INSTITUTES OF THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY METAPHYSICS AND MENTAL
PHYSICS.
I. METAPHYSICS have been variously defined - as first, the
science of the principles and causes of all things existing. We conceive Lord
Monboddos description of this science, and which might be accepted for a
definition of it, is still more comprehensive - that its province is to
consider that (Greek) existences only as existences. It looks to all the things
which be, but not in their special properties by which each is distinguished
from all others; for on descending to these, we touch on some of the secondary
or subordinate sciences. It looks to them in their common property of
existence, and considers what is involved in the one universal attribute "to
be." Our reason for saying of this view that it is more comprehensive than the
first one, is, that it includes properties and relations as well as principles
and causes. For example, we might affirm, or at least discuss the question,
whether all existent things, in virtue of existence alone, have not a relation
to, or do not exist both in space and time, neither of which, let them be
viewed either as substantive elements in themselves, or as mere elements of
thought, can be regarded as the principle or cause of anything existing. Still
metaphysics, so far as yet described, may be reckoned as but the science of
entity; and as such it were exclusive of certain topics which never can be
discussed without being viewed as metaphysical. For example, neither
mathematics nor ethics, when treated abstractly, have to do with things
concrete - the one being the science of quantity, and the other, alike without
the limits of ontology, whose category is the quid est, being the
science of deontology, whose altogether distinct category is the quid
oportet. The mathematical relations of the first science, and the moral
relations of the second, have an independent truth in themselves, although
there were no existent being in the universe to substantiate or exemplify
either of them.
The propositions of mathematical science depend not for
their truth on the existence of matter; and the propositions of moral science
depend not for their truth on the existence of mind - though ere, perhaps, we
could conceive of them, both matter and mind must be thought of or have a
hypothetical existence given to them. And yet we could not affirm thus of these
two sciences without being charged with speaking metaphysically. They also,
therefore, must have to do with metaphysics; and, indeed, it is currently held
of every science that it has a metaphysics, whether it be within or beyond the
province of ontology. We should therefore regard it as a better adjustment, a
more convenient distribution of the objects of human thought, if we should
adopt, as the strict definition of metaphysics. what it is often called - not
the first philosophy, for besides not being in all respects true, this would
not serve the purposes of a definition so well as another ascription which has
been givep to it - the science of sciences. We confess our preference for such
a definition to any of the former ones.
Each science sits as arbiter on
its own proper objects - its office being to ascertain and to record the
specific characters of every distinct individual, as well as the similarities
and differences which obtain amongst them. Now the proper objects of the
metaphysical science are distinct from the objects of any or of all the others;
for, in truth, the proper objects of metaphysics are the sciences themselves.
It, as being the scienlia scienhiarum, sit as arbiter over all the
sciences; and its office is to assign the peculiarities by which each differs
from the rest, and the generalities in which two or more of them agree - rising
to higher and higher generalizations in proportion to the number of sciences
which are under survey and comparison at the time. Should we ever be able to
arrive at the one generalization which belongs to them all, we shall then have
reached the loftiest possible abstraction, the point or summit of highest
transcendentalism.
2. Accordng to this view of metaphysics, it stands
related to all the sciences in the way that each particular science is related
to all the individual objects wherewith it is conversant. To divest the mind of
all philosophy even to its first beginnngs, or in its earliest rudiments, one
would need to be so constructed as to be capable of knowing all the things
within his sphere of observation only as individuls; and we are not sure if
idiots or the inferior animals can attain to more. Should ten objects have the
same property, or ten events fall out by the same process, then, from the
moment that one takes cognizance of this sameness, he enters on the work of
philosophy, the proper business of which is to form individuals into classes,
by grouping them according to their resemblances. The man who can tell me of
ten different things, whether he be a peasant or an academician, that they are
all of a white colour, or all possess the common property of whiteness, is
pro tanlo a philosopher.
And thus it is, that throughout the
popular mind, and in the business of human society, there is in current and
fanliliar exercise an essential philosophy, though it be not so named. The only
difference between the philosophy of common sense and the philosophy which men
have agreed to call such, is, that the latter has to do with larger
generalizations, and more especially, if to extend the generalization, much
labour has to be bestowed. All men are aware of a very general resemblance
amongst falling bodies at the surface of the earth; and in having thus
generalized, they acted the real part of philosophers, although they are not
styled such; but when Sir Isaac Newton extended this generalization, and made
palpable the likeness between a body falling towards the centre of the earth,
and the moon deflecting towards it in its orbit, this was honoured as a high
achievement in philosophy; and he became the very prince of philosophers on the
discovery of a still wider generalization, even that all matter gravitates
towards all matter.
This law of gravitation is a very general fact, far
more general than that all bodies at the earths surface are possessed of
weight, so that if left without support, they will fall towards the
earths centre. But each law of nature has been well defined the summary
expression of a general fact; and the proper function of philosophy is to view
all objects and all events according to their resemblances, so as to ascertain
and to registrate these laws. But the work of philosophy, like every other, is
expedited by subdivision; and so it is separated into sciences; each having to
do with those narrower generalities that lie within the limits of its own
proper domain, and by which all the individual objects of that department are
grouped or classified, in so far as they have any of those properties in common
which it is the office of that science to investigate.
