APHORISM XXXVII.

Leighton.

There is an imitation of men that is impious and wicked, which consists in taking a copy of their sins. Again, there is an imitation which though not so grossly evil, yet is poor and servile, being in mean things, yea, sometimes descending to imitate the very imperfections of others, as fancying some comeliness in them: as some of Basil's scholars, who imitated his slow speaking, which he had a little in the extreme, and could not help. But this is always laudable, and worthy of the best minds, to be imitators of that which is good, wheresoever they find it; for that stays not in any man's person, as the ultimate pattern, but rises to the highest grace, being man's nearest likeness to God, His image and resemblance, bearing his stamp and superscription, and belonging peculiarly to Him, in what hand soever it be found, as carrying the mark of no other owner than Him.

APHORISM XXXVIII.

Leighton.

Those who think themselves high-spirited, and will bear least, as they speak, are often, even by that, forced to bow most, or to burst under it; while humility and meekness escape many a burden, and many a blow, always keeping peace within, and often without too.

APHORISM XXXIX.

Leighton.

Our condition is universally exposed to fears and troubles, and no man is so stupid but he studies and projects for some fence against them, some bulwark to break the incursion of evils, and so to bring his mind to some ease, ridding it of the fear of them. Thus men seek safety in the greatness, or multitude, or supposed faithfulness of friends; they seek by any means to be strongly underset this way; to have many, and powerful, and trust-worthy friends. But wiser men, perceiving the unsafety and vanity of these and all external things, have cast about for some higher course. They see a necessity of withdrawing a man from externals, which do nothing but mock and deceive those most who trust most to them; but they cannot tell whither to direct him. The best of them bring him into himself, and think to quiet him so; but the truth is, he finds as little to support him there; there is nothing truly strong enough within him, to hold out against the many sorrows and fears which still from without do assault him. So then, though it is well done, to call off a man from outward things, as moving sands, that he build not on them, yet, this is not enough; for his own spirit is as unsettled a piece as is in all the world, and must have some higher strength than its own, to fortify and fix it. This is the way that is here taught, Fear not their fear, but sanctify the Lord your God in your hearts; and if you can attain this latter, the former will follow of itself.

APHORISM XL.

Worldly Troubles Idols.

Leighton.

The too ardent love or self-willed desire of power, or wealth, or credit in the world, is (an Apostle has assured us) Idolatry. Now among the words or synonimes for idols, in the Hebrew language, there is one that in its primary sense signifies troubles (tegirim), other two that signify terrors (miphletzeth and emim). And so it is certainly. All our idols prove so to us. They fill us with nothing but anguish and troubles, with cares and fears, that are good for nothing but to be fit punishments of the folly, out of which they arise.

APHORISM XLI.

On the right Treatment of Infidels.

Leighton and Coleridge.

A regardless contempt of infidel writings is usually the fittest answer; Spreta vilescerent. But where the holy profession of Christians is likely to receive either the main or the indirect blow, and a word of defence may do any thing to ward it off, there we ought not to spare to do it.

Christian prudence goes a great way in the regulating of this. Some are not capable of receiving rational answers, especially in Divine things; they were not only lost upon them, but religion dishonoured by the contest.

Of this sort are the vulgar railers at religion, the foul-mouthed beliers of the Christian faith and history. Impudently false and slanderous assertions can be met only by assertions of their impudent and slanderous falsehood: and Christians will not, must not, condescend to this. How can mere railing be answered by them who are forbidden to return a railing answer? Whether, or on what provocations, such offenders may be punished or coerced on the score of incivility, and ill-neighbourhood, and for abatement of a nuisance, as in the case of other scolds and endangerers of the public peace, must be trusted to the discretion of the civil magistrate. Even then, there is danger of giving them importance, and flattering their vanity, by attracting attention to their works, if the punishment be slight; and if severe, of spreading far and wide their reputation as martyrs, as the smell of a dead dog at a distance is said to change into that of musk. Experience hitherto seems to favour the plan of treating these bêtes puantes and enfans de diable, as their four-footed brethren, the skink and squash, are treated[60] by the American woodmen, who turn their backs upon the fetid intruder, and make appear not to see him, even at the cost of suffering him to regale on the favourite viand of these animals, the brains of a stray goose or crested thraso of the dunghill. At all events, it is degrading to the majesty, and injurious to the character of Religion, to make its safety the plea for their punishment, or at all to connect the name of Christianity with the castigation of indecencies that properly belong to the beadle, and the perpetrators of which would have equally deserved his lash, though the religion of their fellow-citizens, thus assailed by them, had been that of Fo or Juggernaut.

