PRACTICAL HINTS TO VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF PERSONS.
Thus have we endeavoured to trace
the chief defects of the religious system of the bulk
of professed Christians in this country. We have
pointed out their low idea of the importance of Christianity
in general; their inadequate conceptions of all its
leading doctrines, and the effect hereby naturally
produced in relaxing the strictness of its practical
system; more than all, we have remarked their grand
fundamental misconception of its genius and essential
nature. Let not therefore the difference between
them and true believers be considered as a minute
difference; as a question of forms or opinions.
The question is of the very substance of Religion;
the difference is of the most serious and momentous
amount. We must speak out. Their Christianity
is not Christianity. It wants the radical principle.
It is mainly defective in all the grand constituents.
Let them no longer then be deceived by names in a
matter of infinite importance: but with humble
prayer to the Source of all wisdom, that he would enlighten
their understandings, and clear their hearts from
prejudice; let them seriously examine by the Scripture
standard their real belief and allowed practice, and
they will become sensible of the shallowness of their
scanty system.
If through the blessing of Providence
on any thing which may have been here written, there
should be any whom it has disposed to this important
duty of self-inquiry; let me previously warn them to
be well aware of our natural proneness to think too
favourably of ourselves. Selfishness is one of
the principal fruits of the corruption of human nature;
and it is obvious that selfishness disposes us to
over-rate our good qualities, and to overlook or extenuate
our defects. The corruption of human nature therefore
being admitted, it follows undeniably, that in all
our reckonings, if we would form a just estimate of
our character, we must make an allowance for the effects
of selfishness. It is also another effect of
the corruption of human nature, to cloud our moral
sight, and blunt our moral sensibility. Something
must therefore be allowed for this effect likewise.
Doubtless, the perfect purity of the Supreme Being
makes him see in us stains, far more in number and
deeper in dye; than we ourselves can discover.
Nor should another awful consideration be forgotten.
When we look into ourselves, those sins only, into
which we have lately fallen, are commonly apt to excite
any lively impression. Many individual acts of
vice, or a continued course of vicious or dissipated
conduct, which, when recent, may have smitten us with
deep remorse, after a few months or years leave but
very faint traces in our recollection; at least, those
acts alone continue to strike us strongly, which were
of very extraordinary magnitude. But the strong
impressions which they at first excited, not the faded
images which they subsequently present to us, furnish
the true measure of their guilt: and to the pure
eyes of God, this guilt must always have appeared far
greater than to us. Now to the Supreme Being we
must believe that there is no past or future; as whatever
will be, so whatever has been, is retained
by him in present and unvarying contemplation, continuing
always to appear just the same as at the first moment
of its happening. Well may it then humble us
in the sight of that Being “who is of purer
eyes than to behold iniquity;” to call to mind
that, unless our offences have been blotted out by
our obtaining an interest in the satisfaction of Christ,
through true repentance and lively faith, we appear
before him clothed with the sins of our whole lives,
in all their original depth of colouring, and with
all the aggravations which we no longer particularly
remember, but which, in general, we, perhaps, may recollect
to have once filled us with shame and confusion of
face. The writer is the rather desirous of enforcing
this reflection; because he can truly declare, that
he has found no consideration so efficacious in producing
in his own mind the deepest self-abasement.
In treating of the sources of the
erroneous estimates which we form of our religious
and moral character, it may not, perhaps, be without
its uses to take this occasion of pointing out some
other common springs of self-deception. Many
persons, as was formerly hinted, are misled by the
favourable opinions entertained of them by others;
many, it is to be feared, mistake a hot zeal for orthodoxy,
for a cordial acceptance of the great truths of the
Gospel; and almost all of us, at one time or other,
are more or less misled by confounding the suggestions
of the understanding with the impulses of the will,
the assent which our judgment gives to religious and
moral truths, with a hearty belief and approbation
of them.
There is another frequent source of
self-deception, which is productive of so much mischief
in life, that, though it may appear to lead to some
degree of repetition, it would be highly improper to
omit the mention of it in this place. That we
may be the better understood, it may be proper to
premise, that certain particular vices, and likewise
that certain particular good and amiable qualities,
seem naturally to belong to certain particular periods
and conditions of life. Now, if we would reason
fairly in estimating our moral character, we ought
to examine ourselves with reference to that particular
“sin which does most easily beset us,”
not to some other sin to which we are not nearly so
much liable. And in like manner, on the other
hand, we ought not to account it matter of much self-complacency,
if we find in ourselves that good and amiable quality
which naturally belongs to our period or condition;
but rather look for some less ambiguous sign of a real
internal principle of virtue. But we are very
apt to reverse these rules of judging: we are
very apt, on the one hand, both in ourselves and in
others, to excuse “the besetting sin,”
taking and giving credit for being exempt from others,
to which we or they are less liable; and on the other
hand, to value ourselves extremely on our possession
of the good or amiable quality which naturally belongs
to us, and to require no more satisfactory evidence
of the sufficiency at least of our moral character.
The bad effects of this partiality are aggravated by
the practice, to which we are sadly prone, of being
contented, when we take a hasty view of ourselves,
with negative evidences of our state; thinking it
very well if we are not shocked by some great actual
transgression, instead of looking for the positive
signs of a true Christian, as laid down in the holy
Scripture.
But the source of self-deception,
which it is more particularly our present object to
point out, is a disposition to consider as a conquest
of any particular vice, our merely forsaking it on
our quitting the period or condition of life to which
that vice belongs; when perhaps also we substitute
for it the vice of the new period or condition on
which we are entering. We thus mistake our merely
outgrowing our vices, or our relinquishing them from
some change in our worldly circumstances, for a thorough,
or at least for a sufficient, reformation.
But this topic deserves to be viewed
a little more closely. Young people may, without
much offence, be inconsiderate and dissipated; the
youth of one sex may indulge occasionally in licentious
excesses; those of the other may be supremely given
up to vanity and pleasure: yet, provided that
they are sweet tempered, and open, and not disobedient
to their parents or other superiors, the former are
deemed good hearted young men, the latter,
innocent young women. Those who love them
best have no solicitude about their spiritual interests:
and it would be deemed strangely strict in themselves,
or in others, to doubt of their becoming more religious
as they advance in life; to speak of them as being
actually under the divine displeasure; or, if their
lives should be in danger, to entertain any apprehensions
concerning their future destiny.
They grow older, and marry. The
same licentiousness, which was formerly considered
in young men as a venial frailty, is now no longer
regarded in the husband and the father as compatible
with the character of a decently religious man.
The language is of this sort; “they have sown
their wild oats, they must now reform, and be regular.”
Nor perhaps is the same manifest predominance of vanity
and dissipation deemed innocent in the matron:
but if they are kind respectively in their conjugal
and parental relations, and are tolerably regular
and decent, they pass for mighty good sort of people;
and it would be altogether unnecessary scrupulosity
in them to doubt of their coming up to the requisitions
of the divine law, as far as in the present state
of the world can be expected from human frailty.
Their hearts, however, are perhaps no more than before
supremely set on the great work of their salvation,
but are chiefly bent on increasing their fortunes,
or raising their families. Meanwhile they congratulate
themselves on their having amended from vices, which
they are no longer strongly tempted to commit, or their
abstaining from which ought not to be too confidently
assumed as a test of the strength of the religious
principle, since the commission of them would prejudice
their characters, and perhaps injure their fortune
in life.
Old age has at length made its advances.
