But in another sermon Adam Littleton says that “every man is made of
three Egos, and has three Selfs in him;” and that this “appears in the
reflection of Conscience upon actions of a dubious nature; whilst one
Self accuses, another Self defends, and the third Self passes
judgement upon what hath been so done by the man!” This he adduced as
among various “mean and unworthy comparisons, whereby to show that
though the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity” far exceeds our reason,
there want not natural instances to illustrate it. But he adds most
properly that we should neither “say or think ought of God in this
kind,” without a preface of reverence and asking pardon; “for it is
sufficient for us and most suitable to the mystery, so to conceive, so
to discourse of God, as He himself has been pleased to make Himself
known to us in his Word.”
If all theologians had been as wise, as humble and as devout as Adam
Littleton, from how many heresies and evils might Christendom have
been spared.
In the Doctor's own days the proposition was advanced, and not as a
paradox, that a man might be in several places at the same time.
_Presence corporelle de l'homme en plusieurs lieux prouvée possible
par les principes de la bonne Philosophie_, is the title of a treatise
by the Abbé de Lignac, who having been first a Jesuit, and then an
Oratorian, secularized himself without departing from the principles
in which he had been trained up. The object of his treatise was to
show that there is nothing absurd in the doctrine of
Transubstantiation. He made a distinction between man and his body,
the body being always in a state of change, the man remaining the
while identically the same. But how his argument that because a worm
may be divided and live, the life which animated it while it was
whole, continues a single life when it animates all the parts into
which the body may have separated, proves his proposition, or how his
proposition if proved could prove the hyper-mysterious figment of the
Romish Church to be no figment, but a divine truth capable of
philosophical demonstration, Œdipus himself were he raised from the
dead would be unable to explain.
CHAPTER CCV.
EQUALITY OF THE SEXES,—A POINT ON WHICH IT WAS NOT EASY TO COLLECT THE
DOCTOR'S OPINION.—THE SALIC LAW.—DANIEL ROGERS'S TREATISE OF
MATRIMONIAL HONOUR.—MISS HATFIELD'S LETTERS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE
FEMALE SEX, AND LODOVICO DOMENICHI'S DIALOGUE UPON THE NOBLENESS OF
WOMEN.
Mirths and toys
To cozen time withal: for o' my troth, Sir
I can love,—I think well too,—well enough;
And think as well of women as they are,—
Pretty fantastic things, some more regardful,
And some few worth a service. I'm so honest
I wish 'em all in Heaven and you know how hard, Sir,
'Twill be to get in there with their great farthingals.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
And not much easier now with their great sleeves.
AUTHOR, A.D. 1830.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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