Part 2
saved.' But we should put implicit trust in no human, or hereditary, or traditional theology, in no theology except what comes direct from the Bible, interpreted according to the letter, but received after the spirit. How often does it happen that you will know what sect a man belongs to by the favourite passages which he quotes in his sermons, and in his very prayers, shewing how apt we are to take our very Scriptures from the traditions of our churches. We act as if the well were shut up from us, and as if we were obliged to
THE PUBITAN PREACHING. XXIX
go to the streams, which may have caught earthliness in their course, and which at the best cannot be so fresh as the fountain.
That is the theology best suited to the age which is put forth by living men of the age, drinking of the living word for themselves
by the power of the living Spirit.
The peculiarities of the puritan preaching arose from the cir cumstances in which they were placed, combined always with
their deep piety. Most of them were highly educated men, trained in classics, logics, and ethics at the old universities. In their colleges, and in the Established Church, they had acquired habits of careful study and preparation for the pulpit, which they re tained all their lives, whether they remained in or removed from the communion of the Church of England. Meanwhile, in the prosecution of their high aims, they were thrown into the midst of most exciting scenes, which moved society from its base to its summit. They had to make up their minds on most momentous questions, and to come to a public decision, and take their side, — it may be at an immense sacrifice of worldly wealth and status. With a great love for the national Church, and a desire to keep the unity of the faith, they declined, in obedience to what they believed to be the commands of God in his word, to conform to practices which the government, political and ecclesiastical, was imposing on them. In taking their part in the movements of these times, they had to mingle with men of all classes, to write papers of defence and explanation, and at times of controversy, and to transact a multifarious business, with bearings on states men on the one hand, and the mass of the people on the other. Out of this state of things arose a style of exposition different from that of the retired scholar on the one hand, and from that of the man of bustle on the other ; equally removed from the manner of the independent churchman and of the ever stirring dissenter. The discourses are by men of thought and erudition, who must draw their support from the great body of the people, and address in one and the same sermon both men and women belonging to all ranks and classes. We see those characteristics in every treatise of Owen and Baxter, and they come out in the discourses of Charnock.
The works of Charnock, and of the puritans generally, labour under two alleged imperfections. With the exception of Howe's 'Living Temple,' and one or two other treatises, they are with out that subdued and quiet reflection which gives such a charm to books which have come out of retired parsonages or the cloisters of colleges. In most of the writings of the puritans, there is a movement, and in many of them a restlessness, which
shew that they were composed for hearers or readers who were no doubt to be instructed, but whose attention required also to be kept alive. Their profound discussions and their erudite disquisitions, having reference commonly to expected, indeed immediate action, are ever mixed with practical lessons and applications which interrupt the argument, and at times give a
XXX INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK's WORKS.
strain and bias to the interpretation of a passage. In this respect their discourses, written with the picture of a mixed auditory before them, are very different from the essays or dissertations, philosophic or critical, of certain of the Anglican or German divines, who, themselves mere scholars or thinkers, write only for the learned ; but possess an interest to them such as cannot attach to spoken addresses in which the popular and the scien tific are mixed in every page.
Because of this attempted combination, the puritans labour under another alleged disadvantage. Most of their writings contain too much thought, too much erudition, and above all too many logical distinctions, to admit of their being appreciated by vulgar readers. With the living voice and the earnest manner to set them off, the sermons may have been listened to with pro found interest by large mixed audiences ; but in the yellow pages of the old volume they scare those who do not wish to be troubled with active or earnest thought. In this respect they are inferior — some would rather say immeasurably superior — to the popular works produced in our day by evangelical writers both within and beyond the established churches of England and
Scotland. They are not characterised by that entire absence, in some cases studious abnegation, of reflective thought and con vincing argument, which is a characteristic of some of our modern preachers, who cast away their manhood and pule like infants ; nor do they indulge in those stories and anecdotes by which some of our most successful ministers of the word attract and profit large audiences in our times. The puritans had learning, and they gave the results of it to their congregations. They thought profoundly themselves, and they wished to stimulate and gratify thought in their hearers and readers.
The consequence of all this is, that there is a class who reckon themselves above, and there is a class certainly below, the puritan. There are contemplatists who are disturbed by their feverishness, and scholars who complain of the intrusion of unasked practical lessons. But if these persons would only exercise a little of that patience on which they set so high a value, they would find im bedded in the rich conglomerate of the puritans profound reflec tions and wise maxims, which could have come only from deep thinkers and scholars, who spent long hours in their studies reading, meditating, and, we may add, praying over the deepest questions which the mind of man can ponder. It is also true that there are men and women of all ranks and conditions who are below the puritans, such as the devourers of novels in our circulating libraries, our men of pleasure and of mere business and agriculture, who have never been led to entertain a thought above their amusements, or their shops and their warehouses, their crops and their cattle; and such are the masses in our great cities, and in our scattered rural districts too, who have been allowed to spring up in utter ignorance, but who would not have been left in such utter degradation if the puritans had been
THE PURITAN PREACHING. XXXI
allowed to carry out their system of inspection, catechising, and careful Bible instruction. We allow that persons so untrained to thinking would speedily fall asleep if made to read a puritan treatise, with its deep thoughts and its logical distinctions. The puritan preachers no doubt required a prepared audience ; but they had succeeded so far in training intelligent audiences in their own day, and they had a discipline which, if they had been allowed to carry it out, might have prepared the great body of the people for listening to the systematic exposition of the divine word. Nor is it to be forgotten that there are passages in the writings of the best puritans more fitted than any composed by uninspired men to awaken the unthinking and arouse the care less, and compel them to think of the things which belong to their everlasting peace. These passages continue to be regularly quoted to this day, and often constitute the very best parts of the
articles in our popular religious literature. Charnock's discourses, in particular, have been a mine in which many have dug, and found there gold wherewithal to enrich themselves, without exhausting the numberless veins. The preachers who have caught the spirit of the puritans, but have avoided their techni cality and mannerism, have commonly been the most successful in rousing the sunken and the dead from their apathy, and in stirring them to anxiety and prayer.
