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INTRODUCTION

SECOND EDITION

BAMPTON LECTURES,

OF THE YEAR 1832.

R. D. HAMPDEN, D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
CANON OP CIIRIST CHURCH, ETC.

LONDON: •
B. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET.
1837.

LONDON :
k. clay, printer, bread-street-hill,
doctors' commons.

INTRODUCTION.

It is well known, that, as an Author, or rather par
ticularly as the Bampton Lecturer ofthe year 1832, I have
been the object of no common or measured attacks. Such
has been my singular infelicity! — or perhaps I should say,
felicity; when I look to the advantage that must result to the
Truth, from general attention being drawn to that track of
Theology on which I have entered. It is not necessary
to describe how I have been assailed, not only by angry
publications, but by the more open polemics of ungentle and
disrespectful acts. All this being known to the world, sorae
perhaps have wondered that I have not been stirred up to
the conflict. Some may have thought, that I. have been
wanting to myself, in not entering into personal controversy
with my adversaries ; and may have expected, that I should
at least shew some impatience under unmerited attacks,
some anxiety to vindicate myself from calumnious impu
tations. First then, I would observe, that I am, by natural dis
position, utterly averse to polemical disputation. I prefer
leaving the cause in the hands of the public ; having no
desire, that any thing advanced in my writings should stand
b

2 INTRODUCTION.
its ground by the temporary aid of argumentative defence ;
and being perfectly content that it should fall, if unable to
abide the test of time. I do not mean to say, that Theo
logical Controversy may not be carried on in a Christian
spirit; and that it may not sometimes do good. But its
observed tendency is, to hurt the Christian temper ; and its
use as an instrument of Truth is extremely hazardous.
In the next place, I have not felt that the writings so
vehemently railed against, have been substantially assailed.
I have been distressed — who cannot have been distressed ? —
to see questions of Truth, of Religious Truth above all,
arbitrated, like measures of political expediency, by personal
and party influence, by appeals to feelings and prejudices,
by the gathering of nurabers, and the loudest cry. But where
was the argument, where the evidence of Truth, in such
proceedings ? So far as they admitted an answer, they have
received it in the sentence of public opinion. Setting
aside however these unargumentative attacks, I have really
seen nothing in those professedly argumentative, that should
demand an answer. I am not singular in discovering, even
in this class, much to oflPend the dispassionate inquirer.
What was wanted, was, temperate, and learned, and well-
reasoned discussion of the points at issue. Has such
appeared ? Of the reverse has there not been abundance ?
At the same time I do not presume to assert, that ^my
publications are without fault. Probably there are faults
and mistakes in them. Imperfections there are doubtless.
And I am quite ready to take blame to myself, if by an
incomplete development of my views, I should have given
occasion to any single-minded reader, to misapprehend my
meaning and adopt an error. But it does not appear, that
any such reader has been misled. On the contrary, I have

INTRODUCTION. d
the testimony of many to the right impressions, which they
have received from a perusal of my Bampton Lectures
and other publications. My present assailants certainly
have made a great parade of objections. With a minute
diligence, they have turned over the leaves, and drawn
their line on many a passage and many a word. But with
all these painful efforts, they have made out no case against
my argument. I see no reason, from what they have
alleged, for changing a single opinion, or retracting a single
statement. Nor indeed, in that posture of mind in
which they applied themselves to the work of criticism,
were they likely to discover any real objections. My
-writings, it is clear, have been searched by them for evi
dence of principles to which they were themselves previously
opposed, and in justification of a course of conduct to
which they were already committed. And it seems a super
fluous labour to address refutation to constructions and
arguings, which derive their being and form from par
ticular minds, and are not based on free and large grounds
of inquiry.

Still, as public attention has been so earnestly importuned
to' my writings, I have thought it advisable to avail myself
of the call for another Edition of my Bampton Lectures,
to give a general Introduction to the views contained in
them. The work itself, being originally intended for a
learned audience, may not unreasonably appear difficult to
some persons, even if there were no prejudices excited in
their minds against it. It seems expedient therefore, —
especially as the work will now undoubtedly find its way
to a much larger circle, — to prepare the general reader for
b2

4 INTRODUCTION.
entering on the argument, by some preliminary obser
vations. More particularly, now that much party-colouring has
been scattered over it, I feel it but due to my station, and
to the cause of Truth, — which I firmly hold to be on the
side of that work, — to endeavour to smooth the access to it,
and show, that candid readers have no real ground for
regarding it with suspicion. I have no expectation, in doing
so, that any thing I may say, will reconcile the determined
controversialist. Such an expectation would not be war
ranted by experience. I shall be happy, if, on the whole,
but one ray of light shall fall on the cloud of his mis
conceptions.

I. 1 would first point out what is the object proposed
in the Bampton Lectures. There has been much mis
representation on this head. The work has been held
up as an attempt to explain away Christian Truths — to leave
nothing of Christian Doctrine — to reduce the Creed of
the Christian to a few historical events, or else to cer
tain abstract general points in which the various opinions of
discordant sects may be found to agree — and generally to
unsettle the minds of believers as to what is Christian
Truth, and what is not. Unfair objection to my line of
argument has thus been raised ; and persons have been
prevented from giving that calm, unprejudiced attention to
tbe subject, which it strictly requires. It is not only true
that men condemn what they do not understand ; but they
are disabled from understanding what they have been
taught to condemn.

INTRODUCTION. 5
Let me premise then that the Inquiry pursued in the
Bampton Lectures, leaves the Matter of Christian Doctrine
untouched. It is one thing to inquire into the Mode of
Statement, supposing the Substance of the Statement to be
true ; and another thing to inquire into the Matter or Sub
stance ofthe Truth stated. A Truth, whether we call it a Fact
or a Doctrine, is quite independent of any particular mode of
Statement. To take an extreme case : a Fact would be no less
a Truth, or rather no less a Reality, though there existed no
language in which it could be expressed, or though no
one had yet attempted to describe it in language. For
example, there are many Truths of Physical Science yet
undiscovered, and which no one consequently has ever
laid down in words ; but which must be regarded as pos
sessing a real existence, no less than those which have
been discovered and recorded in scientific phraseology.
The theories of modern Astronomy and modern Chemistry
were as true in ancient times as they are now, though, as
not known, they -were never stated. Observation, indeed, of
the idioms of different languages will shew this sufficiently.
When the Romans called an army Exercitus, they gave it
a peculiar name founded on the excellence of their disci
pline, and significant of the importance which they attributed
to discipline. But had the Greeks a less real notion of an
army, or have we ourselves, because the terras denoting an
army both in Greek and English include no similar associ
ation ? The logician again learns from his science, that there
may be several propositions exactly equivalent in meaning,
though none of the words are the same. The historian may
relate the same fact in entirely different expressions, — expres
sions drawn from entirely different trains of thought. Sup
pose it possible for Thucydides and Clarendon to have drawn

6 INTRODUCTION.
the same character ; — though both may have drawn it to
the life, under what variety of ideas would the charac
teristics ofthe two descriptions have been presented ! So too
different poets may describe the same substantial realities,
whilst the metaphors employed by them are derived from
their own peculiarities of observation and thought.
Now if this holds in other subjects, what is to prevent
its holding also in Theology ? What is there here to identify
modes of statement with the Truths themselves ; so that to
shew the one to be variable, is to shake the foundation ofthe
other? Is it true, or is it not, that there is a Technical sys
tera of phraseology, by which Religious Truth is expressed?
It cannot be denied that there is. For what else are the
terms, Substance, Person, Justification, Election, Rege
neration, Conversion, Corruption, &c. but Terms restricted
to a peculiar sense in the subject of Theology, and thus
constituting part of what is called a Technical System ? These
Terms indeed are so identified in popular usage with the
Religious Truths themselves, that advantage may be easily
taken of popular conceptions of the subject, to represent the
Statements of those Truths as identical with the Truths. And
an ignorant or unfair antagonist, the forraer not perceiving
the difference, the latter designedly confounding it, may thus
very readily induce persons to believe, that an inquiry into
the origin and nature of Doctrinal Statements, is a disputing
of Christian Doctrines in themselves. To Siopl^etv yap ovk
ka-i Twv TToXkiv. But let those who have hitherto been
misguided, or who have not yet thought sufficiently of the
nature ofthe difference between Truths themselves and their
modes of Statement, now consider temperately, apart from
prejudiced views, and passionate appeals to their fears, and
controversial acrimony, whether there is not in reality this

INTRODUCTION. /
difference. And let them know at any rate, that I have
had this difference in view throughout, in the theological
discussions to which I am referring; these discussions
having to do, not with any explanations of the Christian
verities or Doctrines, as such, — as they exist, — as they are
revealed, — but with the Language and Forms of Expression
in which they are conveyed in Theological Systems.

Nor even in regard to the Statements of Christian Truths,
have I had any design of explaining them away, or con
deraning them as wrong or untrue. As for explaining away
language that we have solemnly adopted and still retain, I
consider such a proceeding as dishonest. And so far frora
condemning them, I conceive the adoption of thera by the
Church as fully defensible. I believe that the leaders of the
Church did well, and could do no otherwise, at the time
when they sanctioned the introduction ofour present Theo
logical Language ; acting, to the best of their judgment, for
the Church, in its capacity of " Keeper of Holy Writ," and
" Judge of Controversy." I would even go so far as to say
that, whilst Theological Terms are essentially mutable,
and therefore ought to be altered, should circumstances
require it, yet what the ancient rhetorician observes
of them is true, as a general rule ; ilia mutari vetat
Religio et consecratis utendum est. It is as with our
authorized Translation of the Bible. Where there are
inveterate pious associations with a peculiar phraseology,
a strong case must be shewn for breaking off those
venerable links, and offending not unreasonable prejudices.
But I would have these Terms, or Statements, rightly
appreciated and understood. I would have them freely

8 INTRODUCTION.
examined in their historical character. While I fully admit
that they demand to be treated with respect, for their known
use in maintaining the Truth, and especially in ages of ab
struse metaphysical speculation, I would remove from them
an excess of veneration due only to Dioine Truth itself.
When in a Translation of the Bible, made in Henry
Vlllth's reign, it was proposed that several Latin words
should be retained, on the ground of their having such
peculiar force that it was irapossible to represent them in
English, the suggestion was not so unreasonable as it may
now appear. It was quite right that the minds of raen
should be gradually prepared for new expressions of religious
ideas. But for the same reason, when they are prepared
for receiving a different mode of expression, the terms
ought to be varied to suit the altered state of the case.
It is only carrying on the same principle, when we
adapt our Statements of Christian Truth to the particular
class of hearers with whom we have to do. We address
the educated man, and the rustic, the adult, and the child,
each in a different style : yet we do not conceive, that we
sacrifice one particle of real Christian Doctrine by such
variation of Statement. Our Catechism, for example, is not
conceived to differ at all, as to the substance of Christian
Truth, from the xxxix Articles, or the Homilies, or the
Liturgy, though it differs from them in its mode of impart
ing the Truth. Indeed, in so general a knowledge as that
of Christianity, intended for the instruction of all men, for
persons of every possible capacity, and every degree of
civilisation, and every condition of life, it is an indispens
able principle, that its Truths should admit of great variation
of Statement, without being impaired as to their vital force.
Unless this power of variation were conceded, the Church

INTRODUCTION. 9
could not adequately fulfil its mission of teaching and con
verting the world.
Without an accurate knowledge of the History of Doc
trinal Statements, it is impossible for the members ofthe
Church to confess their Faith in the words which the Church
puts into their mouths, with a right and full understand
ing of the terms. If the history of these Terms were
known generally, I ara convinced that many who now
object to the Statements, for example, of the Athanasian
Creed, would find their objections removed, so far as their
objections applied to these Statements. They would see the
reason,- — I do not say of the Truths themselves in any degree
the more for this, but — why such or such expressions in
particular were used, and not others ; and they would, con
sequently, so far have a more enlightened perception of the
nature or meaning of that Creed. By such an examination,
some might lose that extravagant awe with which they
may have once regarded the very words of a Formulary:
but they would not cease, on that account, to value such ex
pressions: or, though some might abstractedly prefer a greater
simplicity of language, and less of technical precision, they
would not lightly reUnquish Forms of Statement, which they
found to have been piously devised, and to have practically
served to the defence of sound Religion.
Further, let the use of such an Inquiry be considered, for
those who see no objection to any of our Doctrinal State
ments, and who unthinkingly identify them with the truths
themselves. There is such a thing as a cant of orthodoxy, as
well as a cant of fanaticism and hypocrisy. Persons may
repeat certain phrases, with a confidence that they under-

10 INTRODUCTION.
Stand and value thera, in proportion to their real ignorance
of their meaning, and without attaching indeed any distinct
meaning to the Terms which they repeat. The emphasis of
their assertion of the Theological Truth, is apt to become a
snare to them ; inducing the delusion, that those cannot but
have a firm hold of what they profess, who are so staunch
and so correct in making their profession. Their fluency
in passing the watchwords of orthodoxy, and their exact
enunciation of its symbols, thus react on themselves injuri
ously. Their religion, unconsciously to them, becomes
merely verbal. They take the sign for the thing, the
counter for the money.
Now the Technical Terms of Theology are peculiarly open
to such an abuse. They are not, like those of Mathematics
or Physics, restricted to one particular sense, in which
exclusively they must be understood, or else the whole
structure of the Science falls to the ground. Nor are they
even as definite as moral terms in general, indefinite as these
are when corapared with those of the exact sciences. It
has been acutely reraarked, that whilst Technical Terms are
" the lights of Science," they have been in many instances
the " shades of Religion ;" and that instead of being in
variably " signs" of the ideas which they were intended to
perpetuate, they sometimes become their " monuments," —
not " signs," so much as memorials of ideas, which did
properly belong to them, but have now passed from them.^
Technical Terms in Religion become in fact the popular
terms. For example, no one thinks, when he uses the
term. Justification, that he is using a Technical Term. Some
may be surprized, or even offended, to hear the term
" Foster's Essay " On the Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical
Religion."

