or his happy genius 
 leads him to an oasis or natural garden, such as in 
 the creations of my youthful fancy I supposed Enos,* 
 
 * Will the Reader forgive me if I attempt at once to 
 illustrate and relieve the subject by annexing the opening 
 lines of a poem composed in the same year in which I wrote 
 the Ancient Mariner and the first Book of Christabel ! 
 
 " Encinctur'd with a twine of leaves, 
 That leafy twine his only dress ! 
 A lovely boy was plucking fruits 
 In a moonlight wilderness. 
 The moon wa3 bright, the air was free, 
 And fruits and flowers together grew 
 On many a shrub and many a tree : 
 And all put on a gentle hue, 
 Hanging in the shadowy air 
 Like a picture rich and rare. 
 It was a climate where, they say, 
 The night is more beloved than day. 
 
CONCLUSION. 327 
 
 the cbild of Cain, to have found. And here, hungry 
 and thirsty, the way-wearied man rests at a fountain ; 
 and the taper of his lantern throws its light on an 
 over-shadowing tree, a boss of snow-white blossoms, 
 through which the green aud growing fruits peeped, 
 and the ripe golden fruitage glowed. Deep, vivid, 
 and faithful are the impressions, which the lovely 
 imagery comprised within the scanty circle of light 
 makes and leaves on his memory. But scarcely has 
 he eaten of the fruits and drunk of the fountain, ere 
 scared by the roar and howl from the desart he hur- 
 ries forward : and as he passes with hasty steps 
 through grove and glade, shadows and imperfect 
 beholdings and vivid fragments of things distinctly 
 seen blend with the past and present shapings of his 
 brain. Fancy modifies sight. His dreams transfer 
 their forms to real objects ; and these lend a substance 
 and an outness to his dreams. Apparitions greet 
 him ; and when at a distance from this enchanted 
 land, and on a different track, the dawn of day dis- 
 closes to him a caravan, a troop of his fellowmen, his 
 memory, which is itself half fancy, is interpolated 
 afresh by every attempt to recall, connect, and piece 
 out his recollections. His narration is received as 
 a madman's tale. He shrinks from the rude laugh 
 and contemptuous sneer, and retires into himself. 
 Yet the craving for sympathy, strong in proportion to 
 the intensity of his convictions, impels him to un- 
 bosom himself to abstract auditors ; and the poor 
 
 But who that beauteous boy beguiled, 
 
 That beauteous boy, to linger here ? 
 
 Alone, by night, a little child, 
 
 In place so silent and so wild — ■ 
 
 Has he no friend, no loving mother near?" 
 
 Wanderings of Cain. 
 Poet. Works, II. p. 100.~Ed. 
 
328 AIDS TO K INFLECTION. 
 
 quietist becomes a penman, and, all too poorly stocked 
 for the writer's trade, he borrows his phrases and 
 figures from the only writings to which he has had 
 access, the sacred books of his religion. And thus 
 I shadow out the enthusiast Mystic of the first sort ; 
 at the head of which stands the illuminated Teutonic 
 theosopher and shoemaker, honest Jacob Bohme, 
 born near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia, in the 17th of 
 our Elizabeth's reign, and who died in the 22nd of 
 her successor's. 
 
 To delineate a Mystic of the second and higher 
 order, we need only endow our pilgrim with equal 
 gifts of nature, but these developed and displayed by 
 all the aids and arts of education and favourable 
 fortune. He is on his way to the Mecca of his 
 ancestral and national faith, with a well guarded and 
 numerous procession of merchants and fellow-pil- 
 grims, on the established track. At the close of day 
 the caravan has halted : the full moon rises on the 
 desart : and he strays forth alone, out of sight but to 
 no unsafe distance ; and chance leads him, too, to 
 the same oasis or islet of verdure on the sea of 
 sand. He wanders at leisure in its maze of beauty 
 and sweetness, and thrids his way through the 
 odorous and flowering thickets into open spots of 
 greenery, and discovers statues and memorial cha- 
 racters, grottos, and refreshing caves. But the 
 moon-shine, the imaginative poesy of Nature, spreads 
 its soft shadowy charm over all, conceals distances, 
 and magnifies heights, and modifies relations ; and 
 fills up vacuities with its own whiteness, counter- 
 feiting substance ; and where the dense shadows lie, 
 makes solidity imitate hollowness ; and gives to all 
 objects a tender visionary hue and softening. Inter- 
 pret the moonlight and the shadows as the peculiar 
 genius and sensibility of the individual's own spirit ; 
 
CONCLUSION. 329 
 
 and here you have the other sort ; a Mystic, an 
 enthusiast of a nobler breed — a Fenelon. But the 
 residentiary, or the frequent visitor of the favoured 
 spot, who has scanned its beauties by steady day- 
 light, and mastered its true proportions and linea- 
 ments, he will discover that both pilgrims have indeed 
 been there. He will know, that the delightful 
 dream, which the latter tells, is a dream of truth ; 
 and that, even in the bewildered tale of the former, 
 there is truth mingled with the dream. 
 
