.-***** A" . c
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST; 
 
 OR, 
 
 HINTS TO A QUAKER. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 L O K DO N : 
 
 GILBERT & RITINOTON, I RINTKKS, 
 ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST; 
 
 OR, 
 
 HINTS TO A QUAKER, 
 
 RESPECTING THE 
 
 PRINCIPLES, CONSTITUTION, AND ORDINANCES 
 
 CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A. 
 
 CHAPLAIN OF GUY'S HOSPITAL, 
 
 AND PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND HISTORY 
 IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR J. G..F. & J. RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL; 
 
 & DARTON & CLARK, HOLBORN HILL. 
 1842.
 
 " What is now to be done ? Must Truth be for ever in the 
 dark, and the world for ever be divided, and societies disturbed, 
 and governments weakened, and our spirits debauched with error, 
 and the uncertain opinions and the pedantry of talking men ? 
 Certainly there is a way to cure all this evil, and the wise Go- 
 vernor of the world hath not been wanting in so" necessary a 
 matter as to lead us into all truth. But the way hath not yet 
 been hit upon, and yet I have told you all the ways of man, and 
 his imaginations, in order to Truth and Peace ; and you see these 
 will not do ; we can find no rest for the soles of our feet, amidst 
 all the waters of contention and disputations, and little artifices of 
 divided schools .... We have examined all ways but one, 
 all but God's way. Let us, having missed all the others, try 
 this." Bp. Taylor, Via InteHigentice.
 
 173M 
 M3 
 
 TO THE 
 
 REV. DERWENT COLERIDGE. 
 
 STANLEY GROVE, CHELSEA. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. COLERIDGE, 
 
 IN a note to your volume on the Scriptural 
 character of the English Church, you have alluded 
 to the first edition of these Hints. Your object was 
 to correct one of my many inaccuracies, and this 
 service, which was itself a very kind one, you made 
 more acceptable, by the approbation which you 
 expressed of my general design. Under any cir- 
 cumstances I must have valued such a recognition 
 from one who had bestowed so much serious and 
 intelligent consideration upon the subject of which 
 I had treated ; I was still more pleased with it, 
 because there were qualities in your work which 
 might have made me fear that you would be less 
 tolerant of mine. Its calm scholar-like tone and 
 careful English style, were strikingly contrasted 
 with the crudeness and hastiness which were 
 
 A3
 
 VI DEDICATION. 
 
 visible in every part of my Letters to a Quaker. 
 Nevertheless, I found with great delight, that 
 neither you nor the accomplished Editor of Mr. 
 Coleridge's works, had been hindered by these 
 defects from taking an interest in my thoughts, 
 or from recognizing in them one among a thou- 
 sand indications of the influence which your 
 father's writings are exercising over the mind of 
 this generation. 
 
 Every one who has felt this influence must, I 
 think, be anxious to acknowledge it. You may 
 well be surprised therefore, that in a book of some 
 length I should have referred to it so seldom. 
 Twenty years ago you might have attributed such 
 an omission to a cowardly and dishonourable dread 
 of being associated with an unpopular name. But 
 at the time I wrote, the basest man could not 
 have been affected by such a motive as this, for 
 the different English parties which, during Mr. 
 Coleridge's life-time, had only differed in the 
 degrees of their dislike to him, were scrambling for 
 a share of his opinions. It seemed to me that 
 the only danger of another reaction lay ip the 
 ambition of his admirers to make him responsible 
 for their statements of his views or their infer- 
 ences from them. To this evil I wished not to be 
 accessary. I had never enjoyed the privilege of 
 intercourse with him. I had no means therefore of
 
 DEDICATION. Vll 
 
 correcting the impressions of him which I had 
 derived from his works. I was of course liable 
 to the greatest mistakes of judgment in my inter- 
 pretation of these, as well as to the moral tempta- 
 tion of perverting them to my own purposes. I 
 thought it better therefore, to seem even to myself 
 ungrateful and a plagiarist, than to incur the risk 
 of abusing his name to the support of sentiments 
 which he might have disapproved, and perhaps, 
 of hindering some from profiting by his wisdom, 
 because I had taught them to connect it with my 
 follies. 
 
 This caution, however, was of little avail. The 
 only two reviews which, so far as I know, bestowed 
 any attention upon my book the one treating 
 it with extreme kindness, the other with un- 
 bounded contempt, brought my name into 
 flattering, but most undeserved juxta-position 
 with Mr. Coleridge's. And I could not help 
 fancying that one of these critics would have been 
 well pleased that its readers should have attributed 
 to the master, the monstrous absurdity, self-suf- 
 ficiency, love of priestcraft, hatred of the rights 
 of conscience, preference of Fathers and Councils 
 to Scripture, which were affirmed to be charac- 
 teristic of the disciple. Every person, I conceive, 
 who has been thus spoken of, should be ready to 
 explain, as well as he can, how far the charge is 
 A 4
 
 Vlll DEDICATION. 
 
 true, that he has derived his method of thought 
 from his supposed teacher, and if it be true, to 
 what extent that teacher is answerable for his 
 application of the method. Such an explanation 
 I am anxious to make now for the relief of my 
 own mind, and that I may rescue your father's 
 memory from any injury which I may have done it. 
 I might have addressed my confession to many dear 
 friends who are admirers of his writings. But I 
 would rather make it to one of his family, first, 
 because I rejoice to think that those who have 
 most profited by what he has taught them, do not 
 and cannot form a school, and because it is most 
 desirable that the English public, with its party 
 notions and tendencies, should not suppose that 
 they form one ; and secondly, because my feeling 
 towards him, though as I have said not founded 
 upon any personal acquaintance in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, is yet so strictly and vividly 
 personal, that I cannot bear to think of him 
 chiefly as a writer of books, and that I am always 
 delighted to connect him with any human repre- 
 sentative. 
 
 There are persons who can feel no affection for 
 a book unless they can associate it with a living 
 man. I am not sure whether I labour under 
 this incapacity, but I own that the books of Mr. 
 Coleridge are mainly interesting to me as the
 
 DEDICATION. IX 
 
 biography of one who passed through the strug- 
 gles of the age to which we are succeeding, and 
 who was able, after great effort and much sorrow, 
 to discover a resting-place. Those juvenile poems 
 which exhibit him to us, when he was seeking 
 in Unitarianism a refuge from the flatness and 
 the falsehood of a mere state' Christianity the 
 fierce and magnificent ode in which he sees the 
 old European world of convention and oppres- 
 sion falling to pieces, and rejoices in the sight 
 the noble recantation of his hopes from re- 
 publican ascendancy his ode to Despondency, 
 embodying so perfectly the feelings of a man who, 
 after the disappointment of all practical hopes, 
 had sought in meditation for deliverance and rest, 
 and then on returning to the actual world had 
 found its glory departed and his capacities of 
 enjoyment dead these poems have always seemed 
 to me so intensely and painfully real, and so 
 expressive of what thousands of minds in dif- 
 ferent measures must have been experiencing, that 
 I do not suppose I have ever done justice to 
 any of them, merely as a work of art. I do not 
 think there is any thing inconsistent in this ac- 
 knowledgment with the belief, that in him as 
 in every great poet, the exercise of the creative 
 faculty implied self-forgetfulness, and the power 
 of passing beyond the region of personal experi- 
 
 A5
 
 X DEDICATION. 
 
 ence. No one can utter the thoughts of other 
 men as well as his own, can be in any degree 
 the spokesman of his time, to whom this quality 
 does not belong. But it consists, I should ima- 
 gine, nearly always with much of inward suffer- 
 ing. The person who enters most into what a 
 number of others are experiencing, does, in the 
 strictest and liveliest sense, experience it himself. 
 On these points, however, I have no right to 
 speak, and if I speak ignorantly, you must 
 remember, that I merely pretend to tell you what 
 my own impressions have been, not to make them 
 a standard for other readers. Your father's greater 
 poems, such as the Ancient Mariner, and Chris- 
 tabelle, seem undoubtedly to belong to the .region 
 of the pure imagination. But I question whether I 
 should be as much interested as I am even in 
 these, if I did not discover in them many veins 
 and fibres which seem to me to connect them with 
 his personal being ; if they did not help me to read 
 more clearly the history of his mind, and therein 
 the history of our time. 
 
 And as I have never learnt to separate his 
 poetical genius from himself, so I fear I have 
 been as little able to appreciate him formally and 
 abstractedly in the character of a philosopher. In 
 his " Friend" I seem to discover the very same 
 man whom I had known amidst the storms of the
 
 DEDICATION. XI 
 
 revolutionary period. Nor do I find him less im- 
 patient of mere rules and decrees than he was 
 then ; only the impatience has taken a new form. 
 He has been convinced that society is a reality, 
 that it would not become at all more real by being 
 unmade and reconstructed, and therefore he has 
 begun to enquire what are the grounds of its re- 
 ality, and how we may be preserved from making 
 it into a fiction and a falsehood. That this en- 
 quiry is complete and satisfactory I do not affirm, 
 I rejoice to think that it is not ; I believe, if it 
 had been more complete, it would not be half so 
 profitable as it has been and is likely to be for 
 generations to come. Its merit is, that it is an en- 
 quiry, that it shews us what we have to seek for, 
 and that it puts us into a way of seeking. Hence 
 it was and is particularly offensive to more than 
 one class of persons. The mere Destructive com- 
 plains, that it recognizes the worth of that which 
 ought to be swept away. . The mere Conservative 
 is indignant, because it will not assume existing 
 rules and opinions as an ultimate basis, but aims 
 at discovering their meaning and their foundation. 
 The man of Compromises is most bitter, because 
 it assumes that the statesman has some other law 
 of conduct than that of sailing with the wind. The 
 mere Englishman is angry to find the common 
 topics of the day, taxes, libels, bombardments of 
 A 6
 
 Xll DEDICATION. 
 
 Copenhagen, not treated of as they are treated in 
 his favourite journals. The man of Abstractions 
 cannot understand what such topics have to do 
 with a scientific book. This combination of ene- 
 mies, wkh the advantage which each derives from 
 being able to speak of the book as "neither one 
 thing nor tJie other" is quite sufficient to explain 
 any measure of unpopularity which it may have 
 met with. To account for the power which it 
 has exerted in spite of these disadvantages and 
 many others of an outward kind which I need 
 not hint at in writing to you to explain how 
 a book, which is said to be utterly unpractical, 
 has wrought a change in men's minds upon the 
 most practical subjects, how a book, which is said 
 to have no sympathy with the moving spirit of 
 this age, should have affected the most thought- 
 ful of our young men ; this is a work of greater 
 difficulty, which I hope that some of our Re- 
 viewers will one day undertake. I am not attempt- 
 ing to solve any such problems, but am merely 
 accounting for its influence upon my own mind, 
 an influence mainly owing to those very peculiari- 
 ties which seem to have impaired or destroyed its 
 worth in the opinions of wiser people. For this, 
 at least, I am thankful, that this book, so far from 
 diminishing my interest in those which treat of 
 the same subject, or tempting me to set Mr.
 
 DEDICATION. Xlll 
 
 Coleridge up as the erne teacher upon it, has en- 
 abled me to honour others of the most different 
 kind, belonging to our own and to former times, 
 which I otherwise should not have understood, 
 and might, through ignorance and self-conceit, 
 have undervalued ; above all, to reverence the facts 
 of history, and to believe that the least perversion 
 of them, for the sake of getting a moral from them, 
 is at once a folly and a sin. 
 
 And it seems to me that I have found help of 
 a similar kind to this in a different department of 
 thought from that still more irregular work, the 
 Biographia Literaria. If a young man in this 
 age is much tormented by the puzzles of society, 
 and the innumerable systems by which men have 
 sought to get rid of them, he is haunted almost as 
 much by the different problems of Criticism, by 
 a sense of the connexion between his own life and 
 the books which he reads, by theories about the 
 nature and meaning of this connexion, by autho- 
 ritative dogmas respecting the worth or worth- 
 lessness of particular poems and paintings, by 
 paradoxical rebellions against these dogmas, by 
 questions as to the authority of antiquity and the 
 distinct province of our time, by attempts to dis- 
 cover some permanent laws of art, by indignant as- 
 sertions of its independence upon all laws. A person 
 cannot have observed himself or his contemporaries
 
 XIV DEDICATION. 
 
 with any attention, nay, he can scarcely read over 
 the rude statement of these difficulties which I 
 have just made, without feeling how intricately 
 they are involved with our thoughts upon some 
 of the very highest subjects. To say that we do 
 not need to understand ourselves upon these cri- 
 tical questions, that it is of no importance to have 
 principles in reference to them, is merely to say 
 that we ought not to meddle with them at all. A 
 person who is not brought into contact with such 
 topics is certainly not bound to think about them; if 
 he be, he will find the absence of thought respecting 
 them a more serious impediment to him in matters 
 directly concerning his personal life than he may 
 at first suppose. Now, if any one reads Mr. Cole- 
 ridge's literary life, taking him to be a great poet, 
 and therefore able to supply the principles of his 
 art ready made and fit for immediate use and ex- 
 portation, he will, I should think, be much disap- 
 pointed. I cannot discover here, more than in his 
 political work, a system. I have lately heard that 
 there is one, and that it has been taken whole and 
 alive out of the works of a great German author. 
 But I am speaking only of what I saw there my- 
 self, and I am bound to say that it escaped my 
 notice. I seemed to see a writer, who was feeling 
 his way into the apprehension of many questions 
 which had puzzled me, explaining to me his own
 
 DEDICATION. XV 
 
 progress out of the belief that all things are de- 
 pendent upon association, into the acknowledg- 
 ment of something with which they are associated ; 
 into a discovery that there is a key-note to the 
 harmony. I learnt from him, by practical illustra- 
 tions, how one may enter into the spirit of a living 
 or a departed author, without assuming to be his 
 judge ; how one may come to know what he means 
 without imputing to him our meanings. I learnt 
 that beauty is neither an accidental nor an artificial 
 thing, that it is to be sought out as something 
 which is both in nature and in the mind of man, 
 and which, by God's law, binds us to her. But 
 all this comes out in a natural experimental me- 
 thod, by those tests and trials in which a man 
 may be greatly assisted by the previous successes 
 or failures of another, just as Faraday may be 
 assisted by Davy, but which he cannot adopt 
 from another, and which we cannot adopt from 
 him, except by catching his spirit of investigation 
 and applying it to new facts. 
 
 The "Aids to Reflection" is a book of a dif- 
 ferent character from either of these, and it is one 
 to which I feel myself under much more deep and 
 solemn obligations. But the obligation is of the 
 same kind. If I require a politician or a critic 
 who has indeed worked his own way through 
 the region in which he pretends to act as my 
 
 7
 
 Xvi DEDICATION. 
 
 guide, I certainly should be most dissatisfied with 
 one who undertook to write moral and spiritual 
 aphorisms, without proving that he was himself 
 eneaered in the conflict with an evil nature and 
 
 O D 
 
 a reluctant will, and that he had received the 
 truths of which he would make me a partaker, not 
 at second hand, but as the needful supports of 
 his own being. I do not know any book which 
 ever brought to me more clear tokens and evi- 
 dences of this kind than the one of which I am 
 speaking. I have heard it described both by 
 admirers and objectors as one which deals with 
 reh'gion philosophically. In whatever sense that 
 assertion may be true, and in a very important 
 sense I believe it is quite true, I can testify that 
 it was most helpful in delivering me from a num- 
 ber of philosophical phrases and generalizations, 
 which I believe attach themselves to the truths of 
 the Creed, even in the minds of many who think 
 that they receive Christianity with a most child- 
 like spirit most helpful in enabling me to per- 
 ceive that the deepest principles of all are those 
 which the peasant is as capable of apprehending 
 and entering into as the Schoolman. I value and 
 love his philosophy mainly because it has led me to 
 this discovery, and to the practical conclusion, 
 that those who are called to the work of teaching 
 must cultivate and exercise their understandings, 
 
 o y
 
 DEDICATION. XV11 
 
 in order that they may discriminate between that 
 which is factitious and accidental, or belongs to 
 our artificial habits of thought, and that which is 
 fixed and eternal, which belongs to man as man, 
 and which God will open the eyes of every hum- 
 ble man to perceive. I have learnt in this way 
 the preciousness of the simple Creeds of antiquity; 
 the inward witness which a gospel of Facts pos- 
 sesses, and which a gospel of Notions must always 
 want; how the most awful and absolute truths, 
 which notions displace or obscure, are involved in 
 facts, and through facts may be entertained and 
 embraced by those who do not possess the faculty 
 for comparing notions, and have a blessed incapa- 
 city of resting in them. 
 
 It is inevitable that the person who first ap- 
 plies this principle to religious questions, should 
 sometimes be involved in the obscurity from 
 which he is seeking to deliver us. Any one 
 who begins the work of encountering notions 
 and theories, will himself be accounted the 
 greatest notionalist and theorist. To get rid of 
 crudities and confusions, he will sometimes be 
 obliged to adopt or invent a nomenclature. His 
 rigid adherence to this will be called pedantry; 
 his followers repeating his words, instead of carry- 
 ing the meaning of them into their studies and 
 their life, will deserve the charge; his enemies 
 will have a plausible pretence for saying that he
 
 XV1U DEDICATION. 
 
 has made simple truths complex by his way of 
 handling them. The "Aids to Reflection" have 
 been exposed to all these misfortunes. Neverthe- 
 less, I have heard them generally denounced as 
 unintelligible by persons whom I had the greatest 
 difficulty in understanding, who were continually 
 perplexing me with hard words to which I could 
 find nothing answering among actual things, and 
 with the strangest attempts to explain mysteries 
 by those events and circumstances which were to 
 me most mysterious, and which, as they lay 
 nearest to me, it was most important for my 
 practical life that I should know the meaning of. 
 On the other hand, I have heard the simplest, 
 most child-like men and women express an al- 
 most rapturous thankfulness for having been per- 
 mitted to read this book, and so to understand 
 their own hearts and their Bibles, and the connex- 
 ion between the one and the other, more clearly. 
 It is a book, I believe, which has given offence, 
 and will always give offence to many, not for its 
 theories, but for its essentially practical character. 
 Its manly denunciation of the sentimental school 
 must be painful to many in our day who have 
 practically adopted the Rousseau cant, though 
 they have changed a little the words that express 
 it ; who praise men for being good, though they 
 do the most monstrously evil acts, and account it 
 a vulgar worship of decency to say, that one who
 
 DEDICATION. XIX 
 
 is the slave of his own passions, and enslaves 
 others to them, may not be a very right and true 
 man notwithstanding. And yet those who do 
 really exalt decency above inward truth and con- 
 formity to a high standard, will not at all the more 
 own Mr. Coleridge for an ally because the school 
 which pretends to oppose them reject him. The 
 whole object of his book is to draw us from the 
 study of mere worldly and external morality, to 
 that which concerns the heart and the inner man. 
 But here, again, he is so unfortunate, that those 
 who have turned " heart religion" into a phrase 
 who substitute the feelings and experiences of 
 their minds for the laws to which those feelings 
 and experiences may, if rightly used, conduct us 
 will be sure to regard him as peculiarly their 
 enemy. So that if there were no persons in the 
 land who did not belong to one or other of 
 these classes, if there were not many who have 
 tried them all, and are weary of them all, it 
 would indeed be very difficult to understand how 
 it is that this volume has found its way into 
 so many studies, and has gained access to so 
 many hearts. 
 
 The idea of the first ' ' Lay Sermon," that the 
 Bible is the Statesman's Manual, is less developed, 
 I think, than any of those to which I have alluded 
 hitherto. But the bare announcement of it has
 
 XX DEDICATION. 
 
 been of more value to me than any lengthened 
 exposition that I know of. There is no topic which 
 has more engaged my attention in these volumes 
 than the national history of the Bible, but I have 
 said very little indeed of 'which that thought was 
 not the germ. 
 
 The little book upon Church and State you 
 will suppose, from the title and character of these 
 volumes, that I am likely to have studied still 
 more attentively. And indeed, if you watch me 
 closely, you will discover, I doubt not, many more 
 thoughts which I have stolen from it than I am 
 at all aware of, though I think I am conscious of 
 superabundant obligations. It seems to me that 
 the doctrine which I have endeavoured to bring 
 out in what I have said respecting the relations 
 between Church and State, is nothing but an ex- 
 pansion of Mr. Coleridge's remark respecting the 
 opposition and necessary harmony of Law and 
 Religion, though in this, as in many other cases, 
 I have departed from his phraseology, and have 
 even adopted one which he might not be in- 
 clined to sanction. 
 
 The robberies which T. have confessed are such 
 in the truest sense ; they are conscious and de- 
 liberate robberies. If any one had chanced to dis- 
 cover in my book twenty or thirty pages which he 
 could trace to some English or foreign author, I
 
 DEDICATION. XXI 
 
 should think his common sense, though he might 
 allow no scope for charity, would induce him to 
 hesitate before he imputed to me a wilful fraud. It 
 is so much more likely that I should mistake what 
 had been for years mixed with my own composi- 
 tions for one of them, than that I should take such 
 a very stupid and blundering way of earning a 
 reputation, which a few years must destroy al- 
 together, that a court of justice, on the mere 
 ground of evidence, would be inclined, I should 
 suppose, to take the tolerant side. If it had any 
 hesitation, the reason would be, that an insignifi- 
 cant author might do many things with impunity, 
 which a writer of eminence, who had enemies in 
 every direction, would be a madman to venture 
 upon ; or else it would be from a feeling of this 
 kind, that if I had merely forgotten myself, I 
 should have had some vague wandering impres- 
 sion of having read a similar passage somewhere 
 else, and, therefore, that I should, being honest, 
 have at least thrown out some hint, though it 
 might not be exactly the right one, as to the 
 place whence I might have derived it, thus mak- 
 ing my reader anxious to see what had been said 
 by the writer to whom I referred : if I did that, of 
 course all suspicion of evil design would vanish 
 immediately from the mind of any one who was 
 capable of judging, or did not industriously per-
 
 XX11 DEDICATION. 
 
 vert his judgment for the purpose of making me 
 out to be an offender. But the use I have made 
 of your father's writings is of entirely a different 
 kind from this. I could not be convicted of it by 
 a mere collating of paragraphs, and, therefore, if I 
 were anxious to conceal it, I should be really, and- 
 not apparently, dishonest. And this is not the 
 less true because it is also true that the main sub- 
 ject of my book is one which (so far as I know) he 
 has not distinctly treated of, that the thoughts 
 which he has scattered respecting it, though 
 deeply interesting, are not always satisfactory to 
 me, that I have, therefore, very commonly found 
 myself without his guidance, and that I have 
 sometimes wilfully deserted it. I shall not fulfil 
 the purpose of this letter, if I do not shew how 
 these two apparently opposite statements are re- 
 conciled. 
 
 No man, I think, will ever be of much use to 
 his generation, who does not apply himself mainly 
 to the questions which are occupying those who 
 belong to it. An antiquary, I dare to say, leads 
 a much easier and quieter life than one who inter- 
 feres with his contemporaries, and takes part in 
 their speculations. But his quietness is his re- 
 ward : those who seek another, must be con- 
 tent to part with it. Often times, I doubt not, 
 every man is tempted to repose in some little
 
 DEDICATION. XX111 
 
 nook or dell of thought, where other men will 
 not molest him, because he does not molest 
 them ; but those to whom any work is assigned 
 are soon driven, by a power which they cannot 
 resist, out of such retirement into the dusty high 
 ways of ordinary business and disputation. This, 
 it seems to me, was your father's peculiar merit 
 and honour. The subjects to which he addressed 
 himself were not those to which he would have 
 been inclined, either by his poetical or his meta- 
 physical tendencies. But they were exactly the 
 questions of the time ; exactly those which other 
 men were discussing in the spirit of the time. 
 And as we who belong to a younger generation 
 have inherited these questions, we inherit also the 
 wisdom which dealt with them. But there are, it 
 seems to me, questions which we have not in- 
 herited questions which belong more expressly 
 to us than they did to our immediate predecessors. 
 These, I suspect, we must humbly study for our- 
 selves, though the difference will be very great to 
 us, whether we invent a way of investigation for 
 ourselves, or try to walk in a path which better 
 men who have been before us have with great 
 labour cleared of its rubbish, and by foot-marks 
 and sign-posts have made known to us. 
 
 One of the questions to which I allude is 
 that which your father was led, I believe by the
 
 XXIV DEDICATION. 
 
 soundest wisdom, to banish, in a great measure, 
 from his consideration, after the events of the 
 French Revolution had taught him the unspeak- 
 able importance of a distinct National life. I mean 
 the question whether there be a Universal Society 
 for man as man. I have stated some reasons in 
 these volumes why I think every one in this day 
 must be more or less consciously occupied with 
 this enquiry; why no other topics, however im- 
 portant, can prevent it from taking nearly the 
 most prominent place in our minds. There is an- 
 other question belonging apparently to a different 
 region of thought, yet I believe touching at more 
 points than one upon this : how all thoughts, 
 schemes, systems, speculations, may contribute 
 their quota to some one which shall be larger 
 and deeper than any of them. If I am indebted to 
 your father on one account more than another, 
 it is for shewing me a way out of the dreadful 
 vagueness and ambition which such a scheme as 
 this involves, for leading me not merely to say, 
 but to feel, that a knowledge of The Being is the 
 object after which we are to strive, and that all 
 pursuit of Unity without this is the pursuit of a 
 phantom. But at the same time I cannot help 
 believing that there is a right meaning hid under 
 this desire; that it will haunt us till we find 
 what it is; that we cannot merely denounce or
 
 DEDICATION. XXV 
 
 resist this inclination in ourselves or in others ; 
 that we shall do far more good, yea, perhaps the 
 very good which we are meant in this age to ac- 
 complish, if we steadily apply ourselves to the con- 
 sideration of it. Again, there is a question which 
 thrusts itself before us continually, and which is 
 the mover of more party feelings just at this time 
 than any other, respecting the reception of those 
 doctrines which are expressed in old Creeds, and 
 which concern the nature of God himself : whether 
 these are to be taken upon trust from the early 
 ages, or whether we are to look upon them as 
 matters for our own enquiry, to be acknowledged 
 only so far as they accord, with what seems to us 
 either the declaration of Scripture, or the verdict 
 of reason. In preparing for the consideration of 
 this great subject, I have felt, with many others, 
 that Mr. Coleridge's help has been invaluable to us. 
 Nearly every thoughtful writer of the day would 
 have taught us, that the highest truths are those 
 which lie beyond the limits of Experience, that the 
 essential principles of the Reason are those which 
 cannot be proved by syllogisms, that the evidence 
 for them is the impossibility of admitting that which 
 does fall under the law of experience, unless we 
 recognize them as its foundation ; nay, the im- 
 possibility of believing that we ourselves are, or 
 that any thing is, except upon these terms. The 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 XXVI DEDICATION. 
 
 atheism of Hume has driven men to these blessed 
 discoveries, and though it was your father's honour 
 that he asserted them to an age and a nation which 
 had not yet discovered the need of them, he cer- 
 tainly did not pretend, and no one should pre- 
 tend, that he was the first reviver or expositor 
 of them. But the application of these prin- 
 ciples to Theology, I believe, we owe mainly to 
 him. The power of perceiving that by the very 
 law of the Reason the knowledge of God must be 
 given to it ; that the moment it attempts to create 
 its Maker, it denies itself; the conviction that the 
 most opposite kind of Unity to that which Uni- 
 tarianism dreams of is necessary, if the demands 
 of the reason are to be satisfied I must acknow- 
 ledge, that I received from him, if I would not 
 prove myself ungrateful to the highest Teacher, 
 who might certainly have chosen another instru- 
 ment for communicating his mercies, but who 
 has been pleased in very many cases, as I know, 
 to make use of this one. This instruction, I say, 
 seems to me a most precious preparation for the 
 enquiry which belongs more strictly to our age, 
 but still it is only a preparation. I cannot help 
 feeling, while I read the profound, and, to a theo- 
 logical student invaluable, hints respecting the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, which occur in Mr. Cole- 
 ridge's writings "This is not enough. If the
 
 DEDICATION. XXV11 
 
 reason be, as he said it was, expressly the human 
 faculty, belonging to rich and poor alike not 
 merely those personal truths which belong to each 
 individual's state and condition, but this highest 
 truth, which he presents to us as demanding 
 the highest efforts of thought and abstraction, 
 must belong to the very humblest man ; must be a 
 sacred part of his inheritance ; must in some way 
 or other be capable of being presented to him." 
 Any one who has entertained this thought will 
 find that this theological subject very soon be- 
 comes involved with the other two of which I was 
 speaking. The hope that some day 
 
 " Wisdom may teach her lore 
 In the low huts of them that toil and groan," 
 
 must wax much brighter, if we can really believe 
 that the deepest lore is the most universal. The 
 hope that diverse sides of thought may some day 
 be brought into reconciliation, may begin to dis- 
 connect itself with the dreary vision of a com- 
 prehensive System, from which all life is ex- 
 cluded, if the central Unity be that of the living 
 Being. 
 
 But how can such a dream ever be realized? 
 
 To me the promise of its realization came in 
 
 sounds which belong to our nursery, in the 
 
 words in which our infants are baptized. Here, 
 
 a 2
 
 XXV111 DEDICATION. 
 
 it seemed to me, lay the assurance that this truth 
 belongs to no esoterical region ; that it is one of 
 those all embracing mysteries which is about us 
 at every moment, which is gradually drawing us 
 into itself, and which becomes ours most truly 
 when we attain most of the privilege of men by 
 becoming most like little children. Thus I was 
 led to consider the meaning of this ordinance of 
 Baptism as a key to the nature of ordinances 
 generally. I found that they had been much 
 prized by Luther, and by the most earnest of 
 those who, like him, regarded Christianity almost 
 exclusively in its reference to their own personal 
 life. They felt the extreme danger of substituting 
 their belief for the object of it, and so destroying 
 the reality of both. Their testimony was of the 
 highest practical value, and it was abundantly 
 confirmed to me by the experience of those who 
 had rejected ordinances for the sake of attaining 
 to a more spiritual state of mind. Still I could 
 not discover how one contemplating the subject 
 from their point of view, could ultimately escape 
 from the conclusion which the disciples of the 
 Reformers have so generally adopted, that he who 
 first entertains a reverence for inward Truth, and 
 then acquires a reverence for outward Signs, be- 
 gins in the spirit, and is made perfect in the flesh. 
 And I could entirely sympathize with the feeling
 
 DEDICATION. XXIX 
 
 of Mr. Coleridge, that those who for the sake of 
 exalting Ordinances turn them into Charms, are 
 not making a harmless addition to that which 
 was before sufficient, but are actually destroying 
 its meaning and reality. But supposing them 
 to be signs to the Race signs of the existence 
 of that universal body which we were enquir- 
 ing after, they become invested with a very dif- 
 ferent importance. They become indispensable in 
 a higher sense than those dream of, who seem to 
 value them chiefly as means of exclusion; they 
 are the very voice in which God speaks to his 
 creatures ; the very witness that their fellowship 
 with each other rests on their fellowship with 
 Him, and both upon the mystery of his Being ; the 
 very means by which we are meant to rise to the 
 enjoyment of the highest blessings which He has 
 bestowed upon us. In this way there rose up be- 
 fore me the idea of a CHURCH UNIVERSAL, not 
 built upon human inventions or human faith, but 
 upon the very nature of God himself, and upon 
 the union which He has formed with his creatures : 
 a church revealed to man as a fixed and eternal 
 reality by means which infinite wisdom had itself 
 devised. The tokens and witnesses of such a 
 church, it seemed to me, must be divine, but the 
 feeling of its necessity, apprehensions of the dif- 
 ferent sides and aspects of it, must, if it be a re- 
 
 a3
 
 XXX DEDICATION. 
 
 ality, be found in all the different schemes which 
 express human thought and feeling. No amalga- 
 mation of these can create a real harmony, but 
 each may find its highest meaning in that harmony 
 which God has created, and of which He is Him- 
 self the centre. 
 
 These are the leading thoughts which in this 
 book I have been trying to express, and you will 
 therefore understand what I mean when I say 
 that I may have uttered innumerable sentiments 
 for which your father would not have chosen to be 
 responsible, even while I have wished to study 
 and apply the lessons which he has taught me. 
 He would, I conclude, not have agreed with me in 
 my views respecting Baptism, he would probably 
 have thought that I over-exalted the Ministry, he 
 would not have acquiesced in every one of my 
 statements respecting the Eucharist, he would 
 have judged me wrong in some of my opinions 
 respecting the Scriptures. Upon all these subjects 
 I have deviated from what I think would have 
 been his judgment, without losing the least of my 
 reverence and affection for his memory, perhaps 
 without approximating nearer than he did to the 
 sentiments of any one of the parties which divide 
 the Church. I am sure that I should not have had 
 courage to differ with them or him, if he had not 
 assisted me to believe that Truth is above both, 
 
 7
 
 DEDICATION. XXXI 
 
 most of all above myself and my own petty notions 
 and apprehensions, that it is worthy to be sought 
 after and loved above all things, and that He who 
 is truth, is ready, if we will obey Him, to guide us 
 into it. 
 
 I have been so much occupied with a subject 
 which I am sure must be interesting to you above 
 all others, that I have left myself no time to 
 express as I should wish my gratitude for your 
 personal kindness, and for the advantage which I 
 have received from my opportunities of inter- 
 course with you. But I cannot conclude without 
 wishing you God speed in the noble undertak- 
 ing in which you are engaged. If you are per- 
 mitted to raise up a body of wise and thoughtful 
 teachers out of our trading classes, you will do 
 more for the Church than all the persons together 
 who are writing treatises about it. Proportionate, 
 however, to the importance and the novelty of 
 the work will be the trials and the discourage- 
 ments attending it. In these I trust you will be 
 sustained by the highest consolations which a 
 Christian man and a Christian priest can experi- 
 ence. But there are times in which you will 
 need lower helps also, if they be but of the right 
 kind. I can scarcely think of any which will be 
 more cheering to you than the recollection that 
 you are carrying into effect principles which were 
 a 4
 
 XXX11 DEDICATION. 
 
 years ago urged upon our countrymen by your 
 father, and that you are doing what in you lies to 
 prove, that one who has been called a theorist and 
 a dreamer, was in truth labouring to procure the 
 most practical benefits for his country and 
 for mankind. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 My dear Mr. Coleridge, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 F. MAURICE.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Quaker's reason for being discontented with his own Society 
 
 Evangelical influences 4 
 
 Unitarian influences 6 
 
 Anglican High Church arguments 9 
 
 Romanist arguments 17 
 
 A new method of inquiry proposed 20 
 
 PART I. 
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE QUAKERS, AND OF THE 
 DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS BODIES WHICH HAVE ARISEN 
 SINCE THE REFORMATION, AND OF THE SYSTEMS TO 
 WHICH THEY HAVE GIVEN BIRTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 QUAKERISM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ON THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES OF THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Quakerism as described by modern Quakers 28 
 
 Quakerism as described by Penn and Fox 30 
 
 Mental history of Fox 32 
 
 Discovery of man's relation to the LIVING WORD 34 
 
 Quaker doctrine respecting an universal light and a spiritual king- 
 dom 36 
 
 Quaker doctrine of spiritual influences 38 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 ORDINARY OBJECTIONS TO THESE DOCTRINES. 
 
 Objection to the doctrine of the inward lighter indwelling Word, 
 
 that it is mystical, how far tenable 40 
 
 a5
 
 XXXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Objection to it as unscriptural, how far tenable 42 
 
 Objection to it as unsupported by evidence from heathen records, 
 
 how far tenable 44 
 
 Objections to the other Quaker doctrines 53 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 
 
 Renunciation of formulas 54 
 
 Renunciation of ordinances 56 
 
 Renunciation of national distinctions 57 
 
 Opinion respecting the Scriptures as an authority 58 
 
 Opinion respecting studies, amusements, language 60 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 
 
 What evidence is admissible on this subject 61 
 
 Quaker attempts at spiritual purity, why abortive 63 
 
 Quaker attempts at universality, why abortive 65 
 
 Quaker attempts at education, contradictory to the principle in 
 
 which the society stands 68 
 
 Quaker protest against the world ineffectual 69 
 
 Final issue of the Quaker experiment 73 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PURE PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 THE LEADING PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Martin Luther The processes of his mind Idea of Justification by 
 
 faith 76 
 
 Second Reformation principle Election how connected with the 
 
 first How far characteristic of Calvin 81 
 
 Third Reformation principle Authority of the Scriptures Its re- 
 lation to the two other Its connection with Zuinglius 83 
 
 Fourth Reformation principle Distinction of nations and Rights 
 of sovereigns Its connection with the previous history of 
 Europe With the other signs of the Reformation 86 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 
 
 The objections to the Lutheran doctrines of JUSTIFICATION, as 
 
 exalting an outward Object of faith 93 
 
 Objection to the same doctrine, as involving the idea of Satisfaction 
 
 and Propitiation 98
 
 CONTENTS. XXXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Objection to the same doctrine, as mistaking the Act of Conversion 
 
 for a theological principle 103 
 
 Objection to the same doctrine, as substituting individual Conscious- 
 ness for the universal Atonement 114 
 
 Objection to the Calvinistical doctrine of ELECTION, as interfering 
 with the acknowledgment of men's relation to the living 
 Word .- 117 
 
 Objection to the same doctrine, as interfering with human Obedi- 
 ence 119 
 
 Objection to the same doctrine, as substituting the selection of In- 
 dividuals for the selection of a Body 120 
 
 Objection to the Reformation doctrine, respecting the Bible, as in- 
 terfering with the acknowledgment of an inward Light 121 
 
 Objection to the same doctrine, as asserting the right of private 
 
 Judgment 125 
 
 Objection to the same doctrine as attributing the teachings of the 
 
 Spirit to individuals, and not a body 128 
 
 The doctrine of the Reformation respecting Nations 129 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 Lutheranism How it became a system Joint influence of Luther 
 
 and Melanchthon 132 
 
 Calvinism, the essentially Protestant system Development of it 135 
 
 Zuinglianism Its principle Its negative character 138 
 
 Arminianism Its relation to Protestantism and to Popery 139 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL WORKINGS OF THE PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 Luther's feelings respecting his own work 141 
 
 How formularies became important to the Lutheran 143 
 
 Reaction of spiritual feelings against them 144 
 
 Fictions of Lutheranism 146 
 
 Reaction of common sense against them 148 
 
 Calvinism in its strength. 150 
 
 Continental Calvinism 152 
 
 Scotch 'Calvinism 154 
 
 English Calvinism 161 
 
 Final result of the pure Protestant experiment 163 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 1. Change in the opinion of Protestants during the 18th century 
 respecting the character and importance of those principles 
 which are not peculiar to themselves 166 
 
 a6
 
 XXXVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 '2. Change of opinion respecting the source of knowledge 168 
 
 3. Change of opinion respecting the origin and principles of society 169 
 
 The positive side of Unitarianism 170 
 
 Effect of natural studies in leading to an impatience of every 
 doctrine which seemed to contradict the idea of the Divine 
 
 Unity 171 
 
 Or to involve any qualification of the Divine benevolence 174 
 
 Or to represent the condition of Humanity as wholly lost 177 
 
 Attempted confutation of the positive parts of Unitarianism, why 
 
 unsuccessful 178 
 
 Its negative elements how connected with them 180 
 
 Their essential contradiction to each other 182 
 
 Final result of the Unitarian experiment 186 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE TENDENCY OF *THE RELIGIOUS, PHILOSOPHICAL, 
 AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS WHICH HAVE TAKEN PLACE 
 IN PROTESTANT BODIES SINCE THE MIDDLE OF THE 
 LAST CENTURY. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 Methodism How far a reassertion of the Protestant principle .... 188 
 
 In what respects it stood upon a different ground 191 
 
 Attempts at an extra-national religious ORGANIZATION 196 
 
 Attempts to discover a wider THEOLOGY than that which is founded 
 upon mere Protestant principles, in Germany, America, and 
 
 Scotland 199 
 
 Attempts to form a New Catholic Church 212 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 Materialism of the eighteenth century 214 
 
 How it affected religious men 216 
 
 A gradual revolution 217 
 
 Its connection with religious feelings and principles 219 
 
 Change in men's feelings respecting NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 223 
 
 MODERN POETRY AND CRITICISM 225 
 
 Their practical effects.... 230 
 
 PURE METAPHYSICS Influence of Kant 237 
 
 Old and new Rationalism 240 
 
 Connection of new Rationalism with Catholicism 243 
 
 Inferences from it, and reactions against it 245 
 
 ECLECTICISM 251 
 
 Its practical influence on our age visible in all directions 254
 
 CONTENTS. XXXV11 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 POLITICAL MOVKMENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Change in the feelings of Protestants respecting monarchical go- 
 vernment 259 
 
 Puritan colonies in North America 261 
 
 Progress towards the French Revolution Ordinary Parisian philo- 
 sophy Philosophy of Rousseau Glorification of NATURE 263 
 
 Effects of the French Revolution upon Protestant countries 
 
 Assertion of the superiority of LAW to NATURE 267 
 
 Recent reaction against these effects. Assertion of the superiority 
 
 of WILL to LAW 269 
 
 Consequence of this reaction 272 
 
 The French Revolution, an attempt to establish an UNIVERSAL 
 
 POLITY 274 
 
 Reaction against this attempt in Protestant countries 275 
 
 Renewal of the attempt in different forms, Benthamism, St. Simo- 
 
 nianism, Owenism 276 
 
 Result of these experiments 287 
 
 Rousseau's doctrine of EDUCATION. Reaction against it in Pro- 
 testant countries 289 
 
 More recent feelings on the subject, grounded on the actual cir- 
 cumstances of Society 290 
 
 Spiritual tendency of these feelings ; the acknowledged object of 
 
 Education to obtain a dominion over the human will 293 
 
 Effort of States to obtain a control over Education at variance 
 
 with this feeling how justified 296 
 
 PART II. 
 
 OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE ROMISH 
 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Popular modern notion respecting the gradual Substitution of the 
 IDEAL for the PERSONAL and HISTORICAL in religious 
 
 systems ^ 300 
 
 Is it supported by the failure of the Quaker system? 301 
 
 Is it supported by the failure of the Protestant systems ? . 304 
 
 Is it supported by the failure of the Unitarian system ? 308 
 
 Popular modern notion respecting the substitution of an Idea for 
 a SPIRITUAL SOCIETY Is it borne out by the failure of the 
 Reformers, the Quakers, the Unitarians, modern Philoso- 
 phers, to establish a united society? 310
 
 XXXV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGR 
 Popular modern notion that there may be a universal society not 
 
 grounded upon REVELATION 316 
 
 Ts it borne out by the history of Quakerism, Calvinism, Unitarian- 
 ism? 318 
 
 Is it borne out by the discoveries of recent philosophers? 320 
 
 Popular modern notion that there may be a universal society not 
 
 governed by an actual KING 321 
 
 Is it borne out by the history of Quakerism, pure Protestantism, 
 
 Unitariamsm ? 322 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 INDICATIONS OF A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 
 
 The existence of FAMILIES treated as unimportant by religious 
 
 sects and by philosophers 327 
 
 The fact that they do exist the first indication that a spiritual 
 ORDER is appointed for men and yet belongs to them as 
 voluntary creatures 328 
 
 The fact that NATIONS exist, a second indication of the same truth 
 
 How connected with the foregoing 333 
 
 Indication of a feeling in men after a more comprehensive Society 339 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Character of the Bible not systematic, but methodical 342 
 
 Idea of a covenant between God and man the central one in it 
 
 This covenant first with ufamily 344 
 
 Secondly, with a nation Development of the nation out of the 
 
 family 347 
 
 Wherein the nation was distinct from the family 350 
 
 How the nation was identified with the family 352 
 
 Attempts at Babylonian and universal monarchy How resisted 
 
 by the Jewish nation 354 
 
 Vision of a true UNIVERSAL KINGDOM, of which this was the 
 
 counterfeit and perpetual enemy 356 
 
 The New Testament begins with the announcement of a KINGDOM 359 
 
 Charge against this language that it is Jewish, considered 360 
 
 Connection of this kingdom with the old Jewish kingdom 362 
 
 Effects of the proclamation of this kingdom upon different classes 
 
 of the Jews 364 
 
 How inferpreted by the acts of our Lord's life 366 
 
 The establishment of a Kingdom grounded upon a NAME The 
 
 consummation of the gospel history 368 
 
 Development of this idea through the Acts of the Apostles and 
 
 the different Epistles 369
 
 CONTENTS. XXXIX 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SIGNS OF A SPIRITUAL SOCIETY. 
 
 PAGE 
 Question to be considered 379 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 Statement of the fact Use and prevalency of this sign 380 
 
 Is it connected in the Gospels with the Kingdom which our Lord 
 
 came to establish ? 381 
 
 Inference TJie baptized man is a member o/Chrisfs spiritual and 
 
 universal Kingdom 385 
 
 Quaker objections to this inference " A spiritual fact cannot be 
 denoted by an outward sign" " It is false to give the sign 
 to one who has not the reality" " The sign is useless to a 
 man who is already united to the Divine Word" His in- 
 terpretation of John's Baptism 387 
 
 Antipsedobaptist objections " Those who have no spiritual con- 
 sciousness or capacity cannot be admitted to baptism" 392 
 
 Modern Protestant objections " There are two kingdoms, one out- 
 ward and one inward Baptism admits to the first, Conver- 
 sion to the second" 398 
 
 Modern philosophical objections " Baptism cannot be the sign of 
 a universal society, it belongs to the members of a certain 
 religious sect" " It does not distinguish the wise from the 
 unwise" " It involves the acknowledgment of an incom- 
 prehensible dogma" " It presumes the existence of an evil 
 Spirit" 409 
 
 The ROMISH SYSTEM Idea of the opus operatum 422 
 
 Why this idea is in direct opposition to that which has been set 
 
 forth in this section 424 
 
 The Catholic and Romish doctrine found side by side in the same 
 
 writers How to distinguish them 429 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note A. Extracts from St. Augustine, illustrating the primitive 
 
 mode of teaching Catechumens, and arguing with heretics... 433 
 
 Note B. Remarks on a passage in Tittmann's Meletcmata Sacra.. . 439 
 
 Note C. On the modern treatment of ancient philosophers 444 
 
 Note D. On the writings of Philo 449 
 
 Note E. On the charges against the Alexandrian fathers 458 
 
 Note on German Protestantism 462
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE CREEDS. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 How the Catholic idea of Baptism reconciles the doctrines of those 
 
 who oppose it. Transition to the Creeds 1 
 
 The Apostles' Creed, its form, its relation to Baptism, its relation 
 
 to the Scriptural idea of Christ's Kingdom 5 
 
 The Nicene Creed, wherein it resembles the Apostles', wherein 
 
 they differ 8 
 
 Quaker objection to ' the outward character of the Creed' 11 
 
 Modern Protestant Objection. ' The Creeds interfere with the 
 
 Bible' 13 
 
 Rationalistic objections * The Creed embodies an idea, the histo- 
 rical element in it is imaginary' 16 
 
 The Romish System. ' The notions and opinions of the Doctors 
 of the Romish Church are necessary to elucidate Scripture, 
 and to supply that which is deficient in it' 22 
 
 The Catholic Creeds are a defence of the Scriptures and of the 
 poor man against the attempts of Doctors, to confuse the 
 one, and rob the other '-'4 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 FORMS OF WORSHIP. 
 
 Varieties of worship in different countries 30 
 
 The existence of common Liturgies belonging to different nations, 
 
 a strange fact ...... 32
 
 CONTENTS. xli 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Explicable only upon the hypothesis, that there is a spiritual and 
 
 universal kingdom 33 
 
 Quaker objection to Liturgies 'Prayer is given by the Spirit, 
 prepared forms make it the utterance of the wil 1 and reason 
 of man' 35 
 
 Objection of the pure Protestant* ' Forms of Prayer cannot be 
 
 adapted to changes of circumstances and individual feeling' . 40 
 
 Objection of the modern Philosopher ' The idea of Worship is 
 
 inconsistent with the immutability and perfection of God'. . 51 
 
 The Romish System. Romish Prayers not distinguished from 
 
 Catholic Prayers, by a chronological line 63 
 
 True distinction The one treats the Church as if she were ad- 
 mitted into the presence of God, the other, as if she were 
 not 64 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 Evidence of permanency and universality in this sign 70 
 
 Scripture explanation of it 73 
 
 Inference This Sacrament is an actual and not an imaginary bond 
 betiveen God and man, and fulfils the idea of the Jeiwsk Sa- 
 crifices 76 
 
 Quaker Objection. ' The Sacrifice required of Christians is real 
 and personal the Euebaristic Sacrifice is formal and fan- 
 tastic ? 80 
 
 Division of Protestant Objections 89 
 
 General Objection.' ' If any sacrificial character be imputed to the 
 Eucharist, the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was not 
 complete' 91 
 
 Zuinglian Doctrine. ' This Sacrament is merely the memorial 
 
 of a past Transaction' 95 
 
 The Calvinistical Doctrine. ' There is a real presence in the Sa- 
 crament to those who believe' 104 
 
 Lutheran Doctrine. ' The divine body and blood are consubstan- 
 
 tiated with the elements' 106 
 
 Rationalistic Objection. ' The Christian mysteries are only a 
 
 continuation of the old heathen mysteries' 110 
 
 The Romish System The Romish doctrine respecting the eucha- 
 ristic sacrifice and respecting transubstantiation, is in more 
 direct opposition to the Catholic idea of this Sacrament, 
 than it is to the doctrine of the pure Protestants 126 
 
 Participation of the Spiritual body practically denied by the 
 
 Romanist 131 
 
 Priesthood degraded by the Romanist 132 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 THE MINISTRY. 
 
 Character commonly imputed to a Sacerdotal caste Spirit of Do- 
 mination Disposition to enslave Narrowness 135
 
 xlii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Idea of the Christian Ministry All who belong to this caste, ser- 
 vants Its principal office, absolving or setting free Its 
 highest office, a witness to the universality of the Church... 136 
 
 Connection of this sign with the general idea of a Spiritual King- 
 dom 143 
 
 How expounded in the New Testament 146 
 
 Inference ' A Ministry grounded upon an Episcopal order, and 
 possessing an absolving power, is a permanent institution of 
 the Christian Church" 149 
 
 Quaker Objections' A true minister is made such by an inward 
 call' ' The idea of succession belonged to the Old Dispen- 
 sation' A minister is fitted for his work by the teaching of 
 the Spirit' J51 
 
 Presbyterian Objections ' Christ is the only Bishop of his Church' 
 ' The Bishop is not in Scripture distinguished from the 
 Presbyter' ' The Episcopal order has introduced corruption 
 and secularity into the Church' 180 
 
 Objections to the absolving power in Ministers ' The minister 
 sets the conscience free by preaching ; when he tries to ab- 
 solve in any other sense, he usurps the power of his Master' 191 
 
 Objection of the followers of Mr. Irving ' There should be an 
 
 order of Apostles superior to that of Bishops' 198 
 
 Philosophical Objections ' Men of letters and of science are the 
 
 true priests' 208 
 
 The Romish System The Romish System maintains a vicarial, 
 the Catholic Church a representative priesthood These 
 two ideas are in direct contradiction to each other '215 
 
 How the Romanist has destroyed the idea of absolution by his 
 
 vicarial doctrine 218 
 
 How he has set at nought the Episcopacy 220 
 
 How he has destroyed the connection between the Jewish and 
 
 Christian economy 224 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 The Scriptures interpret the other signs of the Spiritual Kingdom, 
 
 but are also themselves signs of it 225 
 
 The Canon explained by looking at the Scriptures in this light. ... 227 
 
 Different methods of interpreting them reconciled 228 
 
 The Question, where are the interpreters of the book to be 
 
 found ? considered 230 
 
 The question, how criticism can be applied to the Scriptures? 
 
 considered 232 
 
 The question of inspiration, and of the relation of Scriptures to 
 
 . other books, considered : 243 
 
 The question of miracles considered 256 
 
 The question of the Gospel narratives considered 263 
 
 The Romish System The Romish doctrine respecting the con- 
 cealment of the Scriptures from the Laity The inspiration 
 and miracles of particular men, and the lives of particular 
 saints, considered in reference to this subject 270
 
 CONTENTS. xliii 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE RELATION* OF THE CHURCH AND NATIONAL 
 BODIES. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Different views as to the permanence of the Jewish institutions ... 283 
 
 The Ten Commandments 284 
 
 Illustration of these commandments from Pagan history 287 
 
 The institutions to which these commandments refer, exist in 
 
 Modern Europe 290 
 
 They may be national institutions and yet divine 292 
 
 Punishments, Oaths, War, belong to the religion of the Jewish 
 
 State.. 293 
 
 And of every heathen State 295 
 
 They cannot belong to our Dispensation if they are prohibited in 
 
 the New Testament They may belong to it, though they 
 
 are not enjoined in the New Testament 296 
 
 The relation between Spiritual and National life exhibited in the 
 
 Old Testament 299 
 
 Exhibited in Pagan history Lost under the Roman empire 302 
 
 The Christian Kingdom felt to be incompatible with this empire. . 303 
 
 Attempted union with it 305 
 
 Overthrow of the Roman empire, and gradual rise of national 
 
 societies under the influence of the Church 306 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OBJECTIONS OP THE QUAKER. 
 
 ' The Sermon on the Mount annuls the laws of the old dispensa- 
 tion' 313 
 
 ' A national provision for ministers is unchristian' 363 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE PURE THEOCRATIST. 
 
 ' The Nation is to use its sword for religious purposes' The Cove- 
 nanter The Millennarian The Non-j uror 363 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE SEPARATIST. 
 
 ' The union of the Church with the State is the union of an anti- 
 secular with a secular body' 374 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 THE PATRICIAN. 
 
 The golden age of the Church was that which existed before the 
 
 rise of national life in Europe' 381
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 I 
 
 THE MODERN STATESMAN. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ' If the Church and the nations be united according to the idea set 
 forth in this chapter, the education of each nation must be- 
 long to the Church Such a pretence was always dangerous, 
 i* MOW intolerable 1 ................................................... 412 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 THE MODERN INTERPRETERS OF PROPHECY. 
 
 The constitution of Society cannot be right and divine now, for 
 Christ at his second coming will make all things new' 
 ' The Jewish nation is the divine nation' ' The Latin 
 Church is apostate, and will be cut off' ........................ 43.5 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE SYSTEMS WHICH 
 DIVIDE IT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 HOW FAR THIS SUBJECT IS CONNECTED WITH THOSE 
 PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED. 
 
 What the enquiries of the English Churchman ought to be ......... 453 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 DO THE SIONS OF AN UNIVERSAL AND SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION 
 EXIST IN ENGLAND? 
 
 All the Catholic institutions exist here .................................. 456 
 
 The meaning attached to these deduced from the Liturgy The 
 meaning of the Liturgy from the complaints of those who 
 object to it ............................................................. 457 
 
 The relative claims of the two sets of persons in England who call 
 
 themselves Catholics, to represent the Church ................ 469 
 
 'Die Articles The first division of them sets aside the Calvinistic 
 system The second division the Romish The Calvinis- 
 tical principle asserted in the one as the Catholic is in the 
 other ..................................................................... 471
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 DOES THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH IN ENGLAND EXIST APART FROM ITS 
 CIVIL INSTITUTIONS IN UNION WITH THEM ? 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The answer to this question unanimous 477 
 
 The nature of the union determined from history 478 
 
 How affected by the Reformation 481 
 
 How affected by subsequent events 482 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 WHAT IS THE FORM OF CHARACTER WHICH BELONGS ESPECIALLY TO 
 ENGLISHMEN? TO WHAT DEPRAVATION IS IT LIABLE? 
 
 The ordinary answer that Englishmen are essentially political, the 
 
 true one 489 
 
 We cannot throw off this character 490 
 
 That part of our literature is the noblest which exhibits it most 
 
 strikingly 491 
 
 It is not unfavourable to the highest virtue and devotion 492 
 
 It belongs equally to all parties 494 
 
 How it was depraved in the period between the English and the 
 
 French Revolution 495 
 
 Form which it assumed in the reign of George III 498 
 
 Attempt to discover a substitute for it 499 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ENGLISH SYSTEMS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE LIBERAL SYSTEM THE EVANGELICAL SYSTEM THE HIGH 
 CHURCH OR CATHOLIC SYSTEM. 
 
 The Liberal protest against English orthodoxy ' It is opposed to 
 
 all improvement and comprehension' 501 
 
 The Evangelical protest against it ' It substitutes conduct for 
 
 faith' 502 
 
 The Catholic protest against it ' It confounds the Church with the 
 
 civil power' 503 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THESE SYSTEMS AND ON OUR POSITION GENERALLY. 
 
 Importance not of one, but of all these protests 505 
 
 Value and truth of the Liberal principle ; it is contradicted by the 
 
 Liberal system 506
 
 xlvi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Value and truth of the Evangelical principle ; it is contradicted 
 
 by the Evangelical system 507 
 
 Value and truth of the Catholic principle ; it is contradicted 
 
 by the Catholic system 509 
 
 Mutual charges of these parties, how far true 513 
 
 How they may be made useful to our old English feeling How 
 
 they actually threaten to destroy it 516 
 
 How an English Churchman may serve his country without be- 
 longing to a party 524 
 
 Conclusion 541 
 
 Note on the Athanasian Creed 548
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THIS work appeared originally in the form of 
 Letters, to a Member of the Society of Friends. 
 It was suggested by a controversy which was 
 dividing the Quaker society. Its main object 
 was to inquire whether an acknowledgment of the 
 spiritual principles, which were professed by the 
 Quaker body, involved the rejection of Christian 
 ordinances, or whether one did not necessarily 
 imply the other. This question was almost iden- 
 tical with another. The Quakers had sought to 
 establish a spiritual kingdom in the world. Did 
 not such a Kingdom exist already, and were not 
 these ordinances the expression of it ? 
 
 Among many minor but serious mistakes in 
 my treatment of this subject, I found that there 
 was one which had tended to make my pur- 
 pose unintelligible. The early Quakers affirmed, 
 that the Spiritual Kingdom was denned by no 
 national boundaries. But the Quaker Society 
 
 VOL. i. b
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 has, in fact, existed only in England and in 
 America. As I wished to shew the Quaker to 
 whom I wrote that there was a spiritual body 
 in which he himself might find a home, when 
 the Quaker sect no longer afforded him one, I 
 naturally alluded, in every Letter, to the Eng- 
 lish Church speaking of her sacraments, minis- 
 ters, forms of worship, &c. It seemed, therefore, 
 to many, that I was composing an apology for 
 this Church. But if so, how, it was asked, had 
 I fulfilled my promise of shewing the Quakers 
 that there was a Church Universal, such as they 
 had dreamed of? 
 
 I found that my book had been much more 
 read by members of my own communion than by 
 Quakers. Some of my friends, therefore, naturally 
 suggested, that in any new edition I should con- 
 vert it into a Treatise on the Church, leaving out 
 all reference to the sect, for the sake of which it 
 had been written. This advice I could not take. 
 If I have been able to suggest any thought to a 
 Churchman which he will not find far better set 
 before him in a hundred other books, I owe it to 
 the circumstances which induced me to attempt 
 a comparison between our own position and that 
 of those who seem to be at the greatest distance 
 from us. Moreover, it is obvious, from what I 
 have just said, that if I lost sight of the Quakers,
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 I should abandon one means of repairing the error 
 which I have committed. By following out their 
 line of thought, we may have a good hope of 
 learning how men of earnest minds have been 
 brought to feel that they need a Catholic Church, 
 and not merely a National Church. 
 
 But though I cannot cease to connect my 
 hints with the principles of the Quakers, I find 
 that I am almost obliged to omit any allusion to 
 the particular controversy which led me to ad- 
 dress them. For that controversy appears to be 
 at an end, and the Society is much more likely 
 to perish by a slow decay, than by a sudden 
 convulsion. Owing to this circumstance, and to 
 others of a more private nature, the form of Let- 
 ters, which I originally adopted, is no longer ap- 
 plicable. I have been induced, therefore, to rewrite 
 and reconstruct my book ; and thus I hope to 
 remove, in some degree, the fault of which I have 
 spoken. I have endeavoured also to remove 
 some of the more gross and palpable errors, 
 which I discovered in it myself, or were pointed 
 out to me by others. Enough, I doubt not, re- 
 main ; and in the additions which I have made, 
 others may have been introduced. It will never, 
 I hope, be regarded as anything but a collection 
 of Hints, which, if they lead the reader into deeper
 
 1 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 thought and greater reverence, may soon be the 
 means of making him far wiser than his instructor. 
 The following Dialogue will explain how the 
 subject of the whole book is connected with the 
 history of the Quaker body. The conversation is, 
 as to its form, an imaginary one ; but I have often 
 expressed the same sentiments in intercourse with 
 members of the Society, and the Quaker's descrip- 
 tion of the trials, to which a thoughtful man who 
 has found a sectarian position no longer tenable 
 is exposed from within and without, may, I be- 
 lieve, be regarded as an "ower true tale 1 ." 
 
 1 My readers are of course aware, that the Archbishop of 
 Dublin has lately published a work entitled, " The- Kingdom of 
 Christ Delineated." From a feeling of respect to so distinguished 
 an author, as well as on selfish grounds, I should have been dis- 
 posed to change my title as soon as I knew that it had been so 
 appropriated. But it will be seen that the description of the 
 book is very closely connected with the intention of it, and that 
 the present edition answers more strictly to the name than the 
 former did. I am, therefore, obliged to retain it.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 P. 68, third line from bottom, for members, read nucleus. 
 
 Throughout Chapter IV. of the Second Part, the word society 
 should he substituted for constitution, in the head line of the 
 page. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 I must request the reader to correct a serious inadvertence, of 
 which I have been guilty at p. 15, of this volume. I have spoken 
 of the Apostles' Creed as 'precisely' the same for the last 1600 
 years. Every one knows that this is not true ; I should have 
 said 'substantially,' or have changed the number of years from 1600 
 to 1200. There may be many other mistakes, but the one of 
 which I speak might seem to have been introduced for the sake 
 of making my argument stronger, I am therefore very anxious 
 not to leave it unnoticed.
 
 THE 
 
 KINGDOM OF CHRIST, 
 
 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE WITH A QUAKER. 
 
 QUAKER. Are you serious in saying, that you 
 do not wish me to forsake the Society in which 
 I have been educated? 
 
 AUTHOR. I did not say that. I hope that you 
 will not forsake the principles in which you have 
 been educated. 
 
 Q. You mean those general principles of mo- 
 rality and that common Christianity, which you 
 and I have been alike taught to revere ? 
 
 A. No ; that is not my meaning. Whatever 
 those general principles and common doctrines 
 may be I do not believe that you will retain 
 them, unless you retain also those which are pro- 
 per to Quakerism. 
 
 VOL,. I. B
 
 2 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 Q. What can that imply, except that I ought 
 to continue in the Society ? 
 
 A. I can answer that question better, if you 
 will tell me what are your present inducements 
 to leave it. 
 
 Q. The story is a long one. I am afraid you 
 will not hear me to the end of it. I think I was 
 first startled by a contradiction which I remarked 
 between the profession and the practices of our 
 members. 
 
 A. You may make many changes before you 
 find a body in which the same observation will 
 not force itself upon you. 
 
 Q. I am quite aware of it ; and I hope I have 
 common sense enough not to part with any seri- 
 ous conviction, because hypocrites may feign to 
 possess it, or a good man may hold it with a feeble 
 grasp. That was not my difficulty. The con- 
 tradiction I noticed seemed to me to infect all 
 the arrangements, nay, in some degree, the very 
 constitution of our Society. We are witnesses 
 for spirituality ; I feel as if we were rank forma- 
 lists. 
 
 A. Corruption may have crept into your sys- 
 tem ; but why judge of it by its present appear- 
 ances ? Is there no possibility of reformation ? 
 
 Q. For a long time I believed there was. I 
 said to myself, I will study the writings of the
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 3 
 
 early Quakers. I shall find in them that higher 
 and purer spirit which seems to have departed 
 from us. 
 
 A. Were you disappointed ? 
 
 Q. I thought not. The writers I studied mani- 
 fested deep earnestness, courage, self-denial, an 
 intense conviction that what they said was true, 
 a readiness to live and die that others might 
 hear it. 
 
 A. You concluded, therefore, that your Society 
 had a sound foundation to rest upon ? 
 
 Q. If I had been convinced of that, I do not 
 think I should have despaired of its present state. 
 But here lay my perplexity. Since I had read 
 the Scriptures diligently and had known some- 
 thing of my own heart, the statements which I 
 heard from our Quaker ministers respecting hu- 
 man depravity, the grace of God, the redemption 
 by Christ, had seemed to me for the most part 
 vague and unsatisfactory. Still the doctrines 
 upon these subjects, which are ordinarily, and I 
 think rightly, called Evangelical, are recognised 
 among us; by some they are brought out pro- 
 minently. On the contrary, by those older 
 Quakers, whom on some grounds I felt so much 
 disposed to admire, these doctrines are far less 
 distinctly exhibited; other Christians seem to be 
 blamed for attaching importance to them ; some-
 
 4 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 times expressions are used which are almost in- 
 compatible with the belief of them. 
 
 A. Did you think that they substituted some 
 notions of their own for these doctrines ? 
 
 Q. I reluctantly adopted that suspicion, and 
 this it is which makes me wonder that you 
 should talk about my retaining the principles of 
 Quakerism. These principles are, it seems to 
 me, in opposition to what I suppose you con- 
 sider the leading tenets of the Gospel. 
 
 A. How did you arrive at that persuasion ? 
 
 Q. I was led to it by the workings of my own 
 mind, and then it was confirmed to me by the 
 testimony of two persons, who in many of their 
 views were at variance. 
 
 A. Who were these ? 
 
 Q. The first was an Independent dissenter. 
 He expressed strong admiration of the language 
 and conduct of Fox and Penn on many occa- 
 sions. He said indeed that he could not join 
 them in objecting to all pecuniary provision for 
 ministers, in their dislike of baptism and in several 
 points of that kind ; but that he heartily wished 
 the energy which they displayed in denouncing 
 ecclesiastical superstitions and oppressions would 
 communicate itself to English dissenters. 
 
 A. Surely this was most complimentary lan- 
 guage.
 
 WITH A QUAKER. O 
 
 Q. But when he came to speak of Fox's theo- 
 logical tenets, he adopted an entirely different 
 tone. He described him as a mystic, ignorant 
 of the truths of the Gospel, the proclaimer of 
 theories which utterly subverted them. The same 
 opinion was maintained, if possible, with more 
 earnestness by a clergyman of your Church, who 
 was present at the time. Much, he said, as he 
 disliked the indecorous and violent language of 
 Fox respecting the Established Church, he con- 
 sidered his doctrine of an Inward Light im- 
 measurably more dangerous than such language 
 could ever be. It was utterly incompatible with 
 the Bible, and with the experience of every true 
 Christian. 
 
 A. You remember perhaps some of the argu- 
 ments by which your two friends defended these 
 positions ? 
 
 Q. I do not think their arguments made so 
 much impression upon my mind as the clear 
 and settled persuasion which they both alike 
 entertained, that if Fox were right, the Bible 
 must be wrong. You may smile at my confes- 
 sion that I attached weight to such assertions, 
 when I cannot recall the evidence which was pro- 
 duced for them; but I know very well, that as- 
 sertions which proceed from deep conviction do
 
 6 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 often affect me more than elaborate and logical 
 proofs. 
 
 A. The case is the same with me. I shall not, 
 therefore, ridicule your acknowledgment. 
 
 Q. I am glad to hear it; for I do not find 
 that ridicule in general acts profitably upon my 
 mind. These two gentlemen, the dissenter and 
 the evangelical clergyman, after they had im- 
 pressed me very strongly by their serious objec- 
 tions, thought it expedient to indulge their hu- 
 mour at the expense of our founders and their 
 mystical notions. 
 
 A. When they had entered the castle, they were 
 naturally anxious to dismantle it. 
 
 Q. They took away more defences from me 
 than perhaps they meant. While they were with 
 me, I felt as if I were bound to say something 
 in behalf of feelings and thoughts which from 
 my childhood I had held sacred, even though 
 they might be deserting me. When I was left 
 alone, I found that I had indeed supported my 
 Quakerism inadequately ; but I had perceived 
 rents and hollows in their system, of which I 
 was not previously aware. Their wit succeeded 
 in shaking my reverence at once for my own 
 faith, and for that which I had hoped would 
 have been a substitute for it.
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 7 
 
 A. A melancholy state of mind indeed, as all 
 who have known it can testify. 
 
 Q. While I was under the influence of these 
 feelings, I read two Unitarian books, one written 
 by an Englishman of the last century, one by an 
 American of the present. 
 
 A. The former at least did not treat your 
 mystical feelings with more indulgence than 
 your evangelical friends had shown towards 
 them. 
 
 Q. No ; but he taught me, that it was possi- 
 ble to throw quite as good ridicule upon the 
 Calvinistical doctrine, as they and he were agreed 
 in throwing upon mine. The value of his critical 
 remarks and discoveries I was not able to appre- 
 ciate; but he said enough to convince me that 
 Scripture had been often strained to make out 
 a case in favour of the opinions which he at- 
 tacked, and that the number of positive texts in 
 their favour was far smaller than I had fancied. 
 Moreover, his views of the character of God 
 and his feelings respecting his fellow-creatures 
 accorded better with the testimony of my con- 
 science, than those which I had been wont to hear 
 from the members of any sect except my own. 
 
 A. The impression he left upon your mind 
 then was on the whole pleasing? 
 
 Q. By no means. My feeling, when I laid
 
 8 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 down the book, was one of utter coldness and 
 dreariness. The very idea of a spiritual world 
 and of a spiritual life seemed to be wanting in it ; 
 materialism was the ultimate point to which all 
 its speculations were tending, if it were not the 
 basis of them. 
 
 A. But that was not the case, I should think, 
 with the American. 
 
 Q. No; he was a person of a very different 
 temper. Some of his statements were not un- 
 like those which I have met with in Fox and 
 Penn. His mind was more comprehensive 
 than theirs; more capable of taking interest 
 in ordinary affairs and general literature, but 
 scarcely less morally exalted I was at times 
 inclined to say scarcely less spiritual. 
 
 A. You could acquiesce comfortably in his 
 religious scheme? 
 
 Q. I almost fancied that I could; there was 
 something so very capacious and engaging in it. 
 But just as I had finished the book, I fell iD, 
 and before I recovered I received news of the 
 death of one of my oldest and dearest friends. 
 Then all my interest both in the Englishman and 
 the American vanished; I think I disliked the 
 last most, because his promises were the fairest. 
 
 A. But did not you say you had traced a fine 
 vein of humanity and spirituality in him ?
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 9 
 
 Q. I thought so; but let him be as humane 
 or as spiritual as he would, he was not personal. 
 There was nothing in him from which a soul, 
 struggling with life and death, could derive the 
 least help. He was evidently meant for sunshine 
 and gala days. Then I recollected the words of 
 my evangelical friends, and the doctrines which 
 they had set before me. These seemed to me in 
 that moment all important. I bitterly accused 
 myself for having thought them narrow and hard. 
 What had I to do with large views about men's 
 happiness or the character of God? My own 
 individual soul was at war, and he who could 
 show me a way of peace for it was the friend 
 I wanted. With other matters it seemed now 
 that I had no right to trouble myself. 
 
 A. On your recovery you probably sought the 
 advice of the Independent dissenter whom you 
 named ? 
 
 Q. On some accounts I desired rather to have 
 another interview with the clergyman who had 
 spoken so strongly against Fox and mysticism ; 
 but just at that time he left the neighbourhood. 
 His successor in the parish was, I heard, an 
 author; so I purchased his books before I ven- 
 tured to call upon him. 
 
 A. Did they encourage you to expect assistance 
 from him ? 
 
 B 5
 
 10 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 Q. I thought I had been shaken enough be- 
 fore by my own discoveries, and by the words of 
 my different counsellors ; but it seems not : these 
 books were to upset me altogether. 
 
 A. How! You encountered a sceptic in the 
 disguise of a clergyman ? 
 
 Q. Oh, no ; he was the most vehement enemy 
 of all scepticism. He said doctrines had been 
 delivered in the earliest ages of Christianity which 
 it behoved us to receive with a simple uninquir- 
 ing faith; that the blessings of salvation were 
 connected with our submission to a certain sys- 
 tem which had been ordained by God ; that in 
 the evangelical teaching this system had been 
 almost entirely forgotten, or treated as if it were 
 merely a point of external arrangement ; that that 
 teaching spoke of a period of conversion in which 
 men passed from death unto life, while the Church 
 and Scripture referred this wonderful change to 
 baptism. 
 
 A. You did not believe these statements ; why 
 then did they affect you so powerfully ? 
 
 Q. Partly perhaps because they were uttered 
 with that strong and deep conviction which I 
 have confessed does always act most strongly 
 upon me, especially if it be supported, as I know 
 in the case of this clergyman it is, by the testi- 
 mony of a laborious and self-denying life. But
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 11 
 
 yet I think there was another cause. A person, 
 who has suffered severely from religious struggles, 
 has an inward sighing after rest which no one 
 else can know. Bruised, beaten, humbled, he 
 cannot help listening to any one who tells him 
 that he has been all wrong ; he has been so tor- 
 mented by his own miserable experiments and 
 failures, that he must rejoice to hear that he 
 ought to give them up altogether. After many 
 struggles therefore with my pride and my modesty, 
 the shame of uttering my feelings and the pain of 
 hiding them, I thought I would state my diffi- 
 culties to the new clergyman. 
 
 A. He can scarcely have looked for a proselyte 
 from such a quarter. 
 
 d. He evidently did not desire one ; and as I 
 had been used to meet persons who spared no 
 pains to bring me over to their ways of thinking, 
 the change was so far rather agreeable. But 
 besides this he evidently did not understand 
 me; nay, if I was not mistaken, he thought it 
 would be a wrong thing to understand me. I 
 dare say that I stammered and spoke incoherently 
 when I tried to tell him the thoughts that were in 
 my mind. One cannot speak quite so clearly 
 about one's self as about the weather and the 
 crops, and indeed he made so many efforts to turn 
 the conversation to those subjects, and fixed such
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 steady clear cold eyes upon me when I asked him 
 for information upon any others, that I certainly 
 did not exhibit lesfe embarrassment at the close 
 than at the beginning of our interview. 
 
 A. How did he show that he misunderstood 
 you? 
 
 Q. You know how I was educated to look 
 upon all forms and ordinances as sinful. Such 
 thoughts had grown with my growth, and strength- 
 ened with my strength. But of late I have re- 
 peatedly felt as if these forms might be desirable ; 
 nay, as if there were something in me which needed 
 them. It was on this point especially that I 
 
 wished to speak to Mr. . I knew that there 
 
 were many things which it might not be right 
 that he should teach me at present ; but I thought 
 that a person, who looked upon forms as most 
 important to our moral life, might have removed 
 some of the difficulties which clouded my mind in 
 reference to them, or at least have interpreted 
 some of those desires and longings, which, in spite 
 of my prejudices, I had conceived for them. But 
 this wish he seemed to consider irreverent and 
 presumptuous. " I can enter/' he said, " into no 
 explanations with you ; you are not in a state to 
 understand explanations ; you have one plain duty 
 to perform submit to the ordinances of Christ's 
 Church, confess the sins of your fathers in with-
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 13 
 
 drawing from it, and your own in continuing 
 the schism ; receive Christian Baptism ; then I 
 shall be happy to instruct you." " I am much 
 inclined to take this course," I replied, " but I 
 feel some difficulties and scruples which I do not 
 know how to overcome." "Sir," he said, "the case 
 may be stated very shortly to you. The Fathers of 
 the Church, the Saints and Martyrs of the first five 
 centuries, the Greek Church, the Romish Church, 
 the English Church, all agree that Baptism is the 
 one only door by which we can enter into Christ's 
 fold, and therefore into everlasting life. An igno- 
 rant mechanic in the 17th century said that there 
 was some other door you have chosen to dis- 
 believe the whole Catholic Church, and- to follow 
 the mechanic. Is this a safe proceeding? If a 
 speculation in cloth or wool were proposed to you, 
 and a hundred competent judges said it would be 
 your ruin one person, totally unacquainted with 
 the trade, that it might turn out well would you 
 not think yourself mad to venture upon it ? Will 
 you put your chances of salvation upon a still 
 greater risk ?" With these words he wished me 
 good morning. 
 
 A. How did this argument affect your mind ? 
 
 Q. You will wonder at me, perhaps, I wonder 
 at myself when I consider how very consistent and 
 plausible it seems but I never felt less moved by 
 
 1
 
 14) INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 any words in my life: I am wrong they did 
 produce an effect upon me they almost counter- 
 balanced the impression which had been made 
 upon my mind before, in favour of your Church 
 and its ordinances. 
 
 A. How could that be ? 
 
 Q. Reverence was what I looked for above all 
 things in this clergyman. He had talked of the 
 sin of irreverence in his book, and my heart had 
 felt the truth of his words. He said it was his 
 reverence which hindered him from speaking to 
 me on the subject of his faith. And yet he 
 could teach me to calculate about eternal life as 
 if it were a matter of merchandise ! He spoke not 
 to that in me which was looking above the earth, 
 but to my earthly selfish nature, not to that in me 
 which was ready to submit to anything or bear 
 anything for the sake of doing God's will and 
 attaining a knowledge of Him, but to all my proud, 
 contentious, disputatious feelings. He did not 
 address me as a creature capable of reverence, 
 though he accused me of irreverence; nay, he 
 taught me to connect a lower, more grovelling, 
 notion with Christianity than I had ever done 
 while under the most irreverent of my teachers. 
 
 A. You felt, then, that you should be more 
 right in continuing a Quaker ? 
 
 Q,. No, I did not feel that; my mind was in
 
 WITH A QUAKER. J5 
 
 the most wretched contradiction. But I said 
 to myself, I am urged to forsake the body in 
 which I have lived, and my fathers have lived : I 
 am to turn away from those who first taught me 
 to revere the operations of my own spirit, and to 
 tremble at the name of God ; I am to break all 
 the bonds of old affection and sympathy : and 
 why ? because there are higher objects and interests 
 for which even these must be sacrificed ? because I 
 must leave father and mother for the sake of Christ ? 
 no, but because it is the safer, the more politic, 
 course; because it is likely, upon a balance of 
 probabilities, that I shall be in less danger of suf- 
 fering a selfish loss here, or hereafter, if I take it. 
 Magnify the loss to me as you will ; heap up the 
 epithets infinite, eternal, as you may this is a 
 question of principle not of degree, and when I 
 set principle at nought, I believe these words, 
 great and terrible as they sound, lose all their 
 meaning to me. 
 