On the other hand, we are to answer every one that inquires a reason, or an account; which supposes something receptive of it. We ought to judge ourselves engaged to give it, be it an enemy, if he will hear; if it gain him not, it may in part convince and cool him; much more, should it be one who ingenuously inquires for satisfaction, and possibly inclines to receive the truth, but has been, prejudiced by misrepresentations of it.

APHORISM XLII.

Passion no Friend to Truth.

Leighton.

Truth needs not the service of passion; yea, nothing so disserves it, as passion when set to serve it. The Spirit of truth is withal the Spirit of meekness. The Dove that rested on that great champion of truth, who is The Truth itself, is from Him derived to the lovers of truth, and they ought to seek the participation of it. Imprudence makes some kind of Christians lose much of their labour, in speaking for religion, and drive those further off, whom they would draw into it.

The confidence that attends a Christian's belief makes the believer not fear men, to whom he answers, but still he fears his God, for whom he answers, and whose interest is chief in those things he speaks of. The soul that hath the deepest sense of spiritual things, and the truest knowledge of God, is most afraid to miscarry in speaking of Him, most tender and wary how to acquit itself when engaged to speak of and for God.[61]

APHORISM XLIII.

On the Conscience.

Leighton.

It is a fruitless verbal debate, whether Conscience be a Faculty or a Habit. When all is examined, Conscience will be found to be no other than the mind of a man, under the notion of a particular reference to himself and his own actions.

Comment.

What Conscience is, and that it is the ground and antecedent of human (or self-) consciousness, and not any modification of the latter, I have shown at large in a work announced for the press, and described in the Chapter following.[62] I have selected the preceding extract as an Exercise for Reflection; and because I think that in too closely following Thomas à Kempis, the Archbishop has strayed from his own judgment. The definition, for instance, seems to say all, and in fact says nothing; for if I asked, How do you define the human mind? the answer must at least contain, if not consist of, the words, "a mind capable of Conscience." For Conscience is no synonime of Consciousness, nor any mere expression of the same as modified by the particular Object. On the contrary, a Consciousness properly human (that is, Self-consciousness), with the sense of moral responsibility, presupposes the Conscience, as its antecedent condition and ground. Lastly, the sentence, "It is a fruitless verbal debate," is an assertion of the same complexion with the contemptuous sneers, at verbal criticism by the contemporaries of Bentley. In questions of Philosophy or Divinity, that have occupied the learned and been the subjects of many successive controversies, for one instance of mere logomachy I could bring ten instances of logodædaly, or verbal legerdemain, which have perilously confirmed prejudices, and withstood the advancement of truth in consequence of the neglect of verbal debate, that is, strict discussion of terms. In whatever sense, however, the term Conscience may be used, the following Aphorism is equally true and important. It is worth noticing, likewise, that Leighton himself in a following page (vol. ii. p. 97), tells us that a good Conscience is the root of a good Conversation: and then quotes from St. Paul a text, Titus i. 15, in which the Mind and the Conscience are expressly distinguished.

APHORISM XLIV.

The Light of Knowledge a necessary accompaniment of a Good Conscience.

Leighton.

If you would have a good conscience, you must by all means have so much light, so much knowledge of the will of God, as may regulate you, and show you your way, may teach you how to do, and speak, and think, as in His presence.

APHORISM XLV.

Yet the Knowledge of the Rule, though Accompanied by an endeavour to accommodate our conduct to this Rule, will not of itself form a Good Conscience.

Leighton.

To set the outward actions right, though with an honest intention, and not so to regard and find out the inward disorder of the heart, whence that in the actions flows, is but to be still putting the index of a clock right with your finger, while it is foul, or out of order within, which is a continual business, and does no good. Oh! but a purified conscience, a soul renewed and refined in its temper and affections, will make things go right without, in all the duties and acts of our calling.

APHORISM XLVI.

The Depth of the Conscience.

