APHORISM XXX.

What the duties of morality are, the apostle instructs the believer in full, comprising them under the two heads of negative and positive; negative, to keep himself pure from the world; and positive, beneficence from loving-kindness, that is, love of his fellow-men (his kind) as himself.

APHORISM XXXI.

Last and highest, come the spiritual, comprising all the truths, acts, and duties that have an especial reference to the Timeless, the Permanent, the Eternal: to the sincere love of the True, as truth; of the Good, as good: and of God as both in one. It comprehends the whole ascent from uprightness (morality, virtue, inward rectitude) to godlikeness, with all the acts, exercises, and disciplines of mind, will, and affection, that are requisite or conducive to the great design of our Redemption from the form of the evil one, and of our second creation or birth in the divine image.[34]

APHORISM XXXII.

It may be an additional aid to reflection, to distinguish the three kinds severally, according to the faculty to which each corresponds, the part of our human nature which is more particularly its organ. Thus: the prudential corresponds to the sense and the understanding; the moral to the heart and the conscience; the spiritual to the will and the reason, that is, to the finite will reduced to harmony with, and in subordination to, the reason, as a ray from that true light which is both reason and will, universal reason, and will absolute.

IF Prudence, though practically inseparable from Morality, is not to be confounded with the Moral Principle; still less may Sensibility, that is, a constitutional quickness of Sympathy with Pain and Pleasure, and a keen sense of the gratifications that accompany social intercourse, mutual endearments, and reciprocal preferences, be mistaken, or deemed a Substitute for either. Sensibility is not even a sure pledge of a good heart, though among the most common meanings of that many-meaning and too commonly misapplied expression.

So far from being either Morality, or one with the Moral Principle, it ought not even to be placed in the same rank with Prudence. For Prudence is at least an offspring of the Understanding; but Sensibility (the Sensibility, I mean, here spoken of), is for the greater part a quality of the nerves, and a result of individual bodily temperament.

Prudence is an active Principle, and implies a sacrifice of Self, though only to the same Self projected, as it were, to a distance. But the very term Sensibility, marks its passive nature; and in its mere self, apart from Choice and Reflection, it proves little more than the coincidence or contagion of pleasurable or painful Sensations in different persons.

Alas! how many are there in this over-stimulated age, in which the occurrence of excessive and unhealthy sensitiveness is so frequent, as even to have reversed the current meaning of the word, nervous. How many are[35] there whose sensibility prompts them to remove those evils alone, which by hideous spectacle or clamorous outcry are present to their senses and disturb their selfish enjoyments. Provided the dunghill is not before their parlour window, they are contented to know that it exists, and perhaps as the hotbed on which their own luxuries are reared. Sensibility is not necessarily Benevolence. Nay, by rendering us tremblingly alive to trifling misfortunes, it frequently prevents it, and induces an effeminate Selfishness instead,

Lastly, where Virtue is, Sensibility is the ornament and becoming Attire of Virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become[37] Virtue. But Sensibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of Vice and the instruments of Seduction.

So must it needs be with all qualities that have their rise only in parts and fragments of our nature. A man of warm passions may sacrifice half his estate to rescue a friend from prison; for he is naturally sympathetic, and the more social part of his nature happened to be uppermost. The same man shall afterwards exhibit the same disregard of money in an attempt to seduce that friend's wife or daughter.

All the evil achieved by Hobbes, and the whole School of Materialists will appear inconsiderable, if it be compared with the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental Philosophy of Sterne, and his numerous imitators. The vilest appetites and the most remorseless inconstancy towards their objects, acquired the titles of the Heart, the irresistible Feelings, the too tender Sensibility; and if the Frosts of Prudence, the icy chains of Human Law thawed and vanished at the genial warmth of Human Nature, who could help it? It was an amiable Weakness!

About this time, too, the profanation of the word Love, rose to its height. The French Naturalists, Buffon and others, borrowed it from the sentimental Novelists: the Swedish and English Philosophers took the contagion; and the Muse of Science condescended to seek admission into the Saloons of Fashion and Frivolity, rouged like a harlot, and with the harlot's wanton leer. I know not how the Annals of Guilt could be better forced into the service of Virtue, than by such a Comment on the present paragraph, as would be afforded by a selection from the sentimental correspondence produced in Courts of Justice within the last thirty years, fairly translated into the true meaning of the words, and the actual Object and Purpose of the infamous writers.

Do you in good earnest aim at Dignity of Character? By all the treasures of a peaceful mind, by all the charms of an open countenance, I conjure you, O youth! turn away from those who live in the Twilight between Vice and Virtue. Are not Reason, Discrimination, Law, and deliberate Choice, the distinguishing Characters of Humanity? Can aught, then, worthy of a human Being, proceed from a Habit of Soul, which would exclude all these and (to borrow a metaphor from Paganism) prefer the den of Trophonius to the Temple and Oracles of the God of Light? Can any thing manly, I say, proceed from those, who for Law and Light would substitute shapeless feelings, sentiments, impulses, which as far as they differ from the vital workings in the brute animals, owe the difference to their former connexion with the proper Virtues of Humanity; as dendrites derive the outlines, that constitute their value above other clay-stones, from the casual neighbourhood and pressure of the plants, the names of which they assume? Remember, that Love itself in its highest earthly Bearing, as the ground of the marriage union,[38] becomes Love by an inward fiat of the Will, by a completing and sealing Act of Moral Election, and lays claim to permanence only under the form of duty.