The proper
distinction then, I apprehend, between metaphysics and the other sciences, is,
that it has to do with higher and wider generalizations than any of them. It
views the sciences as individuals, and takes note both of the differences and
the likenesses between them. In so doing it will group, not the objects of one
science only, but the objects of several, and at length of all the sciences, by
a wider generality, by a higher generic quality, comprehensive of a far larger
number of. individual objects than come within the view of the mere cultivators
of any of the separate sciences. The work, then, of the metaphysician is
essentially of the same kind with that of the ordinary philosopher; and the
only difference is, that he has to do with larger and higher generalizations.
We have already seen how common sense graduates into philosophy; and we may now
see how philosophy graduates into metaphysics.
3. Let us illustrate our
meaning by one or two examples taken from the physical sciences. I will first
advert to the distinction laid down by Professor Robison of Edinburgh, between
the two sciences of natural philosophy and chemistry - the subject of both
being inorganic matter, but of the one the changes induced in it by motions
which are sensible and measurable; and of the other, the changes induced by
motions not sensible and not measurable. According to our conception of
metaphysics, the Professor was acting the part of a metaphysician when thus
arbitrating between these sciences, and assigning the property common to both,
as well as the peculiarity which belonged to each of them. But in making this
statement to one of the ablest and profoundest of my literary friends, it was
his obvious feeling that metaphysics had its place in a region of loftier and
larger generalities than any involved in the classification as now given of
these two sciences.
I then instanced another of Dr. Robisons fine
generalizations, by which he assumed a more comprehensive meaning for natural
philosophy than was just now assigned to it. He partitioned the whole
philosophy of matter into two sciences - the first being what he termed the
science of contemporaneous nature, and the second of successive nature - the
one being conversant with the objects of the material universe, the other with
the events of the material universe - the one having to do with properties all
existing together, and of. which cognizance could be taken in one instant by a
being of perfect intuition, and who had the whole system of things spread out
in space before him; the other having to do with processes for the development
of which the element of time had to be introduced, that so those changes might
be evolved which fell within the contemplation of the second of these two
sciences.
Now the first, or the science of contemporaneous nature, he
called natural history; the second, or science of successive nature, he called
natural philosophy. On asking my friend whether in this new adjustment of the
scheme of human knowledge, metaphysics were at all concerned, he seemed willing
to admit their share in the fabrication of it, though I cannot see why they
should have been refused a part in the former classification, and allowed it in
the latter, but for the greater and lesser degrees of generality in the
circumstances both of similarity and distinction, on which the two
classifications turned - matter, space, time, being terms of far wider
generality than motion, sensible and measurable, or motion not so.
We
retain, therefore, our preference for that view of metaphysics, as having the
office of sitting in judgment on the sciences, and pronouncing on the relations
which subsist between them; and if when performing this office on the lower
subdivisions of human knowledge, there seemed to be a descent among ideas too
limited and palpable for that science-which has been ennobled by the title of
the first philosophy, this will be amply compensated when rising to higher
divisions, and so to larger generalities, we shall find in the midst of such
categories as space, and time, and causation, and power, and all the other
terms whereof the nomenclature of abstract speculation is composed, that we
have not missed, but at length got our way, to a region as transcendental and
full of undoubted metaphysics as any schoolman could desire.
4. Our
definition, then, of metaphysics is, that as scientia scientiarum, her
proper office is to assign the relations, whether of resemblance or
distinction, which subsist between the various branches of human knowledge.
5. Theology draws on many of the sciences - nay, so many of them enter
more or less into the composition of her entire system, that for the full
accomplishment of a theological student, his pursuits must be exceedingly
various, and to discriminate these, there must be a call for metaphysics in the
sense now given. You will not be surprised therefore, if in assigning, for
example, the respective functions of scripture criticism and systematic
theology, we shall so explain the difference between these and the bearing of
the one upon the other, that in the terms of our definition it may be said that
we are attempting to give forth the metaphysics of scripture criticism and the
metaphysics of systematic theology. This is not the time, however, for dwelling
upon these subjects, nor shall we offer now to present you with more than one
theme under the head of preliminary metaphysics - we mean the distinction
between the ontology and deontology of our science - a theme which we have
already expounded and expatiated on under the more familiar title of the
distinction between the objects of theology and the ethics of theology.
6. I trust that a few sentences will suffice to make palpable what the
distinction is. The difference between an ethical, and what may be termed an
objective proposition in theology, must be quite obvious. The greatest object
in theology is God; and the proposition that God is, is an objective one -
while the proposition that we, the creatures of His hand, owe to Him, our
Creator, all love and service, is an ethical proposition. In like manner, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, is an object; and that He exists, is one of the
greatest of those objective truths which are presented to us in the theology of
Scripture; while that from us, His redeemed, are due to Him, our Redeemer, the
grateful homage of our whole hearts, the dedication of all we have and all we
are to His will, stands forth in the ethical system of the New Testament as one
of the greatest of all moral obligations.
