Sect. I

Sect. I.

One part of this title may perhaps on the first view excite some surprise in any one, who may have drawn a hasty inference from the charges conveyed by the two preceding chapters. Such an one might be disposed to expect, that they who have very low conceptions of the corruption of human nature, would be proportionably less indulgent to human frailty; and that they who lay little stress on Christ’s satisfaction for sin, or on the operations of the Holy Spirit, would be more high and rigid in their demands of diligent endeavours after universal holiness; since their scheme implies that we must depend chiefly on our own exertions and performances for our acceptance with God.

But any such expectations as these would be greatly disappointed. There is in fact a region of truth, and a region of errors. They who hold the fundamental doctrines of Scripture in their due force, hold also in its due degree of purity the practical system which Scripture inculcates. But they who explain away the former, soften down the latter also, and reduce it to the level of their own defective scheme. It is not from any confidence in the superior amount of their own performances, or in the greater vigour of their own exertions, that they reconcile themselves to their low views of the satisfaction of Christ, and of the influence of the Spirit; but it should rather seem their plan so to depress the required standard of practice, that no man need fall short of it, that no superior aid can be wanted for enabling us to attain to it. It happens however with respect to their simple method of morality, as in the case of the short ways to knowledge, of which some vain pretenders have vaunted themselves to be possessed: despising the beaten track in which more sober and humble spirits have been content to tread, they have indignantly struck into new and untried paths; but these have failed of conducting them to the right object, and have issued only in ignorance and conceit.

It seems in our days to be the commonly received opinion, that provided a man admit in general terms the truth of Christianity, though he know not or consider not much concerning the particulars of the system; and if he be not habitually guilty of any of the grosser vices against his fellow creatures, we have no great reason to be dissatisfied with him, or to question the validity of his claim to the name and consequent privileges of a Christian. The title implies no more than a sort of formal, general assent to Christianity in the gross, and a degree of morality in practice, but little if at all superior to that for which we look in a good Deist, Mussulman, or Hindoo.

If any one be disposed to deny that this is a fair representation of the religion of the bulk of the Christian world, he might be asked, whether if it were proved to them beyond dispute that Christianity is a mere forgery, would this occasion any great change in their conduct or habits of mind? Would any alteration be made in consequence of this discovery, except in a few of their speculative opinions, which, when distinct from practice, it is a part of their own system, as has been before remarked, to think of little consequence, and in their attendance on public worship, which however (knowing the good effects of religion upon the lower orders of the people) they might still think it better to attend occasionally for example’s sake? Would not their regard for their character, their health, their domestic and social comforts, still continue to restrain them from vicious excesses, and to prompt them to persist in the discharge, according to their present measure, of the various duties of their stations? Would they find themselves dispossessed of what had been to them hitherto the repository of counsel and instruction, the rule of their conduct, their habitual source of peace, and hope, and consolation?

It were needless to put these questions. They are answered in fact already by the lives of many known unbelievers, between whom and these professed Christians, even the familiar associates of both, though men of discernment and observation, would discover little difference either in conduct or temper of mind. How little then does Christianity deserve that title to novelty and superiority which has been almost universally admitted; that pre-eminence, as a practical code, over all other systems of ethics! How unmerited are the praises which have been lavished upon it by its friends; praises, in which even its enemies (not in general disposed to make concessions in its favour) have so often been unwarily drawn in to acquiesce!

Was it then for this, that the Son of God condescended to become our instructor and our pattern, leaving us an example that we might tread in his steps? Was it for this that the apostles of Christ voluntarily submitted to hunger and nakedness and pain, and ignominy and death, when forewarned too by their Master that such would be their treatment? That, after all, their disciples should attain to no higher a strain of virtue than those who rejecting their Divine authority, should still adhere to the old philosophy?

But it may perhaps be objected that we are forgetting an observation which we ourselves have made, that Christianity has raised the general standard of morals; to which therefore Infidelity herself now finds it prudent to conform, availing herself of the pure morality of Christianity, and sometimes wishing to usurp to herself the credit of it, while she stigmatizes the authors with the epithets of ignorant dupes or designing impostors!

But let it then be asked, are the motives of Christianity so little necessary to the practice of it, its principles to its conclusions, that the one may be spared and yet the other remain in undiminished force? Still then, its Doctrines are no more than a barren and inapplicable or at least an unnecessary theory, the place of which, it may perhaps be added, would be well supplied by a more simple and less costly scheme.