 But the source, the spring-head, of the charges 
 which I anticipate, lies deep. Materialism, conscious 
 and avowed Materialism, is in ill repute : and a con- 
 fessed Materialist therefore a rare character. But if 
 the faith be ascertained by the fruits : if the predo- 
 minant, though most often unsuspected, persuasion 
 is to be learnt from the influences, under which the 
 thoughts and affections of the man move and take 
 their direction: I must reverse the position. Only 
 not all are Materialists. Except a few individuals, 
 and those for the most part of a single sect : every 
 one who calls himself a Christian, holds himself to 
 have a soul as well as a body. He distinguishes mind 
 from matter, the subject of his consciousness from the 
 objects of the same. The former is his mind : and 
 he says, it is immaterial. But though subject and 
 substance are words of kindred roots, nay, little less 
 than equivalent terras, yet nevertheless it is exclu- 
 sively to sensible objects, to bodies, to modifications 
 of matter, that he habitually attaches the attributes 
 of reality, of substance. Real and tangible, substan- 
 tial and material, are synonymes for him. He never 
 indeed asks himself, what he means by mind ? But 
 if he did, and tasked himself to return an honest 
 answer — as to what, at least, he had hitherto meant 
 by it — he would find, that he had described it by 
 
330 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 negatives, as the opposite of bodies, for example, as 
 a somewhat opposed, to solidity, to visibility, and the 
 like, as if you could abstract the capacity of a vessel, 
 and conceive of it as a somewhat by itself, and then 
 give to the emptiness the properties of containing, 
 holding, being entered, and so forth. In short, 
 though the proposition would perhaps be angrily 
 denied in words, yet in fact be thinks of his mind, as a 
 property, or accident of a something else, that he 
 calls a soul or spirit : though the very same difficul- 
 ties must recur, the moment he should attempt to 
 establish the difference. For either this soul or 
 spirit is nothing but a thinner body, a finer mass of 
 matter ; or the attribute of self-subsistency vanishes 
 from the soul on the same grounds, on which it is 
 refused to the mind. 
 
 I am persuaded, however, that the dogmatism of 
 the Corpuscular School, though it still exerts an 
 influence on men's notions and phrases, has received 
 a mortal blow from the increasingly dynamic spirit of 
 the physical sciences now highest in public estima- 
 tion. And it may safely be predicted that the results 
 will extend beyond the intention of those, who are 
 gradually effecting this revolution. It is not Che- 
 mistry alone that will be indebted to the genius of 
 Davy, Oersted, and their compeers : and not as the 
 founder of physiology and philosophic anatomy alone, 
 will mankind love and revere the name of John 
 Hunter. These men have not only taught, they 
 have compelled us to admit, that the immediate 
 objects of our senses, or rather the grounds of the 
 visibility and tangibility of all objects of sense, bear 
 the same relation and similar proportion to the intel- 
 ligible object — that is, to the object which we actually 
 mean when we say, " It is such or such a thing," or 
 " I have seen this or that," — as the paper, ink, and 
 
CONCLUSION. 331 
 
 differently combined straight and curved lines of an 
 edition of Homer bear to what we understand by the 
 words, Iliad and Odyssey. Nay, nothing would be 
 more easy than so to construct the paper, ink, painted 
 capitals, and the like, of a printed disquisition on the 
 eye, or the muscles and cellular texture (that is, the 
 flesh) of the human body, as to bring together every 
 one of the sensible and ponderable stuffs or ele- 
 ments, that are sensuously perceived in the eye 
 itself, or in the flesh itself. Carbon and nitrogen, 
 oxygen and hydrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, and one 
 or two metals and metallic bases, constitute the 
 whole. It cannot be these therefore, that we mean 
 by an eye, by our body. But perhaps it may be a 
 particular combination of these ? Now here comes a 
 question : In this term do you or do you not include 
 the principle, the operating cause, of the combination? 
 If not, then detach this eye from the body. Look 
 steadily at it — as it might lie on the marble slab of a 
 dissecting room. Say it were the eye of a murderer, 
 a Bellingham : or the eye of a murdered patriot, a 
 Sidney ! — Behold it, handle it, with its various ac- 
 companiments or constituent parts, of tendon, liga- 
 ment, membrane, blood-vessel, gland, humours ; its 
 nerves of sense, of sensation, and of motion. Alas ! 
 all these names, like that of the organ itself, are so 
 many anachronisms, figures of speech, to express that 
 which has been ; as when the guide points with his 
 finger to a heap of stones, and tells the traveller, 
 " That is Babylon, or Persepolis." — Is this cold jelly 
 the light of the body ? Is this the micranthropos in 
 the marvellous microcosm ? Is this what you mean 
 when you well describe the eye as the telescope and 
 the mirror of the soul, the seat and agent of an almost 
 magical power? 
 
 Pursue the same inquisition with every other part 
 
332 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 of the body, whether integral or simply ingredient ; 
 and let aBerzelius or a Hatchett be your interpreter, 
 and demonstrate to you what it is that in each actually 
 meets your senses. And when you have heard the 
 scanty catalogue, ask yourself if these are indeed the 
 living flesh, the blood of life ? Or not far rather — I 
 speak of what, as a man of common sense, you really 
 do, not what, as a philosopher, you ought to believe — 
 is it not, I say, far rather the distinct and indivi- 
 dualised agency that by the given combinations utters 
 and bespeaks its presence ? Justly and with strictest 
 propriety of language may I say, speaks. It is to the 
 coarseness of our senses, or rather to the defect and 
 limitation of our percipient faculty, that the visible 
 object appears the same even for a moment. The 
 characters which I am now shaping on this paper, 
 abide. Not only the forms remain the same, but the 
 particles of the colouring stuff are fixed, and, for an 
 indefinite period at least, remain the same. But the 
 particles that constitute the size, the visibility of an 
 organic structure, are in perpetual flux. They are to 
 the combining and constitutive power as the pulses 
 of air to the voice of a discourser ; or of one who 
 sings a roundelay. The same words may be repeated; 
 but in each second of time the articulated air hath 
 passed away, and each act of articulation appropriates 
 and gives momentary form to a new and other por- 
 tion. As the column of blue smoke from a cottage 
 chimney in the breathless summer noon, or the 
 steadfast-seeming cloud on the edge point of a hill in 
 the driving air-current, which momently condensed 
 and recomposed is the common phantom of a thousand 
 successors ; — such is the flesh, which our bodily eyes 
 transmit to us ; which our palates taste ; which our 
 hands touch. 
 