Some of the critical commentaries furnished by the puritans, such as those of Owen, are among the ablest, and altogether the best, that have ever been published. It is all true that modern German industry has dug up and collected materials unknown in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the more recent contests with the rationalists and infidels, while producing it may be much immediate mischief, have in the end led to a larger and more minute acquaintance with ancient thought and history, and with eastern languages and customs. But the puritans have been left behind merely by the onward march of knowledge ; and the time may come when even the most advanced German critics may in this sense become antiquated. It is true that the puritans, keeping before them a living audience, ever mingled practical reflections and applications with their most erudite criticism, in a way which is now avoided by learned commentators. But over against this we have to place the counterbalancing circumstance, that the Scriptures were written for practical purposes, and will ever be better interpreted by practical men, who have felt the truth them
selves, and who have had enlarged and familiar intercourse with men, women, and children in the actual world, than by the mere book scholar, who is ever tempted to attribute motives to historical actors such as real human beings were never swayed by, and to discard passages because they contain im probabilities such as one who mingles with mankind is meet ing with every day. We have sometimes thought, in com paring the puritan with the modern German criticism, that
INTRODUCTION TO CHABNOCK's WORKS.
the one of these circumstances is quite fitted to outweigh the
other; of course, the one should be used to counteract the other, and a perfect commentary should seek to embrace both ad vantages.
The multiplied divisions, and ramified subdivisions, employed in their discourses, furnish matter of very common complaint against them. The habit arose from the training in a narrow scholastic logic in the universities, and is to be found in the ethical, the juridical, the legal, and the parliamentary quite as much as in the theological writings of the age, and in the high Anglican as well as in the puritan theology. We are not pre pared to vindicate the peculiar manner of the times. The excess in one direction led in the immediately succeeding age to an excess in the other direction. The new method, or want of method, was introduced from France, and came in with a very light and superficial literature.. It was espoused by such writers as Lord Shaftesbury in his * Characteristics of Men, and Manners, and Times;' and appeared in a very graceful dress in the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. Shaftesbury tells us that the miscellaneous manner was in the highest esteem in his day, that the old plan of dividing into firsts and seconds had grown out of fashion, and that 'the elegant court divine exhorts in miscellany, and is ashamed to bring his twos and threes before a fashionable assembly.' ' Eagouts and fricassees are the reign ing dishes; so authors, in order to become fashionable, have run into the more savoury way of learned ragout and medley.' In adopting the style of the times, the preachers no doubt sup posed that they could thereby recommend religion to the world,
especially to the gay and fashionable classes, who had been repelled by the old manner, and might be won, it was alleged, by the new. The comment of the clerical satirist Witherspoon, in his ' Characteristics,' is very pertinent. After stating the allegation that the old system had driven most of the fashion able gentry from the churches, he says : ' Now the only way to regain them to the church, is to accommodate the worship as much as may be to their taste;' and then remarks slily, 'I confess there has sometimes been an ugly objection thrown up against this part of my argument, viz., that this desertion of public worship by those in high life seems in fact to be contem porary with, and to increase in a pretty exact proportion to, the attempts that have been made, and are made, to suit it to their taste.' Not that we have any right to condemn the preachers of the eighteenth century because they did not choose to follow the formalism of the seventeenth. A much graver charge can be brought against them; that of sinking out of sight, or diluting, some of the convincing and saving truths of Chris tianity. The minister of God's Word, if he is not to make him self ridiculous, must wear the dress and accommodate himself to the innocent manners of his age ; but he is never to forget that he is a minister of the word, prepared to declare the whole
THE PURITAN PBEACHIN5. XXX111
counsel of God, and he is not to imagine that he can deliver himself from the offence of the cross. The polite, the gay, and the refined admired the preaching of the eighteenth century, but never thought of allowing themselves to fall under the power of the religion recommended. The puritan preachers are
still read and have power, ' being dead they yet speak unto us;1 but who remembers the names of the admired pulpit orators of last century? Who, except the lovers of belles lettres, ever think of looking into the polished sermons of Hugh Blair and his school?
It may be allowed that the puritan preachers, like all the didactic writers of their time, carried their subdivisions too far. They sought by abstraction to bring out into distinct view all the attributes of the concrete object ; and by mental analysis to dis tribute a complex subject into its parts. As correct thinkers, their judgment would have been offended if a single one of the parts which go to make up the whole had been left out. But comprehensive minds now see that it is beyond the capacity of man to find out all the elements of any one existing object ' in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth.' In the subject, for example, discussed by Charnock, the nature of God, no one should profess, (certainly
Charnock does not) to be able to discover or to unfold all the perfections of Jehovah ; and it would be simple pretension to make the propositions we utter assume the appearance of com pleteness of knowledge and explanation. The mind feels bur dened when a speaker or writer would lay the whole weight of a comprehensive subject upon it. Charles II. was offering a just criticism on the whole preaching of the age when he charged Isaac Barrow with being an unjust preacher, inasmuch as he left nothing for any other man to say. All people weary of an enumeration which would count all gifts bestowed in minute coins ; independent thinkers feel offended when any one would dogmatically settle everything for them; and enlarged minds would rather have a wide margin left for them to write on, and prefer suggestive to exhaustive writers.
But on the other hand, definition and division are important logical instruments; and when they are kept in their proper place as means, they serve important purposes. The puritan preachers all aimed at vastly more than mere tickling, rousing, and interesting their hearers ; they aimed at instructing them. For this purpose it was needful first of all to give their hearers clear notions ; and how could that be done except by the speakers themselves acquiring distinct and adequate ideas, and then
uttering a clear expression of them? They were quite aware that speculative notions and linked ratiocinations were not fitted to raise feeling, and that there could be no religion without affection; and hence they ever mingled appeals to the conscience, and addresses to the feelings, and even pictures for the fancy, with their methodical arrangements and reasoning processes.
INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK's WORKS.
But they knew at the same time that mere feeling, tmsnstained by the understanding, would die out like an unfed flame, and
hence they ever sought to convey clear apprehensions, and to convince the judgment. Then they wished their audience to retain what they heard in their memories for future rumination. But the memory, at least of the intelligent, proceeds in its reminiscences by correlation; it cannot bring up the uncon nected, the dismembered ; it needs hooks on which to hang the thoughts, compartments in which to arrange them, that we may know where to find them, and to be able to bring them out for use when we need them. All skilful teachers of youth know that if their pupils would make progress they must employ method, and have division and enumeration in the lessons on which they examine. And it is certain that the puritans aimed at nothing less than thoroughly teaching their flocks ; and many of their hearers, male and female, took notes of the sermons and afterwards expanded them. Such a process would be quite impossible in regard to much of the preaching of our times, satisfying itself with a loose general view of a subject, which may produce a transient impression for good, tut which does not give a distinct apprehension at the time, and which could not possibly be recalled afterwards, much less expressed, by any but the original speaker. Depend upon it, two centuries hence these writers will be far less read than the puritans are at this present time.