PRUDENTIAL APHORISMS.

APHORISM I.

Leighton and Coleridge.

WITH respect to any final aim or end, the greater part of mankind live at hazard. They have no certain harbour in view, nor direct their course by any fixed star. But to him that knoweth not the port to which he is bound, no wind can be favourable; neither can he who has not yet determined at what mark he is to shoot, direct his arrow aright.

It is not, however, the less true, that there is a proper object to aim at; and if this object be meant by the term happiness, (though I think that not the most appropriate term for a state, the perfection of which consists in the exclusion of all hap (that is, chance)), I assert that there is such a thing as human happiness, as summum bonum, or ultimate good. What this is, the Bible alone shows clearly and certainly, and points out the way that leads to the attainment of it. This is that which prevailed with St. Augustine to study the Scriptures, and engaged his affection to them. "In Cicero, and Plato, and other such writers," says he, "I meet with many things acutely said, and things that excite a certain warmth of emotion, but in none of them do I find these words, Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."[39]

Comment.

Felicity, in its proper sense, is but another word for fortunateness, or happiness; and I can see no advantage in the improper use of words, when proper terms are to be found, but, on the contrary, much mischief. For, by familiarizing the mind to equivocal expressions, that is, such as may be taken in two or more different meanings, we introduce confusion of thought, and furnish the sophist with his best and handiest tools. For the juggle of sophistry consists, for the greater part, in using a word in one sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion. We should accustom ourselves to think, and reason, in precise and stedfast terms; even when custom, or the deficiency, or the corruption of the language will not permit the same strictness in speaking. The mathematician finds this so necessary to the truths which he is seeking, that his science begins with, and is founded on, the definition of his terms. The botanist, the chemist, the anatomist, &c., feel and submit to this necessity at all costs, even at the risk of exposing their several pursuits to the ridicule of the many, by technical terms, hard to be remembered, and alike quarrelsome to the ear and the tongue. In the business of moral and religious reflection, in the acquisition of clear and distinct conceptions of our duties, and of the relations in which we stand to God, our neighbour, and ourselves, no such difficulties occur. At the utmost we have only to rescue words, already existing and familiar, from the false or vague meanings imposed on them by carelessness, or by the clipping and debasing misusage of the market. And surely happiness, duty, faith, truth, and final blessedness, are matters of deeper and dearer interest for all men, than circles to the geometrician, or the characters of plants to the botanist, or the affinities and combining principle of the elements of bodies to the chemist, or even than the mechanism (fearful and wonderful though it be!) of the perishable Tabernacle of the Soul can be to the anatomist. Among the aids to reflection, place the following maxim prominent: let distinctness in expression advance side by side with distinction in thought. For one useless subtlety in our elder divines and moralists, I will produce ten sophisms of equivocation in the writings of our modern preceptors: and for one error resulting from excess in distinguishing the indifferent, I would show ten mischievous delusions from the habit of confounding the diverse. Whether you are reflecting for yourself, or reasoning with another, make it a rule to ask yourself the precise meaning of the word, on which the point in question appears to turn; and if it may be (that is, by writers of authority has been) used in several senses, then ask which of these the word is at present intended to convey. By this mean, and scarcely without it, you will at length acquire a facility in detecting the quid pro quo. And believe me, in so doing you will enable yourself to disarm and expose four-fifths of the main arguments of our most renowned irreligious philosophers, ancient and modern. For the quid pro quo is at once the rock and quarry, on and with which the strong-holds of disbelief, materialism, and (more pernicious still) epicurean morality are built.

APHORISM II.

Leighton.

If we seriously consider what religion is, we shall find the saying of the wise king Solomon to be unexceptionably true: Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.[40]

Doth religion require anything of us more than that we live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world? Now what, I pray, can be more pleasant or peaceable than these? Temperance is always at leisure, luxury always in a hurry: the latter weakens the body and pollutes the soul; the former is the sanctity, purity, and sound state of both. It is one of Epicurus's fixed maxims, "That life can never be pleasant without virtue."

Comment.

In the works of moralists, both Christian and Pagan, it is often asserted (indeed there are few common-places of more frequent recurrence) that the happiness even of this life consists solely, or principally, in virtue; that virtue is the only happiness of this life; that virtue is the truest pleasure, &c.

I doubt not that the meaning, which the writers intended to convey by these and the like expressions, was true and wise. But I deem it safer to say, that in all the outward relations of this life, in all our outward conduct and actions, both in what we should do, and in what we should abstain from, the dictates of virtue are the very same with those of self-interest, tending to, though they do not proceed from, the same point. For the outward object of virtue being the greatest producible sum of happiness of all men, it must needs include the object of an intelligent self-love, which is the greatest possible happiness of one individual; for what is true of all, must be true of each. Hence, you cannot become better (that is, more virtuous), but you will become happier: and you cannot become worse (that is, more vicious), without an increase of misery (or at the best a proportional loss of enjoyment) as the consequence. If the thing were not inconsistent with our well-being, and known to be so, it would not have been classed as a vice. Thus what in an enfeebled and disordered mind is called prudence, is the voice of nature in a healthful state: as is proved by the known fact, that the prudential duties, (that is, those actions which are commanded by virtue because they are prescribed by prudence), the animals fulfil by natural instinct.

