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pentance, and contains a covenant of pardon, is the one most suitable, most beneficial to mankind.

We could not indeed call it beneficial, if that which offered comfort to transgressors proved an encouragement to sin. And some, in all ages, have brought this charge against Christianity; arraigning it on this very ground, as a religion which holds out an amnesty to the worst offenders.1 Others, even of its friends, have shown a tacit acquiescence in this allegation, when they have systematically enforced the precepts rather than the doctrines of the Gospel, from the supposed danger of encouraging mankind to the abuse of mercy by the display of mercy. But Jesus "knew what was in man" better than those who call his wisdom in question; and founded his religion on the surest principles of expediency. Suppose the case, of a part of the inhabitants of a country in rebellion against their lawful sovereign. The object is, to reduce them to order and obedience; and how would that object most probably be answered;

1 Celsus complained, that "Jesus Christ came into the world to make the most horrible and dreadful societies; for he calls sinners, and not the righteous: so that the body he came to assemble is a body of profligates separated from good people, among whom before they were mixed. He has rejected all the good, and collected all the bad."

"True," says Origen, "our Jesus came to call sinners:-but to repentance. He assembles the wicked:-but to convert them into new men; or rather, to change them into angels. We come to him covetous, he makes us liberal; unjust, he makes us equitable; lascivious, he makes us chaste; violent, he makes us meek; impious, he makes us religious."-See Origen contr. Cels. 1. iii. s. 59.

which would be the method most promising success; to make a public declaration of the duties of subjects, accompanied with a denunciation of grievous penalty against all who had violated them; or to issue a proclamation of amnesty to all who should return to their allegiance and persevere in future loyalty?1 The method which, calmly considered, approves itself to our judgment, is the method pursued in the Gospel. And the method which approves itself to our judgment, is sanctioned by the results of our experience; and wherever it is simply acted upon, is daily swelling the triumphs of the Gospel with new converts to the service of God.

In this manner a constant experiment is in operation, wherever the Gospel is preached or read, upon the moral faculties. It is going on from youth to age; employing every motive by which the human heart can be swayed, and using every means by which it can be governed; teaching, exhorting, inviting, encouraging. No wiser system can be imagined, for beings naturally disposed to evil, and placed in circumstances of temptation. We can easily figure to our imaginations men differently constituted, or more securely fenced in. But for such moral agents as mankind actually are, we can desire no fitter dispensation.

1 This illustration occurs in a preface, by Mr. Erskine, to an edition of Gambold's works.

III. I consider it as a third point deserving particular remark, that wherever the Gospel is established as the national religion, provision is made for elevating the general character of men, by raising them to a higher rank as intellectual beings. The condition of the bulk of mankind is inevitably poor and laborious; and we know the effect of poverty and labour, how they depress the mind, and keep it as it were stagnant, till it has neither inclination nor ability for reflection. Each succeeding generation is content to know what their fathers knew, and to practise what their fathers practised. The ennobling ideas of a Supreme Creator, of spiritual worship and pious love to be exercised towards him, of an eternal state of happiness and purity ;— these ideas are far beyond them: their thoughts are chained down to the earth by daily wants and laborious occupations; and do not rise to higher things, except by the aid of some strong external impulse.

And yet experience proves that mankind are capable of high spiritual advancement: that laborious poverty, the common lot of the multitude, though it prevents them from discovering, does not prevent them from receiving, the greatest and noblest truths; and that employments whose natural tendency is rather to depress than to elevate the mind, may yet be conducted on principles which dignify the lowest stations and the meanest pursuits. Few will venture to deny, that if men are capable of

such improvement, it is desirable they should attain it, as exalting their rank in the scale of being. And this is effected by the agency of Christianity. From its first establishment, when the Apostles ordained elders in every church, Christianity has provided bodies of men, whose business it is to instruct the ignorant; to awaken them from torpor and stupidity; to rouse their attention to matters of the highest dignity and importance.1 Not to remove them from their stations and natural duties, which indeed would be impossible if it were desirable, and undesirable even if it were possible; but to inculcate principles which may soften the roughest, and sweeten the bitterest, and exalt the humblest, of human labours.

Now all this is clear gain, and to be set to the account of the Gospel. Nothing of the kind was ever known or thought of in ancient times, at least beyond the narrow limits of Judea. We are apt to forget this, and to consider advantages of this kind

1 The benefit of the Christian system, in this respect, was so evi. dent to the Emperor Julian, that he attributed the success of the religion in some measure to the sanctity and zeal of its ministers; and supposed, that by an imperial ordinance, he could command the same qualities in the heathen priests.-See his letter to Arsacius, in Sozomen. 1. x. c. 16; or Lardner's Heath. Test. c. 46.

2 "Useful as we now know social religion to be to states and kingdoms, it is unlikely that any state should, merely by its own internal wisdom, have instituted a good church, with right provisions, laws, religious exercises, and discipline. Politicians would scarcely think of such a thing. Intent on wars, alliances, commerce, taxation, commodious passage of travellers, &c.; religious society must come from

no less of course, than to enjoy the light and breathe the air of heaven. We are so generally accustomed to the instruction of our people, in consequence of what Christianity has done, that we forget to ascribe the benefit to Christianity. We have no idea of the mass of mankind being wholly neglected; being never exhorted to seek religious knowledge: still less of their seeking it in vain. But in the heathen world, there were none whose office it was to teach, even if there had been any who could have taught what it was most desirable to learn. Philosophical lectures were attended by some of the richer class; but by no others. One philosopher alone, of all we read of, seems to have been conscious of some moral obligation in the employment of his extraordinary talents; and he addressed himself to the higher ranks. Had it been otherwise, the philosophers in the several ages were but few; so few, that supposing they were dispersed, and that every man had the liberty of attending them, we should be astonished to calculate the average distance which a person must have travelled in order to get instruction. Further, there could be no unity of doctrine,

religious zeal, though afterwards courted by the State."-Hey's Lectures. If the State, even when administered by professors of Christianity, can afford very little attention or support to the interests of religion we could hardly expect that it should step out of its way to establish, in the first instance, religious instruction.

1 Πρῶτον μὲν δὴ περι θεους ἐπειρατο σωφρονας ποιειν τους συνοντας. Xenoph. de Socrate. Memorab. l. iv. 3. iii.

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