!!ittDUifi»uH PRINCETON, N. J- ■he//.. BR 121 .S6 1885 Smith, John, 1618-1652 The natural truth of Christianity . . The Natural Truth of Christianity, ■-^J^w «w^ THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS. THE NATURAL TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY: SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF JNoXsMITH, M.A., AND OTHERS. WITH INTRODUCTION BY MATTHEW ARNOLD. EDITED BY WILLIAM M. METCALFE. ENLARGED EDITION. ALEXANDER GARDNER, PAISLEY; AND 12 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 1885. ->: dlc o ]C3.j '^/''?Cr''<.-!Cc<\V^ PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The only alteration made in this edition is the addition of an Appendix containing a number of extracts from the writings of Smith's contemporaries and friends, — Whichcote, Cudworth, and Henry More, The selections from Whichcote are made from the third and fourth volumes of the Aberdeen Edition of his Sermons, those from Cudworth are taken from the sermon he preached before the House of Commons, and those from Henry More from his Life by Ward. W. M. M. South Manse, Paisley, July, 1885. CONTENTS. Introduction, - - - - - ix. — xiv. Memoir, .--.... xv. — li. I. — Selections, .-.-.. i — 126 The True Way or Method of Attaining Divine Knowledge, ...... 1-18 1. Of Divinity, ..... i 2. Of Religion and Divinity, . - . . i 3. Of the Search for Divine Knowledge, - - 2 4. Of the Growth of Divine Knowledge, - - 3 5. Of Man's Idea of God, .... 4 6. Of Barren Speculations, - - - - 5 7. Of Knowing and Doing, - - - . 6 8. Of the Method and Aim of our Lord's Teaching, - 7 9. Of an Ingenuous Freedom of Judgment, - - 8 10. Of the Natural Amity between Truth and Reason, - 9 11. Of the Corruption of Knowledge, - - - 11 12. Of Beholding of the Truth, - - - - 12 13. Of the Four kinds of Men and their Different Kinds of Knowledge, - - - - - 1 3 14. Of the Character of our Present Knowledge, - 17 Of Superstition, .... 19-24 1. Of the True Cause and Rise of Superstition, - 19 2. Of the Superstitious, - - - - - 21 3. Of Superstition and the Subtle Workings thereof, 23 vi. Contents. On Atheism, ..... 25-29 1. Of Superstition and Atheism, - - - 25 2. Of the Sure Support which there is in a True Belief of a Deity, - - - - - 28 Of the Immortality of the Soul, - - 30-45 1. Of the Fundamental Principles of Religion, - 30 2. Of Three Considerations respecting the Proof of the Soul's Immortality, - - - -32 3. Of the Soul, ..... 36 4. Of the Soul's Separateness from the Body, - - 38 5. Of the Badges of an Eternal Nature, - - 42 6. Of the True Sense of the Soul's Immortality, - - 43 On the Existence and Nature of God, - 46-79 1. Of the Fear of Death, .... 46 2. Of the Being and Character of God, - - - 47 3. Of what our own Minds teach us respecting God, - 49 4. Of the Quest of the Chief Good, - - - 56 5. Of the Creation of the World, ... 60 6. Of the Glory of God, - - - - - 61 *7. Of Divine Providence, - - - - 63 7. Of Happiness and Misery, - - - - 66 8. Of the Divine Justice, - - - - 70 9. Of the Divine LaM's, - - - - - 72 10. Of the Law of Nature, - - - - 74 11. Of Positive Laws, - - - - - 76 12. Of Everlasting Righteousness, ---']% Of Prophecy, . . . . . 80-85 1. Of Positive Truth, .... 80 2. Of a Main End of the Prophetical Spirit, - - 81 3. Of the Language of Scripture, - - - 81 4. Of the Prophetical, - - - - - 83 Of Legal and Evangelical Righteousness, - 86-126 1. Of the Principles of True Religion, - - - 86 2. Of the Difference between the Law and the Gospel, 89 3. Of the Same as laid down by St. Paul in his Epistles, % Contents. vii. 4. Of the Superiority of the Gospel, - - - 97 5. Of the Typicalness of the Jewish Economy, - - 99 6. Of the Nature of the Gospel, and of the End for which it was brought in, .... 102 7. Of Acceptance with God, ... - 104 S. Of the Justification of Sinners, - - - 108 9. Of Faith, ------ 112 10. Of the Communication of Gospel Righteousness, - 113 11. Of the Undertaking of Christ, - - - 122 II. — The Shortness and Vanity of a Pharisaical RfGHTEOUSNESS, .... 127-156 III. — The Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion, ..---. 157-245 IV. A Christian's Conflicts and Conquests, - 247-278 INTRODUCTION. "John Smith — born in 1618, near Oundle, in Northamp- tonshire — was admitted a scholar of Emanuel College at Cambridge in 1636, a fellow of Queen's College in 1644. He became a tutor and preacher in his college ; died there, 'after a tedious sickness,' on the 7th of August, 1652, and was buried in the college chapel. He was one of that band of Cambridge Platonists, or latitude inen^ as in their own day they were called, whom Burnet has well described as those ' who, at Cambridge, studied to pro- pagate better thoughts, to take men off from being in parties, or from narrow notions, from superstitious con- ceits and fierceness about opinions.' Principal Tulloch has done an excellent work in seeking to reawaken our interest in this noble but neglected group.* .... Placed between the sacerdotal religion of the Laudian clergy on the one side, and the notional religion of the Puritans on the other, they saw the sterility, the certain doom, of both; — saw that stand permanently such developments of religion could not, inasmuch as Christian- * Rational Theology^ etc., in the Seventeenth Centtiry. Edin- burgh, 1S74. Introdudton. ity was not what either of them supposed, but was a temper^ — a behaviour. Their immediate recompense was a religious isolation of two centuries. The religious world was not then ripe for more than the High Church conception of Christianity on the one hand, or the Puritan conception on the other. The Cambridge band ceased to acquire recruits, and dis- appeared with the century. Individuals knew and used their writings; Bishop Wilson of Sodor and Man, in particular, had profited by them. But they made no broad and clear mark. And this was in part for the reason already assigned It is not so much a history of this group which is wanted, as a republica- tion of such of their utterances as show us their real spirit and power. Their spiritual brother, 'the ever memorable Mr. John Hales,' must certainly, notwith- standing that he was at Oxford, not Cambridge, be classed along with them. The remains of Hales of Eton, the sermons and aphorisms of Whichcote, the sermon preached by Cudworth before the House of Commons, with the second sermon printed as a companion to it, single sayings and maxims of Henry More, and the Select Discourses of John Smith, — there are our documents ! In them lies enshrined what the latitude men have of value for us Given some day, and by some hand, it will surely be. For Hales and the Cambridge Platonists here offer, formulated with sufficient distinctness, a conception of Introduction. xi. religion, true, long obscured, and for which the hour of light has at last come. Their productions will not, in- deed, take rank as great works of literature and style. It is not to the history of literature that Whichcote and Smith belong, but to the history of religion. Their con- temporaries were Bossuet, Pascal, Taylor, Barrow. It is in the history of literature that these men are mainly eminent, although they may also be classed, of course, among religious writers. What counts highest in the history of religion as such, is, however, to give what at critical moments the religious life of mankind needs and can use. And it will be found that the Cambridge Platonists, although neither epoch-making philosophers nor epoch-making men of letters, have in their concep- tion of religion a boon for the religious wants of our own time such as we shall demand in vain from the soul and poetry of Taylor, from the sense and vigour of Barrow, from the