Now, if ever, we might expect that it would be deemed
high time to make eternal things the main object
of attention. No such thing! There is still
an appropriate good quality, the presence of which
calms the disquietude, and satisfies the requisitions
both of themselves and of those around them. It
is now required of them that they should be good natured
and cheerful, indulgent to the frailties and follies
of the young; remembering, that when young themselves
they gave into the same practices. How opposite
this to that dread of sin, which is the sure characteristic
of the true Christian; which causes him to look back
upon the vices of his own youthful days with shame
and sorrow; and which, instead of conceding to young
people to be wild and thoughtless, as a privilege belonging
to their age and circumstances, prompts him to warn
them against what had proved to himself matter of
such bitter retrospection! Thus, throughout the
whole of life, some means or other are devised for
stifling the voice of conscience. “We cry
peace while there is no peace;” and both to
ourselves and others that complacency is furnished,
which ought only to proceed from a consciousness of
being reconciled to God, and a humble hope of our
possessing his favour.
I know that these sentiments will
be termed uncharitable; but I must not be deterred
by such an imputation. It is time to have done
with that senseless cant of charity, which insults
the understandings, and trifles with the feelings,
of those who are really concerned for the happiness
of their fellow-creatures. What matter of keen
remorse and of bitter self-reproaches are they storing
up for their future torment, who are themselves its
miserable dupes; or who, being charged with the office
of watching over the eternal interests of their children
or relations, suffer themselves to be lulled asleep,
or beguiled by such shallow reasonings into sparing
themselves the momentary pain of executing their important
duty! Charity, indeed, is partial to the object
of her regard; and where actions are of a doubtful
quality, this partiality disposes her to refer them
to a good, rather than to a bad, motive. She is
apt also somewhat to exaggerate merits, and to see
amiable qualities in a light more favourable than
that which strictly belongs to them. But true
charity is wakeful, fervent, full of solicitude, full
of good offices, not so easily satisfied, not so ready
to believe that every thing is going on well as a
matter of course; but jealous of mischief, apt to
suspect danger, and prompt to extend relief. These
are the symptoms by which genuine regard will manifest
itself in a wife or a mother, in the case of the bodily
health of the object of her affections. And where
there is any real concern for the spiritual
interests of others, it is characterized by the same
infallible marks. That wretched quality, by which
the sacred name of charity is now so generally and
so falsely usurped, is no other than indifference;
which, against the plainest evidence, or at least
where there is strong ground of apprehension, is easily
contented to believe that all goes well, because it
has no anxieties to allay, no fears to repress.
It undergoes no alternation of passions; it is not
at one time flushed with hope, nor at another chilled
by disappointment.
To a considerate and feeling mind,
there is something deeply afflicting, in seeing the
engaging cheerfulness and cloudless gaiety incident
to youth, welcomed as a sufficient indication of internal
purity by the delighted parents; who, knowing the
deceitfulness of these flattering appearances, should
eagerly avail themselves of this period, when once
wasted never to be regained, of good humoured acquiescence
and dutiful docility: a period when the soft
and ductile temper of the mind renders it more easily
susceptible of the impressions we desire; and when,
therefore, habits should be formed, which may assist
our natural weakness to resist the temptations to
which we shall be exposed in the commerce of maturer
life. This is more especially affecting in the
female sex, because that sex seems, by the very constitution
of its nature, to be more favourably disposed than
ours to the feelings and offices of Religion; being
thus fitted by the bounty of Providence, the better
to execute the important task which devolves on it,
of the education of our earliest youth. Doubtless,
this more favourable disposition to Religion in the
female sex, was graciously designed also to make women
doubly valuable in the wedded state: and it seems
to afford to the married man the means of rendering
an active share in the business of life more compatible,
than it would otherwise be, with the liveliest devotional
feelings; that when the husband should return to his
family, worn and harassed by worldly cares or professional
labours, the wife, habitually preserving a warmer
and more unimpaired spirit of devotion, than is perhaps
consistent with being immersed in the bustle of life,
might revive his languid piety; and that the religious
impressions of both might derive new force and tenderness
from the animating sympathies of conjugal affection.
Can a more pleasing image be presented to a considerate
mind, than that of a couple, happy in each other and
in the pledges of their mutual love, uniting in an
act of grateful adoration to the author of all their
mercies; recommending each other, and the objects
of their common care, to the divine protection; and
repressing the solicitude of conjugal and parental
tenderness by a confiding hope, that, through all
the changes of this uncertain life, the Disposer of
all things will assuredly cause all to work together
for the good of them that love and put their trust
in him; and that, after this uncertain state shall
have passed away, they shall be admitted to a joint
participation of never ending happiness. It is
surely no mean or ignoble office which we would allot
to the female sex, when we would thus commit to them
the charge of maintaining in lively exercise whatever
emotions most dignify and adorn human nature; when
we would make them as it were the medium of our intercourse
with the heavenly world, the faithful repositories
of the religious principle, for the benefit both of
the present and of the rising generation. Must
it not then excite our grief and indignation, when
we behold mothers, forgetful at once of their own
peculiar duties, and of the high office which Providence
designed their daughters to fulfil; exciting, instead
of endeavoring to moderate in them, the natural sanguineness
and inconsiderateness of youth; hurrying them night
after night to the resorts of dissipation; thus teaching
them to despise the common comforts of the
family circle; and, instead of striving to raise their
views, and to direct their affections to their true
object, acting as if with the express design studiously
to extinguish every spark of a devotional spirit,
and to kindle in its stead an excessive love of pleasure,
and, perhaps, a principle of extravagant vanity, and
ardent emulation!
Innocent young women! Good
hearted young men! Wherein does this goodness
of heart and this innocence appear?
Remember that we are fallen creatures, born in sin,
and naturally depraved. Christianity recognises
no innocence or goodness of heart, but
in the remission of sin, and in the effects of the
operation of divine grace. Do we find in these
young persons the characters, which the holy Scriptures
lay down as the only satisfactory evidences of a safe
state? Do we not on the other hand discover the
specified marks of a state of alienation from God?
Can the blindest partiality persuade itself that they
are loving, or striving “to love God with all
their hearts, and minds, and souls, and strength?”
Are they “seeking first the kingdom of
God, and his righteousness?” Are they
“working out their salvation with fear and trembling?”
Are they “clothed with humility?”
Are they not, on the contrary, supremely given
up to self-indulgence? Are they not at
least “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of
God?” Are the offices of Religion their
solace or their task? Do they not
come to these sacred services with reluctance, continue
in them by constraint, and quit them with gladness?
And of how many of these persons may it not
be affirmed in the spirit of the prophet’s language:
“The harp, and the viol, the tabret and pipe,
and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard
not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation
of his hands?” Are not the youth of one sex
often actually committing, and still more often wishing
for the opportunity to commit, those sins of which
the Scripture says expressly, “that they which
do such things shall not inherit the kingdom
of God?” Are not the youth of the other mainly
intent on the gratification of vanity; and looking
for their chief happiness to the resorts of gaiety
and fashion, to all the multiplied pleasures which
public places, or the still higher gratifications
of more refined circles, can supply?
And then, when the first ébullitions
of youthful warmth are over, what is their boasted
reformation? They may be decent, sober, useful,
respectable, as members of the community, or amiable
in the relations of domestic life. But is this
the change of which the Scripture speaks? Hear
the expressions which it uses, and judge for yourselves “Except
a man be born again, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God.” “The old
man is corrupt according to the deceitful
lusts;” an expression but too descriptive of
the vain delirium of youthful dissipation, and of
the false dreams of pleasure which it inspires; but
“the new man” is awakened from
this fallacious estimate of happiness; “he
is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that
created him” “He is created
after God in righteousness and true holiness.”
The persons of whom we are speaking are no longer,
indeed, so thoughtless, and wild, and dissipated,
as formerly; so negligent in their attention to objects
of real value; so eager in the pursuit of pleasure;
so prone to yield to the impulse of appetite.
But this is no more than the change of which a writer
of no very strict cast speaks, as naturally belonging
to their riper age:
Conversis studiis, aetas animusque
virilis
Quaerit opus, & amicitias: inservit honori:
Commisisse cavet, quod mox mutare
laboret.
HOR.
