N.B. The reasoning in this note, as far as it is in discouragement of a recurrence to general Councils, does not,
me saltem judice
, conclude against the suffering our Convocation to meet. The virtual abrogation of this branch of our constitution I have long regarded as one of three or four Whig patriotisms, that have succeeded in de-anglicizing the mind of England.
Ib.
c. xi. 4. p. 323.
So that nature even in this life doth plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either of these two that have been mentioned.
Whenever I meet with an ambiguous or multivocal word, without its meaning being shown and fixed, I stand on my guard against a sophism. I dislike this term, 'nature,' in this place. If it mean the
light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world
, it is an inapt term; for reason is supernatural. Now that reason in man must have been first actuated by a direct revelation from God, I have myself proved, and do not therefore deny that faith as the means of salvation was first made known by revelation; but that reason is incapable of seeing into the fitness and superiority of these means, or that it is a mystery in any other sense than as all spiritual truths are mysterious, I do deny and deem it both a false and a dangerous doctrine.
15 Sept. 1826.