 A. You must not commit the unfairness of sup- 
 posing that the clergyman with whom you spoke 
 really attached no higher and more spiritual idea 
 to the words than that which he seems to have 
 conveyed to you ; he probably meant to use an 
 argumentum ad hominem. 
 
 Q. I fully understood that. The conviction I 
 formed from some parts of his book was, and still
 
 16 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 is, that he had a very high and spiritual apprehen- 
 sion of things. I knew he would think me unfit 
 to be admitted to his arcana, nor did I claim such 
 an honour. But from the little I have read about 
 the Catechumens in the primitive Church, I fancied 
 that they were not taught something wholly dif- 
 ferent in kind from that which they learnt after 
 their baptism 1 . I did not know that they were 
 reasoned with upon those selfish motives which 
 it must have been the object of their after initiation 
 to cure them of. But be that as it may, an argumen- 
 tum adhominem is meant,! suppose, to produce con- 
 viction of some kind or other ; else it is merely a 
 gratuitous insult to the person against whom it is 
 directed. Now I cannot conceive any one on 
 whom this kind of argument would produce con- 
 viction. It assumes him to whom it appeals to 
 care for nothing but profit and loss. A person 
 who does care for nothing but profit and loss 
 would merely smile at the attempt to awaken his 
 fears about an unseen and future blessing; his 
 whole mind is wrapt up in the things that are 
 passing around him. Your wisdom, therefore, 
 consists in ignoring the existence of that which 
 might listen to you, and in addressing yourself to 
 that which has no ears. 
 
 A. Well, but if this be an error, it is not peculiar 
 
 1 See note (A).
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 17 
 
 to one or another school among us. In a com- 
 mercial country we are all more or less inclined to 
 act, think, and argue upon such maxims as these. 
 
 Q. I do not think the clergyman I speak of 
 would be very grateful to you for telling him he 
 had adopted his notions from a commercial age. 
 But I was not bringing it as a charge against a 
 school, I was only telling you my own story. 
 
 A. It is a sad and eventful one but you have 
 not finished it ? 
 
 Q. The next incident will surprise you most of 
 all. I have scarcely courage to confess that dur- 
 ing the last two months I have had frequent and 
 not unpleasant interviews with a Romish priest. 
 
 A. The argument about safety is so established 
 and habitual a one among the members of his 
 church that I think he cannot have been more 
 agreeable to you than the English clergyman. 
 
 Q,. He has rarely, if ever, resorted to it possibly 
 he may have guessed from something I said to 
 him the first time we met, that it was not one 
 which was likely to have any great weight with 
 me. So far from denouncing any of my former 
 thoughts and opinions he has taken pains to show 
 me how many points of sympathy there are be- 
 tween us. 
 
 A. Of sympathy between a Romanist and a 
 Quaker !
 
 18 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 Q. " I find," he says, " in the writings of the 
 early Quakers, the most earnest longings after a 
 universal Church. Is it wonderful that they 
 should have felt such longings? That which is- 
 called the English Church the only one they 
 knew of is limited to a particular locality, sub- 
 jected to the yoke of a national sovereign, tied 
 down by national laws and customs. Depend 
 upon it, my friend, your founders were right : 
 that is not Christ's Church which is not universal." 
 
 A. How did you answer that ? 
 
 Q. I said that our Quaker system was by its 
 very nature spiritual, and that his Church seemed 
 to me to be opposed to spirituality. " Opposed 
 to spirituality !" he exclaimed ; " and where will 
 you find so many men and women of a high spiri- 
 tuality so many men and women who resembled 
 your own in their love of mystical contemplation 
 as among us ? Has not Thomas a Kempis been 
 always a favourite with your friends ? And is not 
 the Imitation of Christ, par excellence, the book of 
 Catholic devotion?" "These," I said, "were 
 individuals but the system ?" " Well," he con- 
 tinued ; " the system look, if you please, at that. 
 What is your great complaint against the English 
 system ? Is it not that the mouths of men are 
 shut who are urged by the Spirit to speak God's 
 word. Can you bring that charge against us?
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 19 
 
 Look at our friars, taken from the humblest classes, 
 recognized the moment they discover a real inward 
 vocation, adopted at once as our teachers though 
 they have no one worldly qualification to recom- 
 mend them. Do you not find fault with your 
 English authorities because they forbid one whole 
 sex to act as the handmaids of Christ and of his 
 flock? It is very true we do not adopt your 
 notion that women may speak in the Churches ; 
 we adhere more strictly to the words of Scripture 
 than to suffer such a practice: but the feeling 
 which has led you to lift your voices in behalf of 
 their rights and duties meets with every encou- 
 ragement among us Catholics. We rejoicer to see 
 women devoting themselves to the service of the 
 Church; we bestow upon them all help and 
 honour while they are living : we account them 
 saints when they die." Another point of agree- 
 ment he discovered between us. "What is the 
 great moving spring and centre of action to which 
 all your writers refer ? Surely it is love. They 
 believe that though faith and hope be great Chris- 
 tian graces, the greatest of all is Charity. That is 
 the very principle for which we are contending. 
 The Protestants wish to substitute faith for love. 
 We say as your friends have also said that we 
 will not." 
 
 A. Do you find that these arguments have
 
 20 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 brought your mind to greater quietness and satis- 
 faction ? 
 
 Q. Quietness and satisfaction! The words 
 seem to me as if they were spoken in a dream. 
 No indeed ! I am as far from quietness and satis- 
 faction as any poor mortal ever was. If ever the 
 thought of joining the Romish church do present 
 itself, it comes to me as the fearful dream of 
 something to which I may be driven as a last 
 hopeless alternative. And just as often it seems 
 to me that I may become a St. Simonian or a 
 Socialist. These systems, too, have their attrac- 
 tions ; they address themselves to wants in me 
 which I think must be satisfied and yet, perhaps, 
 they never are to be satisfied. Oftentimes I wish 
 above all things for a potion that would put me to 
 sleep. 
 
 A. To sleep, my friend, perchance to dream. 
 
 Q. I know it well; this broken fever-sleep is 
 worse than being awake. 
 
 A. Need I now answer the question which you 
 asked me at the beginning of our conversation 
 what I meant by wishing you to keep your 
 Quaker principles, though you might leave the 
 Quaker society ? 
 
 Q. Indeed you must; I am as much in the 
 dark about the possibility of such a distinction as 
 ever.
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 21 
 
 A. Your first objection to Quakerism arose from 
 the feeling that it was not acting out its original 
 idea. 
 
 Q. And my second from the feeling that that 
 idea was a false one. 
 
 A. Let us consider. Did you really discover 
 that idea to be a false one, or some other to be 
 true ? 
 
 Q. I found, or thought I found, certain great 
 doctrines laid down in Scripture, doctrines most 
 important to my own being and of these the early 
 Quakers seemed to take only a very passing notice, 
 if they did not reject them altogether. 
 
 A. I do not doubt that you discovered these 
 doctrines in Scripture, or that you found them 
 practically important, or that the early Quakers 
 comparatively neglected them. What I doubt is, 
 whether you ascertained those doctrines of which 
 the Quakers did take notice to be unimportant, 
 unscriptural, or inconsistent with the others. 
 
 Q. I certainly thought they were. 
 
 A. Yes, and to that judgment of yours, 
 formed, perhaps, upon very hasty and insufficient 
 evidence, you attached the same sacredness as to 
 the witness of your heart and conscience, and of 
 Scripture with your heart and conscience, that 
 those doctrines of which your evangelical friends 
 spoke were needful to you.
 
 22 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 Q. Is that a practical distinction ? 
 
 A. It is one which you have yourself recog- 
 nized in the most emphatic manner. Did not you 
 say that while the dissenting minister and the 
 evangelical clergyman were maintaining their own 
 positions, they made the deepest impression upon 
 you ? And did not you say that when they began 
 to ridicule the mystical opinions, they created 
 the most vehement reaction in your mind against 
 that which you had been previously inclined to 
 adopt ? 
 
 Q. I certainly said so. 
 
 A. Well ! and in that confession, I think I can 
 find an explanation of all your subsequent expe- 
 rience. You parted too suddenly with something 
 which God meant you to keep, and all the bewil- 
 derment and restlessness you have since suffered 
 has been the necessary and appointed punishment 
 of that error. 
 
 Q,. If it be so, it is an error which I cannot 
 retrieve. The Evangelical, the Unitarian, the 
 English clergyman, the Romanist, may have left 
 me nothing to fill the void in my mind, but they 
 have effectually despoiled me of what was there 
 before. They have not convinced me that there 
 is a standing-place in any of their systems, but 
 they have made me certain that I have none in 
 my own.
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 23 
 
 A. Alas ! it is thus that men benevolent men 
 honest men holy men, trifle with that which 
 is most awful and sacred in the minds of then- 
 brethren ! But they suffer as much evil as they 
 inflict. 
 
 Q. In what way ? 
 
 A. They turn the truths which they hold in 
 their inmost hearts, and which God has given 
 them to defend, into negations and contradictions; 
 they oblige themselves to resort to insufficient 
 proofs and false assumptions in support of these 
 truths, because they have wilfully rejected the 
 evidence of them which God was supplyirjg in 
 the wants and cravings of their fellow men ; they 
 encourage infidelity under the name of faith ; they 
 form parties when they mean to proclaim prin- 
 ciples which would make parties impossible ; they 
 set up theories and systems based upon private 
 judgments and individual conceits, when they are 
 professing by some way or other to lead us on to 
 permanent truths which belong to all and are 
 necessary for all; they create new divisions by 
 the very efforts which they make to promote 
 unity ; they invent lines and landmarks of their 
 own, but the grand everlasting distinctions which 
 God has established escape them altogether. 
 
 Q. But why declaim against an evil which 
 seems so deeply rooted in human nature, that the
 
 24 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 efforts of six thousand years to eradicate it have 
 proved abortive ? 
 
 A. Why, indeed ; if I did not believe that God 
 had provided a complete and effectual witness 
 against this evil, which is, as you say, so rooted in 
 our selfish natures; if I did not see that this 
 witness had prevailed to make itself heard in 
 every age above all the clamours and distractions 
 which were seeking to drown its voice ; if I were 
 not convinced that the world would have been 
 torn in pieces by its individual factions, if there 
 had not been this bond of peace and fellowship in 
 the midst of it; if I were not sure that peace- is 
 meant to drive out war, good evil, light darkness ; 
 if I could not recognize more abundant proofs of 
 this glorious fact in our own day than in any pre- 
 vious one ; if it did not seem to me that all sects 
 and factions, religious, political, or philosophical, 
 were bearing testimonies, sometimes mute, some- 
 times noisy, occasionally hopeful, oftener reluc- 
 tant, to the presence of that Church Universal, 
 which is at once to justify their truths, explain 
 the causes of their opposition, and destroy their 
 existence. 
 
 Q. But the difficulty is that these factions have 
 been in the Church Universal itself assign what- 
 ever meaning you please to that phrase. 
 
 A. That is just the very point I was asserting.
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 25 
 
 I said there was a sect spirit, a spirit which la- 
 boured to set up individual whims, opinions, and 
 judgments in each of us; in us of the English 
 Church, as well as in the Romanist, the foreign 
 Protestant, the Quaker, the Evangelical Dissenter, 
 or the Unitarian. The question is whether we do 
 not all in our hearts and consciences feel and 
 know that this sect spirit is a vile, accursed, 
 devilish spirit ; whether, if we do know this, these 
 same hearts and consciences do not testify that it 
 is not meant to rule the world; whether if that 
 testimony be true, we are not bound to inquire 
 what is to rule the world instead of it. 
 
 Q. And that enquiry you think I may even yet 
 enter upon with some hope ? 
 
 A. The early Quakers testified that there was a 
 KINGDOM OF CHRIST in the world, and that it 
 would subdue all kingdoms to itself. Are you 
 willing to enquire with me into the grounds upon 
 which they made this assertion ; to consider 
 whether those grounds be tenable ; and whether 
 the Quaker system be or be not the realization of 
 the Quaker idea ? Shall we then enquire into 
 the principles of those religious bodies who wish 
 you to reject Quakerism; asking whether these 
 also may not be sound and true, and whether 
 they have not been depraved and degraded by 
 certain negative notions to which they have been 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 26 INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE 
 
 appended ; whether the systems which have been 
 invented to express them, do really express them or 
 no ? Supposing our conclusions on this last point 
 should not be satisfactory, shall we then proceed 
 to consider the assertion of the Romanist that 
 there is a Catholic Church which existed before 
 all these systems, and which is derived from a 
 higher authority than all of them ? If he should 
 be able to make this assertion good, we may then 
 enquire whether the Romish system be this 
 Church or the disease of it ; whether that system 
 have exalted the ordinances of the Church which its 
 supporters acknowledge and revere, or have de- 
 graded them and deprived them of their signi- 
 ficance ; whether this Church Catholic be in con- 
 tradiction to those ideas which the Quakers and 
 the other Protestant bodies hold, or whether it be 
 the legitimate and perfect realization of them. 
 We cannot complete this investigation without 
 examining that point upon which your Romanist 
 friend discovered so close a resemblance between 
 your views and his ; the point, I mean, whether a 
 national society and a universal society be in 
 their natures contradictory and incompatible ; or 
 whether they have been only made so by certain 
 notions which interfere with the universality of 
 the spiritual body as well as with the distinctness 
 of the national body. When we have arrived at
 
 WITH A QUAKER. 27 
 
 some conclusion upon this matter, we shall be in 
 a condition to speak of our position in England ; 
 to enquire if there be a Catholic Church here or 
 not, and if there be, under what circumstances it 
 exists, what are its dangers and evils, whether 
 these dangers and evils are reasons for our living 
 in separation from it or for uniting ourselves 
 more closely to it. 
 
 Q. I am ready to hear what you have to say on 
 these subjects, though I cannot pretend that I 
 look for any great discoveries. 
 
 A. I rejoice that you do not. If we begin with 
 the expectation of great results our pride will be 
 rewarded with disappointment, and we shall add 
 one more scheme to those which were so fair in ap- 
 pearance, and which have proved so abortive : if we 
 desire to walk humbly along the path which God 
 has marked out for us, rejecting no light, however 
 feeble, which He vouchsafes, and trusting in Him 
 to guide us to the perfect day, I do not think 
 that his promise to wayfaring men will be unful- 
 filled to us.
 
 PART I. 
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLES OP THE QUAKERS AND OF THE 
 
 OTHER RELIGIOUS BODIES WHICH HAVE ARISEN 
 
 SINCE THE REFORMATION AND OF THE SYSTEMS 
 
 TO WHICH THEY HAVE GIVEN BIRTH. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 QUAKERISM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ON THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES OF THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The Indwelling Word The Spiritual Kingdom Spiritual 
 Influences. 
 
 IN Mr. Gurney's work on the religious peculiari- 
 ties of the Society of Friends, we are told that the 
 doctrine, " which lies at the root of all their parti- 
 cular views and practices, is that of the perceptible 
 influence and guidance of the Spirit of truth." 
 This author maintains in a previous passage that 
 K a measure of the influence of the Spirit is be- 
 stowed upon all men whereby they are enlightened, 
 and may be saved." But it is obvious that he 
 does not look upon this principle as in any degree
 
 ON THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES, &C. 29 
 
 so important or so characteristic of the Quakers, 
 as the other. I do not see how a mere theory 
 respecting the condition of the world generally can 
 ever seem so important to any man, as a principle 
 which concerns his own conduct and responsibility. 
 But I question whether the older Quakers would 
 have stated the latter doctrine precisely in the 
 terms which Mr. Gurney has used ; I think they 
 would have given it a much more practical form 
 and signification, and that by doing so they 
 would have exhibited the relative position and value 
 of these two portions of their creed very differently. 
 Any one who reads Fox's Journal will find that 
 he adhered most literally and practically to a 
 belief in perceptible impressions and influences. 
 His whole conduct was regulated by the convic- 
 tion, that he was commanded to do certain acts 
 and utter certain words; wherever he went, whom- 
 soever he denounced, whatever tone or manner he 
 gave to his discourses, he believed undoubtedly that 
 he was obeying a divine instigation. But, however 
 strange this conviction may seem in our days, (and 
 some of the results of it would seem strange 
 to the Quakers themselves,) no one who is at all 
 acquainted with the history of the period between 
 1645 and 1660 will fancy that Fox or his disci- 
 ples were in this particular distinguished from a 
 number of other religious men. There were hun- 
 c3
 
 30 ON THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES 
 
 dreds, perhaps I might say thousands, in Crom- 
 well's army who lived and acted as much under 
 this belief and who followed it out as consistently 
 as any Quaker could possibly do. Fox himself 
 was frequently brought into collision with such 
 men. He speaks, again and again, of a body of 
 Ranters who gave him much trouble, on this very 
 ground that they all believed themselves under 
 perceptible spiritual influences. And in one very 
 remarkable passage of his Diary, he says that a 
 convert of his, Justice Hotham, told him, that he 
 (Fox) had been raised up to utter a principle 
 which discomfited these Ranters, and that but for 
 this principle they would have over-run the whole 
 land and destroyed it. 
 
 I. This principle, and not the doctrine respecting 
 perceptible influences, must then, one would think, 
 have been the central one of Primitive Quakerism. 
 Nay, a really earnest Quaker would have been 
 willing that the truth and value of his spiritual 
 impressions should be tried by their conformity 
 to it or disagreement with it : . What then was 
 
 1 In one case, this remark was strikingly verified. James 
 Naylor, whose strange doings at Bristol are recorded in our 
 ordinary English histories, acknowledged that he had been de- 
 ceived by a false spirit or by the fleshly workings of his own mind. 
 Yet he proclaimed his faith in Fox's principle to the last, and 
 looked upon his errors as the consequence of a departure from it.
 
 OF THE QUAKERS. 31 
 
 this principle? William Penn in his preface to 
 Fox's Journal expresses it in the following words. 
 " They were directed to the light of Jesus Christ 
 within them as the seed and leaven of the king- 
 dom of God ; near all, because in all, and God's 
 talent to all. A faithful and true witness and just 
 monitor in every bosom, the gift and grace of 
 God to life and salvation, that appears to all, though 
 few regard it." (Page ix.) This, he says, (page xix.) 
 was " their fundamental principle, the corner-stone 
 of their fabric, and, to speak eminently and pro- 
 perly, their characteristic or main distinguishing 
 point or principle;" this principle of " the light of 
 Christ within, as God's gift for man's salvation, is 
 the root of the goodly tree of doctrines, that grew 
 and branched out of it." 
 
 That this doctrine was the ground of Fox's 
 teaching every page of his Diary proves. It 
 might be a conviction, that he was sensibly led 
 by the Spirit, which induced him to break forth 
 in this or that steeple-house, or to attack this or that 
 Independent, Baptist, Presbyterian, or " Common- 
 Prayer man." But, when he did speak, the words 
 he uttered were, ee Brother, there is a light within 
 thee : resist it and thou art miserable ; follow it and 
 thou art happy." And he again and again expresses 
 his assurance that these were the words which 
 produced a real moral effect upon his hearers ; that 
 c 4
 
 32 OX THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES 
 
 whatever else he said was valuable only as it arose 
 out of them, or tended to illustrate and enforce 
 them. He believes that he spoke to something 
 which was in those to whom he spoke, and that, 
 being there, it answered his appeal. 
 
 It was not from the teachers or popular books 
 of the day that Fox learnt this doctrine. The 
 language in which he describes his early life is 
 remarkably unlike that which we meet with in 
 Puritan biographies. " At eleven years of age," he 
 says, " he knew pureness and righteousness 2 ;" 
 while he was a child he was taught to walk to be 
 kept pure ; when he grew up, and " was put to a 
 man that was a shoemaker by trade, and that dealt 
 in wool, and used grazing, and sold cattle, and a 
 great deal passed through his hands, he never 
 wronged man or woman, for the Lord's power was 
 over him to preserve him . . . people had generally a 
 love to him for his honesty and innocency." The 
 conflicts of mind, which he describes after- 
 wards, had no relation to any of the contro- 
 versies, religious or political, by which Eng- 
 land was then torn asunder. Of Prelacy or 
 Covenant, King or Parliament, he knew nothing. 
 The awful question, What am I? what have I 
 to do in this strange confused world ? occupied his 
 
 1 Journal, page 76.
 
 OF THE QUAKERS. 33 
 
 soul. It is one which must be new to each man, 
 though thousands may* have been vexed with it 
 before him. Those whom Fox consulted about 
 it afforded him little help ; he withdrew from the 
 society of his fellow-creatures, and studied his 
 Bible. Even that seemed not to tell him the 
 secret which he wanted to know : one thing how- 
 ever he learnt ; there was in him that which shrank 
 from this enquiry, and would fain forget it altoge- 
 ther, and there was that in him which would have 
 no rest till he found the answer to it. Now, was 
 not this in itself a great discovery? Did it not 
 show him (in part at least,) what kind of being he 
 was ? He had desires which drew him down to 
 things which he saw, and tasted, and handled ; he 
 had desires which aspired after something with 
 which his senses and appetites had nothing to do. 
 And was there not another discovery contained in 
 this ? They were actual earthly objects which at- 
 tracted him towards themselves; his nature inclined 
 him to them, yet, when he obeyed that nature, he 
 seemed to lose what was most real in him. Must 
 there not be a counter-attraction, a power as real 
 as any of those things which he beheld, raising 
 him out of them, urging him to seek something 
 above himself, a real substantial good? Must not 
 that power be in truth greater, though the contrary 
 might seem to be the case, than all which were 
 c5
 
 34 ON THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES 
 
 resisting it ? Could he not obey that higher in- 
 fluence, and, by obeying it, obtain life and peace ? 
 He felt that he could ; that he was meant to do so. 
 The light was stronger than the darkness. He 
 was privileged to dwell in it. 
 
 But was this light, then, afforded only to George 
 Fox the shoemaker ? How could this be ? Did 
 it not witness to him, that whenever he was setting 
 up himself he was resisting it, not following it ; 
 when he was obeying his selfish inclinations, he 
 knew that he was flying from this great teacher ; 
 when he desired to be led by it, he knew that he was 
 a man. Surely, then, this must be a light vouch- 
 safed to him, because he was a man ; it must be 
 " a light which lighteneth every man who cometh 
 into the world." A terrible majority might be 
 striving against it, but their very strivings pro- 
 claimed the truth ; the kind of misery which men 
 experienced showed the happiness which was in- 
 tended for them. 
 
 When he had arrived at this conviction, the 
 Bible seemed to him a new book altogether. From 
 first to last it witnessed to him of that invisible 
 good which men are to seek after, and against the 
 visible idolatries which are drawing them away 
 from it. The lives of the patriarchs, of Moses, of the 
 prophets, were the li ves of men who were follow- 
 ing the light, the teacher of their hearts, the Lord
 
 OF THE QUAKERS. 35 
 
 of righteousness, and were resisting the evil incli- 
 nations and appetites which would make them 
 the slaves and worshippers of outward things. On 
 the other hand, all the records of the sins of the 
 Jewish nation, or of heathen nations, were records 
 of revolts from this mysterious guide and teacher, 
 by men who chose darkness rather than light, the 
 outward and apparent good rather than the real 
 and inward. As might be expected, the darkness 
 became continually more gross in each individual 
 who gave himself up to it, and the light brighter 
 and clearer in each one who steadily pursued it. 
 And so it had been in each new period greater 
 blindness and sensuality, greater and more imme- 
 diate illumination; Jews and Gentiles becoming 
 more estranged from Him who was yet revealing 
 Himself to them both ; holy prophets holding 
 more wonderful converse than their fathers had 
 done with the WORD OF GOD rising more above 
 outward emblems and institutions, obeying more 
 implicitly his inward suggestions. Such, or nearly 
 such, was the form in which the Old Testament 
 history seems to have presented itself to Fox ; 
 and therefore the words at the beginning of the 
 Gospel of St. John appeared to him to stand in 
 the most natural connexion with all the records to 
 which they refer. And St. PauPs declarations, in 
 the first and second of Romans, that the Gentiles 
 c6
 
 36 ON THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES 
 
 knew God, but glorified Him not as God, and 
 liked not to retain Him in their knowledge ; and 
 that the Gentiles as well as the Jews, if they 
 sought for glory, and honour, and immortality, 
 would obtain eternal life ; while the Jews as well 
 as the Gentiles, if they were contentious and obeyed 
 not the truth but obeyed unrighteousness, would 
 have tribulation and wrath, far from containing a 
 puzzle, which it required critical ingenuity to sur- 
 mount, appeared to him the simple announcement 
 of a truth with which all the rest of Scripture was 
 in agreement. 
 
 II. But how was the condition of men affected by 
 the appearance of our Lord in human flesh ? This 
 was a question which probably did not at first 
 present itself to Fox; but by degrees he and the 
 other Quakers found an answer to it. Men having 
 foregone their spiritual privileges and given them- 
 selves up to the flesh, were not indeed forsaken 
 by their heavenly Teacher but they could not be 
 treated as spiritual. By outward emblems and 
 images, the elements of the world, they were 
 trained : to the Jews was given a direct intimation 
 of the nature and purpose of their discipline ; the 
 Gentiles, through a thicker film of sense, and with 
 fewer helps to penetrate it, might yet, if they 
 would, discover their invisible guide. But these 
 were preparations for a clearer day. Christ, the
 
 OF THE QUAKERS. 37 
 
 Living Word, the Universal Light, appeared to 
 men, and shewed in his own person what pro- 
 cesses He was carrying on in the hearts of all; 
 subduing the flesh, keeping Himself separate from 
 the world, submitting to death. This manifesta- 
 tion was the signal for the commencement of a 
 new dispensation ; sensible emblems were no 
 longer to intercept man's view of his Lord; na- 
 tional distinctions were to be abolished ; men might 
 be treated as belonging to a higher state than that 
 which they lost in Adam ; they might attain a 
 perfection which did not exist in Adam. 
 
 The Scriptural testimonies to this doctrine 
 seemed to them most numerous. Stripped of the 
 fantastical covering in which they were sometimes 
 enveloped, few readers will think that they received 
 a forced or unnatural construction. The an- 
 nouncement by the Prophets of a dispensation 
 which should have these two characteristics above 
 all others spirituality and universality; the evi- 
 dent annulling, in the sermon on the Mount, of 
 rules and maxims which had been previously cur- 
 rent and the substitution of a spiritual principle 
 for them ; our Lord's constant declaration that He 
 came to establish a kingdom, and that that kingdom 
 was to be within us ; the announcement of the 
 Evangelists that his parables were the discovery 
 of mysteries which had been hidden from the
 
 38 ON THE POSITIVE DOCTRINES 
 
 foundation of the world ; his own words that He 
 would yet show his disciples more plainly of the 
 Father; the language of the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 affirming that a spiritual covenant had succeeded to 
 the formal Jewish covenant ; the language of the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians, affirming that an economy 
 hidden from ages and generations was then made 
 known to his Holy Apostles by the Spirit ; the 
 exhortations in the Philippians and the Hebrews 
 to press onwards to perfection exhortations evi- 
 dently grounded upon the new position into 
 which those who were addressed had been brought : 
 these are only specimens of the evidence which 
 every page of the New Testament seemed to 
 the Quakers to contain of the doctrine that 
 our Lord came to bring in a universal Light, to 
 establish a perfectly spiritual Kingdom, and to 
 encourage men to seek a perfectly spiritual Life. 
 
 III. It is implied, in the very idea of this constitu- 
 tion, that men are brought under a directly divine 
 government or influence. Those who yield them- 
 selves to the light, and become members of the 
 spiritual kingdom, recognize this influence in all 
 their acts. They will not move without it ; they 
 will be ready to move any where at its bidding. 
 The sacrifice of all personal inclinations, energies, 
 will, in short self-annihilation in its highest form, 
 is their duty and their privilege ; so they become
 
 OF THE QUAKERS. 39 
 
 fit to utter the divine voice, and prompt to per- 
 form the divine will. 
 
 In support of this doctrine the Quakers would 
 plead the words of John the Baptist, announcing 
 the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire as the 
 great promise of the new covenant ; the ignorance 
 of the Apostles till they received the gift from on 
 high ; the silence and waiting that were enjoined 
 upon them till it arrived ; the whole tenor of the 
 Apostolic history, showing that the first ministers 
 of Christ believed themselves to be acting under 
 an immediate inspiration, and to be incapable of 
 acting without it ; the principle so often asserted, 
 and every where implied, that the kingdom was to 
 be everlasting, and that those who first witnessed 
 its establishment were to be patterns and prece- 
 dents of all who succeeded them. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE QUAKER THEOLOGY CONSIDERED. 
 
 I AM far from saying that the early Quakers 
 acknowledged no theological principles except 
 these three. In a sense they admitted most of the 
 doctrines which other men embody in creeds or 
 articles. But these three principles determined
 
 40 OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 that sense ; these had been realized in their minds ; 
 the rest hung loosely about them, and at one time 
 might be heartily recognized, at one time almost re- 
 jected, as they seemed to square with the primary 
 truths or to contradict them. These three doctrines, 
 then, may be said to constitute the positive theo- 
 logy of the Quakers; from these their system has 
 been deduced. Before I enquire what that system 
 is, and how far it is legitimately connected with 
 the principles of which I have spoken, I may state 
 in a few words why I cannot join some con- 
 spicuous opponents of Quakerism in denouncing 
 these principles why I believe them to be either 
 truths or hints of truths which are most vital and 
 important. 
 
 I. There are three objections usually taken against 
 Fox's doctrine of the Inward Light or the In- 
 dwelling Word. First, it is said to be mystical ; 
 secondly, it is said to be unscriptural ; thirdly, it 
 is said to be unsupported by fact, or by any 
 authority, save that of an ignorant mechanic and 
 his credulous disciples. 
 
 1. I shall not evade the first charge, by saying 
 that the word mystical may mean anything, every- 
 thing, or nothing ; that it may be applied has 
 been applied against the most recognized prin- 
 ciples in physics as well as in morals ; that if 
 mystical and mysterious mean the same thing, all
 
 THE QUAKER THEOLOGY "CONSIDERED. 41 
 
 science is mystical. I will at once give the word 
 a sense which may be a legitimate sense, which at 
 all events is a common one, and which I am con- 
 vinced is an evil one. The tendency to invest 
 certain feelings, consciousnesses, temperaments 
 of individual men with the sacredness which 
 belongs only to such truths as are of universal 
 character, and may be brought to a universal test, 
 is often designated by the name Mysticism ; it 
 is unquestionably one to which religious men in 
 all ages have been prone ; and I do not know 
 any records which contain more frequent in- 
 stances of it than those of the early Quakers. 
 But the question is, whether, if this be the 
 definition of mysticism and I know no defini- 
 tion which distinctly condemns it except this 
 the doctrine we are considering be not essentially 
 unmystical, nay, whether we might not almost 
 venture to call it emphatically the antagonist prin- 
 ciple to mysticism. For surely it disclaims, more 
 vehemently than almost any, exclusive appropria- 
 tion ; it submits itself more directly than most to 
 a universal test. Fox did not say, " This light is 
 mine " he said, " It is yours as much as mine : it 
 is with you ; and in the healthiest, truest, soberest, 
 states of your mind, you know that it is with you/ 5 
 This principle stood out, then, in marked con- 
 trast to those peculiar experiences and interpreta-
 
 42 OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 tions upon which he often laid so much stress; 
 attesting its difference from them by the effects 
 which it produced, and obtaining at least some 
 sanction in its favour from the circumstance of its 
 being forced upon the conviction of men whose 
 characteristic infirmities would have led them to 
 an entirely different conclusion. 
 
 2. The notion that the doctrine is unscriptural 
 has derived support, partly from the opinion that 
 Fox and his followers habitually disparaged the 
 Scriptures, partly from his own confession that 
 he knew the doctrine before he saw it in the Bible, 
 though afterwards he learnt how to support it 
 from the Bible. How far the general charge against 
 them is true I may consider presently ; that 
 it does not affect this particular case is evident 
 from the appeal which they make, not to a few 
 isolated texts merely, but to the whole tenor and 
 context of the inspired volume in defence of 
 their position. Neither can I see in Fox's account 
 of the mode by which he arrived at an apprehen- 
 sion of this principle anything different from the 
 statements which are common in writers who are 
 the most opposed to him ; that, after they were 
 spiritually awakened, the Bible, which had been 
 a dead letter to them, seemed to be full of meaning 
 to them, the only wonder being that they had not 
 perceived it before language which I believe is very
 
 THE QUAKER THEOLOGY CONSIDERED. 43 
 
 simple, reasonable, and accordant with the experi- 
 ence of most earnest men, no wise derogatory to the 
 Bible, and not atall incompatible with the belief that 
 the study of it may have been one of the principal 
 instruments whereby that capacity which makes 
 its words comprehensible was called forth. And 
 surely no considerations about the course of 
 thought which another man has followed, need 
 hinder us from enquiring whether the view which 
 he takes of a book do throw a light upon it, and 
 render the contents of it more coherent and in- 
 telligible. I have stated a few of the reasons which 
 have led others, and, I acknowledge, compel me to 
 believe that the denial of Fox's doctrine makes 
 the scheme, the spirit, and the letter of Scripture 
 alike perplexing. If it were necessary to add 
 further proofs, I should find them in the violent 
 and tortuous expedients to which critics have re- 
 sorted for the sake, as they profess, of escaping 
 from the extravagances and absurdities of mystical 
 interpretation. When, for instance 1 , I hear a 
 grave, learned, and (so far as hostility to Socinian- 
 ism is a title to that name,) orthodox interpreter, 
 suggesting that 6 Aoyoe in the first verse of the 
 Gospel of St. John means only 6 Ae-yojiievoe 
 (the person talked of promised), supporting the 
 
 3 See Note B.
 
 44 OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 gloss by the question of John's disciples, 2i> 
 ft 6 t/o^o/Lttvoc ; and treating the two phrases as 
 equivalent; when I find such an opinion as this 
 adopted by respectable scholars, as a convenient 
 refuge from mysticism I am constrained to 
 think that I am not likely to preserve my respect 
 for the letter of the inspired volume more uncor- 
 rupted, or my apprehension of what is reasonable 
 in human language more clear, by determining 
 not to believe that the Word of God before He 
 came in the flesh was the light which lightened all 
 men a principle as much confirmed to me by 
 the evidence of profane as of Sacred History. 
 
 3. I speak of this evidence, for I believe 
 that the third objection to this doctrine is 
 quite as untenable as the other two. It has been 
 said, and I think justly, that if Fox's assertion 
 respecting the light which the heathens possessed 
 were well founded, there would be very clear indica- 
 tions of the fact in the records of their acts and 
 thoughts. Such indications, it is added, would not 
 be contained in a few fine sayings, scattered here 
 and there amidst heaps of evil and offensive matter ; 
 they could not be gathered from the works of a 
 rhetorician like Seneca, who lived after the advent 
 of Christ, and might have availed himself of some 
 Christian notions they ought to be something 
 different from the mere notions about immortality,
 
 THE QUAKER THEOLOGY CONSIDERED. 45 
 
 and an indestructible part of our nature, which 
 have been floating in the minds of civilized and 
 savage men, and which acquired a sort of argu- 
 mentative consistency but no practical influence 
 in the minds of the Roman Stoics and Academi- 
 cians ; they cannot be drawn from the mere denials 
 of the polytheistic creeds into which some of the 
 Greek philosophers were led, and which issued 
 only in an atheistic or at best in a pantheistic 
 theory : even the instance of a man practically, and 
 with some steadiness, recognizing a standard of 
 right, would not be satisfactory if it should appear 
 that his thoughts, and those of all heathens who 
 preceded or followed him, were moving in directly 
 opposite lines. I fully admit the justice of these 
 maxims and I take them for my guide when I 
 state the reasons which induce me to think that 
 Fox, though he knew nothing about the men of 
 the old world, was right in the judgment which he 
 formed respecting them. 
 
 In the best and most recent works 4 on Greek 
 philosophy its history is divided into the periods 
 before and after Socrates. That this arrangement 
 is the true and natural one, I think every one will 
 admit, who has compared it with older methods, 
 and has observed what light it throws upon the 
 
 * In that by Hitter for example.
 
 46 OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 growth and sequence of speculations which had 
 been regarded as independent of each other. Yet 
 there would seem at first sight to be insuperable 
 objections to it : Socrates left no books ; the diffi- 
 culty of ascertaining which of his disciples reported 
 his opinions most correctly, what his opinions 
 were, nay, whether he had any, has been a sub- 
 ject of frequent complaint : all the interest of his 
 doctrine has been said to be contained in his life. 
 How is it then possible that he should be a centre 
 to the theories and systems of his countrymen ? 
 
 The answer seems to me to be this : Whatever 
 difference there maybe in the accounts of him which 
 have been delivered to us, they all testify the 
 satirical one by the comedian of Athens, as clearly 
 as the narratives of Xenophon and Plato s , that he 
 saw in the life of man the struggle between two 
 principles, one tending downwards, one upwards ; 
 one belonging to the earth, one claiming fellow- 
 ship with something pure and divine. Those who 
 suppose him to be a mere ironist or sceptic 
 cannot deny that whatever his words do not mean, 
 they do mean this ; those who are most inclined 
 to reduce his thoughts and those of all other men 
 to a system, must yet admit that this doctrine lay 
 at the basis of his system, and that it is one which 
 must find a more complete exposition in a man's 
 
 5 See Note C.
 
 THE QUAKER THEOLOGY CONSIDERED. 47 
 
 acts, or in his familiar intercourse with persons of 
 different tempers and pursuits, than it can ever 
 find in a formal treatise. Accordingly, it seems 
 not strange that one observer should be struck 
 chiefly with the efforts which he made, in the dis- 
 cipline of his own mind and in that which he 
 recommended to his scholars, to overcome sensual 
 inclinations, and to raise his spirit, by all means, 
 the traditions and faith of his country among the 
 rest, to higher and purer apprehensions : that an- 
 other should have been shocked by the tendency, 
 which such attempts to deliver himself and others 
 from the worship of outward things must have 
 had to weaken his and their respect for the gods of 
 his country : that another, of deeper and more ear- 
 nest meditation, should have perceived, in the con- 
 viction which governed his master's life, distinct 
 and personal as it appeared, the hint of a method 
 by which men might be led out of their vague- 
 ness, their superstitions, and their unbelief, into 
 the pursuit of permanent truth; by which also 
 the imperfect hints, crude generalizations, and 
 seemingly contradictory discoveries of previous 
 thinkers might be interpreted, quickened, and 
 reconciled. This last notion may easily have oc- 
 curred to any one who felt how he himself, and 
 noticed how other young men of the day were 
 compelled to acknowledge Socrates as the inter-
 
 48 OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 preter of the feelings which were at work con- 
 fusedly within them, and of the objects at which 
 they were blindly aiming. It makes itself good to 
 us by the experiment to which I alluded ; we are 
 able, by taking Socrates as our guide, to under- 
 stand what the Greeks, for many generations be- 
 fore and after his time, were in different directions 
 pursuing. But if so, we must admit that while 
 the worth and peculiarity of the life of Socrates 
 consisted in this, that he aimed stedfastly, of course 
 amidst many inconsistencies, after a pure and 
 invisible good, and sought to overcome the obsta- 
 cles in himself and in the world which hindered 
 him from apprehending it, this characteristic 
 does not separate him from the thinkers of the 
 old world, or entitle us to view him as a prodigy ; 
 but rather enables us to see, what we otherwise 
 should not have seen so clearly, that the like 
 struggle was going forward consciously in every 
 better and truer man unconsciously, in all. Such, 
 I believe, is the witness which the records of 
 Greek philosophy bear in favour of Fox's doc- 
 trine. 
 
 It may, however, be said that this testimony is 
 not complete; for that whereas Fox uniformly 
 spoke of a personal teacher of men, the doctrine 
 of Socrates goes no further than to the acknow- 
 ledgment of a search or appetite in man after a
 
 THE QUAKER THEOLOGY CONSIDERED. 49 
 
 supreme good which need not be personal, or if 
 personal, may not necessarily have originated these 
 desires, or even have taken any interest in them. 
 
 I believe no one who attends carefully to the 
 language of Socrates, or of his greater pupil, will 
 suppose that he doubted whether the longings 
 and movements of his spirit had a divine source 
 and were subject to a divine impulse or no. His 
 deep conviction that he was under the guidance 
 of an attending demon, the continual reference 
 which he makes to traditional stories, his firm faith 
 in divine interpositions and judgments, are proofs 
 that he was not merely seeking to apprehend " THE 
 BEING," but also acknowledging often, if not 
 habitually, that a Being had first taken cogni- 
 zance of him. I admit, however, that the remark 
 has a certain degree of force ; I admit that 
 so far as Socrates was simply a philosopher, (in 
 the sublimest sense of that word,) so far he was 
 acting merely as the seeker after what is true 
 and good, not as the receiver of an influence from 
 it. His high merit was, that he acknowledged 
 the need of something besides philosophy in order 
 that he might realize the meaning of philosophy ; 
 a very peculiar merit, indeed, setting him and 
 Plato at an immeasurable distance from those who 
 followed, and from most of those who preceded 
 them; but still, perhaps, the very merit which 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 makes him of such importance as the interpreter 
 of other schools. Be that as it may, there is one 
 fact which is well worthy of notice in reference to 
 this point. So soon as a Jew was able to study and 
 understand the writings of the Greek philosophers, 
 the defect which is complained of was supplied. 
 Philo recognized all the cries of the wiser heathen 
 after light, and wisdom, and truth, as genuine in- 
 dications of the feelings which the writings of the 
 prophets had prepared him to expect would be in all 
 men, and as produced by the teaching and inspi- 
 ration of the Divine Word. So much has been 
 written of late respecting the general purpose and 
 character of his writings, that I need not multiply 
 proofs. A few are given in a note, merely as 
 specimens of a tone of thinking which could not 
 have been so habitual in one man, if it had not 
 been adopted by many 6 . 
 
 Some modern critics have maintained, that the 
 study of Philo is the proper introduction to the 
 study of the Fathers. I do not mean to discuss 
 the truth or limits of that proposition. The ground 
 of it is unquestionably the discovery of a close 
 resemblance between the language of one class of 
 the Fathers, those who lived in Alexandria before 
 the period of the Arian controversy, and that of 
 Philo respecting the Divine Word 7 . This resem- 
 6 See Note D. 1 See Note E.
 
 THE QUAKER THEOLOGY CONSIDERED. 51 
 
 blance has generally been acknowledged ; any in- 
 convenient inferences from it being avoided, by 
 describing these Fathers in particular, and often 
 the Fathers in general, as the Platonizing doctors, 
 who mingled the pure truths of Christianity with 
 Gentile Philosophy. It is very difficult to encounter 
 such phrases, for this reason, that they are phrases 
 merely. Those Fathers who were brought into im- 
 mediate contact with the Philosophers told them, as 
 they believed on the authority of Scripture, that the 
 Divine Word had been speaking to the conscience 
 and reason of them in all ages, and by various acts 
 of discipline had been urging them to turn from 
 their idols and seek Him. They affirmed, that 
 whenever any man had exhibited any kindly or af- 
 fectionate feeling, any earnest zeal for truth, this 
 Invisible Guide had inspired him with it. They 
 showed no mercy to the fables of Paganism or to 
 the conceits of philosophers ; they merely declared 
 that all error was the forsaking of God's guidance, 
 all sincere and good thoughts the obeying it. 
 
 The question, whether in using this language 
 they rendered more honour to mere human wit and 
 judgment, than the persons who attribute to these 
 alone all that was generous and true in the acts or 
 feelings of heathens, I leave to the understandings 
 of my readers : the question whether it is wise or 
 decorous to attack men, whom I may venture, I
 
 52 OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 suppose, without offence, to call pious and venera- 
 ble, not by showing wherein they contradicted 
 Scripture, but by affixing to them the nickname 
 of Platonizing I leave to the consciences of those 
 who are in the habit of using such language. One 
 thing at least is evident, that Fox the shoemaker 
 of the 17th century, was not the first person who 
 understood the verses at the beginning of St. 
 John's Gospel in a literal not a metaphorical sense. 
 Before I quit this part of my subject, I must take 
 leave to remark, that the kind of charge which is 
 brought against the Fathers who adopted this doc- 
 trine shows very clearly whence the main objec- 
 tion to it has been derived. We are told, and 
 sometimes hi a very solemn manner, to beware 
 how we corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel by 
 philosophy and vain deceit. Perhaps the caution 
 may be less applicable to Fox and the Quakers, 
 than to some others ; for he hated Greek and Phi- 
 losophy most cordially, and his followers have in 
 general retained this part of his opinions with great 
 fidelity; still, it is an important caution, which 
 those to whom it is offered should receive gratefully, 
 and for which they cannot show their value in any 
 way so effectually as by returning it. I believe 
 that any one, who is at the pains to investigate the 
 origin of his own opinions, will discover that nei- 
 ther reverence for Scripture, nor a great love for
 
 THE QUAKER THEOLOGY CONSIDERED. 53 
 
 simplicity, but precisely the addiction I must call 
 it, the slavish addiction to a certain system of 
 philosophy which established itself in this country 
 about the time of the Revolution, is consciously or 
 unconsciously the cause of his dislike to a princi- 
 ple which has been recognized by the humblest, 
 and most ignorant men, as well as by the most 
 profound. Ever since the position was adopted as 
 a new and surprising truth, (which previous 
 thinkers had looked upon as one of the most 
 plausible, most natural, and most degrading 
 forms of error,) that there is no knowledge but 
 that which comes to us through the senses, the 
 idea of a communion between the Divine Word 
 and the heart and conscience and reason of men 
 has been of course rejected. The subject will often 
 recur in the course of our inquiries. 
 
 II. I need say very little about the two other main 
 articles of the Quaker faith; first,because the princi- 
 ple of them is contained in that which we have been 
 examining, and secondly, because they are admitted 
 to a certain extent, and under some conditions, by 
 nearly all Christians. The proposition, for instance, 
 that Christ came to establish a spiritual kingdom, 
 a kingdom not of this world, different from the 
 Jewish, in being less carnal and more spiritual, is 
 constantly proclaimed by those English Dissenters 
 who are most inclined to denounce Fox's primary 
 
 D3
 
 54 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 
 
 tenet as unscriptural and false. Only they think 
 that he pushed this truth to an extreme. They 
 think the kingdom is spiritual but not quite so 
 spiritual as he fancied. So also with reference to 
 the gift of the Spirit and the subordination of 
 man's powers and utterances to his government 
 they believe that what Fox said was true up to a 
 certain point, but that there is great danger of 
 going beyond that point. I shall have opportuni- 
 ties of examining the plea for these restrictions 
 hereafter. At present, I will only say that, far 
 from thinking that the Quakers have carried their 
 principles to an excess, I believe all their errors 
 have arisen from the narrow imperfect and earthly 
 notions which they entertain respecting the na- 
 ture of a spiritual kingdom, and from the low esti- 
 mate which they have formed of that transcend- 
 ant gift which God bestowed upon his creatures 
 when his Holy Spirit came down to dwell among 
 them. My meaning will appear more clearly when 
 I have spoken of the negative articles of Quaker 
 Theology. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 
 
 1. IT is not difficult to imagine in what way the 
 principle of an inward light must have affected
 
 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 55 
 
 the mind of a man educated as Fox was, provided 
 he were perfectly earnest and sincere. I have 
 spoken of his doctrine unquestionably it was his 
 doctrine, for it was that which he taught wherever 
 he went ; if I had called it a dogma I should per- 
 haps have described very exactly that which it has 
 become to modern Quakers ; but assuredly neither 
 word would have seemed to him the correct one. 
 He had actually discovered a law to which he him- 
 self was subject to which every other man was sub- 
 ject ; would any one tell him that this was a mere 
 notion like those about justification, sanctification, 
 final perseverance, and so forth, which he had 
 heard proclaimed from the pulpits of the day ? The 
 language of the preachers and of the books might 
 be about something which concerned him and all 
 men ; but he had discovered the very thing itself; 
 he had a fact to proclaim, not a theory or a sys- 
 tem. From the very first therefore he began to 
 denounce dogmas and formulas as corrupting and 
 misleading. The young mechanic told the 
 preachers, who had been trained in all the distinc- 
 tions and divisions, which the Westminster 
 Assembly with such infinite labour and discussion 
 had wrought out, that they knew nothing about 
 the matter they were talking of. Those who had 
 silenced their brethren for their want of spiritual 
 knowledge, were rebuked, and sometimes silenced, 
 D 4
 
 56 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 
 
 (by the voice of a man, not the vote of a trying 
 Committee,) for the self-same sin. But if formulas 
 were evil things, could forms be better ? Here 
 were men professing outward acts and ceremonies, 
 and between these and the Christian life they 
 said or signified that there was an intimate con- 
 nexion. Strange, almost incredible blindness ! 
 Did not the Christian life consist in following an 
 inward Guide, an invisible Teacher, in eschewing 
 that which was visible and sensible ? What could 
 these outward things have to do with that ? The 
 argument was irresistible. It was a main part of 
 Fox's vocation to bear witness against such 
 idolatries. 
 
 2. Possibly the thought may sometimes have 
 occurred to one who studied the Old Testament 
 diligently, that forms had been in the olden time 
 the very testimonies for this light, the very means 
 by which the Jews were warned against sensual 
 worship ; that they were converted by those Jews 
 into excuses for the indulgence of a natural ido- 
 latry; but yet that being God's appointed pro- 
 tests against it, and the means which He had 
 devised for delivering men from it, they were 
 actually appealed to, from age to age, by the 
 prophets who were raised up to tell the people 
 of their sins ; these prophets being in fact far 
 more diligent observers of the forms than the
 
 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 57 
 
 sensualists and the hypocrites whom they de- 
 nounced for neglecting their meaning. I say, 
 such a thought as this may have glanced into 
 the mind of Fox, and with it the reflection, that 
 possibly a method which was good once might 
 be good still. But he was able to silence such 
 suggestions, or to dismiss them as proceeding from 
 an evil source, by the second doctrine of which I 
 spoke. Till the appearance of Christ, this might 
 be true ; but He came to establish a Spiritual and 
 Universal Dispensation. A spiritual dispensation, 
 therefore outward institutions, like that of cir- 
 cumcision, like that of a passover, like that of 
 a priesthood, like that of an outward sacrificial 
 worship, like that of particularly sacred seasons, 
 are abolished. But are not Baptism, the Eucharist, 
 a Ministry appointed by imposition of hands, and 
 divided into three permanent orders, Liturgies, the 
 observance of Fasts and Festivals, equally visible 
 and outward ? On what plea then have you sub- 
 stituted one set of ceremonies for another, when 
 you profess to be members of a spiritual king- 
 dom? 
 
 Moreover, the dispensation is to be universal 
 as well as spiritual. National distinctions, there- 
 fore, are no more; they belong to the economy 
 of the world. War has been the fruit of these ; 
 under a spiritual and universal dispensation, war 
 
 D5
 
 58 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 
 
 is a sin. Nations have always, the Jewish nation 
 as much as the rest, invoked God as the witness 
 of their ordinary transactions Oaths are for- 
 bidden under the new dispensation. Nations 
 have generally made a provision for the ministers 
 of religion, and regarded them as parts of the 
 commonwealth. Such arrangements are altogether 
 inconsistent with a spiritual and universal dis- 
 pensation. 
 
 3. As the Quakers turned away with disgust 
 from all confessions whatsoever, it was not likely 
 they would distinguish between the dogmatic 
 articles which were drawn up in later ages of 
 the Church, and the creeds which had been 
 adopted in its infancy. At all events, even the 
 simplest of these creeds was objectionable to 
 them, because it directs our thoughts to the 
 outward acts and events of our Lord's life upon 
 earth, rather than to his presence in the heart. 
 It was a more difficult question how they should 
 regard the Scriptures. These recorded actual 
 events, and appeared to have an outward cha- 
 racter. Yet the Bible was the only book of which 
 Fox and several of his brethren knew anything. 
 In it he had found the strongest confirmation of 
 all that he believed. The language, therefore, of 
 the Quakers became more tinctured with the 
 phraseology of Scripture than that of any sect;
 
 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 59 
 
 while, nevertheless, they described it in language 
 which the members of no other sect would have 
 ventured to use. The reading of it was said to 
 be rather a luxury than necessity to the be- 
 liever, and nothing was more important than that 
 he should derive his knowledge from the inward 
 teacher, not from the outward book. No doubt 
 warnings about the danger of trusting in the 
 letter, and still more about the impossibility of 
 finding a meaning in it without help of another 
 kind, had been common in the writings of learned 
 doctors before, and even since, the Reformation. 
 But it was evident that they acquired a new 
 and much stronger meaning among the Quakers. 
 That meaning was deduced from the doctrine 
 concerning Spiritual Influences. He only was a 
 true teacher, who had been called by the inward 
 voice; he was only teaching rightly at any mo- 
 ment when he was obeying that voice. How 
 then, they argued, can he be at the same time 
 subject to the dominion of a book? He may 
 read it, and passages in it might be brought to 
 his mind ; but he will only apply them properly 
 when he feels in the position of those who wrote 
 the book ; speaking by the same inspiration which 
 actuated them. The book may be the best of all 
 books, but it must be valuable as an instrument, 
 not strictly as an authority. Such seems to have 
 D 6
 
 60 THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 
 
 been their practical conclusion, though the words 
 in which it was expressed might often vary. 
 
 It seemed to follow still more obviously, from 
 this belief of an immediate spiritual influence, 
 that preparatory studies for the work of the min- 
 istry were unlawful and faithless. Studies as 
 such might not be positively forbidden, but as 
 the teachers were in some sense the standards 
 of thinking and feeling, it was impossible that 
 a sense of the inexpediency, if not the sinful- 
 ness, of any high mental cultivation should not 
 have diffused itself among the disciples gene- 
 rally. 
 
 A body asserting the positive doctrines, and 
 having the negative characteristics I have de- 
 scribed, gradually formed itself, and assumed to 
 itself the name of The Society of Friends. This 
 Society, its members believed, was called into 
 existence to exhibit the features of that kingdom 
 which Christ came into the world to establish. 
 Without wishing to be uncharitable, or denying 
 that there might be good men who did not be- 
 long to it, yet they practically looked upon it as 
 the Church of God on earth the witness against 
 the world. They were, therefore, to keep them- 
 selves entirely from the habits of this world, from 
 its varying fashions, from its amusements, and, 
 as far as might be, from its phraseology. With
 
 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING, &C. 61 
 
 these, the so called Christian body had become 
 defiled; nay, the very devices by which it had 
 seemed to assert its existence were themselves 
 earthly and sensual, bearing no testimony what- 
 ever to the distinction between the light and 
 darkness, to the spirituality and universality of 
 the kingdom, and to the presence of the Spirit. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE QUAKER SVSTEM. 
 
 WE are now to inquire whether this body has 
 fulfilled the office to which its founders believed 
 that it was divinely appointed. Let us see what 
 evidence is admissible in this case, and how much 
 it will prove. Quakers are agreed with us in 
 believing that one of the characteristics of a 
 divine Church is permanency. It was never in- 
 tended to last only for a generation; on the 
 contrary, it exists to testify against a changing, 
 capricious world. Neither we then, nor they, are 
 entitled to plead the ordinary law of decay in 
 human bodies, as an excuse for the Church fail- 
 ing to perform the functions to which it has been 
 appointed. Both of us must suppose that this 
 tendency has been foreseen by Him whose handi-
 
 62 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING 
 
 work the Church is, and that in some way or 
 other its effects have been counteracted. The 
 peculiarity of the Quakers is, that they suppose 
 permanent institutions, permanent symbols, which 
 man may misinterpret from time to time, but 
 which continue to testify, in spite of his misin- 
 terpretations and against them, are not the remedy 
 or even one of the remedies which has been 
 provided against this danger. The condition of 
 a spiritual body, according to them, is, that it 
 rests in the faith, the purity, the vitality of its 
 individual members. This being the case, it must, 
 I conceive, be admitted, that all confessions by 
 them of degeneracy from an older standard are 
 very startling. They can intimate little less 
 than this, that the constitution or kingdom which 
 God has set up in the world, has been overcome 
 and crushed by the world's kingdom which is 
 opposed to it. Yet such confessions are most 
 numerous in the writings, not of one but of all 
 the different divisions of Quakers in the present 
 day. They take different forms according to the 
 views of the persons who make them; but in 
 one form or other they may be traced every 
 where. Still I am far from thinking that such 
 evidence as this, however much it may excite the 
 anxious inquiries of Quakers, could be sufficient
 
 OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 63 
 
 of itself to prove, either to them or to us, that 
 the experiment had failed. The indications of 
 that fact should be very palpable; they should 
 not rest upon the feelings or observations of any 
 particular persons, however impartial or even 
 however prejudiced in favour of the system, and 
 they should be clearly and obviously connected 
 with the form and order of the Society; other- 
 wise I think they ought not to be produced, at 
 least for the purpose of disturbing the confidence 
 of any one who still cleaves to it. 
 
 1. One such indication must, I think, suggest 
 itself to every thoughtful person. All, said the 
 Quakers, who are not walking in the divine light, 
 who do not recognize the presence and the guid- 
 ance of an invisible teacher, are of the world. The 
 pure and holy company, the Church, the Society 
 of Friends, must consist of all who are led by the 
 Spirit to perceive their connexion with the invi- 
 sible Guide, and to follow him whithersoever He 
 may lead them. Seeing that there was no body 
 of men answering to this description, such a body 
 must be formed ; and all who did not attach them- 
 selves to it, must in practice be treated as belong- 
 ing to the world. Thus far all seems easy. One 
 might fancy there was a little exclusiveness ; that 
 a few persons were treated as aliens, who might 
 possibly be citizens of the household of God ;
 
 64 OX THE PRACTICAL WORKING 
 
 but this could not be helped. There was need^of 
 a palpable distinction between the true men and 
 the false. If the distinction were not perfect, it 
 was at least good so far as it went ; and faithful 
 men must expect that the Spirit of God would, in 
 due time, bring all to see that this was the society 
 to which they should belong. But soon a diffi- 
 culty arose, for which the founders of the society 
 seem to have made no provision. Children are 
 born to the members of it. What are these ? 
 Friends or world-citizens ? The consistent answer 
 would have been, " they are of the world ; they are 
 not consciously following the light ; till they do 
 so, it is a mere dream and contradiction to reckon 
 them in the society." But feeling, and, as I be- 
 lieve, conscience gave a different answer. They 
 said, these must by all means belong to the so- 
 ciety ; if not, it is a sin to have been agents in 
 giving them existence. The only resource was to 
 use all possible means for separating these chil- 
 dren, outwardly at least, from the surrounding 
 world. The parents would then feel that they had 
 done their best, and they would think as little as 
 possible of the falsehood which lay at the root of 
 the whole proceeding. But it is only for a cer- 
 tain time that any falsehood can be hidden. This 
 one is now making itself palpable. The younger 
 Quakers look about, and ask themselves what it
 
 OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 65 
 
 means that they are kept from the world ? If the 
 world means those who do not walk in the light, 
 there is a world within the society as well as with- 
 out it. Would not their fathers have been right 
 to exclude the idea of consanguinity from the 
 society altogether ? For it is evident that between 
 the law by which human society is propagated, 
 and the law which governs this body, there is no 
 connecting link. The heavenly kingdom has no- 
 thing to do with earthly relationships. Unless 
 the body could be continually recruited by conver- 
 sions from the ranks of the world, it seems as 
 if it could never escape from the penalty of con- 
 stantly violating the very distinction for which its 
 presence was meant to be the abiding testimony. 
 
 2. But the Quaker Society was to be the wit- 
 ness for the existence of an Universal Kingdom. 
 In this faith Penn went forth and preached to 
 the Indians. He was satisfied that they had in 
 them a sense of right and wrong, that the Word 
 was speaking to them as well as to other men. I 
 believe the results of his very interesting mission 
 shew how true the conviction was which en- 
 couraged him to undertake it. But what else do 
 they prove ? Did the settlement of Pennsylvania 
 become the members of a great missionary so- 
 ciety ? Did it attract to itself the aboriginal In- 
 dians and the English settlers ? It grew up into
 
 66 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING 
 
 a colony of prosperous traders, maintaining a very 
 creditable position in the states, distinguished by 
 certain badges of dress and manners from the 
 neighbouring people, increasing according to the 
 ordinary rate of increase in the population, in- 
 different beyond the rest of the sects to mis- 
 sionary enterprises. I speak of America, because 
 it cannot be said that the system has not been 
 fairly tried there. But whether you look at 
 Quakerism in that country in which it flourished 
 by persecution, or in that where it had the greatest 
 opportunities for expansion, I ask what witness 
 has it borne for universality, what signs does it 
 make to prove that it is the universal kingdom 
 which was to be set up on earth ? 
 
 Perhaps it may be said that the philanthropy of 
 the Quakers is a testimony to that feeling of fellow- 
 ship with the whole human race, which their prin- 
 ciples of an universal light and an universal king- 
 dom were likely to foster. I am very far indeed from 
 wishing to deny the existence of this philanthropy, 
 or to detract from its merits. I can have no motive 
 to do so, for I inwardly and heartily subscribe the 
 doctrine which is supposed, and I think rightly, 
 to be the only ground of sympathy with man as 
 man. I have no doubt that it is that principle, or 
 the tradition of it, which has brought forth what- 
 ever has been sound and good in the feelings of
 
 OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 67 
 
 the Quakers for their white and black brethren. 
 But the question which we are now considering is 
 How far is the Quaker system a witness on be- 
 half of that principle? and to this question, I fancy, 
 the mode in which the benevolence of Quakers 
 in late years especially, has displayed itself, is a 
 most striking and conclusive answer. For the 
 moment that they began to do anything besides 
 bearing individual testimonies, the moment they 
 attempted to perform some general, social, organic 
 acts on behalf of their fellow creatures, that mo- 
 ment they found it necessary to fraternize with 
 the members of other societies. They became 
 members of societies for distributing the Bible, 
 societies for emancipating the negroes, societies 
 for promoting universal peace. Assuredly Fox 
 and Penn would have done no such thing. They 
 would have said: "Our society being raised up 
 and constituted by God Himself to be the witness 
 for what is spiritual and universal against that 
 which is earthly and national, is the Bible so- 
 ciety, the emancipation society, the peace society ; 
 we know of no other there can be no other." 
 The notion of uniting with the world for the sake 
 promoting spiritual objects would have seemed to 
 them most monstrous; and yet their followers 
 have adopted this method as the only one they 
 know of for carrying out the Quaker principles.
 
 68 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING 
 
 8. Among the benevolent projects of this day, 
 there is none which has interested the Quakers 
 more than the progress of education ; they have 
 been almost the founders of the British and Fo- 
 reign School Society, and its greatest supporters. 
 The present is not the opportunity for discussing 
 any point connected with this subject in which I 
 may differ from them. I refer to their exemplary 
 zeal in reference to it for the purpose of noticing 
 how much it clashes with the Quaker system, so 
 far as that system puts forward an assertion of the 
 doctrine of spiritual influences. The Quaker 
 minister speaks only when an immediate percep- 
 tible impression determines him that he ought to 
 speak. To prepare for his work, to receive any 
 regular appointment to it, to be paid for it, is in- 
 compatible with the spiritual nature of the func- 
 tion. But the Quaker teacher, or the teacher 
 whom the Quaker supports in a school, must have 
 a formal appointment, must prepare regular les- 
 sons, must receive a regular salary. It follows 
 either that the spiritual minister is not appointed 
 to educate, or that education is not spiritual. If 
 education be as important as the Society of 
 Friends and as I think that it is, what testimony 
 is borne here to the spiritual economy, or to the 
 spiritual influences which go forth that men may 
 be able to administer that economy ? Education,
 
 OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 69 
 
 which is to have so mighty an influence upon 
 society, is to be conducted upon principles pre- 
 cisely the reverse of those which are proclaimed to 
 be the only spiritual principles. 
 
 " But the Quakers," it is said, " have borne a 
 more consistent testimony than others against 
 the habits and maxims of the world." I do not 
 mean, at present, to inquire what precise mean- 
 ing we ought to attach to this word world, I 
 take the signification which it bears among re- 
 ligious people generally, and the Society of 
 Friends especially. Now the world, in then- 
 sense, though it may be built upon one com- 
 mon evil principle, assumes many shapes and 
 appearances; and it must be admitted, I think, 
 that the body which is raised up to protest 
 against it at any particular period, or in any 
 particular locality, ought to bear witness mainly 
 against the form or appearance which is most 
 characteristic of that time or locality. A so- 
 ciety which should testify against gladiatorial 
 exhibitions in the nineteenth century, or against 
 cannibalism in Europe, might be entitled to the 
 praise of great prudence, but could scarcely al- 
 lege any strong evidence of a divine vocation. The 
 position of the Quakers has been exclusively or 
 almost exclusively in Great Britain and the United 
 States of America during the period between the
 
 70 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING 
 
 Civil Wars and the reign of Queen Victoria. I 
 ask any plain person to tell me what he thinks 
 has been the characteristic sin of these two coun- 
 tries during this time especially. That there 
 have been persons, a large body of persons in 
 each, who have been devoting themselves to amuse- 
 ments of one kind or other, and have made 
 them the end of life, I do not doubt ; but as- 
 suredly no one, comparing England and America 
 with France or Italy, would affirm that the 
 pursuit of pleasure has been the especial sin 
 of us and our Transatlantic children least of 
 all, that it has been the especial sin of that 
 part of our respective populations with which the 
 Quakers are brought into contact, and whose 
 evils therefore, they ought most to have de- 
 nounced. Again, it is indisputable that a certain 
 number of persons have pursued literature and 
 mental cultivation as the end of life, and have, 
 for the sake of it, overlooked higher and more 
 universal ends. But certainly this has not been 
 our chief infirmity ; other European nations have 
 been far more tempted by it. One deep radical 
 disease has been infecting our two countries, and 
 during the last two centuries has been entering 
 deeper and deeper into our constitution till it has 
 now nearly reached the vitals of both. Will not 
 every one say that it has been money-getting?
 
 OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 71 
 
 How, then, has the Society of Friends borne wit- 
 ness by its habits and constitution against this 
 sin ? It says, indeed, that no portion of the wealth 
 of the body is to be set apart for the support of its 
 ministers ; that their subsistence is to be entirely 
 precarious. This may be construed into a proof 
 that money has nothing to do with that which is 
 spiritual. But I confess I do not see how this 
 testimony is to act upon the world, when they 
 find that Friends believing all amusements, and 
 many branches of mental cultivation, to be neces- 
 sarily evil, to be actually incapable of being sanc- 
 tified to a good purpose, believe that the ac- 
 quisition of wealth is not only a safe and lawful 
 thing, but is to be emphatically, and by the very 
 nature of the community, the business of every one 
 who enters it. A society, the members of which 
 are, to all outward appearance its ministers as 
 well as others principally occupied in trade, 
 nay, which till lately had a fear of being occupied 
 in anything else, is to be the witness against a 
 world, which has for its most characteristic, most 
 irreligious distinction, the worship of mammon. 
 
 But has the existence of such a body as the 
 Society of Friends had no influence at all in in- 
 ducing men to believe that the heart and spirit 
 of men are intended to converse with holy and in- 
 visible things ? I hope that it has had this effect.
 
 72 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING 
 
 I cannot believe that any system is permitted to 
 exist which is not working some good ; possibly 
 there are minds (out of the Society I mean ; of 
 course, there must have been many in it), to whom 
 Quakerism has suggested thoughts which nothing 
 else would have suggested. But yet it seems to 
 me that the positive witness which it has borne in 
 favour of spirituality is of the most equivocal 
 kind. I am afraid if the majority of Quakers were 
 asked wherein the peculiar spirituality of their 
 body consisted, they would answer " In our not 
 baptizing, not keeping an outward feast, not 
 offering up prepared prayers, not having an out- 
 wardly ordained ministry." And unquestionably 
 this answer would express very much the feeling 
 which the sight of such a society communicates to 
 indifferent persons who behold it from a distance. 
 A man of the world, who thinks the ordinances of 
 the Church troublesome or unmeaning, observes, 
 perhaps, to himself now and then, that the Quakers 
 contrive to dispense with these ordinances, and 
 yet are a very religious and thriving people. But 
 at another time he will be equally struck with the 
 observation, that though they have none of these 
 indications, they have others which seem to him 
 not less outward and visible. They have no fixed 
 forms of prayer, but they have a fixed form of 
 dress; they have rejected sacraments, but they
 
 OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 73 
 
 retain a particular kind of language. Surely a 
 man who is enquiring with some confusion what 
 spiritual Christianity means, must be somewhat 
 puzzled when he is told Those are the marks 
 of a formal earthly body ; these of one essentially 
 spiritual and divine. 
 
 It may be supposed that these are mere acci- 
 dents of the Quaker profession, which shew what 
 a tendency to formalism there is in the human 
 mind, but which may be laid aside by those who 
 understand the true objects of the Society. There 
 cannot be a greater mistake. The younger Qua- 
 kers are probably very impatient of these re- 
 strictions; but it is not because they have an 
 insight into any essential principles ; on the con- 
 trary, indifference to the outward badges is very 
 generally accompanied by indifference to the ideas 
 on which Quakerism rests, or by an attachment to 
 them only as far as they are opposed to something 
 else. All the older and more earnest members of the 
 Society maintain, and I believe on the most just 
 and philosophical grounds, that these peculiarities, 
 unimportant as they may seem, cannot be safely 
 abandoned ; that the very existence of Qua- 
 kerism is involved in their preservation. They 
 assert, it seems to me with equal truth, that 
 every relaxation of the rules which the first 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 ON THE PRACTICAL WORKING 
 
 Quakers laid down respecting amusements, or 
 literary pursuits, tends to make the existence of 
 the body less intelligible ; nay, tends to a directly 
 immoral result, by exhibiting all restraints upon 
 self-indulgence as hard and unnecessary burdens, 
 which are to be avoided as far as prudence and 
 the opinions of others will permit. 
 
 I do not venture to predict how rapid may 
 be the process of decay in a body which ex- 
 hibits these symptoms. At present Quakerism 
 is threatened from without on two sides on the 
 Evangelical side, and on the Unitarian. Here in 
 England the younger Quakers desire, in general, 
 to be more like those who profess what are called 
 the doctrines of the Reformation ; in America they 
 have been powerfully attracted in the opposite di- 
 rection. It is quite possible that these feelings may 
 not lead to any great secessions from the Society, 
 besides those which they have caused already. 
 But one or other of these influences will be hence- 
 forth predominant ; Quakerism will have less and 
 less a basis of its own. All its grand preten- 
 sions are at an end ; its greatest defenders speak 
 of it now not as the Church or Kingdom of God, 
 but as the best of the sects which compose the 
 religious world. Such language can never satisfy 
 those who retain any of the old Quaker spirit.
 
 OF THE QUAKER SYSTEM. 75 
 
 They must believe that there is a spiritual king- 
 dom somewhere ; if they cannot find it in the 
 Society of Friends, they will look for it in those 
 opposing systems of which I have spoken. Let 
 us enquire, what prospect they have of being re- 
 warded for their search. 
 
 E 2
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PURE PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE LEADING PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Justification by Faith Election The Written Word Authority 
 of National Sovereigns. 
 
 1. THE inward struggles of Martin Luther 
 were at least as terrible as those of George Fox, 
 and they have left far more remarkable testi- 
 monies of themselves in the history of Europe. 
 For as the character of Quakerism was deter- 
 mined by the conflicts in the mind of the Drayton 
 shoemaker, so the character of the Reformation 
 is interpreted by those which tormented the 
 Monk of Wittenburg. 
 
 In some respects there was a resemblance be- 
 tween them. Any one who reads attentively the 
 first document which Luther put forth against
 
 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES, &C. 77 
 
 the sale of indulgences, must perceive how deeply 
 and inwardly he had realized the conviction, that 
 he was a two-fold being ; that there was in him 
 that which required to be crushed and destroyed ; 
 that there was that in him which was meant to 
 enjoy life and peace and freedom. A man could 
 hardly have arrived at such a conviction, or at 
 least have been able to express it in such lan- 
 guage, who had not experienced much of what 
 Fox describes. But yet the history of their minds 
 was altogether different; nay, the contrast is as 
 remarkable as we can expect to find in the lives 
 of two men, both equally sincere and brave. \ 
 
 Of a light speaking to his conscience warning 
 him of the evil he had done and of the tempta- 
 tions within and without which were tempting 
 him to forsake it, Luther knew as much as any 
 Quaker could have told him. But the thought 
 of such a light, instead of giving him peace, was 
 the cause of all his tumult and confusion. It 
 spoke to him of a Being of absolute power and 
 wisdom and righteousness, between whom and 
 himself there was no sympathy. It bade him 
 seek, by all means, to be reconciled to that Being, 
 and account all trials and sufferings light, if so be 
 they might but give a promise, now or hereafter, 
 of such a blessing. But it told him also of a strict, - 
 irreversible law, from which there could be no de- 
 E 3
 
 78 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 parture, no dispensation ; and the recollection of 
 which made every effort to heal the breach be- 
 tween him and his Maker a new witness to him 
 that it was perpetual. Then came the dream of 
 a possible deliverance from the curse of this law, 
 brought to him in words which he had heard 
 from his infancy, but to which till then he had 
 been unable to attach any meaning. He had 
 been told of a Mediator between the Creator and 
 his creatures ; of his having offered a sacrifice 
 for men ; of their being united or grafted into 
 him ; of their possessing a righteousness in Him 
 which they had not in themselves. These words, 
 or words like these, had been uttered again and 
 again by doctors and schoolmen whom he had 
 studied. But they had been mixed with the 
 strangest perplexities about cases of conscience ; 
 the effects, kinds, and degrees of repentance ; the 
 distinction of mortal and venial sins ; the nature 
 and the mode of justification. And if there were 
 such scholastic obstructions to a man's escape 
 from that which he felt and knew to be a state 
 of evil, there were still more monstrous practical 
 obstructions which seemed to destroy all inter- 
 course between the soul of man and his deliverer. 
 The sops which were given to the conscience 
 by indulgences, the unfulfilled promises held out 
 to it by penances which really tormented the
 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 79 
 
 spirit more than the flesh, all the notions of in- 
 tervening mediators, beseeching for the removal 
 of the curse which had been already borne by 
 Him who alone could bear it, and who alone could 
 fully sympathise with the miseries of those for 
 whom He suffered, were so many bandages and 
 fetters upon the human soul ; making it content 
 with the sin that it loved, or hopeless of real 
 deliverance from the sin which it loathed. It 
 was the Bible which set Luther's mind free from 
 the perplexities of the scholastic logic. It was 
 by help of the creeds and sacraments of the 
 Church that he was able to disengage himself 
 from the intricate web of papal inventions. The 
 written word of God seemed to him, from be- 
 ginning to end, to be witnessing, that a man is 
 justified by faith; no school phrases being used 
 to express the idea, but every act of affiance in a 
 Divine Person who had revealed Himself to man 
 as the object of his trust and confidence being 
 an exemplification of it. He could thus see the 
 meaning of St. Paul's assertion, that Abraham 
 was justified by faith. He trusted in God's 
 promise and word, and that made him a godly 
 and righteous man. All the Psalms, in like man- 
 ner, were nothing but acts of faith and affiance, 
 whereby a man, crushed down with all kinds of 
 evils, inward and outward, rose up and claimed 
 E 4
 
 80 OX THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 that relation to God which his covenant had given 
 him, and shook off the sins into which he had 
 fallen from forgetting it. Still these, properly 
 speaking, were acts of trust in a Mediator ; they 
 were recognitions of one to whom the suppliant 
 himself was related, who was a bond between 
 him and the absolute God, in whom alone he 
 could dare to call upon Him. Therefore all these 
 were foretastes and anticipations of that justifica- 
 tion which the Son of God made for all who 
 would trust in Him, when, having offered up his 
 body as a sacrifice, He rose again from the dead. 
 To announce this work as accomplished; to tell 
 men that they became righteous by believing it, 
 and so entering into union with their Lord and 
 Master this was, Luther believed, the great end 
 of St. Paul's life. He believed also that it was 
 his own appointed office. It was the business of 
 the preacher in every age to tell men this truth 
 simply, using the direct personal language of the 
 Bible, instead of the formal and dogmatic lan- 
 guage of the schools. But not the man only was 
 bearing witness of this principle. The Creed was 
 preaching it, the Sacraments were preaching it, 
 and the truly instructed doctor would find in 
 these the deepest wisdom, and would labour that 
 they might carry that home practically and in effect 
 to men, which he could only utter in words. This, it
 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 81 
 
 seems to me, is Lutheranism according to Luther ; 
 and in this Lutheranism lies the germ of all the 
 doctrines which peculiarly belong to the Refor- 
 mation, though it might be the work of other 
 minds than his distinctly to evolve them. 
 
 2. The principal of these is that which Luther 
 proclaimed with so much vehemence in his con- 
 troversy with Erasmus, but which yet, it is quite 
 evident, could not have been as habitually present 
 to his mind as it was to that of the Helvetian Re- 
 former, John Calvin. The idea of an object to which 
 a man might look, and in which he might rest, took 
 precedence of all others in the heart and reason of 
 Luther. Unless, when he were driven to it by some 
 dogma like that of Erasmus, which seemed to him 
 to threaten the revival of all papal contrivances 
 for the reconciliation of man, he troubled himself 
 little about the origin of those feelings and acts, 
 whereby a man apprehends Him who offers him- 
 self to his faith and hope. It is clear, however, 
 not only from this treatise of Luther, but from the 
 very character of his doctrine, that this question 
 must suggest itself, and that it must receive some 
 such solution, as he and Calvin found for it. The 
 idea of an absolute will, with which man must be 
 brought into reconciliation by a Mediator, lay at 
 the base of all Luther's thoughts. Any man, 
 fixedly meditating upon those thoughts and the 
 E 5
 
 82 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 results to which they had led, must have asked 
 himself: But who devised this whole scheme of 
 reconciliation and redemption? Who is it that 
 leads men to avail themselves of it? Who is it 
 that determines the operations of their minds, and 
 the consequences to which they shall lead ? Such 
 questions had at all times occupied the schools. 
 Augustine, who appeared to have determined them 
 in the same way as Calvin, had ever been regarded 
 as one of their highest oracles. The difference was 
 the same in this case as in the last : the principle 
 that man is to look up to God as the direct source 
 of his acts, and thoughts, and purposes, was pre- 
 sented to the faith of men in the real language of 
 Scripture, and not to the understandings of men hi 
 the abstract language of the schools. Those who 
 apprehended their relation to Christ were to speak 
 of themselves as the elect people of God, just as 
 Samuel, or David, or the Israelites did, and to 
 believe that they would have been miserable and 
 accursed if God had not elected them. They 
 were not to trouble themselves with questions 
 about the will, or to seek any other reason for 
 their blessedness than that it was God's good 
 pleasure to give it them. On the other hand, this 
 belief was to be the conclusive barrier against all 
 impostures of Romish priests, those impostures 
 being efforts to persuade men that they must
 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 83 
 
 seek by their own efforts to win a position, which 
 ought to be received as the gift of God. This, I 
 think, is the Calvinistic side of Protestantism. 
 To some it may appear that I have given to it, as 
 well as to the doctrine of justification, too little of 
 a scholastic character ; that I have spoken of it too 
 much as something that opposed itself to the 
 logical systems of the previous age, whereas Calvin 
 as well as Melanchthon and some of the Ger- 
 man Reformers, were remarkable for their devo- 
 tion to logic. Nevertheless, I believe that I am 
 right. How the scholastic tendencies of the Re- 
 formation afterward developed themselves, I may 
 have occasion to explain presently. Here I will 
 only remark that the Reformers who had been 
 trained by the schoolmen would of course pre- 
 serve many of their characteristics ; that men with 
 a strong bias for dialectics, may often be those 
 who are led to feel most strongly the want of 
 what is practical and popular, and to seek out a 
 practical and popular language ; and that, in fact, 
 those who have commented most, either in the 
 way of praise or blame, upon the scholastic quali- 
 ties which appear in the controversial writings of 
 the Reformers, have yet always contended also that 
 the Reformation itself was an appeal to the feelings 
 and sympathies of common men. 
 
