CHAP. I. Decline of christianity shewn by a comparative view of the religion of the great, in preceding ages.

IF the general position of this little tract be allowed, namely, that religion is at present in no very flourishing state among those, whose example, from the high ground on which they stand, guides and governs the rest of mankind: it will not be denied by those, [...] are ever so superficially acquainted with the history of our country, that this has not always been the case. Those who make a fair comparison must allow, that however the present age may be improved in other impor­tant and valuable advantages, yet that there is but little appearance remaining among the great and the powerful of that "righteous­ness which exalteth a nation;"—that there has been a moral revolution in the national manners and principles, very little analagous to that great political one of which we hear so much; that our public virtue bears little pro­portion to our public blessings, and that our religion had decreased in a pretty exact pro­portion to our having secured the means of enjoying it.

That the antipodes to wrong are hardly ever right, was very strikingly illustrated a­bout the middle of the last century, when the [Page 11] fiery and indiscreet zeal of one party was made a pretext for the profligate impiety of the other; who, to the bad principle which dictated a depraved conduct, added the bad taste of being proud of it:—when even the least abandoned were absurdly apprehensive that an appearance of decency might subject them to the charge of fanaticism, a charge in which they took care to involve real piety as well as enthusiastic pretence; till it became the general fashion to avoid no sin but hypo­crisy, to dread no imputation but that of se­riousness, and to be more afraid of a good re­putation than of every vice which ever [...] ­ed a bad one.

It was not till piety was thus unfortunate­ly brought into disrepute, that persons of condition thought it made their sincerity, their abilities or their good breeding questionable, to appear openly on the side of religion. A strict attachment of piety did not subject from a great reputation. Men were not thought the worse lawyers, generals, mini­sters, legilators, or historians, for believing, and even defending, the religion of their country. The gallant Sir Philip Sidney, the rash but heroic Essex, the politic and sa­gacious Burleigh, the all accomplished Falk­land ^*, not only publicly owned their belief [Page 12] in christianity, but even wrote some things of a religious nature ^†. These instances, and many others which might be adduced, are not, it will be allowed, selected from among contemplative recluses, grave divines, or au­thors by profession; but from busy men of strong passions, beset with great temptations; distinguished actors on the stage of life; and whose respective claims to the title of fine gentlemen, brave soldiers, or able statesmen, have never been called in question.

What would the Hales, and the Clarendons, and the Somers's ^* have said, had they been told that the time was at no great distance, when that sacred book, for which they thought it no derogation from their wisdom or their dignity to entertain the profoundest reverence, would be of little more use to men in high public stations, than to be the instru­ment of an oath, and that the sublimest rites of the christian religion would soon be con­sidered as little more than a necessary quali­fication for a place, or the legal preliminary to an office.

[Page 13] This indeed is the boasted period of free enquiry and liberty of thinking, and a noble subject of boasting it is. But it is the peculi­ar character of the present age, that its mis­chiefs often assume the most alluring forms: and that the most alarming evils not only look so like goodness, as to be often mistaken for it; but are sometimes mixed up with so much real good, as often to disguise, though never to counteract, their malignity. Under the beautiful mask of an enlightened philosophy, all religious restraints are set at nought; and some of the deadliest wounds have been aimed at christianity, in works written in avowed vindication of the most amiable of all the christian principles ^*. Even the prevalence of a liberal and warm philan­thropy, is secretly sapping the foundation of christian morals, because many of its champi­ons allow themselves to live in the open vi­olation of the severer duties of justice and so­briety, [Page 14] while they are contending for the gen­tler ones of charity and beneficence.

The strong and generous bias in favour of universal toleration, noble as the principle itself is, has engendered a dangerous notion that all error is innocent. Whether it be owing to this, or to whatever other cause, it is certain that the discriminating features of the christian religion are every day growing into less repute; and it is become the fa­shion, even among the better sort, to evade, to lower, or to generalize, its most distin­guishing peculiarities ^*.

Having wisely and happily freed ourselves from the trammels of human authority, are we not turning our liberty into licentiousness, and wantonly struggling to throw off the di­vine authority too? Freedom of thought is the glory of the human mind, while it is confi­ned within its just and sober limits; but though we are accountable for opinions at no earthly tribunal, yet it should be remembered, that thoughts as well as actions are amenable to the bar of God: and though we may rejoice that [Page 15] the tyranny of the spiritual Procrustes is so far annihilated, that it is no longer thought a proof of the orthodoxy of one man's opinions, that he lop or lengthen those of another till they fit his own measure; yet there is still a standard by which not only actions are weigh­ed, but opinions are judged, and every senti­ment which is clearly inconsistent with the revealed will of God, is as much throwing off his dominion, as the breach of any of his moral precepts.

There is then surely one test by which it is no mark of intolerance to try the princi­ples of men, namely, the Law and the Te­stimony: and it is impossible not to lament, that while a more generous spirit governs our judgment, a purer principle does not seem to regulate our lives. May it not be said, that while we are justly commended for thinking charitably of the opinion [...] of others, we seem, in return, as if we were desirous of furnish­ing them with an opportunity of exercising their candour, by the laxity of principle in which we indulge ourselves? If the hearts of men are as firmly united to each other by the bond of charity, as some pretend, they could not fail of being united to God also, by one common principle of piety, the only certain source of all charitable judgment, as well as of all virtuous conduct.

Instead of abiding by the salutary precept of judging no man, it is the fashion to exceed our commission, and to fancy every body to [Page 16] be in a safe state. But, in forming our no­tions, we have to choose between the Bible and the world, between the rule and the practice. Where these do not agree, it is left to the judgment, of believers at least, by which we are to decide. But we never act, in religious concerns, by the same rule of common-sense and equitable judgment which governs us on other occasions. In weighing any commodity, its weight is determined by some generally-allowed standard; and if the commodity be heavier or lighter than the stand­ard weight, we add to or take from it: but we [...] break, or clip, or reduce the weight to [...] the thing we are weighing; because the common consent of mankind has agreed that the one shall be considered as the standard to ascertain the value of the other. But, in weighing our principles by the standard of the Gospel, we do just the reverse. Instead of bringing our opinions and actions to the balance of the sanctuary, to determine and rec­tify their comparative deficiencies, we lower and reduce the standard of the scripture doc­trines till we have accommodated them to our own purposes; so that, instead of try­ing others and ourselves by God's unerring rule, we try the truth of God's rule by its conformity or nonconformity to our own de­praved notions and corrupt practices.

CHAP. II. Benevolence allowed to be the reigning virtue, but not exclusively the virtue of the present age. Benevolence not the whole of religion, though one of its most characteristic features. Whether benevolence proceed from a religious principle, will be more infallibly known by the general disposition of time, fortune, and the common habits of life, than from a few occa­sional acts of bounty.

TO all the remonstrances and invectives of the preceding chapter, there will not fail to be opposed that which we hear every day so loudly insisted on—the decided superiority of the present age, in other and better re­spects. It will be said, that even those who neglect the outward forms of religion, ex­hibit however the best proofs of the best prin­ciples; that the unparalleled instances of cha­rity, of which we are continual witnesses; that the many striking acts of public boun­ty, and the various new and noble improve­ments in this shining virtue, justly entitle the present age to be called, by way of emi­nence, the age of benevolence.

It is with the liveliest joy I acknow­ledge the delightful truth. Liberality flows with a full tide through a thousand chan­nels. [Page 18] There is scarcely a newspaper but re­cords some meeting of men of fortune for the most salutary purposes. The noble and numberless structures for the relief of dis­tress, which are the ornament and the glory of our metropolis, proclaim a species of mu­nificence unknown to former ages. Sub­scriptions, not only to hospitals, but to va­rious other valuable institutions, are obtained almost as soon as solicited. And who but must with that these beautiful monuments of bene­volence may become every day more nume­rous, and more extended?

Yet with all these allowed and obvious ex­cellencies, it is not quite clear whether some­thing too much has not been said of the libe­rality of the present age, in a comparative view with that of those ages which preceded it. A general alteration of habits and man­ners has at the same time multiplied public bounties and private distress; and it is scarce­ly a paradox to say, that there was probably less misery when there was less munificence.

If an increased benevolence now ranges through, and relieves a wider compass of dis­tress; yet still if those examples of luxury and dissipation which promote that distress, are still more increased, this makes the good done bear little proportion to the evil promoted. If the miseries removed by the growth of chari­ty fall, both in number and weight, far be­low those which are caused by the growth of vice and disorder; if we find, that though [Page 19] bounty is extended, yet, that those corrupti­ons which make bounty so necessary, are ex­tended, also, almost beyond calculation; if it appear that though more objects are reliev­ed by our money, yet incomparably more are debauched by our licentiousness—the balance perhaps will not turn out so decidedly in favour of the times as we are willing to imagine.

If then the most valuable species of charity is that which prevents distress by preventing or lessening vice, the greatest and most inevi­table cause of want; we ought not so highly to exalt the bounty of the great in the pre­sent day, in preference to that broad shade of protection, patronage, and maintenance, which the wide-spread bounty of their fore­fathers stretched out over whole villages, I had almost said whole provinces. When a few noblemen in a county, like a few of their own stately oaks (paternal oaks! which are not often set upon a card), extended their sheltering branches to shield all the un­derwood of the forest—when there existed a kind of passive charity, a negative sort of be­nevolence, which did good of itself; and without effort, exertion, or expence, per­formed the best functions of bounty, though it did not aspire to the dignity of its name— it was simply this:—great people staid at home; and the sober pomp, and orderly magnificence of a noble family, residing at their own castle great part of the year, con­tributed [Page 20] in the most natural way to the main­tenance of the poor; and in a good degree prevented that distress, which it must how­ever be thankfully confessed it is the laudable object of modern bounty to relieve. A man of fortune might not then, it is true, so often dine in public, for the benefit of the poor; but the poor were more regularly and com­fortably fed with the abundant crumbs which then fell from the rich man's table. Where­as it cannot be denied that the prevailing mode of living has pared real hospitality to the very quick: and, though the remark may be thought ridiculous, it is a material disad­vantage to the poor, that the introduction of the modern style of luxury has rendered the remains of the most costly table but of small value.

But even allowing the boasted superiority of modern benevolence, still it will not be in­consistent with the object of the present de­sign, to enquire whether the diffusion of this branch of charity, though the most lovely off­spring of religion, be yet any positive proof of the prevalence of religious principles: and whether it is not the fashion rather to consi­der benevolence as a substitute for christiani­ty, than as an evidence of it.

For it seems to be one of the reigning er­rors among the better sort, to reduce all reli­gion into benevolence, and all benevolence into alms-giving. The wide and comprehen­sive idea of christian charity is compressed [Page 21] into the slender compass of a little pecuniary relief. This species of benevolence is indeed a bright gem among the ornaments of a chris­tian; but by no means furnishes all the jew­els of his crown, which derives its lustre from the associated radiance of every christian grace. Besides, the genuine virtues are all of the same family; and it is only by being seen in company with each other, and with Piety their common parent, that they are certainly known to be legitimate, for there are such things as even spurious virtues.

But is this the property of the christian virtues, that, like all other amiable members of the same family, while each is doing its own particular duty, it is contributing to the prosperity of the rest; and the larger the fa­mily the better they live together, as no one can advance itself without labouring for the advancement of the whole: thus, no man can be benevolent on christian principles, with­out self-denial; and so of the other virtues: each is connected with some other, and all with religion.

I already anticipate the obvious and hack­neyed reply, that "whoever be the instru­ment, and whatever be the motive of bounty, still the poor are equally relieved, and there­fore the end is the same." And it must be confessed, that those compassionate hearts, who cannot but be earnestly anxious that the distressed should be relieved at any rate, should not too scrupulously enquire into any [Page 22] cause of which the effect is so beneficial. Nor indeed will candour scrutinize too curiously into the errors of any life, of which benevo­lence will always be allowed to be a shining ornament, while it does not pretend to be an atoning virtue.

