Some Observations on the Sermons of Missionaries.

repeated provocations he is ready to forgive the returning penitent; that even whilst in the actual commission of sin he requires no satisfaction from the offender, nothing but what is necessary for his own sake to ensure his eternal felicity; how can he resist such powerful motives to love his God, and prostrate before him say from his heart, Most merciful and heavenly Father, I have sinned against thee like a most vile and ungrateful creature, therefore I am not worthy to be called thy son, but to be treated as a vile and rebellious slave."

Thus the path is clearly marked out by which the missionary may lead men from servile to filial fear: and it like wise appears that both servile and filial fear verifies that sentence of Scripture, “Timor Dei initium dilectionis ejus." The consciousness of deserving punishment shews us the necessity of imploring mercy; and as this attribute of the Supreme Being is perfectly amiable, the transition to love is natural and easy. It may indeed be proper, and it is frequently requisite, to impress the sinuer with the hazard he incurs of eternal perdition and the dread of everlasting torment; but he ought not to be left under the dominion of terror, both because love is a more noble principle of action, more suited to human nature, and more efficacious to direct him in the road of virtue, and because unqualified terror overwhelms the soul and weakens our inclinations to obedience; for fear though it may restrain a man from the commission of sin, wants the sweetness that incites to good works: it may deter us from evil, but it will not render us virtuous. The business of the preacher is to recall sinners to God; but he who represents the Almighty armed with vengeance, is more likely to drive the criminal to despair than to reclaim him.

It is easy to perceive that a conversion effected by love will not only be sincere but permanent. God when considered as a master supremely merciful and benignant, is an attractive object, a magnet that with gentle force draws towards it the wills of men, and gives them an admirable disposition to persevere in their resolutions of not relapsing into sin; for before the heart can be torn from so lovely an object, it must suffer great violence from the repeated assaults of some most impetuons pas sion, or it must exert the strongest force

707

against itself. Experience confirms this opinion. The very reverend Father M. Fr. Bentio Angerich, in an account which he published of the life and virtues of our celebrated legate of Montserrate, Fr. Joseph de San Benito, chap. x. relates that this monk enjoyed throughout the principality of Catalonia the reputation of a most enlightened understanding, not only amongst the ignorant but amongst learned men, and was frequently consulted when any doubts were entertained in spiritual affairs. An apostolic minister belonging to the fraternity of Escernalbon, complained to him of the very little good his sermons effected, soliciting his advice and instructions how he might render them more useful; to this request the holy man made the following reply, (I quote the exact words of the writer)" that he should endeavour to inculcate the infinite mercy of God more than he had hitherto done, and that he would assuredly reap that harvest of souls he desired." The writer thus proceeds: "the event justified the advice; the missionary adopted the counsel of his brother, and returned after some years to Montserrate, hav ing converted innumerable souls, and raising many to a steadfast and chearful hope that were before in imminent danger of despair, by reading to them the short compendious treatise in verse at the end of San Benito's works." The account concludes thus: "Fr. Joseph had a special grace by his discourses and writings to infuse hope into the heart and inspire it with con. fidence in the Divine mercy."

The proper and distinctive character of mind in this admirable ecclesiastic, was a profoundly rooted persuasion of the mercy and clemency of the Supreine Being. This formed the prominent feature of all his discourses and conversations: by inspiring others with the same sentiments, he accomplished the most extraordinary conversions of sin ners who were reputed absolutely incorrigible. The method he pursued was to introduce his opinions casually by way of conversation, as M. Angerich was assured by the monks of his convent, who had witnessed many of the cases. The chapter ends thus: "This holy father was so intimately convinced of the necessity of impressing sinners with the hopes of pardon through the infinite mercy of God, that he used to say to a spiritual director, who fre

708

An Answer to the Question, What is Blasphemy?

quently requested his opinion on particular cases, that he should always treat his penitents with mildness, and encourage them to confide in the mercy

of their Creator. To those who confessed relapses into sin, the only remedy he ought to give them to relieve their misery, should be to advise them whenever they fell into the same fault to confess it anew, with a firm reliance on the mercy and forgiveness of their heavenly Father, not doubting but by so doing they would ultimately reform; which proved to be the fact: by degrees they became exemplary in their lives

and manners."

For my own part I consider the conduct of this monk highly calculated to ensure the salvation of souls. To fear God is good, but to love him is still better; and what means can more effectually contribute to this end, than to impress men with the clearest idea possible of his unbounded mercy.

Goodness is the genuine object of love: the conceptions which we form of the infinite mercy of God raises in our minds the most lively and sensible image of his infinite goodness. I have before shewn that fear and love are not incompatible with each other; that from servile fear we may rise to filial love. I have also proposed the method to be pursued in conducting the sinner from one to the other, adhering in this method to a proper and literal explica tion of the sentence, "Timor Dei initium dilectionis ejus," comprehending in it even servile dread. But enough of missions. May heaven preserve you

many years.