But can it be? Is Christianity then reduced to a mere creed? Is its practical influence bounded within a few external plausibilities? Does its essence consist only in a few speculative opinions, and a few useless and unprofitable tenets? And can this be the ground of that portentous distinction, which is so unequivocally made by the Evangelist between those who accept, and those who reject the Gospel: “He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him?” This were to run into the very error which the bulk of professed Christians would be most forward to condemn, of making an unproductive faith the rule of God’s future judgment, and the ground of an eternal separation. Thus not unlike the rival circumnavigators from Spain and Portugal, who setting out in contrary directions, found themselves in company at the very time they thought themselves farthest from each other; so the bulk of professed Christians arrive, though by a different course, almost at the very same point, and occupy nearly the same station as a set of enthusiasts, who also rest upon a barren faith, to whom on the first view they might be thought the most nearly opposite, and whose tenets they with reason profess to hold in peculiar detestation. By what pernicious courtesy of language is it, that this wretched system has been flattered with the name of Christianity.

The morality of the Gospel is not so slight a fabric. Christianity throughout the whole extent exhibits proofs of its Divine original, and its practical precepts are no less pure than its doctrines are sublime. Can the compass of language furnish injunctions stricter in their measure or larger in their comprehension, than those with which the word of God abounds; “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus;”—“Be ye holy, for God is holy:”—“Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect?” We are commanded to perfect holiness, to go on unto perfection.

Such are the Scripture admonitions; and surely they to whom such admonitions are addressed, may not safely acquiesce in low attainments: a conclusion to which also we are led by the force of the expressions by which Christians are characterized in Scripture, and by the radical and thorough change, which is represented as taking place in any man on his becoming a real Christian. “Every one,” it is said, “that hath this hope, purifieth himself even as God is pure:” true Christians are said to be “partakers of the Divine nature;”—“to be created anew in the image of God;”—“to be temples of the Holy Ghost;” the effects of which must appear “in all goodness and righteousness and truth.”

Great as was the progress which the apostle Paul had made in all virtue, he declares of himself that he still presses forward, “forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto the things which are before.” He prays for his beloved disciples, “that they may be filled with all the fulness of God;” that they may be filled “with the fruits of righteousness:” “that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.” Nor is it a less pregnant and comprehensive petition, which, from our blessed Saviour’s inserting it in that form of prayer which he has given as a model for our imitation, we may infer ought to be the habitual sentiment of our hearts; “Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven.”

These few extracts from the word of God will serve abundantly to vindicate the strictness of the Christian morality: but this point will however be still more fully established, when we proceed to investigate the nature, essence, and governing principles of the Christian character.

It is the grand essential practical characteristic of true Christians, that relying on the promises to repenting sinners of acceptance through the Redeemer, they have renounced and abjured all other masters, and have cordially and unreservedly devoted themselves to God. This is indeed the very figure which baptism daily represents to us: like the father of Hannibal, we there bring our infant to the altar, we consecrate him to the service of his proper owner, and vow in his name eternal hostilities against all the enemies of his salvation. After the same manner Christians are become the sworn enemies of sin; they will henceforth hold no parley with it, they will allow it in no shape, they will admit it to no composition; the war which they have denounced against it, is cordial, universal, irreconcilable.

But this not all—It is now their determined purpose to yield themselves without reserve to the reasonable service of their rightful Sovereign. “They are not their own:”—their bodily and mental faculties, their natural and acquired endowments, their substance, their authority, their time, their influence; all these, they consider as belonging to them, not for their own gratification, but as so many instruments to be consecrated to the honour and employed in the service of God. This must be the master principle to which every other must be subordinate. Whatever may have been hitherto their ruling passion; whatever hitherto their leading pursuit; whether sensual, or intellectual, of science, of taste, of fancy, or of feeling, it must now possess but a secondary place; or rather (to speak more correctly) it must exist only at the pleasure, and be put altogether under the controul and direction, of its true and legitimate superior.

Thus it is the prerogative of Christianity “to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” They who really feel its power, are resolved (in the language of Scripture) “to live no longer to themselves, but to him that died for them;” they know indeed their own infirmities; they know, that the way on which they have entered is strait and difficult, but they know too the encouraging assurance, “They who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;” and relying on this animating declaration, they deliberately purpose that, so far as they may be able, the grand governing maxim of their future lives shall be, “to do all to the glory of God.”

Behold here the seminal principle, which contains within it, as in an embryo state, the rudiments of all true virtue; which, striking deep its roots, though feeble perhaps and lowly in its beginnings, silently progressive; and almost insensibly maturing, yet will shortly, even in the bleak and churlish temperature of this world, lift up its head and spread abroad its branches, bearing abundant fruits; precious fruits of refreshment and consolation, of which the boasted products of philosophy are but sickly imitations, void of fragrance and of flavour. But,

At length it shall be transplanted into its native region, and enjoy a more genial climate, and a kindlier soil; and, bursting forth into full luxuriance, with unfading beauty and unexhausted odours, shall flourish for ever in the paradise of God.