Let me not be misrepresented, as if I were seeking to detract from the value of this ami­able feeling; one does not surely lower the practice by seeking to ennoble the principle; the action will not be impaired by mending the motive: and no one will be likely to give the poor less, because he seeks to please God more.

One cannot then help wishing that pecuni­ary bounty were not only practised, but some­times enjoined too, as a redeeming virtue. In many conversations, I had almost said in many charity sermons, it is insinuated as if a little alms-giving could pay off old scores contracted by favourite indulgences. This, though often done by well-meaning men to advance the interests of some present pious purpose, yet has the mischievous effect of those medicines which while they may re­lieve a local complaint, are yet undermining the general habit.

That great numbers who are not influen­ced by so high a principle as christianity holds out, are yet truly compassionate, with­out hypocrisy, and without ostentation, who can doubt? since there are by nature many tender hearts; for did not God make them? [Page 23] and is he not the Author of all that is good in nature, as well as in grace?

But who that feels the beauty of benevo­lence, can avoid being solicitous, not only that its offerings should comfort the receiver, but return in blessings to the bosom of the giver, by springing from such motives, and being accompanied by such a temper as shall redound to his eternal good? For that the benefit is the same to the object, whatever be the character of the benefactor, is but an un­comfortable view of things to a real christian, whose compassion reaches to the souls of men. Such an one longs to see the charitable giver as happy as he is endeavouring to make the object of his bounty; but such an one knows that no happiness can be fully and finally en­joyed but on the solid basis of christian piety.

For as religion is not, on the one hand, merely an opinion or a sentiment; so neither is it, on the other, merely an act or a per­formance, but it is a disposition, a habit, a temper: it is not a name, but a nature: it is a turning the whole mind to God; a con­centration of all the powers and affections of the soul into one steady point, an uniform de­sire to please Him. This desire will naturally and necessarily manifest itself, in our doing all the good we can to our fellow-creatures in every possible way; for it will be found that neither of the two parts into which practical religion is divided, can be performed with any degree of perfection but by those who [Page 24] unite both: as it may be questioned if any man really does "love his neighbour as himself," who does not first endeavour to "love God with all his heart." As genius has been de­fined to be strong general powers of mind ac­cidentally determined to some particular pur­suit; so piety may be denominated a strong general disposition of the heart to every thing that is right, breaking forth into every excel­lent action, as the occasion presents itself. The temper must be ready in the mind, and the whole heart must be prepared and train­ed to every act of virtue to which it may be called out. For religious principles are like the military exercise; they keep up an habi­tual state of preparation for actual service; and by never relaxing the discipline, the real christian is ready for every duty to which he may be commanded. Right actions best prove the existence of religion in the heart; but they are evidences, not causes.

Whether therefore a man's charitable ac­tions proceed from religious principle, he will be best able to ascertain by scrutinizing into what is the general disposition of his time and fortune; and by attending to such an habitual regulation of his pleasures and expences as will enable him to be more or less useful to others.

For it is in vain that he may possess, what is called by the courtesy of fashion the best heart in the world (a character we every day hear applied to the libertine and the prodi­gal), [Page 25] if he squander his time and estate in such a round of extravagant indulgences, and thoughtless dissipation, as leaves him little money and less leisure for nobler purposes. It makes but little difference whether a man is prevented from doing good by hard-heart­ed parsimony or an unprincipled extrava­gance; the stream is equally cut off.

The mere casual benevolence of any man can have little claim to solid esteem; nor does any charity deserve the name which does not grow out of a steady conviction that it is his bounden duty, which does not spring from a settled propensity to obey the whole will of God; which is not therefore made a part of the general plan of his conduct; and which does not lead him to order the whole scheme of his affairs with an eye to it.

He therefore who does not habituate him­self to certain interior restraints, who does not live in a regular course of self-renuncia­tion, will not be likely often to perform acts of beneficence, when it becomes necessary to convert to such purposes any of that time or money which appetite, temptation or vanity solicit him to divert to other purposes.

And surely he who seldom sacrifices one darling indulgence, who does not subtract one gratification from the incessant round of his enjoyments, when the indulgence would obstruct his capacity of doing good, or when the sacrifice would enlarge his power, does not deserve the name of benevolent. And [Page 26] for such an unequivocal criterion of charity to whom are we to look, but to the conscien­tious christian? No other spirit but that by which he is governed, can subdue self-love: and where self-love is the predominant pas­sion, benevolence can have but a feeble, or an accidental dominion.

Now if we look around and remark the ex­cesses of luxury, the costly diversions, and the intemperate dissipation in which numbers of professing christians indulge themselves, can any stretch of candour, can even that tender sentiment by which we are enjoined "to hope" and to "believe all things," enable us to hope and believe that such are actuated by a spirit of christian benevolence, merely because we see them perform some casual acts of charity, which the spirit of the world can contrive to make extremely com­patible with a voluptuous life, and the cost of which, after all, bears but little proportion to that of any one vice, or even vanity?

Men will not believe that there is hardly a­ny one human good quality which will know and keep its proper bounds, without the re­straining influence of religious principle. There is, for instance, great danger lest a constant attention to so right a practice as an invariable oeconomy should incline the heart to the love of money. Nothing can effectu­ally counteract this natural propensity, but the christian habit of devoting those retrench­ed expences to some good purpose; and then [Page 27] oeconomy, instead of narrowing the heart, will enlarge it, by inducing a constant asso­ciation of benevolence with frugality. An habitual attention to the wants of others, is the only wholesome regulator of our own ex­pences, and carries with it a whole train of virtues, disinterestedness, sobriety, and tem­perance. And those who live in the custom of levying constant taxes on their vanities for such purposes, serve the poor still less than they serve themselves, by cultivating such ha­bits as make the best qualification for their final happiness.

Thus when a vein of christianity runs through the whole mass of a man's life, it gives a new value to all his actions, and a new character to all his views. It transmutes prudence and oeconomy into christian vir­tues; and every offering that is presented on the altar of charity, becomes truly consecrat­ed, when it is the gift of obedience, and the price of self-denial. Piety is the fire from heaven, which can alone kindle the sacrifice, and make it acceptable.

On the other hand, when any act of boun­ty is performed by way of composition with one's Maker, either as a purchase, or an ex­piation of unallowed indulgences; though even in this case, God, (who makes all the passions of men subservient to his good pur­poses) can make the gift equally beneficial to the receiver; yet it is surely not too severe to say, that to the giver such acts are an un­founded dependance, a deceitful refuge, a broken staff.

CHAP. III. The neglect of religious education both a cause and consequence of the decline of christianity. No moral restraints—Religion only inciden­tally taught, not as a principle of action. A few of the causes which dispose the young to entertain low opinions of religion.

LET not the truly serious be offended, as if, in the present chapter, which is intend­ed to treat of the notorious neglect of reli­gious education, I meant to confine the spi­rit of christianity to merely mechanical ef­fects, and to suppose that piety must be the natural and inevitable consequence of early institution. To imply this, would be indeed to betray a lamentable ignorance of human nature, of the disorder sin has introduced, of the inefficacy of human means, and entirely to mistake the genius of our religion. It would be to suppose that God was to depend upon our goodness, and not upon his.

Yet it must be allowed that the Supreme Being works chiefly by means; and though it is confessed that no defect of education, no corruption of manners, can place any one out of the reach of the divine influences (for it is under such circumstances, perhaps, that the most extraordinary instances of divine grace have been manifested); yet it must be [Page 29] owned, that early sobriety, early knowledge of religion, and early habits of piety, are the most probable means of securing the favour of God. To acquire these, is putting our­selves in the way in which he himself has told us his blessing is to be found.

But religion is the only thing in which we seem to look for the end, without making use of the means: and yet, it would not be more surprising if we were to expect that our children should become artists and scholars, without being bred to arts and languages, than it is to look for a christian world, with­out a christian education.

The noblest objects can yield no delight, if there be not in the mind a disposition to en­joy them, arising from an intelligence of their nature, and a reverence for their value, which can only spring from long habit and early acquaintance. For to produce any capacity of enjoyment, there must be a congruity be­tween the mind and the object. To the ma­thematician demonstration is pleasure; to the philosopher the study of nature; to the vo­luptuous the gratification of his appetite; to the poet the pleasures of his imagination. These objects they all respectively pursue as their proper business, as pleasures adapted to that part of their nature which they have been accustomed to indulge and cultivate.

Now, as men will be apt to act consistently with their general views and habitual tenden­cies, would it not be absurd to expect that [Page 30] the philosopher should look for his sovereign good at a ball, or the sensualist in the pleasures of intellect or piety? None of these ends are answerable to the general views of the respec­tive pursuer; they are not corresponding to his ideas; they are not commensurate to his aims. The sublimest pleasures can afford lit­tle gratification where a previous taste has not been cultivated. A clown, who should hear a scholar or an artist talk of the delights of a library, a picture gallery, or a concert, could not guess at the nature of the pleasures they afford, nor would his being introduced to them give him much clearer ideas, because he would bring to them an eye blind to pro­portion, an understanding new to science, and an ear deaf to harmony.

Shall we expect then, since men can only be scholars by sedulous labour, that they shall be christians by mere chance? Shall we be surprised if those do not fulfil the offices of religion, who are not trained to an acquain­tance with them? And will it not be obvious, that it must be some other thing besides the abstruseness of creeds and opinions, which makes christianity unfashionable?

For it will not probably be disputed, that in no age have the passions of youth been so early freed from the muzzle of restraint; in no age has the paternal authority been so contemptuously treated, or every species of subordination so disdainfully trampled on. All the shades of discrimination in society [Page 31] seem to be melting into each other. In no age has imprudent fondness been so injuriously lavish, or the supernumerary expenses of the college and the school (that prolific seed of corruption) been so prodigally augmented. In no age have the appetites been excited by such early stimulants, and anticipated by such premature indulgences. Never was the shining gloss, the charming novelty of life so early worn off from the enjoyment by ex­cessive use. Never had simple, and natural, and youthful pleasures so early lost their power over the mind; nor was ever one great secret of virtue and happiness the se­cret of being cheaply pleased, so little under­stood.

A taste for costly, or artificial, or tumultu­ous pleasures cannot be gratified, by their most sedulous pursuers, at every moment; and what wretched management is it in the oeconomy of human happiness so to contrive, as that the enjoyment shall be rare and dif­ficult, and the intervals long and languid! Whereas real and unadulterated pleasures oc­cur perpetually to him who cultivates a taste for truth and nature, and science and virtue. But these simple and tranquil enjoyments cannot but be insipid to him, whose passions have been prematurely excited by agitating pleasures, or whose taste has been depraved by such as are debasing and frivolous; for it is of more consequence to virtue than some good people are willing to allow, to preserve [Page 32] the taste pure, and the judgment sound. A vitiated intellect has no small connection with depraved morals.

Since amusements of some kind are ne­cessary to all ages (I speak now with an eye to mere human enjoyment), why should it not be as proper to tether men as other ani­mals? Why should not he too be confined, in different stages of life, to certain restricted limitations? since nothing but experience seems to teach him, that if he be allowed to anticipate his future possessions, and trample all the flowery fields of real, as well as ima­ginary and artificial enjoyment, he not only induces present disgust, but defaces and de­stroys all the rich materials of his future hap­pines; and leaves himself, for the rest of his life, nothing but ravaged fields and bar­ren stubble.

But the great and radical defect, and that which comes more immediately within the present design, seems to be, that in general the characteristical principles of christianity are not early and strongly infused into the mind: that religion is rather taught inci­dentally, as a thing of subordinate value, than as the leading principle of human acti­ons, and the great animating spring of hu­man conduct. Were the high influential principles of the christian religion anxiously and early inculcated, we should find that those lapses from virtue, to which passion and [Page 33] temptation afterwards too frequently solicit, would be more easily recoverable.