INTRODUCTION. 11
spoken of as a technical one ; so far has Technical Language
in Religion passed into common and popular use. Hence
the vagueness to which that language is peculiarly subject —
a vagueness, which no care of even the most perspicuous and
exact writer can entirely obviate. To some that Language
will convey no definite meaning. Some will take it in its
original sense ; others in a secondary one ; and different
hearers, perhaps each in a different sense ; each ascribing to
it the various complex notions which have grown around
it in his own associations. The very solemnity too attaching
to Religious Terras as symbols of Divine Truth, is apt to
awaken a feeling of Mysticism, which diverts some from the
task of defining and explaining them to themselves. Thus
do these Terms become mere sounds, or little more than
sounds, to many. And thus has been perpetuated, through
successive ages of the Church, that fruitful mother of Contro
versy, — Logomachy.
It is owing to these circurastances, that the retention of
an unvaried phraseology is far from being a certain means
of retaining the same Doctrines. " It must indeed be
" acknowledged," as the able Author just referred to
observes, " that in many cases innovations of Doctrine
" have been introduced partly, by ceasing to employ
" the Words which designated the Doctrines which it
" was wished to render obsolete; but it is probable, they
" may have been still more frequently and successfully
" introduced under the advantage of retaining the Terms
" while the Principles were gradually subverted." The cant,
accordingly, which may disguise itself under the use of an
orthodox phraseology, is an evil strictly to be guarded
against by all who would cherish with a due jealousy the
sincerity of their faith. It is not of the worldly rehgionist

12 INTRODUCTION.
that I speak ; it is not of that profession of the Truth, which
sounds a trumpet before it that it may have praise of men.
This is no delusion to the man himself in whom it is found.
It is scarcely a delusion to the world without him. But it
is to those who conscientiously hold what they profess, that
I address the observation. In laying a stress on the words
of their religious profession, they must watch, lest they be
beguiled of their simplicity, — lest they mistake their advo
cacy of the Truth for attachment to it, and their positiveness
of assertion for conviction.
To counteract this evil, no discipline can be more useful,
than an accurate study of the peculiar Language of Theology.
Thus only can we see the relation in which that Language
stands to the Sacred Truth itself, and duly estimate its im
portance. Reasonings may be well framed, and conclusions
accurately drawn, and systems of Theology erected, by the
mere use of the Terms of Theology as signs ; just as in
Arithmetic calculations are carried on, without referring,
at each step, to the particular things represented, and
by simply attending, during the process, to the relative
value of the numbers.*" For example, whether it be pounds
or pence that we have to deal with, the calculation
is the same; — to avail ourselves of the result, we must
bear in mind the things to which it refers. But, whereas
calculations, however correct, are simply useless, unless
we interpret their results; — in Theology, our reasonings
are worse than useless, if they are nothing but reasonings ;
they incur the guilt of perverse disputing, and of an empty
form of godliness, unless we look from our conclusions to
the sacred objects about which they are conversant, and
" Berkeley " On the Principles of Huinan Knowledge." — Introcl. i. [li)
and " Minute Philosopher," 7th Dialogue. ^

INTRODUCTION. 13
see that we really believe and cherish not mere names, but
things. Our Roman Catholic brethren, indeed, and some even
among ourselves, if I understand them rightly, regard the
Doctrinal Statements of the Church, as Forms of Doctrine
immediately communicated to the Apostles by our Lord
and the Holy Spirit, independent of Scripture, and tradi
tionally preserved through the successors of the Apostles.
In their view, the Church is not simply the keeper of
the oracles of God, and dispenser of the Gospel com
mitted to it by Christ, but the keeper of " Dogmas or
" Doctrines Deposited with it," of the " Decrees of Anti-
'¦ quity," of the " Deposits and Trusts of holy Fathers.""
St. Paul is interpreted, in charging Tiraothy to " avoid
" profane babblings,'''^ as cautioning the Church against
admitting change, not only in doctrines and things, but in
sentences and definitions. The Formularies of Doctrine
are with them Divine Sayings, the counterpart of the
Divine Writings. The Nicene Creed, for example, is
a collection of some of these Divine Sayings, possessing
its own authority, independently of the Scriptures." To
c Depositorum apud se dogmatum custos. — Vincent. Lir. Commonit. c. 32.
Antiquitatis scita — Deposita sanctorum Patrum et commissa, u. 34. Scita
patrum — Definita majorum, c. 6. — This is the work constantly referred to by
Roman Catholic writers, as decisive of their view of Tradition.
Ths ^e^iKovs Keyo(\)wvias, — according to Vincent, means, profanas vocum
novitates ; vocum, id est, dogmatum, rerum, sententiarum novitates ; quae
sunt vetustati, quEe antiquitati contrariae — Common, c. 33. But where is this
in the language of St. Paul } St Paul explains his meaning by what he
elsewhere says of " foolish and unlearned questions," and of " profane, and
" old wives' fables."
« Such was not the view of Athanasius. Speakingof the termHomoousionin
that Creed, he says distinctly, the meaning was gathered out of the Scriptures —
-ffvayK^BTjaav Kal avTol av6is avva-yay^v ^K Tuy fleiW ypwpw T-yfv Sidvotav.
DeDec. Nic. Synod. 20. p. 226. Oper. Tom. i. ed. 1698.

14 INTRODUCTION.
depart, accordingly, at all from the Language of the
Formularies, they regard as deviating from Divine Truth
itself; — nay even more, than to depart from the express
words of Scripture. For the Scripture, it is admitted, may
be interpreted so as to give the sense of it in other words,
and may have conclusions drawn from it. But the very
Language of the Formularies, they hold to be fixed and
unalterable.'' Now, though the position were granted,
(which cannot be,) that the Formularies of the Church
are Divine Traditions, what is to give them that higher
sacredness beyond the Written word, that they should admit
no change of phraseology ? Why are we not to interpret
and explain the Unwritten Word, as freely at least as we do
the Written ? Why are we to be religiously tied down to
the very words of the former, any more than to the very words
of the latter ? On the condition that we retain the substance
of each, why are we to be restricted from varying the
mode of expression, more in one, than in the other?
But perhaps the advocates of Traditionary Divine Truth
will shift their ground, and say, that the formal Statements
of Doctrine are traditionary limits to the Interpretation of
Scripture ; divine seals put upon one of the many Interpre
tations of the Text.
If there were proof of the existence of Divine Traditions,
either as independent Divine Truths, or as Divine Interpre
tations of Scripture, we should be bound to receive them
with no less affection and reverence than we do the sacred
Canon. This raay well be conceded. All the word of God,
however given, is to be equally venerated. But there is no
proof ofthe existence of Traditions in either sense. In proof
of the point, it is argued, that the Gospel was preached and
f Nullam susfineat definitionis varietatem. — Vine. Lir. Commonit.

INTRODUCTION. 15
taught by word of mouth before it was written. But what
connexion is there between the admission of this fact, and
the conclusion that this primary teaching has been perpe
tuated by Tradition ? — It is said again that the Scriptures,
being added, could not destroy the primary authority
of the oral instruction. But it is at least as supposable,
that the Scriptures were an appointed substitute for the
oral teaching of the first inspired ministers, and a depository
of all they thought necessary for Salvation. — Nor, again, is
the argument drawn from the supposed reception of a
Doctrine from time immemorial in the Church, sufficient to
prove it a Divine Tradition. It may be a good reason for
believing a current maxim to be a law of Nature, that
no one knows the tirae when it appeared : but to establish a
Doctrine as Divine, it is essential that we should distinctly
know its origin. — If such arguments indeed had weighed
with our Reformers, they would surely not have accom
plished the work to which they were called. It was by
discarding Tradition as a Rule of Faith, that this great work
was achieved ; and by making reason and learning, under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the interpreters of the
Sacred Text.^
Now if the question were about the Fundamentals of
Religion, or what I call the Substantial Truths themselves, I
should be quite ready to grant that, — though these are not
s See Bishop Marsh's Comparative View of the Churches of England and
Rome, u. vii. p. 152. I would strongly recommend a study ofthis work as
a protection against the fallacies on the subject of Tradition. — The student
should read also Bishop Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, especially sections
], 2, and 3 ofthe Ist Book ofthe 2d Part, and Stillingfleet's Rational Account
of tlie Protestant Religion, especially Part I. c. 6, Ofthe Infallibility of Tradition,
p. 161, ed. 1665. — For a full information, Bp. Marsh sends us to Bellarmine.
Bellarmine's Four Books De Verbo Dei Scripto etnonScripto, give a most suc
cinct and luminous view of the subject.

16 INTRODUCTION.
Traditions, but Scripture-verities, resting exclusively on the
authority of Scripture,— there is yet the evidence of a con
stant Tradition attesting and confirming them, an evidence,
that frora the outset of Christianity they have been ever
held and taught.
Take, for example, the doctrine of the Divinity of our
Lord; and look to St. John's Gospel alone. A general belief
in this truth is presupposed by this Evangelist throughout.
He takes no pains to prove it, as he would have done, had it
been generally doubted or unknown. The manner in which
he proclaims the Word to be God and the Maker of all
things, shews that he is only authoritatively declaring a
known truth. What he labours to prove, (not that this either
was doubted by the Faithful, but it had been expressly
denied by Heretical teachers,) is, that the Lord of Heaven
and Earth was really made flesh, and dwelt among us, and
really died as man.'^ So too, the existence of a belief in the
distinctness of our Saviour's Person is intimated by St. John,
when he says, that " the Word was with God, and was God."
For he speaks of the Word there, as of One known to be
distinct from the Father, and teaches, that, notwithstanding
this distinctness, the Word is not separate from God in
Being and Divinity.
Of the substantial Christian Truths then, there may,
doubtless, be shewn an uniform Tradition accorapanying
Scripture, having reference to Scripture, understood by
Scripture, and proving itself by Scripture, through all ages
ofthe Christian Church.
But this indisputable fact must not be confounded with the
assumption of the sameness of Doctrinal Statements in all
ages. These, it is equally clear, have not been the same
'' See Irenaeus, Contra Haer. 1. 3, c. 11, tom. I, p. 188, ed. Ven.

INTRODUCTION. 17
always. The testimony of Tradition is as strong against
this sameness, as it is for the sameness of the Truths them
selves of Christianity. If we look to the latter, we may
justly speak of the later Creeds as the Apostles' Creed, no
less than the one which commonly passes by that name. If
we look to the former, — the modes of statement, — it is
plain, that the successive Creeds differ from each other :
and these differences of Statement are not merely the
manhood, and ripening of the doctrines according to the
analogy of Vincent,' but new forms given to them by
discussion, — new definitions of them, — new limitations
added, — extraneous matter superinduced, in order to guard
and preserve them, as they travelled on, amidst disputes
and contradictions, in their proper integrity and sameness.
Some, however, carry their theory of the sameness of the
Statements of the Truth still further. According to sorae,
there has been no difference even in this respect: they
solve the appearance of difference by appeal to the Secret
Discipline of the Church. Following Clement of Alex
andria, whose writings are strongly tinctured with his
philosophic creed, they regard books as vulgar and im
perfect vehicles of Truth. Truth, according to them, is
treasured up far more sacredly in the bosom of the
sage or the priest, and far more safely dispensed by
oral communication.'' They suppose the full doctrines of
' Crescat igitur oportet, et multum vehementerque proficiat, .... sed
in suo duntaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque
sententia. Common, c, 28. Imitetur animarum religio rationem corporum,
&c. Ibid. c. 29, 30. Speaking of the hackneyed maxim of Vincent, " quod
ubique," &c.,'Stiningfleet very justly observes, he must "premise that rule to
be much more useful in discovering what was not looked on as a necessary
article of faith, than what was." — Rational Ace. part i. c. 2, p. 56. 1665.
' See his Stromata, at the opening of the 1st Book and elsewhere.

18 INTRODUCTION.
Christianity to have beea divmely imparted to the first
teachers, as so many aTtopprrra, so many mysterious sayings
of our Lord and His Apostles, confided to their solemn
keeping, to be -wrapped and laid up with them, to be
cautiously disclosed only to the initiated and the proficient,
but reserved under the seal of silence from the profane
and the ignorant. These holier Truths, thus designedly
left unwritten and concealed, they fui'ther suppose to have
been graduaUy extorted from the living oracles in which
they were enshrined, and divulged to the world, by the
demands of controversy. They would make the Christian
mysteries, mysteries of man's keeping, not of God's ; — as if
man's proclaiming a mystery of Religion could be a divulg
ing of it ; — as if any human curiosity could draw it forth ; —
as if a Christian mystery, though its sound were gone out
into all lands, did not remain as secret and holy as ever; —
as if it were not the Church's glory freely to publish the
Gospel to every creature, whilst it leaves to God alone the
" glory of concealing !"
According to this theory, however, the sameness even of
the Statements of doctrines may be maintained: since the
later forms are then only the original ones brought out to
view. They had existed before in the Church secretly; but
are now known at large, so far at least as writing can convey
them to the world, and compensate for the primitive, more
spiritual, oral instruction. Nor is it strange therefore that the
maintainers of this theory should object to a discussion of
the Language of Theology. For they have invested that
Language with a mystic sanctity, as the voice itself of the
Apostles ; and to unfold the meaning of the Terms, is with
them to uncover and look into the Ark of the Lord. It
remains for them, however, to shew that their theory has

INTRODUCTION. 19
any foundation, or is any thing more than a speculation
raised on the analogy of the twofold method of teaching
of the heathen Schools.
I have not space here to enter largely into the question of
Tradition. But as the whole subject appears connected
with my inquiry into Doctrinal Statements, and is but little
understood generally, it may be useful to add some obser
vations on the subject.
Tradition was not contradistinguished from Scripture in
the primitive times, either as a Rule of Faith, or as a Guide
to Sacred Truth. The Fathers of the first centuries found
that they could not argue with the Heretics of their day
from Scripture ; because those Heretics either corrupted the
Scripture; or objected to it as corrupted; or denied the
authority of certain portions of it; or claimed the right of
interpreting it according to their own views ; or set up their
own teachers as a paramount authority. An appeal to
Scripture evidently presupposes an agreement in the Canon
of Scripture, in the Divine Authority of Scripture, and also
in certain Principles of Interpretation. But this appeal was
cut off from the Primitive Fathers by the peculiar condition
of Heresy in their day. They were obliged therefore
further to appeal to the Authority existing in the Churches
of the Faithful. And that Authority was to be put forward
by them in its proper strength, as originally derived from
Christ, and transmitted by an unbroken succession of
Pastors. The Heretic might say ; We too have the authority
of Christ. The reply to this on the part of the Fathers
was : Shew us your Succession; prove to us, that you have
regularly inherited the Doctrine of Christ : we can prove
that we have so received it by a perpetual Succession. As
c2

20 INTRODUCTION.
you cannot shew this, you cannot pretend to the possession
of the Truth. Thus it is that Irenseus maintains the cause of
orthodoxy against the Gnostics.' Thus also Tertullian,
following his example, advises those who contend with
Heretics, not to appeal to the Scriptures, but to the con
stant Tradition of the Catholic Church. He recommends
the latter mode of argument, as cogent against those
with whom the Catholics had then to dispute. But he by
no means considers Tradition as a channel of Truth, distinct
from, and supplementary to. Scripture. He is express, no
less than Irenaeus, in referring to Scripture, in the very same
Tract in which he thus recommends the use of the arguraent
frora Tradition,™ and there also insists upon the Authority
of Scripture as the proper source of Divine Truth. He
will not allow to Heretics even the right of appealing to
Scripture, because the Scriptures, he says, were not theirs,
but the property of the Catholics, to whom they had been
bequeathed. The Heretics, not having the Tradition of
Doctrine by a perpetual Succession of Christian teachers,
not having, that is. Doctrine handed down to them, were not
in rightful possession of Scripture, and were not therefore
to be argued with on the ground of Scripture. They were
to be met with the preliminary objection, that they did not
possess the geunine sources of Divine Truth. He does not
say that the Heretics had not the key to Scripture, the
traditional interpretations of Scripture ; but they had not
the proper Authorities in their hands to refer to.
The argument from the Constant Succession of teachers
came home to the Heretics, for this very reason, that they
held a Secret Traditionary Doctrine. For they actually cited
. Contra Hsr. 1. iii. cc. 1-5, p. 173. - De Prescript. Hsreticor.