 But perhaps the material particles possess this 
 
CONCLUSION. 3B3 
 
 combining power by inherent reciprocal attractions, 
 repulsions, and elective affinities ; and are themselves 
 the joint artists of their own combinations ? I will 
 not reply, though well I might, that this would be to 
 solve one problem by another, and merely to shift 
 the mystery. It will be sufficient to remind the 
 thoughtful quei-ist, that even herein consists the es- 
 sential difference, the contra- distinction, of an organ 
 from a machine; that not only the characteristic 
 shape is evolved from the invisible central power, but 
 the material mass itself is acquired by assimilation. 
 The germinal power of the plant transmutes the fixed 
 air and the elementary base of water into grass or 
 leaves ; and on these the organific principle in the ox 
 or the elephant exercises an alchemy still more stu- 
 pendous. As the unseen agency weaves its magic 
 eddies, the foliage becomes indifferently the bone and 
 its marrow, the pulpy brain, or the solid ivory. That 
 what you see is blood, is flesh, is itself the work, or 
 shall I say, the translucence, of the invisible energy, 
 which soon surrenders or abandons them to inferior 
 powers (for there is no pause nor chasm in the activi- 
 ties of nature) which repeat a similar metamorphosis 
 according to their kind ; — these are not fancies, con- 
 jectures, or even hypotheses, but facts ; to deny which 
 is impossible, not to reflect on which is ignominious. 
 And we need only reflect on them with a calm and 
 silent spirit to learn the utter emptiness and un- 
 meaningness of the vaunted Mechanico-corpuscular 
 philosophy, with both its twins, Materialism on the 
 one hand, and Idealism, rightlier named subjective 
 Idolism, on the other: the one obtruding on us a 
 world of spectres and apparitions ; the other a mazy 
 dream. 
 
 Let the Mechanic or Corpuscular scheme, which 
 in its absoluteness and strict consistency was first 
 
334 AIDS TO EEFLECTION. 
 
 introduced by Des Cartes, be judged by the results. 
 By its fruits shall it be known. 
 
 In order to submit the various phenomena of 
 moving bodies to geometrical construction, we are 
 under the necessity of abstracting from corporeal 
 substance all its positive properties, and obliged to 
 consider bodies as differing from equal portions of 
 space * only by figure and mobility. And as a fiction 
 
 * Such is the conception of body in Des Cartes' own 
 system. Body is everywhere confounded with matter, and 
 might in the Cartesian sense be defined space or extension, 
 with the attribute of visibility. As Des Cartes at the same 
 time zealously asserted the existence of intelligential beings, 
 the reality and independent self-subsistence of the soul, 
 Berkeleyanism or Spinosism was the immediate and neces- 
 sary consequence. Assume a plurality of self-subsisting 
 souls, and we have Berkeleyanism ; assume one only (unam 
 et unicam substantiam), and you have Spinosism, that is, the 
 assertion of one infinite Self-subsistent, with the two attri- 
 butes of thinking and appearing. Cogitatio ivfinita sine 
 centro, et omniformis apparitio. How far the Newtonian 
 vis inertia (interpreted any otherwise than as an arbitrary 
 term = x y x, to represent the unknown but necessary sup- 
 plement or integration of the Cartesian notion of body) has 
 patched up the flaw, I leave for more competent judges to 
 decide. But should any one of my readers feel an interest 
 in the speculative principles of natural philosophy, and 
 should be master of the German language, I warmly recom- 
 mend for his perusal the earliest known publication of the 
 great founder of the Critical Philosophy, (written in the 
 twenty-second year of his age !) on the then eager contro- 
 versy between the Leibnitzian and the French and English 
 Mathematicians, respecting the living forces— Gedanien von 
 der wahren Schatzung der lebendigen Kriifte : 1747 — in which 
 Kant demonstrates the right reasoning to be with the latter; 
 but the truth of the fact, the evidence of experience, with 
 the former ; and gives the explanation, namely : body, or 
 corporeal nature, is something else and more than geome- 
 
CONCLUSION. 335 
 
 of science, it would be difficult to overvalue this in- 
 vention. It possesses the same merits in relation to 
 geometry that the atomic theory has in relation to 
 algebraic calculus. But in contempt of common 
 sense, and in direct opposition to the express decla- 
 rations of the inspired historian (Gen. i.), and to the 
 tone and spirit of the Scriptures throughout, Des 
 Cartes propounded it as truth of fact : and instead of 
 a world created and filled with/ productive forces by 
 the almighty Fiat, left a lifeless machine whirled 
 about by the dust of its own grinding : as if death 
 could come from the living fountain of life ; nothing- 
 ness and phantom from the plenitude of reality, the 
 absoluteness of creative will ! 
 
 Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! let me be deemed mad by 
 all men, if such be thy ordinance : but, ! from such 
 madness save and preserve me, my God ! 
 
