Yea, verily, Amen and Amen! For this short heroic paragraph contains the
sum and substance, the heighth and the depth of all true philosophy.
Most assuredly right difficult it is for us, while we are yet in the
narrow chamber of death, with our faces to the dusky falsifying
looking-glass that covers the scant end-side of the blind passage from
floor to ceiling,--right difficult for us, so wedged between its walls
that we cannot turn round, nor have other escape possible but by walking
backward, to understand that all we behold or have any memory of having
ever beholden, yea, our very selves as seen by us, are but shadows, and
when the forms that we loved vanish, impossible not to feel as if they
were real.
Ib. p. 197.
Nothing that is good proceedeth out of the works of the law, except
grace be present; for what we are forced to do, the same goeth not
from the heart, neither is acceptable.
A law supposes a law-giver, and implies an actuator and executor, and
consequently rewards and punishments publicly announced, and distinctly
assigned to the deeds enjoined or forbidden; and correlatively in the
subjects of the law, there are supposed, first, assurance of the being,
the power, the veracity and seeingness of the law-giver, in whom I here
comprise the legislative, judicial and executive functions; and
secondly, self-interest, desire, hope and fear. Now from this view, it
is evident that the deeds or works of the Law are themselves null and
dead, deriving their whole significance from their attachment or
alligation to the rewards and punishments, even as this diversely shaped
and ink colored paper has its value wholly from the words or meanings,
which have been arbitrarily connected therewith; or as a ladder, or
flight of stairs, of a provision-loft, or treasury.
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