INTRODUCTION. 21
those passages of St. Paul, " keep the deposit," &c. in
proof of the existence of such Secret Traditionary Doctrine.
Tertullian refutes this notion. But it was a decisive
refutation to those who held it, to prove to them, that, if
such Traditions existed anywhere, it could only be in the
Catholic Churches, where the Succession had been unbroken,
and to challenge its maintainers to show the like Succession
in their case. If there were no regular Succession, the sup
posed Secret Tradition could not have been preserved. — The
argument would further be very natural and proper in times
near the Apostolic. When the memory ofthe Apostles was
fresh, it would serve as a ready test of Doctrine. At such a
time too copies of the Scriptures were scarce ; and the ap
peal to them could not be always satisfied by actual reference.
— Now in the Catholic Church, this circumstance of uninter
rupted Succession will be found to hold good, because every
thing will be found in harraony with a true case. But the
Truth, it should be observed, does not rest on it, unless, like
the early Heretics, we hold a Secret Traditionary Doctrine
distinct from Scripture. For tbe maintenance of such a system
of Doctrine, the Perpetual Succession becomes indispensable.
It is so accordingly to the Roman Catliolic. But it is not so
to the Protestant who grounds his doctrine on Scripture
exclusively. The Church of England Protestant, looking
to Scripture for every thing that he believes divinely re
vealed, does not hold lightly the clairas of his Church to a
lineal inheritance of the Truth, bequeathed to the Church by
Christ and his Apostles. Hetwould not be without that in
heritance. But he does not exalt what is an accompaniment,
and evidence of sound doctrine, and means of instruction in
it, into a Standard of Doctrine, or Divine Guide to Truth. He
does not pervert what, in its original use, was an argument

22 INTRODUCTION.
and test adapted for a peculiar case, into a general argument
and basis of Christian Truth for all ages and all cases. He
does not exalt what is an authentic and valuable Testimony ;
into an Authority (in the modern sense of that term,) or
Rule and Criterion of Doctrine.
So far respecting the general design of my Bampton
Lectures. Agreeably to what I have here said, I have in
that Work described my business there, as an Inquiry into
the nature of Theological Terms. And as the Philosophy of
the Schools of the Middle Ages, or the Scholastic Philo
sophy, as it is called, presented copious and fresh materials for
tracing the history ofthe Statements of Doctrine, I selected
that particularly as the field of my observation. Not that I
confined my observation strictly to the authors properly
denominated Scholastic; but I took their -writings, as the
crisis of a method of philosophizing antecedent to them
selves ; as displaying at its maturity a mode of thinking and
reasoning, which had exerted a very considerable influence
in the formation of our Theological Language. For we
may speak of Scholasticism before the proper age of the
Schoolmen, as we may speak of Manicheism before the
Manicheans, and of Calvinism before Calvin.'^
If any doubt the importance of this branch of Theo
logical study, I would refer them to the testimony of
Archbishop Bramhall on the subject.
Referring to Baxter, he says : " If his meaning only be,
" that he would not have our Catechisms or accommodations
" to be pestered and perplexed with the obscure terms and
" endless disputations of the Schools, I do readily assent.
-Scholasticism, it should be observed, is in itself no term of reproach.
Nor do I employ it as such.

INTRODUCTION.

23

' ' But if he think that in the work of reconciliation there is
" no need of a Scholastic plane, to take away the crabbed
" knots, and to smooth the present controversies of the
" Christian world, I must dissent from him. We find by
" daily experience, that the greatest differences, and such
" as made the most noise and the deepest breach in the
" Christian world, being rightly and scholastically stated,
" do both become easy and intelligible, and now appear to
" have been mere mistakes one of another. And when
" many other questions are rightly handled after the same
" manner, I presume they will find the like end. When I
" was a young student in Theology, Dr. Ward declared his
" mind to me, to this purpose, that it was impossible that
" the present controversies ofthe Church should be rightly
" determined or reconciled, without a deep insight into the
" doctrine of the primitive Fathers, and a competent skill
" in School Theology. The former affordeth us a right
" pattern, and the second smootheth it over, and planeth
" away the knots." "
Supported by such authority, I may well recommend all
who would thoroughly acquaint theraselves with inquiries
belonging to their Religion, to join to a " deep insight into
" the doctrine of the primitive Fathers,'''' " a competent skill
" in School Theology." That a large proportion of even
students in Theology are not versed in these studies, is
but too evident. But I trust this reproach will not fall
on the generation of students yet to come. And if my work
on the subject shall happily contribute at all to remove
the prevailing ignorance, and invite attention to a class of
writings too much forgotten, and unjustly despised, I shall
° Vindic. of Grotius, p. 636.— Bramhall's Works, fol. 1676.

24 INTRODUCTION.
feel abundantly compensated for all the trouble and annoy
ance which it has occasioned me."

II. In pursuing my inquiry, I have been led to speak of
the Truths of Religion as Facts. To persons who have
thoroughly entered into the spirit of the Inductive Phi
losophy, it would be unnecessary to explain what I mean
by this term. Such persons would know, that this term is
not to be restricted to mere events or occurrences, or what
may be called historical or singular facts, but denotes, as 1 have
elsewhere said, whatever is,' — Universal, as well as Par
ticular, Truths, whether founded on Experience, or on the
Authority of Divine Revelation ; and that it is opposed to
Theory or Hypothesis. Thus the Divinity of our Lord is a
fact : His Consubstantiality with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, His Atonement, His Mediation, His distinct Person
ality, His perpetual presence with His Church, His future
Advent to judge the world, the Communion of Saints, the
Corruption ofour Nature, the Efficacy of Divine Grace, the
Acceptableness of Works wrought through Faith, the Neces
sity of Repentance, — though stated in abstract terms, are
all Facts in God's spiritual kingdom revealed to us through
Christ. So I might proceed to enumerate, one after the
other, all the Christian verities. But these instances may
show, that it is not merely such Truths as our Lord's Birth,
and Crucifixion, and Resurrection, and Ascension, and the
P The reader may be directed, in order to a more systematic view of the
Subject, to the Article on Aristotle's Philosophy in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 7th edition; and the Article on Thomas Aquinas, and the Scho
lastic Philosophy, in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana.
9 Inaugural Lecture. — Note.

INTRODUCTION. 25
Miracles which He wrought, and the Descent of the Holy
Ghost, or the Call of Abraham, and the Thunders of Sinai,
and the Dedication of the Temple, that come under the
appellation of Facts, in the philosophical sense of that terra.
These last indeed are Facts in a sense in which all the
Christian Truths cannot be said to be. They are Events ;
and are accordingly Facts in the popular, as well as the
philosophical, sense ofthe term. They form an historical
basis to the other Truths joined with them in the Christian
scheme ; not only being iraportant in themselves, but also
serving as occasions for the development by the pen of In
spiration, of Truths beside and beyond themselves. This
relation between the two classes of Christian Truths is the
foundation of my observation, that the Truths declared in
Scripture are to be understood in their reference to the doings
of God in the world. Nothing was further from my thoughts
than to say that Christianity is made up wholly of mere
Events, and has no Doctrinal Truths in it. I have wished
only to point out strongly a great characteristic of our Reli
gion, by which it is distinguished from all other rehgions
professing to have their sacred books. Our revelations, we
may say, were not the literary work of some sage or legislator,
or put forth as a mere writing or collection of writings :
but they are a series of historical revelations given at different
times, and in different manners, and by different messengers ;
each for its special purpose, in connexion with what was
then passing in the. world; and yet all having reference to
one great Evangelical purpose. Not so, for example, the
Kor^n. Here is the work of one man, dealt forth to the world
by himself as so many divine communications to him, and
laving no connexion in its parts with the history ofthe world.
This connexion of the Doctrinal Truth of Christianity

26 INTRODUCTION.
with the Historical may be thus illustrated. Let us take
the doctrine of the Eucharist. The revelation of this
is founded on an actual occurrence in the lives of our
Saviour and his Apostles, and on a religious observance of
the Jews. Christ actually goes up to Jerusalem with his
disciples to keep the passover of the Jews. He appoints a
particular room, and there celebrates the Last Supper;
actually distributing the bread and wine to his disciples, and
imparting to them as he did so, a knowledge of the spiritual
participation of Himself in that holy institution. It is
also further related to that real oblation of Himself on
the Cross, which was soon to follow. Such a series of events
accordingly I call a basis on which the revelation of the
mystery is founded, as being the occasions or circumstances
out of which it takes its rise, and to which it refers. These
occasions, or circumstances, give an historical, as well as
doctrinal, reality to all the truths connected with the insti
tution. And though the words, This is my Body — This is
my Blood — are express affirmations of the mystery, — their
force and propriety are discerned, not by simply viewing
them as affirmations standing alone, but in connexion with
those events by which they were accompanied. — Take again
another example in the words of St. John, God is Lorn. It
is evident that the sacred meaning of this proposition also
does not consist in the proposition taken alone, but in
tracing it to that actual event in the sacred history, to which
it refers, — God's giving his only begotten Son, to the end that
all that believe in Him should not perish but haw everlasting
life. For what else is that true saying and worthy oj all men,
to be received; — and what else is the ground of its truth and
worthiness to be received ;— but, " that Christ Jesus came
" into the world to save sinners," — actually was made flesh.

INTRODUCTION. 27
and really offered Himself for sinful man? We might well
have believed the same, had it been solely the assertion
of the inspired writer. But that assertion is borne out and
explained, and invested with a dramatic energy, by the real
events to which it refers. Thus it may be truly said, that the
Truths of Scripture are not mere sayings or propositions,
such as might be stated in a book totally unconnected with
History, but are further connected with the real doings of
God in the world.
Still the other Truths, the Universal Facts as we may
contradistinguish them, have no less reality than the his
torical. They as truly exist, — are as much a part of the
Divine economy in the salvation of man, — as those which
have been enacted on the stage of the world. Let there
be but the evidence that God has spoken it, and the thing
said is as real as if it had been the object of our
experience. Christ's Intercession with the Father, for
example, though it is going on at this moraent, and will go
on until the consumraation of all things, is a certain fact.
We see not its beginning, or its end, or its process. But
God's word has declared that it is so. And this is enough.
We may call it therefore, in the strictest sense, a revealed fact.
Again, that " God worketh in us both to will and
" to do of his good pleasure," or, that we have no power
of ourselves to do any good thing without his Preventing
and Cooperating Grace ; this is a Revealed Fact — a Truth
of God's invisible kingdom, ever in course of accom
plishment, ever being realized. That our Lord is both
Perfect God and Perfect Man, in One Person, or as it is
technically expressed, the Doctrine of the Hypostatic
Union, is in like manner a Fact of the Gospel. Here
the Truth takes the form of an individual historical event.

28 INTRODUCTION.
Still it is also an Universal Fact, being a Truth which is
still in operation and will continue for ever, and which
would exist, though every human mind by which it is
apprehended, were to vanish from the world.— That the
two Sacraments have a vital efficacy, — Baptism, to re
generate us, and graft us into the body of Christ's
Church,— The Lord's Supper, to strengthen and refresh
the soul by the faithful reception of the Body and Blood
of Christ,— this is a further illustration of Facts of the
invisible kingdom of grace— and Universal Facts, because
they are of constant existence, whenever the Sacraments
are duly adrainistered and received.
Lastly, in the doctrines of a Resurrection of the Dead
and a Final Judgment, we enunciate truths belonging to the
same invisible kingdom ; and which are therefore entitled to
the name of Facts, in the philosophical sense of that
term, though as yet they have not been accomplished. They
belong to His knowledge, who calls the things that are
not as though they were ; and accordingly, being communi
cated to us by His word, possess a reality, no less than
those facts of Divine Providence, which, having already
occurred, are only known to haye occurred by Revelation.
For by Revelation clearly, we may have as full assurance of
what has not been yet but is still to come, as of what has
been and is othericise unknown to us. The prophecies
and histories of the Sacred Volume are equally certain,
when viewed as portions of a Divine revelation. Both are
admitted to be true on the same grounds.
There is so little understanding except among persons
who have devoted themselves to scientific pursuits, of the
Method of the Inductive Philosophy, that it is not perhaps

INTRODUCTION. 29
to be wondered at, that some have erred so strangely in
their estimate of my application to Religious Truths of a
term drawn from that philosophy. So rauch misconception
is there on the subject, that it may even estrange some
still more from a just view of the point I am now en
deavouring to establish, to be told that I have employed
a term of Philosophy. Some, I fear, have taken up the
notion that whatever belongs to Philosophy has nothing
to do -with Religion. Or they have been taught that to
speak as a philosopher, is to be something very impious and
very odious — nothing short of being a rationalist. Or they
construe St. Paul's denunciation of the philosophy and vain
deceit of his days, into a censure of every connexion of Phi
losophy with Religion. It raay be useful therefore, briefly
to explain, in reference to my present design, the great
principle of the modern Inductive Philosophy, — the prin
ciple of resting on ascertained Fact as the only proper
ground of knowledge, — obvious as what I shall say will
be to many persons, and inadequately stated as it will
appear to those who have deeply studied the subject.
Before the tirae of Lord Bacon, philosophers contented
themselves with reasoning from abstract notions and logical
definitions. They did not feel the necessity of examin
ing the notions from which they reasoned, whether
these were rightly drawn from things, or accurately deter
mined. They took them in the gross. They were not
indeed ignorant of the value of inductive reasoning. We
have some beautiful specimens of such reasoning in the
Dialogues of Plato. Such reasonings however as are found
in the discussions of the Ancient Schools, do not reach the
depth of Bacon's Inductive method.