 When, however, after a short interval, the genius 
 of Kepler, expanded and organised in the soul of 
 Newton, and there (if I may hazard so bold an ex- 
 pression) refining itself into an almost celestial clear- 
 ness, had expelled the Cartesian vortices ; * then the 
 
 trical extension, even with the addition of a vis inertice. And 
 Leibnitz, with the Bernouillis, erred in the attempt to 
 demonstrate geometrically a problem not susceptible of 
 geometrical construction. — This tract, with the succeeding 
 Uimmels-System, may with propriety be placed, after the 
 Principle/, of Newton, among the striking instances of early 
 genius ; and as the first product of the dynamic philosophy 
 in the physical sciences, from the time, at least, of Giordano 
 Bruno, whom the idolators burned for an Atheist, at Rome, 
 in the year 1600.— [See The Friend, vol. i. p. 151—155. 
 3rd edit.— Ed.] 
 
 * For Newton's own doubtfully suggested ether or most 
 subtle fluid, as the ground and immediate agent in the 
 phcenomena of universal gravitation, was either not adopted 
 
336 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 necessity of an active power, of positive forces present 
 in the material universe, forced itself on the convic- 
 tion. For as a law without a lawgiver is a mere 
 abstraction ; so a law without an agent to realise it, 
 a constitution without an abiding executive, is, in 
 fact, not a law, but an idea. In the profound emblem 
 of the great tragic poet, it is the powerless Prometheus 
 fixed on a barren rock. And what was the result ? 
 How was this necessity provided for ? God himself — 
 my hand trembles as I write ! Rather, then, let me 
 employ the word, which the religious feeling, in its 
 perplexity, suggested as the substitute — the Deity 
 itself was declared to be the real agent, the actual 
 gravitating power ! The law and the lawgiver were 
 identified. God (says Dr. Priestley) not only does, 
 but is every thing. Jupiter est quodcunque vicles. 
 And thus a system, which commenced by excluding 
 all life and immanent activity from the visible 
 universe, and evacuating the natural world of all 
 nature, ended by substituting the Deity, and reducing 
 the Creator to a mere anima mundi : a scheme that 
 has no advantage over Spinosism but its inconsistency, 
 which does indeed make it suit a certain order of in- 
 tellects, who, like the pleuronecta (or flat fish) in 
 
 or soon abandoned by his disciples ; not only as introducing, 
 against his own canons of right reasoning, an ens imagina- 
 rium into physical science," a suffiction in the place of a 
 legitimate supposition; but because the substance (if assumed 
 to exist) must itself form part of the problem which it was 
 meant to solve. Meantime, Leibnitz's pre-established har- 
 mony, which originated in Spinosa, found no acceptance ; 
 and, lastly, the notion of a corpuscular substance, with 
 properties put into it, like a pincushion hidden by the pins, 
 could pass with the unthinking only for anything more than 
 a confession of ignorance, or technical terms expressing a 
 hiatus of scientific insight. 
 
CONCLUSION. 337 
 
 ichthyology which have both eyes on the same side, 
 never see but half of a subject at one time, and for- 
 getting the one before they get to the other, are sure 
 not to detect any inconsistency between them. 
 
 And what has been the consequence '? An in- 
 creasing unwillingness to contemplate the Supreme 
 Being in his personal attributes ; and thence a dis- 
 taste to all the peculiar doctrines of the Christian 
 Faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of 
 God, and Redemption. The young and ardent, ever 
 too apt to mistake the inward triumph in the detec- 
 tion of error for a positive love of truth, are among 
 the first and most frequent victims to this epidemic 
 fastidium. Alas ! even the sincerest seekers after 
 light are not safe from the contagion. Some have I 
 known, constitutionally religious — I speak feelingly ; 
 for I speak of that which for a brief period was my 
 own state — who under this unhealthful influence 
 have been so estranged from the heavenly Father, 
 the living God, as even to shrink from the personal 
 pronouns as applied to the Deity. But many do I 
 know, and yearly meet with, in whom a false and 
 sickly taste co-operates with the prevailing fashion : 
 many, who find the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, far too real, too substantial ; who feel it more 
 in harmony with their indefinite sensations 
 
 To worship Nature in the hill and valley, • 
 Not knowing what they love : — 
 
 and (to use the language, but not the sense or purpose, 
 of the great poet of our age) would fain substitute for 
 the Jehovah of their Bible 
 
 A sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air ; 
 
 z 
 
338 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things ! Wobdswoeth. 
 
 And this from having been educated to understand 
 the Divine Omuipresence in any sense rather than 
 the only safe and legitimate one, the presence of all 
 things to God ! 
 
 Be it, however, that the number of such men is 
 comparatively small ; and be it (as in fact it often is) 
 but a brief stage, a transitional state, in the process 
 of intellectual growth. Yet among a numerous and 
 increasing class of the higher and middle ranks, there 
 is an inward withdrawing from the life and personal 
 being of God, a turning of the thoughts exclusively 
 to the so-called physical attributes, to the omnipresence 
 in the counterfeit form of ubiquity, to the immensity, 
 the infinity, the immutability; — the attributes of 
 space with a notion of power as their substratum, — a 
 Fate, in short, not a moral Creator and Governor. 
 Let intelligence be imagined, and wherein does the 
 conception of God differ essentially from that of 
 gravitation (conceived as the cause of gravity) in the 
 understanding of those, who represent the Deity not 
 only as a necessary but as a necessitated being ; 
 those, for whom justice is but a scheme of general 
 laws ; and holiness, and the divine hatred of sin, yea, 
 and sin itself, are words without meaning, or accom- 
 modations to a rude and barbarous race ? Hence, I 
 more than fear the prevailing taste for books of 
 natural theology, physico-theology, demonstrations of 
 God from Nature, evidences of Christianity, and the 
 like. Evidences of Christianity ! I am weary of the 
 word. Make a man feel the want of it ; rouse him if you 
 can to the self-knowledge of his need of it ; and you 
 may safely trust it to its own evidence, — remembering 
 
CONCLUSION. 339 
 
 only the express declaration of Christ himself: No 
 man cometh to me, unless the Father leadeth him. 
 Whatever more is desirable — I speak now with refe- 
 rence to Christians generally, and not to professed 
 students of theology — may, in my judgment, be far 
 more safely and profitably taught, without controversy 
 or the supposition of infidel antagonists, in the form 
 of Ecclesiastical history. 
 