For though the evil propensities of fallen nature, and the bewitching allurements of pleasure, will too often seduce even those of the best education into devious paths, yet we shall find that men will seldom be incurably wicked, without that internal corruption of principle, which knows how to justify iniqui­ty, and confirm evil conduct, by the sancti­on of corrupt reasoning.

The errors occasioned by the violence of pas­sion may be reformed, but systematic wick­edness will be only fortified by time; and no decrease of strength, no decay of appetite, can weaken the power of a pernicious princi­ple. He who commits a wrong action in­deed, puts himself out of the path of safety; but he who adopts a false principle, not only throws himself into the enemy's country, but burns the ships, breaks the bridge, cuts off every retreat by which he might hope one day to return into his own.

Surely it will subject no one to the im­putation of bigotry or enthusiasm, if he ven­ture to enquire whether the genuine doc­trines of christianity are made the standard by which our young men of fashion are com­monly taught to try their principles, or to weigh their actions; or whether some more popular standard, of custom, or fashion, or worldly opinion, be not too frequently allowed to supersede them? Whether some idol of [Page 34] false honour be not consecrated for them to worship? Whether even among the better sort, reputation be not held out as a motive of sufficient energy to produce virtue, in a world where yet the greatest vices are every day practised openly, which do not at all ob­struct the reception of those who practise them into the best company? Whether resentment be not ennobled, and pride, and many other passions, erected into honourable virtues—vir­tues not less repugnant to the genius and spirit of christianity, than obvious gross vi­ces? Will it be thought impertinent to en­quire if the awful doctrines of a perpetual­ly present Deity, and a future righteous judgment, are early impressed, and lastingly engraven, on the hearts and consciences of our high-born youth?

Perhaps, if there be any one particular in which we fall remarkably below the politer na­tions of antiquity, it is in that part of educa­tion which has a reference to purity of mind and the discipline of the heart.

For the great secret of religious education, and which seems banished from the present practise, consists in training young men to an habitual interior restraint, an early goverment of the affections, and a course of self-controul over those tyrannizing inclinations, which have so natural a tendency to enslave the hu­man heart. Without this habit of moral re­straint, which is one of the fundamental laws of christian virtue, though men may, from na­tural [Page 35] temper, often do good, yet it is perhaps impossible that they should ever be good. Without the vigorous exercise of this con­trouling principle, the best dispositions, and the most amiable qualities, will go but a little way towards establishing a virtuous cha­racter. For the best dispositions will be easi­ly overcome by the concurrence of passion and temptation, in a heart where the passions have not been accustomed to this wholesome discipline: and the most amiable qualities will but more easily betray their possessor, unless the yielding heart be fortified by repeated acts, and long habits, of resistence.

In this, as in various other instances, we may blush at the superiority of Pagan institu­tion. Were the Roman youth taught to ima­gine themselves always in the awful presence of Cato, in order to habituate them betimes to suppress base sentiments, and to excite such as were generous and noble? And should not the christian youth be continually reminded, that a greater than Cato is here? Should they not be trained to the habit of acting un­der the constant impression, that He to whom they must one day be accountable for intenti­ons, as well as words and actions, is witness to the one as well as the other; that he not only is "about their paths," but "under­stands their very thoughts?"

Were the disciples of a Pagan ^* leader taught that it was a motive sufficient to compel their [Page 36] obedience to any rule, whether they liked it or not, that it had the authority of their teach­er's name? were the bar [...] words, the master hath said it, sufficient to settle all disputes, and to subdue all reluctance? And shall the scho­lars of a more divine teacher, who have a code of laws written by God himself, be con­tented with a lower rule, or abide by a mean­er authority? And is any argument drawn from human considerations likely to operate more forcibly on a dependant being, than that simple but grand assertion, with which so many of the precepts of our religion are in­troduced—Because, THUS SAITH THE LORD?

For it is doing but little, in the infusion of first principles, to obtain the bare assent of the understanding to the existence of one Su­preme Power, unless the heart and affections go along with the conviction, by our conceiv­ing of that power as intimately connected with ourselves. A feeling temper will be but little affected with the cold idea of a geometrical God, as the excellent Pascal expresses it, who mere­ly adjusts all the parts of matter, and keeps the elements in order. Such a mind will be but little moved, unless he be taught to con­sider his Maker under the interesting and en­dearing representation which revealed religi­on gives of him. That "God is," will be to him rather an alarming than a consolatory idea; till he be persuaded of the subsequent proposition, that "he is the rewarder of all such as diligently seek him." Nay if natu­ral [Page 37] religion does even acknowledge one, aw­ful attribute, that "God is just;" it will on­ly increase the terror of a tender conscience, till he learn, from the fountain of truth, that he is, "the justifier of all who believe on him."

But if the great sanctions of our religion are not deeply engraven on the heart, where shall we look for a more adequate curb to the fiery spirit of youth? For, let the elements be ever so kindly mixed in human composi­tion, let the natural temper be ever so ami­able, still whenever a man ceases to think him­self an accountable being, what motive can he have for resisting a strong temptation to a present good, when he has no dread that he shall thereby forfeit a greater future good?

But it will be objected, that this deep sense of religion would interfere with the general purposes of education, which is designed to qualify men for the business of human life, and not to train up a race of monks and asceties.

There is however so little real solidity in this specious objection, that I am firmly per­suaded, that if religious principles were more deeply impressed on the heart, even the things of this world would be much bet­ter carried on. For where are we to look for so much punctuality, diligence, application, doing every thing in its proper day (the great hinge on which business turns), as among men of principle? Oeconomy of time, [Page 38] truth in observing his word, never daring to deceive or to disappoint—these are the very essence of a man of business; and for these to whom shall we most naturally look? Who is so little likely to be "slothful in business," as he who is "fervent in spirit?" Will not he be most regular in dealing with men, who is most diligent in "serving the Lord?"

But it may be said, allowing that religion does not necessarily spoil a man of business, yet it would effectually defeat those accom­plishments, and counteract that fine breeding, which essentially constitute the gentleman.

This again is so far from being a natural consequence, that, supposing all the other real advantages, of parts and education, to be equally taken into the account, there is no doubt but that, in point of true polite­ness, a real christian would beat the world at its own weapons, the world itself being judge.

For though it must be confessed, that, in the present state of things, other wickedness has made dissimulation necessary; and that being the case, there is scarcely any one in­vention for which we are more obliged to mankind than for that of politeness, as there is perhaps no screen in the world which hides so many ugly sights: yet while we allow that there never was so admirable a supplement to real goodness, as good breeding; it is however certain that the principles of chris­tianity put into action, would necessarily pro­duce [Page 39] more genuine politeness than any max­ims drawn from motives of human vanity or convenience. If love, peace, joy, long-suffer­ing, gentleness, patience, goodness, and meek­ness, may be thought instruments to produce sweetness of manners, these we are expressly told are "the fruits of the spirit." If mourning with the afflicted, rejoicing with the happy, if "to esteem others better than ourselves;" if "to take the lowest room;" if "not to seek our own;" if "not to be­have ourselves unseemly;" if "not to speak great swelling words of vanity"—if these are amiable, engaging and polite parts of beha­viour; then would the documents of Saint Paul make as true a fine gentleman as the Courtier of Castiglione, or even the Letters of Lord Chesterfield himself. Then would si­mulation, and dissimulation, and all the nice shades and delicate gradations of passive and ac­tive deceit, be rendered superfluous; and the affections of every heart be won by a shorter and a surer way, than by the elegant obliquities of this late popular preceptor; whose mischiefs have outlived his reputation; and who, not­withstanding the present just declension of his fame, has helped to relax the general nerve of virtue, and has left a taint upon the public morals, of which we are still sensi­ble.

That self-abasement then, which is inse­parable from christianity, and the external signs of which good breeding knows so well [Page 40] how to assume; and those charities which suggest invariable kindness to others, even in the smallest things, would, if left to their natural workings, produce that gentleness which it is one great object of a polite education to imitate. They would produce it too without effort and without exertion; for being inherent in the substance, it would naturally produce itself on the surface.

For however useful the institutions of po­lished society may be found, yet they can ne­ver alter the eternal difference between right and wrong; or convert appearances into re­alities; they cannot transform decency into virtue nor make politeness pass for principle. And the advocates for fashionable breeding, should be humbled to reflect, that every con­vention of artificial manners was invented not to cure, but to conceal, deformity: that though the superficial civilities of elegant life, tend to make this corrupt world a more tolerable place than it would be without them; yet they never will be considered as a substitute for truth and virtue by HIM who is to pass the definitive sentence on the charracters of men.

Among the many prejudices which the young and the gay entertain against religion, one is, that it is the declared enemy to wit and ge­nius. But, says one of its wittiest champions ^*, "Piety enjoins no man to be dull:" and it [Page 41] will be found, on a fair enquiry, that though it cannot be denied that irreligion has had able men for its advocates, yet they have never been the most able. Nor can any learned pro­fession, any department in letters or in science, produce a champion on the side of unbelief but christianity has still a greater name to op­pose it; philosophers themselves being judges.

But while the young adopt an opinion, from one class of writers, that religious men are weak; they acquire, from another, a notion that they are ridiculous: and this opini­on, by mixing itself with their common no­tions, and deriving itself from their very amusements, is the more mischievous as it is received without resistance or suspicion.

One common medium through which they take this false view is, those favourite works of wit and humour, so captivating to youthful imaginations, were no small part of the au­thor's success perhaps has been owing to his dexterously introducing a pious character, with so many virtues, that it is impossible not to love him, yet tinctured with so ma­ny absurdities, that it is impossible not to laugh at him. The reader's memory will furnish him with too many instances of what is here meant. The slightest touches of a witty malice can make the best character ridiculous. It is effected by any little auk­wardness, absence of mind, an obsolete phrase, a formal pronunciation, a peculiarity of gesture. Or if such a character be brought, [Page 42] by unsuspecting goodness, and trusting hones­ty, into some foolish scrape, it will stamp an impression of ridicule so indelible, that all his worth shall not be able to efface it: and the young who do not always separate their ideas very carefully, shall ever after, by this early and false association, conceive of piety as having something essentially ridiculous in itself.

But one of the most infallible arts, by which the inexperienced are engaged on the side of irreligion, is, that popular air of candour, good nature, and toleration, which it so in­invariably puts on. While, on the one hand, sincere piety is often accused of moroseness and severity, because it cannot hear the doc­trines, on which it founds its eternal hopes, derided without emotion; indifference or unbelief, on the other hand, purchase the praise of candour at an easy price, because they neither suffer grief, nor express indignation, at hear­ing the most awful truths ridiculed, or the most solemn obligations set at nought.

The scoffers whom young people hear talk, and the books they hear quoted, falsely charge their own injurious opinions on chri­stianity, and then unjustly accuse her of be­ing the monster they have made. They dress her up, with the sword of persecution in one hand, and the flames of intolerance in the other; and then ridicule the sober-minded for worshipping an idol which their misrepresentation has rendered as malignant as Moloch. In the mean time they affect [Page 43] to seize on benevolence with exclusive appro­priation as their own cardinal virtue, and to accuse of a bigotted cruelty, that narrow spirit which points out the perils of licenti­ousness, and the terrors of a future account. And yet this benevolence, with all its tender mercies, is not afraid nor ashamed to endea­vour at snatching away from humble piety, the comfort of a present hope, and the bright prospect of a felicity that shall have no end. It does not however seem a very probable means of adding to the stock of human hap­piness, by plundering mankind of that prin­ciple, by the destruction of which friendship is robbed of its bond, society of its security, pa­tience of its motive, morality of its foundation, integrity of its reward, sorrow of its consolati­on, life of its balm, and death of its support.

It will not perhaps be one of the meanest advantages of a better state, that as the will shall be reformed, so the judgment shall be rectified; that "evil shall no more be called good," nor the "churl liberal;" nor the plunderer of our best possession, our principles, benevolent. Then it will be evident that greater violence could not be done to truth and language, than to wrest benevolence from christianity, her most appropriate and peculi­ar attribute. If benevolence be "good-will to men," it was that which angelic messen­gers were not thought too high to announce, nor a much higher being than angels to teach by his precepts, and to illustrate by his death: [Page 44] it was the criterion, the very watch-word as it were, by which he intended his religi­on and his followers should be distinguish­ed. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another." Be­sides, it is the very genius of christianity to extirpate all selfishness, on whose vacated ground, benevolence naturally and necessa­rily plants itself.

