y-
■■:■ ■n' -ff .f
LIBRARY
OF THE
University of California,
GIF^T OK
Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH.
Received October, 1894.
t^ccessions No. ^^{J (riy Class No.
f ■
V,/^
'O^
'^vv;^^>^iiV>- ^v
MISCELLANEOUS
S E E M N S.
BY THK
REV. SYDNEY SMITH, A.M.,
LATE FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD ; RECTOR OF FOSTON, IN YORKSHIRE;
PREACHER AT THE FOUNDLING, AND AT BERKELEY,
AND FITZROY CHAPELS.
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
PHILADELPHIA:
CAREY AND HART
1846.
jrW6r
PHILADELPHIA '.
T. K. & P. G. COLLINS,
PRINTERS.
CONTENTS
On Repentance, Part I.
On Repentance, Part II.
On Truth . . . .
On the Education of the Poor -
On the Importance of Public Worship
On the Fast Day, Feb. 28, 1808
On the Utility of meditating on Death
For the Blind - - - -
On Duty to Parents
On the Government of the Heart
On Good Friday
On the Judgments we form of Others ■
Oft the Love of our Country
On Skepticism - - - .
The Poor Magdalene -
Upon the best Mode of Charity
On Methodism - - - .
On Riches - - - .
On Swearing - - - .
On Meekness - - - .
..On the Mode of passing the Sabbath
On the Errors of Youth
On Self-Examination
On Dissipation - - - .
On the Conversion of St. Paul -
On Temptation, Part I.
On Temptation, Part II.
PAOl
13
20
27
33
40
47
64
60
66
72
79
85
91
101
109
116
122
130
137
142
148
154
161
168
175
181
187
IV CONTENTS.
PAOS
For the Humane Society - - - - - 193
On the Effects which Christianity ought to produce upon
Manners ------- 200
For the Swiss ------- 207
On Toleration ------- 215
On Vanity - - . - . - - 223
On Suicide - - 229
On Revenge ------- 236
On the Treatment of Servants ----- 242
On Men of the World ------ 245
On the Folly of being ashamed of Religion - - - 257
On Invasion ------- 263
Upon the special Interference of Providence - - - 272
On True Religion - - - - - - 276
On the Immortality of the Soul - - - - 283
On the Pleasures of Old Age - - - - - 290
On the Effects which the Tumultuous Life, passed in great
Cities, produces upon the Moral and Religious Character 296
On the Character and Genius of the Christian Religion - 301
For the Scotch Lying-in Hospital - - - - 306
On the Pleasures of Religion - - - - - 313
Upon Religious Education ----- 320
On the Use and Abuse of the World - - - - 327
On the Resurrection ------ 333
On Seduction - - - - - - - 339
A Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church - - 347
:Y
SERMON I.
ON REPENTANCE.
PART I.
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea,
and saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. — Matthew
in. VERSE 1.
In treating of the duty of repentance we must particularize
those signs which are to be considered as characteristic of a
repentance efficacious to salvation ; and I think we may say,
that such repentance should be sincere, timely, continuous,
and just.
First. The greatest of all follies is a mockery of God by
insincere repentance, by that fluctuation between sin, and
sorrow, resolution and infringement, — by that endless circle
of penitence, and crime, which they tread, who know virtue
only by its labours, and extract nothing from guilt but re-
morse. The first stage of repentance is in every man's
power, and almost in every man's practice. If sighs and
tears could purchase the kingdom of Heaven, and a sad face
expiate a wicked life, hardness of heart would indeed be
weakness of understanding: but, though God is merciful, he
is not fallible, nor will he take the odour of sacrifices, or the
incense of words, in the lieu of a solid, laborious virtue. In
the Christian religion there is no compensation, no arrange-
ment, no shifting, no fluctuation, no dalliance with duties, no
deference to darling vices : if the eye offends us, we must
pluck it out; if the hand is sinful, we must cut it off*. — Better
to merit heaven by every suffering, than eternal punishment
by every gratification.
We may see, by this striking passage, the absolute neces-
sity of abandoning the vice, before repentance can be effec-
2
14 ON REPENTANCE.
tual to salvation. Our blessed Saviour departs from his usual
mildness of speech; he does not say, if thine eye is evil
anoint it ; if thine hand is diseased heal it ; but pluck it out,
cut it off, tear it from thee ; he requires that a man should
rise above himself ; that the thought of heaven should breathe
into him a moral fortitude ; that he should be great in pur-
pose, rapid in action, unshaken in constancy ; that he should
tear out his ambition, his revenge, his avarice, and all the
harlot passions he has wooed, and trample them beneath his
feet ; that he should feel that noble persuasion which the
great apostle felt, — that neither death, nor life, nor princi-
palities, nor powers, should separate him from the love of
God.
Not that our blessed Saviour intends to say, by the ex-
pressions I have quoted, that the only mode of effecting a
change is by such sudden, and vigorous resolutions ; but that,
where sudden and vigorous resolutions are necessary, any
violence done to habit, any pain endured by depriving our-
selves of enjoyments to which we have been accustomed, is
not for an instant to be weighed against the danger of retain-
ing the sin> or the advantage of abjuring it. A certain por-
tion of time, indeed, and a certain gradation in improvement,
must be allowed to the infirmities of our nature ; and that
repentance is not unacceptable to God where there is progress
in righteousness. Whichever of us all can look back at the
time past with the pleasing certainty that he has acquired a
greater power over any one bad passion ; that his virtuous
resolutions are more constantly observed; that the habit of
doing good, and saying good, and thinking good, are growing
stronger and stronger in his heart ; — the repentance of that
man is a repentance which leads to salvation, and he is be-
coming more fit for the kingdom of heaven, as he approaches
nearer to it.
Smcere repentance consists not only in abstaining, but in
justice, in making restitution, or compensation for the injuries
we have committed against our fellow-creatures. These are
duties from which no lapse of time, and hardly any alteration of
circumstances, can ever exempt us. It is never too late to do
justice ; if we die without doing it, the gates of God's mercy
are shut against us, and we can have no benefit from the
cross of Christ. If seas and mountains separate us from the
being we have injured, we should pass over mountains and
seas to find him ; to beg his prayers to God, and to restore to
ON REPENTANCE. IS
him wine, and oil, and vineyards, and olive yards, tenfold for
all we have taken. If the grave hides him from us, we should
visit his children's children with blessings, and be thankful
that one vestige of his race existed upon the earth. No man
can know rest, or peace, while there remains in his heart the
remembrance of a crime for which he has made no atone-
ment. If you have taken aught of any man, give it back ;
and, when it is gone, your soul will be at ease. — If you have
done secret wrong to his name, come out to the light of day,
and restore innocence to the dignity it has lost. Shame is
bad, and infamy is bad, and blushes are bad ; but the wrath
of God is worse than all these ; — .it is more bitter than the
curses of a nation, and fiercer than an army with banners.
If the danger of not restoring should alarm us, there is
something in the pleasure of restitution which may allure us ;
it eases our shoulders from the burthen of sin, it appeases the
restless anger of conscience, and renders the mind cheerful
and serene ;— if it takes away the stalled ox, it dissipates
hatred; if it leaves the dinner of herbs, they are seasoned
with content. Did any man, who had overcome the first
difficulty of doing justice, ever repent of the eflx)rt he had
made ? — Did he ever say, my feelings of guilt were better
than my feelings of innocence — I am disappointed by right-
eousness, and I wish to reclaim the wages of sin which I
have unadvisedly refunded ? Death, says the son of Sirach,
is terrible to him who lives at ease in his possessions ; but
death is tenfold more terrible to him who lives in misery
amid his possessions, with the consciousness that he ought
never to have enjoyed them ; that, year after year, he has
been reaping the fruits of injustice ; that the time is now gone
by in which he might have pacified both God and man ; and
that nothing remains but a sorrow which no repentance can
prevent, and which no time can cure.
If restitution is impossible, compensation is almost always
in our power, — a compensation proportioned to our means.
There is hardly any man so intrenched in happiness that he
is utterly inaccessible to acts of kindness. Any signs of hum-
ble benevolence, any real contrition of the heart, towards an
injured person, God will accept ; if it is the only compen-
sation which accident enables us to make. — The sin which
God never will forgive, is that cold and barren penitence
which is only sorrowful because it cannot reconcile the feel-
ings of virtue with the profits of crime. I allow that it is
n
ON REPENTANCE.
difficult to do justice, that it is difficult to compensate, and
difficult to restore ; but one great effort is less costly than a
- thousand moments of remorse ; — it is better to do that violence
to your feelings, which every subsequent moment will convert
into a more powerful source of happiness, than to retain any
object of your desire, which every moment will convert into
a more powerful cause of reproach. — The fruits of fraud and
injustice are yours as a diseased limb is yours, for pain and
for weakness, not for enjoyment : health does not make it an
auxiliary ; but adhesion makes it a burden. If the life which
God gave has left it, my hand is no hand to me ; and if riches,
and honour, and power, and every earthly blessing, are not
founded upon righteousness, which is their health, and their
life, they are not blessings, but burthen, and anguish, and
disease, and death.
I have, hitherto, principally insisted upon the necessity of
justice as an ingredient of sincere repentance ; but there can
be no very sincere repentance without sorrow. — Indeed, un-
less the evils and apprehensions to which sin gives birth,
are so powerfully impressed upon the mind as to fill it with
sadness, there is httle security for that part of repentance
which consists in action. — Much is due, also, to the offended
Majesty of Heaven ; we must not confess our impurities to
God with an unshaken spirit ; we must not lift up an un-
daunted face towards his throne, and breathe out the sad
story of our lives in the firm accents of a fearless voice.
" The publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift
up his eyes to Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God
he merciful to me a sinner. ^^I tell you this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other, "^^
Repentance must not only be sincere and just, but it must
be timely ; — it must take place at such a period as will enable
US to make a sohd, real sacrifice of unlawful enjoyment to a
sense of Christian duty. Satiety is often mistaken for re-
pentance, and many give up the offence, when they have lost all
appetite for its commission ; — change of body is mistaken for
change of mind, and he who quits a vice, become unnatural
X to his period of life, deems himself a progressive penitent ;
and believes he is receding from pleasure, because pleasure
is receding from him.
To repent of passions, when passions are sweet and strong,
has the merit of virtue, because it has the difficulty; to oppose
languor, to chain down inertness ; and to vanquish imbecility.
ON REPENTANCE.
'^
is to offer to the Lord our God that which costs us nothing;
and to claim the kingdom of heaven for not doing that which
we cannot do. — Truiy blessed is he who arrests himself in
the middle career of pleasure, while he has yet numbered but
few days, and a fair portion of life is still before him. God
loveth the hoary hairs of the righteous ; but when they who
are far from the grave, when the young, the beautiful, and
the strong, turn to the Lord their God in weeping, in fasting,
and repentance, then is the great victory of Christ over sin ;
then, truly, are the ninety and nine just persons forgotten;
and the joy in heaven is exceeding great. Seriousness, in
old age, we in some degree attribute to bodily causes ; the
early and rational repentance of a young person, disgusted
with the first aspect of sin, is the most genuine and beautiful
form of repentance ; it affords us the example of temptation
resisted when it is the strongest, apology rejected when it is
the most natural, and the laws of religion respected, when the
chance of atoning for their violation is the most complete.
No exception from the common course of passions can be
more beautiful, no goodness more unequivocal, more useful
to man as an example, and more grateful to God as a sacrifice.
If there be gradations in the rewards we are to receive
hereafter, and many mansions in the house of the Father, to
what height of excellence will he arrive, and to what emi-
nence of reward will he attain, who sees before him half a
life of progressive improvement ? The work of righteousness
begins with the dawn of reason, to terminate in the darkness
of death ; and the advanced point at which we are found, at
the conclusion of our labours, must, of course, depend on the
period at which they have commenced, and the vigour with
which they have been prosecuted. Any repentance is better
than a lasting obstinacy in sin ; but it is young repentance
which sanctifies an human soul here upon earth, which
cleanses it from the passions of the flesh, and fills it full of
sweet, holy, everlasting godliness. If the feeble efforts of
old age are all we can give up to the purification of the soul,
death will overtake us labouring and toiling at the very basis
of the eminence ; it ought to overtake us near the summit,
standing on the very confines of the first and the latter world ;
calm, tranquil, clear of every earthly feeling, and waiting for
the hour of God, when he will call us to the dwelHngs of
peace.
If these observations upon the necessity of a timely repent-'
2*
18 ON REPENTANCE.
ance be true, it follows, of course, that what is commonly
termed a death-bed repentance, can be of no avail to the at-
tainment of immortal salvation. Indeed, if we were not aware
of what a fallacious reasoner vice is, we should be astonished
that such an absurdity should enter into the mind of man ; as if
the sin which begins in youth, which is matured in manhood,
which is cherished in old age, which destroys the moral or-
der of the universe, infringes the clear mandates of the Gos-
pel, and scatters sorrow and misery throughout the world,
can be atoned for by the lamentations of a being who never
thought of deploring his sins till he had lost all power of en-
joying them. He has seen, unmoved, for threescore years,
misfortune, evil, and death : he has listened, in vain, to the
voice of moralists, and to the precepts of the Gospel ; and,
in a moment when the spectre of death starts up before him,
he is righteous : What will he be if that spectre vanish
again ? What will he be if God gives him back his life ? Is
there any certainty that he will use that life for the glory of
his maker ? — Is there any certainty that he will not forget
God in health again, as he has forgotten him before ? That
he will not require the same lassitude, the same anguish, and
the same distress, to call him to the care of salvation, which
have awakened in him before a momentary feeling of reli-
gion ? Such repentance can be nothing worth ; if it is effec-
tual to salvation, all other repentance is superfluous to salva-
tion. Sin is made co-extensive with life; every motive to
righteousness is at an end ; and a little muttering of religion,
a few moments before death, is the sum of piety, the defini-
tion of virtue, and the passport to Heaven.