This is a point of infinite importance:
let it not be thought tedious to spend even yet a
few more moments in the discussion of it. Put
the question to another issue, and try it, by appealing
to the principle of life being a state of probation;
(a proposition, indeed, true in a certain sense, though
not exactly in that which is sometimes assigned to
it,) and you will still be led to no very different
conclusion. Probation implies resisting, in obedience
to the dictates of Religion, appetites which we are
naturally prompted to gratify. Young people are
not tempted to be churlish, interested, covetous; but
to be inconsiderate and dissipated, “lovers
of pleasure more than lovers of God.” People
again in middle age are not so strongly tempted to
be thoughtless, and idle, and licentious. From
excesses of this sort they are sufficiently withheld,
particularly when happily settled in domestic life,
by a regard to their characters, by the restraints
of family connections, and by a sense of what is due
to the decencies of the married state. Their
probation is of another sort; they are tempted
to be supremely engrossed by worldly cares, by family
interests, by professional objects, by the pursuit
of wealth or of ambition. Thus occupied, they
are tempted to “mind earthly rather than heavenly
things,” forgetting “the one thing needful;”
to “set their affections” on temporal
rather than eternal concerns, and to take up with “a
form of godliness,” instead of seeking to experience
the power thereof: the foundations of this nominal
Religion being laid, as was formerly explained more
at large, in the forgetfulness, if not in the ignorance,
of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. These
are the ready-made Christians formerly spoken
of, who consider Christianity as a geographical term,
properly applicable to all those who have been born
and educated in a country wherein Christianity is professed;
not as indicating a renewed nature, as expressive
of a peculiar character, with its appropriate desires
and aversions, and hopes, and fears, and joys, and
sorrows. To people of this description, the solemn
admonition of Christ is addressed; “I know thy
works; that thou hast a name that thou livest, and
art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things
which remain that are ready to die; for I have not
found thy works perfect before God.”
If there be any who is inclined to
listen to this solemn warning, who is awakened from
his dream of false security, and is disposed to be
not only almost but altogether a Christian O!
let him not stifle or dissipate these beginnings of
seriousness, but sedulously cherish them as the “workings
of the Divine Spirit,” which would draw him from
the “broad” and crowded “road of
destruction into the narrow” and thinly peopled
path “that leadeth to life.” Let him
retire from the multitude Let him enter
into his closet, and on his bended knees implore,
for Christ’s sake and in reliance on his mediation,
that God would “take away from him the heart
of stone, and give him a heart of flesh;” that
the Father of light would open his eyes to his true
condition, and clear his heart from the clouds of prejudice,
and dissipate the deceitful medium of self-love.
Then let him carefully examine his past life, and
his present course of conduct, comparing himself with
God’s word: and considering how any one
might reasonably have been expected to conduct himself,
to whom the Holy Scriptures had been always open,
and who had been used to acknowledge them to be the
revelation of the will of his Creator, and Governor,
and Supreme Benefactor; let him there peruse the awful
denunciations against impenitent sinners; let him
labour to become more and more deeply impressed with
a sense of his own radical blindness and corruption;
above all, let him steadily contemplate, in all its
bearings and connections, that stupendous truth, the
incarnation and crucifixion of the only begotten Son
of God, and the message of mercy proclaimed from the
cross to repenting sinners. “Be
ye reconciled unto God.” “Believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
When he fairly estimates the guilt
of sin by the costly satisfaction which was required
to atone for it, and the worth of his soul by the
price which was paid for its redemption, and contrasts
both of these with his own sottish inconsiderateness;
when he reflects on the amazing love and pity of Christ,
and on the cold and formal acknowledgments with which
he has hitherto returned this infinite obligation,
making light of the precious blood of the Son of God,
and trifling with the gracious invitations of his
Redeemer: surely, if he be not lost to sensibility,
mixed emotions of guilt, and fear, and shame, and remorse,
and sorrow, will nearly overwhelm his soul; he will
smite upon his breast, and cry out in the language
of the publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
But, blessed be God, such an one needs not despair it
is to persons in this very situation, and with these
very feelings, that the offers of the Gospel are held
forth, and its promises assured; “to the weary
and heavy laden” under the burden of their sins;
to them who thirst for the water of life; to them
who feel themselves “tied and bound by the chain
of their sins;” who abhor their captivity, and
long earnestly for deliverance. Happy, happy
souls! which the grace of God has visited, “has
brought out of darkness into his marvellous light,”
and “from the power of Satan unto God.”
Cast yourselves then on his undeserved mercy; he is
full of love, and will not spurn you: surrender
yourselves into his hands, and solemnly resolve, through
his Grace, to dedicate henceforth all your faculties
and powers to his service.
It is your’s now “to work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling,”
relying on the fidelity of him who has promised to
“work in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure.” Ever look to him for help:
your only safety consists in a deep and abiding sense
of your own weakness, and in a firm reliance on his
strength. If you “give all diligence,”
his power is armed for your protection, his truth is
pledged for your security. You are enlisted under
the banner of Christ Fear not, though the
world, and the flesh, and the devil are set in array
against you. “Faithful is he that
hath promised;” “be ye also
faithful unto death, and he will give you a crown
of life.” “He that endureth
to the end, the same shall be saved.” In
such a world as this, in such a state of society as
ours, especially if in the higher walks of life, you
must be prepared to meet with many difficulties: arm
yourselves, therefore, in the first place, with a
determined resolution not to rate human estimation
beyond its true value; not to dread the charge of
particularity, when it shall be necessary to incur
it; but as was before recommended, let it be your
constant endeavour to retain before your mental eye,
that bright assemblage of invisible spectators, who
are the witnesses of your daily conduct, and “to
seek that honour which cometh from God.”
You cannot advance a single step, till you are in some
good measure possessed of this comparative indifference
to the favour of men. We have before explained
ourselves too clearly to render it necessary to declare,
that no one should needlessly affect singularity:
but to aim at incompatible advantages, to seek to
please God and the world, where their commands are
really at variance, is the way to be neither respectable,
nor good, nor happy. Continue to be ever aware
of your own radical corruption and habitual weakness.
Indeed, if your eyes be really opened, and your heart
truly softened, “hungering and thirsting after
righteousness,” rising in your ideas of true
holiness, and proving the genuineness of your hope
by desiring “to purify yourself even as God is
pure;” you will become daily more and more sensible
of your own defeats, and wants, and weaknesses; and
more and more impressed by a sense of the mercy and
long suffering of that gracious Saviour, “who
forgiveth all your sin, and healeth all your infirmities.”
This is the solution of what to a
man of the world might seem a strange paradox, that
in proportion as the Christian grows in grace, he grows
also in humility. Humility is indeed the vital
principle of Christianity; that principle by which
from first to last she lives and thrives, and in proportion
to the growth or decline of which she must decay or
flourish. This first disposes the sinner in
deep self-abasement to accept the others of the Gospel;
this, during his whole progress, is the very
ground and basis of his feelings and conduct, both
in relation to God, his fellow creatures, and himself;
and when at length he shall be translated into the
realms of glory, this principle shall still
subsist in undiminished force: He shall “fall
down; and cast his crown before the Lamb; and ascribe
blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, to him
that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for
ever and ever.” The practical benefits
of this habitual lowliness of spirit are too numerous,
and at the same time too obvious; to require enumeration.
It will lead you to dread the beginnings, and fly
from the occasions of sin; as that man would shun
some infectious distemper, who should know that he
was pre-disposed to take the contagion. It will
prevent a thousand difficulties, and decide a thousand
questions, concerning worldly compliances; by which
those persons are apt to be embarrassed, who are not
duly sensible of their own exceeding frailty, whose
views of the Christian character are not sufficiently
elevated, and who are not enough possessed with a continual
fear of “grieving the Holy Spirit of God,”
and of thus provoking him to withdraw his gracious
influence. But if you are really such as we have
been describing, you need not be urged to set the standard
of practice high, and to strive after universal holiness.