The distinction is in every
way as real as that which obtains in natural philosophy between the mathematics
of the science and the objects of the science. All that is mathematical in this
science would be true, although the universe were desolated of its matter, and
no bodies existed between which lines could be drawn, either to compose actual
solids or to present actual surfices fbr the contemplation of the geometer.
With but the conceivable lines and surfaces and solids of empty space, geometry
would still remain as stable a science, and with all its propositions as entire
and irrefragable as ever. And it is precisely thus that the ethics of theology
are separable, and might be viewed apart from the objects of theology - the
moral relations, or rather the moral proprieties grounded on those relations,
abiding unchangeable, whether they have been suggested by the thought of only
conceivable beings, or by the sight and knowledge of actual beings, to give
them a substantial and living exemplification. But to complete our idea of this
distinction, it must be added that facts or events are existences, as well as
what are properly termed objects - the fact that God created the world, as well
as God Himself viewed as the object of our contemplation; the event that Christ
died for our sins, as well as Christ Himself viewed in like manner as an object
of contemplation. When we speak then of the distinction between the objects and
the ethics of theology, we extend the meaning of the term objects beyond its
usual acceptation - making it comprehensive of historical events, as well as of
substantive beings - whatever, in short, of theology that comes within the
category of quid est, in contradistinction to which we place the ethics
of theology as comprehensive of all that comes within the category of quid
oportet. With these explanations, there should be no difficulty in
apprehending the distinction between the ontology of the science and the
deontology of the science.
7. Now, though not aware that this
distinction has ever been adverted to, or far less, made use of by former
theologians, we cannot but regard it as one of prime importance in the science
of theology. The whole peculiarity of the science, in fact, may be said to lie
in its objects - for its ethics are essentially the same with those which are
in busy play and exercise amid the familiar relations of human society. The
duty which we owe to God is the same in kind, though immeasurably greater and
higher in degree, than that which we owe to an earthly benefactor. But the
truth that God is, is as essentially distinct from the truth that man is, as
any information respecting the existence of one being is distinct from the
information that there exists another and a wholly different being. In
ascending from the visible platform of things before and around us, to the
contemplation of heavenly and divine things, we do not ascend to a different
ethics, but we ascend to a different set of objects from before. And the ethics
are not more distinct from the objects than the respective faculties of our
nature are by which we take cognizance of these - the one being the faculty of
observation, by which we come at the knowledge of existences; and the other the
moral faculty, by which we obtain the knowledge of duties. But for the various
applications which might be made of this distinction, we must refer to our
separate treatise on Natural Theology.
8. Each science has its own
individual objects, which it classifies according to certain relations and
resemblances. The individual objects of metaphysics are the sciences - of which
therefore it may said that the office is to classifv on a large scale all the
objects of human knowledge; because not taking cognizance of these, till the
sciences had previously grouped them into very extensive genera, in the
contemplation whereof it has to deal with wider and larger generalizations than
any of them. If each science be regarded as the general over its own
individuals - then metaphysics, as being general over the sciences, may be
regarded as the generalissimo over all knowledge. After that each science had
appropriated and is now cultivating its own section, the -proper office of
metaphysics is to form the sections into provinces, and the provinces into one
vast empire or territory of human thought.
Now it could scarcely be thus
employed, that is, in assigning the objective relations between the different
branches of human knowledge, without adverting to the different mental powers
that are called forth in the prosecution of each of them. In other words, it
naturally behoved to have been thrown back, or in a reflex direction, from such
a consideration of the objects of knowledge to the consideration of the knowing
faculties. It is this, we believe, which in the progress of speculation has
caused such a merging of the metaphysical into the mental philosophy. And so
this metaphysics, this scientia scientiarum, whose proper office it is
to ordain the place and the boundaries of all, has come down from her high
superintendence, and in taking account of the powers and processes of the mind,
given herself with almost exclusive care to the work and labour of but one of
the sciences.
9. For in truth the science of mind is as distinct from
metaphysics as are any other of the sciences. Mind is the subject of certain
phenomena, even as matter is. These phenomena are cognizable just as the others
are, by observation - only by a different instrument of observation, by
consciousness instead of sense, and which has been well called the faculty of
internal observation. All its phenomena of the same kind are reducible to laws,
and by the very process of generalization which leads to the discovery and
announcement of the laws of the material universe. In a word, mind, as
belonging to the category of the quid est, or to the order of
existences, presents us with both the objects and the events which are included
in this category, with an object of contemplation in its own properties and
substantive being, and with a succession of events, in the various states of
thinking and feeling and willing through which it passes. In other words, mind,
like every other existent thing, has a nature or physiology of its own, the
investigation of which is a physical investigation; and so Dr. Thomas Brown
tells us, and tells us rightly, of the physics of the mind, of both the facts
and the laws of the mental physiology - a science which stands as separately
out from metaphysics as do any of the physical sciences in the department of
the material world.