superb exercitations of Bossuet, or the passion- filled reasoning and rhetoric of Pascal. The Select Discourses of John Smith, collected and published from his papers after his death, are, in my opinion, by much the most considerable work left to us by this Cambridge school. They have a right to a place in English literary history. Yet the main value of the Select Discourses is, I repeat, religious, not literary. Their grand merit is that they insist on the profound natural truth of Christianity, and thus base it upon a ground which will not crumble under our feet. Signal Introduction. and rare indeed is the merit, in a theological instructor, of presenting Christianity to us in this fashion. Christi- anity is true; but in general the whole plan for grounding and buttressing it chosen by our theological instructors is false, and since it is false, it must fail us sooner or later. I have often thought that if candidates for orders were simply, in preparing for their examination, to read and digest Smith's great discourse on the Excel- lency and Nobleness of True Religion, together with M. Reuss's History of Christian Theology at the time of the Apostles, and nothing further except the Bible itself, we might have, perhaps, a hope of at last getting, as our national guides in religion, a clergy which could tell its bearings and steer its way, instead of being, as we now see it, too often conspicuously at a loss to do either." So writes our most accomplished critic, through whose kind permission I am able to use the above as an intro- duction to this volume. Any other recommendation of Smith's writings the reading world will not require, and a better I do not think the religious world can obtain. Though not a theologian, in his delightful volumes dealing with the interpretation of Scripture Mr. Arnold has exhibited a clearness of insight and a flexibiUty of thought and ex- pression which, if more largely possessed and used by our professional theologians and commentators, would Introduction. xiii. commend religion to a wider circle, and make the Bible a more intelligible and influential book. With the old latitude men I believe he has many points of likeness ; and of modern books I know none which are so well calculated as Literature and Dogma^ God a?id the Bible, and St. Paul and Protesta7itism, " to take men off from being in parties, or from narrow notions, from supersti- tious conceits and fierceness about opinions," and to direct the energies they now expend on religion, or on so-called "religious movements," to better purpose. The more I see of the religious world, the more firmly am I persuaded that it is on a wrong tack, and that what the Church most needs in the present is to insist less on the metaphysics of religion and more on clearness and charity of thought and beneficence of life. Of Smith and his writings I shall have occasion to speak immediately. Here I would only say that this volume has not been prepared for scholars. By them, the splendid edition of the Select Discourses prepared by the Rev. H. G. Williams for the Syndics of the Cam- bridge University Press will naturally be consulted. My endeavour in the following pages has been to present Smith in a form suitable for popular reading. The only liberties taken with his text are those of omitting what seemed to have little value for the present, and of translating a number of quotations made from ancient authors in the original. I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. WilHams, to Principal Tulloch's Introduction. admirable volumes on the Rational Theology of England in the Seventeenth Century, and especially to Mr. Matthew Arnold for permission to make use of the long extract .from his Last Essays on Church and Religion given above. Should the demand for this volume warrant the under- taking, I propose to prepare a companion to it from the writings of Whichcote, More, Cudworth, Hales, Culverwel, etc. W. M. M. MEMOIR. The life of John Smith, the author of the " Select Dis- courses," was of short duration and singularly uneventful. In the politics and controversies of his day he does not appear to have taken any part. From his twentieth year he seems to have spent his time either among his books, or in the quiet and unostentatious discharge of his aca- demical duties. The son of John and Catharine Smith, he was born at Achurch near Oundle in Northamptonshire, in the be- ginning of the year 1616.* At the time of his birth his parents were advanced in years, j When but a few months old he had the misfortune to lose his mother. His father, a farmer, and probably a small landowner, who resided at Achurch, seems to have been a man of considerable integrity, and to have enjoyed the respect * Hailes says 1618. The date given above is taken from the Parish Register of Achurch. See the Memoir prefixed to the "Select Discourses," (Cambridge, 1859), p. v., n. 2, to which I am indebted for most of the particulars here given. + Patrick's Funeral Sermon, printed at the end of the "Select Discourses. xvi. Memoir. of those among whom he lived, being several times ap- pointed to the office of church-warden. The rudiments of his education, Smith in all proba- bility received at the Grammar School at Oundle, the establishment of which dates back to about fifty years before his birth. On the 5th of April, 1636, when just entering on his twentieth year, he was sent to the Univer- sity of Cambridge, and entered as a Sizar of Emmanuel College.* Cudworth and Culverwel were already there ; the former having entered in the year 1630,! and the latter in 1635 ;% while at Christ's Church College, Henry More§ had been a student for five years. But by far the most remarkable, though by no means the best known of those whom our author met at Cambridge, and the one whose influence upon him was the most direct and power- ful, was Benjamin Whichcote. At the time of Smith's admission, he was Fellow and Tutor of Emmanuel Col- lege. A man of rare powers as a teacher, and of admirable temper, he was just rising into notice, and had lately begun that course of teaching, which, while it brought him into collision with the Puritanical party, made him the head of that " new set of men," who, " at Cambridge,'' • From this Principal TuUoch infers that his father had Puritan lumings. Rat. Theol. ii. 123. t Birch's Life. |- Light of Nature, xv., (Edin., 1857.) §Rat. Theol., ii. 308. Memoir. xvii. as Burnet tells us, "studied to propagate better thoughts," and, but for whom, " the church had quite lost her esteem over the nation. " "^ It was Smith's good fortune to obtain Whichcote for his Tutor. Between the two a warm and lasting friend- ship grew up. Smith, from whose notes, taken while a student, many of Whichcote's sermons were printed, was in the habit of saying " he lived upon Dr. Whichcote." f AVith a generosity by which he seems to have been dis- tinguished, Whichcote assisted the somewhat straitened means of our Northamptonshire student with his purse, a kindness which Smith was always ready to cheerfully acknowledge. This is almost the only biographical fact of importance which comes out in the somewhat rhetorical " Address to the Reader," prefixed by Dr. Worthington to the "Select Discourses." His w^ords are worth quoting, as they furnish almost the only glimpse we have of our author during this period of his life. " I knew him," says Worthington, " for many years, not only when he was a Fellow of Queen's College, but when a student in Em- manuel College, where his early piety, and the remem- bering his Creator in those 'days of his youth, as also his excellent improvement in the choicest parts of learnin g endeared him to many, particularly to his careful