But not to run through all the particulars which obstruct the growth of piety in young persons, I shall only name one more. They hear much declamation from the fashionable reasoners, against the contracted and selfish spirit of christianity—that it is of a sordid temper, works for pay, and looks for re­ward.

But this jargon of French philosophy, which prates of pure disinterested goodness acting for its own sake, and equally despi­sing punishment and disdaining recompence, indicates as little knowledge of human na­ture as of christian revelation, when it ad­dresses man as a being made up of pure intel­lect, without any mixture of passions, and who can be made happy without hope, and virtuous without fear.

A creature hurried away by the impulse of some impetuous inclination, is not likely to be restrained (if he be restrained at all) by a cold reflection on the beauty of virtue. If the dread of offending God, and the incur­ring his everlasting displeasure, cannot stop [Page 45] him, how shall a weaker motive do it? When we see that the powerful sanctions which [...] holds out, are too often an in­effectu [...] [...]: to think of attaining the same end by feebler means, is as if one should ex­pect to make a watch go the better by break­ing the main spring; nay, as absurd as if the philosopher who inculcates the doctrine, should undertake with one of his fingers to lift an immense weight, which had resisted the powers of the crane and the lever.

On calm and temperate spirits, indeed, in the hour of retirement, in the repose of the passions, in the absence of temptation, virtue does seem to be her own adequate reward; and very lovely are the fruits she bears, in pre­serving health, credit, and fortune. But on how few will this principle act! and even on them, how often will its operation be suspend­ed! and though virtue for her own sake, might have captivated often hearts, which almost seem cast in a natural mould of good­ness; yet no motive could, at all times, be so likely to restrain even these, under the pressure of temptation, as this simple assertion — For all this God will bring me into judg­ment.

But it is the beauty of our religion, that it is not held out exclusively to a few select spirits; that it is not an object of speculation or an exercise of ingenuity, but a rule of life, suited to every condition, capacity, and temper. It is the glory of the christian re­ligion [Page 46] to be, what it was, the glory of every pagan institution not to be, the religion of the people; and that which constitutes its charac­teristic value, is its suitableness to the genius, condition, and necessities of all mankind.

For with whatever obscurities it has pleas­ed God to shadow some parts of his written word, yet he has graciously ordered, that whatever is necessary should be perspicuous also: and though "clouds and darkness are the habitation of his throne," yet they are not the medium through which he has left us to discover our duty. In this, as in all other points, it has a decided superiority over all the ancient systems of philosophy, which were always in many respects imprac­ticable and extravagant, because not framed from observations drawn from a perfect knowledge "what was in men." Whereas the whole scheme of the gospel is accommo­dated to real human nature; laying open its moral disease, presenting its only remedy; ex­hibiting rules of conduct, often difficult indeed, but never impossible; and where the rule was so high that the practicability seemed despe­rate, holding out a living pattern, to eluci­date the doctrine, and to illustrate the pre­cept [...] offering every where the clearest noti­ons of what we have to hope, and what we have to fear; the strongest injunctions of what we are to believe; and the most expli­cit directions of what we are to do.

In short, whoever examines the wants of his [Page 47] own heart, and the appropriated assistance which the Gospel furnishes, will find them to be two tallies which exactly correspond— an internal evidence, stronger perhaps than any other, of the truth of revelation.

This is the religion with which the inge­nuous hearts of youth should be warmed, and by which their spirits, while pliant, should be directed. This will afford a "lamp to their paths," stronger, steadier, brighter than the feeble and uncertain glimmer of a cold and comfortless philosophy.

CHAP. IV. Other symptoms of the decline of christianity— No family religion—Corrupt or negligent ex­amples of superiors—The self-denying and evangelical virtues held in contempt—Neglect of encouraging and promoting religion among servants.

IT was by no means the design of the pre­sent undertaking to make a general invec­tive on the corrupt state of manners, or e­ven to animadvert on the conduct of the higher ranks, but inasmuch as the corrupti­on of that conduct, and the depravation of those manners, appear to be a natural conse­quence of the visible decline of religion.

Of the other obvious causes which contri­bute to this decline of morals, little will be said. Nor is the present a romantic attempt to restore the simplicity of primitive man­ners. This is too literally an age of gold, to expect that it should be so in the poetical and figurative sense. It would be unjust and absurd not to form our opinions and expec­tations from the present general state of soci­ety. And it would argue great ignorance of the corruption which commerce, and con­quest, and riches, and arts, necessarily intro­duce into a state, to look for the fame so­bermindedness, simplicity, and purity among [Page 49] the dregs of Romulus, as the severe and sim­ple manners of elder Rome presented.

But though it would be an attempt of despe­rate hardihood, to controvert that maxim of the witty bard, that ‘To mend the world's a vast design;’ yet to make the best of the times in which we live; to fill up the measure of our own ac­tual, particular, and individual duties; and to take care that the age shall not be the worse for our having been cast into it, seems to be the bare dictate of common probity, and not a romantic flight of impracticable perfection.

But is it then so very chimerical to ima­gine that the benevolent can be sober-mind­ed? It is romantic to desire that the good should be consistent? Is it absurd to fancy that what has once been practised, should not now be impracticable.

It is impossible then not to help regretting that it should be the general temper of many of the leading persons of that age which ar­rogates to itself the glorious character of the age of benevolence, to be kind, and conside­rate, and compassionate, every where rather than at home: that the rich and the fashion­able should be zealous in promoting religious, as well as charitable institutions abroad, and yet discourage every thing which looks like religion in their own families: that they [Page 50] should be at a considerable expence in in­structing the poor at a distance, and yet dis­credit piety among their own servants—those more immediate objects of every man's at­tention whom Providence has enabled to keep any; and for whose conduct he will be finally accountable, inasmuch as he has helped to corrupt it.

Is there any degree of pecuniary bounty without doors which can counteract the mis­chief of a wrong example at home; or attone for that infectious laxity of principle, which spreads corruption wherever its influence ex­tends? Is not he the best benefactor to soci­ety who sets the best example, and who does, not only the most good, but the least evil? Will not that man, however liberal, very imperfectly promote virtue in the world at large, who neglects to disseminate the prin­ciples of it within the immediate sphere of his own personal influence, by a sober con­duct and a blameless behaviour? Can a ge­nerous but profligate person attone by his purse for the disorders of his life, or expect a blessing on his bounties, while he defeats their effect by a profane couversation?

In moral as well as political treatises, it is often asserted, that it is a great evil to do no good: but it has not been perhaps enough insisted on, that it is a great good to do no evil. This species of goodness is not os­tentatious enough for popular declamation; and the value of this abstinence from vice is [Page 51] perhaps not well understood by christians, be­cause it wants the ostensible brilliancy of actu­al performance.

But as the principles of christianity are in no great repute, so their concomitant quali­ties, the evangelical virtues, are proportio­nably disesteemed. But those secret habits of self-controul, those interior and unobtru­sive virtues, which excite no astonishment, kindle no emulation, and extort no praise, are yet the most difficult, and the most sub­lime, and, if christianity be true, will be the most graciously accepted by him who witnesses the secret struggle and the silent victory: while the splendid deeds, which have the world for their witness, and immortal fame for their reward, shall perhaps cost him who atchieved them, less than it costs a conscien­tious christian to subdue one irregular incli­nation; a conquest which the world will ne­ver know, and if it did, would probably de­spise.

For though great actions performed on human motives are permitted, by the great Disposer, to be equally beneficial to society with such as are performed on purer princi­ples; yet it is an affecting consideration, that, at the final adjustment of accounts, the politician that raised a state, or the hero who preserved it, may miss of that favour of God, which, if it was not his motive, will proba­bly not be his reward. And it is awful to reflect, as we visit the monuments justly [Page 52] raised by public gratitude, or the statues properly erected by well-earned admiration, on what may be now the unalterable con­dition of the illustrious object of these deserved honours; and that he who has saved a state, may have lost his own soul.

A christian life seems to consist of two things, almost equally difficult; the adopti­on of good habits, and the excision of such as are evil. No one sets out on a religious course with a stock of native innocence, or actual freedom from sin; for there is no such state in human life. The natural heart is not a blank paper, whereon the divine spirit has nothing to do but to stamp characters of goodness; but many blots and defilements are to be erased, as well as fresh impressions to be made.

The vigilant christian therefore, who acts with an eye to the approbation of his Maker, rather than to that of mankind; to a future account, rather than to present glory, will find, that, diligently to cultivate the "un­weeded garden" of his own heart; to mend the soil; to clear the ground of its indigenous vices, by practising the painful business of extirpation; will be that part of his duty which will cost him most labour, and bring him least credit: while the fair slower of one shewy action, produced with little trouble, and of which the pleasure is reward enough, shall gain him more praise [Page 53] than the eradication of the rankest weeds which over-run the natural heart.

But the Gospel judges not after the manner of men; for it never fails to make the absti­nent virtues a previous step to the right per­formance of the operative ones; and the re­linquishing what is wrong to be a necessary prelude to the performance of what is right. It makes "ceasing to do evil" the indispen­sable preliminary to "learning to do well." It continually suggests that something is to be laid aside as well as to be practised. We must "hate vain thoughts" before we can "love God's law." We must lay aside "malice and hypocrisy," to enable us "to receive the engrafted word."—Having "a conscience void of offence;" "abstaining from fleshly lusts," "bringing every thought into obedience"—these are actions, or rather negations, which, though they never will ob­tain immortality from the chisel of the statu­ary, the declamation of the historian, or the panegyric of the poet, serve however to con­stitute the true christian temper, to promote heavenly mindedness, and to procure the di­vine favour.

And for our encouragement, it is obser­vable that a more difficult christian virtue generally involves an easier one. An habit of self-denial in permitted pleasures easily in­duces a victory over such as are unlawful. And to sit loose to our own possessions, ne­cessarily [Page 54] includes an exemption from covet­ing those of others; and so on of the rest.

Will it be difficult then to trace back to that want of early restraint noticed in the pre­ceding chapter, that licence of behaviour which, having been indulged in youth, af­terwards reigns uncontrouled in families; and having infected education in its first springs, taints all the streams of domestic virtue? Nor is it strange that that same want of religious principle which corrupted our children should corrupt our servants.

We scarcely go into any company without hearing some invective against the increased profligacy of this order of men; and the re­mark is made with as great an air of astonish­ment, as if the cause of the complaint were not as visible as the truth of it. It would be endless to point out instances in which the in­creased dissipation of their betters (as they are oddly called) has contributed to the growth of this evil. But it comes only with­in the immediate design of the present under­taking, to insist on the single circumstance of the almost total extermination of religion in fashionable families, as a cause, adequate of itself, to any consequence which depraved morals can produce.

Is there not a degree of injustice in persons who discover strong indignation at those crimes which crowd our prisons, and furnish our incessant executions, and yet discourage not an internal principle of vice; since those [Page 55] crimes are nothing more than that principle put into action? And it is no less absurd than cruel in such of the great as lead disorderly lives, to expect to prevent vice by the laws they make to restrain or punish it, while their own example is a perpetual source of tempta­tion to commit it. If by their own practice they demonstrate that they think a vicious life is the only happy one, with what colour of justice can they inflict penalties on others, who, by acting on the same principle, ex­pect the same indulgence?

And indeed it is somewhat unreasonable to expect very high degrees of virtue and pro­bity from a class of people whose whole life, after they are admitted into dissipated fami­lies, is one continued counteraction of the principles in which they have probably been bred.