If a death-bed repentance is enough, who would fear God
in the days of their youth, and endure the greater burthen
when a lesser weight would suffice ? " My hour is not yet
come ; I have many years before me in which I may forget
my God, and follow the devices of my heart ; — it will suffice
if I weep, and fast, and pray, in the days when I am well-
stricken in years ; — let those praise God who are drawing
near unto him ; I will be h^ppy and sensual while I am young ;
and reserve the gloon^ of religion for sickness and old age."
Such is the state of principles lyhich the doctrine of a death-
bed repentance naturally produces ; it is a doctrine founded
upon convenience, not upon truth ; it makes the duty of re?
pentance more easy ; but it makes it utterly useless ; — it is
calculated to reconcile every one to the precepts qf the Gqs-
ON REPENTANCE. 19
pel ; and to frustrate every purpose for which the Gospel was
given to mankind.
This subject of repentance is of such importance, and such
extent, that I must reserve what more I have to say upon it
to another time ; and I shall be satisfied, at present, with the
endeavour I have made, to impress upon this congregation
the necessity that repentance should be sincere, early, and
just; that the resolution which gives it birth, should be strong
enough to prevent relapse ; that it should be soon enough to
make the sacrifice to the religion of Christ real and valuable ;
and that it should inspire that spirit of restitution, or compen-
sation, which is the best evidence to prove that our repent-
ance is sincere, and the best means to ascertain that it is use-
ful. It was to teach these truths that the warning voice was
first heard in the wilderness ; it was to rouse, and it was to
save, that the Baptist spoke in the solemn stillness of the
forest, and said, — That the time was short, — that the day
was coming, — that the fan would soon drive the chaff on the
floor, — that one was near at hand, the hem of whose gar-
ment he dare not touch, nor loose the latchet of his shoe.
My brethren, the time is still short, — the day is still coming,
— the fan is still ready for the chafl^,^and he is not far off,
whose garment the prophet dare not touch, nor loose the
latchet of his shoe. — Remember, then, the frailty of human
life, — remember the bitterness of death, — listen to the warn-
ing voice, — begin, continue, repent, for the Kingdom of Hea-
ven is at hand.
'i,.^i^^;K9
'w-
SEEM ON II.
ON REPENTANCE.
PART II. '
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea,
and saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. — ^Matthew
III. VERSE 1.
In my last discourse upon this subject, I endeavoured to
show that a spirit of justice and sincerity, proved by absti-
nence from the sin, was necessary to repentance ; and that
repentance, to be efficacious to salvation, should be begun at
an early period.
After this endeavour to show what is meant by a Christian
repentance, I shall proceed to state those causes from which
repentance commonly originates, and those means by which
it may be fertilized into Christian righteousness. The use
of this will be, that, by impressing on our minds those cir-
cumstances from which amendment usually proceeds, we
shall labour to produce them, if they are events within our
own power, and cherish them as the choicest gifts of God, if
they are not.
Repentance in after-life, most commonly, will be found to
proceed from a good, moral, and religious education, in youth.
When once the rules of the Gospel are inculcated in child-
hood, and its beautiful morality firmly fixed in the mind, we
are not to consider them as lost, because they are not always
practised in the season of levity and passion ; — they are best
seen in their revival, after a long suspense, when they scare
the voluptuary from his revels, when they make the thought-
less think, and the bold tremble, and the godless pray ; when
the seed, which seemed dead, shoots forth into an harvest ;
ON REPENTANCE. 21
when the dry wood becomes green with life, and glorious
with increase.
Providence has provided a source of repentance, in those
events which warn us of the vanity of the world, and admo-
nish us to prepare for that kingdom which is near at hand :
— to watch over the gradual waste of life ; to minister to the
last sickness ; to mourn over friends that perish, and children
that are snatched away ; — these things teach us all to repent ;
they are lessons to which every ear is open, and by which
all hearts are impressed. We remember how probable it is
that every succeeding year will be marked by some fresh
loss; — that parent, and husband, and child, and friend, may
all perish away, and leave us a wreck of time in the feeble
solitude of age. Then it is that the views we take of human
life are serious and solemn; then we feel that godliness is
the one thing stable, and unshaken by time and chance ; then
we listen to the warning voice, which cries, — Repent ye^for
the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
In truth, the warnings to repentance are not few ; such are
the adverse blows of fortune, — sudden poverty, disappointed
ambition, any circumstance which, by weakening our de-
pendence upon outward objects, and by driving us to seek
for comfort and support from our inward feelings, teaches us
to derive our happiness from its pure and legitimate source.
The feelings of bodily decay often lead to repentance; it
happens, fortunately for man, that he is not called out of the
world in the vigour of health, not by a sudden annihilation,
but by a gradual destruction of his being; every blunted
sense, and every injured organ, admonish him that it is
drawing near ; and, when it does come, death has only the
shadow of a man to subdue. Listen, then, to these warnings
of a merciful God ;— when the ear is slow to receive sounds,
■ — when the eye has lessened its range, — when the nerve
trembles, — when the red blood of youth and strength is gone,
— when the proud body of man is bent down, — listen to these
warnings of a merciful God ; sanctify the frail and departing
flesh. Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is indeed at
hand.
Providence has provided a source of repentance in those
great events which astonish the world, and some share of
good springs up from the very midst of devastation. — When
the judgments of God are out upon the earth — when a pesti-
lence rages — when a conqueror exterminates, — the thoughts
33 ON REPENTANCE.
of men become solemn, and every countenance gathers its
portion of sorrow ; — then, no inan doubts of the shortness of
life, when he beholds death making his meal, not of one, or
two, but of thousands, and tens of thousands; — then, no man
is unmindful of human weakness, when he sees how the
fairest creations are broken into dust ;— then, all feel the vanity
of human wishes, and human designs, when they behold the
arts, the arms, the industry of nations, overwhelmed by an
omnipotent destroyer, and their heritage tost to the children
of blood.
Such are the times and seasons in which we now hve,
when every year involves some ancient empire in destruction,
and the evils of unprincipled ambition are let loose upon
mankind. That the terror to which such times give birth
may be dissipated, we must all sincerely pray; that the long
and dark shadow, which they cast upon every man's heart,
may be illumined, we must all implore of Almighty God ;
but I wish that awful feeling of human weakness, which
these times inspire, may ever prevail; I wish that right senti-
ment of absolute dependence upon Almighty Providence may
be as visible in our future happiness as it is in our present
peril ; I wish, when all the passions unfavourable to human
happiness have subsided, that the only one these times have
produced, which has any tendency to place human happiness
upon its proper basis, may be more exquisitely felt, more
widely diffused, and more profoundly revered.
Having stated the causes from which repentance commonly
originates, I am next to show by what means and by what
motives repentance may be best fixed into a habit, so that
it does not vanish away and become ineffectual, after it has
once begun to operate.
The first, and greatest mode of repenting, is by resolving to
— ^-be free, by a revolt against the tyranny of sin, and a struggle
for the freedom of righteousness. This is a love of freedom,
which produces no excess, and acknowledges no hmits which
is at work to destroy the anarchy of passion, and restore the
lawful empire of religion ;— not that foolish love of freedom
which attempts to get rid of all restriction, but that useful
love of freedom, which is conscious that men must be re-
strained, and busies itself only in providing, that the restraints
* to which they are subjected shall be the wisest and the best.
But, it may be asked, is there really tyranny in sin ? and
ON REPENTANCE. 23
does repentance make a man free ? or are these the mere
habitual phrases of ministers of the Gospel? There is tyranny
in sin ; there is more than Egyptian bondage ; it is bondage
to hate an appetite, and to serve it ; to make one law for your
heart which you cannot follow ; and to follow another which
you cannot love ; — it is a very great tyranny to find all your
noble resolutions frustrated by one base sensuality ; to see the
honour and peace, and piety, within your reach, snatched
from you by one degrading passion ; to know that you are
cheated out of happiness, and out of salvation ; not by a
pleasure, for that would be something, but by an habit, by
that which at last yields no other pleasure in the doing, than
the absence of that misery which would proceed from not
doing it : in fine, in all wretchedness, and under the rod of
any oppressor, if a man despise not himself, joy has not left
that man, neither is happiness turned away from his paths ;
but the eternal frailty of sin at length degrades a man in his
own eyes, makes him cast away his soul in despair, and
become ostentatious in vice, because, in the pursuit of virtue,
he is contemptible and mean.
The delight which success imparts in this sort of conflict
is no mean motive to begin : most fervently, and sincerely,
do I express my real thoughts, when I say that wealth,
power, fame, and all the vulgar objects of human ambition, /
have not a single pleasure comparable to that which results
from victory over sin : they do not only fall far short of it in
degree, but they have nothing like it in kind ; — we might as
well liken the melody of the harp to the sounds which are
sung out before the throne of God, or measure the proudest
fabric upon earth against the eternal arch of the heavens.
When vice has become so intrenched in habit, and the
mind so feeble, that every germ of repentance is stifled as
soon as it appears, then we must gradually repent. The
mind will not yield totally to first efforts, but it will yield a
little ; and every time we return, with stronger force, to a
weaker resistance ; for the same law of habit which makes
the sin so powerful, confirms the virtue which resists it.
The gradual attempt at repentance does not flatter us by a
sudden act of power, or spare our patience by its rapid
progress : often we are hurried on by the inveteracy of habit,
and driven down by the vehemence of passion ; but let us
keep on, and continue ; if only a year of hfe remains, let
that be a year of repentance ; remember, that the reward for
SJ# ON REPENTANCE.
which we labour is the salvation of our souls ; and, that if
any motive can stimulate human industry, or animate human
exertion, an hope, above all this world can promise, should
lead to efforts above all this world can produce.
But it often happens, that the penitence, began at a mo-
ment of sickness, or despondence, or seriousness, vanishes with
its cause, as the fearful dreams of the night are dispelled by
the morning's, hght. In this fatal resumption of self-con-
fidence, we should remember, that the horror of our vices,
which we experienced in the moment of peril, will probably
return at the greatest of all perils; that the reasonings against
oiir sins, which have before appeared so irresistible, and con-
clusive, will resume their power, when they cannot re-produce
the effects of repentance ; that it is childish to say, there is a
God in the storm, and to become an Atheist again when the
winds and the waves are still; to blaspheme in health, and
bless in sickness ; to enter upon the first stage of repentance,
at every event more serious than common, and to relapse
into our ancient sins the moment we resume our original
feelings.
Though the instability of repentance does sometimes pro-
ceed from the errors of the understanding, it is most com-
monly to be attributed to the inability to execute what the
understanding determines to be right ; there is a state of
mind, (a very common one,) in which an human being, per-
fectly aware he is doing wrong, and destroying his own
happiness, cannot refrain from the impulse of present grati-
fication. Such a strange preference of evil has led some to
suppose, that the imagination always miscolours the facts in
these cases, and that, at the moment of election, from some
specious misrepresentation, the best of two actions is made to
appear the worst, and the worst the best. On the contrary,
it is quite manifest, when gratifications are immediate, and
penalties remote, that men do deliberately pursue that line of
conduct which they have no doubt will produce to them a
much greater portion of misery than good. I do not only
mean misery in a w^orld to come, but misery in this ; and to
such an extreme is irresolution carried, that men will fre-
quently do that for which they are absolutely certain they
must atone, by tenfold wretchedness, within the short period
of a day, or an hour ; — such is the power of immediate
enjoyment over the minds of men.
The great mean of making repentance efiicacious, is by
ON REPENTANCE. 25
holding no parley with temptation ; to hesitate is to consent ;
to listen is to be convinced ; to pause is to yield. — The soul
of a penitent man should be as firm against future relapse
as it is sorrowful for past iniquity : the only chance for doing
well, is to be stubborn in new righteousness ; to hear nothing
but on one side, and to be indebted for safety to prudence
rather than to impartiality ; above all things, to tremble for
youthful virtue ; not to trust ourselves till we have walked
long with God, — till the full measure of his grace is upon us,
—till long abstinence has taught us to forbear, — till we have
gained such wide, and such true knowledge of pleasure, that
we comprehend salvation and eternity, in the circle of your
joys.
When we ponder over the Scriptures, there is one very
delightful promise which they hold out ; not only that repent-
ance, producing a real alteration of life, will be accepted of
God as an atonement for sin ; but so much does that accept-
ance and forgiveness make a part, and an essential part of
the great scheme of redemption, that we are told, there will
be joy in heaven over a repentant sinner ; that the vanquish-
ing of evil penetrates into other worlds, reaches to higher
systems, diffuses joy over greater beings, and purer natures,
whom we should have supposed to be occupied with their
own proper and essential happiness ; therefore, no man
should say, my life has been too bad, — I have gone too far,
— I have trespassed too much,— I may as well go on to the
end, — I have no chance of being saved. — It is better far
that such a man should make a last effort for his soul, that
he should come forth, and lay his sin upon the altar, and
call earnestly to God with a contrite and a wounded heart.