 3. If then the Lutheran doctrine of justification 
 E 6
 
 84 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 by faith be the first, and the doctrine of election, 
 as formally asserted by Calvin, the second, I think 
 most persons will agree with me in considering 
 a certain peculiar estimate of the Scriptures the 
 third characteristic of Reformation theology. But 
 there are one or two questions connected with 
 this point. No one acquainted with the writings 
 of the Reformers would say that they were more 
 scrupulous in their treatment of their Canon of 
 Scripture than the doctors who preceded them. 
 Luther's language about the Epistle of St. James 
 and the book of Revelation, though it may have 
 been retracted in his later days, would be conclu- 
 sive against such an opinion, even if there were 
 nothing similar in the writings of his contem- 
 poraries. Neither can it be said that either Luther 
 or Calvin regarded the Bible as a book from which 
 persons without any previous initiation would, as 
 a matter of course, derive light and teaching. 
 They rather looked upon it as a divine witness to 
 men already engaged in a conscious struggle with 
 their evil nature, respecting the character of that 
 struggle, and the means whereby they could ob- 
 tain deliverance out of it. Such, at least, I 
 conceive was the view most present to the 
 mind of the German Reformer; the Bible was 
 especially the preacher's book, out of which he 
 was to tell men how those of the same flesh and 
 1
 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 85 
 
 blood with themselves had fought the battle with 
 the world and the flesh and the devil before 
 them, and what manner of strength and help God 
 had vouchsafed them in it. At the same time, it was 
 a fixed and permanent authority, which mounted 
 above all the notions and experiences of par- 
 ticular minds, and enabled them, even in defiance 
 of such notions and experiences, to discover solid 
 grounds of peace and comfort. It is manifest 
 then that veneration for the Bible, high place as 
 it held in Luther's mind, was subordinate to his 
 zeal in asserting the doctrine of Justification. He 
 looked upon the Bible mainly as the witness for 
 that doctrine, and because it was such a witness 
 he loved it with all his heart, and would have 
 given up his life that men might in their own 
 language hear what it said. The same, though in 
 a less degree, must have been true of Calvin ; the 
 Bible was the witness to him of the divine Elec- 
 tion ; on that account mainly it was precious to 
 him, and no diligence that could be employed in 
 studying and expounding it were thrown away. 
 But if the Scripture were valuable as the an- 
 nouncement of one or other of these great ideas or 
 principles, was it not in itself a great idea or 
 principle that there was such a book as a Bible, 
 a book speaking directly to the conscience of men, 
 a fixed and permanent utterance of the divine
 
 86 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 will ? To some (I should think to Zuinglius) this 
 seemed the cardinal idea of the Reformation, to 
 which other ideas were subordinate. At all events 
 there was a body which gradually began to be 
 separated by important peculiarities from the other 
 Reformers; and of this body, faith in the Scrip- 
 tures, with a less distinct reference to the prin- 
 ciples taught in them, seems to have been the 
 most striking positive characteristic. 
 
 4. These three principles seem to me, in the 
 strictest sense, positive principles. They are not 
 the less so because they were brought forth in 
 opposition to certain popular notions and current 
 practices. On the contrary, here lies the very 
 test and proof of their positive character. There 
 were a number of abominations prevalent when 
 Luther appeared, which Romanists not only now 
 but then abhorred. Some of them were cor- 
 rected or mitigated at the Council of Trent ; some 
 of them disappeared when the infidel temper of 
 Leo and the Roman court of that day gave 
 place to the more earnest spirit of the succeed- 
 ing popes. But great as this disgust may have 
 been, evident as it was that the disgust had 
 reached to the people of the different countries 
 in Christendom, and that a class had arisen 
 in them which was disposed to assert a posi- 
 tion independent alike of the hierarchy and
 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 87 
 
 of the aristocracy, it was still a question a 
 very solemn question with the wiser and better 
 men, how far it was possible to remedy, or safe 
 to denounce, even the most crying abuses. The 
 building is tottering ; ought we to touch it under 
 the pretence of repairing it ? This was a question 
 which Sir Thomas More, and other men as good 
 as he, may have asked themselves, and for which 
 they may have found it impossible to find a 
 theoretical answer, though they did practically 
 answer it by sitting still. Were they wrong ? I 
 would not dare to say so. It seems to me, that 
 looking upon these corruptions merely as the 
 excess of something that was good, they were 
 clearly right. Nay, even if they felt, as I make 
 no doubt they did feel, that the loss of faith was, 
 in some most important sense, the cause of these 
 superstitions still more of the contrivances to 
 make them profitable yet if they could not 
 perceive that there was some great truth hidden 
 or contradicted by these portions of the popular 
 system, they were evidently committing the great 
 hazard if we ought not rather to call it the sin 
 of taking away something which had a certain 
 hold upon the affections of men without giving 
 them any substitute for it. Which argument 
 must have acquired a great confirmation in the 
 minds of those men who had wisdom and oppor-
 
 88 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 tunity to remark what kind of change had been 
 taking place in the mind of Europe, and what 
 kind of cravings those were which threatened the 
 Church. The feeling, I do not belong merely to 
 a great Christendom, I have a distinct individual 
 position, was evidently that which had developed 
 itself in the members of the new class; which made 
 them eager to grasp at novelties, ready to follow 
 particular guides, but impatient of systematic 
 authority. The wise observers, in some countries, 
 might be able to perceive that this feeling was 
 connected with another, which they could allow 
 to be more wholesome and more worthy of en- 
 couragement. The tradesman, German or Eng- 
 lish, along with his Hussite or Lollardite notions, 
 had a sense of belonging to a particular soil, and 
 speaking a particular language, which was often 
 far less strong in the nobleman. But this con- 
 viction interfered as much as the other with sub- 
 mission to Church authority, and with an affection 
 for Church ordinances. It gave rise to strange 
 questionings about the dominion of the Roman 
 Bishop, to stories about the spirit with which 
 kings and emperors in former days had resisted 
 him, to a dislike of the universal language. Was 
 it not clear then that the age had a violent in- 
 clination towards infidelity and irreverence ; that 
 every acknowledgment of an error which had
 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 89 
 
 been sanctioned or tolerated by Churchmen, 
 tended to make this inclination irresistible; and 
 that the only duty of men, who wished well to 
 the preservation of society, nay, of truth, was to 
 uphold, as well as they could, the entire system ? 
 
 It seems to me that the Reformers were led by 
 God's Providence to find the only escape which 
 was possible out of this fearful dilemma. They 
 were led to perceive that certain great moral prin- 
 ciples, involved in the very idea of a relation be- 
 tween God and his creatures, say rather that the 
 belief in that relation itself were outraged by 
 the existing Roman system. The abuses of that 
 system were not excesses ; they were essentially 
 evil; they had their root in a great denial and 
 unbelief. They set at nought great facts con- 
 cerning man and concerning God facts which had 
 been announced by an express revelation from hea- 
 ven. Here was a standing point ; and I do main- 
 tain, and would earnestly press the assertion that 
 Protestantism has a standing point of its own ; that 
 it is not merely condemnatory, merely negative ; 
 and that so far as it keeps within its own proper 
 and appointed province, it denounces and con- 
 demns only that which is itself negative, and 
 which sets at nought something that is needful 
 for the life and being of man. 
 
 To the question, what that something is, and
 
 90 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 what therefore is the appointed province of Pro- 
 testantism, I have already indicated what seems 
 to me the true answer. The feeling which was 
 most strongly awake at the time Luther appeared, 
 was the feeling hi each man that he was an in- 
 dividual man, not merely one of a mass. Luther 
 did not create this thought; it was there. He 
 struggled with it in himself, and would fain have 
 overcome it ; but it was too strong for him. He 
 was obliged to find some interpretation of it ; he 
 was not at peace till he found one, which told 
 him that the only safe, free, true position of a 
 man, is not a position of rebellion, but of allegi- 
 ance; a position involving the subjection of the 
 whole soul to a righteous and divine government. 
 The clue which led him out of the perplexities 
 of his own mind, was that which thousands be- 
 sides him needed ; they received it and rejoiced. 
 To say that he was a minister of sedition, or that 
 he raised up ministers of sedition, is easy, because 
 it is easy to misrepresent history, and to attribute 
 the evil consequences of certain states of mind to 
 those who were God's instruments in preventing 
 them from being universal. But those who look 
 steadily and impartially at the facts, not wishing 
 (and I think I have shown that I have no wish) to 
 represent them to the disadvantage of those who 
 opposed Protestantism, will, I believe, be more
 
 OP THE REFORMATION. 91 
 
 and more convinced, that the Reformers did not 
 call forth the rebellious activity of the period 
 in which they lived, but when it was seeking 
 a refuge in infidelity, taught it to find one in 
 faith. 
 
 The three principles of which I have spoken 
 contained the religious satisfaction of that sense 
 of an individual position which the men of the 
 sixteenth century were experiencing. I have 
 hinted that, closely connected with this, was 
 another the sense of a distinct national position. 
 The fourth principle of Protestantism was the 
 recognition of this feeling also, as true, and as 
 having a religious basis. The protest against the 
 usurpation of the Bishop of Rome was not mainly 
 grounded upon the idea of its interference with 
 the prerogatives of Christ over the whole Church. 
 I do not say that idea may not have been often 
 put forward by the Reformers ; I do not say that 
 it may not have frequently dawned upon them as 
 the principle which this temporal authority in- 
 vaded. But I do not think it was constantly 
 present to their minds, that it was ever fully 
 developed in them, or that when they used lan- 
 guage which implied it, that language conveyed 
 precisely the same meaning to them which it 
 conveys to us. 
 
 They may also have alluded, in terms of dis-
 
 92 ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 pleasure or even reprobation, to the assumption 
 by one bishop of an authority over others ; but 
 I cannot persuade myself that this was a sin which 
 would have induced them to reject the papal 
 authority. Their contempt of it arose, as they 
 became more and more convinced that that was 
 true and necessary which an infallible wisdom had 
 pronounced to be erroneous and mischievous, and, 
 as they observed, how it had interfefed with the 
 power and functions of the National Sovereigns. By 
 many links the peculiar theology of the Reforma- 
 tion was connected with the assertion of the dig- 
 nity of this office, and of the national distinctness 
 which it represents; one is very obvious. Th6 
 Reformers had resorted to the Scriptures not 
 merely for their authority, but for their prac- 
 tical character. But that practical character is 
 especially exhibited in the Old Testament, and 
 in the Old Testament every truth is brought out 
 in relation to the events of a national history. 
 Their own time interpreted the Scriptures to the 
 Reformers, and the Scriptures in turn interpreted 
 their own time.
 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 93 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 
 
 I HAVE already noticed one primary objection 
 against all these doctrines, one which, according 
 to my judgment, would be fatal to them; that 
 they are merely negative merely the contradic- 
 tion of that faith which Romanists hold. 
 
 But there are also particular objections against 
 each of them which it is necessary to examine. 
 
 1. One charge which is brought against the 
 Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, belongs 
 especially and characteristically to the Quakers. 
 It is said that justification by faith either means 
 the same thing as the doctrine of the Indwelling 
 Word, or, if it mean something different, that one 
 of them is false. Either (it is contended) the 
 light dwelt with men or it did not : if it did, the 
 following that light is justification ; if it did not, 
 the whole doctrine of Fox (which I have defended) 
 is untenable. Men must be justified by the agree- 
 ment of their minds with a certain inward princi- 
 ple, or by certain outward acts done on their behalf. 
 To say that a man is in his right state with him- 
 self and before God when he subjects himself to 
 the Indwelling Word, and that a man is justified 
 in consequence of certain acts which Christ per-
 
 94 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 formed as his representative, is impossible. Now 
 I readily admit that the temper of mind, which 
 leads a man vehemently to assert one of these 
 doctrines, is not the same temper of mind which 
 leads him to assert the other ; nay, that these 
 tempers are not very often found co-existing in 
 any great strength. The Quaker and the Mystic, 
 (to use that word in an indifferent sense, not in 
 the evil sense which I gave to it in my first chap- 
 ter,) habitually contemplate a divine presence in 
 the heart ; they associate that presence, very pro- 
 bably, with the life of our Lord ; but if they do so, 
 consciously or unconsciously they affix an import 
 to his acts and words which is different from their 
 obvious historical import. The Lutheran habi- 
 tually contemplates a Divine Person, having a real 
 distinct life ; rejoices that he entered into ordinary 
 human relations and circumstances; realizes his own 
 connexion with him through those relations and 
 circumstances. Unquestionably any one who has 
 observed himself, and knows how very different 
 were the feelings which at different times of his 
 life have attracted him in these two directions, 
 will not be slow to confess that Quakerism and 
 Lutheranism have something in their nature which 
 is even curiously antipathic. But I fancy the 
 same observation will equally incline him to the 
 opinion that each of these doctrines is the com-
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 95 
 
 plement of the other, and that in spite of their 
 apparent opposition, neither can exist in any real 
 strength if the other be denied. 
 
 To explain what I mean, let us consider what 
 were the actual wants and anxieties of the men 
 in the old world, who experienced the struggle 
 between the light and darkness of which Fox has 
 spoken. Must not such thoughts as these have 
 been continually present to their minds : Here 
 are two powers struggling within me, one good, 
 one evil ; sometimes one prevails, sometimes the 
 other; sometimes the darkness seems about to 
 be scattered, sometimes the light seems almost 
 quenched : but I, who am I, in the midst of all 
 this awful struggle ? Do I belong to the light, or 
 to the darkness ? Of which have I a right to call 
 myself the child now; of which shall I be the 
 child for ever? The consciousness of evil, of re- 
 bellion against a power continually exerting itself 
 for my good, testifies against me ; my belief in 
 the graciousness, in the mightiness of the Being 
 who is on my side, speaks in my favour : but then, 
 what awful outward facts seem to corroborate the 
 former conclusion ! All the outward sicknesses, 
 sorrows, troubles of the world, seem to be lifting 
 up their voice to condemn me, to be proving 
 that my unseen Friend is either not omnipotent, 
 or that his forbearance with my often repeated
 
 96 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 disobedience will at last have a limit ; and what 
 is that limit ? May not death at last decide this 
 struggle ? may he not be God's permitted minister, 
 to decide it against me? These thoughts do not 
 imply the least unbelief in a future state ; that was 
 not the anxious question of the heathen, as all 
 their mythology proves : but it was, What shall I 
 be, in that state ? Some ethereal particle in me 
 may mount up and enter into rest, and even be 
 united to the Divine Essence ; but will it be my- 
 self? I cannot believe that I shall die, in the 
 sense in which all the things about me die. When- 
 ever I feel that I am at all, I feel that I am 
 immortal 5 I may lose the thought while I am 
 speculating ; I can never lose it while I am acting 
 and living. But this is the point, shall good or 
 evil, shall light or darkness be that to which I am 
 united, when all the spiritual energies, by which I 
 seem to have asserted my connection with some- 
 thing better than myself, shall be as much crushed 
 by pain and weakness and death, the great con- 
 summation of them, as the energies by which I 
 eat, and drink, and walk ? The Jews were taught 
 to experience precisely the same difficulty, only 
 with still greater power and reality, only with a 
 brighter and better hope as to its solution. They 
 felt in themselves this struggle ; but then, taking 
 hold of the covenant, with Abraham, Isaac, and
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 97 
 
 Jacob, they were able to believe that the righteous 
 Lord who revealed himself to their hearts was 
 indeed their Lord, and would be so for ever and 
 ever ; and coming with the appointed sacrifice, at 
 the appointed time, in the appointed place, to the 
 appointed priest, they were able to believe that 
 that covenant had not been destroyed through 
 their iniquity ; that they still had an inheritance 
 in the King of their nation ; that they should be- 
 hold his face in righteousness; and that when 
 his glory was manifested to the whole earth, they 
 should partake in it. Yet it was a hope still ; 
 still the doubt rested upon their minds, and at 
 times would gain a dreadful ascendancy Is this 
 evil and accursed nature which belongs to me, my 
 ownself ? Are not its evils imputed to me ? Are 
 not they counted a part of me ? Will not death 
 destroy that nature; and when he destroys it, 
 shall I be spared? These questions must have 
 occupied men, not because they did not possess 
 the light which lighteth every man that comet h 
 into the world, but because they did possess it ; 
 yea, according to the degree in which that light 
 was revealed to them, or in which they followed it. 
 Surely some answer was needed to them ; surely 
 it is a mockery to say that the light itself was the 
 answer. If we accept the doctrine of Luther, the 
 answer is clear and intelligible. The Word was 
 VOL. i. F
 
 98 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 made flesh and dwelt among us ; in this flesh He 
 passed through the conflicts and trials of men ; 
 He died a real death ; He brought back a real 
 body from the grave. This was the voice from 
 heaven replying to the voice from earth. The 
 man asks, " What am I ; am I to account myself 
 a child of the light or a child of the darkness ?" 
 Christ dying and rising from the dead, declares : 
 " Thy nature is accursed, thy person is justified ; 
 married to thy evil nature, thou art sinful and 
 under the curse ; claiming thy portion in me, thou 
 art holy, and righteous, and redeemed." Is this 
 merely the doctrine of an indwelling Word ? Does 
 it contradict that doctrine ? Or does one prove 
 the necessity and the reality of the other ? 
 
 Tt is most true, however, as I have said already, 
 that there is one side or aspect of the Lutheran 
 doctrine, to which there is nothing corresponding 
 in the mystical. The outward acts of our Lord 
 in human flesh, considered as assertions of the 
 right which creatures bearing that flesh have to 
 rise above themselves and claim a portion in Him, 
 have been recognised by many an earnest mystic 
 in his later years, as most needful portions of a 
 spiritual economy. But the feeling which was at 
 the root of all others in Luther's mind, that these 
 acts were mediatorial, propitiatory acts, having for 
 their ultimate object the satisfaction of the will of
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 99 
 
 the Father, has been generally received by per- 
 sons of this temper with coldness if not with dis- 
 gust. It should, I think, be distinctly under- 
 stood by them at first for they must arrive at 
 the discovery sooner or later that they cannot 
 hope to connect this faith with, or to reduce it 
 under any of the ideas which belong properly to 
 mysticism. If those ideas do include all truth, 
 this Lutheran doctrine is not true, for the very 
 assumption upon which it proceeds, and to which 
 every thing is referred, that there is an Absolute 
 Will which is the ground of all things, of all 
 being, life, thought, forms no part of mysticism, 
 however mystics may have adopted or grafted it 
 into their faith. The Divine Word is the only 
 real subject of their meditation"; a vague gulf of 
 being beyond they may awfully think of, but 
 they dare not speak of it in the forms of human 
 language, or bring it within the region of person- 
 ality, or dream of it as the ground of human re- 
 lations. Now that the mystics have most reason- 
 able complaints to make against the systems to 
 which the Lutheran theology has given rise, on 
 this very ground, that they have despoiled the 
 idea of God of its fearfulness and grandeur, and 
 reduced it under human notions and experience, 
 I shall be presently obliged to admit. But the 
 question here at issue is Does or does not 
 
 F2
 
 100 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 evidence, similar to that which compelled us to 
 acknowledge the truth of the mystical idea of 
 an indwelling Word, compel us to acknowledge, 
 that there is a truth beside and beyond this, 
 which involves, under some terms or other, the 
 belief of Mediation, Sacrifice, Satisfaction? Sup- 
 posing, for instance, we attached any value to the 
 discovery, that the doctrine of a Divine Indwell- 
 ing Word was not merely asserted in certain de- 
 tached texts of Scripture, but that it imparted a 
 coherency and clearness to the whole course of 
 Scripture history, giving a sense to the word 
 Idolatry, showing how and why that was treated 
 as the sin of mankind, explaining the lives and 
 language of those who kept themselves free from 
 it, may we not observe a parallel line of proofs 
 bearing just as strongly in favour of these other 
 principles? Is the Lutheran obliged to depend 
 upon certain words or texts, in order to shew 
 that the idea of human Mediation is contained 
 in Scripture ? Is it not worked into the very 
 tissue of the history which the Scripture con- 
 tains? Is it not involved in the constitution of 
 the Jewish commonwealth, which it treats of? 
 Can less be said concerning the kindred ideas of 
 Propitiation, Atonement, Sacrifice ? May it not 
 be more correctly affirmed, that what gives the 
 sense of continuousness and unity to the books
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 101 
 
 of Scripture, written under so many different cir- 
 cumstances, and at such wide intervals of time, is 
 this fact, that lawgivers, psalmists, prophets, are, 
 one and all, according to their various functions, 
 in obedience to their inward promptings, and to 
 meet the necessities of their respective times, 
 gradually drawing out these ideas which were 
 already embodied in the institutions and life of 
 the Jewish nation ? 
 
 If, again, it seemed to us a remarkable witness 
 in favour of Fox's principle, that one great por- 
 tion of Gentile records was scarcely intelligible 
 without it; have we no witness in favour of 
 these principles from another part of those same 
 records ? The philosopher discovered a divine 
 light, or wisdom, which he was to cry after and 
 to follow ; did not the whole body of the people 
 believe that there was an invisible power, which 
 it was to propitiate, which it was to reach by me- 
 diation, to which it must offer sacrifices ? Did 
 not the wisest statesmen, even in days when all 
 actual faith had disappeared, still recognise these 
 thoughts as strange and mysterious, which the 
 nation must acknowledge if it were to be a nation, 
 though they might dispense with them, or over- 
 look them ? Was philosophy ever able to get 
 above these ideas, or to merge them in that 
 which was peculiarly its own ? Many philosophers 
 
 F3
 
 102 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 laboured hard ; the best of them felt more strongly 
 than all others, that there was in the popular 
 faith upon these matters, that which contra- 
 dicted truths which seemed to him most sacred ; 
 yet he was the least disposed to attack that faith ; 
 the most inclined to recognise it as something 
 which the philosopher needed so much the more, 
 because he was a philosopher. 
 
 In this view of the subject he was, as I have 
 hinted before, almost peculiar; nearly all others 
 wished either to extinguish the existing theology 
 by philosophical notions, to translate it into philo- 
 sophical notions, or to invest philosophy with the 
 mysterious and miraculous character of revealed 
 theology. The records of each experiment are 
 preserved, the more they are studied the better. 
 The fact has survived them all these ideas in 
 one form or another have been and are the most 
 characteristic and fundamental ideas of humanity ; 
 the very proofs and witnesses that we constitute a 
 Kind. Explain them as you will or as you can, 
 but remember that an explanation is not the thing. 
 If these ideas be not delusions, there is some 
 reality corresponding to them ; and that reality, 
 could we know it, might be expected to contain 
 the explanation of them, and also of the partial, 
 false, and mischievous notions which may have 
 encompassed them ; if they be delusions, it would
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 103 
 
 seem that all humanity must be a delusion ; that 
 there can be no common principles to form the 
 groundwork of it. I cannot think, then, that the 
 mystical objection to the Lutheran doctrine, on 
 whichever side we view it, is a tenable one. 
 
 2. Another class of persons, who oppose the 
 doctrine of justification, as it was stated by 
 Luther, maintain that it exaggerates a mere fact 
 or crisis in the history of individuals, into a fixed 
 and permanent law. " At a certain period, they 
 say, a man, who has been careless of religion, 
 acquires a conviction of his error. He is sensi- 
 ble that he has been leading a faithless, godless 
 life. He has been acting as if there were no 
 Lord and Saviour whom he was meant to trust 
 and to love. He begins to recognise such a Sa- 
 viour to believe in Him. It is unquestionably a 
 new feeling; the beginning of a different class 
 of feelings from any of which he has hitherto 
 been conscious. It is, therefore, invested by him, 
 and rightly, with great sacredness ; but it is 
 only the first in a series of spiritual acts. His 
 belief, if it be not stunted by the notion that 
 it is all-sufficient, grows into love and good 
 works. And this it might have done if there had 
 been no such sudden discovery as that to which 
 he gives the name of Justification. From his 
 baptism upward he might have led a faithful 
 F 4
 
 104 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 and pure life; then that baptism would be just 
 as rightly and reasonably called his justification, 
 as that primary and preliminary act of con- 
 scious faith. Luther/' they continue, "was led 
 by his own circumstances, or by those of his age, 
 to dwell with particular delight and emphasis 
 upon the transition-moment of his spiritual his- 
 tory ; yet even he speaks frequently of baptism, 
 as if that was entitled to the credit of his justi- 
 fication ; it is evident then that there was a con- 
 fusion in his mind which, though it might not 
 unfit him for an active reformer, certainly must 
 make us suspicious of him when he assumed to 
 be the enunciator of a great principle. And 
 every thing in his words, and the history of his 
 doctrine, tends to heighten that suspicion. For 
 why did he dwell so much upon a formal release 
 from guilt, and a formal imputation of righteous- 
 ness? Surely it is a real deliverance from sin, 
 and a real righteousness that man requires. Give 
 the best form you can to the other notion ; strip 
 it of the fictitious character, in which it must 
 be offensive both to God and man ; and still it 
 can only point to some feeling on our part of a 
 position offered to us, which we may, if we 
 please, realize ; and then to speak of that position 
 as something independent of the realization, while 
 yet you say that it is a position granted to faith,
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 105 
 
 and that faith is the realizing principle, is to give 
 us shadows for substances, a dream of food to 
 satisfy our hunger." 
 
 I have stated the argument, I hope, fairly, 
 avoiding only the use of one or two favourite 
 phrases 8 , which have become catchwords, and, 
 I believe, embarrass the minds of all, on either 
 side, who resort to them. I at once acknowledge 
 the great plausibility of the statement, "the ad- 
 mirable piety of those, who, in former days or 
 of late, have brought it forward, and the diffi- 
 culty of showing why I think the substance of 
 it to be fallacious, without seeming to reject por- 
 tions of it which I believe to be both true and 
 important. I think, however, that by at once 
 going to the heart of the question, we may be 
 able to relieve it of many of its perplexities. 
 Every one must have been struck with these 
 words of St. Paul. "That I may be found in 
 him, not having my own righteousness, which is 
 of the law, but that which is by the faith of 
 Christ ; the righteousness, that is, of God by or 
 upon faith," (ETTI ry Triarei.) What is remarkable in 
 these words is, of course, their connection. St. Paul 
 is speaking of some very high attainment, some 
 end which was to be the consummation of all his 
 
 8 Such as " forensic.' 
 F5
 
 106 OBJECTION'S TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 strivings. And this attainment, this end, is what? 
 Having an individual righteousness? No; but 
 precisely the not having it. The highest per- 
 fection this saint and apostle could think of, one 
 which he could not dare to say he had achieved, 
 was the ceasing to be anything in himself, the ac- 
 knowledgment of his whole moral and spiritual 
 life and being as in another. 
 
 I do not believe that the excellent men, who 
 argue against the Lutheran doctrine upon the 
 grounds I am considering, have the least difficulty 
 in interpreting this passage. I do not fancy that 
 they wish to explain away its force. On the con- 
 trary, I am quite persuaded they would say, " Cer- 
 tainly this is one of the paradoxes of divinity; 
 but it is a paradox upon which every new fact 
 in our spiritual history throws a new light; a 
 paradox so involved in the idea of Christianity, 
 nay, in the idea of our own moral constitution, 
 that there are few persons who do not frequently 
 justify it by their unconscious expressions, even 
 if they have little apparent insight into its mean- 
 ing. Every man knows, that just so far as he 
 contemplates self in his acts as an object for 
 gratulation, so far those acts are contradictory, 
 and that just so far as he can renounce self, and 
 look upon his acts as beginning and terminating 
 in another, just so far he has fought the great
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 107 
 
 fight of life, and has attained his true state." 
 Such language as this is most common in writers 
 who have a strong dislike to Luther. Let us 
 look steadily at it for a moment. 
 
 It is admitted, that this state of self-denial, in 
 the highest and fullest sense of the words, is the 
 true state of a man; not a fantastic imaginary 
 state at all ; something which every good man is 
 to desire and strive after ; and to sorrow because 
 his vanity and pride continually check him in his 
 efforts to reach it. Assuredly then it ought not 
 to be assumed, that there is something necessarily 
 fictitious in the idea of abandoning a self-righte- 
 ousness, and acquiring another righteousness ; 
 there is a sense in which that idea is not only 
 not fictitious, but the very reverse of fictitious; 
 the deliverance from the perpetual fictions and 
 counterfeits of our selfish nature. Nor, again, 
 can it be maintained, that the doctrine of re- 
 nouncing our righteousness, and receiving ano- 
 ther, does necessarily belong to one stage the 
 lowest stage of a man's spiritual progress ; it 
 would seem, that in some sense it appertained to 
 the very highest stage of it. " But then, it is 
 said, this cannot be the Lutheran sense ; for that 
 sense is as clearly as language can describe it this 
 that a sinner, a man pursuing an evil course, 
 does by an act of faith, in the righteousness of 
 F 6
 
 108 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 another, become a righteous and justified man. 
 No one, not wishing to pervert and confuse things 
 essentially distinct, nay opposite, can identify 
 this assertion with one which evidently relates 
 to the most advanced period of Christian life and 
 experience." Now let it be remembered, that the 
 especial charge against Luther is, that he mistook 
 the phenomena of a certain crisis in our life for 
 a fixed law applicable to the whole of it. He 
 is blamed for attaching so much importance to 
 this doctrine, as if it were the key to the entire 
 meaning of a man's spiritual existence, when in 
 fact it merely describes the first conscious feeling 
 of such an existence. May we not fairly suggest 
 the thought to the objector, that possibly he may 
 be falling into this very error himself, and mis- 
 taking Luther just because he was free from it? 
 May there not be a law which is expressly the 
 law of a man's being ; complete conformity to 
 which is his perfection ; but which, from the first 
 hour of his life to the last, is his law ; which does 
 not depend the least for its reality upon his re- 
 cognition of it, or his denial of it; which will 
 judge him at the last day ; and which must not, 
 therefore, be concealed from him at any time, but 
 be announced to him as that against which he is 
 rebelling. May not this law be, must it not be 
 if St. Paul's words are to be received in their
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 109 
 
 simple sense, the law of union with another, 
 the law of self-renunciation ? Suppose then I 
 see man pursuing an utterly wrong course a 
 course of indulgence in the most ordinary sense 
 of the words have I not right to say to him, 
 This is an evil course; and if he ask me why, 
 to answer, Because it is a course of selfishness, 
 and because you were not meant, and your con- 
 science tells you you were not meant to be selfish. 
 And if he reply to me, as in nine cases out of 
 ten he will " But how can I be otherwise ? every 
 man is selfish ; selfishness is our nature, our ne- 
 cessity; God made us so, we cannot help it," 
 am I hindered from asserting God's ways against 
 man's blasphemy in some such words as these ? " I 
 care not whether you call selfishness your nature 
 or no ; if it be, your nature is a contradiction and 
 a lie, for it makes you do that which you cannot 
 do without being at war with yourself. If that 
 be your nature, then you are not meant to live 
 according to your nature, but to rise out of it 
 above it. And there is One who has come to re- 
 deem you out of your nature, and to unite you to 
 Himself. In Him you may believe and live; in 
 yourself you cannot." In saying this, I have 
 preached to this sinful man Lutheran doctrine of 
 justification. I have told him that there is a state
 
 110 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 belonging to him, with which he is not living in 
 accordance, but with which he is living at vari- 
 ance. I have said, that union with another is 
 his law; separation from him, his transgression* 
 I have said, that that union is not a natural, but 
 a spiritual one. It is a union which is main- 
 tained by faith ; unbelief is the renunciation of it : 
 therefore an anomalous sinful condition. There 
 is a fiction here assuredly ; it is a fiction to have 
 a state and not to enjoy it ; a fiction to possess 
 the conditions of a spiritual being, and to be 
 acting as if these conditions did not exist. But 
 it is the fiction of an evil world ; and I know not 
 how we are to get rid of the fiction but by de- 
 claring the fact to which it is opposed. 
 
 The dream, that because it is announced as a 
 fact it will be at once received as a fact, that 
 there will not be a fierce conflict with the selfish 
 nature before it can be acknowledged at all, and 
 that these struggles will not be repeated every 
 day of a man's pilgrimage through an evil world, 
 was certainly not Luther's dream. Every page of 
 his writings, like every hour of his life, bears wit- 
 ness to a tremendous struggle. The question 
 which he thought to be all-important, was this 
 Is the struggle against the too great proneness 
 of the evil heart to believe and trust, or against
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. Ill 
 
 its reluctance to believe and trust; against its 
 over eagerness to cleave to its Lord, or against 
 its passion for a selfish independence ? 
 
 His conviction was, that when he distrusted 
 Christ he was a bad and evil man, with no 
 capacity for doing any right or good act. To 
 trust then must be a duty ; a man could not be 
 just or righteous who did not trust ; so far as 
 he did trust he must be so. If he were asked 
 whether nothing must precede this trust and 
 give a warrant for it, he would have answered ; 
 Assuredly God's word and promise must pre- 
 cede; the declaration, that this state is yours, 
 must be your warrant for claiming it. The words 
 of the Bible generally, the assurance of baptism 
 to you particularly, give you the right to believe. 
 To seek the right in anything else, in any out- 
 ward acts or inward feeling of yours, is to commit 
 a contradiction; for these acts and feelings, if 
 they are lawful and right, are acts and feelings 
 which imply trust are expressions of trust. A 
 man's repetition of his Credo does not give him 
 a right to trust in God's mercy and forgiveness, 
 but if he repeats it, as he should, it is a form of 
 trust and affiance in God. A man's comfortable 
 impressions and feelings are not reasons of con- 
 fidence ; if they are not mere physical sensations, 
 they are the effects of his resting in his true
 
 112 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 friend. Faith then, according to him, could not 
 be looked upon as a grace, which we may con- 
 template and reflect upon in ourselves. By its 
 very nature it is the act of going out of self, the 
 act of entering into union with another from 
 whom all our graces are to be derived. That the 
 power of performing such an act is conferred by 
 God, and is therefore a grace, he of course as- 
 serted stoutly ; but it made an immeasurable dif- 
 ference whether the grace was supposed to be 
 given to a man as so much stock which he might 
 call his own, or whether its effect was to induce 
 him to disclaim all property in himself, and to 
 live entirely in Christ. It was on this account 
 that he resisted so strongly the argument which 
 the Romanists deduced from the relative excellence 
 of faith and love. Love, they said, is a higher 
 grace than faith, by the testimony of your own 
 St. Paul, and yet you make the grace of faith and 
 not of love the ground of justification. I do not, 
 he would answer, make what you call the grace of 
 faith the ground of justification. I do not tell a 
 man that he is to ask himself, how much faith 
 he has, and if he have so much, to call himself 
 justified. What I tell him is precisely that he 
 is not to do this, that this is the very trick which 
 he has been practising upon himself, while he has 
 been under your teaching. He is not to think or
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 113 
 
 speculate about his faith at all. He is to believe, 
 and by believing, to lose sight of himself and to 
 forget himself. And, therefore, I cannot allow 
 that he is justified by his grace of love, though I 
 admit that to be the highest of all graces. Trust 
 is the beginning of love, the way to love. A 
 being who shows that he cares for me, and in 
 whom all love dwells, proposes himself to me as 
 an object of my trust; I trust him, and so enter 
 into a knowledge and participation of his love. 
 And that love works in me to will and to do of his 
 good pleasure. 
 
 I do not say that on all these points Luther 
 may not have fallen into a hundred inconsisten- 
 cies. Those who search his writings for such 
 inconsistencies will, I doubt not, be amply re- 
 warded for their pains. Those who look in him 
 for a strong, steady current of thought and mean- 
 ing running through all his perplexities and con- 
 tradictions, and often made more evident by them, 
 will also, I think, find what they desire. One 
 remark I would venture to make in support of 
 the view which I have taken of his theology. It 
 is certainly a rare case that the character of the 
 doctrine which a man spends his life in proclaim- 
 ing, should stand out in direct contrast to his 
 own personal character. In nearly all cases one 
 receives some strong impression and colouring
 
 114 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 from the other. Those who read Luther's his- 
 tory, would certainly not expect to find an ex- 
 ception to this rule in his case ; they would fancy 
 that he must have thrown more of his own per- 
 sonality than another man does into any prin- 
 ciple he defended not less. Now Luther is 
 often condemned as coarse, rude, impatient ; did 
 ever any one affirm that he was not sufficiently 
 plain-spoken and substantial ? Is there not then 
 a rather strong a priori improbability in the 
 notion, that his doctrine, to whatever charges it 
 may be open, is obnoxious to just this one, of 
 being a mere pursuing or fighting of shadows ? 
 Might not one be glad to discover some escape 
 from a supposition which, to any ordinary person 
 who is not a theologian, must seem most utterly 
 startling and inexplicable ? 
 
 3. When I have mentioned one other objection 
 to this principle, I believe I shall have encoun- 
 tered all those by which persons in this day are 
 likely to be perplexed. Many students are at a 
 loss to discover how the doctrine of justification 
 by faith differs from the general doctrine of atone- 
 ment, which was as strongly recognised, in words 
 at least, by the Romanists as it could be by Luther. 
 
 We can understand, they say, that many 
 practices may have been sanctioned at that time, 
 which interfered with the full acknowledgment of
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 115 
 
 our Lord's sacrifice. We can suppose that it may 
 have been important to reassert the principle 
 strongly for the purpose of protesting against 
 these abuses. But the doctrine was there ; the 
 Romanists insisted upon faith in it ; what more 
 have we to do ? If Protestantism have got rid of 
 any mischievous outgrowths of the elder system, let 
 us be thankful ; but why endeavour to maintain 
 this particular mode of expression which was, to 
 all appearance, adopted for a temporary purpose 
 and has accomplished that purpose ? 
 
 I think that the statement I have given of 
 Luther's doctrine is, to a certain extent, an answer 
 to this difficulty. He did not call upon men to 
 acknowledge either a new doctrine or an old one, 
 to believe either in a certain opinion concerning 
 justification or in a certain opinion concerning the 
 atonement. He called upon them to believe in 
 God the Father Almighty in Jesus Christ his only 
 Son our Lord, and in the Holy Ghost. He said 
 again and again, that the Credo was justification. 
 He told men that union with Christ was deliver- 
 ance from sin and condemnation ; that that union 
 was claimed and maintained by faith ; that faith 
 was therefore justification. Such an assertion was 
 true or false. If it were true, it cannot have 
 ceased to be true; all the circumstances and 
 occasions which called it forth may have passed
 
 116 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 away ; but the law which it proclaimed must be 
 as much a law for us as it was for those to whom 
 Tetzel sold his indulgences. And so far from 
 thinking, as those who make this objection seem to 
 think, that w y e of this day can afford to substitute 
 faith in a certain notion or dogma, for faith in a 
 living person, though the men of the 16th century 
 could not, I rather fancy that this is a temptation 
 to which we have yielded more than even the 
 Romanist did, and from which we almost need a 
 second Reformation to deliver us. 
 
 But I do not believe that the objector really 
 means this; I suspect that this difficulty about 
 the relation between the idea of justification and 
 the idea atonement is a very important difficulty 
 indeed ; that it is one which did not force itself 
 upon the consideration of the Reformers ; that it 
 is one which does force itself upon our considera- 
 tion ; that people are taking various methods of ex- 
 pressing it to themselves some of them being 
 very confused methods tending to increase rather 
 than to remove our perplexity and to rob us of 
 distinctions and principles which with great diffi- 
 culty have been established for us ; but that it 
 must be earnestly considered, and will receive some 
 practical resolution a very mischievous if not a 
 satisfactory one. The question is this. Can this 
 doctrine of justification, if it retain its Lutheran
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 117 
 
 meaning, if it be the assertion of a man's per- 
 sonal position and personal duty, if it do not 
 degenerate into the most lifeless of all formulas 
 assume the position which it does assume in a great 
 part of our Protestant divinity ? Can it be put 
 forward as the truth which lies at the foundation 
 of the Christian Church. Does this view honour 
 the doctrine 3 or only kiss it, in order to kill. This 
 is a question which we shall have to consider 
 when we enquire into the Protestant systems, 
 and their practical workings. Perhaps the reader 
 may be the less unwilling to enter with me upon 
 the examination, if he perceive, as I hope by this 
 time he does, that it is as much my desire as it 
 can be his, to assert the principle in its integrity 
 and fulness. 
 
 II. 1. It is evident that the mystics, who oppose 
 themselves mainly to that side of the doctrine of 
 justification which connects it with the idea of 
 the Divine Will, must dislike to see that idea so 
 prominently exhibited as it is in the Calvinistical 
 theology. And it is" not difficult to understand, 
 from the style of their previous arguments, 
 what kind of substitute they would be inclined 
 to offer for the doctrine of Election, as it ap- 
 pears in that theology. " Each man, they say, 
 stands in a certain relation to the light and to 
 the darkness ; following the light, and submitting
 
 118 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 to the Divine Word, he enters into an elect state ; 
 preferring the darkness he becomes reprobate. 
 In the first case he acts according to the purpose 
 of God ; in the second he resists it. But because 
 this is the case, man is not therefore to be spoken 
 of as the author of his own salvation ; the nature 
 of the act which he performs, proves that he is 
 not so ; it may be more properly called an act of 
 submission than of choice, though it involve 
 choice; it is the surrender of his own will; 
 whereas the opposite kind of act is emphatically 
 the assertion of his own will, a declaration of in- 
 dependence." 
 
 I have already recognised so strongly the 
 principle which this statement embodies, that I 
 am not likely to make any exception against it. 
 I receive it as a satisfactory explanation of the 
 practical conditions under which every man acts ; 
 conditions which must remain true, whatever 
 other truth there may be involved in them. The 
 only question is, whether this doctrine, respecting 
 the Divine Word, can set aside, or make unneces- 
 sary, the distinct formal belief of a primary, ab- 
 solute, originant Will ? I have already said that 
 I think it cannot. That belief seems to lie deeper 
 than the one respecting our relation to the Di- 
 vine Word, and to be the necessary ground of it. 
 Take away that ground, and I cannot see that we
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 119 
 
 retain any acknowledgment of God in himself; 
 that we contemplate Him otherwise than in re- 
 ference to us, or his operations upon us. The 
 mystical doctrine may explain the position and 
 circumstances of man; but these very circum- 
 stances, if the doctrine be true, imply a theology, 
 and that theology it seems to me is the very thing 
 which mysticism wants. 
 
 2. Again, the class of persons who complain 
 of the Lutheran doctrine of justification, as lead- 
 ing to the belief of a fictitious righteousness, see 
 in the doctrine of election an arbitrary dispensa- 
 tion with all righteousness. ' A person receives 
 eternal life because it is the good pleasure of God 
 that he should receive it. Supposing we grant that 
 the obedience is decreed, as well as the reward of 
 it, yet where is that which is the essence of all 
 obedience, that can be acceptable to a perfect 
 being, Freedom? You cannot, therefore, make 
 the doctrine reasonable, except by admitting Di- 
 vine election to be the foresight of human obedi- 
 ence/ 
 
 Unquestionably I would admit that pro- 
 position, or any other, were it never so start- 
 ling, rather than acknowledge that great pri- 
 mary contradiction, that the source of all being 
 is self-will. But one contradiction is not the 
 escape from another, and assuredly the idea of 
 
 1
 
 120 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 an obedience in man, which has no ground to 
 rest upon ; which was foreseen by God, but not 
 derived from Him ; of something good, therefore 
 which cannot be traced ultimately to the Fountain 
 of good ; nay, which exists independently of it, 
 that is to say, under what we are wont to con- 
 sider the very condition of evil is a most agoniz- 
 ing contradiction. And what need have we of 
 it? Only do not suppose the Being whom you 
 worship to be a mere power ; only acknowledge him 
 to be that in reality which you say in words that 
 He is, the essential truth and goodness ; only sup- 
 pose the absolute will to be a will to good, and 
 how can we imagine that Happiness, Obedience, 
 Freedom, have their origin any where but in Him ; 
 that misery, disobedience, slavery, mean anything 
 but revolt and separation from Him ? 
 
 3. The last complaint against this doctrine 
 runs parallel with the last against Luther's. Does 
 not the election mean the election of a body ? 
 Has it anything to do with the election of in- 
 dividuals ? I would make the same answer here 
 which I made in the other case. Every indivi- 
 dual man must be in some state or other. Every 
 individual man ought to know to whom he is to 
 ascribe that state in which he is. The Reformers 
 were especially dealing with the circumstances of 
 individual men. They meant to explain to whom
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 121 
 
 each individual should attribute his election. But 
 what the true state of each man is ; in what re- 
 lation each man stands to a body; whether the 
 election of an individual can be viewed apart 
 from the Election of the Church ; these are 
 questions which are forced upon us at this 
 time, and which it is possible may be resolved 
 in a way in which some of the Reformers and 
 most of .their disciples would not have resolved 
 them. 
 
 III. 1. The language of the Reformers respect- 
 ing the BIBLE was probably more offensive to the 
 Quakers and the mystics generally, than even 
 their doctrines of justification and election. The 
 notion of a book to which men, possessing the In- 
 ward Light and guided by the Spirit, must defer 
 as an absolute authority, puzzled and confused 
 them. Nevertheless, they were by no means in- 
 clined to deny, that the more they were walking in 
 the Light and submitting to the Spirit, the more 
 sympathy they had with the words of this book, the 
 less they were disposed to cavil at them. In this, 
 therefore, as in the two former cases, they were 
 inclined to translate the language of the Refor- 
 mers into their own, and to affirm that in any 
 other sense except that it was false. The spiritual 
 man had a capacity for discerning spiritual truths 
 under the letter of the Scriptures ; to him, there- 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 fore, they had a meaning and an exceeding value. 
 But to call them in themselves, as words, as re- 
 cords of facts, divine; to hold them up, in this 
 character, as objects of reverence, was to turn 
 men's eyes away from the true light, and so far 
 as you could to quench it. 
 
 The truth of this statement, so far as it de- 
 scribes the faculty which the Scripture addresses, 
 I have already admitted, and have maintained 
 that it is implicitly recognised by those who seem 
 to be most startled by it. That all revelation is 
 to the conscience the inner man, and that when 
 that conscience is not awake, when that inner 
 man is buried, the revelation is not really made, 
 most persons, under some form of language or 
 other, are ready to confess. And that the most 
 consistent and intelligible interpretation of this 
 truth is contained in the doctrine, that man is 
 created for union with the Living Word, and that 
 except in union with Him, he is not in a true 
 living state, I at least am most anxious to main- 
 tain. But then if this be the state, not for one 
 man but for all men, and if each man, just so far 
 as he enters into his true state, becomes more of a 
 man, and less of a mere individual, does it not 
 seem strange that there should be no instrument 
 through which the mind of the Living Word 
 is expressed to the race, and which therefore
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 123 
 
 overreaches the feelings and judgments of each 
 particular mind, while it imparts to these feelings 
 and judgments clearness, purity, and strength ? 
 Does not the expectation of such an instru- 
 ment, a certain conviction that it is necessary 
 and that it will be given, grow up just in pro- 
 portion as we take in the other idea, and ob- 
 serve how entirely it contradicts the notion that 
 each man is a law to himself? Now supposing 
 there were such an instrument, of what kind must 
 it be ? You say that the same set of facts, words, 
 records, conveys a different meaning to the spiri- 
 tual enlightened man and to the fleshly jgnorant 
 man. Be it so then what is there to prevent 
 us from believing that the truth which is meant 
 to be conveyed, should be conveyed in facts, re- 
 cords, and words ? Why may it not be a spiri- 
 tual communication, because it is embodied in 
 the ordinary forms of human discourse? Can 
 you imagine how it should be embodied in any 
 other forms ? That you may not be able to 
 conjecture what facts and events would be ade- 
 quate to make known to man the law of his own 
 being, his relation to God, the character of God, I 
 willingly acknowledge. But suppose you were told 
 that a set of men a peculiar nation had been 
 selected as the organs of a divine communication 
 
 G2
 
 124 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 to the nations generally, and that all their cir- 
 cumstances had been contrived for the purpose 
 of fitting them for such a function, would you 
 say there was a priori improbability that this 
 would be the method adopted by the Lord of 
 man for speaking to his creatures? would you 
 not feel there was a singular fitness in it; that 
 there was some difficulty in conjecturing how 
 any other could be equally in accordance with 
 the principle which we have acknowledged ? 
 
 Whence, then, comes the reluctance of the 
 mystic to receive the reformed doctrine on this 
 subject? It may be traced, I believe, to the 
 same defect which we have observed in him 
 already. He perceives the conditions under 
 which man exists, the relation in which he stands 
 co a divine guide and teacher, but he does not 
 trace that relation up to its ground in an Origi- 
 nating Will. Stopping short of that, he cannot, 
 it seems to me, heartily believe in a Revelation. 
 He thinks of the eye which receives the Light; 
 he cannot steadily reflect that there was a Light 
 before the eye, and that it called into existence 
 the eye which should behold it. I do not say 
 that he does not implicitly acknowledge this 
 truth. But the explicit acknowledgment of it is 
 that which I believe gave the Reformation all its
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 125 
 
 moral strength and grandeur, and above all, which 
 imparted to the Protestant doctrine respecting the 
 Bible all its meaning. 
 
 2. The Quaker complains against this doctrine 
 because it subjects the spiritual man to the go- 
 vernment of words and letters. A much more 
 popular objection to it is, that it sets particular 
 men, however ill taught and undisciplined, free 
 from all authority but their own. " Interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture have been compiled by a series 
 of wise, learned, holy men ; some of them receiv- 
 ing their lessons immediately from the apostles. 
 Evidently, therefore, there are difficulties, amaz- 
 ing difficulties, about its meaning. Yet the most 
 ignorant mechanic is to be treated as if he could 
 take cognizance of it, and attain to a complete 
 understanding of it." 
 
 Now it should be understood or remembered, 
 that however the doctrine of the Reformers 
 respecting the Scriptures may have become 
 identified with the doctrine of private judgment, 
 it did not present itself to them in that form but 
 in the most dissimilar form imaginable. They 
 expressly proclaimed the Bible to be that book 
 which puts down and humbles private judgments ; 
 which asserts its claim to be heard above them 
 all and in opposition to them all, and which is 
 able to make that claim good. They believed
 
 126 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 that its words were with power; that when it 
 spoke, man felt that power, and either submitted 
 to it or consciously rebelled against it. I 
 appeal to any one who has looked at all into the 
 writings of the Reformers, whether this be not 
 the tone which habitually pervades them. Was 
 this notion of theirs absurd or extravagant ? 
 Assuredly it might have been justified it was 
 justified to the men who lived at what is called 
 the revival of letters by the most obvious analo- 
 gies. Was it the fact that the men and women and 
 children in the Greek isles and on the shores of 
 Asia had heard the Homeric songs from the lips 
 of wandering rhapsodists, and had received them 
 into their memories and their hearts ? Was it the 
 fact that in the most cultivated period of Athenian 
 life these same songs were listened to, with less 
 of genuine admiration perhaps, but still with de- 
 light and a confession of their strange power ? Was 
 it the fact that afterwards they became subjects 
 of philosophical speculation to Aristotle, but at the 
 self- same moment stirred the spirit of Alexander 
 to the invasion of the East without any reference 
 to his master's criticisms upon them? Did 
 English or German schoolboys wait till they had 
 studied Aristotle or Eustathius to feel them nay 
 in the best sense to understand them in their first 
 dress or in their own tongue ? What man in his
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 127 
 
 senses will say that there was any arrogance of 
 private interpretation in all this ; that it was the 
 setting up a right to criticise, and not much rather 
 the abandonment of all such right in submission 
 to an influence which could not be resisted ? 
 Were the Ionian women and children, the Ma- 
 cedonian prince, the English schoolboys, disparag- 
 ing the labours of Aristotle or Eustathius ? were 
 they not affording the best justification of them ? 
 
 All then that the Reformers said when they 
 claimed the Bible for peasants was this that if 
 it pleased God to make himself known to his 
 creatures, and if this book contained the records 
 of his revelation, it was not more strange to 
 expect that his power would go forth to carry the 
 meaning of the book home to those for whom it 
 was meant, than that the words of a human book 
 should be able to make themselves intelligible ; it 
 was not more necessary that the peasants of Chris- 
 tendom should wait for a commentary before they 
 opened their ears and hearts to receive the words 
 of the one book, than that the peasants of Greece 
 should wait for a commentary before they opened 
 their ears and hearts to receive the words of the 
 other. This was their notion, which did not, 
 however, require even this process of reasoning 
 for its confirmation ; seeing that they had 
 evidence before their eyes that the Bible did 
 
 G4
 
 128 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 speak to poor men, and did make itself heard by 
 them, the more in proportion as it was more 
 directly and livingly set before them. I say 
 livingly, for we must not impute to the Reformers 
 the opinion that the power of the book would be 
 felt by the mere reader of it: they attached, as 
 every one knows, an importance and sacredness 
 to the office of the preacher which we are apt, and 
 not without reason if the circumstances of our 
 own day are to regulate our belief, to consider 
 extravagant. 
 
 3. There is however another side to this objec- 
 tion. The doubt recurs here, as in the other 
 cases Is this power promised to individuals or a 
 certain body ? Are individuals as such to expect 
 that the word of God will reveal itself to their 
 hearts and consciences ? And the former answer 
 must be repeated. Unquestionably the Reformers 
 believed that the word was to each man not to a 
 mere mass of men. They believed that the Bible 
 had its peculiar lesson for every one, and not 
 merely its general lesson for the world. But to 
 ascertain how the peculiar lesson and the gene- 
 ral lesson bear upon each other, and under what 
 circumstances and conditions any given man 
 may hope to profit by either, we must know 
 whether he is in his true state when he is living 
 in a certain body or when he is standing aloof and
 
 OP THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 129 
 
 asserting his independence. This is, as I have 
 said already, a very important question perhaps 
 the question for us in this day to decide. A kind 
 of help to resolving it may perhaps be obtained 
 from the comparison which I first used in defence 
 of the Reformers. The Homeric poerns were 
 sung to Greek women and children. They were 
 received and loved by them because they had 
 Greek sympathies : we receive and love them 
 because we, being members of a nation, are able 
 to enter into those sympathies. Whether a set 
 of savages, without any sense of society, could 
 have listened to them with equal rapture, or with 
 any rapture at all, is a point worth considering. 
 But this is merely a hint for reflection ; the sub- 
 ject must receive a more full consideration. 
 
 IV. I believe it will be more convenient to pass 
 over for the present the objections which are 
 made to the doctrine of the Reformers, respecting 
 National distinctions and the power of Sovereigns. 
 Till we have considered many topics which have 
 not yet come under our notice, the force of these 
 objections could not be appreciated; it would be 
 therefore unfair to attempt a refutation of them. 
 And the omission is of less importance, as we 
 shall find, that the systems to which the Re- 
 formation has given birth have been but indirectly 
 affected by this particular tenet.
 
 130 OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 One remark however I must make, which is 
 necessary in order to understand the contrast 
 which I have attempted to exhibit between the 
 Quaker tendency, and that which characterized 
 the Reformers. I said that the assertion of an 
 Absolute Will was the main peculiarity of the 
 latter, the assertion of a relation between the 
 Divine Word and his creatures of the former. 
 It might seem that this assertion was scarcely 
 consistent with another which I made, (and 
 which will be at once admitted as true,) that 
 Luther delighted to realize the connexion of our 
 Lord with all human circumstances and rela- 
 tions, and that Fox turned away from such con- 
 templations altogether. But a minute's thought 
 will remove the apparent contradiction. The 
 relation between the Heart and Spirit of man 
 and its Divine Teacher, was the one which the 
 Quaker perceived : to connect ordinary human 
 relations with this seemed to him impossible; 
 it was almost profanation. The Reformer, taking 
 his stand upon the ground of the Divine Will, 
 and looking upon the Bible as containing the 
 revelation of that Will, had no such delicate 
 feeling. The common earth was God's creation. 
 Kings, fathers, and husbands had been appointed 
 by Him, and were spoken of in his word; the 
 whole economy of his kingdom had been trans-
 
 OF THE REFORMATION CONSIDERED. 131 
 
 acted through their means. The Papists had 
 treated the world as the devil's world, with their 
 " touch not, taste not, handle not " but there 
 was no safety in such abstinence ; the security 
 was in serving God with a clean heart, and 
 giving Him thanks for his gifts. Such was the 
 Reformation feeling, wherein we must perceive 
 indications of a high truth, which might lead to a 
 deliverance from sensuality or materialism, or 
 might be perverted into them. This was, at all 
 events the immediate effect of its proclamation. 
 The Teutonic nations, in which family life had 
 always flourished, and in which the King had 
 been able to assert his position as something 
 distinct from that of the premier baron of his 
 realm, and in which there was a tendency to- 
 wards business and enterprise, became Protest- 
 ant; the Latin nations, in which there was a 
 lower standard of domestic and national feeling, 
 but more of the feeling and sympathies which 
 dispose to general social intercourse, with more 
 also, as I think, of a tendency to pure contem- 
 plation, continued to call themselves Catholic. 
 
 06
 
 132 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 WHILE I have maintained that the Protestant 
 principles are inseparably connected, and that 
 all are implicitly contained in the first, I have 
 hinted also that they presented themselves in 
 quite different aspects and relations to the dif- 
 ferent Reformers. Justification was the central 
 thought hi Luther's mind, Election in Calvin's, 
 the Authority of the Scripture in Zwingle's ; the 
 Authority of Sovereigns in all the political patrons 
 of Protestantism, and in some of its theological 
 champions, especially here in England. And as 
 these differences indicated the existence of dif- 
 ferent, nay, opposite, habits of mind in persons 
 who bore the common name of Protestants, 
 (and had a right to that name, not only as 
 being all opposed to Romanism, but as all re- 
 cognising the positive doctrines which Romanism 
 denied,) so it portended the growth of immediate 
 divisions. 
 
 I. The character of the German Reformation 
 is mainly, but not wholly, expressed in Martin 
 Luther ; most students feel, that in order to un- 
 derstand it fully, we must connect with him, at
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 133 
 
 all events, Philip Melanchthon. It has been a 
 wonder to some that Luther, whose language 
 against the teachers of the Church, not only in 
 his own time but in past times, is probably more 
 vehement than that of any other Protestant, 
 should nevertheless have felt so much sympathy 
 with the man who was least disposed to com- 
 mit any act of separation from the old Church, 
 and should have turned away with dislike from 
 those who were labouring to consolidate a 
 Protestant SYSTEM. The circumstance is un- 
 doubtedly very curious, and cannot, I think, be 
 explained merely by the influence which a man 
 of calm character and logical intellect is wont 
 to exercise over one of ardent temperament and 
 practical energy. The truth seems to be this 
 Luther believed at first, and believed to the end 
 of his life, that the Creed and the Sacraments 
 were the great witnesses for justification if it was 
 not more proper to call them acts of justifica- 
 tion. They were such partly because they were 
 acts of affiance in a person ; partly because 
 they, the sacraments at least, were, as he be- 
 lieved, not merely human acts, but acts on the 
 part of God, recognising and adopting those who 
 would receive them. But everything in the new 
 endeavour to create a Protestant system was 
 drawing men away from this creed and these
 
 134 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 sacraments. Systematic articles and confessions 
 were beginning to be formed; justification was 
 again taught scholastically as one of a set of 
 dogmas ; the very meaning of it was escaping. 
 Now Melanchthon probably was scarcely aware 
 of this danger, for he was an Aristotelian school- 
 man, and was half disposed to acquiesce in the 
 scholastic theories which Luther abhorred. But 
 his dislike of separation led him to the same 
 result. There was something terrible to him in 
 the thought of leaving the old German Church 
 the Church of his fathers. He would have said, 
 c We have made our protest against the abuses 
 of Romanism ; possibly we have fulfilled our 
 work.' And if he were asked, ( But what then 
 becomes of the doctrine of justification ?' he 
 would have said, ( Has it not been asserted, in 
 a sense, in the Church at all times? The doc- 
 tors maintain a justification.' 
 
 For a moment such words may have come 
 with power to Luther's mind ; whether they 
 occurred to himself, or were suggested by his 
 friend, they will have derived strength from some 
 Anabaptist atrocity, or some Zuinglian discourse 
 on the Eucharist. But an infamous proceeding of 
 the Romish court will just then have come to 
 light, or a decree will have gone forth from the 
 emperor making reconciliation impossible. Then
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 135 
 
 such thoughts will have been cast away as the sug- 
 gestions of a fiend. To assert justification, not a 
 justification, but the one only real justification, 
 was the business of his life. He who did assert 
 this could have no peace with Rome ; he must 
 break all bonds ; the name of Catholic itself 
 must be cast away. There must be an Evangelical 
 Church ; a Church witnessing for justification by 
 faith, though all Christendom witnessed against 
 it ; Germany is to be the seat of such a Church. 
 But it shall not be built upon a mere notion. 
 The Sacraments shall be the great constituents of 
 it. Baptism shall declare to its members their 
 spiritual citizenship. They shall not regard the 
 Eucharist merely as a feast, at which they are to 
 express their own faith and love. The consecrated 
 elements shall not be spoken of as if they 
 were made something by the receiver ; they are 
 something in themselves ; they are consub- 
 stantiated with the Divine Presence. This is the 
 Lutheran system, and of this the Evangelical 
 Church of Germany professes to be the great 
 Conservatrix. 
 
 II. It is evident from these remarks, that though 
 the leading Protestant doctrine was meant to 
 be embodied in Lutheranism, we must look for 
 the purely Protestant system to Calvinism. It 
 is not necessary to suppose that Calvin, from the
 
 136 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 first moment that he began to bear witness against 
 Romanism, contemplated a separation from the 
 old Church. Such a notion would be contrary to 
 all that we know of Ecclesiastical History, and of 
 the lives of those who acted in it. But the idea 
 of an Ecclesia, consisting of individuals taken 
 out of the world by divine Election, was the one 
 which was continually present to his mind, and 
 which gradually subordinated every other to itself. 
 As all the appearances and conditions of the so 
 called Church outraged in Calvin's apprehension 
 this idea, it must embody itself somewhere else. No 
 self-willed act for the construction of a new body 
 of faithful men might be justifiable. But the 
 circumstances of the time seemed to point out the 
 will and purpose of God ; and his position as to 
 Geneva enabled him to carry out that purpose, 
 by planting the seed of a divine society. 
 
 That this society should, except in its acknow- 
 ledgment of a pope, correspond to that which 
 Calvin did not deny had been once established by 
 God, though it had fallen into so great corruption, 
 would at first have been his wish ; that it should 
 feel itself to have some links of connexion with 
 that old stock might be well on some accounts, 
 though on others, dangerous. But the main 
 point was, that it should bear witness to the idea 
 of a distinct election. The question, therefore,
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 137 
 
 practically decided itself. The Church was essen- 
 tially a collection of Individuals. Now, an in- 
 stinct taught Calvin, and his learning helped his 
 instinct that the existence of Episcopacy in- 
 volved another idea than this ; it was the witness 
 of something besides mere individual association. 
 Episcopacy therefore was, at all events not neces- 
 sary ; might it not be on the whole rather a per- 
 plexing and unintelligible institution ? 
 
 In some other points Calvin could use language 
 not very different from that which had prevailed 
 among the Fathers, and in the Catholic Church. 
 He attached a high importance to Baptism, and a 
 mysterious worth to the Eucharist. Wherein 
 then consisted his difference from them, and even 
 from Luther ? The Fathers actually regarded the 
 Incarnation Luther wished to regard it as the 
 foundation of the Church ; Calvin sought for this 
 foundation in individual election. In this difference 
 all others are included. This idea of election in- 
 volved the idea of a particular redemption ; the se- 
 lection of particular men being regarded merely in 
 the light of a Divine decree, logically implied the 
 reprobation of the rest. Thus the Calvinistic sys- 
 tem is formed a system essentially distinct from 
 the Calvinistic principle, but necessarily involved 
 in the constitution of the Calvinian Church. To 
 Geneva, as the nucleus of this system, the cradle
 
 138 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 of this Church, men repaired from other lands 
 for teaching and illumination. Thence came John 
 Knox, and planted that which was destined to be 
 the most vigorous shoot from the Helvetian stock. 
 Thence came Englishmen, who had been refugees 
 during the Marian persecution, to lay the founda- 
 tion of our Puritanism, and of the different non- 
 conformist sects which have been derived out of 
 it. Of all these bodies, however much they may 
 differ from each other, the Calvinistical doctrine 
 is the animating principle ; when that is forgot- 
 ten, or adopted into any other, there ceases to 
 be any meaning in their existence. 
 
 III. Luther and Calvin entertained a great 
 reverence for the old Creeds of the Church, and 
 some for the teaching of the Fathers. Those in 
 whom reverence for the Scripture took the place 
 of every other feeling, gradually acquired the 
 habit of disparaging both : but this was not their 
 main or distinguishing characteristic. Looking 
 at the written Word of God, as the declaration of 
 God's will, and as his great gift to man, they 
 became impatient of the value which the other 
 Reformers attached to the Sacraments, especially 
 to the Eucharist. Had not this been the great 
 snare of the Romanists ? had not the belief of sa- 
 cramental grace made them substitute something 
 else for the great facts of which the Bible is the
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 139 
 
 Record ? It was well, no doubt, as it was com- 
 manded, to keep a memorial feast in remembrance 
 of those facts, or of that which is the most 
 transcendant of them. This was to be the sign 
 and bond of church fellowship in all ages ; but 
 the notion that this memorial feast had the virtue 
 which the German, and even the Genevan doctor, 
 was inclined to attribute to it, opened the way to 
 all superstition. These were unquestionably the 
 elements of a peculiar system ; but they had not 
 strength to be the groundwork of a society. The 
 Zuinglians succumbed for a time to the Cal- 
 vinists; their maxims were not embodied any 
 where ; but on that very account they were 
 destined to exercise a more powerful influence 
 over the whole Protestant mass. 
 
 Another influence of the same kind began to 
 make itself manifest within the century which 
 produced the Reformation; of the same kind in 
 more senses than one, though apparently most 
 unlike the Zuinglian influence, inasmuch as that 
 seemed to contain the very essence of Protes- 
 tantism, and this to be in direct contradiction 
 to its most remarkable peculiarity. I allude to the 
 doctrines of Arminius andGrotius. These doctrines 
 looked at on one side bore the distinct impress 
 of the Reformation. They were set up in opposi- 
 tion to all mystical notions ; they were presented 
 8
 
 140 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 as the plain, popular, practical view of men's duties 
 and responsibilities; they were deduced from texts 
 of Scripture ; they were probably felt by their 
 principal propagators to be much more unlike 
 the sacramental views of the older Church than 
 the Calvinistic views were. But on the other 
 hand, an acknowledgment of the absolute will of 
 God was believed to be as we have seen that it 
 was the recognition upon which, not one, but all 
 the Protestant doctrines were grounded. Because 
 Calvinism had put forth this acknowledgment 
 more prominently than Lutheranism, Calvinism 
 had become almost identical with Protestantism ; 
 it had been believed to be the witness against the 
 self-willed inventions and self-righteous doctrines 
 of the Romanists. It was not strange, then, that 
 the vehement Protestants in England, and else- 
 where, should identify Arminianism with Popery, 
 and should believe that the same decisive mea- 
 sures were necessary for extirpating one as the 
 other. They were successful in preventing Ar- 
 minianism from establishing itself into a rival 
 Church ; they were quite unsuccessful in pre- 
 venting it from leavening the minds of those who 
 adopted the Genevan model, and subscribed the 
 Genevan confessions. 
 
 IV. Our last duty in this section would be to 
 Consider how far any of these systems became
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 141 
 
 connected with the government of the nations 
 in which they established themselves or whether 
 any other has arisen to assert the relation between 
 Protestantism and national life. But the last of 
 those questions is closely connected with the 
 history of the English Church ; the first will be 
 better considered under our next head. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 I. The character of Luther, like that of most 
 true Teutons, was compounded of hearty joviality 
 and deep sadness. It has often been remarked 
 that the latter element, which was inseparable 
 from his conflicts and his vocation, painfully pre- 
 dominated in his later years, in which one might 
 have hoped there would have been serenity, if 
 not sunshine. Romanists, and many who are 
 not Romanists, have said, that but one inference 
 can be drawn from such a fact ; he felt a bitter 
 sense of disappointment in the result of his 
 labours ; if pride had permitted him, he would 
 have confessed that he had rashly and sinfully 
 entered upon them. Such observations are very 
 plausible, and very convincing to those who fancy 
 that a man commences a work, like that to which
 
 142 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 Luther's life was devoted, from some calculations 
 of producing an effect that will redound to his 
 own satisfaction, or profit, or honour, or even to 
 the advantage of the world. He cannot be 
 governed by any such calculations ; no one to 
 whom mankind really owes any great gratitude 
 was ever governed by them. A mighty Power 
 which he must obey is urging him forward ; at 
 every step there is reluctance ; oftentimes he says 
 to himself ' I will speak no more words in his 
 name;' he is ashamed and confounded that one like 
 him should pull down and destroy ; but the fire is 
 in his heart and it must come forth from his heart, 
 whatever it consumes. A man who obeys such 
 an impulse will have much sorrow in himself, and 
 will be little understood by others. All he can 
 say in his own defence is, ( I know this was to be 
 done, and that I was to do it.' Men will tell him 
 that a knave might use the same language ; he 
 will admit it, and will only answer, ' Whether I 
 be a knave or no, I do not stand before your 
 tribunal. My judgment is with the Lord, and my 
 work is with my God.' It will be time for the 
 Romanists to say that Luther did not accomplish 
 anything which he wished to accomplish, or 
 which his time required, when they are able 
 to explain without reference to him the extraordi- 
 nary change which took place in the morality and 
 energy of their own hierarchy in the generation
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 143 
 
 following. It will be time for Protestants to sneer 
 at Luther, when they have fully ascertained that 
 every step out of the errors which they deplore in 
 their own systems will not be made most effec- 
 tually when they understand the spirit in which 
 he acted, and enter into it; and whether every 
 attempt to set aside the principles which he pro- 
 mulgated will not establish the evils of those 
 systems, and strengthen them by the addition of 
 others from which they may have been separated. 
 
 The fact however must not be concealed Lu- 
 ther did feel that Protestantism in every form, 
 even that form which he had been the means of 
 establishing, would not be an adequate or faithful 
 witness for the truth which he had existed to 
 proclaim. It was not merely that he foresaw a 
 loss of the freshness and fervour by which new 
 converts are wont to be distinguished ; he felt 
 though he might not be able to find a reason for 
 the feeling which satisfied him that there was 
 something in the idea of the Evangelical Church 
 which would involve the necessity of great prac- 
 tical contradictions. Experience has justified his 
 fears, and, faithfully used, may perhaps assist us 
 in discovering the ground of them. 
 
 As soon as a body was expressly established for 
 the purpose of asserting the doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith, the confessions and formularies which 
 set forth that doctrine began of course to be in
 
 144 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 the highest esteem. They were the casket which 
 contained the jewel, and the jewel could not be 
 preserved without the casket. It was all very 
 well to say, The Creed contains it ; or, as Luther 
 would say, He that can declare, I believe in God 
 the Father, &c., is justified but the Romanists 
 acknowledge the Creed too, and we are to defend 
 justification against the Romanists. It was still 
 more unsatisfactory to say, The Bible contains 
 the doctrine the Romanists acknowledge the 
 Bible : the Bible, interpreted in a particular way, 
 or not interpreted in another way, might seem 
 to deny it. Consequently, a certain interpretation 
 of the Creed and of the Bible must be guarded and 
 upheld ; these formularies have been carefully 
 worded to include that interpretation, and to 
 exclude every other : to these we must adhere. 
 
 How to escape from an argument of this kind, 
 none could tell ; it seemed perfectly conclusive. 
 Nevertheless, in a very little time, some men arose 
 who said they had been deceived. You tell us 
 justification is our bond of union ; but it is not 
 so : justification is a living thing, the justifica- 
 tion of which Luther speaks, and of which St. 
 Paul speaks, means the deliverance of a man's 
 conscience from a burden and a bondage. But 
 the justification of which you speak means a 
 notion or theory about something which you 
 call by this name ; which theory is contained
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 145 
 
 in a certain document you call a confession. This 
 will not do. The Evangelical Church is no Church, 
 it does not deserve its name, if it do not consist of 
 men who are really justified. Moreover, the Bible, 
 which is a real book, and speaks of the real justi- 
 fication, must be the book of the Church, and not 
 these formularies otherwise Protestantism is not 
 Protestantism. 
 
 The proclamation went forth ; it was heard and 
 felt to be true ; the living preacher was followed, 
 the dry doctrinalist deserted. But what is the 
 living preacher to do with those who follow 
 him ? They are to form the true Church. But 
 how is it to be ascertained that they do form 
 it ? We must see that they really feel what they 
 profess, that they experience this justification, and 
 do not merely use the name. Well then, there 
 must be another set of tests introduced, and 
 another set of books written to ascertain which 
 of these tests are sound which fallacious. 
 
 And now comes another reaction. What ! it is 
 said, and do you call this Lutheranism ? Feel- 
 ings, experiences Luther abhorred the words. 
 All Romanist imposture lurks in them. Luther 
 set up his doctrine of justification as a witness 
 against them. This proclamation also goes forth. 
 It is seen to be true ; men hearken to it j the 
 preachers of feeling and experiences are pronounced 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 unsound. Then what can we do but return to 
 the good old way. The confessions regain their 
 esteem. Believing these confessions must mean 
 believing justification ; there is no help for it : 
 we cannot come at any other rule. The records 
 of this series of reactions form the longest 
 and most important chapter in the history of 
 Lutheranism. 
 
 But there is also another chapter. 
 
 The ideas of Imputation, Satisfaction, Repre- 
 sentation, were, I said, expressed to Luther in 
 living acts of faith and devotion in the Psalms, 
 in the Creed, and Sacraments. Apart from these, 
 he did not wish to contemplate them, though he 
 might be compelled to do so by the necessities of 
 controversy. But it was the business of his dis- 
 ciples to exhibit all these ideas being insepara- 
 bly connected with justification in very precise 
 and accurate expressions. The nature and mode of 
 imputation must be described in propositions ; it 
 must be made clearly and definitely intelligible to 
 every one how the divine Justice was satisfied ; it 
 must be shewn what is the amount and measure 
 of sacrifice which was necessary for the deliver- 
 ance of man from the penalty of sin. 
 
 If these statements had taken the purely scho- 
 lastic form which was given to theological propo- 
 sitions before the Reformation it would have been
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 147 
 
 seen that they were not, at all events, sufficient for 
 men's wants ; that there must be something else, 
 since the Gospel was meant for the poor. But 
 the Reformation had, as we have seen, a peculiarly 
 popular character. Protestantism addressed itself 
 to common men. Even the books that were 
 written for the preachers must have something of 
 this character, as they were to deliver the dogmas 
 which they learnt. Hence these definitions and 
 propositions became strangely mingled with popu- 
 lar illustrations. The language of the schools and 
 of the world was blended into a most bewildering 
 mosaic. Precedents and customs from the law 
 courts, maxims of trade, the vulgarest proverbs 
 of worldly men, were all pressed into the service 
 of the sanctuary, and used to explain and defend 
 the acts of Him to whose righteous judgment all 
 these customs, and maxims, and proverbs must at 
 last be brought. And because in the dealings of 
 men, what are really deep and true principles, 
 sometimes, through misunderstanding or misap- 
 plication to purposes for which they were not 
 intended, come to have the effect of fictions, and 
 to be so regarded, and as fictions are praised and 
 accounted clever by men who know not that 
 any utility they may possess is derived from the 
 original truth that is in them ; these theologians 
 of the semi-scholastic, semi-popular class in- 
 
 H2
 
 148 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 troduced this habit of thinking into their own 
 study, and taught their disciples to believe it 
 nothing horrible that fictions should be attributed 
 to the God of Truth. 
 
 I do not say that the temper I have described 
 was more characteristic of the Lutheran or Evan- 
 gelical Church, than of the other Protestants ; 
 but it particularly affected the class of doctrines 
 which that Church especially undertook to de- 
 fend, and the opposition to it was perhaps more 
 marked in that than elsewhere. This opposition 
 arose from the feeling that these dogmatic teach- 
 ings had nothing to do with practical morality, 
 nay affected it injuriously. The Reformers had 
 withstood the Popish notion that family duties, 
 national duties, the transactions of common life, 
 were less holy than the services of the cloister ; 
 they had openly or implicitly discouraged the 
 opinion that men who will renounce the ordi- 
 nary routine of social life may hope to attain 
 a peculiar saintship. Now their language was 
 turned against the doctrines which they had be- 
 queathed. Christianity, it was said, must have 
 for its main object the inculcation of a pure, 
 simple, and practical scheme of Ethics ; it 
 could not be intended to introduce a theory 
 more difficult or embarrassing than that of any 
 Heathen Philosopher who had not professed to
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 149 
 
 provide a gospel for the poor and ignorant; 
 least of all could it be meant to contain notions 
 respecting the ways, designs, and character of God 
 which actually contradicted all the notions of 
 justice and benevolence, which we recognize in 
 ordinary life. As this tone of thinking diffused 
 itself more and more widely, a set of maxims, 
 partly appertaining to outward conduct, partly to 
 the discipline of the temper, affections, disposi- 
 tions, gradually shaped themselves out and were 
 received as the essential part of Christianity. 
 These became the main topics in the discourse 
 of the preacher ; it was the business of the school- 
 man to shew how the Bible might be interpreted, 
 not to mean more, or much more (doctrines being 
 freely interpreted) than these maxims. Some 
 could satisfy themselves more easily than others, 
 that they had succeeded in this task. Those who 
 were critically honest, felt that there were great 
 difficulties that much of the Bible must be 
 given up in order that the notions of their 
 opponents might not derive a support from it. 
 The precedent had been given by Luther himself; 
 it was possible to believe that the carrying out of 
 that precedent was the carrying out of the principle 
 of the Reformation. Hence, the commencement 
 of that form of Rationalism, which characterized 
 the last age.
 
