self of that which he esteems true in its great outline. It will be no bar to just inquiry that he is hereby prevented from hastily catching at specious error, by perceiving that it varies from his guide. Life is too short for every man to be left to the hazard of running through the whole cycle of errors and heresies before he arrives at the truth; and this is prevented only by presenting to the learner some beacon against seductive falsehoods. He may, as many have done, conclude, upon due inquiry, that his own impressions are right, and his system wrong.

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We have compared the theological system to the hypothesis by which the natural philosopher directs his inquiries. The comparison is good for the present instance. The system, like the hypothesis, is not unalterable. It is to be studiously scrutinized, and even suspected; adopted if verified, and rejected if proved to be false. There is a well-known process by which natural philosophers arrive at the primary physical laws, viz. " by assuming indeed the laws we would discover, but so generally expressed, that they shall include an unlimited variety of particular laws; following out the consequences of this assumption, by the application of such general principles as the case admits; comparing them in succession with all the particular cases within our knowledge; and lastly, on this comparison, so modifying and restricting the general enunciation of our laws as to make the results agree.' Analogous to this is the process according to which, by the hypothetical assumption of a given system, we proceed to determine upon its truth.

But we are here arrested by an objection urged against this whole method of proceeding, which comes in a specious shape, and with the air of sincerity, and therefore demands a serious examination. We are addressed in some such terms as these: "The whole method of investigating theological truth by the advocates of systems is erroneous, because it is diametrically opposed to the principles of the inductive philosophy. Instead of framing a system à priori, and making it a bed of Procrustes, to which every declaration of the Bible is to be forcibly adapted, the only safe method is to reject all the hypotheses of divines, to come to the examination divested of all preconceived opinions, to consider the scattered revelations of Scripture as so many phenomena, and to classify, generalize, and deduce from these phenomena; just as the astronomer or the botanist uses physical data in framing a sound hypothesis. The study of theology should be exegetical, and the obsolete classifications of past ages should be entirely laid aside." We have endeavoured to state the objection fairly and strongly, and we shall now inquire how far it operates against the positions which we have taken. The objection assumes an analogy between theological investigation of revealed truth and physical inquiry into the system of the universe. This analogy we have already

* Herschell's Discourse, § 210.

noticed, and in reply to so much of the objection as concerns the original investigation of divine truth, we grant that nothing can be more unphilosophical or untheological than to receive any system as true, previously to examination, however it may have been supported by consent of antiquity or wideness of diffusion. This were to forsake the great principles of the Reformation, and revert to the implicit faith of the apostate Church. We ask no concession of private judgment on the part of the learner; we acknowledge that the final appeal is, in every instance, to the Scriptures themselves. We go further in meeting those who differ from us, and accept their illustration. Let the Scriptures be considered as analogous to the visible universe; and its several propositions as holding the same place with regard to the interpreter, which the phenomena of the heavens do with regard to the astronomer. Let it be agreed that the method of arriving at truth is in both instances the same, that is, by careful examination of these data, from which result generalization, cautious induction, and the position of ultimate principles. Let it be further conceded that exegesis answers to experiment or observation in the natural world, and consequently that the theologian is to consider exegetical results as the basis of all his reasonings. In all this there is not so wide a separation between us as might at first appear. We avow our belief that the theologian should proceed in his investigation precisely as the chemist or the botanist proceeds. "The botanist does not shape his facts," says a late ingenious writer. Granted, provided that you mean that the botanist does not wrest his facts to a forced correspondence with a hypothesis. Neither does the genuine theologian "shape his texts nor constrain them to an agreement with his system. But both the botanist and the theologian do in this sense "shape their facts," that they classify and arrange the fruits of their observation, and gather from them new proofs of that general system which has previously commended itself to their faith.

There is an entire agreement between the contending parties, as to the independent principles upon which original investigation for the discovery of truth is to be conducted in every science. It is the method which bears the name of Bacon, though practised to a limited extent, by the wise of every age. It is the method of Newton, which in his case resulted in the most splendid series of demonstration which the world has ever known. Up to this point we agree, yet we have left the main question still untouchedwhether in pursuing this method it is absolutely necessary to reject all the results of precedent labours. It is not merely concerning the way in which original investigation should be pursued, but also the way in which the results of such investigation are to be communicated. The former would be the inquiry how to make a system-how to deduce it from its original disjected elements; the latter is the inquiry how the general truths thus deduced may be made available to the benefit of the learner. Systems of theo

logy are in their nature synthetical. They are the results of the toilsome analysis of great minds, and they are to be put to the test by a comparison of all the separate truths, of which they purport to be a scientific arrangement. That they are convenient helps, in the transmission of such results as have been attained by the wisdom and diligence of our predecessors-results which else would have perished with their discoverers-is made evident by reference to the very analogy above stated. In every science, it is by such synthetical arrangements that the observations and inductions of philosophers are embodied, in order to facilitate the advance of those who follow. Thus, for instance, when the Abbé Haüy, by a tedious and laborious induction of particulars, had traced up the apparently amorphous crystals of the mineral kingdom to certain clear and primitive figures, he reduced the whole of his discoveries to the form of a system, so that future crystallographers might with less toil follow out his inquiries, and with immense advantage take up the subject where he left it.

