I before hinted that I look upon scepticism, so called, to be little else but affectation. Or if there really be any such kind of men who believe that they believe nothing, that very instance is an undeniable argument of their more than common credulity. Indeed, for a man to fall to arguing and proving that there is no such thing as proof or argument, is much the same as if one should make an eloquent harangue, lamenting that mortal men have not the faculty of speech, loudly complaining that all mankind are mutes. P. 510. Our way supposes that men ought to examine (if capable, and as far as capable) in order to know that the doctrine proposed is true. If it should be asked, what need of examination after so many wise and good men, and all morally certain; I would ask again, what need is there of studying the demonstrations of Euclid, which all the world agree in, as containing certain truth? A man might safely enough take them for granted, and by so doing might as soon become a sound Geometrician, as by the like method, in the other case, he might commence a sound Divine, or a confirmed Christian. At best, it would be resting faith upon mere human authority, which would be resting it on a wrong bottom; and, besides, would be neglecting the due improvement of the heart and cultivation of the mind. But may there not be danger in examining, danger of being led to dissent from what is right, and to embrace some error? Undoubtedly there may. And what conveniency is there without some inconveniency? Such danger must be risked, rather than found our faith upon a wrong principle, to render it worthless or contemptible and it is better to hazard the chance of falling into some error in faith, than to be certain of committing a greater error in conduct. However, if men come with humility, modesty, and circumspection to the examination, and have patience to stay till they are clear, before they formally dissent, or before they declare it openly; there will be no great danger in examining every thing with the utmost severity. P. 511. The phrase of having dominion over one's faith, is of obscure meaning, &c. I did not then call to mind how well the meaning of that phrase had been lately cleared up by a very learned hand2. P. 544. The darkness cometh not upon it. I referred to a very judicious critic, Lambert Bos, for the justifying my rendering of Bishop Hare, Scripture Vindicated, p. 60-63. WATERLAND, VOL. III. Y y this text. I find since, that the learned Wolfius disapproves of what Bos had offereda: but I abide by Bos notwithstanding, who plainly has reason on his side. He did not insist merely upon the force of the word karaλaßeiv, but upon the phrase, upon the verb as joined with σκότος, or σκοτία. The examples which he gives from sacred and profane writers, of the use of the phrase, are all clear and full to his purpose. And if there be need of additional examples from ecclesiastical writers, there are several; as Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theophylactd. Clemens of Alexandria, in his comment, (if it be his,) seems to take in both the senses of that verb into his construction of the texte. As to the allusion to the Gnostic principles (I use the word Gnostic in the larger sense) which I suppose in the words of St. John, neither Bos nor Wolfius take notice, nor seem to have been aware of it. But if the observation be just, as it appears very probable, (and I shall say more of it presently,) that also is a confirmation of such sense of the phrase as Bos pleads for; and the two considerations taken together answer very aptly to each other, which is an argument that both are right. 544. The ancient Magian notion of a good God and an evil God, the first called light, and the other darkness, &c. A brief account of that ancient notion may be seen in Dean Prideaux', and a large history both of its rise and progress among the Pagans, in Wolfiuss. And how the same notion was revived, or augmented with new fooleries, among the heretics of the apostolical times, may be understood from a noted fragment of Basilides, preserved by Archelaus, of the third century, in his account of his Disputation with Manesh. Now, considering that a Ingeniosior quam verior hîc est Lamb. Bos interpretatio- quod natura Aóyou sanctissima et purissima sit, nec minimam cum impuritate habet communionem. Quæ notio quamvis in N. T. et apud ipsum Joannem nostrum, cap. xii. 35, occurrat, ab hoc tamen loco aliena merito censetur, in quo non tam quid tenebræ in Christum molitæ sint, aut moliri potuerint, quam quid Christus in tenebras molitus sit, exponitur. Conf. v. 10, II.— Itaque rectius notio illa vocis karaλaBei hic tenetur, quæ receptionem aut agnitionem infert. Hanc enim N. T. Scriptoribus imprimis familiarem esse patet ex Actor. v. 13. Rom. ix. 30. Cerinthus was among those who had adopted the old notion of a good God and an evil God, (as Epiphanius has informed usi,) and so of course must have fallen in with the old Magian principles; Basilides may reasonably be allowed of as a good interpreter of Cerinthus in those articles: and since St. John very manifestly struck at several other tenets of Cerinthus, in his divine proeme, it is more than probable that what he says in verse the fifth about light and darkness alludes to the Gnostic notion then prevailing, and is a confutation of itk. They pretended that the evil God Darkness pursued the Light, and came up to it: he asserts, that the Darkness came not upon it, never laid hold of it, never approached to obstruct or obscure it, but was irradiated and illuminated by it. It may further be considered, that Basilides probably flourished in the first century, and might be contemporary with St. John, as both Jerome and Epiphanius seem to assert and though learned men have disputed it, yet Massuet appears to have well cleared up the point against the most material objections. Now, if Basilides himself was so early, it is so much the more likely that St. John, writing at that time, might have an eye to the pernicious doctrine then propagated by him, and by the whole set