When a poor youth is transplanted from one of those excellent institutions which do honour to the present age, and give some hope of reforming the next, into the family, perhaps, of his noble benefactor, who has provided liberally for his instruction; what must be his astonishment at finding the man­ner of life to which he is introduced diame­trically opposite to that life, to which he has been taught that salvation is alone annexed! He has been trained in a wholesome terror of gaming: but now his interests and passions are forcibly engaged on the side of play, since the very profits of his place are made systemati­cally [Page 56] to depend on the card-table. He has been taught that it was his bounden duty to be de­voutly thankful for his own scanty meal, per­haps of barley bread; yet he sees his noble lord sit down every day,

To a repast for which every element is plun­dered, and every climate impoverished; for which nature is ransacked, and art is exhaust­ed; without even the formal ceremony of a slight acknowledgment. It will be lucky for the master, if his servant does not happen to know that even the pagans never sat down to a repast without making a libation to their deities; and that the Jews did not eat a lit­tle fruit, or drink a cup of water, without an expression of devout thankfulness.

Next to the law of God, he has been taught to reverence the law of the land; and to respect an act of parliament next to a text of Scripture: yet he sees his honourable protec­tor, publicly in his own house, engaged in the evening in playing at a game expressly pro­hibited by the laws, and against which per­haps he himself had assisted in the day to pass an act.

While the contempt of religion was con­fined to wits and philosophers, the effect was not so sensibly felt. But we cannot congra­tulate the ordinary race of mortals on their emancipation from old prejudices, or their indifference to sacred usages; as it is not at all visible that the world is become happier [Page 57] in proportion as it is become more enlighten­ed. We might rejoice more in the boasted diffusion of light and freedom, were it not apparent that bankruptcies are grown more frequent, robberies more common, divorces more numerous, and forgeries more exten­sive—that more rich men die by their own hand, and more poor men by the hand of the executioner — than when christianity was practised by the vulgar, and countenanced, at least, by the great.

Is it not to be regretted therefore, while the affluent are encouraging so many admira­ble schemes for promoting religion among the children of the poor, that they do not like to perpetuate the principle, by encourag­ing it in their servants also? Is it not pity, since these are so moderately furnished with the good things of this life, to rob them of that bright reversion, the bare hope of which is a counterpoise to all the hardships they un­dergo here—especially since, by diminishing this future hope, we shall not be likely to add to their present usefulness?

Still allowing, what has been already grant­ed, that absolute infidelity is not the reign­ing evil, and that servants will perhaps be more likely to see religion neglected than to hear it ridiculed; would it not be a merito­rious kindness, in families of a better stamp, to furnish them with more opportunities of learning and practising their duty? Is it not impolitic indeed, as well as unkind, to refuse [Page 58] them any means of having impressed on their consciences the operative principles of chris­tianity? It is but little, barely not to oppose their going to church, or doing their duty at home, unless their opportunities of doing both are facilitated, by giving them, at cer­tain seasons, as few employments as possible that may interfere with both. Even when religion is by pretty general consent banished from our families, that only furnishes a stron­ger reason why our families should not be banished from religion in the churches.

But if these opportunities are not made easy and convenient to them, their superiors have no right to expect from them a zeal so far transcending their own, as to induce them to surmount difficulties for the sake of their duty. Religion is never once represented in scripture as a light attainment; it is never once illustrated by an easy, a quiet, or an in­dolent allegory. On the contrary, it is ex­hibited under the active figure of a combat, a race; something expressive of exertion, acti­vity, progress. And yet many are unjust enough to think that this warfare can be fought, though they are perpetually weaken­ing the vigour of the combatant; this race be run, though they are incessantly obstruct­ing the progress of him who runs by some hard and interfering command. That that compassionate judge who cannot but be par­ticularly touched with the feeling of their in­firmities, will tenderly allow for their trials, [Page 59] and be merciful to their failings, can never be doubted; but what portion of that for­giveness he will extend to those who lay on their virtue hard burdens "too heavy for them to bear," who shall say?

To keep any immortal being in a state of spiritual darkness, is a positive disobedience to His law, who when he bestowed the Bible, no less than when he created the material world, said, Let there be light. It were well for both the advantage of master and servant, that the latter should have the doctrines of the Gospel frequently impressed on his heart, that his conscience should be made familiar with a system which offers such clear and in­telligible propositions of moral duty. The striking interrogation, "how shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" will perhaps operate as forcibly on an uncultivat­ed mind, as the most eloquent essay, to prove that man is not an accountable being. That once credited promise, that "they who have done well shall go into everlasting life," will be more grateful to the spirit of a plain man, than that more elegant and disinterested aphorism, that virtue is its own reward. That "he that walketh uprightly walketh surely," is not on the whole dangerous or a misleading maxim. And "well done, good and faithful servant! I will make thee ruler over many things," though offensive to the liberal spirit of philosophic dignity, is a com­fortable support to humble and suffering pie­ty. [Page 60] That "we should do to others as we would they should do to us," is a portable and compendious measure of social duty, al­ways at hand, as always referring to some­thing within himself, not amiss for a poor man to carry constantly about with him, who has neither time nor learning to search for a better. All Seneca's arguments against the fear of death, never yet reconciled one rea­der to its approach, half so effectually as the humble believer is reconciled to it by that simple persuasion, "I know that my Re­deemer liveth."

While the modern philosopher is extend­ing the boundaries of human knowledge, by undertaking to prove that matter is eternal; or enlarging the stock of human happiness, by demonstrating the extinction of spirit: it can do no harm to an unlettered man to be­lieve, that "heaven and earth shall pass away, but God's word shall not pass away." While the former is indulging the profitable enquiry why the Deity made the world so late, or why he made it at all, it will not hurt the latter to believe that "in the beginning God made the world," and that in the end "he shall judge it in righteousness." While the one is criticising the creed, he will be no loser by encouraging the other to keep the command­ments.

For it is a very valuable part of christiani­ty, that though it is an entire and perfect sys­tem in its design; though it exhibits one great plan, from which complete trains of [Page 61] argument, and connected schemes of reason­ing may be deduced; yet, in compassion to the multitude for whom this benevolent in­stitution was in a good measure designed, and who could not have comprehended a long chain of propositions, or have embraced re­mote deductions; the most important truths of doctrine, and the most essential documents of virtue, are detailed in single maxims, and comprised in short sentences; independent of themselves, yet making a necessary part of a consummate whole, from a few of which ele­mentary principles, the whole train of human virtues has been deduced, and many a per­fect body of ethics has been framed.

CHAP. V. The negligent conduct of christians, no real ob­jection against christianity.—The reason why its effects are not more manifest to worldly men, is, because believers do not lead chris­tian lives.—Professors differ but little in their practice from unbelievers.—Even real chris­tians are too diffident and timid, and afraid of acting up to their principles.—The absurdity of the charge commonly brought against serious people, that they are too strict.

IT is an objection frequently brought against christianity, that if it exhibited so perfect a scheme, if its influences were as strong, if its effects were as powerful, as its friends pretend, it must have produced more visible consequences in the reformation of mankind. This is not the place fully to answer this ob­jection, which, (like all the other cavils a­gainst our religion) continues to be urged just as if it never had been answered.

That vice and immorality prevail in no small degree, in countries professing christia­nity, we need not go out of our own to be convinced. But that this is the case only be­cause this benign principle is not suffered to operate in its full power, will be no less ob­vious to all who are sincere in their enquiries. For, if we allow (and who that examines im­partially [Page 63] can help allowing?) that it is the natural tendency of christianity to make men better, then it must be the aversion to receiv­ing it, and not the faults of the principles, which prevents them from becoming so.

Those who are acquainted with the effects it actually produced in the first ages of the church, when it was received in its genu­ine purity, and when it did operate without obstruction, from its followers at least, will want no other proof of its inherent power and efficacy. At that period, its most decid­ed and industrious enemy, the emperor Ju­lian, could recommend the manners of the Galileans to the imitation of his pagan high priest; though he himself, at the same time, was doing every thing which the most inve­terate malice, sharpened by the acutest wit, and backed by the most absolute power, could devise, to discredit their doctrines.

Nor would the efficacy of christianity be less visible now, in influencing the conduct of its professors, if its principles were hear­tily and sincerely received. They would operate on the conduct so effectually, that we should see morals and manners growing out of principles, as spontaneously and necessa­rily as we see other consequences grow out of their proper and natural causes. Let but this great spring have its unobstructed play, and there would be little occasion to declaim against this excess, or that enormity. If the same skill and care which are employed [Page 64] in curing symptoms, were vigorously level­led at the internal principle of the disease, the moral health would feel the benefit. If that attention which is bestowed in lopping the redundant and unsightly branches, were devoted to the cultivation of a sound and uncorrupt root, the effect of this labour would soon be discovered by the excellence of the fruits.

For though, even in the highest possible exertion of religious principle, and the most diligent practice of all its consequential train of virtues, man would still find evil propen­sities enough, in his fallen nature, to make it necessary that he should counteract them, by keeping alive his diligence after higher attainments, and to quicken his aspirations after a better state; yet the prevailing tem­per would be in general right, the will would be in a great measure rectified; and the heart, feeling and acknowledging the dis­ease, would apply itself diligently to the on­ly remedy. For though even the best men have infirmities enough to deplore, commit sins enough to keep them deeply humble, and feel more sensibly than others, the im­perfection of that vessel in which their hea­venly treasure is hid: these however have the internal consolation of knowing that they shall have to reckon with one who "know­eth whereof they are made;" who will ac­cept of faith and repentance instead of sin­less [Page 65] perfection, and of humble sincerity in lieu of entire holiness.

All the heavy charges which have been brought against religion, have been taken from the abuses of it. In every other in­stance the injustice of this proceeding would be notorious: but there is a general want of candour in the judgment of men on this sub­ject, which we do not find them exercise on other occasions; that of throwing the fault of the erring or ignorant professor on the pro­fession itself.

It does not derogate from the honourable profession of arms, that there are cowards and braggarts. If any man lose his estate by the chicanery of an attorney, or his health by the blunder of a physician, it is commonly said, that the one was a disgrace to his bu­siness, and the other was ignorant of it; but no one therefore concludes that law and phy­sic are contemptible professions.

Christianity alone is obliged to bear all the obliquy incurred by the misconduct of its followers; to sustain all the reproach excited by ignorant, by fanatical, by superstitious, or hypocritical professors. But whoever ac­cuses it of a tendency to produce the errors of these professors, must have picked up his opinion any where rather than in the New Testament, which being the only authentic history of christianity, is that which candour would naturally consult for information.

[Page 66] But as worldly and irreligious men do not draw their notions from that pure fountain, but from the polluted stream of human prac­tice; as they form their judgment of divine truth from the conduct of those who pre­tend to be enlightened by it; some charita­ble allowance must be made for the contempt which they entertain for christianity, when they see what poor effects it produces in the lives of the generality of professing christians. What do they observe there which can lead them to entertain very high ideas of the prin­ciples which give birth to such practices?

Do men of the world discover any marked, any decided difference between the conduct of nominal christians, and that of the rest of their neighbours who pretend to no religion at all? Do they see, in the daily lives of such, any great abundance of those fruits by which they have heard believers are to be known? On the contrary, do they not dis­cern in them the same anxious and unweari­ed pursuit after the things of the earth, as in those who do not profess to have any thought of heaven? Do not they seem then to labour as sedulously in the interests of a debasing and frivolous dissipation, as those who do not pretend to have any nobler object in view? Is there not the same eagerness to plunge into all sorts of follies themselves, and the same unrighteous speed in intro­ducing their children to them, as if they had never entered into a solemn engagement [Page 67] to renounce them? Is there not the same self-indulgence, the same luxury, and the same passionate attachment to the things of this world in them, as is visible in those who do not look for another?

Do not thoughtless neglect, and habitual dissipation, answer, as to society, all the ends of the most decided infidelity? Between the barely decent, and the openly profane, there is indeed this difference; that the one, by making no profession, deceives neither the world, nor his own heart; while the other, by intrenching himself in forms, fancies that he does something, and thanks God that "he is not like the publican." The one only shuts his eyes upon the danger which the other despises.

