Then to this figure G.o.d added "life", by breathing it into him from himself, whereby this inanimate body became a living one.
And what was this life? Something, or nothing? And had not, first, the Spirit, and next the Word, of G.o.d infused life into the earth, of which man as an animal and all other animals were made,--and then, in addition to this, breathed into man a living soul, which he did not breathe into the other animals?
P. 75.-78-81. "ad finem":
I have a great deal of business yet in this world, without doing of which heaven itself would be uneasy to me.
And therefore do depend, that I shall not be taken hence in the midst of my days, before I have done all my heart"s desire.
But when that is done, I know no business I have with the dead, and therefore do as much depend that I shall not go hence by "returning to the dust", which is the sentence of that law from which I claim a discharge: but that I shall make my "exit" by way of translation, which I claim as a dignity belonging to that degree in the science of eternal life, of which I profess myself a graduate, according to the true intent and meaning of the covenant of eternal life revealed in the Scriptures.
A man so [Greek: kat exochaen] clear-headed, so remarkable for the perspicuity of his sentences, and the luminous orderliness of his arrangement,--in short, so consummate an artist in the statement of his case, and in the inferences from his "data", as John Asgill must be allowed by all competent judges to have been,--was he in earnest or in jest from p. 75 to the end of this treatise?--My belief is, that he himself did not know. He was a thorough humorist: and so much of will, with a spice of the wilful, goes to the making up of a humorist"s creed, that it is no easy matter to determine, how far such a man might not have a pleasure in "humming" his own mind, and believing, in order to enjoy a dry laugh at himself for the belief.
But let us look at it in another way. That Asgill"s belief, professed and maintained in this tract, is unwise and odd, I can more readily grant, than that it is altogether irrational and absurd. I am even strongly inclined to conjecture, that so early as St. Paul"s apostolate there were persons (whether sufficiently numerous to form a sect or party, I cannot say), who held the same tenet as Asgill"s, and in a more intolerant and exclusive sense; and that it is to such persons that St.
Paul refers in the justly admired fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians; and that the inadvertence to this has led a numerous cla.s.s of divines to a misconception of the Apostle"s reasoning, and a misinterpretation of his words, in behoof of the Socinian notion, that the resurrection of Christ is the only argument of proof for the belief of a future state, and that this was the great end and purpose of this event. Now this a.s.sumption is so dest.i.tute of support from the other writers of the New Testament, and so discordant with the whole spirit and gist of St. Paul"s views and reasoning every where else, that it is "a priori" probable, that the apparent exception in this chapter is only apparent. And this the hypothesis, I have here advanced, would enable one to shew, and to exhibit the true bearing of the texts. Asgill contents himself with maintaining that translation without death is one, and the best, mode of pa.s.sing to the heavenly state. "Hinc itur ad astra". But his earliest predecessors contended that it was the only mode, and to this St. Paul justly replies:"--If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable."
1827.
INTRODUCTION TO ASGILL"S DEFENCE
UPON HIS EXPULSION FROM THE HOUSE OP COMMONS.
EDIT. 1712.
P. 28.
For as every faith, or credit, that a man hath attained to, is the result of some knowledge or other; so that whoever hath attained that knowledge, hath that faith, (for whatever a man knows, he cannot but believe:)
So this "all faith" being the result of all knowledge,"tis easy to conceive that whoever had once attained to all that knowledge, nothing could be difficult to him.
This whole discussion on faith is one of the very few instances, in which Asgill has got out of his depth. According to all usage of words, science and faith are incompatible in relation to the same object; while, according to Asgill, faith is merely the power which science confers on the will. Asgill says,--What we know, we must believe. I retort,--What we only believe, we do not know. The "minor" here is excluded by, not included in, the "major". Minors by difference of quant.i.ty are included in their majors; but minors by difference of quality are excluded by them, or superseded. Apply this to belief and science, or certain knowledge. On the confusion of the second, that is, minors by difference of quality, with the first, or minors by difference of quant.i.ty, rests Asgill"s erroneous exposition of faith.
NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWN"S RELIGIO MEDICI,
MADE DURING A SECOND PERUSAL. 1808. [1]
Part I. S.1.
For my religion, though there be several circ.u.mstances that might perswade the world I have none at all, "as the generall scandall of my profession", &c.