-—Ninety and nine just persons cannot move Heaven as much
as the true sorrows of sin ; all things are better than the
abandonment of hope in Providence, and the daring, wicked,
impenitent violation of the laws of God.
I will now, then, shortly recapitulate all that I have said,
in my two discoui^es, upon the subject of repentance. I
have said, that repentance must be sincere ; — that to be
sincere, it must conduce to righteousness, and must include
restitution, or compensation ; that its efficacy is in proportion
to the early period at which it is begun, — and that it has no
efficacy at all, if it is deferred till the moment of death : —
The causes of repentance, I have stated to be a good, reli-
giou^ducation ; sickness, old age, and aU great physical
26 ON REPENTANCE,
evils, public or private repentance, when once excited by
these causes, should be rendered permanent by the recollec-
tion of those feelings which first gave it birth, by dividing
the difficulty, so as to accommodate it to our weak state of
resolution, or by overwhelming it, at once, by one great
eflbrt. If these things have in them any shadow of truth,-—
if they are founded upon the spirit of the Gospel, then repent
ye ; sin no more ; leave the pledge upon the altar ; give back
the thirty pieces of silver, the wages of Satan ; and, remem-
ber your Creator while life yet remains ; — wait not till
palsy and fever teach you to repent ; wait not till pain and
anguish teach you the power of God ; — learn, rather, that
power from the blessings you enjoy, and while you do enjoy
them, repent ye, — for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
^mm$0
SEEMON III.
ON TRUTH.
A.nanias, hearing these things, fell down, and gave up the Ghost. — Acts v.
VERSE 5.
Of all the miracles employed for the propagation of the
Gospel, this is the most terrible. — In most of the other
miracles, the object is merciful, while the means are super-
natural ; the laws of nature are suspended to cleanse the
leper, to illumine the bUnd, and even to raise the dead from
their graves. — The object here, is to punish, to smite with
sudden death : — Ananias and Sapphira are guilty of a lie,
and, in an instant, in the full tide of life, they fall down dead
at the feet of the apostle.
As the age of miracles is no more, and the necessity for
their occurrence removed by the diffusion and security of
the Gospel, we are no longer exposed to the same punishment
for the same violation of truth, but that punishment stands on
the book as a tremendous record of the magnitude of the sin.
It gives us a full view of that wrath with which it will here-
after be pursued ; and teaches us how fatally it moves the
displeasure of God. I shall avail myself, then, of this awful
history, to examine the nature of truth, its importance as a
part of Christian righteousness, and to investigate how the
habit of speaking truth is impaired, perverted, destroyed,
instituted, and confirmed.
Upon truth rests all human knowledge : to truth man is
indebted for the hourly preservation of his life, and for a
perpetual guide to his actions ; without truth the affairs of the
world could no longer exist, as they now are, than they could
if any of the great physical laws of the universe were sus-
pended. As truth is of indispensable necessity in the great
ON TRUTH.
concerns of the world, it is also of immense importance as it
relates to the common and daily intercourse of life. False-
hood must hav^e a direct and powerful tendency to disturb the
order of human affairs, and to introduce into the bosom of
society every gradation and variety of mischief.
There is a natural tendency in all men to speak the truth,
because it is absolutely necessary we should inform ourselves
of the truth for the common purposes of existence, and we do
not say one thing while we know another, but for the inter-
vention of causes which are comparatively infrequent and
extraordinary; the first of these which I shall mention is
vanity. The vanity of being interesting, of exciting curi-
osity, and escaping from the pain of obscurity : — Great part
of the mischief done to character, and of those calumnies,
which ruffle the quiet of life, have their origin in this source.
—Nor is the falsehood which proceeds from it to be consi-
sidered as of little importance ; it is incompatible with that
earnest and permanent regard to human happiness which
the Gospel exacts ; it is inimical to that daily exercise of
keeping the conscience void of offence towards God, and
towards man, which it prescribes: A Christian should never
forget that in the progress of refinement, as much is felt for
character as for the more gross and substantive advantages
of life ; in the beginning, we have only property in food and
raiment; but as the world goes on, there springs up the in-
visible, intangible property of fame, which nourishes a man's
life, though he be hungered, and cold, and without which he
is dead in the midst of life ; if respect to this is not foreign
to human happiness, it is not foreign to the Gospel : I am
sure it is as much the duty of a pious Christian to abhor
falsehood, injurious to the feelings of his fellow-creatures, as
it is to abhor falsehood which may disturb them in the just
right of their possession ; and at every moment, and in every
relation of life, it must be his duty to respect truth as the
ancient and solemn barrier of human^happiness. — Not that
what is said on such occasions is mere falsehood; but the
mischief is done by embellishment, by colouring, by false
insinuation, by slight change, and by artful suppression :
broad, shameless falsehood is seldom witnessed in the world;
and the greatest violator of truth preserves enough of it for
outward decency and inward tranquillity : for, though Satan
corrupted man, God made him, and he loves Heaven in the
midst of his iniquity ; he is ever ready to throw over his sins
ON TRUTH. 5J0
the robe of virtue, to comfort his soul with soothing words
and decent pretences, and to say a grace to God, before he
sets down to feast with Mammon.
There is a liar, who is not so much a liar from vanity as
from warmth of imagination, and levity of understanding ;
such a man has so thoroughly accustomed his mind to extra-
ordinary combinations of circumstances, that he is disgusted
with the insipidity of any probable event ; the power of
changing the whole course of nature is too fascinating for
resistance ; every moment must produce rare emotions, and
stimulate high passions ; life must be a series of zests, and
relishes, and provocations, and languishing existence be re-
freshed by daily miracles : In the meantime, the dignity of
man passes away, the bloom of Heaven is effaced, friends
vanish from this degraded liar ; he can no longer raise the
look of wonder, but is heard in deep, dismal, contemptuous
silence ; he is shrunk from and abhorred, and lives to witness
a gradual conspiracy against him of all that is good and
honourable, and wise and great.
Fancy and vanity are not the only parents of falsehood ; —
the worst, and the blackest species of it, has its origin in
fraud; — and, for its object, to obtain some advantage in the
common intercourse of life. — Though this kind of falsehood
is the most pernicious, in its consequences, to the religious
character of him who is infected by it ; and the most detri-
mental to the general happiness of society, it requires, (from
the universal detestation in which it is held,) less notice in
an investigation of the nature of truth, intended for practical
purposes. — He whom the dread of universal infamy, — the
horror of being degraded from his rank in society, — the
thought of an hereafter will not inspire with the love of truth,
who prefers any temporary convenience of a lie, to a broad,
safe, and refulgent veracity, that man is too far sunk in the
depths of depravity for any rehgious instruction he can re-
ceive in this place ; — the canker of disease is gone down to
the fountains of his blood, and the days of his life are told.
Truth is sacrificed to a greater variety of causes than the
narrow limits of a discourse from the pulpit will allow me to
state : — it is sacrificed to boasting, to malice, and to all the
varieties of hatred ;'^it is sacrificed, also, to that verbal bene-
volence which delights in the pleasure of promising, as much
as it shrinks from the pain of performing, which abounds in
3* -^C^;'-
W^ ON TRUTH.
gratuitous sympathy, and has words, and words only, for
every human misfortune.
I have hitherto considered the love of truth on the negative
side only, as it indicates what we are not to do;— the vices
from which we are to abstain ; — ^but there is an heroic faith, —
a courageous love of truth, the truth of the Christian warrior, —
an unconquerable love of justice, that would burst the heart
in twain, if it had not vent, which makes women men, — and
men saints, — and saints angels. — Often it has published its
creed from amid the'flames ; — often it has reasoned under the
axe, and gathered firmness from a mangled body ; — often it
has rebuked the madness of the people ; — often it has burst
into the chambers of princes, to tear down the veil of false-
hood, and to speak of guilt, of sorrow, and of death. — Such
was the truth which went down with Shadrach to the fiery
furnace, and descended with Daniel to the lion's den. — Such
was the truth which made the potent Felix tremble at his
eloquent captive. — Such was the truth which roused the timid
Peter to preach Christ crucified before the Sanhedrin of the
Jews ; — and such was the truth which enabled that Christ,
whom he did preach, to die the death upon the cross.
Having thus stated the most ordinary causes of falsehood,
I shall endeavour to lay before you the means and the mo-
tives for its cultivation. The foundation of the love of truth
must be laid, in early education, by unswerving example,
and by connecting with truth, every notion of the respect of
men, and of the approbation of God; and by combining with
the idea of falsehood, the dread of infamy and impiety ; — nor
must the young be allowed to hesitate about the importance
of the particular truth in question, but be taught, rather, that
all truth must be important ; they must never balance, for an
instant, between the convenience of falsehood, and the peril
of veracity ; — but if the alternative be death, or falsehood, let
them look upon death as inevitable, as if God had struck them
dead with his lightning.
A thorough conviction of the security derived from truth,
is no mean incitement to its cultivation. Falsehood subjects
us to a perpetual vigilance ; we must constantly struggle to
reconcile a supposed fact to the current of real events, and to
point out the consequences of an ideal cause ; the first false-
hood must be propped up by a second, the second cemented
by a third, till some failure, in the long chain of fictions, pre-
cipitates into the gulf of infamy him whom it is intended
ON TRUTH. 31
to support ; — then there is the perpetual suspicion of being
suspected ; we elaborate meaning from idle words, and signi-
ficance from thoughtless gestures. Watchfulness, silence
and melancholy succeed to the gayety of a true heart, and all
virtue is gone out of life. This is the bondage of falsehood,
and these the massive chains of sin, which, if any man pre-
fer to the liberty of truth, and the Gospel, to the sweet sleeps
of virtue, to her free step, to her pleasant thoughts, to her
delicious promise of immortal life, he knows not the highest
joys of this world, nor merits those of a better world than this.
We shall love truth better if we believe that falsehood is
useless ; and we shall believe falsehood to be useless if we
entertain the notion that it is difficult to deceive ; — the fact is,
(and there can be no greater security for well doing than
such an opinion,) that it is almost impossible to deceive the
great variety of talent, information, and opinion, of which the
world is composed. Truth prevails, by the universal com-
bination of all things animate, or inanimate, against falsehood ;
for ignorance makes a gross and clumsy fiction ; carelessness
omits some feature of a fiction that is ingenious ; bad fellowship
in fraud betrays the secret ; conscience bursts it into atoms ;
the subtlety of angry revenge unravels it ; mere brute, uncon-
spiring matter reveals it; death lets in the light of truth ; all
things teach a wise man the difficulty and bad success of
falsehood ; and truth is inculcated by human policy, as well
as by divine command.
The highest motive to the cultivation of truth, is, that God
requires it of us ; — he requires it of us, because falsehood is^
contrary to his nature, — because the spirit of man, before it
can do homage to its Creator, must be purified in the fur-
nace of truth. There is no more noble trial for him, who
seeks the kingdom of heaven than to speak the truth ; —
often the truth brings upon him much sorrow ; often it
threatens him with poverty, with banishment, with hatred,
with loss of friends, with miserable old age ; but, as one friend
loveth another friend the more if they have suffered together
in a long sorrow, so the soul of a just man, for all he endures,
clings nearer to the truth ; — he mocks the fury of the people,
and laughs at the oppressor's rod ; and if needs be, he sitteth
down like Job in the ashes, and God makes his morsel of
bread sweeter than the feasts of the liar, and all the banquets
of sin.
To carry ourselves humbly and meekly in the world, is 9,
32 ON TRUTH.
sure sign of a sound understanding, and an evangelical mind ;
—but we have duties to perform to ourselves, as well as to
others ; and there is no one to whom we can owe as much
deference as we owe to inward purity, and religious feeling.
The submission paid to any human being, by the sacrifice of
truth, is not meekness, nor humility, but an abject, unresisting
mind, that barters God and heaven for a moment of present
ease ; and puts to sale man's best birthright of speaking
truth ; — and the excellence of this virtue of truth consists in
this, that it almost necessarily implies so many other virtues,
or so certainly leads to them ; for he who loves truth, must
be firm in meeting those dangers to which truth sometimes
exposes him ; if he loves truth, he w^ill love justice ; he will
gain the habit of appealing to the precepts of conscience, and
of stating the real conceptions of his own mind, with that
disregard to good and evil consequence which those only can
feel who look on sin as the highest evil, and obedience to God
as the greatest good.
Lastly, remember that other sins can be measured, and the
degree of evil, which originates from them, be accurately
known ; — but no man, when he violates truth, can tell of
what sin he is guilty ; where his falsehood will penetrate ;
and what misery it will create. It may calumniate, it may
kill, it may embitter, it may impoverish, what evil it may
prove you cannot tell ; all that you do know is, that it is a
crime which injures man, and offends God ; therefore, for
every reason for which God has chained man up in his par-
ticular tendencies to individual sins, for all those reasons he
has sanctified, and ordained truth ; because, by truth every
other virtue is upheld ; and upon truth as the deep rock,
stand all the glories and excellencies of the human mind.
Shake that basis, and with it fall justice to man and piety to
God ; the frame of social order is broken up, and those talents,
and passions are used for mutual destruction, upon which
Providence intended that the dignity and sublunary dominion
of man should for ever rest.
mm-m '^^
SERMON IV.
ON THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR,
Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times. — Isaiah xxxiii.
VERSE 6.