But these unfruitful professors would do well to recollect, that, by a conduct so lit­tle worthy of their high calling, they not only violate the law to which they have vow­ed obedience, but occasion many to disbelieve or to despise it; that they are thus in a great measure accountable for the infidelity of o­thers, and of course will have to answer for more than their own personal offences. For did they in any respect live up to the prin­ciples they profess; did they adorn the doc­trines of christianity by a life in any de­gree consonant to their faith; did they ex­hibit any thing of the "beauty of holiness" in their daily conversation; they would then give such a demonstrative proof, not only [Page 68] of the sincerity of their own obedience, but of the brightness of that divine light by which they profess to walk, that the most determined unbeliever would at last begin to think there must be something in a religion of which the effects were so visible, and the fruits so amiable; and might in time be led to "glorify," not them, not the imperfect doers of these works, but "their Father which is in heaven." Whereas, as things are at present carried on, the obvious con­clusion must be, either that christians do not believe in the religion they profess, or that there is no truth in the religion itself.

For will he not naturally say, that, if its influences were so predominant, its conse­quences must be more evident? that, if the prize held out were really so bright, those who truly believed so would surely do some­thing, and sacrifice something, to obtain it?

This swells the amount of the actual mis­chief beyond calculation. And there is some­thing terrible in the idea of this sort of in­definite evil, that the careless christian can never know the extent of the contagion he spreads, nor the multiplied infection which they may communicate in their turn, whom his disorders first corrupted.

And there is this farther aggravation of his offence, that he will not only be answer­able for all the positive evil of which his ex­ample is the cause; but for the omission of all the probable good which might have been [Page 69] called forth in others, had his actions been consistent with his profession. What a strong, what an almost irresistible convic­tion would it carry to the hearts of unbe­lievers, if they beheld that characteristic dif­ference in the manners of christians, which their profession gives one a right to expect! if they saw that disinterestedness, that hu­mility, sober-mindedness, temperance, sim­plicity, and sincerity, which are the una­voidable fruits of a genuine faith!

But, while a man talks like a saint, and yet lives like a sinner; while he professes to believe like an apostle, and yet leads the life of a sensualist; talks of an ardent faith, and yet exhibits a cold and low practice; boasts himself the disciple of a meek mas­ter, and yet is as much a slave to his pas­sions as they who acknowledge no such au­thority; while he appears the proud pro­fessor of an humble religion, or the intem­perate champion of a self-denying one: such a man brings christianity into disrepute; confirms those in error who might have been awakened to conviction; strengthens doubt into disbelief; and hardens indifference into contempt.

Even among those of a better cast, and a purer principle, the excessive restraints of timidity, caution, and that "fear of man, which bringeth a snare," confine, and al­most stifle the generous spirit of an ardent exertion in the cause of religion. Christi­anity [Page 70] may pathetically expostulate, that it is not always "an open enemy which disho­nours her," but her "familiar friend." And, "what dost thou more than others?" is a question which even the good and wor­thy should often ask themselves, in order to quicken their zeal; to prevent the total stag­nation of unexerted principles, on the one hand; or the danger, on the other, of their being driven down the gulf of ruin, by the unresisted and confluent tides of temptation, fashion, and example.

In a very strict and mortified age, of which a scrupulous severity was the predominant character, precautions against an excessive zeal might, and doubtless would, be a whole­some and prudent measure. But in these times of relaxed principle and frigid indif­ference, to see people so vigilantly on their guard against the imaginary mischiefs of en­thusiasm, while they run headlong into the real opposite perils of a destructive licenti­ousness, puts one in mind of the one-eyed animal in the fable, who, living on the banks of the ocean, never fancied he could be de­stroyed any way but by drowning: but, while he kept that one eye constantly fixed on the sea, on which side he concluded all the peril lay, he was devoured by an enemy on the dry land, from which quarter he ne­ver suspected any danger.

Are not the mischiess of an enthusiastic piety insisted on with as much earnestness as [Page 71] if an extravagant devotion were the prevail­ing propensity? Is not the necessity of mo­deration as vehemently urged as if an in­temperate zeal were the epidemic distemper of the great world? As if all our apparent danger and natural bias lay on the side of a too rigid austerity, which required the dis­creet and constant counteraction of an opposite principle? Would not a stranger be almost tempted to imagine, from the frequent in­vectives against extreme strictness, that ab­straction from the world, and a monastic rage for retreat, were the ruling temper; that we were in some danger in seeing our places of diversion abandoned; and the enthusiastic scenes of the Holy Fathers of the desert acted over again by the frantic and uncontroul­able devotion of our young persons of fashi­on?

It is seriously to be regretted, in an age like the present, remarkable for indifference in religion and levity in manners, and which stands so much in need of lively patterns of firm and resolute piety, that many who real­ly are christians on the soberest convicti­on, should not appear more openly and de­cidedly on the side they have espoused; that they assimilate so very much with the manners of those about them (which man­ners they yet scruple not to disapprove;) and, instead of an avowed but prudent stead­fastness, which might draw over the others, appear evidently fearful of being thought [Page 72] precise and over-scrupulous: and actually seem to disavow their right principles, by concessions and accommodations not strictly consistent with them. They often seem cau­tiously afraid of doing too much, and going to far; and the dangerous plea, the necessity of living like other people, of being like the rest of the world, and the propriety of not being par­ticular, is brought as a reasonable apology for a too yielding and indiscriminate confor­mity.

But, at a time when almost all are sinking into the prevailing corruption, how beauti­ful a rare, a single integrity is, let the in­stances of Lot and Noah declare. And to those with whom a poem is an higher autho­rity than the Bible, let me recommend the most animated picture of a righteous singu­larity that ever was delineated, in

Few indeed of the more orderly and de­cent have any objection to that degree of re­ligion which is compatible with their general acceptance with others, or the full enjoy­ment [Page 73] of their own pleasures. For a formal and ceremonious exercise of the outward du­ties of christianity, may not only be kept up without exciting censure, but will even pro­cure a certain respect and confidence; and is not quite irreconcileable with a voluptu­ous and dissipated life. So far many go; and so far "as godliness is profitable to the life that is," it passes without reproach.

But as soon as men begin to consider re­ligious exercises not as a decency, but a du­ty; not as a commutation for a self-denying life, but as a means to promote a holy tem­per, and a virtuous conduct: as soon as they feel disposed to carry the effect of their devo­tion into their daily life: as soon as their principles discover themselves, by leading them to withdraw from those scenes, and ab­stain from those actions, in which the gay place their supreme happiness: as soon as something is to be done, and something is to be parted with; then the world begins to take offence, and to stigmatize the activity of that piety, which had been commended as long as it remained inoperative, and had only evaporated in words.

But when religion, like the vital princi­ple, takes its seat in the heart, and sends out supplies of life and heat to every part; dif­fuses motion, soul, and vigour, through the whole circulation; and informs and animates the whole man: when it operates on the practice, influences the conversation, breaks [Page 74] out into a lively zeal for the honour of God, and the best interests of mankind; then the sincerity, or the understanding, of that per­son will become questionable: and it must be owing to a very fortunate combination of cir­cumstances indeed, if he can at once preserve the character of parts and piety.

But it is a folly to talk of being too holy, too strict, or too good. Where there hap­pens to appear some foundation for the charge of enthusiasm (as there are indeed too often in good people eccentricities which justify the censure), we may depend upon it, that it pro­ceeds from some defect in the judgment, and not from any excess in the piety; for in good­ness there is no excess: and it is as preposter­ous to say that any one is too good, or too pious, as that he is too wise, too strong, or too healthy; since the highest point in all these is only the perfection of that quality which we admired in a lower degree. There may be an imprudent, but there cannot be a superabun­dant goodness. An ardent imagination may mislead a rightly turned heart; and a weak intellect may incline the best intentioned to ascribe too much value to things of compa­ratively small importance. Such an one not having discernment enough to perceive where the force and stress of duty lie, may innocent­ly discredit religion by a too scrupulous exact­ness in points of small intrinsic value.

And even well-meaning men, as well as hypocrites, may think too much is done when [Page 75] their "mint" and "anise" are rigorously tithed.

But in observing the "weightier matters of the law," in the practice of universal holi­ness, in the love of God, there can be no pos­sibility of exceeding while there is no limita­tion in the command. We are in no danger of loving our neighbour better than ourselves; and let us remember, that we do not go be­yond, but fall short of our duty, while we love him less. If we were commanded to love God with some of our heart, with part of our soul, and a portion of our strength, there would then be some colour for those perpetu­al cavils about the proportion of love, and the degree of obedience, which are due to him. But as the command is so definite, so abso­lute, so comprehensive, so entire; nothing can be more absurd than that unmeaning, but not unfrequent charge brought against serious persons, that they are too strict.

The foundation of this silly censure is com­monly laid in the first principles of education, where an early separation is systematically made between duty and pleasure. One of the first baits held out for the encourage­ment of children, is, that when they have done their duty, they will be entitled to some pleasure; thus forcibly disjoining what should be considered as inseparable. And there is not a more common justification of that idle and dissipated manner in which the second half of the Sunday is commonly spent, even [Page 76] by those who make a conscience of spending the former part properly, than that, "now they have done their duty, they may take their pleasure."

But while christian observances are consi­dered as tasks, which are to be got over to entitle us to something more pleasant; as a burthen which we must endure in order to propitiate an inexorable Judge who makes a hard bargain with his creatures, and allows them just so much amusement in pay for so much drudgery; we must not wonder that such low views are entertained of christiani­ty, and that a religious life is reprobated as strict and rigid.

But to him who acts from the nobler mo­tive of love, and the animating power of the christian hope, the exercise is the reward, the permission is the privilege, the work is the wages. He does not carve out some mi­serable pleasure, and stipulate for some mea­gre diversion, to pay himself for the hard per­formance of his duty, who in that very per­formance experiences the highest pleasure, and feels the truest gratification of which his nature is capable.

This reprobated strictness therefore, so far from being the source of discomfort and mi­sery, as is pretended, is in reality the true cause of actual enjoyment, by laying the axe to the root of all those turbulent and uneasy passions, the unreserved and yet imperfect gratification of which does so much more [Page 77] tend to disturb our happiness than that self-government christianity enjoins.

But all precepts seem rigorous, all obser­vances are really hard, where there is not an entire conviction of God's right to our obe­dience, and an internal principle of faith and love to make that obedience pleasant. A re­ligious life is indeed a hard bondage to one immersed in the practices of the world, the flesh, and the fashion. To a perfect christian, it is "perfect freedom." He does not now abstain from such and such things, merely because they are forbidden (as he did in the first stages of his progress,) but because his soul has no longer any pleasure in them. And it would be the severest of all punish­ments to oblige him to return to those prac­tices, from which he once abstained with dif­ficulty, and through the less noble principle of fear.

There is not therefore perhaps a greater mistake than that common notion entertain­ed by the more orderly part of the fashiona­ble world, that a little religion will make peo­ple happy, but that an high degree of it is incompatible with all enjoyment. For sure­ly that religion can add little to a man's hap­piness which restrains him from the commis­sion of a wrong action, but which does not pretend to extinguish the bad principle from which the act proceeded. A religion which ties the hands, without changing the heart; which, like the hell of Tantalus, subdues not [Page 78] the desire, yet forbids the gratification, is in­deed an uncomfortable state. Such a reli­gion, though it may gain a man something on the side of reputation, will give him but little inward comfort, if his heart be still left a prey to that temper which produced the evil, even though terror or shame may have prevented the outward act.

That people devoted to the pursuits of a dissipated life should conceive of religion as a difficult and even unattainable state, it is ea­sy to believe. That they should conceive of it as an unhappy state, is the consummation of their error and ignorance: for that a rati­onal being should have his understanding en­lightened; that an immortal being should have his views extended and enlarged; that a help­less being should have a consciousness of assist­ance; a sinful being the prospect of pardon; or a fallen one the assurance of restoration, does not seem a probable ground of unhappi­ness; and on any other subject such reasoning would not be admissible.