An objection has frequently been taken to the too graphic illustrations and quaintnesses of the puritans. An excuse can easily be pled for it by those who may not be prepared to recom mend it for general adoption. It was the habit of the time, and was adopted in all departments of literature, poetical and prose, and by the adherents of the Anglican establishment as well as the nonconformists. The puritan preachers felt as if they were necessitated to employ some such means of keeping alive the attention of hearers to the weighty instruction they were in the habit of imparting to their large mixed audiences. It is a curious circumstance that the present age has come back to thp same practice under a somewhat different form, and with less excuse for it in the solidity of its thinking ; and it cannot with any consistency object to the fashion of the good old puritans as long as it calls for and favours so many sensation means of summoning the attention, not only in novels, but in every species of writing, including our religious literature, which is advertised by catch titles and read for the sake of excitement. It is to be
said in behalf of the puritans, that though there may be at times an overstrained ingenuity in their illustrations, yet these always bear directly and pointedly upon the doctrinal truth which they are expounding, and the practical lessons which they enforce. The puritans ever sought to enlighten the intellect; but their aim was also to gain the heart, and in order to both one and the other, to awaken the conscience — in the addresses to which
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. XXXT
they have not been surpassed, perhaps not equalled, by any class of teachers in ancient or in modern times.
The best puritan preaching ever tended to take the form of
what they called the ' lecture.' We often meet with this phrase in reading the history of the times. There were lectures delivered weekly in certain churches in London, and in some of the prin cipal towns throughout the three kingdoms ; Laud, we know, en deavoured to put down the puritan lecture. Charnock describes himself as officially lecturer at Christ Church, where the lecture was delivered at three o'clock on the afternoons of the Lord's day. We are not to suppose that the puritans always preached in this elaborate style, but the ablest of them did so when they could get fit audience; and the sermons which they thought worthy of publication were commonly of this elaborately-exposi tory type. In particular, Charnock always discourses to us as if he were lecturing in a college chapel at Oxford, or in Christ Church, Dublin.
While it is not desirable that all preaching, or even ordinary preaching, should be of this stamp, it would surely be for the benefit of the church of Christ to have a few lecturers or doctors, fitted for such work, in all our great cities ; or to secure the same end by systematic lectures delivered by a judicious combination of competent men, not merely on attractive and popular, but on profound theological, subjects. To accomplish the purpose in our day, it is not needful that this elaborate exposition should proceed in the manner of the puritans ; in particular, it should avoid the minute dissection of texts in which they so delighted, but in which the living truth was apt to be killed in the process. In order to be profitable, the lectures must be addressed to the age, by men who sympathise with the age ; and it is only thus that they can accomplish in this century, what the puritan lecture effected two hundred years ago. Ever founded on the word of God, they should endeavour to bring out its broad and simple meaning, rather than exercise their ingenuity in drawing out significations which were never seen by the writers of the Scrip tures. Thus may the church of God expect to raise up a body of intelligent people, to maintain and defend the truth in our day, by better weapons than were employed even by the soldiers of Cromwell in the seventeenth century.
III. PHILOSOPHICAL PKINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE
PUEITAN THEOLOGY.
The author of this Introduction feels that, on being asked to write about the divine who discussed the profound subject of the
' Attributes of God/ it will be expected of him, from the character
INTRODUCTION TO CHABNOCK's WORKS.
of his favourite studies, that he should say something of the philosophy of the puritans, or rather of the philosophic principles involved in the puritan theology. For in truth the puritans were not, really nor professedly, philosophers, but theologians and
preachers. Not that their religious views discouraged the study of philosophy. It could be shewn that some of the greatest thinkers that England has produced, owed not a little to puritan influence. Francis Bacon had certainly none of the self-sacri ficing spirit of the puritans, but he owed much to a puritan mother. The puritans generally were too much engrossed with practical questions, to write calm philosophic treatises. But it is not to be forgotten that Culverwel and Cudworth, about the most learned and profound thinkers of their age, took the reform
ing side in Cambridge ; and Howe, who wrote his ' Living Temple' (at least the first part of it) in his calm retirement in the family of Lord Massarene at Antrim, was altogether a puritan. Locke (like Milton) did not keep by the deep religious faith of those among whom he was brought up, but he cherished their reverence for the Bible and liberty of thought.
The phrase ' puritan divines' is understood to apply to those who sought to construct a biblical theology. But Christian
theology, which is a co-ordination of the scattered truths of God's word, cannot be constructed without philosophic principles, more or fewer, being involved explicitly, or more frequently implicitly. If we try to connect truths which in the Bible are left unconnected;
if we generalise wha^ in the Scriptures is particular ; if we infer from what is revealed ; if we argue from the analogy of the faith, or from any other principle ; above all, if we would arrange the truth into a system, we must, whether we avow it or not, whether we know it or not, proceed on some principle of reason. We often find that those who affect to be the most determined to avoid all scholastic forms, are all the while, in their statements and reasonings, proceeding on principles which are really meta physical, the metaphysics being very confused and ill-founded. It would be very curious and very instructive withal, to have a full and clear enunciation of the philosophic principles involved in the theologies of all different ages and creeds. It is only by having such a statement spread out articulately, that we can find what is human and what is divine in systems of divinity. In this article we are to endeavour to bring out to view the philosophy implied in the construction of the puritan theology.
Bible theologians, as such, should always avoid identifying their systems with, or founding them upon, any peculiar meta physical system. But let us not be misunderstood. We do not mean to affirm that no attempt should be made to wed religion and philosophy. We hold that all philosophy should be thought out in a religious spirit, and that much good may be effected by philosophic works on religious topics, such as those of Pascal, and Culyerwel, and Cudworth in the seventeenth century. But in all such cases the philosophy and the Scriptural theology should
PHILOSOPHICAL PEINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. XXXV11
be kept separate, not, it may be, in separate chapters, but first in the mind of the writer, and second in the composition of his work ; so separate, that the reader may discern the difference, and that the certainties of God may not be confounded by the dullest apprehension with the speculations of men.
The puritans professed to be students of the Bible, and not philosophers, and to avoid all mere speculative questions. And we are prepared to affirm that neither before nor since, has there been a body of profound divines assuming fewer doubtful meta physical principles. But the very puritans did proceed, in the construction of their systems, .on certain logical or metaphysical maxims. We allow that, like all dogmatic theologians, they carried their method of technical formulae too far ; that they did at times squeeze a text, written in an eastern language, to suit it to a western article ; and that they professed to reach a com pleteness of system such as is altogether beyond the limited capa
cities of man, in dealing with the boundless truths of God's Word. But we maintain that in their theology they ground on no peculiar philosophy ; that the maxims involved in their construction and inferences are found in the very nature of the human mind, and of the reason with which man is endowed, are such as man must ever take with him, if he is not to abnegate his rational nature, are such as have had a place allotted them in all profound philo sophies, whether in ancient, in mediseval, or in modern times ; in short, the puritans proceed on the principles of a catholic philo
sophy, which is the expression of the laws of man's intellectual constitution.
