Among Baxter"s philosophical merits, we ought not to overlook, that the subst.i.tution of Trichotomy for the old and still general plan of Dichotomy in the method and disposition of Logic, which forms so prominent and substantial an excellence in Kant"s Critique of the Pure Reason, of the Judgment, and the rest of his works, belongs originally to Richard Baxter, a century before Kant;--and this not as a hint, but as a fully evolved and systematically applied principle. Nay, more than this:--Baxter grounded it on an absolute idea presupposed in all intelligential acts: whereas Kant takes it only as a fact in which he seems to antic.i.p.ate or suspect some yet deeper truth latent, and hereafter to be discovered.
On recollection, however, I am disposed to consider "this" alone as Baxter"s peculiar claim, I have not indeed any distinct memory of Giordano Bruno"s "Logice Venatrix Veritatis"; but doubtless the principle of Trichotomy is necessarily involved in the Polar Logic, which again is the same with the Pythagorean "Tetractys", that is, the eternal fountain or source of nature; and this being sacred to contemplations of ident.i.ty, and prior in order of thought to all division, is so far from interfering with Trichotomy as the universal form of division (more correctly of distinctive distribution in logic) that it implies it. "Prothesis" being by the very term anterior to "Thesis" can be no part of it. Thus in
"Prothesis"
"Thesis" "Ant.i.thesis"
"Synthesis"
we have the Tetrad indeed in the intellectual and intuitive contemplation, but a Triad in discursive arrangement, and a Tri-unity in result. [3]
Ib. p. 144.
Seeing the great difficulties that lie in the way of increasing charities so as to meet the increase of population, or even so as to follow it, and the manifold desirableness of parish Churches, with the material dignity that in a right state of Christian order would attach to them, as compared with meeting-houses, chapels, and the like--all more or less "privati juris", I have often felt disposed to wish that the large majestic Church, central to each given parish, might have been appropriated to Public Prayer, to the mysteries of Baptism and the Lord"s Supper, and to the "quasi sacramenta", Marriage, Penance, Confirmation, Ordination, and to the continued reading aloud, or occasional chanting, of the Scriptures during the intervals of the different Services, which ought to be so often performed as to suffice successively for the whole population; and that on the other hand the chapels and the like should be entirely devoted to teaching and expounding.
Ib. p. 153.
And I proved to him that Christianity was proved true many years before any of the New Testament was written, and that so it may be still proved by one that doubted of some words of the Scripture; and therefore the true order is, to try the truth of the Christian religion first, and the perfect verity of the Scriptures afterwards.
With more than Dominican virulence did Goeze, Head Pastor of the Lutheran Church at Hamburg, a.s.sail the celebrated Lessing for making and supporting the same position as the pious Baxter here advances.
This controversy with Goeze was in 1778, nearly a hundred years after Baxter"s writing this.
Ib. p. 155.
And within a few days Mr. Barnett riding the circuit was cast by his horse, and died in the very fall. And Sir John Medlicote and his brother, a few weeks after, lay both dead in his house together.
This interpreting of accidents and coincidences into judgments is a breach of charity and humility, only not universal among all sects and parties of this period, and common to the best and gentlest men in all; we should not therefore bring it in charge against any one in particular. But what excuse shall be made for the revival of this presumptuous encroachment on the divine prerogative in our days?
Ib. p. 180.
Near this time my book called A Key for Catholics, was to be reprinted. In the preface to the first impression I had mentioned with praise the Earl of Lauderdale. * * * I thought best to prefix an epistle to the Duke, in which I said not a word of him but truth. * *
* But the indignation that men had against the Duke made some blame me, as keeping up the reputation of one whom mult.i.tudes thought very ill of; whereas I owned none of his faults, and did nothing that I could well avoid for the aforesaid reasons. Long after this he professed his kindness to me, and told me I should never want while he was able, and humbly entreated me to accept twenty guineas from him, which I did.
This would be a curious proof of the slow and imperfect intercourse of communication between Scotland and London, if Baxter had not been particularly informed of Lauderdale"s horrible cruelties to the Scotch Covenanters:--and if Baxter did know them, he surely ran into a greater inconsistency to avoid the appearance of a less. And the twenty guineas!
they must have smelt, I should think, of more than the earthly brimstone that might naturally enough have been expected in gold or silver, from his palm. I would as soon have plucked an ingot from the cleft of the Devil"s hoof.
[Greek: Taut" elegon perithumos ego gar misei en iso Lauderdalon echo ka kerkokeronucha Satan.]
Ib. p. 181.
About that time I had finished a book called Catholic Thoughts; in which I undertake to prove that besides things unrevealed, known to none, and ambiguous words, there is no considerable difference between the Arminians and Calvinists, except some very tolerable difference in the point of perseverance.
What Arminians? what Calvinists?--It is possible that the guarded language and positions of Arminius himself may be interpreted into a "very tolerable" compatibility with the principles of the milder Calvinists, such as Archbishop Leighton, that true Father of the Church of Christ. But I more than doubt the possibility of even approximating the principles of Bishop Jeremy Taylor to the fundamental doctrines of Leighton, much more to those of Cartwright, Twiss, or Owen.