30 INTRODUCTION.
l{ Motion, for example, was to be investigated, they did
not feel the necessity of searching out the principle itself so
named, but they assumed the general notion conveyed by
the term, as suificiently correct ; and then considered how
they might best express that notion in a definition, and
divide it into its several kinds. Thus, the Greek philosophers
found that there were three kinds of phenomena which their
word 'K.ivrjcriQ expressed, — 1. Locomotion, 2. Increase and
Diminution, 3. Change of qualities, as in a vegetable by
decay; — and they accordingly called these so many kinds
of Motion. This was doing nothing more, however, than
stating in how many senses the term Motion was employed.
It gave no knowledge of the thing. It was merely logical
enuraeration. Evidently, no physical discovery could be
made so Ions as Science was made to rest on such a basis.
Again it was enough with them that instances or par
ticulars were collected ; whilst the necessary process of in
vestigating each instance separately by itself, was overlooked.
The most vague notions consequently being involved in each
instance, it followed, that while the particular instances
established a general conclusion, that conclusion was little
else than verbal. Thus, according to the example given by
Bacon himself, the word Humid stands for operations of the
most inconsistent kind. It signifies, as he observes, "what
" easily diffuses itself round another body ; also what is in
" itself indeterminable and admits no consistency; also what
" easily yields on all sides ; also what easily divides and dis-
" perses itself; also what easily unites and collects itself; also
" what easily flows and is put in motion ; also what easily ad-
" heres to another body, and moistens it ; also whatis easily
" reduced to a hquid, or melted when it was before a con-
" sistency." " Thus," as he adds, " if you take the term

INTRODUCTION. 31
" in one sense, flame is humid ; if you take it in another,
" air is not humid : if in another, minute dust is humid : if
" in another, glass is humid."' From which he concludes,
it is quite apparent, the notion of humid is abstracted from
water only, and coramon fluids, without due verifica
tion. Such then was the manner in which the ancient
Schools used abstract terms. It may be seen from such an
example, how delusive their conclusions must have been,
when instances were so roughly and hastily brought
together. A Philosophy of this kind resulted, as is clear, in a
Philosophy of Language only, or, in other words, a Logical
Philosophy. It sufficed to develop and explain the notions
contained in terms and propositions ; but it did not penetrate
within the veil of nature. It was of admirable use for form
ing classifications and systems, and cementing together the
parts of a Science ; but it left the basis of Science purely
notional and hypothetical.
How different was the proceeding of Newton, after the
modern Inductive method, in reaching his Theory of Gravity.
He coraraenced with an accurate examination of phenomena,
analysing these and reducing them to their simplest ele
ments, and so arriving at the laws of motion ; bringing
an exact mathematical science to his aid in deterraining
them. To him it is of no consequence to what different
processes the term Motion is applied. He looks to the
thing, and goes to the foundation to discover what notions
ou,ght to be held on the subject, not assuming what are
held, as the ancients did. This then was to establish a
philosophy of Fact in contradistinction to a philosophy of
Theory, or an Inductive system instead of a Deductive one,
' Nov. Org. Aph. 60.

32 INTRODUCTION.
and one that, instead of commencing with Definitions, re
sults in them.
Now some persons will say, this may be a very sound
method in Investigations of Nature ; but what has it to do
with Theological Inquiry ? I answer, that making allowance
for the different circumstances, the same rule of proceeding
applies both to Theology and Science. We do not indeed
find out by dint of mere study, the great Truths of Divine
Revelation. Together with the Bible they have been given
us in hand. But this can make no difference as to the charac
ter of the Truths. These are facts or realities in opposition
to mere theories or definitions or hypotheses, no less because
they have been distinctly pointed out to us by the finger
of God, than if we had originally discovered them, or could
discover them, by the ordinary steps of investigation. No one
surely will maintain that because Religious Truth has been
set forth in words, we may therefore argue from those words
as exact definitions of it. If the Bible furnished scientific
descriptions of things, instead of its employing, as it does,
popular language, there might be some ground for such a
supposition. But, even in such a case, there would be no
just ground for building up a Speculative System of Theology
on its words ; and for this obvious reason, that about things
Divine we can know nothing, beyond what God has been
pleased to reveal to us. The Speculative System so raised,
would be a knowledge of our own discovery, and would be
going beyond the word written. But so far as the investiga
tion of what has been revealed by God, is concerned, we
must employ the sarae Method as in Philosophy. If we
would learn what the Holy Spirit would have us learn from
the Bible; — if ve would test, what we have received as

INTRODUCTION. 33
divine Truth, by the Bible ; — we must study the Sacred
Records as we study Nature. The method of Induction is
to be used here, as there. Observations are to be classed.
Irrelevant matter is to be excluded. We are to proceed
step by step, in rising to the truth as it is written, and
in examining the Scriptures whether the things be as
we have been taught. This, however, is a very dif
ferent process from taking a proposition, and anatomiz
ing it, and arguing that such or such must be a revealed
truth, because it is logically deducible from that proposi
tion. Conclusions, so obtained, depend on our definitions
of terms, or the sense which we choose to give them ;
and are therefore only hypothetically true, in the same
manner as mathematical theorems. But if we follow the
method of Induction, and confine ourselves to Facts, ex
cluding all hypotheses, we shall arrive at absolute Truth, —
Truth not dependent on Phraseology. By this method, the
doctrines obtained from St. John's Gospel or any other
book of the Bible, would have equally resulted, had the
inspired writer employed an entirely different mode of
expression. For thus, the Truth is not regarded as essen
tially vested in the mere logical connexion of Terms ; but
Texts are compared with each other, and referred to the
spirit and meaning of the particular book in which they
occur, as well as of the Bible at large, and connected with
the whole scheme of Divine Providence and Grace.
Thus may modest and sober reasoning be employed in
the work of interpreting Scripture; and there can be no
objection to Conclusions of this kind. In thus reasoning
on Scripture, we do only what God has laid upon us to
do in giving us His word. God has put His word, like
His works, before men. Both are open to misconstruction
d

34 INTRODUCTION.
and misapplication. Ignorance and folly and ingenuity are
permitted to raise their systems out of each. And these
systems for a while prevail more or less. Some live their
centuries, others their years or their days. But they have
their allotted period ; and sound Philosophy and sound Theo
logy are sure to triumph in the end.
Hence it appears what sort of Improvements may be
made in the subject of Religion. The great Truths of
the Gospel — what by our old divines are called the Fun
damentals of Religion — were undoubtedly known and pro
claimed at the earliest preaching of tbe Gospel. The
Scriptures must then have been rightly expounded, in
their bearings on man's Salvation, when Apostles and Apo
stolic men expounded them. Improvements in this subject
therefore cannot be new truths gained as in the Physical
Sciences. There cannot now, or at any future period,
be brought to light, for the first time. Truths necessary
for Salvation, unheard or untaught before. Improvements,
if there be any, must in effect be restitutions of the Ori
ginal Truths, revivals of the most ancient belief and practice,
returns to the simplicity of the first Fathers of our Faith.
In the lapse of time even the great saving Truths of the
Gospel may be partially obscured, — may be corrupted by
additions or diminutions, — may be disfigured by the lan
guage in which they are exhibited. What is obscure
therefore raay be cleared up ; corruptions may be removed ;
imperfect statements may be corrected ; the object being kept
in view throughout, of maintaining and teaching no other
Faith than that once delivered to the Saints.
It is in this spirit, as I conceive, that Bishop Butler
speaks of Truths yet remaining to be discovered in the volume
of Revelation.

/

INTRODUCTION.

35

•' As it is owned," he says, " the whole scheme of
" Scripture is not yet understood ; so, if it ever comes
" to be understood, before the restitution of all things, and
" without miraculous interpositions, it must be in the
"same way as natural knowledge is come at: by the
"continuance and progress of learning and liberty; and
" by particular persons attending to, comparing, and pur-
" suing, intimations scattered up and down it, which are
" overlooked and disregarded by the generality of the
" world. For this is the way in which all iraprovements are
" made ; by thoughtful men's tracing on obscure hints,
" as it were, dropped us by nature accidentally, or which
" seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor is it at all
" incredible, that a book, which has been so long in the
" possession of mankind, should contain many Truths as yet
" undiscovered.'" Now, whether with Butler we apply the term Discovery,
or not, to the results of an increased acqtiaintance with the
sacred volume, it is evident that by an iraproveraent in the
Interpretation and Exposition of the Bible much may be
effected. We may clear up what has been obscured, — draw
forth what has been little, or not at all, noticed, — state more
simply or raore fully what has been perplexedly or iraperfectly
taught, — confirm byfresh evidencewhat is alreadybelieved, —
on the whole, give more coraprehensive views of the scheme
of salvation. Thus, though there can be no improvement
in Doctrine, as Doctrine stands for Truths Taught, there
raay be iraproveraent in the Exposition of Doctrine. As
there is an art of Grammar or Rhetoric, besides the dis
covery by observation of the principles of those Sciences ;
» Butler's Analogy, p. 2, c. 3. See the same point simply and beautifully
touched by Irenaeus, Con. Haer. I. 2, c. 28, p. 156.
d2

36 INTRODUCTION.
SO there is also a method of teaching out of Scripture,
after we have ascertained its sense. Various modes may
be adopted of arranging and stating the truths known,
as shall appear best for the conveyance of them to the
minds of men, — most suitable to each occasion and to the
capacities and condition of those who are to be taught. At
one time, a Scholastic method, and Scholastic phraseology,
would be properly employed, as most intelligible and satis
factory to educated and thinking people of the tirae. By
these means. False Doctrine would then be most effectively
denied, and True Doctrine asserted. But if the Church
were now called upon anew to assert the same truths, or
reprobate the same errors, it might not use exactly the
same words, or the same method, — some of the words
having become obsolete, or their raeaning being changed,
and the method itself being superseded ; — but would adapt
its language to the habits of thinking and modes of speak
ing prevalent in the age. To assert the possibility of such
an improvement, is by no means to confound divine and
human knowledge. It is merely to say, that the same
revealed knowledge which man has at one tirae communi
cated to man in one way, he may at another time com
municate better in another way. It is not Neology that is
here advocated, but the true Christian Archeology, if I
may so express myself; the maintenance of the doctrine
of Christ and his Apostles unchanged, under the vicissi
tudes of human institutions and character and language.'
Whenever indeed I reflect on the imputation of Ration
alism, or Rationalizing tendency, so boldly thrown out
against my writings, I am astonished at the criticism
' So speaks Eusebius: Tns &pxaio\oyias tw rris rifi^rdpas Ma,rKa\las
icyiiiray. Eccl. Hist. 1. 2. Proem.

INTRODUCTION.

37

which has embarked its zeal and its fortunes on such a
plank. The invidiousness of the charge, the timid credulity
with which it would be received by others jealous of any
suspicion of their own orthodoxy, on the authority of per
sons professing to announce it after painful thought, and
at the sacrifice of personal feeling, might have suggested
the discretion of forbearing it except on the broadest ground
of evidence. If there is any thing to which my writings
have been uniformly opposed, it is Rationalism. I have no
leaning whatever towards such a mode of speculation ; nor
have / ever had ; frora the first giving of my mind to these
studies, having been put on my guard against it, by a
familiarity with Butler's Analogy, — a work, the spirit of
which I have endeavoured to exemplify, to the utraost of
my power, in all that I have written." When^indeed I ex
pressly conderan speculative deductions from Scripture lan
guage, I condemn Rationalism, whatever form it may assume,
— whether it seek to explain away Divine Truth, or to supT
port that Truth by ingenious and subtile argumentation. I
have not, I confess, tried to escape from Rationalism by
running into Mysticism. But let not any fancy that they
do avoid Rationalism by such a resource : for Mysticism
itself is but an insane Rationalism.
III. Such Facts again as I call the substance of Revelation,
are not the mere residuum obtained after all that is raysterious
has been evaporated. This notion is a great misconception
of my meaning, — a misconception injurious at once to the
religious and the philosophical character of my views.
" After all the clamour that has been raised, it will not be thought irre
levant egotism, to mention, that I have the happiness of knowing that, as a
Public Examiner in the University, I was mainly instrumental in introducing
the works of Bishop Butler into the course of reading for Academical Honours.

38 INTRODUCTION.
Philosophy searches out and holds the truth in all its length
and breadth, however strange and mysterious the result
may be. So does Theology. It does not attenuate or
simplify according to the vulgar conception of simplification ;
i. e. such as reduces the expression of the Truth to the
fewest elements. It labours to leave nothing unrecorded
which God has said; and therefore terminates in a far more
complex apparatus of Divine Truth, than the speculatist would
leave by his systematic arrangements. I have said else
where" that it is not the part of the Christian Theologian to
reduce to conformity the different Truths of Revelation — that
he must receive them all as they stand — that he falls short of
the Truth, if he seeks to assimilate it to the mere facts of
experience, forgetting the mysterious nature of that system
of things about which Revelation is conversant. If some
then can only understand by Facts, generalizations of
Scripture truth,— reductions of it to the standard of human
experience, — resolutions of it into analogies, — translations
of it into the perceptions of our own minds, — I would take
this opportunity of warning the public, that it is the mis
understanding of such persons, not mine. I believe and teach
that the Scripture Verities are, in their full extent. Realities ;
i. e. that they are conversant about objects having an existence
independent of our own minds or of any views that we may
take of them ; and that, so far from their Mysteriousness
being any objection to them, it is a necessary evidence of
their Truth. — Religion has its appropriate thoughts and feel
ings and actions, on the one hand, and the objects of
those thoughts, feelings, and actions, on the other. The
former have their reality in the Christian man; and without
them he has no religion, however correctly he may profess
¦ Phil. Evidence, p. 291.