It may be allowed indeed that they employed at times the forms and expressions of authors, and of systems that were favourites with them. In particular, they used the distinctions and the phrases of Aristotle, of Augustine, and of the scholastic logicians. But then it is to be remembered that Aristotle and Augustine were about the most comprehensive thinkers that ever lived ; and it is a fact that the schoolmen, all narrow and technical as they were in their spirit, were the main instruments of giving definiteness to the expressions used in the western world in our modern literature, — in fact, in our very speeches, sermons, and common conversation. The puritans in their learned treatises had to employ the phraseology of the learning of their times, just as they had to use the language of their country. The inspired writers themselves had their nation
alities and their individualities — the speech of the disciples still ' bewrayeth' them. They had to speak of the sun rising, and the earth standing, according to the ideas of their time ; and in regard to
man's nature they had to use the phrases, ' reins/ ' bowels,' ' heart,' and employ the distinction of ' body,' ' soul/ and ' spirit/ because they were accepted in their times. The puritans must use the language they found ready for them, and the distinctions under stood by their readers ; but just as the writers of Scripture did not mean authoritatively to sanction any theories of the world or of the mind, so the puritans did not intend to adopt any peculiar philoso-
XXXVni INTRODUCTION TO CHAENOCK S WORKS.
phic system, PJatonic or Aristotelian, Greek or Latin, ancient or modern, but to proceed on the universal principles of reason.
In establishing" the divine existence, Charnock had to make references to the material universe, as furnishing evidence of order,
design, and beneficence. In doing so, he has to make his state ments according to the views of the time. The Copernican theory of the universe had been adopted for some ages by men of science, but had not yet been brought down to the common belief of the people. Bacon had rejected it, and Milton in his great poem forms his pictures on the idea of the earth being reckoned the stable centre, with the stars moving round it in cycles and epicycles.
When Charnock was in Dublin, the Royal Society was formed in Oxford ; and while Charnock was meditating his discourses on the Attributes, Newton was cogitating the law of universal gravitation. But the preacher feels that it was not for him to go in advance of the popular apprehension. He usually supposes, as all men in fact still do, that the sun moves round the earth, but he states in a
note, ' whether it be the sun or the earth that moves, it is all one/ that is for his purpose, which is to shew that ' the things in the world declare the existence of a God in their production, harmony,
preservation, and answering their several ends.' 'Every plant, every atom, as well as every star, at the first meeting, whispers this
in our ears, " I have a Creator, I am witness to a Deity." Who ever saw statues or pictures, but presently thinks of a statuary and
limner?' 'The spider, as if it understood the art of weaving, fits its web both for its own habitation, and a net to catch its prey. The bee builds its cell, which serves for chambers to reside in, and
a repository for its provision/ ' The whole model of the body is grounded upon reason. Every member hath its exact proportion,
distinct office, regular motion.' ' The mouth takes in the meat, the teeth grind it for the stomach, the stomach prepares it.' ' Every member hath a signature and mark of God, and of his wisdom.'* It is the office of natural theology to unfold the order and the adapta tion which everywhere fall under our notice in the works of God, but in doing so it should never profess to expound the ultimate constitu tion of things : ' No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.' In order to the conclusiveness of the argument for the divine existence, it is not necessary that we should know the final composition and laws of the substances in which the order and design are exhibited. We may see at once that there are plan and purpose in the dispositions of an army in march, though we know not meanwhile whence it has come or whither it is going. In like manner we are sure that there are skill and con trivance in the movements of the hosts of nature, though we cannot tell their ultimate properties. Charnock lived in an age of transi tion in physical science, and some of his representations are anti quated ; but his arguments are still conclusive, and his illustrations need only to be expressed in a new form to become apposite. We should not forget that we, too, live in an age of transition, and
* Attribute, Dis. I.
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. XXXII
when the grand discoveries of our day in regard to the conservation of energy and the correlation of all the physical forces, and in regard to the unity of all organic forms, are wrought out to their full con sequences, we suspect that the most advanced works in our century, that the Natural Theology of Paley, and the Bridgewater and Burnet Treatises, will be found as antiquated in the twentieth cen tury as the works of the seventeenth century are to us.
But the divines of the seventeenth century had to deal much more with mental philosophy than with physical science. It may serve some good ends to exhibit the exact historical position in respect of philosophy of the puritans, and more especially of Charnock. The puritan divines generally were well acquainted with the philosophy of Aristotle, with his logic, his psyche, his ethics, and metaphysics. They were also conversant with the theology of Augustine, of the middle ages, and of the reformers. The exclu sive reverence for the scholastic system had passed away among advanced thinkers, but the scholastic training still lingered in the colleges, and the new and experiential method had not yet been expounded. Charnock was born four years before Locke, and the
' Discourses on the Attributes' appeared ten years before the ' Essay on the Human Understanding,' the work which founded modern English philosophy. Charnock died fifty-nine years before David Hume published the sceptical work on Human Nature, which compelled thinkers to review all old philosophic principles, even those involved in theology ; eighty years before Thomas Reid began the work of reconstruction on observational principles ; and a century before Emmanuel Kant made his attack on rational theo
logy, and appealed to man's moral nature as furnishing the only argument for the divine existence. This was no doubt one reason why the puritan theology was not appreciated except by earnest Christians in the eighteenth century ; it did not speak to those who had been trained in the new philosophy. But we have now arrived at a time in which neither the philosophy of Locke, nor that of Kant, can be allowed to reign supremely. We are at a sufficient distance to regard them, not as suns in our sky, but as stars, with Plato and Aristotle and Augustine, and many others, their equals in light and splendour. In particular, those who most admire Locke and his fresh observational spirit, now see his great defects in deriving all our ideas from sensation and reflection, and setting aside the constitutional principles of the mind. The superficial theology which grounded itself on the philosophy of Locke has died an unlamented death, and no one wishes to see it raised from the grave to which it has been consigned. We shall certainly never return to the phraseology employed by the puritans, nor bind ourselves to follow them in their favourite distinctions. Let us copy them only in this, that in our arguments we proceed on the principles which, in some modification or other, have appeared in all deep philosophies, and have done so because they are in the very structure of our minds, and in the nature of human reason, as reflecting the divine reason.
Xl INTRODUCTION TO CHABNOCK's WORKS.