The historical origin of this scandal, which in nine cases out of ten is the honour of the medical profession, may, perhaps, be found in the fact, that aenesidemus and s.e.xtus Empiricus, the sceptics, were both physicians, about the close of the second century. [2] A fragment from the writings of the former has been preserved by Photius, and such as would leave a painful regret for the loss of the work, had not the invaluable work of s.e.xtus Empiricus been still extant.
S. 7.
A third there is which I did never positively maintaine or practise, but have often wished it had been consonant to truth, and not offensive to my religion, and that is, the prayer for the dead, &c.
Our church with her characteristic Christian prudence does not enjoin prayer for the dead, but neither does she prohibit it. In its own nature it belongs to a private aspiration; and being conditional, like all religious acts not expressed in Scripture, and therefore not combinable with a perfect faith, it is something between prayer and wish,--an act of natural piety sublimed by Christian hope, that shares in the light, and meets the diverging rays, of faith, though it be not contained in the focus.
S. 13.
He holds no counsell, but that mysticall one of the Trinity, wherein, though there be three persons, there is but one mind that decrees without contradiction, &c.
Sir T.B. is very amusing. He confesses his part heresies, which are mere opinions, while his orthodoxy is full of heretical errors. His Trinity is a mere trefoil, a 3=1, which is no mystery at all, but a common object of the senses. The mystery is, that one is three, that is, each being the whole G.o.d.
S. 18.
"Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables, &c.
But a great profanation, methinks, and a no less absurdity. Would Sir T.
Brown, before weighing two pigs of lead, A. and B., pray to G.o.d that A.
might weigh the heavier? Yet if the result of the dice be at the time equally believed to be a settled and predetermined effect, where lies the difference? Would not this apply against all pet.i.tionary prayer?--St. Paul"s injunction involves the answer:--"Pray always".
S. 22.
They who to salve this would make the deluge particular, proceed upon a principle that I can no way grant, &c.
But according to the Scripture, the deluge was so gentle as to leave uncrushed the green leaves on the olive tree. If then it was universal, and if (as with the longevity of the antediluvians it must have been) the earth was fully peopled, is it not strange that no buildings remain in the since then uninhabited parts--in America for instance? That no human skeletons are found may be solved from the circ.u.mstance of the large proportion of phosphoric acid in human bones. But cities and traces of civilization?--I do not know what to think, unless we might be allowed to consider Noah a "h.o.m.o repraesentativus", or the last and nearest of a series taken for the whole.
S. 33.
They that to refute the invocation of saints, have denied that they have any knowledge of our affairs below, have proceeded too farre, and must pardon my opinion, till I can throughly answer that piece of Scripture, "At the conversion of a sinner the angels of Heaven rejoyce".
Take any moral or religious book, and, instead of understanding each sentence according to the main purpose and intention, interpret every phrase in its literal sense as conveying, and designed to convey, a metaphysical verity, or historical fact:--what a strange medley of doctrines should we not educe? And yet this is the way in which we are constantly in the habit of treating the books of the New Testament.
S. 34.
And, truely, for the first chapters of "Genesis" I must confesse a great deal of obscurity; though divines have to the power of humane reason endeavored to make all go in a literall meaning, yet those allegoricall interpretations are also probable, and perhaps, the mysticall method of Moses bred up in the hieroglyphicall schooles of the Egyptians.
The second chapter of Genesis from v. 4, and the third chapter are to my mind, as evidently symbolical, as the first chapter is literal. The first chapter is manifestly by Moses himself; but the second and third seem to me of far higher antiquity, and have the air of being translated into words from graven stones.
S. 48. This section is a series of ingenious paralogisms.
S. 49.
Moses, that was bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians, committed a grosse absurdity in philosophy, when with these eyes of flesh he desired to see G.o.d, and pet.i.tioned his maker, that is, truth itself, to a contradiction.
Bear in mind the Jehovah "Logos", the [Symbol: "O "omega N] [Greek: en kolp_o patros]--the person "ad extra",--and few pa.s.sages in the Old Testament are more instructive, or of profounder import. Overlook this, or deny it,--and none so perplexing or so irreconcilable with the known character of the inspired writer.
S. 50.