tutor, then Fellow of Emmanuel College, afterwards Provost of * History of his own Times, i. 272, (Edin., 1753.) t Whichcote's Aphorisms, p. xviii. (London, 1753.) xviii. Memoir. King's College, Dr. Whichcote, to whom, for his direc- tions and encouragements of him in his studies, his seasonable support and maintenance when he was a young scholar, as also upon other obliging considerations, our author did ever express a great and singular regard." * At the usual time for students of his standing, the year 1639, Smith, from some unexplained cause did not graduate. He took his Bachelor's degree in the year 1640, and his Master's in 1644. The probable conse- quence of this was that, in his own college, he was pre- cluded from all prospect of advancement, William Dilling- ham, also a native of Northamptonshire, whose admission into Emmanuel College was only a few days earlier than his own, having been elected to a Fellowship in the College in 1642, and the original statutes then in force, but since remodelled, ordaining that no two natives of the same county should hold Fellowships at the same time, f He seems, indeed, to have had little desire for advancement. " He was contented," as Simon Patrick, afterwards Bishop of Ely, remarks, " in the condition wherein he was. He made not haste to rise and climb . . . . , but pro- ceeded leisurely by orderly steps, not to what he could get, but to what he was fit to undertake," desiring rather '• to deserve honour than to be honoured." % * "Select Discourses," p. xv. t Dillingham afterwards became Provost of the College. He edited Culverwel's " Discourse of the Light of Nature." X " Select Discourses," 512. Memoir. XIX. On the nth day of April, 1644, the Earl of Manches- ter, acting in virtue of the powers entrusted to him by a Committee of Parliament, appointed our Author, along with eight others. Fellows of Queen's College, in room of an equal number whom he had ejected ; Smith and those appointed with him, "having," it is stated, "been examined and approved by the Assembly of Divines now sitting at Westminster." The same year he was made Hebrew Lecturer, and Censor Philosophicus, and in the following year, Greek Praelector. In order to retain his Fellowship he ought to have been ordained in 1646, being then a Master of Arts of two years' standing, but, for some un- known reason, he was allowed to postpone his ordination for four years beyond the usual period. It is probable, however, that he followed the custom of the times, and, though unordained, occasionally preached. In 1650, he was appointed Dean of the College and Catechist. The lectures which he delivered in the dis- charge of the duties of these offices, form the larger part of the " Select Discourses." They were strictly " College Exercises," and bear every appearance of having been delivered to a learned audience. The following year he was seized with an illness, pro- bably brought on by over-application to study. In the Spring of 1652, having committed the care of his pupils, who were numerous, to his friend Patrick, he repaired to London for the benefit of his health ; and continued there for some months under the care of Dr. Theodore Mahern. XX. Mejnoh: Towards the end of July he returned to Cambridge, and evidently to die. All the means employed for his restor- ation proved unavailing. For nearly a week he lay in a state of unconsciousness. During one of his lucid intervals he gave directions as to the disposition of his property ; but before he could put his hand to the document which his friends had drawn up, he sank from exhaustion, and passed away the seventh day of August, 1652, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. His library of over six hun- dred volumes, "many of them large and costly,""^ he bequeathed to Queen's College, in the Chapel of which he was interred, though no inscription marks the exact spot where he was laid. Such was the esteem in which he was held by liis contemporaries, that as Patrick, who preached f on the occasion tells us, the Vice-Chancellor, all the Heads of Houses, and a very large congregation attended him to his grave. II. Smith was accurately and widely read. Outside the Bible, his favourite authors were Plato, Cicero, Plotinus, Proclus, Plutarch, and Simplicius. Among the many and ethereal and often fantastical speculations of the Neo- Platonists, he seems to have moved with ease, selecting * "Select Discourses," 518. + The sermon is printed at the end of the "Select Discourses. Memoir. xxi. with a careful hand only those great and ever-living truths, which it was the mission of that school of writers to revive and spread in the then un-Christianized portions of the Graeco-Roman world. He was also skilled in Hebrew and Oriental lore, his " Discourse on Prophecy," exhibiting considerable acquaintance with the Rabbinical writers. His mathematical lectures are spoken of with praise. ■* Besides an active, comprehensive, and well-stored mind, he had the gift of ready and clear utterance. In the society, and for the instruction of others, he delighted in its use. " He was not," says Patrick, " a library locked up, nor a book clasped, but stood open for any to con- verse withal that had a mind to learn. Yea, he was a fountain running over, labouring to do good to those who perhaps had no mind to receive it. None more free, and communicative than he was to such as desired to dis- course with him ; nor would he grudge to be taken off from his studies on such occasions. It may be truly said of him, that a man might always come better from him." f Among his friends he seems to have inspired the most unbounded affection. The terms in which they speak of him are to our modern ears, to say the least, extremely rhetorical ; they have all the appearance, however, of being perfectly sincere. In his " Address to the Reader," * "Select Discourses," p. xix. + Ibid., 507. Mejnoir. Dr. Worthington describes him as "a faithful, hearty, and industrious servant of God," who, " counted it his duty and dignity, his meat and drink, to do the will of his Master in heaven," " both a righteous and truly honest man, and also a good man," " a follower and imitator of God, in purity and holiness, in benignity, goodness, and love," " a lover of our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," " a lover of his spirit and of his life," " a lover of his excellent laws and rules of holy life," " a serious practiser of his sermon in the mount : the best sermon that was ever preached, and yet none more generally neglected by those that call themselves Christians." " To be short," he con- tinues, " he was a Christian more than a little, even wholly and altogether such : a Christian inwardly and in good earnest : religious he was, but without any vain- gloriousness and ostentation, not so much a talking or a disputing, as a living, a doing, and an obeying Chris- tian : one inwardly acquainted with the simplicity and power of godliness, but no admirer of the Pharisaic and sanctimonious shows, though never so goodly and spe- cious." Besides being " a truly godlike man," he tells us that he was eminent also " in those other perfections and accomplishments of the mind, which rendered him a very rational and learned man : and withal, in the midst of all these great accomplishments, as eminent and exem- plary in unaffected humility and true lowliness of mind." In a similar, and even more exalted strain, is the lan- guage ussd by Patrick. " Let us look first upon him," Memoir. xxiii. he says, *' in his eminency^ dignity^ and worth. A very glorious star he was, and shone brighter in our eyes than any he ever looked upon, when he took his view of the heavenly bodies ; and now he shines as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever, being wise, and having turned many, I beUeve, to righteousness." Of " the vastness of his learning," of " his very singular wisdom and great prudence," and of " his admirable skill and readiness in the managery of affairs," he speaks in terms of the loftiest praise. In the same way he describes his moral qualities, " his integrity, uprightness, and faith- fulness," " his courtesy, gentleness, and sweetness," &c. " He had incorporated or insouled," he says, " all princi- ples of justice and righteousness, and made them one with himself" " What," he exclaims, " shall I say of his love ? none that knew him well, but might see in him love bubbling and springing up in his soul, and flowing out to all ; and that love, unfeigned, without guile, hypo- crisy, or dissimulation. I cannot tell you how his soul universahzed, how tenderly he embraced all God's crea- tures in his arms, more especially men, and principally those in whom he beheld the image of his heavenly Father. He would ever have emptied his soul into theirs. Let any who were thoroughly acquainted with him, say if I lie."