I. Let us glance at the PURITAN PSYCHOLOGY.
The Faculties of the Mind. — These come out only incidentally. The following is Charnock's summary, ' The essential faculties of the rational soul — the mind, the repository of principles, the faculty whereby we should judge of things honest or dishonest ; the understanding, the discursive faculty, and the reducer of those principles into practical dictates ; that part whereby we reason and collect one thing from another, framing conclusions from the principles in the mind ; the heart, i. e., the will, conscience, affec tions, which were to apply those principles, draw out those reason
ings upon the stage of the life.'* Though not a perfect, this is not a bad, distribution of the mental powers. The account of our intellectual capacities is certainly superior to that given by Locke, who denied innate ideas, and allowed an inadequate place to in tuition. Charnock mentions first 'the mind, the repository of principles.' What is this but Plato's Xo'yo; and Aristotle's vov$ de scribed by both, each, however, with a different explanation, as rocros
ttduv (see Aris. Psyche, iii. c. 4s. 4) ? What but Locke's intuition — not properly unfolded by him? What but Reid's principles of common sense, Kant's forms, and Sir William Hamilton's regula tive faculty ? Then in regard to the other, or motive, department of the mind, we may mark how English thinkers had not yet come to the miserably defective psychology of the last century and
beginning of this, in which man's powers are represented as con sisting simply in the understanding and feelings. Man's heart is spoken of as having three essential elements, the will, the con science, and the affections, each with a province, each serving a purpose, and all to be dedicated to God. There was no such
narrow and confused controversy such as that which has been started in our day as to whether religion be an affair of the head or of the heart. In their ' repository of principles/ as distinguished from the discursive faculty and reasoning, they had all that is good and true in the modern Germano-Coleridgean distinction between the reason and the understanding ; and they had it in a better form ; and they never proposed, as some in our day have done, to make reason the sole discerner and judge of religion. With the puritan, religion was an affair of the whole man, including head and heart, and the heart having not only emotive sensibility and attachment, but a conscience to discern good and evil, and a will to choose.
Knowledge. — As opposing themselves to scepticism, both in natural and revealed religion, they held that man could reach knowledge, positive and correct. They represented some know ledge as being intuitive, and other knowledge as obtained by a process, both the one and the other being real. They held that man could rise to a true knowledge of God, to some knowledge by means of his works within and without us, but to a still closer and more satisfactory knowledge by the revelation he has given in his Word, very specially by the manifestation he has made of himself
* Sermon on The Knowledge of God, p. vi.
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. xli
in the face of his Son. The divines of that century did not coun tenance the doctrine advocated by Archbishop King and Bishop Peter Brown in the beginning of the next, and revived in our day, as to man being incapacitated by his very nature from knowing God as he is, a doctrine supposed to be favourable to religion, but which may quite as readily serve the purposes of a philosophy which affirms that man can know nothing, and terminate in scepti cism. Charnock declares, as to this knowledge, first, that it is not immediate or intuitive, such as we have of a man when we see him
face to face, but through ' his excellent works of creation, provi dence, redemption, and the revelation of invisible mysteries in the Word.' He says, secondly, it is not comprehensive. ' To know comprehensively is to contain, and the thing contained must be less than that which contains, and therefore, if a creature could comprehend the essence of God, he would be greater than God/ He says that we cannot comprehend the nature of the creatures that are near us, and that not even in heaven shall God be com prehensively known. But still we are represented as knowing God. We know God as we know the sea ; we behold the vastness of its waters, but we cannot measure the depths and abysses of it. Yet we may be said truly to see it, as we may touch a mountain with our hands, but not grasp it in our arms/
Knowledge and faith. — The puritans do not enter into any minute inquiries as to the natural exercises of knowledge and faith. The precise nature and relation of knowledge and faith as psycho logical acts cannot be said to be yet settled by the professors of mental science. We here come to a desideratum, which we ven ture to think might be supplied by inductive investigation. There is a constant reference in the present day to knowledge and faith as different, and each with a province, but we are furnished with no definition of terms, or explanation of the precise difference of the exercises. The puritans confined themselves, as the schoolmen of the age of Anselm and Abelard did, to their own province, the relation of the two as religious acts. Their views, especially those of Charnock, are clear and distinctly announced, and they seem to us to be sound and judicious. Charnock declares unequivocally that knowledge is necessary in order to faith : ' It is impossible an act can be without an object ; nothing is grace but as it is con versant about God, or hath a respect to God. There can be no act about an unknown object.' ' Faith cannot be without the know ledge of God and Christ.' ' Knowledge is antecedent to faith in the order of nature. I know whom I have believed, 2 Tim. i. 12. That ye may know and believe that I am he, Is. xliii. 10.' The divines of that century have not started the question whether faith belongs to the understanding or the feelings. Their view seems to us to be sounder both psychologically and theologically. 'This grace (faith), therefore, is set in a double seat by divines, in the understanding and will : it is properly a consent of the will, which cannot be without an assent in the mind' ' Faith is in the under standing in regard of disposition, but in the will in regard of the
INTRODUCTION TO CHABNOCKs WORKS.
fiducial apprehension ; for faith is not one simple virtue, but com pounded of two, knowledge and trust/*
The conscience. — In respect of the place they give to the con science, the puritans have passed far beyond Aristotle, whom they so far follow in their psychology. Aristotle, in his Ethics, does allot
to ' right reason' (U^IG^VY^ AO^OD xai w$ av o <pg6vi{Ao$ ogtff&isv, see Ethics ii. c. 6, § 15), a function in the determination of virtue; but he does not mention the conscience. The puritans, founding on the pas sage in Paul (Rom. ii. 15), make constant references to the con science ; no preachers before their time, and few since, have made
such direct and powerful appeals to this mental faculty. 'Con science,' says Charnock, ' is natural to man, and an active faculty.' They attempt no psychological analysis of the power ; they do not inquire whether it is an exercise of the reason on the one hand, or a sense, sentiment, or feeling on the other. This was a question started in the next age by Samuel Clarke on the one side, and Shaftesbury and Francis Hutcheson on the other. Charnock, we have seen, makes the heart embrace 'the conscience, will, affec tions.' In the ' mind, the repository of principles,' he places the faculty 'whereby we should judge of things honest or dishonest ; ' and the office of conscience seems to be that of following this up by
' accusing, or else excusing.' He argues resolutely that the con science testifieth in behalf of the existence of God. 'Man witnesseth
to God in the operations and reflections of conscience.' ' There is a law in the minds of men which is a rule of good and evil. There is a notion of good and evil in the consciences of men, which is evi
dent by those laws which are common to all countries.' ' Man, in the first instant of the use of reason, finds natural principles within himself; directing and choosing them, he finds a distinction between good and evil ; how could this be if there were not some rule to him
to try and distinguish good and evil/ ' Common reason supposeth that there is some hand which hath fixed this distinction in man ; how could it else be universally impressed ? No law can be without
a lawgiver.' * As there is a rule in us, there must be a judge/ ' From this a man may rationally be instructed that there is a God ; for he may thus argue : I find myself naturally obliged to do this thing and avoid that, I have therefore a superior that doth oblige me.'t Has Emmanuel Kant, with his 'practical reason' and ' cate gorical imperative/ said anything more direct and convincing than this ?