 The last fruit of the Mechanico-corpuscular philo- 
 sophy, say rather of the mode and direction of feeling 
 and thinking produced by it on the educated class of 
 society; or that result, which as more immediately 
 connected with my present theme I have reserved for 
 the last — is the habit of attaching all our conceptions 
 and feelings, and of applying all the words and phrases 
 expressing reality to the objects of the senses : more 
 accurately speaking to the images and sensations by 
 which their presence is made known to us. Now I 
 do not hesitate to assert, that it was one of the great 
 purposes of Christianity, and included in the process 
 of our redemption, to rouse and emancipate the soul 
 from this debasing slavery to the outward senses, to 
 awaken the mind to the true criteria of reality, 
 namely, permanence, power, will manifested in act, 
 and truth operating as life. My words, said Christ, 
 are spirit : and they (that is, the spiritual powers 
 expressed by them) are truth ; that is, very being. 
 For this end our Lord, who came from heaven to 
 take captivity captive, chose the words and names 
 that designate the familiar yet most important objects 
 of sense, the nearest and most concerning things and 
 incidents of corporeal nature : water, flesh, blood, 
 birth, bread ! But he used them in senses, that 
 could not without absurdity be supposed to respect 
 the mere phenomena, water, flesh, and the like ; in 
 senses that by no possibility could apply to the colour, 
 
 z 2 
 
340 AIDS TO KEFLECTION. 
 
 figure, specific mode of touch or taste produced on 
 ourselves, and by which we are made aware of the 
 presence of the things and understand them — res, 
 qu(B sub apparitionibus istis statuendcB sunt. And 
 this awful recalling of the drowsed soul from the 
 dreams and phantom world of sensuality to actual 
 reality, — how has it been evaded ! These words, 
 that were spirit, — these mysteries, which even the 
 Apostles must wait for the Paraclete in order to com- 
 prehend — these spiritual things which can only be 
 spiritually discerned, — were mere metaphors, figures 
 of speech, oriental hyperboles ! " All this means 
 only morality ! " Ah! how far nearer to the truth 
 would these men have been, had they said that 
 morality means all this ! 
 
 The effect, however, has been most injurious to 
 the best interests of our Universities, to our incom- 
 parably constituted Church, and even to our national 
 character. The few who have read my two Lay 
 Sermons are no strangers to my opinions on this 
 head ; and in my treatise on the Church and 
 Churches, I shall, if Providence vouchsafe, submit 
 them to the Public, with their grounds and historic 
 evidences in a more systematic form. 
 
 I have, I am aware, in this present Work furnished 
 occasion for a charge of having expressed myself 
 with slight and irreverence of celebrated names, 
 especially of the late Dr. Paley. O, if I were fond 
 and ambitious of literary honour, of public applause, 
 how well content should I be to excite but one third 
 of the admiration which, in my inmost being, I feel 
 for the head and heart of Paley ! And how gladly 
 would I surrender all hope of contemporary praise, 
 could I even approach to the incomparable grace, 
 propriety, and persuasive facility of his writings ! 
 But on this very account I believe myself bound in 
 
CONCLUSION. 341 
 
 conscience to throw the whole force of my intellect 
 in the way of this triumphal car, on which the tute- 
 lary genius of modern idolatry is borne, even at the 
 risk of being crushed under the wheels. I have at 
 this moment before my eyes the eighteenth of his 
 Posthumous Discourses : the amount of which is 
 briefly this, — that all the words and passages in the 
 New Testament which express and contain the pecu- 
 liar doctrines of Christianity, the paramount objects 
 of the Christian Revelation, all those which speak 
 so strongly of the value, benefit, and efficacy of the 
 death of Christ, assuredly mean something ; but 
 what they mean, nobody, it seems, can tell ! But 
 doubtless we shall discover it, and be convinced that 
 there is a substantial sense belonging to these words, 
 in a future state ! Is there an enigma or an absur- 
 dity in the Koran or the Vedas, which might not be 
 defended on the same pretence. A similar impres- 
 sion, I confess, was left on my mind by Dr. Magee's 
 statement or exposition (ad normam Grotianam) of 
 the doctrine of Redemption; and deeply did it dis- 
 appoint the high expectations, sadly did it chill the 
 fervid sympathy, which his introductory chapter, his 
 manly and masterly disquisition on the sacrificial rites 
 of Paganism, had raised in my mind. 
 
 And yet I cannot read the pages of Paley here 
 referred to aloud, without the liveliest sense, how 
 plausible and popular they will sound to the great 
 majority of readers. Thousands of sober, and in 
 their way pious, Christians will echo the words, 
 together with Magee's kindred interpretation of the 
 death of Christ, and adopt the doctrine for their 
 make-faith ; and why ? It is feeble. And whatever 
 is feeble is always plausible : for it favours mental 
 indolence. It is feeble : and feebleness, in the dis- 
 guise of confessing and condescending strength, is 
 
342 AIDS TO REFLECTION. 
 
 always popular. It flatters the reader by removing 
 the apprehended distance between him and the 
 superior author; and it flatters him still more by 
 enabling him to transfer to himself, and to appro- 
 priate, this superiority ; and thus to make his very 
 weakness the mark and evidence of his strength. 
 Ay, quoth the rational Christian — or with a sighing, 
 self-soothing sound, between an Ay and an Ah ! — I 
 am content to think with the great Dr. Paley, and 
 the learned Archbishop of Dublin — 
 
 Man of sense ! Dr. Paley was a great man, and 
 Dr. Magee is a learned and exemplary prelate ; but 
 You do not think at all ! 
 