* Funeral Sermon. Memoir. Language like this is evidently the language of profound and deeply moved affection. There is in it without doubt a considerable amount of exaggeration. Even Dr. Wor- thington felt that to others it would seem so, and half apologises for it, saying, " If it should seem to have in it anything of hyperbolism and strangeness, it must seem so to such only as either were unacquainted with him, and strangers to his worth, or else find it a hard thing not to be envious, and a difficulty to be humble. Those that had a more inward converse with him, knew him," he continues " to be a person truly exemplary in the temper and constitution of his spirit, and in the well ordered course of his life, and eminent in those things that are worthy of praise and imitation." ^ But making all necessary abatements, there can be no doubt that Smith was not only the object of a profound love and admiration on the part of those who knew him, but also a beautiful and noble character, high-souled, gentle, sym- pathetic, skilful in the management of affairs, apt to teach, affable, and chivalrous, easily moved by injustice, full of forgiveness and charity, and animated by a wise and loving zeal in the cause of Christianity : one in short, who, in the words of Worthington, " counted it his meat and drink to do the will of his Master in heaven, and that, too, from his very soul, and with good will." As for his learning, the largeness and comprehensiveness of * "Select Discourses," p. xix. Mei7ioir. xxv. his intellectual grasp, his clear insight, his overteeming wealth of imagination and thought, and the strong hold which he had of the true principles of the Christian faith — the witnesses of these are to hand in his " Select Dis- courses." III. At the time of his death, all Smith's papers were not, it would appear, in his own possession ; those of them which were, were taken in charge by his executor. Dr. Samuel Cradock, and w^ere afterwards, along with some others, "divers of which were loose and scattered, not being written by the author in any book," * entrusted to Dr. Worthington for publication. The result of Wor- thington's editorial labours was a volume of " Select Dis- courses," published in 1660, with the promise of another which never appeared.! The Discourses are in all ten. The first six are closely connected, and form part of a large scheme of thought, in which the author proposed " to treat of the main heads * "Select Discourses," p. xiii. + The dates of the other editions are 1673, 1821, 1859; besides these, an abridgement was published by Lord Hailes in 1754 ; and another by the Rev, Jno. King, ALA., of Queen's College, Cam- bridge, in 1820. The "Discourse on Prophecy" was translated into Latin by M. Le Clerc, and prefixed to his Commentary on the Prophets; and in 1745, the "Discourse on the Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion " was published separately at Glasgow. b xxvi. Mefnotr. and principles of religion." The first is designed as a prolegomenon or preface to the rest, and treats of the ''true method of knowing, which is not so much by notions as actions : as religion itself consists not so much in words as in things." In the second and third treatises, he deals with some reasons why men do not adopt this " true method," or with those " two anti-deities," as he calls them, Superstition and Atheism, " which may seem," he remarks, " to comprehend in them all kinds of apostasy and prevarication from religion." Each, he points out, has the same cause, viz : — a false knowledge of God : Superstition being the offspring of weak and timorous minds, and Atheism of minds sour and imperious. Having thus cleared the way, he enumerates the follow- ing as "the main heads and principles of religion." (i.) The Immortality of the Soul ; (2.) The Existence and Nature of God; (3.) The Communication of God to Man- kind through Christ. Of the first two, he treats some- what elaborately in two successive discourses ; on the discussions of the third, he^^did not live to enter. The discourse on prophecy, the last of the connected series, was intended as an introduction to it. Of prophecy, Worthington tells us " he intended to treat but a little, and then pass on to the third and last part, viz., those principles of revealed truth which tend most of all to advance and cherish true and real piety. But, in his dis- coursing on prophecy, so many considerable inquiries offered themselves to his thoughts, that, by the time he Memoir. xxvii. had finished this discourse, his office of Dean and Cate- chist in the College did expire." "Thus," he continues, " he who designed to speak of God's communication of Himself to mankind through Christ, was taken up by God into a more inward and immediate participation of Himself in blessedness. Had he lived, and had health to have finished the remaining part of his designed method, the reader may easily conceive what a valuable piece that discourse would have been." * To these six connected discourses, Worthington has added four others, "delivered by the author in some chapel exercises." These four supplementary discourses are " upon arguments of most practical concernment," and are of great value. Their selection shows considerable tact on the part of Worthington, and leaves the desire for more. Their titles are : "On Legal and Evangelical Righteousness," " On the Shortness of a Pharisaical Righteousness," " On the Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion, '*0n a Christian's Conflicts with, and Con- quests over Satan." All are intimately connected with, and more or less illustrative of the treatises forming the first part of the volume. Their style is somewhat simpler, and confirms what Worthington says respecting their author's mode of preaching, that, " when he preached in lesser country auditories, it was his desire and endeavour to accommodate his expressions to ordinary vulgar capaci- " Select Discourses," 294-5. xxviii. Memoir. ties, being studious to be understood." ^ The finest of these four discourses, and probably the most valuable of all Smith's writings, is the one " On the Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion." The last of them was preached at Huntingdon, "where one of Queen's College is every year, on March 25th, to preach a sermon against witchcraft, diabolical contracts, &c.," and is admirably analysed and commented on by Matthew Arnold in his " Last Essays on Church and Religion." f One of the main obstacles to the popularity of Smith's writings is the frequent occurrence of classical