The pleasure that accompanies or depends on a healthy and vigorous body will be the consequence and reward of a temperate life and habits of active industry, whether this pleasure were or were not the chief or only determining motive thereto. Virtue may, possibly, add to the pleasure a good of another kind, a higher good, perhaps, than the worldly mind is capable of understanding, a spiritual complacency, of which in your present sensualized state you can form no idea. It may add, I say, but it cannot detract from it. Thus the reflected rays of the sun that gave light, distinction, and endless multiformity to the mind, afford at the same time the pleasurable sensation of warmth to the body.

If then the time has not yet come for any thing higher, act on the maxim of seeking the most pleasure with the least pain: and, if only you do not seek where you yourself know it will not be found, this very pleasure and this freedom from the disquietude of pain may produce in you a state of being directly and indirectly favourable to the germination and up-spring of a nobler seed. If it be true, that men are miserable because they are wicked, it is likewise true, that many men are wicked because they are miserable. Health, cheerfulness, and easy circumstances, the ordinary consequence of Temperance and Industry, will at least leave the field clear and open, will tend to preserve the scales of the judgment even: while the consciousness of possessing the esteem, respect, and sympathy of your neighbours, and the sense of your own increasing power and influence, can scarcely fail to give a tone of dignity to your mind, and incline you to hope nobly of your own Being. And thus they may prepare and predispose you to the sense and acknowledgment of a principle, differing not merely in degree but in kind from the faculties and instincts of the higher and more intelligent species of animals, (the ant, the beaver, the elephant), and which principle is therefore your proper humanity. And on this account and with this view alone may certain modes of pleasurable or agreeable sensation, without confusion of terms, be honoured with the title of refined, intellectual, ennobling pleasures. For Pleasure (and happiness in its proper sense is but the continuity and sum-total of the pleasure which is allotted or happens to a man, and hence by the Greeks called ευτυχια, that is, good-hap, or more religiously ευδαιμονια, that is, favourable providence)—pleasure, I say, consists in the harmony between the specific excitability of a living creature, and the exciting causes correspondent thereto. Considered therefore exclusively in and for itself, the only question is, quantum, not quale? How much on the whole? the contrary, that is, the painful and disagreeable having been subtracted. The quality is a matter of taste: et de gustibus non est disputandum. No man can judge for another.

This, I repeat, appears to me a safer language than the sentences quoted above, (that virtue alone is happiness; that happiness consists in virtue, &c.) sayings which I find it hard to reconcile with other positions of still more frequent occurrence in the same divines, or with the declaration of St. Paul: "If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable."

At all events, I should rely far more confidently on the converse, namely, that to be vicious is to be miserable. Few men are so utterly reprobate, so imbruted by their vices, as not to have some lucid, or at least quiet and sober, intervals; and in such a moment, dum desæviunt iræ, few can stand up unshaken against the appeal to their own experience—what have been the wages of sin? what has the devil done for you? What sort of master have you found him? Then let us in befitting detail, and by a series of questions that ask no loud, and are secure against any false, answer, urge home the proof of the position, that to be vicious is to be wretched: adding the fearful corollary, that if even in the body, which as long as life is in it can never be wholly bereaved of pleasurable sensations, vice is found to be misery, what must it not be in the world to come? There, where even the crime is no longer possible, much less the gratifications that once attended it—where nothing of vice remains but its guilt and its misery—vice must be misery itself, all and utter misery.—So best, if I err not, may the motives of prudence be held forth, and the impulses of self-love be awakened, in alliance with truth, and free from the danger of confounding things (the Laws of Duty, I mean, and the Maxims of Interest) which it deeply concerns us to keep distinct, inasmuch as this distinction and the faith therein are essential to our moral nature, and this again the ground-work and pre-condition of the spiritual state, in which the Humanity strives after Godliness, and, in the name and power, and through the prevenient and assisting grace, of the Mediator, will not strive in vain.

The advantages of a life passed in conformity with the precepts of virtue and religion, and in how many and various respects they recommend virtue and religion, even on grounds of prudence, form a delightful subject of meditation, and a source of refreshing thought to good and pious men. Nor is it strange if, transported with the view, such persons should sometimes discourse on the charms of forms and colours to men whose eyes are not yet couched; or that they occasionally seem to invert the relations of cause and effect, and forget that there are acts and determinations of the will and affections, the consequences of which may be plainly foreseen, and yet cannot be made our proper and primary motives for such acts and determinations, without destroying or entirely altering the distinct nature and character of the latter. Sophron is well informed that wealth and extensive patronage will be the consequence of his obtaining the love and esteem of Constantia. But if the foreknowledge of this consequence were, and were found out to be, Sophron's main and determining motive for seeking this love and esteem; and if Constantia were a woman that merited, or was capable of feeling, either the one or the other; would not Sophron find (and deservedly too) aversion and contempt in their stead? Wherein, if not in this, differs the friendship of worldlings from true friendship? Without kind offices and useful services, wherever the power and opportunity occur, love would be a hollow pretence. Yet what noble mind would not be offended, if he were thought to value the love for the sake of the services, and not rather the services for the sake of the love?