But lest we should be suspected of the slightest misrepresentation or evasion of the argument, let it be supposed that the gist of the objection is, not that systems are useless, but that they should not be put into the hands of learners, lest they fill their minds with doctrines unproved and unexamined, and close the door against. manly and independent inquiry. Far be it from us to lay one shackle upon the chartered freedom of the theologian! We would that there were a thousandfold more independence in the search of truth-and that so many hundreds were not enslaved by the prejudice of novelty, whilst they clamour against the prejudice of authority and antiquity. To the objection, under this new phase, we reply: the only possible method of making the labours of past theologians available and profitable to the tyro, is by presenting to him the fruits of these labours in some compendious form. In every other case, the learner is despoiled of all the aids afforded by superior wisdom and learning, and reduced to the condition of one who has to build the whole structure for himself from the very foundation. But it is rejoined, "The Bible is the text-book: Theology is to be pursued exegetically; let the student, with his hermeneutical apparatus, come to the investigation of the Bible itself, to the neglect of all systems of human composition." Again we reply, that in correspondence with the analogy above suggested, exegesis is the true instrument of discovery, and the test of all pretended results. It may be compared to the glasses and quadrant of the astronomer. But is this all that is afforded to the inchoate astronomer? Let the analogy be pursued. We suppose a professor in this new school of physics to say to his pupil, "Here are your telescopes and other instruments, your logarithmic tables and ephemeris-yonder is the observatory. Proceed to make your observations. Be independent and original in your inquiries, and cautious in your inductions. You are not to be informed whether the sun moves around the earth, or the earth around the sun.

This

would be to prepossess you in favour of a system. Ptolemy and Copernicus are alike to be forgotten!" What is our estimate of such a method of philosophizing? The unfortunate youth is not permitted to take a glance at Newton's Principia, lest his mind should librate from its exact poise, towards some preconceived opinion. He is reduced to the very condition of the thousands who grope in disastrous twilight for want of direction. He is called upon to be a Galileo without his powers, or a Kepler without his previous training.

The

To an unprejudiced mind it must commend itself as reasonable, that the beginner in any science should be furnished at least with some syllabus of its details, which may serve as a clew in the labyrinth of his doubts. In order to discover truth, it is not the safest nor the wisest plan to reduce the mind to the unenviable condition of a tabula rasa; although such is the assumption of certain modern writers. It is highly useful to be informed as well of what has been held to be true, as of what has been proved to be false. For lack of the latter knowledge-the knowledge of preceding errors-our improved theologians are daily venting, with all the grave self-consequence of discovery, the stale and exploded blunders of the dark ages; which the perusal of any single work of systematic divinity would have taught them to despise. impartiality of the mind is in no degree secured by the banishment of all previous hypothesis. There is a partiality of ignorance, a partiality of self-will and intellectual pride, a partiality of innovation, no less dangerous than the predilections of system. Or, to bring the whole matter to a speedier issue, the condition of mind in equilibrio, which it is proposed to secure, is utterly impossible— the merest ens rationis-which was never realized, and never can be realized by any one in a Christian country. It is like the chimerical scepticism of the Cartesians, the creature of an overheated imagination. For when you have carefully withheld all orthodox systems of theology from your pupil, he comes to the study of the Scriptures, emptied indeed of all coherent hypotheses, but teeming with the crude and erroneous views which spring up like weeds in the unregulated mind.

The true light in which a system of theology should be viewed by one who uses it as an aid in scriptural study, is as a simple hypothesis, an approximation to the truth, and a directory for future inquiries. Every position is to become the subject of a sifting examination, and comparison with what is revealed. Without some such assistance, in the mind or in writing, the student might spend a life-time in arriving at some of those principles, which, if once proposed to him, would commend themselves instantly to his approbation.

But it is queried: "What if your system should be false?" Let us then go so far as to suppose that it is false. It would be no very difficult task to prove that, for this purpose, even a false system, if scientifically arranged, might not be without its uses. Every

one who commences the study of the Scriptures, does so with some system, true or false, symmetrical or crude, written or conceived. If he is influenced by no living idols in the world of theologians, and bows to no Calvin or Arminius, he has within him those causes of error which spring from his own character and education; or, to use Bacon's expressive terms, idola specus et fori, if not idola theatri.* When Kepler began his observations, he no doubt held the old erroneous doctrine of the sphere; but in the progress of inquiry he discovered such irregularity in the orbit of Mars, as was altogether incompatible with a circular motion. Hence he arrived at the truth that all the planetary orbits are elliptical. In this we have an example of a fact impinging upon a system, and causing it to be abandoned. The same thing may be instanced in the case of Martin Luther. It may not be too much to say, that if they had been ignorant of the opinions of their fathers, and had practised upon the rule above-mentioned, their names would never have come down to us. But all this is gratuitous. We are not bound to prove that an erroneous system may have its uses. We put into the hand of the pupil the nearest approximation to truth which we can procure, even that which we cordially believe ourselves; and then, to add new guards to the mind, we exhort him to use it simply as a history of what the Church has held; leaving it to his judgment whether it is consistent with the Scriptures. It is the method in which the study of all sciences must be begun; and as all lectures in theology are systems-indeed no other systems are enjoined to be studied in our seminaries -it is in accordance with this very method that candidates for the ministry are everywhere instructed. There may be a time, at some later period, when a method purely analytic may be attempted; but no man is competent to institute such an analysis, until he has mastered the leading hypotheses of those who have gone before him: and about one theologian in a thousand has the taste for investigations of this kind.

It is not a little surprising that the very persons whose delicate susceptibilities lead them to shrink from the contact of an orthodox system or exposition, lest they should receive some undue bias, are at the same time under no apprehensions from the contagion of German neology. There are, for instance, ministers of our acquaintance who avowedly banish from their shelves the works of Turretine, Scott, and Henry, but who daily refer to the innocuous commentaries of Rosenmueller, Kuinöl, Koppe, and Gesenius. Is it so then, that the only partialities against which we need a caution, are towards what is called orthodoxy-the system of doctrines to which we have subscribed; Are there no vicious leanings of the mind in favour of plausible heresies, lofty rationalism, or imposing novelty? Let him answer who has learned the deceitfulness of the human heart.

'Nov. Org., lib i., aph. 41.