10. And this is not the only instance in which the
mental has been blended most inappropriately, and therefore most injuriously -
for what can injure true philosophy more than a confounding of the things which
differ, or of certain of the sciences with other sciences? Surely to tell what
is right and what is wrong is one thing; and to tell what are the facts or
phenomena, and from these what are the laws of mind, is another - yet have the
mental and the moral been amalgamated into one; and so the ethical professor
must lay down his map of the human faculties ere he will enter on the proper,
or rather the only business of his chair, which is the philosophy of duty. In
like manner, he who tells us what is good or bad in argument, is employed on a
different subject altogether from him who tells us of the properties or
processes of mind; and yet the logical professor will often think it incumbent
to take a walking survey over the whole territory of mind, ere he enters on the
work of his own proper calling, which is the act of ratiocination. These
colleagues, when they thus expatiate, it may well be said, are each of them
walking abroad - for certain it is that each has ventured forth beyond his own
premises; and sometimes when they do meet in this outer field, which they have
converted into a sort of common, it is not always on the most friendly and
harmonious terms - for it has been known that with adverse mental theories
they, to the great edification of their scholars, have actually fallen out by
the way. The way to save this conflict - and could I command but an
infinitesimal of the millions expended on war or luxury, it should be done -
were to endow a complete university, where keeping each professor within the
limits of his own veculiurn, I would erect a separate chair for the mental
physiology, or for the science of mind, viewed as the subject of certain
processes and phenomena, which fall within the domain of observational truth,
and have really no more to do with the question of what is sound in argument,
or sound in morals either, than of what is sound or demonstrative in algebra.
And what is more, I should not look on this living encycloprndia of chairs and
professorships as fully consummated, unless besides those of logic and ethics
and the mental physiology, there was one of metaphysics to the bargain - the
proper and distinct office of which is to take cognizance of the characteristic
peculiarities, and the connecting relations both of these and of all other
sciences.
11. We are nearly done with these generalities - now that you
must understand the reason why, in the title of this Chapter, we have added to
preliminary metaphysics, preliminary mental physics. The real distinction
between these we take for granted must by this time be quite palpable; and let
us now therefore point out certain things in the working and procedure of the
human faculties, which are of fit and useful cognizance at the outset of your
theological studies.
12. The first doctrine in the mental physiology
which I would select for consideration is, the dependence of the attention on
the will. We do not need to perform the analysis by which this has been
conclusively established, and for which we refer more especially to Dr. Thomas
Brown. It is a fact which, even though it had never been dealt with
scientifically, we should have been entitled to proceed upon in the treatment
of our own questions. It is manifest to the familiar experience of every one,
that at the bidding of our own will, we may turn our attention to one object of
thought, and withdraw it from another. Doubtless there are topics which, on the
moment of their being presented, will force themselves upon our attention
without any distinct or sensible effort upon our part. It is not the less true,
however, that the will has a command over the exercises of this faculty; and we
are often conscious of the volition by which, as if by a word of command, the
attention is given to one thing, and taken off from another. But for this there
could be no just anger felt at the misunderstandings or misapprehensions of
other men. Nothing is the legitimate object of anger which is not willful. We
often feel anger at the mistakes of our fellows; but it is not a rightful
anger, unless the mistake could have been avoided, had the party chosen to
attend to the matter in question The mere intellectual error or perversity of
another, we ought not to be angry at, if it proceed altogether from the
constitution of his intellect, or from the circumstances by which he is
surrounded. The understanding is not the proper object of a resentful feeling
for any of its acts, but the will is.
13. And it is thus, and thus
alone, that opinion comes within the scope of a moral reckoing; or to express
it otherwise, that man is responsible for his belief. The ethical principle
which has been already stated by us, that nothing is virtuous or vicious which
is not voluntary, is that for any act to be susceptible of a moral designation,
it must have originated or had its consent in the will - is the essential
element in this question. After this, we have only to determine the part which
the will has in the conclusions of the understanding. That there can be no
belief without evidence, is just as true as that there can be no vision without
a visible object, and light to behold it in. But to work the belief it is not
enough that the evidence be presented - it must also be perceived, which it may
never be unless it is attended to. The final act of belief may be as much the
necessary or organic result of the evidence at the time within the minds
contemplation, as the picture on the retitina of the eye is the organic result
of all the light which shines upon it from an external object. The will may
have nothing to do at this last step of the process, and yet have had much to
do athe previous steps of it; inthe one case when attending to th evidence
which never could have been perceived unless brought by the exercise of this
faculty within the sphere of observation; in the other, when looking to the
visible object which it were impossible to see, had the spectator chosen to
turn away from it, or to shut his eyes.
14. Let us apply this at once
to Christianity. Should a message stamped with the likelihood of having come
from an earthly friend be brought to our door; and still more, should it bear
not the pretension only but the aspect of having come from the best and highest
friend of all, our Father in heaven - then to turn away from it, and to refuse
the examination, both of its credentials and its subject-matter might be to
risk our landing in a state of unbelief, which not only in itself is
intellectually, but which when viewed in connection with the antecedent
volition which gave it birth, is morally wrong. It is not the incompetency of
all the evidence we saw to work conviction that will justify our want of it.
