THEOLOGIANS.

BISHOP BUTLER.

AMONGST the cultivators of sacred science in the eighteenth century, no names stand out like those of Butler, Warburton, and Horsley; but, whilst all three extort our homage, it is Butler alone who attracts our reverence. With his affluent information, his fantastic ingenuity, and his rollicking, redundant vigour, we are drawn towards Warburton by the spell which invariably accompanies force of mind and originality of character; but we follow his path with that uneasy sort of interest with which we watch the movements of an eccentric giant. It is wonderful to see what feats he can perform; but the misgiving crosses us, What next? and we fear for ourselves and our most sacred convictions, lest they provoke the ire of this hot-blooded Ishmaelite. And although his uniform and his pass-word dissipate any such anxieties in the case of Horsley, we admire the champion more than we love the man; and it needs all our gratitude for his splendid expositions to reconcile us to. his defiant tone and frequent sallies of proud, domineering dogmatism. With Butler, on the contrary, such singleness of purpose is combined with such intuitive sagacity, as have seldom combined to inspire and guide the seeker after truth; and it is hard to say which is most unique, his strength or his sober-mindedness. Far from being offended by the bald simplicity of his language, we hail it, along with his contempt of paradox, as an indication of his anxious truthfulness; and perhaps there is nothing which makes us feel our own inferiority so profoundly as that unfailing attendant of great souls, so perceptible in every utterance and movement of this mighty thinker-his majestic modesty.

Butler's great contribution to the Christian evidence has been already noticed.* We now go on to give, from his fruitful Sermons, an example or two of the method in which he harmonises the deliverances of revelation with the requirements of reason. Our extracts will have a further value, as shewing how unostentatiously great principles may be enunciated by one whose lofty standing-place makes him familiar with a wide horizon.

The Supremacy of Conscience.

There is a superior principle of reflection or conscience in every man, which distinguishes between the internal principles of his heart, as well as his external actions: which passes judgment upon himself and them; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust: which, without being consulted, without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or condemns the doer of them accordingly: and which, if not forcibly stopped, naturally and always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sentence, which shall hereafter second and affirm its own. But this part of the office of conscience is beyond my present design explicitly to consider. It is by this faculty, natural to man, that he is a moral agent, that he is a law to himself: but this faculty, I say, not to be considered merely as a principle in his heart, which is to have some influence as well as others; but considered as a faculty in kind and in nature supreme over all others, and which bears its own authority of being so.

This prerogative, this natural supremacy, of the faculty which surveys, approves, or disapproves the several affections of our mind, and actions of our lives, being that by which men are a law to themselves,† their conformity or disobedience to which

law of our nature renders their actions, in the highest and most Christian Classics, vol iv. p. 35. + Rom. ii. 14.

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proper sense, natural or unnatural; it is fit it be further explained to you: and I hope it will be so, if you will attend to the following reflections.

Man may act according to that principle or inclination which for the present happens to be strongest, and yet act in a way disproportionate to, and violate his real proper nature. Suppose a brute creature by any bait to be allured into a snare, by which he is destroyed. He plainly followed the bent of his nature leading him to gratify his appetite: there is an entire correspondence between his whole nature and such an action: such action therefore is natural. But suppose a man, foreseeing the same danger of certain ruin, should rush into it for the sake of a present gratification; he in this instance would follow his strongest desire, as did the brute creature: but there would be as manifest a disproportion between the nature of a man and such an action, as between the meanest work of art and the skill of the greatest master in that art: which disproportion arises, not from considering the action singly in itself, or in its consequences, but from comparison of it with the nature of the agent. And since such an action is utterly disproportionate to the nature of man, it is in the strictest and most proper sense unnatural; this word expressing that disproportion. Therefore, instead of the words, disproportionate to his nature, the word unnatural may now be put, this being more familiar to us; but let it be observed, that it stands for the same thing precisely.

Now what is it which renders such a rash action unnatural ? Is it that he went against the principle of reasonable and cool self-love, considered merely as a part of his nature? No: for if he had acted the contrary way, he would equally have gone against a principle, or part of his nature, namely, passion or appetite. But to deny a present appetite, from foresight that the gratification of it would end in immediate ruin or extreme misery, is by no means an unnatural action; whereas, to contradict or go against cool self-love for the sake of such gratifi

Such an action, then, arising from a man's

cation, is so in the instance before us. being unnatural, and its being so not going against a principle or desire barely, nor in going against that principle or desire which happens for the present to be strongest, it necessarily follows, that there must be some other difference or distinction to be made between these two principles, passion and cool self-love, than what I have yet taken notice of. And this difference, not being a difference in strength or degree, I call a difference in nature and in kind. And since, in the instance still before us, if passion prevails over self-love, the consequent action is unnatural; but if selflove prevails over passion, the action is natural: it is manifest that self-love is in human nature a superior principle to passion. This may be contradicted without violating that nature, but the former cannot; so that, if we will act conformably to the economy of man's nature, reasonable self-love must govern. Thus, without particular consideration of conscience, we may have a clear conception of the superior nature of one inward principle to another, and see that there really is this natural superiority, quite distinct from degrees of strength and prevalency.

Let us now take a view of the nature of man, as consisting partly of various appetites, passions, affections, and partly of the principle of reflection or conscience, leaving quite out all consideration of the different degrees of strength, in which either of them prevail, and it will further appear that there is this natural superiority of one inward principle to another, and that it is even part of the idea of reflection or conscience.

Passion or appetite implies a direct simple tendency towards such and such objects, without distinction of the means by which they are to be obtained; consequently it will often happen there will be a desire of particular objects, in cases where they cannot be obtained without manifest injury to others. Reflection or conscience comes in, and disapproves

RIGHT AND MIGHT.

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the pursuit of them in these circumstances, but the desire remains. Which is to be obeyed, appetite or reflection? Cannot this question be answered, from the economy and constitation of human nature merely, without saying which is strongest ? Or need this at all come into consideration? Would not the question be intelligibly and fully answered by saying, that the principle of reflection or conscience being compared with the various appetites, passions, and affections in men, the former is manifestly superior and chief, without regard to strength? And how often soever the latter happens to prevail, it is mere usurpation. The former remains in nature and in kind its superior, and every instance of such prevalence of the latter, is an instance of breaking in upon and violation of the constitution of man.

All this is no more than the distinction, which everybody is acquainted with, between mere power and authority; only, instead of being intended to express the difference between what is possible, and what is lawful in civil government; here it has been shewn applicable to the several principles in the mind of man. Thus that principle by which we survey, and either approve or disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what is in its turn to have some influence, which may be said of every passion, of the lowest appetites; but likewise as being superior, as from its very nature manifestly claiming superiority over all others, insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking in judgment, direction, superintendency. This is a constituent part of the idea, that is, of the faculty itself, and to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as it has right; had it power, as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world.

This gives us a further view of the nature of man, shews us what course of life we were made for, not only that our