ed in them, vestments, utensils, and stations for performing the several offices. There is a greater exactness requisite upon those articles for a gross and ignorant people, wherefore we find very minute directions given thereupon in the Jewish ceremonial, for which we must presume there was a good reason; for if we will needs deny them to have been of divine appointment but the impositions of Moses, still upon this hypothesis, we must allow him to have been a shrewd and crafty politician, who knew well what he did, and that they would work a strong effect upon the minds of the people, or else he would never have thought it worth while to employ them. But as mankind grows more rational, there is less occasion for application by the senses: perhaps little more is needful for us than such a neatness and decency in external appearances, as may not catch away the attention either by their finery or their slovenliness.

But that objects surrounding have no influence upon the minds of the company, is contrary to experience in the common customs of life: why else have we our drawing-rooms, where things are kept a little more spruce and elegant than in the common rooms for family use? A parcel of young folks might once for a frolic be very merry together in a barn hung all round with enormous cobwebs; and even in that case the novelty of the thing, and oddity of the furniture might have an effect to increase their merriment but whoever should make a practice of receiving his company in this equipage, I fear would find the ease of conversation greatly clogged thereby; unless it happened to turn upon rallying him for the peculiarity of his taste. Therefore such as aim solely at the pleasures of conversation, and think nothing of drawing an admiration of their wealth or elegance of taste, will be careful to exhibit a scene that may neither offend, nor engage the

eye.

Not that I mean to condemn all regard to elegance in private houses, but in a Church none other aim is allowable besides that of the benefit of conversation with Heaven: therefore the pomp of Popery is as faulty as a total negligence; it might indeed be very right to answer the purposes intended by it, which were to draw off the veneration for Religion, and turn it into a veneration for the persons officiating. Yet it seems expedient there should be some distinction of dress, and some little reserve of behavior in those who make professions of dispensing holy things, that the appearance of the person may co-assist with the appearance of the structure. Neither is there a visible impropriety that he should officiate in one garb when acting as the mouth of the congregation to lead them in their adorations to the throne of Glory,

and in another when he takes the part of a teacher, employing human reason to expound the sacred oracles, and apply them to our particular uses: for something more solemnity of mind is proper for the people to exercise their Religion, than to learn it.

Nor is the variety in our service without its use for relieving and awakening the attention, for we shall find now and then that some parts of it are long enough to afford time for a comfortable nap. If short forms and ceremonies are so necessary, that Christians of all denominations, even those who affect to declare loudest against them, find it impracticable to do without them: they all have their particular places of worship, which they are careful to keep in what they esteem decency: and their badges of distinction, be it a black cap, a cloak, or coat of a peculiar cut, for their ministry. Even the gifted priestess among the Quakers is known by her green apron; and the brotherhood, though pretending to regard nothing but the inner man, yet are so conscientiously attached to externals, that I suppose they would sooner burn at the stake, than abate an inch of their broad-brimined hat. In the last century, while a real sanctity was endeavored to be placed in externals, it was a noble struggle for religious liberty to prevent this notion from spreading among the people by opposing other externals against them: but now nobody retains such notion of their containing an intrinsic virtue, the charge of superstition lies at the door of those who imagine them to carry an intrinsic malignity. For reason pronounces them alike indifferent either way: therefore there is as much superstition to the full in believing the service cannot be read devoutly in a surplice, as that it cannot be so read without one.

22. Having thus essayed an explanation of the manner wherein externals help us forward in the work of Salvation, by assisting to bring the mind into a disposition proper for our most important duties, and so becoming the natural means of grace, the result will be, that a due regard for them deserves to be carefully inculcated, especially upon the young, the giddy, and the ignorant, who will be least capable of understanding their method of operation and wherein their real efficacy lies. Therefore they must be made to prevail in such way as can be effected, the more rational undoubtedly the better: but theory must sometimes give way to practicability, and he that cannot do as he would, must do as he can, rather than do nothing, to attain a good end. Where the natural effects cannot be rendered manifest, God may be represented as giving us arbitrary commands: yet whatever is enjoined by him, or by persons delegated under him to give directions in

matters of indifference, may be taken upon credit to carry a real expedience we cannot discern.

If this be too refined and abstruse to sink into some imaginations, recourse must be had directly to command, obligation, and fear: the duties must be enjoined as indispensable, issuing from divine authority, or human derived therefrom, whose commands are not to be disputed not disobeyed, without drawing down heavy mischiefs upon the transgressor. But then particular care should be taken, both in the choice of things to be enjoined and manner of expression concerning them, to give no handle for apprehending an occult quality inherent in them, or supernatural efficacy annexed to them: it seems the best way to pronounce them in general sacred and necessary, without descending into particular explanations. If any person not content with the general idea of obligation will join thereto a kind of magical virtue, because incapable of conceiving an efficacy any other way, it is not to be avoided, nor will it do him any hurt: for superstition we have said before is relative, and the grossest apprehensions are sufficiently pure to him, whom God has not endued with an understanding capable of better.

