These subjects pass before their thoughts from time to time, and have the appearance of reality, as clouds at a distance look like the solid land. The mind yields an indolent acquiescence; and this with many is believed to be faith."* But assaults on the infallibility of consciousness have not been confined to anonymous writers. Dr. Barr, of Port Glasgow, a popular clergyman of the established church of Scotland, who, without understanding the doctrine of the assurance of faith, has chosen recently to pour forth the vials of his wrath upon it, thus contributes his mite likewise towards promoting the reign of universal scepticism. "Is the primary act of believing then of such a nature as decidedly to manifest its own existence, and carry along with it a conviction of its genuineness and reality? To this question I reply in the negative. I deny the possibility, in ordinary cases, of a man's knowing himself to be a believer, by the mere consciousness of believing." Again: "I infer, therefore, from the nature

* Christian Herald for July, 1826. Article on Barclay's Essay on the Assurance of Faith, and Thom's Memorial to the Presbytery of Glasgow.

+ This is "out-Heroding Herod" with a vengeance. Even the Arminians or Remonstrants themselves, much as their views have been decried by the Calvinistic Church of Scotland, never proceeded so far as this gentleman, who professes to be one of its members and to adhere to its doctrines, has done. The Arminians, in the account of their views which they submitted to the Synod of Dordt, allowed, as has been hinted in a preceding note, that a believer may have a present certainty respecting the genuineness of his faith. Their words are: Vere fidelis, uti pro tempore præsenti de fidei et conscientiæ suæ integritate certus esse potest; ita et DE SALUTE SUA, ET SALUTIFERA DEI ERGA IPSUM BENEVOLENTIA, PRO ILLO TEMPORE CERTUS POTEST AC DEBET: et

ESSE

hic Pontificiorum sententiam improbamus. Sentent. Remonstran. de perseverantia. Th. 7.-Act. Synod. Dordrecht. p. 118. These poor Remonstrants

of the Gospel Revelation, that our belief in it must be ascertained by other evidence than the conscious feeling of such a belief. It proposes to us not a mere narration of historical facts, nor a system of abstract and speculative notions, with which the understanding and the judgment are alone concerned. It speaks directly to the conscience and the heart in the proclamation of certain moral truths, relative to the perfections of God, the condition of man, and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, our assent to which necessarily involves the exercise of certain moral principles and feelings, which may exist without our being immediately conscious of them, the reality of which, therefore, cannot be determined, but by their operation and effects."* That Dr. Barr's authority in matters of this kind is deemed respectable, and that his brethren in the ministry are far from regarding with disapprobation the nature of the efforts made by him to promote the good cause of doubts and fears, I gather from the favourable testimony borne to his work by a brace of orthodox Scotch D. D.'s of considerable eminence. By one of them it is styled, Dr. Barr's "admirable sermon on peace in believing,"*

appear to have been most anxious to satisfy their clerical brethren that there was a difference between the views of assurance entertained by them, and "the doubt. some faith" of the Papists. But some of our modern Calvinists, casting aside all such delicacy of feeling, are quite willing and ready openly to concur with the Romish Church, in again erecting that system of doubts and fears which it was the object of Luther and his immortal coadjutors to destroy.

*The Peace of Believing distinguished from Antinomian Assurance. By James Barr, D.D., Minister of Port Glasgow, p. 19, 20, 21, 1829.

+ The Gairloch Heresy tried, &c. By the Rev. Robt. Burns, D.D. F.S.A. Minister of St. George's, Paisley, p. 6, 3d edition, 1830.

and the other hesitates not to assert, that "Dr. Barr, in his sermon on the peace of believing, has in a masterly manner proved, that the Antinomian assurance of salvation is unattainable, unnessary, and injurious."* To the approbation expressed by the two divines alluded to, may be added that of the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, the well-known and talented oracle of the Calvinistic Party of the Church of Scotland, which, in its number for May 1830, asserts, that "the sermon is written with much ability, and is calculated to be extensively useful." What conclusion can I draw from commendations couched in terms so strong and flattering as those just quoted, but that Dr. Barr, in the course pursued by him, has the decided approbation of the leaders of our Spiritual Zion? And if men, otherwise knowing and sensible, and by their education, rank in life, and general talents, exercising a great and commanding influence over the minds of the religious classes of the community, can thus so far forget themselves, as, in their anxiety to carry a favourite point, to attack what the common sense of mankind has hitherto agreed in respecting as sacred, is it not incumbent on those who know better, although even at the risk of

Remarks on certain opinions recently propagated respecting Universal Redemption, &c. By William Hamilton, D.D., Minister of Strathblane, p. vii. 1830.

+ It is true The Instructor has somewhat qualified its approbation of Dr. Barr's sermon, by confessing "that, from certain modes of expression adopted by him, he has given some little ground for the strictures" of one of his antagonists: but this is said without any allusion to his remarks respecting consciousness, which are previously quoted in such a way as to intimate an entire acquiescence in them on the part of the editor.

D

appearing to demonstrate truisms, to expose the sophistry and put down the pretensions of such reckless and desperate combatants? The reader must have been struck at the coolness and effrontery with which the editor of the Christian Herald and Dr. Barr allow themselves to sport opinions, absolutely irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of the philosophy of Locke, Reid, and Stewart. Is presumption like this to pass unnoticed?

A little attention to what follows, will, I hope, satisfy such of my readers as may have been puzzled by the daring nature of the assaults made on the certainty of the evidence of consciousness, that those from whom they have proceeded require, notwithstanding all their arrogance and dogmatism, to be taught what are the first principles of metaphysics, no less than what are the first principles of the oracles of God.

The term consciousness signifies that knowledge of its own sensations, thoughts, and volitions, which the mind of every one possesses. By Mr. Locke it is defined to be "the perception of what passes in a man's own mind."* There are trains or associations of ideas continually presenting themselves to our minds while we are awake, of the existence of which, as they present themselves, we are aware or conscious; and, therefore, when we say that human beings are possessed of consciousness, our meaning simply is, that at the very moment when they are taking place, human beings

Essay concerning the Human Understanding. B. 2, c. 1, s. 19.

have a knowledge of the various operations and revolutions of their own minds.

In the definition just given, it is implied, that consciousness is essential to and must accompany all our mental phenomena. Let the supposition be made that any one sensation may be felt, any one idea entertained, or any one act of memory exerted, to which consciousness is not privy, and does not such a supposition carry on the face of it a gross and palpable contradiction in terms? A sensation-an idea-a recollection existing, and yet the mind unconscious of their existence! Why even the most uneducated perceives that the thing is absurd. To To say, that the mind is affected in any particular way, and that it is conscious of being so affected, the very clown knows to be synonymous modes of expression. Well might the great philosopher, to whose definition of consciousness I have just alluded, when treating of a kindred subject, thus emphatically observe: "I do not say there is no soul in a man because he is not sensible of it in his sleep: but I do say that he cannot think at any time waking or sleeping without being sensible of it. Our being sensible of it is not necessary to any thing but to our thoughts; and to them it is, and to them it will always be necessary, till we can think without being conscious of it.*

Still farther, it must be apparent, that the only proof which we have, or can have, of the present existence of

* Locke on the Human Understanding. B. 2, c. 1, s. 10. Title, Consciousness essential to thinking. In the passage quoted, it will be observed that Mr. Locke employs the word sensible as synonymous with conscious.