The affections and the will. These two were never resolved into each other by the puritans. They asserted that all knowledge should lead on to affection, and that all genuine faith does produce
* The above extracts from the sermon on The Knowledge of God. t Attributes, Disc. I. The puritans generally appealed to first principles, intel lectual and moral. Thus Baxter says, Reasons of the Christian Religion, P. 1, ' And if 1 could not answer a sceptic, who denied the certainty of my judgment by sensa tion and reflexive intuition (how near to Locke), yet nature would not suffer me to doubt.' ' By my actions I know that I am ; and that I am a sentient, intelligent, thinking, willing, and operative being.1 « It is true that there is in the nature of man's soul a certain aptitude to understand certain truths as soon as they are revealed ; that is, as soon as the very natura rerum is observed. And it is true that
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY.
affection. But they ever insisted that above the affections there is
a more important power, the power of will. It is thus that Charnock puts the relation of these attributes : — ' The choice of the will in all true knowledge treads upon the heel of the act of understand ing, and men naturally desire the knowledge of that which is true, in order to the enjoyment of that which is good in it. The end of all the acts of the understanding is to cause a motion in the will
and affections suitable to the apprehension.' ' Knowledge is but as a cloud that intercepts the beams of the sun, and doth not advan tage the earth, unless melted into drops, and falling down into the bosom of it. Let the knowledge of the word of the truth drop down m a kindly shower upon your hearts, let it be a knowledge of the word heated with love.'*
II. PHILOSOPHIC PKINCIPLES. — We have seen that among the mental attributes he places ' the repository of principles/ The puritan divines do not attempt to expound the nature of these principles, and the accounts given by metaphysicians since that time, as well as prior
this disposition is brought to actual knowledge as soon as the mind comes to actual consideration of the things. But it is not true that there is any actual knowledge
of any principles born in man.' It is wrong to ' make it consist in certain axioms (as some say) born in us, or written in our hearts from our birth (as others say), dispositively there.' These distinctions do not exhaust the subject, but they contain important truth ; and if Locke had attended to them, he would have been saved from extravagant statements. Owen, in his Dissertation on Divine Justice, appeals,
in proving the existence of justice, (1.) to the 'common opinion ' and innate con ceptions of all ; (2.) to the consciences of all mankind ; (3.) to the public consent of all nations.
* Sermons on Knowledge of God and Regeneration. David Clarkson, in his account of the ' New Creature,' speaks of the following mental acts as involved in the religious exercises of the soul : — I. THE MIND OR UNDERSTANDING. And under this (1.) apprehensions, view, or notion ; (2.) judgment and assent aris ing from apprehensions; (3.) valuations proceeding from the estimative power of the mind ; (4.) designs or contrivances of ends ; (5.) inventions, whereby finds means towards ends ; (6.) reasonings, or discursive power ; (7.) thoughts, or cogitations ; (8.) consultations, the advising power which philosophers call BouXsur/x?}, which shews by what means the good end may be secured. II. THE WILL, under which we have (1.) new inclinations, — Aristotle calls the act BouX»j<r/£, and the schoolmen, simplex volitio, in it the mind has a new object ; (2.) new inten tions, aiming at something new, intending God and aiming at him ; (3.) fruitions, in which the mind rests and is contented ; (4.) new elections in choice of means for
promoting ends, Aristotle's irgoaigsGis ruv TT^OS rb riXoj ; (5.) new consents, in particular the soul consenting to enter into covenant with God ; (6.) new applica tions, whereby the will applies the faculties to prosecute what it has pitched on ; (7.) new purposes, determinations, resolves, these being fixed and permanent. This analysis, taken with modifications from Aristotle and the scholastic divines, is too minute, but it shews how expanded a view the puritans took of the higher attributes of the mind as engaged in spiritual acts. In his sermon ' Of Faith,' he says—Faith implies (1.) knowledge ; (2.) assent ; (3) dependence or procumbence. ' To rely upon Christ alone for salvation is saving faith.' See Sermons and Discourses on Several Divine Subjects, by the late Reverend and learned David Clarkson, B.D., and sometime Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1696. In these sermons, the scholastic phrases, objective, subjective, effective, formaliter, interpretive, habitualiter, cast up in all profound discussion. The account of the mental faculties is the most extended we have seen in the puritan writings. That of Charnock is more succinct and judicious. But all the puritans proceed substantially on the same views. The view of faith is the same with that of Charnock, and it could easily be shewn that it is that held by the puritan divines generally.
INTRODUCTION TO CHABNOCK's WOEKS.
to it, have been sufficiently confused. So far as Charnock incidentally sketchestheir nature, his views are both just andprofound. He speaks
of them as connatural ,*a phrase thepraise of which has been ascribed to Shaftesbury ; but Culverwel, with whose writings Shaftesbury was well acquainted, uses connate, and Whichcote (see Aphorisms] uses connatural ; and connate and connatural were probably familiar phrases among the Platonic thinkers in Emmanuel College. Char-
nock is fond of characterising these principles as ' common reason/ ' nature within man ;' he speaks of ' the common principles in the conscience/ and in this form they are ' a law of nature writ upon the hearts of men, which will direct them to commendable actions
if they will attend to the writings in the conscience.' In establishing the existence of God in the opening of his most elaborate work, Charnock ever appeals to these principles of reason.
' What is the general dictate of nature is a certain truth/ and with Cicero he appeals to common consent ; ' a general consent of all nations is to be esteemed as a law of nature/ He shews in regard to the conviction of the divine existence ; (1) that it hath been universal, no nation being without it ; (2) that it hath been consistent and uninterrupted in all kinds and conditions of men ; and (3) natural
and innate. ' Every man is born with a restless instinct to be of some kind of religion or other, which implies some object of religion. The impression of a Deity is as common as reason, and of the same age with reason. It is a relic of knowledge after the fall of man, like fire under ashes, which sparkles as soon as ever the heap of ashes is opened. A notion is sealed up in the soul of every man : how could these people, who were unknown to one another, separate by seas and mountains, differing in various customs and manner of living, had no mutual intelligence one with another, light upon this as a common sentiment, if they had not been guided by one uniform reason in all their minds, by one nature common to them
all?" While he represents the belief in God as thus a dictate of nature, he does not allege that it is formed independent of the observation of objects, or without the exercise of discursive thought.
