warfare, so low and mean, to the small champions of error; who, unable to meet the arguments of their opponents, malign their characters and impugn their motives. If what they lack in reason, they could only make up in rage, they would undoubtedly carry off the palm of victory, and shout, with success, the song of triumph. But, however loud their shouts or songs of victory, we shall never descend to an imitation of their example. By a writer in the New-Englander, a periodical published under the auspices of Yale College, this charge of a contempt for President Edwards,' is also brought against Professor Bledsoe'. This charge was urged before his Theodicy was published; and is founded on the language used in his Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will; a work which made its appearance some twenty-four or twentyfive years ago. Unable, however, to find any positive, or patent, proof of the charge, the writer in question accuses him of 'a suppressed contempt for the perverse author' of the Inquiry. Now, the passion of contempt is one which we are not apt to feel; and when we do feel it, we are still less apt to suppress it. But if we have ever felt it for President Edwards, we confess it has been so completely suppressed, as to leave not the shadow of a trace of its existence in our own consciousness. Indeed, there are few, if any, names in the world's history, for which we feel a more profound veneration than for that of President Edwards. It was, in fact, precisely for this reason, that we undertook to reply to his arguments in favor of the awful scheme of necessity. What would it have signified to refute such writers as Hartley, or Priestly, or Belsham, or Collins, or Helvetius, or Diderot, while the arguments of the great Edwards' remained untouched? Wishing to try fairly, and in open field, the strength of the cause, we selected, for examination, the great work of the very Prince of Predestinarians. But, as the writer before us attempts to prove his charge, let us see by what means he finds us guilty. The caption to the third section of the Examination is as follows: 'The Inquiry involved in a vicious circle.' Now, the very amusing critic before us underscores the term vicious, and insists that it be trays a suppressed contempt for the author' of the Inquiry. 'Any one can see', says he,' that the word vicious is introduced, and reiterated, in this connection, not because it means any thing to the purpose of the argument, but merely to give some vent to his contempt for the pervese author.' Decidedly rich! We had supposed, that any one at all familiar with works of philosophy, or logic, would read this word, and use it, without being scarcely conscious of its existence. We can, indeed, hardly go amiss, for the innocent use of this very harmless word, in the philosophical writings of England, or France, or America, or Scotland. Thus, for instance, Dugald Stewart says: 'It is wonderful, that it should have escaped the penetration of this most acute thinker (Descartes), that a vicious circle of the same description is involved in every appeal to the intellectual powers, in proof of their own credibility.' Now, did Mr. Stewart, by the use of this technical term vicious, give vent to a suppressed contempt for Descartes? It is well known, as Sir William Hamilton says, that the great admiration of Stewart for Descartes, and the exalted eulogiums which he bestowed on his writings, is what revived the study of them in Great Britain.' We might, if necessary, adduce similar extracts from the writings of Mill, Comte, Cousin, and others, to show that there is no sort of malice or contempt in the use of the term vicious. 6 for Let us, however, explain for the satisfaction of the New-Eng lander, and of all Yale College, that we really intended no sort of contempt for President Edwards, by asserting that his Inquiry is involved in 'a vicious circle'. We did not mean, a moment, to insinuate that the circle was like a vicious horse that bites, or a wild ass' colt that kicks. We merely meant, that the reasoning of the Inquiry, by returning, like a circle, to the point from which it started, was a logical fallacy, and therefore established nothing. We deem it necessary to make this explanation; inasmuch as the technical language, the stereotyped phraseology, of philosophy, does not seem to be perfectly understood in the region of Yale College, or by the enlightened conductors of that valuable quarterly the NewEnglander. 1 Stewart's Works. Vol. VI., p. 113. 