Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 664

1841.

A New History of China.

647

pure and intelligent without any darkness or obscurity: and where man has always ready, all requisite reasonings to answer to all difficulties that present themselves. But because that at the very moment of our birth, this intelli- gent and rational nature is caged up and enclosed within the prison of the body, and for that our inordinate passions keep it bound and chained, it comes to be obscured and troubled For this reason, it is necessary that men should apply themselves to learning and information by putting of questions, to the end the rational heart may be delivered from its bondage and sla- very, that so it may be able to break the chains and fetters of the passions, and return to its primitive beauty, light, and understanding; in the same manner as a tarnished mirror being polished recovers its former lustre.

I

"The second consists in reforming the people. For example, I who am a king, a magistrate, a father of a family, &c.: if I have already purified my rational nature, it is my duty to extend it to that degree, that she may be able to communicate herself to other men, by causing them to abandon the corruptions and defilements of vice and evil customs, and I ought to deal so by my people, as I do with garments, when they are spotted or besmeared. For if they are well washed and scoured, they become clean and handsome as they were before.

"The third consists in attaining and stopping at the sovereign good., This sovereign good is the sovereign accord of things and of reason. When great men enlighten their intelligent nature, and renew the virtue of the people, they do it not by hap-hazard or without design; but all their end is to bring their virtue to perfection; to the end there might not be one single person among the people whose virtue was not renewed, or who was not renewed by virtue. When they are arrived at a degree so sublime, and to such an extraordinary excellency, they may be assured they have attained the sovereign good; like those who after a long and tiresome journey at length coming to their own homes, may say they have attained the final end of their traveling. These are the three most necessary and principal things in that book, and as it were the mantle or outward garment that covers the clothes, or as the string that holds a row of beads together.

"These are the expressions of the Chinese commentator. Here by the way we may observe, that possibly there can be nothing more proper than these words of Confucius to explain the functions of a minister of the gospel who is obliged in the first place to perfect himself and next his neighbor, to the end we may arrive at the sovereign good, which is God, the su- preme and utmost end of all things, Nevertheless, the Chinese being pagans and carnally minded people, have accommodated these three points to the government of the kingdom, wherein like politicians they place all their happiness and ultimate end. In the second place we are to observe that the ancient Chinese did understand there was a God. And therefore when I oppose their learned men in dispute, I frequently make use of this dilemma. Either Confucius did understand what he defined, or he did not if he did understand what he defined, he knew there was a God, who is no other than that sovereign good of which he speaks, and which you also ought to know