drive numbers to ask for an infallible human voice, which shall regulate for each period that which the Revelation has so utterly failed to regulate." Now I certainly believed, and believe still, that God is infinite, and that no human mode of thought, nor even a Revelation, if it is to be intelligible by the human mind, can represent the infinite, save under finite forms. And it is a legitimate inference from this position, that no human representation, whether derived from without or from within, from Revelation or from natural Religion, can adequately exhibit the absolute nature of God. But I cannot admit, as a further legitimate inference, that therefore "the language of the Revelation does not express the very lesson which we are to derive from it; " that it needs any regulation to adjust it to "this constitution or that; " that it requires "to be adapted to various places and times." For surely, if all men are subject to the same limitations of thought, the adaptation to their constitutions must be made already, before human interpretation can deal with the Revelation at all. It is not to the peculiarities which distinguish "this" constitution from "that," that the Revelation has to be adapted by man; but, as it is given by God, it is adapted already to the general conditions which are common to all human constitutions alike, which are equally binding in all places and at all times. I have said nothing of a revelation adapted to one man more than to another; nothing of limitations which any amount of intellect or learning can enable a man to overcome. I have not said that the Bible is the teacher of the peasant rather than of the philosopher; of the Asiatic rather than of the European; of the first century rather than of the nineteenth. I have said only that it is the teacher of man as man; and that this is compatible with the possible existence of a more absolute truth in relation to beings of a higher intelligence. We must at any rate admit that man does not know God as God knows Himself; and hence that he does not know Him in the fulness of His Absolute Nature. But surely this admission is so far from implying that Revelation does not teach the very lesson which we are to derive from it, that it makes that lesson the more universal and the more authoritative. For Revelation is subject to no other limitations than those which encompass all human thought. Man gains nothing by rejecting or perverting its testimony; for the mystery of Revelation is the mystery of Reason also. I do not wish to extend this controversy further; for I am willing to believe that, on this question at least, my own opinion is substantially one with that of my antagonist. At any rate, I approve as little as he does of allegorical, or metaphysical, or mythical interpretations of Scripture: I believe that he is generally right in maintaining that "the most literal meaning of Scripture is the most spiritual meaning." And if there are points in the details of his teaching with which I am unable to agree, I believe that they are not such as legitimately arise from the consistent application of this canon. NOTE XXIV., p. 225. "There seems no possible reason to be given, why we may not be in a state of moral probation, with regard to the exercise of our understanding upon the subject of religion, as we are with regard to our behaviour in common affairs. . . . Thus, that religion is not intuitively true, but a matter of deduction and inference; that a conviction of its truth is not forced upon every one, but left to be, by some, collected with heedful attention to premises; this as much constitutes religious probation, as much affords sphere, scope, opportunity, for right and wrong behaviour, as anything whatever does."- Butler, Analogy, Part II. ch. 6. NOTE XXV., p. 226. Plato, Rep. VI. p. 486: "And this also it is necessary to consider, when you would distinguish between a nature which is philosophical, and one which is not. What then is that?--That it takes no part, even unobserved, in any meanness; for petty littleness is every way most contrary to a soul that is ever stretching forward in desire to the whole and the all, to divine and to human."