CHAP VI. A stranger, from observing the fashionable mode of life, would not take this to be a christian country.—Lives of professing christians exa­mined by a comparison with the Gospel.— Christianity not made the rule of life, even by those who profess to receive it as an object of faith.—Temperizing divines contribute to low­er the credit of christianity.—Loose harangues on morals not calculated to reform the heart.

THE christian religion is not intended, as some of its fashionable professors seem to fan­cy, to operate as a charm, a talisman, or in­cantation; and to produce its effect by our pronouncing certain mystical words, attend­ing at certain consecrated places, and perfor­ming certain hallowed ceremonies: but it is an active, vital, influential principle, operat­ing on the heart, restraining the desires, af­fecting the general conduct, and as much re­gulating our commerce with the world, our business, pleasures, and enjoyments, our conversations, designs and actions, as our be­haviour in public worship, or even in private devotion.

That the effects of such a principle are stri­ [...]ngly visible in the lives and manners of the generality of those who give the law to fa­shion, will not perhaps be insisted on. And indeed, the whole present system of fashiona­ble [Page 80] life is utterly destructive of seriousness. To instance only in one particular amuse­ment, which is generally thought insignifi­cant, and is in effect so vapid, that one al­most wonders how it can be dangerous: it would excite laughter, because we are so broke into the habit, were I to insist on the immorality of passing one's whole life in a crowd. But those promiscuous myriads which compose the society, falsely so called, of the gay world; who are brought together without esteem, remain without pleasure, and part without regret; who live in a round of diversions, the possession of which is so joy­less, though the absence is so insupportable, these, by the mere force of incessant and in­discriminate association, weaken, and in time wear out, the best feelings and affections of the human heart. And the mere spirit of dis­sipation, thus contracted from invariable ha­bit, even detached from all its concomitant evils, is in itself as hostile to a religious spirit, as more positive and actual offences. Far be it from me to say that it is as criminal; I on­ly insist that it is as opposite to that heavenly mindedness which is the essence of the chris­tian temper.

We know that in the mingled mass which celebrate the orgies of dissipation, are many amiable and well-inclined hearts, whom no­thing but the tyranny of fashion could have driven thither. But let us suppose an igno­rant and unprejudiced spectator, who should [Page 81] have been taught the theory of all the religi­ons on the globe, brought hither from the other hemisphere. Set him down in the po­litest part of our capital, and let him deter­mine, if he can, except from what he shall see interwoven in the texture of our laws, and kept up in the service of our churches, to what particular religion we belong. Let him not mix entirely with the most flagitious, but only with the most fashionable; at least, let him keep what they themselves call the best company. Let him scrutinize into the man­ners, customs, conversations, habits, and di­versions, most in vogue, and then infer what is the established religion of the land.

That it could not be the Jewish, he would soon discover; for of rites, ceremonies, and external observances, he would trace but slender remains. He would be equally con­vinced that it could not be the religion of old Greece and Rome; for that enjoined re­verence to the gods, and inculcated obedience to the laws. His most probable conclusion would be in favour of the Mahometan faith, did not the excessive indulgence of some of the most distinguished, in an article of intem­perance prohibited even by the sensual pro­phet of Arabia, defeat that conjecture.

How would the petrified enquirer be asto­nished, if he were told that all these were of a religion meek, spiritual, self-denying; of which poverty of spirit, a renewed mind, [Page 82] and non-conformity to the world, were spe­cific distinctions!

When he saw the sons of men of fortune, scarcely old enough to be sent to school, ad­mitted to be spectators of the turbulent and unnatural diversions of racing and gaming; and the almost infant daughters, even of wise and virtuous mothers (an innovation which fashion herself forbad till now,) carried with most unthrifty anticipation to the frequent and late-protracted ball; would he believe that we were of a religion which has requir­ed from these very parents, a solemn vow that these children should be bred up "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?"

When he beheld those nocturnal clubs, so subversive of private virtue and domestic hap­piness, would he conceive that we were of a religion which in express terms "exhorts young men to be sober-minded?"

When he saw those magnificent and bright­ly illuminated structures which decorate and disgrace the very precincts of the royal resi­dence (so free itself from all these pollu­tions;) when he beheld the nightly offerings made to the demon of play, on whose cruel altar the fortune and happiness of wives and children are offered up without remorse; would he not conclude that we were of some of those barbarous religions which enjoin un­natural sacrifices, and whose horrid deities are appeased with nothing less than human victims? If any thing could add to his asto­nishment, [Page 83] it must be to observe, in some more private temples of this demon, that the fair sacrifice is often a voluntary one, self-offered, and at once both priestess and victim.

Now, ought we not to pardon our ima­ginary spectator, if he should not at once con­clude that all the various descriptions of per­sons, above noticed, professed the christian religion; supposing him to have no other way of determining but by the conformity of their manners to that rule by which he had undertaken to judge them? We indeed our­selves must judge with greater latitude, and candidly take the present state of society into the account; which, in some few instances perhaps, must be allowed to dispense with that literal strictness, which more peculiarly belonged to the first ages of the Gospel.

But as this is really a christian country, professing to enjoy the purest faith in the pu­rest form; it cannot be unreasonable to go a little farther, and enquire whether christian­ity, however firmly established, and general­ly professed in it, is really practised by that order of fashionable persons, who, while they are absorbed in the delights of the world, and their whole souls devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, yet still arrogate to themselves the honourable name of christians, and oc­casionally testify their claim to this high cha­racter, by a general profession of their belief in, and a decent compliance with, the forms of religion.

[Page 84] This enquiry must be made, not by a com­parison with the state of christianity in other countries (a mode always fallacious, whether adopted by nations or individuals, is that of comparing themselves with those who are still worse;) nor must it be made from any notions drawn from custom, decency, or any other human standard; but from a scripture view of what real religion is; from any one of those striking and comprehensive repre­sentations of it, which may be found condens­ed in so many single passages of the sacred writings.

Whoever then looks into the Book of God, and observes its prevailing spirit, and then looks into that part of the world under con­sideration, will not surely be thought very censorious, if he pronounce that the confor­mity between them does not seem to be very striking; and that the one does not very evidently appear to be dictated by the other. Will he discover that the christian religion is so much as pretended to be made the rule of life, even by that decent order who profess not to have discarded it as an object of faith? Do even the more regular, who neglect not public observances, consider christianity as the measure of their actions? Do even what the world calls religious persons employ their time, their abilities, and their fortune, as ta­lents for which they however confess they believe themselves accountable: or do they in any respect live, I will not say up to their pro­fession [Page 85] (for what human being does so?) but in any consistency with it, or even with an eye to its predominant tendencies? Do per­sons in general of this description seem to con­sider the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel as any thing more than a form of words, neces­sary indeed to be repeated, and proper to be believed? But do they consider them as ne­cessary to be adopted into a governing prin­ciple of action?

Is it consistent to declare in the solemn as­semblies that they are "miserable offenders," and that "there is no health in them," and never in their daily lives to discover any symp­tom of that humility which should naturally be implied in such a declaration?

Is it reasonable, or consistent with good sense, earnestly to lament having "followed the desires of their own hearts," and then deliberately to plunge into such a torrent of dissipations as clearly indicates that they do not struggle to resist one of them? I dare not say this is hypocrisy, but surely it is inconsis­tency.

"Be ye not conformed to this world," is a leading principle in the book they ac­knowledge as their guide. But after unresis­tingly assenting to this, as a doctrinal truth, at church; how absurd would they think a­ny one who should expect them to adopt it into their practice! Perhaps the whole law of God does not exhibit a single precept more expressly, more steadily, and more uniformly [Page 86] rejected. If it mean any thing, it can hardly be consistent with that mode of life emphati­cally distinguished by the appellation of fa­shionable.

Now would it be much more absurd (for any other reason but because it is not the custom) if our legislators were to meet one day in every week, gravely to read over all the obsolete statutes, and rescinded acts of parliament; than it is for the order of per­sons of the above description to assemble eve­ry Sunday, to profess their belief in, and submission to, a system of principles, which they do not so much as intend shall be bind­ing on their practice?

But to continue our enquiry.—There is not a more common or more intelligible de­finition of human duty, than that of "Fear God, and keep his commandments." Now, as to the first of these inseparable precepts, can we, with the utmost stretch of charity, be very forward to conclude that God is re­ally "very greatly feared," in secret, by those who give too manifest indications that they live "without him in the world? And as to the latter precept, which naturally grows out of the other—without noticing a­ny of the flagrant breaches of the moral law, let us only confine ourselves to the allowed, general, and notorious violation of the fourth commandment, and then enquire what apo­logy can be offered for this, by believers at least, who scruple not to allow the authority [Page 87] of that book, which declares, among many other alarming denunciations, that the wilful and habitual offender in any one point is guil­ty of the breach of the whole law.

Shall we have reason to change our opi­nion, if we take another divine representation of the sum and substance of religion, and ap­ply it as a touchstone in the present trial— "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c. and thy neighbour as thy­self?" Now, judging by inference, do we see many public proofs of that heavenly-minded­ness which would be the inevitable effect of such a fervent and animated dedication of all the powers, faculties, and affections of the soul to him who gave it? And, as to the great rule of social duty expressed in the se­cond clause, do we observe very much of that considerate kindness, that pure disinter­estedness, that conscientious attention to the comfort of others, especially of dependants and inferiors, which might be expected from those who enjoy the privilege of so unerring a standard of conduct? a standard which, if impartially consulted, must make our kind­ness to others bear an exact proportion to our self-love: a rule in which christian prin­ciple, operating on human sensibility, could not fail to decide aright in every supposable case. For no man can doubt how he ought to act towards another, while the correspon­ding suggestions of conscience and feeling concur in letting him know how he would [Page 88] wish, in a change of circumstances, that o­thers should act towards him.

Or suppose we take a more detailed sur­vey, by a third rule, which indeed is not so much the principle as the effect of piety.— "True religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Now if christianity insists that obedience to the latter injunction be the true evidence of the sinceri­ty of those who fulfil the former, is the benefi­cence of the fashionable world very strikingly illustrated by this spotless purity, this exemp­tion from the pollutions of the world, which is here declared to be its infallible symptom?

But if I were to venture to take my esti­mate with a view more immediately evangel­ical; if I presumed to look for that genuine christianity which consists in "repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ," to insist that, whatever natural reli­gion and fashionable religion may teach, it is the peculiarity of the christian religion to humble the sinner and exalt the Saviour; to insist that not only the grossly flagitious, but that all, have sinned; that all are by nature in a state of condemnation; that all stand in need of mercy, of which there is no hope but on the Gospel terms; that eternal life is promised to those only who accept it on the offered conditions of "faith, repentance, and renewed obedience,"—if I were to in­sist [Page 89] on such evidences of our christianity as these; if I were to express these doctrines in plain scriptural terms, without lowering, qualifying, disguising, or doing them away; if I were to insist on this belief, and its im­plied and corresponding practices; I am aware that, with whatever condescending pa­tience this little tract might have been so far perused, many a fashionable reader would here throw it aside, as having now detected the palpable enthusiast, the abettor of "strange doctrines," long ago consigned over by the liberal and the polite to bigots and fanatic. And yet, if the Bible be true, this is a simple and faithful description of christianity.