How deeply seated the conscience is in the human soul is seen in the effect which sudden calamities produce on guilty men, even when unaided by any determinate notion or fears of punishment after death. The wretched Criminal, as one rudely awakened from a long sleep, bewildered with the new light, and half recollecting, half striving to recollect, a fearful something, he knows not what, but which he will recognize as soon as he hears the name, already interprets the calamities into judgments, executions of a sentence passed by an invisible Judge; as if the vast pyre of the Last Judgment were already kindled in an unknown distance, and some flashes of it, darting forth at intervals beyond the rest, were flying and lighting upon the face of his soul. The calamity may consist in loss of fortune, or character, or reputation; but you hear no regrets from him. Remorse extinguishes all Regret; and Remorse is the implicit Creed of the Guilty.

APHORISM XLVII.

Leighton and Coleridge.

God hath suited every creature He hath made with a convenient good to which it tends, and in the obtainment of which it rests and is satisfied. Natural bodies have all their own natural place, whither, if not hindered, they move incessantly till they be in it; and they declare, by resting there, that they are (as I may say) where they would be. Sensitive creatures are carried to seek a sensitive good, as agreeable to their rank in being, and, attaining that, aim no further. Now, in this is the excellency of Man, that he is made capable of a communion with his Maker, and, because capable of it, is unsatisfied without it: the soul, being cut out (so to speak) to that largeness, cannot be filled with less. Though he is fallen from his right to that good, and from all right desire of it, yet, not from a capacity of it, no, nor from a necessity of it, for the answering and filling of his capacity.

Though the heart once gone from God turns continually further away from Him, and moves not towards Him till it be renewed, yet, even in that wandering, it retains that natural relation to God, as its centre, that it hath no true rest elsewhere, nor can by any means find it. It is made for Him, and is therefore still restless till it meet with Him.

It is true, the natural man takes much pains to quiet his heart by other things, and digests many vexations with hopes of contentment in the end and accomplishment of some design he hath; but still the heart misgives. Many times he attains not the thing he seeks; but if he do, yet he never attains the satisfaction he seeks and expects in it, but only learns from that to desire something further, and still hunts on after a fancy, drives his own shadow before him, and never overtakes it; and if he did, yet it is but a shadow. And so, in running from God, besides the sad end, he carries an interwoven punishment with his sin, the natural disquiet and vexation of his spirit, fluttering to and fro, and finding no rest for the sole of his foot; the waters of inconstancy and vanity covering the whole face of the earth.

These things are too gross and heavy. The soul, the immortal soul, descended from heaven, must either be more happy, or remain miserable. The Highest, the Increated Spirit, is the proper good, the Father of Spirits, that pure and full good which raises the soul above itself; whereas all other things draw it down below itself. So, then, it is never well with the soul but when it is near unto God, yea, in its union with Him, married to Him: mismatching itself elsewhere, it hath never anything but shame and sorrow. All that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, says the Prophet, Jer. xvii. 13; and the Psalmist, They that are far off from thee shall perish, Psalm lxxiii. 27. And this is indeed our natural miserable condition, and it is often expressed this way, by estrangedness and distance from God.

The same sentiments are to be found in the works of Pagan philosophers and moralists. Well then may they be made a subject of Reflection in our days. And well may the pious deist, if such a character now exists, reflect that Christianity alone both teaches the way, and provides the means, of fulfilling the obscure promises of this great Instinct for all men, which the Philosophy of boldest pretensions confined to the sacred few.

APHORISM XLVIII.

A contracted Sphere, or what is called Retiring from the Business of the World, no Security from the Spirit of the World.

Leighton.

The heart may be engaged in a little business, as much, if thou watch it not, as in many and great affairs. A man may drown in a little brook or pool, as well as in a great river, if he be down and plunge himself into it, and put his head under water. Some care thou must have, that thou mayest not care. Those things that are thorns indeed, thou must make a hedge of them, to keep out those temptations that accompany sloth, and extreme want that waits on it; but let them be the hedge; suffer them not to grow within the garden.

APHORISM XLIX.

On Church-going, as a part of Religious Morality, when not in reference to a Spiritual Religion.

Leighton.

It is a strange folly in multitudes of us, to set ourselves no mark, to propound no end in the hearing of the Gospel.—The merchant sails not merely that he may sail, but for traffic, and traffics that he may be rich. The husbandman plows not merely to keep himself busy, with no further end, but plows that he may sow, and sows that he may reap with advantage. And shall we do the most excellent and fruitful work fruitlessly,—hear only to hear, and look no further? This is indeed a great vanity, and a great misery, to lose that labour, and gain nothing by it, which, duly used, would be of all others most advantageous and gainful: and yet all meetings are full of this!