What we have to be reckoned with for, is our inattention to those premonitory
signals which, if they did not bear this evidence fully and legibly inscribed
upon them, at least pointed out the quarter where it lay; and which, had we
explored, might have brought us within the observation of what we did not see,
because we would not seek after. We see not, because we care not. We have
fallen short of belief, not, for aught we know, from the want of evidence, but
clearly in our case, whatever the evidence, from the want of an attention that
we choose not to bestow. It is this precisely which makes the unbelief
criminal, and affixes a moral characteristic to our intellectual state. It is
on this ground that our Saviour Himself pronounces on the culpability of
unbelief, and resolves it into the evil state of mens affections, and
that again into the evil of their doings. The condemnation of it is, that men
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John ii. 19.)
And that they searched not the Scriptures, becausethey were not willing to come
to Christ that they might have life. (John v. 39,40.) Let a professed message
from the upper sanctuary have but the verisimilitude of this high claim; and
this confers upon it the real and rightful claim, if not of being forthwith
believed, at least of being forthwith inquired into. To regard it with neglect,
even at this initial stage, is to incur the tremendous hazard of having
neglected a great salvation - because the hazard of a willful, and therefore a
criminal, ignorance of such doctrines as God wills us to believe for our
everlasting peace, of such precepts as He wills us to perform for the habits
and the services and the enjoyments of an everlasting blessedness in heaven. It
is the office of attention, as the intermediate link which connects the moral
and intellectual departments of our nature, or as the ligament which binds them
- that explains how the state of our convictions may often be the fit subject
of a judicial cognizance; and how, resolvable as it may often be into an
indifferency to God and to His will, it may become the matter of our most
emphatic condemnation.
15. And what is true of the intellectual is to a
great extent true also of what may be called the emotional states of the mind.
If belief be the necessary or the organic result of the evidence wherein we see
any given object of contemplation, emotion may be as much the necessary or the
organic result of those characteristics which belong to it, and which are
present at the time to the mind of the observer. When he looks to a landscape
spread out before him, he might no more help the sense that he has of its
beauty than the sense that he has of its reality. When he thinks of the
kindness of a friend, the consequent gratitude may come as much unbidden into
his heart as does the conviction that he exists into his understanding. And so
of the recoil which is felt at the sight of some loathsome creature, which may
be as little a thing of will, and as much a thing of physical constitution, as
is the sensation which its color impresses on the retina of the eye. How then
is it that we become responsible for our emotions - for our desires and our
aversions and our resentments, and our various other mental susceptibilities,
which seem to be no more things of choice than the felt taste of any given food
when brought into contact with our palates, or the felt heat of the fire when
we approach our hands to it?
16. The responsibility of man for his
emotions is made out in the same way that the responsibility for his belief is.
It is true that he cannot bid immediately the required love into his heart, or
bid away from it the denounced and forbidden hatred. But what he cannot do
immediately, he can do mediately. He cannot will the emotions so as that at the
mere word of command they shall arise in his heart at any given instant; but he
can summon to the presence of his mind their counterpart objects, which may
then work their appropriate influence upon his feelings. He can give his
attention to one set of objects, and force it away from another. In short, the
objects are the instruments he works by, when he wants either to waken or
preserve in his bosom their correspondent feelings; and attention is the
faculty by which he keeps his hold of these instruments, and brings them to
bear on the subjective mind, so as to put their own proper impress on the
sensibilities of our nature. I can think of Gods love to me in Christ
Jesus; and if I think believingly, my heart will be thereby warmed into the
love of God back again. Or my mind can cease from thinking of the injury that
would excite me to revenge, when my heart will cease from its fierce and fiery
agitations. Even should it be impossible to view with the love of moral
complacency the enemy who has done me wrong - still by looking in another
direction, by shifting my regards from his character to his state, I might view
him with the love of compassion - nay, with the love of kindness: And as I
dwell in thought on the certainty of his coming death, and the possibility of
its unrepentant horrors - instead of resenting the injustice of his short-lived
triumph, I may be led to pity and to pray for him. And thus it is that
attention, or consideration, or reflection, which, term it as we may, is an
intellectual exercise under the wills control, and for which, therefore,
we are liable to be judicially dealt with - is so mighty as an implement of
culture, whether in the natural school of morality for the discipline of the
heart, or for the lessons of spiritual and experimental Christianity in the
school of the gospel.