 150 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 It was a simple, practical, intelligible system, 
 which the wayfarer who ran might read, that was 
 demanded by these modern Protestants. But it 
 was found by experiment that the wayfarer who 
 ran did not read the scheme of Christianity 
 which was thus presented to him. The poor men 
 said that it had nothing whatever to do with them. 
 This was a startling practical difficulty which led 
 to results affecting Protestantism in all directions, 
 and not merely the Lutheran form of it. But 
 what I wish the reader to observe here, is, how 
 little the body which took justification by faith 
 for its motto and principle, has been able, in any 
 stage of its history, to assert that doctrine; how 
 constantly the system, whether interpreted by 
 earnest believers or stiff dogmatists, by orthodox 
 doctors or mere moralists, has been labouring 
 to strangle the principle to which it owes its 
 existence. 
 
 I cannot touch at present upon the later his- 
 tory of Lutheranism. It belongs to the records 
 of a great struggle of which our time has witnessed 
 the commencement and may witness the comple- 
 tion, whether the doctrines which the Reformers 
 proclaimed are to be overcome by Romanism, to 
 be merged in Pantheism, or to find for themselves 
 some surer basis than either. 
 
 II. Some of my remarks upon Luther must
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 151 
 
 of course apply to the Calvinistic bodies ; still 
 they have features of their own, which are well 
 deserving of a separate consideration. We have 
 seen that the idea of an Absolute Will, choosing 
 individual men out of a fallen world, is not 
 merely recognized by these bodies : that it is 
 actually the ground of their existence. What 
 strength there is in that belief, what deep irresistible 
 truth there is in it, has been demonstrated in all 
 ages of the world, and certainly not least in the 
 history of Calvinism. The same divine might 
 I dare not call it by any other name which was 
 permitted to go forth with the Islamite armies, 
 when in the sight of Christians who had lost the 
 faith that they were God's chosen and appointed 
 servants, and had sunk into a low slavish unbelief 
 of a spiritual Presence and a spiritual Kingdom, 
 they proclaimed that God's will was still the 
 supreme law, still the actuating spring of all 
 human energy that same might was given, as I 
 believe, not seldom, to the Covenanters of Scot- 
 land and the Puritans of England, when they 
 dared to put their trust in a spiritual arm, and 
 to mock at all human and material weapons which 
 set themselves in opposition to it. God forbid 
 that we should lose the lesson which the records of 
 their victories contain, or that we should deny 
 that they were victories given to faith with 
 H 4
 
 1*52 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 whatever inconsistencies that faith may have been 
 mingled. 
 
 But there did lie in the heart of the Maho- 
 metan conquerors mingled with the very truth 
 which gave them all their power, and to their 
 understandings inseparable from it a dark and 
 desperate fatalism, which was to prove how unlike 
 it was this truth, by the difference of its effects ; 
 which was to prove that the system of Maho- 
 met the system which owed its life to this prin- 
 ciple was a lie, and was charged with a curse, 
 not a blessing to mankind. The history of the 
 Calvinistic bodies ought to shew whether any 
 similar fatalism be hid in their creed, and whether 
 they owe it rather to the sound portions of that 
 creed, or to the influence of a surrounding 
 atmosphere which they did not create and 
 would have been glad to exhaust, that they have 
 escaped from the same gloom and helplessness 
 which has succeeded to that early vigour in the 
 soldiers of the Crescent. 
 
 I. The Calvinists on the Continent, since their 
 first establishment, have exhibited little of the 
 energy which I have attributed to their prin- 
 ciple. A Dutchman or a Genevan might ask 
 me with a sad smile, to what period in the his- 
 tory of the Reformed Church I could point as 
 affording the least illustration of it. But the
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 153 
 
 conflicts at the Synod of Dort soon brought to 
 light the denying side of the doctrine, and gave it 
 the most evident predominance. The Arminian 
 doctors set up, or seemed to set up, the belief of 
 a will in man against the idea of Election. The 
 Calvinists began to set up the idea of the Absolute- 
 ness of the Divine Will against the idea of a will 
 in man. Dogmas and determinations came forth 
 perfectly adequate for the purpose of contradiction, 
 utterly inadequate for the purpose of assertion. 
 In the next age the Calvinist found that he had 
 got the notion strongly grafted into his creed and 
 rooted in his mind, that he had not a free will ; 
 all that he had lost was the clear conviction that 
 there was a Divine will, and that he had any con- 
 nexion with it. 
 
 Then began some of the same reactions as 
 in the Lutheran body ; men feeling that they 
 wanted more than logical formulas about Elec- 
 tion; declaring that the sense and experience of 
 a divine election was the condition of it ; this 
 declaration leading to tests for ascertaining who 
 possessed that condition ; such tests again de- 
 nounced as setting aside the very idea of absolute 
 and unconditional sovereignty. 
 
 A combination of the spiritual and dogmatic 
 elements is found in the able Dutch and German 
 Commentators, who arose in the early part of the 
 
 H5
 
 154 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 last century ; but they resorted to that same me- 
 thod of illustrating the scheme of God by human 
 precedents, which I have already noticed. The 
 clear acute reasoning temper, which Calvinism 
 especially fosters, detected the inconsistencies of 
 it : the disciples of the Swiss Reformer said 
 that they were meant to be witnesses for sim- 
 plicity ; and that simplicity in forms ought 
 to be sustained by simplicity of doctrine : the 
 Ethical system became universal, and Voltaire 
 wrote to tell D'Alembert, that there were few 
 preachers in Geneva who believed a word of 
 the doctrine which Calvin spent his life in pro- 
 pagating. 
 
 2. I have expressed, in as strong language as it 
 is possible to use, my belief that there was a vital 
 and powerful element in the Scotch Kirk and in 
 English Puritanism, which came out in the forma- 
 tion of the one, and in the conflicts of the other 
 with our Royalty and Episcopacy. I am not 
 anxious to qualify the assertion by dwelling on all 
 the cruelties and meannesses, the alternate cring- 
 ing to the state and insolent domination over it, 
 which marked the history of Scotch Presbyterian- 
 ism in the sixteenth century, or the intolerance 
 and persecution which characterised the English 
 assertors of religious freedom in the seven- 
 teenth. These indications may be attributed to
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 155 
 
 the temper of the age, and to the evil lessons which 
 the Calvinistical bodies learnt from our Church. 
 It is more important to observe, how these bodies 
 testified for the principle which called them 
 into existence after the motives to violence had 
 disappeared. The difference in their position 
 makes the experiment a fair one. The Scotch 
 Presbyterian body after the Revolution was raised 
 to the dignity of an establishment ; the English 
 sects acquired a recognized position in the coun- 
 try, but, as they boast, were not hampered by any 
 state alliance. Moreover the English Calvinistical 
 sects were several distinct experiments, as to the 
 mode of expressing the principle which was com- 
 mon to them all. To the Presbyterians it seemed 
 that there was one general scheme or platform 
 of polity laid down in Scripture for all the faith- 
 ful ; the Independent asserted the right of each 
 distinct congregation to be its own lawgiver ; the 
 Anabaptist maintained that each individual ought 
 to be conscious of his own adoption into God's 
 covenant, before he received the sign of it. In 
 the doctrine of this last named sect, we clearly 
 discern the idea which all were labouring to 
 embody. Each of the others confessed that it 
 was not a Church, but the shell of a Church, 
 and the effort to become one ; the Anabaptists 
 believed that if they had not actually solved the 
 H 6
 
 156 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 problem how to make the professing body 
 identical with the elect body, they had at least 
 made the nearest possible approximation to a 
 solution of it. 
 
 In the period which followed the Revolution 
 we have the most numerous testimonies from 
 their own authorities, that a gradual decay of 
 faith and doctrine took place both in England and 
 Scotland. In the latter country it was ascribed 
 by all the older Covenanters to the convention 
 with the government ; the English dissenters can 
 only account for it by the general temper of the 
 times. What renovating principle there was in 
 either, to overcome the effects of state influence, 
 or of the world's infidelity, does not appear; they 
 both alike attribute the restoration of their old 
 doctrine and of something like their former zeal, 
 to an action from without, to an action proceeding 
 from a corrupt body, against which they were 
 each protesting. The preaching of Whitfield in 
 Scotland, of Wesley and W T hitfield in England, 
 we are told by Presbyterians and dissenters, 
 awakened a spirit which had been long dormant 
 among them. But only one of these Oxford 
 divines was a Calvinist, and his preaching was 
 not at all of the kind which was likely to re-create 
 a Calvinistical system. The quickening influence, 
 however, being once imparted, these bodies began
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 157 
 
 to require a doctrine. Just at that time an Ameri- 
 can divine appeared, who united remarkable 
 strength of thought to an earnest spirit, and to 
 what he believed was a profound veneration for 
 the name and creed of Calvin. The Edwards 
 version of that creed, or some modification of it, 
 became from this time forth the recognized sys- 
 tem amongst English and Scotch Calvinists. 
 Now this system, just so far as it received its 
 complexion from the piety of its author, is un- 
 questionably an assertion of a Divine Will. The 
 strength of Edwards' mind seems to have been 
 derived from his acknowledgment of a distinct 
 Being, dwelling in his own Absoluteness and 
 Awfulness. But that which gives his system the 
 logical consistency which its disciples so much 
 admire, is his manner of dispensing with a Human 
 Will. Man is a piece of mere mechanism, acted 
 upon by a certain set of motives; he is not a 
 stone, for he has certain affections and sympa- 
 thies, which are susceptible of outward influences; 
 but the notion that he is capable of being 
 determined from within is utterly repudiated ; 
 the very object of the scheme is to set it aside. 
 But any one who looks at the nature of that 
 power, which the earlier Calvinists put forth in 
 action, or who even attends steadily to their
 
 158 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 deeper utterances, must perceive, not merely that 
 they did recognize these inward determinations, 
 but that the belief in them was the life-giving 
 principle of their minds. Whether they could 
 explain the connexion philosophically or not, the 
 idea of the Divine Will was inseparably involved 
 with the energy and activity of their own human 
 will ; they realised the one in the other. This 
 logical development of the Calvinistical idea has 
 therefore the strange peculiarity, that it stands 
 in the most direct practical contradiction to that 
 idea as it existed in the mind of Calvin himself, 
 and of all who sympathized with him. I say 
 practical for this is no difference about words. 
 In Scotland especially, the working of the new 
 system has been very remarkable. Find any man 
 who has drunk deeply into the spirit of Knox and 
 the old Covenanters, and ask him what manner of 
 doctrine he hears from the Scotch preachers gene- 
 rally (I do not mean of the Robertson school, but of 
 that which is most opposed to it) ; whether it be 
 essentially the same with that which he supposes 
 was delivered two centuries ago ? In one form 
 of language or another he will give you to un- 
 derstand that he is sensible of the most violent 
 contrast; that the modern Calvinism is a com- 
 pound, to which if John Knox has contributed 
 8
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 159 
 
 one part, Thomas Hobbes has contributed three. 
 The consequence is, that a young man going from 
 the house of his fathers to a Scotch university, 
 passes by the most natural steps possible into the 
 philosophical system with which the religious 
 one has been leavened 9 : he adopts it as the most 
 consistent interpretation of the phaenomena of the 
 world; the idea of anything spiritual becomes 
 lost in his mind. Afterwards, perhaps, he may 
 take up some one of those philosophical theories 
 by which his countrymen have endeavoured to 
 modify or subvert pure Materialism and Utili- 
 tarianism. But he takes it up as a theory merely ; 
 it has nothing to do with his life ; the maxim 
 of the other system reigns there, only the more 
 undisturbed, because it presents itself less formally 
 
 9 I may probably be encountered by the observation, that 
 Hobbes is, of all authors, the least likely to find favour with a 
 young Scotchman ; for that he was a Dogmatist, whereas Hume 
 the proper idol of Scotland was a Sceptic. The criticism I 
 believe is of no great value. No young men are Sceptics in the 
 sense in which Hume was a Sceptic. Their infidelity, as much 
 as their faith, is dogmatic. If they worship Hume, they worship 
 him, because they imagine, however falsely, that he arrived at 
 certain conclusions. They suppose him to have believed and proved 
 that the world is under the dominion of Necessity, not of God 
 the very principle of Hobbes. It is the point wherein these 
 writers are identical, not that wherein they disagree, which, the 
 youthful philosopher, escaping from a Calvinistical school, takes 
 notice of.
 
 160 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 and obtrusively. Then if he have a good hardy 
 Scotch understanding, which, though it may dally 
 with abstractions, has great sympathy with the 
 palpable and the actual, he soon becomes weary 
 of this child's play, and goes forth into the world, 
 to show, by his successful management, that he 
 has not lost that sense of an individual importance 
 and position which characterized his forefathers, 
 though he may turn it to a different, and what he 
 considers a much more profitable, account. I know 
 well what noble minds there are in Scotland, in 
 whom another influence from that which I have 
 described is at work, and who think, with bitter 
 pain, of the materialism which has crept over their 
 land. But these have no dream that the old faith 
 can be restored. They speak with great reverence 
 of the first age of their Kirk ; they denounce Pre- 
 lacy and the English Church with vehemence ; 
 they dwell with affectionate tenderness upon the 
 patriarchal life and discipline, which existed in 
 the rural districts of Scotland (among the middle 
 classes,) but a short time ago, and which was at all 
 events connected with Presbyterianism ; but they 
 acknowledge that the system is worn out, that it 
 has no longer power to produce energetic action, 
 deep thought, or a simple form of society ; that 
 it flourishes only, while it has something to 
 fight with ; that the symptoms which it exhibits
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 161 
 
 in its decrepitude are the consequences of evils 
 and weaknesses which were concealed in it, when 
 it was in its best estate that in that best 
 estate it could not satisfy the wants of which 
 they are conscious. What these wants are, and 
 in what forms they have expressed themselves, 
 are questions belonging to a larger subject, upon 
 which we must presently enter. 
 
 The present political crisis in the Kirk will 
 be more properly spoken of, when we touch upon 
 its connexion with England. The circumstances 
 of the Nonconformists here are still more involved 
 with the circumstances of our own Church ; still, 
 it is almost impossible to notice them as illustra- 
 tions of the history of Calvinism, without looking 
 at them on their political side. As theologians 
 they have struck out no path for themselves ; what 
 philosophy they have is derived from Scotland or 
 America. It is therefore precisely as bodies 
 possessing a certain outward organization, that 
 they suggest any important topic for reflection. 
 Of this fact, they are themselves apparently 
 sensible ; they feel more and more that they 
 exist to oppose and destroy certain institutions, 
 which they find established about them. If we 
 look at the sects separately, we find that they are 
 confessedly not spiritual bodies ; only bodies 
 professing to include within them a certain
 
 162 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 number of spiritual individuals. We find new 
 congregations arising out of the old, protesting 
 that these have become earthly and corrupt ; that 
 the only hope of a pure Church is in fresh 
 division and secession. We find the members of 
 the o]d societies denouncing these endeavours 
 after an ideal perfection, and maintaining that 
 experience has always confuted them. We find 
 accounts given by their own members of proceed- 
 ings resorted to in the election and deposition of 
 ministers, and the formation of congregations 
 which are, to say the least, what men commonly 
 call secular. We find these sects engaged in 
 angry controversies with each other ; the Paedo- 
 baptists for instance vehemently denouncing the 
 Anabaptists, because they maintain the fearful 
 heresy that immersion was the earliest mode of 
 initiation into the Christian Church. We find 
 the leaders of these bodies complaining of the 
 great deadness of their congregations, and endea- 
 vouring to produce revivals in them, by methods 
 which seem to us of the most mechanical and 
 material character. These are the indications 
 which the different dissenting bodies present, 
 when looked at separately or in their relations to 
 each other. Is it wonderful that they should 
 wish rather to fix our attention on the great 
 united force which they are able to bring into
 
 PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 163 
 
 play at public meetings, in vestry rooms, and in 
 newspapers, against that which they name the 
 secular anti-spiritual Church of England? Un- 
 questionably, if she be secular, or just so far as 
 she is secular, these weapons may prevail against 
 her, for that which is secular maybe destroyed by 
 that which is secular: if she be spiritual, they 
 will be as powerless against her, as secular armour 
 has always proved against a spiritual principle, 
 whether it has come forth in Puritanism, or in any 
 other shape. But this is not the question now 
 before us. It is, whether the evidence furnished 
 by the Reformed Church on the Continent, the 
 Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland, and the English 
 Non-conformist sects, tends to confirm or refute 
 the notion that the Calvinistical principle is a 
 sufficient foundation for a universal Church, and 
 the notion that that principle can be safely pre- 
 served in a Calvinistic system ? 
 
 III. As the Zuinglian doctrine was not able to 
 work out a system or church for itself, and as I have 
 already noticed, while speaking of the Lutherans 
 and Calvinists on the Continent, how faith in the 
 Bible, which was the strongest element in that 
 doctrine, fared under the protection of those who 
 put it forward as their exclusive profession, I 
 may here close my remarks upon pure Protestant- 
 ism. Our next duty is to trace the characteristics
 
 164; PROTESTANT SYSTEMS. 
 
 of that system, of which Zuinglianism has often 
 been called the parent, and in which, as we have 
 already seen, all the Protestant systems in the last 
 century showed a tendency to merge.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 UNITABIANISM. 
 
 Connexion of Unitarianism, with pure Protestantism, with Natural 
 Philosophy, and with the System of Locke Its positive side 
 Its negative side Final results. 
 
 I SATD that the early Quakers acknowledged 
 many of the doctrines which other Christians 
 acknowledged, but that the sense in which they 
 received them was determined by the nature 
 of those tenets which were specifically theirs. 
 It would be incorrect to apply a precisely similar 
 observation to the Reformers. The doctrines 
 which were not characteristic of them, but which 
 were professed by their Romanist opponents, and 
 under certain important modifications by the 
 Eastern as well as the Western Church the 
 doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation stood 
 prominently forward in the Protestant confessions. 
 Luther at least looked upon them as the primary 
 doctrines of Christianity, and upon his own great
 
 166 UNITABIANI8M. 
 
 principle as the link which connected them with 
 the distinct personality of each man. 
 
 But what was not true, or but partially true, 
 of the founders, was emphatically true of the 
 successors whether they belonged to the spiri- 
 tual or the dogmatic school. The former uni- 
 formly spoke of Election, Justification by faith, 
 the authority of the Written Word, as the vital, 
 essential truths of Christianity those which be- 
 longed to personal religion. When they alluded 
 to the doctrine of the Trinity it was in some 
 such language as this Every true Christian, 
 they said, must needs recognize a Creator, a Re- 
 deemer, and a Sanctifier. These offices were 
 necessary to the accomplishment of his salvation, 
 and he must attribute them to distinct agents. 
 Hence the necessity of admitting this principle. 
 But the thought would present itself: "these 
 offices are undoubtedly distinct; but does it 
 follow necessarily that there is a distinction of 
 persons ? May not that notion be a mere effort 
 to explain a diversity of operations, which is 
 capable of being accounted for upon some less 
 difficult hypothesis ?" The suggestion might 
 be repelled by the humble and pious, but bolder 
 spirits would broach it, and that which was 
 dreaded by the fathers as a temptation, would 
 be welcomed by the sons as a discovery.
 
 UNITARIANISM. 167 
 
 The Dogmatic school used a different language. 
 They maintained that this doctrine was taught in 
 Scripture ; it formed part of the confession, and 
 was just as necessary as any other part. But 
 here another kind of difficulty presented itself. 
 Were the texts alleged in behalf of a doctrine 
 so very strange and incomprehensible, adequate 
 to the support of it? Had not the Romanists 
 done something to keep alive the belief of it by 
 their traditions? Was it quite consistent with 
 Protestantism to own such help? These ques- 
 tions were asked, and the answers to them from 
 the doctors of the Evangelical and of the Reformed 
 Churches became daily more faint and incoherent. 
 
 I have shown already how in the Calvinistical 
 bodies from the first, and in the Lutheran so far 
 as they caught the purely Protestant complexion* 
 the idea of the Incarnation was deposed from the 
 place which it had occupied in the older divinity 
 of the Church. The state and constitution of 
 humanity was determined by the fall; it was 
 only the pure, elect body, which had concern in 
 the Redemption ; that redemption therefore could 
 only be contemplated as a means devised by God 
 for delivering a certain portion of his creatures 
 from the law of death, to which the race was 
 subjected. In endeavours to explain the mode 
 of this redemption, and to justify the limitation
 
 168 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 of it, consisted the divinity of the most purely 
 Protestant writers, and for this end they resorted 
 to those arguments from the schools, and illustra- 
 tions from the market-place, of which I spoke 
 in the last chapter. 
 
 Meantime a great change had been effected in 
 men's notions upon several subjects not obvi- 
 ously theological. The experimental philosophy 
 in physics held out to students the hope of 
 attaining an actual knowledge of things, by de- 
 livering them from the impressions of the senses, 
 and from the notions which the understanding 
 generalises out of those impressions. Already 
 this philosophy had borne its noblest fruits, and 
 the Astronomer had asserted a principle as true, 
 which was the most contradictory to sense an? to 
 all conclusions from sense. 
 
 But if this experimental philosophy were the 
 great means of leading to such discoveries, did 
 it not follow that Experience was the one 
 source of knowledge ? The conviction became 
 stronger and stronger. tf There is no other, there 
 can be no other." Then clever men began to 
 explain how many false schemes and systems had 
 their origin in the notion that there was some 
 other foundation of knowledge than this, and 
 each fresh exposure drew from the enlightened 
 and philosophical world a fresh peal of laughter
 
 at the absurdities of their forefathers. There were 
 indeed various thoughtful men in different parts 
 of Europe who were struck with the reflection, 
 that the new doctrine, which seemed to have 
 grown up side by side with the great experiments 
 in natural philosophy, had led to exactly the op- 
 posite result. Physical science had advanced, or 
 rather had been found to be possible, just so far 
 as it had set itself free from sensible impres- 
 sions, and the notions deduced out of them. 
 Moral science was advancing, it was believed, to 
 its perfection, by acknowledging these impres- 
 sions and notions as the only standard of truth. 
 But such suggestions were little heeded at the 
 time. It became the first tenet of philosophical 
 orthodoxy, which it was most dangerous to dis- 
 pute, that sensible experience is the foundation of 
 all belief and of all knowledge. 
 
 The rise of this philosophical theory is histo- 
 rically connected with that of a great political 
 theory, which was also to displace all that had 
 gone before it. In order, it was said, to make 
 men tremble at certain doctrines or notions which 
 contradicted their experience, it was necessary to 
 make them tremble also at the authority by 
 which these notions and doctrines were commu- 
 nicated. A mystery was supposed to attach to 
 the origin of society as well as to the origin of 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 knowledge. The one opinion was as fallacious 
 as the other. As knowledge comes in the sim- 
 plest and most obvious way through eyes and 
 ears, so society grew up in the simplest way by 
 compacts and conventions. Experience was the 
 root of both. Men either felt the miseries of fight- 
 ing, or dreamed of the blessings of government ; 
 they waived their privilege of being independent 
 units, and either yielded themselves passively 
 to one who was stronger than they, or else en- 
 tered into stipulations with him to rule them till 
 they should find his rule burdensome. 
 
 All these points must be taken into considera- 
 tion, if we would understand the temper of the 
 last age and the nature of the scheme which 
 obtained so much secret or acknowledged pre- 
 valency in it. To suppose that there is nothing 
 positive in Unitarianism, that it derives all the 
 popularity it has ever enjoyed from its denials, 
 is a plausible but a serious mistake. It has been 
 embraced by a number of earnest minds, which 
 never could have had any sympathy with a system 
 merely because it rejected what other men be- 
 lieved. I do not say that they may not have felt a 
 certain delight in that peculiarity of their doc- 
 trine; that the thought of being different from 
 the vulgar mass may not have been flattering to 
 them, as it is to the evil nature of all men ; and
 
 UNITABIANISM. 171 
 
 that the positive and negative elements of their 
 minds being confounded by their opponents, may 
 not at last have become hopelessly confounded by 
 themselves. But I do maintain, that something 
 deeper and more solid lay beneath their not-be- 
 lief ; that it is very important to know what that 
 was, not only for their sakes but for our own ; 
 not only because the only way of extricating any 
 man from a falsehood is to do justice to his 
 truth ; but because by this course the history of 
 the Church and the plans of God, so far as we 
 may be allowed to examine into them, become far 
 more intelligible. 
 
 I. From the dogmatic tendencies which dis- 
 tinguished one class of Protestant theologians, 
 and from the disposition to exalt and all but 
 deify the modes and experiences of their own 
 minds which belonged to another, the natural 
 philosopher was equally free. But if he were a 
 simple, humble man, if he had been trained in 
 his youth to the habit of worship, if he had been 
 taught to connect deep and holy thoughts with 
 the idea of God's presence, his vocation would 
 certainly not diminish his awe and reverence. It 
 would call such feelings forth; nay, he might 
 easily believe that they were first given to him 
 when the marvellous distinctions and inwoven 
 harmonies of creation revealed themselves to him.
 
 172 UN1TARIANISM. 
 
 At all events he was in a new world, a freer 
 world it would seem a more real world than 
 that of experiences and notions ; one which bore a 
 more immediate and naked witness of a Divine 
 Being. It was only afterwards that this witness 
 came forth in the guise of arguments and demon- 
 strations (the mind of a scientific man naturally 
 enough endeavouring to clothe all thoughts in the 
 forms to which it was habituated, and recognising 
 this idea of a God as one of those certainties to 
 which such forms would be applicable) ; but the 
 heart and conscience had spoken first ; the testi- 
 mony had been received already there where it 
 was needed, before the slow machinery of proofs 
 was constructed to justify the assumption, and the 
 spirit had bowed and worshipped with a mixed 
 fear and joy at hearing in the world without the 
 echoes of a nearer and a deeper voice. 
 
 Thus nature spoke to one brought up in a 
 Christian atmosphere, as it was not impossible to 
 suppose it might have spoken to some wondering 
 sage of Greece or India. It seemed to bring 
 the news of a simpler, earlier, more universal 
 faith, which must belong to all, and which all 
 might receive. Other testimonies might be added 
 to this, to confirm it, or to restore it; but no 
 true testimony could set it aside or contradict 
 it. And, therefore, were our Scriptures to be
 
 UNITARIANISM. 173 
 
 prized to the utter rejection of all Shasters con- 
 taining the mythologies of the old or new world. 
 The first evidently were affirming and re-establish- 
 ing this primary testimony ; the others were out- 
 raging it. The belief of a being not manifested 
 in outward forms, but manifested in his works ; 
 not divided according to the diversity of his 
 operations, but one, was the belief which lay at 
 the root of all their teaching. And since the 
 universality of Christianity had superseded the 
 narrowness of Judaism, it was evident that this 
 belief must be asserted with only greater clear- 
 ness. It would be strange if the universal re- 
 ligion were more wrapped up in particular notions 
 and opinions, were less expansive, than the ancient, 
 which did, however, testify most strongly against 
 idolatry as a limitation of the Divine Presence 
 and a division of his essence ; strange if the more 
 perfect religion were to throw us back upon the 
 very notions from which the imperfect had suc- 
 ceeded in emancipating all who faithfully received 
 it. By such feelings and arguments did the idea 
 of the unity of God gradually raise itself up in the 
 last age against the faith which had been recog- 
 nized in Christendom for seventeen centuries. 
 Where lay the force of these feelings and argu- 
 ments? Surely in the strong inward conviction 
 which they expressed, that the unity of God is a 
 i3
 
 174 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 deep, primary truth, which no words can explain 
 away, no experiences of ten thousand minds 
 make unreal, no dogmas of ten thousand genera- 
 tions turn into a nullity ; that it has stood its 
 ground and asserted itself in defiance of all 
 such words, experiences, dogmas ; that every- 
 thing which is true in the teaching which 
 men have received, has tended to bring it into 
 clearer manifestation. With this conviction was 
 associated another, less clearly brought out, but 
 the stronger perhaps for being latent, that this 
 idea of the unity of God must in some way or 
 other be the ground of all unity among men; 
 that if there be a universal religion, this idea 
 must be at the root of it. With such convictions 
 let no man dare to trifle; rather let him labour 
 by all means to draw them forth into great 
 strength and clearness, bringing so far as he 
 can all history, and the history of Unitarianism 
 in the last century most especially, to illustrate 
 them. 
 
 2. A natural philosopher, trained to pious and 
 reverent feelings, free from petty vanity, and 
 keeping himself aloof from vulgar excitements, 
 is more likely than most men to have a calm and 
 cheerful temperament. His mind is not turned 
 in upon itself; the evil which is there is not 
 constantly reminding him of its presence; his
 
 UNITARIANISM. 175 
 
 circumstances do not oblige him to contemplate 
 the sins of the world ; he is habitually occupied 
 with objects which are serene and unchangeable. 
 To such a man, the lessons which he has received 
 in his childhood respecting a Being of perfect 
 love and purity, will recur with particular de- 
 light; every new fact in nature will bring them 
 home to him; the whole face of nature will seem 
 to be beaming with them. But then the thought 
 will occur to him of other lessons received in 
 his childhood, which seemed to contradict these ; 
 lessons respecting justice, and vengeance, and 
 schemes for removing or propitiating wrath. 
 Of a being possessing such attributes, and need- 
 ing to be approached in such a manner, nature 
 says nothing. There may be tempests and vol- 
 canoes, but all her operations, so far as we are 
 able to penetrate them, are subject to fixed, un- 
 changeable laws; these will at last be found to 
 obey a law too, and He to whom we refer all 
 creation and all laws, must needs have a mind 
 perfectly at one with itself, subject to no vicis- 
 situdes, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for 
 ever. Here again, see how the pure, original testi- 
 mony to God's universal love has been darkened 
 by human conceits and systems. But that testi- 
 mony is reasserted in our Bible, distinguished 
 by this characteristic as much as by its assertion
 
 176 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 of the divine unity, from all pretended revelations. 
 The heathens are denounced in the Old Testa- 
 ment for setting it aside by their cruel inven- 
 tions ; Jesus Christ, by his words and acts, con- 
 demned the Jews because they were not honouring 
 God as the God of mercy and love; his dis- 
 pensation is one from which every other idea is 
 banished ; the beloved disciple affirms in words 
 that God is love; all sacrifices and institutions 
 interfering with that notion are expressly abolished. 
 Such were the feelings and arguments by which 
 thousands in the 18th century, either openly 
 or secretly, were led to believe, that the idea of 
 Atonement, which had been assumed for seven- 
 teen centuries to be the radical idea of Christi- 
 anity, was a wretched and inconsistent graft upon 
 it from some other stock. Where lay the strength 
 of them ? In the conviction, it seems to me, that 
 the idea of the love of God is an absolute primary 
 idea which cannot be reduced under any other; 
 which cannot be explained away by any other; 
 which no records, experiences, dogmas, if they 
 have lasted for a thousand generations, can 
 weaken or contradict; which must be the foun- 
 dation of all thought, all theology, all human 
 life. With such a conviction I believe it is as 
 dangerous to trifle, as with that respecting the 
 divine unity.
 
 UNITARIANISM. 177 
 
 3. I have spoken of the natural philosopher 
 as withdrawn from the observation of the evils 
 in the world around him, and to a great extent 
 of his own, and as disposed, by his circumstances, 
 to a benignant view of things. How pleasant to 
 such a man when he came from his closet and 
 his problems, with a mind in a measure fixed and 
 abstracted but not unharmonised, to look round 
 upon his children, and to recollect what he had 
 been told in his nursery, that He who created 
 the sun and moon was their father. How pleasant 
 when he had time to think of all the generations 
 which had looked upon the light of this sun and 
 moon, to believe the same of them. But what 
 jarring thoughts derived from the same nursery 
 would intrude themselves ! All these children of 
 men, all these generations, have undergone a fall ; 
 they are the subjects of a curse ! Of only a few, 
 how few if the calculations of different divines 
 are to be admitted, is it possible to think ; " these 
 are God's children ;" all the rest we can only 
 speak of as doomed, and not it would seem 
 by their own sin but by an inevitable necessity. 
 Surely this too must be one of the wretched in- 
 terpolations into the old and simple faith. Nature 
 teaches no such lesson. The same sunshine and 
 rain for all ; the whole universe claimed for its 
 Creator. And the Bible does mean this, must mean 
 i5
 
 178 UNITARIAN1SM. 
 
 it, whatever divines may assert to the contrary. 
 In some way or other it does reconcile the existence 
 of man with its witness of God's love; in this 
 way it cannot. By such feelings and arguments 
 was the doctrine of a Fall admitted for seventeen 
 centuries by all Christendom, recognised as the 
 central doctrine of Christian divinity by the Pro- 
 testant sects driven out of the hearts of thousands 
 in the eighteenth century. 
 
 Against these convictions, the orthodox of the 
 day, especially those of the Calvinistical school, op- 
 posed many plausible arguments. A belief in the 
 unity of God, they said, was no doubt in some way 
 compatible with a belief in the Trinity, but we were 
 not to trouble ourselves with efforts at a reconcilia- 
 tion. The subject was mysterious, profoundly mys- 
 terious ; how could we hope for light upon it when 
 there were so many subjects connected with our 
 common life, of which we knew next to nothing. 
 The Bible required this belief; numerous texts 
 might be adduced which could be explained upon 
 no other hypothesis; abandon it, and you must 
 abandon much more, even many of those truths 
 which it had been the peculiar glory of Protes- 
 tantism to assert. 
 
 The principles respecting the character of the 
 Divine Being, were disposed of in a similar man- 
 ner, only with more of logical and metaphysical
 
 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 179 
 
 subtlety. It was questioned whether we are 
 bound to consider the names given to the attri- 
 butes of one wholly divine and incomprehensible, 
 as having the same signification with those names 
 when they describe qualities in us; it was said 
 that we must depend wholly on revelation for our 
 knowledge of God, and that if certain acts and 
 feelings were ascribed to Him by the Bible, we 
 must simply acknowledge them, and wait for 
 the explanation of them in a future state; it 
 was maintained, that the attribute of justice 
 was as essential to the perfection of God as that 
 of mercy. 
 
 To the notions respecting the fall, various answers 
 were given. First, the universality of human de- 
 pravity was said to be asserted in many passages of 
 Scripture ; secondly, it was attested by experience ; 
 thirdly, it was not incompatible with the acknow- 
 ledgment of a natural conscience in man ; fourthly, 
 it was the consequence of a wilful act on the part 
 of the first man ; and fifthly, the visitation of the 
 consequences of that act on his posterity might 
 be defended by many human analogies. 
 
 These arguments were produced in various 
 forms, and with various degrees of ability; but 
 there were two barriers against them which they 
 were quite powerless to break down. The first 
 was that strong feeling I have spoken of already, 
 
 i 6
 
 180 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 that these principles concerning God and man 
 are great ultimate principles, which cannot be 
 denied without denying everything that is true 
 and solid, and which must receive the most dis- 
 tinct and solemn acknowledgment, unless we would 
 have all the rest of our belief confused and false. 
 To raise any specific argument, any set of texts, 
 against them was propter vitam vivendi perdere 
 causas to set aside by reasoning the first witness 
 of reason ; by passages from the Bible, that 
 which was its end and substance. This was the 
 irresistible protection of the Unitarian system in 
 the minds of earnest men who had embraced it. 
 There was another equally secure defence to per- 
 sons of the most opposite character. It consisted 
 in the doctrine which Locke had proclaimed not 
 in a full, clear, steady contemplation of that doc- 
 trine, and all its results, for then Hume's con- 
 clusion stared them in the face, then it was felt 
 " There is no warrant for acknowledging any 
 being, eternal, immaculate, invisible ; for of no 
 such being do the senses, or experience arising 
 from the senses, furnish an indication" but in a 
 loose, popular impression about the doctrine a 
 general feeling spread through society, that ex- 
 perience was in general the only root of know- 
 ledge, that you were not to believe much which 
 you could not establish by its evidence. This
 
 UNITARIANISM. 181 
 
 philosophy, which was commonly recognized by 
 those who assailed Unitarianism, as well as by 
 those who defended it, gave to the arguments of 
 the former the strangest appearance of incon- 
 sistency. They were simply affirming something 
 to be revealed or made known to man, which ac- 
 cording to his nature or constitution, as they 
 understood it, could not be revealed to him. He 
 was to learn and receive something which he could 
 not learn and receive ; a condition the Unitarians 
 rightly said which even Papists had not exacted ; 
 for in the days when Popery had made its great 
 demands on men's faith this doctrine of experience 
 was not understood. And this demand, they 
 went on to say, you urge upon us at a time when 
 the very idea of a body which can make it has 
 been scattered to the winds. A Catholic Church, 
 if there could be such a thing, a body having 
 divine and mysterious endowments, might with 
 some consistency claim an assent to a mysterious 
 dogma. But your confession of Augsburg has 
 dispersed that dream. You have constituted 
 societies which you may call churches, or what 
 you will, but which do not and cannot pretend 
 that they have any authority over the world. 
 They may lay down what canons or maxims they 
 please for their individual members ; they have 
 the same right of private legislation of making
 
 182 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 rules for their own government, be they ever so 
 absurd, which every other corporation possesses. 
 But the only warrant for imposing an inexplicable 
 creed upon mankind is gone. Each portion of 
 mankind has its own habits, maxims, opinions ; 
 each man his own particular judgments, which he 
 has a right to exercise and defend against the 
 world; there are a few common principles, ad- 
 mitted alike by saint, by savage, and by sage, 
 but these so far from being identical with those 
 incomprehensible doctrines, are the very reverse 
 of them. 
 
 Never surely were more plausible opinions 
 promulgated in the world than these ; never any 
 which seemed to carry with them a more natural 
 and less painful demonstration. To divines, they 
 seemed a deliverance from the strangest intellec- 
 tual confusions ; to easy and comfortable men, the 
 removal of an inexplicable burden from then* con- 
 sciences ; to those who desired to be philosophical, 
 the satisfaction of their longing ; to those who dis- 
 liked extremes, a convenient refuge from the diffi- 
 culties of belief, and the dreariness of infidelity. But 
 the more such persons crowded into the ranks of 
 Unitarianism (not in general by an open renuncia- 
 tion of their former creeds, but by habitually and 
 practically confessing a disbelief in them) the 
 more were those who had adopted it on the other
 
 UNITARIANISM. 183 
 
 more positive grounds, startled and confounded. 
 With deep awe they had acknowledged the 
 Unity of God, as the unfathomable foundation of 
 thought, and faith, and being. Now they heard 
 that unity asserted, not as mysterious and un- 
 fathomable, but as the escape from mystery. It 
 was a purely material notion ; all the arguments 
 in its favour were deduced from the impossibility 
 arid contradiction, which a Trinity presents, when 
 it is .contemplated materially. But where, they 
 asked themselves, is unity in matter ? Is not mat- 
 ter infinitely divisible ? Can this be the way of 
 escaping from contradictions ? Can this be the 
 way to be rational ? Throwing aside everything but 
 materialism dismissing every thought that lies 
 beyond it we are then called upon to recognize 
 an idea, of which matter affords no realization 
 scarcely the indication ! Such thoughts brooded 
 in their minds, and led them by very slow proces- 
 ses, and through bitter conflicts to the conviction ; 
 " if the Unity of God is to be asserted it must 
 be asserted on quite different grounds from those 
 which the so called Unitarians have chosen, and 
 the true assertion of it may possibly be contained 
 in those creeds which we have rejected." 
 
 On the popular supporters of Unitarianism 
 such arguments made no impression. They pro- 
 bably received them with indignation. What !
 
 184 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 they would have said, Do you suppose we meant 
 a metaphysical unity ? we meant to escape from 
 all subtleties the Bible is written for simple 
 people. I have hinted already, that this language 
 was unfortunate ; they appealed unto Caesar 
 unto Caesar they must go. They wished to 
 be tried by simple people ; it remained to be 
 seen whether there was that in their scheme, 
 to which the hearts of simple people responded. 
 But, before that experiment was made, the 
 more thoughtful disciples of Unitarianism be- 
 gan to be struck with another strange contra- 
 diction between the principles on which it rested, 
 and the system in which they are embodied. 
 The Unitarians were the great assertors of the 
 absolute unqualified love of God, in opposition 
 to all mythologies and theologies which had 
 preceded. And Unitarianism was the first of all 
 theologies or mythologies, which denied that the 
 Almighty had, in his own person, by some act of 
 condescension and sacrifice, interfered to redress 
 the evils and miseries of his creatures ! Every 
 pagan religion had acknowledged the need of an 
 incarnation ; the modern Jew and Mahometan, 
 nominally rejecting it, is yet continually dreaming 
 of it and testifying of its necessity it was reserved 
 for this religion, to make it the greatest evidence 
 and proof of love in a Divine Being, that He
 
 UNITARIANISM. 185 
 
 merely pardons those who have filled the world 
 with misery; that He has never shared in it ; never 
 wrestled with it ; never devised any means, save 
 that of sending a wise teacher, for delivering 
 mankind out of it. 
 
 Again ; to a man who really cherished with 
 earnest affection the thought, " God is a universal 
 Father, his creatures cannot be merely the sub- 
 jects of a curse," what a strange reflection it must 
 have been " And yet according to those doctrines 
 which I hold he is not, and cannot be a Father. 
 The word means nothing. It is a lazy inappropriate 
 synonym of Maker, for it is the very glory of my 
 creed to do that which no other has done ; first to 
 deny that there is any human bond between men 
 and God; secondly, to deny that they have in 
 themselves any capacity, different from that 
 which an animal has, of receiving impulses from 
 God." 
 
 Once more ; to purify men of their false 
 notions of morality, to establish religion on the 
 basis of morality, and to reveal the existence of 
 another world than the present, were, according 
 to Unitarianism, the objects of Christ's appear- 
 ance in the world, and the objects which the 
 reformers of his doctrine were to keep steadily 
 in sight. For this end they were to desire the 
 removal of all systems and institutions which had
 
 186 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 kept alive a false faith and a distorted notion of the 
 character of God. " But who/' the disappointed 
 disciple of this school inquired, " who are the great 
 helpers in this work of reformation ? who shew 
 most longing, that it should be accomplished ? 
 Are they men of deep thought and high devotion, 
 who have been poring in sadness over the condi- 
 tion of society in solitary chambers crying out, 
 Usque quo, Domine? Are they even poor men, 
 not aiming at some high standard, but feeling the 
 burden and oppression of the universe, and believ- 
 ing that God could not have meant so many of 
 his creatures to live and die, without comfort 
 or hope ? or are they not rather men, who for 
 the most part have preserved a quiet decent level 
 tone of mind and character ; who belong to the 
 easy, respectable, prosperous classes, and who are 
 actually impatient of any thing which disturbs 
 them with the recollection of an elevated super- 
 sensual morality, or of a society based upon self- 
 sacrifice ?" 
 
 Alas ! he will have said and is it for this 
 only that I have parted with all the dreams of my 
 childhood ? I thought in my infancy that a king- 
 dom of righteousness, peace, joy, had been set 
 up in the world, and that I was to wait and hope, 
 till that kingdom should rule over all. It has 
 been the glorious discovery of my manhood, that
 
 UNITARIANISM. 187 
 
 there is no such kingdom here nothing but a 
 world, in which men are to observe certain 'rules 
 of behaviour towards each other, to restrain 
 themselves within certain rules of prudence for 
 their own sakes, and to cheer themselves with 
 the prospect of a future world unknown and 
 undefined wherein they shall be rewarded if they 
 have not transgressed social decorums, and be 
 forgiven if they have. 
 
 Such a picture of the tendencies and ultimate 
 results of the system, must often have presented 
 itself to those who had embraced it with affection, 
 as a deliverance from the dryness and narrow- 
 ness of Calvinism, and as a witness for the unity 
 and love of God. But these thoughts would 
 only have stirred powerfully in a few minds if a 
 series of strange movements had not taken place 
 in European society, some of which must have 
 seemed most promising to Unitarians, but which 
 reaUy destroyed the whole credit of their system 
 depriving it of the patronage of nobles and pre- 
 lates, and supplying it with no substitute in the 
 sympathies either of the thoughtful or of the 
 poor.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE TENDENCY OF THE RELIGIOUS, PHILOSOPHICAL, 
 AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS WHICH HAVE TAKEN 
 PLACE IN PROTESTANT BODIES, SINCE THE MIDDLE OF 
 THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 Methodism Religious Societies Search for a Theology. 
 
 THE History of Methodism, in one of its aspects, 
 belongs to the history of the English Church, 
 and does not therefore form a part of the sub- 
 ject I am now considering. But any considerate 
 reader will admit, that as France has been the 
 centre of the political, and Germany of the philo- 
 sophical movements of the last hundred years, 
 so England has been the centre of all re- 
 ligious movements which have occurred within 
 the same period. It is not necessary to main-
 
 UNITARIANISM. 189 
 
 tain that the first impulse to them was given in 
 England ; Wesley may have derived much of 
 his teaching from Zinzendorf, and the different 
 efforts made by him and by others to awaken a 
 more earnest religious feeling, may take chrono- 
 logical precedence of those which our countrymen 
 witnessed ; still the form which they assumed 
 here was so much more determinate, their in- 
 fluence so much more extensive, that if we wish 
 to investigate their character generally, we shall 
 find that our own soil is the proper place for the 
 experiment. 
 
 It is often said, that the Methodist movement 
 had for its object and its effect the revival of the 
 great principles of the Reformation. There is a 
 sense in which this remark is unquestionably true; 
 but if that sense be not carefully noticed and 
 defined, we may, I think, fall into great mistakes. 
 The Unitarianism which formed so large an ele- 
 ment in the religious sentiments of the eighteenth 
 century was, as we have seen, essentially imper- 
 sonal. It was so, even in its best form for those 
 who felt most deeply and earnestly the necessity 
 that great and wide principles should be asserted 
 respecting the unity and character of God, found 
 no way of connecting these principles with the 
 individual conscience. It came out in direct op- 
 position to Calvinism as an escape from it, and
 
 190 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 yet as what seemed a consistent deduction from 
 some of its maxims ; and the more it advanced 
 towards a mere system of denials, the more it was 
 proclaimed as a deliverance from the narrowness 
 of this theology. Above all, Calvinism had 
 maintained, that a set of individual believers con- 
 stituted the Church, and were to bear witness 
 against the world ; the Unitarians affirmed that 
 no warrant existed for any such protest ; that an 
 enlightened age or world was far in advance of 
 those who pretended to be in separation from it ; 
 that the great object which such an enlightened 
 world should propose to itself, was the extinction 
 of the idea of an Ecclesia, in whatever shape that 
 idea might present itself. 
 
 It was inevitable that, in any strong revival of 
 religious feeling, these notions should be first 
 attacked ; in other words that the personal interest 
 of men in religion, and the distinction of those 
 who felt and acknowledged that interest from 
 those who were indifferent to it, should be asserted. 
 Such convictions are characteristic of any strong 
 awakening in men's consciences ; they may be 
 said to be the awakening. But then the vague 
 phrase personal interest in religion cannot long 
 be adequate to describe the feelings of men who 
 have begun to use it in a real sense. One who 
 knows that he is a person requires a personal
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 191 
 
 object an abstraction cannot satisfy him. The 
 doctrine therefore that a man is justified by faith, 
 and lives by faith in Christ, became a principal ele- 
 ment in the Methodist, as it had been in the early 
 Lutheran teaching ; the doctrine that individual 
 believers constitute a peculiar Ecclesia grew out 
 of that ; and the Bible began again to be put forth 
 as the poor man's book, which he could receive in 
 its simplicity, though the learned sought to ex- 
 plain it away. 
 
 But it is remarkable, that the most decided 
 proclamation of these Protestant dogmas grew not 
 out of Methodism itself, but out of a reaction 
 in the minds of those who had been brought, 
 more or less directly, under its influence. The 
 history of the very violent conflicts of the 
 Calvinists under Toplady and Sir Richard Hill 
 against Wesley and Fletcher, is abundant evidence 
 of this fact. It is true that the most powerful of 
 the Methodist preachers, Whitfield, joined the 
 opponents of his master and early coadjutor ; but 
 it is highly probable that he was led to this step 
 by observing how much his own preaching had 
 tended to stir up affections and feelings in men's 
 minds rather than to give them a firm resting- 
 place and that he sought in the Calvinistical 
 doctrines for a balance and a counteraction to 
 this danger : at all events it is quite certain that 
 8
 
 192 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 though a far greater influence was attributed to 
 him in his life-time than to Wesley, he left a 
 comparatively insignificant body of disciples. It 
 must then, I conceive, be admitted, that the re- 
 vival of these Protestant doctrines, though it might 
 an inseparable accident, was not the essential dis- 
 tinction of Methodism. There was something in 
 it different from the feelings which worked in the 
 minds of the Reformers nay opposite to them, 
 though not therefore incompatible with them. 
 
 I think every one must admit that Luther and 
 Calvin directed men very much more to the in- 
 visible object which men are to contemplate, or to 
 the original source of their faith in the Will of 
 God ; and the Methodists very much more to 
 the operations of a Divine Spirit upon their own 
 minds. This distinction is so obvious, and was 
 so clearly brought out in the controversies to 
 which I have alluded, by persons who acknow- 
 ledged, that they had once adopted the Methodist 
 peculiarity themselves, and who showed clearly 
 that they could not divest themselves of it even 
 while they laboured diligently to speak another 
 language, that it needs not to be established by 
 proofs, though it ought to be very carefully 
 noticed. The denial that it was possible for men 
 to be the subjects of a spiritual influence, was the 
 great characteristic of Unitarianism, and of the
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 193 
 
 age which was imbued with it ; the assertion of the 
 reality of such an influence, and of its continual 
 manifestation, was the distinguishing property of 
 the teaching which disturbed and partially sub- 
 verted the liberal system. 
 
 But there were other peculiarities connected 
 with this. Methodism was not, like Quakerism, 
 the proclamation of a law in each man's own mind, 
 or of a power working there. It was expressly 
 addressed to large masses of men ; the power was 
 believed to descend upon them, especially when 
 they were met together; and though every in- 
 dividual was, in an important sense, said to be 
 taken apart and brought into debate with his own 
 conscience, it was not denied that the feeling of a 
 united influence had a great tendency to increase 
 the consciousness of it in each one. All that was 
 most fanatical in the Methodists was undoubtedly 
 connected with this belief, and it gave the most 
 plausible, often the most just ground, for the 
 assertion, that the effects said to be produced by 
 their preaching might be traced wholly to con- 
 tagion and sympathy, and would disappear when 
 the moving cause had ceased. Still we do not 
 get to the meaning of a fact, merely by using the 
 words " contagion and sympathy" to describe it ; 
 fanaticism and even consciously dishonest quackery 
 cannot produce any results unless they have some 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 true principle to work with, and it seems as if the 
 principle involved in Methodism might be one 
 which has often been dawning upon us in our 
 previous enquiries, though we have never yet 
 found any satisfactory development of it. We 
 have often been obliged to ask ourselves, whether 
 these distinct individual acts, on which Protest- 
 antism dwells so exclusively, may not, must not, 
 depend at last upon some relation in which men 
 stand to their fellows; whether we can take our 
 start from individuals, and form a society out of 
 them; whether the existence of society be not 
 implied in their existence; and whether, conse- 
 quently, if each man have a spiritual existence, 
 and be subjected to a spiritual government, there 
 must not be somewhere a spiritual body, of which 
 he should account himself a member ? The facts 
 of Methodism may offer but few helps for solving 
 this problem, but assuredly they force it upon 
 our attention, and make it more abundantly neces- 
 sary that we should seek the solution of it some 
 where. 
 
 There are other points of great importance and 
 interest closely connected with the two to which 
 I have adverted. This proclamation of a spiritual 
 power went forth from men who had been brought 
 up in a university which had the reputation of 
 preserving more of the old Catholic temper than
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 195 
 
 could be found elsewhere, and whose very nick- 
 name indicated that they had been more scrupu- 
 lous and regular than the majority in their devotion 
 to forms and ordinances. Those who are ac- 
 quainted only with the practices which the. 
 Wesleys afterwards tolerated, and which their 
 followers regard as characteristic of their system, 
 would not easily believe how much importance 
 they attached in the outset of their career to the 
 episcopal ordination of ministers. Nevertheless 
 a certain impatience of order nay, a conviction 
 that it ought to be broken through might be 
 discovered in them from the first. It seemed to 
 them that there was an immense body of human 
 souls, which had no national position, and of which 
 the nation took no account. The upper classes 
 in England cared not much for religious minis- 
 trations, but they might have them if they would ; 
 the middle class, if they were not particularly 
 well affected to the National Church, had pro- 
 vided for themselves in different organised and 
 tolerated sects; but the class below these, the 
 mob, the canaille, as they were then named by 
 their despisers, the masses, as they are now called 
 by their flatterers, were as little regarded by the 
 churchman who inherited the family living, as by 
 the dissenting minister who received his appoint- 
 ment from the tradesmen of the market town. 
 
 K2
 
 196 RELIGIOUS MOVEMEXTS. 
 
 To these, therefore, the Methodists, like the friars 
 of old, addressed themselves; in them they, like 
 those friars, awakened thoughts and hopes to 
 which their educated countrymen had appeared 
 for a long time to be strangers ; in providing for 
 their wants, like the friars, they invaded the 
 privileges of the parochial (both alike would have 
 called them the secular) clergy. I know not in 
 what way Bishop Lavington maintained the posi- 
 tion that the enthusiasm of the Methodists and 
 of the Papists had many points in common ; but 
 no one who considers these facts, or a hundred 
 others connected with the peculiar superstitions 
 to which they respectively gave currency, will 
 doubt that he may have found very plausible 
 arguments in favour of his opinion. At all events 
 it must, I think, be admitted, that Methodism 
 had some important peculiarities which it did not 
 derive from Protestantism, and with which a pure 
 exclusive Protestantism can scarcely co-exist. 
 
 2. The practical belief of a spiritual operation 
 upon the minds and hearts of men, may be said 
 to constitute Methodism so far as it is a creed. 
 But as soon as the creed had obtained prevalency, 
 a system developed itself, which, as Mr. Southey 
 has remarked, is a more complete specimen of 
 organization than any which has been produced 
 in Europe since the days of Loyola. The more
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 197 
 
 this organization is examined, the less it seems to 
 have to do with any spiritual principle ; the 
 more evidently it proves itself to be an invention 
 of human policy. This assertion will scarcely be 
 denied by Wesleyans themselves ; though they are 
 stronger than most in asserting the principle of a 
 divine inspiration in individuals, they have pre- 
 tended less than almost any that their scheme had 
 a divine origin ; they attribute it with scarcely 
 any hesitation to the wisdom and sagacity of 
 their founder and of his successors. In one re- 
 spect only is there a resemblance between the 
 system and that which called it into existence ; 
 the spiritual feelings of the Wesleyans led them 
 to overlook national distinctions ; the system of 
 the Methodists is essentially extra-national. It 
 is the effort to establish a powerful government 
 in the heart of a nation, which at no point shall 
 impinge upon, or come into contact with the 
 government of the nation. It differs from the 
 systems of the older dissenting sects in this im- 
 portant point ; the limits of each of them are 
 defined by the profession of some peculiar tenet 
 in which they differ from the others, and from 
 the rest of Christendom ; that of the Wesleyans, 
 professing no tenet which is not recognized or 
 tolerated by the National Church, simply exists 
 to assert their own independence of it, and the 
 
 K3
 
 198 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 importance of such an organization as theirs for 
 the conversion of mankind. 
 
 In this respect Wesleyanism is an indication 
 and specimen of the religious tendencies which 
 prevail in this age very far beyond the immediate 
 circle of its influence. The religious feeling of 
 the last century has given birth to religious so- 
 cieties, between which and their parent one finds 
 it difficult, for some time, to discover a feature 
 of resemblance. The first tended to draw men 
 into themselves ; the last throw them altogether 
 out of themselves. The first was grounded upon 
 the acknowledgment of a directly spiritual influ- 
 ence, as the only source of any moral change in the 
 condition of individuals or of the world ; the latter 
 are constructed upon the most earthly principles, 
 and seem to attribute all power to them. Accord- 
 ingly the contrast has been felt, as well by the 
 good men who took part in the movements of the 
 last age and have survived them, as by the younger 
 men who have grown up under then* teaching. 
 The first confess, with something of timidity, as if 
 they were afraid of appearing to disparage the 
 fruits of a tree which they believe to have been 
 planted by a divine hand, that the restless turmoil 
 and bustle of a modern religious life is not what 
 they or their fellow-labourers would have wished to 
 produce ; the latter in more open, sometimes in
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 199 
 
 more angry language, complain, that under spiri- 
 tual words and pretexts there has grown up 
 amongst us a great machinery complicated, noisy, 
 but inefficient to produce any great results ; ac- 
 knowledging no law in its workings, save certain 
 vulgar maxims, which are applicable only to trade, 
 if even trade itself do not demand principles of a 
 simpler and nobler kind. Nevertheless we find 
 the very persons who make these complaints con- 
 fessing that they know not how to dispense with 
 this machinery, for that there must be some 
 method of combined voluntary action, grounded 
 not upon our relations to each other as members 
 of a state, but upon some higher and more uni- 
 versal relation. Here again then we are struck 
 with indications of a Catholic feeling arising out 
 of the very heart of Protestantism. 
 
 3. The religious feelings of our age, in both 
 the forms which they have taken, seem almost in- 
 compatible with the existence of a positive theo- 
 logy. Men studied the movements and operations 
 of their own minds till these and their endless 
 vicissitudes acquired such an absorbing interest, 
 that the idea of the absolute and the permanent 
 was almost lost. They fled from these inward 
 contemplations to occupy themselves with an ex- 
 ternal mechanism, which they believed was meant 
 to promote the glory of God ; how difficult not 
 
 K4
 
 200 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 to believe that any meditation upon his being and 
 nature was an idle occupation for schoolmen ! 
 how difficult not to feel an entire alienation of 
 mind from such studies ! Therefore it has come 
 to pass that the main part of what is called 
 theology in Great Britain of late years has been 
 an attempt to systematise individual experiences, or 
 else to discover some general theory about the con- 
 dition and prospects of the world at large. Still 
 the craving in men's hearts after something deeper 
 and larger than this can never be extinct ; the litera- 
 ture of past times, which bears witness that men 
 have ventured into a more awful sanctuary, was 
 not wholly closed ; and by degrees, either weari- 
 ness of merely experimental divinity and mere 
 views about the world, or a conviction that they 
 cannot subsist alone, has led to the inquiry, 
 whether that which was once called Theology be 
 a reality or only a dream ? 
 
 In Germany, where outward religious excite- 
 ments are so few, where students are students 
 in the strictest sense, and where habits of medi- 
 tation are assiduously cultivated, those who had 
 felt the evangelical influence, and had been de- 
 livered by it from the materialism of the last age, 
 soon perceived that, unless this influence led to a 
 search for theological principles, it would melt 
 away, or only produce a succession of fever- 
 
 8
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 201 
 
 paroxysms. They therefore applied themselves 
 earnestly to consider how the religious feelings., 
 without being lost or weakened, could be turned 
 in this direction. They had seen the mischiefs 
 which the dry dogmatism of the Lutheran 
 and Calvinistical bodies had produced ; they had 
 seen that the spirit of man, whenever it was 
 strongly stirred, became impatient of this dogma- 
 tism, and sought to escape from it by making 
 spiritual motives and consciousnesses all in all. 
 Did not these observations prove that the affec- 
 tions the seat of these consciousnesses are the 
 proper and appointed organs of religious belief? 
 And may it not be, that all religion so far as it 
 acts from without is simply an orderly cultivation 
 of these affections ; educing them, and enabling 
 them to perceive those objects and that character 
 which must correspond to their wants, and which 
 are fitted to give them a living and permanent 
 form ? Every one must perceive how much there 
 was in the circumstances of the age to suggest 
 the thought, that this is the all comprehending, 
 all satisfying idea of Christianity. It was in fact 
 the scientific methodism of the Evangelical feelings 
 and tendencies, which at once vindicated them 
 from the charge of being incoherent and fanatical, 
 and promised them an escape from the peril of 
 becoming so. It seemed to justify much in the 
 K 5
 
 202 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 Scriptures which philosophical men in the last 
 age had given up as untenable, and at the same 
 time to make the abandonment of much which 
 religious men had thought indispensable, no 
 longer unsafe. It was no strange contradiction 
 upon this hypothesis to believe, that the all-per- 
 fect Being should manifest himself to men in one 
 of their own nature ; that was evidently the form 
 in which alone He could present himself as an 
 object to their affections, and in which the affec- 
 tions witnessed that they needed He should pre- 
 sent himself. Symbols which brought this image 
 more near to men's hearts and sympathies, carried 
 in them an evidence of their truth which no 
 abuse of them could set aside, and they preserve 
 us from the tendency to mere intellectual dog- 
 matism. On the other hand, the history of the 
 way in which the divine manifestation took place 
 might, perhaps, be open to criticism. Criticism 
 could do no harm by dealing severely with the 
 shell of it ; for the kernel within was something 
 which the affections could not afford to part 
 with, and would defend, in defiance of all efforts 
 to rob them of it. The criticism of the last age, 
 because this principle was not admitted, was gene- 
 rally false. Much had been thrown away as super- 
 fluous which the affections felt to be necessary : 
 many things perhaps suffered to remain against
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 203 
 
 which they protested. For it will be found, say 
 these teachers, that they reject as incongruous with 
 themselves whatever the understanding on other 
 grounds insists should be thrown aside. ( Upon this 
 principle we are to deal with the Jewish records ; 
 they explain how the religious feelings of a certain 
 nation were awakened; but we must not invest them 
 with an exclusive dignity; we must not make 
 Christianity dependent upon them. The affections 
 being in all men, every history and every theology 
 will contain hints of the efforts which men have 
 made to discover what they needed for this portion 
 of their being ; every scheme of philosophy (though 
 philosophy has a distinct province of its own,) 
 will have tried to methodise these hints. Christi- 
 anity must be looked upon as the announcement to 
 men of what they had been seeking after. 3 
 
 Though some of these views may be very offen- 
 sive to those who compose the evangelical school 
 in this country, they certainly have been adopted 
 by men of deep thought and learning, and as I 
 believe of simple, earnest piety, in the most 
 thoughtful country of Europe, as the only scheme 
 of theology which a person starting from the 
 evangelical premises, and admitting no others to 
 be sound and true, can consistently acknowledge. 
 And I do not believe that the history of the pro- 
 gress of this doctrine in the country which gave 
 
 K 6
 
 204 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 it birth, will prove that they were wrong. If 
 indeed it be asked whether it has been found in 
 practice, that those who embraced this scheme 
 could abide in it, however elaborated and fenced 
 it may have been by the art of a clear logical 
 understanding, sustaining a devout and honest 
 heart, I imagine the answer would be, No. Those 
 who have taken up this theory have been com- 
 pelled either to advance or to retreat. The 
 principle of it is, that the manifestation of Christ 
 is the one great fact in the Bible history, 
 to which all others are subordinate, and which 
 we may continue to recognize, even though we 
 should be compelled to reject many of the records 
 which have been supposed to foretel it, as well 
 as some parts of the story which contains it. 
 To this fact the believer in this system clings as 
 the deliverance from large Pantheistic notions 
 about the Godhead, and as the warrant and 
 protection for that personal religion which he 
 takes to be the especial characteristic of Pro- 
 testantism. But in following out the plan of dis- 
 criminating between that which' men must receive 
 as congenial to their inward feelings and wants, 
 and that which belongs only to outward form 
 and history, it has been found that the recog- 
 nition of a personal object has evaporated alto- 
 gether. Our Lord's life does but embody certain
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 205 
 
 great ideas and principles, which have been at 
 work in men's hearts at all times; which pro- 
 bably did exhibit themselves very remarkably in 
 Him, and may have seemed to his affectionate, 
 credulous, or interested disciples, to exhibit 
 themselves in Him as they never did or could 
 in any other; but which can be contemplated 
 by us apart from the accidental form which they 
 assumed in that or in any age, as principles ap- 
 pertaining to our general humanity. Such is 
 one result of this method a result, it will be 
 seen, as directly in opposition as any that can 
 well be conceived to the feelings and intentions 
 of its originator, and which yet has seemed to 
 be merely a natural deduction from it. On 
 the other hand, many of those who would have 
 been most inclined, by the habits of their minds 
 and the mode of their initiation into Christianity, 
 to adopt this form of theology, and who probably 
 did adopt it, have been led more and more to 
 feel that the doctrine of a personal manifestation 
 of God cannot rest merely upon the individual 
 experience or feeling of its necessity, however 
 deeply they acknowledge that experience in them- 
 selves and would wish to produce it in others, 
 that it must be sustained by a still more awful 
 truth, and that that truth must in some sense 
 have been given to men in order that they might 
 enter into it. This, I apprehend, is a faith which
 
 206 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 is every day growing to greater strength in 
 many serious German minds, and which must 
 in due time bear important fruits. What these 
 fruits may be, I shall not here enquire. This 
 fact I conceive is at all events established, that 
 as there is a Catholic tendency even in those 
 views concerning spiritual influence, and in those 
 concerning outward organisation, which seem at 
 first sight to be of the most exclusively Protestant 
 character, so likewise there is a Catholic tendency 
 in that theology which can be traced most directly 
 to a Protestant origin. Even that system which 
 builds theology upon something purely internal, 
 yet makes the idea of a divine manifestation or 
 incarnation its central idea, and connects with 
 this the use of outward symbols, and two opposite 
 schemes which have grown up by the side of it 
 and seem to have developed themselves out of it 
 bear unequivocal witness that Protestant Ger- 
 many cannot be content with a purely Protestant 
 system. Catholicism it must have either in the 
 form of Pantheism, or of definite Christianity. 
 
 I said that Unitarianism in the form which it 
 took in the last century was crushed, and only 
 not extinguished by the Evangelical movement. 
 But it was susceptible of another form, which it 
 has assumed among the descendants of the Eng- 
 lish Puritan colonists of North America. The 
 coating of dry . materialism with which it was
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 207 
 
 associated, and from which it appeared to be 
 inseparable, has been cast away; the orthodox 
 systems are charged by the modern Unitarians 
 with a disregard of man's spiritual nature and 
 his spiritual powers; the idea of a divine hu- 
 manity in one person is only rejected because 
 it interferes with the acknowledgment of it in 
 every one. It is not pretended by these teachers 
 that the idea of the Divine Being can be other- 
 wise than a mysterious idea ; no attempt is made 
 to refute the old doctrine of Christendom by ex- 
 hibiting its absurd inconsistency with notions 
 which are applicable to sensible things ; it is 
 rather accused of being formal and systematic, 
 of making accurate distinctions when all ought 
 to be left vague and indeterminate. Sabellianism 
 has in fact superseded Socinianism. 
 
 The views of the modern school respecting the 
 world or the age, are also different from those of 
 their predecessors. Everything is growing and 
 progressive ; the existing age sees further than 
 its predecessors, and can afford to reject much 
 which they believed. But the age is only to be 
 contemplated in a few illuminated persons who 
 are setting themselves in opposition to the ordi- 
 nary feelings and habits of their contemporaries. 
 The idea of an Ecclesia has thus come to light 
 in another form, and in a very remarkable form,
 
 208 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 for it is assumed that the Ecclesia (a very narrow 
 and exclusive one, consisting of men of genius 
 and intellect,) is the proper world of which what 
 is called the world is only the counterfeit. Such 
 is modern Unitarianism, against which the dif- 
 ferent sects in America feel that they have need 
 to strive with great earnestness, and of which 
 they say, I believe most truly, that it makes 
 quite as little appeal to the conscience, has as 
 little to do with the life and heart of men, as that 
 which it has succeeded. The wise members of 
 these sects affirm (experience will soon show 
 whether they are mistaken), that between this 
 Unitarianism and Pantheism there is only an 
 imaginary boundary, which must soon be trans- 
 gressed. But neither of their assertions acts 
 with any great power as a check upon the pro- 
 gress of the system. The Americans are craving 
 for something which is Catholic, and not sectarian. 
 This system appears to have that merit, and it 
 is a common opinion, that either Unitarianism or 
 Romanism will overspread America, or that the 
 two will divide it between them. If there be no 
 Catholicism which is not identical with one of 
 these schemes, I cannot doubt that they are right. 
 Some allusion has been made to a feeling of 
 discontent in the minds of earnest and pious 
 Scotchmen with the Necessitarian system, which
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 209 
 
 has assumed in that country the name and repu- 
 tation of the old Calvinism. There, as in Ger- 
 many, though for somewhat different reasons, men 
 cannot be content with mere individual feelings 
 or mere schemes of action ; they require a theo- 
 logy. Now the great solitary principle of Scotch 
 theology, that the Will of God is the original to 
 which everything that is real in the universe or 
 in man must be referred, may, as we have seen, 
 take two entirely opposite forms. It may be an 
 assertion, that there is a Sovereign over the world 
 who disposes of all things and persons according 
 to his pleasure ; it may be an assertion, that there 
 is one from whom all good is derived, all evil 
 being the contrary of his nature and the re- 
 sistance to his purpose. As the former of these 
 views became more and more characteristic of 
 the new Calvinism, the latter began to be pro- 
 claimed as the only principle, which is consistent 
 with Scripture by a small minority of Scotch 
 divines, whose zeal, love, and in many cases know- 
 ledge also, compensated for their numerical weak- 
 ness. After a short but violent struggle, they were 
 generally excluded from the Kirk; the doctrine 
 of the Universal Love of God being declared to 
 be incompatible with its formularies and its ex- 
 istence. But the fact that such a principle once 
 proclaimed can never be suppressed by any
 
 210 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 efforts of any body of men, is not the only one 
 which makes this apparently insignificant de- 
 monstration of great importance to those who 
 are taking account of the religious tendencies of 
 this age. We have seen how the idea of the 
 incarnation or manifestation of God, in the per- 
 son of man, has presented itself to the Evangelical 
 Germans as that which must be the groundwork 
 of religion, if there be a religion, and how re- 
 markably this question, whether the incarnation 
 be a fact or only a dream, has become the turning 
 point of all theological controversies there. Thus 
 that Church body which was created to witness of 
 justification by faith, has found that it must have 
 a deeper ground than this to rest upon, if it rest 
 at all. Again we have seen how among the 
 Unitarians in America the body which imagined 
 that it existed to protest against the possibility 
 of God taking the nature of man language has 
 became prevalent and popular which, however 
 vague and however unlike the doctrine of a 
 divine humiliation, yet involves all the difficulty 
 and mystery belonging to that doctrine. Yet 
 neither of these changes seem to me so remarkable 
 as the fact, that Scotchmen, trained from their 
 infancy to look upon the fall of man as the only 
 foundation of divinity, and upon the incarnation 
 as only intelligible when regarded as a means of
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 211 
 
 deliverance from the effects of it, should have 
 been led to acknowledge this as the central truth, 
 and to exhibit all other truths in the light of it. 
 Now this is the case with those I have spoken 
 of as protesting against the Calvinism of modern 
 Scotland; all without exception have spoken of 
 the divine manifestation in Christ as that which 
 constitutes Christianity. But it was remarkably 
 the case with the Scotch divine, whose name, 
 for good and for evil, is best known in this 
 country, and whose thoughts have left upon 
 many minds traces which will remain long after 
 the body which bears his name shall have been 
 forgotten. The late Mr. Irving, bred in the 
 straitest school of Presbyterianism, and retaining, 
 I believe to the last, a vehement admiration for 
 Knox and his principles, was yet led to adopt 
 the conviction, that the doctrine of the Incarna- 
 tion had been strangely kept out of sight in all 
 Protestant systems ; that it is the centre of all 
 divinity ; the deeper mystery of the Trinity being 
 at once the foundation upon which it rests, and 
 the truth, to the full knowledge and fruition of 
 which it is to lead us. In the attempt to re- 
 assert this doctrine, he was betrayed, it is well 
 known, into the use of strange and perilous lan- 
 guage, which was vehemently attacked and often
 
 212 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 
 
 greatly misrepresented language which a man 
 will, I believe, inevitably adopt who has not quite 
 divested himself of the notion that the Fall is the 
 law of the universe, and is trying to reconcile 
 that Calvinistical theory with the Catholic faith. 
 But Mr. Irving was not content with the bare 
 proclamation of a principle. He felt that this 
 principle must be the foundation of one Catholic 
 Church ; that if a Church existed, this must be 
 the truth on which it rests ; that if this be a 
 truth, there must be a Church. No man had 
 taken more pains to proclaim the coming of a 
 future and perfect dispensation. But he found 
 that the mere prospect of a Church did not 
 satisfy the language of Scripture, nor the faith of 
 one who had really believed in a divine humanity. 
 The existence of such a divine humanity was 
 not a prospect, but a reality ; facts had attested 
 it ; the society which was built upon it must be 
 a fact too. But such a Church, he contended, 
 does not exist ; it has been, but it has ceased, or 
 is on the point of ceasing to be ; it must then be 
 restored ; it can only be restored by a divine in- 
 tervention. There must be a fact embodying the 
 principle of a union of God with man which is the 
 Church; this is the incarnation; there must be 
 an organized body built upon that fact ; there must
 
 RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 213 
 
 be the manifestation of a spiritual power to attest 
 its existence, and to enable its respective mem- 
 bers to perform their functions. The religious 
 public of England might safely indulge their 
 humour, if these be ever safe occasions for jest- 
 ing, with the evidence which the disciples of this 
 system produced to show that they had been 
 constituted the Church of God in the world. 
 But I maintain that this public cannot set at 
 naught the principles which led men to desire 
 such evidence, and to accept almost anything as 
 if it were the answer to their wishes. For whereas 
 the three characteristics which we have noticed 
 in our modern religious movements, the first, the 
 recognition of a spiritual influence; the second, 
 the demand for an outward organization; the 
 third, the craving for a positive theology, have 
 been existing hitherto in the greatest contradic- 
 tion to each other ; each by turns putting itself 
 forth as the great necessity ; each by turns crush- 
 ing and extinguishing the others; here was an 
 attempt to combine them all, and to exhibit them 
 in that relation which I think we all feel to be 
 the right one. If then there be a falsehood 
 in a conception which seems to unite so many 
 elements, all indispensable, yet unsociable and 
 every fact in the history of Irvingism convinces 
 me that there is a great and terrible falsehood
 
 214 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 one would think it must be in the assumption, 
 that there is not already a Catholic Church 
 which is grounded upon a theological truth, pos- 
 sesses a divine organization, and is endowed with 
 the living Spirit ; and that, therefore, it is to be 
 founded in the nineteenth century. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 Feelings respecting man Poetry and criticism Pure metaphy- 
 sics Eclecticism. 
 
 I. AT the time when Wesley and his fellow- 
 labourers were proclaiming the doctrine of Spi- 
 ritual Power and Influence with so much of 
 energy and practical demonstration, the common 
 faith among philosophical men was, that man is 
 a mere creature of flesh and blood. It might be 
 only in the enlightened coteries of France that this 
 doctrine was proclaimed in its breadth and full- 
 ness ; only in them was it clearly understood 
 how to the processes of digestion, or rather to the 
 mass of matter in which these strange processes 
 go on, may be referred the phenomena of think- 
 ing, hoping, loving; elsewhere it was more or 
 less confidently received as an article of faith, 
 that there dwells in our bodily frame, a thing 
 called a soul, which is known chiefly by certain 
 negative definitions, and which will survive death.
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 215 
 
 Nevertheless the Encyclopedists did but express, 
 in the shape of a proposition, that which was the 
 habit of feeling in the age to which they belonged. 
 " Given matter, to find whether there is anything 
 besides, or whether all things may be reduced 
 under its forms ;" this was the problem which the 
 men of that time imagined had been set before 
 them to solve in whatever way they could. The 
 experiments which were made by those who were 
 willing in argument to start from these premises 
 are, it seems to me, profoundly interesting ; the 
 results to which they led most satisfactory. 
 Among these we must reckon Hutcheson's dis- 
 covery of a Moral Sense, and Butler's of a Con- 
 science. DISCOVERIES I have a right to call 
 them, for though the facts which were affirmed 
 had once been taken for granted, they had be- 
 come a terra incognita; nay, one which, accord- 
 ing to the charts then received, could not exist. 
 But like many great facts in the physical world, 
 these were supported by evidence which had 
 much more weight with the next generation than 
 with the one to which it was addressed, and the 
 principle was tacitly recognized that the material 
 is at all events the substantial point of man ; that 
 what is spiritual, if it exist at all, is only his 
 accident. Nay, this doctrine, though refuted by 
 all the conduct and by much of the language
 
 216 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 of those who took part in the evangelical move- 
 ment, yet formed a very considerable element in 
 their opinions. They taught men that the soul 
 was all in all; that everything was to be post- 
 poned to the salvation of the soul ; that all men 
 had souls ; and that the majority of men were 
 guilty of neglecting their souls ; yet if they had 
 been asked whether they really looked upon men 
 generally as spiritual beings, they would have 
 been at a loss to know what the question could 
 mean. " Spiritual beings !" they would have 
 exclaimed, "no, indeed; an unconverted man, a 
 man who has not been brought under the in- 
 fluence of divine grace, is simply a carnal being ; 
 there is nothing spiritual about him/' They knew 
 that this language in some sense was true ; they 
 knew that it denoted something real, and the 
 habits of their time hindered them from perceiv- 
 ing the contradiction which lay concealed in it. 
 " What," they would have said, " is philosophy to 
 us? all we want is to declare the truth of the 
 Gospel." But philosophy was very much to 
 them notwithstanding; the materialistic philo- 
 sophy had unconsciously a great hold upon 
 their minds, and it may be safely affirmed, that 
 the most extravagant notions and acts which 
 can be charged upon them, arose from the 
 mingling of this philosophy with the spiritual
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 217 
 
 maxims which they had derived from Christianity. 
 It seemed so utterly strange to men in the 18th 
 century, that human beings should exhibit any 
 spiritual feelings or energies, that the appearance 
 of them was almost necessarily looked upon as 
 something not wonderful merely, but startling; 
 not as the effect of a divine influence merely, but 
 of a magical one. 
 