After having, however, just ventured to hint that such are indeed the humbling doc­trines of the Gospel, to which alone eternal life is promised; I shall, in deep humility, forbear enlarging on this part of the subject, which has been exhausted by the labours of wise and pious men in all ages. Unhappily, however, the most awakening of these wri­ters are not the favourite guests in the clo­sets of the more fashionable christians; who, when they happen to be more seriously dis­posed than ordinary, are fond of finding out some middle kind of reading, which recom­mends some half-way state, something be­tween paganism and christianity, suspending the mind, like the position of Mahomet's tomb, between earth and heaven: a kind of [Page 90] reading which, while it quiets the conscience by being on the side of morals, neither awa­kens their fears, nor alarms their security. By dealing in general, it comes home to the hearts of none; it flatters the passions of the reader, by ascribing high merit to the perfor­mance of certain right actions, and the for­bearance from certain wrong ones; among which, that reader must be very unlucky in­deed who does not find some performances and some forbearances of his own. It at once enables him to keep heaven in his eye, and the world in his heart. It agreeably represents the readers to themselves as amiable persons; guilty indeed of a few faults, but never as condemned sinners under sentence of death. It commonly abounds with high encomiums on the dignity of human nature; the good effects of virtue on health, fortune, and repu­tation; the dangers of a blind zeal, the mis­chiefs of enthusiasm, and the folly of being "righteous over much;" with various other kindred sentiments, which, if they do not fall in of themselves with the corruptions of our nature may, by a little warping, be easily accommodated to them.

These are the too successful practices of lukewarm and temporizing divines, who have become popular by blunting the edge of that heavenly tempered weapon, whose salu­tary keenness, but for their "deceitful hand­ling," would oftener "pierce to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit."

[Page 91] But those severer preachers of righteous­ness, who disgust by applying too closely to the conscience; who probe the inmost heart, and lay open all its latent peccancies; who treat of principles as the only certain source of manners; who lay the axe to the root, oftener than the pruning knife to the branch; who insist much and often on the great lead­ing truths, that man is a fallen creature, who must be restored, if he be restored at all, by means very little flattering to human pride —such as these will seldom find access to the houses and hearts of the more modish christians; unless they happen to owe their admission to some subordinate quality of style; unless they can captivate, with the seducing graces of language, those well-bred readers, who are childishly amusing themselves with the garnish, when they are perishing for want of food; who are searching for polished periods, when they should be in quest of alarming truths; who are looking for elegance of composition, when they should be anxious for eternal life.

Whatever comparative praise may be due to the former class of writers, when viewed with others of a less decent order, yet I am not sure whether so many books of frigid mo­rality, exhibiting such inferior motives of ac­tion, and such moderate representations of duty, have not done religion much more harm than good; whether they do not lead many a reader to enquire what is the lowest degree [Page 92] in the scale of virtue with which he may con­tent himself, so as barely to escape eternal pu­nishment; how much indulgence he may al­low himself, without absolutely forfeiting his chance of safety; what is the uttermost verge to which he may venture of this world's en­joyment, and yet just keep within a possibility of hope for the next: adjusting the scales of indulgence and security with such a scrupu­lous equilibrium, as not to lose much plea­sure, yet not incur much penalty.

This is hardly an exaggerated representa­tion: and to these low views of duty is part­ly owing so much of that bare-weight virtue with which even christians are so apt to con­tent themselves: fighting for every inch of ground which may possibly be taken within the pales of permission; and stretching those pales to the utmost edge of that limitation a­bout which the world and the Bible con­tend.

But while the nominal christian is persua­ding himself that there can be no harm in going a little farther, the real christian is al­ways afraid of going too far. While the one is debating for a little more disputed ground, the other is so fearful of straying into the re­gions of unallowed indulgence, that he keeps at a prudent distance from the extremity of his permitted limits, and is as anxious in re­stricting as the other is in extending them. One thing is clear, and it may be no bad in­dication by which to discover the state of a [Page 93] man's heart to himself: while he is contend­ing for this allowance, and stipulating for the other indulgence, it will shew him that, whatever change there may be in his life, there is none in his heart; the temper re­mains as it did; and it is by the inward frame rather than the outward act, that he can best judge of his own state, whatever may be the rule by which he undertakes to judge of that of another.

It is less wonderful that there are not more christians, than that christians, as they are called, are not better men: for if christianity be not true, the motives to virtue are not high enough to quicken ordinary men to ve­ry extraordinary exertions. We see them do and suffer every day, for popularity, for cus­tom, for fashion, for the point of honour, not only more than good men do and suffer for religion, but a great deal more than reli­gion requires them to do. For her reasona­ble service demands no sacrifices but what are sanctified by good sense, sound policy, right reason, and uncorrupt judgment.

Many of these fashionable professors even go so far as to bring their right faith as an a­pology for their wrong practice. They have a commodious way of intrenching themselves within the shelter of some general position of unquestionable truth. Even the great chris­tian hope, becomes a snare to them. They apologize for a life of offence, by taking re­fuge in the supreme goodness they are abus­ing. [Page 94] That "God is all merciful," is the common reply to those who hint to them their danger. This is a false and fatal appli­cation of a divine and comfortable truth. Nothing can be more certain than the propo­sition, nor more delusive than the inference: for their deduction implies, not that he is merciful to sin repented of, but to sin conti­nued in. But it is a most fallacious hope to expect that God will violate his own cove­nant, or that he is indeed "all mercy," to the utter exclusion of his other attributes of perfect holiness, purity, and justice.

It is a dangerous folly to rest on these vague and general notions of uncovenanted mercy; and nothing can be more delusive than this indefinite trust in being forgiven in our own way, after God has clearly revealed to us that he will only forgive us in his way.

But the truth is, no one does truly trust in God, who does not endeavour to obey him. For to break his laws, and yet to depend on his favour; to live in opposition to his will, and yet in expectation of his mercy; to viol­ate his commands, and yet look for his ac­ceptance, would not, in any other instance, be thought a reasonable ground of conduct; and yet it is by no means as uncommon as it is inconsistent.

But the life of a dissipated christian seems to be a perpetual struggle to reconcile impos­sibilities: it is an endeavour to unite what God has for ever separated, peace and sin; [Page 95] unchristian practices with christian observan­ces; a quiet conscience and a disorderly life; a heart full of this world, and an unfounded dependance on the happiness of the next.

CHAP. VII. View of these who acknowledge christianity as a perfect system of morals, but deny its divine authority—Morality not the whole of reli­gion.

AS in the preceding chapter notice was taken of that description of persons who pro­fess to receive christianity with great reve­rence as a matter of faith, who yet do not pretend to adopt it as a rule of conduct; I shall conclude these slight remarks with some short animadversions on another set of men, and that not a small one, among the decent and the fashionable, who profess to think it exhibits an admirable system of morals, while they deny its divine authority; though that alone can make the necessity of obeying its precepts binding on the consciences of men.

This is a very discreet scheme: for such persons at once save themselves from the dis­credit of having their understanding imposed upon by a supposed blind submission to evi­dences and authorities; and yet, prudently enough, secure to themselves in no small de­gree, the reputation of good men. By steer­ing this middle kind of course, they contrive to be reckoned liberal by the philosophers, and decent by the believers.

[Page 97] But we are not commonly to expect to see the pure morality of the Gospel very carefully transfused into the lives of such objectors. And indeed it would be unjust to imagine that the precepts should be most scrupulously observed by those who reject the authority. The influence of divine truth, must necessarily best prepare the heart for an unreserved obedience to its laws. If we do not depend on that pardon and accep­tance which christianity offers, we shall want the best motive to the actions and perfor­mances which it enjoins. A lively belief must therefore precede a very hearty and com­plete obedience. We are told, on the very best authority, that truth sanctifies the heart: and the same authority adds, that, the "word of God is truth." That cammand therefore, for instance, to set "our affecti­ons on things above," will operate but faint­ly, till that spirit from which the command proceeds, touches the heart, and convinces it that no human good is worthy of the en­tire affection of an immortal creature. An unreserved faith in the promiser must pre­cede our worthy performance of any duty to which the promise is annexed.

But as to a set of duties enforced by no other motive than a bare acquiescence in their beauty, and a cold conviction of their pro­priety, but impelled by no obedience to his authority who imposes them; though we know not how well they might be perform­ed [Page 98] by pure and impeccable beings, yet we know how they commonly are performed by frail and disorderly creatures, fallen from their innocence, and corrupt in their very natures.

Besides, nothing but a conviction of the truth of christianity can reconcile thinking beings to the extraordinary appearances of things in the Creator's moral government of the world. The works of God are an enig­ma, of which his word alone is the solution. The dark veil which is thrown over the di­vine dispensations in this lower world, must naturally shock those who consider only the single scene which is acting on the present stage; but is reconcileable to him who, hav­ing learnt from revelation the nature of the laws by which the great Author acts, trusts confidently that the catastrophe will set all to rights. The confusion which sin and the passions have introduced; the triumph of wickedness, the seemingly arbitrary dispro­portion of human conditions, accountable on no scheme but that which the Gospel has opened to us—have all a natural tendency to withdraw from the love of God the hearts of those who erect themselves into critics on the divine conduct, and yet will not study the plan, and get acquainted with the rules, so far as it has pleased the Supreme Disposer to reveal them.

[Page 99] Till therefore the word of God is used as "a lamp to their paths," men can neither truly discern the crookedness of their own ways, nor the perfection of that light by which they are directed to walk. And this light can only be seen by its own proper brightness; it has no other medium. Till therefore "the secret of the Lord" is with men, they will not truly "fear him;" till he has "enlarged their hearts" with the knowledge and belief of his word, they will not very vigorously "run the way of his commandments." Till they have acquired that "faith without which it is impossible to please God," they will not attain that holi­ness without which no man can see him.

And indeed if God has thought sit to make the gospel an instrument of salvation, we must own the necessity of receiving it as a di­vine institution, before it is likely to operate very effectually on the conduct. The great Creator, if we may judge by analogy from natural things, is so wise an oeconomist, that he always adapts, with the most accurate pre­cision, the instrument to the work; and ne­ver lavishes more means than are necessary to accomplish the proposed end. If therefore christianity had been intended for nothing more than a mere system of ethics, such a system surely might have been produced at an infinitely less expence. The long chain of prophecy, the labours of apostles, the blood [Page 100] of saints, to say nothing of the great and costly sacrifice which the gospel records, might surely have been spared. Lessons of mere human virtue might have been deli­vered by some suitable instrument of human wisdom, strengthened by the visible autho­rity of human power. A bare system of morals might have been communicated to mankind with a more reasonable prospect of advantage, by means not so repugnant to human pride. A mere scheme of conduct might have been delivered, with far greater probability of success, by Antoninus the em­peror, or Plato the philosopher, than by Paul the tent-maker, of Peter the fisherman.

Christianity, then, must be embraced en­tirely, if it be received at all. It must be taken, without mutilation, as a perfect scheme, in the way in which God has been pleased to reveal it. It must be accepted, not [...] exhibiting beautiful parts, but as pre­senting one consummate whole, of which the perfection arises from coherence and dependence, from relation and consistency. Its power will be weakened, and its energy destroyed, if every caviller pulls out a pin, or obstructs a spring, with the presumptu­ous view of new modelling the divine work, and making it go to his own mind. There is no breaking this system into portions of which we are at liberty to choose one, and reject another. There is no separating the evidences from the doctrines, the doctrines [Page 101] from the precepts, belief from obedience, morality from piety, the love of our neigh­bour from the love of God. If we profess christianity at all, if we allow the Divine Author to be indeed unto us "wisdom and righteousness," he must be also "sanctifica­tion and redemption."

Christianity, then, is assuredly something more than a mere set of rules; and piety, though it never pretended to be the substi­tute for a good life, is indispensably neces­sary to its acceptance with God. The Gos­pel never offers to make religion supersede morality, but every where clearly proves that morality is not the whole of religion. Pie­ty is not only necessary as a means, but is itself a most important end. It is not only the best principle of moral conduct, but is an indispensable and absolute duty in itself. It is not only the highest motive to the prac­tice of virtue, but is a prior obligation; and absolutely necessary, even when detach­ed from its immediate influence on practi­cal goodness. Religion will survive all the virtues of which it is the source; for we shall be living in the noblest exercises of pie­ty, when we shall have no objects on which to exercise many human virtues. When there will be no distress to be relieved, no injuries to be forgiven, no evil habits to be subdued; there will be a Creator to be bless­ed and adored, a Redeemer to be loved and praised.