17. This law of the mental physiology, this
relation between the understanding and the heart, or between the objects of an
intellectual contemplation, and the emotions which are excited thereby, is of
the utmost theological importance, and evinces a most beautiful and beneficial
harmony between the constitution of the human mind and the doctrines of the
Christian revelation. We might have extended the operation of the law to the
appetites as well as the emotions - for though it be not thought of food which
calls forth hunger, or of water which calls forth thirst, certain it is that
the appetency for an intoxicating beverage may in this way be whetted and
fomented; and that we must turn away our sight and eyes from viewing vanity, as
well as our thoughts from the very imagination of it, in order to shake off the
most hurtful and degrading of those passions which war against the soul. This
only gives a wider generality to the statement, that the intellect must be
rightly occupied, in order to right affections or right desires of any sort
having practically the dominion over us. We shall thus understand the place of
ascendency, or of presiding guardianship and command, which is assigned to
faith in the moral dynamics of the New Testament; and will recognize the sound
philosophy as well as scriptural authority of such sayings as "sanctified by
faith," "renewed in knowledge," "living a life of faith on the Son of God,"
"sanctified by the truth," "walking in the truth" - regenerated by the power of
it, or, "born again by the incorruptible seed of the word," receiving power to
become new creatures, or to become the sons of God through the operation of our
belief in Christ Jesus. There is no man deeply read in the philosophy of our
nature, if he but make a study of our present lesson, who will not perceive of
this belief that it is the turning-point of a new character, as well as of a
new condition and new prospects - that there must be a moral along with the
intellectual change; and that if in virtue of the one he be indeed translated
out of darkness into marvellous light, then as the sure and unfailing
consequence in virtue of the other, he will be translated from the spirit of
bondage and fear into love and liberty, and the generous inspiration of all
goodness. It is thus that the most effectual preachers of faith are also the
most effectual preachers of righteousness; and such is the sure concatenation
between the enlightenment of the understanding and enlargement of the heart,
that, let a man but know God as a Friend and reconciled Father, and from that
moment he is on firm vantage-ground for the services of a grateful and willing
obedience.
18. The next law of the mental physiology that we recommend
for special consideration to the theological student, is the law of, habit.
There are certain of its applications so very obvious that we need scarcely
advert to them - as in the business of the pulpit, when employed by the
preacher for giving emphasis and urgency to his calls of immediate repentance -
seeing that every day of perseverance in the spirit and ways of ungodliness
strengthens the inveteracy of this natural and universal disease, and makes the
moral recovery of those on whom all this earnestness is thrown away still more
hopeless and impracticable than before. At present we view it more as the
indication of a natural regimen, the establishment of which seems to evince the
purposes of Him who is at once the Creator and Governor of men, or what may be
termed the policy of the divine administration. To explain our meaning it is
not required that we shall enter on the analysis or philosophy of habit; for
any conclusion which we mean now to offer is grounded on the most palpable of
its phenomena - which are, first, the increasing facility of virtue to those
who resolutely, and in the face of every temptation, keep by its lessons and
its laws; and secondly, the more prone and headlong tendency, aggravated and
confirmed at length into the helpless necessity of sinning on the part of those
who, given to self-indulgence, become the votaries of disobedience and vice. It
is not of any reward for the one or punishment for the other coming ab
extra that we now speak - of a local heaven, teeming with the means of
enjoyment, or a local hell, where pains and sufferings are inflicted as the
wages of iniquity. We speak of the effect which virtue and vice respectively
have on the mind and character of their respective followers, in that they tend
so to fix and establish their own influence over them, that after a time they
who have been righteous are righteous still, or they who have been unjust and
unholy are unjust and unholy still. It is of this subjective operation only
that I am now speaking, and not of any other doom than the unchangeable moral
doom which awaits the good and the evil. Men live long enough to see the
exemplification of it even in this world, though perhaps it was greatly more
patent in antediluvian times, though only realized there on one side of the
picture, when the period of discipline extended to nearly a thousand years;
and, as if in conformity with this, we read that the wickedness of man was
great on the earth, which was corrupt and full of violence; and also, as if to
restrain our species from ever rising here, at least to such heights of
irreclaimable profligacy, the natural life was shortened to a hundred and
twenty years by Him whose Spirit would no longer strive with men, now advanced
to a wickedness more enormous than could be any longer tolerated in the world.
19. This view might afford even to natural theology the glimpse of our
coming futurity in another state of being. Suppose that there had been no
death, but that an immortality on earth had been alike stamped on two different
societies - one of the virtuous and another of the profligate among mankind -
the one ripening and expanding and confirming more and more every age towards
the perfection of moral excellence, and the other in like manner towards the
perfection, if we may so call it, of moral depravity - till the certainty of
each abiding by its own specific and now fixed character, had become absolute
and irrevocable. Had such been the arrangement, that terrestrial pandemonium
which was realized before the flood would have been perpetual, and every new
cycle of time would have brought an accession to its atrocities and its
horrors. Now, to conceive of this as the real immortality which is in reserve
for the wicked, we have only to imagine that they bear the identical habits and
tendencies of their present life across the grave with them to the place of
their everlasting destination. We speak not now of their physical condition in
respect of pain or pleasure there, but of their moral character in respect of
worth or wickedness there; and it does afford, even apart from revelation, a
dubious, it may be, but still a likely perspective of the final issue of things
- when, on the side of the upright, we shall behold an indefinite ascent in the
ethereal heights, which never terminate, both of greater holiness and greater
love; and, on the side of the reprobate, an always deepening hue of fouler
depravity, of more fell malignity and defiance and rebellious hatred and
hardihood than before. This were but the continuance or further development of
a progression now before our eyes; and as such not improbable, even with no
other lights to guide us than those of naked and unassisted theism - certainly
strengthened, however, by the intimations of Scripture.
