cious, indeed, than Locke, and really contributing less to the stock of human knowledge, he saw, with great clearness, the vast distinction between mind and matter, and commenced his studies with a purely psychological and inductive method. He did not, indeed, carry out with full consistency, his own fundamental principles of inquiry, and finally lapsed into some egregious errors. At first he refused to take anything for granted not proved by the facts of consciousness; but at last seemed to take everything for granted; so that D'Alembert is justified in saying, that "Descartes began with doubting of everything and ended in believing that he had left nothing unexplained."

As nature is to be studied in itself, and by means of simple observation; so Descartes justly concluded that mind is to be studied in itself, and by means of consciousness, or conscious reflection.1 "His Cogito ergo sum," though a petitio principii, on the ground that the I think, involves and indeed expresses the I am, after all furnished him with the fundamental principle of all mental and spiritual science. For, of whatever we doubt, we cannot doubt that we doubt. Conscious personality is involved in every mental act, and consciousness therefore must supply us with the facts of mind. Psychology, therefore, or a well digested account of our mental phenomena, must form the basis of all speculation as to the nature and destiny of mind."

On this ground, Descartes asserted the pure spirituality or rather immateriality of mind, for spirituality is only the negation of what we term material qualities, and thus did an immense service to the cause of truth. This, however, with slight exceptions, is about the whole amount of his contributions to mental philosophy. His theory of innate ideas, as explained by himself, the criterion of which he makes clearness and distinctness, a criterion manifestly inadequate if not absolutely false, led him to assert the validity of every notion lying clearly and distinctly in the mind. Here, therefore, he found the idea of the absolute and infinite, that is of God, and concluding that such an idea could not come from finite nature; though infinite and absolute are but the simple negation of finite and relative; he concluded that it was a necessary idea, an idea from God himself, and therefore proving à priori, that is an absolute way, the Divine

existence.

But how do we prove the existence of the external world, as well as the existence of God? In other words, how do we prove the

1 Meditations Metaphysiques "— Premiere Meditation.

2" Meditation seconde." Oeuvres (Ed. Charpentier), pp. 68, 77. Meditation Quatrieme, p. 93.

1851.]

Remarks on the Princeton Review.

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finite reality as well as the infinite reality? This, too, exists in the mind clearly and distinctly, and it is not to be supposed, argues Descartes, forgetting utterly his inductive or psychological method, that God would deceive us in such a matter, he concludes that the external world has a real and not merely apparent or phenominal existence.1 Our mental faculties prove the existence of God, and the existence of God proves the validity of our mental faculties, is the vicious circle which throws inextricable confusion into the Cartesian philosophy.2

[To be continued.]

ARTICLE IX.

REMARKS ON THE BIBLICAL REPERTORY AND PRINCETON REVIEW. VOL. XXII. NO. IV. ART. VII.

By Edwards A. Park, Abbot Professor in Andover Theol. Seminary.

In the Biblical Repertory for October, 1850, has been published a Review of the last Convention Sermon delivered before the Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts. Some admirers of this Review have published the remark, that no one can mistake "the hand” that is in it, and have fitly characterized its author as "one of the most accomplished Reviewers in the country." As it is said to have emanated from a well-known theological instructor; as it suggests some grave questions of rhetoric; and as it illustrates various evils incident to anonymous criticism, it seems entitled to a dispassionate regard. There is no need, however, of canvassing all the principles, right and wrong, which are advanced in the Review, nor of commenting on all the wrong impressions which it makes, with regard to the sermon. We shall content ourselves with noticing a few, as specimens of the many mis-statements into which the critic has inadvertently lapsed.

It is a familiar fact, and one of great practical importance, that there are two generic modes of representing the same system of religious truth; the one mode suited to the scientific treatise, the other to the popular discourse, hymn book, liturgy. They differ not in language alone, but in several, and especially the following particulars: first, in the images and illustrations with which the same truth

1 Meditation Quatrieme, p. 93.

2 Meditation Cinquieme-particularly the close, pp. 107, 108.

is connected; Reinhard's Dogmatic System, for instance, not admitting the fervid imagery which glows in his eloquent discourses; secondly, in the proportions which the same truths bear to each other: Van Mastricht's scientific treatise, for example, giving less prominence to some, and more to other doctrines, than would be given to them in the earnest sermons of Krummacher; thirdly, in the arrangement of the same truths; Turretin's arrangement not being adapted to the ever varying wants of men, women, and children; fourthly, in the mode of commending the same truth to popular favor; a treatise of Ralph Cudworth, depending on nice distinctions and scholastic proofs, but a practical sermon of John Bunyan, depending on a bold outline and the selection of a few prominent features which win the heart at once; fifthly, in the words, and collocations of words used for expressing the same class of ideas; the truths in Ridgeley's Body of Divinity not being clothed in the language proper for an impassioned exhortation, or for popular psalmody. The design of the sermon under review is, to develop some practical lessons suggested by this plain distinction between these two modes of exhibiting one and the same doctrine.