It is the desire of your hearts to act in all things
with a single eye to the favour of God, and thus the
most ordinary actions of life are raised into offices
of Religion. This is the purifying, the transmuting
principle, which realizes the fabled touch, which
changes all to gold. But it belongs to this desire
of pleasing God, that we should be continually solicitous
to discover the path of duty; that we should not indolently
wait, satisfied with not refusing occasions of glorifying
God, when they are forced upon us; but that we should
pray to God for wisdom and spiritual understanding,
that we may be, acute in discerning opportunities of
serving him in the world, and judicious in selecting
and wise in improving them. Guard indeed against
the distraction of worldly cares; and cultivate heavenly
mindedness, and a spirit of continual prayer, and
neglect not to watch incessantly over the workings
of your deceitful heart: but be active also,
and useful. Let not your precious time be wasted
“in shapeless idleness;” an admonition
which, in our days, is rendered but too necessary
by the relaxed habits of persons even of real piety:
but wisely husband and improve this fleeting treasure.
Never be satisfied with your present attainments;
but “forgetting the things which are behind,”
labour still to “press forward” with undiminished
energy, and to run the race that is set before you
without flagging in your course.
Above all, measure your progress by
your improvement in love to God and man. “God
is Love.” This is the sacred principle,
which warms and enlightens the heavenly world, that
blessed feat of God’s visible presence.
There it shines with unclouded radiance. Some
scattered beams of it are graciously lent to us on
earth, or we had been benighted and left in darkness
and misery; but a larger portion of it is infused into
the hearts of the servants of God, who thus “are
renewed in the divine likeness,” and even here
exhibit some faint traces of the image of their heavenly
Father. It is the principle of love which disposes
them to yield themselves up without reserve to the
service of him, “who has bought them with the
price of his own blood.”
Servile, and base, and mercenary,
is the notion of Christian practice among the bulk
of nominal Christians. They give no more than
they dare not with-hold; they abstain from
nothing but what they must not practise.
When you state to them the doubtful quality of any
action, and the consequent obligation to desist from
it, they reply to you in the very spirit of Shylock,
“they cannot find it in the bond.”
In short, they know Christianity only as a system
of restraints. She is despoiled of every liberal
and generous principle: she is rendered almost
unfit for the social intercourses of life, and
is only suited to the gloomy walls of that cloister,
in which they would confine her. But true
Christians consider themselves not as satisfying
some rigorous creditor, but as discharging a debt
of gratitude. Their’s is accordingly not
the stinted return of a constrained obedience, but
the large and liberal measure of a voluntary service.
This principle, therefore, as was formerly remarked,
and has been recently observed of true Christian humility,
prevents a thousand practical embarrassments,
by which they are continually harassed, who act from
a less generous motive; and who require it to be clearly
ascertained to them, that any gratification or worldly
compliance, which may be in question, is beyond the
allowed boundary line of Christian practice.
This principle regulates the true Christian’s
choice of companions and friends, where he is at liberty
to make an option; this fills him with the desire
of promoting the temporal well-being of all around
him, and still more with pity and love, and anxious
solicitude for their spiritual welfare. Indifference
indeed in this respect is one of the surest signs of
a low or declining state in Religion. This
animating principle it is, which in the true Christian’s
happier hour inspirits his devotions, and causes him
to delight in the worship of God; which fills him
with consolation, and peace, and gladness, and sometimes
even enables him “to rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory.”
But this world is not his resting
place: here, to the very last, he must be a pilgrim
and a stranger; a soldier, whose warfare ends only
with life, ever struggling and combating with the
powers of darkness, and with the temptations of the
world around him, and the still more dangerous hostilities
of internal depravity. The perpetual vicissitudes
of this uncertain state, the peculiar trials and difficulties
with which the life of a Christian is chequered, and
still more, the painful and humiliating remembrance
of his own infirmities, teach him to look forward,
almost with outstretched neck, to that promised day,
when he shall be completely delivered from the bondage
of corruption, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
In the anticipation of that blessed period, and comparing
this churlish and turbulent world, where competition,
and envy, and anger, and revenge, so vex and agitate
the sons of men, with that blissful region where Love
shall reign without disturbance, and where all being
knit together in bonds of indissoluble friendship,
shall unite in one harmonious song of praise to the
Author of their common happiness, the true Christian
triumphs over the fear of death: he longs to
realize these cheering images, and to obtain admission
into that blessed company. With far more
justice than it was originally used, he may adopt
the beautiful exclamation “O praeclarum
illum diem, cum ad illud divinum
animorum concilium coetumque proficiscar, atque
ex hac turba et colluvione discedam!”
What has been now as well as formerly
remarked, concerning the habitual feelings of the
real believer, may suggest a reply to an objection
common in the mouths of nominal Christians, that we
would deny men the innocent amusements and gratifications
of life; thus causing our Religion to wear a gloomy
forbidding aspect, instead of her true and natural
face of cheerfulness and joy. This is a charge
of so serious a nature, that although it lead into
a digression, it may not be improper to take some
notice of it.
In the first place, Religion prohibits
no amusement or gratification which is really
innocent. The question, however, of its innocence,
must not be tried by the loose maxims of worldly morality,
but by the spirit of the injunctions of the word of
God; and by the indulgence being conformable or not
conformable to the genius of Christianity, and to
the tempers and dispositions of mind enjoined on its
professors. There can be no dispute concerning
the true end of recreations. They are intended
to refresh our exhausted bodily or mental powers, and
to restore us, with renewed vigour, to the more serious
occupations of life. Whatever, therefore, fatigues
either body or mind, instead of refreshing them, is
not fitted to answer the designed purpose. Whatever
consumes more time, or money, or thought, than it is
expedient (I might say necessary) to allot
to mere amusement, can hardly be approved by any one
who considers these talents as precious deposits for
the expenditure of which he will have to give account.
Whatever directly or indirectly must be likely to
injure the welfare of a fellow creature, can scarcely
be a suitable recreation for a Christian, who
is “to love his neighbour as himself;”
or a very consistent diversion for any one,
the business of whose life is to diffuse happiness.
But does a Christian never relax?
Let us not so wrong and vilify the bounty of Providence,
as to allow for a moment that the sources of innocent
amusement are so rare, that men must be driven, almost
by constraint, to such as are of a doubtful quality.
On the contrary, such has been the Creator’s
goodness, that almost every one, both of our physical
and intellectual, and moral faculties (and the same
may be said of the whole creation which we see around
us) is not only calculated to answer the proper end
of its being, by its subserviency to some purpose
of solid usefulness, but to be the instrument of administering
pleasure.
Not
content
With every food of life to
nourish man,
Thou mak’st all nature
beauty to his eye
And music to his ear.
Our Maker also, in his kindness, has
so constructed us, that even mere vicissitude is grateful
and refreshing a consideration which should
prompt us often to seek, from a prudent variation
of useful pursuits, that recreation, for which
we are apt to resort to what is altogether, unproductive
and unfruitful.
Yet rich and multiplied are the springs
of innocent relaxation. The Christian relaxes
in the temperate use of all the gifts of Providence.
Imagination, and taste, and genius, and the beauties
of creation, and the works of art, lie open to him.
He relaxes in the feast of reason, in the intercourses
of society, in the sweets of friendship, in the endearments
of love, in the exercise of hope, of confidence, of
joy, of gratitude, of universal good will, of all
the benevolent and generous affections; which, by
the gracious ordination of our Creator, while they
disinterestedly intend only happiness to others, are
most surely productive to ourselves of complacency
and peace. O! little do they know of the true
measure of enjoyment, who can compare these delightful
complacencies with the frivolous pleasures of dissipation,
or the coarse gratifications of sensuality. It
is no wonder, however, that the nominal Christian
should reluctantly give up, one by one, the pleasures
of the world; and look back upon them, when relinquished,
with eyes of wistfulness and regret: because
he knows not the sweetness of the delights with which
true Christianity repays those trifling sacrifices,
and is greatly unacquainted with the nature
of that pleasantness which is to be found in the ways
of Religion.