20. And there
is a harmony altogether worthy of observation between the law of habit, which
forms part of the natural economy of the human spirit, and a certain part or
process in the revealed enonomy of the gospel. In virtue of the former, let
there to-day be a struggle between temptation and the sense of duty; and should
conscience, or this sense of duty, be overborne, then on the morrow conscience
will offer a feebler resistance than before, and so temptation, still surer of
the mastery, will at every renewal of the assault, speed onward with all the
greater certainty, and effect the work of moral deterioration. Now, in keeping
with this, we are told in the Bible, that it is the Spirit of God who operates
on the spirit of man, to stimulate both his aspirations after all that is good,
and his resistance to all that is evil. Let us imagine, then, that instead of
complying with the suggestion of this heavenly visitant, we stifle and
withstand it; then the distinct intimation of Scripture is, that the Spirit is
grieved by such a treatment - that He is alienated more and more the longer we
persevere in this neglect of Him and of His warnings - that He at length ceases
to strive, and all His influences for good are withdrawn from a heart within
which they had so often sought a lodgment, and as often been quenched and
extinguished. And so at last grace gives up the contest with nature - leaving
it to the wild misrule of its own unchecked propensities, that it may be filled
with the fruit of its own ways. It is thus that in the moral history of every
unrepentant sinner, these two laws - the law of habit and the law of the Spirit
of God - fit in as it were to each other, and act conspiringly together towards
the same fearful result - a creature abandoned to itsehf and left without any
counteractive influence to stay or to mitigate those evil passions which had
been fostered through life; and which, with all the tenacity of an undying
worm, will cleave to him as their prey and their victim through eternity.
21. But ere that we have finished this contemplation, we must have recourse
to another law of the mental physiology. We have already seen that the
affections of our nature, whether good or evil, are strengthened by indulgence,
till at length, through the operation of habit, they become the fixed and
irreversible principles of our character, with full ascendency over us. Now,
couple with the force of this moral necessity the undoubted fact of the
happiness, the inherent and essential happiness, which lies in the exercise of
our good affections; and the wretchedness alike inherent of every spirit that
is corroded or tempest-driven by the venom or violence of bad ones - and out of
these elements alone both a heaven and a hell can be imagined, where either
virtue is its own reward, or vice its own self-tormentor through eternity. We
dispute not the possibility or even the likelihood of other ingredients - of
the physical delights and gratifications which a beneficent Father might shower
down among the habitations of the righteous; of the physical discomforts and
agonies which are ministered in ceaseless vengeance throughout the region of
the ungodly. But there lies a great theological lesson, not only in the effect
of repeated acts to stamp a perpetual character, but in the effect of character
alone and of itself, of our state of enjoyment - whether we look, on the one
hand, to the hearts ease, the complaceiy, the oil of gladness, the
thousand pleasurable sensations attendant oh the love of God and the happy
consciousness of His favour, the sweets of charity between man and man, and,
along with the sunshine of their mutual confidence, the play of those mutual
sympathies which- act and react, when gratitude and good-will come together, in
cordial and confiding fellowship; or, in contrast with these, the reverse
influences of a distempered morale, when envy and suspicion and hatred and
discontent fret and tumultuate in every bosom, and ever and anon break forth in
storms of fiercest controversy - where all is darkness above them, among
creatures thus living in the state of defiance to an angry God, and all is
moral anarchy around them, among these same creatures fired with licentious or
vindictive passions against each other. There is, we say, - a lesson of
soundest theology to be gathered from such a contemplation. It demonstrates of
how little avail justification were for the happiness of our eternity if not
accompanied by sanctification. It tells us that though the righteousnessof
Christ were made judicially ours, so as to invest us with a full and valid
title of entry into heaven, yet our salvation is incomplete unless the graces
of His character become personally ours, so as to qualify us for heavens
exercises and heavens joys. The gospel has not broken up the connection
between love and enjoyment on the one hand, between hatred and misery on the
other. These abide the unrepealed, the invariable sequences of our spiritual
economy - so that to make good the happiness of heaven, it is as indispensable
as ever that we acquire the spirit and the character of heaven. This we know
from the distinct and repeated averments of holy writ; but it is well that on
the foundation of mental science we can raise another invincible barrier
against the errors of Antinomianism.
22. To obey God is followed up by
the greater facility of obedience - to sin against Him is followed up by the
greater necessity of sinning. In the one case we become every day more
proficient and accomplished than before, as the scholars of righteousness - in
the other more helpless and degraded than before, as the slaves of iniquity.