 With regard to the convictions avowed and en- 
 forced in my own Work, I will continue my address 
 to the man of sense in the words of an old philoso- 
 pher: — Tu vero crassis auribus et obstinato corde 
 respuis qua forsitan vere perhibeantur. Minus her- 
 cule calles pravissimis opinionibus ea putari men- 
 dacia, qua vel auditu nova, vel visu rudia, vel certe 
 supra captum cogitationis {extemporanea tuce) ardua 
 videantur : qua si paulo accuratius exploraris, non 
 modo compertu evidentia, sed etiam factu facilia, 
 senties.* 
 
 In compliance with the suggestion of a friend, the 
 celebrated conclusion of the fourth book of Paley 's 
 Moral and Political Philosophy, referred to in p. 283, 
 of this Volume, is here transprinted for the conve- 
 nience of the Header : — 
 
 " Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration 
 than the following — The hour is coming, in the which 
 all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and 
 shall come forth: they that have done good, unto 
 
 * Apul. Metam, I. — Ed. 
 
CONCLUSION. 343 
 
 the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, 
 unto the resurrection of damnation; — he had pro- 
 nounced a message of inestimable importance, and 
 well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy 
 and miracles with which his mission was introduced 
 and attested : a message in which the wisest of man- 
 kind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, 
 and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say, that a 
 future state had been discovered already : — it had 
 been discovered as the Copernican system was ; — it 
 was one guess among many. He alone discovers, 
 who proves ; and no man can prove this point, but the 
 teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine 
 comes from God." 
 
 Paedianus says of Virgil, — Usque adeo expers in- 
 vidia ut siquid erudite dictum inspiceret alterius, 
 non minus gauderet ac si suum esset. My own heart 
 assures me that this is less than the truth : that 
 Virgil would have read a beautiful passage in the 
 work of another with a higher and purer delight than 
 in a work of his own, because free from the appre- 
 hension of his judgment being warped by self-love, 
 and without that repressive modesty akin to shame, 
 which in a delicate mind holds in check a man's own 
 secret thoughts and feelings, when they respect him- 
 self. The cordial admiration with which I peruse 
 the preceding passage as a master-piece of compo- 
 sition would, could I convey it, serve as a measure 
 of the vital importance I attach to the convictions 
 which impelled me to animadvert on the same passage 
 as doctrine. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 Summary of the Scheme of the Argument to prove the 
 diversity in hind of the Reason and the Under- 
 standing. See p. 167. 
 
 The position to be proved is the difference in kind of 
 the understanding from the reason. 
 
 The axiom, on which the proof rests, is : subjects, 
 which require essentially different general definitions, 
 differ in kind and not merely in degree. For difference 
 in degree forms the ground of specific definitions, but 
 not of generic or general. 
 
 Now reason is considered either in relation to the 
 will and moral being, when it is termed the practical * 
 reason = A : or relatively to the intellective and 
 sciential faculties, when it is termed theoretic or 
 speculative reason = a. In order, therefore, to be 
 compared with the reason, the understanding must in 
 like manner be distinguished into the understanding 
 
 * The Practical Reason alone is Reason in the full and 
 substantive sense. It is Reason in its own sphere of perfect 
 freedom ; as the source of ideas, which ideas, in their con- 
 version to the responsible Will, become ultimate ends. On 
 the other hand, Theoretic Reason, as the ground of the 
 universal and absolute in all logical conclusion, is rather the 
 light of Reason in the Understanding, and known to be such 
 by its contrast with the contingency and particularity 
 which characterise all the proper and indigenous growths 
 of the Understanding. 
 
APPENDIX. 345 
 
 as a principle of action, in which relation I call it 
 the adaptive power, or the faculty of selecting and 
 adapting means and medial of proximate ends = B : 
 and the understanding, as a mode and faculty of 
 thought, when it is called reflection = b. Accord- 
 ingly, I give the general definitions of these four : 
 that is, I describe each severally by its essential 
 characters : and I find, that the definition of A differs 
 toto genere from that of B, and the definition of a from, 
 that of b. 
 
 Now subjects that require essentially different defi- 
 nitions do themselves differ in kind. But Understanding 
 and Reason require essentially different definitions. 
 Therefore Understanding and Reason differ in kind. 
 
 B. 
 
 What is Instinct ? * As I am not quite of Bonnet's 
 opinion, " that philosophers will in vain torment them- 
 selves to define instinct until they have spent some 
 time in the head of the animal without actually being 
 that animal," I shall endeavour to explain the use of 
 the term. I shall not think it necessary to controvert 
 the opinions which have been offered on this subject, 
 whether the ancient doctrine ofDes Cartes, who sup- 
 posed that animals were mere machines ; or the modern 
 one of Lamark, who attributes instincts to habits 
 impressed upon the organs of animals, by the constant 
 efflux of the nervous fluid to these organs to which it 
 has been determined in their efforts to perform certain 
 actions, to which their necessities have given birth. 
 And it will be here premature to offer any refutation 
 of the opinions of those who contend for the identity 
 of this faculty with reason, and maintain that all the 
 
 * Green's Vital Dynamics, Appendix F. p. 88. See ante 
 p. \9l.—Ed. 
 