INTRODUCTION.

39

his belief of the existence of the objects of his Faith. The
latter have their reality external to man, and would be
no less what they are, though they had reraained for ever
unrevealed ; as there may be many other Truths belonging
to the Gospel scheme, which only higher orders of beings
are permitted to know, and which probably they know
for their peculiar exercise and improvement. We should
be careful, not to confound the two departments of Religion,
and to apply what is said on one head, as bearing on the
other, or excluding the other. A theologian may insist on
the importance of rightly beheving and receiving the sacred
truth, without intending for one moment to say, that right
thoughts or feelings about it constitute its w^ofo importance. —
Should we not, for example, do injustice to the framers of the
Athanasian Creed, if we were to suppose because it says—
" He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the
" Trinity," — that it resolves the whole iraportance of the
Doctrine into right thinking about it, or mere subjective
truth ? — And so, on the other hand, a theologian may prove
the reality of the sacred truth, without adverting to its
practical reception in the heart and understanding of the
believer.

IV. It is in the sense explained above, that I have
maintained that no deductions or consequences drawn from
Scripture Language are to be received as matter of
Divine Revelation. I have not, it should be observed,
contended that no deductions whatever from Scripture
Truth are to be received, but that speculative deduc
tions or consequences from the language of Scripture, are
not to be held as necessary parts of Divine Revelation.

40 INTRODUCTION.
Nor have I contended, that such deductions may not
be held as matter of probable truth, or with a pious reserve
for the imbecility and shortsightedness of the human faculties.
But 1 have argued that such deductions — i. e. consequences
drawn from the theories or notions involved, or supposed
to be involved, in Scriptural expressions — cannot be imposed
as matter of Divine Revelation.
I have not asserted, I wish it to be further observed,
that nothing can be proved out of Scripture; but that,
because a point may be urged as a consequence of some
thing else which is proved out of Scripture, that point
is not therefore to be received as a certain truth of Scripture
Let any one state to himself this proposition — Whatever is
Divine Truth is proved by Scripture — and then ask himself,
whether the converse follows logically — that Whatever is
proved by Scripture is Divine Truth. Proving by Scripture
may be done in so many ways, that he must be a bold
person who would admit the principle that whatever claims
to be so proved is true. First, what is proof to one man
may not be so to another : one may think certain texts
insufficient, with which another is fully satisfied ; and one
man may admit one kind of proof to be just, whilst another
denies the validity of it. If I affirmed that we must have
express words of Scripture for every thing that we allege as
Scripture Truth, this might be denying all use of reasoning
in application to the Bible. But I say rather with Bram
hall : " I have never observed any thing more repugnant to
" the true sense of Scripture than some things which have
" been expressed altogether in the phrase of Scripture."''
Clearly, it is very possible for an ingenious person to string
together a number of Scriptural expressions as the declara-
' Vind. of Grotius, p. 637.

INTRODUCTION. 11
tions of a Doctrine, which, on the whole, will not give a
Scriptural view of that Doctrine. Let me once for all then
inform the candid reader, that I hold the use both of deduc
tive and inductive reasonings in making out and expounding
the meaning — the religious meaning, of course, not the mere
grammatical one — of the Bible, as legitimate and necessary.
And let him not be misled by those who will not, or cannot,
appreciate the difference between thus establishing the re
vealed truths of Scripture, and deducing speculative doctrines
beyond the Scripture. I insist on Scripture truth as distinct
from Human truth, — the doctrines of God's word as distinct
from the commandments of men.
In short, I would have Christian Doctrine rested on Scrip
ture Evidence, and not on Human Argumentation. I would
have all the acuteness of the skilful logician applied to elicit
the Evidence contained in Scripture. But I would not have
any portion of Christian Doctrine made to stand upon Ab
stractions. The difference of the two proceedings raay be
shown thus. Suppose a person to be charged with a crirae.
Would it be considered sufficient to establish the charge,
that guilt might be inferred from the disposition and
character of the accused, or from any abstract notions or
prejudices concerning him? Would it not rather be required,
that some positive evidence should be produced, some real
circumstances connecting the accused with the crime
alleged ? Surely no charge could stand without such proof;
except indeed before a Court of Inquisition. But at the
same time in collecting such evidence, and applying it to the
case, argumentation is required, and the acutest logician
will best bring that evidence to light. Look again to any
able work of Science. Take, for instance, Cuvier's Theory
of the Earth. There is close reasoning in that work ; but

42 INTRODUCTION.
the object of it all is to draw forth and establish those facts
on which his theory is founded. Contrast such a work
with a Treatise of the Ancient Physics : and the difference
between resting a doctrine on Evidence and on Argumen
tation, will be quite apparent. — In like manner, take
any of the Truths of Scripture ; — as the Resurrection
of the Body. Suppose this truth rested on the abstract
proposition, that there is in the body an indestructible
element, the seed of the future body; it would then be
a mere speculative inference, though the Resurrection
of the Body so inferred, is itself a truth. Look, on the
other hand, to Christ Raised from the Dead, and to all
that the inspired writers have told us about His rising
again ; and we thus collect a body of Evidence, by
which the truth is irrefragably established. — At the same
time, it may demand much argument to put that evidence
out to view. There must be comparison of passages, illus
tration of one by the other, detection of latent coincidences,
proof of the bearing of texts on the point; all which requires
able reasoning, and will be accomplished more or less
successfully according to the argumentative acuteness of the
mind eraployed on it.- — ^The same may be observed of the
Doctrine of Original Sin. No reasoning would be mis
applied, however long the chain of argument, which was
employed in eliciting the Scripture Evidence of the point.
But reasoning would be perversely eraployed, though it
happened in the result to support the truth, which should
deduce that doctrine, from the hypothesis of the transmission
of a substantial portion of the corrupt flesh of Adam to all
his descendants. — Or lastly, consider the doctrine of the
Trinity, as upheld by the various speculations which the
misapplied acumen of some of its early defenders brought

INTRODUCTION. 43
to its support; and it would then be improperly rested on
Argumentation. But conceive the same powers of reason
ing applied to the discernment of the intimations of the
doctrine scattered throughout Scripture, to the digest of
these, and the luminous disposition of them as matter of
Evidence ; and we cannot too highly approve such an applica
tion of reasoning.

V. I have directed attention to the different manner
in which Christian Truth is stated in the Scriptures and
in the Creeds and Formularies of the Church. Those
who have studied Ecclesiastical History know the reason
of this difference. Such persons are aware that Creeds
and Formularies have resulted from the necessities of the
Church in its progress ; partly for the early education of its
raerabers, partly for a defence against heretical doctrines,
partly as a test of communion with the body of the Faithful.
They bear, consequently, in their result the marks of their
formation, and of the purpose for which they have been
framed. They have been obliged to advert to opinions
afloat at the lime when they were made, and to contain
denials of those opinions or assertions of the contrary ; and
to adopt a phraseology drawn from modes of thinking pre
valent at the times when they were drawn up. Hence
too the form of Decisions or Decrees which they have
taken, or, to use the Greek term. Dogmas — -determinations
of points in debate, without annexing the reasons on which
those determinations were founded.
Now the Scriptures cannot be called Dogmatic, or Doctri
nal, in the sense in which the Church Formularies are so

44 INTRODUCTION.
called. Let it be observed that I do not apply the term
Dogmatic to the Church Formularies in the popular dispara
ging sense of the terra. But I apply it in its proper etyrao-
logical sense, as denoting the sentence, decree, definition,
determination of the Church on some controverted point."
And with respect to the terms Doctrine and Doctrinal, as ap
plied to the Formularies of the Church, I use them simply
to denote, what the Church teadies on certain points, and
not absolutely all the matters of Christian belief. In these
senses then, the Scriptures cannot be called Dogmatic, or
Doctrinal. For they are not decisions of the Church, or
Summaries of points taught by the Church. They are the
teaching of the Holy Spirit hiraself, the simple setting
forth of the counsel of God.
But if we understand by Dogmatic, a statement of
Truth on the Authority of the Teacher, as opposed to a
Theoretic or Scientific Statement of it, then I am quite
ready to admit that the Scriptures do contain Dogmatic
Truths. Every sentence uttered by our Lord and his
Apostles, may in this sense be called Dogmatic. In
this sense the word has been used by an eminent non
conformist divine in the following passage, to which I
fully assent, though, using the term Dogmatic in a different
sense, I have denied that the Scriptures are Dogmatic.
" Yet the Revelation contained in the Scriptures extends
" only to Facts, not to the theory of those Facts, or their
" original causes. The most important truths are commu-
" nicated in a dogmatic, not a theoretic manner. We are
" taught on the testimony of Him that cannot lie,

'¦ The term Dogma, however, soon came to be used as equivalent to Doc
trine in the popular sense. It may be said to be used so commonly in both the
Greek and Latin Fathers. It has also Classical Authority in the same sense.

INTRODUCTION. 46
''facts, which we cannot connect with those reasons, with
" which they are undoubtedly connected in the Divine
" mind. They rest solely on the basis of Divine Authority;
" and we are leu as much in tlie dark with respect to the
" mode of tlieir existence, as if they were not revealed. He
" has given us reason to believe that the Godhead subsists
" in three persons ; distinct acts of personal agency being
" ascribed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
" -whUe worship and adoration are claimed for them sepa-
•' rately: but the theory of this is utterly beyond our com-
" prehension ; nor does it appear to be any part of the
'•' intention of Scripture to put us in possession of that
" theory. Those who have ventured to approach too near
" this inaccessible light, tlrongh with honest and sincere
'¦ intentions, have, for the most part, by attempting to explain
" it, involved the subject in deeper obscurity, and darkened
" counsel by words -without knowledge." *
The like observation may be made with regard to the
term Docb-ines. There are no Doctrinal Statements, such
as those of the Formularies, in tlie Scriptures themselves.
But if we understand by Doctrines, Trutlis taught — objects
proposed to human belief — mysteries of God inculcated on
our heart and understanding — in this sense, I am free to
admit, that there are Doctrines in the Scriptures ; and I have
accordingly popularly spoken of the Christian Truths as
Doctrines. For who would think of applying to ordinary
occasions, a distinction, restricting the term to an exact tech
nical sense, in which it is not commonly understood. Nor
is this admission at all inconsistent -with what I have said
" Robiot Hall's Sermon " On the Glorr of God in Coaceaiing." Works,
T<A T. "p. 47. Sd ed.

46 INTRODUCTION.
in my Lectures, and which has been carped at, (I have been
sorry to see,) with no better sense than feeling, that " strictly
" to speak, in the Scripture itself there are no Doctrines."
Besides, there is a still further ground of opposition
between the method in which Truth is stated in Scripture,
and in Churc'n Formularies, in this respect. In Scripture,
Truth is urged upon us rhetorically, as well as in simple
declaration — presented with inducements to belief, and
accompanied with motives to conduct. Scripture appeals
to our affections, as well as to our understanding, — and to
both at once; exciting attention and interest, and kind
ling emotions of piety and benevolence, whilst it declares
the Mysteries of God. In the Formularies, on the con
trary, there is no endeavour to persuade men to believe their
assertions. They are not calls to the Faith. They are
simply. Statements of the Truth — put in a precise form, so
that they may be distinctly apprehended, apart from all
known errors on the subjects of them. They study merely to
express the grammatical or literal sense, avoiding all meta
phorical or indirect mode of expression. We speak of
Scripture as animated, energetic, glowing ; as profitable, not
only for doctrine, but for reproof, for correction, for instruc
tion in righteousness : but it would be clearly improper to
characterize the Formularies of the Church in such language.
Hence it may be said, that St. Paul, or any inspired writer,
does not speak doctrinally or dogmatically, but eloquently,
and persuasively, and cogently ; that he does not philo
sophize, but preach and entreat and compel men to the
Faith : and generally, that the Scriptures do not contain
Doctrinal Statements, or Doctrines, — if that term be restricted
to an exact Technical sense, — but the Substance of those
Statements, the equiraUnts of those Doctrines which are

INTRODUCTION. 47
given precisely in the Formularies of the Church. Doctrines,
however, in the popular sense of the term, they do contain,
and I will add, (for I firmly believe it) the same Doctrines
which are contained in the Formularies of the Church.
If it be considered why we call the Doctrines of our
Church Scriptural, it will be found to be because they may
be proved from Scripture. It is not because they are af
firmed totidem verbis in Scripture. We believe what is
" written" in Scripture, because it is Scripture. But we do
not confine ourselves to the express words of Scripture.
It is enough that we have the meaning of Scripture.
And this admission on the part of our Church, clearly
justified as it is by common sense, provides for a difference
between the language of Formularies and the language of
Scripture. It may, therefore, be not improperly said, that the
Doctrines, as worded in the Formularies, are not expressly
or verbally in the Scriptures, but are virtually, or substan
tially, or really contained in them, as being proved by the
Scriptures. For example, " the word Consubstantial," as
Bramhall says, " was not in the Creed before the Nicene
" Council, but the thing was, and was reduced from the
" Creed."" There has been controversial discussion on the point,
whether a Protestant is not bound by his exclusive reference
to Scripture as his Rule of Faith, to cite only express
words of Scripture for every doctrine, and precluded from
all reasoning, or drawing consequences, from the text of
Scripture. My argument has nothing to do with this ques
tion. All legitimate application of reasoning to the text of
Scripture, as I have shewn, I fully concur with. I am
not so absurd as to maintain a position, which Roman
' Schism Guarded, p. 347.

