and the Epistle to the Ephesians, he gave in each case the authorised English translation in parallel columns with a very close paraphrase; dividing them into sections, each section as well as each separate epistle being prefaced by a short explanatory introduction, and appending copious textual and expository notes. These commentaries are of extreme interest as showing the frame of mind in which Locke set himself to his new undertaking, and in part achieved it, and they are of considerable value as models of the only true way of attempting to understand the thoughts and contents of the Bible; but they do not call for detailed notice here. Locke's criticisms may be superseded; but his excellent example ought surely to furnish an absolute and inviolable rule to all commentators who desire really to understand and explain the venerated writings that they profess to explain and understand, in showing how, without bias of any sort, those writings ought to be regarded as human utterances, partial and incomplete, of the truths committed to them, how so much of them as was manifestly intended only for the guidance and information of special individuals and groups of individuals ought to be distinguished from the portions suited to the guidance and information of all men, and how unreservedly even those portions ought to be submitted to the one final test, not of truth but of trustworthiness, the capacity of human understanding to apprehend them. It was in beautiful harmony with all else in the life of such a devout Christian as Locke that he should employ the best energy of his last years in this work. He found satisfaction in the studies that he had entered upon merely for his own profit, and was ultimately induced to agree to his notes being printed, and to prepare an introduction to them. "Till I took this way," he said, "St. Paul's epistles to me, in the ordinary way of reading and studying them, were very obscure parts of scripture, that left me everywhere at a loss, and I was at a great uncertainty in which of the contrary senses that were to be found in his commentators he was to be taken. Whether what I have done has made it any clearer or more visible now, I must leave others to judge. This I beg leave to say for myself, that, if some very sober, judicious Christians, no strangers to the sacred scriptures, nay, learned divines of the church of England, had not professed that by the perusal of these following papers they understood the epistles much better than they did before, and had not, with repeated instances, pressed me to publish them, I should not have consented they should have gone beyond my own private use, for which they were at first designed, and where they made me not repent my pains." "The same reasons that put me upon what I have in these papers done," he added, "will exempt me from all suspicion of imposing my interpretation on others. The reasons that led me into the meaning which prevailed on my mind are set down with it. As far as they carry light and conviction to any other man's understanding, so far I hope my labour may be of some use to him. Beyond the evidence it carries with it, I advise him not to follow mine or any man's interpretation. We are all men, liable to errors, and infected with them, but have this sure way to preserve ourselves, every one, from danger by them, if, laying aside sloth, carelessness, prejudice, party, and a reverence of men, we betake ourselves in earnest to the study of the way to salvation in those holy writings wherein God has revealed it from heaven and proposed it to the world, seeking our religion where we are sure it is in truth to be found, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.' Though these manuscripts were evidently arranged by Locke himself for the press, and out of his hands before his death, they were not published till after it, and then only at intervals, in six instalments. A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians' appeared-like the others anonymously-in 1705, 'A Paraphrase and Notes on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians' and 'A Paraphrase and Notes on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians' in 1706, 'A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans' and 'A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians' in 1707, and finally, in the same year, An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul's Epistles by consulting St. Paul himself.' All these treatises together occupy only a fourth less space than 'An Essay concerning Human Understanding.' The parliament that had met in February, 1700-1 was suddenly dissolved in the following November, the king being anxious to have duly represented in it the popular favour that had been aroused by the Grand Alliance, which had been signed in September and was soon to issue in the war of the Spanish succession. This was a time of great excitement, and Locke shared some of it. "I have received the prints you sent me," he wrote to Peter King a few days after the opening of the new parliament in December. "I have read the king's speech, which is so gracious and expresses so high concern for the religion, 1 An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul's Epistles by consulting St. Paul himself '(1707). freedom, and interest of his people, that methinks that, besides what the two houses will do or have already done, the city of London and counties of England and all those who have so lately addressed him, cannot do less than with joined hearts and hands return him addresses of thanks for his taking such care of them. Think of this with yourself, and think of it with others who can and ought to think how to save us out of the hands of France, into which we must fall, unless the whole nation exert its utmost vigour, and that speedily. Pray send me the king's speech printed by itself, and without paring off the edges; a list also of the members, if there be yet any one printed complete and perfect."1 Whether King did much more in the house of commons than vote on the right side, which was no small service, does not appear; but all that he did was done. with Locke's encouragement and approval, and he had to be again strongly urged to forego the temptations of the western circuit and devote himself to the interests of his country. "I am more pleased," Locke wrote at the end of February, 1701-2, "with what you did for the public the day of your last letter than for anything you have done for me in my private affairs, though I am very much beholden to you for that too. You will guess by all my letters to you of late how acceptable to me is the news of your not going out of town the beginning of the next week. You see what need there is of every one's presence, and how near things come. Do not at this time lose a week by going to Winchester or Salisbury. You think the crisis is over; but you know the men are indefatigable and always intent on opportunity; and that will make new crises, be but absent and afford occasion. 1 Lord King, p. 256; Locke to King, 3 Jan., 1701-2. I conclude, therefore, that you will stay at least a week longer; and let me tell you it can, it will, it shall be no loss to you." 1 But four days afterwards Locke had to write even more earnestly to his cousin. "I imagine by what you say of the circuit that you have not duly considered the state in which we are now placed. Pray reflect upon it well, and then tell me whether you can think of being a week togegether absent from your trust in parliament, till you see the main point settled, and the kingdom in a posture of defence against the ruin that threatens it. The reason why I pressed you to stay in the town was to give the world a testimony how much you preferred the public to your private interest, and how true you were to any trust you undertook. This is no small character, nor of small advantage to a man coming into the world. Besides, I thought it no good husbandry for a man to get a few fees on circuit and lose Westminster Hall. For, I assure you, Westminster Hall is at stake, and I wonder how any one of the house can sleep till he sees England in a better state of defence, and how he can talk of anything else till that is done." 2 Locke did not of course know, while writing that letter, that King William was dying, but it is somewhat strange that in his later correspondence we find no reference to the mischance that placed Anne on the throne, and enabled the tories to secure the political supremacy for which, all through William's reign, they had been desperately struggling. Though losing none of the patriotism that had led him to take a large and eager share in the antecedents and early incidents of the king's reign there had 1 Lord King, p. 257; Locke to King, 27 Feb., 1701-2. |