of Gnostics. By Gnostics I understand all that sort of men who derived their principles from Simon Magus, and lived in the apostolic age; n "de bonis et malis etiam barbari in"quisierunt, et in quas opiniones de "his omnibus pervenerunt. Quidam “ enim horum dixerunt, Initia omnium "duo esse, quibus bona et mala asso"ciaverunt, ipsa dicentes initia esse "et ingenita: id est, in principiis, "lucem fuisse ac tenebras, quæ ex semetipsis erant, non quæ esse di"cebantur. Hæc cum apud semet“ipsa essent, proprium unum quodque eorum vitam agebat quam vel"let, et qualis sibi competeret: om"nibus enim amicum est quod est proprium, et nihil sibi ipsi malum "videtur. Postquam autem ad alter"utrum agnitionem uterque pervenit, "et tenebræ contemplatæ sunt lucem, 66 66 come upon the light, and compass it, "when the Evangelist declares, that "the light shined through the darkness, and the darkness compassed it "not." 66 though I am aware that, in a stricter and more special sense, the Gnostics may be said to have risen up in the second century. P.568. Irenæus born in or near the Apostles' times, and was advanced in years when he wrote. I here follow Dodwell in a matter which requires not, and indeed admits not, of a scrupulous or critical exactness. However, since Dodwell has been blamed by more than one for his chronology in that article, I may just mention how the different accounts stand in relation to the year when Irenæus was born. According to Dodwell, A. D. 97: Grabe chooses the year 108; Tillemont, the year 120; others, 135: Massuet sets it the latest of all, A. D. 140. According to which different computations, Irenæus must be supposed either older or younger when he wrote, if he wrote in 176, or thereabouts, as most agree that he did though some differ also as to that, setting the date of his writings ten or fifteen years lower. P. 649. In strictness they were not interpretations of Scripture, but rather pious meditations upon Scripture: I am sensible that some of them were intended as strict interpretations: but in the general, &c. To confirm and illustrate what I have here said, it may be observed, that St. Austin took into the allegorical way of interpreting when he was yet but a new convert, because he thought it much easier than the literal way, which he was not then so well prepared for. He had not at that time (so he tells us himself?) sufficient leisure or abilities to undertake so hard a province as the unfolding the literal sense, and therefore contented himself with giving only the mystical or allegorical. Could a sensible man so speak, and at the same time imagine that the mystical construction he pretended to give was the true mind of the Holy Ghost? Or could he conceive that he had any certain foundation for the mystical sense (so considered) before he had found out the literal one to ground it upon? No, surely. But thinking himself at o See Wolfius, Manichæismus, &c. p. 206. Buddæus, Eccles. Apostol. p. 344, 345, 571, &c. P Et quia non mihi tunc occurrebant omnia quemadmodum proprie possint accipi, magisque non posse accipi videbantur, aut vix posse, aut difficile; ne retardarer, quid figurate significarent ea quæ ad literam non potui invenire, quanta valui brevitate et perspicuitate explicavi, ne vel multa lectione vel disputationis obscuritate deterriti, in manus ea sumere non curarent. Augustin. de Gen. ad Liter. lib. viii. c. 2. p. 227. tom. iii. Bened. Note, that St. Austin in the year 389, then a new convert, ventured no further than the allegorical exposition of Genesis: but in the year 401 he undertook the literal explication also, in twelve books, [de Genesi ad Literam,] which he finished about 415. liberty to raise any true and instructive moral from the text, he gave it as a good lesson to ruminate upon rather than as a strict interpretation of the words before him. He, and other allegorizers like him, might apprehend that dry history, or a mere narrative of facts, would be unentertaining or unedifying to common readers or hearers, and therefore they had a mind to furnish them with proper meditations, moral and religious, to graft upon such parts of sacred Writ; that so, whenever they should hear or read any Scripture history, such reflections also might occur to their minds, for improving the same to spiritual uses 9. And whether such spiritual uses were really intended in such place by the sacred penman or no; yet if the words might be but aptly accommodated thereto, and were but pertinently and soberly applied, and the analogy of faith preserved, a good end was answered thereby, and true doctrine at least kept, if not true interpretation'. Nevertheless it must be owned that the allegorizing Fathers did sometimes intend such comments as strict and proper interpretations; particularly where they thought that the obvious literal meaning carried some absurdity in it, or else was too low and trivial to be the whole design of the sacred writer, or Spirit of God. They had St. Paul's example to go upon: "Doth God," says he, "take care for oxens?" Intimating that such literal interpretation, singly considered, was too low and jejune a sense to fix upon the law in Deuteronomy t, and that therefore there was a necessity of supposing some higher meaning, and good reason for looking out for one. The like might be the case with other passages of the Old Testament, and very probably is: and so the Fathers endeavoured, wherever they apprehended any a Eo minus vero mirandum, quod veteris Ecclesiæ doctoribus hæc ipsa (allegorica) scripturarum explicandi ratio placuerit, quod et illi crederent, in Scripturæ lectione unice hoc agendum, ut quæ fidem alere ac fovere, vitamque instruere possunt, inde hauriamus, reliqua non magnopere ad nos pertinere. Prævaluit fere mystica illa et allegorica interpretandi ratio; pluribusque, ob insignem quem in vitæ fideique praxi habere videbatur usum, se commendabat. Buddæi Isagog. vol. ii. p. 1786. Cum divinos libros legimus, in tanta multitudine verorum intellectuum qui de paucis verbis eruuntur, et sanitate Catholicæ fidei muniuntur, t Deuteron. xxv. 4. |