6 But the author of the Examination has also said, it seems, that Edwards was necessarily devoted to blindness.' To the perpetration of this phrase, he pleads guilty. The great Edwards was, however, 'necessarily devoted to blindness', not like the writer before us, by the weakness of his powers, but by the cause in which he was enlisted. We did say, and we still say, that every man, no matter how gigantic his powers, who undertakes the advocacy of error, is necessarily devoted to blindness'. His arguments are necessarily unsound; because no man can prove, or establish, that which is false. The critic before us has, however, been careful to suppress a part of the passage from which the above words are extracted. In saying that Edwards was necessarily devoted to blindness,' we have, at the same time, also said, that this was in spite of 'all his gigantic powers.' This part of the language, and much more to the same effect, is carefully suppressed by the writer in question, in order to show that we cherish a suppressed contempt for President Edwards. Is this fair? Is this honest? Is this worthy of a minister of the Gospel? But if little men will resort We have done with such reviewers. Only give us such adversaries as President Edwards, or the late Archbishop Kenrick, and not one word of disrespect, much less of contempt, shall ever escape our lips, or our pens. to such tricks of controversy, they must take the consequences. If they will deal in personalities, and accuse us of atheism, we will, at least, show our faith in God, by the use of pure means, and of pure means only, in the advocacy and the vindication of His cause. We have said, that Edwards was 'necessarily devoted to blindness', not by the weakness of his powers, but by the omnipotency of his method'. This idea was derived from Bacon, who says, that 'the ground of our hope', for the progress and advancement of knowledge, is to be found, not in the world's possession of better minds, but in the practice of better methods. We have said, and we still say, that he who, like Edwards, begins with universal maxims, or trueisms, and reasons downward from these to the facts of the actual world around us, is, just in so far as he does so, 'necessarily devoted to blindness'; and that, too, in spite of all the gigantic powers' of his mind. It is no disparagement to the greatness of his mind to say, that he has been misled by the same method which, (as has been so often shown since the time of Bacon,) had cripplied the efforts, and obscured the glory, of a Leibnitz, a Descartes, and a Plato. This method of discovery and proof', says Bacon, 'by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of science. This method is, as we have shown both in the Examination and in the Theodicy, the parent of the great errors of Edwards, and the calamity of his metaphysical theology. It was the parent of his great errors, as well as those of Leibnitz, and Descartes, and Spinoza, and Plato; errors which we have ventured to attack, not merely in their branches, but in their roots in the false method so eloquently condemned, and so clearly exploded, by the Master of Wisdom.' No error in science, or philosophy, or religion, can be sup ported by sound argument. However plausible the argument in favor of such error, or however great the genius expended in its construction, the day of judgment will, sooner or later, find it out, and expose its naked deformity to the eyes of men. When President Edwards, (and no man ever had greater power to do so,) deals out the day of doom to the false arguments of his great adversaries, the whole Calvinistic universe are in ecstacies. They never cease to laugh at the monstrous sophism, till then deemed so grand and imposing, and to raise the shout of victory over the triumphs of his remorseless logic.' But only do the same thing for his false arguments; only strip them of all their plausible disguises; only analyze them and expose them to the eyes of mankind in their own inherent nakedness;only do this, and show that, like all the great sophisms of all the great men of history, they are utterly contemptible; and then the Calvinistic universe are not in ecstacies. On the contrary, they cry shame on the achievement, and, scouting it from their presence as a contempt for the great President Edwards' himself, they denounce, as presumptuous, the obscure individual who has dared to touch, or call in question, the arguments of so great, so good, and so venerable a personage. We all have our idols. But, after all, we love not President Edwards, or his followers, the less; we only love Truth the more. By his followers, however, we here mean, not those who merely hold his doctrines, but those who, like himself, maintain them with pure intentions and clean hands; scorning the pitiful tricks of controversy. THE BEAUTY OF THE UNIVERSE A POEM. What time this World's Great Workmaister All things are for the sake of the Good, and the Good is the cause of all things beautiful. Plato. CANTO I. THE ARGUMENT. Amid the discords of earth, a voice is heard, in the dim distance, singing the order, harmony, and beauty of the UniverseRavished with its sweetness, Philo resolves to seek the face of the Singer-Darkness falls upon his path-Three shining Forms tempt him to abandon the pursuit-Philo is too deeply smitten with the voice of the Singer to heed the three shining FormsPleasures, Riches, Honors, are things of time-Truth alone is eternal, and sings in every living soul that longs to hear-Philo, continuing the pursuit, is assailed by the monster Doubt-The vale of Doubt described-Inspired by the voice of the Singer, Philo leaves the monster Doubt, as he had left the shining |