Ib. p. 186.
Bishop Barlow told my friend that got my papers for him, that he could hear of nothing that we judged to be sin, but mere inconveniences.
When as above seventeen years ago, we publicly endeavoured to prove the sinfulness even of many of the old impositions.
Clearly an undeterminable controversy; inasmuch as there is no centra-definition possible of sin and inconvenience in religion: while the exact point, at which an inconvenience, becoming intolerable, pa.s.ses into sin, must depend on the state and the degree of light, of the individual consciences to which it appears or becomes intolerable.
Besides, a thing may not be only indifferent in itself, but may be declared such by Scripture, and on this indifference the Scripture may have rested a prohibition to Christians to judge each other on the point. If yet a Pope or Archbishop should force this on the consciences of others, for example, to eat or not to eat animal food, would he not sin in so doing? And does Scripture permit me to subscribe to an ordinance made in direct contempt of a command of Scripture?
If it were said,--In all matters indifferent and so not sinful you must comply with lawful authority:--must I not reply, But you have yourself removed the indifferency by your injunction? Look in Popish countries for the hideous consequences of the unnatural doctrine--that the Priest may go to h.e.l.l for sinfully commanding, and his parishioners go with him for not obeying that command.
Ib. p. 191.
About this time died my dear friend Mr. Thomas Gouge, of whose life you may see a little in Mr. Clark"s last book of Lives:--a wonder of sincere industry in works of charity. It would make a volume to recite at large the charity he used to his poor parishioners at Sepulchre"s, before he was ejected and silenced for non-conformity, &c.
I cannot express how much it grieves me, that our Clergy should still think it fit and expedient to defend the measures of the High Churchmen from Laud to Sheldon, and to speak of the ejected ministers, Calamy, Baxter, Gouge, Howe, and others, as schismatics, factionists, fanatics, or Pharisees:--thus to flatter some half-dozen dead Bishops, wantonly depriving our present Church of the authority of perhaps the largest collective number of learned and zealous, discreet and holy, ministers that one age and one Church was ever blest with; and whose authority in every considerable point is in favor of our Church, and against the present Dissenters from it. And this seems the more impolitic, when it must be clear to every student of the history of these times, that the unmanly cruelties inflicted on Baxter and others were, as Bishops Ward, Stillingfleet, and others saw at the time, part of the Popish scheme of the Cabal, to trick the Bishops and dignified Clergy into rendering themselves and the established Church odious to the public by laws, the execution of which the King, the Duke, Arlington, and the Popish priests directed towards the very last man that the Bishops themselves (the great majority at least) would have molested.
Appendix II. p. 37.
If I can prove that it hath been the universal practice of the Church "in nudum apertum caput ma.n.u.s imponere", doth it follow that this is essential, and the contrary null?
How likewise can it be proved that the imposition of hands in Ordination did not stand on the same ground as the imposition of hands in sickness; that is, the miraculous gifts of the first preachers of the Gospel? All Protestants admit that the Church retained several forms so originated, after the cessation of the originating powers, which were the substance of these forms.
Ib.
If you think not only imposition to be essential, but also that nothing else is essential, or that all are true ministers that are ordained by a lawful Bishop per "manuum impositionem", then do you egregiously "tibi ipsi imponere".
Baxter, like most scholastic logicians, had a sneaking affection for puns. The cause is,--the necessity of attending to the primary sense of words, that is, the visual image or general relation expressed, and which remains common to all the after senses, however widely or even incongruously differing from each other in other respects. For the same reason, schoolmasters are commonly punsters. "I have indorsed your Bill, Sir," said a pedagogue to a merchant, meaning he had flogged his son William.--My old master the Rev. James Bowyer, the "Hercules furens" of the phlogistic sect, but else an incomparable teacher,--used to translate, "Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu",--first reciting the Latin words, and observing that they were the fundamental article of the Peripatetic school,--"You must flog a boy, before you can make him understand;"--or, "You must lay it in at the tail before you can get it into the head."
Ib. p. 45.
Then, that the will must follow the practical intellect whether right or wrong,--that is no precept, but the nature of the soul in its acting, because that the will is "potentia caeca, non nata ad intelligendum, sed ad volendum vel nolendum intellectum".
This is the main fault in Baxter"s metaphysics, that he so often substantiates distinctions into dividuous self-subsistents. As here;--for a will not intelligent is no will.
Appendix. III. p. 55.
And for many ages no other ordinarily baptised but infants. If Christ had no Church then, where was his wisdom, his love, and his power?
What was become of the glory of his redemption, and his Catholic Church, that was to continue to the end?
But the Antipoedo-Baptists would deny any such consequences as applicable to them, who are to act according to the circ.u.mstances, in which G.o.d, who ordains his successive manifestations in due correspondence with other lights and states of things, has placed them.
He does not exclude from the Church of Christ (say they) those whom we do not accept into the communion of our particular Society, any more than the House of Lords excludes Commoners from being Members of Parliament. And we do this because--we think that such promiscuous admission would prolong an error which would be deadly to us, though not to you who interpret the Scriptures otherwise.
"In fine."