APHORISM L.

On the Hopes and Self-Satisfaction of a religious Moralist, independent of a Spiritual Faith—on what are they grounded?

Leighton.

There have been great disputes one way or another, about the merit of good works; but I truly think they who have laboriously engaged in them have been very idly, though very eagerly, employed about nothing, since the more sober of the schoolmen themselves acknowledge there can be no such thing as meriting from the blessed God, in the human, or, to speak more accurately, in any created nature whatsoever: nay, so far from any possibility of merit, there can be no room for reward any otherwise than of the sovereign pleasure and gracious kindness of God; and the more ancient writers, when they use the word merit, mean nothing by it but a certain correlate to that reward which God both promises and bestows of mere grace and benignity. Otherwise, in order to constitute what is properly called merit, many things must concur, which no man in his senses will presume to attribute to human works, though ever so excellent; particularly, that the thing done must not previously be matter of debt, and that it be entire, or our own act, unassisted by foreign aid; it must also be perfectly good, and it must bear an adequate proportion to the reward claimed in consequence of it. If all these things do not concur, the act cannot possibly amount to merit. Whereas I think no one will venture to assert, that any one of these can take place in any human action whatever. But why should I enlarge here, when one single circumstance overthrows all those titles: the most righteous of mankind would not be able to stand, if his works were weighed in the balance of strict justice; how much less then could they deserve that immense glory which is now in question! Nor is this to be denied only concerning the unbeliever and the sinner, but concerning the righteous and pious believer, who is not only free from all the guilt of his former impenitence and rebellion, but endowed with the gift of the Spirit. "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" 1 Peter iv. 17 18. The Apostle's interrogation expresses the most vehement negation, and signifies that no mortal, in whatever degree he is placed, if he be called to the strict examination of Divine Justice, without daily and repeated forgiveness, could be able to keep his standing, and much less could he arise to that glorious height. "That merit," says Bernard, "on which my hope relies, consists in these three things; the love of adoption, the truth of the promise, and the power of its performance." This is the threefold cord which cannot be broken.

Comment.

Often have I heard it said by advocates for the Socinian scheme—True! we are all sinners; but even in the Old Testament God has promised forgiveness on repentance. One of the Fathers (I forget which) supplies the retort—True! God has promised pardon on penitence: but has he promised penitence on sin?—He that repenteth shall be forgiven: but where is it said, He that sinneth shall repent? But repentance, perhaps, the repentance required in Scripture, the Passing into a new mind, into a new and contrary Principle of Action, this Metanoia,[63] is in the sinner's own power? at his own liking? He has but to open his eyes to the sin, and the tears are close at hand to wash it away!—Verily, the exploded tenet of Transubstantiation is scarcely at greater variance with the common sense and experience of mankind, or borders more closely on a contradiction in terms, than this volunteer Transmentation, this Self-change, as the easy[64] means of Self-salvation! But the reflections of our evangelical author on this subject will appropriately commence the Aphorisms relating to Spiritual Religion.

ELEMENTS
OF
RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY,

Philip saith unto him: Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth: whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. And in that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. John xiv. 8 9 10 16 17 20.

PRELIMINARY.

IF there be aught Spiritual in Man, the Will must be such.

If there be a Will, there must be a Spirituality in Man.

I suppose both positions granted. The Reader admits the reality of the power, agency, or mode of Being expressed in the term, Spirit; and the actual existence of a Will. He sees clearly, that the idea of the former is necessary to the conceivability of the latter; and that, vice versá, in asserting the fact of the latter he presumes and instances the truth of the former—just as in our common and received Systems of Natural Philosophy, the Being of imponderable Matter is assumed to render the lode-stone intelligible, and the Fact of the lode-stone adduced to prove the reality of imponderable Matter.

In short, I suppose the reader, whom I now invite to the third and last division of the work, already disposed to reject for himself and his human brethren the insidious title of "Nature's noblest animal," or to retort it as the unconscious irony of the Epicurean poet on the animalizing tendency of his own philosophy. I suppose him convinced, that there is more in man than can be rationally referred to the life of Nature and the mechanism of Organization; that he has a will not included in this mechanism; and that the Will is in an especial and pre-eminent sense the spiritual part of our Humanity.

