University of Virginia Library

Mr. Hunt, of radical memory.

Isaiah chap. 43, verse 2.

See Hartley's hypothesis of vibrations; and his suppositious etherial medium through which the impression is conveyed from objects to his vibratory nerves.

Coleridge's Sybilline Leaves, p. 258.

It certainly only can be beings of the same nature that are amenable to the same laws.—'Till the Almighty form moral agents equal with himself, it is absurd to say that he can expect from them the fruits of an equality which does not exist. When we are told to be “perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect,” it must mean, as men, to desire to be as perfect, as he is as a God: to have the perfection of a sincere-hearted human will, not to be invested with the attributes of Deity.

“En general, les croyans font Dieu comme ils sont eux-mêmes; les bons le font bon, les mechants le font mechant; les dévots, haineux et bilieux, ne voyent que l'enfer, parcequ'ils voudroient damner tout le monde: les âmes aimantes et douces n'y croyent guere; et l'un des etonnemens dont je ne reviens point, est de voir le bon Fénélon en parler dans son Télémaque, comme s'il y croyoit tout de bon: mais j'espère qu'il mentoit alors; car enfin, quelques veridique qu'on soit, il fant bien mentir quelque fois, quand on est evêque. Maman ne mentoit pas avec moi; et cette âme sans fiel, qui ne pouvoit imaginer un Dieu vindicatif, et toujours couroucé, ne voyoit que clemence et misericorde, où les devots ne voient que justice et punition. Elle disoit souvent, qu'il n'y auroit point de justice en Dieu d'être juste envers nous, parceque, ne nous ayant pas donné ce qu'il faut pour l'être, ce seroit redemander plus qu'il n'a donné.”

Les Confessions de J. J. Rousseau, tome 2nd, p. 106.

The reader, it is presumed, will pardon this quotation from the Confessions of Rousseau, a work, though in many respects exceptionable and immoral, in which, perhaps, are to be found more eloquent passages, more depth of imaginative sentiment, more original thought, and more curious development, useful alike for the metaphysician and for the man, of the human heart, than in any one extant in any language.

Perhaps, it may be said that God has promised “his holy spirit to them that ask him,” and, though we cannot be perfect of ourselves, we may be so, by the intervention of such an aid. I wish to be considered, on this topic, as writing, rather as an inquirer than as one already enlightened. I see no objection to the doctrine of eternal punishments, if, by this, be meant, that, to all eternity, a vicious man may feel that he has missed heights of happiness, to which he might have attained with greater vigilance: so far this doctrine is in analogy with what we daily see of the enduring effects, “to the third and fourth generation,” of human indiscretions; but I, certainly, am of opinion, that, by representing religious tenets in a terrific light, as much, nay, more, harm may ensue to the cause of religion, than from representing them under a more conciliatory form:—amiable minds, at least, will, with more probability, be induced to enlist under its banners, by the latter mode of conduct.

Bishop Horsley, in his sermon on liberty and necessity, while he is formally pleading for the former, turns out to be virtually pleading for the latter. His argument, like that of all libertarians, goes only to prove that we can do what we will, not that we can will what we do. He divides the causes that act upon material bodies, and intelligent agents, into efficient and final, but then he supposes that each of these are equally governed by immutable laws, though in the latter case their agency, because of an invisible nature, is more mysterious than in the former.— Why the phenomenon of conscience should coexist with necessity, the greatest philosopher cannot explain; but it must be received as a fact connected with human nature: perhaps it might, even on the score of the doctrine of necessity, be thus accounted for—that it gains new motives to virtue, and diminishes those to vice, by the pleasure that in it is attendant on the one, and the pain on the other.

The author once, in the company of a very excellent religious man, defended, as he here defends, the doctrine of necessity as applied to religion. His companion remarked that this surely was not the language of scripture: the author reminded him of the simile used by Ezekiel and St. Paul, as exemplifying God's power over his creatures, of the potter and his vessel; and he said, does not St. Paul say that God makes “vessels to honour and vessels to dishonour?”—To “dishonour,” I grant, replied the author's friendly disputant, “but not to destruction.” Thus will good men impose on themselves by words.—Reader, peruse the two following verses from St. Paul.

“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, another unto dishonour?”

“What, if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”!!!

See the letters of William Law, on this subject, and many other of his works.

By our own spirits, are we glorified.—Wordsworth.

This part of the poem was written when the author was confined to his bed by indisposition.

Medea.

See Lord Byron's poems; in one of which, or in the notes to one of which, as far as the author remembers, he says, that flowers of different descriptions convey, from the lover to his mistress, different meanings connected with the process of passion.

Voltaire. See his remarks on the plays of Corneille.

See Emma Courtenay, a novel, written to prove that love is at the command of a moral agent, if his understanding can once be convinced of the fitness of another, as the object of that passion.

The author must here mean a finis not to the voluminousness, but to the success, of the writers' efforts.

London.

Rousseau.

And Jesus went up to a mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer unto God.

The cast of thought in this stanza suggests the recollection of Mr. Wordsworth's glorious sonnet, “composed upon Westminster Bridge, (see his Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 172) which the author commends to the perusal of his readers.

David.

Vide Horatii Carminum, Lib. i. Ode 22.

Though the author here alludes to the doctrine of expediency, methodized into a system by Paley; yet he can never be insensible, how much British Society is indebted to the author of the “Natural Theology.”

See “An Inquiry whether Crime and Misery are produced or prevented by our present System of Prison Discipline.” By Thomas Fowel Buxton, Esq.

See St. Luke, fourth chapter, eighteenth verse; and Isaiah, sixtyfirst chapter, first verse.

“The irresistible might of weakness.”—See Milton's Prose Works.

Ibid.