APPENDIX.

A.

"All these were words in common use, long before the appropriation of them to the Offices of the Church."-Pages 19-20.

If this unquestionable fact were duly considered, it would tend to silence much of the religious controversy by which every age is more or less distracted. It is curious to remark how great a portion of these disputes, even at the present day, are mere logomachies. After much angry and prolix contention, it is found that some principal term had been used in different senses by the contending parties,—a difference often slight and unnoticed, and not in general requiring notice, but in this particular dispute perhaps the very hinge of the whole question.

In order to guard against this waste of time and temper, it has been sometimes proposed as a wise rule, always to define with precision in limine the principal terms of the argument, and in the course of the treatise invariably to use these words in the same meaning. But this suggestion proceeds from an imperfect notion of the nature of language, and a crude idea of the doctrine of definition. In the first place, it would be impossible to find words enough to express our thoughts, if we did not make each of them serve a variety of uses, more or less differing from each other,a variety which in general causes no confusion or mistake,

because the sense in which they are employed is made manifest by the context, or by that interchange of thought which has already taken place between the parties who employ them.

In the next place, this rigid confinement of words to one sense would be perfectly useless, if it were possible. It is only requisite, when after a little discussion we find, or we suspect, that in the same process of reasoning, a word is used in different senses, and that the difference, however slight, really affects the argument. In all such cases, definition, as it is called, or a discrimination of the two senses, is the proper remedy; and in general, among candid reasoners, it terminates the dispute to their mutual satisfaction. In all other cases such nice discriminations are frivolous and pedantic.

To

It is an excellent observation of Aristotle', that to demand a greater degree of accuracy in definition, than the nature of the subject about which we are reasoning admits, is the mark of an undisciplined or ill-instructed mind. this rule however I would add one, which is even more important in candid controversy, viz. not to demand a greater precision in the use of a word than the particular argument in which it is used requires. As far as it is necessary to guard against equivocation, no care is too great, no distinction too refined: we must proceed even to what is called splitting hairs, provided the question is found (as is often the case after an acute investigation) to stand in need of this nicety of distinction. And as soon as this difference of meaning, however slight, is not only made apparent, but is found to have been the cause of difference in our conclusions, the dispute is either ended, or it assumes a new and a clearer form.

1 Nicom. Eth. b. i. c. 3.

I have been led into these reflections, by observing how much there is of logomachy in many of the theological controversies recently maintained in our Church; and how greatly they are prolonged for want of that simple rule concerning definition, to which I have just adverted. This is a rule not introduced, as I believe, into any of the common treatises of logic; but it is worth more than whole pages of technical instruction. It requires candour as well as acuteness to employ it justly. Definition should always be subservient to the argument, not pretend to controul it. It may correct our use of words, it cannot alter or influence the nature of the thing. The thing we are reasoning about is independent of our speech; it is, and ever will be, just the same, whether we argue about it or not. And nothing is more rash in a disputant than to circumscribe beforehand the whole meaning of a word, which is, as the great master of practical rhetoric observes, to put a weapon in the hands of your adversary, or to tie a noose to confine your own limbs in the combat 1.

This advice, which he gives to one who reasons merely for victory, is equally applicable to him who seeks to establish the truth. Let him not think that words are realities. They are instruments only for communicating thought. If he detects a double sense in the use of a word, which affects the conclusion, he has done a service to all honest lovers of truth but if he demands precision where it is unnecessary, or triumphs in exposing a looseness of phrase which no way impairs the argument, he betrays the meanness of his object: he acts the part of a fencing-master instead of a genuine soldier, he submits his judgment to arbitrary sounds, and seeks to subject others to the same thraldom. "Words," says Hobbes, "are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools."

1 Cicero de Oratore, lib. ii. c. 25.

No man is more firmly convinced than myself of the apostolical succession of Bishops and Presbyters in the Church of Christ; and that it is the duty of every member of that Church to conform to this rule, and to submit to their spiritual authority. Yet I do not feel myself justified in saying, that without a Bishop there is no Church-that Presbyterian ordination is not valid—that without priests episcopally ordained, the sacraments cannot be administered, nor the Gospel preached. To decide peremptorily in such matters appears to me presumptuous and unwarrantable. To pronounce that those who depart from this rule are thereby excluded from the Christian covenant, I hold to be not only uncharitable, but impious.

Yet it is our duty to search out the truth to the best of our ability, and to adhere firmly to that which we believe to be true, "to prove all things-to hold fast that which is good." If any man, in a matter of this kind, acts against his better judgment, he is guilty of sin. If from prejudice, or passion, or levity, or personal disgust, or worldly motives any kind, he violates that order which he believes to be established by divine authority, he offends against his own conscience; he disobeys the law of Christ. It is our part to warn, to admonish, to reprove him. Let God be his judge.

of

I know it is a wide-spread and prevailing error, especially in this part of the kingdom, to think that all sects are equally genuine branches of Christ's Church; and that individuals are at liberty to join that communion which they like best. It cannot be too often, or too earnestly inculcated, that this is not matter of inclination, but of sacred duty, that there is such a sin as schism,-that each man is deeply responsible to the Lord for his error, if, trusting to his own judgment, he rejects the counsel of Christ's ministers, still more, if, to gratify his own humour, he offends

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