Religion will accommodate itself to all capacities, and if not designedly corrupted by politic or enthusiastic mixtures, will turn into nourishment salutary to all constitutions: just as the same bread turns into one kind of flesh in men, another in fowls, and another in fishes, proving nourishment alike to them all. Therefore to judge soundly of Religion it is necessary to study human nature, and what effects may be worked thereupon by the several parts of it: but the Free-thinker pronounces hastily without cognizance of the cause, for he studies nothing of human nature, but proceeds. altogether upon an abstract nature of things; a mere cant phrase, of which he has no clearer conception than the lowest vulgar have of their mysteries, and would be as much at a loss to give a steady intelligible explanation.

Then for the other part of his subject, Religion, he takes his idea of that from the nurse and the priest, whom he affects to hold in such sovereign contempt: for he apprehends it to contain nothing more than the first rudiments imbibed from them. But he might reflect that perhaps his nurse, or some other old woman first taught him to read, yet he would not now take his estimation of our language from the spelling and pronunciation of the old woman: and the priest who taught him his accidence, might not be the most enlightened of his order; or if he were ever so knowing, could convey no more than a child was capable of receiving. Who as soon as he began to think himself a man, which was probably

before he left school, resolved to regard no more what was said to him by priests upon the subject, so could learn nothing more from them.

But it should be remembered that as in some sciences there is an exoteric and esoteric doctrine, both many times couched under the same language and the same figures, the latter not capable of being conveyed completely by all the teaching in the world without honest and careful application in the recipient to digest it well for himself: so in the science before us, we are told there is a killing letter and a quickening spirit, which may be relative; for a popular system designed for everybody's use, cannot be expected in all its parts, equally to suit everybody's digestion; so that the literal sense, which is poisonous to one man, may prove wholesome to another, and the spiritual, which is vivifying to one, may seem as dry and tasteless chaff to the other. Therefore it becomes every one who thinks himself a profound reasoner, to search fairly for what rational construction things are susceptible of, and to whose rational uses they are applicable, before he pretends to decide upon the merits of them: if anything herein before suggested in this and the preceding Chapters shall afford hints to help forward such an inquiry, I shall esteem it the luckiest thing I could have wished.

CHAP. XXII.*

WORD, OR LOGOS.

HAVING in the last Chapter explained the Divinity of Christ, in a manner consistent, as I hope, both with reason and orthodoxy, I may now proceed with more freedoin and less liableness to be suspected of evil designs, to examine some other ideas of that Divinity, particularly those concerning the Logos or Word, Creator of the World; I have already touched upon this subject in my Chapter upon the Trinity, where I have committed an oversight in saying, 11, that I had not happened to meet with any person of repute in the Church since Beveridge, who held Christ to be the Demiourgos or Maker of the World. But I have since seen a discourse, in four parts, of a late Bishop of London's [Dr. Sherlock], whom I shall never deny to have been a person of very great repute in the Church, wherein that opinion of my lord of

St. Asaph seems enforced with great strength and acutenesss of argument. As I was one of his Lordship's flock, attended his discourses with much pleasure, and I hope with some emolument, and had read them when first published; I had probably heard and must certainly have read, the very discourse alluded to above, yet it proved like the seed scattered by the way side, which the birds of the air came and picked up and carried away. I could easily conceal this slip of memory from the world by changing a few words in the Manuscript, which still remains locked up in my custody but I choose to let it stand, agreeably with the character of the Searches, unsolicitous to hide their defects, but rather willing to put their readers upon the guard against admitting too hastily whatever they may advance.

For the like reason I shall take notice of another mistake, falling naturally enough to be considered in the way of my present inquiry, wherein I have been set right upon an article in Mr. Locke's Essay, by a very learned and judicious Expositor* more intimately acquainted with that excellent author, who by telling another person, has very lately told me, that we had misapprehended him; for that Mr. Locke used Person, not as a metaphysical term, comprehending what belongs to a man in real existence, but as a forensic, denoting some such quality or modification as denominates him a moral agent, and renders him a true object of rewards and punishments. This discovery proved no mortification to me, as the reader will easily believe; for he must have perceived me always uneasy whenever fancying myself in discordance with Mr. Locke, and therefore will conclude it must give me sensible pleasure to find myself relieved from such uneasiness.

2. But as that other person, through whose correction I received mine, appears to have the prying eye and sedate industrious countenance of a Search, I am willing to acknowledge him for a relation, and beg leave to stand up for the honor of the family, by defending the commendableness of his attempt to settle what it is that distinguishes one person from another, understanding that term as relative to the real existence, which is now proved upon us not to have been the object had in contemplation by Mr. Locke.

This is going as far as I can, for with respect to the success of his attempt, I find myself forced rather to take side with our reprover. I always look upon my consciousness as an evidence where I was, what I did or saw at any former time: but if I had a continuation of thought all last night while asleep, I am sure I

* Dr. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, in his Defence of Mr. Locke's Opinion, in answer to an Essay on Personal Identity. 1769.