We seem to have here something like a prophetic sanction
for the propagation of knowledge : Isaiah, in speaking of the
future prosperity of the Jewish empire, rests the stability of
its fortunes, not upon wealth, nor extensive dominion, but
directly upon knowledge. Wisdom, and knowledge, shall be
the stability of the times ; — as if he had said, you must be
brave to be free ; — you must be active to be rich ; you must
be rich to be powerful ; but to be stable, to endure, you must
be taught. Gain all other good which you can, but do not
expect to retain them without knowledge : — build upon that
rock, or though you build splendidly, you build in vain.
As it has fallen to my lot to address you upon the present
occasion, I know not what better, or more appropriate to the
present occasion* I can do, than to discuss this sentiment of
the prophet ; and to examine into the eifects which knowledge
produces upon the welfare of mankind ; I do not mean know-
ledge in general, but that species, and degree of it, Avhich is
produced by the education of the poor ; — by such investiga-
tion, the young people, who are assembled here to-day, will
better perceive the nature and scope of those advantages
they have received ; their charitable guardians will be more
confirmed in the utility and importance of their good works;
and those who object altogether to the education of the poor,
may, perhaps, in the progress of such investigation, be in-
duced to re-consider the validity of those objections upon
* The anniversary at the Foundling Hospital. -^ C^^-W'^
--!
-r
9^ ON THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR.
which their opposition is founded. I rather prefer this
course, than to make general observations on human misery ;
because, by satisfying the understanding that the thing is
right, it becomes more probable that we shall excite some-
thing much better than temporary feeling ; — ^benevolence,
founded upon reasonable conviction, and leading to judicious
exertion.
The most common objection to the education of the lower
orders of the community is, — That the poor proud of the
distinction of learning, will not submit to the performance of
those lower offices of life which are necessary to the well-
being of a state : this objection, indeed, I only mention, that
I may not be thought to have passed over any objection, for
nothing can be more mistaken than to suppose that the labo-
rious classes of the community are laborious from choice, or
from any other principle than that of imperious necessity ;—
a necessity with which education has no more to do than with
the motion of the planets, and the flow of the tides ; — every
person secures to himself as good a situation in society as he
can ; and it is essentially necessary to the happiness of the
world that he should do so. — Those whose lot and heritage fall
among the lowest fulfil the duties entailed upon them, and ever
must fulfil those duties, from the dread of want for themselves,
and for others dearer to them than themselves. Our poorer
brethren do not toil because they are ignorant ; neither would
they cease to toil because they were instructed ; the fabric
of human happiness God has placed upon much stronger
foundations ; they labour, because they cannot live without
labour ; — this has ever been sufficient to stimulate, and to
continue the energy of man, and will, and must ever stimu-
late it, and secure its continuance, while heaven and earth
remain.
The next objection, urged against the education of the poor,
is, that the most ignorant poor, in country villages, are the
best ; and that the poor, of large towns, as they gain in in-
telligence, lose in character, and become corrupt, as they
become knowing ; but the country poor, it should be remem-
bered, are the fewest in number ; they are not exposed to all
those innumerable temptations which corrupt the populace
of large towns ; this, and not their ignorance, is the cause of
their superior decency in morals and religion ; it is uncandid
to oppose the poor of a confined village to the poor of a
wealthy and a boundless metropolis ; but taking subjects of
ON THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR. S^
comparison from the same spot, and under the same circum-
stances, do we find that the ignorant of that place are better
than the instructed of that place ? — Does any man's experi-
ence enable him to assert, practically, that there is a connec-
tion between uncultivated minds and righteous actions ? If
we want to make a human being do that which is just, is it
necessary to make him think that which is sordid ? If we
wish him to lift up his soul, in pious adoration, to his Saviour
and his God, is it necessary to brutahze that soul which his
God has given, and his Saviour redeemed ? Is there, can
there be any human being who wishes that these children,
who come here to return their thanks for the Providence that
has watched over them, had been forsaken, passed over ;
left to the influence of such principles as those by which the
minds of the deserted poor are impressed ? — No reasonable
doubt can be raised; it cannot, with any colour of justice,
be contended : every effect of their education which we wit-
ness, is a solid gain to society; if temperance can be so
called ; if truth ; if honesty ; if a solemn, and deep adora-
tion of the name, and of the laws of our Saviour Jesus Christ,
are worthy of that appellation.
In considering the effects of educating the poor, we must
not merely dwell upon the power, but upon the tendency
which we have created to use that power aright ; not merely
ask if it is a good thing for the poor to read, but to read such
books as are full of wise and useful advice. — A mere instru-
ment for acquiring knowledge may be used with equal suc-
cess either for a good or a bad purpose ; but education never
gives the instrument without teaching the proper method of
using it, and without inspiring a strong desire to use it in
that manner ; it raises up powerful associations in favour of
righteousness ; it gives a permanence of opinion, not to be
blown about by every idle breath of doctrine, and some deep
life-marks, by which a human being may recover himself,
if ever he does wander. To teach a child how he may
acquire knowledge, is neither a good nor an evil ; — but to
fix in his mind, at the same time, a strong bias for the acqui-
sition of that knowledge which makes him a better subject,
a better servant, and a better Christian, is the inestimable
object sought for, and gained by the education of the poor.-—
It is in vain to say we did well without educating our poor ;
— we should never be content with doing well, where there
is a rational prospect of doing better. — Besides, what is doing
36 ON THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR.
well ? — We do not do well while many of the poor are led
to ignominious death for want of education ; we do not do
well while little children are left to perish ; — we do not do well
while thousands of unhappy females are perishing in the
streets, the victims of artifice acting against deplorable igno-
rance; — we do not do well while those whose bodies are
nourished, are left ignorant of the name of Christ, and of the
sacred duties which his Gospel enjoins ; — it is to do better
than this, that this noble charity was reared ; and that the
great work of educating the poor is going on throughout this
enlightened kingdom, under the protection of God, and by
the labours of good and pious men.
Education may easily be made to supply, hereafter, the
most innocent source of amusement, and to lessen those vices
which proceed from want of interesting occupation ; — it sub-
dues ferocity, by raising up an admiration for something besides
brutal strength and brutal courage. — If we were told of a
poor man's family in the country, that, after the completion
of their labours, they amused themselves with reading, could
any human being go there, after being acquainted with
such a fact, and expect to find more blasphemy, more drunk-
enness, more indecency, and more ferocity, than among
ignorant, iUiterate people ? The fact is so much the reverse,
that it is impossible to know that a human creature can derive
pleasure from books, without feeling towards him an increased
security and respect. It is some sort of proof that such a
man is not a barbarous man ; that he does not thirst for blood;
that he has heard there is a God ; that he has given away
bread to the wretched ; that he has an house, an altar, and a
king.
We must remember, in this question, that all experience is
in our favour, that the experiment of educating the poor
in the Gospel, as well as in the lower parts of human learn-
ing, has been tried in many countries of Europe, to the
greatest extent, and with the greatest success. — We must
remember, that the question of educating the poor, is not a
question between a virtuous education and no education at
all ; but it is a choice between a good education and a bad
one; — you cannot repress the inborn activity of these poor
children, and render those minds stagnant which are not pro-
gressive to a good point ; — you will have weeds to eradicate,
if you have not harvests to reap.' — You must incur greater
trouble and expense hereafter, in punishing their crimes,
§M-MS^iWW%M 37
ON
than you do now in cherishing their virtues, — you must
either teach them the word of Christ, and the law of ever-
lasting life ; or you must rage against them with gibbets and
chains ; and thrust them from the hght of the world into the
torments of hell.
There are many methods in which a community is con-
siderably benefited by the education of its poor ; a human
being who is educated, is, for many purposes of commerce,
a much more useful and convenient instrument ; and the
advantage to be derived from the universal diffusion of this
power, is not to be overlooked in a discussion of this nature.
The education of the poor sifts the talents of a country,
and discovers the choicest gifts of nature in the depths of
solitude, and in the darkness of poverty ; — for Providence
often sets the grandest spirits in the lowest places, and gives
to many a man a soul far better than his birth, compelling
him to dig with a spade, who had better have wielded a
sceptre ; education searches everywhere for talents ; sifting
among the gravel for the gold, holding up every pebble to
the hght, and seeing whether it be the refuse of Nature, or
whether the hand of art can give it brilliancy and price : —
There are no bounds to the value of this sort of education : I
come here to preach upon this occasion ; when fourteen or
fifteen youths, who have long participated of your bounty,
come to return you their thanks ; how do we know that there
may not be, among all these, one who shall enlarge the
boundaries of human knowledge ; — who shall increase the
power of his country by his enterprise in commerce ; — watch
over its safety in the most critical times, by his vigilance as a
magistrate ; — and consult its true happiness by his integrity,
and his ability as a senator ? On all other things there is
a sign, or a mark ; — we know them immediately, or we can
find them out ; but man, we do not know ; for one man dif-
fereth from another man as Heaven differs from earth ; —
and the excellence that is in him, education seeks for with
vigilance, and preserves with care.— -We might make a
brilliant list of our great English characters, who have been
born in cottages ; — may it ever increase : — there can be no
surer sign that we are a wise and a happy people.
I would ask those who place such confidence in the bene-
fits of ignorance, how far they would choose to carry these
benefits ? for, if the safety of a state depends upon its igno-
rance, — then, the more ignorance the more safety ; — and we
4
~\
38 ON THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR.
ought to wish the lower orders degraded to the last state of
savage stupidity ; and if this were done, we forget that such
materials must yield to seduction and artifice, as well as to
the mandates of lawful empire ;— but the particular kind of
ignorance such reasoners want, is an ignorance tranquil and
submissive to its rulers, and full of active intelhgence against
those who would mislead it from its duty— an ignorance,
which it would, by no means, be desirable to diffiise, if it
were possible.
The situation of the poor, in this country, is, with a very
few exceptions, perhaps, as good as human nature will per-
mit; upon the number of understandings on which this truth
can be impressed, the stability of the times essentially de-
pends ; — if, then, we have placed our happiness on the eternal
foundations of justice; and if there is a rock beneath our feet,
as firm as adamant, and as deep as the roots of the earth,
how foolish to rest it upon the crumbling and treacherous
soil of ignorance, which every wind can disperse, and every
flood can wash away.
I by no means contend, that the government which com-
mands them can have nothing to fear from a people among
whom education is widely diffused, because it is idle to say,
that a government is ever completely out of all danger from
the madness of any people ; but I say there is always less to
fear from a people whom you have educated in the Gospel,
and to whom you imparted also some degree of human know-
ledge, than from any other people.- — ^If such a people ima-
gine a vain thing in their heart, they are soon called back to
duty ; — their repentance is speedy, and their excesses are
light ;— but when a human being rises up against us whom
Ave have degraded to the state of a brute, he rises up against
us, as that being would to which we have hkened him, — to
diffuse slaughter and destruction wherever he bends his steps.
Nothing brutahzes human faculties more than the extreme
division of labour; and this division, invaluable to commerce
and industry, is carried to such a height in this country, that
it calls imperiously for the corrective of education. We are
to remember the counteracting power gained by the increased
knowledge of their superiors in rank ; — all other classes have
gained the good to be gained by education ; to impart it to
this, is not to violate the proportion of the machine, but to
maintain it; — to be brief, these are the principles which have
always guided the conductors of this charity in the long course
ON THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR. 89
of care and attention which they have paid to the education
of the deserted poor, beginning at the earUest infancy, and
ending as you now see it end. — Speaking for them, and think-
ing with them, I say, we heUeve, that the labour of the poor
is founded upon their wants; — that God has commanded us
to breed them up diligently in the Gospel ;— that the know-
ledge we are imparting to them, will protect them from that
vice which proceeds from idleness; — that it will soften the
hard heart, and teach them to respect wisdom more than
strength. We are encouraged by all that has been done be-
fore, for the propagation of knowledge, and we feel all that
confidence which results from experience ; — we are convinced
there is less toil in teaching duties than in punishing crimes ;
—we think we are bettering all faculties, inspiring vigorous
industry, and valuable enterprise, and giving to great under-
standings a fair range of action. We think the more employ-
ment is simplified, the more the mind of man is degraded, and
education rendered necessary, — and we know that in spread-
ing the Word of God, and the mercies of Jesus Christ, we are
conferring the most exalted blessings on the poor ; — lastly,
always, and at all times, we reject ignorance as a dangerous
and disgraceful auxiliary, and we say, with the great prophet,
on knowledge, and on wisdom, the stability of the times shall
rest.
SERMON V.
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
And they were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. — Luke
XXIV. VERSE 53.
I DO not purpose to recommend, after the model of apostoli-
cal righteousness, a devotion so fervid and so incessant as
that mentioned in my text ; because, though in the early dis-
ciples of our Saviour it was a natural consequence of the great
events to which they were the witnesses, it would, in us, (if
such a stretch of all our faculties, and continued elevation of
all our ideas, were possible,) be a deviation from that life of
action, in which the perfection of Christianity principally con-
sists; but it may be fairly urged that, by a constant retrospect
to these fathers, and founders of the faith, our devotion will
be increased and confirmed : (every allowance made for
diversity of character and situation,) if prayer was their con-
stant occupation, it should at least be our occasional exercise;
if there were no intervals at which they left the temple, there
should be some periods at which we approach it ; there can
be no circumstances which can make an exercise at all times
unnecessary to us, which was at every moment indispensable
to them.