 The Methodists, however, led other men into 
 a belief which they did not entertain themselves ; 
 they were the unconscious and unacknowledged, 
 but not the least powerful instruments of a 
 great change in the views of philosophers. It 
 is difficult to determine when a change of this 
 kind may be said to have actually taken place ; in 
 other words, when a principle which has long 
 struggled with opposition and ridicule may be 
 treated as the recognized and popular creed. The 
 generally admitted test is this. As long as a 
 doctrine is held only in such a country as Ger- 
 many, a country of recluse students, so long it 
 cannot be said to belong to the age. But so 
 soon as it has become the common talk and pro- 
 fession of the lecturers and coteries of France, 
 we may be sure that it has established its claim 
 to that distinction, notwithstanding any resist- 
 ance it may still encounter from the opinions and 
 habits which have been bequeathed by previous 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 generations. And this test is especially applicable 
 to the doctrine that man is to be spoken of as a 
 spiritual being. The materialism which the last 
 age implicitly adopted did not fully develope 
 itself in that age ; the successors of the Encyclo- 
 paedists carried their doctrines even further than 
 they had done, and proclaimed them with even 
 more confidence. Nevertheless, they have been 
 losing ground every hour for the last ten or 
 twelve years in the country which seemed to be- 
 long to them ; till there is scarcely a subject, 
 not even that of physiology and medicine, on 
 which they have not been vehemently assaulted, 
 nay, from which they have not been almost dis- 
 lodged. We may, therefore, fairly assume, that 
 a philosophical revolution has occurred, quite 
 as signal as that which distinguished the middle 
 of the seventeenth century, though of a directly 
 opposite kind. The change which we noticed in 
 the phrases of Unitarians and in the whole con- 
 ception of their system is an index of it, and may 
 help us to understand the character and effects 
 of it. It does not consist in any dry, tame, ac- 
 knowledgment that man has an immortal part 
 or property which may survive the dissolution of 
 his animal frame ; it amounts to nothing less 
 than a distinct affirmation, that those powers and 
 properties which he has within him, of which the
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 219 
 
 senses can take no account, and which are not 
 reducible under any mechanical conditions, are 
 what constitute him a man ; and that all the most 
 important part of his history is the history of 
 these powers, of the restraints to which they have 
 been subjected and of what they have achieved. 
 A dynamical philosophy has gradually super- 
 seded a mechanical one in those countries where 
 philosophy is considered of a distinct substantive 
 value, and in spite of the influence of trade proper, 
 and trade political, is endeavouring to supplant it 
 in England also. And though I call it a philo- 
 sophy, I mean something which diffuses itself 
 through the most ordinary and popular literature, 
 and has created a language for itself, which will 
 become in a short time, if it have not become 
 already, familiar to clubs and drawing rooms. 
 
 This language will of course very often touch 
 upon points which religious men have thought 
 belonged exclusively to them. All the facts 
 which concern the internal life and conscious- 
 ness ; all the religious changes which have taken 
 place in different periods of society ; all the per- 
 sonal conflicts of Christians, will be spoken of 
 with the deepest interest, as being vastly more 
 important than accounts of wars and state 
 intrigues and the fall of empires. Men in old 
 times will be admired because they esteemed 
 
 L2
 
 220 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 themselves the subjects of a divine inspiration, 
 and faithfully acted upon that hypothesis. The 
 ages in which faith gave place to infidelity will 
 be denounced as barren and worthless. It will 
 be affirmed, that in our day, as much as in any 
 former one, men ought to exercise faith, and to 
 look upon their different talents as marks of a 
 spiritual vocation. In such expressions, mingled 
 as they generally are with many in which re- 
 ligious men can have no sympathy, it is common 
 to say that there is fraud and insincerity ; lan- 
 guage is wilfully perverted to mean something 
 different from its common meaning. In many 
 cases there may doubtless be this insincerity; 
 the more fashionable the tone becomes, the more 
 of it there will be. But it is dangerous to prefer 
 such charges, for they are very often untrue, and 
 they may often be retaliated upon ourselves. The 
 case I conceive stands thus. A considerable num- 
 ber of persons in Germany, in France, and in 
 England, believe that they have found an expla- 
 nation for most or all of the facts which readers 
 of the Bible attribute to the power and the Spirit 
 of God. They believe that the last age had no 
 such explanation, and that its attempts to in- 
 terpret or deny these facts were ridiculous. 
 Treating human beings, they say, merely as 
 material mechanical creatures you will always
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL, MOVEMENTS. 221 
 
 be puzzled with what pious people tell you that 
 they have felt, and with what they have actually 
 done; treat them as spiritual beings, and the 
 difficulty ceases. You can account for every 
 thing; their divine interventions, spiritual illu- 
 minations, and miracles, were not mere inven- 
 tions of priestcraft, though priestcraft has much 
 to do with the continued belief of them ; they are 
 all to be traced to man's spiritual nature; by 
 observing what theory prevailed in each age on 
 such matters you form a notion of its character, 
 and of its relation to that which succeeded it. 
 This is a language which perfectly satisfies some 
 persons who can put all these subjects at a dis- 
 tance from them, and speculate about them with 
 entire calmness. There are others, on the con- 
 trary, whose phrases will often be very like these 
 nay, the very same but in whom they are 
 indications of an entirely different state of mind. 
 These are men who do not consider it their duty 
 or vocation to explain away facts, or to philoso- 
 phise upon them ; they cannot look at anything 
 as apart from themselves ; when they talk of 
 sufferings and conflicts, they are not expounding 
 a scheme of metaphysics, they are speaking 
 of what they have known and what they can 
 therefore sympathise with in others. Such per- 
 
 L.3
 
 222 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 sons cannot adopt the old religious language, 
 because it seems to set aside facts which they 
 feel to be certain; it seems to deny that a man 
 is anything in himself; that he has an eye where- 
 with he is to receive light. But neither can they 
 wholly reject this old religious language ; they 
 feel inwardly that the philosophical is no sub- 
 stitute for it ; they feel that the words about gifts 
 and inspirations did mean something more than 
 that a man has all powers within him ; they feel 
 that an abdication of powers, a denial of self, is 
 the characteristic of all really honest men ; they 
 feel that humility, and not exaltation, the acknow- 
 ledgment of receiving, not the boast of possessing, 
 ought to be the criterion of spiritual excellence. 
 They, therefore, hover between the two forms of 
 language, using either as the feeling of the weak- 
 ness or falsehood of the other predominates, 
 often committing the grossest inconsistencies, 
 often uttering the most absurd extravagancies, 
 but proving the honesty of their intentions more 
 by these inconsistencies and extravagancies than 
 by much which seems to their admirers coherent 
 and reasonable ; and I believe laying religious 
 men, but especially divines, under an obligation 
 to enquire what this perplexity means, and whe- 
 ther their own modes of speaking or thinking,
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 223 
 
 the indistinctness of their minds, or the faithless- 
 ness of their hearts, may not have given occasion 
 to it. 
 
 2. I attributed much, both of the good and evil 
 which distinguished the last age, to the exclusive 
 study of Natural Philosophy. Self-forgetfulness 
 and the sense of something permanent and ab- 
 solute distinct from us, accompanied with a 
 tendency to overlook the importance of man 
 altogether, and to regard God as merely a syno- 
 nyme of nature, are habits of mind, which seem 
 so much connected with this pursuit, that wise 
 men have alternately exalted it as the one pure 
 and safe region for the soul to dwell in, and have 
 fled from it as dreary and infectious. 
 
 In our day the most vehement efforts have 
 been made by eminent individuals and by so- 
 cieties to assert the superiority of this study to 
 all others ; the certainty of its conclusions and 
 its progressive improvements have been set in 
 strong contrast with the insecurity of all moral 
 principles, when they are not mere common 
 places, equally obvious to the savage and the 
 sage; the mighty practical results of it, which 
 every one must recognise, have been appealed to 
 as proving its claim to be the useful, and there- 
 fore the precious part of knowledge. Yet all 
 these arguments and encouragements have been 
 
 L4
 
 224 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 insufficient to excite any ardent zeal for it in the 
 minds of those young men who most represent 
 the character of the age, or are most likely to 
 stamp it with their own insufficient to deter 
 them from devoting themselves to the enquiries 
 and speculations which are pronounced to be 
 without any present advantage or promise of 
 fruit hereafter. The Utilitarian does not acknow- 
 ledge the ad hominem appeal of the natural philo- 
 sopher; he declares that there are more useful 
 studies than that of the stars or of strata. Re- 
 ligious men are in vain besought to believe, that 
 the great evidences of the divine existence and 
 character are to be found in the outward universe ; 
 their tendency, as we have seen, is to reflect 
 almost exclusively upon the feelings which be- 
 long to themselves. But above all, nature itself 
 has been, to a very great extent, conquered from 
 the natural philosopher. Sympathies have been 
 discovered between the beholder and the objects 
 which are presented to him, and attempts to 
 express these sympathies or investigate the con- 
 ditions and laws under which they exist, have be- 
 come the favourite, are threatening to become 
 the exclusive, occupation of the more thoughtful 
 and abstracted men in this time. A few hints 
 respecting this important revolution are neces- 
 sary in this place. I am quite unable to do
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 225 
 
 justice to the subject ; but the tendencies of our 
 modern poetry and criticism cannot be over- 
 looked by any one who is studying the influ- 
 ences which are acting upon himself and his 
 fellows. 
 
 From about the middle of the last century, we 
 may trace the commencement of a poetry which 
 had a much more direct and substantive refer- 
 ence to the outward universe than that of earlier 
 periods. The doings of men, as well as the 
 songs in which they were celebrated, had become 
 artificial and conventional : those whom domestic 
 habits had inspired with a dislike of the hollow- 
 ness of general society, or whom their early cul- 
 tivation had taught to desire something more 
 living and permanent than the modes of a parti- 
 cular generation, took refuge in nature. To 
 their simple and sincere utterances succeeded 
 violent paroxysms of rapture, concerning its 
 more magnificent images, and most vague 
 and abortive efforts to describe them. But 
 both these forms of writing were rather indica- 
 tions that a new state of feeling was at hand 
 than themselves the expression of it. Presently 
 European society was shaken by an earthquake ; 
 conventions were loosened or dissolved ; the links 
 between the past and the present were snapt 
 asunder; passions which had been smothered or 
 
 L5
 
 226 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 icebound by the rules of etiquette broke forth; 
 men in different classes remembered, that under 
 some conditions or other they had common rights 
 and a common humanity ; the question what law 
 are we to obey, if old observances and decorums 
 can no longer command us, began to be earnestly 
 discussed. The admiration and love of nature 
 became strangely connected with all these move- 
 ments of the human heart and will, and different 
 forms of poetry appeared to illustrate and ex- 
 hibit the connection. One form of it presented 
 us with chivalrous legends of other days, enabling 
 us to feel that there was still a bond between us 
 and them, though the institutions which they had 
 bequeathed might be perishing. In this poetry 
 scenes in nature came forth as a gallery of pictures, 
 which had lasted for generations, and upon which 
 the heroes as well as the readers of the poem had 
 gazed. Another form of it expressed the waitings 
 of those who had been prematurely disgusted 
 with society, or had not been able to reconcile 
 its demands with their desire for individual in- 
 dependence. All the storms and tumults in 
 nature echoed these discontents and discords; 
 its more peaceful scenes were welcomed as the 
 only medicine for them. A third was the calm 
 utterance of a calm mind, which had sought to dis- 
 cover what bonds of fellowship existed between it
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 227 
 
 and men of all different orders and degrees. 
 Nature was evidently a common thing in which 
 lord and peasant might participate, from which 
 no prescriptions and formalities could exclude. 
 A fourth was of a far more comprehensive, if not 
 of a deeper quality. It exhibited the efforts of a 
 profound thinker to find a principle of life and 
 action, and that principle is expressed in some 
 such language as this The perfection of a man 
 is to be in harmony with nature. 
 
 Here then we are arrived at a result towards 
 which the other experiments were evidently tend- 
 ing a result of the very last practical import- 
 ance which is likely to produce a greater in- 
 fluence on the period which follows one of remark- 
 able poetical genius and activity than on that 
 period itself. But since many persons find it 
 difficult to understand how works of the imagina- 
 tion can have become so involved with views 
 belonging directly to human life and action 
 since they are apt to suppose that the only moral 
 effect of such works is to create and strengthen 
 good or bad feelings and impressions, not to 
 elucidate or to establish principles, I must en- 
 deavour to trace the steps by which they have 
 acquired this new character. 
 
 In the last age it was customary to divide men 
 of letters into two classes those who followed the 
 
 L 6
 
 228 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 vagrant impulses of genius, and those who were 
 content to subject themselves to rules and forms. 
 The first received a patronising and qualified ad- 
 miration, but they were beacons rather than ex- 
 amples ; the latter because they had less origi- 
 nality might be more safely followed. The im- 
 pulse of men just recovering the feeling that 
 they had strange powers within them was exactly 
 to reverse this decision, to assert the prerogatives 
 of genius, to boast of its chartered libertinism, and 
 to denounce forms as inconsistent with it. But 
 this is a language which cannot last long : when 
 men began to compare the writings which have 
 stood for ages with those which affect their 
 nature and freedom, it was perceived that the 
 secret of power does not lie in its carelessness or 
 vagrancy ; that wantonness is allied to weakness ; 
 that it is the very characteristic of genius to own 
 principles, not to despise them. It has been 
 shown that the last age was not at all too care- 
 ful in asserting the existence of laws to which all 
 art and poetry must conform itself; it only mis- 
 took the character of those laws; it supposed 
 them to be mere rules respecting the outsides of 
 expression and construction, not forms belonging 
 to the thought and mind itself. If there be such 
 principles and forms, then the intuition of them, 
 accompanied with the capacity of working accord-
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 229 
 
 ing to them, is the very quality of genius, and the 
 study of works of genius in a spirit of submission, 
 not of dictation, is the way of obtaining that 
 knowledge which the artificer possessed. There 
 may be a purely creative intuition which does not 
 necessarily imply consciousness of the laws which 
 it follows ; there may be a critical intuition which 
 discovers them after they have been already ex- 
 hibited in practice, and is not necessarily asso- 
 ciated with the faculty of embodying that which 
 it recognises ; but the critic is no further a judge 
 of the poet than as he is able to perceive when 
 he has departed from the principles which give 
 coherency and harmony to his work. These doc- 
 trines, which seem to carry in them a witness of 
 their truth, a witness confirmed as much by the 
 success of those who have followed them in their 
 criticism of great authors as by the feebleness 
 and confusions of their predecessors, have, how- 
 ever, necessarily led to further reflections. What 
 are these laws and forms, and where are they to 
 be sought for ? Are they laws of nature, or laws 
 of the mind ? Is the man of genius the author 
 of them, or does he merely perceive them, and 
 adapt himself to them ? It has been found im- 
 possible to affirm either position to adopt either 
 form of language as the sufficient and exclusive 
 one. Those who endeavour to do so, are soon
 
 230 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 seen to contradict themselves ; some unconscious 
 phrase asserts in one sentence that which was 
 denied in the previous one. It seems to follow, 
 that the law of the imagination is a law of fellow- 
 ship or intercommunion with nature ; you cannot 
 describe it in any terms which do not imply this 
 to be the case ; you cannot go deeper than to 
 say, that it creates only so far as it sees, and that 
 it sees only so far as it has the faculty of creating ; 
 just as sight and sound can neither be predi- 
 cated solely of the eye nor of the thing beheld of 
 the ear nor of the thing heard, but are the pro- 
 duct of both. 
 
 Now if we admit, as I think we may, that the 
 clear apprehension of this position, and of the 
 manifold consequences which flow from it in re- 
 ference to poetry and the arts generally, has been 
 reserved for our time ; that as it was the charac- 
 teristic task of the last age to discover the laws of 
 the physical world, as it is in itself, so it has been 
 the characteristic task of this age to investigate 
 the relations in which men stand to that physical 
 world; we need not wonder if this study, like 
 the other, should seem to those who have made any 
 proficiency in it all satisfying, if it should seem to 
 them to determine the very ends and conditions 
 of man's being. No one who has considered 
 thoughtfully the history of astronomy, of logic, or 
 8
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 231 
 
 of political economy, would be surprised to hear 
 that any study in any age has assumed to itself 
 the character of the universal, all including study. 
 But in this case I cannot help feeling that there 
 is still a stronger reason. I cannot but think 
 that those who have detected this law of the im- 
 agination this law of sympathy and communion 
 between themselves and that which is distinct 
 from them, have been assailed by a conviction 
 which they cannot resist or part with, that 
 some such law of communion is the law of 
 their whole life ; that life is an unintelligible 
 blank without it ; that here must be the key to 
 its deepest mysteries. Neither can I doubt 
 that they feel they have been in some way or 
 other robbed and cheated of this truth, and 
 that it is time to assert it, or recover it. And, 
 therefore, when I hear persons affirming, that 
 harmony with nature or the universe is the great 
 attainment of the wisest and greatest man ; when 
 I hear them drawing from this proposition, the 
 natural corollary, that the artist or poet is the 
 elect man the demigod of the world; when I 
 hear it maintained, that all the religious systems 
 which have existed have been attempts to embody 
 a theory of man's relations with this universe j 
 that the forms which are suitable to express these 
 relations in one age become unsuitable in another ;
 
 232 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 that the gifted man knows at what moment the 
 old forms have worn themselves out, and must be 
 rejected and new forms must be invented ; when I 
 hear such language as this though I believe 
 that greater danger lurks in it than in any phrases 
 which have ever been current in any age though 
 it seems to me likely to subvert all acknowledg- 
 ment of fixed, unchangeable truth, and to per- 
 petuate and sanctify that tyranny of modes and 
 fashions against which it feigns to protest I 
 yet cannot treat it merely as the quackery of 
 talking men, merely as the fanaticism of men who 
 have seen one fact, and wish to explain all facts 
 by that ; still less merely as a deliberate wickedness 
 which wishes to undermine the faith of mankind 
 under a show of paying it compliments. There 
 may be persons in abundance who practise this 
 quackery, are possessed by this fanaticism, and 
 hope to accomplish this wicked design ; but they 
 did not invent these expressions, they have only 
 adopted them as they would in the last age have 
 adopted its cant which they now can afford to 
 despise. The sincere minds who have given cur- 
 rency to this tone of thought and speech, or to 
 whom it conveys a real meaning, will exhibit their 
 difference from the rest by their inconsistency. 
 At one moment you will hear them proclaim 
 Jiarmony with nature to be the great object of all
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 233 
 
 men's strivings ; the next you will find them 
 expressing the deepest admiration for those who 
 have believed that they were sent into the world 
 to contend with all those inclinations and appe- 
 tites which connected them with nature and the 
 outward world ; who believed this to be the 
 characteristic glory of men, and who exhorted 
 others to be men by doing the like. One while 
 they worship the artist because he submitted 
 himself to nature, one while because he humbled 
 nature to himself, and created it afresh ; first they 
 will speak as if the universe were created that 
 poets and artists might live and reign, and as if 
 all who had not their faculty, or the faculty of 
 admiring and worshipping them, ought to be 
 hunted out of it ; then they will declare that the 
 great difference between these poets and artists 
 and others is, that they have more sense of a 
 common humanity, and that there ought to be 
 a spiritual commonwealth in which the meanest 
 labourer and serf should feel that he had a por- 
 tion. Now they can interpret all religious systems 
 as imperfect attempts to explain the relations be- 
 tween man and the universe, and to embody the 
 sense of those relations in certain forms; pre- 
 sently you will find them extolling some great 
 Reformer or Iconoclast, whose peculiarity has 
 been, that he utterly repudiated those parts of the
 
 234 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 popular system which were the links between man 
 and nature, as the spurious outgrowths of a later 
 time when men had lost their sense of a connection 
 with a Being above themselves, and therefore had 
 bowed down to images and likenesses of the things 
 below them ; and that he reasserted the worth and 
 meaning of those old forms which witnessed for the 
 fact of that higher relation. 
 
 These are strange inconsistencies, but they 
 are honourable inconsistencies ; they prove those 
 who commit them to be earnestly and affec- 
 tionately desirous to hold what is true, even 
 when it crosses and interferes with views which 
 they regard, or think they regard, as the climax 
 of all past discoveries and revelations. And there- 
 fore it is impossible not to believe that there 
 is something in these views which ought to be 
 upheld, and which may be upheld, not amidst 
 contradictions which make the practical applica- 
 tion of them impossible, but in conjunction with 
 principles which determine their meaning and 
 prove their reality. We cannot say to these 
 men, You must cast aside this faith in the ex- 
 istence of bonds between man and the universe ; 
 these bonds exist they have been felt and re- 
 alized the more they are felt and realized the 
 better. Neither can we say to them, There is 
 an individual soul in you which is more precious
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 235 
 
 to you than all these bonds; they will go all 
 lengths with you in that affirmation; they have 
 been generally bred in a school of pure, exclusive 
 Protestantism ; they believe in this individual 
 soul ; they all but worship it. Nevertheless 
 they feel that there are human bonds bonds not 
 merely for the individual soul, but for human- 
 ity ; they feel that these must be acknowledged 
 quite as much as the needs of the individual soul ; 
 that that soul does itself witness of them. But 
 they have been told by their Protestant teachers, 
 that there are no such bonds between humanity 
 and GOD ; He is connected only with the indi- 
 vidual ; all forms signifying any more general rela- 
 tion than this, are unmeaning and obsolete. They 
 have been told this ; they have learnt the lesson ; 
 they believe it as heartily as such a lesson can be 
 believed. Only they believe also, that if this be 
 true, then humanity must seek its happiness in 
 fellowship with something else than God, or 
 rather must make its god or its gods out of 
 objects which can have living intercourse with 
 it. And strangely agonizing as the thought may 
 be, that after all, this humanity has had nothing 
 firm to rest upon, or to commune with ; that the 
 only objects it could admire and love have been 
 changing their aspects continually, and have re- 
 ceived their beauty from the mind of the beholder ;
 
 236 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 that therefore the idols have been changed with 
 every new period ; and that the incalculably few 
 men who could discern a meaning in those things 
 they conversed with, have been the real gods 
 because the god-makers of the universe painful 
 as it may be thus practically to deny the existence 
 of any constant being who has held the fragments 
 of humanity together, even while you are in the 
 very act of asserting that they are bound together, 
 and thus to treat the idolatry which has been the 
 apparent cause of all its divisions, as the one only 
 explanation of its unity, even this must be borne, 
 because facts seem to enforce these conclusions 
 though conscience and reason may revolt against 
 them. . Is it not the fact, say these men, that all 
 Protestant systems the last the most perfect 
 attempts at a religious system are crumbling in 
 pieces? They have swallowed up all previous 
 forms of faith, now they are proving themselves 
 to be weak and good for nothing. Men have 
 discovered wants in themselves which such sys- 
 tems cannot satisfy; it is idle to pretend that 
 these narrow platforms can ever be a ground for 
 mankind to rest upon ; they are not wide enough 
 for a few individuals to stand together upon with- 
 out quarrelling and kicking. Their very merit 
 consisted in the exclusiveness, as well of their 
 admissions as of their objects. A few who have
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 237 
 
 particular sympathies on certain points of re- 
 ligion, are drawn together in them ; but the 
 study of nature, of art, of man, they confess, be- 
 longs to another sphere from theirs; they may 
 tolerate it, or prohibit it, but with it their religion 
 or then' fellowship has nothing to do, or if they do 
 endeavour to find a connection it is by making 
 these studies dishonest; by compelling them to 
 say what they do not say ; by changing then* ob- 
 ject from the investigation of truth into the con- 
 firmation of certain pre-established maxims. This 
 is language which we may hear in all quarters. 
 I beseech divines, and the men who influence the 
 religious feelings of this age, earnestly to ponder 
 it, and to consider what it indicates. 
 
 3. Before either of the tendencies of which I 
 have been speaking had decidedly manifested 
 itself, the question respecting the grounds of 
 knowledge which was supposed to be settled by 
 Locke, had been submitted to a new and a most 
 rigid examination. For a long time a ridiculous 
 notion prevailed here, and in Scotland, in refer- 
 ence to the eminent German thinker who conducted 
 this investigation. It was seriously believed that 
 he had been swayed by the impulses of a vagrant 
 and mystical imagination . . . nay even philoso- 
 phical writers were not ashamed to insinuate that 
 the British public might form a tolerably fair con-
 
 238 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 ception of the metaphysics of their neighbours, 
 from the wild freaks which were exhibited in the 
 fictions of some of their least cultivated or most 
 immature poets. It is now, however, well under- 
 stood that the persons who sanctioned this pious 
 fraud were really deterred from the study of this 
 author, not by the looseness, but by the severity 
 of his logic ; by the absence in him of all those 
 vague and popular modes of thought and speech 
 to which they had accustomed themselves, and 
 their readers. He entered upon his enquiry with 
 no theological bias which could make him averse 
 from the system of Locke merely because it had 
 led to infidel results ; with the very strongest dis- 
 like of a system which an earlier German philoso- 
 pher had set up in opposition to the worship of 
 experience; with a conscience which admonished 
 him to reject every customary notion and opinion 
 if it hindered him in the pursuit of truth ; with 
 an understanding adapted to the most calm and 
 patient analysis. Those who understand most 
 thoroughly the tests by which physical facts and 
 laws have been ascertained, will probably pay 
 most respect to the course of critical inquiry 
 which led him to assign a large and most im- 
 portant province to experience, and then, for 
 the sake of saving that province from the de- 
 struction with which its extravagant pretensions
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 239 
 
 threatened it, to show what region lies beyond it, 
 and by what faculty that region is cognizable. 
 But those who are least competent to judge of 
 these merits must yet perceive that this doctrine 
 has been subject to the most pelting storm of 
 ridicule and abuse ; has been resisted not only 
 by the most accomplished intellects in Europe, 
 but (which is more important) by all the habits 
 of thought which had rooted themselves in the 
 minds of ordinary men ; has had as many ap- 
 pearances and plausibilities to oppose it, as the 
 Copernican doctrine, or any other that is most 
 startling, and yet has not merely stood its ground 
 but has forced itself under one modification or other 
 into the speculations of thoughtful men, and is 
 moulding the language and opinions of those who 
 have the least comprehension of its meaning, or 
 are most disinclined to acknowledge its truth. 
 
 How important this fact is, in a theological 
 point of view, may be judged from one circum- 
 stance. English writers continually use the word 
 rationalism as if it designated one set of opinions 
 or one mode of thought. But there is the widest 
 difference between the rationalism of the last cen- 
 tury and the rationalism of this between that 
 which grew up under the patronage of Locke, and 
 that which is derived from the influence of Kant. 
 The former, whether assuming the mild, modified,
 
 240 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 and feeble shape which it received from our critics 
 in the last century, or the destructive character 
 which terrifies us in some of the (now obsolete) 
 German neologians, is merely the fruit of a de- 
 sire to be rid of facts which are at variance with 
 the ordinary notions and experience of mankind ; 
 and to make revelation the announcement of cer- 
 tain moral notions and axioms which men by their 
 constitution must derive from without ; the latter 
 leads to the underrating of facts became they 
 belong merely to the region of experience, and to 
 the notion that naked principles, which alone are 
 of paramount importance, and with which alone 
 the reason is conversant, are not imparted to it, 
 but contained in it. From this statement it is 
 evident that the results of the two systems may 
 often coincide; but the habits of thought which 
 have engendered them are so adverse, that a person 
 who takes one for the other, is likely to mis- 
 understand the processes of his neighbour's mind, 
 if not of his own. 
 
 It may be said, " But surely the difference, be 
 it great or small, is in favour of the older opinion, 
 and not of the more recent one. That assumed 
 the existence and the necessity of a revelation, 
 only confining its use within very narrow limits ; 
 this dispenses with a revelation, perhaps denies 
 the possibility of it altogether." I am not anxious
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 241 
 
 to disprove this statement. I may feel the force 
 of it as strongly as those who are most inclined 
 to put it forward in the shape either of denuncia- 
 tion or of warning. But before I can attach any 
 great value to it in one form or the other, I 
 must be sure that it is not disturbing the faith 
 of those whom it condemns or counsels in a 
 truth; that this truth is not one which God would 
 have us of this age especially receive and hold 
 fast; that it is not one which when thoroughly 
 understood and heartily embraced may contribute 
 much to the recovery of those principles and the 
 assertion of those facts which it seems to set at 
 nought. 
 
 I would ask any one to reflect calmly upon the 
 circumstances of the country in which this philoso- 
 phical revolution has taken place. In that country 
 Luther had asserted the doctrine, that there were 
 certain truths which were so necessary to the life 
 and being of man that the simple proclamation 
 of them " the foolishness of preaching" would 
 carry home the conviction of them to innumer- 
 able hearts. They were proclaimed in the words 
 of a book, because that book contained the sim- 
 plest, most genuine, most vital exhibition of 
 them. This was the first act of the Reforma- 
 tion. The curtain rises in the second, and ex- 
 hibits to us the disciples of Luther poring over 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 the words of this book, in the hope, often a most 
 vain hope, of extracting some meaning from 
 them ; then fighting with one another in defence 
 of the fragment of meaning which they had dis- 
 covered in it. Then we see another generation 
 engaged in quite a different occupation, that of 
 tearing page after page out of this book because 
 it speaks of unintelligible matters with which 
 reasonable men have no concern ; but yet main- 
 taining the wisdom and propriety of certain 
 parts of it which were consistent with the general 
 verdict of nature and experience. Then a man 
 arises who asks what this general verdict is ? 
 He takes to pieces all the demonstrations by 
 which men had fancied that they could make 
 out to themselves the importance of morality, 
 the immortality of the soul, the being of a 
 God. He says, " All these are good for nothing ; 
 they establish no conclusion ; it is assumed 
 in the premises." But he says at the same 
 time, " This is no reason for doubting or dis- 
 believing these truths ; if they be fundamental 
 truths, they must be the premises of every de- 
 monstration, not the results of it; you cannot 
 have a greater witness for these great elements 
 of human faith than this, that everything seems 
 to prove them, because in fact nothing can be 
 proved without them. And then this argument
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 243 
 
 ab extra is clenched and established by a cor- 
 responding one from within. ( You say that this 
 cannot be, because there is no faculty which 
 takes cognizance of such primary truths as these. 
 I say there is and must be such a faculty, other- 
 wise the existence of a mathematical science the 
 existence of that science upon which the demon- 
 stration of physical facts rests would be just as 
 impossible as the existence of a moral science. I 
 say further, that this faculty is not merely one 
 of the faculties of humanity, but that it is pre- 
 cisely the human faculty; that which does not 
 belong to an individual as such, but which be- 
 longs to each man as a man, as the member of 
 a race; the faculty which is conversant with that 
 which is universal as well as with that which is 
 necessary. 5 
 
 Such language as this, so far as it is under- 
 stood and believed, must, of course, displace a 
 whole host of notions and conclusions which had 
 previously been looked upon as sacred, not be- 
 cause they were old but because they were new 
 because they seemed to have been the last and 
 most perfect effort of the human intellect in re- 
 pealing and annulling the decrees of former times. 
 The doctrine would therefore assume something 
 of a destructive character not that it really had 
 that character, even in reference to the maxims 
 M 2
 
 244 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 of the school of experience so far as they were 
 positive; for it distinctly ratified the doctrine of 
 Locke, that all notions and conceptions are the 
 results of sensible experience, and that the im- 
 pressions of sense precede in order of time all 
 generalisations (such as that the whole is greater 
 than its part) ; it merely affirmed the existence 
 of principles, at whatever time they may be dis- 
 covered to the mind, which are presumed in the 
 existence of the mind itself, and without which 
 it could form no notions, conceptions, or gene- 
 ralisations, nay, could receive no impressions. 
 Still the effect upon the persons who adopted the 
 system was not altered by this circumstance ; 
 they felt that they had found out something which 
 set aside the most favourite theories of their im- 
 mediate predecessors. And if it had set aside 
 their theories, had it not even in a more complete 
 way set aside those of the thinkers who had pre- 
 ceded them, and over whom they had prevailed ? 
 Had it not proved that to be involved in the 
 very constitution of man, which had been sup- 
 posed to be merely delivered to him, and de- 
 livered to him moreover as if it were essentially 
 at variance with his constitution, as if he could 
 not receive it except by miracle? To be sure 
 the school of the Encyclopaedists had talked 
 nonsense when they attempted to say what Rea-
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 245 
 
 son was, and when they affirmed that what they 
 called Reason was the judge of what is true ; but 
 they were right in saying that reason is the 
 judge of what is truth ; nay, that truth and rea- 
 son cannot have any existence apart from each 
 other. 
 
 I would entreat a patient consideration for the 
 previous difficulties of the persons who adopted 
 this language, for the temper of mind which 
 they inherited even when they fancied that they 
 had thrown it off, for all the temptations to 
 pride and self-exaltation which arise from the 
 sense of a new discovery I would entreat a 
 consideration of all these circumstances before 
 such phrases as these are immediately supposed 
 to mean all the mischief which I am quite ready 
 to acknowledge is lurking in them. But above 
 all I would entreat my reader to reflect upon 
 the fact, which I have been forced to present 
 to him under several other forms already, that 
 while the Protestant system encourages all pos- 
 sible demands on the part of the human mind 
 for satisfaction, it provides nothing to satisfy the 
 demand for some truths or principles which shall 
 belong to us, not as individuals, but as members 
 of a race. Protestants say that every truth is to 
 be realized by each man for himself, and that 
 when a certain number of individuals have been 
 M 3
 
 246 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 made conscious of the same truth, they are to 
 meet together and have fellowship in the profes- 
 sion of it ; they have never effectually taught men 
 that there are truths appertaining to them as 
 men, which do not depend for their reality upon 
 our consciousness of them, but are the grounds 
 on which that consciousness must rest. The doc- 
 trines of Protestantism do, as I believe, neces- 
 sarily imply this, but they do not distinctly affirm 
 it ; they refer distinctly and formally to men as 
 individuals. The systems of Protestantism not 
 only do not affirm it, but in the most practical 
 manner deny it. 
 
 I think then that this metaphysical revolution 
 points the same way as those other changes in 
 men's feelings which I have noted already, 
 namely, to the demand for something Catholic, 
 and for that, not as an accident and addition to 
 the faith which we hold as individuals, but as 
 the very groundwork of it. And if I am asked 
 to explain how I suppose it is possible that a doc- 
 trine, which seems to set all revelation and all 
 tradition aside, and to claim a more direct inde- 
 pendence for the human reason than any other 
 has ever done, may yet be leading, through God's 
 gracious guidance and providence, to the asser- 
 tion and confirmation of those principles which 
 Christians refer to revelation or tradition, and
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL, MOVEMENTS. 247 
 
 which are said, and I think rightly said, to humble 
 the reason of man I believe the kind of conflicts 
 which have been excited among philosophical men 
 by the promulgation of Kant's doctrine are an 
 answer to the question. 
 
 Almost from the time that its meaning began 
 to be earnestly canvassed, three great difficulties, 
 or at least blanks, were discovered in it. One 
 set of persons complained, that it was a hard, 
 dry doctrine, with which a man who had a heart 
 could have no sympathy. It supposed the highest 
 of all affirmations to be God is, immortality is, 
 freedom is. These great primary truths of the 
 reason lay there without any power of addressing 
 themselves to or connecting themselves with any 
 one form or feeling the Hercules pillars of the 
 intellect, or the premises of a demonstration 
 nothing more. This was one objection which 
 may probably have led to that division between 
 the objects of philosophy and religion which I 
 noticed in the last section, and to the assigning 
 to the latter whatever concerns our human 
 feelings and sympathies. Others, to whom this 
 distinction seemed artificial and impracticable, 
 laboured to construct a philosophy which should 
 possess the warmth and cheerfulness of a 
 religion. 
 
 Next comes the feeling, which in a Protestant 
 M 4
 
 248 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 country could not but force itself upon a number 
 of minds. The reason speaks of all these great 
 and eternal verities ; but what have / to do 
 with them? What link is there between my 
 personal consciousness and these grand and uni- 
 versal affirmations ? Tell us this, or your scheme, 
 be it as strongly fenced with demonstration as it 
 may, cannot content a man. 
 
 But, lastly, there seemed to be a fatal contra- 
 diction, if not in the principle itself, yet between 
 the principle and the inferences which were in- 
 stantly deduced from it. There is an organ in 
 man which speaks of that which is absolute and 
 eternal. You believe that this organ, call it rea- 
 son or what you will, is distinct from the one 
 that merely forms notions and affirms proposi- 
 tions. But how distinct? If it merely affirm, 
 " There is something absolute ; there is something 
 eternal-" these are propositions. To suppose 
 this then, is to destroy your own doctrine. But if 
 this be not the witness of the reason concerning 
 that which is absolute, what must it be? It 
 must affirm the existence of that which is abso- 
 lute, not as the intellect affirms a proposition, 
 but as the eye affirms an object. As an object, 
 it must be something distinct from that which 
 beholds it, anterior to it, that without which it 
 could not be. Suppose the Universe be the great,
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 249 
 
 eternal, absolute thing which we feel must be 
 well, then, this Universe spake to us first; we did 
 not form it, did not even discover it ; it revealed 
 itself to us. But it is the eye or the imagination 
 which demands an external universe; the Rea- 
 son must demand something different from that. 
 Does it not, according to your own showing, 
 demand that which is homogeneous to itself? 
 Does it not demand an absolute Reason ? And 
 if there be such an absolute Reason to which the 
 reason in man looks up, a real being, is it more 
 consistent to believe the reason found him out, 
 or that he revealed himself to the reason ? 
 
 According to this last statement, the doctrine 
 that there are principles antecedent to experience, 
 whereof the reason of man takes cognizance, 
 supersedes the necessity of a revelation only when 
 it contradicts itself. But this is not all If this 
 view of the case be the right one, the revelation 
 which the reason demands, cannot be one merely 
 of moral principles or axioms, it must be the 
 revelation of a living Being. It cannot therefore 
 be one' in which events are merely accidents that 
 can be separated from some idea which has tried 
 to embody itself in them. Facts may be only 
 the drapery of doctrines ; but they would seem 
 to be the only possible method of manifestation 
 for the Being, the essential Reason. And seeing 
 M 5
 
 250 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 that by the hypothesis, this Being of whom the 
 reason speaks is one who transcends the conditions 
 of space and time ; seeing that this one faculty in 
 man has the power of beholding that which is 
 not under these conditions, but that all the other 
 faculties "are subject to them, it would be no- 
 thing strange or contradictory if the facts which 
 embodied the revelation, should be such as at once 
 presented him to all the faculties which we pos- 
 sess, and enabled that highest one to realize its 
 own peculiar prerogative of looking through them. 
 In this way one might perhaps discover a hope of 
 reconciling the law of the affections and the law 
 of the reason, without that contrivance of sepa- 
 rating them under two departments and supposing 
 that a mere scholastic boundary could keep them 
 really apart. One might dream too, of a way 
 by which the consciousness of each individual 
 should be called forth, though the sense of his 
 relationship to the Being who was revealing him- 
 self to him and condescending to his necessities. 
 But whether this be the case or not, it seems 
 clear that this new form of rationalism cannot.be 
 satisfied with itself ; that it will become irrational 
 if it cannot find something to unite and combine 
 with it ; that if it be followed out fairly it involves 
 the Conclusion that something must have been 
 originally given or imparted to the reason ; that
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 251 
 
 this gift must be of some truth which is trans- 
 cendant and divine ; that it must proceed from, 
 and have reference to a living being ; that it must 
 concern all men as men ; that the best test of its 
 concerning them and really being necessary to 
 the constitution of humanity itself, is that it should 
 have been received and believed by men merely 
 upon the bare announcement of it, and that in 
 every subsequent stage of human history it should 
 have been doubted, contradicted, ridiculed, and 
 yet have kept its ground, and proved itself, in the 
 most advanced period of civilization as well as in 
 the simplest, to be that which men want as the 
 sign and bond of their fellowship. 
 
 4. One feature more must be taken notice of in 
 the philosophical countenance of our age, or we 
 shall have still an imperfect image of it. The 
 effort to bring all systems of thought into har- 
 mony, or to frame a system to which each one 
 shall contribute certain elements, has been re- 
 peated in various periods of the world. But un- 
 questionably the inclination for such experiments 
 was not so strong, even in the period immediately 
 following the promulgation of Christianity as in 
 our own. I do not think the strength of this incli- 
 nation can be fully ascertained even by observing 
 how many conspicuous men, and those of the na- 
 tion which most represents the form and pressure 
 M 6
 
 252 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 of the time, have felt it and indulged it. Every 
 one can perhaps discover its workings in himself. 
 One after another plan of union which we have 
 devised may have failed ; some strange, uncouth 
 performer may have insisted with cruel pertinacity 
 upon his right to play his solo, without the least 
 regard to the order under which the rest have 
 been reduced ; or we may have found that when 
 we had got rid of the discords, the music became 
 so flat and uninteresting, that no one cared to 
 listen to it ; .but amidst all discouragements, in 
 spite of the just ridicule of others, or the more 
 sad and painful scorn which the wearied Irenicus 
 is tempted to indulge at his own expense, the 
 wish continues unabated, and it is sustained by a 
 secret spring of hope an unconquerable convic- 
 tion that the dream was a true one, though it may 
 seem to have met with the most palpable practical 
 contradiction. 
 
 This temper as we have already seen, has 
 exhibited itself among religious men among a 
 class of them in whom it might least have been 
 expected, and who would have felt the strongest 
 abhorrence of any system which was merely 
 compounded of fragments from previous specu- 
 lations and heresies. Nor can it be said with 
 strict truth, that when it appears among the philo- 
 sophers of our day, this is the object which they
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 253 
 
 propose to themselves. The name Eclecticism, 
 which they willingly adopt, seems to portend a 
 mere hortus siccus of flowers gathered from all 
 soils, and arranged according to the taste of the 
 collector. But if they spoke for themselves, they 
 would give a very different representation of their 
 system. They would say that their will had 
 nothing to do with it ; that Eclecticism was a 
 necessity of the age : that one partial theory had 
 succeeded and displaced another in the by-gone 
 periods that it was no longer possible to adopt 
 any of these as adequate and self-sufficing that 
 they were all seeking some more capacious and 
 universal scheme, in which they might merge. 
 The difference between this feeling and that which 
 prevailed in the last century, is made the more 
 striking by the one point in which they are alike. 
 The disciples of Cousin express as much reverence 
 for the age into which they are born, as the disci- 
 ples of Voltaire felt for their own ; but the earlier 
 school believed that it was created to destroy all 
 forms of opinion which had existed previously ; 
 the later one, that it is meant to put a sanction 
 and imprimatur upon all, and to discern the prin- 
 ciple which is the climax of all. The first and 
 most obvious effect of this difference is an entirely 
 opposite estimation of the truth and uses of 
 history. By the French school of the last century
 
 254 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 it was slighted as useless, for any other purpose 
 than as a record of absurdities to be ridiculed and 
 avoided ; by the French school of this century it 
 is regarded as the key to all knowledge ; the acts 
 of past times are studied, not merely with dili- 
 gence, but with reverence. Such a habit of mind 
 on whatever subject it is exercised, must draw a 
 reward after it, and these philosophers have been 
 permitted to throw a most valuable light upon the 
 meaning and succession of events, especially in the 
 annals of modern Europe. 
 
 Upon the meaning and succession of events, 
 they have thrown this light; but very little, I 
 suspect, upon the feelings or character of men. 
 It is a complaint which I believe is universal 
 among their greatest admirers, that they have 
 no faculty for understanding a living human 
 being in any other way than as a link in a 
 chain of operations. They do not wish to set 
 aside free agency; their theory would rather 
 dispose them to give it great honour, but they 
 cannot look at it except in relation to a theory, 
 which is nearly the same thing as saying that 
 they dispense with it altogether. Now this will 
 surely be found a most unfortunate peculiarity 
 in men who hope to adjust and harmonise the 
 different thoughts and feelings of our time. 
 Putting religious opinions and habits out of the
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 255 
 
 question assuming that they are too vagrant and 
 fanatical to be subjects for an eclectical experi- 
 ment passing over also all political questions, 
 and the struggles of different individuals or 
 classes for a recognition in the polity of a state- 
 we shall find in the philosophical dispositions 
 of our days most awkward and refractory ma- 
 terials. The strongest of these dispositions, I 
 observed, was to acknowledge a spirit in man, 
 and to regard all other facts with which he is 
 concerned in reference to that one. Then again 
 we found men full of living sympathies with 
 nature, and longings for forms in which this 
 sympathy might be expressed. Now no theory, 
 let it make what allowance it may for the exist- 
 ence of both these inclinations, can really pro- 
 vide any satisfaction for them. All its efforts, 
 therefore, must be confined to that region of 
 thought which I have designated by the name 
 of pure metaphysics ; to the adjustment, that is, 
 of the doctrine respecting the reason and the 
 truths antecedent to experience, with previous 
 speculations. But there are difficulties in the 
 way even of this limited application of Eclecti- 
 cism. The first is, that the rationalist will say, 
 "The work is already done; the critical philo- 
 sophy is that which discriminated between the 
 provinces of reason and experience ; any attempt
 
 256 PHILOSOPHICAL. MOVEMENTS. 
 
 to eclecticise upon that is to gild refined gold or 
 paint the lily. But the other objection is more 
 fatal. The reason, it would seem, from the re- 
 marks which have been made already, speaks of 
 an actual being, an absolute reason; and all at- 
 tempts to make it merely utter a proposition about 
 that being, tend to destroy its very nature, as 
 that nature is expounded by the rationalist. It 
 is evident then that no scheme of Ontology, be it 
 as complete as it may, can dispense with or in- 
 clude the truth which he proclaims. It may be 
 a sound theory, a valuable theory, but it will 
 be a theory concerning something, and of that 
 something itself he is endeavouring to bear 
 witness. 
 
 Nevertheless, all these arguments will never 
 persuade men in our day that reconciliation of 
 some kind is not possible, and must not eventually 
 take place, between warring opinions and feel- 
 ings. All kinds of endeavours at the compromise 
 and suppression of truth endeavours which suc- 
 ceed just as long as men feel nothing, and care 
 for nothing, and are laughed to scorn the moment 
 any energetic man arises, or any energetic thought 
 is awakened endeavours which (however strange 
 the assertion may sound) are, on the whole, 
 more hopeless in our day than in any previous 
 one, will be suggested and made by individuals
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 257 
 
 and by governments, with a desperate conviction, 
 that one at last must be meant to prosper, and 
 with infinite rage and astonishment that the one 
 proposed does not fare better than its ten thou- 
 sand predecessors. Undoubtedly too there is great 
 need that the philosophical feelings which I have 
 spoken of as all belonging to this time should 
 find some meeting point, for though all equally 
 strong and apparently proceeding from the same 
 source, they oftentimes clash strangely with 
 each other. The assertor of man's spiritual 
 powers exalts the hero who maintains a battle 
 with circumstances and triumphs over them ; the 
 artistical philosopher delights in him who can 
 adapt himself to circumstances. If they maintain 
 any fellowship with each other, it is a fellowship 
 founded upon the pleasure which the one takes 
 in noticing a curious, and to him a puzzling 
 specimen of human nature, and upon the awe 
 which the other entertains of a person who has 
 realised a state which he knows that he can never 
 reach, and with which he half confesses to him- 
 self that he has no sympathy. Again, both agree 
 in dislike to the metaphysician, one because he 
 seems to bind down the energy and freedom of 
 man by fixed and absolute laws; the other because 
 he sets up a dry truth against all forms and 
 images. It would seem that if all these tendencies
 
 258 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 be sound and true, as I have maintained that they 
 are, there ought to be some method of bringing 
 them into harmony, which should preserve each 
 of them in its strength ; which should not merely 
 account for them, but embody them, and enable 
 them to produce some real fruit. But then would 
 it not seem at least possible that if reason affirm a 
 truth which must have always been ; if the com- 
 munion with nature be something implied in our 
 constitution, and therefore implied in the con- 
 stitution of those who lived a thousand years ago ; 
 if humanity be essentially spiritual, the reconciling 
 method may already exist, and that the work of our 
 age may be not to create it afresh, but to discover 
 its meaning and realise its necessity ? 
 
 SECTION in. 
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 American Revolution French Revolution Individual Rights 
 Individual Will Schemes of Universal Society Education 
 Power of the State. 
 
 I HAVE had occasion to speak of the theological 
 temper of the United States of North America, 
 as illustrating one stage in the history of Pro- 
 testantism, and as indicating a desire for some-
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 259 
 
 thing that Protestantism does not supply. But 
 the political change which took place in these 
 states, when they revolted from the mother coun- 
 try, is, in the same point of view, even more 
 important. 
 
 Among the leading characteristics of the Re- 
 formation, I noticed an anxiety to assert the rights 
 of national Sovereigns, and, as involved in them, 
 the distinct position of each nation. This feeling, 
 I said, was closely intertwined with that feeling of 
 personal distinctness in each man which is the 
 main spring of Protestantism. But when the 
 Protestant systems had developed themselves, 
 these inseparable twins began to manifest great 
 impatience of each other's company. The mo- 
 narchs of the reformed states found that the 
 belief in each individual's right to act and think 
 for himself trenched very inconveniently upon 
 their authority, and tended in no degree to the 
 consistency and unity of the nations which they 
 governed. They observed that whenever the re- 
 ligious feeling was strong, it treated all things as 
 subordinate to itself; therefore, unless it could be 
 made to conspire with the objects of their govern- 
 ment, it must thwart them. There seemed to be 
 but two expedients ; to force the religious feeling 
 into this agreement, or as much as possible to 
 weaken it. The first policy was tried, and failed ;
 
 260 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 afterwards the latter was adopted for a time with 
 better success. The dispositions on the other side 
 of course corresponded to these. The religious 
 bodies became more and more jealous of the 
 sovereign's interference with them; in times of 
 strong excitement they resisted it ; but as such 
 times made their terms of communion more strict, 
 these bodies became less and less identical with 
 the nation ; therefore it was not difficult to believe, 
 when peace returned, that they had nothing to do 
 with national affairs, that it was their business to 
 be wholly religious, and the business of the mo- 
 narchs to be wholly secular. This opinion, how- 
 ever, was very slowly adopted by any class of 
 Reformers. The Lutherans thought, and still 
 think, a State tyranny less intolerable than the 
 abandonment of the Reformation principle. The 
 Calvinists, in their palmy days, resolved, that if 
 the state could not be religious with a sovereign, 
 it should be religious without one. The Scotch 
 Covenant affirmed the state to be essentially 
 theocratic ; the whole effort of our civil wars was 
 to establish the same principle, and in one strange 
 interlude between the acts of that tragedy, the 
 Scotch tried to create a Presbyterian theocracy 
 in the person of Charles the Second. It was 
 only upon the disappointment of these schemes, 
 that the modern doctrine under its different modi-
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 261 
 
 fications began to prevail. And in the mean 
 time an experiment was to be made whether 
 religious men, if they could not exercise an in- 
 fluence over the old societies of Europe, might 
 not frame societies for themselves in another 
 world. 
 
 The legislation and government of the Puritan 
 colonies bore every mark of their origin. They 
 were, in fact, if the solecism may be pardoned, 
 sect-commonwealths, connected by their religious 
 peculiarities more than by the bonds of a com- 
 mon language, of a common origin or of subjection 
 to a distant sovereign. Before the time arrived 
 when the last mentioned of these ties was to be 
 snapt asunder, the colonies had acquired an im- 
 portant position as trading communities. The 
 religious feeling of the early settlers had lost much 
 of its strength, but had left behind it industrious 
 habits, clearness of understanding in common 
 matters, indifference to refinements either physical 
 or intellectual, and a useful pertinacity of cha- 
 racter. Of such elements the heroes of the revo- 
 lution were composed, men who, being exceedingly 
 like the Puritans in these qualities, differed from 
 them in this, that their notions of government 
 and society were unconnected with a spiritual 
 principle, and referred wholly to the condition 
 and circumstances of this world. This change was
 
 262 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 evident from the declaration of Independence a 
 document in which the old Protestant feeling, 
 that each man is a distinct being possessing dis- 
 tinct privileges and rights, is curiously blended 
 with a vague notion of a general fellowship, which 
 was beginning to gain currency in Europe, and 
 which was rather a reaction against Protestant- 
 ism than the natural result of it. And of this 
 declaration the ultimate consequence was, that 
 union of the different independent states, respect- 
 ing which future history will determine whether 
 it have taken effect by a process of natural fusion, 
 or merely by the decrees and contrivances of 
 legislators. 
 
 These events were undoubtedly indications that 
 a strife of principles was at hand, though the 
 scene of it was not to be laid in the land of 
 Franklin and Washington. It was in a country 
 of the old world, a country in which the pro- 
 testant doctrine had been stifled two centuries 
 before, a country in which society had been every 
 thing and human beings almost nothing, that the 
 most vehement declaration of men's individual 
 rights was to be made, and that the death struggle 
 between those impulses which lead each person 
 to maintain such rights, and those which lead 
 him to seek communion with his fellows was to 
 begin.
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 263 
 
 It has been truly and profoundly observed, that 
 the French Revolution could not have been 
 brought about merely by the scepticism of the 
 philosophers, merely by the sins of the civil and 
 ecclesiastical rulers, merely by the starvation of 
 the people, nor by all these combined, if there had 
 not been a certain element of faith to mix with 
 and contradict the scepticism to create a kind of 
 moral indignation against the sin and to convert 
 the sense of hunger from a dead anguish into a 
 living passion. 
 
 The Parisian philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was little more than the expression by men 
 cleverer and bolder than their contemporaries, of 
 that feeling which pervaded the whole of society. 
 All the teachers did was to make their disciples 
 conscious of the unbelief which already had 
 possession of them ; their wit was irresistible, be- 
 cause it brought to light contradictions which 
 existed in the persons they were addressing. So 
 long as such contradictions are painful, so long 
 as the conscience is at all awake to say, " This 
 which you are not you are meant to be" wit of 
 this kind is most torturing. The mind may feel 
 a kind of awful delight in it, as in a just penance 
 which it deserves to undergo, but no grave admo- 
 nition is half so bitter. But when the conscience 
 is not awake at all, or is only so far awake as 
 
 7
 
 264 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 to perceive that hypocrisy is an evil and dis- 
 honourable thing, this wit will be very differently 
 received. The mere time killer the lounger of 
 the upper classes who is convinced that every 
 thing must go on as it has always gone on, that 
 words can do no harm, and that his position 
 in society gives him a title to see further than a 
 clown or a shopkeeper, listens gladly, and enter- 
 tains a doctrine which both is so consistent with 
 his practice, and which enables him to cast away as 
 absurd any lingering sense of responsibility. The 
 active, intelligent, aspiring member of the middle 
 class, who thinks that he is unfairly depressed, who 
 sees that the habits of society are false, who knows 
 that it derives a support from certain feelings of 
 reverence and awe which are connected with the 
 acknowledgment of invisible principles, eagerly 
 welcomes the discovery that no such principles 
 exist ; for then a system which, at least in all its 
 outward appearances, is hollow and deceitful, and 
 which certainly is a hindrance to his ambition, 
 may gradually fall to pieces. But though this 
 philosophy had, for these opposite reasons, a hold 
 both upon the soirees of Paris, and upon the 
 enterprising lawyer of the provincial town, there 
 was nothing in it which could possibly appeal to 
 the sympathies of poor men of those who were 
 actually suffering. It is true that many of the
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 265 
 
 philosophers were economists, and could descant 
 upon the circumstances which made bread dear, 
 and might make industry more profitable; but 
 hungry men, hating all abstractions, hate those 
 most which refer to their hunger, and do not 
 relieve it. Again, in many districts, the doctrines 
 which the wise men derided, even if we may not 
 believe that they commended themselves as reali- 
 ties to those who had no home or portion on 
 earth, were at least connected with the friendly 
 faces of cures who had sympathized and suffered 
 with their flocks, and with actual gifts of bread at 
 the convent doors. 
 
 Doubtless such relics of religious association 
 and sympathy must have been much more thinly 
 scattered among the mechanics of the capital : 
 the habits of the classes above them will have 
 descended upon them, and the quicker wit of 
 the citizen will have more quickly detected the 
 falsehood and hypocrisy being much more 
 glaring which he saw among his instructors. 
 Still, even to this class, what was there in the 
 teaching of such a man as Helvetius, for instance, 
 which could have given the least pleasure? Sir 
 James Mackintosh speaks of the Helvetian philo- 
 sophy as the philosophy of the pot-house. But 
 the frequenter of the pot-house would scarcely 
 have cared to be told that a man, apart from the 
 
 VOL. i. N
 
 266 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 influences of society, deprived of the help which 
 he receives from legislators, soirees, and tailors, 
 is good for nothing, even though it were added, 
 that legislators, soirees, and tailors, through the 
 influence of priestly imposture, had managed 
 their affairs badly, that they needed to be reformed 
 by philosophy, and that when so reformed many 
 persons now proscribed might be brought within 
 the charmed circle of civilization. The poor man 
 must have felt that, whatever good chance might 
 befal him hereafter, he was, at all events for the 
 present, not within the horizon of the philosopher's 
 telescope. 
 
 But how different was the case when a voice 
 was heard from SAvitzerland, proclaiming that 
 each man has in himself, apart from all social 
 institutions and social civilization, rights and 
 power; that he may claim those rights, and put 
 this power forth ; that he must do so if he would 
 break the bonds which legislators, tailors, and 
 soirees have been fastening around him, and if he 
 would form a society in accordance with na- 
 ture and truth. This was an appeal which 
 went straight to the hearts of those who had 
 nothing that they could call their own except 
 then' human limbs and countenance, and what- 
 ever there was, known or unknown, which gave 
 motion to their limbs and life to their counte-
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 267 
 
 nance. It appealed to the sense of strength, of 
 wrong, of suffering, which is extinct in none ; it 
 called that forth into energy and action which the 
 philosophical systematizers, for the most part, 
 either denied the existence of, or would have been 
 willing should not exist ; it mixed itself with all 
 those notions about the frauds and tyrannies of 
 priests and lawyers which the unsentimental 
 school had propagated ; it turned to its own use 
 all the materialist notions of the age respecting 
 the origin of governments in compacts and con- 
 ventions ; finally, it compelled the sages to ac- 
 knowledge that the government of reason must 
 begin in outbreaks of popular fury, and to join 
 with the people in laying the foundation of society 
 in a declaration of individual rights. 
 
 The allies soon became enemies : it was found 
 that the philosophers could do nothing with their 
 theories ; then the poorer men tried what they 
 could do with other weapons. The lookers-on 
 were terrified ; they began to ask themselves 
 whether the notions which they had adopted, as 
 the highest discoveries of the enlightened intel- 
 lect, must not have been falsely deduced. Could 
 law and government have had their birth in the 
 way that the teachers of the eighteenth century 
 supposed ? Must not they have had some higher 
 source ? Was it not necessary to believe that 
 N 2
 
 268 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 some mysterious power upheld them? These 
 thoughts stirred in the minds of men, especially 
 in the Protestant nations, and prepared them to 
 listen to Burke when he told them, as one who 
 knew, that law rests upon deep invisible princi- 
 ples, not upon philosophical maxims or gene- 
 ralizations ; that it is to be feared and reverenced 
 as something above us, not to be dealt with as 
 our creature and servant ; that if its existence 
 and awful derivation be trifled with or denied, it 
 will prove its power and have its revenge. This 
 teaching, so unlike any to which the last age had 
 been accustomed, was received by many wonder- 
 ing nobles and ecclesiastics as if it were the 
 revelation of a new truth, especially given for the 
 defence of their houses and lands; by others it 
 was welcomed with a more genial and thankful 
 feeling, as the application to new circumstances 
 of a doctrine which had been familiar to all great 
 thinkers, and which had been delivered with pecu- 
 liar power and solemnity by the noblest writers of 
 the English nation. How much Burke, an ad- 
 venturer, an Irishman, a philosopher, was the 
 instrument of restoring the tone of English feel- 
 ing, both amongst the men of action and of 
 meditation, both in the upper and middling class, 
 many are now ready to confess. Nor was his 
 influence confined to this country. The deep
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 269 
 
 historical researches of Niebuhr and the jurispru- 
 dential wisdom of Savigny, if they were not called 
 forth by his writings, at least received their direc- 
 tion, in a great measure, from him they would 
 not have found readers to understand or appreciate 
 them, if the soil had not been first prepared by 
 our statesman and orator. 
 
 The French revolution then has led many 
 thoughtful persons, and many who are not 
 thoughtful, to the conviction, that the doctrine 
 upon which the declaration of rights rests is 
 essentially false ; that a man choosing to stand 
 upon his independence choosing to be an indi- 
 vidual choosing the state of nature can have 
 no claims on his neighbour ; that to build up a 
 fellowship upon this principle of independence is 
 a monstrous contradiction, which proves itself to 
 be so the moment it is brought to a practical 
 experiment ; finally, that law, being the appointed 
 corrector of and judge of man, must be derived 
 from, and rest upon, sanctions which men regard 
 as superhuman. But, on the other hand, there 
 are not a few who, without directly opposing 
 these doctrines, nay, perhaps assenting to them 
 in so far forth as they are answers to Rousseau, 
 are inclined to draw inferences from the same 
 facts which are most unlike these one might 
 fancy almost incompatible with them. " What-
 
 270 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 ever may be talked about the majesty and tran- 
 scendent character of law," say these persons, " it 
 is manifest that men did set themselves above law 
 during the Revolution, and did shew that they 
 could defy it. The popular mil proved that all the 
 terrors of law, affirmed and made more fearful by 
 religion, were not sufficient to bind it ; and when 
 at last it succumbed, it was not to this power, but 
 to the mil of a man, who showed that there was 
 that in him which all the units of the nation 
 together could not resist. Afterwards, it is true, 
 the political machine seemed to run into its old 
 ruts ; tradition and custom apparently resumed 
 their sway. But again the same truth was esta- 
 blished ; all such influences have been found in- 
 effectual ; a will, a despotical will, is wanted 
 somewhere ; to this alone will men really bow 
 down. Whether there be a right in individual 
 men or not, there is (I borrow the favourite 
 phrase of a writer who has exhibited this position 
 with the greatest clearness, and who has converted 
 the whole history of the Revolution from an ab- 
 straction into a living reality,) f a might/ and 
 this might will make itself felt, either in a whole 
 nation, or in some single person who compels the 
 whole nation to acknowledge that he is meant to 
 govern it." 
 
 One might fancy, when the opinion is put into
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 271 
 
 this form, that Hobbes was again speaking in the 
 nineteenth century. But whatever resemblance 
 there may be in the words, the feeling which 
 finds utterance in them is the most opposite 
 possible to that of the hard materialist ; it is a 
 feeling of reverence for spiritual force. The 
 triumphant despot is not the man to whom men 
 submit, because they find it more convenient to 
 abstain from fighting, or because they find the 
 government of one less perplexing than that of 
 many ; no, he is the man to whom they do 
 homage, because he has the highest title, the 
 most perfect ordination, because he was in truth 
 created to be their king. And therefore this is 
 only another, and I fancy a more advanced and 
 reasonable, form of that reverence for WILL, as 
 superior to the forms of government and society, 
 which has led many to look upon the notions of 
 rule and subjection as hateful inventions of priests 
 and monarchs. The writer of " Prometheus Un- 
 bound," and the " Revolt of Islam," preached 
 the freedom of man from all outward forms and 
 restraints : those who say that subjection is a 
 necessity of man's being, that he longs to be 
 governed, are yet equally certain that he can only 
 submit to the dominion of a man; that he can 
 never bow to the authority of an outward rule. 
 And both alike differ from the sentimental teach-
 
 272 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 ers of the last age, who exhorted men to follow 
 their natures to give their good feelings and im- 
 pulses fair play, &c. Both acknowledge that a man 
 must not yield to inclination, that he must win a 
 victory over his nature that otherwise he can 
 neither be free himself, nor obtain lordship over 
 his fellows. 
 
 Meantime these notions, which in this form 
 might be passed by as the dreams of idle men, 
 are forcing themselves in another form upon 
 the reflection of all practical politicians. Not 
 only in quiet chambers, but by fierce mobs, is 
 the doctrine proclaimed that Will is superior to 
 Law that it ought to be superior that to it 
 belongs the power of unmaking and re-making that 
 which pretends to hold it down. Any one who 
 attends carefully to the phrases which are current 
 among us now, will perceive, I think, that they 
 are very far more tremendous than those which 
 were heard at the beginning of the French Revo- 
 lution. " We have a right," is a phrase which 
 betokens the acknowledgment of some antecedent 
 principle ; but in our day this language, if we 
 chance to hear it, translates itself immediately into 
 "We WILL." This is the ground of the right; it 
 aspires to be the ground of all things. 
 
 " And why has it not yet attained its aspiration, 
 and what can hinder it from doing so ?" asks the
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 273 
 
 terrified statesman. He finds that when such a 
 question is started, politics must have become an 
 awful science ; a science which can scarcely be pur- 
 sued successfully by one who determines that he 
 will confine himself to official rules or precedents, 
 and that he will admit nothing as concerning 
 him which involves transcendent considerations. 
 However he may be inclined to laugh at metaphy- 
 sics and scorn theology, he finds that he must 
 discuss a subject which touches upon all the deep- 
 est principles of both ; that he must ascertain by 
 what means the existence of law may be reconciled 
 with the existence of the human will. The debate 
 between the disciple of Rousseau and the disciple 
 of Burke brought out the old controversy { Is 
 the nature of man a good thing, a thing to be 
 trusted, as Rousseau affirms that it is ? or is it an 
 evil thing, as the Reformers said it was, which is 
 to be kept down, and which every good man is to 
 triumph over?' And this controversy, after the 
 experiment of the French Revolution, was decided 
 by politicians in favour of the ancient opinion, 
 and against the new one. But here is another old 
 scholastic controversy brought to the like practical 
 issue, and submitted to the same adjudication: 
 " Is Man, as the successors of the Reformers have 
 affirmed, to be identified with that nature which 
 is attached to him ; or is he, when he sinks under 
 N 5
 
 274 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 the dominion of that nature, to be considered as 
 abandoning his proper state, as subjecting him- 
 self to that over which he was meant to rule ?" 
 If this controversy be decided in favour of the 
 first notion, the notion of modern Calvinism, the 
 politician must invent what charms he can to lull 
 that will to sleep, "which hath oftentimes been 
 bound with fetters and chains, and the chains have 
 been plucked asunder by it, and the fetters broken in 
 pieces, neither hath any man tamed it. But in the 
 mountains and the tombs has it been continually 
 crying and cutting itself with stones." If on the other 
 hand he admit the existence of a will or spirit in 
 man, and that this will is only safe and free when 
 it has found some other will to govern it, and that 
 in the vain effort for independence it constantly 
 becomes the slave of its own natural inclinations, 
 it can be no contradiction on the one hand to sup- 
 pose that law is meant to overawe these inclina- 
 tions; on the other hand, that there is some 
 spiritual government, in which the man himself 
 has a claim of citizenship, and in which he may 
 find his rightful king. 
 
 2. But this hint leads us to another aspect of 
 the French Revolution, that which may be called 
 its properly political aspect. It began with a de- 
 claration of individual rights, but upon that decla- 
 ration it professed to build a society; and this
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 275 
 
 society was to be universal. It is true that the 
 character of the revolutionary proceedings, from 
 first to last, was eminently French. It is true that 
 a strong burst of French patriotism was called 
 forth by the invasion of the allies, and that a desire 
 of French predominance may be traced in the 
 different counsels of the nation, from the com- 
 mencement of the war to the abdication of Napo- 
 leon. But the principle of the Revolution I 
 mean not its nominal principles, as they were ex- 
 pressed in parchment documents or in pompous 
 phrases, but the real principle which governed the 
 minds of those who acted in it, and which alone 
 rescued their documents and phrases from the 
 charge of utter unmeaningness was the substitu- 
 tion of a universal polity for national polities. 
 Every monstrous absurdity which marked the 
 speakers, writers, and actors who figured in it 
 savoured of this feeling, and proved its existence ; 
 all its achievements, both when it was acting as a 
 republic and was concentrated in one man, tended 
 to this result. Even the constitutions which were 
 propounded one after another for France itself, had 
 no more reference to France than to Kamschatka ; 
 they were all constructed upon universal princi- 
 ples, all meant for mankind. 
 
 These illustrations of the worth and precious- 
 ness of particular governments, when they are 
 N 6
 
 276 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 framed in conformity with general maxims, awak- 
 ened the thoughtful men of Europe to a study 
 of national history, and of that internal life in na- 
 tions whereby they have been able to preserve their 
 identity for generations amidst all changes of exter- 
 nal circumstances. And these profound investiga- 
 tions received light and strength from the national 
 feelings which the propagandism of France and the 
 tyranny of the universal empire called forth. A 
 spirit was roused which made it impossible that 
 men should look upon the histories of Voltaire, 
 of Hume, and of Robertson, as representing the 
 feelings and mind of past generations ; a spirit 
 which led the children to feel that there was a 
 bond between them and their fathers, that they 
 were inheritors of the same "soil, and that names, 
 and memorials, and institutions, more permanent 
 than the oaks which grew upon it, had been be- 
 queathed to them to keep. 
 
 But this patriotic temper did not much survive 
 the war in Germany and the Peninsula; and 
 though the historical inquiries to which it had 
 given life and interest were not neglected, nay, 
 though they began to be more valued as the wis- 
 dom and learning which had been exhibited in 
 them were better known, yet they no further 
 influenced the popular mind than as they supplied 
 the armour for resisting some of its most prevalent
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 277 
 
 tendencies. In spite of the deep and solemn 
 warnings which those who engaged in them have 
 supplied, schemes of universal society, which pass 
 over as insignificant all peculiarities of race, and 
 of language, ridicule custom and the reverence of 
 ancestors, and annul the old constitutions in which 
 these are embodied, have been most rife amongst 
 us. It may be well to notice two or three of 
 them. 
 
 Considering the change which has been gra- 
 dually taking place in the philosophy of Europe, 
 a change which only of late years has been dis- 
 tinctly perceptible, but which has been in progress 
 at least from the commencement of the present cen- 
 tury it may seem a matter of some surprise that 
 Mr. Bentham, a philosopher emphatically of the 
 last generation, who was formed in the school of 
 Locke and Hobbes, and who aspired to reduce 
 their maxims to practice, should have exercised so 
 considerable an influence over the minds of per- 
 sons who live in this day. The fact would un- 
 doubtedly be difficult of explanation, if Mr. 
 Bentham's influence had continued, and had 
 overcome those which were opposed to it. To 
 understand why it should have been for a time 
 felt both in his own country and abroad is not, I 
 think, impossible. He came into notice when the 
 great Rousseau experiment had been made, and 
 had led to the consequences of which we have
 
 278 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 spoken. It was impossible for any one to deny 
 that Burke and the Constitutionalists had gained 
 much for their argument by that experiment. 
 To all appearance they were right, and the de- 
 fenders of popular governments wrong. Still 
 there was a restless feeling that the trial might 
 have been conducted differently, and that then it 
 would have answered to the wishes of those who 
 commenced it. And besides this, the several 
 countries of Europe, and presently, also, the 
 Spanish colonies of America, were in that naked 
 revolutionized condition which seemed to make a 
 new constitution of some kind necessary for them. 
 These feelings Mr. Bentham met. He told men 
 that the Rousseau scheme was false in its very 
 conception; that anterior to the existence of 
 society we have no rights ; that except in combi- 
 nation we are good for nothing ; that the end of 
 any combination is the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number of the units who enter into it ; 
 that the combination is preserved by the mutual 
 suspicion of its members, and by such contrivances 
 as dispose the governing body not to violate the 
 interest of those whose affairs they administer. 
 Having these few and comprehensible rules to 
 guide him, the writer applied a very acute and 
 pains-taking intellect, first, to the construction of 
 a scheme of government and legislation which 
 should accord with his theory; secondly, to a
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 279 
 
 detailed exposure of the various contradictions 
 and absurdities which are to be found in the 
 practice of different nations, and especially of his 
 own. To young men who were ashamed of being 
 reckoned sentimental, and who yet panted for the 
 glorious commonwealth which the sentimental 
 school had promised, the sight of a new society 
 built upon logic was most consolatory ; their 
 elders could more easily appreciate, even if they 
 were not disposed to acknowledge, the justice of 
 Mr. Bentham's practical charge, that while in 
 their ordinary acts and discourses they admitted 
 no other principle than that to which he referred 
 all things, they were yet maintaining various 
 institutions, which upon that principle could not 
 be justified ; that they were, consequently, carry- 
 ing out the doctrine of self-interest so far as it 
 furthered their own ends, and repudiating it just 
 when it might inconveniently interfere with them. 
 These were facts which could not be gainsaid ; 
 and if Mr. Bentham could have contrived that his 
 system should seem to meddle with nothing but 
 law and government, he would for a considerable 
 time have retained the disciples which he had 
 made, and even have obtained frequent accessions 
 to their numbers. After the shock of the French 
 revolution and of the French war had subsided, 
 men whose tendency was to occupy themselves
 
 280 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 with the workings of their own minds, began 
 to lose all interest in politics, and even to decry 
 them as belonging to a merely outward region ; 
 they could, therefore, easily consent that almost 
 any system upon that subject should gain cur- 
 rency. But they soon found that a compact 
 organized political scheme must involve the ques- 
 tions which they looked upon as alone sacred. 
 The impossibility of distinguishing social Utilita- 
 rianism from individual Utilitarianism, of recon- 
 ciling the acknowledgment of a certain ultimate 
 end in one region of thought with the positive 
 denial of it in another, became apparent to those 
 whose minds were most real, most impatient of 
 mere artificial boundaries, as well as to those who 
 were strictly and formally logical. Poets found 
 that if their art could be defended at all, it must 
 be merely as a kind of amusement, upon the same 
 grounds as cards or horse-racing : religious men, 
 however reluctant they might be to acknowledge 
 any relation between such topics, were driven to 
 ask themselves whether the doctrine of Paley and 
 Bentham could be reconciled with that of the 
 Sermon on the Mount, and if not, which was to 
 be abandoned? This school, therefore, found 
 itself unexpectedly assailed by all those new and 
 strange thoughts respecting literature, metaphy- 
 sics, and the spiritual universe, which had been
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 281 
 
 gradually working themselves out in the minds of 
 men in different parts of Europe, while Mr. Ben- 
 tham had been occupied in his study with the ratio- 
 nale of evidence, and having nothing to oppose to 
 them, it could only sound a retreat, and endeavour, 
 at whatever risk of theoretical or practical in- 
 consistency, to defend the existence of its philoso- 
 phy by circumscribing the application of it within 
 very narrow limits. But even within these limits 
 it has no safe dwelling-place. For while the de- 
 sire of man for a universal polity has grown every 
 day more strong, this desire has connected itself 
 more and more with deep feelings and passions, has 
 had less and less to do with the mere calculating 
 understanding. But to this calculating under- 
 standing the Benthamites make their sole appeal ; 
 by this they would fashion the whole scheme of 
 human life, and of the universe. The right thing is 
 that the will of the majority should be omnipotent. 
 But what calculus have they discovered for mea- 
 suring the strength which lies in that word will 
 or for ascertaining what is to become of all theories 
 and axioms of legislation when it has obtained 
 supremacy? 
 
 Far more profound in its conception, and I 
 think, also, more interesting in its details, than the 
 system of which I have been speaking, was that 
 which was proclaimed in France about twelve
 
 282 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 years ago, under the name of St. Simonianism. In 
 their project of society the Benthamites discarded, 
 or treated as mere accidents, all national distinc- 
 tions. But there was one circumstance in the 
 condition of man which could not be wholly acci- 
 dental, or entirely the fruit of bad legislation. 
 Men do exist in families ; it would seem that in 
 the most fortunate societies the principle of family 
 life has been most recognized, its limits most 
 accurately defined. Without taking any cogni- 
 zance of this fact, the Benthamites created a society 
 upon the hypothesis that mankind is an aggregate 
 of individual atoms. The St. Simonians felt at 
 once that such a scheme was a practical delusion : 
 so long as the notions of mankind continue what 
 they are, so long as the morality which maintains 
 these notions, and is maintained by them, subsists, 
 men will be continually acting, speaking, voting, 
 per stirpes, and not per capita. Thus the aristocra- 
 tical idea intrudes itself; the existence of a perfect 
 democratical fellowship is impossible. Now while 
 I reverence the feeling, to whatever cause it may 
 be traced, which hindered the English Utilitarian 
 school from boldly looking down into the gulf 
 which this thought opens while I rejoice that they 
 dared not sacrifice their moral impulses to their 
 logical consistency, and though I can easily under- 
 stand how they may have persuaded themselves
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 283 
 
 that they were logically consistent, because it was 
 not for the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number that all family ties should be sacrificed 
 I must yet maintain that if a universal society is 
 to be constructed, either upon the Utilitarian 
 maxim, or upon the chacun selon sa capacite maxim 
 of the St. Simonians, it is an indispensable pre- 
 liminary that domestic feelings, associations, sym- 
 pathies, all the laws by which they are upheld, all 
 acknowledgment of relationship as a significant 
 fact, should be extinguished. The deepest mind 
 that ever dwelt in a mere mortal when searching, 
 and that with the noblest and purest aims, for the 
 foundation of universal society, could find no 
 escape from this conclusion ; and every new pro- 
 ject for the actual establishment of it has supplied 
 fresh evidence that, if such a society is to be built 
 by human hands, these must be the conditions of 
 it. 
 
 But the St. Simonians felt that a universal 
 society, even of the kind which they had imagined 
 even a universal bank could not be established 
 by mere human hands. Here was another indi- 
 cation of the deeper wisdom which was at work 
 amidst their extravagancies and contradictions. 
 They must have asked themselves as they re- 
 peated the words, " chacun selon sa capacite" But 
 where shah 1 we find the judge of capacities ? where
 
 284 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 dwells that seeing eye which shall perceive in 
 each, that mighty power which shall assign to 
 each, his rightful vocation ? The question carried 
 them into a mysterious region. There must be 
 some supernatural foundation for this common- 
 wealth, some supernatural superintendence over it. 
 It was inconceivable upon any other hypothesis. 
 Once convinced of that fact, it became a duty, or 
 what seemed to them the same thing, a logical ne- 
 cessity, to invent a supernatural machinery, and 
 assume the airs of inspired men. Upon this fraud 
 of course followed every species of absurdity and 
 falsehood, under the weight of these the system 
 sank rapidly. French philosophers were not yet 
 prepared for an Apollonius in the nineteenth 
 century ; they had not yet learnt to feel as Por- 
 phyry felt, that there was a kingdom in the world 
 which, without the help of some mythical hero, 
 could not be opposed. Possibly, if the vision of 
 such a kingdom should become more clear and 
 threatening, some will be driven to that resource, 
 and then St. Simonianism will reappear, under 
 another name and form, to try whether it can 
 satisfy the inextinguishable longing in human 
 hearts for a human fellowship. 
 