' The notion of a God seems to be twisted with the nature of man, and is the first natural branch of common reason, or upon either the first inspection of a man into himself and his own state and constitution, or upon the first sight of any external visible
object.'f He has occasion to make use of important metaphysical prin ciples, but he does not discuss them as a metaphysician. He inci dentally refers to our ideas of Time and Eternity. He accords with those divines who hold that God may stand in a different relation to time from that in which man does ; but he does not give any countenance to the statements of those schoolmen, who, founding upon certain mystic expressions of Augustine, spoke of time as having no existence, no reality in the view of God. His view is
characterised by his usual judgment. ' Since God knows time, he knows all things as they were in time ; he doth not know all things
* Sermon on Regeneration, p. 111. f Attributes, Discourse I.
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. xlv
to be at once, though he knows at once what is, has been, and will be. All things are past, present, and to come, in regard to their existence ; but there is not past, present, and to come, in regard to
God's knowledge of them, because he sees and knows not by any other but by himself; he is his own light by which he sees, his own
glass wherein he sees ; beholding himself, he beholds all things.'* David Hume had not yet risen to compel philosophers to discuss the precise nature of causation. Charnock proceeds as Bacon had done, and as all thinkers of his time still did, upon the Aristotelian distinction of causes into material, efficient, formal, and final, a dis tinction, we may remark, founded on the nature of things, and having a deep but somewhat confused meaning. In regard to efficient cause he assumes that every occurrence has a cause, and with Aristotle, that there cannot be an infinite series of causes, and reckons this a principle of reason, though not formed independent of the observation of things.
But the metaphysical topic which fell more especially under the notice of the puritan theologians was that of the freedom of the will, which they had to consider and discuss as against the rising Arminianism. Really and professedly they followed Augustine and Calvin, whose doctrines however have often been misunder stood. These profound thinkers were most sensitively anxious to have their doctrine of predestination distinguished from the fatalism of the Stoics. t They held that man had an essential freedom given him by his Maker, a freedom which made him a responsible being, and of which he could never be deprived. At the same time, they maintained that this freedom had been much impaired by sin, which has injured man first morally and then physically, so that the will is now enslaved. This is the doctrine resolutely defended by Augustine (see De Libero Arbitrio), and by Calvin (see his De Servitute et Liberatione Humani Arbitrii in reply to Pighius). They were followed by the puritans generally. Thus Owen in his
' Display of Arminianism' : — * We grant man in the substance of all his actions as much power, liberty, and freedom, as a mere created nature is capable of. We grant him to be free in his choice from all outward exaction or inward natural necessity to work according to election and deliberation, spontaneously embracing
what seemeth good unto him.'J The puritans clung to the Scrip-
* Attributes, Discourse on Eternity. f It is a circumstance worthy of being noted, that in modern times, we have reversed the meaning of the phrases used by the ancient philosophers, and thus produced some confusion. The Stoics resolutely denied Necessitas, but held by Fatum (see Cicero De Fato), by which they meant what was spoken or decreed by God, whom they represented as an intellectual fire, developing all things in cycles, according to a fixed and eternal order. The arguments advanced by them in favour of fatalism are substantially the same with those urged in modern times in behalf of Philosophical Necessity.
J In the same treatise, Owen speaks of that ' effectual working of his, according to his eternal purpose, whereby though some agents as the wills of men are causes free and indefinite or unlimited, lords of their own actions, in respect of their internal principle of operations (that is, their own nature), they are yet all, in respect of his decree, and by his powerful working, determined to this and that
INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK's WORKS.
ture doctrine of predestination, but they did not identify it with the philosophic doctrine of Necessity as Jonathan Edwards did in the next century. They drew their doctrine from the Word of God,
and founded it upon the perfection of God's Knowledge looking into the future as well as the past and present, and upon his Sovereignty doing all things, but all things wisely, justly, and bene ficently. Some Calvinistic divines we acknowledge have drawn distinctions to save the freedom of the will which have rather wrecked it, and have used expressions which make our moral nature shudder. Charnock is wonderfully clear of all such extremes : —
' God's foreknowledge of man's voluntary actions doth not neces sitate the will of man.' ' It is certain all necessity doth not take away liberty ; indeed, a compulsive necessity takes away liberty, but a necessity of immutability removes not liberty from God. Why should then a necessity of infallibility in God remove liberty from
the creature ? ' God did not only know that we should do such actions, but that we should do them freely ; he foresaw that the
will would freely determine itself to this or that.' ' God did not foreknow the actions of men as necessary but as free ; so that liberty is rather established by this foreknowledge than removed/ ' That God doth foreknow every thing, and yet that there is liberty in the rational creature, are both certain ; but how
fully to reconcile them, may surmount the understanding of man.' As to his sovereignty and election, he declares, what the experience
of every Christian responds to, ' It could not be any merit in the creature that might determine God to choose him. If the decree
of election falls not under the merit of Christ's passion, as the pro curing cause, it cannot fall under the merit of any part of the cor
rupted mass.' But he ever falls back upon the goodness and justice of God as regulating his sovereignty, 'As it is impossible
for him not to be sovereign, it is impossible for him to deny his deity and his purity. It is lawful to God to do what he will, but his will being ordered by the righteousness of his nature,
effect in particular ; not that they are compelled to do this, or hindered from doing that, but are inclined and disposed to do this or that according to their proper manner of working, that is most freely.' ' We grant as large a freedom and dominion to our wills over their own acts as a creature subject to the supreme rule of God's providence is capable of. Endued we are with such a liberty of will as is free from all outward compulsion and inward necessity, having an elective faculty of applying itself unto that which seems good unto it, in which it has a free choice, notwithstanding it is subservient to the decree of God.' « The acts of will being positive entities,' 'cannot have their essence and existence solely from the will itself, and cannot be thus, auro ov, a first and supreme cause endued with an underived being.' He distinguishes between will ' as it was at first by God created,' and ' will as it is now by sin corrupted;' yet being considered in that estate also, they ascribe more unto it than it was ever capable of.' « There is both an impotency and an enmity in corrupted nature to anything spiritually good.' « Even in spiritual things we deny that our wills are at all debarred or deprived of their proper liberty, but here we say indeed, that we are not properly free until the Son makes us free.'' In his Saint's Perseverance, he says, * The impotency that is in us to do good is not amiss termed ethico-physica, both natural and moral.' These extracts give the views entertained by the puritans generally, who meant simply to express the doctrines written on the very face of Scripture, but sometimes did BO by doubtful metephysical distinctions.
PHILOSOPHICAL PEINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY.
as infinite as his will, he cannot do any thing but what is
good."
