Faith No Fancy, or a Treatise of Mental Images -- Ralph Erskine

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Faith No Fancy, or a Treatise of Mental Images (1745, 1805 ed.) by Ralph Erskine is available online here.

It has also been republished recently (June 2007) and is available for purchase here.

 

[Ivan]

Could you give us an idea as to what is covered in this book, Andrew?

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Could you give us an idea as to what is covered in this book, Andrew?

Sure, it is a response to James Robe, who argued that "our senses and imagination are greatly helpful to bring us to the knowledge of the divine nature." He asked the question: "Can you or any man else think upon Christ really as he is, God-man, without an imaginary idea of it?" Erskine argues that we may not conceive of God according to the mental images and vain philosophies of the mind, but only according to the revelation of himself given to us in the Word. See the Westminster Larger Catechism # 109, which states that the Second Commandment prohibits "the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever."

 

[Ivan]

Interesting. Thank you, Andrew.

 

[Casey]

An entire book on this subject? Wow, sounds like an interesting read!

 

[Ivan]

An entire book on this subject? Wow, sounds like an interesting read!

Andrew gives us many books of great interest. Now I need a third job!

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Interesting. Thank you, Andrew.

An entire book on this subject? Wow, sounds like an interesting read!

This treatise was written in the context of an exchange of letters between James Fisher and James Robe about the merits of the Cambusland Revival. An issue about what it means to "see" Christ arose and some thought that believers were to see him in some sort of literal (ie., mental) sense.

George W. Hervey, The Imagination in Revivals:

Many of the ignorant followers of [George] Whitfield talked of seeing "Christ." Deceived by misunderstanding the word as used in the Fourth Gospel, where seeing means, as often elsewhere, knowing or having an intellectual apprehension, they thought they must have an apparition of Jesus in either a human, transfigured, or glorified form. To expose this and similar delusions Erskine composed a volume entitled, "Faith no Fancy; or, A Treatise of Mental Images."

 

[NaphtaliPress]

John K. La Shell did his dissertation on this controversy with Robe/Edwards and Erskine. He doesn't make as strong a conclusion as one would wish but it is strong enough. I posted some things from an old post to an old forum here.

 

[MW]

The book is also significant because of its defence of common sense realism independent of Reid's philosophical contribution.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Erskine also argues against Cartesian doctrines of his day (p. 31):

The learned De Vries and and Maftricht, and other eminent doctors and divines abroad, contend fo ftrenuoufly againft the Cartefian doctrine; concerning ideas of God, as leading to imagery and idolatry, that, to me, it appears very dangerous to admit of fuch ideas.

Van Mastricht, for his part, was very favorable to the Scottish Presbyterians. Keith L. Sprunger, Dutch Puritanism: A History of English and Scottish Churches of the Netherlands in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, p. 435, as quoted in Adriaan C. Neele, The Art of Living to God: A Study of Method and Piety in the Theoretico-practica theologia of Petrus van Mastricht (1630 - 1706), p. 20:

At Utrecht Voetius, Nethenus, and van Mastricht showed favor to Scottish Presbyterians, and van Mastricht went so far as to praise the discipline of the Church of Scotland as 'the purest that had been since the apostles' days'.