It is scarcely necessary to add that the views and sentiments which the Christian doctrine of Providence inspires are widely different from those which must be generated by a belief either in Chance or in Fate, as the supreme arbiter of our destiny. The doctrine which teaches us to look up and to say, with childlike confidence, "Our FATHER which art in heaven," is worth more than all the philosophy in the world! Could we only realize it as a truth, and have habitual recourse to it in all our anxieties and straits, we should feel that, if it be a deeply serious and solemn fact that "the Lord reigneth," it is also, to all his trusting and obedient children, alike cheering and consolatory; and he who can relish the sweetness of our Lord's words when he spake of "the birds of the air" and the "flowers of the field," will see at once that Stoicism is immeasurably inferior, both as a philosophy and a faith, to Christian Theism.[223]
[217] DR. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 75, 82, 106, 151; II. 77, 334. GASSENDI, "Syntagma." DR. J. M. GOODE, "Lucretius," Preface.
[219] Eccles. 9: 11; Luke 10: 31; Deut. 19: 5
[220] DR. CUDWORTH, "Intellectual System," I. 33. American Edition.
[221] DR. JOHN COLLINGES, "On Providence." Dr. Price, "Dissertations." SAMUEL RUTHERFORD, "De Providentia Dei." DR. CHARNOCK, "On Providence."
[222] James 1: 13, 14. See M'LAURIN'S profound discourse on this text.
[223] MICHELET has presented a graphic portrait of a Stoic:--"L'individu sous la forme du Stoicisme,--ramassé soi,--appuyé sur soi,--ne demandant rien aux dieux,--ne les accusant point,--_ne daignant pas même les nier_."--"_Introduction à l'Historie Universelle_."
The Eclectic method of Philosophy, which was first exemplified in the celebrated School of Alexandria, and which has been recently revived under the auspices of M. Cousin in the Schools of Paris, may be regarded, in one of its aspects, as the most legitimate, and, indeed, as the only practicable course of successful intellectual research. If by "eclecticism" we were to understand the habit of culling from every system that portion or fragment of truth which may be contained in it, and of rejecting the error with which it may have been associated or alloyed,--in other words, the art of "sifting the wheat from the chaff," so as to preserve the former, while the latter is dissipated and dispersed,--there could be no valid objection to it which would not equally apply to every method of Inductive Inquiry. But this is not the sense in which "eclecticism" has been adopted and eulogized by the Parisian School. For, not content with affirming that the same system may contain both truth and error, and that it is our duty to separate the one from the other,--which is the only rational "eclecticism,"--M. Cousin maintains that _error itself is only a partial or incomplete truth_; that if it be an evil, it is a necessary evil, and an eventual good, since it is a means, according to a fundamental law of human development, of evolving truth and advancing philosophy; and that thus the grossest errors may exert a salutary influence, insomuch that _Atheism itself may be regarded as providential_.[224] In this form, Eclecticism becomes a huge and heterogeneous system of SYNCRETISM, including all varieties of opinion, whether true or false; and it has a natural and inevitable tendency to issue in a spirit of INDIFFERENCE to the claims of truth, which may assume the form either of Philosophical Skepticism or of Religious Liberalism, according to the taste and temperament of the individual who embraces it.