refer to the very same sound and cautious principles which guide the inductive investigation of the truths of the natural world. What in fact practically is induction, but the process by which we learn from experience; and what is this but the method instilled by nature, by which from our earliest infancy we are continually storing our minds with the knowledge of external objects, and the common elements of information necessary for the daily purposes of our existence?

As the primary object of inductive inquiry into the natural world is to lead us up from facts to laws, of increasing generality and complexity, and from subordinate to more comprehensive principles, so it ends in the assurance of an all-pervading unity of design, which is the physical manifestation of the one Supreme Intelligence; and on which all the conclusions of natural theology are raised.

These great truths are conveyed through the medium of the external phenomena of nature; they are not offered directly to our senses but the investigation of the outward phenomena reduced to inductive laws, and carried upwards to their more hidden principles, leads us on to the conviction of the great universal moral cause whence the whole succession of physical causes take their origin; and thus to the acknowledgment of the existence and perfections of the Deity.a

In all this there is a direct analogy with revelation. In a precisely similar manner the further and higher intimations of revealed truth are addressed to us: not stamped directly on our minds by internal illumination, but elicited by the study of the records, which convey a long series of accounts of the disclosures imparted in former ages, often under widely different circumstances, to highly-gifted individuals, and by them to nations and communities, and lastly by a more universal declaration of higher and more elevating truths addressed to all mankind. But these records, like any others, can only be searched and understood by the ordinary aids of human learning and the free use of our reasoning powers duly employed on the materials submitted to them.

Thus the two great branches of natural and revealed religion demand similar means of investigation, if we would satisfy ourselves as to their full meaning, and realize the instruction they convey. And as they are intimately connected in their evidence, as they are directed to the same great object though to different parts of it, as the truths to which they lead are in fact disclosures ultimately derived from the same eternal Source of all truth, so will analogous

a For some admirable remarks on these points the reader is referred to Dr. Hampden's Bampton Lectures, 2nd ed. Introd. pp. 28-32, and more pointedly still in Archbishop Whately's Essays on Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 144-148.

principles

principles and rules of interpretation be found to apply to both. And though in the one case the knowledge is conveyed through the channel of physical phenomena, and in the other through that of moral and spiritual influences,-in the one case through the visible works of God, in the other through his word,-yet both are addressed to the human understanding, and it is by the same humble and diligent use of the faculties implanted in him that man must proceed to the study of either depository of heavenly truth alike and while the principles which guide such inquiries are the same in either case, so the various hindrances, disqualifications, and sources of error are of precisely the same kind. The very same species of fallacy and illusion, of prejudice and perversion, which must impede the pursuit of inductive inquiry in the natural world, are exactly those which also must distort and hinder the conception of spiritual truth.

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It is to the profound spirit of Bacon that we are indebted for the suggestion of this beautiful comparison between the two books' written by the same divine hand, of Scripture' and 'Creation,' as well as for some most important rules and cautions in studying the former, corresponding with his own original and masterly views of the rules of interpretation in the latter case. Among which, after urging the necessity for unwearied diligence and patience in the research, he adds particularly the caution that we should be careful

'not unskilfully to mix and confound together those wholly distinct doctrines of theology and philosophy, and their sources whence they are respectively derived.'-De Augm. Scient. lib. i. p. 9, ed. 1624. Again, he observes—

'Our Saviour says, "ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God," wherein he proposes to us two books to be studied that we may not fall into error: first, the volume of Scripture which declares the will of God; secondly, the volume of Creation which reveals his power: whereof the last is, as it were, the key to the former, not only opening our intellect to the genuine sense of the Scriptures to be derived from the general laws of reason and rules of speech, but moreover also principally strengthening our faith, that we should enter upon serious meditation on the divine omnipotence, whose marks are most signally engraved in his works.'-Ibid. p. 51.

But besides these and other direct suggestions, the principles of the great founder of the inductive school evidently carry us still further in pursuing the same analogy, to more express maxims and rules for carrying on our inquiries: the same great principles which apply in the case of the inquiry into nature being found even in their details to afford the most valuable aid in the discriminating study of the page of revelation.

And

And not merely is this true of the more general rules and principles of the inductive method, as has been already observed, but it will be found to extend even to the details of the system and more especially to the suggestions which the same author has laid down with such profound knowledge of human nature, for guarding against the various sources of fallacy to which men are peculiarly exposed, under the name of Idola; all of which find their exact counterpart in relation to scriptural inquiries. The same general classes and species of delusions beset men in both cases-those which mislead whether acting from within or from without-the delusions of individual bias, prepossession and weakness; or those of common human prejudice, and infirmity; those originating in the current use of language leading to ordinary verbal fallacies, or those derived from the fetters of artificial and technical systems.

(i.) Bacon's first class of Idola, which delude men from within, are those which he terms Idola Specus,' or sources of error arising from individual peculiarities, prejudices, partialities, idiosyncracies, which nevertheless are made the standard by which external truths are judged. By such a scale, contracted, magnified, or distorted, as the case may be, men are apt to measure all opinions —to view all objects through one medium which invests them with colours not their own--and no where unhappily is this more conspicuous than in the formation of opinions on religion. Each man, in the language of the prophet, sets up his idols in his heart;' and can regard nothing as the truth but what exactly accords with the narrow view he thus adopts.

