language allowed them to see: I
mean the disposition to explain away the articles of the Church on the
pretext of their inconsistency with right reason;--when in fact it was
only an incongruity with a wrong understanding, the faculty which St.
Paul calls [Greek: phronaema sarkos], the rules of which having been all
abstracted from objects of sense, (finite in time and space,) are
logically applicable to objects of the sense alone. This I have
elsewhere called the spirit of Socinianism, which may work in many whose
tenets are anti-Socinian.

Law is--'conclusio per regulam generis singulorum in genere isto
inclusorum'. Now the extremes 'et inclusa' are contradictory terms.
Therefore extreme cases are not capable subjects of law 'a priori', but
must proceed on knowledge of the past, and anticipation of the future,
and the fulfilment of the anticipation is the proof, because the only
possible determination, of the accuracy of the knowledge. In other words
the agents may be condemned or honored according to their intentions,
and the apparent source of their motives; so we honor Brutus, but the
extreme case itself is tried by the event.

[Footnote 1: 'Relliquiae Baxterianae': or Mr. Richard Baxter's Narrative
of the most memorable passages of his life and times. Published from his
manuscript, by Matthew Sylvester.--London, 'folio'. 1699.]

[Footnote 2: See Hooker E. P. V. xviii. 3. Vol. II. p. 80. Keble. Ed.]

[Footnote 3: See Table Talk, p. 162. 2nd edit. Ed.]

[Footnote 4: See the Church and State, p. 73, 3rd edit.--Ed.]

* * * * *

NOTES ON LEIGHTON. [1]

Surely if ever work not in the sacred Canon might suggest a belief of
inspiration,--of something more than human,--this it is. When Mr. Elwyn
made this assertion, I took it as the hyperbole of affection: but now I
subscribe to it seriously, and bless the hour that introduced me to the
knowledge of the evangelical, apostolical Archbishop Leighton.

April 1814.

Next to the inspired Scriptures--yea, and as the vibration of that once
struck hour remaining on the air, stands Leighton's Commentary on the
1st Epistle of St. Peter.

Comment Vol. I. p. 2.

--their redemption and salvation by Christ Jesus; that inheritance of
immortality bought by his blood for them, and the evidence and
stability of their right and title to it.

By the blood of Christ I mean this. I contemplate the Christ,

1;--