APHORISM III.

Though prudence in itself is neither virtue nor spiritual holiness, yet without prudence, or in opposition to it, neither virtue nor holiness can exist.

APHORISM IV.

Art thou under the tyranny of sin? a slave to vicious habits? at enmity with God, and a skulking fugitive from thy own conscience? O, how idle the dispute, whether the listening to the dictates of prudence from prudential and self-interested motives be virtue or merit, when the not listening is guilt, misery, madness, and despair! The best, the most Christianlike pity thou canst show, is to take pity on thy own soul. The best and most acceptable service thou canst render, is to do justice and show mercy to thyself.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS APHORISMS.

APHORISM I.

Leighton.

WHAT the Apostles were in an extraordinary way, befitting the first annunciation of a Religion for all Mankind, this all Teachers of Moral Truth, who aim to prepare for its reception by calling the attention of men to the Law in their own hearts, may, without presumption, consider themselves to be, under ordinary gifts and circumstances; namely, Ambassadors for the Greatest of Kings, and upon no mean employment, the great Treaty of Peace and Reconcilement betwixt him and Mankind.

APHORISM II.

On the Feelings Natural to Ingenuous Minds towards those
who have first led them to Reflect.

Leighton.

Though Divine Truths are to be received equally from every Minister alike, yet it must be acknowledged that there is something (we know not what to call it) of a more acceptable reception of those which at first were the means of bringing men to God, than of others; like the opinion some have of physicians, whom they love.

APHORISM III.

Leighton and Coleridge.

The worth and value of Knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object. What, then, is the best knowledge?

The exactest knowledge of things, is, to know them in their causes; it is then an excellent thing, and worthy of their endeavours who are most desirous of knowledge, to know the best things in their highest causes; and the happiest way of attaining to this knowledge, is, to possess those things, and to know them in experience.

APHORISM IV.

Leighton.

It is one main point of happiness, that he that is happy doth know and judge himself to be so. This being the peculiar good of a reasonable creature, it is to be enjoyed in a reasonable way. It is not as the dull resting of a stone, or any other natural body in its natural place; but the knowledge and consideration of it is the fruition of it, the very relishing and tasting of its sweetness.

Remark.

As in a Christian land we receive the lessons of Morality in connexion with the Doctrines of Revealed Religion, we cannot too early free the mind from prejudices widely spread, in part through the abuse, but far more from ignorance, of the true meaning of doctrinal Terms, which, however they may have been perverted to the purposes of Fanaticism, are not only scriptural, but of too frequent occurrence in Scripture to be overlooked or passed by in silence. The following extract, therefore, deserves attention, as clearing the doctrine of Salvation, in connexion with the divine Foreknowledge, from all objections on the score of Morality, by the just and impressive view which the Archbishop here gives of those occasional revolutionary moments, that Turn of the Tide in the mind and character of certain Individuals, which (taking a religious course, and referred immediately to the Author of all Good) were in his day, more generally than at present, entitled effectual calling. The theological interpretation and the philosophic validity of this Apostolic Triad, Election, Salvation, and Effectual Calling, (the latter being the intermediate), will be found among the Comments on the Aphorisms of Spiritual Import. For our present purpose it will be sufficient if only I prove, that the Doctrines are in themselves innocuous, and may be both holden and taught without any practical ill-consequences, and without detriment to the moral frame.

APHORISM V.

Leighton.

Two Links of the Chain (namely, Election and Salvation) are up in heaven in God's own hand; but this middle one (that is, Effectual Calling) is let down to earth, into the hearts of his children, and they laying hold on it have sure hold on the other two: for no power can sever them. If, therefore, they can read the characters of God's image in their own souls, those are the counterpart of the golden characters of his love, in which their names are written in the book of life. Their believing writes their names under the promises of the revealed book of life (the Scriptures) and thus ascertains them, that the same names are in the secret book of life which God hath by himself from eternity. So that finding the stream of grace in their hearts, though they see not the fountain whence it flows, nor the ocean into which it returns, yet they know that it hath its source in their eternal election, and shall empty itself into the ocean of their eternal salvation.

If election, effectual calling, and salvation be inseparably linked together, then, by any one of them a man may lay hold upon all the rest, and may know that his hold is sure; and this is the way wherein we may attain and ought to seek, the comfortable assurance of the love of God. Therefore make your calling sure, and by that your election; for that being done, this follows of itself. We are not to pry immediately into the decree, but to read it in the performance. Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, yet the needle of the compass which points to it, tells him which way he sails: thus the heart that is touched with the loadstone of divine love, trembling with godly fear, and yet still looking towards God by fixed believing, interprets the fear by the love in the fear, and tells the soul that its course is heavenward, towards the haven of eternal rest. He that loves may be sure he was loved first; and he that chooses God for his delight and portion, may conclude confidently, that God has chosen him to be one of those that shall enjoy him, and be happy in him for ever; for that our love and electing of him is but the return and repercussion of the beams of his love shining upon us.