Unless, then, we have some distinct notion of the Will, and some acquaintance with the prevalent errors respecting the same, an insight into the nature of Spiritual Religion is scarcely possible; and our reflections on the particular truths and evidences of a Spiritual State will remain obscure, perplexed, and unsafe. To place my reader on this requisite vantage-ground, is the purpose of the following exposition.

We have begun, as in geometry, with defining our Terms; and we proceed, like the Geometricians, with stating our postulates; the difference being, that the postulates of Geometry no man can deny, those of Moral Science are such as no good man will deny. For it is not in our power to disclaim our nature, as sentient beings; but it is in our power to disclaim our nature as moral beings.[65] It is possible (barely possible, I admit) that a man may have remained ignorant or unconscious of the Moral Law within him: and a man need only persist in disobeying the Law of Conscience to make it possible for himself to deny its existence, or to reject or repel it as a phantom of Superstition. Were it otherwise, the Creed would stand in the same relation to Morality as the multiplication table.

This then is the distinction of Moral Philosophy—not that I begin with one or more assumptions: for this is common to all science; but—that I assume a something, the proof of which no man can give to another, yet every man may find for himself. If any man assert, that he can not find it, I am bound to disbelieve him. I cannot do otherwise without unsettling the very foundations of my own moral nature. For I either find it as an essential of the Humanity common to him and me: or I have not found it at all, except as an hypochondriast finds glass legs. If, on the other hand, he will not find it, he excommunicates himself. He forfeits his personal rights, and becomes a Thing: that is, one who may rightfully be employed, or used as[66] means to an end, against his will, and without regard to his interest.

All the significant objections of the Materialist and Necessitarian are contained in the term, Morality, all the objections of the infidel in the term, Religion. The very terms, I say, imply a something granted, which the Objection supposes not granted. The term presumes what the objection denies, and in denying presumes the contrary. For it is most important to observe, that the reasoners on both sides commence by taking something for granted, our assent to which they ask or demand: that is, both set off with an Assumption in the form of a Postulate. But the Epicurean assumes what according to himself he neither is nor can be under any obligation to assume, and demands what he can have no right to demand: for he denies the reality of all moral Obligation, the existence of any Right. If he use the words, Right and Obligation, he does it deceptively, and means only Power and Compulsion. To overthrow the Faith in aught higher or other than Nature and physical Necessity, is the very purpose of his argument. He desires you only to take for granted, that all reality is included in Nature, and he may then safely defy you to ward off his conclusion—that nothing is excluded!

But as he cannot morally demand, neither can he rationally expect, your assent to this premiss: for he cannot be ignorant, that the best and greatest of men have devoted their lives to the enforcement of the contrary, that the vast majority of the human race in all ages and in all nations have believed in the contrary; and there is not a language on earth, in which he could argue, for ten minutes, in support of his scheme, without sliding into words and phrases, that imply the contrary. It has been said, that the Arabic has a thousand names for a lion; but this would be a trifle compared with the number of superfluous words and useless synonyms that would be found in an Index Expurgatorius of any European dictionary constructed on the principles of a consistent and strictly consequential Materialism.

The Christian likewise grounds his philosophy on assertions; but with the best of all reasons for making them—namely, that he ought so to do. He asserts what he can neither prove, nor account for, nor himself comprehend; but with the strongest inducements, that of understanding thereby whatever else it most concerns him to understand aright. And yet his assertions have nothing in them of theory or hypothesis; but are in immediate reference to three ultimate facts; namely, the Reality of the law of conscience; the existence of a responsible will, as the subject of that law; and lastly, the existence of Evil—of Evil essentially such, not by accident of outward circumstances, not derived from its physical consequences, nor from any cause, out of itself. The first is a Fact of Consciousness; the second a Fact of Reason necessarily concluded from the first; and the third a Fact of History interpreted by both.

Omnia exeunt in mysterium, says a schoolman; that is, There is nothing, the absolute ground of which is not a Mystery. The contrary were indeed a contradiction in terms: for how can that, which is to explain all things, be susceptible of an explanation? It would be to suppose the same thing first and second at the same time.