48 INTRODUCTION.
Catholics would press on the Protestant, as the effect of
the Protestant exclusive reliance on Scripture. If express
words of Scripture without reasoning on them, were enough
for proof of doctrine, the truth of Transubstantiation might
well be affirmed. And so Stillingfleet admits, in contro
verting the Jesuit's assertion, that on the Protestant ground,
Transubstantiation ought to be received.
" The question," says Stillingfleet, " being concerning
" matters of Doctrine, and not mere words, those things
" are expressly affirmed, which are evidently, and no other :
" for it is one thing for words to be expressly in Scrip-
" ture, and another for Doctrines to be so. For these latter
" are no further expressly affirmed there, than as there is
" evidence, that the raeaning of such words doth contain
" such a Doctrine in them. As to take your own instance,
" This is my Body, we grant the words to be express; but we
'' deny, that which he had then in his hands was his real Body
'' (for his hands were part of his real Body). Now, we do
" not say, that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is ex-
'•' pressly, but not evidently, contained here: for we say, the
" Doctrine is not there at all, but only that those are the
'' express words ; ' this is my body :' as it is in other figura-
" tive expressions in Scripture." °
Nor am I a stranger to the fact, that it was a sophistical
expedient of the early Heretics, to charge the Orthodox
with introducing terms not found in Scripture. Whoever has
read but little of Athanasius, must know this, as well as
the reply justly made by that Father, that the thing intended
by those terms was in Scripture, though the terms were
not ; " and that piety might well employ them to exclude the
« " Raiional account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion." Part 1. 1. 4.
p 105. Ed. 1665
Tivaa-KiTw S^ ofias, ei tIs i<rTi <t>i\o/i.a6-rls, oTi (I Kal /^.T) outus iv rdis ypcufSis

INTRODUCTION. 49
inventions of impiety. The .same Father also, it will be re
membered, admits, that Scripture intimations of the Truth
would be better, as being more accurate ; but that the ver
satility of the Arian party, had obliged the Bishops as
sembled at Nice, to set forth, more plainly, XevKVTEpov, such
expressions as subverted the heretical impiety. In the same
way, I hold that the Technical Language of Theology has
been both useful and necessary for maintaining the Truth;
whilst I point out its human origin, and connexion with the
reasonings of ancient Philosophy. Indeed I have said, and
still think, that there is an advantage in the use of this
Technical Language over the actual words of Scripture, for
stating points of doctrine; since we can modify it as we
please, and limit it accurately to the meaning we wish to
express. But whether I maintained or no, the necessity of ex
cluding all but Scripture terms from our statements of Doc
trine, such a notion has clearly nothing to do with the
argument of my Lectures. To state it correctly, the ques
tion I am there concerned with, is — Reasoning on the text
of Scripture being allowed, what is the right application of
reasoning ; Or, all Rationalizing of the word of God being
forbidden, when is reasoning duly employed in relation to
that word ? I argue only against what I consider a wrong
application of reasoning. Some seem to think that there
is wrong reasoning only on the side of unbelief and hetero-

f'urtv al \€|eis, dWa, KaBa-irep elpTp-ai -irpSTepov, -rrjv 4k tSv ypacpSv Sidmiau
exouffi, Kal Tainfiv eK<f>a)vovfj.€vai (xrip.aiyovfft to7s ^xovaty els evffi^^tav T-ffv oKoiiv
oXoKXrtpov. De Dec. Nic. Synod, c. 2). p. 227. — Aiori toIvvv dypd<povs uvtoi
X€|eis irpis da'e$etav i(j)evp6vTeSi aiViolyToi Tois dypa^ois Ke^eaw eva-e$ovvras ;
It. T. A. Ib. c. 18. p. 224. — Kol ji-n dypd(povs i-iraadyeaBai \4^€is. Nal eSei,
(pai-riv &v Kal iyaye- aKpiSearepa ydp 4k tSv ypacpay fiSXXoy ^ l| erepuy iffrl
^cL Tijs d\-)}6ias yvajpifffxaTa, k. t. \. Ib. *.. 32. p. 237

50 INTRODUCTION.
doxy. But all logicians are aware, that right conclusions
may be connected with false premises. And experience
tells us, that a weak and wrong-headed person may be very
orthodox and sound in the opinions which he professes,
but weak and wrong-headed in his mode of defending them ;
— also, that ingenious persons may devise arguments more
specious than solid, for maintaining a true conclusion. I
have accordingly considered in my Bampton Lectures, a
particular case, in which Reasoning has been wrongly,
though piously and acutely, applied to the defence of Chris
tian truth. Admiring, as I do, the extraordinary powers
of reasoning, and of systematic arrangement, displayed by
the Schoolmen, and deeply respecting that tone of piety,
which subdues even their most hazardous speculations, I
still see the vanity of such reasonings as theirs, when
applied to the exposition of revealed truth; and have
accordingly drawn out some instances of these reasonings,
and traced their influence on our Theological Language.
This is what I have done. But I do not object, I re
peat, to the just application of reasoning to the Sacred
Text. VI. In reference to the same point, it may be further use
ful, for the sake of those who are not versed in the study of
Logic, to state, if I can do so in a manner to be understood,
that when we are in possession of the Premises of an
Argument, the Conclusion necessarily follows. Grant the
Premises, and you grant the Conclusion from them. The
Conclusion in an Argument, is the sarae that has been
already separately said in the Premises, summed up and
stated in one proposition. On this account it has been
urged as an objection to the Syllogism, though it is not an

INTRODUCTION. 51
objection, but the reason of its validity, that it involves
a petitio principii. The same thing which is inferred in the
Conclusion, has been already assumed in the Premises. Only
it was not known, or not observed, before we drew the Con
clusion, that "it was contained or iraplied in the previous
admissions. The drawing the Conclusion, shews that it
was so implied or contained.
It would then be perfectly illogical and absurd for any
one to deny Consequences rightly drawn frora adraitted
Premises. If, for instance, Scripture shews, as it does,
that our Saviour is truly God as well as truly man, the
consequence is irrefragable that he united Two Natures in
One Person. For we have already set forth the sarae
Truth in the premises. Stated at length, the arguraent would
be, that whoever unites in himself the peculiar attributes
both of God and Man, unites in His person Two distinct
Natures. Our Saviour is clearly evidenced to us in this
light. Our Saviour, therefore, united in His Person two
distinct Natures. A consequence of this kind is nothing
more than what has been already affirmed in Scripture,
We have done nothing more than collect or put toge
ther the affirmations of Scripture. Though we may not,
therefore, read this conclusion totidem verbis in Scrip
ture, it is as much in Scripture as if it had been read
there totidem verbis. Whatever, then, can be thus
argued fi-om Scripture, is as true as Scripture is true.
In this way, things spiritual are compared with spiri
tual, and a consistent sense is drawn out by just reason
ing on the comparison. If in one passage our Saviour
asserts, " He who hath seen me hath seen the Father,"
&c. and in another, " the Father is greater than I ;"
these are to be taken together, and we may reason from the
e2

52 INTRODUCTION.
joint declaration, that He is neither to be separated from
the Father, nor to be confounded with the Father ;— in one
respect. He is one with the Father; in another respect,
the Father is greater than He. And a conclusion thus irre
sistibly follows, — which is no mere deduction from Terms,
but a result from all the passages bearing on each of these
heads, — adverse both to the Arian and the Sabellian notions
of our Lord.
But suppose now that a disputation turns on the Words,
Nature, Substance, Person, Foreknowledge, Priority,
Identity, &c., — audit is argued, that such or such expres
sions cannot be applied to the sacred subject under discus
sion, because such terms include certain ideas or exclude
certain ideas — and conclusions are drawn from the terms
against particular interpretations of Scripture, — all this is
raere logomachy. We have not the premises of our argu
ment in the Scripture, and we are not warranted, therefore,
in our conclusions. We reap where the Spirit has not
sown. We gather where He has not scattered. We
cannot, I mean, lay down definitions in Theology and
deduce consequences from them, and then identify those
consequences with the declarations of Scripture. Take
for exaraple the passage of Scripture, " whom He did fore
know, also He did predestinate ;"&c. — and let the attempt be
raade to argue from this, that those who are thus described
as the objects of the Divine Foreknowledge must be saved.
To arrive at this conclusion, a definition must be stated or
implied of what the Divine Foreknowledge is ; and from
that it is concluded, that what is foreknown by God must
come to pass. Whereas all that appears from the passage
is, that what God foreknows will surely and infallibly corae
to pass — that the matter is in the Hands of One who

INTRODUCTION. 53
cannot fail or be deceived. There is nothing said about
the necessity of the case- It is a mere conclusion of human
reasoning, that it is impossible for it to be otherwise. The
event may or may not be in itself, so far as Scripture speaks
ofit. Scripture only sets forth the unchanging goodness,
and steadiness of purpose, of Him in whom are the issues of
all things. So again to argue that because God gives
both to will and to do, Man has no free-will ; or that
because Man is exhorted to repent and treated as free,
there is no Divine Predestination and Election ; these are
consequences not from Scripture premises, but from defi
nitions of free-will and predestination. The conclusion
from Scripture is, that man is free to choose and act, and
that God does predestine. Both these principles are
declared in Scripture, and the conclusion, therefore, is, that
both are true. To argue from either against the other,
is to bring forward a consequence drawn from human
notions to invalidate the Scripture Testimony. Such deduc
tions, in fact, are not consequences of Scripture. They
follow only from partial views of Scripture, and cannot
be regarded, therefore, as legitimate conclusions.
Or let us take the instance which I have referred to on
a former occasion, — our Lord's inference of the Resurrection
of the Dead from that passage of the Pentateuch, " I am
" the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
" Jacob." There can be no doubt that this passage con
tains the elements of the proof of such a doctrine. Clearly
it was possible to draw the doctrine out of it. It was
possible, let me add, for mere man to have drawn it out.
But supposing that the inference had been so drawn before
our Saviour shewed the way,— would it have followed
necessarily? Would it have been more than a probable

54 INTRODUCTION.
inference, as drawn by a mere human reasoner? None
but one divinely inspired could have laid down the pre
mise here — " God is not the God of the dead but of the
" living." All that a mere human reasoner could have stated,
would have been — " God is probably not the God of the
dead but of the living;" and his conclusion would only
have been accordingly, " there is probably a Resurrection
of the Dead." A sound and pious conclusion this would
clearly have been ; and such as might have been held,
and was held, by pious Jews, before the revelation of
Jesus Christ on the subject; but which the Jews could
only know and fully accept as indisputably true, upon the
word of a distinct revelation. This is the ground on which
I have somewhere said, that it requires a new revelation
to substantiate certain conclusions of human reasoning in
Theology. Now, there are many consequences of this kind which
may be drawn from Scripture, and the deduction of which
may be an edifying exercise to the pious mind. Nay, to
such a mind it may be given by the Spirit of God, to
obtain a further view of the Divine Dispensations than is
given to the less humble and less patient inquirer.
Still such conclusions must be held by the believer only
as probable truths, or true opinions, so long as they re
main only probable, and are not positively revealed in
ferences." Such inferences, if drawn by inspired writers,
are put out of the region of probability by the warrant of

" But because there are no new revelations since the Apostles died,
" whatever comes in after them is only by man's ratiocination ; and therefore
" can never go beyond a probability in itself, and never ought to pretend
" higher, lest God's incommunicable right be invaded, which is to be Lord of
" all human understandings." — Bp. Taylor's Dissufisive from Popery, Second
Part, Book I. Sec. 14, p. 171.

INTRODUCTION. 55
the Inspiration under which they are stated. They are then
certainly and indisputably true. But it is not so with those
to which there is not the like attestation ; though they may
still be held and professed by Christians as parts of their
Theology. Even, too, when such opinions happen to attract
much discussion among Christians, and opposite conclusions
are drawn respecting the points to which they refer, — the
Church may interpose as Judge of controversy, and, for the
sake of peace, rule the points under debate, and require a
moderation in regard to them, on the part of its ministers
and teachers. Doctrines of this kind may justly be denomi
nated Theological Truths ; to distinguish them from those
higher Verities, the essentials of a Saving Faith, which are in
the most proper sense Articles of Faith. To this effect Bram
hall says, — " That there is one God, and one Saviour Jesus
" Christ ; that the life of the Saints is everlasting, and the fire
" of the Devils everlasting ; are Articles of Faith ; but every
" thing which may be deduced from these, is not a distinct
" Article of Faith." f It is one thing surely to deny that
such conclusions are entitled to rank with indisputable Ar
ticles of Faith, and another thing to allow them no impor
tance or truth whatever.
Take, for example, Paley's inference from the words of
St. Paul, " that we may present every man perfect in Christ
" Jesus." Pointing out that this is St. Paul's expression of
" his hope and prayer, that at the general judgment of the
" world he might present to Christ the fruits of his ministry,
" the converts whom he had made to his faith and religion,
" and might present them perfect in every good work ;"—
he adds, " if this be rightly interpreted, then it affords
' Schism Guarded, p. 400.

56 INTRODUCTION.
" a manifest and necessary inference, that the saints in a
" future life will raeet and be known again to one another :
" for how, without knowing again his converts in their new
" and glorified state, could St. Paul desire or expect to
" present them at the last day ?"^ If we say a highly
probable inference, instead of " necessary," we may, indeed,
hold the doctrine here alleged by Paley as a Theological
'JVuth, but we could hardly say that it was distinctly re
vealed, or entitled to be called an Article of Faith in the
strict sense of the term.
Again, Bishop Horsley having declared his opinion in
favour of the notion held by several of the Fathers and the
Schoolmen, " that the existence of the Son flows neces-
" sarily from the Divine Intellect exerted on itself;" and
stated that it seemed to him to be founded in Scripture ; —
observes, — " By which I meant not to assert that it is so
" expressly declared in Scripture, that I would undertake
" to prove it by the Scriptures to others, in the same
" manner that I would undertake to prove that the world
" was created by Jesus Christ; or that the one, like the
" other, ought to be made a branch of the public confession
" of the Church ; or that the disbelief of this particular
" principle is a circumstance th-at may in the least affect
" the integrity of any Christian's faith. It was not alleged
" as a principle, on which I meant at all to rest the credit
" of the Scripture doctrine; it was mentioned only as a
" principle which, true or false, was embraced by a certain
" set of writers, and serves to explain certain things said
" by them, which without it are unintelligible, or at least
" liable to misrepresentation. At the same time, I dis-
" covered my own opinion about this principle, that I think
* Paley's Sermons, p. 507.