I lay a great stress upon that part of my text which says
they prayed in the temple, not heedlessly, and as every one
listed, but at a known and consecrated place, and together;
because, as I presume the efficacy and importance of prayer
to be admitted, I mean now only to contend, that prayer
should be offered up eminently and emphatically, on this day
and at this place, in the open church and on the Sabbath ;
not that other days and other places should be excluded,
(God forbid,) but that these should be preferred.
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 41
The most ordinary reason alleged for the abstinence from
public worship, is the pressure of worldly business : now, it
somehow or another happens, that the time most commonly
selected to answer the calls of extraordinary occupation, is
that which would otherwise be appropriated to the duties of "^
religion ; if the enjoyments of pleasure and society were first
sacrificed, and then the concerns of religion entrenched upon,
a very bad plea would be made a very little better ; but the
first resource which presents itself to every industrious man
is irrehgion, and if this is not sufficient, he then begins to '
think of sacrificing his amusements : to say that the life of
any individual is so wholly engrossed by afiairs that he can-
not subtract from it the small portion of time allotted to pubhc
worship, can hardly be true ; and if true is disgraceful ; —
when the will goes along with the understanding, every man
finds ample resources in the vigour of his mind ; energy in-
creases with difficulty; and the busy, accustomed to a stre-
nuous exertion of their powers, have frequently more leisure
than those whose inveterate idleness magnifies every trifle
into a serious concern. We may safely say, if the purpose
was grateful, the time would be found ; but the truth is, that
the race is painful, and the goal not pleasant; the means
oppress, and the end does not allure ; the labour is great and
the reward not inviting ; and forgetful man, who never de-
frauds his appetites of a single moment, can find no time for
his God.
This plea of want of time, (bad apology as it is for the
neglect of public worship,) is, as I have said before, rarely or
ever true ; the most occupied men have, in general, a con-
siderable share of society and amusement; if friends are to
meet together, if vanity is to be gratified by display ; if inte-
rest is to be promoted by the cultivation of the great; if some
new gratification is to be offered to the senses ; if curiosity is
to be excited ; if imagination is to be roused ; the wings of
time are clipped and the hours no longer fly away. The
little intervals set apart for joy, the Sabbaths of pleasure, are
ever sacred and inviolable from the business of the world ;
but when piety asks a moment from these mighty concerns,
the merchant hurries to his business, the scholar seizes on his
book, and an impious sedulity seems to pervade all ranks and
description of men ; — one remembers the yoke of oxen that
he has purchased ; another the wife that he has espoused ;
4*
43t ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
then, and then chiefly, we all seem ready to rememher this life
at the only period when God has commanded us to forget it.
But, admitting this irresistible multiplicity of aflliirs, and
supposing that the calls which society makes upon the in-
dustry and activity of any individual, are as numerous as
that individual would wish it to be supposed, it is in every
man's power to be a little less rich, a little less powerful, and
a little less important ; we are not to sacrifice to the Lord our
God that which costs us nothing ; to give him only the casual
refuse of our time, after it has first satisfied every worldly
demand ; and to offer up the mere relics of existence, suscep-
tible of no higher employment, and worthy of no better use.
Consider, I beseech you, what these ceremonies of rehgion
are, to which every little concern of business, pleasure, and
profit is preferred; — they are the incorporated worship of all
who believe alike in Christ; the union of all who ask from
God what they have not, or thank him for what they have ;
they are the solemn expression of the faith of nations, the
overt proof that earth is obedient to heaven ; the only public
evidence that man is occupied with other things than the
brief disquietudes of this perishable globe.
The Gospel loves not a lukewarm heart ; it is a religion of
feeling and ardour ; when it has penetrated into a man's
thoughts, as it ought to penetrate, it will produce outward
respect, rigid observance, a promptness, and a zeal in wor-
ship ; it is better in fact to wash off the stain of baptism, to
shake the dust of our feet upon the altar, than to revere that
which we desert, and deny, by our lives, the God whom we
believe in our hearts.
There are men who, without pretending to be so occupied
on the Sabbath, allege that it is their only day of relaxation
from business, and that it is reasonable enough they should
consider it in that point of view. — Such an open preference
of pleasure to religion, or the fatal notion that they are so com-
pletely opposed to each other, proceeds from an apathy upon
these sacred subjects which hardly admits of any cure. — If
every exercise which disposes the mind to the contemplation
of an hereafter is burthensome, it is impossible religion can
exist at all under such a system of thinking. If it is a privi-
lege to be exempt from the duties of religion, of course no one
will resort to the temple of God who has the slightest worldly
inducement to avert him from it. — The ministers of the Gospel
invite men here, because they consider salvation to be the
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 43
first and greatest care ; they presume, that an occasional re-
course to the Christian worship, and the improvement conse-
quent upon that worship, will diffuse over the mind a feeling
of calmness and content; and, by strengthening the habit of
self-command, render pleasure itself more productive, by
rendering it compatible with innocence, and with religion.
But the style of thinking against which I am contending, in-
verts the whole order of human duties, supposing that the
first command of the Gospel is to grow rich, or to enjoy the
greatest quantity of pleasure which can be procured, and
then, if any little residue of leisure remain, that it is to be
given to rehgion ; — but, tolerating, for a moment, this fatal,
and I must say, this very irrehgious style of thinking, and
acting ; and allowing that a religious institution can, with any
colour of reason, be objected to, because it does not furnish its
immediate tribute of gratification, it is fair to remind such ob-
jectors, of those numbers who, in the pursuit of all common
trades and professions, tlo submit every day to a much more
painful, and more considerable, sacrifice of their time and at-
tention. Who rejects the most loathsome disease ? who shrinks
from the driest forms of law ? who turns away in disgust from
the dullest calculations? — The mammon of unrighteousness
can infuse into us all a meekness and a patience which we
are so slow to feel in the service of our God. These feelings
are not the feelings of a man, who, in his rehgion, exhibits
the marks of health and life : — a just and good man, when he
quits the church, feels that he has performed a duty which
he owes to man, and which he owes to his Creator ; he has
set an example to those who are inferior to him in age and
situation ; instead of talking about rehgion, he has practically
contributed his share of effort to preserve religion in the
world; he has done good to himself also ; for a few hours he
has put the world out of sight ; he has covered his heart in
mourning, and in ashes, and given to himself a chance of
living belter ; he has heard those who have told him things,
not, perhaps, that he did not know before, but things which
would not have occurred to him again if he had not quitted
the world, and come here to hear them ; he has been honestly
and affectionately warned to remember the shortness of human
life, and to repent in Christ before the hand of death is upon
him. It is not true, that the duties of rehgion are unpleasant ;
many men feel a sohd and rational comfort from having per-
formed them ; they encounter business with a greater plea-
44 ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
sure ; they enjoy amusement with greater satisfaction ; they
discover that they gain by pubh'c worship, the charming feel-
ing of duty well performed, and, therefore, they come back
here again at the stated interval to resuscitate that feeling,
and to quicken with it the days and hours of common life.
The conclusion that public worship is not essentially ne-
cessary to religion, is a conclusion rather of indolence than
reason ; a conclusion (as is commonly the case in the logic of
convenience), born before the premises ; first admitted to be
true, because it is agreeable ; and then proved to be true by
the best arguments that can be found : it will, in general, be
found, in practice, that those who contend for the possibility
of being very religious, without frequenting the service of
the church, confine themselves to. the mere possibility, with-
out going so far as to convert that possibility into a fact.— -
Simple indolence and downright impiety we comprehend,
and are not ignorant by what species of argument they are
to be attacked ; but when a man, careless about religion,
happens to possess a lively imagination, or to affect it, he
speaks as if his feehng spirit could not wing its flights, and
pour forth its efl^usions in a temple built hymen's hands;
and having drawn fine pictures of an elevated mind, pouring
forth the eloquence of pious wonder among rocks and clouds
he remains quietly at home, with no mean sense of his own
refinement, and with no ordinary contempt for our narrow
conformity. — The truth is, if the ordinary season for hearing
of temperance, and righteousness, and judgment to come,
displeases, the convenient season will never come ; if this
place is bad, all places are bad; if this hour is irksome,
every hour is irksome; we merely ascribe our objections to
time and place, and manner, which have their deeper origin
in the melancholy encroachment of present gratification, over
all the valuable and exalted principles of our nature.
Without pubhc worship, religion could not long subsist ;
for that which might be done at all times, would be done at
no time; or, if private worship were attended to, religion
would then depend upon the unassisted talents, and the un-
restrained humours of each individual. A rational faith, and
a sound practice, would be inflamed by enthusiasm, darkened
by superstition, distorted by caprice, or chilled by indifl^er-
ence ; for religion has this in it, that it is too often marked
by the weakness of old age, or the unquenchable activity of
youth ; it has too much of the living principle, or too little ;
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC WORSHIP. 45
it evaporates into mist, or smites away the barriers of reason
witli a torrent. The operations of such a mighty principle
must not take place in secret ; they must be called forth at
stated intervals, watched by enlightened guardians, mode-
rated by pubhc opinion, animated by sympathy, and con-
firmed by example.
Independently of all higher and better reasons, we all
ought to know, that the regularity and system of public
worship form no inconsiderable part of that basis on which
the edifice of social life is placed. Faith in contract, spirit in
enterprise, security in possession ; a flourishing commerce,
a vigorous executive, an obedient people, are blessings much
more intimately connected with the Gospel, than the infidel
believes, who scorns it because it relates only to a life of
eternity.
It sometimes happens, that men abstain from the public
worship, because they are ashamed to frequent it ; — they are
afraid, lest an attention to decencies should be construed into
feebleness of understanding ; — and, that they should be con-
sidered as enslaved to prejudices, because they are obedient
to forms ; — nay more, by an inverted hypocrisy, they would
seem less religious than they really are; — and avoid the cha-
racter of being devout, while they are enjoying the internal
consolations of devotion ; — whereas the duty of a sincere
Christian is not only to abhor that fame for intellectual vigour
and spirit which is evinced by irreligion, but manfully to set
at nought the scoffings of impiety; to confess Christ boldly
before men ; and to come sedulously, and purposely, and
constantly, to gain all that discredit, and to incur all that
disgrace, which sinners glory in lavishing upon the disciples
of Christ. Not making long prayers in the corners of the
streets, as the scribes and Pharisees did, for the praise of
men ; but coming openly to the temple to pray, that you may
show the scofier how little you heed him ; and that you are
not that fool whom every profligate wretch can sneer out of
his salvation.
This negligence of public worship never remains long
within the limits to which those who are guilty of it wish to
confine it. With what decency, with what hope of success,
can the mother pour the blessings of rehgious instruction into
the minds of her children, when they are all contradicted by
the example of him whom they are bound, and instructed
most reverently, to love ? While we talk of bad books and
^ ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.
bad principles, we overlook these lessons of impiety, which
masters and parents are perpetually reading to those who are
influenced by their example ; and then we make scape-goats
of a few popular and infidel writers, and lay the profaneness
of the age to their charge.
The preservation of public worship every man owes to his
own immediate happiness ; — he owes it to the vigour and
purity of his religious character, and to his progress in the
true knowledge of the Gospel ; but if blind to these, he must,
at least, see that he owes to it the preservation of social order,
and that it is his interest to cling to it as the strongest barrier
of industry and of peace. See what dreadful pictures are
drawn in the Scriptures, of the state of a people among whom
religion is universally neglected. — When a people are turned
away from the worship of the Lord their God, Peace fleeth
away from the midst of that people, and they are given up to
famine, and the sword ; — there are no joyful harvests in the
land, — no bleating of the flocks,— -no cheerful noise of the
artificer. — The right hand forgets its cunning,^ — the brow is
not moistened with labour ;»— they speak not of the furrows
of the field, nor glory in the goad ; — but dreadful lusts rise
up in those times, and God turneth men over to the devices
of their own hearts. — These are the days in which the needy
are forsaken ; — and the fatherless oppressed : — then it goeth
hard with just men, — then the widow is spoiled, then the
blood of innocents is shed : — Come, then, under the roof of
the Almighty, and gather yourselves under the shadow of his
wings. — The public worship of God is the ancient, and the
sure guardian of human happiness : — do not trifle with it
as if it were of no avail; justice, and faith, and mercy, and
kindness, flow from the altars of God, — it is here that men
learn to pity ; — it is here that they are taught to forgive ;
— it is here that they learn punctuality in contracts, obedi-
ence to magistrates, submission to superiors, respect for laws,
loyalty to kings ; and there, above ah, it is, that they catch
that true spirit of the Gospel, which, meliorating all things,
makes submission to superiors voluntary, by rendering
superiors gracious, — respect for laws natural, by making
laws just, — the loyalty to kings pleasant, by making kings
good.
SERMON VL
ON FAST DAY.
February, 1808.
Sanctify ye a fast ', call a solemn assembly; gather the elders, and all the
inhabitants of the land, into the house of the Lord our God, and cry unto
the Lord. — Joel i. verse 14.
Fasting has, in all ages and among all nations, been an
exercise much in use in times of mourning and affliction.
There is no example of fasting, properly so called, before the
time of Moses ; yet it is presumable, the patriarchs had re-
course to that religious exercise, since we see that there were
very great mournings among them ; such as that of Abraham
for Sarah, and Jacob for his son, Joseph. Moses enjoins no
particular fast, in his five books, excepting that on the solemn
day of expiation, which was generally and strictly observed.