Although from present unsanctification, a man cannot infer that he is not elected; for the decree may, for part of a man's life, run (as it were) underground; yet this is sure, that that estate leads to death, and unless it be broken, will prove the black line of reprobation. A man hath no portion amongst the children of God, nor can read one word of comfort in all the promises that belong to them, while he remains unholy.

Remark.

In addition to the preceding, I select the following paragraphs, as having nowhere seen the terms, Spirit, the Gifts of the Spirit, and the like, so effectually vindicated from the sneers of the Sciolist on the one hand, and protected from the perversions of the Fanatic on the other. In these paragraphs the Archbishop at once shatters and precipitates the only draw-bridge between the fanatical and the orthodox doctrine of Grace, and the Gifts of the Spirit. In Scripture the term Spirit, as a power or property seated in the human soul, never stands singly, but is always specified by a genitive case following; this being a Hebraism instead of the adjective which the writer would have used if he had thought, as well as written, in Greek. It is "the Spirit of Meekness" (a meek Spirit), or "the Spirit of Chastity," and the like. The moral Result, the specific Form and Character in which the Spirit manifests its presence, is the only sure pledge and token of its presence; which is to be, and which safely may be, inferred from its practical effects, but of which an immediate knowledge or consciousness is impossible; and every pretence to such knowledge is either hypocrisy or fanatical delusion.

APHORISM VI.

Leighton.

If any pretend that they have the Spirit, and so turn away from the straight rule of the Holy Scriptures, they have a spirit indeed, but it is a fanatical spirit, the spirit of delusion and giddiness; but the Spirit of God, that leads his children in the way of truth, and is for that purpose sent them from Heaven to guide them thither, squares their thoughts and ways to that rule whereof it is author, and that word which was inspired by it, and sanctifies them to obedience. He that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John ii. 4.)

Now this Spirit which sanctifieth, and sanctifieth to obedience, is within us the evidence of our election, and the earnest of our salvation. And whoso are not sanctified and led by this Spirit, the Apostle tells us what is their condition: If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.[41] The stones which are appointed for that glorious temple above, are hewn, and polished, and prepared for it here; as the stones were wrought and prepared in the mountains, for building the temple at Jerusalem.

Comment.

There are many serious and sincere Christians who have not attained to a fulness of knowledge and insight, but are well and judiciously employed in preparing for it. Even these may study the master-works of our elder Divines with safety and advantage, if they will accustom themselves to translate the theological terms into their moral equivalents; saying to themselves—This may not be all that is meant, but this is meant, and it is that portion of the meaning, which belongs to me in the present stage of my progress. For example: render the words, sanctification of the Spirit, or the sanctifying influences of the Spirit, by Purity in Life and Action from a pure Principle.

We need only reflect on our own experience to be convinced, that the man makes the motive, and not the motive the man. What is a strong motive to one man, is no motive at all to another. If, then, the man determines the motive, what determines the man—to a good and worthy act, we will say, or a virtuous Course of Conduct? The intelligent Will, or the self-determining Power? True, in part it is; and therefore the Will is pre-eminently the spiritual Constituent in our Being. But will any reflecting man admit, that his own Will is the only and sufficient determinant of all he is, and all he does? Is nothing to be attributed to the harmony of the system to which he belongs, and to the pre-established Fitness of the Objects and Agents, known and unknown, that surround him, as acting on the will, though, doubtless, with it likewise? a process, which the co-instantaneous yet reciprocal action of the air and the vital energy of the lungs in breathing may help to render intelligible.

Again: in the world we see every where evidences of a Unity, which the component parts are so far from explaining, that they necessarily pre-suppose it as the cause and condition of their existing as those parts; or even of their existing at all. This antecedent Unity, or Cause and Principle of each Union, it has since the time of Bacon and Kepler been customary to call a law. This crocus, for instance: or any other flower the reader may have in sight or choose to bring before his fancy. That the root, stem, leaves, petals, &c. cohere to one plant, is owing to an antecedent Power or Principle in the Seed, which existed before a single particle of the matters that constitute the size and visibility of the crocus, had been attracted from the surrounding soil, air, and moisture. Shall we turn to the seed? Here too the same necessity meets us. An antecedent Unity (I speak not of the parent plant, but of an agency antecedent in the order of operance, yet remaining present as the conservative and reproductive Power) must here too be supposed. Analyze the seed with the finest tools, and let the Solar Microscope come in aid of your senses, what do you find? Means and instruments, a wondrous Fairy-tale of Nature, magazines of food, stores of various sorts, pipes, spiracles, defences—a house of many chambers, and the owner and inhabitant invisible! Reflect further on the countless millions of seeds of the same name, each more than numerically differenced from every other: and further yet, reflect on the requisite harmony of all surrounding things, each of which necessitates the same process of thought, and the coherence of all of which to a System, a World, demands its own adequate Antecedent Unity, which must therefore of necessity be present to all and in all, yet in no wise excluding or suspending the individual Law or Principle of Union in each. Now will Reason, will common Sense, endure the assumption, that in the material and visible system, it is highly reasonable to believe a Universal Power, as the cause and pre-condition of the harmony of all particular Wholes, each of which involves the working Principle of its own Union—that it is reasonable, I say, to believe this respecting the Aggregate of Objects, which without a Subject (that is, a sentient and intelligent Existence) would be purposeless; and yet unreasonable and even superstitious or enthusiastic to entertain a similar Belief in relation to the System of intelligent and self-conscious Beings, to the moral and personal World? But if in this too, in the great Community of Persons, it is rational to infer a One universal Presence, a One present to all and in all, is it not most irrational to suppose that a finite Will can exclude it?