An Answer to the Question, What is
Blasphemy?

I

[This paper has been in print before: : we copy it from a printed sheet communicated by a Correspondent. ED.] To speak blasphemously, as far as am able to understand that expression, can only signify, to speak dishonourably of God; to speak in derogation of his Divine nature and attributes. Now, since both reason and revelation teach us, that the only true God is IMMUTABLE, INCORPOREAL, and OMNIPRESENT, should any doctrine, on the contrary, assert that the Divine nature hath undergone a change, and assumed a corporeal form, which must be local, I think there can be no doubt but such

doctrine would be highly injurious to the Deity, and derogatory from his most essential attributes as well as most pernicious in its consequences to the salutary purposes of true religion. For this reason, when the Israelites, at Mount Horeb, meaning to worship the true God, erected the golden calf as a fit emblem of the object of their religious adoration, it will not I presume be denied, that they were guilty of the most blasphemous idolatry; and, when exulting in the restoration of that mode of religious worship, in behalf of which they had acquired an habitual prejudice in the land of Egypt, they loudly proclaimed that four-footed image to be a just representation of the Almighty Being whose miraculous interposition had so lately delivered them from their Egyptian bondage; whether we judge their conduct by the dictates of reason, or by the law of Moses, they were most certainly guilty of speaking blasphemously against God. Let us suppose then, for a moment, that the means of forming the molten image had failed them, but that they had asserted that the God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, had theretofore taken the bovine nature upon him in the belly of a cow, been made an ox, and had appeared in Egypt, and, though then in heaven, still continued incarnate in the body of that animal; and, that even without the use of any visible symbol, they had instituted a form of divine worship, adapted to the name and properties of the fabulous God, Apis;-surely, in this case, both the worship and the language of the Israelites would have been, at least, equally blasphemous as in the other.

There may be some, perhaps, who will readily allow the charge of blas phemy in so monstrous and disgusting an instance, as is here supposed, but who do not think it equally, nor even in any degree, blasphemous against Almighty God, to teach, that, in another place and period, he became incarnate in the body of an animal of a more excellent nature and superior rank. But, certainly, whatsoever difference there may be in the nature of finite beings, when compared with each other, there is absolutely none at all when we consider them with respect to the infinite and eternal Creator of the universe; and conse

An Answer to the Question, What is Blasphemy?

quently, both the blasphemy of the expression, and the impossibility of the fact, must be exactly the same, whether we affirm the Almighty to be incarnate, by having been made one of the lowest, or one of the highest order of those creatures, which his own power and goodness hath called into existence.

If then it should be found, that the Emperor Constantine, and almost all those who have succeeded him in the possession of either the whole or any part of the civil power of Europe, have abused their temporal anthority to the purpose of propagating, and enforcing upon their subjects, the doctrine of the incarnation of the infinite unchangeable Deity, with all the gross absurdities and impieties that necessarily flow from such a source, shall we not be forced to acknowledge, that they have indeed opened their mouths in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle? Shall we not also both see and admire the singular propriety of the prophetic language, in fixing this charge of blasphemy upon the temporal rulers and not the ecclesiastics, when we consider, that these are of necessity under the dominion of the former; that the impiety or innocence of such a doctrine is a question of common sense, not of theological science; that even if any Scriptures could be procured wherein it was expressly warranted, the doctrine itself would afford much stronger reasons for rejecting such a Scripture, than the best authenticated Scripture could do for admitting so blasphemous a doctrine; and that nothing less than that powerful influence upon the strongest passions of the human mind, which must needs be the effect of the rigid pains and penalties on one hand, and the alluring rewards and emoluments on the other, annexed by the laws of the state to the rejection and admission of this particular tenet, could have induced imankind so far to abandon their own sense of right and wrong, to give up every rational and becoming idea of the eternal Deity, and to submit patiently, nay, to adhere with obstinacy, to so gross and impious a delusion?

But as things were long circumstanced in every state of Christendom, it was, in a very high degree, dangerous for any man to venture to see with his own eyes, and avow the most

VOL. XI.

4 Y

709

obvious dictates of his understanding respecting this first and most important article of theology. For the legis lative power having in consequence of this boldest and most unreasonable petitio principii that ever was heard of, proceeded to assert, that a particular created being, an earthly animal was the one true God and the proper object of Divine worship; if any reflecting conscientious Christian was led to question the truth and piety of that orthodox persuasion, he was immediately, with the most uncharitable and opprobrious language, accused of denying the divinity of the legal and only God; and the bigoted zeal of some, and the malicious rancour of others, recurred eagerly to the inhuman edicts and avenging arm of the civil magistrate to condemn and punish, as a blasphemer, the man who only meant to avoid the guilt of so heinous a sin, and no longer dared to join his voice in uttering blasphemy against the infinite majesty and incommunicable attributes of that awful Being, whom an inspired teacher of Christianity assures us, no man ever hath seen nor

can see.