- Cicero, De Off. II. 2: "Nor is philosophy anything else, if you will define it, than the study of wisdom. But wisdom (as defined by ancient philosophers) is the knowledge of things human and divine, and of the causes in which these are contained." NOTE XXVI., p. 226. Plato, Protag. p. 343: "And these, having met together by agreement, consecrated to Apollo, in his temple at Delphi, as the first fruits of wisdom, those inscriptions which are in everybody's mouth, Know thyself, and Nothing to excess." - Compare Jacobi, Werke, IV.; Vorbericht, p. xlii.: "Know thyself is, according to the Delphian god and Socrates, the highest command, and, so soon as it becomes practical, man is made aware of this truth: without the Divine Thou, there is no human I, and without the human I, there is no Divine Thou." NOTE XXVII., p. 226. Clemens Alex. Pædag. III. 1: “It is, then, as it appears, the greatest of all lessons, to know one's self; for, if any one knows himself, he will know God." NOTE XXVIII., p. 227. "It is plain that there is a capacity in the nature of man, which neither riches, nor honors, nor sensual gratifications, nor anything in this world, can perfectly fill up or satisfy: there is a deeper and more essential want, than any of these things can be the supply of. Yet surely there is a pos sibility of somewhat, which may fill up all our capacities of happiness; somewhat, in which our souls may find rest; somewhat, which may be to us that satisfactory good we are inquiring after. But it cannot be anything which is valuable only as it tends to some further end. As our understanding can contemplate itself, and our affections be exercised upon themselves by reflection, so may each be employed in the same manner upon any other mind. And since the Supreme Mind, the Author and Cause of all things, is the highest possible object to himself, he may be an adequate supply to all the faculties of our souls; a subject to our understanding, and an object to our affections."- Butler, Sermon XIV. NOTE XXIX., p. 227. ... "Christianity is not a religion for the religious, but a religion for man. I do not accept it because my temperament so disposes me, and because it meets my individual mood of mind, or my tastes. I accept it as it is suited to that moral condition in respect of which there is no difference of importance between me and the man I may next encounter on my path." The Restoration of Belief, p. 325. NOTE XXX., p. 227. "The Scripture-arguments are arguments of inducement, addressed to the whole nature of man-not merely to intellectual man, but to thinking and feeling man, living among his fellow men; - and to be apprehended therefore in their effect on our whole nature."- Hampden, Bampton Lectures, p. 92.-"There are persons who complain of the Word, because it is not addressed to some one department of the human soul, on which they set a high value. The systematic divine wonders that it is not a mere scheme of dogmatic theology, forgetting that in such a case it would address itself exclusively to the understanding. The German speculatists, on the other hand, complain that it is not a mere exhibition of the true and the good, forgetting that in such a case it would have little or no influence on the more practical faculties. Others seem to regret that it is not a mere code of morality, while a fourth class would wish it to be altogether an appeal to the feelings. But the Word is inspired by the same God who formed man at first, and who knows what is in man; and he would rectify not merely the understanding or intuitions, not merely the conscience or affections, but the whole man after the image of God." McCosh, Method of the Divine Government, p. 509. ་ INDEX OF AUTHORS. Only those Authors are here given from whom passages are quoted. ANGELUS SILESIUS (Johann Schef- | CYRIL, 301. fler), 246, 283. ANSELM, 235, 236, 286, 320. APULEIUS, 302. AQUINAS, 76, 100, 282, 286, 321. ARISTOTLE, 257, 273, 301, 309, 333, 339. ATHANASIUS, 276, 300, 312. ATKINSON, 290. DAMASCENUS, 276. DONALDSON, 348. DROBISCH, 303, 339. ECKART, 283. AUGUSTINE, 259, 261, 281, 283, 285, 302, EDWARDS, 251. EMERSON (R. W.), 247. EMPIRICUS (SEXTUS), 231, 277, 309. EULER, 327. EWERBECK, 271. FERRIER, 308. FEUERBACH, 87, 247. FICHTE, 62, 96, 239, 240, 243, 245, 250. 257, 265, 272, 273, 275, 284, 285, 302, BROWNE (Bishop), 250, 275, 279, 310, FRASER, 341. 339, 356, 358. BUTLER, 64, 136, 332, 338, 354, 360, 361. BUTLER (W. A.), 355. CALDERWOOD, 252, 278. FROUDE, 237, 331, 332. GALEN, 231. GERHARD, 235. CANZ, 232. CHEMNITZ, 236. CICERO, 301, 360. CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, 248, 258, 270, 302, 361. COLERIDGE, 264. COMTE, 247, 290, 350. COPLESTON, 335. COUSIN 317. CUDWORTH, 278, 335. GREG, 236, 331. GREGORY, of Nissa, 301, 306. HAMILTON (SIR WILLIAM), 245, 256, HAMPDEN, 303, 361. HEGEL, 65, 66, 76, 87, 95, 151, 152, 244, 245, 246, 248, 249, 259, 265, 272, 273, HERDER, 282, 284 HOBBES, 273, 275. |