Clement, indeed, the mystery is treated as it was treated by Saint John and Saint Paul; but in Hermas we see the seeds of the error, and more clearly in Irenæus; and so it went on till the idea was changed into an idol.

The errors of the Sacramentaries, on the one hand, and of the Romanists on the other, are equally great. The first have volatilized the eucharist into a metaphor; the last have condensed it into an idol.

Jeremy Taylor, in his zeal against transubstantiation, contends that the latter part of the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel has no reference to the eucharist. If so, St. John wholly passes over this sacred mystery; for he does not include it in his notice of the last supper. Would not a total silence of this great apostle and evangelist upon this mystery be strange? A mystery, I say; for it is a mystery; it is the only mystery in our religious worship. When many of the disciples left our Lord, and apparently on the very ground that this saying was hard, he does not attempt to detain them by any explanation, but simply adds the comment, that his words were spirit. If he had really meant that the eucharist should be a mere commemorative celebration of his death, is it conceivable that he would let these disciples go away from him upon such a gross misunderstanding? Would he not have said, "You need not make a difficulty; I only mean so and so?"

Arnauld, and the other learned Romanists, are irresistible against the low sacramentary doctrine.

The sacrament of baptism applies itself, and has reference to the faith or conviction, and is, therefore, only to be performed once; it is the light of man. The sacrament of the eucharist is a symbol of all our religion;—it is the life of man. It is commensurate with our will, and we must, therefore, want it continually.

The meaning of the expression, εἰ μὴ ἦν σοι διδομένον άvwoεv, "except it were given thee from above," in the 19th chapter of St. John, ver. 11, seems to me to have been

generally and grossly mistaken. It is commonly understood as importing that Pilate could have no power to deliver Jesus to the Jews, unless it had been given him by God, which, no doubt, is true; but if that is the meaning, where is the force or connexion of the following clause, dia Touro, "therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin ?" In what respect were the Jews more sinful in delivering Jesus up, because Pilate could do nothing except by God's leave ? The explanation of Erasmus and Clarke, and some others, is very dry-footed. I conceive the meaning of our Lord to have been simply this, that Pilate would have had no power or jurisdictionovoíav-over him, if it had not been given by the Sanhedrim, the avw Bovλn, and therefore it was that the Jews had the greater sin. There was also this further peculiar baseness and malignity in the conduct of the Jews. The mere assumption of Messiahship, as such, was no crime in the eyes of the Jews; they hated Jesus, because he would not be their sort of Messiah: on the other hand, the Romans cared not for his declaration that he was the Son of God; the crime in their eyes was his assuming to be a king. Now, here were the Jews accusing Jesus before the Roman governor of that which, in the first place, they knew that Jesus denied in the sense in which they urged it, and which, in the next place, had the charge been true, would have been so far from a crime in their eyes, that the very gospel history itself, as well as all the history to the destruction of Jerusalem, shows it would have been popular with the whole nation. They wished to destroy him, and for that purpose charge him falsely with a crime which yet was no crime in their own eyes, if it had been true; but only so as against the Roman domination, which they hated with all their souls, and against which they were themselves continually conspiring!

Observe, I pray, the manner and sense in which the high-priest understands the plain declaration of our Lord, that he was the Son of God. "I adjure thee by the living

1 Matt. xxvi. v. 63. Mark, xiv. 61.-H. N. C.

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God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God," or the Son of the Blessed," as it is in Mark. Jesus said, "I am,—and hereafter ye shall see the Son of man (or me) sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Does Caiaphas take this explicit answer as if Jesus meant that he was full of God's spirit, or was doing his commands, or walking in his ways, in which sense Moses, the prophets, nay, all good men, were and are the sons of God? No, no! He tears his robes in sunder, and cries out, "He hath spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy." What blasphemy, I should like to know, unless the assuming to be the "Son of God" was assuming to be of the divine nature?

One striking proof of the genuineness of the Mosaic books is this, they contain precise prohibitions-by way of predicting the consequences of disobedience of all those things which David and Solomon actually did, and gloried in doing, raising cavalry, making a treaty with Egypt, laying up treasure, and polygamising. Now, would such prohibitions have been fabricated in those kings' reigns, or afterwards? Impossible.

The manner of the predictions of Moses is very remarkable. He is like a man standing on an eminence, and addressing people below him, and pointing to things which he can, and they cannot, see. He does not say, You will act in such and such a way, and the consequences will be so and so; but, So and so will take place, because you will act in such a way!

TAL

MAY 21, 1830.

Talent and Genius.—Motives and Impulses.

ALENT, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason and imagination, rarely or never.

G

Motives imply weakness, and the existence of evil and temptation. The angelic nature would act from impulse alone. A due mean of motive and impulse is the only practicable object of our moral philosophy.

MAY 23, 1830.

Constitutional and Functional Life.-Hysteria.-Hydrophobia.*—HydroCarbonic Gas.-Bitters and Tonics.-Specific Medicines.

IT

T is a great error in physiology not to distinguish between what may be called the general or fundamental life-the principium vitæ, and the functional life—the life in the functions. Organisation must presuppose life as anterior to it: without life, there could not be or remain any organisation; but then there is also a life in the organs, or functions, distinct from the other. Thus, a flute presupposes,-demands the existence of a musician as anterior to it, without whom no flute could ever have existed; and yet again, without the instrument there can

be no music.

It often happens that, on the one hand, the principium vitæ, or constitutional life, may be affected without any, or the least imaginable, affection of the functions; as, in inoculation, where one pustule only has appeared, and no other perceptible symptom, and yet this has so entered into the constitution, as to indispose it to infection under the most accumulated and intense contagion, and, on the other hand, hysteria, hydrophobia, and gout, will disorder the functions to the most dreadful degree, and yet often leave the life untouched. In hydrophobia, the mind is quite sound; but the patient feels his muscular and cutaneous life forcibly removed from under the control of his will.

Hysteria may be fitly called mimosa, from its counterfeiting so many diseases,—even death itself.

Hydro-carbonic gas produces the most death-like exhaustion, without any previous excitement. I think this

gas should be inhaled by way of experiment in cases of hydrophobia.

There is a great difference between bitters and tonics. Where weakness proceeds from excess of irritability, there bitters act beneficially; because all bitters are poisons, and operate by stilling, and depressing, and lethargizing the irritability. But where weakness proceeds from the opposite cause of relaxation, there tonics are good; because they brace up and tighten the loosened string. Bracing is a correct metaphor. Bark goes near to be a combination of a bitter and a tonic; but no perfect medical combination of the two properties is yet known.

The study of specific medicines is too much disregarded now. No doubt the hunting after specifics is a mark of ignorance and weakness in medicine, yet the neglect of them is proof also of immaturity; for, in fact, all medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science.

THE

MAY 25, 1830.

Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians.-Oaths.

HE Epistles to the Ephesians is evidently a catholic epistle, addressed to the whole of what might be called St. Paul's diocese. It is one of the divinest compositions of man. It embraces every doctrine of Christianity;first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity, and then those precepts common to it with natural religion. The Epistle to the Colossians is the overflowing, as it were, of St. Paul's mind upon the same subject.

The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in my judgment, a sin to do so. The Jews' oath is an adjuration by the judge to the witness: "In the name of God, I ask you." There is an express instance of it in the high-priest's adjuring or exorcising Christ by the living God, in the twenty-sixth chapter