346 APPENDIX. 
 
 actions of animals are the result of invention and 
 experience ; — an opinion maintained with considerable 
 plausibility by Dr. Darwin. 
 
 "Perhaps the most ready and certain mode of 
 coming to a conclusion in this intricate inquiry will 
 be by the apparently circuitous route of determining 
 first, what we do not mean by the word. Now we 
 certainly do not mean, in the use of the term, any act 
 of the vital power in the production or maintenance of 
 an organ : nobody thinks of saying that the teeth grow 
 by instinct, or that when the muscles are increased in 
 vigour and size in consequence of exercise, it is from 
 such a cause or principle. Neither do we attribute 
 instinct to the direct functions of the organs in pro- 
 viding for the continuance and sustentation of the 
 whole co-organised body. No one talks of the liver 
 secreting bile, or of the heart acting for the propulsion 
 of the blood, by instinct. Some, indeed, have main- 
 tained that breathing, even voiding the excrement and 
 urine, are instinctive operations ; but surely these, as 
 well as the former, are automatic, or at least are the 
 necessary result of the organisation of the parts in and 
 by which the actions are produced. These instances 
 seem to be, if I may so say, below instinct. But 
 again, we do not attribute instinct to any actions 
 preceded by a will conscious of its ■ whole purpose, 
 calculating its effects, and predetermining its conse- 
 quences, nor to any exercise of the intellectual 
 powers, of which the whole scope, aim, and end are 
 intellectual. In other terms, no man who values his 
 words will talk of the instinct of a Howard, or of 
 the instinctive operations of a Newton or Leibnitz, 
 in those sublime efforts, which ennoble and cast a 
 lustre, not less on the individuals than on the whole 
 human race. 
 
 " To what kind or mode of action shall we then look 
 for the legitimate application of the term ? In answer 
 
APPENDIX. 347 
 
 to this query, we may, I think, without fear of the 
 consequences, put the following cases as exemplifying 
 and" justifying the use of the term, Instinct, in an 
 appropriate sense. First, when there appears an action, 
 not included either in the mere functions of life, 
 acting within the sphere of its own organismus ; nor 
 yet an action attributable to the intelligent will or 
 reason : yet, at the same time, not referable to any 
 particular, organ, we then declare the presence of an 
 Instinct. We might illustrate this in the instance of 
 a bull-calf butting before he has horns, in which the 
 action can have no reference to its internal economy, 
 to the presence of a particular organ, or to an intelli- 
 gent will. Secondly, likewise if it be not indeed 
 included in the first, we attribute Instinct where the 
 organ is present, if only the act is equally anterior to 
 all possible experience on the part of the individual 
 agent, as, for instance, when the beaver employs its 
 tail for the construction of its dwelling ; the tailor-bird 
 its bill for the formation of its pensile habitation ; the 
 spider its spinning organ for fabricating its artfully 
 woven nets, or the viper its poison fang for its defence. 
 And lastly, generally, where there is an act of the 
 whole body as one animal, not referable to a will con- 
 Bcious of its purpose, nor to its mechanism, nor to a 
 habit derived from experience, nor previous frequent 
 use. Here with most satisfaction, and without doubt 
 of the propriety of the word, we declare an Instinct ; 
 as examples of which, we may adduce the migratory 
 habits of birds, the social instincts of the bees, the 
 construction of their habitations, composed of cells 
 formed with geometrical precision, adapted in capacity 
 to different orders of the society, and forming store- 
 houses for containing a supply of provisions ; not to 
 mention similar instances in wasps, ants, termites : 
 and the endless contrivances for protecting the future 
 progeny. 
 
348 APPENDIX. 
 
 " But if it be admitted that we have rightly stated 
 the application of the term, what we may ask is con- 
 tained in the examples adduced, or what inferences 
 are we to make as to the nature of Instinct itself, as 
 a source and principle of action ? "We shall, perhaps, 
 best aid ourselves in the inquiry by an example, and 
 let us take a very familiar one of a caterpillar taking 
 its food. The caterpillar seeks at once the plant, 
 which furnishes the appropriate aliment, and this even 
 as soon as it creeps from the ovum ; and the food 
 being taken into the stomach, the nutritious part is 
 separated from the innutritious, and is disposed of for 
 the support of the animal. The question then is? 
 what is contained in this instance of instinct ? In the 
 first place, what does the vital power in the stomach 
 do, if we generalise the account of the process, or 
 express it in its most general ternis ? Manifestly it 
 selects and applies appropriate means to an immediate 
 end, prescribed by the constitution ; first of the parti- 
 cular organ, and then of the whole body or organismus. 
 This we have admitted is not instinct. But what does 
 the caterpillar do 1 Does it not also select and apply 
 appropriate means to an immediate end prescribed by 
 its particular organisation and constitution ? But there 
 is something more ; it does this according to circum- 
 stances ; and this we call Instinct. But may there 
 not be still something more involved 1 What shall we 
 say of Hiiber's humble-bees 1 A dozen of these were 
 put under a bell glass along with a comb of about ten 
 silken cocoons, so unequal in height as not to be 
 capable of standing steadily ; to remedy this, two or 
 three of the humble-bees got upon the comb, sketched 
 themselves over its edge, and with their heads down- 
 wards, fixed their forefeet on the table on which the 
 comb stood, and so with their hindfeet kept the comb 
 from falling : when these were weaxy others took their 
 places. In this constrained and painful posture, fresh 
 
APPENDIX. 349 
 
 bees relieving their comrades at intervals, and each 
 working in its turn, did these affectionate little insects 
 support the comb for nearly three days ; at the end 
 of which time they had prepared sufficient wax to 
 build pillars with it. And what is still further 
 curious, the first pillars having got displaced, the 
 bees had again recourse to the same manoeuvre. 
 What then is involved in this case 1 Evidently the 
 same selection and appropriation of means to an 
 immediate end as before ; but observe ! according to 
 varying circumstances. 
 