and other quotations. By Dr. Worthington, many of these were translated. In the following extracts, and in the three discourses which are given in full, the original of the quotation has in most cases been left out, and, where requisite, a translation has been inserted. The effect of these quotations is often to mar the flow of the argument ; frequently, however, they give a fulness and richness to the author's thought. IV. Smith was not a philosopher, J and had no intention of philosophising. He was a teacher of religion, and in the * Ibid., p. xxxii. fp. 23 and foil. X Of course I use the word in its old sense of a searcher or hunter after truth. "Philosophy seeks truth, theology finds it, religion possesses it." Picus Mirandola. Memoir. xxix. interests of religion wrote and delivered his discourses. Whatever of philosophy there is in them is there as an accident, and is used not to buttress up the principles of religion, but as an off-set to bring out their true and essential character. Superstition and Atheism he regards as the "two chief anti-deities that are set up against, and seem to comprehend in them all kinds of apostasy and prevarication from religion * : " and as such he deals with them. On the other hand, he treats "of the nature of God and of our own i^rnmortal souls " for the simple reasons, that "both show us what our religion should be, and also the necessity of it;" while his reason for the intended discussion of the doctrine of " free grace in Christ," was because it is " the sweet and comfortable means of attaining to that perfection and blessedness which the other belief (in God and immortality) teaches us to aim at." \ His three " fundamental articles of faith and practice" he regards as things given, and beyond dispute. His one concern is not to demonstrate their truth, but to clear them of superstitious vanities, and by setting them in the light of day, to win men to their side. As his writings are so little known, it may not be out of place to note some of the chief points of his teaching. I. The foundation of religion is a clear knowledge of its true principles. These are all in themselves plain and easy, delivered in the most familiar way, so that he that * " Select Discourses," p. 25, + lb., p. 62. Memoir. runs may read. So clear and perspicuous are they, that " they need no key of analytical demonstration to unlock them." Given in the Scriptures, they are given also in the human soul. There we have those " truths of natural inscription," those fundamental principles of truth "which reason by a naked intuition, may behold in God," or those necessary inferences or " deductions that may be drawn from them," God having " stamped a copy of His own archetypal loveliness upon the soul, that men, by reflecting into themselves, might behold there all those ideas of truth which concern the nature and essence of God, and, so, beget within themselves the most free and generous motions of love towards Him. " "Reason in man," he says, " is a light flowing from the Fountain and Father of lights, a partial likeness of the Eternal Reason" communicated to man in order that he may " work out of himself all those notions of God which are the true groundwork of love and obedience, and conformity to Him." Besides these " truths of natural inscription," there is the action of the divine revelation, whereby God is continually discovering to men the way of return to Himself. And further, all those truths which are requisite for salvation, God is per- petually impressing on men's minds, on the one hand by throwing light upon the truths themselves, and on the other by strengthening the faculties of the mind, and giving us power to see and apprehend."* *Vide pp. 86. 164-8. Memoir. xxxi. 2. False knowledge, or ignorance of these truths of religion, generates in some a "debasing and terrifying fear," and in others of a " more stout and surly nature," a spirit of hatred, " cankering them with malice against the Deity ; " and thus, producing in the one case Super- stition, and in the other Atheism.* 3. The true method of attaining to divine knowledge is in keeping the commandments of God. Actions, not notions, are our teachers. " They are not always the best skilled in divinity," he observes, " that are the most studied in those pandects, into which it is sometimes digested, or that have^erected the greatest monopoHes of art and science, . . . It is but a thin airy knowledge that is got by mere speculation, which is ushered in by syllogisms and demonstrations." Divinity is a divine life rather than a divine science. Hence, he says, our Lord " hangs all true acquaintance with it upon doing God's will : if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." We must not sup- pose, however, " that we have then attained to the right knowledge of truth, when we have broken through the outward shell of words and phrases that house it up ; or when, by a logical analysis, we have found out the depend- encies or coherences of them, one with another . . . There is a knowing of the truth as it is in Jesus, as it is * Ibid. pp. 19. 25. xxxii. Memoir. in a Christlike nature, as it is in that sweet, mild, humble, and loving spirit of Jesus, which spreads itself like a morn- ing sun upon the souls of good men, full of light and Ufe." To know it in this way, we must not only do, we must love the truth. " That is not the best and truest know- ledge of God which is wrought out by the labour and sweat of the brain, but that which is kindled within us by a heavenly warmth in our hearts." And again, "that which enables us to know and understand aught in the things of God, must be a living principle of holiness within us. When the tree of knowledge is not planted by the tree of life, and sucks not up sap from thence, it may as well be fruitful with evil as with good, and bring forth bitter fruit as w^ell as sweet. If we would indeed have our knowledge thrive and flourish, we must water the tender plants of it with holiness." On the other hand, requisite as love is for knowledge, practice is equally so. "The clearest and most distinct notions of truth that shine in the souls of the common sort of men, may be extremely clouded, if they be not accompanied with an answerable practice that might preserve their integrity." And so with all other sorts of men. The "tender plants" of our knowledge "may soon be spoiled by the continual droppings of our corrupt affec- tions upon them ; they are'but of a weak and feminine nature, and so may sooner be deceived by that wily ser- pent of sensuality that harbours within us." The one Me7notr, xxxiii. way to true knowledge is a loving faithful observance of the commandments of God."^ 4. The reasons why men fail in religion are various. Many separate knowledge from practice, and fail, through conceit of their own opinions. " We have many grave and reverend idolaters," he remarks, " that worship truth only in the image of their own wits : that could never adore it so much as they may seem to do, were it anything else but such a form of belief as their own wandering speculations had at last met together in : were it not that they find their own image and superscription upon it." Most fail through indifference or thoughtless- ness. " There are few things," he observes, " in which men are more lazy and sluggish than in matters of reli- gion." In most, there are certain " common notions and natural instincts of devotion, which are ever and anon roving after religion ; and as they casually and fortu- itously start up any models and ideas of it, they are presently prone to believe themselves to have found out this only pearl of price ; the religion of most men being indeed nothing else but such a strain and scheme of thoughts and actions, as their natural propensions, swayed by nothing else but an inbred belief of a Deity, acci- dentally run into." Of the mistakes they make, he enumerates in his discourse on the " Shortness and Vanity of a Pharisaical Religion," four, viz. : (i.) Substi- * Ibid. pp. I. 3. 