Whenever, therefore, the man is determined (that is, impelled and directed) to act in harmony of inter-communion, must not something be attributed to this all-present power as acting in the Will? and by what fitter names can we call this than the law, as empowering; the word, as informing; and the spirit, as actuating?

What has been here said amounts (I am aware) only to a negative conception; but this is all that is required for a mind at that period of its growth which we are now supposing, and as long as Religion is contemplated under the form of Morality. A positive insight belongs to a more advanced stage; for spiritual truths can only spiritually be discerned. This we know from Revelation, and (the existence of spiritual truths being granted) Philosophy is compelled to draw the same conclusion. But though merely negative, it is sufficient to render the union of Religion and Morality conceivable; sufficient to satisfy an unprejudiced inquirer, that the spiritual Doctrines of the Christian Religion are not at war with the reasoning Faculty, and that if they do not run on the same Line (or Radius) with the Understanding, yet neither do they cut or cross it. It is sufficient, in short, to prove, that some distinct and consistent meaning may be attached to the assertion of the learned and philosophic Apostle, that "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit"[42] —that is, with the Will, as the supernatural in man and the Principle of our Personality—of that, I mean, by which we are responsible Agents; Persons, and not merely living Things.[43]

It will suffice to satisfy a reflecting mind, that even at the porch and threshold of Revealed Truth there is a great and worthy sense in which we may believe the Apostle's assurance, that not only doth "the Spirit aid our infirmities;"[44] that is, act on the Will by a predisposing influence from without, as it were, though in a spiritual manner, and without suspending or destroying its freedom (the possibility of which is proved to us in the influences of education, of providential occurrences, and, above all, of example) but that in regenerate souls it may act in the will; that uniting and becoming one[45] with our will or spirit, it may make "intercession for us;"[46] nay, in this intimate union taking upon itself the form of our infirmities, may intercede for us "with groanings that cannot be uttered." Nor is there any danger of Fanaticism or Enthusiasm as the consequence of such a belief, if only the attention be carefully and earnestly drawn to the concluding words of the sentence (Romans viii. 26); if only the due force and full import be given to the term unutterable or incommunicable, in St. Paul's use of it. In this, the strictest and most proper use of the term, it signifies, that the subject, of which it is predicated, is something which I cannot, which from the nature of the thing it is impossible that I should, communicate to any human mind (even of a person under the same conditions with myself) so as to make it in itself the object of his direct and immediate consciousness. It cannot be the object of my own direct and immediate Consciousness; but must be inferred. Inferred it may be from its workings; it cannot be perceived in them. And, thanks to God! in all points in which the knowledge is of high and necessary concern to our moral and religious welfare, from the Effects it may safely be inferred by us, from the Workings it may be assuredly known; and the Scriptures furnish the clear and unfailing Rules for directing the inquiry, and for drawing the conclusion.

If any reflecting mind be surprised that the aids of the Divine Spirit should be deeper than our Consciousness can reach, it must arise from the not having attended sufficiently to the nature and necessary limits of human Consciousness. For the same impossibility exists as to the first acts and movements of our own will—the farthest distance our recollection can follow back the traces, never leads us to the first foot-mark—the lowest depth that the light of our Consciousness can visit even with a doubtful glimmering, is still at an unknown distance from the ground: and so, indeed, must it be with all Truths, and all modes of Being that can neither be counted, coloured, or delineated. Before and After, when applied to such Subjects, are but allegories, which the Sense or Imagination supplies to the Understanding. The Position of the Aristotelians, nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu, on which Mr. Locke's Essay is grounded, is irrefragable: Locke erred only in taking half the Truth for a whole Truth. Conception is consequent on Perception. What we cannot imagine, we cannot, in the proper sense of the word, conceive.

I have already given one definition of Nature. Another, and differing from the former in words only, is this: Whatever is representable in the forms of Time and Space, is Nature. But whatever is comprehended in Time and Space, is included in the Mechanism of Cause and Effect. And conversely, whatever, by whatever means, has its principle in itself, so far as to originate its actions, cannot be contemplated in any of the forms of Space and Time; it must, therefore, be considered as Spirit or Spiritual by a mind in that stage of its developement which is here supposed, and which we have agreed to understand under the name of Morality, or the Moral State: for in this stage we are concerned only with the forming of negative conceptions, negative convictions; and by spiritual I do not pretend to determine what the Will is, but what it is not—namely, that it is not Nature. And as no man who admits a Will at all, (for we may safely presume that no man not meaning to speak figuratively, would call the shifting current of a stream the will[47] of the river), will suppose it below Nature, we may safely add, that it is super-natural; and this without the least pretence to any positive Notion or Insight.