If I rested here, I should merely have placed my Creed in direct opposition to that of the Necessitarians, who assume (for observe both Parties begin in an Assumption, and cannot do otherwise) that motives act on the Will, as bodies act on bodies; and that whether mind and matter are essentially the same, or essentially different, they are both alike under one and the same law of compulsory Causation. But this is far from exhausting my intention. I mean at the same time to oppose the disciples of Shaftesbury and those who, substituting one Faith for another, have been well called the pious Deists of the last century, in order to distinguish them from the Infidels of the present age, who persuade themselves, (for the thing itself is not possible) that they reject all Faith. I declare my dissent from these too, because they imposed upon themselves an idea for a fact: a most sublime idea indeed, and so necessary to human nature, that without it no virtue is conceivable: but still an idea. In contradiction to their splendid but delusory tenets, I profess a deep conviction that man was and is a fallen creature, not by accidents of bodily constitution, or any other cause, which human wisdom in a course of ages might be supposed capable of removing; but as diseased in his Will, in that Will which is the true and only strict synonime of the word, I, or the intelligent Self. Thus at each of these two opposite roads (the philosophy of Hobbes and that of Shaftesbury), I have placed a directing post, informing my fellow-travellers, that on neither of these roads can they see the Truths to which I would direct their attention.

But the place of starting was at the meeting of four roads, and one only was the right road. I proceed, therefore, to preclude the opinion of those likewise, who indeed agree with me as to the moral Responsibility of man in opposition to Hobbes and the Anti-Moralists, and that he is a fallen creature, essentially diseased, in opposition to Shaftesbury and the misinterpreters of Plato; but who differ from me in exaggerating the diseased weakness of the Will into an absolute privation of all Freedom, thereby making moral responsibility, not a mystery above comprehension, but a direct contradiction, of which we do distinctly comprehend the absurdity. Among the consequences of this doctrine, is that direful one of swallowing up all the attributes of the Supreme Being in the one Attribute of infinite Power, and thence deducing that things are good and wise because they were created, and not created through Wisdom and Goodness. Thence too the awful Attribute of Justice is explained away into a mere right of absolute Property; the sacred distinction between things and persons is erased; and the selection of persons for virtue and vice in this life, and for eternal happiness or misery in the next, is represented as the result of a mere Will, acting in the blindness and solitude of its own Infinity. The title of a work written by the great and pious Boyle is "Of the Awe, which the human Mind owes to the Supreme Reason." This, in the language of these gloomy doctors, must be translated into—"The horror, which a Being capable of eternal Pleasure or Pain is compelled to feel at the idea of an Infinite Power, about to inflict the latter on an immense majority of human Souls, without any power on their part either to prevent it or the actions which are (not indeed its causes but) its assigned signals, and preceding links of the same iron chain!"

Against these tenets I maintain, that a Will conceived separately from Intelligence is a Non-entity and a mere phantasm of abstraction; and that a Will, the state of which does in no sense originate in its own act, is an absolute contradiction. It might be an Instinct, an Impulse, a plastic Power, and, if accompanied with consciousness, a Desire; but a Will it could not be. And this every human being knows with equal clearness, though different minds may reflect on it with different degrees of distinctness; for who would not smile at the notion of a rose willing to put forth its buds and expand them into flowers? That such a phrase would be deemed a poetic licence proves the difference in the things: for all metaphors are grounded on an apparent likeness of things essentially different. I utterly disclaim the notion, that any human Intelligence, with whatever power it might manifest itself, is alone adequate to the office of restoring health to the Will: but at the same time I deem it impious and absurd to hold, that the Creator would have given us the faculty of Reason, or that the Redeemer would in so many varied forms of argument and persuasion have appealed to it, if it had been either totally useless or wholly impotent. Lastly, I find all these several Truths reconciled and united in the belief, that the imperfect human understanding can be effectually exerted only in subordination to, and in a dependent alliance with, the means and aidances supplied by the All-perfect and Supreme Reason; but that under these conditions it is not only an admissible, but a necessary, instrument of bettering both ourselves and others.