7. 8. II. xxxiv. Memoir. tuting obedience to a part of the law for obedience to the whole ; (2.) Rendering a merely outward compliance to the divine law; (3.) Serving God in a purely servile spirit; (4.) Rendering an obedience which is merely mimetic or theatrical, and not the expression of their own mind and will. Generally speaking, the real cause of failure is, that, " we want not so much means of know- ing what we ought to do, as wills to do that which we may know."* 5. Though we have not the will to do what we know we ought, it by no means follows that we have not the power. Weak, or weakened as our natural powers may be, we are under no necessity to sin ; nor are they so weak that we cannot in any kind or manner of way seek after a true conformity to the will of God. The wit- ness of this is within ourselves. For "if men would seriously commune with their hearts, their own con- sciences would tell them plainly, that they might avoid and omit more evil than they do, and that they might do more good than they do." And besides, " God has not given to us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind." The gospel is noth- ing less than "a mighty efflux and emanation of life and spirit, freely issuing forth from an omnipotent source of grace and love, as that true godlike vital influence, whereby the Divinity derives itself into the souls of men, *Ibid. pp. 6. 130, and foil. Me7noir. xxxv. enlivening and transforming them into its own likeness, and strongly imprinting upon them a copy of its own beauty and goodness." Hence it is, he remarks, that " St. Paul everywhere magnifies this dispensation of the free mercy and grace of God, as being the only sovereign remedy against all inward radicated maladies of sin and corruption, as that panacea or biilsam of life which is the universal restorative of decayed and impotent natures."* 6. Christianity, therefore, considered in itself, is noth- ing less than " a participation in the divine nature," — " a vigorous efflux of the first truth and primitive goodness upon the spirits of men." It was brought in, " not only to hold forth a new platform and model of religion," and, " not only to refine some notions of truth that might formerly seem discoloured and disfigured by a multitude of legal rites and ceremonies ; " nor even for the sole purpose " of casting our opinions concerning the way of Hfe and happiness into a new mould and shape, in a pedagogical kind of way." " It is not so much a system and body of saving divinity, as the spirit and vital influx of it spreading itself over all the powers of men's souls, and quickening them into a divine life," " a vital and quickening thing, able to beget in men a soul and form of divine goodness." Nor is it the mere subli- mation of our own natural powers and principles, wrought out by the strength of our own fancies or endeavours : it Ibid. pp. 242-3, 89. ^T. Memoir. is an efflux of life and power from God Himself, gratui- tously dispensing itself to the minds of men, and pro- ducing life and virtue and energy wheresoever it comes.* 7. On the other hand, considered as a religion, Chris- tianity is neither emotion, theory, nor ritual, but a life, or as Matthew Arnold puts it, "a temper, a behaviour." While resting upon knowledge, its main concern is with conduct. Ritual is " the garish dress and attire of reli- gion," and consists of " those material crutches made up of carnal observances, upon which earthly minds are too apt to lean, and with which they would fain underprop their religion." At the same time there are duties and ordi- nances, certain rites and ceremonies, or religious perfor- mances which have been appointed by God, and which ought to be duly attended to. Their function, however, is not to usurp the place of religion, nor to divert our attention from the tempers of our minds, or from the qualities of our deeds. "They are intended," he says, " to help our dull minds to a more lively sense of the divine goodness." " We must not think," he adds, " that religion serves to paint our faces, to reform our looks, or only to inform our heads, or instruct and tune our tongues; no, nor only to tie our hands, and make our outward man more demure, and bring our bodies and bodily actions into a better decorum : but its main business is to purge and reform our hearts, and all the illicit actions and * Ibid. pp. 162-3. 102. 89. 96. 156. 94. Memoir. xxxvii. motions thereof." So again, with respect to faith and emotion. " God," he remarks, " respects not a bold, con- fident, and audacious faith, that is big with nothing but its own presumptions. It is not because our brains swim with a strong conceit of God's eternal love to us, or be- cause we grow big and swell into a mighty bulk, with airy fancies and presumptions of our acceptance with God, that makes us at all the more acceptable to Him ; it is not all our strong dreams of being in favour with heaven that fills our hungry souls at all the more with it ; it is not a perti- nacious imagination of our names being enrolled in the book of life, or of the debt books of heaven being crossed, or of Christ being ours, while we find Him not living within us, or of the washing away of our sins in His blood, while the foul and filthy stains thereof are deeply sunk in our own souls ; it is not, I say, a pertinacious imagyiation of any of these that can make us the better : and a mere conceit or opinion, as it makes us never the better in reality within ourselves, so it cannot ren- der us more acceptable to God, who judges all things as they are. No, it must be a true compliance with the divine, which must render us such as the Divinity may take pleasure in. ' In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything,' nor any fancy built upon any other external privilege, ' but the keeping of the commandments of God.' No, but ' if any man does the will of God, him will both the Father and the Son love : they will come in to him and make their abode Memoir. with him.' This is the scope and mark at which a heaven-born faith aims ; and when it hath attained this end, then is it indeed perfect and complete in its last accomplishment. And by how much the more ardency and intention faith levels at this mark of inward goodness and divine activity, by so much the more perfect and sin- cere it is." "^ 8. For the conduct of the Christian life, he lays down two principal rules, viz. : to follow the eternal and un- changeable rules of reason j and to deny one's self. It must be remembered, however, that with Smith, reason is not merely the reasoning faculty, but, as he phrases it, " a light of light, a light flowing from the Fountain and Father of lights, a partial likeness of the Eternal Reason." On the other hand by self-denial, he means the repression of our lower self; and that which alone teaches and enables us to do this, he says, is Christianity, or as he usually prefers to call it, true religion. At times he sums up the whole " method and secret " of Christianity under the one term, self-denial. How much he means by it, however, he is careful to let us see in his discourse on "The Nobleness and Excellency of True Religion." " I mean not," he says, " that men should deny their own reason, as some would have it ; for that were to deny a beam of Divine light, and so to deny God, instead of denying ourselves for Him. It is better resolved by some Ibid. 141-3. 