 The socialism of Mr. Owen is wholly unlike the 
 St. Simonian doctrine in all its more striking and 
 philosophical features, but for that very reason it
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 285 
 
 may obtain for a time a wider popularity. A 
 benevolent person established a factory in a certain 
 district of Scotland, upon a principle which made 
 it a blessing, not a curse, to its inmates and the 
 neighbourhood. One who had taken part in this 
 experiment, though he did not originate it, 
 adopted the very plausible notion that a similar 
 arrangement might be applicable in all our manu- 
 facturing districts. The problem how to deal with 
 the population concentrated there, is the most 
 awful one which presents itself to the modern poli- 
 tician ; any one who could offer but a suggestion on 
 the subject, especially if it were the result of experi- 
 ence, was entitled to a patient hearing. When Mr. 
 Owen shewed that men, brought by certain con- 
 trivances under a laborious, kindly, self-denying 
 superintendence, would be more happily situated 
 than those who were merely treated as animals 
 capable of producing a certain quantity of cotton 
 twist, the demonstration was not the less valu- 
 able because the result of it might have been antici- 
 pated. But by a process (alas ! most natural) he 
 went on to the conviction that the whole secret 
 lay in the particular machinery which he recom- 
 mended: then, by another step, to the further 
 conclusion that such a machinery was in itself 
 capable of producing every desirable moral result. 
 That rubicon once passed, it needed only a mind
 
 286 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 somewhat more generalizing, daring, and self- 
 conceited than that which is found in the majority 
 of men, one withheld by no historical knowledge 
 and few intellectual impediments from expe- 
 riments for the disorganization of society, to 
 produce a preacher of the doctrine that men are 
 mere creatures of circumstances, and that by a re- 
 adjustment of circumstances their condition may 
 be completely reformed. The necessary corolla- 
 ries from these propositions worked themselves 
 out by degrees, without the help of any intellec- 
 tual subtlety, as the obstructions to the new scheme 
 made themselves manifest : whatever principles, 
 practices, institutions existing among men were 
 connected with the idea of a will or spirit in us 
 which might be superior to circumstances, must 
 be abandoned. That all forms of religious faith 
 should be included among these was inevitable ; 
 but it is a discovery of the highest practical value 
 which the Owenites have been permitted to en- 
 force,, though they certainly were not the first to 
 make it, that Marriage is in the same category, 
 that its meaning or validity cannot be maintained, 
 either logically or practically, when the existence 
 of a spiritual principle and of spiritual obligations 
 is denied. 
 
 Owenism may be described as an attempt, upon 
 a larger scale than Benthamism, to apply to society
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 287 
 
 universally the maxims which have been already 
 adopted by certain of the classes which compose 
 it. The worship of circumstances is the habit of 
 feeling into which the easy and comfortable part 
 of mankind naturally fall ; their inward thought 
 is that their houses shall continue for ever, and 
 that thought makes them at once indisposed to 
 change, and sceptical about the existence of any 
 invisible government. When the poor men say, 
 "We, too, will acknowledge circumstances to be 
 all in all, we will cast away any belief in that 
 which is invisible, this world shall be the only 
 home in which we will dwell," the language may 
 well appal all who hear. To one who sym- 
 pathizes with the poor it is fearful, because of that 
 which it shews they are ready to abandon. To 
 one who has no sympathy with the poor it is 
 fearful, because of that which it shews they are 
 ready to take away from him. Nevertheless, be 
 it observed, the force of these assertions lies in 
 that very point in which they are anti-socialist 
 it is the "we will" that gives them all their 
 meaning, it is that which imparts to the dry 
 chips of Mr. Owen's theory the semblance of 
 vitality. He protests against the existence of that 
 to which he owes his own pertinacity, and all the 
 effects which it has been ever able to produce. 
 Combination therefore in its simpler forms, 
 7
 
 288 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 combination for the purpose of assisting the will 
 of the majority, and enforcing its right to be 
 heard and to rule ; combination in the form of 
 trades 1 unions, and chartist unions (I use language 
 derived from our English experience, but, I fear, 
 by no means unintelligible to the members of 
 other nations, at least not to Frenchmen) ; com- 
 bination not divested of religious sympathies, but 
 with a piteous fury striving to seize and to appro- 
 priate them to its own purpose ; this, it seems to 
 me, is much more really the characteristic of our 
 times, is much more really fearful because it 
 carries with it so many more elements of real 
 power, than all the schemes and systems for the 
 reconstruction of the universe. No doubt every 
 one of these schemes embodies some truth which 
 cannot be lost. The greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number, though it may be the most idle 
 and insignificant of all formulas till each one of its 
 substantives and adjectives has been translated, 
 must yet contain a meaning which will somehow 
 or other be realised. The phrase, chacun selon sa 
 capacite, indicates a persuasion of gifts appro- 
 priated to peculiar vocations and offices which we 
 cannot afford to part with ; the idea of co-opera- 
 tion, on which Owen dwells, is one of wonderful 
 depth and importance. But each of these is 
 chiefly remarkable as the shrine of a feeling which
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 289 
 
 it cannot satisfy, and of a conviction which it 
 labours to stifle, the feeling, I mean, that a 
 universal society is needful to man ; the conviction 
 that if there be such a society, the treatment of 
 man as a voluntary or a spiritual being must be 
 the characteristic distinction of it. 
 
 3. Among the notions which Rousseau scattered 
 about the world, some of the most striking and 
 startling as every one knows, had reference to 
 education. The commonwealth of Plato, said the 
 author of " Emile," is neither more nor less than 
 a scheme of education; and when the true com- 
 monwealth which answers to that dream shall 
 rise out of the ruins of the old form of society, 
 the question, how education is to be con- 
 ducted, will be the one which will absorb all 
 others into itself. Men, who started from the 
 most opposite point to Rousseau, and took the 
 most different directions from him and from each 
 other, adopted this opinion. It began to be 
 believed that education would be a substitute for 
 prisons, penitentiaries, and hangmen, and that 
 consequently, statesmen were, above all other 
 men, bound to interest themselves in it. These 
 feelings received a shock from the events of the 
 French revolution. As the awfulness and dignity 
 of Law began again to be acknowledged, the 
 notion of substituting more benignant influences 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 290 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 for its punishments and terrors was scouted ; the 
 education doctrine was regarded as part of the 
 sentimental creed respecting the goodness of 
 human nature ; that creed having been proved to 
 be absurd it having been seen how little man, 
 left to himself, either can do, or wishes to do, 
 without prisons or guillotines, the different in- 
 ferences from it must also be abandoned. To 
 some such feelings as this language indicates, 
 feelings which seldom shaped themselves into 
 definite thoughts or arguments, but which ex- 
 ercised a powerful influence, nevertheless, we 
 may attribute the dislike to popular education 
 which was manifested, especially in England, by 
 the supporters of existing institutions. 
 
 But both parties in the controversy had 
 forgotten one important point Education must 
 henceforth, said the disciple of the new school, 
 be the grand agent and influence in the world. 
 Nonsense, replied the English country gentleman, 
 we will stand in the old ways, we will do as our 
 forefathers did before us. Well ! but what are 
 the old ways ? what did our forefathers before us ? 
 History shews that they attached as much import- 
 ance to education as Rousseau himself could do 
 that they believed it to be that without which 
 prisons and penitentiaries, were perfectly ineffec- 
 tual which had powers that were never intrusted
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 291 
 
 to them. It is evident that they had no thought 
 of confining education to any class, for they were 
 continually making provision for the training of 
 youths whose main qualification was their poverty. 
 The discovery of this fact was fatal to the argu- 
 ment against the philosophers. For a time it 
 decided the practical question in their favour. 
 The old institutions for education had been 
 abused in England by carelessness or selfish- 
 ness, had been destroyed upon the continent by 
 revolutionary violence ; and in the one and the 
 other were multitudes growing up with all the 
 new notions about popular power and will, with 
 all the new indisposition to bow down before au- 
 thorities merely because they were established. 
 Jails could not be provided for all, or if they 
 could, it might in time be a question who would 
 be the jailors. Therefore the statesmen began to 
 say, we must have fresh schools; the old have 
 served indifferently well to train those who have a 
 national position ; they are not meant for those 
 masses which have none ; they may train those 
 who desire instruction, and will make sacrifices to 
 obtain it ; they can be of no service to those who 
 look upon it scarcely as a blessing, who scarcely 
 know what it means. 
 
 It is evident, I think, that these thoughts 
 have worked a great change in the minds
 
 292 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 of all men upon these subjects. I say of all men, 
 for the change is as remarkable in those who 
 have declared education to be the panacea, as in 
 those who have but lately been awakened to a 
 sense of its necessity. The former used to urge 
 the great advantage it would be to the poor to 
 have the means of intellectual cultivation placed 
 within their reach : how many new pleasures they 
 would be able to command, how many temptations 
 they might avoid. The latter were able to rebut 
 such arguments by plausible appeals to fact. 
 Did the boys of the schools acquire these 
 new tastes? were they the better for their 
 knowledge ? was the population more refined 
 or more moral ? I know not where such con- 
 troversies could end, or what violent twisting 
 of statistics there might have been on each side 
 in order to make out the theorem which was to 
 be demonstrated. But the advocates of educa- 
 tion now say, Look at these masses of human 
 beings ; it is not a question what you should do 
 to amuse or benefit them, but what you must do 
 in order to govern them, in order to prevent them 
 from destroying the land and themselves. You 
 have found the ordinary resources of government 
 fail ; you have proved how inadequate religion is 
 when it only assumes the character of a support 
 to law ; you must resort to some other means.
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 293 
 
 You may laugh at the notion of a silent moral 
 influence, such as education pretends to possess, 
 being efficient ; but does not history do not these 
 living masses, laugh at the notion of your physical 
 appliances being efficient? Surely this is dif- 
 ferent language altogether. The answer to it is 
 not easy. There is no answer to it but the sleepy 
 determination not to think about the matter till we 
 are compelled to think of it by a revolution. 
 
 In this change of language, however, some other 
 changes are involved which may not be obvious. 
 There may be a hundred differences about the 
 instruction which ought to be communicated, and 
 the persons who should communicate it, but those 
 who defend education upon these grounds are 
 agreed so far as this Whatever be the right 
 agency or instruments for getting a dominion over 
 the will of these masses, it is the attainment of 
 this dominion which is our object. It signifies 
 not much in what phrases this object is expressed. 
 I can easily conceive that earnest and able 
 defenders of education may be loth to adopt the 
 conviction into which I remarked that many 
 political students had been led by comparing the 
 theories and the events of the last fifty years 
 very loth to speak of man as a mysterious being, 
 whose natural inclinations, if they be followed, 
 make him a transgressor of law and order, and an 
 o3
 
 294 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 enemy of his fellows, but who may be raised 
 above those inclinations, may attain a true freedom 
 which sets him above the penalty of laws because 
 he has no wish to break them such expressions 
 may appear to them strange and fantastical, and 
 most unlike those of the school in which they 
 have been trained. Nevertheless they may mean 
 very nearly what the persons who indulge in such 
 odd mystical talk mean ; they may confess by a 
 number of words and acts that they do look upon 
 education as a wondrous power which is to act 
 upon men in a very wondrous manner ; yet not in 
 the way of a charm, not in a way inconsistent 
 with their constitution : a power which is by some 
 means to reach a faculty or principle, call it what 
 you like, that swords and clubs cannot reach. 
 There is, I think, a very general consent indeed 
 about this point, however diverse the elements 
 may be which make up that consent. For instance, 
 those who say that it is hopeless to communicate 
 religious instruction to all the members of a 
 nation, and that, therefore, (what they call) secular 
 instruction must be communicated to them first, 
 defend the proposition upon these two grounds, 
 one that the perils of leaving the people untaught 
 are infinite, there being every where threatenings 
 of popular outrage which the legislature cannot 
 put down the other, that there must be some-
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 295 
 
 thing common to all men, something which all men 
 may receive, and that this cannot be the same 
 with those sect-notions and opinions which mani- 
 festly do not belong to all. Such is the line of their 
 argument. Taken simply as it stands, it does, 
 I submit, lead us into reflexions quite unlike any 
 that would be naturally suggested by the ablest 
 treatises on education in the last century. It sets 
 us upon thinking what manner of power that 
 must be which can address itself to a whole body 
 of human creatures, and can call forth that in 
 each of them which will give him the rights of a 
 Man, and make him a fellow-worker with his bre- 
 thren. Sad experience has convinced thought- 
 ful persons that the secret does not lie in the 
 mechanical contrivances for bringing a number 
 of children together in a school, which were 
 produced as the perfect cure for the nation's evils 
 a few years ago. These contrivances organize and 
 discipline masses into a certain stupid material 
 consistency, or they call out now and then into 
 dangerous self-exalting activity the powers of one 
 or two clever pupils ; they do not infuse into the 
 whole body a quiet life, which may circulate regu- 
 larly and continually through each of its distinct 
 members. Again, the different Protestant sys- 
 tems and sects, as I have said already, are found 
 inadequate for the purpose ; they scarcely recog- 
 o4
 
 296 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 nize the existence of that in the pupil which can 
 be spoken to and called forth ; they divide instead 
 of harmonizing. Still it would seem that there 
 must be such a power somewhere who shall tell 
 us where ? 
 
 4. The method which has been used for cutting 
 this knot explains the last remarkable peculiarity 
 in our modern political views. All those bodies 
 which profess a voluntary character having been 
 found unequal to the task of conducting educa- 
 tion, the conclusion has appeared inevitable, that 
 the government of each nation should undertake 
 the formation and superintendence of it. Any 
 one who has soberly set himself to consider in 
 what way it is possible to provide for this dire 
 necessity, will not be surprised that this should 
 offer itself to hundreds as the only refuge from 
 positive despair. However many a cherished 
 notion of personal and domestic liberty they 
 may be obliged to abandon, however painful the 
 thought may be that we in the nineteenth century 
 have no better resource than that which we have 
 learnt to consider unsatisfactory and dangerous 
 in the old republics of Greece, still a wise lover 
 of his species will not be hindered by such 
 thoughts from adopting that which he is sure is 
 the only practical means for its relief. But there 
 are some perplexing reflexions which will intrude
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 297 
 
 themselves, before he attains to that perfect cer- 
 tainty. Is it not somewhat strange that we should 
 be asserting this marvellous power for the state, 
 just at the time when there is most reluctance 
 to acknowledge even those powers which evi- 
 dently do belong to it ? Is not the Will of the 
 multitude asserting its independence of the civil 
 power, and are we not devising a remedy for this 
 very exigency? Have not the governments in 
 most European countries been for some time past 
 rather hastily undressing themselves of the spiri- 
 tual properties and functions to which they had 
 in earlier times laid claim ? Are not those called 
 illiberal which hesitate to perform these acts of 
 renunciation ? and is it not a little inconsistent 
 that these governments should at the selfsame 
 moment, be assuming that which, by their own 
 confession, is in the very strictest and most re- 
 markable sense an authority over the spirits of 
 Men ? I say, by their own confession, for do we 
 escape at all from the difficulty, by saying that 
 the state shall only have the charge of secular 
 education, other portions of it being left to more 
 peculiar and individual interests ? Is not that 
 which we propose to ourselves by our education 
 the attainment of a certain influence over those 
 human hearts which are entertaining such fearful 
 dreams of independence and defiance ? Is not this 
 o 5
 
 298 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 
 
 the very plea the only plea for the state's inter- 
 ference that its existence is endangered by 
 ignorance and self-will ? And must not, therefore, 
 the education of which the state undertakes the 
 superintendence, most especially aim by such 
 means as seem the likeliest to answer (it matters 
 not what epithet you give them) at the accomplish- 
 ment of this design ? 
 
 This is a contradiction by which I fancy the 
 practical statesman will be haunted continually; 
 which will perplex him far more in action than 
 even in meditation. To satisfy the cry for a power 
 which shall not be merely legal not merely 
 punitive but which shall act directly upon the 
 human spirit, that the legal and punitive sanc- 
 tions may make their appeal to the consciences of 
 men, not to the fears of brutes you inspire a 
 body with this power, or at least you force it into 
 acts implying this power, which is saying continu- 
 ally, that it can deal with nothing internal, can 
 take cognizance only of overt acts. To satisfy the 
 cry for a universal body, in which men shall be re- 
 garded as human beings and not merely as the 
 members of a local society, you insist that the 
 government of a local society shall assume to 
 itself a universal human character, when all the 
 new schemes for the management of the world 
 are bearing witness that it never has had, and
 
 POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. 299 
 
 never can have such a character; that its only 
 security consists in its distinctions and limita- 
 tions. Still the difficulty remains : if there be no 
 spiritual universal society and all attempts to 
 create one in this nineteenth century have been 
 very abortive, the state must, at any hazard of 
 inconsistency, in despite of every danger to indi- 
 vidual liberty, notwithstanding the strong and 
 increasing feeling of its incompetency, assume the 
 appearance, and perform the duties of one. 
 
 06
 
 PART II. 
 
 OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE ROMISH SYSTEM. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 THE conclusion to which we have arrived seems 
 to be this that the principles asserted by the 
 religious societies which have been formed in 
 Europe since the Reformation are solid and 
 imperishable ; that the systems in which those 
 principles have been embodied were faulty in 
 their origin, have been found less and less to 
 fulfil their purpose as they have grown older, and 
 are now exhibiting the most manifest indications 
 of approaching dissolution. Now I have alluded, 
 when speaking of modern philosophical move- 
 ments, to certain prevalent and popular statements 
 which seem at first sight very closely to resemble 
 those which have been the result of our enquiry. 
 The doctrine that systems, religions, churches,
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 are dying out, but that they have been the cloth- 
 ing of certain important ideas which will survive 
 their extinction, and which it is the business of wise 
 men to note, preserve, and perhaps furnish with 
 a new vesture, is one which I cannot be expected 
 to entertain ; nay, to which if this book mean 
 anything I must be directly opposed ; nevertheless 
 a conscientious reader may find it difficult to 
 discover what is the point at which this doctrine 
 and mine diverge. It is necessary for the purpose 
 of making the connection of what has been said 
 with what I am about to say intelligible, that I 
 should relieve him of this embarrassment ; and I 
 know no way in which I can do it so effectually 
 as by reminding him of the different points of 
 evidence which have gradually offered themselves 
 to us as we have proceeded. 
 
 I. The doctrine which, upon the authority of 
 the old Quaker books, and in opposition to one 
 of their modern teachers, I maintained to be the 
 fundamental one of Quakerism, is, that man is 
 a twofold creature, having inclinations towards 
 sensible things being united to the divine Word 
 by trusting in whom he may rise above these 
 inclinations and attain to a spiritual life and com- 
 munion. Of all persons, those who seem the 
 most unlike the primitive Quakers are modern 
 philosophers, artists, and politicians ; yet we found
 
 302 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 that various persons belonging to these different 
 classes had been led by different processes of 
 thought to adopt the maxim which had formed 
 the great obstacle to the belief of Fox's principle. 
 " It cannot be true/' said religious people " because 
 man as such apart from a peculiar religious voca- 
 tion and impulse is not spiritual ;" " It cannot be 
 true" said the philosophers of the last generation, 
 " because he is not susceptible of a religious voca- 
 tion and impulse at all he is simply a creature 
 of flesh and blood." Both these opinions would 
 be disowned by those who claim to represent 
 the enlightenment of our time ; they would say 
 " man as man has spiritual powers, and is a spiri- 
 tual creature." 
 
 Now it is probable that many of those who 
 use that language would produce it as an instance 
 of the way in which a doctrine has been dis- 
 encumbered of its ancient form and been reduced 
 to a pure and simple essence " In the acknow- 
 ledgment of a spiritual life or existence in man," 
 they would say, " we uphold Fox's meaning, we 
 only take away from it that phraseology with which 
 the religious traditions of former centuries had 
 invested it." My object is not to argue the point 
 whether this be so or not, but to shew that our 
 observations have not led us to this conclusion, 
 but to a most opposite one. It seemed to us that 
 7
 
 RECAPITULATION. 303 
 
 a man believing he has certain spiritual capacities 
 within him, is just the person who is obliged to con- 
 sider under what conditions these capacities exist ; 
 that it was this problem about which Fox was 
 occupied ; that the sense of certain upward tenden- 
 cies within him which were continually restrained 
 and resisted, instead of giving him peace and 
 happiness was the very cause of his torment : that 
 we may talk generally about our spiritual power 
 and existence, but that the moment we practically 
 realize them, amidst all the contradictions under 
 which they exist in this world, they become 
 so involved with awful feelings of responsibility, 
 with the vision of an unknown world, with the 
 certainty of moral evil, that we are glad to escape 
 from them into materialism : that this escape 
 being now impossible we must enquire whence 
 these spiritual desires and impulses have come, 
 by what they are upheld, whither they are tend- 
 ing; that these questions lead directly to the 
 principle which Fox asserted, that it may be 
 omitted or substituted for some other in a 
 system, but that it must be steadily faced and 
 considered by every man who is really engaged in 
 the world's conflict ; that modern thinkers are 
 perpetually exhibiting their want of it, especially 
 when they speak of our self-consciousness, the 
 necessity of it, the misery and falsehood of it ;
 
 804 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 that the words " Not I but Christ in me" are the 
 answer to these perplexities ; that we may search 
 heaven and earth before we find any other. And 
 if we are asked on what ground, then, we affirm 
 that the Quaker system has proved inadequate 
 the answer would be, Precisely on this ground, that 
 it has failed in giving a clear definite expression 
 to the idea of Fox ; that it has reduced that idea 
 too nearly into a vague synonyme of the notion 
 that we have certain spiritual capacities or feelings 
 within us, that it has not exhibited to men the 
 object on whom Fox affirmed that their spiritual 
 capacities and feelings were to be exercised. 
 
 The founder of Quakerism is however not much 
 known to the ordinary philosopher : he would be 
 much more anxious to show that he had retained 
 all that is really precious in the teaching of the 
 great Reformer. Our mere men of letters, who 
 reverence Leo and believe Erasmus to have pro- 
 tested quite as much as was needful against the 
 abominations of his time, regard Luther, who knew 
 nothing of statues and wrote indifferent Latin, 
 with positive aversion ; but the more earnest men 
 among us those especially who believe that 
 European society has been making continual 
 progress from darkness to light speak of him 
 as one who worked mightily for the overthrow of 
 opinions based upon mere authority and tradition,
 
 RECAPITULATION. 305 
 
 and prepared the way for the utterance of 
 thoughts which he himself would have rejected 
 with horror. I am not now alluding to the igno- 
 rant declaimers who boast of Luther because 
 he exalted the understanding in place of faith ; 
 but of those who being really acquainted with his 
 writings, are aware that he as much deserves 
 that praise as Brutus deserved to be canonized by 
 the French Sans Culotte for the noble plebeian 
 spirit which led him to slay the great aristocrat 
 Julius Caesar ; and who would consider it a very 
 ill compliment to any one that he wanted faith 
 himself and wished to destroy it in others. They 
 will cheerfully admit that the assertion, " A man 
 is justified by faith" is more characteristic of 
 Luther than his opposition to popes or masses. 
 They will allow that the different acts of his out- 
 ward life had all a more or less direct reference to 
 that principle. But then they would say, " this 
 principle when it is taken out of the swaddling 
 bands of the sixteenth century and allowed to 
 move freely, means just this, that it is the 
 inward state of a man and not his perform- 
 ance of certain prescribed acts, or even the 
 worthiness of his outward conduct which entitles 
 him to be called good not what he seems nor 
 even what he does, but what he is constitutes 
 him a right and true man. This truth had been
 
 306 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 set at nought by the Church of that day : by the 
 vehemence with which he declared it and com- 
 pelled men to listen to it, Luther established his 
 chief claim to the gratitude of mankind." 
 
 I am well convinced that this principle had 
 been practically denied by the Romanists, and 
 that Luther was the most powerful of all in- 
 struments in re-asserting it. But we have seen 
 reason to believe that George Fox maintained 
 the doctrine of an inward righteousness quite as 
 strongly as the German ; and yet that there was 
 a very marked difference between them. The 
 difference seemed to consist in this, that while 
 Fox urged his disciples to exercise their faith in a 
 spiritual being, the Lord of their spirits Luther 
 delighted to declare that that Being had actually 
 taken human flesh, had died a human death, and 
 by these acts had redeemed us from a curse and 
 justified us before his Father. If Luther was, as 
 his modern admirers constantly affirm that he was, 
 eminently straightforward and practical, impatient 
 of abstractions, dealing in all plain homely images 
 here, it seemed to us, lay the secret of these 
 qualities. It was no fantastic Being he was speak- 
 ing of, no mere idea ; not even merely an object for 
 spiritual apprehension, though that in the highest 
 degree ; it was one who had identified himself 
 with men, had by a series of outward acts
 
 RECAPITULATION. 307 
 
 those which the creed announces established his 
 human as well as his divine character. It struck 
 us that this, which is in the strictest sense the 
 Lutheran characteristic, was particularly necessary 
 as a complement of the Quaker doctrine ; that this 
 without it soon passes into mere vapour. But be 
 that as it may, it was this peculiarity in Luther's 
 preaching which enabled him to effect the over- 
 throw of existing superstitions, and so to be (as 
 we are told) the precursor of greater deliverances 
 hereafter. No doubt the fact of the Incarnation 
 was fully recognized by the Romanists, but by 
 certain notions about inward and inherent right- 
 eousness, and by certain practices which were 
 grounded on these notions, this fact had been 
 deprived of its significance. It had ceased to be a 
 witness to any man of what he was. By affirming 
 the reality of this fact and its significance, Luther 
 got rid of the impositions upon the understand- 
 ing and conscience, which the practical un- 
 belief of it had made possible. It seemed to us 
 then, judging from these facts, that we do not 
 merely strip Luther of his dress, but that we 
 destroy the man himself when we make him the 
 witness for a principle and not for a fact, that 
 we do not preserve that quality in him which 
 enabled him to be a reformer, and deprive him of 
 that which belonged to him in common with those 
 whom he reformed, but that we take from him that
 
 308 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 wherein his reforming power consisted, and leave 
 ourselves to the certain peril, if all history be not 
 a delusion, of falling under those sensible tyrannies 
 from which he was permitted to emancipate us. 
 And if I be asked again in this case, what then is 
 my objection to the Lutheran system, I answer 
 this and no other that it does not bear witness 
 for the all importance of that fact which Luther 
 asserted to be all important ; that it teaches us 
 to believe in justification by faith instead of to 
 believe in a Justifier; that it substitutes for 
 Christ a certain notion or scheme of Christ- 
 ianity. 
 
 Quakerism and pure Protestantism both belong 
 chiefly, if not entirely, to the region of individual 
 life and experience Unitarianism we found was 
 of an altogether different character ; it took men 
 away from self-reflection to thoughts about nature 
 and God. Nevertheless, it has changed its com- 
 plexion as men's views about themselves have 
 changed ; it applied material standards to the Infi- 
 nite, so long as it was the habit of the time to consi- 
 der men as purely material; when that habit ceased, 
 it began to decry the ordinary theological language 
 as too earthly and definite. Here then perhaps 
 we have discovered a system which answers exactly 
 to the philosophers' demand, which readily aban- 
 dons the dress of one period that it may clothe 
 itself in that of another. But will it be said that
 
 RECAPITULATION. 309 
 
 this is merely a change of dress ? Can those who 
 just now represented the acknowledgment of man's 
 spiritual powers as the very essence of all religion, 
 so entirely alter their note that they look upon it 
 too merely as an accident ? According to their 
 showing Unitarianism has not preserved its 
 identity at all the alteration of popular opinion 
 has abolished its very nature and substance. But 
 it seemed to us that this was not the case ; that 
 it had a principle, that it did contain something 
 which is constantly and invariably true. The 
 hold which it had maintained for a time over 
 earnest minds arose, we thought, from this, that 
 it declared the unity of God, the absolute love of 
 God, the existence of a good and pure state for 
 mankind, to be primary truths which cannot be 
 altered or set aside by any experiences or any 
 dogmas. These were eternal principles not sub- 
 ject to the mutations of costume or fashion ; need- 
 ful for man, needful for him at all times. And the 
 objection which we made to the Unitarian sys- 
 tem was, that it did so feebly and miserably repre- 
 sent these truths nay, that it practically contra- 
 dicted them as no other system ever did ; a charge 
 which applies to the modern scheme no less than to 
 the old one on grounds even more forcible ; for 
 whereas the whole virtue of Unitarianism consisted 
 in its asserting the existence of God as distinct
 
 310 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 from the thoughts and apprehensions of men, the 
 later teachers are continually approaching nearer 
 and nearer to a confusion between our own spiri- 
 tual " nature" and the Being whom it acknow- 
 ledges. The transition from this stage of belief to 
 the worship of the separate feelings and moods of 
 that " spiritual nature," and thence to prostration 
 before them in the shape of idols is very rapid in- 
 deed. Surely a strange apotheosis for Unitarianism ! 
 
 I contend then that the principles of Fox, of 
 Luther, of the Unitarians, are too strong, too vital 
 to bear the imprisonment to which they have 
 been subjected in the different systems which 
 have been invented for them ; but so far from 
 thinking that those principles will be more true 
 and vital when they have lost their religious and 
 personal character, and have been translated into 
 the terms of a philosophical theory, I believe that 
 when they shall suffer that change they will lose 
 all their preciousness, and will attain the perfec- 
 tion of the impotence and insignificance to which 
 hitherto they have been but partially reduced. 
 
 II. Seeing, however, that these principles, even 
 in the time of their strength, have shown a dispo- 
 sition to clothe themselves in some form or other, 
 nay, that it is only in times of great weakness 
 that they can be content to remain merely as 
 notions or opinions for individual minds j we are
 
 RECAPITULATION. 311 
 
 bound to enquire further, what this tendency 
 means, and how it is possible that it may be sa- 
 tisfied when the systems which have owed their 
 existence to it shall satisfy it no longer. To 
 answer this question we must refer to another 
 class of facts which we have been considering. 
 The second distinguishing Quaker tenet was, 
 that there is a spiritual and universal kingdom 
 established in the world. We may conceive, though 
 not without great difficulty, how the doctrine 
 respecting the Indwelling Word might have been 
 received and acknowledged as a doctrine and as 
 nothing more at all events might have appeared 
 to Quakers only as the governing law of their own 
 individual lives. But it is obvious that this tenet 
 ceases to be one at all if it is nothing more 
 ceases to be a principle for individuals if it be only 
 for them. That there should be such a kingdom, 
 and that an honest man believing it to be should 
 not ask, What are the conditions of citizen- 
 ship in it? is incredible. To this conviction then 
 we traced the origin of the Quaker society and 
 the Quaker system : by entering the first the 
 disciples of George Fox sought for themselves a 
 place in this kingdom ; by adopting the second, 
 they interpreted to themselves and others its 
 nature and its laws. And therefore our main 
 enquiry in reference to the society was, Does it
 
 312 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 answer to this character ? Does it even any longer 
 profess to answer to it ? and with respect to the 
 system what is there here which may tell us the 
 secret of the failure to which the history of the 
 body bears such a striking witness ? I will not 
 now dwell on the answer to this question farther, 
 than to remark that we observed a resolute eschew- 
 ing of forms to be one of the main characteristics 
 of the Quaker system, and a disposition to 
 formalism one of the most striking characteristics 
 of the Quaker body. But my object at present 
 is rather to remark upon the faith which seemed 
 to make the existence of Quakerism necessary, 
 than upon any of its good or evil features. 
 
 Was this faith a new one ? was George Fox the 
 first proclaimer of it ? We found the acknowledg- 
 ment of a spiritual kingdom among the Reformers 
 as well as among the Quakers a most strong and 
 distinct acknowledgment of it. We found it work- 
 ing so strongly in Luther's mind, connecting itself 
 so closely with his recognition of a divine Person, 
 a divine Man, as the object of all trust and 
 allegiance, as to make him most reluctant to in- 
 troduce any theory or scheme of doctrine which 
 might eventually become a substitute for it : we 
 found at the same time that it at last urged him 
 and the other Reformers to set up little Churches 
 or kingdoms of their own because they could not
 
 RECAPITULATION. 313 
 
 imagine or discover how otherwise God's purpose 
 could be accomplished. And we found that it 
 was partly the unspiritual character of these 
 bodies their manifest inadequacy to express the 
 idea of Christ's spiritual kingdom, partly the 
 importance which the Reformers and their fol- 
 lowers attached to national societies and the con- 
 fusion that seemed to have arisen between them 
 and the universal body, which led to Fox's protest 
 in the subsequent age. 
 
 But though this idea of a spiritual and universal 
 kingdom was not new in the seventeenth century, 
 may it not have become obsolete in the nineteenth ? 
 The history of Unitarianism was an important 
 link in the evidence on this subject. We found 
 that in the last century the idea of a spiritual 
 kingdom was distinctly and formally repudiated 
 by those who were most admired for wisdom and 
 enlightenment ; man at all events being excluded 
 from any concern in such a kingdom, seeing that 
 he had no faculties wherewith he could take 
 cognizance of it. At the same time the idea of a 
 very comprehensive world, which should include 
 all nations, systems, religions, began at that time 
 to be prevalent, and to be produced in opposition 
 to the different sects of Christendom. Here, then, 
 was one half of the belief which had belonged to 
 other ages, that half which had been apparently 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 314 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 least regarded by Protestants trying in the 
 eighteenth century to assert itself under new con- 
 ditions and to the exclusion of the other half. 
 But if the Roman empire, from Augustus to Dio- 
 cletian, had not been the sufficient type of this 
 all tolerant all including world, the French Empire 
 which succeeded to and carried out the specula- 
 tions of the last generation was a fair specimen of 
 what it must be. While this Empire was diffus- 
 ing philanthropy through Europe, we noticed in 
 different directions the gradual re-appearance of 
 that other element in the idea of a kingdom for 
 mankind, which this philanthropy had cast aside 
 as unnecessary. First, we observed a religious 
 awakening men becoming strongly convinced 
 that there is a spiritual power and influence at 
 work among them. The immediate result of this 
 awakening was a greater value for personal re- 
 ligion ; then it led to a desire among those who 
 had felt it for combination and fellowship in the 
 promotion of spiritual objects ; finally, to the 
 inquiry whether such a combination must not 
 have a spiritual foundation, whether it must not 
 be connected with belief and worship. Then we 
 were struck by various indications among philoso- 
 phical men of a new habit of thinking in reference 
 to the constitution of our race, of a tendency to 
 look upon man as essentially a spiritual creature,
 
 RECAPITULATION. 315 
 
 and therefore to conclude that his highest and 
 most important acts and exercises must be of a 
 spiritual kind. Along with this faith, we noticed 
 the growth of another, that there must be a region 
 for those acts and exercises ; that they cannot 
 merely turn in upon themselves, though that may 
 be part of their occupation, but that there must be 
 a world adapted to them and formed for them. 
 We could not find any clear account of this world 
 except that it was this universe which surrounds 
 us, and of which our eyes and ears take account ; 
 but though this universe be proclaimed as the 
 great possession and inheritance of mankind, we 
 could not learn that more than a few gifted poets 
 and sages had a right of admission to its mean- 
 ings and mysteries. Another difficulty which 
 these philosophers seemed to experience, arose 
 from the question, whether a distinct spiritual 
 world do exist at all, or whether it be only created 
 out of this common world, by the class which is 
 endued with faculties for that purpose. But this 
 point was peremptorily decided by another set of 
 deep and earnest thinkers, who seemed to have 
 proved the existence of something which man did 
 not create himself, but to which he must in some 
 sort refer all his acts and thoughts, and which 
 must be assumed as the ground of them. 
 
 Meanwhile we found the most eager and pas- 
 p 2
 
 316 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 sionate demands for a universal constitution into 
 which men as men might enter, occupying not 
 religious, not philosophical men, but labourers, 
 handicraftsmen, serfs. The nature of this con- 
 stitution had been discussed again and again; 
 and the settlement of it had not been left to 
 mere discussions ; it had been brought to the 
 most severe practical tests. These inferences 
 seemed to follow from them all ; first, that every 
 modern attempt to construct a universal society 
 had been defeated by the determination of men 
 to assert their own wills ; secondly, that the true 
 universal society must be one which neither over- 
 looks the existence of those wills, nor considers 
 them as an inconvenient and accidental interrup- 
 tion to its workings, as a friction to be regretted 
 and allowed for, but which assumes them as the 
 very principle and explanation of its existence : 
 thirdly, that it is equally impossible for men to 
 be content with a spiritual society which is not 
 universal, and with a universal society which is not 
 spiritual. This doctrine then, I think, cannot be 
 said to be obsolete, cannot be turned into a mere 
 philosophical notion. Time has added to its 
 strength, not diminished it : there is more neces- 
 sity now than in any former day, that it should 
 have a practical not a theoretical satisfaction. 
 III. It would seem from these observations,
 
 RECAPITULATION. 317 
 
 that the spiritual and universal society must be in- 
 volved in the very idea of our human constitution, 
 say rather, must be that constitution, by virtue of 
 which we realize that there is a humanity, that 
 we form a kind. ' But supposing this to be the 
 case, may not we suppose that this constitution 
 has been gradually making itself known to men 
 as civilization has advanced; and that when it 
 has been diffused more widely, each man will 
 feel and understand his place in it rightly and 
 harmoniously exercising those spiritual powers, 
 which fit him for living in it, and suffering his 
 neighbour without molestation, nay, kindly assist- 
 ing him to exercise his ; that in this way, those 
 strifes and oppositions of opinion, which have 
 hindered men from cheerfully co-operating with 
 each other, will gradually cease, and peace and 
 good will become general ; and may not one 
 means to this end, be the abandonment of those 
 notions which prevailed in the early ages of 
 the world, and which have been kept alive by the 
 different religious sects and systems since that 
 the character of this constitution has been revealed 
 to us in an inspired Book ; and that it is ruled 
 over in some incredible manner, by a divine 
 Person ?* This is the last hint I shall consider. 
 It leads us to notice another class of facts which 
 have passed under our review. 
 p3
 
 318 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 The Quakers, we found, were great disparagers 
 of what they called the outward Letter. They were 
 jealous lest reverence for the Bible should interfere 
 with the belief of a Spiritual Invisible Teacher. 
 Nevertheless, it was in the Bible that George Fox 
 learnt clearly the fact that there was such a 
 Teacher ; it was from the Bible that he preached of 
 it to others, ^t was not merely the principle of 
 Justification by Faith which Luther, torn by in- 
 ward conflicts, learnt from the Bible he owed to it 
 still more, the personal form of that doctrine, and 
 the conception of it as a vital truth, not as a 
 scholastic dogma. The belief of Election in its 
 highest, purest form, was received by Calvin from 
 the same source ; the Unitarian prized the Bible 
 as the great witness for the Divine Unity, for 
 God's absolute and universal love, for the fact 
 that mankind is under some better condition than 
 that of a curse. Thus, whenever there has been 
 in any man any one of these strong convictions, 
 which seemed to us so precious and important, 
 then he has looked with reverence upon the 
 Scriptures, as the teachers of it and the authority 
 for it ; whenever he has been able to carry home 
 that conviction to the minds of his brethren, these 
 have been his instruments. And this fact comes 
 out the more remarkably, when it is set by the 
 side of another, which the study of the different
 
 RECAPITULATION. 319 
 
 religious systems made known to us namely, that 
 just in proportion as any of them has become 
 consolidated, the Bible, even if it has been 
 nominally and formally held up to admiration, 
 nay even to worship, has been deposed from 
 its real dignity. The Quaker, who converts 
 it into a system of conceits and allegories, 
 under pretence of doing reverence to the Spirit, 
 has not really treated it worse than the Lutheran, 
 or the Calvinist, who cuts it up into texts for 
 the confirmation of dogmas, or the mottos of 
 sermons, or than the Unitarian, who would re- 
 duce it into a collection of moral maxims. So 
 that, instead of being obliged by our belief of the 
 instability and helplessness of these systems, to 
 suspect the value, or underrate the authority of 
 the book to which they all appeal ; may we not 
 say boldly, that as it was this book which revealed 
 to each founder of a sect, that side or aspect of 
 the spiritual economy, which it was his especial 
 vocation to present and elucidate, so it has been a 
 perpetual and most embarrassing witness against 
 the effort to compress that economy within the 
 rules and formulas, which he and his followers 
 have devised for the statement of their opinions ? 
 
 But this is not enough. It is alleged, that 
 whatever may have been the case with religious 
 bodies, the greatest light has, of late especially, 
 p 4
 
 320 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 been thrown upon the nature of our spiritual 
 constitution, by those who did not derive their 
 knowledge from the Scriptures ; nay, who had 
 great doubts about their value and authenticity. 
 
 Now, I have not affected to disparage the la- 
 bours of philosophers, either in these or in past 
 days. I have expressed the highest respect for 
 those who have brought to light what seem to me 
 precious truths respecting certain faculties in us, 
 which had been supposed to have no existence. 
 But I have also intimated an opinion, which I am 
 most anxious should be sifted, and if it be false, 
 exposed, that this is precisely the limit of their 
 doings. They have proved that we have certain 
 faculties which do take cognizance of spiritual 
 transcendental objects : they have not shown 
 what these spiritual transcendent objects are ; 
 they have shown that we must have a spiritual 
 constitution ; they have not shown what that 
 spiritual constitution is. I do not therefore deny 
 that we have learnt what our forefathers did not 
 know, or did not know nearly as well. I do not 
 deny that it has been the effect of experiments, fail- 
 ures, contradictions, to make us better acquainted 
 with what we are and what we want. I am very 
 thankful, for the sake of mankind, that there have 
 been men who were permitted to make these 
 discoveries, without (obviously, and so far as we
 
 RECAPITULATION. 321 
 
 know, I mean) seeing the truths which I think 
 answer to them, and which show that Tantalus 
 is not the one type of humanity. But so far from 
 being led by any thing that I see or hear of these 
 writers, to believe that they have discovered any 
 substitute for a Revelation of that which is need- 
 ful for man's highest necessities, I am well con- 
 vinced that their teachings honestly received will 
 make his cries for one more passionate ; and that 
 it will be seen at last, that the book which has 
 always hitherto met . the cravings of its readers, 
 and given them that glimpse of the mysterious 
 world which they required, does contain the full 
 declaration of that state which God has esta- 
 blished for us, and which we have been toiling 
 all our lives to find. 
 
 The second part of the question is very much 
 involved with the first, and for our purpose is 
 perhaps the most important. ( Is not the idea 
 of a spiritual King, an actual Person, super- 
 intending and ordaining the movements of the 
 universal and spiritual society, the dream of a past 
 age is it not one which a sensible man, who was 
 also an honest one, and used words in their 
 simple straightforward sense, would be rather 
 reluctant than anxious to bring forward. Is it 
 not obvious, that every step in the progress of 
 thought and discovery has taken us further from 
 p 5
 
 322 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 such a notion as this, and has bequeathed it, as 
 their proper possession, to old wives and chil- 
 dren?' I have perhaps implicitly treated this 
 point already ; still, I am so anxious to give it a 
 direct consideration, that I will, at any hazard of 
 repetition and tediousness, recur to my former 
 method of proof. 
 
 A belief in a direct spiritual government 
 over the life, thoughts, acts, and words, of those 
 who would submit themselves to it, was, we have 
 seen, the third distinguishing peculiarity of 
 Quakerism; the one which produced so many 
 more outward and apparent results than the other 
 two, that in the notions of modern Friends it has 
 absorbed them both into itself. The system of 
 the society appears to be expressly devised for 
 the purpose of giving expression to this belief. 
 Did it then seem to us that this system was 
 falling into decay, because it had borne too deci- 
 sive and consistent a witness to this bygone 
 notion, or had prevented it from undergoing 
 those changes to which, with the increase of 
 light and civilization, it ought to have been 
 subject ? On the contrary, the essential feeble- 
 ness of Quakerism appeared to lie in this that 
 it exhibited the doctrine of spiritual superinten- 
 dence in an inadequate, inconsistent, and shrivelled 
 form. It testified that sudden thoughts, sudden
 
 RECAPITULATION. 323 
 
 acts, sudden speeches, oftentimes of the most 
 obviously trifling character, had their origin in 
 divine teaching and inspiration ; it virtually 
 excluded what is the most significant, and what 
 Quakers, like all other persons, are obliged to 
 acknowledge as the most significant portion of 
 our life that which is occupied with calm, 
 orderly, continuous transactions from the spirit- 
 ual sphere. Education, we saw that the Quakers 
 looked upon as most important; education ac- 
 cording to the system of the society could not 
 be a spiritual work. 
 
 If we turned from Quakerism to that which is 
 most unlike it, to Calvinism, the same inference 
 was forced upon us in another form. A belief in 
 the will of God as the only spring of Good, Order, 
 Happiness, was, we found, the earnest practical life- 
 giving principle in the minds of Calvin and his dis- 
 ciples ; whatever brave acts they had done, what- 
 ever good thoughts they had uttered, sprang from 
 this conviction. Had they pushed it too far 
 had their system riveted the notion of a ruling 
 Will in their minds, and so perpetuated it to an 
 age, when, in the natural course of things, it 
 ought to have been abandoned ? We were led to 
 adopt exactly the opposite opinion. Their system, 
 by setting aside the idea of a human will, had 
 left the doctrine of a Divine will barren and 
 p6
 
 324 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 unmeaning ; the idea of a personal Ruler had dis- 
 appeared, and those who were most anxious to 
 assert the government of the living God, had been 
 the great instruments of propagating the notion 
 of an atheistical Necessity. 
 
 But it may be said, c Though these Quaker, and 
 these Calvinistical opinions, concerning the Spirit 
 which works in man, and the absolute Will of 
 God, may involve or be involved in that idea of an 
 actual King of men to which we are alluding they 
 are not identical with it. That idea evidently turns 
 upon the doctrine of an Incarnation ; it asserts 
 that one who is the Son of Man, as well as the 
 Son of God, is the Lord of the world, and, in 
 some higher sense, of the spiritual Society and 
 it is this doctrine which seems so connected with 
 the oldest fables of the world, that we cannot but 
 think it must give way before the light of truth.' 
 So the Unitarian of the last century thought, and 
 the question we discussed was How did this 
 opinion, which was the root of their system, affect 
 these principles which really formed the faith of 
 the better men among them ? 
 
 It seemed to us, that the idea of the unity of 
 God was sacrificed, because the person who was 
 acknowledged as the great object and centre of 
 human admiration, was denied to be one with the 
 Father; that the idea of the love of God was
 
 RECAPITULATION. 325 
 
 sacrificed, because it was denied that he had in his 
 own Person interfered on behalf of his creatures ; 
 that the idea of our being children of God, 
 was sacrificed because there was nothing to give 
 the name of Father reality ; to show that it was 
 more than a loose and almost blasphemous figure 
 of speech. 
 
 Accordingly, in the new Unitarianism, Jesus 
 of Nazareth is beginning to be recognised as 
 merely one of the world's heroes ; it may or may 
 not be the most important and conspicuous one. 
 But this belief, this last and highest discovery of 
 the nineteenth century, takes us back to that stage 
 of history, in which universal fellowship was im- 
 possible ; to the time when there was a Grecian 
 Hercules and an Egyptian Hercules; when he 
 who repealed bad laws was the hero of a country, 
 and he who drained a marsh of a neighbourhood ; 
 and when men were crying and sighing for some 
 one who should be the head and prince of all 
 these; who should be indeed the Lord of their 
 race ; who should rescue the race from the evils 
 to ^vhich, as a race, it was subject ; who should 
 connect it with the absolute Being of whom their 
 consciences witnessed. Is not this a strange and 
 melancholy relapse under the name of progres- 
 sion !
 
 326 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 We have then a reasonable excuse for enquir- 
 ing, whether there be on this earth a spiritual and 
 universal kingdom, which the different religious 
 systems have not been able to supersede or de- 
 stroy ; which is likely to make itself manifest 
 when they have all perished ; and with which we 
 of the nineteenth century may have fellowship. 
 
 And as a preface to this enquiry, it seems not 
 unfitting to consider whether there be any traces 
 of a spiritual constitution in the early ages of 
 the world, and whether the books of Scripture 
 afford us any help in interpreting them.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 INDICATIONS OF A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 
 
 WHEN I was speaking of the Quaker system, 
 I noticed one practical inconsistency which seemed 
 to lie at the root of it, and to affect all its workings. 
 The member of the Society of Friends ought to 
 be the conscious disciple of a Divine Teacher. 
 But every child born to a Quaker is actually con- 
 sidered and treated as a friend, till, by some act 
 of rebellion, he has deprived himself of the title. 
 Something of the same anomaly we have traced 
 in the Protestant systems ; consciously justified 
 men ought to constitute the Evangelical Church ; 
 persons conscious of a divine Election the re- 
 formed. Yet, neither of these have had the 
 courage to exclude their children from all religious 
 fellowship, to treat them absolutely as heathens. 
 The Anabaptists have made the nearest approach 
 to that practice ; but even in them there are 
 very evident indications of timidity and incon- 
 sistency. 
 
 When we examined the schemes of the world 
 which had been constructed by philosophers,
 
 328 INDICATIONS OF 
 
 we observed that they had been encountered by 
 a knot, not unlike that which had perplexed the 
 authors of religious sects, and that they had 
 found themselves compelled with more or less of 
 ceremony to cut it. It was next to impossible 
 to organize a universal society, while the distinc- 
 tion of families prevailed. In such a society 
 men must be so many separate units. But there 
 is this glaring fact to prove that they are not 
 units ; that they are bound together by a certain 
 law, which may be set at nought, and maae almost 
 utterly inefficient, but which cannot be entirely 
 repealed. 
 
 I. Now this fact, that men exist in families, 
 which seems so grievously to disturb the 
 inventors of systems, is perhaps the very one 
 which would be most likely to suggest the 
 thought to a plain person, that there must 
 be a moral or spiritual constitution for man- 
 kind. We are obliged to speak of every man 
 as being in two conditions. He is in a world 
 of objects which offer themselves to his senses, 
 and which his senses may be fitted to entertain. 
 He is a son, perhaps he is a brother. These two 
 states are equally inevitable ; they are also perfectly 
 distinct. You cannot by any artifice reduce them 
 under the same law or name. To describe the 
 one you must speak of what we see, or hear, or
 
 A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 329 
 
 handle or smell ; to describe the other, you must 
 speak of what we are ; " I am a son," " I am a bro- 
 ther." It is impossible therefore to use the word 
 " circumstances" in reference to the one state 
 with the same strictness with which you apply it 
 to the other. All the things which I have to do 
 with, I naturally and rightly call, my circum- 
 stances they stand round me : but that which is 
 necessary in an account of myself, seems to be 
 entitled to another name. We commonly call it 
 a relationship. And this difference soon becomes 
 more conspicuous. We speak of a man having a 
 bad digestion or a bad hearing ; we speak of his 
 being a bad brother or a bad son. By both these 
 phrases we imply that there is a want of harmony 
 between the man and his condition. But by the 
 one we evidently wish to signify that there need 
 not be this want of harmony, that he is voluntarily 
 acting as if he were not in a relation in which never- 
 theless he is, and must remain. This inconsistency 
 we describe by the term moral evil, or whatever 
 equivalent phrase we may have invented ; for some 
 equivalent, whether we like it or not, we must have. 
 It might seem to follow from these observations, 
 that the family state is the natural one for man ; 
 and accordingly we speak of the affections which 
 correspond to this state, as especially natural affec- 
 tions. But it should be remembered that we use
 
 330 INDICATIONS OF 
 
 another phrase which is apparently inconsistent 
 with this ; we describe the savage condition, that 
 is to say, the one in which man is striving to be 
 independent, as the natural state of society. And 
 though it may be doubtful whether that should 
 be called a state of society, which is the contra- 
 diction of all states and of all society, yet there 
 seems a very considerable justification for the 
 application of the word natural to it : seeing 
 that we cannot be acquainted with a family, or 
 be members of a family, without knowing in 
 others without feeling in ourselves, certain incli- 
 nations which tend to the dissolution of its bonds, 
 and to the setting up of that separate indepen- 
 dent life, which when exhibited on a large scale 
 we name the savage or wild life. These inclina- 
 tions are kept down by discipline, and the affec- 
 tions which attract us to the members of our 
 family are called out in opposition to them ; 
 surely, therefore, it cannot be a mistake to describe 
 them by the name which we ordinarily apply to 
 plants that spring up in a soil, uncultivated and 
 uncalled for. 
 
 We have here some of the indications of a 
 spiritual constitution ; that is to say, we have the 
 marks of a state which is designed for a volun- 
 tary creature ; which is his, whether he approve 
 it or no ; against which, he has a nature or incli-
 
 A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 331 
 
 nation to rebel. But still, most persons would 
 mean something more by the phrase than this ; 
 they would ask how you could call that spiritual, 
 which had no reference to religion. Now the 
 histories and mythologies of all the people with 
 whom we are acquainted bear unequivocal wit- 
 ness to this fact, that men have connected the 
 ideas of fathers, children, husbands, brothers, 
 sisters, with the beings whom they worshipped. 
 This is the first, rudest observation which we 
 make upon them. But, when we search further, 
 we begin to see that this simple observation has 
 the most intimate connexion with the whole of 
 mythology ; that it is not merely a fact in refer- 
 ence to it, but the fact, without which all others 
 which encounter us are unintelligible* You 
 say all kinds of offices are attributed to the 
 gods and goddesses ; they rule over this town 
 and that river, they dispense this blessing or 
 send that curse. Be it so ; but who are they 
 who exercise these powers ? The mythology tells 
 you of relations existing between them ; also of 
 relations between them and the objects of their 
 bounty and their enmity. In later ages, when we 
 are studying the differences in the mythology of 
 different nations, it is no wonder that we should 
 notice the character of the soil, the nature of the 
 climate, the beauty or the dreariness of the coun-
 
 332 INDICATIONS OF 
 
 try, the rains or the inundations which watered it, 
 as circumstances helping to determine the views 
 which the inhabitants entertained of their unseen 
 rulers. And then the transition is very easy to 
 the belief, that by these observations we have 
 accounted for their faith, and that the histories of 
 the gods are merely accidental poetical embellish- 
 ments. But, if we consider that the worshippers 
 evidently felt that which we call accidental to be 
 essential; that the merging the gods in the ob- 
 jects with which they were connected was merely 
 an artifice of later philosophy ; that the circum- 
 stances of soil and climate did indeed occasion 
 some important differences between the objects 
 reverenced in various nations, but that the cir- 
 cumstance of their being parents, brothers, and 
 sisters, so far as we know, was common to all, or 
 only wanting in those which were utterly savage, 
 that is, in which the human relations were dis- 
 regarded : if we observe that those who endeavour 
 to explain mythology by the phenomena of the 
 world, are obliged to beg what they call " a law 
 of nature," alleging that we are naturally inclined 
 to inquire into the origin of any great and remark- 
 able objects which we see ; if we will notice how 
 utterly inconsistent it is with all experience and 
 observation to attribute such a disposition as this 
 to men, whose feelings and faculties have not been
 
 A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 333 
 
 by some means previously awakened how very 
 little a savage is struck by any, except the most 
 glaring and alarming phenomena, and how much 
 less he thinks about them: if we will reflect 
 upon these points, we may perhaps be led to 
 adopt the opinion that the simplest method of 
 solving the difficulty is the best ; that it is not our 
 being surrounded with a strange world of sensible 
 objects which leads us to think of objects with 
 which we do not sensibly converse, but that 
 these perceptions come to us through our family 
 relationships ; that we become more and more 
 merely idolaters when these relationships are lost 
 sight of, and the other facts of our condition 
 only regarded ; that a world without family 
 relationships would have no worship, and on the 
 other hand, that without worship all the feelings 
 and affections of family life would have utterly 
 perished. 
 
 II. But is there no meaning in that savage wish 
 for independence ? is it merely the dissolution 
 and destruction of those family bonds which are 
 meant for men, or is it the indication that he was 
 meant for other bonds than these, not perhaps of 
 necessity incompatible with them ? History seems 
 to decide the question in favour of the latter 
 opinion. It seems to say, that as there is a worse
 
 334 INDICATIONS OF 
 
 state of society than the patriarchal, there is also 
 a better and more advanced one ; it declares that 
 the faculties which are given to man never have 
 had their proper development and expansion, 
 except in a national community. Now if we 
 examine any one of these, taking our specimen 
 from the Pagan world, we shall perceive that the 
 member of it had a more distinct feeling of him- 
 self, of his own personality, than the mere dweller 
 in a family could have. It may seem to us very 
 puzzling that it should be so ; for if we look at 
 Sparta or Rome at any commonwealth except 
 Athens it seems as if the society were imposing 
 the severest restraints upon each man's own taste, 
 judgment, and will. Nevertheless, it is the mani- 
 festation of energetic purpose in particular leaders, 
 and the assurance we feel that there was the same 
 kind of purpose, though in a less degree, existing 
 in those who composed every rank of their armies, 
 which gives the interest to the better times of these 
 republics ; as it is the feeling of a change in this 
 respect of the armies having become a body of 
 soldiers merely, not of men, which makes the 
 declining ages of them so mournful. We have 
 evidence, therefore, coming in a way in which 
 it might least be expected, that this personal feel- 
 ing is connected with the sense of national union.
 
 A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 335 
 
 Of all men, the savage * has least of the feelings 
 of dignity and personal self-respect ; he is most 
 emphatically a mere workman or tool, the 
 habitual slave of his own chance necessities and 
 inclinations, and therefore commonly of other 
 men's also. He who understands the force of the 
 words, e I am a brother/ has taken a mighty step 
 in advance of this individual man, even in that 
 respect on which he most prides himself; he is 
 more of a person, more of a freeman. But he is 
 not enough of a person, not enough of a freeman. 
 If he will be more, he must be able to say, " I am 
 a citizen ;" this is the true onward step ; if he 
 aim at freedom by any other, he relapses into an 
 independence which is only another name for 
 slavery. Now, we may observe several facts, too 
 obvious to escape the most careless student of 
 
 1 Of course there is no ideal savage in actual existence no 
 one who is perfectly independent. The North American Indian 
 has so many tribe feelings, that the admirers of savage life, taking 
 him for an example, have been able to contend that it is the very 
 soil for the cultivation of domestic affections. But not to dwell 
 upon the violent exaggerations and distortions of fact which have 
 been necessary for the support of this hypothesis, it is quite 
 obvious that these feelings and affections are just so many de- 
 partures from savage perfection so many threatenings of a de- 
 generacy into the social and civilized condition. The true savage 
 is Caliban ; the nearest approximation to him is probably to be 
 looked for in New Holland.
 
 336 INDICATIONS OF 
 
 history, except it should be from their very ob- 
 viousness, which are closely connected with this. 
 One is, that in every organised nation at its 
 commencement, there is a high respect for family 
 relations, that they embody themselves neces- 
 sarily in the national constitution ; another is, 
 that there is a struggle between these relations 
 and the national polity, although they form so 
 great an element in it ; the legislator feeling, that 
 each brother, husband, father, is a citizen, and 
 that as such, he comes directly under his cogni- 
 zance. 
 
 In Sparta, we see the principle of family life, 
 though distinctly recognised, sacrificed in a great 
 degree to the Laws. In Athens, we see the 
 legislator in his anxiety to leave men to them- 
 selves, allowing the growth of an independence 
 which proved incompatible both with family 
 relations and with national society. In Rome, we 
 see the legislation so exquisitely interwoven with 
 the family principle, that so soon as that became 
 weak, the commonwealth inevitably fell. 
 
 These facts lead us to ask what this legislation 
 means, wherein its power lies, and in what way it 
 comes to be so connected with, and yet diverse 
 from, these relationships ? In trying to find the 
 answer to this question we are at once struck with 
 this observation Law takes each man apart from 
 
 7
 
 A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 337 
 
 his fellows ; it addresses him with a Thou ; it makes 
 him feel that there is an eye fixed upon his doings ; 
 that there is a penalty overhanging him. It is 
 therefore, in this point of view, the direct opposite 
 of a relationship by which we are bound to each 
 other, and are made to feel that we cannot exist 
 apart from each other. But, again, we find that 
 the Law denounces those acts which make union 
 and fellowship impossible those acts which 
 result from the determination of men to live and 
 act as if they were independent of each other, as 
 if they might set up themselves and make self- 
 pleasing their end. The law declares to each 
 man that he is in a fellowship, that he shall not do 
 any act which is inconsistent with that position. 
 That therefore which is the great foe to family 
 relationship, the desire for individuality, is the 
 very thing which Law, even while it deals with 
 men as distinct persons, is threatening and curs- 
 ing. A nation then, like a family, would seem to 
 possess some of the characteristics of a spiritual 
 constitution. If we take the word spiritual in that 
 sense in which it is used by modern philosophers, 
 we have abundant proofs that where there is no 
 feeling of national union, there is a most precarious 
 and imperfect exercise of intellectual power. If 
 we take it in the sense of voluntary we find 
 here a constitution, evidently meant for creatures 
 
 VOL. T. Q
 
 338 INDICATIONS OP 
 
 which have wills ; seeing that it is one which 
 men do not create for themselves, that it is one 
 which may be violated, nay, which there is a 
 natural inclination in every man to violate ; and 
 that by the words "bad citizen," we express 
 moral reprobation, just as we do when we speak 
 of a bad father or mother. And if we ask whether 
 there are any religious feelings connected with 
 national life, as we found there were with 
 family life the mythology of the old world is 
 just as decisive in its reply. If the Homeric gods 
 were fathers, brothers, husbands, they were also 
 kings ; one character is just as prominent, just 
 as essential as the other. It is possible that the 
 former may have been the most ancient, and this 
 would explain the notion of scholars that traces of 
 an earlier worship are discoverable in the Iliad. 
 In Homer's time they were incorporated, and 
 the offices of the gods as connected with nature, 
 though they might be gradually mingling them- 
 selves with these characters, and threatening to 
 become identical with them, are nevertheless dis- 
 tinct from them. The princes of Agamemnon's 
 league felt that there must be higher princes than 
 they ; they could use no authority, take no counsel, 
 except in that belief. And though they spoke of 
 these rulers as compelling the clouds and winds, 
 they did not look upon this exercise of power as
 
 A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 339 
 
 higher or more reaL, than that of putting wisdom 
 and spirit into Diomed, and arming Hector for the 
 fight. And hence the leaders were always types 
 of the gods in every country which had attained 
 the forms of a national polity. Wherever these 
 existed, invisible rulers were recognised ; a class 
 of men interpreted the meaning of their judg- 
 ments; they were invoked as the guides in battles; 
 sacrifices were offered to avert their displeasure 
 or to claim their protection. 
 
 But, a time came, when thoughts were awakened 
 in men's minds of something more comprehensive 
 than either this family or this national constitu- 
 tion. The former belonged to all men ; yet, in 
 another respect It was narrow, separating men 
 from each other. The latter was obviously 
 exclusive ; a nation was limited to a small 
 locality ; it actually treated all that lay beyond 
 it, and whom it could not subdue to itself, as 
 aliens, if not enemies. If this exclusion were to 
 continue, there was certainly some nation which 
 ought to reign, which had a right to make its 
 polity universal. Great Asiatic monarchies there 
 had been, which had swallowed all tribes and 
 kingdoms into themselves, but these had esta- 
 blished a rule of mere physical force. 
 
 Might not Greece, the land of intellectual force,
 
 340 INDICATIONS OF 
 
 show that it was meant to rule over all? The 
 young hero of Macedon went forth in this hope, 
 and in a few years accomplished his dream. In 
 a few more his empire was broken in pieces ; 
 Greece was not to be the lord of world : still in 
 the Egyptian and Syrian dynasties which she 
 sent forth, she asserted a mental supremacy. 
 But a nation which paid no homage to art or to 
 philosophy swallowed up all these dynasties, and 
 with them all that remained of Greece herself. A 
 universal polity was established in the world, and 
 the national life, the family life of Rome, perished 
 at the very moment in which she established it. 
 
 Was there a religion connected with this uni- 
 versal polity as there was with the family and the 
 national ? We find that there was. The Emperor 
 was the great God. To him all people and nations 
 and languages were to bow. Subject to this 
 supreme divinity all others might be tolerated and 
 recognised. No form of religion was to be pro- 
 scribed unless it were absolutely incompatible 
 with the worship of a Tiberius and a Vitellius. 
 It has been suggested already, that this Roman 
 Empire answers exactly to the idea of an univer- 
 sal world. If there is to be anything different 
 from this if there is to be an universal Church, 
 we ought to know of what elements it is to be
 
 A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 341 
 
 composed, we ought to know whether it also 
 sets aside family or national life, or whether it 
 justifies their existence, reconciles them to itselfj 
 and interprets the problems of ancient history 
 concerning their mysterious meaning. 
 
 Q3
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 
 
 IT is commonly acknowledged by religious per- 
 sons, that the Bible is remarkably unsystematic. 
 Sometimes this admission is made thankfully 
 and even triumphantly; it is urged as a proof, 
 that the Bible is mainly intended to supply the 
 daily wants and to meet the ever- changing cir- 
 cumstances of the spiritual man. Sometimes it 
 furnishes the ground of an argument for the 
 necessity of that being done by others which 
 is not done here by those who lived nearest 
 the age of the Apostles, or at the Reforma- 
 tion, or in a more advanced period of civiliza- 
 tion. Sometimes it is alleged as a reason for 
 denying that there is any book possessing the 
 character which Christians have attributed to 
 this one for asserting that it is a collection of 
 documents, belonging to a particular nation, 
 accidentally strung together, and invested by 
 the superstition of after-times with a fictitious 
 entireness.
 
 THE SCRIPTURAL. VIEW, &C. 843 
 
 All these notions, it seems to me, assume that 
 the words system and method are synonymous, 
 and that if the first is wanting in the Scriptures 
 the last must be wanting also. NOW to me tjiese 
 words seem not only not synonymous, but the 
 greatest contraries imaginable the one indj- 
 cating that which is most opposed to life, freedom, 
 variety ; and the other that without which they 
 cannot exist. If I wished to explain my meaning, 
 I should not resort to a definition ; I should 
 take an illustration, and, of all illustrations, I 
 think the most striking is that which is afforded 
 by the Bible itself. While the systematizer is 
 tormented, every page he reads, with a sense of 
 the refractory and hopeless materials he has to 
 deal with, I am convinced, that the person who 
 is determined to read only for his own comfort 
 and profit, is haunted with the sense of some 
 harmony, not in the words but in the history, 
 which he ought not to overlook, and without 
 reference to which the meaning of that in which 
 he most delights is not very certain, And, 
 while this sense of a method exists, the fact, that 
 these works were written at different periods, in 
 different styles, and by men of totally different 
 characters, increases the impression that there 
 is something most marvellous in the volume they 
 compose. The most skilful, laborious analyst 
 Q 4
 
 344 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 cannot persuade his disciples to abandon the 
 use of the word Bible he cannot divest himself 
 of the feelings with which it is associated. 
 
 I. Perhaps it may be useful for the purpose 
 at which we are aiming, that we should examine 
 a little into this phenomenon. Every one who 
 reads the Old Testament, must perceive that 
 the idea of a covenant of God with a certain 
 people, is that which presides in it. In plain 
 history, in lofty prayers and songs, in impas- 
 sioned denunciations of existing evil, and predic- 
 tions of coming misery this idea is still at the 
 root of all others. Take it away, and not merely 
 is there no connexion between the different 
 parts, but each book by itself, however simple 
 in its language or in its details, becomes an 
 incoherent rhapsody. A person then, who had 
 no higher wish than to understand the character 
 and feelings of that strange people which has 
 preserved its identity through so many genera- 
 tions, would of course begin with examining into 
 the account of this covenant. He would feel that 
 the call of Abraham, the promise made to him and 
 to his seed, and the seal of it which was given 
 him, were most significant parts of this record. 
 But, one thought would strike him above all 
 This covenant is said to be with a family : with 
 a man doubtless in the first instance but with a
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 345 
 
 man expressly and emphatically as the head of a 
 family. The very terms of the covenant, and 
 every promise that it held forth, was inseparably 
 associated with the hope of a posterity. It is 
 impossible to look upon the patriarchal character 
 of Abraham, as something accidental to his cha- 
 racter as the chosen witness and servant of the 
 Most High. These two positions are absolutely 
 inseparable. The fact of his relationship to God 
 is interpreted to him by the feeling of his human 
 relations, and his capacity of fulfilling them 
 arose from his acknowledgment of the higher 
 relation. A little further reflection upon the 
 subordinate parts of the narrative (which, when 
 this fact is felt to be the centre, will all acquire a 
 new value and meaning) must convince us, that 
 sensuality, attended of necessity with sensual 
 worship, was the character of the tribes among 
 which Abraham was dwelling ; that in this 
 sensuality and sensual worship was involved 
 the neglect of family bonds ; that the witness for 
 an invisible and righteous God, against Gods 
 of nature and mere power, was, at the selfsame 
 moment and by the same necessity, the witness 
 for the sacredness of these bonds. The notion of 
 a Being exercising power over men, seen in the 
 clouds, and heard in the winds, this was that 
 which the world entertained, and trembled till 
 Q5
 
 346 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 utter corruption brought in utter atheism. That 
 there is a God related to men and made known 
 to men through their human relations, this was 
 the faith of Abraham, the beginner of the Church 
 on earth. But this truth could not be exhibited 
 in one individual faithful man ; it must be exhi- 
 bited through a family. The rest of Genesis, 
 therefore, gives us the history of the patriarchs 
 who followed Abraham. But, what if these, or 
 any of these, should not be faithful ? What, if 
 they should not maintain the principle of family 
 relationship, or retain a recollection of the higher 
 principle involved in it ? What, if the world 
 should find its way into the Church ? The his- 
 torian does not wait for the question to be asked 
 him ; his narrative answers it. The great ma- 
 jority of the sons of Jacob were not faithful men, 
 they did not maintain the principle of family life 
 they did not recollect the Being who had revealed 
 Himself through it. Perhaps then, the Joseph, 
 the true believer, separated himself from his god- 
 less brethren, and established a new and distinct 
 fellowship. Had he done so, he would have 
 acted upon the principle of Ishmael or Esau ; 
 he would have founded a society which was built 
 upon choice, not upon relationship. The his- 
 torian declares, that he followed a different course, 
 that he was indeed separated from his brethren,
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. (JA7 
 
 but by their act, not his : that he continued a 
 witness for God's covenant, not with him, but 
 with Abraham, Isaac, an,4 Jacob ; not with an 
 individual, but with a family. According then 
 to the Jewish Scriptures, the Abrahamic family, 
 though cut off by their covenant from the other 
 families of the earth, was so cut off expressly; 
 that it might bear witness for the true order! 
 of the world ; for that order against which all 
 sensible idolatry, and all independent choice or 
 self-will, is rebellion ; for that order in which 
 alone men can be free, . because jtp abide in it 
 they must sacrifice those inclinations which mate 
 them slaves ; for that order, in an4 through 
 which, as we might have guessed from the iGen- 
 tile records, the idea of God can alone be im- 
 parted. The promise of the covenant therefore 
 was, that in the seed of Abraham all the families 
 of the earth should be blessed. 
 
 II. But, whatever sentimentalists may say about 
 the patriarchal condition of the world, its essential 
 purity, and the misery of departing from it, the 
 Scriptures give no countenance to such dreams. 
 It was part of the promise that the children of 
 Jacob should enter into another state. They were 
 to possess the Canaanitish nations. They were to 
 become a nation. And although the history, i# 
 strict conformity to all experience, describe? the 
 Q 6
 
 348 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 middle passage between these two conditions as 
 a grievous one, though the children of Abraham 
 are said to have sunk into moral debasement and 
 actual slavery, yet their redemption is connected 
 with a more awful revelation than any which had 
 been imparted, or, as far as we can see, could 
 have been imparted to them in their previous 
 state ; and leads to new and most wonderful 
 discoveries respecting the relations between men 
 and God. The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and 
 Jacob declares that he remembers his covenant, 
 and has seen the affliction of his people. But He 
 declares himself to the appointed guide and 
 deliverer by another name than this that name 
 upon which the Jewish covenant stands, which is 
 the foundation of all law, i AM THAT I AM. And 
 so soon as the judgments upon natural worship, 
 and upon a tyranny which set at nought all invi- 
 sible and righteous government had been accom- 
 plished, and the people had been taught to feel 
 that an unseen Power had delivered them, that 
 awful code was proclaimed amidst thunders and 
 lightnings, which spoke straight to the individual 
 conscience of each man, even while it reminded 
 him in the most direct and solemn manner that 
 he was related to God and his brethren. I will 
 not enter here into an explanation of the manner 
 in which the tribe institutions, those which speak
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 349 
 
 of family relationship, were so embodied in the 
 Jewish constitution that they gave a meaning to 
 this law and yet did not deprive it of its awful 
 personal character. That observation must needs 
 strike every one who studies with the slightest 
 attention the Jewish institutions, as they are 
 described in the Pentateuch. It is more neces- 
 sary to notice those which led the thoughts of the 
 Jews above the bonds of family and of law, 
 though they were inseparably intertwined with 
 both. I mean the tabernacle, the priesthood, 
 and sacrifices. That these were the shrines of an 
 undeveloped mystery every thoughtful Jew was 
 conscious ; but he was equally certain that this 
 mystery was implied in all his acts, in all his 
 family relations, in the national order, in his 
 legal obedience. That there was an awful self- 
 existent Being from whom all law came, was 
 declared by the commandments : the Tabernacle 
 affirmed that this Being was present among his 
 people, and that it was possible in some awful 
 manner to approach Him. The family cove- 
 nant bore witness that there was a relation be- 
 tween Him and his worshippers ; the Priesthood 
 from generation to generation witnessed that this 
 relation might be actually realized that it might 
 be realized by the whole people, in a representa- 
 tive. The National Constitution and punish-
 
 350 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 merits awakened in each person the feeling of 
 moral evil, and taught them that that evil arose 
 from violating his relations with God and his 
 countrymen, and that the effect of it was a prac- 
 tical exclusion from these blessings ; the sacri- 
 fices intimated that the relation was restored, 
 when he had personally, and through the priest, 
 given up something, not selected by himself as 
 the most appropriate, or the most precious, but 
 appointed by the law ; and when he had given up 
 that self-will which caused the separation. Such 
 thoughts were wrought gradually into the mind 
 of every humble and obedient Jew; they were 
 brought directly home to him by the parting 
 instruction of his great Lawgiver ; they were 
 confirmed and illustrated by all his subsequent 
 experience, and by the teachers who showed him 
 the purpose of it. 
 
 The national polity of the Jews was in its 
 essence exclusive. We dwell upon this fact, as if 
 it destroyed all connexion between this polity and 
 that of the Pagans, or of modern Europe. But 
 every nation, as such, is exclusive. Athens was 
 exclusive, Rome was exclusive; nevertheless, we 
 have admitted, all persons admit, that more of 
 humanity came out in the exclusive nations of 
 Athens and of Rome, than ever showed itself in the 
 savage tribes of the earth, which have never
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 351 
 
 attained to a definite polity. Before we can 
 ascertain, whether the exclusiveness of the Jews 
 was an inhuman exclusiveness, we must find out 
 what it excluded; and here the same answer 
 must be given as before. It excluded the wor- 
 ship of sensible, natural things ; it excluded the 
 idea of choice and self-will. The covenant with 
 an invisible Being made it treason for men to 
 choose the objects of their worship. This wor- 
 ship of the one Being was the bond of the 
 commonwealth, and, if this were broken, it was 
 dissolved. The covenant with an invisible Being 
 obliged them to look upon all Kings as reigning 
 in virtue of his covenant, as representing his 
 dignity, as responsible to Him; upon all other 
 officers, the priestly, the prophetical, the judicial, 
 as in like manner directly receiving their appoint- 
 ments and commission from Him. By its first pro- 
 test it affirmed that there are not a set of separate 
 gods over each territory various, according to the 
 peculiarities of soil and of climate ; but that there 
 is one Almighty and Invisible Being, who is the 
 Lord of all. The God of Israel is declared to be 
 the God of all the nations of the earth; the Israel- 
 ites are chosen out to be witnesses of the fact. 
 By the second protest the exclusive Hebrew 
 witnessed, that no king, no priest, no judge, has 
 a right to look upon himself as possessing intrin-
 
 352 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 sic power ; that he is exercising office, under a 
 righteous king, a perfect priest, an all-seeing 
 judge ; that, in proportion as he preserves that 
 thought, and in the strength of it fulfils his task, 
 the character of that king, and priest, and judge, 
 and the relation in which he stands to men, reveal 
 themselves to him ; that these offices are con- 
 tinued from generation to generation, as a witness 
 of his permanence who is Lord of them all, and 
 who abides for ever and ever. 
 
 As then in the patriarchal period the Divine 
 Being manifested himself in the family relations, 
 and by doing so manifested on what these rela- 
 tiolis depend, how they are upheld, and wherein 
 their worth consists : so in the national period 
 He was manifested to men through all national 
 offices ; thereby explaining their meaning and 
 import, how they are upheld, and wherein their 
 worth consists. But, we are not to suppose that 
 the family relations had less to do with this stage 
 of the history than with the former. As they were 
 embodied in the national institutions, as the exist- 
 ence of these institutions depended upon them, so 
 their meaning in connexion with national life and 
 national sins, and with a Being of whom both 
 witnessed, became continually more apparent. 
 
 I need not point out to any one who reads 
 the prophets, what is their uniform method of
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION, 353 
 
 awakening the conscience of the Jew, and of 
 imparting to him the highest truths. I need not 
 say that the Lord is throughout presented in the 
 character of the husband of the nation ; that acts 
 of apostacy and false worship are constantly 
 referred to as adulteries ; and that the greatest 
 pains are taken to convince us, that these are no 
 poetical flourishes or terms of art, by connecting 
 the actual human relation and human offence 
 with the properly spiritual one. Oftentimes the 
 verbal commentator is at fault, from the apparent 
 confusion of the two. He cannot make up his 
 mind whether it is the infidelity of the nation to 
 her God, or of actual wives to their actual hus- 
 bands, which the holy man is denouncing. 
 And such perplexity there must needs be in the 
 thoughts of all persons who are determined to 
 separate these two ideas, who do not see that it 
 is the main object of the prophet to show their 
 bearing upon one another, who will not enter 
 into his mind, by feeling that human relation- 
 ships are not artificial types of something divine, 
 but are actually the means, and the only means, 
 through which man ascends to any knowledge of 
 the divine ; and that every breach of a human 
 relation, as it implies a violation of the higher 
 law, so also is a hindrance and barrier to the
 
 354 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 perception of that higher law, the drawing a 
 veil between the spirit of a man and his God. 
 