INTRODUCTION. 57
" it true, or likely to be true ; for it seems (that is the
" word I used) to be founded in Scripture. Many phrases
" of holy writ seem to me to allude to it ; and to those
" who first thought of it, I doubt not, but that the same
" allusions seemed couched in the same phrases. Yet I
" will not undertake to teach every one to read the same
" sense in the same expressions. When I shewed that,
" from this principle once admitted, a strict demonstration
" might be drawn of the eternity of the second Person,
" it was not that I set any value upon that demonstration,
" as adding in the least degree to the certainty of the
" Scripture doctrine. Upon such points the evidence oi
" Holy Scripture is, indeed, the only thing that amounts
" to proof The utmost that reasoning can do, is to lead
" to the discovery, and, by God's grace, to the humble
" acknowledgment of the weakness and insufficiency of
" reason ; to resist her encroachments upon the province
" of faith; to silence her objections, and cast down imagi-
" nations, and prevent the innovations and refinements of
"philosophy and vain deceit." " Here then, according to
Bishop Horsley, is a conclusion drawn from expressions of
Scripture, which, however, he does not venture positively
to assert as matter revealed. He holds it as a pious opi
nion which might be controverted.
Conclusions of these different kinds are found in our
XXXIX. Articles. " Some of them," says Archbishop Bram-
" hall, are the very same that are contained in the Creed: some
" others of them are practical truths, which corae not within
" the proper list of points or Articles to be believed: lastly,
" some of them are pious Opinions or Inferior Truths, which
" are proposed by the Church of England to all her Sons,
" Horsley's Replies to Priestley, p. 516.

oi' IXTKODUCTION.
" as not to be opposed ; not as essentials of Faith necessary
"to be believed by all Christians, necessitate medii, under
" pain of damnation." ' In other places, indeed, Bram
hall comprehends the whole of the Articles under the title
of pious Opinions. '¦ We do not suffer any man, (he says,) to
" reject the xxxix. Articles of the Church of England at
" his pleasure, yet neither do we look upon them as essentials
" of saving faith, or legacies of Christ and of his Apostles ;
" but in a mean, as pious Opinions fitted for the preservation
" of unity ; neither do we oblige any man to believe them,
" but only not to contradict them." '^ Stillingfleet, citing these
expressions of Bramhall with approbation, prefaces them
with the remark, that " the Church of England makes no
" Articles of Faith but such as have the testimony and
" approbation of the whole Christian world of all ages, and
" are acknowledged to be such by Rome itself; and in other
" things she requires Subscription to them, not as Articles of
" Faith, but as Inferior Truths, which she expects a submis-
" sion to, in order to her peace and tranquillity."
So again he speaks of " Articles of Faith" as distinct from
" Theological Verities." " Are not those properly Articles
of Faith, (he says,) as distinct from Theological Verities,
which are necessary to be believed by all?"™
Neither of these great Champions of the Protestant Faith
thought they were disparaging the Articles of the Church,
when they spoke of them in this manner. "\A"hilst they
did not admit all Conclusions from Scripture to the rank
of Revealed Truths, they did not feel themselves precluded
from acknowledging that there were still vital substantial
Truths to be drawn from Scripture, which a man should hold
i Schism Guarded, p. 348. '' Ibid, Sect. 1, ch. xi. p.345.
I Ibid, p. 75. " Ration. Account, p. 54, ed. 1665.

INTRODUCTION. 59
as he values his salvation— such as the Unity and the Trinity,
—the Incarnation of the Word— the distinct Personality
ofthe Holy Ghost. Nor when Bramhall characterizes the
Articles collectively as pious Opinions, does he detract at
all from the certainty of the great Fundamentals included
among them. For so far as these have been controverted, so
far they may be spoken of as Opinions ; as we now famiharly
speak of Trinitarian or Unitarian Opinions, without sup
posing that we thus express any doubt of the truth and
certainty of the doctrine of the Trinity.
With regard to the, imposing of consequences generally
as Articles of Faith, Bishop Taylor well observes : —
" The devesting the Church frora the simplicity of her
" faith, is like removing the ancient landmark : you cannot
" tell by the mark in what country you are in, whether in
" your own or in the enemies'. And in the world nothing is
" more unnecessary. For if that Faith be sufficient ; if in
" that Faith the Church went to Heaven ; if in that
" she preserved unity and begat children to Christ, and
" nursed them up to be perfect men in Christ, and kept her-
" self pure from heresy, and unbroken by schism; whatsoever
" is added to it, is either contained in the article virtually, or
" it is not. If not, then it is no part of the Faith, and by the
" laws of Faith there is no obligation passed upon any man
" to believe it. But if it be, then he that beheves the
" Article does virtually believe all that is virtually contained
" in it : but no man is to be pressed with the consequents
" drawn from thence, unless the transcript be drawn by the
" same hand that wrote the original ; for we are sure it carae
" in the simplicity of it from an infallible spirit ; but he
" that bids me believe his Deductions under pain of dam-
" nation, bids me under pain of damnation believe that he is

60 INTRODUCTION.
• an unerring logician : for which, because God has given me
' no command, and himself can give me no security, if I
' can defend myself from that man's pride, God will defend
' me from damnation.""
" But if any man will search into the harder things,
' or any more secret sacrament of Religion, by that means
' to raise up his mind to the contemplation of heavenly
' things, and to a contempt of things below, he may do it if
' he please, so that he do not impose the belief of his own
' speculations upon others, or compel them to confess what
' they know not, and what they cannot find in Scriptures, or
' did not receive from the Apostles. We find by experi-
' ence, that a long Act of Parliament, or an indenture or
' covenant that is of great length, ends none but causes
' many contentions ; and when many things are defined, and
' definitions spun out into declarations, men believe less, and
' know nothing more." °
" For although whatsoever is certainly deduced from any
' of these Articles, made already so explicit, is as certainly
' true, and as much to be believed, as the Article itself, be-
' cause 'ex veris possunt nil nisi vera sequi ;' yet, because it
' is not certain that our deductions from them are certain,
' and what one calls evident, is so obscure to another,
' that he believes it is false, it is the best and only safe
' course, to rest in that explication the Apostles have
' made," ifec?
" This I say, not that I believe it unlawful or unsafe for
' the Church, or any of the ' antistites religionis,' or any
' wise man, to extend his own Creed to any thing which
' may certainly follow from any one of the Articles ; but I
" Diss, from Popery, 2d Part, Sect. 4, b. 1, p. 162, 1564.
" Ibid, p. 167. P Liberty of Prophesying, Seel, p. 11—450, 1822.

INTRODUCTION. 61
" say that no such deduction is fit to be pressed on others as
" an Article of Faith ; and that every such deduction which
" is so made, unless it be such a thing as is at first evident
"•• toall, is bnt sufficient to make a human fiuth ; nor can it
¦¦ amount to a Divine, much less can be obligtttory to bmd
¦• a person of a difering persuasion to subscribe, under pain
« of losing his faith, or behig a heretic . . . .\nd, therefore
'- deductions, mevident, from the evident and plain letter of
" feith, are as great recessions fix)m the obhgation, as they
•• are fi^m the simphcity and certainty of the Article. And
" this I also affirm, although the Church of any one deno-
" mination, or represented m a Council, shall make the
¦•' deduction or declaration." *

^ II. WTiat if the nodons on which some of our Theologi
cal Terms arefonnded, are represented as unphilosophical in
character, — drawn, that is, from an Ancient Philosophy
which improved knowledge has since exploded; — does
this at all impair the value of those Terms for the purposes
¦s-hieh they now serve I If Religion was assailed by a felse
Philosophy, which had its authority and weight at the time,
it was necessary to repel the assault by the same Philosophy.
For example : if the word X^atur-- were used in an here
tical argument to impugn the fuE Truth of the Incarnation,
it became neeessarv for the defender of the Tmth to
gnaid the Term, which he also acknowledged in the same
sense, or understood in a different sense, from such a mis-
apphcation of it Thus guarding the Term from misap-
I^kation, he effectually preserved the Truth down to the times
« liberrr ofPropbesyii^ Sev. 1. 12. p. -iSl.

62 INTRODUCTION.
when the speculations themselves about the Term have lost
their force. And we may well be thankful for this service :
but we are not bound, at the same time, to respect the Phi
losophy involved in his arguraent.
Nor is it any thing against this admission of the useful
ness of the Scholastic Language, that the notions on which
it turns should be further described as unscriptural. If they
are drawn from Philosophy, (and whether they are so or not
is a raere question of fact,) it is plain that they are not scrip
tural in their origin ; — the Notions, let it be observed, which
are embodied in the Terms, not the Doctrines or Truths to
which those Terms are applied — Notions, which would have
been attached to the Terms, though the Scripture Truths had
not been thought of. Would any one, for exaraple, suppose
that we were arguing against the religious obligation of
Sunday, because it was shewn that the name ofthe day was
of heathen origin? As senseless is the clamour that the
scriptural foundation of the Christian Doctrines is denied, be
cause the phraseology in which they happen to be expressed,
is not throughout scriptural, but has been partly drawn from
profane sources, and moulded by controversy. Where, in
deed, was the faith of the Apostolic Fathers, and of all other
Christians who have believed in the Truths of Scripture,
before the established use of these Terms, if these Terms
involve vital Truth in themselves, apart frora their application
to questions of Theology ?
In fact, nothing but extreme inattention to the nature of
language as an instrument of the human mind, could have
suffered any person to misconceive this point, as it has been
misconceived, or given him the power of misleading others so
perversely. I would recommend to the reader a study of
the 7th Dialogue of Bishop Berkeley's Minute Philoso-

INTBODtJCTION. 63
pher, to dear up the mists which have been diffiised otct
diis part of the subject. He will there see how Theol(^cal
Tenns, no less than others, may be signs and mstruments
of Truth, without conveying precise abstract ideas of the
things signified by diem ; and that, therefore, we are not
ol^^ to adopt the Realism ofthe Scholastic Philosophy,
vhilst we retain the phraseologTi-. It may be of use to cite
one or two passages firom that interesting Dialogue.
Having shewn how we have no idea of Force in the
at^tiact, and yet we have true and usefiil proposhions about
Force, Berkeley remarks : —
" That wliich we admit with regard to i^f?r<y, upon what
"pretence can we deny conceming Grace F If there are
" queries, disputes, perplexities, diversity of notions and
" opaoious about the one, so there are about the other also :
" if we can form no precise disdnct idea of the one, so nei-
" dier can we of the other. Ought we not, therefore, by
'• a parity of reason to conclude, there may be divers true
" and usdhl propositions concerning tbe one as well as
*" tte other ? And that Grace may be an object of our fidth,
" and influence our life and actions, as a principle destnic-
" tise of evil habiiB and productive of good ones, although
" we cannot attain a £stinct idea of ir, separate or abstracted
" &(na God the Author, firom man the subject, and fit>m
" -virtne and pierv its eSects ?~
'¦ But althoutrh terms are sii^is, vei havim: granted that
" those signs mav be signiiacaiir. though ihey should not
" suggest ideas represented by them, provided they serve to
" i<cgDlaiie and influence our wills, passions, and conduct,
" jwa have consequendy granted, that the mind of man may
** assent to propositions containing sudi terms, wben it is so
» iEam. PML Diai 7, Toi. ^p. 213. lS2a

64 INTRODUCTION.
" directed or aflfected by them, notwithstanding it should not
" perceive distinct ideas marked by those terms. Whence
" it seems to follow, that a man may believe the doc-
" trine of the Trinity, if he finds it revealed in Holy
" Scripture, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
" are God, and that there is but one God; although he doth
" not frarae in his mind any abstract or distinct ideas of
" Trinity, Substance, or Personality; provided that this doc-
" trine of a Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, makes proper
" impressions on his mind, producing therein love, hope,
" gratitude, and obedience, and thereby becoraes a lively
" operating principle, influencing his life and actions agree-
" ably to that notion of saving faith which is required in a
" Christian."' " Whatever their intention was, [that of the Nicene Fa-
" thers,J it could not be to beget nice abstracted ideas of
" mysteries in the minds of common Christians ; this being
" evidently irapossible : nor doth it appear that the bulk of
" Christian raen did in those days think it any part of
" their duty to lay 'aside the words, shut their eyes, and
" frarae those abstract ideas ; any more than men now do
" of force, time, number, or several other things about
" which they nevertheless believe, know, argue, and dis-
" pute. To rae it seems that whatever was the source of
" these controversies, and however they were managed,
" wherein human infirmity must be supposed to have had
" its share, the main end was not, on either side, to convey
" precise, positive ideas to the minds of men, by the use
" of those contested terms, but rather a negative sense,
" tending to exclude Polytheism on the one hand, and
" Sabellianism on the other."'
> Minut. Phil. Dial. 7, Vol. li. p. 214. ' Ibid. p. 218.

INTRODUCTION. 65
" It seems that what hath been now said may be applied
" to other mysteries of our religion. Original Sin, for
" instance, a man may find it impossible to form an idea of
" in abstract, or of the manner of its transmission ; and yet
" the belief thereof may produce in his mind a salutary
" sense of his own unworthiness and the goodness of his
" Redeemer : from whence may follow good habits, and
" from them good actions, the genuine effects of faith,
" which, considered in its true hght, is a thing neither
" repugnant nor incomprehensible, as some men would
" persuade us, but suited even to vulgar capacities, placed
" in the will and affections rather than in the understanding,
" and producing holy lives, rather than subtile theories."'^
" If the moment of opinions had been by some litigious
'•¦ divines made the measure of their zeal, it might have
" spared much trouble both to themselves and others.
" Certainly one that takes his notions of faith, opinion, and
" assent, from common sense, and common use, and has
" maturely weighed the nature of signs and language, will
" not be so apt to controvert the wording of a mystery, or
" to break the peace of the Church, for the sake of retaining
" or rejecting a term.""^
To these passages of Berkeley may be subjoined the
following one of Horsley, in which he is speaking of the
raystery of the Incarnation.
" We shall not indeed find this proposition, that the
" existence of Mary's Son consisted from the first, and ever
" shall consist, in his union with the Word ; we shall not
" find this proposition in these terms in Scripture. Would
" to God, the necessity never had arisen of stating the
"discoveries of revelation in metaphysical propositions!
- Minut. Phil. Dial. 7, vol. ii. p. 219. ' Ibid, p- 220.
/

66 INTRODUCTION.

The inspired writers delivered their sublimest doctrines
in popular language ; and abstained, as much as was
possible to abstain, from a philosophical phraseology.
By the perpetual cavils of gainsayers, and the difficulties
whicli they have raised, later teachers, in the assertions
of the same doctrines, have been reduced to the unpleas
ing necessity of availing themselves of the greater
precision of a less familiar language. But if we find not
the same proposition in the same words in scripture, we
find in Scripture what amounts to a clear proof of the
proposition, — we find the characteristic properties of both
natures, the human and the divine, ascribed to the same
person. We read of Jesus, that he suffered from hunger
and fi'om fatigue ; that he wept for grief, and was dis
tressed with fear ; that he was obnoxious to all the evils
of humanity, except the propensity to sin. We read of
the same Jesus, that he had ' glory with the Father
before the world began ;' that ' all things were created
by him, both in heaven and in earth, visible and
invisible ; whether they be thrones or dominions or princi
palities or powers ; all things were created by him and for
him,' and he ' upholdeth all things by the word of his
power.' And that we may in some sort understand, how
infirmity and perfection should thus meet in the same
person, we are told by St. John, that the ' Word was
made flesh.' It was clearly, therefore, the doctrine of
holy writ, and nothing else, which the Fathers asserted,
in terms borrowed frora the schools of philosophy, when
they affirmed, that the very principle of personality and
individual existence, in St. Mary's Son, was union with
the uncreated Word." *
^ Horslev's Sermon on the Incarnation, pp. 357 — 359.

