and that a great deal more good is done by Sermons. This answer, which is essentially rationalist, -which assumes that the experimental good of Sermons is commensurable with the promised blessings of the Eucharist,—will be returned unhesitatingly by two parties, differing most widely on every other religious question; by those who regard each other mutually as too hot or too cold, as semisceptics or semi-enthusiasts. One party relies on plain sensible discourses, the tendency of which to improve and instruct is evident to common sense; the other on exciting topics, strong appeals to feeling, striking views of doctrine, calculated to awaken sensations, which are regarded as sensible influences from on high. Both however agree in this, that whether through common sense or superhuman influences, human experience, somehow or other, is the criterion of religious good; and that we are justified in dwelling most on those ordinances, the benefits of which are most seen.

To persons who have habitually taken this view of the relative importance of Sermons and the Eucharist, the above remarks will of course seem entitled to little weight; their own opinions, which have always hitherto appeared to them just and obvious, will appear so still; and those which I have suggested as more conformable to Scripture, will be put aside at once; by one party as indicating an unspiritual reliance on forms, by the other as visionary unpractical speculations arising from ignorance of human nature and an incapacity for

weighing evidence. Any thing will rather occur to either party than that they themselves are chargeable with Rationalisın. And doubtless it would be most unjust in many cases to charge them with it, in the offensive sense which that word now frequently bears. All that is here intended is, to point out to them that, in thinking as they do, they follow Experience more and the letter of Scripture less, than they would do in thinking the reverse. It may be that they are right in this; that the case in question is one where the letter of Scripture should be interpreted by Experience; where sight was intended to assist Faith, not to bow before it: it may be so at least for ought that has been yet said, though I hope to show by and by that it is not so. But the fact that they do thus interpret Scripture by Experience, that so far at least they do walk by sight and not by Faith, it is important for them to notice. For this fact should of itself beget in them an apprehension that they may perhaps be in the wrong; it should remind them, that their opinions belong to a class which on the whole is regarded by God with disapprobation, and what is more, that they have been formed under a very strong temptation, for which it would be difficult to make too great allowance.

It is much to be wished, that such persons, before they condemn opinions opposed to their own as visionary and fantastical, would recollect the light in which their own opinions are in turn regarded

by others, who outstrip them in the race of Rationalism. Let them but reflect on the whimsical and fantastic appearance assumed by any kind of religious strictness on the distorted retina of habitual laxity: the odd, unintelligible spectacle which their own characters exhibit to the cleverheaded, calculating man of the world, or the careless wit, to whom sight is every thing and Faith nothing; and they would perceive how dangerous it is for themselves to rely on their own mental vision, where it leads them away from the plain letter of Scripture.

These and similar considerations ought, one would think, to weigh with serious Protestants, and induce them to suspect, at least, that a rationalist spirit may in some respects have unconsciously influenced them; that they may perhaps have formed some of their opinions too much on experience and too little on Scripture, and thus have attained at last only to a partial knowledge of the Truth in Christ Jesus. In the earnest hope that some few at least may happily be prevailed on to regard this as possible, and so to lay aside that jealous controversial spirit which ever arms itself [against the reception of truth,] the following brief compilation has been arranged. Its object is to prove that certain views of religion, now generally discarded among Protestants, are, to say the least, more probable than not; and that, all things considered, it is our safest course to act on them. The views themselves, as will be seen at once, are of no trivial importance; nor is it practically a light

question, whether we shall act on them or not. Again, there is nothing of novelty about them, though to most persons at the present day they may

appear new.

At one time they were generally adopted by all the learned of the Church of England, and from that time to this there have never been wanting able and pious persons to uphold them; though of late, for circumstances, they have attracted little attention. The works from which they are compiled are chiefly those of the famous William Law, Bishop Hickes, Bishop Butler, and Dr. Brett; whose views it has been the compiler's endeavour to systematize in a short compass, referring to their most valuable writings for fuller light and more detailed statements. Of his own he has added little, in the way even of argument, to what has been already urged by these great men; and in the way of opinion absolutely nothing. On the subject of religion he is firmly convinced of the truth of the maxim that old ways are right ways; and he will think any of his views sufficiently refuted, if the charge can be substantiated against it, that it is new.

VOL. I.

CHAPTER II.

THE PROPEer office OF REASON1.

THERE are few mistakes which originate in a greater confusion of thought, or have led to more irrational conclusions, than the commonly received notion, that Reason and Faith are in some cases opposed to one another.

Reason, if people would be at the trouble to think accurately what they mean by it, is a name which we apply to two distinct faculties: the faculty by which we are enabled to weigh evidence, and that by which we trace the relations of ideas; and neither of these faculties ever are, or in the nature of things can be, opposed to Faith.

1. Reason, when it means the faculty by which we trace the relations of ideas, cannot possibly be opposed to Faith, because Faith only informs us of matters of fact, and Reason, in this sense, can neither prove nor disprove, nor in the slightest degree affect the probability of any fact whatever.

To show that this assertion is true with respect to a fact, the discovery of which would perhaps of

1 [This chapter is printed from four MSS., of which the finished copy does not go further than the sentence ending "trivial," p. 25. The rest is in various degrees of completeness.]