with a devout curiosity to the contemplation of the object of its adoration, and begins to form statements concerning it, before it knows whither, or how far, it will be carried. One proposition necessarily leads to another, and a second to a third; then some limitation is required; and the combination of these opposites occasions some fresh evolutions from the original idea, which indeed can never be said to be entirely exhausted. This process is its development, and results in a series, or rather body, of dogmatic statements, till what was an impression on the Imagination has become a system or creed in the Reason.

"Now such impressions are obviously individual and complete above other theological ideas, because they are the impressions of Objects. Ideas and their developments are commonly not identical, the development being but the carrying out of the idea into its consequences. Thus the doctrine of Penance may be called a development of the doctrine of Baptism, yet still is a distinct doctrine; whereas the developments in the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are mere portions of the original impression, and modes of representing it. As God is one, so the impression which He gives us of Himself is one; it is not a thing of parts; it is not a system; nor is it anything imperfect and needing a counterpart. It is the vision of an object. When we pray, we pray, not to an assemblage of notions or to a creed, but to One Individual Being; and when we speak of Him, we speak of a Person, not of a Law or Manifestation. This being the case, all our attempts to delineate our impression of Him go to bring out one idea, not two, or three, or four; not a philosophy, but an individual idea in its separate aspects.

"This may be fitly compared to the impressions made on us by the senses. Material objects are real, whole, and individual; and the impressions which they make on the mind, by means of the

senses, are of a corresponding nature, complex and manifold in their relations and bearings, but, considered in themselves, integral and one. And, in like manner, the ideas which we are granted of Divine Objects under the Gospel, from the nature of the case and because they are ideas, answer to the originals so far as this, that they are whole, indivisible, substantial, and may be called real, as being images of what is real. Objects which are conveyed to us through the senses stand out in our minds, as I may say, with dimensions and aspects and influences various, and all of these consistent with one another, and many of them beyond our memory or even knowledge, while we contemplate the objects themselves; thus forcing on us a persuasion of their reality from the spontaneous congruity and coincidence of these accompaniments, as if they could not be creations of our minds, but were the images of external and independent beings. This of course will take place in the case of the sacred ideas which are the objects of our faith. Religious men, according to their measure, have an idea or vision of the Blessed Trinity in Unity, of the Son Incarnate, and of His Presence, not as a number of qualities, attributes, and actions, not as the subject of a number of propositions, but as one and individual, and independent of words, like an impression conveyed through the senses.

"Particular propositions, then, which are used to express portions of the great idea vouchsafed to us, can never really be confused with the idea itself, which all such propositions taken together can but reach and cannot exceed. As definitions are not intended to go beyond their subject, but to be adequate to it, so the dogmatic statements of the Divine Nature used in our confessions, however multiplied, cannot say more than is implied in the original idea, considered in its completeness, without the risk of heresy. Creeds and dogmas live in the one idea which they are designed te express, and

which alone is substantive; and are necessary only because the human mind cannot reflect upon it, except piecemeal, cannot use it in its oneness and entireness, or without resolving it into a series of aspects and relations. And, in matter of fact, these expressions are never equivalent to it. We are able, indeed, to define the creations of our minds, for they are what we make them and nothing else; but it were as easy to create what is real as to define it. And thus the Catholic dogmas are, after all, but symbols of a divine fact, which, far from being compassed by those very propositions, would not be exhausted, not fathomed, by a thousand."1

Nothing more need be said on the subject of this Section, except to remark that, in many cases, development is simply used in the sense of exhibition, as in some of the instances above employed. Thus, both Calvinism and Unitarianism may be called developments, that is, exhibitions, of the principle of Private Judgment; though growth is no part of the process. But this distinction will presently come into consideration.

SECTION III.

ON THE CORRUPTION OF AN IDEA.

$1.

Distinctive Tests between Development and
Corruption.

Since the developments of an idea are nothing else than its adequate representation and its fulfilment, in its various aspects, relations, and consequences, and since the causes which stimulate may 1 University Sermons, pp. 330-333.

also distort its growth, as is seen in the corruptions of truth with which the world abounds, rules are required to distinguish legitimate developments from those which are not such.

Here the most ready test is suggested by the • analogy of physical growth, which is such that the parts and proportions of the developed form correspond to those which belong to its rudiments. The adult animal has the same make as it had on its birth; young birds do not grow into fishes; nor does the child degenerate into the brute, wild or domestic, of which he is by inheritance lord. "Imitetur," says Vincentius, "animarum religio rationem corporum, quæ licet annorum processu numeros suos evolvant et explicent, eadem tamen quæ erant remanent."1 Unity in type is certainly - the most obvious characteristic of a faithful development.

Yet this illustration must not be pressed to the extent of denying all variation, nay, considerable alteration of proportion and relation, in the development of the parts or aspects of an idea. Such changes in outward appearance and internal harmony occur in the instance of the animal creation itself. The fledged bird differs from its rudimental form in the egg. The butterfly is the development, but not in any sense the image, of the grub. The whale claims a place among mammalia, though we might fancy that, as in the child's game of catscradle, some strange introsusception had been permitted, to make it so like, yet so contrary, to the animals with which it is itself classed. And, in like manner, beasts of prey were once in paradise, and fed upon grass, they must have presented bodily phenomena very different from the structure of muscles, claws, teeth, and viscera which now fit them for a carnivorous existence. Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, on his death-bed, grasped his own hand

1 Commonit. 29.

if

1.

and said, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again;" yet flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and a glorified body has attributes incompatible with its present condition on earth.

minity

More subtle still are the variations which are consistent or inconsistent with identity in political and religious developments. The Catholic doctrine of o the Holy Trinity has ever been accused by heretics of interfering with that of the Divine Unity out of which it grew, and even believers will at first sight consider that it tends to obscure it. But Petavius says, "I will affirm, what perhaps will surprise the reader, that that distinction of Persons which, in regard to proprietates is in reality most great, is so far from disparaging the Unity and Simplicity of God that this very real distinction especially avails to the doctrine that God is One and most Simple."

"1

Again, Arius asserted that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was not able to comprehend the First, whereas Eunomius's characteristic tenet was that all men could comprehend God as fully as the Son comprehended Him Himself; yet no one can doubt that Eunomianism was a true development, not a corruption of Arianism.

The same individual may run through systems of philosophy or belief, which are in themselves irreconcilable, without inconsistency, since in him they may be nothing more than accidental instruments or expressions of what he is inwardly from first to last. The political doctrines of the modern Tory resemble those of the primitive Whig; yet few will deny that the Whig and Tory characters have each a discriminating type. Calvinism has changed into Unitarianism: yet this is no corruption, even if it be not, strictly speaking, a development; for Harding, in controversy with Jewell, surmised the coming change three centuries since, and it has occurred not in one country, but in many.

1 De Deo. ii. 4, § 8.