 But, how did this idea of a human constitution 
 harmonize, or come into collision with those 
 attempts at universal empire, which appeared to 
 be the necessary consummation or termination of 
 the ancient polities ? The Asiatic monarchies 
 have been sometimes called patriarchal, and 
 beyond a doubt the patriarchal feeling the belief 
 that the king was a father did lie at the founda- 
 tion of them, and did constitute all that was 
 sound and healthful in the acts of the monarch, 
 or the reverence of the people. But if we are to 
 believe the Bible, the king is not merely a father, 
 he is something more ; his position has its ground 
 in the acknowledgment of an unseen absolute 
 Being, whose relations to men lead up to the 
 contemplation of Him in Himself. The effort 
 therefore to make the paternal relation all in all 
 is, according to this showing, a false effort, one 
 necessarily leading to false results. In this case 
 the result is very apparent. The power of the 
 monarch not having any safe ground to rest upon, 
 soon becomes reverenced merely as power. No 
 conscience of a law, which they ought to obey, 
 is called forth in the minds of the subjects or the 
 monarch j he may have kindly affections towards
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 355 
 
 them, which may be reciprocated, but that is all. 
 There is nothing to preserve the existence and 
 sanctity of the family relationship, upon which 
 the sovereign authority is built : nothing to 
 resist the tendency to natural worship, which 
 destroys it : nothing to hinder the monarch from 
 believing that he reigns by his own right. Hence, 
 these so called patriarchal governments, besides 
 that they awaken neither the energies of the 
 human intellect nor the perception of right and 
 wrong, soon are changed into the direct contraries 
 of that which they profess to be. The father 
 becomes an oppressor of his own people, a con- 
 queror of others ; all idea of the invisible is 
 swallowed up in a reverence for him. Ultimately 
 he is looked up to as the God of gods and the 
 Lord of lords. It is no false feeling which leads 
 us to rejoice when these patriarchal kings were 
 driven back by the little national bands at 
 Marathon or Plataea. No one who reveres invi- 
 sible more than visible strength, will restrain his 
 paeans at that discomfiture. It is a hateful and a 
 godless thing to check them, or to stir up our 
 sympathy on behalf of the Eastern tyrant. He 
 who cherishes such a habit of feeling, will not be 
 able to rejoice, whatever he may fancy, when 
 Pharaoh and his host sink like lead into the 
 waters, or, when Sisera with his six hundred
 
 356 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 chariots, is put to flight by the prophetess of 
 Israel. 
 
 If we look at the history of the Jews, we shall 
 find that their distinct polity was a witness, 
 through all the time it lasted, against these Babel 
 monarchies ; that in them the Jew saw that world 
 concentrated in its worst form, out of which the 
 covenant with the Abrahamic family, and with 
 the Israelitish nation, had delivered him. To 
 be like this world however, to share its splen- 
 dours, to adopt its worship, was the perpetual 
 tendency of his evil nature, a tendency punished 
 at length by subjection to its tyranny. But it 
 was not merely by punishment that this inclina- 
 tion was resisted. The wish for fellowship with 
 other nations was a true wish inverted ; the dream 
 of a human polity was one which the true God 
 had sent to the Jew, though he had been taught 
 how to realize it by an evil spirit. To bring out 
 the true idea of such a polity, to show how it lay 
 hid in all their own institutions, and how it would 
 at length be brought out into full manifestation, 
 this was the great office of the Hebrew Seer. 
 Side by side with that vision of a Babylonian 
 kingdom, which he taught his countrymen to 
 look upon as based upon a lying principle, the 
 contrary of their own, and as meant to be their 
 scourge if they adopted that principle into their
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 357 
 
 own conduct, rose up another vision of a king 
 who did not judge after the sight of his eyes or the 
 hearing of his ears, but who would rule men in 
 righteousness, and whom the heathen should 
 own. And as each new step in the history of 
 the covenant the first call of the patriarch which 
 made them a family their deliverance under 
 Moses which made them a nation was connected 
 with a fresh revelation of the Divine King through 
 these different relations, neither displacing the 
 other but adopting it into itself; this glorious 
 vision would have been utterly imperfect, if it 
 had not involved the prospect of such a discovery 
 as had not been vouchsafed to any former age. 
 The prophet, trained to deep awful meditation 
 in the law, the history of his land, but above all 
 in the mysterious services of the temple, was able 
 by degrees to see, as one sin after another, one 
 judgment after another showed him what were 
 the dangers and wants of his nation, that the 
 heir of David's throne must be a MAN, in as strict 
 a sense as David was, capable, not of less but of 
 infinitely greater sympathy with every form of 
 human sorrow than he had been capable of, and 
 yet that in Him, the worshipper must behold GOD 
 less limited by human conceptions, more in his 
 own absoluteness and awfulness, than even in the 
 burning bush, or amidst the lightnings of Sinai. 
 7
 
 858 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 How these two longings could be both accom- 
 plished ; how idolatry could be abolished by the 
 very manifestation which would bring the object 
 of worship more near to all human thoughts and 
 apprehensions ; how the belief of a Being nigh to 
 men, could be reconciled with that of one dwelling 
 in his own perfection ; how unceasing action on 
 behalf of his creatures consists with eternal rest; 
 how He could be satisfied with men, and yet be 
 incapable of satisfaction with anything less pure 
 and holy than himself; these were the awful 
 questions with which the prophet's soul was 
 exercised, and which were answered, not at once, 
 but in glimpses and flashes of light coming across 
 the darkness of his own soul, and of his country's 
 condition, which even now startle us as we read, 
 and make us feel that the words are meant to 
 guide us through our own confusions, and not to 
 give us notions or formulas for disguising them. 
 One part of his teaching must have been derived 
 from that polity, which was the great contrast 
 to his own. The universal monarchs, the Sen- 
 nacheribs and Nebuchadnezzars, were Men-gods. 
 They took to themselves the attributes of the 
 Invisible : and just in proportion as they did so, 
 just in proportion as they hid the view of any- 
 thing beyond humanity from the eyes of men, 
 just in that proportion did they become inhuman,
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 359 
 
 separate from their kind, dwelling apart in an 
 infernal solitude. 
 
 This black ground brought the perfectly clear 
 bright object more distinctly within their view ; 
 they felt that the God-man, in whom the fulness 
 and awfulness of Godhead should shine forth, 
 might therefore have perfect sympathy with the 
 poorest and most friendless, and might at the 
 same time enable them to enter into that tran- 
 'scendent region which their spirits had ever 
 been seeking and never been able to penetrate. 
 
 III. Now, when we open the first book of the 
 New Testament, the first words of it announce that 
 the subject of it is the Son of David and the Son of 
 Abraham. As we read on, we find that, according 
 to the belief of the writer, this person came into 
 the world to establish a Kingdom. Every act and 
 word which is recorded of Him, has reference to 
 this kingdom. A voice is heard crying in the 
 wilderness, that a kingdom is at hand. Jesus of 
 Nazareth comes preaching the Gospel of the 
 kingdom. He goes into a mount to deliver the 
 principles of his kingdom. He speaks parables 
 to the people, nearly every one of which is pre- 
 faced with, " The kingdom of heaven is like/ 5 
 He heals the sick : it is that the Jews may know 
 that his kingdom is come nigh to them. His
 
 360 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 private copferences with his disciples, just as 
 much as his public discourses, relate to the cha- 
 racter, the establishment, and the destinies of this 
 kingdom. He is arraigned before Pontius Pilate 
 for claiming to be a king. The superscription on 
 the cross proclaims him a king. 
 
 That there is a difference of character and style 
 in the different Evangelists, and that a hundred 
 different theories may be suggested as to their 
 origin, their coincidences, their varieties, no one 
 will deny. But that this characteristic is common 
 to them all, that the most sweeping doctrine 
 respecting the interpolations which have crept 
 into them could not eliminate it out of them, 
 that it would not be the least affected if the prin- 
 ciple and method of their formation were ascer- 
 tained, is equally true. The kingdom of Christ 
 is under one aspect or other the subject of them 
 all. But this peculiarity, it will be said, is easily 
 accounted for. The writers of the New Testa- 
 ment are Jews ; language of this kind is essen- 
 tially Jewish. It belonged to the idiosyncrasy 
 of the most strange and bigoted of all the peo- 
 ple of the earth. To a certain extent, the reader 
 will perceive, these statements exactly tally with 
 mine. I have endeavoured to show that the 
 habit of thinking, which this perpetual use of a
 
 OP THIS CONSTITUTION. 361 
 
 certain phrase indicates, is Jewish, and why it is 
 Jewish. But there is a long step from this 
 admission, to the one which is generally supposed 
 to be involved in it, that this phrase is merely con- 
 nected with particular accidents and circumstances, 
 and has nothing to do with that which is essential 
 and human. According to my view of the posi- 
 tion of the Israelite, he was taken out of all 
 nations expressly to be a witness of that which is 
 unchanging and permanent, of that which is not 
 modal, of the meaning of those relationships 
 which belonged to him in common with the 
 Pagans and with us, and which, as every Pagan 
 felt, and as every peasant among us feels, have a 
 meaning, and of the ground and purpose of national 
 institutions and of law, which the Pagans acknow- 
 ledged, and which most of us acknowledge, to be 
 the great distinction between men and brutes. 
 And since beneath these relationships, and this 
 national polity, the Pagans believed, and we 
 believe, that some other polity is lying, not limited 
 like the former, not exclusive like the latter, I 
 cannot see why we are to talk of the pre- 
 judices and idiosyncrasies of the Jew, because 
 he expresses this universal idea in the words 
 which are the simplest and the aptest to convey 
 it. That, say the Evangelists, which we have 
 been promised, that which we expect, is a King- 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 362 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 dom ; this Jesus of Nazareth we believe and affirm 
 to be the King. Either proposition may be denied. 
 It may be said, " Men are not in want of a spi- 
 ritual and universal society." It may be said, 
 " This person has not the credentials of the cha- 
 racter which he assumes." But it must, according 
 to all ordinary rules of criticism, be admitted that 
 this was the idea of the Evangelists, and we ought 
 surely, in studying an author, to seek that we 
 may enter into his idea, before we substitute for 
 it one of our own. 
 
 I am aware, however, that the objector would 
 be ready with an answer to this statement, and 
 that it is one which will derive no little counten- 
 ance from the opinions which are current among 
 religious people, and therefore will have no incon- 
 siderable weight with them. It will be said, {t We 
 have an excuse for this attempt to separate the 
 inward sense of the Gospels from their Jewish 
 accidents, in the inconsistency which we discover 
 in the use of those very phrases to which you 
 allude. Do not the Evangelists constantly repre- 
 sent this kingdom as if it were an outward and visi- 
 ble kingdom, just like that of David and Solomon, 
 nay, that very kingdom restored and extended ? 
 as something to supersede the government of 
 Herod, ultimately perhaps that of the Caesars ? 
 And do they not at the same time introduce such
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 363 
 
 words as these and attribute them to their Master. 
 " The kingdom of God cometh not with observa- 
 tion," " The kingdom of God is within you," 
 " My kingdom is not of this world/' words 
 which indicate that He taught (at least commonly) 
 another doctrine, which has become leavened with 
 these coarser and more sensual elements ? If so, 
 are we not justified in decomposing the mass and 
 taking out the pure ore ? 
 
 I think the reader, who has gone along with me 
 thus far, will not be much staggered by this argu- 
 ment. The kingdom of David, the kingdom 
 of Solomon, was distinguished from the kingdoms 
 of this world. It did not come with observation. 
 It stood upon the principle which other kingdoms 
 set at nought the principle that the visible king 
 is the type of the invisible, that he reigns in 
 virtue of a covenant between the invisible king 
 and the nation, that he is subject to a divine 
 law. This principle, which was practically 
 denied in all the great nations of the earth 
 denied then especially and emphatically when 
 they became kingdoms (the ordinary, apparently 
 the necessary, consummation of them all,) the 
 Israelitish kingdom existed to enforce. All 
 through the history, the tendency of the nation 
 and its kings to set at nought the constitutional 
 principle, to forget the covenant, is manifest ; but
 
 364 ' THE SCRIPTURAL, VIEW 
 
 this very tendency proved the truth of the idea 
 against which it warred. If this be so, what 
 contradiction was it to affirm that the new king- 
 dom was the kingdom promised to David, the 
 kingdom of his son, and yet that it was in the 
 highest sense a kingdom not to be observed by 
 the outward eye, a kingdom within, a kingdom 
 not of this world ? 
 
 Do I mean that there was nothing startling 
 in such announcements to all or to most of 
 those who first heard them ? If I did, I should 
 be rejecting the express testimony of the Evan- 
 gelists. They tell us that the leading mem- 
 bers of the Jewish commonwealth, and all the 
 most admired and popular sects which divided 
 it, were continually perplexed and outraged by 
 this language. But they tell us also, that these 
 same persons had lost the family and national cha- 
 racter of Hebrews, that they perverted the express 
 commands of God respecting the honouring of 
 fathers and mothers, that they had no feelings of 
 fellowship with Israelites as Israelites, but glorified 
 themselves in their difference from the rest of their 
 countrymen either on the score of righteousness 
 or of wisdom ; that individual self-exaltation, on 
 one or the other of these grounds, was their dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic. They tell us, in strict 
 consistency with these observations, that these men
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 365 
 
 were never so scandalized as when Jesus spoke 
 of his Father, of his coming to do his will, of his 
 knowing Him, and being one with Him. The idea 
 of a relation between men and their Maker, which 
 was the idea implied in the Abrahamic covenant, 
 had wholly departed from them ; and therefore, 
 the hope of a complete manifestation of the ground 
 upon which this relationship rested, the hope 
 which had sustained every suffering Israelite in 
 every age which was expressly the hope of Israel 
 could not be cherished by them. Their idea of 
 God was the heathen one of a Being sitting in 
 the clouds or diffused through the universe, 
 entirely separated from his worshippers, incapable 
 of speaking through men to men, only declaring 
 himself by signs, like those of the red sky in 
 the morning and the lowering sky in the evening. 
 And therefore the king they expected was the 
 counterpart of the absolute Emperor. It is true 
 that the awful words, " We have no king but 
 Caesar," would not have been uttered at any other 
 moment than the one which called them forth ; 
 that it required the most intense hatred and all 
 the other passions which then had possession of 
 their hearts, to induce the priests formally to 
 abandon the dream of Jewish supremacy ; and 
 that they probably reserved to themselves a right 
 of maintaining one doctrine in the schools another 
 
 R3
 
 366 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 in the judgment-hall. Still these words ex- 
 pressed the most inward thought of the speakers ; 
 the king of Abraham's seed whom they wanted 
 was a Caesar and nothing else. 
 
 But those who amidst much confusion and 
 ignorance had really claimed their position as 
 members of a nation in covenant with God ; 
 those who had walked in the ordinances of 
 the Lord blameless, finding in every symbol 
 of the Divine Presence, which seemed to the 
 world a phantom, the deepest reality, and in 
 what the world called realities, the merest phan- 
 toms ; those who were conscious of their own 
 darkness, but rested upon the promise of a light 
 which should arise and shine upon then* land ; 
 those who, uniting to public shame a miserable 
 sense of moral evil, looked for a deliverer from 
 both at once ; those to whom the sight of the Ro- 
 man soldier was oppressive, not because it reminded 
 them of their tribute, but because it told them that 
 the national life was gone, or lasted only in their 
 prayers ; those who under the fig-tree had besought 
 God that the clouds which hid his countenance 
 from them might be dispersed, that He would re- 
 member the poor, and that men might not have 
 the upper hand : these, whether or no they could 
 reconcile in their understandings the idea of a king- 
 dom which should rule over all with one which
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 367 
 
 should be in their hearts, at least acknowledged in- 
 wardly that only one to which both descriptions 
 were applicable, could meet the cries which they 
 had sent up to heaven. And whatever they saw of 
 Him who was proclaimed the king, whatever they 
 heard Him speak, tended to bring these thoughts 
 into harmony, or, at all events, to make them feel 
 that each alike was necessary. He exercised power 
 over the elements and over the secret functions of 
 the human body, (of course I am assuming the 
 story of the Evangelists, my object being to shew 
 that the different parts of it are thoroughly con- 
 sistent, when they are viewed in reference to one 
 leading idea,) but this power is exercised for the 
 sake of timid fishermen, of paralytics and lepers. 
 He declares that his kingdom is like unto a grain 
 of mustard-seed, which is indeed the least of all 
 seeds, but which becomes a tree wherein the fowls 
 of the air lodge ; He declares also that this seed 
 of the kingdom is scattered over different soils, 
 and that the right soil for it is an honest heart. 
 His acts produce the most obvious outward effects, 
 yet their main effect is to carry the persuasion 
 home to the mind of the prepared observer, that a 
 communion had been opened between the visible 
 and the invisible world, and that the one was 
 under the power of the other. His words were 
 addressed to Israelites as the children of the cove- 
 R 4
 
 368 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 nant, yet every one of them tended to awaken in 
 these Israelites a sense of humanity, a feeling that to 
 be Israelites they must be more. And all this gene- 
 ral language was preparatory to the discoveries 
 which were made in that last supper, when, hav- 
 ing loved his own who were in the world, He loved 
 them unto the end, to the announcements that 
 they were all united in Him, as the branch is 
 united to the vine that there was a still more 
 wonderful union between Him and his Father, to 
 the knowledge of which they might through this 
 union attain and that a Spirit would come to 
 dwell with them and to testify of Him and of the 
 Father. All which discourses to men are gathered 
 up in the amazing prayer, (( That they all may be 
 one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 
 they may be one in us." 
 
 Either those words contain the essence and 
 meaning of the whole history, or that history 
 must be rejected as being from first to last the 
 wickedest lie and the most awful blasphemy ever 
 palmed upon the world. And if they do con- 
 tain the meaning of it, that meaning must be 
 embodied in acts. The Evangelists therefore go 
 on to record in words perfectly calm and simple, 
 the death of their master and his resurrection. 
 As events they are related ; no comment is made 
 upon them ; few hints are given of any effects to
 
 OP THIS CONSTITUTION. 369 
 
 follow from them. We are made to feel by the 
 quiet accurate detail, " He certainly died, who, as 
 we believed, was the Son of God, and the King 
 of Israel ; He actually rose with his body, and 
 came among us who knew Him, and spake and 
 ate with us : this is the accomplishment of the 
 union between heaven and earth ; it is no longer 
 a word, it is a fact." And of this fact, the risen 
 Lord tells his Apostles that they are to go into 
 the world and testify ; nor merely to testify of it, 
 but to adopt men into a society grounded upon 
 the accomplishment of it. In connection with 
 that command, and as the ultimate basis of the 
 universal society, a NAME is proclaimed, in which 
 the name that had been revealed to Abraham, and 
 that more awful one which Moses heard in the 
 bush, are combined and reconciled. 
 
 To a person who has contemplated the Gospel 
 merely as the case of certain great doctrines 
 or fine moralities, the Acts of the Apostles must 
 be an utterly unintelligible book. For in the 
 specimens of the Apostles' preaching which it 
 gives us, there are comparatively few references 
 to the discourses or the parables of our Lord. 
 They dwell mainly upon the great acts of death 
 and resurrection as evidences that Jesus was the 
 king, as expounding and consummating the pre- 
 vious history of the Jewish people, as justifying 
 
 R5
 
 370 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 and realizing the truth which worked in the 
 minds of the heathen, " that we are his offspring." 
 On the other hand a person who really looks 
 npon the Bible as the history of the establish- 
 ment of a universal and spiritual kingdom, of that 
 kingdom which God had ever intended for men, 
 and of which the universal kingdom then existing 
 in the world was the formal opposite, will find in 
 this book exactly that without which all the former 
 records would be unmeaning. 
 
 The narrator of such transcendant events, as 
 the ascension of the Son of Man into the invisible 
 glory, or the descent of the Spirit to take possession 
 of the feelings, thoughts, utterances of mortal 
 men, might have been expected to stand still and 
 wonder at that which with so entire a belief he 
 was recording. But no he looks upon these 
 events as the necessary consummation of all that 
 went before, the necessary foundations of the ex- 
 istence of the Church. And therefore, he can 
 quietly relate any other circumstances, however 
 apparently disproportionate, which were de- 
 manded for the outward manifestation and de- 
 velopment of that Church, such as the meeting of 
 the Apostles in the upper room, and the comple- 
 tion of their number. If the foundation of this 
 kingdom were the end of all the purposes of 
 God, if it were the kingdom of God among
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 371 
 
 men, the human conditions of it could be no 
 more passed over than the divine ; it was as 
 needful to prove that the ladder had its foot 
 upon earth, as that it had come down out of 
 heaven. As we proceed, we find every new step of 
 the story leading us to notice the Church as the 
 child which the Jewish polity had for so many 
 ages been carrying in its womb. Its filial relation 
 is first demonstrated, it is shewn to be an Israel- 
 itic not a mundane commonwealth; then it is 
 shewn, that though not mundane, it is essentially 
 human, containing a principle of expansion greater 
 than that which dwelt in the Roman empire. 
 
 And here lies the apparent contradiction, the 
 real harmony of those two aspects in which 
 this kingdom was contemplated by the Apostles 
 of the circumcision and by St. Paul. The one 
 witnessed for the continuity of it, the other for 
 its freedom from all national exclusions. These, 
 we may believe, were their respective offices. 
 Yet, as each fulfilled the one, he was in fact 
 teaching the other truth most effectually. St. 
 Peter and St. James were maintaining the univer- 
 sality of the Church, while they were contending 
 for its Jewish character and derivation. St. Paul 
 was maintaining the national covenant, while he 
 was telling the Gentiles, that if they were circum- 
 cised Christ would profit them nothing. Take
 
 372 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 away the first testimony and the Church becomes 
 an earthly not a spiritual commonwealth, and 
 therefore subject to earthly limitations ; take away 
 the second, and the promise to Abraham is unful- 
 filled. In another sense, as the canon of Scrip- 
 ture shows, St. Paul was more directly carrying 
 out the spirit of the Jewish distinction, by up- 
 holding the distinctness of ecclesiastical communi- 
 ties according to tribes and countries than the 
 Apostles of Jerusalem ; and they were carrying 
 out the idea of the universality of the Church 
 more than he did by addressing the members of it 
 as of an entire community dispersed through differ- 
 ent parts of the world. 
 
 But we must not forget, that while this universal 
 society, according to the historical conception of it, 
 grew out of the Jewish family and nation, it is, ac- 
 cording to the theological conception of it, the root 
 of both. " That/' says Aristotle l , " which is first 
 as cause is last in discovery." And this beauti- 
 ful formula is translated into life and reality in the 
 letter to the Ephesians, when St. Paul tells them 
 that they were created in Christ before all worlds, 
 and when he speaks of the transcendant economy 
 as being gradually revealed to the Apostles and 
 Prophets by the Spirit. In this passage it seems 
 to me, lies the key to the whole character of the 
 
 1 ri irp&Tov airtov ta\a.Tov iv ry tvpiait.
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 373 
 
 dispensation, as well as of the books in which it 
 is set forth. If the Gospel be the revelation or 
 unveiling of a mystery hidden from ages and 
 generations ; if this mystery be the true consti- 
 tution of humanity in Christ, so that a man 
 believes and acts a lie who does not claim for 
 himself union with Christ, we can understand 
 why the deepest writings of the New Testament, 
 instead of being digests of doctrine, are epistles, 
 explaining to those who had been admitted intc 
 the Church of Christ their own position, bringing 
 out that side of it which had reference to the cir- 
 cumstances in which they were placed, or to their 
 most besetting sins, and showing what life was in 
 consistency, what life at variance with it. We can 
 understand why the opening of the first of these 
 epistles, of the one which has been supposed to 
 be most like a systematic treatise, announces that 
 the Gospel is concerning Jesus Christ, who was 
 made of the seed of David according to the flesh, 
 and marked out as the Son of God with power, 
 according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resur- 
 rection of the dead. The fact of a union between 
 the Godhead and humanity is thus set forth 
 as the one which the Apostle felt himself ap- 
 pointed to proclaim, which was the ground of the 
 message to the Gentiles, and in which all ideas of 
 reconciliation, of a divine life, justification by faith,
 
 374 THE SCRIPTURAL, VIEW 
 
 sanctification by the Spirit, were implicitly con- 
 tained. We can understand why the great fight 
 of the Apostle with the Corinthians should be 
 because they exalted certain notions, and certain 
 men as the representatives of these notions, into 
 the place of Him who was the Lord of their fellow- 
 ship, and why pride, sensuality, contempt of 
 others, abuse of ordinances should be necesssarily 
 consequent upon that sin. We can understand 
 why St. Paul curses with such vehemence those 
 false teachers who had denied the Galatians the 
 right to call themselves children of God in Christ 
 in virtue of the new covenant, and had sent them 
 back to the old. We may perceive that those 
 wonderful words in which he addresses the 
 Ephesians, when he tells them that they were 
 sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, are 
 just as real and practical as the exhortations at the 
 end of the same letter, respecting the duties of 
 husbands and wives, fathers and children, and 
 that the second are involved in the first. We may 
 see what connexion there is between the entreaty 
 to the Colossians not to stoop to will worship and 
 the service of Angels, and the assertion of the 
 fact, that Christ was in them the hope of glory, and 
 that He is the head in whom dwell all the riches 
 of wisdom and knowledge. We may see how 
 possible it was for some of the Philippian Church
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 375 
 
 to be enemies to the cross of Christ, their god 
 their belly, their glory their shame, not because 
 they had not been admitted to the privileges of 
 being members of Christ, but because they had 
 not pressed forward to realize their claim. We 
 may enter a little into the idea of the letter 
 to the Thessalonians, however we may differ 
 about the particular time or times of its accom- 
 plishment, that there must be a coeval mani- 
 festation of the mystery of iniquity and of 
 the mystery of godliness ; that the two kingdoms 
 being always in conflict, at certain great crises 
 of the world are brought into direct and open 
 collision. We shall not need any evidence of the 
 Apostolical derivation of the epistle to the 
 Hebrews, to convince us, that it unfolds the 
 relations between the national and the universal 
 dispensation, between that which was the shadow 
 and that which was the substance of a Divine 
 humanity ; between that which enabled the wor- 
 shipper to expect a perfect admission into the 
 Divine presence, and that which admitted him to 
 it; between that which revealed God to him as 
 the enemy of evil, and that which revealed Him 
 as the conqueror of it. Nor is it inconsistent with 
 any previous intimation which has been given us, 
 that the writer of this epistle should in every part 
 of it represent the sin of men as consisting in
 
 376 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW 
 
 their unbelief of the blessings into which they are 
 received at each stage of the Divine manifestation, 
 and that he should with solemn earnestness, mixed 
 with warnings of a fearful and hopeless apostacy, 
 urge those whom he is addressing to believe that 
 the position into which they had been brought 
 was that after which all former ages had been 
 aspiring, and as such, to claim it. From these 
 exhortations and admonitions, the transition is 
 easy to those Catholic epistles which some have 
 found it so hard to reconcile with the doctrine of 
 St. Paul. And doubtless, if the faith which the 
 epistle to the Romans and the epistle to the 
 Hebrews adjured men, by such grand promises 
 and dire threats, to exercise, were not faith in a 
 living Being, who had adopted men into fellowship 
 with himself on purpose that being righteous by 
 virtue of that union they might do righteous acts, 
 that having claimed their peace as members of a 
 body the Spirit might work in them to will and 
 to do of his good pleasure, the assertions that 
 faith without works saves, and that faith without 
 works cannot save, are hopelessly irreconcileable. 
 But if the idea of St. Paul, as much as of St. 
 James, be, that all worth may be attributed to 
 faith, in so far forth as it unites us to an object 
 and raises us out of ourselves no worth at all, 
 so far as it is contemplated simply as a property
 
 OF THIS CONSTITUTION. 377 
 
 in ourselves ; if this be the very principle which 
 the whole Bible is developing, one does not well 
 see what either position would be good for, if the 
 other were wanting. If our Lord came among 
 men that He might bring them into a kingdom of 
 righteousness, peace, and joy, because a kingdom 
 grounded upon fellowship with a righteous and per- 
 fect Being, the notion that that righteousness can 
 ever belong to any man in himself, and the notion 
 that every one is not to exhibit the fruits of it in 
 himself would seem to be equally contradictions. 
 And therefore I believe without this consideration 
 we shall be as much puzzled by the sketch of 
 a Christian man's life, discipline, and conflicts, 
 in the epistle of St. Peter, and by the doctrine of 
 St. John, that love is the consummation of all 
 God's revelations and all man's strivings, as by 
 any former part of the book. For that men are 
 not to gain a kingdom hereafter, but are piit in 
 possession of it now, and that through their chas- 
 tisements and the oppositions of tneir evil nature 
 they are to learn its character and enter into its pri- 
 vileges, is surely taught in every verse of the one ; 
 and that love has been manifested unto men, that 
 they have been brought into fellowship with it, 
 that by that fellowship they may rise to the frui- 
 tion of it, and that this fellowship is for us as mem- 
 bers of a family, so that he who loveth God must
 
 378 THE SCRIPTURAL VIEW, &C. 
 
 love his brother also, is affirmed again and again 
 in express words of the other. With such thoughts 
 in our mind, I believe we may venture, with hope of 
 the deepest instruction, upon the study of the 
 last book in the Bible. For though we may not 
 be able to determine which of all the chronologi- 
 cal speculations respecting it is the least untenable, 
 though we may not decide confidently whether it 
 speaks to us of the future or of the past, whe- 
 ther it describes a conflict of principles or of per- 
 sons, of this we shall have no doubt, that it does 
 exhibit at one period or through all periods a real 
 kingdom of heaven upon earth, a kingdom of 
 which the principle must be ever the same, a 
 kingdom to which all kingdoms are meant to be hi 
 subjection ; a kingdom which is maintaining itself 
 against an opposing tyranny, whereof the ultimate 
 law is brute force or unalloyed selfishness ; a king- 
 dom which must prevail because it rests upon a 
 name which expresses the perfect Love, the ineffable 
 Unity, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SIGNS OF A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 
 
 WE have observed the traces of a spiritual con- 
 stitution for mankind. We have observed that 
 the two parts of this constitution, which are 
 united by family relationships and by locality, 
 depend upon a third part which is universal. 
 We have observed that there are two possible 
 forms of a universal society, one of which is 
 destructive of the family and national principle, 
 the other the expansion of them. The first of 
 these is that which in Scripture is called THIS 
 WORLD, the latter is that which in Scripture is 
 called THE CHURCH. We have observed that the 
 principles of the world exist in the heart of every 
 family and of every nation; that they are pre- 
 cisely the natural tendencies and inclinations of 
 men ; that they are always threatening to be- 
 come predominant ; that when they become pre- 
 dominant there ceases to be any recognition of 
 men as related to a Being above them, any
 
 380 SIGNS OF A 
 
 recognition of them as possessing a common 
 humanity. The other body, therefore, the Church, 
 being especially the witness for these facts which 
 it is natural to us to deny, must be a distinct 
 body. In losing its distinctness it loses its mean- 
 ing, loses to all intents and purposes, though the 
 words may at first sound paradoxical, its univer- 
 sality. The question then which we have to 
 examine is, are there any signs in the present day 
 of the existence of a spiritual and universal body 
 upon the earth? Do these signs identify that 
 body with the one spoken of in Scripture ? Are 
 they an effectual witness against the world ? 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 THAT there has existed for the last 1800 years, a 
 certain rite called BAPTISM ; that it is not de- 
 rived from the national customs of any of the 
 people among whom it is found ; that different 
 tribes of the most different origin and character 
 adopted it, and when they had received it be- 
 lieved themselves to be members of a common 
 society; that this society was supposed to be 
 connected with an invisible world, and with a 
 certain worship and government ; that an im- 
 mense proportion of all the children in Europe
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION 1 . 381 
 
 are admitted very shortly after their birth to 
 the rite; that it is generally performed by a 
 peculiar class of functionaries these are facts, 
 which it is not necessary to establish by any 
 proof. The only question is whether these facts 
 have a meaning and what that meaning is. 
 
 The idea of the Scriptures, so far as we have 
 been able to trace it, is that Jesus Christ came 
 upon earth to reveal a kingdom, which kingdom 
 is founded upon a union established in his person 
 between man and God between the visible and 
 invisible world and ultimately upon a revelation 
 of the divine NAME. If then the setting up of 
 this kingdom, and the adoption of men into it, 
 be not connected in the New Testament with the 
 rite of baptism, we may be quite sure that the 
 fact we have just noticed, let its import be what 
 it may, does not concern us. Even though baptism 
 were enjoined as a rite by our Lord Himself, yet 
 if it were appointed in such terms as leave us at 
 liberty to suppose that it was merely accidental 
 to the general purposes of his advent, we cannot 
 prove an identity between the universal society 
 which acknowledges it now and the one which 
 He founded. 
 
 Let us then turn to the Gospels that we may 
 see there how far this is the case. One of the 
 first events announced there is contained in these
 
 382 SIGNS OP A 
 
 words : " In those days came John the Baptist, 
 preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying : 
 Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 
 Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, 
 and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing 
 their sins." This narrative is at least singular: 
 baptism is connected with a spiritual act, that 
 of repentance ; with a spiritual promise, that of 
 remission ; with the announcement of a kingdom ; 
 with an intimation that that kingdom should not 
 merely be composed of the children of Abraham. 
 Supposing it were, as some imagine, a ceremony 
 not known until that time, then it was intro- 
 duced at the very moment that the kingdom of 
 heaven was to begin; supposing it had been 
 practised, as others say, at the reception of Gentile 
 converts to the privileges of the outer court, 
 then the administration of it to Jews would 
 appear to be a most significant intimation, that 
 they were henceforth to take their stand upon a 
 universal human ground. This baptism then 
 was the preparation for the gospel. It may, 
 however, for ought that appears at present, 
 have been only a preparation. But Jesus Him- 
 self descends into the water, and as He comes 
 out of it, a voice from heaven proclaims Him 
 the well beloved Son, and the Spirit descends 
 upon Him in a bodily shape. The announcement 
 7
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 383 
 
 then that the Divine man, the king of men, had 
 really appeared, was, according to the Gospels, 
 connected with Baptism. And this same Baptism 
 they speak of as the beginning of our Lord's 
 public ministry, and of all the acts by which 
 his descent from above was attested. Yet this 
 might have been necessary to mark the leader ; it 
 need not have any application to his disciples. 
 But Jesus preached, saying, " Repent, the king- 
 dom of heaven is at hand " he appoints Apos- 
 tles to go and declare that kingdom ; and these 
 Apostles baptize. The nature of their message 
 may denote, however, that they were only con- 
 tinuing the dispensation of John, that they had 
 nothing directly to do with that higher Baptism 
 of the Holy Ghost and of fire, which John had 
 declared would supersede his own. Our Lord 
 has a conversation with Nicodemus in which He 
 tells him that he must be born again if he would 
 see the kingdom of heaven ; because that which is 
 born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
 of the Spirit is spirit ; because it was impossible 
 for the fleshly man to understand even earthly 
 things, much more these heavenly things, which 
 He alone could reveal who had come down from 
 heaven, and was in heaven. And this declaration 
 of the transcendental character of the new king- 
 dom is joined to the words, " Except a man be
 
 384 SIGNS OF A 
 
 born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven." Yet perhaps, even 
 here there may be a reference rather to the spi- 
 ritual eye in man, which this ordinance, like those 
 earlier ordinances of the Jews, might be the 
 means of opening, than to the actual gift of God's 
 Spirit which was promised ; for it is said expressly, 
 " The Spirit was not yet given, because that 
 Jesus was not yet glorified/' Our Lord appears 
 to his disciples after He had risen from the dead, 
 and He says, te All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and earth, go therefore, and preach the 
 gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." This language is certainly strange ; for 
 it seems as if it could only look forward to 
 the establishment of a spiritual kingdom. But 
 one other point of evidence is still wanting. Did 
 the Apostles, after the glorification of Christ, after 
 the descent of the Holy Ghost, still baptize with 
 water ? St. Peter stood in the midst of the disci- 
 ples, and said to the Jews, " God hath made this 
 Jesus whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ ; 
 repent therefore, and be baptized and ye shall 
 receive the gift of the Holy Ghost ;" and the same 
 day three thousand were baptized. This evi- 
 dence may perhaps be enough to show that the 
 writers of the Gospels and of the Acts, believed
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 385 
 
 this to be the sign of admission into Christ's 
 spiritual and universal kingdom, and conse- 
 quently, that every person receiving that sign was, 
 ipso facto, a member of that kingdom. As the 
 son or servant of the Roman commonwealth 
 entered so soon as he was manumitted upon the 
 rights of a citizen, as all immunities and respon- 
 sibilities appertaining to this character from that 
 hour became his, the young Christian convert who 
 had derived his instruction from the Scriptures 
 could not doubt, that from the time of his baptism 
 he was free of that brotherhood of which his 
 Lord was the head. He could not doubt that 
 whatever language, be it as lofty as it might, 
 described that brotherhood, described his state; 
 that if Christ came to make men sons of God, 
 he was a son of God ; if He came to make them 
 members of his own body, he was a member 
 of that body ; if He came to endue men with his 
 Spirit, that Spirit was given to him. His baptism 
 said to him, This is your position ; according to 
 the conditions of it you are to live. It will not 
 be an easy life. It will be one of perpetual con- 
 flict. You will have a battle not with flesh and 
 blood only, but with principalities and powers, with 
 the rulers of spiritual wickedness in high places. 
 But understand the nature of the battle. Your foes 
 are not hindering you from obtaining a blessing ; 
 VOL. i. s
 
 386 SIGNS OF A 
 
 they are hindering you from entering into the 
 fruition of one that has been obtained for you ; 
 they will laugh at you for pretending that it is 
 yours ; they will tell you that you must not claim it 
 But in the strength of this covenant you must 
 claim it ; otherwise your life will be a lie. I ask 
 any one calmly to read the Epistles, and tell me 
 whether any other sense than this could be put 
 upon Baptism by those who exhorted men, 
 because they were baptized, to count themselves 
 dead unto sin and alive unto God ; by those 
 who addressed men, the majority of whom they did 
 not know personally, some of whom they did know 
 to be inconsistent and unholy, as being in Christ, 
 elect, children of God ; by those who conjured 
 their disciples not to doubt, not to disbelieve, that 
 they had been admitted into the communion of 
 saints, and told them they would sink into apos- 
 tasy if they did ? But then I must ask also, 
 why, if the kingdom of Christ was declared to 
 be an everlasting kingdom, and this sign was 
 fixed as the admission of men into it at the first, 
 and this sign still exists among us, all we who 
 have received it are not in the same position, have 
 not the same privileges, are not under the same 
 responsibilities, as those who lived eighteen hun- 
 dred years ago ? I ask whether Baptism be not the 
 sign of a spiritual and universal kingdom ?
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 387 
 
 OBJECTIONS. 1. The Quaker. 
 
 To this question various answers are given. I 
 will consider first that of the Quakers. 
 
 I. It seems to them utterly incredible and 
 monstrous, that a spiritual fact or operation 
 should be denoted by a visible sign. " Either 
 men are livingly united to the Divine Word, or 
 they are not : if they are the sign is useless ; if 
 they are not, it is false. If Christ's kingdom 
 depend upon these outward ceremonies, wherein 
 does it differ from the Jewish ? What do the 
 words, that John came baptizing with water but 
 Christ with the Spirit and fire, mean, if both 
 baptisms are equally outward ?" 
 
 Positions of this kind are so self-evident to 
 the Quaker, that Scripture cannot be suffered to 
 contradict them. It is in vain to allege texts 
 and commandments. These are primary truths 
 which ride over them all, and determine the 
 interpretation of them. If the Apostles did act 
 in opposition to them, the Apostles showed that 
 they were still ignorant and Judaical. Be it so 
 if these notions are good for anything, if they do 
 not contradict the leading positive truths of 
 Quakerism, let them be upholden at all risks. 
 But that is the point I wish to examine. 
 
 We have seen that Fox did not consider it 
 s2
 
 388 SIGNS OP A 
 
 the work of the Gospel to reveal the fact of men's 
 relation to the Divine Word ; that fact, he be- 
 lieved, was intimated both to Heathens and to 
 Jews. To the latter it was intimated by a sign. 
 The Invisible Teacher by this means declared to 
 the children of Abraham that there was a union 
 between themselves and Him, warned them of 
 the tendency there was in their fleshly natures to 
 separate from Him, promised to uphold them 
 against that tendency. 
 
 This, I say, Fox acknowledged to be the divine 
 method in the Jewish dispensation. He never 
 pretended that the union which was made known 
 to the Jew was a material union ; if it had 
 been, there would have been no sign, for there 
 would have been nothing to signify. He never 
 pretended that it was a variable union, deriving 
 its existence from certain feelings in the minds 
 of the human creatures who shared in it ; if it 
 had been there could have been no sign, for the 
 thing to be signified would have been different 
 each day. So that the appropriateness the pos- 
 sibility, if I may so speak, of this method, arose 
 from the fact that a certain spiritual and per- 
 manent relation was to be made known by it. 
 And yet the reason, according to the Quaker, 
 why this method should be abandoned, is this 
 and this only, that the dispensation of the Gospel
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 389 
 
 has a spiritual and permanent, not a material and 
 transitory, character ! Surely this is an incon- 
 sistency which needs to be justified by something 
 else than vague declamations about carnal prac- 
 tices, and angry denunciations against the whole 
 of Christendom, from the Apostles downwards, for 
 being guilty of them. 
 
 " But it is a false thing to give the sign to any 
 one who has not the reality." What is meant by 
 the words, has not the reality ? Is it meant that 
 the relation is not real ? If so, Fox was wrong, 
 for he affirmed that it was real, for all men. Or 
 does the word real refer to the feeling and ac- 
 knowledgment of the relation ? Then this pro- 
 position affirms, that it is false to tell a man a 
 truth because he does not believe it. Unques- 
 tionably we are guilty of that falsehood ; the 
 whole Old Testament dispensation was also 
 guilty of it ; Fox and the Quakers themselves 
 are guilty of it. 
 
 " But the sign is useless to a man who is truly 
 united to the Divine Word." There are two 
 opinions implied in this language, both of great 
 importance, both very illustrative of Quaker 
 feeling and history. One is that it is nothing 
 to a man that a thing is true, true in itself, true 
 universally, provided he feels it to be true for him ; 
 the other is that union with the Divine Word is 
 s3
 
 390 SIGNS OP A 
 
 all which men require. Now every earnest word 
 which Fox spoke was a testimony against both 
 these notions ; first, (as I have shewn so often,) the 
 truth of the thing was the ground upon which he 
 exhorted men to place their feeling of it ; secondly, 
 he declared that union to the Divine Word did 
 not satisfy those Heathens or Jews who perceived 
 it, but that it made them long for something 
 more, for a kingdom of Heaven. See here an 
 evidence for Baptism, which all the history of 
 Christendom could not have afforded, frankly 
 offered to us by those who reject it. Their whole 
 preaching is against Judaism, against the old 
 covenant ; and yet they are thrown back upon 
 Judaism, they cannot rise above the great doctrine 
 of the old covenant. But neither can they keep 
 that doctrine ; they cannot keep the faith that 
 we are related to the Divine Word ; they can 
 only substitute for it certain individual feelings 
 and impressions. 
 
 And now, having this thought on our minds, 
 let us compare for an instant our interpretation 
 of the words of John the Baptist with theirs. 
 We say that John came baptizing with water 
 unto repentance, for the remission of sins. Here 
 lay the spiritual meaning of his Baptism. Our 
 Lord's baptism, we maintain, includes this 
 meaning, but it has a deeper one. His baptism
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 391 
 
 is not only unto repentance ; not only intimates 
 that the heart has turned to God, and so turning 
 is delivered from sin : it gives the spirit and 
 power whence repentance and every other right 
 act must flow ; it brings the subject of it under 
 the discipline of that purifying fire whereby the 
 old and evil nature is to be consumed. This mean- 
 ing of the passage seems to be literal enough, and 
 it precisely accords with the promises and anti- 
 cipations of the prophets, with the expositions 
 and retrospections of the Apostles. How does the 
 Quaker improve upon it ? He makes it the great 
 characteristic of John, that he did baptize with 
 water, and of Christ, that He would not baptize 
 with water. So that the voice crying in the wilder- 
 ness said this, " Hear, oh Israel ! rejoice, oh ye 
 Gentiles ! the glorious time is at hand, which 
 your fathers expected, which the whole universe 
 has been groaning for the time when signs are to 
 be abolished. The great Prince and Deliverer 
 is at hand, who will cause that the things of earth 
 shall be no longer pledges and sacraments of a 
 union with Heaven ! This is the consummation 
 of all the hopes of mankind, this is what is meant 
 by the Tabernacle of God being with men ; by his 
 dwelling with them, and their being his people, 
 and his being their God." 
 
 s4
 
 392 SIGNS OF A 
 
 2. The Anti-pasdobaptist. 
 
 II. The Anti-paedobaptist is, in many respects, 
 strongly contrasted with the Quaker. He attaches a 
 very great value to the baptismal sign. He believes 
 that it is intended to be the witness of a spiritual 
 kingdom. In general, he is remarkable for hold- 
 ing the belief firmly, in which the Quaker is 
 deficient, that men are chosen by God to their 
 place in the Divine Economy. But he conceives 
 that the admission of those who have no spiritual 
 consciousness or spiritual capacity to this ordi- 
 nance, is destructive of its meaning ; as it exists 
 in modern Europe it has nothing to do with the 
 Kingdom of Christ. 
 
 I should be very careful to answer this objec- 
 tion, for it certainly affects the whole of my 
 argument, if it had not been already so fully con- 
 sidered. The issue to be tried between us and 
 the Anabaptists is not whether the existence of 
 such and such a sign indicates the existence of a 
 kingdom, but what that kingdom is which it 
 should indicate. I have maintained, upon the 
 authority of Scripture, that the Catholic Church 
 is emphatically a kingdom for mankind, a king- 
 dom grounded upon the union which has been 
 established in Christ between God and man. I 
 have maintained that it grew out of a family and
 
 SPIRITUAL, CONSTITUTION. 393 
 
 a nation, of which social states it proved itself 
 to be the proper and only foundation. Supposing 
 this notion to be altogether false, it may be most 
 reasonable to say, that a child, an embryo man, 
 ought to be treated as if he were not a citizen of 
 this kingdom. To one who believes it true, such 
 a doctrine must seem absolutely monstrous. Let 
 us take a member of either of the classes out of 
 which the early Church was formed. First let 
 him be a Heathen. He has been struck with the 
 threatenings of coming judgments which were 
 visible in the sins of the Roman empire, in the 
 divorces, adulteries, incests, parricides of its 
 most conspicuous members. He has felt how 
 little the idea of the gods which was received 
 among his countrymen, tended to repress such 
 atrocities. The preaching of some Christian 
 Apostle has awakened him to the fact, that the 
 evil nature from which all these crimes have pro- 
 ceeded is in himself. He hears of a deliverance out 
 of that nature. He hears that God has revealed 
 himself to men as the enemy of all unrighteous- 
 ness ; that He has also revealed himself to men 
 as their Father ; that his Son has come down to 
 dwell among men ; that He has made himself the 
 brother of our race ; that He has claimed the 
 members of it for members of his own body ; 
 that He has given them a sign of admission into 
 s 5
 
 394 SIGNS OF A 
 
 it ; that He has promised them his Spirit. Could 
 he who received this joyful message, and acted 
 upon the command which was involved in it, 
 doubt that he was received into the true human 
 family, that he was taken out of a hateful, 
 anomalous, inhuman world ? Could he then 
 dare to say, " This child whom I have begotten 
 belongs to this inhuman anomalous world ; he 
 has a human form and countenance that form 
 and countenance which Christ bore yet the 
 accursed nature which I have renounced is his 
 proper, his appointed master ; the evil society 
 out of which I have fled, is his home ; to the evil 
 spirit who I believe has infused his leaven into 
 that nature and that society, I leave him." I am 
 not now reasoning with a person who does not 
 attach any high meaning to Baptism, but with 
 one who believes it to be really the sign of the 
 redeemed covenant family. I ask such a person to 
 consider, what less than this a Christian convert 
 could suppose to be signified, by any one who told 
 him that he was not to baptize his child, because 
 he could not be sure that it was included in Christ's 
 redemption? 
 
 Nor let it be supposed that this is the whole ot 
 the contradiction which such a prohibition would 
 involve. Far from it. The idea of the Gospel, as 
 the revelation of truths which are expressed in the
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 395 
 
 forms of family society, and which, to all appear- 
 ance, are not expressible in any other forms, 
 truths to the apprehension of which he had risen 
 through the feelings, which his domestic relations 
 or the consciousness of their violation had called 
 forth, would seem to him utterly destroyed, all 
 links between human relations and divine at 
 once abolished, if he might not dare to speak of 
 his child as united to him in a spiritual bond. 
 Again, the idea of the Gospel, as the promise of a 
 Spirit who would awaken all consciousnesses, con- 
 victions, and affections, would be equally trifled 
 with, by the doctrine that the existence of these 
 convictions, consciousnesses, affections, was the 
 condition precedent to an admission into the 
 Gospel Covenant. 
 
 On this last point, the perplexities of a Hebrew 
 Christian, who was commanded not to baptize his 
 child, must have been still more distressing. His 
 own covenant had been emphatically with children. 
 That which had superseded it was, in all other 
 respects, wider, freer, more directly referring all 
 acts of the creature to the love and good pleasure 
 of the Creator. Yet, without one word of Christ 
 being produced to this effect, / command you not 
 to follow the analogy of God's earlier dispensation, 
 not to suppose that, in my kingdom of grace, infants 
 are accounted human and moral beings as they were 
 s6
 
 396 SIGNS OF A 
 
 under the law without the record of one sen- 
 tence to this purpose ; with the record of many 
 acts and words which led to just the opposite 
 conclusion, that infants were a most honoured 
 part of that race which He came to seek and save ; 
 with the doctrine forming an article of his daily 
 confession, that the Redeemer of humanity had 
 himself entered into the state of childhood, as well 
 as into that of manhood, the Israelite convert is 
 forced to abandon all the habits of thought and 
 feeling which he had derived from God's own 
 teaching, not because they were too narrow, but 
 because they were too comprehensive for his new 
 position. 
 
 The Anti-paedobaptist then,I think, cannot plead, 
 (and this is his only plea,) that the application of 
 Baptism to infants is a strange and perplexing 
 departure from the admitted sense and object of 
 the ordinance. On the contrary, there is some 
 reason, I fancy, for suspecting danger on the 
 other side. It was so reasonable, x so inevitable a 
 consequence of the baptismal principle, that infants 
 should be received into the Church the law of 
 the Church's propagation was thereby so clearly 
 explained and reconciled with the ordinary laws of 
 God's Providence that it would be no wonder if 
 another truth, equally necessary, were lost sight 
 of in the eagerness to enforce that which this
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 397 
 
 practice inculcated. It might be forgotten that 
 we baptize children, not because they are children, 
 but because they are embryo men ; that to the 
 complete idea of a spiritual blessing, a receiver 
 is needful as well as a giver; that Baptism is not 
 a momentary act but a perpetual sacrament. 
 Before I finish this section, I may have occa- 
 sion to shew that some or all of these errors have 
 arisen in the Church, and to their prevalency the 
 rise of a sect of Anti-paedobaptists is, no doubt, 
 to be attributed. But there is found, side by side 
 with Baptism, in all the countries where it is 
 adopted, an institution which is a far more com- 
 plete testimony against such perversions, than 
 those have been able to bear who set aside the 
 principle out of which they have grown. This 
 institution, not displacing or superseding Baptism, 
 but confirming, as its name denotes, the authority 
 and pledges of that sacrament, declares to the child 
 that He who has guided it through infancy will be 
 with it in the conscious struggles of manhood, 
 and that it has been made free, not only of a 
 particular congregation, but of the Universal 
 Church. 
 
 The doctrine of the Anabaptists then, like that 
 of the Quakers, supplies a strong argument in 
 favour of my position, for it shews that, just so far 
 as the operation of Baptism is restricted, just so
 
 398 SIGNS OF A 
 
 far does the belief of a human society become 
 impossible l . 
 
 3. The Modern Protestant. 
 
 III. Next to the Anabaptist comes the soi-disant 
 disciple of Luther and Calvin, the modern Pro- 
 
 1 As the notion that the Baptism now existing in Christendom 
 is invalid, because it is generally performed by sprinkling, and not 
 by immersion, is accidentally connected with the Anti-psedobap- 
 tist theory, it may be well to say a few words upon it in this 
 place. " The practice," it is said, " of the early ages, so far as 
 we can ascertain, was to immerse ; the emblematical character 
 of Baptism as a burial is destroyed by the other practice ; if 
 we admit an outward ceremony at all, we cannot afterwards 
 pretend that the mode of performing it is indifferent." I 
 acknowledge that there is truth in each of these propositions. 
 1 admit (with, I suppose, the majority of Churchmen) that there 
 is a high probability in favour of the prevalence in early times of 
 that practice which is least likely to have been afterwards intro- 
 duced, and that most of the facts we know would confirm the 
 opinion. I admit that the word " buried with him," in the sixth 
 chapter of the Romans, is a better argument for immersion, than 
 the words " sprinkled from an evil conscience," in St. Peter, can 
 ever furnish for the modern custom. I admit, that having 
 received a certain form and not another, as the sign of a certain 
 thing, we have no business to give ourselves airs about the unim- 
 portance of certain particulars of that which has been prescribed. 
 But here lies the distinction. No particular mode of baptism is 
 prescribed by our Lord. It is said, you shall make water the sign; 
 and you shall accompany the use of this water with certain words. 
 It is not said, Thus shall you use it, and in no other way. Now 
 the highest probability, that a practice now existing is different 
 from one formerly existing, does not, I contend, make that practice 
 illegitimate, if it answer to the terms of the law which ordained it. 
 And this rule applies especially to the case of a Universal Institu- 
 tion ; we cannot tell that the old practice, however laudable and
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 399 
 
 testant or Evangelical. His doctrine is that 
 there are two kingdoms of Christ, one real 
 
 right, may not have been determined by the circumstances of a 
 particular country or time ; we cannot tell that the liberty of 
 modal alteration may not have been contemplated and provided 
 for in the terms of the enactment. A sign which is divinely 
 instituted and meant for mankind, is too serious a thing to be 
 determined by any guesses or judgments about antiquity. They 
 may be most useful as suggestions, they may unfold to us 
 meanings which we have lost ; they cannot be produced as con- 
 demnatory of that, which he who appointed the sign has not 
 condemned. Least of all must the notion intrude itself, that 
 such or such a sign is not big enough, does not involve self-sacri- 
 fice enough ; for this is to set aside the first principle upon 
 which the validity of all signs must rest, that the one, be it great 
 or little, which the Ruler has fixed, is the right one, and must 
 denote what He meant it to denote. 
 
 What I have said, I hope is sufficiently plain. If not, the case of 
 the ring in marriage may illustrate it. Supposing a ring to be pre- 
 scribed by any law in virtue of which marriages are performed, 
 a ring is indispensable. But the strongest evidence to prove 
 that rings at weddings had been commonly of gold, and the 
 absence of all evidence to prove that they had been anything 
 else, ought not to be sufficient to make a marriage void, which 
 was concluded with some ring. And this example suggests an 
 observation in reference to the alleged loss of the baptismal 
 emblem, by the use of sprinkling. Supposing it were urged by 
 one, who was impeaching the validity of a marriage which was 
 celebrated with a brass or copper ring, that some notion of 
 purity was implied in the choice of the nobler metal ; nay, sup- 
 posing he were able to produce clear proof that that notion had 
 been attached to it, had even given occasion to the custom a 
 judge would surely not listen for an instant to such an argument ; 
 though he would admit, in the strongest manner, that the idea of 
 marriage implied purity, and that it was the object of all marriage 
 institutions and ceremonies to preserve it. He would at once 
 declare that the emblem, however interesting, however useful for
 
 400 SIGNS OF A 
 
 and spiritual, the other outward and visible. 
 It is highly desirable, perhaps necessary, that 
 young as well as old should be admitted into 
 the latter. Baptism is the appointed mode of ad- 
 mission. What are the privileges of the Gentile 
 court into which, by this ordinance, we are 
 
 personal meditation, however lawful as the foundation of a custom, 
 was altogether distinct from the sign. The prescribed sign 
 testified that the union between the parties was complete and 
 final ; a purely arbitrary sign, having no emblematic value, 
 would do this ; and the force of it as arbitrary, as appointed, 
 must not be lost through any consideration of its wisdom or 
 propriety. This reflection is especially needful in the present 
 case. An institution of divine appointment will necessarily carry 
 in it a profound wisdom, and manifold adaptations to the condition 
 of the creatures for whom it is destined. Such a symbol as 
 water at once suggests numerous hints and analogies, and many 
 more present themselves to an earnest, even though he be not a 
 fanciful, thinker. But the main fact to which Baptism bears 
 witness, our adoption into Christ, must be, after all, the key to 
 these analogies, and not they the keys to it. And that adoption 
 into Christ must be received as a fact, upon the authority of the 
 sign, without the least reference to any apparent likeness in it to the 
 thing signified ; else the sign will lose its universality, and be treated 
 as nothing to those who cannot, through deficiency in the faculty 
 of comparison, or any other cause, discover the resemblance. 
 
 These remarks are merely intended to shew, that there is no 
 warrant for the notion that the Baptism now existing among us, 
 is not formally the baptism which Christ ordained, and therefore 
 the sign of admission into his universal and spiritual kingdom, 
 because the mode of administering it may not be that which his 
 Apostles practised. The question whether any power and what 
 power has a right to prescribe for the whole Church, or for any 
 particular branch of it, a certain mode of performing Baptism, is 
 quite a distinct one, which must be considered in its proper place.
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 401 
 
 received, they do not precisely determine. Possi- 
 bly some grace is communicated at Baptism ; or 
 if not, the blessings of being permitted to hear 
 preaching, and of obtaining a Christian education, 
 are great, and may be turned to greater use here- 
 after. But the important point of all is this, to 
 press upon men that till they have been actually 
 and consciously converted, they are not members 
 of Christ or children of God. Some disciples of 
 this school believe that these words may be 
 applied to baptized people in a sense ; but if you 
 desire to know in what sense, the answers are 
 so vague and indeterminate, as to leave a painful 
 impression upon the mind, that such language is 
 very awful and significant, and yet that it may 
 on certain occasions be sported with or used with 
 a secret reservation. 
 
 But those who make these statements say, that 
 they wish to get rid of equivocations, not to in- 
 vent them. They resort to this hypothesis of a 
 double kingdom, because the plainest observation 
 tells them, that a baptized man may be a very 
 evil man, and because, being evil, they cannot see 
 what he has to do with a kingdom of righteous- 
 ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Again, 
 they say, " Let people make out what theological 
 scheme they please, we know that we, having been 
 baptized in infancy, did in manhood as much
 
 402 SIGNS OF A 
 
 pass from death unto life, as any heathen in the 
 first age could have done." It is not, they con- 
 tend, fair or honest to suppress either of these 
 facts, either that which is obvious to every man's 
 common sense, or that of which they themselves 
 are conscious ; but that this is done, and must be 
 done, if we assume Baptism to be what it is 
 sometimes called A New Birth the actual 
 introduction into a spiritual world. 
 
 Now I feel as little disposed to deny the 
 melancholy proposition that Christian men are 
 not living Christian lives, as the Jewish prophet 
 felt to pass over the truth, that the name of God 
 was blasphemed through his countrymen in all 
 lands. The precedents which Holy Scripture fur- 
 nishes I believe to be strictly applicable to us ; that 
 which was the function of the preacher then is his 
 function now ; if he who prophesied in Jeru- 
 salem was to rebuke men for sin, and to call 
 them to repentance, we in London or Paris are 
 to do the like. The question is, what is the 
 sin which we are to rebuke, what is the repent- 
 ance to which we are to invite. The Jewish pro- 
 phet charged his people with forgetting the 
 covenant of their God. He traced up all sins to 
 this sin. He said that the Jew was guilty, 
 because he did not claim the privileges of a Jew, 
 because he did not act as if he was a Jew. Are
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 403 
 
 we to follow this precedent or not ? Are we fol- 
 lowing it when we say, u This covenant is, I will 
 be to you a father, and you shall be to me sons 
 and daughters ; you are acting as if you were not 
 in this covenant, you are forgetting it," or when 
 we say, " These titles are not yours, or are 
 yours only in some formal imaginary sense," that 
 is, if we spoke plain English, in no sense at all ? 
 
 As little do I desire to deny or explain away 
 the other assertion, that baptized men, who have 
 lived without God in the world, are converted to 
 Him by his grace. This is a doctrine which I 
 believe was held as strongly by St. Bernard, 
 Thauler, and A Kempis, I might add by Loyola 
 and Xavier, as by any modern Methodist. These 
 eminent persons did not limit their language to 
 cases of open profligacy (though they by no 
 means excluded such cases) ; they applied it to 
 laymen or priests, who under a respectable 
 exterior had sought the praise of men more than 
 the praise of God. Whether we have a right to 
 restrict the word to a particular act or crisis; 
 whether every act of repentance is not one of 
 conversion or turning to God ; whether we are not 
 apt to forget that every such act must be as much 
 attributed to the Spirit of God as the recovery 
 from habitual thoughtlessness and sin, are ques- 
 tions for serious reflection; but the decision of
 
 404 SIGNS OF A 
 
 them does not affect the opinion, that there may 
 be an entire change in the feelings and aims of 
 one who has received Christian Baptism. But by 
 what words is such a revolution to be denoted ? 
 I believe the answer may be obtained, by com- 
 paring different approved records of conversions. 
 We shall find a great difference in them. In some 
 we shall hear a man speaking with great horror 
 and loathing of his past years and of his youthful 
 companions. We shall hear another transferring 
 these expressions of loathing to his evil nature, 
 and to himself for having yielded to it, manifest- 
 ing the deepest affection for all he has ever 
 been acquainted with, owning them to be more 
 righteous than himself, believing that God cares 
 for them as well as for him certain that what is 
 true for him, is true also for them. The first 
 talks much of the new start he has taken, of 
 his new heart, of his purified affections; the 
 latter rejoices that having discovered the feeble- 
 ness of his own heart, he has been led to see 
 that there is another in whom he ought to 
 have trusted before, and may trust now. The 
 first speaks of the grace that has been bestowed 
 upon himself; the other of being taken under the 
 gracious guidance of a Spirit, whom he has re- 
 sisted too long. Granting that these modes of 
 expression may be sometimes intermingled, that
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION*. 405 
 
 there may be a true feeling in those who chiefly 
 use the former, and that there may be error and 
 confusions in those records wherein the latter 
 predominate, yet does not every one recognize a 
 characteristic, a most practical difference between 
 them ? Would not any experienced person of 
 the Evangelical school feel, that the one kind of 
 language indicated a much more healthful, genuine, 
 state of character than the other ? But then 
 ought he not to ask himself whether both of these 
 kinds of language are incompatible with the idea of 
 Baptismal regeneration, or only one of them ; and 
 if only one, whether the false or the true ? If the 
 words, " then I was awakened," do not imply " I 
 had been asleep ;" if the words, " then I came to 
 the knowledge of the truth," do not imply " that 
 which I knew was true before I knew it;" 
 if the words, " I ceased to strive against the 
 Spirit," do not imply " that there had been a pre- 
 vious resistance to the Spirit," they are mere cant 
 words, good for nothing, nay,, utterly detestable. 
 But, if they do imply all this, they imply just 
 what the believer in Baptismal Regeneration is 
 charged with fiction and falsehood for maintaining. 
 They presume the existence of a state, which is 
 our state, whether we are conscious of it, whether 
 we are in conformity with it, or no. 
 
 It is then not necessary for the vindication of 
 3
 
 406 SIGNS OF A 
 
 these two facts, that we should adopt the notion 
 that there are two kingdoms, one earthly, formal, 
 fictitious ; the other heavenly, spiritual, real. It 
 is not necessary for their vindication, seeing that 
 neither of these facts can be calmly examined, 
 even in the reports of those who insist most upon 
 them, without suggesting the notion, that there 
 must be a heavenly, spiritual, real kingdom, against 
 which all evil men, just in so far forth as they are 
 evil, are rebelling ; and into subjection to which 
 all converted men, in so far forth as they are con- 
 verted, are brought. And therefore, whatever 
 evils have flowed and are flowing from this notion, 
 are not justified or compensated for by one prac- 
 tical advantage. How practical the evils are, let 
 the history of Christian Europe since the Refor- 
 mation attest ! I have spoken of the difference 
 between Luther and the Lutherans, even between 
 Calvin and the Calvinists ; I have spoken of the 
 way in which Justification by faith has been 
 turned from a living principle into an empty 
 shibboleth ; in which the divine Election has lost 
 its force, except as an excuse for doubting the 
 existence of our own awful responsibilities. If 
 we trace these miserable fruits to their root, we 
 shall find it I believe in this notion. This at 
 least is certain, as I have had occasion again and 
 again to remark, that the doctrine of Baptismal
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Regeneration was held by Luther not in con- 
 junction with that of Justification by faith, (as he 
 might have held any doctrine which belonged to 
 the natural philosophy of his age,) but that he 
 grounded the one on the other. " Believe on the 
 warrant of your Baptism, You are grafted into 
 Christ ; claim your position. You have the Spirit, 
 you are children of God ; do not live as if you 
 belonged to the devil." This was his invariable 
 language, with THIS he shook the Seven Hills. 
 
 What, I ask, have those done who have 
 abandoned this language, and who, while they 
 talk of Luther, would actually denounce any 
 one as heretical and papistical who used it ? The 
 children of Protestant families are told that they 
 have no right to call themselves children of God. 
 They grow up in that conviction ; in maturer years 
 they carry it to its legitimate consequences. 
 They feel that they have no right to use the 
 Lord's prayer, no right to pray at all ; that they 
 have no power near them to keep them from 
 temptation ; that they have no bonds of fellow- 
 ship with any, except on the grounds of liking 
 and taste. Gradually as their understandings ripen 
 and their feelings decay, they begin to regard Pro- 
 testantism as a half-way house between Popery and 
 Infidelity ; and whether they shall go back to the 
 one, or on to the other, depends principally upon
 
 408 SIGNS OF A 
 
 their circumstances, and upon the predominance 
 of the fancy or of the intellect in their constitution. 
 I speak of the more courageous ; in the majority, 
 dull indifference, which is incapable of either 
 resolve, becomes the ruling habit of mind. 
 Thanks be to God, the exceptions to my state- 
 ment, in all Protestant countries, are innumerable. 
 But I believe it will be found almost universally, 
 that they occur when parents have acted upon the 
 principle which I am maintaining, though in 
 words they have disavowed it ; when they have 
 treated their children as if they possessed all Chris- 
 tian titles and privileges, though they did so in 
 utter disregard of their own theory. That, even in 
 such cases, the contradiction has not been inno- 
 cuous, I think I can affirm with some confidence. 
 A sense of perplexity, of half sincerity, cleaves 
 to the minds of those who most long to keep a 
 clear heart and a free conscience. They do not 
 dare to call themselves by a name which yet they 
 feel they must claim, if they are to serve God 
 or to do any right act. Hence their conduct 
 becomes uncertain, their thoughts are not manly ; 
 and, in place of humility, they cultivate a 
 false shame, in which they are conscious that 
 pride is a large ingredient. There are hundreds 
 of young men who will understand my meaning ; 
 there are others, I mean ministers of the Gospel,
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 409 
 
 to whom I wish that I could make it intelligible, 
 But at all events, those who feel as I do in this 
 matter, will have bitter cause for self-reproach, if 
 they do not protest in season and out of season, 
 against a notion which, if I be not greatly mis- 
 taken, is doing more than all others to undermine 
 the Christianity of the Protestant nations. 
 
 4. The Philosopher. 
 
 IV. Last come our modern Philosophers. Their 
 notions upon this subject are generally indicated 
 by some such language as the following. " Bap- 
 tism cannot be the sign of a Universal Society, 
 for it excludes Pagans and Mahometans all but 
 the members of a certain religious sect ; Baptism 
 cannot, in any proper sense, be the sign of a 
 Spiritual Society, for it makes no distinction 
 between the most stupid and the most cultivated, 
 the most brutal and the most humane ; Baptism, 
 by the very terms in which it is performed, implies 
 the acknowledgment of a doctrine which many 
 Christians deny, few think of, and none under- 
 stand ; Baptism, if we may judge from ihe words 
 or the ceremonies which every where accompany 
 it, presumes the belief of an evil spiritual agency, 
 a belief belonging only to the darkest ages. Bap- 
 tism was unquestionably a bond of fellowship in 
 
 VOL. I. T 4-
 
 410 SIGNS OF A 
 
 certain periods ; it did mean something to those 
 who lived in them; but its significance is gone; 
 it is changed into a worthless symbol which may 
 be allowed to last so long as it does not pretend 
 to be anything, but which the moment it endea- 
 vours to recover its obsolete importance will be 
 rejected by wise men altogether." 
 
 To the first of these objections, that Baptism is 
 exclusive, because merely for those who profess a 
 faith in Christ, I reply. As against the theologians 
 who look upon Christ merely as the great teacher, 
 this argument has the greatest force : to baptize 
 men into the name of Christ is, if they be right, to 
 receive them into the sect or school of a certain 
 person who appeared in Palestine 1800 years 
 ago. We may prefer him to one who appeared 
 in Arabia about 1200 years ago, but our taste, 
 which increased information may change altoge- 
 ther, is surely no true foundation for a human 
 fellowship. But, be it remembered, this is not 
 the idea of Baptism as it is expressed in any one 
 formulary which is recognised in any part of 
 Christendom. That idea assumes Christ to be 
 the Lord of men ; it assumes that men are created 
 in Him; that this is the constitution of our 
 race ; that therefore all attempts of men to 
 reduce themselves into separate units are con-
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 411 
 
 tradictory and abortive. Now say, if you please, 
 that this is an utterly false view of things ; say 
 that it does not in the least explain the relations 
 of men to each other and the meaning of their 
 history ; say that there is no spiritual constitu- 
 tion for mankind, or that it cannot be known, or 
 that it is not this. But you cannot say that if it 
 were this, a society founded upon such a princi- 
 ple would be merely one for a party and not for 
 mankind. According to our doctrine we must 
 say to Jews, Pagans, Turks, There is a fellow- 
 ship for you as well as for us. We have no right 
 to any spiritual privileges to which you have not 
 as complete, as indefeasible a right. We protest 
 against you, Jews, because you deny this, because 
 you maintain that there is no fellowship for man- 
 kind. We protest against you, Pagans, because 
 by giving us different objects of worship, you 
 necessarily divide us according to circumstances, 
 customs, localities. We protest against you, 
 Mahometans, because, by affirming the greatest 
 man to be merely a man, you destroy the com- 
 munication between our race and its Maker ; you 
 suppose that communication to exist, if at all, 
 merely for certain sages, not for every human crea- 
 ture. You set up the idea of absoluteness against 
 the idea of relationship ; whereas each is involved in 
 the other and depends upon the other ; and there-
 
 412 SIGNS OP A 
 
 fore you make it impossible for the Islamite nations 
 to have any feeling of a humanity, to be anything 
 but slaves. 
 
 Again, it is said, that our baptismal fellowship 
 is not spiritual, for that it takes no account of the 
 spiritual differences in men. The dullest clod 
 has the same place in it, as the man who sees 
 furthest into the meaning and life of things. 
 Here, again, it is necessary, that we should recall 
 the objector to the baptismal principle. He may 
 think that we are using a mere phrase, or form of 
 words, when we say that the man or the child 
 is actually adopted into union with a Being above 
 himself, and that the Spirit of Life, of Power, of 
 Wisdom, is given to him. All this may seem to 
 him the merest absurdity. But we do not think 
 it so. And, supposing it were not an absurdity, 
 supposing it were a truth, there would be no 
 pretence for the accusation we are considering. 
 Then we should not only be bearing witness that 
 the greatest distinction of all is that between the 
 man who has an eye for spiritual objects, and the 
 man who sees nothing but the ground at his feet ; 
 we should not only be bearing this witness, but 
 we should actually be taking men into a position 
 in which they might, if they would, overcome 
 their downward tendencies and attain the highest 
 insight. Unquestionably we do not look out
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 413 
 
 for intellectual or moral aptitudes, and expose the 
 children in whom we do not discover them ; we 
 believe that there is an eye in all men which can be 
 opened if the evil Will do not keep it closed ; that 
 all peculiar faculties and capacities are subordinate 
 to this, and will be best awakened when it is most 
 in exercise. But this doctrine is surely not one 
 to which philosophers of this day can on princi- 
 ple object, however little they may be inclined 
 habitually to act upon it. 
 
 The third complaint is, that this universal sign 
 is inseparably associated with the belief of an 
 incomprehensible dogma. Now when we were 
 examining the features of the Unitarian creed, we 
 were led to notice, as the most prominent and 
 striking of them, the assertion that the unity of 
 God is a great primary unchangeable truth, upon 
 which all others must rest, and the acknowledg- 
 ment of which must be the foundation of unity 
 among men. This affirmation seemed to us of the 
 highest importance ; we said that no theories or 
 conclusions or dogmas, let them be backed by 
 what authority, or supported by what arguments 
 they might, could destroy its force, or make it 
 nugatory. But we found that this truth of the 
 Divine Unity, this . awful, everlasting primary 
 truth, had been turned by the (so called) Uni- 
 tarians into a mere notion or dogma, a notion or 
 T 3
 
 414 SIGNS OF A 
 
 dogma actually deduced from material considera- 
 tions and therefore self-contradictory ; a notion 
 purely negative, which said to Polytheists, " You 
 ought not to worship many gods" without declar- 
 ing to them the one God whom they ought to 
 worship ; a notion not leading to the adoration of a 
 Living Being, but to a superstitious reverence for 
 the number one, a notion therefore which never 
 could be the symbol of a human fellowship. If 
 then it be true that this unity is at the root of 
 all union among men, if it be the deep founda- 
 tion upon which the pillars of the universe rest, 
 one must look not for a rude notional announce- 
 ment of it, but for a gradual discovery of it, 
 through the forms and relations of human society. 
 Such a discovery I have urged is to be found in 
 the Scriptures ; a discovery of which the name 
 revealed to the father of the faithful was the 
 first step ; the words, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord 
 thy God is one Lord," a second ; the name into 
 which we are baptized, the final and perfect step. 
 I do not say that this is a progress from the 
 obscure to the intelligible, from the remote to 
 the near ; far from it : like all science it is an 
 advance from that which may be apprehended by 
 the Senses or the Affections, Jo that which is deeper 
 and is only within the reach of the Understanding 
 or the Conscience ; then onwards to those amaz-
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 415 
 
 ing abysses which the Reason seeks after, in which 
 she delights, wonders, and is lost. If it were not 
 this, it would not be a revelation of GOD ; but 
 being this, it is, as we believe, not the cold denial 
 and contradiction of all that men have been 
 dreaming of through the different ages of the 
 world, but rather the sweet reconciliation and 
 exquisite harmony of all past thoughts, anticipa- 
 tions, revelations. No Pagan mythology could 
 exist without the acknowledgment of a Something 
 beneath and behind all their conceptions of the 
 gods, too awful to speak of, almost to think of. 
 Each mythology contained also its Heroes of 
 divine and human race, whom men might admire, 
 and with whom they might sympathise. And this 
 was not enough without the dream of an Inspirer, 
 Life-giver ; not removed from men, not even a mere 
 object to be beheld and adored, but the source of 
 all their deeper thoughts and longings. How 
 dark and sensualized this faith became how the 
 absolute Being was regarded as a dreary fate, 
 the Heroes as the fruit of earthly passions and 
 full of earthly crimes, the Inspirer, as the god 
 of folly and drunkenness I need not tell ; nor 
 how jarring these forms of belief were in their 
 best estate, how continually seeking for a unity 
 and not finding it. Still, the feelings were really 
 there ; expressed indeed, by poets and sages, but 
 T 4
 
 416 SIGNS OP A 
 
 only because it was their gift to utter that which 
 was in the hearts of poor men, that which they 
 were obscurely feeling or dimly acting out. Now, 
 if the Name, into which we Europeans have for so 
 many centuries been baptized, be, as we believe 
 it is, that which brings all these thoughts at one, 
 separating them from their hateful and degrad- 
 ing additions, raising them to Heaven, and yet 
 establishing a more direct and intimate connexion 
 between them, and all the daily transactions of this 
 earth are we guilty of fencing men off from our 
 Communion by a strange dogma of which they 
 can know nothing, when we tell them that this 
 Name is to go with them from their cradle to 
 their grave ; that the grace, the love, the fellowship 
 of this name are to be with them as charms 
 against all perils, light in all darkness, comfort in 
 all sorrow ; that it is to bind them with that 
 which was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
 be ; that every homely duty, every act of self-sacri- 
 fice, every deed of mercy, will make the vision of 
 it more bright, as that vision will be clouded 
 by every act of sin, every proud thought, every 
 uncharitable feeling ; that the more they cleave to 
 this name, the less they will dream of selfish 
 rewards, the more they will long for the day when 
 the sunlight of God's countenance may gladden 
 the whole creation; that the communion of the
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 417 
 
 Father and the Son in one Spirit, as it has been 
 the ground of all their thoughts and hopes, so 
 will be the consummation of them all, to those 
 who shall wake up in the same likeness, and be 
 satisfied with it ? 
 
 But Baptism implies the acknowledgment of 
 an evil spiritual agent, and this belief is at war 
 with all civilization and philosophy. I am as 
 little disposed to shrink from this charge as from 
 any of the others. Baptism unquestionably has 
 been connected with this doctrine ever since it 
 was practised ; it must, I think, be an unmeaning 
 ceremony to any one by whom this doctrine is 
 denied. 
 