The inspired writers as little profess to give a system of the faculties of the mind as of the material world. In mentioning the sun, moon, and stars, and the earth with its rocks, plants, and ani mals, they proceed upon the ideas of their time ; and in the same manner they refer to the attributes of the soul in language under stood by those whom they addressed — very often, we may add, imparting to the phrases and the notions embodied in them, a com prehensiveness and an elevation which they never could have had but for their association with spiritual verities. In the Old Testa ment, constant allusions are made to the special senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling ; to remembrances, imagi
nations, and knowledge ; to thoughts, understanding, and compre hending ; to belief, trust, and confidence ; to devices, counsels, purposes, and intents ; to fear and hope, grief and joy, pity and compassion, anger and mercy, hatred and love. Among the Hebrews, as indeed in most nations, particular faculties were con
nected with particular parts of the body ; and we read of ' bowels/ the seat of sympathy ; of the ' reins/ the seat of deep and anxious thought ; and of the * heart/ the seat of all inward reflection. And here we think it of some importance to call attention to the cir cumstance that the Scriptures do not distinguish, as we do, the heart from the head ; and do not make the heart signify mere emotion, but use it to include all that passes through the mind
prior to action; and we read of the 'imaginations' and of the 'thoughts' of man's heart, — hence the absurdity of arguing that faith consists in feeling, from the fact that we are said to believe with the heart. In the New Testament, we have a more ad
vanced view; and we read of the 'mind' and 'conscience/ the 'soul' and ' spirit,' and 'will' has a higher place allotted to it. The preacher and divine must, like the inspired writers, proceed so far upon the distribution of the mental powers understood by their hearers and readers ; but it will be found that when they take a limited view of the human mind and its capacities, both their preaching and their theology will be very much narrowed. It could easily be shewn that the inspired writers have something
suited to every essential quality of man's complex nature, provid ing symbols for the senses, images for tjie fancy, types for the imagination, aiding the memory by interesting correlations of time and number, presenting arguments to the understanding, rousing appeals to the conscience, a lovely object to draw forth the affec tions, and motives to persuade the will The broad and compre hensive views of the faculties taken by the puritan preachers led
thjsm to address all the parts of man's complex nature. As the Bible is not a book of science, mental or material, so it is not a book of philosophy. Nor should preaching, nor should theo logy, affect to be metaphysics. If any thinker is discontented with
* Attribute*, Discourses on God's Knowledge and Dominion.
INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCKs WORKS.
past speculative philosophy, he is at liberty to attempt to amend it. But let him do so in a professedly philosophic work, written always in a religious spirit, but without identifying religion with his theories. Still it will be difficult for the theologian, difficult even for the preacher, to avoid proceeding on an implied philo sophy. If we do nothing more than exhort persons to beware of satisfying themselves, with a speculative without a practical knowledge, we are proceeding, whether we know it or not, on an Aristotelian distinction. A profound philosophy has in all ages sought to ally itself with theology. Religion may be inconsistent with a superficial or a one-sided, but not with a deep or a catholic philosophy. A shallow philosophy will always tend to produce a shallow theology. Suppose, for instance, we adopt the principle of Hobbes and the sensational school of France, and hold that all our ideas are got from the senses, it .will be difficult to establish any of the higher truths of religion; or suppose we assert that virtue is mere utility, it will be difficult to vindicate the justice of God in the awful punishment of the sinner. Philosophic principles should certainly not obtrude themselves'in the disquisitions of the divine ; but philosophic conceptions may underlie his whole mode of thought and discussion, and impart a coherency and consistency to the system constructed by him. The profound views of human reason, in its strength and in its weakness, taken by the puritan divines, enabled them to construct a theology in some measure corresponding to the profundity of Scripture, and defective only in this, that at times it proposed to settle what should have been left free, and to embrace all revealed truths, which, in their entireness, will always refuse to be compressed within human systems.
A TREATISE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
VOL. I.
TO THE READER.
KEADER, — Thou art here presented with a little piece of a great man ; great, indeed, if great piety, great parts, great learning, and great wisdom, may be admitted to claim that title ; and we verily believe that none well acquainted with him will deny him his right, however malevolent persons may grudge him the honour. It hath been expected and desired by many that some account of his life might be given to the world ; but we are not willing to offer violence to his ashes by making him so public now he is dead, who so much affected privacy while he lived. Thou art therefore desired to rest satisfied with this brief account of him : That being very young he went to Cambridge, where, in Immanuel College, he was brought up under the tuition of the present Archbishop of Canterbury. What gracious workings and evidences of the new birth appeared in him while there, hath already
been spoken of by* one who was at that time his fellowcollegiate and intimate. Some time he afterward spent in a private family, and a little more in the exercise of his ministry in Southwark, then removed to New College inOxon, where he was fellow, and spent several years ; being then taken notice of for his singular gifts, and had in reputation by the most learned and godly in that university, and upon that account the more frequently put upon public work. Being thence (the year after he had been proctor) called over into Ireland to a constant public employment, he exercised his ministry for about four or five years, not with the approbation only, but to the admiration of the most wise and judicious Christians, and with the concurrent applause of such as were of very different sentiments from him in the things of religion. Nay, even those that never loved his piety, yet would commend his learning and gifts, as being beyond exception, if not above compare. About the year 1660, being discharged from the public exercise of his ministry, he returned back into England, and in and about London spent the greatest part of fifteen years, without any call to his old work in a settled way, but for about these five years last past hath been more known by his constant preaching, of which we need not speak, but let them that heard him speak for him ; or, if they should be silent, his works will do it.
He was a person of excellent parts, strong reason, great judgment, and (which do not often go together) curious fancy, of high improvements, and general learning, as having been all his days a most diligent and methodical student, and a great redeemer of time, rescuing not only his restless hours in the night, but bis very walking time in the streets, from those impertinencies and fruitless vanities which do so customarily fill up men's minds, and steal away their hearts from those better and more noble objects, which do so justly challenge their greatest regards. This he did by not only care fully watching (as every good Christian should do), but constantly writing
down his thoughts, whereby he both governed them better, and furnished
* Mr Johnson, in his Sermon on occasion of Mr Chamock's death.
TO THE READER.
himself with many materials for his most elaborate discourses. His chief talent was his preachinggift, in which, to speak modestly, he had few equals. To this, therefore, as that for which his Lord and Master had best fitted him
(neglecting the practice of physic, in which he had arrived at a considerable measure of knowledge), he did especially addict himself, ^and direct his studies ; and even when providence denied him opportunities, yet he was still laying in more stock, and preparing for work against he might be called to it. When he was in employment, none that heard him could justly blame his retiredness, he being, even when most private, continually at work for the public ; and had he been less in his study, he would have been less liked in the pulpit. His library, furnished, though not with a numerous, yet a curious collection of books, was his workhouse, in which he laboured hard