It is indeed true, that when any one,
who has long been going on in the gross and unrestrained
practice of vice, is checked in his career, and enters
at first on a religious course, he has much to undergo.
Fear, guilt, remorse, shame, and various other passions,
struggle and conflict within him. His appetites
are clamorous for their accustomed gratification,
and inveterate habits are scarcely to be denied.
He is weighed down by a load of guilt, and almost
overwhelmed by the sense of his unworthiness.
But all this ought in fairness to be charged to the
account of his past sins, and not to that of his present
repentance. It rarely happens, however, that
this state of suffering continues very long.
When the mental gloom is the blackest, a ray of heavenly
light occasionally breaks in, and suggests the hope
of better days. Even in this life it commonly
holds true, “They that sow in tears shall reap
in joy.”
Neither, when we maintain, that the
ways of Religion are ways of pleasantness, do we mean
to deny that the Christian’s internal state is,
through the whole of his life, a state of discipline
and warfare. Several of the causes which contribute
to render it such have been already pointed out, together
with the workings of his mind in relation to them:
but if he has solicitudes and griefs peculiar to himself,
he has “joys also with which a stranger intermeddles
not.”
“Drink deep,” however,
“or taste not,” is a direction full as
applicable to Religion, if we would find it a source
of pleasure, as it is to knowledge. A little
Religion is, it must be confessed, apt to make men
gloomy, as a little knowledge to render them vain:
hence the unjust imputation often brought upon Religion
by those, whose degree of Religion is just sufficient,
by condemning their course of conduct, to render them
uneasy: enough merely to impair the sweetness
of the pleasures of sin, and not enough to compensate
for the relinquishment of them by its own peculiar
comforts. Thus these men bring up, as it were,
an ill report of that land of promise, which, in truth,
abounds with whatever, in our journey through life,
can best refresh and strengthen us.
We have enumerated some sources of
pleasure which men of the world may understand, and
must acknowledge to belong to the true Christian; but
there are others, and those of a still higher class,
to which they must confess themselves strangers.
To say nothing of a qualified, I dare not say an entire,
exemption from those distracting passions and corroding
cares, by which he must naturally be harassed, whose
treasure is within the reach of mortal accidents;
there is the humble quiet-giving hope of being reconciled
to God, and of enjoying his favour; with that solid
peace of mind, which the world can neither give nor
take away, that results from a firm confidence in
the infinite wisdom and goodness of God, and in the
unceasing care and kindness of a generous Saviour:
and there is the persuasion of the truth of the divine
assurance, that all things shall work together for
good.
When the pulse indeed beats high,
and we are flushed with youth, and health, and vigour;
when all goes on prosperously, and success seems almost
to anticipate our wishes; then we feel not the want
of the consolations of Religion: but when fortune
frowns, or friends forsake us; when sorrow, or sickness,
or old age, comes upon us, then it is, that the superiority
of the pleasures of Religion is established over those
of dissipation and vanity, which are ever apt to fly
from us when we are most in want of their aid.
There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate
mind, than that of an old man, who is a stranger to
those only true sources of satisfaction. How affecting,
and at the same time how disgusting, is it to see
such an one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of
his younger years, which are now beyond his reach;
or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock
his endeavours and elude his grasp! To such an
one, gloomily indeed does the evening of life
set in! All is sour and cheerless. He can
neither look backward with complacency nor forward
with hope: while the aged Christian, relying
on the assured mercy of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect
that his dismission is at hand; that his redemption
draweth nigh: while his strength declines, and
his faculties decay, he can quietly repose himself
on the fidelity of God: and at the very entrance
of the valley of the shadow of death, he can lift
up an eye, dim, perhaps, and feeble, yet occasionally
sparkling with hope, and confidently looking forward
to the near possession of his heavenly inheritance,
“to those joys which eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart
of man to conceive.”
Never were there times which inculcated
more forcibly than those in which we live, the wisdom
of seeking a happiness beyond the reach of human vicissitudes.
What striking lessons have we had of the precarious
tenure of all sublunary possessions! Wealth, and
power, and prosperity, how peculiarly transitory and
uncertain! But Religion dispenses her choicest
cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty,
in exile, in sickness, and in death. The essential
superiority of that support which is derived from
Religion is less felt, at least it is less apparent,
when the Christian is in full possession of riches,
and splendour, and rank, and all the gifts of nature
and fortune. But when all these are swept away
by the rude hand of time, or the rough blasts of adversity,
the true Christian stands, like the glory of the forest,
erect and vigorous; stripped indeed of his summer foliage,
but more than ever discovering to the observing eye
the solid strength of his substantial texture:
Pondère fixa suo
est, nudosque per aera ramos
Attollens, trunco non
frondibus efficit umbram.
SECTION II.
Advice to some who profess their
full Assent to the fundamental Doctrines of the Gospel.
In a former chapter we largely insisted
on what may be termed the fundamental practical error
of the bulk of professed Christians in our days; their
either overlooking or misconceiving the peculiar method,
which the Gospel has provided for the renovation of
our corrupted nature, and for the attainment of every
Christian grace.
But there are mistakes on the right
hand and on the left; and our general proneness, when
we are flying from one extreme to run into an opposite
error, renders it necessary to superadd another admonition.
The generally prevailing error of the present day,
indeed, is that fundamental one which was formerly
pointed out. But while we attend, in the first
place, to this; and, on the warrant both of Scripture
and experience, prescribe hearty repentance and lively
faith, as the only root and foundation of all true
holiness; we must at the same time guard against a
practical mistake of another kind. They who, with
penitent hearts, have humbled themselves before the
cross of Christ; and who, pleading his merits as their
only ground of pardon and acceptance with God, have
resolved henceforth, through the help of his Spirit,
to bring forth the fruits of righteousness, are sometimes
apt to conduct themselves as if they considered their
work as now done; or at least as if this were the
whole they had to do, as often as, by falling afresh
into sin, another act of repentance and faith may seem
to have become necessary. There are not a few
in our relaxed age, who thus satisfy themselves with
what may be termed general Christianity; who
feel general penitence and humiliation from
a sense of their sinfulness in general, and
general desires of universal holiness; but who
neglect that vigilant and jealous care, with which
they should labour to extirpate every particular
corruption, by studying its nature, its root, its
ramifications, and thus becoming acquainted with its
secret movements, with the means whereby it gains
strength, and with the most effectual methods of resisting
it. In like manner, they are far from striving
with persevering alacrity for the acquisition and improvement
of every Christian grace. Nor is it unusual for
ministers, who preach the truths of the Gospel with
fidelity, ability, and success, to be themselves also
liable to the charge of dwelling altogether in their
instructions on this general Religion:
instead of tracing and laying open all the secret
motions of inward corruption, and instructing their
hearers how best to conduct themselves in every distinct
part of the Christian warfare; how best to strive
against each particular vice, and to cultivate each
grace of the Christian character. Hence it is,
that in too many persons, concerning the sincerity
of whose general professions of Religion we should
be sorry to entertain a doubt, we yet see little progress
made in the regulation of their tempers, in the improvement
of their time, in the reform of their plan of life,
or inability to resist the temptation to which they
are particularly exposed. They will confess themselves,
in general terms, to be “miserable sinners:”
this is a tenet of their creed, and they feel even
proud in avowing it. They will occasionally also
lament particular failings: but this confession
is sometimes obviously made, in order to draw forth
a compliment for the very opposite virtue: and
where this is not the case, it is often not difficult
to detect, under this false guise of contrition, a
secret self-complacency, arising from the manifestations
which they have afforded of their acuteness or candour
in discovering the infirmity in question, or of their
frankness or humility in acknowledging it. This
will scarcely seem an illiberal suspicion to any one,
who either watches the workings of his own heart,
or who observes, that the faults confessed in these
instances are very seldom those, with which the person
is most clearly and strongly chargeable.