♦' On the tenth day of the seventh month, ye shall afflict your
souls." After the time of Moses, examples of fasting were
very common among the Jews. Joshua, and the elders,
remained prostrate before the ark, from morning until eve-
ning, after the children of Israel were defeated by the men of
Ai. The eleven tribes, which had taken up arms against that
of Benjamin, seeing they could not hold out against the in-
habitants of Gibeah, fell down upon the ark, upon their
faces, and, in this manner, continued until the evening with-
out food. The very heathens, sometimes, fasted ; and the
King of Nineveh, terrified with the preaching of Jonas, made
an order, that not only man but beast also, should continue
without food from the rising to the setting of the sun. And
the Jews, in the times of public calamity, made even children
at the breast fast. It does not appear, from the practice of
48 ON FAST DAY.
our Saviour, and his disciples, that he instituted any particu-
lar fast, or enjoined any to be kept out of pure devotion ; but
when the Pharisees reproached him that his disciples did not
fast as often as their disciples, or as the disciples of John the
Baptist, his reply is, " Can ye make the children of the
bridegroom fast, while the bridegroom is with them : but
the day shall come when the bridegroom shall be taken away
from them, and then shall they fast in those days :" clearly
pointing out a future age of the church, when fasting would
be a proper and expedient institution. Fasting is, likewise,
confirmed by our Saviour's sermon on the mount, though not
as a stated, yet as an occasional duty of Christians, that
through these means, they might strengthen their sense of
dependence upon divine Providence, and humble their souls
before the afflicting hand of God. This is a slight sketch
of that Scriptural practice, and those Scriptural authorities
upon which the institution of fasting depends. It has, in
itself, this peculiar good, that it provokes attention, by inter-
rupting ordinary habits ; the flow of business, and pleasure,
is on a sudden stopped ; the world is thrown into gloom, and
a certain solemnity of thought obtruded upon those whose
outward senses must be influenced, before their inward hearts
can be moved. The people of Nineveh believed in God and
proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to
the lowest; and the king arose from his throne, and laid his
robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in
ashes, and cried night and day unto God,
The object, then, of this day, is to confess our sins and to
repent of them; and, consequently, the object of the ministers
of the Gospel, on this day, is to state what those sins are, what
are their consequences, and how they may be avoided.
Sins maybe considered under a twofold division; those
which individuals always commit, which are the consequence
of our fallen state, and inseparable from our frail nature ; and
those which are the result of any particular depravity, exist-
ing in a greater degree at this time than at any other time, or
in this country, than among any other people.
With respect to the first class of sins, though the utmost
degree of exertion of which we are capable, can never carry
us to the perfection which the Gospel requires, or make us
worthy of the mercy which it holds forth, still it is right to
remind mankind of those imperfections, inherent in their
nature, lest they should relax from the exertions of which they
;\
ON FAST DAY. 49^
are really capable ; — to show, to the best of human creatures,
that they are still miserable sinners, checks that arrogance
which is so apt to rise up in our hearts ; compels us to turn our
minds away from the imperfect examples of goodness we can
meet with here, and to lift them up to that image of purity
which makes our goodness more energetic, more proHfic, and
more permanent : to put us out of conceit with our own ex-
ertions, preserves that feeling of dependence upon an higher
power, which is the preservation of our present, and the
pledge of our future happiness. If our Saviour had told us,
as human philosophers have told us, that good men were
glorious and dignified ; if he had dwelt perpetually upon the
grandeur and importance of virtue ; upon what cheap and
easy terms would men have been contented with themselves ;
— how soon would these notions of their own dignity have
broken that chain which reaches from the heart of man to
the throne of God. — The Gospel now says there are eternal
rewards, and there are eternal punishments ; to gain the one
and to avoid the other, you must do good ; but you must add
to that goodness the deepest humility and the firmest depend-
ance upon the help of God. You must not look backward
upon what you have done, but forward upon what you have to
do. You must consider not the little difference between you
and the rest of your species, but the immeasurable interval
between you and the highest purity; and you must gather
from these reflections, that humihty of righteousness which
will make you desirous of doing more, by making you dis-
satisfied with what you have done. All this good naturally
follows from the doctrine of man's fallen nature ; from the
profound humility which the Gospel enjoins to him; and from
the impossibility under which we are now so wisely placed,
of claiming any merit from our actions, except through the
mercy and mediation of Christ.
Quitting this subject, and coming now to that part of our
conduct which is invariable, to that small and contracted
sphere in which it is allotted to us to do better, or do worse,
I shall begin with the subject of religion ; and here the great
evil to deplore, and the afflicting circumstance which cannot
but be noticed by every true friend of the orthodox church, is
that prodigious increase of sectaries, of all ranks and descrip-
tions, which are daily springing up in this kingdom, and fall-
ing off from the mother church; — these men seem to think
that the spirit of religion consists in a certain fervid irritability
5
W":-. ON FAST DAY.
of mind; and that agitation and eagerness are the most ac-
ceptable sacrifices which they can make to their Creator ; —
the calm address of the Estahhshed Church is, in their estima-
tion, a species of impiety ; and, before he prays to the God of
heaven and earth, an human being must lash himself up into
wildness and enthusiasm.
Another unfortunate peculiarity of these seceders from the-
Established Church is, that they are always straining at gnats,
always suspecting happiness, always casting over rehgion an
air of something bordering upon that which is frivolous and
vexatious ; degrading the majesty of the Gospel, and painting
the Lord of all things as a God of trifles and narrow obser-
vances ; as a God raging forever against those most trivial
omissions, which even the best and ablest of his creatures
can forget and forgive. But the most fatal of all errors which
proceeds from this modern fanaticism, is the contempt and the
horror which they express for all the practical doctrines of
Christianity insisted upon from the pulpit ; the zeal with which
they cry down any attempt to render men better in their daily
conduct, and to produce some actual useful improvement.
We might suppose, from such notions of the Christian faith,
that Christianity was a set of speculative disquisitions, where,
if a man agreed only with the barren and useless results, he
was left in liberty to follow the devices of his own heart, and
to lead what manner of life his fancy or his passions might
dictate. It is evangelical, according to these notions, to
preach to men of high and exalted mysteries ; it is unevange-
lical to w^arn men against pride, against anger, against avarice,
against fraud, against all the innumerable temptations by
which we are hurried away from our duty to our Creator,
and from the great care of salvation. All these subjects it
is now in the practice of fanatics to call by the name of moral,
as if they had nothing to do with the Gospel, as if (as I before
observed), the Gospel busied itself only with some unfruitful
propositions, and remained quite passive at, and unconcerned
by the actions of mankind. But let any man turn to his
Gospel, and see if there is a single instance of our blessed
Saviour's life, where he does not eagerly seize upon every
opportunity of inculcating something practical, of bringing
some passion under subjection, of promoting the happiness of
the world, by teaching his followers to abstain from something
hurtful ; and to do something useful. — The effort, and the ob-
ject, of our blessed Saviour, are always to draw scane inference,
ON FAST DAY. 51
and to make some application from the events before him ; —
the most practical book that ever was written is the Gospel ;
and the great point where it differs from human morals, is,
that human morals say, do so for present convenience, and
the Gospel says, do so for eternal reward ; — human morals
say, do so because it has appeared to wise men to be the best
rule of life ; the Gospel says, do so because it is the will of
God; — they both say do it, but they differ in the authority,
and the motive, as much as Omniscience differs from frailty,
and Eternity from time. But the moment fanatical men hear
anything plain and practical introduced into religion, then
they say this is secular, this is worldly, this is moral, this
is not of Christ. — I am sure you will think with me, that
the only way to know Christ, is not to make our notions his
notions, or to substitute any conjectures of our own as to what
religion ought to be, for an humble and faithful inquiry of
what it is. — The books which contain the word of life are
open before us, and every one may judge of their nature and
object; if they consisted of lofty and sentimental effusion; if
they indulged in subtle disquisition, then, perhaps, it might
be our duty to appear before you, sometimes with disordered
feelings, sometimes with the spirit of profound investigation ;
but the ministers of the Established Church are practical in
their doctrines, because the Scriptures which they explain are
practical ; when they attack any vice to which the nature of
man is subjected, they conceive themselves to be punctually
fulfiUing the commands of their great master ; — they do not
believe that you will call for Tabana, and Farfar, and the
rivers of Damascus, because God has commanded you to wash
in the waters of Israel ; they do not imagine you will ask for
mystery, when it has pleased God to give you that which is
simple and intelligible ; they cannot doubt but that you will
remember, though morals and religion teach us abstinence
from the same crimes, that abstinence, in the one case, is a
question of prudence ; in the other, a question of salvation ; —
in the one case, we only believe the rule to be right, in the
other, we are sure it is right. Can any man, however fond
of opposing morals to religion, suppose that the practical du-
ties, which may be found in the Gospel, were first taught to
mankind by the Gospel? does he imagine that there were not
ten thousand books before the coming of our Saviour, which
said, do not kill; do not commit adultery; cultivate benevo-
lence ; moderate pride ; follow the rules of temperance ? Our
59 ON FAST DAY.
Saviour did not come to preacli new discoveries to mankind ;
but to give to the rules of conduct, which men had discovered
"by the light of nature, the higher authority and the more
powerful motives of religion. How, then, is it possible to
comply with those unreasonable persons, who require some-
thing totally different from moral rules, before they will allow
that you are saying anything about religion 1 A moralist
and a religionist must both equally inculcate charity and for-
giveness of injuries ; when you hear the one, you say it is
prudent, and expedient to act so ; when you listen to the other,
all the sublimity of good and evil is before you, and you are
moved by an eternity of joy and pain. I have dwelt long
upon this erroneous notion of rehgion, because it is one of the
most useful weapons of fanaticism, and is daily producing,
much practical mischief. -^
There is a contrary excess in matters of religion, not ^less
fatal than fanaticism, and still more common : I mean that lan-
guor and indifference upon serious subjects' which characte-
rize so great a part of mankind ; not speculative disbelief, not
profligate scoffing against religion, not incompliance with
the ceremonies it enjoins ; but no penetration of Christianity
into the real character ; little influence of the Gospel upon
the daily conduct : a cold, careless, and unfruitful belief. ' Let
it be our care to steer between these opposite extremes ; tobe
serious without being enthusiastic ; and to be reasonable with-
out being cold ;'^alike to curb the excesses of those who have
zeal without discretion, and to stimulate the feelings of others,
who have conformity without zeal ; remembering always that
everything intended to endure, must be regulated by mode-
ration, discretion and knowledge.
In looking abroad, my brethren, to consider the relation
which this country bears to the other nations of the world, and
the probable destiny which awaits it, it is impossible not to
tremble at the perilous uncertainty of human affairs, and to
bow before the judgments of Almighty God. The state of
the world is like the vision of a sick man, and the thoughts of
a dreamer of dreams, when he is awakened by the light of
the morning ;'^the pageantry of the earth is vanished away,
and the powers and principalities which existed in the days
of our youth, known only by their names, are still fast fading
away from the memory of mankind. All these have fallen
before the bad ambition of him who is directing against us
the last efforts of his genius and his power ; a man powerful
ON FAST DAY. 63
to do evil, not wise, and far-sighted ; and patient enough to
do good ; not caring for, not wishing it ; dedicated to uni-
versal conquest and destruction ; wishing only to walk over
the smoking ashes of the world, and to be remembered by
future ages as a passing storm. In the midst of this outward
wretchedness, we enjoy, in this island, the internal spectacle
of a people, unanimous in discharging the great duties which
they owe to their country, and quite prepared to submit to
every privation, if the only price of quiet affluence is submis-
sion to indignity. If it is beautiful to behold this, it is still
-more pleasing to reflect upon the causes by which that una-
nimity has been occasioned ; to remember those laws which
have long administered equal justice to the rich and poor,
that constitution which has defined the power of those who
govern, and the privileges of those who are governed ; and
that church, which for three centuries has been instilling the
precepts of justice and manly piety into the hearts of the
people. These are beautiful institutions, which have always
been praised, but are now felt ; they are the institutions
which have kept us in life, and strength, amid the ruin of
nations, that had nothing to fight for but the caprices of their
tyrants,; and nothing to guide them but the superstitions of
their false rehgion ; — these are principles which must secure
to us a safe existence, or a majestic fall ; if our sun does set,
it will set in splendour ; if we are to be blotted out from the
powers of the world, we shall light up, in ages yet unborn,
the flame of freedom ; whenever the fullness of our time is
come, we shall leave behind us a page of history, which will
appal tyrants, instruct the wise, and animate the brave ; we
shall teach mankind, that the sword is used abroad with the
greatest strength where the sceptre is wielded at home with
the most perfect justice ; — we shall teach them, that in the
great convulsions of the world, the people which remain the
longest, and suffer the least, are those who are excited to
resistance by a sense of the enjoyments which they are
about to lose, and who are inured to a confidence in Almighty
God, by the precepts of a wise, a temperate, and a feeling
piety.
SERMON VII.
ON THE UTILITY OF MEDITATING
ON DEATH.
I protest, by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die
daily. — 1 Corinthians xv. verse 31.