Now Morality accompanied with Convictions like these, I have ventured to call Religious Morality. Of the importance I attach to the state of mind implied in these convictions, for its own sake, and as the natural preparation for a yet higher state and a more substantive knowledge, proof more than sufficient, perhaps, has been given in the length and minuteness of this introductory Discussion, and in the foreseen risk which I run of exposing the volume at large to the censure which every work, or rather which every writer, must be prepared to undergo, who, treating of subjects that cannot be seen, touched, or in any other way made matters of outward sense, is yet anxious both to attach to, and to convey a distinct meaning by, the words he makes use of—the censure of being dry, abstract, and (of all qualities most scaring and opprobrious to the ears of the present generation) metaphysical; though how it is possible that a work not physical, that is, employed on objects known or believed on the evidence of the senses, should be other than metaphysical, that is, treating on Subjects, the evidence of which is not derived from the senses, is a problem which critics of this order find it convenient to leave unsolved.

The author of the present volume will, indeed, have reason to think himself fortunate, if this be all the charge!—How many smart quotations, which (duly cemented by personal allusions to the author's supposed pursuits, attachments, and infirmities), would of themselves make up "a review" of the volume, might be supplied from the works of Butler, Swift, and Warburton. For instance: "It may not be amiss to inform the Public, that the Compiler of the Aids to Reflection, and Commenter on a Scotch Bishop's Platonico-Calvinistic commentary on St. Peter, belongs to the sect of the Æolists, whose fruitful imaginations lead them into certain notions, which, although in appearance very unaccountable, are not without their mysteries and their meanings; furnishing plenty of matter for such, whose converting Imaginations dispose them to reduce all things into types; who can make shadows, no thanks to the Sun; and then mould them into substances, no thanks to Philosophy: whose peculiar Talent lies in fixing tropes and allegories to the letter, and refining what is literal into figure and mystery."—Tale of the Tub, Sect. xi.

And would it were my lot to meet with a Critic, who, in the might of his own Convictions, and with arms of equal point and efficiency from his own forge, would come forth as my assailant; or who, as a friend to my purpose, would set forth the objections to the matter and pervading Spirit of these Aphorisms, and the accompanying Elucidations. Were it my task to form the mind of a young man of talent, desirous to establish his opinions and belief on solid principles, and in the light of distinct understanding,—I would commence his theological studies, or, at least, that most important part of them respecting the aids which Religion promises in our attempts to realize the ideas of Morality, by bringing together all the passages scattered throughout the writings of Swift and Butler, that bear on Enthusiasm, Spiritual Operations, and pretences to the Gifts of the Spirit, with the whole train of New Lights, Raptures, Experiences, and the like. For all that the richest Wit, in intimate union with profound Sense and steady Observation, can supply on these topics, is to be found in the works of these satirists; though unhappily alloyed with much that can only tend to pollute the imagination.

Without stopping to estimate the degree of caricature in the portraits sketched by these bold masters, and without attempting to determine in how many of the Enthusiasts, brought forward by them in proof of the influence of false Doctrines, a constitutional Insanity that would probably have shown itself in some other form, would be the truer solution, I would direct my pupil's attention to one feature common to the whole group—the pretence, namely, of possessing, or a Belief and Expectation grounded on other men's assurances of their possessing, an immediate Consciousness, a sensible Experience, of the Spirit in and during its operation on the soul. It is not enough that you grant them a consciousness of the Gifts and Graces infused, or an assurance of the Spiritual Origin of the same, grounded on their correspondence to the Scripture promises, and their conformity with the idea of the Divine Giver. No! they all alike, it will be found, lay claim (or at least look forward), to an inward perception of the Spirit itself and of its operating.

Whatever must be misrepresented in order to be ridiculed, is in fact not ridiculed; but the thing substituted for it. It is a satire on something else, coupled with a lie on the part of the satirist, who knowing, or having the means of knowing the truth, chose to call one thing by the name of another. The Pretensions to the Supernatural, pilloried by Butler, sent to Bedlam by Swift, and (on their re-appearance in public) gibbetted by Warburton, and anatomized by Bishop Lavington, one and all have this for their essential character, that the Spirit is made the immediate Object of Sense or Sensation. Whether the spiritual Presence and Agency are supposed cognizable by indescribable Feeling or unimaginable Vision by some specific visual energy; whether seen, or heard, or touched, smelt and tasted—for in those vast Store-houses of fanatical assertion, the volumes of Ecclesiastical History and religious Auto-biography, instances are not wanting even of the three latter extravagancies;—this variety in the mode may render the several pretensions more or less offensive to the taste; but with the same absurdity for the reason, this being derived from a contradiction in terms common and radical to them all alike,—the assumption of a something essentially supersensual, that is nevertheless the object of Sense, that is, not supersensual.