We must plainly warn these men,
and the consideration is seriously pressed on their
instructors also, that they are in danger of deceiving
themselves. Let them beware lest they be nominal
Christians of another sort. These persons require
to be reminded, that there is no short compendious
method of holiness: but that it must be the
business of their whole lives to grow in grace, and
continually adding one virtue to another, as far as
may be, “to go on towards perfection.”
“He only that doeth righteousness is righteous.”
Unless “they bring forth the fruits of the Spirit,”
they can have no sufficient evidence that they have
received that “Spirit of Christ, without which
they are none of his.” But where, on the
whole, our unwillingness to pass an unfavourable judgment
may lead us to indulge a hope, that “the root
of the matter is found in them;” yet we must
at least declare to them, that instead of adorning
the doctrine of Christ, they disparage and discredit
it. The world sees not their secret humiliation,
not the exercises of their closets, but it is acute
in discerning practical weaknesses: and if it
observe that they have the same eagerness in the pursuit
of wealth or ambition, the same vain taste for ostentation
and display, the same ungoverned tempers, which are
found in the generality of mankind; it will treat
with contempt their pretences to superior sanctity
and indifference to worldly things, and will be hardened
in its prejudices against the only mode, which God
has provided for our escaping the wrath to come, and
obtaining eternal happiness.
Let him then, who would be indeed
a Christian, watch over his ways and over his heart
with unceasing circumspection. Let him endeavour
to learn, both from men and books, particularly from
the lives of eminent Christians, what methods
have been actually found most effectual for the conquest
of every particular vice, and for improvement in every
branch of holiness. Thus studying his own character,
and observing the most secret workings of his own
mind, and of our common nature; the knowledge which
he will acquire of the human heart in general, and
especially of his own, will be of the highest utility,
in enabling him to avoid or to guard against the occasions
of evil: and it will also tend, above all things,
to the growth of humility, and to the maintenance
of that sobriety of spirit and tenderness of conscience,
which are eminently characteristic of the true Christian.
It is by this unceasing diligence, as the Apostle
declares, that the servants of Christ must make their
calling sure. Their labour will not be thrown
away; for “an entrance shall” at length
“be ministered unto them abundantly, into the
everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ.”
SECTION III.
Brief Observations addressed to
Sceptics and Unitarians.
There is another class of men, an
increasing class, it is to be feared, in this country,
that of absolute unbelievers, with which this little
work has properly no concern: but may the writer,
sincerely pitying their melancholy state, be permitted
to ask them one plain question? If Christianity
be not in their estimation true, yet is there not at
least a presumption in its favour, sufficient to entitle
it to a serious examination; from its having been
embraced, and that not blindly and implicitly, but
upon full inquiry and deep consideration, by Bacon,
and Milton, and Locke, and Newton, and much the greater
part of those, who, by the reach of their understandings,
or the extent of their knowledge, and by the freedom
too of their minds, and their daring to combat existing
prejudices, have called forth the respect and admiration
of mankind? It might be deemed scarcely fair
to insist on Churchmen, though some of them are among
the greatest names this country has ever known.
Can the sceptic in general say with truth, that he
has either prosecuted an examination into the evidences
of Revelation at all, or at least with a seriousness
and diligence in any degree proportioned to the importance
of the subject? The fact is, and it is a fact
which redounds to the honour of Christianity, that
infidelity is not the result of sober inquiry and
deliberate preference. It is rather the slow production
of a careless and irreligious life, operating together
with prejudices and erroneous conceptions, concerning
the nature of the leading doctrines and fundamental
tenets of Christianity.
Take the case of young men of condition,
bred up by what we have termed nominal Christians.
When children, they are carried to church, and thence
they become acquainted with such parts of Scripture
as are contained in our public service. If their
parents preserve still more of the customs of better
times, they are taught their Catechism, and furnished
with a little farther religious knowledge. After
a while, they go from under the eyes of their parents;
they enter into the world, and move forward in the
path of life, whatever it may be, which has been assigned
to them. They yield to the temptations which assail
them, and become, more or less, dissipated and licentious.
At least they neglect to look into their Bible; they
do not enlarge the sphere of their religious acquisitions;
they do not even endeavour, by reflection and study,
to turn into what may deserve the name of knowledge
and rational conviction, the opinions which, in their
childhood, they had taken on trust.
They travel, perhaps, into foreign
countries; a proceeding which naturally tends to weaken
their nursery, prejudice in favour of the Religion
in which they were bred, and by removing them from
all means of public worship, to relax their practical
habits of Religion. They return home, and commonly
are either hurried round in the vortex of dissipation,
or engage with the ardour of youthful minds in some
public or professional pursuit. If they read
or hear any thing about Christianity, it is commonly
only about those tenets which are subjects of controversy:
and what reaches their ears of the Bible, from their
occasional attendance at church; though it may sometimes
impress them with an idea of the purity of Christian
morality, contains much which, coming thus detached,
perplexes and offends them, and suggests various doubts
and startling objections, which a farther acquaintance
with the Scripture would remove. Thus growing
more and more to know Christianity only by the difficulties
it contains; sometimes tempted by the ambition of
shewing themselves superior to vulgar prejudice, and
always prompted by the natural pride of the human
heart to cast off their subjection to dogmas imposed
on them; disgusted, perhaps, by the immoral lives of
some professed Christians, by the weaknesses and absurdities
of others, and by what they observe to be the implicit
belief of numbers, whom they see and know to be equally
ignorant with themselves, many doubts and suspicions
of greater or less extent spring up within them.
These doubts enter into the mind at first almost imperceptibly:
they exist only as vague indistinct surmises, and
by no means take the precise shape or the substance
of a formed opinion. At first, probably, they
even offend and startle by their intrusion: but
by degrees the unpleasant sensations which they once
excited wear off: the mind grows more familiar
with them. A confused sense (for such it is,
rather than a formed idea) of its being desirable
that their doubts should prove well founded, and of
the comfort and enlargement which would be afforded
by that proof, lends them much secret aid. The
impression becomes deeper; not in consequence of being
reinforced by fresh arguments, but merely by dint of
having longer rested in the mind; and as they increase
in force, they creep on and extend themselves.
At length they diffuse themselves over the whole of
Religion, and possess the mind in undisturbed occupancy.
It is by no means meant that this
is universally the process. But, speaking generally,
this might be termed, perhaps not unjustly, the natural
history of scepticism. It approves itself
to the experience of those who have with any care
watched the progress of infidelity in persons around
them; and it is confirmed by the written lives of some
of the most eminent unbelievers. It is curious
to read their own accounts of themselves, the rather
as they accord so exactly with the result of our own
observation. We find that they once perhaps
gave a sort of implicit hereditary assent to the truth
of Christianity, and were what, by a mischievous perversion
of language, the world denominates believers.
How were they then awakened from their sleep of ignorance?
At what moment did the light of truth beam in upon
them, and dissipate the darkness in which they had
been involved? The period of their infidelity
is marked by no such determinate boundary. Reason,
and thought, and inquiry had little or nothing to
do with it. Having for many years lived careless
and irreligious lives, and associated with companions
equally careless and irreligious; not by force of study
and reflection, but rather by the lapse of time, they
at length attained to their infidel maturity.
It is worthy of remark, that where any are reclaimed
from infidelity, it is generally by a process much
more rational than that which has been here described.
Something awakens them to reflection. They examine,
they consider, and at length yield their assent to
Christianity on what they deem sufficient grounds.
From the account here given, it appears
plainly that infidelity is generally the offspring
of prejudice, and that its success is mainly to be
ascribed to the depravity of the moral character.
This fact is confirmed by the undeniable truth, that
in societies, which consist of individuals,
infidelity is the natural fruit, not so much of a studious
and disputatious, as of a dissipated and vicious age.
It diffuses itself in proportion as the general morals
decline; and it is embraced with less apprehension,
when every infidel is kept in spirits, by seeing many
around him who are sharing fortunes with himself.