 " And here we are puzzled ; for this becomes 
 Understanding. At least no naturalist, however 
 predetermined to contrast and oppose Instinct to 
 Understanding, but ends at last in facts in which he 
 himself can make out no difference. But are we hence 
 to conclude that the instinct is the same, and identical 
 with the human understanding 1 Certainly not ; though 
 the difference is not in the essential of the definition, 
 but in an addition to, or modification of, that which is 
 essentially the same in both. In such cases, namely, 
 as that which we have last adduced, in which instinct 
 assumes the semblance of understanding, the act indi- 
 cative of instinct is not clearly prescribed by the 
 constitution or laws of the animal's peculiar organisa- 
 tion, but arises out of the constitution and previous 
 circumstances of the animal, and those habits, wants, 
 and that predetermined sphere of action and operation 
 which belong to the race, and beyond the limits of 
 which it does not pass. If this be the case, I may 
 venture to assert that I have determined an appro- 
 priate sense for instinct : namely, that it is a power of 
 selecting and applying appropriate means to an imme- 
 diate end, according to circumstances and the changes 
 of circumstances, these being variable and varying ; 
 but yet so as to be referable to the general habits, 
 arising out of the constitution and previous circum- 
 
350 APPENDIX. 
 
 stances of the animal considered not as an individual, 
 but as a race. 
 
 " We may here, perhaps, most fitly explain the error 
 of those who contend for the identity of Reason and 
 Instinct, and believe that the actions of animals are 
 the result of invention and experience. They have, 
 no doubt, been deceived, in their investigation of In- 
 stinct, by an efficient cause simulating a final cause ; 
 and the defect in their reasoning has arisen in conse- 
 quence of observing in the instinctive operations of 
 animals the adaptation of means to a relative end, 
 from the assumption of a deliberate purpose. To this 
 freedom or choice in action and purpose, instinct, in 
 any appropriate sense of the word, cannot apply, and 
 to justify and explain its introduction, we must have 
 recourse to other and higher faculties than any mani- 
 fested in the operations of instinct. It is evident, 
 namely, in turning our attention to the distinguishing 
 character of human actions, that there is, as in the 
 inferior animals, a selection and appropriation of means 
 to ends — but it is (not only according to circumstances, 
 not only according to varying circumstances, but it is) 
 according to varying purposes. But this is an attri- 
 bute of the intelligent will, and no longer even mere 
 understanding. 
 
 " And here let me observe that the difficulty and 
 delicacy of this investigation are greatly increased by 
 our not considering the understanding (even our own) 
 in itself, and as it would be were it not accompanied 
 with and modified by the co-operation of the will, the 
 moral feeling, and that faculty, perhaps best distin- 
 guished by the name of Reason, of determining that 
 which is universal and necessary, of fixing laws and 
 principles whether speculative or practical, and of con- 
 templating a final purpose or end. This intelligent will, 
 — having a self-conscious purpose, under the guidance 
 and light of the reason, by which its acts are made 
 
APPENDIX, 351 
 
 to bear as . a whole upon some end in and for itself, 
 and to which the understanding is subservient as an 
 organ or the faculty of selecting and appropriating 
 the means — seems best to account for that progres- 
 siveness of the human race, which so evidently 
 marks an insurmountable distinction and impassable 
 barrier between man and the inferior animals ; but 
 which would be inexplicable, were there no other 
 difference than in the degree of their intellectual 
 faculties. 
 
 " Man doubtless has his instincts, even in common 
 with the inferior animals, and many of these are the 
 germs of some of the best feelings of his nature. 
 What, amongst many, might I present as a better 
 illustration, or more beautiful instance, than the storge, 
 or maternal instinct 1 But man's instincts are elevated 
 and ennobled by the moral ends and purposes of his 
 being. He is not destined to be the slave of blind 
 impulses, a vessel purposeless, unmeant. He is con- 
 stituted by his moral and intelligent will, to be the 
 first freed being, the master-work and the end of 
 nature ; but this freedom and high office can only 
 co-exist with fealty and devotion to the service of 
 truth and virtue. And though we may even be per- 
 mitted to use the term instinct, in order to designate 
 those high impulses which in the minority of man's 
 rational being, shape his acts unconsciously to ultimate 
 ends, and which in constituting the very character and 
 impress of the humanity reveal the guidance of Provi- 
 dence ; yet the convenience of the phrase, and the want 
 of any other distinctive appellation for an influence de 
 supra, working unconsciously in and on the whole 
 human race, should not induce us to forget that the 
 term instinct is only strictly applicable to the adaptive 
 power, as the faculty, even in its highest proper form, 
 of selecting and adapting appropriate means to proxi- 
 mate ends according to varying circumstances, — a 
 
352 APPENDIX. 
 
 faculty which, however, only differs from human 
 understanding in consequence of the latter being 
 enlightened by reason, and that the principles which 
 actuate man as ultimate ends, and are designed for 
 his conscious possession and guidance, are best and 
 most properly named Ideas." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BBADBUEY AND EVANS, PUIN'TERS, WIIITEFKIARS.