Well then!—for let me be allowed still to suppose the Reader present to me, and that I am addressing him in the character of Companion and Guide—the positions recommended for your examination not only do not involve, but they exclude, this inconsistency. And for aught that hitherto appears, we may see with complacency the arrows of satire feathered with Wit, weighted with Sense, and discharged by a strong arm, fly home to their mark. Our conceptions of a possible Spiritual Communion, though they are but negative and only preparatory to a faith in its actual existence, stand neither in the level or in the direction of the shafts.

If it be objected, that Swift and Warburton did not choose openly to set up the interpretations of later and more rational divines against the decisions of their own Church, and from prudential considerations did not attack the doctrine in toto: that is their concern (I would answer), and it is more charitable to think otherwise. But we are in the silent school of Reflection, in the secret confessional of Thought. Should we lie for God, and that to our own thoughts? They, indeed, who dare do the one, will soon be able to do the other.—So did the Comforters of Job: and to the divines, who resemble Job's Comforters, we will leave both attempts.

But, (it may be said), a possible Conception is not necessarily a true one; nor even a probable one, where the Facts can be otherwise explained. In the name of the supposed pupil I would reply—That is the very question I am preparing myself to examine; and am now seeking the Vantage-ground where I may best command the Facts. In my own person, I would ask the Objector, whether he counted the Declarations of Scripture among the Facts to be explained. But both for myself and my pupil, and in behalf of all rational inquiry, I would demand that the decision should not be such, in itself or in its effects, as would prevent our becoming acquainted with the most important of these Facts; nay, such as would, for the mind of the decider, preclude their very existence.—Unless ye believe, says the prophet, ye cannot understand. Suppose (what is at least possible) that the facts should be consequent on the belief, it is clear that without the belief the materials, on which the understanding is to exert itself, would be wanting.

The reflections that naturally arise out of this last remark, are those that best suit the stage at which we last halted, and from which we now recommence our progress—the state of a Moral Man, who has already welcomed certain truths of Religion, and is inquiring after other and more special doctrines: still however as a Moralist, desirous indeed to receive them into combination with Morality, but to receive them as its Aid, not as its Substitute. Now, to such a man I say; Before you reject the Opinions and Doctrines asserted and enforced in the following extract from Leighton, and before you give way to the Emotions of Distaste or Ridicule, which the Prejudices of the circle in which you move, or your own familiarity with the mad perversions of the doctrine by fanatics in all ages, have connected with the very words, Spirit, Grace, Gifts, Operations, &c., re-examine the arguments advanced in the first pages of this Introductory Comment, and the simple and sober view of the doctrine, contemplated in the first instance as a mere idea of the reason, flowing naturally from the admission of an infinite omnipresent Mind as the Ground of the Universe. Reflect again and again, and be sure that you understand the doctrine before you determine on rejecting it. That no false judgments, no extravagant conceits, no practical ill-consequences need arise out of the Belief of the Spirit, and its possible communion with the Spiritual Principle in man, can arise out of the right Belief, or are compatible with the doctrine truly and scripturally explained, Leighton, and almost every single period in the passage here transcribed from him, will suffice to convince you.

On the other hand, reflect on the consequences of rejecting it. For surely it is not the act of a reflecting mind, nor the part of a man of sense to disown and cast out one tenet, and yet persevere in admitting and clinging to another that has neither sense nor purpose, that does not suppose and rest on the truth and reality of the former! If you have resolved that all belief of a divine Comforter present to our inmost Being and aiding our infirmities, is fond and fanatical—if the Scriptures promising and asserting such communion are to be explained away into the action of circumstances, and the necessary movements of the vast machine, in one of the circulating chains of which the human Will is a petty Link—in what better light can Prayer appear to you, than the groans of a wounded lion in his solitary den, or the howl of a dog with his eyes on the moon? At the best, you can regard it only as a transient bewilderment of the Social Instinct, as a social Habit misapplied! Unless indeed you should adopt the theory which I remember to have read in the writings of the late Dr. Jebb, and for some supposed beneficial re-action of praying on the prayer's own mind, should practise it as a species of Animal-Magnetism to be brought about by a wilful eclipse of the reason, and a temporary make-believe on the part of the self-magnetizer!

At all events, do not pre-judge a Doctrine, the utter rejection of which must oppose a formidable obstacle to your acceptance of Christianity itself, when the books, from which alone we can learn what Christianity is and what it teaches, are so strangely written, that in a series of the most concerning points, including (historical facts excepted) all the peculiar Tenets of the Religion, the plain and obvious meaning of the words, that in which they were understood by learned and simple, for at least sixteen centuries, during the far larger part of which the language was a living language, is no sufficient guide to their actual sense or to the writer's own meaning! And this, too, where the literal and received Sense involves nothing impossible, or immoral, or contrary to reason. With such a persuasion, Deism would be a more consistent creed. But, alas! even this will fail you. The utter rejection of all present and living communion with the Universal Spirit impoverishes Deism itself, and renders it as cheerless as Atheism, from which indeed it would differ only by an obscure impersonation of what the Atheist receives unpersonified, under the name of Fate or Nature.