NOTE XXXIX., p. 200.

Kant (Religion, u. s. w., Werke, X. p. 45) objects to the doctrine of inherited corruption, on the ground that a man cannot be responsible for any but his own acts. The objection is carried out more fully by Wegscheider, who says, "Neither can the goodness of God allow, that by one man's sin, universal human nature be corrupted and depraved; nor can His wisdom suffer, that God's work, furnished from the beginning with surpassing endowments, be transformed in a little while, for the slightest cause, to quite another and a worse condition."- Inst. Theol. § 117. The learned critic does not seem to be aware that the principle of one of these arguments exactly annihilates that of the other; for if we concede to the first, that every man is born in the state of pristine innocence, we must admit, in opposition to the second, that God's work is destroyed by slight causes, not once only, but millions of times, in every man that sins. The only other supposition possible is, that sin itself is part of God's purpose-in which case we need not trouble ourselves to establish any argument on the hypothesis of the divine wisdom or benevolence.

NOTE XL., p. 200.

Aristotle, Eth. Nic. VII. 2. "But one may be at a loss to understand how a person, who takes a right estimate of things, can live without moral self-control. Some, therefore, say that a person, who had knowledge, could not live in such manner; for (as Socrates thought), if knowledge were within him, he could not be controlled by something else, and dragged about by it, like a slave."

NOTE XLI., p. 200.

For sundry rationalist objections to the doctrine of Justification by Faith, see Wegscheider, § 154, 155. He declares the whole doctrine to be the result of the anthropopathic notions of a rude age.

NOTE XLII., p. 201.

"Our notion of freedom does not, it is true, exclude motives of conscious action; but motives are not compulsory, but are always effectual only through the will; motives for the human will can therefore proceed from God, without man's being thereby forced, without his losing his freedom, and becoming a blind instrument of the higher power."- Drobisch,

Grundlehren der Religionsphilosophie, p. 272. In like manner, Mr. Mozley, in his learned and philosophical work on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, truly says, "What we have to consider in this question, is not what is the abstract idea of freewill, but what is the freewill which we really and actually have. This actual freewill, we find, is not a simple but a complex thing; exhibiting oppositions and inconsistencies; appearing on the one side to be a power of doing anything to which there is no physical hindrance, on the other side to be a restricted faculty" (p. 102). Neither the Pelagian theory on the one side, nor the Augustinian on the other, took sufficient account of the actual condition of the human will in relation to external influences. The question was argued as if the relation of divine grace to human volition must consist wholly in activity on the one side and passivity on the other; - in the will of its own motion accepting the grace, or the grace by its irresistible force overpowering the will. The controversy thus becomes precisely analogous to the philosophical dispute between the advocates of freewill and determinism; the one proceeding on the assumption of an absolute indifference of the will; the other maintaining its necessary determination by motives.

Mr. Mozley has thrown considerable light on the true bearings of the predestinarian controversy; and his work is especially valuable as vindicating the supreme right of Scripture to be accepted in all its statements, instead of being mutilated to suit the demands of human logic. But it cannot be denied that his own theory, however satisfactory in this respect, leaves a painful void on the philosophical side, and apparently vindicates the authority of revelation by the sacrifice of the laws of human thought. He maintains that where our conception of an object is indistinct, contradictory propositions may be accepted as both equally true; and he carries this theory so far as to assert of the rival doctrines of Pelagius and Augustine, "Both these positions are true, if held together, and both false, if held apart." ""1

Should we not rather say that the very indistinctness of conception prevents the existence of any contradiction at all? I can only know two ideas to be contradictory by the distinct conception of both; and, where

1 P. 77. To the same effect are his criticisms on Aquinas, p. 260, in which he says, "The will as an original spring of action is irreconcilable with the Divine Power, a second first cause in nature being inconsistent with there being only one First Cause." This assumes that we have a sufficient conception of the nature of Divine Power and of the action of a First Cause; an assumption which the author himself in another passage repudiates, acknowledging that "As an unknown premiss, the Divine Power is no contradiction to the fact of evil; for we must know what a truth is before we see a contradiction in it to another truth" (p. 276). This latter admission, consistently carried out, would have considerably modified the author's whole theory.

such a conception is impossible, there is no evidence of contradiction. The actual declarations of Scripture, so far as they deal with matters above human comprehension, are not in themselves contradictory to the facts of consciousness; they are only made so by arbitrary interpretation. It is nowhere said in Scripture that God so predestines man as to take from him all power of acting by his own will:- this is an inference from the supposed nature of predestination; an inference which, if our conception of predestination is indistinct, we have no right to make. Man cannot foreknow unless the event is certain; nor predestine without coërcing the result. Here there is a contradiction between freewill and predestination. But we cannot transfer the same contradiction to Theology, without assuming that God's knowledge and acts are subject to the same conditions as man's.