This is in truth the very source of the bitterness of bigotry and exclusiveness-the exact interpretation of the

of the satirist.

"... Solos credat habendos

Esse deos, quos ipse colit'-Juv. xv. 38.

Such a spirit, moreover, too commonly disguises itself with melancholy facility under the pretext of some assumed principles of reason and argument, until the individual deceives himself into the belief that his personal temper or idiosyncratic bias is really but the legitimate conclusion from some unassailable arguments, or the just inference from an undeniable system of truth.

Thus the multiplied ordinances, dogmas, ceremonies, and observances defended with so much zeal and such volumes of controversy, and clung to with such eagerness, are but the types and manifestations of a timid over-scrupulous disposition and ill-informed mind and weakened understanding, which in seeking support from something extraneous and unconnected with the essential principles of vital religion, tacitly confesses its lurking 'idolatry,' though outwardly maintaining a show of defence in referring to

antiquity

antiquity and authority-Fathers, councils, creeds, and rituals, to which it fancies it is appealing with convincing effect.

On the other hand, to take an opposite example, a narrow, morose, self-conceited disposition, coupled with an ignorant and contracted judgment, is often the real substratum which is covered and disguised, in the eyes of the world, by an assumption of extraordinary sanctity, a peculiar affectation of scriptural phraseology, and an unsparing denunciation of all who do not adopt those peculiarities as heretics and reprobates. And thus the individual often deludes himself into the idea that he is pursuing the purest form of truth in a system of calvinistic or orthodox doctrine, when the real 'idol' is the narrowness and uncharitableness of his own temper. Without alluding to further instances, it will be sufficiently obvious how such individual peculiarities hinder the fair investigation of religious truth; not less in their own direct and naked influence, than in the delusion by which they keep their victims in subserviency to some idle chimera mistaken for the truth.

(ii.) Among instances of Bacon's second class, which he denominates the Idola Tribus,'-those common to mankind, or sources of error seated in the nature and constitution of the human character-none perhaps more universally influences theological inquiry than the prevalent indisposition of the human mind for the search after truth, and indifference to the value of it.

To this source we trace the contented repose in established forms of belief or profession, be they what they may, without a wish, or probably with a strong dread, to attempt any advance, or even to inquire into their validity or truth.

Hence also originate those low views of religion which, however susceptible of defence from the acknowledged adaptations of earlier dispensations to such unavoidable infirmities of human nature, in ages of ignorance and the moral infancy of the world, are altogether alien from the genius of Christianity, and when mixed up with it, tend pre-eminently to debase its sublime purity, and to overlay its spiritual simplicity with systems of error, leading to nothing but a service of superstitious dread instead of that reasonable sacrifice which the Gospel would substitute:-to encourage that religion of darkness and ignorance which, however sincere in its way, it was the very design of Christianity to counteract and supersede; and by its regenerating influences on a benighted and degraded race to lead them gradually to higher and more enlightened aspirations.

Thus we may trace the introductions of the various corruptions and vulgar errors which have in different ages crept into the Christian creed by insensible degrees and flourished exuberantly,― Quippe solo natura subest.'-Virg. Georg. ii. 49.

Hence

Hence the appeal to general consent rather than to individual conviction, and the disposition to refer everything to the decision of the dominant majority: hence the spirit of formalism by punctilious observances, penances, and mortifications, lents and sabbaths, as an easy composition for a worldly life at other times, a scrupulous devotion to ordinances imagined to be acceptable like Saul's offering and Martha's much-serving,-while a spiritual holiness seems to be thought insufficient.

A similar spirit is evinced in the low notions vulgarly entertained of the Divine nature and interpositions of Providence:the common expression that such an event was providential,' as if others were not so; the idea of an angry and vindictive Deity, leading to the belief in temporal judgments and retributive inflictions, especially as applied to what are called national sins, as something distinct from the sins of individuals. These and many like and equally common ideas afford striking instances of that disposition common to human nature for encouraging unworthy conceptions of God and religion, than which few causes are more powerfully efficacious as hindrances to real, earnest, enlightened inquiry after religious truth in its purity and integrity.

(iii.) Other classes of hindrances and delusions arise from without; and foremost among these are the Idola Fori' of Bacon-fallacies arising from the common use of language misapplied, leading to the mistake of disputing about different things under the same name, and verbal sophistries of all kinds. Hence also men are too often led not only to misapply terms, but to mistake words for things; and in no subject are such mistakes more common, or caution more needed, than in theology. Nowhere is it more needful to attend to the old adage, words are the money of fools, but only the counters of wise men.'

To this class belong those numerous errors which arise from taking the figurative expressions of Scripture as expressive of real existencès, by which personifications are often converted into actual beings, and metaphors elevated into mysteries.

Endless other instances are found in assuming at once particular phrases as they would be understood at the present day, without attending to the peculiar sense in which they were used among the Orientals of the apostolic age:-or again, in cases where preconceived notions have stamped a particular meaning on certain isolated Scripture expressions, utterly at variance with their real meaning as collected from the context: as, e. g., 'selfdenial,' in the sense of penance, instead of disowning of ourselves,' or 'mortification,' in the same sense, instead of 'putting to death sin.' To the same head may be referred expressions employed detached from the context, such as 'Hear the church;' Scripture

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