We may now proceed to our reflections on the Spirit of Religion. The first three or four Aphorisms I have selected from the Theological Works of Dr. Henry More, a contemporary of Archbishop Leighton, and like him, holden in suspicion by the Calvinists of that time as a Latitudinarian and Platonizing Divine, and who probably, like him, would have been arraigned as a Calvinist by the Latitudinarians (I cannot say, Platonists) of this day, had the suspicion been equally groundless. One or two I have ventured to add from my own Reflections. The purpose, however, is the same in all—that of declaring, in the first place, what Spiritual Religion is not, what is not a Religious Spirit, and what are not to be deemed influences of the Spirit. If after these declaimers I shall without proof be charged by any with renewing or favouring the errors of the Familists, Vanists, Seekers, Behmenists, or by whatever other names Church History records the poor bewildered Enthusiasts, who in the swarming time of our Republic turned the facts of the Gospel into allegories, and superseded the written ordinances of Christ by a pretended Teaching and sensible Presence of the Spirit, I appeal against them to their own consciences, as wilful slanderers. But if with proof, I have in these Aphorisms signed and sealed my own condemnation.

"These things I could not forbear to write. For the Light within me, that is, my Reason and Conscience, does assure me, that the Ancient and Apostolic Faith according to the historical meaning thereof, and in the literal sense of the Creed, is solid and true: and that Familism[67] in its fairest form and under whatever disguise, is a smooth tale to seduce the simple from their Allegiance to Christ."

Henry More.[68]

APHORISMS ON SPIRITUAL RELIGION.

And here it will not be impertinent to observe, that what the eldest Greek Philosophy entitled the Reason (ΝΟΥΣ) and Ideas, the philosophic Apostle names the Spirit and Truths spiritually discerned: while to those who in the pride of learning or in the over-weening meanness of modern metaphysics decry the doctrine of the Spirit in Man and its possible communion with the Holy Spirit, as vulgar enthusiasm, I submit the following sentences from a Pagan philosopher, a nobleman and a minister of state—"Ita dico, Lucili! sacer intra nos Spiritus sedet, malorum bonorumque nostrorum observator et custos. Hic prout a nobis tractatus est, ita nos ipse tractat. Bonus vir sine Deo nemo est." Seneca, Epist. xli.

APHORISM I.

H. More.

EVERY one is to give a reason of his faith; but Priests and Ministers more punctually than any, their province being to make good every sentence of the Bible to a rational inquirer into the truth of these Oracles. Enthusiasts find it an easy thing to heat the fancies of unlearned and unreflecting hearers; but when a sober man would be satisfied of the grounds from whence they speak, he shall not have one syllable or the least tittle of a pertinent answer. Only they will talk big of the spirit, and inveigh against Reason with bitter reproaches, calling it carnal or fleshly, though it be indeed no soft flesh, but enduring and penetrant steel, even the sword of the Spirit, and such as pierces to the heart.

APHORISM II.

H. More.

There are two very bad things in this resolving of men's Faith and Practice into the immediate suggestion of a Spirit not acting on our understandings, or rather into the illumination of such a Spirit as they can give no account of, such as does not enlighten their reason or enable them to render their doctrine intelligible to others. First, it defaces and makes useless that part of the Image of God in us, which we call reason; and secondly, it takes away that advantage, which raises Christianity above all other religions, that she dare appeal to so solid a faculty.

APHORISM III.

It is the glory of the Gospel Charter and the Christian Constitution, that its Author and Head is the Spirit of Truth, Essential Reason as well as Absolute and Incomprehensible Will. Like a just Monarch, he refers even his own causes to the Judgment of his high Courts. He has his King's Bench in the Reason, his Court of Equity in the Conscience: that the Representative of his majesty and universal justice, this the nearest to the King's heart, and the dispenser of his particular decrees. He has likewise his Court of Common Pleas in the Understanding, his Court of Exchequer in the Prudence. The Laws are his Laws. And though by Signs and Miracles he has mercifully condescended to interline here and there with his own hand the great Statute-book, which he had dictated to his Amanuensis, Nature; yet has he been graciously pleased to forbid our receiving as the King's Mandates aught that is not stamped with the Great Seal of the Conscience, and countersigned by the Reason.

APHORISM IV.

On an Unlearned Ministry, under pretence of a Call of the Spirit, and inward Graces superseding Outward helps.

