, "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,--ramasse soi,--appuye sur soi,--ne demandant
rien aux dieux,--ne les accusant point,--_ne daignant pas meme les
nier_."--"_Introduction a l'Historie Universelle_."

CHAPTER VII.

THEORY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM.

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.

In the form of Religious Liberalism, it has often been exemplified in
our own country by