2

One of these lessons is, the necessity of the preacher's enlivening a single abstract doctrine by concrete exhibitions of it; as, for example, the doctrine of eternal punishment, or of the general judgment, or of the resurrection, by images of the fire, darkness, worm, gnashing teeth, throne, open books, palm branch, white robe, etc. etc.1 Another of these lessons is, the importance of inferring certain great doctrines from their congeniality with constitutional or pious feeling, and of ennobling the manifestation of this feeling by the clear statement of those doctrines. The expressions of feeling are premises from which the intellect must deduce important corollaries; while it must not force upon these expressions the meaning which might be derived from a rigid analysis of them, but, making allowance for their unguarded terms, must penetrate into their substantial import. So far from its being a design of the sermon to deny that "truth is in order to holiness," as a reader of the Review would infer, a design of the sermon is rather to show that "every doctrine which [the intellect discovers in the Bible or in nature] is in reality practical, calling forth some emotion, and this emotion animating the sensitive nature which is not diseased, deepening its love of knowledge,

1 Bib. Sac. pp. 540-542. Throughout this article reference is made to the edition of the sermon in the Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1850.

2 Bib. Sac. pp. 542-546.

1851.]

Practical Lessons of the Sermon.

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elevating and widening the religious system which is to satisfy it. Every new article of the good man's belief elicits love or hatred, and this love or hatred so modifies the train and phasis of his meditations as to augment and improve the volume of his heart's theology."

Instead of its being a tendency of the sermon to discountenance logical studies, one object of it is to show that "we lose our civilization so far forth as we depreciate a philosophy truly so called;" and "our faith becomes a wild or weak sentimentalism, if we despise logic," p. 543. Instead of the sermon's being adapted, as the Review implies, p. 660, to represent 'diversities of doctrinal propositions as matters of small moment, and make light of all differences which do not affect the fundamentals of the Gospel,' it reiterates the idea in various forms, that the "metaphysical refinements of creeds are useful," that "our spiritual oneness, completeness, progress, require” us to “define, distinguish, infer, arrange our inferences in a system," and that although "there is an identity in the essence of many systems which are run in scientific or aesthetic moulds unlike each other," yet even some of these unessential differences are more important, others less so, than they seem. Hence is inferred the duty "to argue more for the broad central principles, and to wrangle less for the side, the party aspects of truth," and to guard against what Dr. Hodge calls "a denunciatory or censorious spirit," which "blinds the mind to moral distinctions, and prevents the discernment between matters unessential and those vitally important."2

Many pious men are distressed by the apparent contradictions in our best religious literature, and for their sake another practical lesson developed in the discourse is, the importance of exhibiting the mutual consistency between all the expressions of right feeling. The discrepancies so often lamented are not fundamental but superficial, and are easily harmonized by exposing the one self-consistent principle which lies at their basis. The assertions, for example, that God repents of having made our race and that he never repents, although contradictory in themselves, are not so in their fit connections; for they refer not to the same specific truth, but to different truths, both of which, however, may be reduced to the same ultimate principle,

1 Bib. Sac. p. 543.

2 See Hodge on Rom. 14: 1-23, also Bib. Sac. pp. 543, 559-561. It may be stated here, once for all, that whenever quotations are made in this article from the Review, or from the sermon, the writer has introduced his own italics, for the purpose of making this article the more definite.

3 Bib. Sac. pp. 546-550.

that the changeless God is disposed to punish sin. So the assertions God is a rock and God is a Spirit, are contradictory if interpreted as divines often interpret language, by its letter, but they are not contradictory if interpreted as divines ought to interpret language, by its intent; for they relate not to the same specific idea, but to different ideas, both of which, however, may be reduced to the same ultimate principle, that the immaterial Divinity is a strong and sure support of his people.

Numerous and serious errors arise from understanding figurative expressions as if they were literal, and from transferring prosaic, vapid formulas, into sacred songs, fervent prayers, pathetic appeals. For this cause another practical lesson developed in the sermon is, the importance of keeping in their appropriate sphere the two modes of expressing truth, and the importance of appreciating the evil which results from unduly intermingling them. Much of this evil finds its way into the religious character of men. Every controversial essay exposes it. Every day we see that the careless intermixture of the two forms of truth "confuses the soul," raises feuds in the "church,” encourages "logomachy," "makes men uneasy with themselves and therefore acrimonious against each other," causes them to "sink their controversy into a contention and their dispute into a quarrel,” etc. Often "the massive speculations of the metaphysician sink down into his expressions of feeling and make him appear cold hearted, while the enthusiasm of the impulsive divine ascends and effervesces into his reasonings, and causes him both to appear and to be, what our Saxon idiom so reprovingly styles him, hot-headed." Sermon, p. 553. We have no right to press our dogmas so far as to check the natural tendency of men to use language which, if interpreted according to the letter, is not correct. We must allow them to say that the sun rises and the fire is hot. An eminent and excellent divine once commenced an epistle to a friend with the exhortation not to pray for power to do right, because all men have this power but are merely disinclined to use it; and he closed the letter with an affectionate petition that his friend might be enabled to discharge his duty in this respect. The feelings will express themselves in words which the intellect left to itself would never have devised. We must do justice to these feelings. Let them have free play. This, however, is no excuse for inferring from the language of emotion, that the idea denoted by the literal interpretation of that language is the truth. If

1 Bib. Sac. pp. 550-558.