 This opinion I ground upon the remarks which 
 have just been made respecting the Baptismal 
 Name. Baptism asserts for each man that he is 
 taken into union with a divine Person, and by 
 virtue of that union is emancipated from his evil 
 Nature. But this assertion rests upon another, 
 that there is a society for mankind which is 
 constituted and held together in that person, 
 and that he who enters this society is eman- 
 cipated from the World the society which is 
 bound together in the acknowledgment of, and 
 subjection to, the evil selfish tendencies of each 
 man's nature. But, further, it affirms that this 
 unity among men, rests upon a yet more 
 T 5
 
 418 SIGNS OF A 
 
 awful and perfect unity, upon that which is 
 expressed in the Name of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost. Lose sight of this 
 last and deepest principle, and both the others 
 perish ; for to believe that there is a Truth, a 
 Unity, a Love, existing under certain forms, and 
 not to believe that there is an absolute Truth, 
 Unity, Love, from which these forms have de- 
 rived their excellence and their existence, is 
 impossible, and has been always felt to be im- 
 possible. But is it not equally impossible to the 
 Reason, has not the Experience of mankind proved 
 it to be impossible, to contemplate the antagonist 
 forms of evil, without ascending to the belief of 
 an evil which has impregnated those forms, and 
 which can exist apart from them ? So necessary 
 has this conviction been found, not to a few but 
 to all, that the Imagination has been continually 
 framing to itself the horrid notion of an evil, 
 which is not merely the source and spring of all 
 that is evil in the actual condition of things, but 
 which is the source of those things themselves, a 
 primary original power, a rival Creator. This 
 Manicheeism, though only at particular seasons 
 it may have been congealed into a system, has 
 been haunting men's minds from the beginning 
 of the world, and is haunting us all still. But 
 whence comes it, and what is the great prop of
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 419 
 
 it ? Surely it is this. We cannot deny the facts 
 of misery and evil which thrust themselves upon 
 our notice. We feel that we must refer them to 
 a cause. But not daring to look steadily at the 
 idea of an evil will, and to contemplate it in the 
 light of a perfectly pure and holy will, we fancy 
 that the powers which are exerted for an evil end 
 are evil, that the things which are turned to an 
 accursed use are themselves accursed. Hence 
 the Oromasdes and Arimanes doctrine ; hence, 
 too, all the superstitious notions which have peo- 
 pled nature with malignant influences and objects 
 of dread. How are such dark dreams to be dis- 
 pelled ? Not by setting aside facts ; not by out- 
 raging the innermost convictions of mankind; 
 not by separating men from one another, as you 
 do most effectually, when you teach them that 
 the evil which each is to contend with in himself, 
 and the evil which he sees in his fellow-creatures, 
 or which he notices in the history of the world, 
 have no common derivation. These outrages 
 upon reason and conscience have been perpe- 
 trated again and again by so-called philosophers, 
 but what have they effected? What one dark 
 fear have they removed out of our path? What 
 new bond of affection have they created between 
 the members of the human family ? The mockery 
 has gone forth ; it has been listened to, admired, 
 T 6
 
 420 SIGNS OF A 
 
 adopted; and in the next age all the old super- 
 stitions have returned; the imagination has re- 
 venged itself for the denial of an evil Spirit, by 
 turning all the forms of Society and of Nature 
 into evil. Meantime, this Baptism has been 
 testifying to high and low, to men of all countries, 
 languages, customs, that they have a common 
 friend and a common enemy ; but that the enemy 
 has been vanquished, has been declared to have 
 no right or property in any human creature, in 
 any one corner of the universe ; that his power is 
 conferred by our faithlessness ; that while we are 
 claiming our true position we may despise and 
 defy him ; that it is only by making a lie that we 
 come under the dominion of the father of lies. 
 And yet it testifies as strongly to the fact, the 
 monstrous fact, that men may be making lies, 
 may be living in a position the most utterly 
 anomalous and unreasonable; that nothing but 
 entire dependence upon the righteous and holy 
 Being rescues any one from this position; that 
 every one therefore has a devil to fight with, as 
 well as a world and a flesh. Get rid of this contra- 
 diction, if you can, by the philosophy of denials. 
 We shall continue, with God's assistance, to seek 
 deliverance from it by declaring to men their true 
 state, and by adopting them into it. 
 
 To what extent the general charge is made out
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 421 
 
 that Baptism is a bygone symbol, may be inferred 
 from the particular arguments upon which it is 
 grounded. If there be nothing which does not 
 belong to a particular age, nothing permanent, 
 nothing real ; if there be nothing to connect 
 together the portions of mankind which are 
 separated by space and time, then the sign is 
 obsolete because there is nothing to be signified 
 by it. If, on the other hand, all men in all times 
 have sought, and the men of this age above all 
 others are professing to seek, for some common 
 human bonds which were not created to suit a 
 particular period and locality, and which do not 
 change when the notions and theories of that 
 period have proved futile, when the customs of 
 that locality are not applicable, I ask, where 
 is the proof that this sign is not as fresh now 
 as it was 1800 years ago ? That men in times 
 of sensuality, of luxury, of religious exclu- 
 siveness, of philosophical pretension, become 
 impatient of it, I willingly admit. What better 
 argument do I want than this, that it is a true 
 thing, a witness for that which is spiritual, real, 
 simple, universal ? Thanks be to God, that He 
 has not left eternal truths, which concern all men, 
 to the custody of the wise and prudent of the 
 earth ; that He has embodied them in forms 
 which from generation to generation have been
 
 422 SIGNS OF A 
 
 witnesses of his love to the humble and the meek, 
 and which all the contradictions of pride and self- 
 will only help to illustrate and interpret. 
 
 THE ROMISH SYSTEM. 
 
 I have stated why I look upon Baptism as 
 the first sign of the existence of a Catholic Church 
 or Kingdom of Christ in the world. I have con- 
 sidered the different objections to that view of it. 
 But in the course of these remarks I have alluded 
 to a class of persons who are most earnest in pro- 
 claiming the fact that there is such a Church, 
 and equally earnest in maintaining that Baptism 
 is the only induction into it. I have intimated 
 that, nevertheless, I differ most widely with these 
 persons, and believe that the dignity of Baptism 
 was asserted against them by the Reformers of 
 the 16th century. I am then, I conceive, bound 
 to consider the doctrine respecting Baptism which 
 is professed by the Romanists, and to give my 
 reasons for not adopting it. 
 
 The common phrase that the Romanist regards 
 Baptism as an opus operatum, is one which may 
 be liable to much perversion. An intelligent 
 defender of the system would protest earnestly 
 against some opinions which might seem, at first 
 hearing, to be implied in it. " To suppose," he 
 would say, "from our use of it, that we look upon a
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 423 
 
 baptized person as incapable of falling into sin or 
 losing heaven, would be to contradict monstrously 
 and ridiculously every notion which our doctors 
 have inculcated in their writings or our priests 
 enforced in their practice. The disciples of the 
 Reformation complain of us for our vigilance and 
 self-suspicion. It is our strongest conviction, 
 that a dereliction of baptismal privileges is at 
 once most possible and most awful." But having 
 guarded himself by this explanation he would, I 
 think, be most ready to admit the phrase as 
 legitimate, and to unfold, in some such words as 
 these, the sense of it. u By baptism," he would say, 
 " we receive the benefits of the redemption which 
 Christ wrought out for us. We become new and 
 holy creatures. The work is finished ; we have 
 received the highest blessing which God can 
 bestow upon us. Henceforth our business is, by 
 the use of all the means which the Church pre- 
 scribes, to keep ourselves in this state of purity. 
 We shall not preserve it altogether : we shall be 
 committing frequent venial sins, which, after 
 confession and penance, will, we have a right to 
 hope, be forgiven us. But we may, by constantly 
 availing ourselves of the prayers and communion 
 of the Church, preserve ourselves from those mor- 
 tal sins which would utterly rob us of the divine 
 blessing. Should of this kind a sin have been
 
 424 SIGNS OF A 
 
 committed, or should there be any fear that it 
 has been committed, we may still have just such 
 a hope of restoration as is an encouragement to 
 the most unabated earnestness and diligence in 
 seeking for it by the appointed methods." 
 
 Now it will strike the reader at once, that 
 in certain points this explanation corresponds 
 exactly with the one which I have given. First, 
 as to the effect of Baptism. I have contended 
 that Baptism affirms a man to be in a certain state, 
 and affirms the presence of a Spirit with him, 
 who is able and willing to uphold him in that 
 state, and to bring his life into accordance with 
 it. Secondly, as to the sin of men. I have con- 
 tended that this consists in their voluntarily 
 refusing the blessings of God's covenant. Thirdly, 
 as to the means by which we are most likely to 
 be kept in the right way ; I should say, as the 
 Romanist does, by abiding in those ordinances, 
 whereby we maintain a communion with our 
 brethren and with God. Where then does the 
 difference between us begin ? I answer, at the 
 threshold of these very statements. A man is 
 brought into a certain state. The point is, what 
 state ? I have said, and I know the Romanist 
 would not in words contradict me, into a state of 
 union with Christ. But this state, I have con- 
 tended, precludes the notion that goodness, purity,
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 425 
 
 holiness, belongs to any creature considered in it- 
 self. To be something in himself is man's ambition, 
 man's sin. Baptism is emphatically the renuncia- 
 tion of that pretence. A man does not, therefore, 
 by Baptism, by faith, or by any other process, 
 acquire a new nature, if by nature you mean, as 
 most men do, certain inherent qualities and pro- 
 perties. He does not by Baptism, faith, or any 
 other process, become a new creature, if by these 
 words you mean anything else than that he is 
 created anew in Christ Jesus, that he is grafted 
 into him, that he becomes the inheritor of his 
 life and not of his own. That, being so grafted, 
 he receives the Spirit of Christ, I of course be- 
 lieve. But I contend, that the operation .of this 
 Spirit upon him is to draw him continually out of 
 himself, to teach him to disclaim all independent 
 virtue, to bring him into the knowledge and image 
 of the Father and the Son. Upon these grounds, 
 I have maintained, against our modern Protestants, 
 that the sin of a baptized man consists in acting as 
 if he were not in union with Christ, in setting up 
 his own nature and his own will, and in obeying 
 them. That is to say, his sin consists in doing 
 acts which are self-contradictory, in assuming to 
 be that which he is not and never can be, in 
 denying that he is that which he is and ever 
 must be. What follows ? Surely that faith in
 
 426 SIGNS OF A 
 
 this union is a duty, the greatest of all duties, 
 and that it can never cease to be a duty. A man 
 has no right to believe a lie. Sin leads him to 
 do it ; sin brings him into a condition of mind 
 in which a lie seems truth to him. It may bring 
 him into a condition of mind in which lying 
 becomes the element of his being, in which truth 
 is absolutely closed from his eyes. The possi- 
 bility of this sort of mortal sin I cannot doubt, 
 either while I meditate upon the awful tendencies 
 to atheism, which there are in every one of us, 
 or while I read the Epistle to the Hebrews. But 
 supposing this awful condition had actually taken 
 place in any man, it could not change the fact in 
 the least degree ; it would establish the fact. Is 
 the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews less 
 earnest in his exhortations to faith than the 
 other writers of the New Testament ? Does he 
 less invite men to enter into God's rest? Does 
 he separate these exhortations and invitations 
 from his warnings respecting the peril of apo- 
 stasy ? or does he not make that peril one of his 
 main arguments why every one of those whom 
 he addressed should claim his privileges as a 
 citizen of the New Jerusalem ? 
 
 For precisely the same reason, I attempted to 
 shew that the Evangelical or modern Protestant 
 notion made repentance impossible. If we are
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 427 
 
 not allowed to call ourselves children of God, 
 how can we be told to arise and go to our Father ? 
 If we are not to do this, what does our repentance 
 mean? It can be nothing but a sinful selfish 
 struggle after the blessings of corn, and wine, and 
 the fatness of the earth, which we think we have 
 lost ; not an humble confession that we have made 
 light of our birthright, and are no more worthy 
 to be called sons. The repentance of the world 
 may be produced by the desire or effort to obtain 
 an assurance that we are members of God's 
 redeemed family; the repentance which leadeth 
 to life must be the confession of the unbelief, 
 ingratitude, hardness of heart, which have led us 
 to slight a love which has been bestowed freely, 
 and which has never ceased to watch over us and 
 to struggle with us. 
 
 Now the doctrine of the opus operatum leads, 
 I think, by a more circuitous, but also by a more 
 certain, route to those practical results which seem 
 to me to make our Protestant systems so danger- 
 ous and objectionable. 
 
 When it is said that a baptized man loses his 
 baptismal state, it is inevitably implied that this 
 state was one of independent holiness and purity. 
 We do not, as I have again and again urged, cease 
 to be children because we are disobedient chil- 
 dren. If, therefore, Baptism were looked upon as
 
 428 SIGNS OF A 
 
 the adoption into the state of children, and if its 
 virtue were believed to consist in this, the notion 
 we are considering would be impossible. But, 
 it is supposed that the man acquires something 
 for himself in the instant of Baptism, that he is 
 endowed with heavenly virtues, that he is in 
 himself, separately considered, a new creature. 
 By this opinion the Romanist supposes that he 
 exalts Baptism. He seems to me utterly to de- 
 grade it and rob it of its meaning. He turns 
 a sacrament into an event. He supposes the 
 redemption of Christ to be exhausted by a certain 
 gift, while the Bible represents it as bringing 
 men into an eternal and indissoluble fellowship. 
 He thinks that he promotes a safer, holier, more 
 watchful feeling. It seems to me, that just so 
 far as this opinion becomes the governing one of 
 our lives, it undermines holiness, watchfulness, 
 safety. For it turns the whole of life into a 
 struggle for the recovery of a lost good. If this 
 struggle is pursued honestly, there is no holi- 
 ness in it, for it is purely selfish, it does not, can- 
 not, be prompted by love. But in most men 
 there arises a cruel sense of contradiction. They 
 are commanded to repent ; they feel that they 
 cannot repent, for their consciences tell them 
 that lamentation for the consequences of sin, 
 present or expected, is not repentance ; hence a
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 429 
 
 craving for indulgences, a habit of unbelief, a 
 despair of holiness. Which of these conditions 
 of feeling is a safe one for a human creature 
 to be in ? But the Romanist thinks that at all 
 events he is honouring the Church by this notion. 
 To me it seems that he is destroying the very 
 idea of the Church denying its necessity. For 
 he makes it appear that the blessing of Baptism 
 is not this, that it receives men into the holy 
 Communion of Saints, but that it bestows upon 
 them certain individual blessings, endows them 
 with a certain individual holiness. How then is 
 self-renunciation and fellowship as members of 
 the same body possible ? And if these are im- 
 possible, what is the Church ? 
 
 It will be admitted, I hope, that I have not 
 imputed to Romanists anything which is merely 
 an excess or exaggeration of their creed upon this 
 great subject. There is a system of which this 
 doctrine forms an integral part. But do I there- 
 fore mean to affirm either that this doctrine is 
 only to be found in Romanist writers, or that the 
 one I have defended is not to be found in them ? 
 I believe that if I brought forward any such 
 propositions I should be easily confuted. On 
 the one hand it might be proved, by extracts 
 from the Fathers, that the doctrine of an 
 opus operatum did mingle itself in their minds
 
 430 SIGNS OF A 
 
 with that of our being grafted into Christ; on 
 the other by extracts from Anselm, from Hugo de 
 St. Victore, from Bernard, from Aquinas, nay from 
 eminent Romanists of the present day, that the 
 very idea which I have endeavoured to express has 
 been unfolded by them, only with infinitely more 
 eloquence and unction. All this I believe most 
 fully. So far from wishing to hinder the theolo- 
 gical student from making such observations, 
 I would do my best to force them upon his 
 attention. I would labour to convince him, that 
 whenever any great spiritual principle has been 
 strongly revealed to men, a material counterfeit 
 of that principle has always appeared also ; that 
 they have dwelt together in the minds of the best 
 and wisest men ; that if we seek for the one we 
 must turn to their devotional exercises, to the 
 occasions when they were most cultivating fel- 
 lowship with God and most forgetting themselves ; 
 to those parts of their writings therefore which 
 their disciples often study the least ; that if we 
 seek for the others we shall find them in elaborate 
 controversial treatises, those which supply the best 
 materials for theorems, the most ready formulas, 
 the most convenient weapons of argument and 
 ridicule against opponents : that the first remain 
 for the delight and consolation of humble Chris- 
 tian people in all ages ; that the last gradually 
 3
 
 SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 431 
 
 shape themselves more and more into a definite 
 system; that they are supposed to be bone of 
 each other's bone, and flesh of each other's flesh, 
 till some great crisis arrives, in which it pleases God 
 to demonstrate the difference of the causes by the 
 difference of the effects, to show that one had pro- 
 ceeded from Him and the other from the devil. Let 
 the reader then not be dismayed if he find the very 
 highest authorities alleged in support of the doc- 
 trine of an opus operatum ; let him not be surprised 
 to find it in any age or in any part of the Church, 
 (especially in any which had greatly undervalued 
 sacraments) reappearing and asserting its claim 
 to be identical with the Scriptural and Catholic 
 idea of it. Let him not be terrified by being 
 told, when he attempts to discriminate between 
 them that he is setting up his own judgment 
 against the opinion of doctors and the testimony 
 of antiquity. Let him say boldly, I am doing no 
 such thing. I am simply determining that I will 
 not believe the doctors against themselves ; that I 
 will not suffer myself to be cheated of a tran- 
 scendent truth which they have taught me, a 
 truth which was evidently dear to their inmost 
 hearts, a truth which they felt was derived from 
 the teaching of Christ himself, and bound them 
 to the Apostles and Martyrs of all times, a truth 
 which they acknowledged was contrary to all
 
 432 SIGNS OF A SPIRITUAL CONSTITUTION. 
 
 their carnal apprehensions, and was only preserved 
 to them by the continual teachings of God's 
 Spirit; because they have elsewhere, while argu- 
 ing with adversaries, while attempting to make a 
 principle tell upon the hopes or fears of men who 
 were incapable of entering into its true meaning, 
 while drawing conclusions from Scripture by 
 their private judgments, while apologizing for 
 some fungus which the maxims of their age had 
 confounded with the tree upon which it grew, 
 produced a plausible explanation of this truth, an 
 explanation forgotten in every moment of higher 
 inspiration, and proving itself the less divine 
 the more it is tried by its fruits. It is easy to 
 accuse those of wanting humility who have cou- 
 rage to act upon this determination. I believe 
 that the proud system-seeking, system-loving in- 
 tellect within us, disposes us to embrace the 
 doctrine of the opus operatum; that the humble 
 and contrite heart craves for a deeper principle, 
 and, finding it, is obliged to part with the other 
 for the sake of it.
 
 NOTES TO VOL. I. 
 
 [A.] 
 
 IN the text the Quaker expresses his belief " that the cate- 
 chumens in the primitive Church were not taught something 
 wholly different in kind from that which they learnt after their 
 baptism," that " they were not reasoned with upon those selfish 
 motives which it must have been the object of their after initia- 
 tion, to cure them of." It is probable that many passages may 
 be produced from the fathers, to refute this opinion ; to show that 
 they did sometimes resort to selfish arguments, upon the plea 
 that pure things are meant for the pure. Such a practice is 
 so very plausible, so very flattering to our spiritual pride, and 
 therefore has prevailed so much in all later ages of the Church, 
 that one must expect to find the seeds of it in the earliest. From 
 the excellent principle, that milk is for babes and meat for 
 grown men, an economist might easily pass to the notion that 
 there are some constitutions which are not even fit for milk, and 
 that to these some liquid drawn from the muddy streams of the 
 world, or distilled from its poisonous herbs, may be fitly adminis- 
 tered. But that this was not the habitual and deliberate opinion 
 of these ages, may, I think, be very clearly inferred from the 
 short treatise of Augustine, " De Catechizandis rudibus V This 
 valuable book was addressed to a Carthagenian deacon, who had 
 
 1 St. Aug. Op. torn. vi. p. 191. ed. Benedict. 
 VOL. I. U
 
 434 NOTES. 
 
 complained of the difficulty which he found in preserving the 
 cheerfulness and freedom of his own mind, while he was engaged 
 in catechizing. The remarks which St. Augustine makes upon this 
 subject well deserve the attention of all teachers, whether in the 
 pulpit or the school-room. It is not, however, for their sake, that 
 I refer to this little work, but that the reader may see in what spirit 
 a Bishop of the fourth century would have addressed a young 
 heathen, who was only preparing for admission into the Church. 
 Having stated his views respecting the method in which the 
 historical parts of Scripture should be exhibited to the candidate, 
 and how the coming of Christ should be shown to be the end 
 to which they are all pointing, he goes on to say, " Quoe autera 
 major causa est adventus Domini, nisi ut ostenderpt Deus dilec- 
 tionem suam in nobis, commendans earn vehementer ; quia cum 
 adhuc inimici essemus, Christus pro nobis mortuus est ? Hoc 
 autem ideo, quia finis prsecepti et plenitudo legis, caritas est : ut 
 et nos invicem diligamus, et quemadmodum ille pro nobis aniinam 
 suam posuit, sic et nos pro fratribus animam ponamus : et ipsum 
 Deum, quoniam prior dilexit nos, et Filio suo unico non pepercit, 
 sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit eum, si amare pigebat, saltern mine 
 redamare non pigeat. Nulla est enim major ad amorem invitatio, 
 quam prsevenire amando ; et nimis durus est animus, qui dilec- 
 tionem si nolebat impendere, nolit rependere. Quod si in ipsis 
 flagitiosis et sordidis amoribus videmus, nihil aliud eos agere qui 
 amari vicissim volunt, nisi ut documentis quibus valent aperiant 
 et ostendant quantum ament, eamque imaginem justitiae prseten- 
 dere affectant, ut vicem sibi reddi quodam modo flagitent ab eis 
 animis, quos illecebrare moliuntur ; ipsique ardentius sestuant, 
 cum jam mover! eodem igne etiam illas mentes quas appetunt 
 sentiunt : si ergo et animus qui torpebat, cum se amari sen- 
 serit excitatur, et qui jam fervebat cum se redamari didicerit, 
 magis accenditur : manifestum est nullam esse majorem causam 
 qua vel inchoetur vel augeatur amor, quam cum amari se 
 cognoscit, qui nondum amat aut redamari se vel posse sperat, vel 
 jam probat qui prior amat. Et si hoc etiam in turpibus amori-
 
 NOTES. 435 
 
 bus, quanto plus in amicitia ? Quid enim aliud cavemus in oflen- 
 sione amicitiae, nisi ne amicus arbitretur quod eum vel non 
 diligimus, vel minus diligimus quam ipse nos diligit I Quod si 
 crediderit, frigidior erit in eo amore quo invicem homines mutua 
 familiaritate perfruuntur : et si non ita est infirmus ut hsec ilium 
 offensio faciat ab omni dilectione frigescere ; in ea se tenet qua 
 non ut fruatur, sed ut consulat diligit. Operse pretium est 
 autem animadvertere, quo modo, quamquam et superiores velint 
 se ab inferioribus diligi, eorumque in se studioso delectentur 
 obsequio, et quanto magis id senserint, tanto magis eos diligant, 
 tamen quanto amore exardescat inferior, cum a superiore se 
 diligi senserit. Ibi enim gratior amor est, ubi non sestuat 
 indigentise siccitate, sed ubertate beneficentise profluit. Ille 
 namque amor ex miseria est, iste ex misericordia. Jam vero 
 si etiam se amari posse a superiore desperabat .inferior, ineffa- 
 biliter commovebitur in amorem, si ultro ille fuerit dignatus 
 ostendere, quantum diligat eum qui nequaquam sibi tantuin 
 bonum promittere auderet. Quid autem superius Deo judicante, 
 et quid desperatius homine peccante ? qui se tanto magis tuendum 
 et subjugandum superbis potestatibus addixerat, quse beatificare 
 non possunt, quanto magis desperaverat posse sui curam geri ab 
 ea potestate quse non malitia sublimis esse vult sed bonitate 
 sublimis est. 
 
 *' Si ergo maxime propterea Christus advenit, ut cognosceret 
 homo quantum eum diligat Deus ; et ideo cognosceret ut in ejus 
 dilectionem a quo prior dilectus est inardesceret, proximumque 
 illo jubente et demonstrante diligeret, qui non proximum, sed 
 longe peregrinantem diligendo factus est proximus ; omnisque 
 Scriptura divina quse ante scripta est ad prsenuntiandum adven- 
 tum Domini scripta est ; et quidquid postea mandatum est litteris 
 et divina auctoritate firmatum, Christum narrat, et dilectionem 
 monet : manifestum est non tantum totam Legem et Prophetas 
 in illis duobus pendere prseceptis dilectionis Dei et proximi, 
 quse adhuc sola Scriptura sancta erat cum hoc Dominus diceret, 
 sed etiam qusacumque posterius salubriter conscripta sunt
 
 436 NOTES. 
 
 memoriaeque mandata divinarum volumina litterarum. Qua- 
 propter in veteri Testamento est occultatio novi, in novo Testa- 
 mento est manifestatio veteris. Secundum illam occultationem 
 carnaliter intelligentes carnales et tune et nunc pcenali timore 
 subjugati sunt. Secundum hanc autem manifestatioiiem spiri- 
 ritales, et tune quibus pie pulsantibus etiam occulta patuerunt, 
 et nunc qui non superbi quaerunt, ne etiam aperta claudantur, 
 spiritaliter intelligentes donata caritate liberati sunt. 
 
 ".Quiaergocaritati nihil adversiusquaminvidentia ; mater autera 
 invidentiae superbia est ; idem Dominus Jesus Christus, Deus 
 homo, et divinae in nos dilectionis indicium est, et humanae apud 
 nos humilitatis exemplum, ut magnus tumor noster majore con- 
 traria medicina sanaretur. Magna est enim miseria superbus 
 homo : sed major misericordia, humilis Deus. HAC ERGO DILEC- 
 
 TIONE TIBI TAMQUAM FINE PROPOSITO QUO REFERAS OMNIA QU.fi 
 DICIS, QUIDQUID NARRAS ITA NARRA UT ILLE CUI LOQUERIS AUDI- 
 EXDO CREDAT, CREDENDO SPERET, SPERANDO AMET." 
 
 These last words are tolerably decisive as to the opinion of 
 Augustine, respecting the manner in which the character and pur- 
 pose of God, and the object of the Gospel, should be set before 
 those who have not yet been received into his covenant. In this 
 point of view his remarks would seem to me chiefly important to 
 missionaries, who are acting directly upon the minds and con- 
 sciences of heathens. I should never have dreamed of arguing fhe 
 questiou at all in reference to those who have been brought up 
 in a Christian country ; who believe that they are struggling 
 for a higher idea of Christianity than that which prevails 
 among their countrymen generally, whose fathers did actually, 
 as I think, maintain a fundamental Church principle which 
 was in great hazard of being forgotten, and have trans- 
 mitted to their descendants at least the form of that principle, 
 deserted I allow, to a great degree, of its strength and vitality, but 
 on the other hand hallowed by feelings of old association and 
 reverence. To deal with such men as if they stood upon the same 
 ground with heathens, because they have not been baptized,
 
 NOTES. 437 
 
 seems to me a wilful denial of the effects which God's cove- 
 nant has produced upon a society which it has encompassed for a 
 thousand years, under pretence of doing honour to the sign of that 
 covenant. In quoting then St. Augustine, I mean merely to prove, 
 that even upon this hypothesis we are not warranted by the prac- 
 tice of,,, antiquity, in treating Quakers as if they must receive 
 baptism, before we can speak with them respecting the princi- 
 ples and end of the Gospel. Whoever produces the maxim ciyia 
 oyt'oif in opposition to the mode of reasoning which I have adopted 
 with the Quaker, is not attacking me but St. Augustine. 
 
 Nor will he make his case better, if he should plead that the 
 heretic who adopts parts of the Gospel and rejects the rest, and 
 who lives under the shadow of the Catholic Church, is really in a 
 worse condition than the heathen, and must be treated as one 
 who has sinfully sacrificed all his powers of spiritual apprehen- 
 sion, and can only be appealed to by arguments addressed to his 
 sensible experience. For then we shall produce the two books 
 of Augustine, ' De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicse et de Moribus 
 Manichaeorum ! ;' books written for the express purpose of con- 
 vincing those who had been seduced, by what St. Augustine 
 knew from his own experience to be the most fatal of all heresies. 
 I allude to this work the rather, because there are many passages 
 in it, which might lead one to suppose that he would in this par- 
 ticular case have adopted the maxim against which I am con- 
 tending. For instance, in one place he says, speaking of the 
 manner in which the Manichseans treated the Old Testament, 
 " Dicendum est vobis, Non est vestrum ista mtelligere. Non parum 
 ruihi cogniti estis. Crassas omnino mentes et corporeorum 
 simulacrorum pestifero pastu morbidas ad divina judicanda 
 defertis, quae multo altiora sunt quam putatis." And again, 
 " Poteram pro mea mediocritate discutere singula, et eruere ac 
 demonstrare quse accepi, in quorum excellentia et, altitudme 
 
 1 August, torn. i. p. 512. ed. Benedict. 
 
 u3
 
 438 NOTES. 
 
 plerumque verba deficiunt : sed quamdiu latratis, non est facien- 
 dum. Non enim frustra dictum est, Nolite sanctum dare canibut. 
 Ne succenseatis. Et ego latravi et canisfui, quando mecum jure 
 non docendi cibo, sed refellendi fustibus agebatur. Si autem in 
 vobis esset caritas, de qua nunc agitur, vel etiam si fuerit 
 aliquando, quantam cognoscendae veritatis magnitudo de^iderat, 
 aderit Deus qui ostendat vobis neque apud Manichaeos esse 
 Christianam fidem, quse ad summum apicem sapientise veritatis- 
 que perducit, qua perfrui nihil est aliud nisi beate vivere, neque 
 esse uspiam, nisi in catholica disciplina." And again, " Unde 
 illud exoritur, quod ab initio satagimus, nihil in Ecclesia catholica 
 salubrius fieri, quam ut rationem praecedat auctoritas." 
 
 From these passages one might easily infer that Augustine would 
 appeal only to such low hopes as these low minds could reach, 
 would give nothing but fleshless bones to these barking dogs, 
 would insist upon their submitting to the authority of the Church, 
 before he treated them as capable of hearing any reason. How 
 stands the case ? He declares at the outset of his treatise, (c. 2.) 
 that he will appeal only to those scriptures which they themselves 
 recognize, and will try the Church by those moral signs which 
 they hold to be sound ; (c. 3.) that though according to the true order 
 of nature, authority ought to precede reason, he should nevertheless call 
 upon tfiem to receive nothing, for which he did not produce a reason. 
 Adding, " Delectat enim me imitari quantum taleo mansuetudinem 
 Domini mei Jesu Christi, qui etiam ipsius mortis malo, quo nos 
 exuere vellet, indutus est." And to what kind of reasons does he 
 appeal ? He inquires what the Summum Bonum is, he shows 
 what an appetite there is in man after it, he proves that God 
 must be the good, and that the knowledge and love of God 
 must be the eternal life, which men are craving. These are 
 the principles from which he starts, and to which all that he 
 says about the Scriptures, and the Church, is referred. And he 
 does not speak of these matters in a cold dry spirit, as if he were 
 addressing men before whom he was afraid of exhibiting any 
 deeper emotions ; his words often rise almost into a rapture,
 
 NOTES. 439 
 
 though he never for a moment loses his intellectual clearness, or 
 his human, affection '. 
 
 I think then that in abandoning the argument from safety, and 
 hi appealing to the principles which are still acknowledged by those 
 who have wandered the farthest from what I believe to be the 
 order of the Catholic Church, I am acting in the spirit of these 
 passages. The other method seems to me to be formed from an 
 incongruous combination of the hardest maxims and precedents 
 of the early times, with the most vulgar of our own. It is an 
 attempt to graft Paley upon Chrysostom, to establish ancient 
 Christianity by the help of the Stock Exchange. 
 
 . [B.] 
 
 The following passage from Tittmann's Meletemata Sacra, (pp. 
 27 29.) will explain the allusion in the text. " Nobis quidem inde 
 a longo tempore visa est, atque etiamnum videtur maximas veri- 
 tatis notas habere sententia ea, quam innuimus loc. cit. deinde 
 vero dudum prolatam fuisse vidimus a Laur. Valla, Not. in N. T. 
 cujus verba infra scripsimus 2 , et Beza, Not. ad h. 1 ; nostristem- 
 poribus autem in primis exornatam a I. A. Cramero, Beytrage 
 zur Beforderuug theol. Gelehrsamkeit, P. i. p. 232. et Gabr. Chr. 
 Beni. Moschio, Ecklar. der Evangel. P. i. p. 289. probatam quo- 
 que Jo. Aug. Ernesti, Bibl. Theol. Nov. T. iii. p. 129, sqq. 
 Scilicet, ut dicamus breviter, nee repetamus, quse e V. T. dis- 
 
 1 See especially the passages between the eighteenth and twenty- 
 sixth chapters of the first book, a noble piece of Christian 
 Ethical Philosophy. 
 
 2 Sunt autem hsec : 6 Aoyog benedictum illud semen declarat, 
 de quo Adamo, Abrahamo, Isaaco, Jacobo, Davidi, et electis 
 omnibus, locutus est Dominus, quasi sermonem, seu Promissum } 
 Dei voces, 
 
 U 4
 
 440 NOTES. 
 
 putavimus loco citato, vocabulum Xoyov arbitramur denotare 
 promissum, usurpatumque ease loco row Xtyo^tvof, quod plane 
 :i'i|uijiollot vocabulo magis usitato ; 6 Ipxopt vof, ejusque usur- 
 pandi causam repetitam esse, partim ex more illorum temporum 
 in cogitando denominandoque Servatore, partim ex usu loquendi, 
 partim a consilio Joannis in scribendo hoc libro, partim denique 
 a consuetudine Domini ipsius in se describendo. Primum enim 
 mos illorum temporum, et ex ipsa rei natura, quoniam Servator 
 erat turn futurus, et ex consuetudine V. T. receptus, fuit hie, ut 
 Messias diceretur 6 ipxoptvoc, K2n quo quidem nomine in T. V. 
 appellatus est KUT' iZoxrjv, et quemadmodum Cyrillus Hieros. 1 
 innuit, ex loco Gen. xlix. 10. in N. T. autem eodem nomine 
 insignitus legitur saepissime, veluti Matth. xi. 3. ubi Joannes 
 Baptista quaeri ex eo jussit, vi> il 6 cp^o/ifvod f/ 'irtouv 
 TrpoaFoK&ntv ; et apud ipsum Joannem, cap. vi. 16. xi. 27. 
 Unde Judoeis, in primisque Christianis, neque incognitum plane 
 nomen esse potuit, neque inusitatum in consuetudine vulgari. 
 Deinde quod Xoyov Evangelista dixit loco vocis Xtyo/ttvof, id 
 quidem offendet neminem, consuetudinis loquendi Scripturarum 
 sacrarum vel leviter peritum : constat enim, vocabula abstracto- 
 runi pro concretis centies adhiberi, idque non raro factum esse 
 alias quoque in denominando Domino nostro ; veluti quando 
 ffwrjpta appellatur loco ffwrijpof cap. iv. 22. item o>; et 0<Df, 
 aut apud Lucam, Ev. ii. 25 et 30, ffotTripiov et TrapdicXijfftc TOV 
 'laparjX. Nee dubitationem habere potest, vocabulo \6yov tribui 
 posse earn vim quam diximus, quoniam vocabulum Hebraicum 
 quod Grseco respondit, Graecumque ipsum Rom. ix. 6. sexcenties 
 in locis de promissione dictum extat, atque ab interpretibus Graecis 
 trauslatum reperitur dyytXia et iirayytXia, veluti Prov. xii. 25. 
 atque adeo Xtyoptvoc idem sit et esse possit, quod iirajfi\X6ftf vof . 
 Unde etiam in loco Sap. xviii. 15, Angelas divinitus promissus 
 et ablegatus Xoyoc Qtov appellatur, de quo vid. Schleusneri 
 Spicilegium Lexici in interpr. Gr. V. T. Spec. i. p. 75. Ac plane 
 
 1 Catech. xii. p. 261. ed. Prenot. '
 
 NOTES. 441 
 
 eandem vim vocabulum Xo'you obtinet in reliquis libris, Joannis 
 nirairum, 1 Ep. i. 1, ubi Dominus appellatus est Xo'yog rrjf ZMTJG, 
 id est, promissus auctor felicitatis ; et Apoc. xix. 13, in quo loco 
 dicitur Xo'yof rov Qeov, hoc est, a Deo promissus. Turn porro 
 consiliura Joannis in scribendo Evangelic, cum fuerit hoc, ut 
 demonstraret, quemadmodum supra vidimus, Jesum esse pro- 
 missum exspectatumque Messiam ; facile quisque videt quani 
 aptum sit ei consilio, quamque accommodatum vocabulum row 
 Xoyov, hunc ipsum promissum Messiam exprimens. Ad ex- 
 tremum, quod in primis notabile est, Domino ipsi in sermonibus 
 omnibus in hoc libro commemoratis, solenne fuit, se appellare lega- 
 tum a Patre, Patrem vero mittentem, seque describere tanquam 
 eum gui missus a Patre, profectusque in has terras venerit, atque 
 ad eundem rediturus sit ; veluti cap. vi. 38. xvi. 28. xiii. 3. 
 reliqua ; quo innuere volebat manifeste se esse rbv ip^o/Jitvov, 
 hoc est, Messiam promissum exspectatumque. Atque hsec con- 
 suetudo Domini videtur fuisse causa preecipua usurpandi hujus 
 vocabuli alias in hac re paulo insolentioris. Itaque sensus 
 verborum priorum est hie : promissus Senator extitit ante rerum 
 omnium initia, tanquam scriptum fuisset hoc modo, iv apxy 
 ffv o \(y6[jttvos <rwT7Jp." 
 
 These remarks would be comparatively unimportant if they 
 merely expressed the opinions of an individual critic, even of one 
 so respectable as Tittmann. But the reader will perceive that he 
 is able to produce a fair list of authorities upon his side, some of 
 them dating as far back as the Reformation, some numbered 
 among the scholars of the last age. All these, with more or less 
 reservation, subscribed to an interpretation, which if it were ap- 
 plied to any passage in any uninspired author, would have been 
 rejected by every one of them with indignation and disdain. Now 
 there must be a reason for this. Men who have studied the laws of 
 language could not talk in this way about substituting the abstract 
 for the concrete, or produce such utterly inapplicable parallels 
 from other parts of Scripture, and then resort to the insolent cri- 
 tical dogma, that ' no one who is in the least degree acquainted 
 
 u 5
 
 442 NOTES. 
 
 with the language of the Bible can be offended' by such a depar- 
 ture from all ordinary principles and usages, if there were not 
 some deeply rooted habit of thought and feeling with which the 
 simple mode of rendering the words is at variance. What 
 this is, perhaps, we may for a moment be puzzled to discover ; 
 for the feelings of the writers near the tune of the Reformation 
 were, in many respects, directly opposed to those of their suc- 
 cessors in the two following centuries. But if we remember the 
 great eagerness which there was among the writers of the earlier 
 period, to assert the distinction of the Bible from all other books, 
 and above all, to cut it off from any fellowship with philosophy, 
 we need not wonder that they should have desired wholly to 
 separate the use of the word upon which the Gospel of St. John 
 turns, from the same word as it is employed by Plato and by Philo. 
 The early Socinian writers perceived the fact, which the ortho- 
 dox Protestants had determined to overlook, and made use of it 
 to prove, that if this expression imported something abstract and 
 impersonal in either of the uninspired writers, it must have the 
 same import in the sacred ones. That those who replied to them 
 should take fresh pains to assert the special signification, and 
 should pronounce the effort to connect it with any other as pro- 
 fane and heretical, was to be expected. Then came the time 
 when the classical writers began to be spoken of with respect ; 
 when the ordinary Protestant commentator was rather glad to 
 look upon Scripture as containing a new and expanded form of 
 heathen morality, and when the descendants of the Polish Socin- 
 ians began to exercise an important influence on theological opi- 
 nion. In such a tune, one ihight have looked for a reversal of the 
 former decrees, for a rather excessive willingness to find out an 
 analogy between St. John and the Heathen or Jewish teacher. But 
 bythis time Platonism had been just asmuch exhausted of.itsmean- 
 ing as Christianity. So far as any heathen philosopher was found 
 to have laid down fine maxims about virtue, he was respected 
 as a Christian, minus the belief in Christ. But when he uttered 
 anything which savoured of a feeling and recognition of mystery,
 
 NOTES. 443 
 
 the reverence for him disappeared ; here his paganism or false 
 philosophy was thought to have obtruded itself. A new merit 
 was discovered in the Gospel, that it put an end to such dreams, 
 and brought every thing within the region of common sense. As 
 this feeling belonged both to the believers and to the deniers of 
 the old Creeds, it was not wonderful that the former should be 
 glad of any expedient for proving that St. John, though he asserted 
 a strange dogma, was perfectly free from all taint of mysticism ; 
 and that the latter should have endeavoured to evade the autho- 
 rity of his words, by alleging that he certainly did show symptoms 
 of a tendency which the enlightened of all parties had agreed to 
 denounce. In our own day, the evangelical protest against mere 
 heathen morality, and the terror of the new attempts to exhibit 
 Christianity as only one out of many forms of religious faith and 
 opinion, have led to the same desire for an exclusive interpreta- 
 tion, which prevailed for different reasons in former periods. 
 Tittmann's interpretation, therefore, is very likely to be a popular 
 one among religious people both here and abroad. 
 
 But can we be honouring Scripture, while we are consciously 
 attempting to find strange and tortuous explanations of its most 
 awful and characteristic passages ? Ought not every theological 
 student to suspect himself, if he feels that he is inclined to take 
 refuge in this or any similar contrivance for evading the ordinary 
 force of words ? I do most earnestly press this thought upon 
 those whom it may most concern, because it seems to me that the 
 recovery of a sound spiritual theology among us depends mainly 
 upon the temper of mind in which we apply ourselves to the 
 study of St. John's Gospel ; upon the way in which we connect it 
 with Old Testament history and prophecy, and upon our willing- 
 ness to acknowledge that it does interpret to us the history of 
 God's dealings with men in all time. The more I look at the 
 different directions which men's thoughts are taking in this day, 
 the more it seems to me that this is the subject to which we 
 ought to devote ourselves ; and the right meditation upon which 
 
 u 6
 
 444 NOTES. 
 
 may save us from a thousand confusions, and help us to bring 
 the most apparently opposite feelings into reconciliation. 
 
 The three following notes may perhaps help to explain my 
 meaning, and may enable the reader better to understand the 
 purpose of all my other hints. 
 
 [C.] 
 
 It had always been the impression, I believe, upon the minds 
 both of ordinary readers and of scholars, that the Comedian of 
 Athens intended to represent Socrates as a Sophist, who was 
 corrupting the old spirit of Greece, with modern philosophical 
 refinements. Upon this view of the case, Aristophanes, though 
 he may have entirely mistaken Hie character and objects of the 
 person whom he was ridiculing, will still confirm the impression 
 which we derive from other sources, that he was emphatically a 
 moral teacher, that he meddled with physical speculations only 
 just so far as they illustrated his principles concerning the life of 
 man, that his great effort was to awaken men to self-knowledge. 
 A Teacher who asserted that a constant conflict was going on in 
 man between two principles, one drawing him upwards, one 
 dragging him to earth, might easily be represented as keeping a 
 right and a wrong reason, and being able upon all fitting occa- 
 sions to make the latter predominant. One who urged his pupils 
 to study the meaning of words, might be plausibly accused of in- 
 venting the most subtle and aerial distinctions. One who wished to 
 guide them through the thick coming thoughts and fancies which 
 the teachings of the sophists had stirred up within them to a solid 
 foundation, might easily be suspected of administering to the growth 
 of self-consciousness, and so of interfering with simple and practi- 
 cal life. These charges are just such as any man coming into a 
 vicious state of society, and seeking to reform it, not by preaching
 
 NOTES. 445 
 
 about the past, but by actually entering into tbe present, and 
 endeavouring to discover a way out of its confusions, must always 
 incur. It is the best proof which can be afforded of the talent of 
 Aristophanes, that he so clearly understood the kind of work in 
 which Socrates was engaged ; the best excuse for his character, 
 that he confounded him with persons who deserved all reproba- 
 tion, and whom he was, by a very different course to that 
 which the Comedian followed, refuting and exposing. 
 
 But a modern editor of Aristophanes, Mr. Mitchell, whose 
 English notes, whose criticisms, and whose previous translations, 
 are likely to make his work very popular, has promulgated an 
 entirely new theory upon this subject. He maintains that the 
 notion of the objects of Socrates which we obtain from either of 
 his disciples, or from tradition, is utterly false ; that he was pri- 
 marily, and almost exclusively, a physical philosopher, that as 
 such he is ridiculed in the Clouds, and that the hero of that part 
 of the play which seems to describe him in another character, is 
 really not Socrates but Euripides ! 
 
 The last hypothesis will, I should think, be a much more effec- 
 tual confutation of this ingenious scheme, than any arguments 
 which can be brought against it. To prove his point against the 
 philosopher, Mr. Mitchell is obliged to destroy our respect for the 
 genius of his own favourite poet. For he represents this his most 
 elaborate composition as utterly deficient in unity of purpose or 
 principle, as nothing but a collection of incoherent lampoons upon 
 two persons, who it would appear were not even connected by a 
 common object or by the same class of pursuits. One can scarcely 
 imagine a more satisfactory confirmation of the common opinion, 
 that Socrates was what Xenophon and Plato (much as they differ 
 in the character of their minds, and in their ways of regarding 
 their master) both represent him to have been, than that which 
 is supplied by this desperate effort to set it aside. 
 
 So far as the assertion in the text is concerned, these remarks 
 might be sufficient. But I cannot help perceiving that Mr. 
 Mitchell's remarks on this point are in strict accordance with those
 
 446 NOTES. 
 
 which he is every where endeavouring to propagate, respecting 
 Greek philosophy generally, and that he is availing himself, it 
 seems to me most mischievously, of Christian feelings and pre- 
 judices in support of them. In a passage of his Preface to the 
 Clouds, he gives it as his opinion, that the highest honour which 
 Pythagoras ever received was to be made ' the hero and object 
 of ridicule in one of Lucian's unmatched dialogues.' He speaks 
 of him and of Epimenides and Empedocles as * impostors' and 
 ' Charlatans.' And having assumed that Socrates belonged to the 
 same class of thinkers with them, and received much of his 
 teaching from the Italian school, he leaves his readers to draw 
 the inference that he was an impostor and charlatan also. 
 
 As our notices of Pythagoras, though sufficient to show that 
 the greatest among the Greeks regarded him with respect and 
 admiration, are rather scattered and miscellaneous, my readers 
 may wish to know something of the process by which Mr. 
 Mitchell arrives at his conclusions respecting him. Perhaps 
 they may suppose that he collects the remarks respecting 
 him, which are to be found in Plato and Aristotle, that he then 
 resorts to Diogenes Laertius, and finally avails himself of any 
 hints which Cicero either from Greek or Italian sources may 
 be able to supply. No, our author disdains all these vulgar 
 methods. His authorities are derived from a period subsequent 
 to the Christian era. He takes the life of Apollonius of Tyana by 
 the sophist Philostratus. He finds that this mythical hero 
 equipped himself in the cast-off garments of the Samian, invent- 
 ing, he fairly confesses, som stories, but in all probability 
 " finding others ready made to his hand" ;" the chief ground for 
 this last opinion being that 'the immortal Lucian' believed or 
 feigned to believe them. Out of these materials Mr. Mitchell 
 constructs a Pythagoras, and thence by the easiest process imagin- 
 able (his former hypothesis being admitted), a Socrates. 
 
 I entreat my reader to verify these assertions, by turning to 
 the preface of which I have spoken ; for I do not ask him to 
 believe on my authority that any scholar conversant with the
 
 NOTES. 447 
 
 laws of historical evidence, has adopted such a course for dis- 
 covering the character and merits of an ancient teacher. It is 
 quite superfluous to observe hi what way the precedent might be 
 applied to other cases. Of course if any Father or Apostle has 
 been chosen for the subject of a biography by an Italian monk 
 of the last or present century, who has discovered his relics and 
 wrought miracles with them, that biography must henceforth be 
 received as genuine ; upon the strength of it the Father or Apos- 
 tle of it must be pronounced an impostor or charlatan, provided 
 only Voltaire or some other immortal Lucian of the west has 
 adopted it as the warrant for his jests. Nevertheless Mr. 
 Mitchell's statements will in many quarters be eagerly received. 
 There are some who seem to think that the proof of the divine 
 origin and worth of Christianity depends upon the mean estimate 
 which we form of all the wise men whom Greece produced in its 
 best days ; that if we can but succeed in wiping out the respect 
 for them, no matter by what means, there is a tabula rasa on 
 which we may inscribe all the feelings and principles of the 
 New Testament. Alas ! what a tabula rasa ! one on which 
 scorn, scepticism, indifference to all earnest hopes, unbelief in 
 any principle, have been written in the deepest characters before- 
 hand ! These are the preparations for the Gospel ! These are 
 the habits of mind which we are to foster in order that we may 
 feel our own nothingness, and our need of a divine Teacher, and 
 may believe that we have one ! That facts are against such a 
 notion ; that the sceptics and scoffei-s of the ages after Christianity 
 had been proclaimed, were not the men most ready to receive it ; 
 that those who were most earnestly and truly holding fast 
 that which they had, seeking for God by every light which 
 Mythology or Philosophy threw in their way, were those who 
 most welcomed the voice of the messenger bringing good tidings, 
 and saying, Behold your God this is certain. Nevertheless in the 
 teeth of the clearest evidence of this kind, we suppose that we 
 are proving Christianity to be that which all men want, by proving
 
 448 NOTES. 
 
 that all those who showed they did want it were imposing upon 
 others or upon themselves. 
 
 The ground for such a suspicion is however the point upon 
 which I am most anxious to speak. It is this : whenever these 
 heathen philosophers perceived a great moral principle, the 
 knowledge of which they believed might be for the good of ages 
 unborn, they said they were inspired. Now that they were 
 ignorant of the conditions, under which spiritual life and wisdom 
 are communicated ; that the belief of being taught from above 
 produced an intoxication which at times carried them into extra- 
 vagant courses ; that it may have ultimately engendered a vanity 
 which was the parent of real impostures, I make no doubt. But I 
 ask, is it safe, in spite of all these facts, to say that honesty of pur- 
 pose, and real positive wisdom, were the fruits of delusion and 
 falsehood ? All that is sincere in my mind revolts against such an 
 opinion. Good produces good, lies bring forth lies ; what there 
 was of deceit in these men led to evil results, kept up a supersti- 
 tion which was ultimately exposed and which carried away much 
 sound faith along with it ; but they did some good, great good. 
 Did this come from any hollowness and trickery, MJ) ytvoiro ! 
 It must have come from deep and wise counsels ; earnest medi- 
 tations ; loving feelings. And whence came these I Are we 
 just because we are Christians, to say it was pretence and 
 cheating to affirm that they came from the source of all truth 
 and good ? Are we just because we know that not only rains 
 and fruitful seasons, but all holy thoughts, good counsels and just 
 works have a divine Author, to say that the dim recognition 
 of this truth by elder men was actually a crime ; that they 
 would have been better and wiser if they had taken the honour to 
 themselves ? Yet we must charge this humility upon them as a 
 sin, if we are determined to adopt the Pelagian doctrine, that 
 the good which was in these men had its root in human nature, 
 existing apart from God, and not in the teachings and impulses of 
 the divine Word.
 
 NOTES. 449 
 
 [D.] 
 
 The reader will find in Mr. Coleridge's ' Aids to Reflection,' a 
 most valuable passage on the subject of Mysticism, in which the 
 two senses of the word to which I have alluded in the text are 
 finely and accurately distinguished. The instances which are 
 there referred to, as illustrating the way in which a profound 
 apprehension of the law and mystery of our own being, derived 
 either from the simple study of the word of God, or from that study 
 improved by reading and cultivation, may connect itself with 
 notions and allegories suggested by the fancies of particular minds, 
 are those of Bb'hme and Fenelon. They are most happily chosen 
 the one as exhibiting the most perfect type of Protestant, the 
 other of Romish, mysticism. But the instance of Philo is perhaps 
 more striking and important than either. No one who looks into 
 his writings can fancy for an instant that he was not a laborious 
 student of the Bible. To no one does the charge often preferred 
 against spiritualists, of undervaluing the Scriptures, and substi- 
 tuting for them the wisdom which they had derived from some 
 other quarter, apply less than to him. He evidently regarded 
 his own sacred writings as more precious than all other books 
 together. He evidently traced up all his thoughts and discoveries 
 to the light which he had received from them. Nevertheless it 
 is true, that Philo's Scripture readings would most utterly con- 
 found anyone who had been used to look at the text with simplicity. 
 Such a person would not, I think, be inclined to say, (as nine out 
 of ten who are not simple readers, but who bring to the study all 
 the artificial notions and habits of their own time, certainly would 
 say,) 'all this is mere stuff and nonsense.' He would perceive 
 that there is something in it to which such words are very 
 inapplicable indeed, nay, that there is a continuous stream of 
 thought through every part of his exposition, by following which, 
 we become convinced that the records he is speaking of have an 
 internal unity. At the same time, I am quite sure that the best 
 and truest reader will be conscious of most restlessness and
 
 450 NOTES. 
 
 impatience, when he finds the records of a simple practical life, 
 turned into a set of high-flown conceits and allegories about the 
 different moral virtues, and the sensible and rational part in man. 
 How then are we to distinguish the solid and the real from the 
 fantastic in these remarkable books ? It seems to me that the 
 position of Philo supplies the answer. No where so well as in 
 Alexandria could a man learn what were the feelings and necessi- 
 ties of .men, especially of thoughtful men, in the heathen world, 
 what it was that philosophers were seeking after, what was re- 
 quisite to satisfy their inquiries. No where so ill as in Alexandria 
 could a man find any thing which should interpret to him the 
 simply domestic life or the national feelings and sympathies of 
 the Jewish people. Going with the advantages 'which one kind 
 of knowledge gave him, to the study of his Scriptures, he found 
 erery where hints of a divine Teacher, who was guiding men out 
 of the ways of sense, out of slavery to visible appearances, into 
 the acknowledgment of an unseen Being. He knew how the rea- 
 son in man had striven against the impressions of sense, had 
 striven to realize an object answerable to itself ; here he found 
 the other side of the picture. Here was the Reason of God lead- 
 ing that higher faculty which he had imparted to his creature 
 to seek after him and to find him. Going with his ignorance to 
 the same books the real practical conflicts, the human doings, the 
 outward crosses of those whom they speak of, became to him mere 
 pictures and images of certain mental feelings and operations ; he 
 could recognize the world of human relations, only as an image 
 world ; he was utterly unprepared for the mystery of the Word 
 made Flesh. The first class of his thoughts connect him with the 
 most thoughtful men of all times, living in a position the most un- 
 like his own ; the latter connect him with them indeed so far as this, 
 that they as well as he have been prone to read their own circum- 
 stances and states of mind into the universal book, but those cir- 
 cumstances and states of mind being different from his, there is 
 little in their speculations to support his, or in his to afford an 
 excuse for theirs.
 
 NOTES. 451 
 
 My object is not to give the reader any account of Philo's 
 Scriptural allegories, nor even to show how the acknowledgment 
 of the Divine Word is worked into the whole tissue of his thoughts. 
 My wish is merely to illustrate the way in which he represents 
 the Word as a Teacher ; in which he connects that teaching 
 with the Reason of man ; in which he describes it as univer- 
 sal. The other side of the subject, his hints respecting the rela- 
 tion between the Word and the Absolute Being, are in the 
 strictly theological sense more important. But I shall allude 
 to them here only so far as they illustrate the point which 
 belongs strictly to the history of Quakerism. I pass over then 
 his assertion that the Divine Word was at once the framer of 
 things and the image after which they were framed, (see the book 
 on the Mosaic history of Creation, c. i. beginning 7rpo\a/3o>v yap 
 6 Qtbc to ch. v. Trpoc a\jj0av ayafloi',) and all other passages 
 which refer to the physical universe, even though they may speak 
 of an intellectual (noetic) universe as the type of this. Nor will I 
 dwell upon his comment on the words, " and the Lord God 
 took the man whom he had made, and set him in the Garden, to 
 till it and to watch over it" where he speaks of a distinction 
 between that mind which was merely formed (7rXa<T0ae), and that 
 which was created, this last being " a pure reason, unparticipant of 
 corrupt matter, enjoying a purer and more untainted constitution, 
 which pure reason God apprehends, not suffering it to go from him, 
 but placing it as the watchman and governor of the different 
 virtues which he has planted and made to bud around it." 
 (Allegories, Book i. 28.) Nor will I more than allude to his 
 remark, which supplies an important limitation to the former 
 words, that Cain and Abel represent " two opposite and conflict- 
 ing opinions, the one whereof refers all things to the reason, as if 
 it were the guide of thought, of feeling, of motion, of power ; 
 the other refers to God as being his workmanship. With which 
 two opinions, he adds, the same soul travails. But when they 
 are brought forth, they must needs be divided, since it is utterly
 
 452 NOTES. 
 
 impossible for such enemies to dwell together." (On the sacrifices 
 of Cain and Abel, 1.) 
 
 Such passages as the following are more directly to our purpose, 
 aud will be a key to the others. It is taken from a treatise on 
 the ' Husbandry of Noah,' which is of course allegorized after the 
 author's usual fashion. 
 
 " Wherefore it is needful that our Reason, like a goatherd, or 
 cowherd, or shepherd, or keeper of cattle generally, should have 
 rule, choosing that which is convenient before that which is plea- 
 sant either to itself or to the inferior creatures. Nevertheless, 
 that the different portions of the soul are not left ungoverned, but 
 have the blessing of a faultless and altogether good Shepherd, under 
 whose conduct it is impossible that the council of thoughts should 
 be disturbed and scattered, we must attribute, finally, and we 
 might say exclusively, to the oversight of God Himself. For so 
 it is shown to be of necessity under one and the same order, in 
 that it looks up to one Overseer, since the being obliged to serve 
 many different rulers is an intolerable calamity. And so good a 
 thing is this office of the Shepherd, that it is rightly ascribed 
 not to kings only, and to wise men, and to souls purified for the 
 highest mysteries, but to God the universal Ruler Himself. The 
 authority for this is not some insignificant person, but a prophet, 
 a psalmist, whom we may well trust. For he speaks thus, ' The 
 Lord is my Shepherd, and I shall not want.' Let each man say 
 the same in his own part and measure ; for this is a song which 
 it is comely for every godly man to meditate and sing over with 
 himself, and which at the same time properly appertains to the 
 whole universe. For water, and air, and fire, and whatsoever 
 vegetables or animals are in these, things mortal, and things 
 divine, the nature of the heavens, the courses of the Sun and 
 Moon, the movements and harmonious dances of the other Stars, 
 as if they formed one sheepfold, doth God, as Shepherd and King, 
 guide according to order and law, setting over them his true 
 Word, his first begotten Son, who is ready like the viceroy of a
 
 NOTES. 453 
 
 great king to receive and to render up the care of this holy 
 flock. Let then the whole world, that greatest and most perfect 
 sheepfold of the true God say, ' The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall 
 not want.' Let each say the same individually ; not with that 
 voice that comes through the tongue and mouth, which spreads 
 through but a little portion of air, but with the far-reaching voice 
 ol the mind, which touches the very boundaries of the universe." 
 
 I do not quote this passage for the sake of its style, which ie 
 perhaps somewhat inflated, but as a fair exposition of the 
 idea which is expanded through the whole treatise ; the idea, I 
 mean, that the living Word is the shepherd and teacher of the 
 inner man ; ordaining the whole constitution of the mind, and 
 holding direct and continual converse with it. In precisely the 
 same spirit is the following passage from another work. 
 
 " But it is a fearful thing for the soul to ascend into the contem- 
 plation of The Being by itself, not knowing the way, and at the 
 same time lifted up by its ignorance and boldness. Great are the 
 falls which happen from such defect of knowledge and foolish 
 daring. Wherefore Moses prays that he may have God Himself for 
 his guide in the way which leads to Him. For he saith, ' If thou 
 wilt not go with me, lead me not up 'from hence.' Therefore 
 every movement without the divine direction and oversight, 
 leadeth to evil. And it were better to remain here below, 
 leading this confused beggarly mortal life, as the greater part of 
 men do, than having lifted ourselves up to heaven, through boast- 
 ing to be turned back and confounded, which calamity has 
 happened to multitudes of sophists, who have fancied that wisdom 
 consisted in the invention of persuasive words, not in the most 
 true faith of things. Perhaps also something of this kind is signi- 
 fied. 'Do not lift me up on high by giving me wealth, or fame, or 
 honour, or power, or whatever else belongs to the things called 
 good, if Thou wilt not Thyself accompany them.' For these 
 oftentimes procure the greatest curses and blessings to those who 
 have them blessings when God Himself is the guide of the mind ; 
 curses, when He is not. For to multitudes those things which are
 
 454 NOTES. 
 
 called goods, have been the causes of intolerable evils : but he 
 that followeth God uses as the fellows and comrades of his jour- 
 ney those Xoyoi whom it is customary to name angels. For it is 
 written ' that Abraham went with them leading them on the way.' 
 O beautiful equality when the guide is himself guided, giving 
 what he receiveth, not one thing in place of another, but the very 
 same thing reciprocated ! For while he is not yet perfected, 
 he useth the divine Word as the leader or the way. For the 
 oracle is, ' Behold I send My angel with thee before thy face, 
 that he may keep' thee in the way, that he may lead thee to 
 the land which I have prepared for thee ; give heed to him and 
 hearken to him, disobey him not, for My word is in him.' But 
 when he hath come to the highest point of knowledge, vigorouslv 
 running on, he will measure his paces with him who was before 
 leading him in the way. For both will become followers of God, 
 the universal Guide." (On the Migration of Abraham, 31.) 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the somewhat startling words 
 with which this passage concludes, no one, I think, can read them 
 without feeling more clearly and strongly what the purpose of the 
 epistle to the Hebrews, especially of the first chapter, is, and at 
 the same time -without obtaining a clearer light, respecting that 
 form of Gnosticism, which connected itself with Jewish ideas. These 
 Aoyoi or angels, ministers of God and to man, the Jew could re- 
 cognize in his Scriptures ; might not Jesus be one of these ! 
 Neither absolutely divine nor absolutely human ; but belonging 
 to a middle race between Godhead and Humanity ? The writer 
 of the epistle meets this opinion. He proves that the Scrip- 
 tures speak of one who is not one of the Aoyot but the Aoyoc, not 
 a Son of God but the Son of God. And then he goes on to shew 
 how this Son of God verily apprehended not the angels but the 
 seed of Abraham. The remark of course is familiar to all stu- 
 dents of theology. But it may" not be wholly useless to suggest it 
 to younger men, as one of the proofs that all the Scriptures be- 
 come unintelligible and incoherent, when the idea upon which I 
 am dwelling is lost sight of.
 
 NOTES. 455 
 
 The" following, extract from the treatise, ' On the confusion of 
 tongues', has the same kind of value. Philo has been speaking of 
 the words, ' The tower which the sons of men have builded.' He 
 supposes some jester to ask, why this phrase should be used, for who 
 else but sons of men were likely to build cities and towers ? He 
 answers, that these words were not used carelessly or without a 
 meaning. By them it is intimated, that the builders of the tower 
 were men who were pursuing a multitude of objects, and had lost 
 sight of the one Creator and Father of all. He then adds, " but 
 the truly wise are fittingly called the sons of the one God, as 
 Moses confesseth, where he saith, ' Ye are the sons of the Lord 
 your God ;' and again, ' God that begat thee.' And this belongs 
 to those who have fashioned their souls to think, that that which 
 is in itself pure and beautiful is the only good, which is set up as 
 the opposite fortress to that of pleasure, and serves for its sub- 
 version and overthrow. And though a man may not yet be fit 
 to be called son of God, yet let him strive to fashion himself 
 after his first begotten Word, the eldest of the angels ; the arch- 
 angel of many names ; for He is called ' Beginning,' and ' Name 
 of God,' and ' Word,' and ' The Man according to the divine 
 Image (o KO.T' ciicova avOpanroQ), and ' He that looketh upon 
 Israel.' * * *. For though we are not yet reckoned sons of God, 
 yet we may be called so of ' His eternal Image' ' the most holy 
 Word ;' for this most venerable Word is the image of God." 
 
 So in a very cabalistic commentary upon the fifteenth chapter 
 of Genesis, he says, hi reference to tire words, ' he divided not the 
 birds :' " For the word of God, solitary and monadic in the multi- 
 tude of things that have become, and that are to perish, remain- 
 eth uncompounded, ever wont to ascend upwards, and studying 
 to be the companion of the One. Wherefore there are these two 
 undivided natures, that in us of Reason, and that over us of the 
 divine Word. But being undivided, they divide innumerable other 
 things. For the divine Word hath divided the things in nature, 
 and hath distributed them all. And this reason of ours, whatever 
 things or bodies it hath reasonably taken in, these it distinguishes
 
 456 NOTES. 
 
 by innumerable ways, into innumerable parts, and never ceaseth 
 from its dissections. And this comes to pass through the likeness 
 -which it hath to the Creator and Father of the whole. For the 
 divinity being unmixed, uncompounded, without parts, hath been 
 to all the world the cause of mixture, combination, apportionment. 
 So it is fitting that those things which are like to it, to wit, the 
 reason in us, and that which is above us, being without parts and 
 undivided, should be able, with mighty force, to divide and discri- 
 minate each of the things that are." (Who is the Inheritor of 
 divine things ?) Sect. 48. 
 
 There is a very striking passage in the early part of the first 
 book on Dreams, which I would recommend to the attention of 
 the reader, as an illustration of the way in which Philo connected 
 the idea of Science or Knowledge, with submission to the divine 
 guidance. So far from looking upon Science as something directly 
 opposed to Faith, he speaks of it as being the direct opposite of 
 Sense ; a very remarkable thought indeed, which he might 
 have received from Plato, but which certainly seemed to him 
 in strict harmony with the teaching of his own lawgiver and 
 prophets. 
 
 The evidence respecting Philo's, opinion of the universality of 
 the divine teaching is not to be gathered from particular passages, 
 so much as from the whole spirit of his books. In all the lan- 
 guage which I have quoted there is a constant reference to the 
 teaching of the Word, as having reference to man. There is an 
 absence of any attempt to limit the blessing within his own 
 nation. In an indifferent Jew, or one who set but little store by 
 his own Scriptures, looking upon the heathen writers as more 
 profound or advanced than they were, this would have been 
 natural. But with his extraordinary admiration and deep study 
 of the Jewish writings, a study and admiration implying too the 
 greatest thankfulness for their original separation, and for the 
 ordinances which distinguished them from other people, one might 
 have expected to find indications here and there of the feeling 
 which characterized his countrymen generally. It is evident,
 
 NOTES. 457 
 
 however, that his acknowledgment of the wisdom and knowledge 
 of God, as the great objects and rewards of human search, and the 
 highest gifts the Creator can bestow, led him to look upon the 
 Jew who, as he believed, had all facilities for this pursuit, as 
 in a far higher condition than he would have been, if he had 
 had the right to treat other men as utterly outcasts and aliens. 
 We are not, however, left to conjecture or inference upon the 
 subject. There is an especial treatise on the Thesis, that 'every 
 virtuous man is a freeman.' In this treatise he lays it down as a 
 maxim, supporting himself by a line of Sophocles, that " he only 
 is free, who hath God as his guide." 3. 
 
 And then when he has expounded the conditions and character- 
 istics of freedom, he meets the question, where have such men as 
 you imagine ever been, or where are they now ! He answers, that 
 men, however rare, are to be found who excelled in virtue ; 
 followed God as their only guide ; lived according to the right 
 law of nature, who were not free only themselves, but inspired their 
 neighbours with free thoughts. Such men he discovers in Greece 
 among the * seven wise men ;' among some of the philosophers of 
 the Eleatic School ; in India among the gymnosophists ; in Persia 
 among the magians. From his express words, and from the 
 habitual tone of his thoughts, it is evident that he did not look 
 upon these men as wise or good, in virtue of any intrinsic qua- 
 lity, or because each man might be saved by his own religion, 
 but because, amidst whatever perplexities and contradictions, 
 they followed the one Guide and Shepherd, who had revealed 
 Himself to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob ; that unseen and 
 everlasting Word, who had entered into covenant with the Jews, 
 and had brought them out of sensible idolatry, into the light 
 and liberty of his children. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 458 NOTES. 
 
 [E.] 
 
 In some recent English attacks upon the Fathers (I do not 
 refer to that of Mr. Taylor, who has taken a somewhat different 
 line) the charge of adopting the Quaker doctrine respecting the 
 Logos, was put very prominently forward. But these writers did 
 not know how strong their case was. They fancied that the Greek 
 Fathers were merely advancing this notion as one among a great 
 number of others. They should have said boldly, ' This heresy 
 is not one which these teachers took up accidentally ; it is woven 
 into the very tissue of their thoughts ; their minds were infected 
 by it to the very core. You might as easily take away the doc- 
 trine of justification by faith out of Luther, as this doctrine out 
 of them.' Such language as this would have been perfectly true, 
 and it would have brought matters much more directly to an 
 issue. If, for instance, instead of giving a number of extracts, 
 all certainly much to the point, but still leaving room for the hope 
 that the general tone of thought in the first three centuries might 
 be sound, they had given an analysis of the Pedagogus of Clemens, 
 or indeed of any of his other writings, or had availed themselves 
 of those which the present Bishop of Lincoln has introduced into 
 his lectures, they would have left their readers without a doubt, 
 that the acknowledgment of the Divine Word as the invisible 
 teacher of man in all periods, was involved in the very conception 
 of Christianity, which belonged to these fathers ; that if this ac- 
 knowledgment be heretical, Clemens, and the Church generally, 
 which did not condemn him but sympathized with him and re- 
 garded him as one of its greatest lights, were habitually, wilfully, 
 radically heretical. Let such an opinion be but stated in terms, 
 together with the ordinary defence of it, that by this doctrine the 
 authority and inspiration of the Scriptures are set at nought ; and 
 we, who believe this principle to be involved hi every part of 
 Scripture, who cannot see any grounds for its authority and in- 
 spiration when it is denied, who attribute much of the lifeless-
 
 NOTES. 459 
 
 ness of the Church in our day, much of the 'feebleness of our 
 theology, much of our strife and division, to the habitual disregard 
 of it, will be able frankly to state the grounds of our belief, and 
 by God's grace, to encounter any consequences which may follow 
 from the profession of it. 
 
 In speaking of Philo, I have stated why I think one of these 
 consequences is not the necessary adoption of all the different 
 theories, respecting the interpretation of passages in Scripture 
 and of symbols in nature, which have been promulgated by him, 
 and by those who have acknowledged the presence of an invisible 
 teacher. Of course, I cannot be so inconsistent as to deny the 
 application of the same principle to the study of the Fathers. I 
 have stated in another part of these volumes, why I suppose they, 
 just as much as Philo, must have been without the means of enter- 
 ing into the practical life of the Hebrews. I do indeed discover in 
 them a very different tone from that which I find in him ; all that 
 difference in tenderness, consciousness of evil, a readiness to ac- 
 knowledge themselves hi the character of sinners, rather than 
 to claim that of saints, sympathy with men more than with phi- 
 losophers, which we might expect from those who acknowledged 
 a teacher who had taken human flesh, who, as Clemens expresses 
 it, " assists us in all things, both as man and as God ; putting 
 away our sins as God ; training us not to sin as man." Above 
 all, I can trace in them a sense of unity and fellowship, as mem- 
 bers of one body, as inhabited by one Spirit, as worshipping the 
 one Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is a contrast 
 rather than a resemblance to the isolated esoterical temper of the 
 theosophist. But as to the outward relations of life and society, it 
 seems as if their knowledge must have been very much on a level ; 
 and therefore one cannot be surprised to find the same habits 
 of thought in one as in the other. The hypothesis which has 
 been put forward in a late publication, that the cabalistic inter- 
 pretations of Scripture by the early Fathers, may have been com- 
 municated by a special revelation, is surely one of the most 
 gratuitous that was ever propounded by a theological writer. Its
 
 460 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 plausibility to students who have been used only to ' modern Pro 5 ' 
 testant diviftity,' arises from the feeling, " this is so unlike any 
 thing which other persons say, that it must have been given 
 directly by some divine authority." But when we turn to a 
 sage of an earlier time, who to all appearance never received 
 the Gospel at all, who at any rate has never been reckoned 
 among the teachers of the Church, and find precisely the same 
 tone of thought prevailing in him, nay, probably a number of 
 the very thoughts themselves, which are supposed to have been 
 specially imparted to the Christian sages, or to have been 
 sacred traditions of our Lord's own words ; when we find again 
 in the writings of those whom our patristic schools most de- 
 spise of Protestants and Quakers a tendency of the same kind, 
 nay, oftentimes most curious resemblances to the actual cab- 
 bala of the first ages, we may surely inquire whether such 
 thoughts do not belong to human nature under certain circum- 
 stances and conditions of it, though they of course presume that 
 nature not to be untaught from above. 
 
 The Fathers I apprehend, would have disdained altogether 
 the kind of honour which their admirers are seeking to put upon 
 them. Believing their hearts and reasons to be under the teach- 
 ing of the divine Word, believing themselves to be created and 
 constituted in him, they will have been much more disposed to 
 regard their thoughts respecting nature and scripture as spiritual 
 intuitions, than as authoritative traditions. That they may have 
 been tempted to attach great sacredness to these intuitions, t 
 speak of them as if they were certain, is very true. Every one 
 who has them feels them for the time to be certain ; he cannot 
 feel otherwise. And hence the value of that corrective which 
 was supplied to this dangerous but inevitable conviction in the 
 acknowledgment that those things only were stable and everlast- 
 ingly true for man which belonged to the whole Church, not those 
 which were the utterance of individual minds. These two princi- 
 ples balanced and harmonized, seem to supply the true witness 
 and protection against both ancient and modern fanaticism,
 
 NOTES. 461 
 
 against both ancient and modern formality. The divine and 
 everlasting Word is the teacher of each man ; his guide through 
 the sensible into the spiritual, through the individual into the 
 universal. In each man there is according to the temper and 
 habits of his age, a continual tendency to mix that which 
 is sensual with that which is spiritual ; that which belongs to the 
 idiosyncrasies of his own mind with that which is permanent and 
 for all. These utterances are not meant to be stifled. They 
 remain as witnesses of what each age is ; the truth which that 
 age was especially to defend and develope, could not be seen if 
 they were withdrawn. Then certain men of each particular age 
 say, that what belongs to them is true and perfect ; and other men 
 rise up to show how much deeper wisdom was taught by a 
 former age. Each would stamp with sacredness that which 
 belongs to the fleeting accidents of a particular period in the 
 world's history. But He remains who is the Father of the ever- 
 lasting age, the perpetual Guide of the spirits of all who will obey 
 him he remains by the fixed records of his own revelation, 
 by the fixed ordinances of his own Church, by the order and 
 succession of his own natural universe, to teach his servants how 
 to discriminate between that which belongs to the constitution in 
 which he has placed them, and that which belongs to their 
 own, or to other men's apprehensions of it. Take away 
 the belief of his presence, and the teachings of antiquity, 
 yea the written Scriptures of God themselves, become but 
 oppressive restraints upon the spirit, unable to raise it above its 
 own modes of thought, only imparting to it a miserable sense 
 that it ought to rise, and cannot. Losing the conviction, that 
 the whole Church is under his -guidance, we at one moment 
 affirm that we will believe nothing but what antiquity tells 
 us, or nothing but what the Bible tells us ; the next moment 
 we are the sport of every dreamer, who affirms that he has 
 the Spirit which the Bible and the Fathers spoke of. For 
 he speaks to something within us which tells us that we are 
 meant to follow a living and not a dead voice, and because we
 
 462 NOTES. 
 
 will not receive the truth which is implied in that witness, it 
 becomes to us a mischievous falsehood. We do not acknowledge 
 the WORD, the great distinguisher between light and darkness, 
 truth and falsehood, " the discerner of the thought^ and intents 
 of the heart," who unrolls the volume of experience, and binds 
 times and seasons together, and therefore the SPIRIT who is the 
 knitter together of hearts, who would bind us into one family, 
 and lead us into the knowledge and enjoyment of the divine and 
 ineffable Unity, seems to us a Spirit of division, who enters our 
 minds that he may exalt us in our own conceits ; may lift us up 
 one against another, may make us heady, highminded, ' lovers of 
 ourselves more than lovers of God.' 
 
 NOTE ON CHAP. II. SECT. iv. 
 
 When I speak of the final result of the experiment of pure Pro- 
 testantism, it must be distinctly understood that I do not suppose 
 those who are called Protestants in Germany, in Holland, in Swit- 
 zerland, to have lost the blessings which they possessed before the 
 Reformation, or those which were claimed for them then. I mean 
 merely, that the systems called Lutheranism, Calvinism, Zuinglian- 
 ism, have had their day, and that the time of their extinction 
 is at hand. No persons are more alive to this fact than Ger- 
 mans. Hence their eagerness to consolidate the professors of these 
 systems into an ' Evangelical Church ;' hence their desire to recon- 
 cile the ideas of the Eucharist prevailing among the Lutheran 
 and the ' Reformed,' by mutual concessions ; hence their willing- 
 ness to tolerate, for a time, subjection to the State, if it will but 
 deliver them from a sectarian position. The existence of such 
 feelings must be a sufficient proof lo all who are not themselves 
 spell-bound by some system, that the descendants of the Re. 
 formers are not deserted by the Head of the Church, and that He 
 may be preparing for them blessings which the great men of the 
 
 5
 
 NOTES. 463 
 
 sixteenth century sighed for, but were unable to attain. I will 
 not anticipate the latter portion of my book by explaining what 
 these blessings are, or how they may operate as a cure for the 
 evils under which Germany was groaning long before the Re- 
 formers arose to help her and purify her. Still less will I enter 
 upon the practical question, by what means these blessings may 
 be recovered. One thing is clear ; those who think and feel the 
 unfortunate ecclesiastical position of Protestant Germany, are also 
 the most determined not to abandon the principles of the Reforma- 
 tion. Some who may have been affected by Austrian or Bava- 
 rian influences may dream of recovering the position in which 
 they were before Luther appeared ; but all men who are really in 
 earnest, and who know what they mean, will repel such a thought 
 as at once a folly and a sin. The idea that there must be a pro- 
 gress and not a retrogression is one, which the German mind is full 
 of, and which I should be very sorry to drive out of it. The only 
 question is, about the nature of the progress. Beginning in the 
 spirit, the Reformation has, in the most grievous sense, been made 
 perfect in the flesh. Its principles have found no clothing but 
 one of system, which has stifled them ; or one of a state organiza- 
 tion, which stifles the minds and energies of those who profess 
 them. The progress Protestants should desire is surely one to- 
 wards an organization, which shall not be an artificial but a vital 
 expression of that which is the faith of the nation. If it should 
 be found that the ecclesiastical organization which Germany once 
 possessed, though corrupted and deadened by the denial of Christ's 
 direct superintendence over it, is of this vital character, the re- 
 covery of it will not be less a growth than the acquisition of some 
 newer one would be. Nay, it will be far more a growth ; for the 
 one will belong to the proper history of the land ; the other will 
 be some fantastic dress, fashioned like the institutions of Napoleon, 
 according to the maxims of an age, and therefore an intolerable 
 burden to all who look beyond it, and feel they have a portion in 
 their fathers and in their posterity. Their Protestantism will 
 make the old Catholicism new and living ; the Catholicism which
 
 464 NOTES. 
 
 possesses this quickening element will, by degrees, extinguish the 
 Romanist counterfeit of it ; the States, which no civil arrange- 
 ments have been able to consolidate, will become one through 
 their unity of faith, and the words of the poet will be fulfilled, 
 that wherever his tongue is spoken, and God in Heaven praised 
 in it, there the German will find his fatherland. 
 
 THE END OF VOL. I. 
 
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