Having mentioned the impossibility of the Incarnation of God, as well as the blasphemy of such a doctrine, lest I should appear to speak rashly, and to revile long established opinions without sufficient grounds, I beg you to consider, that the Deity is, in his very nature, omnipresent; that his becoming incarnate, in a particular body, evidently implies his being more imme diately present with that body, than with any other: whereas, the very. meaning of omnipresence is, that he is equally present, equally close connected, as far as such a being can properly be said to be connected, with all the bodies in the universe. You will be pleased to recollect, likewise, that God is immutable, another attribute absolutely inconsistent with his Incarnation. To evince this, let us only attend to the commonly received opinion of man, as a being compounded of two natures, the one spiritual, the other carnal. Allowing this idea to be just, and that, at the dissolution of this composition by death, man exists simply in a spíritual state, it is certain that the alteration made by death in the mode of

1 Tim. vi. 16.

710

Dr. Benson on the Sacrifice of Socrates to Esculapius.

his existence, is the greatest change
such a compound being can undergo.
It is evident, therefore, that were a
purely spiritual being, such as the
soul of man is usually presumed to be,
when separated from the body, to be-
come compounded with a carnal na-
ture like our own, he would suffer a
change exactly equivalent to that which
man is said to suffer at his death.
And since the difference between the
nature of God and that of the most
perfect created being, is infinitely
great; to assert that he who has ex-
isted from all eternity in a spiritual,
incorporeal, uncompounded state, hath
at length adopted another mode of
existence, and is become compounded
with the material, animal body, is to
assert, that the only unchangeable
being in the universe hath undergone
a change infinitely greater than any of
his own mutable creatures can un-
dergo.
B.

Dr. Benson on Socrates' Sacrifice of a
Cock.

SIR,

I am, your's, &c.

P.

vaded his bowels, i. e. to say when he found himself upon the point of expiring (and they were the last words) that he spake to Crito: "I owe a cock to Esculapius, which I desire you would pay. Do not neglect it." q. d. "I am just upon the point of being cured of all the disorder and pains attending this mortal frame, and of entering upon a better life, a state of perfect health and happiness; and I desire you would thus publicly signify my belief and persuasion to the whole city of Athens, in that way which they are all acquainted with, and will understand." Thus have I given the most favourable interpretation that I have met with to the last words of that truly great man, whose memory and character I esteem and reverence, though formerly that order from Socrates to his friend, when dying, to offer a cock to Esculapius, used to appear to me ridiculous and desire unbecoming so wise and good a man as Socrates.

SIR,

Newington Green, Nov. 2, 1816. Tended to invite the assistance HE following communication is

N reading Dr. Benson's Life of Christ, in a note, pp. 91, 92, 1 met with the following remarks on the conduct of Socrates just before his of your philological readers in searchdeath, in ordering a cock to be sacri- ing into the meanings and origins of ficed to Esculapius, which, to say our words. Some of them are probathe least, appear to be ingenious and bly in possession of old English and may not be generally known. On Saxon books and manuscripts (or these accounts, I have thought that have access to them) which the wriperhaps they might be worthy of a ter of this has not been able to proplace in your useful Miscellany. cure and if they will occasionally send to the Repository curious or singular passages, accompanied by etymological criticism and comment, I shall deem it a privilege, to contribute a share, in the same manner, to the common stock of philological knowledge. It may perhaps be useful to etymological students, to inform them, that after much search, and being long convinced to the contrary, I am now of opinion, that nearly the whole (if not the whole) of our language may be traced to Rome and Greece. It is of the more importance that this be well considered, because the ingenious though paradoxical doctrines of Horne Tooke respecting a Northern origin, have given modern philologers a false scent. I cannot enter into proof of my opinion in this communication (for the evidence is commensurate with the wide extent of lexicography); but I think it demonstrable by every right

a

SOCRATES, according to Plato in his Phædo, ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Esculapius. Some think that was in ridicule. Others think it was without any regard to Esculapius, whether serious or ridiculous. Perhaps the critics have not done justice to Socrates upon this article. It might possibly then be at Athens well known custom to offer a cock to Esculapius the God of medicine, upon a person's recovering from some threatening indisposition; and consequently to have offered a cock to Esculapius, and to have been restored to health from a dangerous disease, were expressions of the same import, by putting the sign for the thing signified. Plato in the person of Phædo, informs us, that when Soerates had found the poison had in

Mr. Gilchrist on Etymology.