107-8. Memoir. philosophers in this point, that, ' to follow reason is to follow God ; ' and again, ' to obey right reason is the same as to obey God.' But, by self-denial, I mean the soul's quitting all its own interest in itself, and an entire resignation of itself to Him, as to all points of service and duty .... desiring only to be great in God . . . and so to live, not as its own, but as His." And in order to mark the contrast, he adds, "this is more or less the genius of wicked men ; they will be something in themselves, they wrap themselves up in their own being, move up and down in a sphere of self- love, live a life of professed independency of God, and maintain a meum et timm between God and themselves. It is the character only of a good man to be able to deny and disown himself, and to make a full surrender of him- self unto God ; forgetting himself, and minding nothing but the will of his Creator ; triumphing in nothing more than in his own nothingness, and in the allness of the Divinity. But indeed this, his being nothing, is the only way to be all things ; this, his having nothing, the truest way of possession of all things."* 9. On the effects or fruits of Christianity, he has dwelt at considerable length in the discourse on the "Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion." Here they need only be enumerated. They are these : (i.) It enlarges all the faculties of the soul, and begets a true ingenuousness, Ibid. 172-4, 165, 173-5' xl. Memoir. liberty, and amplitude, the most free and generous spirit in the minds of good men ; (2.) It restores a man to a just power and dominion over himself; (3.) It directs and enables a man to aim at the glory of God and his own assimilation to His character ; (4.) It brings serenity and composedness of mind, the truest contentment, the purest and most satisfying joy and pleasure; (5.) It begets assurance and confidence both towards God, and amidst the vicissitudes of life; (6.) It spiritualizes material things, and enables men to behold amid the things which are seen and temporal, those which are not seen and eternal ; and lastly, it enables men to observe and wait upon the Divine Providence, to do God's will, and to acquiesce in it. Christianity, he further observes, is progressive, and continually carries the soul towards its term and end. which is perfect blessedness. Such is Smith's view of Christianity, as set forth in the " Select Discourse." It possesses the rare merit of being at once Scriptural, natural, and verifiable. On one or other of these grounds it ought to commend itself to all parties. Of its Scripturalness, there can, or ought to be, I think, no doubt. In the " Select Discourses," the words of Scripture are somewhat rarely quoted. After the fashion of his time. Smith preferred to quote a passage from Plato, Plotinus, or from some other classical or ancient author ; yet, no intelligent student of the Bible can read his writings, and especially those parts in which he is not dealing with some old philosophical doctrine, Memoir. xli. without feeling that, beneath all he says, there is a strong under-current of Biblical thought. How thor- oughly his mind was imbued with Scripture, and how profound an insight he had into its meaning, may be seen on the eighty-ninth and following' pages of the present volume. The exposition there given of the difference between the Law and the Gospel, is probably as fine a piece of exegesis as there is in the language, and contains more soHd instruction as to the essential and practical character of Christianity, than many of the vol- umes which have since been written either here or in Germany. Passing now to the Theology of the " Select Discour- ses," I have to repeat the remark, that Smith does not philosophise. His feet are always on the solid ground of experience. Regarding his three " cardinal principles " as things given, or as things known, his aim in dealing with them is simply to explain and confirm. The only place where he attempts an elaborate proof is in the third and two following chapters on the Immortality of the Soul ; and these chapters, though not without merit, I am disposed to regard as the least valuable part of the "Select Discourses." When written, they were probably of con- siderable value ; for the present, with the exception of a few isolated passages, they seem to have little. So im- pHcitly does Smith trust to our intuitive knowledge, that he does not even attempt a proof of so important a doc- trine as that of the existence of God. When approaching xlii. Memoir. it, he says, " here we shall not so much demonstrate that He is, as what He is." * Those who wish to see a fuller analysis of Smith's Theology, I must refer to the second volume of Principal Tulloch's admirable work ; all I can do here is to give a rapid sketch of its main outlines. 1. His first position is that " divinity," or divine know- ledge, " is a true efflux from the eternal light, which, like the sunbeams, does not only enlighten, but heat and en- liven ; " " and as the eye cannot behold the sun unless it be sun-like, and hath the form and resemblance of the sun drawn in it ; so neither can the soul of man behold God unless it be God-like, hath God formed in it, and be made partaker of^the divine nature." Hence, "thepro- lepsis and fundamental principle of divine science is a good life." Hence, also, " to seek our divinity merely in books and writings, is to seek the living among the dead." We must seek within. The chief natural way wh ereby we can climb up to the understanding of the Deity, and of divine things, is by the contemplation of our own souls. The clearest impressions of him are there ; elsewhere we behold only his traces ; here we see his face, f 2. Of the three " cardinal principles," Smith deals with that of the Immortality of the Soul first. This he regards as the primary datum of religious belief Once it is cleared of all ambiguity, the objections of Atheism are removed, * "Select Discourses," 127. t See pp. 1-4, 47, 74-5, &c. Memoir. xliii. and we are in a position to understand the nature of God. As to the truth of the doctrine, he remarks, that it is in no absolute nfeed of proof, but " might be assumed rather as a principle or postulatum, seeing the notion of it is apt naturally to insinuate itself into the belief of the most vulgar sort of men." For the appreciation of any argu- ments in favour of it, there must be an antecedent con- verse with our own souls, as their secrets can only be got from them by a direct converse with themselves. " All those discourses which have been written of the soul's heraldry will not blazon it so well to us as itself will do." And further, in order to prove the truth of the doctrine, the indestructibility of every true substance must be as- sumed as a direct corollary from the Epicurean doctrine, " from nothing, nothing can come, and into nothing, nothing can return." The grounds on which he rests the proof of the doctrine are mainly : (i.) The soul's incor- poreity ; (2.) Its spontaneity ; (3.) Its power of forming abstract and necessary ideas ; its " naked intuition of eternal truth, which is always the same, never rising or setting, but always standing still in its vertical, and filling the whole horizon of the soul with a mild and gentle light." That, however, he remarks, which breeds a true sense of the soul's immortality, is true and real goodness. This alone, it is, that "can make men both know and love, believe and delight themselves in their own immortality."* * See p. 32 and foil. xliv. Memoir. 