To any fair mind this consideration
alone might be offered, as suggesting a strong argument
against infidelity, and in favour of Revelation.
And the friends of Christianity might justly retort
the charge, which their opponents often urge with
no little affectation of superior wisdom; that we
implicitly surrender ourselves to the influence of
prejudice, instead of examining dispassionately the
ground of our faith, and yielding our assent only
according to the degree of evidence.
In our own days, when it is but too
clear that infidelity increases, it is not in consequence
of the reasonings of the infidel writers having been
much studied, but from the progress of luxury, and
the decay of morals: and, so far as this increase
may be traced at all to the works of sceptical writers;
it has been produced, not by argument and discussion,
but by sarcasms and points of wit, which have operated
on weak minds, or on nominal Christians, by bringing
gradually into contempt, opinions which, in their
case, had only rested on the basis of blind respect
and the prejudices of education. It may therefore
be laid down as an axiom, that infidelity is in
general a disease of the heart more than of the understanding.
If Revelation were assailed only by reason and argument,
it would have little to fear. The literary opposers
of Christianity, from Herbert to Hume, have been seldom
read. They made some stir in their day:
during their span of existence they were noisy and
noxious; but like the locusts of the east, which for
a while obscure the air, and destroy the verdure,
they were soon swept away and forgotten. Their
very names would be scarcely found, if Leland had not
preserved them from oblivion.
The account which has been given,
of the secret, but grand, source of infidelity, may
perhaps justly be extended, as being not seldom true
in the case of those who deny the fundamental doctrines
of the Gospel.
In the course which we lately traced
from nominal orthodoxy to absolute infidelity, Unitarianism
is indeed, a sort of half-way house, if the expression
may be pardoned; a stage on the journey, where sometimes
a person indeed finally stops, but where, not unfrequently,
he only pauses for a while, and then pursues his progress.
The Unitarian teachers by no means
profess to absolve their followers from the unbending
strictness of Christian morality. They prescribe
the predominant love of God, and an habitual spirit
of devotion: but it is an unquestionable fact;
a fact which they themselves almost admit, that this
class of religionists is not in general distinguished
for superior purity of life; and still less for that
frame of mind, which, by the injunction “to
be spiritually, not carnally, minded,” the word
of God prescribes to us, as one of the surest tests
of our experiencing the vital power of Christianity.
On the contrary, in point of fact, Unitarianism
seems to be resorted to, not merely by those who are
disgusted with the peculiar doctrines of Christianity;
but by those also who are seeking a refuge from the
strictness of her practical precepts; and who, more
particularly, would escape from the obligation which
she imposes on her adherents, rather to incur the
dreaded charge of singularity, than fall in with the
declining manners of a dissipated age.
Unitarianism, where it may be supposed
to proceed from the understanding rather than from
the heart, is not unfrequently produced by a confused
idea of the difficulties, or, as they are termed, the
impossibilities which orthodox Christianity is supposed
to involve. It is not our intention to enter
into the controversy: but it may not be improper
to make one remark as a guard to persons in whose way
the arguments of the Unitarians may be likely to fall;
namely, that one great advantage possessed by Deists,
and perhaps in a still greater degree by Unitarians,
in their warfare with the Christian system, results
from the very circumstances of their being the assailants.
They urge what they state to be powerful arguments
against the truth of the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity, and then call upon men to abandon them
as posts no longer tenable. But they, who are
disposed to yield to this assault, should call to
mind, that it has pleased God so to establish the
constitution of all things, that perplexing difficulties
and plausible objections may be adduced against the
most established truths; such, for instance, as the
being of a God, and many others both physical and
moral. In all cases, therefore, it becomes us,
not on a partial view to reject any proposition, because
it is attended with difficulties; but to compare the
difficulties which it involves, with those which attend
the alternative proposition which must be embraced
on its rejection. We should put to the proof
the alternative proposition in its turn, and see whether
it be not still less tenable than that which we are
summoned to abandon. In short, we should examine
circumspectly on all sides; and abide by that opinion
which, on carefully balancing all considerations,
appears fairly entitled to our preference. Experience,
however, will have convinced the attentive observer
of those around him, that it has been for want of
adverting to this just and obvious principle, that
the Unitarians in particular have gained most of their
prosélytes from the Church, so far as argument
has contributed to their success. If the Unitarians,
or even the Deists, were considered in their turn as
masters of the field; and were in their turn attacked,
both by arguments tending to disprove their system
directly, and to disprove it indirectly, by shewing
the high probability of the truth of Christianity,
and of its leading and peculiar doctrines, it is most
likely that they would soon appear wholly unable to
keep their ground. In short, reasoning fairly,
there is no medium between absolute Pyrrhonism
and true Christianity: and if we reject the latter
on account of its difficulties, we shall be still
more loudly called upon to reject every other system
which has been offered to the acceptance of mankind.
This consideration might, perhaps, with advantage
be more attended to than it has been, by those who
take upon them to vindicate the truth of our holy religion:
as many, who from inconsideration, or any other cause,
are disposed to give up the great fundamentals of
Christianity, would be startled by the idea, that
on the same principle on which they did this, they
must give up the hope of finding any rest for the
sole of their foot on any ground of Religion, and
not stop short of unqualified Atheism.
Besides the class of those who professedly
reject revelation, there is another, and that also,
it is to be feared, an increasing one, which may be
called the class of half-unbelievers, who are to be
found in various degrees of approximation to a state
of absolute infidelity. The system, if it deserve
the name, of these men, is grossly irrational.
Hearing many who assert and many who deny the truth
of Christianity, and not reflecting seriously enough
to consider that it must be either true or false,
they take up a strange sort of middle opinion of its
qualified truth. They conceive that there must
be something in it, though by no means to the extent
to which it is pushed by orthodox Christians.
They grant the reality of future punishment, and even
that they themselves cannot altogether expect to escape
it; yet, “they trust it will not go so hard
with them as the churchmen state:” and,
as was formerly hinted, though disbelieving almost
every material doctrine which Christianity contains;
yet, even in their own minds, they by no means conceive
themselves to be inlisted under the banners of infidelity,
or to have much cause for any great apprehension lest
Christianity should prove true.
But let these men be reminded, that
there is no middle way. If they can be prevailed
on to look into their Bible, and do not make up their
minds absolutely to reject its authority; they must
admit that there is no ground whatever for this vain
hope, which they suffer themselves to indulge, of
escaping but with a slight measure of punishment.
Nor let them think their guilt inconsiderable.
Is it not grossly criminal to trifle with the long-suffering
of God, to despise alike his invitations and his threatenings,
and the offer of his Spirit of grace, and the precious
blood of the Redeemer? Far different is the Scripture
estimate; “How shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation?” “It shall be more
tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment,”
than for them, who voluntarily shut their eyes against
that full light, which the bounty of Heaven has poured
out upon them. These half-unbelievers are even
more reprehensible than downright sceptics, for remaining
in this state of careless uncertainty, without endeavouring
to ascertain the truth or falsehood of revelation.
The probability which they admit, that it may be true,
imposes on them an additional and an undeniable obligation
to inquiry. But both to them and to decided sceptics
it must be plainly declared, that they are in these
days less excusable than ever, for not looking into
the grounds and proofs on which is rested the truth
of Christianity; for never before were these proofs
so plainly, and at so easy a rate, offered
to the consideration of mankind. Through the
bounty of Providence, the more widely spreading poison
of infidelity has in our days been met with more numerous
and more powerful antidotes. One of these has
been already pointed out: and it should be matter
of farther gratitude to every real Christian, that
in the very place on which modern infidelity had displayed
the standard of victory, a warrior in the service
of Religion, a man of the most acute discernment and
profound research, has been raised up by Providence
to quell their triumph. He was soon taken
from us; but happily for him and for ourselves, not
till he had announced, that, like the Magi of old,
he had seen the star of Christ in the East, and had
fallen down and worshipped him. Another should
be mentioned with honour, who is pursuing the track
which that great man had pointed out. Henceforth
let all objectors against Christianity, on the ground
of its being disproved by the oriental records, be
put to silence. The strength of their cause consisted
in their ignorance, and in our own, of oriental learning.