Thus it is that the apostle brought daily before his mind
the consideration of his death ; of that period which was to
terminate the good and evil of his days ; and to bring him
before his Saviour, and his Judge. He exerted his ardent
imagination to banish the consciousness of life and health, to
summon up images of sorrow, and to draw a true portrait of
that solemn and suffering day. Let us see, after the exam-
ple of this great minister of the Gospel, if there be not some
wisdom in cherishing, and dwelling upon, these occasional
feelings and in spreading this gloom over the soul ; a gloom
which, like the shadow of Peter's body, gives life and
strength to whatever it obscures. The general subject, then,
of my discourse, will be a consideration of the utility which is
to be derived from the meditation on death ; for there is a
sorrow the end whereof is joy ; and eternal laughter leadeth
to destruction. It is better, sometimes, to steal from the glad-
ness of the feast, — to stop the joy of the harp, — to quench the
splendour of the lamp, — to put off the wedding garment, —
and to speak of the wretchedness of the grave. The time
must come when this soul and body shall be rent in twain,
— I must lay on my last bed ; and the darkness of death shall
hide me from my beloved companions. The day must come,
but I know not when ; the feet of them which have buried
my kindred are at the door ; — it may be, they shall carry me
out.
One great advantage of the meditation on death is, that it
ON THE UTILITY OF MEDITATING ON DEATH. 55
leaches us to value all earthly things aright; and perpetually
corrects the fallacy of our calculations, by reminding us of
the period to which they apply; — it discourages those schemes
of fraud, injustice and ambition, the fruits of which are dis-
tant, by reminding us, that that distance we may never reach,
—that death, which cuts short the enjoyment, leaves us with
the whole load of guilt, because that depends on the design ;
whereas, it gives the freest scope to virtuous exertions, because
they have their full merit with our Heavenly Judge, how^ever
they may be interrupted by the uncertainty of human life.
See what we sacrifice every day to wealth and power, for
want of due meditation on death ; and how apt we are to
forget, that the fruits of our crimes remain but for the passing
moment; — when comfort, and peace of mind, and proud
integrity, are all yielded up, we cannot enjoy even a few
years of tranquil corruption ; — we have yielded up all, and it
is now time to yield up the ghost ; — secure to me, for whole
centuries, the wages of iniquity, — stop in me the gradual
waste of life, — guard me from the stalking pestilence,' — place
me on the pinnacle of power, and show me, beneath my feet,
all the pleasures of the world ; and then ask me to pawn
my soul unto sin ; — but if I do the thing which is evil to
day, to-morrow thou canst not save me from death, — and the
wasting fever may not leave me one moment of guilty re-
nown.
Meditation on death improves the mind, by destroying in
it trifling discontents, and by blunting the force of all the
malevolent passions ; — the feelings of malice, jealousy and
hatred cannot co-exist with the prospect of the last hour, with
the notion of a new world, and the terror of a just God ; — the
thought of an eternal parting subdues hatred, and produces,
in miniature, all the effects of a real scene of death ; it
diminishes the importance of the offence we have suffered,
awakens that candour which self-love has set to sleep, and
makes us think, not of the trifling scenes which are past, but
of the awful events which are to come. Such a disposition
of mind severs, at once, all the little and unworthy attach-
ments to hfe, and prevents us from grieving at small evils,
from the lively representation which it makes, that they
cannot endure ; that we are hastening on to something better,
and greater ; and, that it is beneath the wisdom and firmness
of man to weep and lament for that which is as brief in
duration as it is insignificant in effect.
iS5 ON THE UTILITY OF MEDITATING ON DEATH.
Meditation on death aggrandizes the mind, as the near
approach of death itself is commonly accustomed to do ; — for,
though men are accused of acting on their death-bed, they
usually act greatly, and evince an heroism of which their
lives have afforded little or no symptom. For what are the
last scenes we witness of dying men? A forgiveness of
injuries, which should have been forgiven years before ; an
avowal of faults, which should have been avowed and recti-
fied before half the race of life was run ; a confession of
Christ, who had been denied before the world ; sudden and
sublime flashes of wisdom, piety, and magnanimity, which
bear no relation to the previous life, but indicate how awful,
and how omnipotent are the warnings of death.
If the distant contemplation of death cannot so effectually
inspire us with godly thoughts, it, at least, leaves us greater
time for godly actions ; — whatever seeds it casts into the
mind may spring up and fructify ; none of its energies need
be barren ; death frustrates none of its admonitions ; the
feeblest thought of piety has time to expand itself into a wise
and active system of good works.
Meditation on death induces us to consider by what means
we shall avert its terrors; when our hour is come we cannot
discover that the ordinary objects of human desire, and the
ordinary sources of human gratification, will be then of any
avail ; and we are thus led by an happy foresight, to lay up
the remembrance of good actions, even when the last day is
still far distant from us. Can we figure to ourselves any-
thing more dreadful than an human being at the brink of death,
who has never once reflected that he is to die? To hear
those cries of anguish, to which nothing human can now
minister relief? — to behold him looking up to the warm sun,
and clinging to the cheerful world in vain ? — give him but
another year, — but a month, — but a day, — and he will make
some preparations for death ! The widow's heart shall sing
with joy, and the hungry be filled with good things ; — this
is the unspeakable wretchedness, and this the horrid surprise
which it is the great business of Christian wisdom to avoid.
Let us rather, in the middle period of youth and strength,
when the evil day is yet far off, commune with our own
hearts in the stillness of our chambers, and gather a decent
firmness for that trial; and when we pass through this
shadow of death, let our minds be pure from every bad pas-
sion, as they must be at the true death ; and when we have
ON THE UTILITY OF MEDITATING ON DEATH. 57
meditated on these things, and forgiven all injuries, and pur-
posed benevolent deeds, and filled our minds full of fear, and
fair love, and holy hope, we shall go back with new hearts
and pleasures unknown before, to the common scenes of life.
But the greatest of all advantages to be derived from the
meditation on death, is the prospect of that eternity to which
it leads, — a reflection which is the support of every suffering,
the soul of every pleasure, and the source of every virtue ; —
it prevents that weariness which the sameness of life is so
apt to produce ; it gives a motive for enduring sorrow, and
for conquering passion, by opening a boundless region to the
fancy; it promises ease to every pain, gratification to every
desire, and enjoyment to every hope. In the contemplation
of a second existence the persecuted man figures to himself
a state of rest ; the poor, an exemption from want ; the sick,
health; the weak, power; the ignorant, knowledge; the
timid, safety; the mean, glory. In the contemplation of
eternity, that which is broken is bound up ; — that which is
lost is restored ; — that which is quenched is lighted again ; —
the parent looks for his lost child across the great gulf ; the
wretched widow thinks she shall see the husband of her
youth ; the soul, filled with holy wishes, hfts itself up to the
great Author of our being, who has sanctified and redeemed
us by the blood of Christ ; who has given cheerfulness and
dignity to our existence, and made the short agonies of death
a sure prelude to immortal life.
But we must not make our comparison between voluntary
meditation on death, and the total seclusion of the idea ; the
choice is, shall we meditate voluntarily on death, as a religious
exercise, or shall we be haunted by the image of death, as a
terrific spectre ? Shall we gain wisdom and innocence by
meeting the danger, or shall we, like children, be bribed by
the tranquillity of a moment, to keep it off^? The image of
death follows the man who fears it, over sea and land ; it rises
up at feasts and banquets ; no melody can suit it ; no sword
and spear can scare it away ; it is undaunted by the sceptre,
or the crown ; — the rich man may add field to field, and heap
vineyard upon vineyard, and make himself alone upon the
earth, but death's image strides over his towers, and walks
through his plains, and breaks into his nightly bed, and fills
his soul with secret fear! All men suffer from the dread of
death ; it is folly to hope you can escape it. — Our business is
9 as THE XJTILITY OF HEEDITATING €N DEATH.
to receive the image, to gaze upon it, to prepare for it, to seek
it; and, by these means, to disarm.
It is the greatest of all errors, to attempt to escape this feel-
ing, by averting the mind from it ; and there are many conso-
lations, which the steady contemplation of it affords, by which
the magnitude of its terrors is circumscribed, and the idea of
death rendered more tolerable to the mind of man.
In our sympathy with the dead, we think not so much of
the real importance of their situation ; of the awful futurity
which awaits them from the judgment of their Saviour ; but
we think it miserable for them to be deprived of the sight of
the sun ; to be shut out from human intercourse, and laid in
the cold grave, a prey to corruption, and the reptiles of the
earth ; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be obli-
terated, in a little time, from the memory of their dearest
friends and relations ;— the happiness of the dead, however,
is affected by none of these things ; nor is it such circum-
stances which can disturb their profound repose ; they are
sleeping in their dust, unconscious of the mouldering scene
around them ; nor will they awaken any more, till the last
trumpet calls them to the judgment of Christ. Therefore,
reflection may at once cut off all this outward scenery of
death ; whatever it is, the dead know it not ; nor is it wise to
inflame, by all the terrors of imagination, an evil in which
there are so many realities to dread ; neither are we to sup-
pose that death, coming at last, is so unwelcome as our fancy,
viewing it at a distance, would lead us to suppose ;— -long
sickness induces a weariness of life ; the body is comfortless
in old age ; and it deadens the mind ; our friends are all gone
before us ; perhaps our kindred, and our children ; every
succeeding year dissolves some tie which binds us to the
world ; extinguishes some affection ; annihilates some power ;
weakens some appetite ; impairs some excellence ; so that
we perish, day after day, till little of the true man remains,
and the grave has but a small portion to receive.
Meditation on death teaches us, that the evil is not without
its remedy ; that foresight can diminish that evil ; that it is
an evil which may be brought within the compass of our
own swa}^ and dominion ; and that, though we must all die,
it rests with us to determine upon the feelings with which
we shall die, by adopting that course of actions from which
those feelings must proceed ;'^and this appears to me to be
the great use and purpose of thinking on death ; not to think
ON THE UTILITY OF MEDITATING ON DEATH. 59
of that damp earth, and that dreary tomb, and those childish
terrors, of which the dead feel and know nothing; but to
impress upon our hearts this truth, that, through Christ, we
are become the lords of death, and masters over all the sor-
row and lamentation which death carries in its train ; that
the mere separation of matter and spirit is a pang of so
short a moment, that it is hardly a rational object of fear ;
that the real pang is the remembrance of a misspent life ; of
every act that has been cruel, unkind, and unjust ; of time
dissipated ; talents misapplied ; man injured ; and God for-
gotten. If you think the accumulation of such thoughts and
such recollections as these, is awful, take care that they do
not accumulate ; if you dread such agonies of spirit, look to
their origin, and to their cause ; remember the great apostle ;
draw near to God, while all the pleasures of the world are
yet before you ; give up to him some portion of youth and
health ; wait not till disease enables you to offer up only the
remnants and leavings of life ; but die daily,, before half your
career is run ; anticipate the last day ; imagine a mighty
God ; adore his purity ; supplicate his mercy ; tremble at his
power ;— be not so rash, and so mad, as to let the salvation
of your souls depend upon whether the air of this day is
noxious, or pure ; whether the blasts of heaven shall be a
little too damp, or a little too cold ; but be always ready for
death ; think, like a man engaged in warfare, that you can-
not call an hour your own ; and be assured of this, that death,
mere animal death, is nothing ; it is often better than life,
and thousands welcome its approach ; but the sting of death
is sin, and we know that victory which Christ has gained
over sin, by dying daily ; therefore, we may tear out that
sting, and welcome a gentle death, as the end of every sor-
row, and the harbinger of greater and nobler joys.
SMIP
im
•j$$
■)*■%'?>:■
SEKMON VIII.
BLIND.
Truly, the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold
the sun. — Ecclesiabtes xi. verse 7.
If any man were to require, at my hands, a proof of the
authenticity of that Gospel by the principles of which we
have this day been edified, and in obedience to which we are*
now gathered together, after I had laid before him the cogent
and the luminous reasoning which men, mighty in the
Scriptures, have put forth to confound impiety, and to resolve
doubt, after I had read to him the words of that Saviour who
spake as never man spake before, after I had strove by these
means to teach him that, though shrouded in the tomb, he
would behold his Redeemer on the last day, I would turn to
the daily life, and the daily mercies of Christians ; I would
say, let us judge the tree by its fruit ; if it is productive only
of idle ceremonies and trifling observances, hew it down, and
cast it into the flames : but if it can cause the lame to walk,
the leper to be cleansed, the deaf to hear, and the Wind to
receive their sight, — if it brings forth, in their due season, the
fruits of mercy, then is that tree planted by God, — then are
its roots too deep for the tempest, — then shall its branches
flourish to the clouds, — then shall all the nations of the earth
gather under its shade.
Try it, then, by this test ; refer the proofs of the Gospel's
authenticity to the criterion of active provident compassion.
— It studies classes, and relieves every misery of our nature ;
it is not sufficient for the refined, and zealous benevolence of
these times, to confuse the varieties of misfortune, by extend-
ing the same indiscriminate aid to sufferers, who agree in
nothing but the common characteristic of grief; — each indi-
FOR THE BLIND. 61
vidual calamity experiences a distinct compassion, is cherished
with its appropriate comforts, and healed by its specific re-
medies. — The maniac is shut out from the tumults of the
world, the Magdalene weeps over the Gospel of Christ, and
washes his name with her tears ; — a mother is given to the
foundling,— a Samaritan to the wounded, — the drowned
person is called hack from the dead, — the forsaken youth is
snatched from the dominion of vice, — a soul is breathed into
the deaf and dumb, — and the child-bearing woman, when she
thinks of the days of her anguish, knoweth that she has
where to lay her head. In every corner of this Christian
country, some edifice rises up consecrated to mercy ; — a vast
hospital, a place of wounds and anguish, — a tabernacle of
healing, ample enough to call down the blessings of God
upon a city, and to wipe out half their sins. In the midst of
this magnificent benevolence, the children of the Gospel have
not forgotten the misfortunes of the blind ; they have pitied
their long darkness, and remembered that the light is sweet,
that it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun.