The contradictory propositions which Mr. Mozley exhibits, as equally guaranteed by consciousness, are in reality by no means homogeneous. In each pair of contradictories, we have a limited and individual fact of immediate perception, such as the power of originating an action, —-opposed to a universal maxim, not perceived immediately, but based on some process of general thought, such as that every event must have a cause. To establish these two as contradictory of each other, it should be shown that in every single act we have a direct consciousness of being coërced, as well as of being free; and that we can gather from each fact a clear and distinct conception. But this is by no means the case. The principle of causality, whatever may be its true import and extent, is not derived from the immediate consciousness of our volition being determined by antecedent causes; and therefore it may not be applied to human actions, until, from an analysis of the mode in which this maxim is gained, it can be distinctly shown that these are included under it.1

By applying to Mr. Mozley's theory the principles advanced in the preceding Lectures, it may, I believe, be shown that, in every case, the contradiction is not real, but apparent; and that it arises from a vain attempt to transcend the limits of human thought.

NOTE XLIII., p. 201.

Analogy, Introduction, p. 10.

1 I am happy to be able to refer, in support of this view, to the able criticism of Professor Fraser, in his review of Mr. Mozley's work. "The coexistence," he says, "of a belief in causality with a belief in moral agency, is indeed incomprehensible; but is it so because the two beliefs are known to be contradictory, and not rather because causality and Divine Power cannot be fathomed by finite intelligence?"— Essays in Philosophy, p. 271.

LECTURE VIII.

NOTE I., p. 206.

F. W. Newman, Phases of Faith, p. 199; Reply to the Eclipse of Faith, p. 11.

NOTE II., p. 206.

“Christianity itself has thus practically confessed, what is theoretically clear, that an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man.' ."-F. W. Newman, The Soul, p. 59.

NOTE III., p. 206.

"In teaching about God and Christ, lay aside the wisdom of the wise; forswear History and all its apparatus; hold communion with the Father and the Son in the Spirit; from this communion learn all that is essential to the Gospel, and still (if possible) retain every proposition which Paul believed and taught. Propose them to the faith of others, to be tested by inward and spiritual evidence only; and you will at least be in the true apostolic track."-F. W. Newman, The Soul, p. 250.

NOTE IV., p. 207.

"This question of miracles, whether true or false, is of no religious significance. When Mr. Locke said the doctrine proved the miracles, not the miracles the doctrine, he admitted their worthlessness. They can be useful only to such as deny our internal power of discerning truth."— Parker, Discourse of matters pertaining to Religion, p. 170. Pascal, with far sounder judgment, says, on the other hand, "we must judge of the doctrine by the miracles, we must judge of miracles by the doctrine. The doctrine shows what the miracles are, and the miracles show what the doctrine is. All this is true, and not contradictory. . . . . Jesus Christ cured the man who was born blind, and did many other miracles on the sabbath day; whereby he blinded the Pharisees, who said, that it was necessary to judge of miracles by the doctrine. . . . . . The Pharisees said: This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. The others said: How can a man that is a sinner, do such miracles? Which is the

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clearer?" In like manner Clarke observes, ""T is indeed the miracles only, that prove the doctrine; and not the doctrine that proves the miraacles. But then in order to this end, that the miracles may prove the doctrine, 'tis always necessary to be first supposed that the doctrine be such as is in its nature capable of being proved by miracles. The doctrine must be in itself possible and capable to be proved, and then miracles will prove it to be actually and certainly true.2 The judicious remarks of Dean Trench are to the same effect, "When we object to the use often made of these works, it is only because they have been forcibly severed from the whole complex of Christ's life and doctrine, and presented to the contemplation of men apart from these; it is only because, when on his head are 'many crowns,' one only has been singled out in proof that He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. The miracles have been spoken of as though they borrowed nothing from the truths which they confirmed, but those truths everything from the miracles by which they were confirmed; when, indeed, the true relation is one of mutual interdependence, the miracles proving the doctrines, and the doctrines approving the miracles, and both held together for us in a blessed unity, in the person of Him who spake the words and did the works, and through the impress of highest holiness and of absolute truth and goodness, which that person leaves stamped on our souls; so that it may be more truly said that we believe the miracles for Christ's sake, than Christ for the miracles' sake."3

NOTE V., p. 207.

Foxton, Popular Christianity, p. 105. On the other hand, the profound author of the Restoration of Belief, with a far juster estimate of the value of evidence, observes, "Remove the supernatural from the Gospels, or, in other words, reduce the evangelical histories, by aid of some unintelligible hypothesis (German-born), to the level of an inane jumble of credulity, extravagance, and myth-power (whatever this may be), and then Christianity will go to its place, as to any effective value, in relation to humanizing and benevolent influences and enterprises; -a place, say, a few degrees above the level of some passages in Epictetus and M. Aurelius. . . .

1 Penseés, Partie II. Art. xvi. § i. 5, 10. Whatever may be thought of the evidence in behalf of the particular miracle on the occasion of which these remarks were written, the article itself is worthy of the highest praise, as a judicious statement of the religious value of miracles, supposing their actual occurrence to be proved by sufficient testimony.

2 Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, Prop. xiv. 3 Notes on the Miracles of our Lord, p. 94 (fifth edition).