IXTKODUCTION. 67
VIII. But if the Philosophy was unsound frora which the
Orthodox no less than the Heretic drew his arguraents, it
may seem, that we can atti'ibute no greater validity to the
orthodox conclusions than to those of the heretical reasoner.
This, however, does not follow. The question is : — -does
the Orthodox Conclusion, though using the Phraseology
of an erroneous Philosophy, protect the Truth from the
shafts of that Philosophy, and keep it entire as it existed in
the Primitive Confessions ? If it does, (and a study of the
subject will show that it does,) the Conclusions are valid ; not
because tire Philosophy is more sound in this case than in
the other; but because they are safeguards ofthe Truth, —
because of tlieir skilful and valuable application. Nor is
the introduction of this Philosophy into the Sacred Sub
ject tliereby justified. It may still be far better that this
Philosophy should never have been introduced into it at all ;
in the same way, as evil in the world may be the means of
much greater good in the result, than if there had been no
evil; and yet it may have been far better for die world that
there had been no evil at all.^
Further, though we may approve certain Statements of
DocU-ine as results, is it necessary that we should approve all
the reasonings and speculations on which those particular
modes of speaking have been founded ? Receiving the State
ments as results, we may find that we cannot alter them for
the better ; or the difficulty of the attempt may induce us to
acquiesce in what sufficiently declares the Truth, tliough we
may not abstractedly approve the Statement for its own sake.
But an approbation of the reasonings and spa-ulations in
volved in a mode of Statement is quite another thing. I do
not think the Quakers were wise in changing the names of
• See Origen Con. Cels. 1. iv. p. 210. ed. Spencer.-Butler's Anal. pt. i. .. 7.

(j^ IN'TRODUCTION.
the months or days, because the existing names are drawn
from heathenism: but I do not feel myself committed by this
opinion, to approve the heathenism wrapped up in the popu
lar names. Neither am I excluded from freely discussing, and
objecting to, the Scholasticism involved in our Theological
Statements, because I approve the use of those Statements.
Nor am I bound to disapprove the latter, because I may
disapprove the former.
Nor does it follow that in objecting to Realism, as a
philosophical system, I should attribute no reality to the
objects about which Revelation is conversant. These may
be realities, (as they are,) and yet some of the Terms by
which they are expressed may be merely notional. For in
stance, the doctrine that there is a Life Everlasting, describes
a reality. It is not merely a nominal or metaphysical Truth,
but a truth which implies a real existence. And yet the
Terms themselves are abstract, representing ideas which
have no existence apart from living beings. ^

IX. But perhaps, we are hereby induced to think less
hardly of heretical assailants of the Faith. Seeing that the
Orthodox as well as the Heretic have dealt in the specula
tions of an Ancient Philosophy, we may think less blame
due to Heretics than we at first supposed. — But are we
obliged to condemn others, in order to ensure our own title
to orthodoxy ? We cannot, indeed, believe ourselves to
be right in our religious convictions, without believing all
dissentients from our views to be wrong. But this does not

- It is remarkable, that Realists have always been peculiar'y sensitive to
offence in regard to their theory.— Oi 5' ^irl tt? ISea, edv tis €i's t^i/ iSea;', was
observed lon^; a^o bv Aristotle.

IXTRODUCTION. 69
require that we should condemn and censure all who differ
from us, or that we should hold ourselves free from all
censure because we are correct in our behef. It is the
very spirit of the Chiu-ch of England to admit that we are
not infalhble, though we may not allow that we are in actual
error. Whilst, therefore, we detest all False Doctrine in
itself, we are bound to concede to dissentients that they
are not necessarUy in error, though we beheve them to be
in error. Such is the view given by Bishop ]SIarsh of the
principle of the Church of England: —
" It has been frequently said, and very lately repeated,
"that, as the two Churches [of England and Rome] act
" alike in maintaining, each for itself, that it does not err,
" it is mere metaphysical subtlety to distinguish between
" the petty terms of ' does not,' and 'can not.' But these
" terms, insignificant as they may appear, denote nothing
" less, than two distinct principles oi action; and principles
'¦' so distinct, that the one leads to charity and toleration, the
'•' other to intolerance and persecution. On the form£r
" principle, which is maintained by the Church of England,
" though we believe that we are right, we admit, that we
" are possibly avrong ; though we believe that others are
" wrong, we admit that they are possibly right : and hence
" we are disposed to tolerate their opinions. But on the
" latter principle, which is maintained by the Church of
" Rome, the very possibUity of being right is denied to
" those who dissent from its doctrines. Now, as soon as
" men have persuaded themselves, that in points of doe-
" trine they cannot err, they will think it an imperious duty
" to prevent the growth of all other opinions on a subject
" so important as religion. Should argument, therefore,
" fail, the importance of the ent/ will be supposed to justify

70 I.VTRODUCTION.
" the worst of means. But the intolerance, thus produced
"by an imaginary exemption from error, is far from being
" confined to the Church of Rome. . . . And hence we
" may justly infer, that the same inquisitorial power, which
" has been exercised by the Church of Rome, would be
" exercised by others, who set up similar pretensions, if
" the means of employing that power were once at their
" command."'' In these views. Bishop Marsh is supported by the authority
of Archbishop Bramhall. " Cannot a man believe or hold
" his own religion to be true," says Bramhall, " but he must
" necessarily say, or censure, another man's, which he con-
" ceiveth to be opposite to it, to be false ? Truth and false-
" hood are contradictory, or of eternal disjunction; but
" there is a mean between believing or holding mine own
" Religion to be true, and saying or censuring another
" man's (which, perhaps, is opposite,) to be false, both
" more prudential and more charitable ; that is, silence ; to
" look circumspectly to myself, and leave other men to stand
" or fall to their own raaster. St. Cyprian did believe or
" hold his own opinion of rebaptization to be true, yet did
" not censure the opposite to be false, or remove any man
" from his coraraunion for it. Rabshakeh was more censo-
" rious than Hezekiah, and downright Atheists than con-
" scionable Christians."" " Prejudice and self-love are like
" a coloured glass, which raakes every thing we discern
" through it to be of the same colour ; and on the other side,
" rancour and animosity, like the tongue infected with choler,
" maketh the sweetest meats to taste bitter: in each respect.

'' Bishop Marsh's Lect. on the Criticism and Interpret, of the Bible,
p. 319, ed. 1S28.
' Schism Guarded, p. 397.

INTRODUCTION. 71
" censures are dangerous, and his principle pernicious, that,
" he who doth not censure every religion which he reputeth
" contrary to his own, hath no Religion."*
It is a great fallacy to argue from the case of Morality to
that of Theology, as some seem to do ; and to suppose that,
as to be virtuous implies a conderanation and abhorrence of
vice, so, to be correct in your religious views iraplies that you
must condemn and abhor whatever differs from you. For,
first. Virtue and Vice do not differ, as right and wrong opinions
differ. We cannot know what Virtue is, without a perception
of what Vice is. But many a Christian knows what is right
in Religion, without knowing any thing, or thinking any thing,
of erroneous belief. — Then, again, the law of Virtue is
written on every man's heart, so that he cannot commit vice
without self-condemnation. But we cannot say that shades
of Theological Opinion, or even essential Articles of Faith,
are distinguishable in the same way by every man. — Again,
immoral sentiments necessarily lead to immoral actions : not
so, however, heterodox doctrines; they may, or may not. — But
even in regard to positive immoralities, we have our Saviour's
caution against a forward censoriousness, in that beautiful
account of the woman taken in adultery, and brought before
Him for condemnation. We are taught that it is no sign of
the greatest purity, to be too forward even in marking out the
vicious person. And still less may we suppose it a necessary
attendant on the most sincere Faith, to be eager to anathema
tize those who have not, or are supposed not to have, that
Faith.

" Schism Guarded, p. 398.

72 INTRODUCTION.
X. I have said enough, I hope, to shew the candid reader,
that I desire only to lead him to an enlightened acquaintance
-with an important branch of Theological study ; the History
of the Technical Language employed in Theology. There is
nothing, I am persuaded, in this track of Inquiry which can
unsettle the Faith of the sincere Christian. Let it be pursued
patiently and honestly, and it must tend to Christian edifica
tion, — to an increased reverence for God's holy word, and an
increased acquaintance with it as the only standard of pure
Christian profession, — and a consequent scriptural conviction
of the truth and holiness of the Doctrines taught by our
Church. In concluding these observations, let me add, that as
I have objected to imputing the deductions of man's reason
to the Revealed word, — so, I would further object to having
the errors of another person's conclusions from my prin
ciples or language, imputed to me. Let what I have written
be fairly tried on its own merits, not on the demerits which
others would reflect upon it from their peculiar -views.
Nothing is easier than to make out inconsistencies or
apparent contradictions in a writer, and to excite suspicion
against him. Faciov K.a.1 cKpavporipoK;. I confess I am not
solicitous about censures of this kind. I do not pretend to
justify every expression, or every argument, that I may
have used in the course of my writings. I am quite
aware that much that I have said, might have been said
better, — might have been more cautiously guarded against
cavil, — might have been worked up into more perfect
unity with the whole of my composition. But of this, at
the same time, I have a strong assurance, that my views
are fundamentally right ; and that any defect which may
exist, will be found only in the execution of the details.

INTRODUCTION. 73
Whoever looks at my undertaking in a kindly spirit, and
at the same time with a just critical acumen and know
ledge of the subject, will see that I have written with
sincerity, and that there is the same train of thought per
vading all that I have said. If I have not done my subject
full justice, — if I have left much in obscurity, — if I have
thrown out roughly what either myself or others may
hereafter correct and perfect, — let me not be blamed so much
for what remains undone, as indulgently regarded for what
I have attempted. Whatever I may have expressed inaccu
rately, I am quite ready to alter, so as to make my sense
more understood. Whatever I may have argued incorrectly,
I am quite ready to amend. If some will still complain that
there should be any thing to need correction, they cannot
have considered with what labour Truth is sought, and how
happy we ought to be if we only find it at the last.
But though much of what I have said, were otherwise
expressed, or corrected, in deference to a candid criticism,
(which I am always ready to receive,) there would still re
main the substantial allegations of my Lectures, the positive
instances of the Scholastic formation of our Theological
Language to be disproved, in order to overthrow the truth
and importance of the Work.
For my part, I have found my own convictions of the
truth of the doctrines of the Church of England, strength
ened by the Inquiry pursued in these Lectm-es. But I do
not look to myself alone. I trust this Work is destined to
effect extensive good. I feel a confidence, that it will out
live the tumultuary shouts with which it has been assailed.
And I anxiously desire, that it should produce the same
salutary impression on the minds of others, which the Inquiry
itself has produced on mine. If I beheved there were any

74 INTRODUCTION.
thing in it to shake the faith of the humble disciple,— to
obscure or lower the great truth of Christ Crucified, — to
lead any one to deny the Lord that bought him, or confess
his Saviour in any other sense than as " the Lord his
Righteousness," his " Lord and his God," in sincerity and
in truth, — or to apostatize in any degree from the pure
scriptural faith ofthe Catholic Church of Christ; — I would
be the first to erase such a passage from my Work, and
utterly to disown it.
The following passage of Augustine expresses the spirit,
in which I submit to the reader every particular statement,
as well as the whole Argument of my Work : —
Sane cum in omnibus Uteris meis, non solum pium lecto-
rem, sed etiam liberum correctorem desiderem, multo maxime
in his ubi ipsa magnitudo qucestionis utinam tam multos in-
ventores habere posset, quam multos contreididores Imlet.
Veruntamen sicut lectorem meum nolo mihi esse derJ/tum,
ita correctorem nolo sibi. Ille me non amet amplius quam
catholicam fidem ; iste se non amet amplius quam catholi-
cam veritettem. Sicut illi dico ; noli meis Uteris quasi cano-
nicis scripturis inservire ; sed in illis et epiod non credebas
cum inveneris incunctanter crede, in istis autem quod certum
non habebas, nisi certum intellexeris, nolifnniter retinere ; ita
illi dico ; noli meas literas ex tua opinione vel contentione, sed
ex dir ina lectione, vel inconcussa ratione, corrigere. Si quid in
eis veri comprehenderis, existendo non est meum, at inteUigendo
et amando et tuum sit etmeum. Si eptid autem falsi conviceris,
errando fuerit meum, sed jam cavendo nee tuum sit nee meum.''
" In truth, whilst in all my writings, I desire not only a
" pious reader, but also a free corrector, most especially do
" I in these, where the very magnitude of the question
' De Trin. lib. iii. p. 93 of tom. iii. ed. Tigur.

INTRODUCTION. lb
" makes me wish it could have as many to investigate
" it, as it nurabers amongst its impugners. However, as
" I would not that my reader should be devoted to me, so
" neither would I have my corrector devoted to himself.
" Let not the former love me more than the Catholic Faith :
" let not the latter love himself more than the Catholic
" Truth. While, to the former I say, — Treat not my
" writings with a deference due to the canonical Scriptures ;
" but in the one, unhesitatingly believe what you did not
" believe, on finding it there ; in the other, however, retain
" not firmly what you were not convinced of, unless you
" should be fully convinced of it ; — to the latter I say,
" Correct not my writings out of your own opinion, or out
" of contention : but from the reading of the divine word,
" or by unshaken argument. Should you lay hold of any
" thing in them that is true, — in being so, it is not mine ;
" but by the understanding and the love of it, let it be both
" yours and mine. Should you, however, detect any thing
" that is false, — in the error, it may have been mine ;
" but henceforth, by guarding against it, let it be neither
" mine nor yours."

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