3. In dealing with the next cardinal principle, the Existence and Nature of God, Smith, as I have said, enters upon no formal arguments. Hi^ aim is to demonstrate not so much that God is, as what He is. According to his wont, he starts from the spiritual side of humanity, and adopting the language of Plotinus, says, "he who reflects upon himself, reflects upon his own original, and finds the clearest impression of some eternal nature and perfect being stamped upon his own soul." "God," he adds, "has so copied Himself into the whole life and energy of man's soul, as that the lovely characters of Divinity may be most easily seen and read of all men within themselves." The task he therefore sets himself is, "to inquire what that knowledge of a Deity is, which a due converse with our own naked understandings will lead us into." Starting with the assertion that, "there is nothing whereby our own souls are better known to us than by the properties and operations of reason, he pro- ceeds to show what our converse with them teaches, (i.) Our reason and its operations suggest the idea of the Divine Unity and Omniscience ; (2.) Our will and power the idea of an Eternal Power; (3.) Our affections the idea of an Almighty Love ; (4.) This, again, " which signifies some perfect essence, as a mind, wisdom, understanding, omnipotency, goodness, and the like, shows us that God is Eternal and Omnipresent, " not because he fills either place or time, but rather because he wanteth neither ; " and lastly, because there is freedom and liberty in our- Memoir. xlv. selves, there is the same in God. Again, the restless craving there is within ourselves for a chief good, and for perfect blessedness, points to the fact that there is one who is the Chief Good, and in whom happiness perfectly exists. " God," he says, " is not better defined to us by our understandings than by our wills and affections ; He is not only the eternal reason, that Almighty mind and wisdom which our understandings converse with, but He is also that unstained beauty and supreme good after which our souls are perpetually aspiring j and whereso- ever we find true beauty, love, and goodness, we may say, here or there is God." * 4. From this conception of the Divine Nature, which is simply the idealization of the higher powers of the hu- man soul, Smith proceeds to draw various "deductions." The principal of them are, on the one hand, that the works of God are the true effluxes of his overteeming wealth of goodness and love, and that his true glory is in communicating Himself to His creatures ; and on the other, that all true happiness consists in participating in His nature, and in our own characters being assimilated to His.f 5. The third cardinal principle, and the one which is distinctively Christian, viz. — the communication of God to mankind through Christ, Smith, as we have seen, did not live to discuss. All he dealt with was prophecy or * lb. p. 47 and foil. t lb. p. 60 and foil. xlvi. Memoir. revelation. This he describes as ''a free influx of the Divine Mind upon our mind and understandings." * For clearness of insight, to say nothing of its learning, the Discourse on Prophecy will bear comparison with some, or any of the best of modern times. Scattered throughout it are many valuable passages, among which the most important to religion are those which bear on the interpretation of Scripture. How thoroughly Scrip- tural his treatment of his third fundamental principle of faith and practice would have been may be gathered from his discourses on Legal and Evangelical Righteousness, and on the Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion. His leading principle is that "'the Gospel is not a thing without us," but " an efflux and emanation of life and spirit, freely issuing forth from an Omnipotent source of grace and love, whereby the Divinity derives itself into the souls of men, enlivening and transforming them into ts own likeness, and strongly imprinting upon them a copy of its own beauty and goodness." f The central point of SiMITh's teaching seems to have been the existence in God of an actual and real righte- ousness which is continually acting upon the minds of men. The hint has been thrown out that he prepared the way for the separation of theology and moraUty.* The suggestion, I venture to think, notwithstanding the high authority by which it has been made, is without " lb. p. 80. + lb, p. 89. Memoir. xlvii. foundation. In Smith's day the separation indicated had already begun, and was being rapidly consummated on the one hand by the Calvinistical divines, and on the other, by those of the Laudian school. Against the ten- dencies of each, the teaching of the Cambridge Platon- ists was a decided protest. The aim of Smith and of all those with whom he associated was to keep theology and morality together, and to show that in their roots they are inseparable. And certainly, if there is one truth on which the "Select Discourses" insist more than on an- other, it is that without morality there can be no true re- ligion, and that equally with religion, all true morahty rests, as on its primary foundation, on a noble, well- grounded, and expansive idea of the being and character of God. In his own day Smith's influence was great. How he impressed his friends we have seen. The impression he produced among his pupils was not less salutary and pro- found. Instructing them not only with words, but also by the example of his own pure and unsullied life of Christian reasonableness, those of them who are said to have traced their progress in learning and piety to the in- struction they received from him are numerous. Nor * Maurice, Modern Philosophy, 349. (London, 1S62.) xlviii. Memoir. was his influence felt by pupils and friends alone. It seems to have been felt as well by most of the young and receptive minds that passed through Cambridge during the period he was teaching. An example is John Howe, the famous author of the " Redeemer's Tears." The "pla- tonic tincture which so remarkably runs through his later writings " Calamy attributes to his intimacy with Cud- worth and More. Professor Rogers remarks, " in all pro- bability, he imbibed this ' tincture ' in a far greater de- gree from the justly celebrated John Smith of Queen's College, who was, at that time,* in the height of his de- served reputation, and whom, in many points, Howe strongly resembled" — a statement of some importance both as indicating the measure of Smith's influence, and as showing the esteem in which he is held by writers and theologians of the school to which Professor Rogers be- lon2:s. VI. As a writer, though not without faults, Smith has many excellencies. His faults are for the most part those of his age. The style which was then in vogue, f Milton has characterised as "a paroxysm of citations, * Life of Howe, p. 19. (London, 1863.) + See on this an excellent chapter in Mr. IMullinger's "Cambridge in the XVIL Cent." (London, 1867.) Memoir. xlix. pampered metaphors, and aphorisming pedantry." Butler describes it as — A Babylonish dialect Which learned pedants much affect ; a party-coloured dress Of patch'd and piebald languages ; . . English cut on Greek and Latin, Like fustian heretofore on satin. In the matter of citations, excepting perhaps in his dis- courses on the Immortality of the Soul and on Prophecy, Smith offends much less against modern taste than do many of his contemporaries. From " pampered meta- phors and aphorisming pedantry," as well as from un- usual words and phrases, he is singularly free. Of unusual words, the following are all, or nearly all that occur : autaesthesy for self-knowledge ; mitarchy for self-suffi- ciency; ampliate for enlarge; cojispicable for visible; displa- ce7icy for disposition; epoptists for ?,QQ.Ysf fecuiency for foul- ness ; y^/^r?/^//^;?^- for purifications; /^/i5'//