They availed themselves for a while of our being in
a state of darkness; but the light of day has at length
broken in and exposed to deserved contempt their superficial
speculations.
The infatuation of these unbelievers
upon trust would be less striking, if they were able
altogether to decline Christianity; and were at liberty
to relinquish their pretensions to its rewards, on
condition of being exempted from its punishments.
But that is not the case; they must stand the risk
of the encounter, and their eternal happiness or misery
is suspended upon the issue. What must be
the emotions of these men, on first opening their
eyes in the world of spirits, and being convinced,
too late, of the awful reality of their impending ruin?
May the mercy and the power of God awaken them from
their desperate slumber, while life is yet spared,
and there is yet space for repentance!
SECTION IV.
Advice suggested by the state of
the times to true Christians.
To those, who really deserve the appellation
of true Christians, much has been said incidentally
in the course of the present work. It has been
maintained, and the proposition will not be disputed
by any sound or experienced politician, that they
are always most important members of the community.
But we may boldly assert, that there never was a period
wherein, more justly than in the present, this could
be affirmed of them; whether the situation, in all
its circumstances, of our own country be attentively
considered, or the general state of society in Europe.
Let them on their part seriously weigh the important
station which they fill, and the various duties which
it now peculiarly enforces on them. If we consult
the most intelligent accounts of foreign countries,
which have been recently published, and compare them
with the reports of former travellers; we must be
convinced, that Religion and the standard of morals
are every where declining, abroad even more rapidly
than in our own country. But still, the progress
of irreligion, and the decay of morals at home, are
such as to alarm every considerate mind, and to forebode
the worst consequences, unless some remedy can be
applied to the growing evil. We can depend only
upon true Christians for effecting, in any
degree, this important service. Their system,
as was formerly stated, is that of our national church:
and in proportion, therefore, as their system prevails,
or as it increases in respect and estimation, from
the manifest good conduct of its followers; in that
very proportion the church is strengthened in the foundations,
on which alone it can be much longer supported, the
esteem and attachment of its members, and of the nation
at large. Zeal is required in the cause of Religion;
they only can feel it. The charge of singularity
must be incurred; they only will dare to encounter
it. Uniformity of conduct, and perseverance in
exertion, will be requisite; among no others can we
look for those qualities.
Let true Christians then, with becoming
earnestness, strive in all things to recommend their
profession, and to put to silence the vain scoffs
of ignorant objectors. Let them boldly assert
the cause of Christ in an age when so many, who bear
the name of Christians, are ashamed of Him: and
let them consider as devolved on Them the important
duty of suspending for a while the fall of their country,
and, perhaps, of performing a still more extensive
service to society at large; not by busy interference
in politics, in which it cannot but be confessed there
is much uncertainty; but rather by that sure and radical
benefit of restoring the influence of Religion, and
of raising the standard of morality.
Let them be active, useful, generous
towards others; manifestly moderate and self-denying
in themselves. Let them be ashamed of idleness,
as they would be of the most acknowledged sin.
When Providence blesses them with affluence, let them
withdraw from the competition of vanity; and, without
sordidness or absurdity, shew by their modest demeanour,
and by their retiring from display, that, without
affecting singularity, they are not slaves to fashion;
that they consider it as their duty to set an example
of moderation and sobriety, and to reserve for nobler
and more disinterested purposes, that money, which
others selfishly waste in parade, and dress, and equipage.
Let them evince, in short, a manifest moderation in
all temporal things; as becomes those whose affections
are set on higher objects than any which this world
affords, and who possess, within their own bosoms,
a fund of satisfaction and comfort, which the world
seeks in vanity and dissipation. Let them cultivate
a catholic spirit of universal good will, and of amicable
fellowship towards all those, of whatever sect or
denomination, who, differing from them in non-essentials,
agree with them in the grand fundamentals of Religion.
Let them countenance men of real piety wherever they
are found; and encourage in others every attempt to
repress the progress of vice, and to revive and diffuse
the influence of Religion and virtue. Let their
earnest prayers be constantly offered, that such endeavours
may be successful, and that the abused long-suffering
of God may still continue to us the invaluable privilege
of vital Christianity.
Let them pray continually for their
country in this season of national difficulty.
We bear upon us but too plainly the marks of a declining
empire. Who can say but that the Governor of the
universe, who declares himself to be a God who hears
the prayers of his servants, may, in answer to their
intercessions, for a while avert our ruin, and
continue to us the fulness of those temporal blessings,
which in such abundant measure we have hitherto enjoyed.
Men of the world, indeed, however they may admit the
natural operation of natural causes, and may therefore
confess the effects of Religion and morality in promoting
the well being of the community; may yet, according
to their humour, with a smile of complacent pity,
or a sneer of supercilious contempt, read of the service
which real Christians may render to their country,
by conciliating the favour and calling down the blessing
of Providence. It may appear in their eyes an
instance of the same superstitious weakness, as that
which prompts the terrified inhabitant of Sicily to
bring for the image of his tutelar saint, in order
to stop the destructive ravages of AEtna. We
are, however, sure, if we believe the Scripture, that
God will be disposed to favour the nation to which
his servants belong; and that, in fact, such as They,
have often been the unknown and unhonoured instruments
of drawing down on their country the blessings of safety
and prosperity.
But it would be an instance in myself
of that very false shame which I have condemned in
others, if I were not boldly to avow my firm persuasion,
that to the decline of Religion and morality our
national difficulties must both directly and indirectly
be chiefly ascribed; and that my only solid hopes
for the well-being of my country depend not so much
on her fleets and armies, not so much on the wisdom
of her rulers, or the spirit of her people, as on
the persuasion that she still contains many, who,
in a degenerate age, love and obey the Gospel of Christ;
on the humble trust that the intercession of these
may still be prevalent, that for the sake of these,
Heaven may still look upon us with an eye of favour.
Let the prayers of the Christian reader
be also offered up for the success of this feeble
endeavour in the service of true Religion. God
can give effect to the weakest effort; and the writer
will feel himself too much honoured, if by that which
he has now been making, but a single fellow creature
should be awakened from a false security, or a single
Christian, who deserves the name, be animated to more
extensive usefulness. He may seem to have assumed
to himself a task which he was ill qualified to execute.
He fears he may be reproached with arrogance and presumption
for taking upon him the office of a teacher. Yet,
as he formerly suggested, it cannot be denied, that
it belongs to his public situation to investigate
the state of the national Religion and morals; and
that it is the part of a real patriot to endeavour
to retard their decline, and promote their revival.
But if the office, in which he has been engaged, were
less intimately connected with the duties of his particular
station, the candid and the liberal mind would not
be indisposed to pardon him. Let him be allowed
to offer in his excuse a desire not only to discharge
a duty to his country, but to acquit himself of what
he deems a solemn and indispensable obligation to his
acquaintance and his friends. Let him allege the
unaffected solicitude which he feels for the welfare
of his fellow creatures. Let him urge the fond
wish he gladly would encourage; that, while, in so
large a part of Europe, a false philosophy having
been preferred before the lessons of revelation, Infidelity
has lifted up her head without shame, and walked abroad
boldly and in the face of day; while the practical
consequences are such as might be expected, and licentiousness
and vice prevail without restraint: here at least
there might be a sanctuary, a land of Religion and
piety, where the blessings of Christianity might be
still enjoyed, where the name of the Redeemer might
still be honoured; where mankind might be able to
see what is, in truth, the Religion of Jesus, and
what are its blessed effects; and whence, if the mercy
of God should so ordain it, the means of religious
instruction and consolation might be again extended
to surrounding countries and to the world at large.