This might well be called a regimen of moral rewards and moral penalties; and
when we join with it the consideration that virtue has its own native
pleasures, and vice its own native disquietudes and pains, then do we behold in
the spirit of man, constituted as he is, a self-working mechanism by which the
sanctions of law are executed, and the government of a holy Lawgiver is
upholden. Under such a discipline as this, which is in perfect analogy with all
that passes before us, we might see in the eternity of hell-torments - not, as
has been represented by the enemies of the Christian faith, a monstrous
disproportion between the punishment and the crime - not a wretchedness that
never ends in return for the wickedness of a brief and ephemeral life-time -
but we see a wickedness confirmed and unrepented of here carried with all its
acquired tendencies and habits across the grave, and perpetuating itself there
in new and multiplied and ever-recurring transgressions. The sufferings are
bound up with the sins; and the one is eternal just-because the other is
eternal. The creature suffers everlastingly just because he sins everlastingly:
and in his awful destiny we behold, not an endurance that never ends in
remuneration for the offences of a few years, but the continued operation of
that law by which sin and suffering do constantly follow each other, whether in
the present or in a future state of existence. It is not because we like to
indulge in a cold-blooded speculation that we give forth this argument; but
because of its urgent and immediate bearing on practical Christianity - seeing
that it would slacken the operation of every motive to flee from the coming
wrath, if men were untaught the lesson that now or never was the alternative on
which their eternity was suspended; and that in striving to be right and
religious here, they in truth were striving for their all.
23. Many
other applications of the mental physiology might be adduced, and of its
service in conducting to a right and a wise deliverance on theological
questions. At present, however, we shall give but one specimen more, and which
we select as among the best of these adaptations. We are indebted for it to the
admirable sagacity of Bishop Butler, who first dtinguished between each of the
special affections and that more general affection which is the love of self;
and then pointed out the difference between what he calls the terminating
object of a special affection, and that accompanying pleasure which is felt in
the indulgence of it. Take compassion for an example of this. The proper object
of this affection is the relief of misery, in the fulfillment of which object
it rests and terminates. It is obvious that the more intense the compassion is,
the more intently will it be set upon its object, to the exclusion for the time
being of everything else from the mind - having all its regards monopolized, as
it were, by the wretchedness which is before it, and actuated by no other
desire at the moment than that of doing it away. It is thus that he
demonstrates the disinterested character of this, and indeed of every special
affection whatever - it being quite clear of every such affection, that it is
wholly distinct from the love of self; and that the stronger it is, the mind is
all the more thoroughly engrossed with its own proper object, and so more away
from the consideration of self, the gratification of which, or the advantage of
which, forms no part at the time of its aim or of its thoughts. And yet this
does not hinder, but that in the indulgence of this affection there might, and
indeed from the very nature of affections we think that there must be, an
accompanying pleasure. Nay, the stronger the affection, the greater must be the
pleasure. And yet it is not this pleasure that the mind is looking to, or
laying itself out for; but, recurring to our example, it looks to
anothers wretchedness alone, and lays itself out for the relief of that
wretchedness alone. This has been most felicitously illustrated by Butler from
the appetite of hunger - the proper object of which in the use of food is
relief from its own cravings, not the pleasure of eating. As of this appetite,
so of every special affection. The object to which it seeks, and in which it
finds its rest and its complacent gratification is altogether distinct from the
complacency itself, or from the enjoyment which accompanies the gratification.
This enjoyment though felt by self is not the thing aimed at by self; and
though incidental to every special affection, yet is it but an accessory or
collateral, and as distinct from the object of the affection, as the way to a
landing-place is distinct from the landing-place. This may appear a subtle, but
is a most sound and substantial distinction notwithstanding; and of the very
greatest use, particularly in ethical science, where it cuts up by the roots
both the selfish and the utilitarian systems of morality.
24. But it is
of value in theology also - more particularly in enabling us to adjust a
question which has been raised about the disinterested love of God. Every
special affection, in fact, may be said to be disinterested - and that in
respect of its having a distinct object of its own, separate from the good or
the advantage of self, the love we bear to which being properly the only
selfish affection of our nature. In this sense, the ravenous appetite for
intoxicating liquors, when looked to philosophically, is just as disinterested
as is the urgent feeling of compassion - both of them being set on distinct
objects of their own; and neither of them certainly having the good of self for
its aim, which, properly and scientifically, is the alone interested pursuit
whereof the mind is capable. And it is just so of our love to God. There is
pleasure in the exercise of this special affection as in every other; but this
pleasure is only the accompaniment of the affection, and not its object - the
mind in the act of its indulgence being wholly away from self and wholly set
upon God, or upon the graces and glories of His character. Notwithstanding then
of the accompanying pleasure, it is still a disinterested affection - nay, the
greater the pleasure the more disinterested it is - this pleasure, it is clear,
being in proportion to the strength of the affection, which strength of
affection insures that the mind at the time of its exercise is all the more
intently set upon its object, and all the more away from any reflex or
subjective regards upon itself. Altogether it may be said to form an exquisite
principle in the constitution of the mind, that when indulging a special
affection, then in very proportion as its own enjoyment is less in its
thoughts, or less the object of its desire, because then engrossed with wholly
another object, the greater is that enjoyment. We are not denying that the love
of self is a legitimate affection, far more than very many of the special
affections which could be named: we are only saying, be they good or evil, they
are all of them distinct from the love of self, and that although each
ministers to the gratification of self, in the act and at the time of its own
gratification. Ones own happiness, which is the proper object of
self-love, is a fair and right object of pursuit and calculation. Our Saviour
on earth served and suffered for the joy that was set before him ; yet is it
nevertheless true, that the highest of our joys in heaven never can be reached
but through a disinterested medium - the love of God for Himself - the love of
holiness for its own sake.
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