H. More.

Tell me, Ye high-flown Perfectionists, ye boasters of the Light within you, could the highest perfection of your inward Light ever show to you the history of past ages, the state of the world at present, the knowledge of arts and tongues, without books or teachers? How then can you understand the Providence of God, or the age, the purpose, the fulfilment of Prophecies, or distinguish such as have been fulfilled from those to the fulfilment of which we are to look forward? How can you judge concerning the authenticity and uncorruptedness of the Gospels, and the other sacred Scriptures? And how without this knowledge can you support the truth of Christianity? How can you either have, or give a reason for the faith which you profess? This Light within, that loves darkness, and would exclude those excellent Gifts of God to Mankind, Knowledge and Understanding, what is it but a sullen self-sufficiency within you, engendering contempt of superiors, pride and a spirit of division, and inducing you to reject for yourselves and to undervalue in others the helps without, which the Grace of God has provided and appointed for his Church—nay, to make them grounds or pretexts of your dislike or suspicion of Christ's Ministers who have fruitfully availed themselves of the Helps afforded them?

APHORISM V.

H. More.

There are wanderers, whom neither pride nor a perverse humour have led astray; and whose condition is such, that I think few more worthy of a man's best directions. For the more imperious sects having put such unhandsome vizards on Christianity, and the sincere milk of the Word having been every where so sophisticated by the humours and inventions of men, it has driven these anxious melancholists to seek for a teacher that cannot deceive, the voice of the eternal Word within them; to which if they be faithful, they assure themselves it will be faithful to them in return. Nor would this be a groundless presumption, if they had sought this voice in the Reason and the Conscience, with the Scripture articulating the same, instead of giving heed to their fancy and mistaking bodily disturbances, and the vapours resulting therefrom, for inspiration and the teaching of the Spirit.

APHORISM VI.

Bishop Hacket.

When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end. Blessed were those days, when every man thought himself rich and fortunate by good success of the public wealth and glory. We want public souls, we want them. I speak it with compassion: there is no sin and abuse in the world that affects my thought so much. Every man thinks, that he is a whole Commonwealth in his private family. Omnes quæ sua sunt quærunt. All seek their own.[69]

Comment.

Selfishness is common to all ages and countries. In all ages Self-seeking is the Rule, and Self-sacrifice the Exception. But if to seek our private advantage in harmony with, and by the furtherance of, the public prosperity, and to derive a portion of our happiness from sympathy with the prosperity of our fellow-men—if this be Public Spirit, it would be morose and querulous to pretend that there is any want of it in this country and at the present time. On the contrary, the number of "public souls" and the general readiness to contribute to the public good, in science and in religion, in patriotism and in philanthropy, stand prominent[70] among the characteristics of this and the preceding generation. The habit of referring actions and opinions to fixed laws; convictions rooted in principles; thought, insight, system;—these, had the good Bishop lived in our times, would have been his desiderata, and the theme of his complaints.—"We want thinking Souls, we want them."

This and the three preceding extracts will suffice as precautionary Aphorisms. And here again, the reader may exemplify the great advantages to be obtained from the habit of tracing the proper meaning and history of words. We need only recollect the common and idiomatic phrases in which the word "spirit" occurs in a physical or material sense (as, fruit has lost its spirit and flavour), to be convinced that its property is to improve, enliven, actuate some other thing, not to constitute a thing in its own name. The enthusiast may find one exception to this where the material itself is called Spirit. And when he calls to mind, how this spirit acts when taken _alone_ by the unhappy persons who in their first exultation will boast that it is meat, drink, fire, and clothing to them, all in one—when he reflects, that its properties are to inflame, intoxicate, madden, with exhaustion, lethargy, and atrophy for the sequels—well for him, if in some lucid interval he should fairly put the question to his own mind, how far this is analogous to his own case, and whether the exception does not confirm the rule. The Letter without the Spirit killeth; but does it follow, that the Spirit is to kill the Letter? To kill that which it is its appropriate office to enliven?

However, where the Ministry is not invaded, and the plain sense of the Scriptures is left undisturbed, and the Believer looks for the suggestions of the Spirit only or chiefly in applying particular passages to his own individual case and exigences; though in this there may be much weakness, some delusion and imminent danger of more, I cannot but join with Henry More in avowing, that I feel knit to such a man in the bonds of a common faith far more closely, than to those who receive neither the Letter nor the Spirit, turning the one into metaphor, and oriental hyperbole, in order to explain away the other into the influence of motives suggested by their own understandings, and realized by their own strength.