The object of the society for which I am now to implore
your protection, is to diminish the misfortune of blindness,
by giving to those afflicted with it, the means of obtaining
support by their ingenuity and labour, and of walking in
the law of Christ, by attending to the religious instructions
and exercises prescribed by this institution. They are
instructed in a variety of works for which manual skill is
requisite, rather than bodily labour, and which they perform
with a dexterity astonishing to those who have connected
with blindness the notion of absolute helplessness and inca-
pacity.
A charitable institution, conducted upon such principles as
the asylum for the blind, is superior to any common charity,
as it interweaves science with compassion ; and, by showing
how far the other senses are capable of improvement, takes
off from the extent of human calamity all that it adds to the
limits of human knowledge. Who could have imagined, to
speak of a kindred instance of ingenious benevolence, that
the deaf and dumb could be taught to reason, to speak, and
to become acquainted with all the terms and intricate laws
of a language; or that men, who had never, from their earhest
infancy, enjoyed the privilege of sight, could be taught to
read and to write ; to print books, and the ablest of them to
penetrate into all the depths of mathematical learning ? S uch
6
63
FOR THE BLIND..
facts afford inexhaustible encouragement to men engaged in
the benevolent task of instructing those in whom the ordinary
inlets of knowledge are blocked up. — They seem to place
within our reach the miracles of those Scriptures from whence
they have sprung, and to show the fervent votary of Christ,
that he, also, like his great Master, can make the deaf hear,
the dumb speak, and the Wind see.
Consider the deplorable union of indigence and blindness,
and what manner of life it is from which you are rescuing
these unhappy people ; the Wind man comes out in the
morning season to cry aloud for his food ; — when he hears
no longer the feet of men he knows that it is night, and gets
him back to the silence and the famine of his cell. Active
poverty becomes rich; labour and prudence are rewarded
with distinction : the weak of the earth have risen up to be
strong; but he is ever dismal, and ever forsaken ! The man
who comes back to his native city after years of absence,
beholds again the same extended hand into which he cast his
boyish alms ; the self-same spot, the old attitude of sadness,
the ancient cry of sorrow, the intolerable sight of a human
being that has grown old in supphcating a miserable support
for a helpless, mutilated frame, — such is the life these unfor-
tunate children would lead, had they no friend to appeal to
your compassion,' — such are the evils we will continue to
remedy, if they experience from you that compassion which
their magnitude so amply deserves.
The author of the book of Ecclesiastes has told us that the
light is sweet, that it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to be-
hold the sun ; the sense of sight is, indeed, the highest bodily
privilege, the purest physical pleasure, which man has de-
rived from his Creator : To see that wandering fire, after he
has finished his journey through the nations, coming back
to us in the eastern heavens ; the mountains painted with
hght ; the floating splendour of the sea ; the earth waking
from deep slumber ; the day flowing down the sides of the
hills, till it reaches the secret valleys ; the little insect recalled
to life ; the bird trying her wings ; man going forth to his
labour; each created being moving, thinking, acting, con-
triving according to the scheme and compass of its nature ;
by force, by cunning, by reason, by necessity, — is it possible
to joy in this animated scene and feel no pity for the sons of
darkness ? for the eyes that will never taste the sweet light ?
for the poor, clouded in everlasting gloom ? — If you ask me
TOR THE BLIND. 63
why they are miserable and dejected, I turn you to the
plentiful valleys ; to the fields now bringing forth their in-
crease ; to the freshness and the flowers of the earth ; to the
endless variety of its colours ; to the grace, the symmetry,
the shape of all it cherishes, and all it bears ; these you have
forgotten because you have always enjoyed them ; but these
are the means by which God Almighty makes man what he
is ; cheerful, lively, erect ; full of enterprize mutable, glanc-
ing from Heaven to earth ; prone to labour and to act. — Why
was not the earth left without form and void? Why was
not darkness suffered to remain on the face of the deep ?
Why did God place lights in the firmament for days, for
seasons, for signs, and for years? — that he might make man
the happiest of beings, that he might give to this his favourite
creation a wider scope, a more permanent duration ; a richer
diversity of joy : this is the reason why the blind are mise-
rable and dejected, because their soul is mutilated and dis-
membered of its best sense ; because they are a laughter and
a ruin, and the boys of the streets mock at their stumbHng
feet ; therefore I implore you, by the Son of David, have
mercy on the blind : if there is not pity for all sorrows, turn
the full and perfect man to meet the inclemency of fate : let
not those who have never tasted the pleasures of existence,
be assailed by any of its sorrows ; — the eyes which are never
gladdened by light should never stream with tears.
Nothing is more commonly known, than that those who
are born blind cannot form the smallest notion of colours
and of light ; it is impossible, however, they should hear the
pleasures derivable from sight so frequently spoken of by
others, without comparing them with other sources of gratifi-
cation with which they happen to be acquainted ; it is an
affecting and interesting circumstance in the annals of one*
who had himself been Wind from his infancy, that the simili-
tude he was always apt to frame for the unknown pleasures
of sight, were the pleasures of virtue and religion to his pious
and ardent imagination ; the landscape of the evening was
like the close of a well spent life ; friendship and pity were
the full stream and the green pasture ; the Gospel was the
day spring from on high.
There is a pleasure in the sight of the human countenance,
greater than any derived from the contemplation of those
* Dr. Blacklock.
64 FOR THE BLIND.
objects to which we bear a cold and a distant relation ; it is
pleasant to the heart of man to be met with looks of kindness
and regard ; to see a countenance that promises support in
the evil day, that reminds us of ancient attachments, and
family love : that carries the awful signs of those feelings
and passions which must influence our future fate. Which
of you that expects to see a long absent brother, or a child
returning from the perils of war and of distant lands ; which
of you would forego the pleasure of tracing every lineament
of his face, and reading on his features the language of deep
and ardent aflJection? Ask of these unhappy children what
they would sacrifice that they might see, were it only for an
instant, the mother that nursed them ; the guide that led
them out ; the brother that has treated them kindly and gently
in their infant days ? But brother, and parent, and guide, and
friend, are one to them ; they know not the signs of nature,
the looks of mercy, and the smiles of love.
Another source of misery to the blind, is their defenceless
weakness of body ; they can neither foresee evil, ascertain
its nature, nor avert its consequences. If they venture a step
from their usual haunts, every spot on which they tread is
pregnant with some new danger ; — the earth seems to them
a continued precipice.-— The blind, says a very excellent
writer, who had himself never enjoyed the blessing of sight ;
the blind not only may be, but actually are, during a con-
siderable period, apprehensive of danger in every motion
towards any place from whence their contracted powers of
perception give them no intelligence. All the various modes
of delicate proportion ; all the beautiful varieties of lights and
colours ; whether exhibited in the works of nature, or of art ;
are to them irretrievably lost ; — dependent for everything,
except mere subsistence, on the good offices of others ; ob-
noxious to injury from every point, which they are neither
capacitated to receive, nor quahfied to resist, they are, during
the present state of being, rather prisoners at large, than
citizens of nature.
To estimate the advantages of sight, or of any other blessing
coeval with life, we should call in the force of constrast, and
consider what the condition of man would have been, had it
pleased God to create him without it. Devoid of sight, man
would acquire his knowledge of the properties of bodies,
slowly, singly, and with extreme uncertainty ; — the sluggish
current of his ideas would render him unfit for enterprize, his
FOR THE BLIND. ^
submission to every danger passive, or his opposition fruitless
and confused ; — some faint intelligence he would derive from
sound ; but he could receive few accurate notions from any-
greater distance than he could reach. From all that knowledge
of bodies which we derive from an acquaintance with their
affinities to light ; and which, to us, are the signs of vigour
and decay, salubrity and harm; youth and age; hatred and
love; he would be eternally precluded; — his mind must
necessarily be exercised upon diminutive objects ; because,
though a long-continued series of touches would give him an
accurate notion of each part touched, he could not, from such
disconnected intelligence, collect the notion of a single indi-
vidual mass. The works of God thus broken into baubles,
and given to him bit by bit, what can this truncated, mutilated
being know of the wisdom and power of his Creator ? — Open
to him now the visible world ; he penetrates into distant
space ; — he sees, at one glance, millions of objects ; — he views
the breadth, and depth, and altitude of things ; — he perceives
there is a God among the aged streams, and the perpetual
mountains, and the everlasting hills.
My brethren, as no other topic worthy of your attention
presses upon me, I conclude with recommending most earnest-
ly these distressed objects to your notice ; and I remind you
how merciful our blessed Saviour was wont to show himself
to their afflictions. BHnd Bartimeus sat by the way-side beg-
ging; and, as the crowd passed by, he cried, with a loud
voice, " Thou son of David have mercy on me." Jesus stop-
ped the multitude ; and, before them all, restored him to his
sight. The first thing that he saw, who never saw before,
was the Son of God. These blind persons, like Bartimeus,
will never see, till they behold their Redeemer on the last
day; not as he then was, in his earthly shape, but girded by
all the host of heaven ; — the judge of nations ; — the everlast-
ing counsellor ;— the prince of peace. At that hour, this
heaven and earth will pass away, and all things melt with
fervent heat ; — but, in the wreck of worlds, no tittle of mercy
shall perish, and the deeds of the just shall be recorded in thQ
mind of God,
i'l 'i'V
SEEM ON IX.
ON DUTY TO PARENTS.
And this is the fifth Commandment. Honour thy father and thy mother,
that thy days may be long in the land, which the Lord thy God giveth
thee.
It is almost superfluous to observe upon the importance of
this law to the welfare and tranquillity of society, as it places
the young under the tuition, not only of the old and the ex-
perienced, but of those whom affection urges to seize on all the
resources which age and experience can suggest for their
advantage.
The law orders and the magistrate executes ; but the law
would be vain and the magistrate powerless, if the parent did
not dispose the minds of his children for the reception of that
law, and prepare them, by obedience to him, for submission
to those whom he himself obeys.
In proportion, therefore, as this great virtue of filial obe-
dience is ingrafted upon the manners of any country, in the
same proportion will decency and good order prevail there ;
and every precept of the Gospel be more deeply engraven in
the minds, and uniformly displayed in the actions of that
people.
We may observe, that this command of Almighty God is
conveyed in a very comprehensive expression, — honour thy
father and thy mother; — not simply support, or defend them;
but honour them, — a term which comprehends not only the
grosser and more obvious duties of preserving them from
want and protecting them from violence, but secures to them
delicate attentions ; studies them with eager and inquisitive
affection ; screens them with partial judgments ; soothes them
with profound veneration ; repays to them all that fine care.
ON DUTY TO PARENTS. 67
which has averted the perils of infant life and brought out an
human being to the perfection of his reason, and the summit
of his strength.
In handhng this branch of Christian doctrine, I shall en-
deavour, first, to show what are the ordinary obstacles to a
right performance of this duty ; secondly, to point out in what
the duty principally consists.
To the repayment of those obligations which we owe to our
parents, there is one very considerable, and very singular ob-
stacle ; the immensity of those obHgations themselves. — We
have lived in such a constant state of protection from our
parents, in the uniform reception of so much kindness, that
their benevolence wants the effect of contrast to produce its
just impression upon our minds ; the benefits we experience
from our neighbours awaken our attention, because they are
actions superior to the ordinary tenour of their benevolence ;
but we do not notice the kindness of a parent, because he has
been always kind ; we are less sensible to his bounties, be-
cause we have never experienced any interruption of them
for a single instant ; they are like health, and strength, and
youth ; where custom blunts the edge of enjoyment, and the
magnitude of the possession is only discovered by the misery
of the loss. It is also a little in the genius of human nature,
to think obligations burthensome, and to become careless of
remuneration, when they are so great, that it is very difficult
to discharge those obligations effectually, and to make that
remuneration complete; thus, while smaller instances of
friendship are repaid with precision and with pride, the
greatest of all benefactors are sometimes treated with ingrati-
tude from the very extent and compass of their goodness.
Another circumstance, which blunts the sense of fihal ob-
ligation is, that the kindness of parents, one of the most com-
mon of all virtues, appears so natural from every human
being towards his offspring, that though it would be shocking
to want it, it is considered as not meritorious to possess it. —
But observe, why this virtue of parental kindness is common,
because it is also common to receive a return for it in filial
obedience ; — nature has laid the foundation ; the expectation
of reaping the sweets of parental kindness, justified by the
feeling of all men, in all ages, has done much more. To deny
the obligations which you owe to parents, because it is com-
mon in all parents to do good to their children, is to withhold
the reward which principally makes that kindness so com-
68 ON DUTY TO PARENTS.
mon ; and to frustrate as much as in you lies, this great com-
mandment of Almighty God. For, consider to what the kind-
ness of parents would soon be reduced, if it were generally
claimed as a matter of right ; and how soon, under the in-
fluence of compulsion, the most expanded benevolence would
contract itself into the narrowest and most inconsiderable
hmits.
But the affection of parents, it may be urged, is a feeling
of nature ; therefore they have no merit in obeying it, but is
not every act of Christian righteousness founded on some
feehng of nature ? Is compassion no virtue ? Is courage,
rightly exercised, no virtue ? Is gratitude no virtue ? Is the
fear of offending no virtue ? All these qualities are provided
for by nature, — all these qualities men call virtues, — all these
quahties Christ taught, practised, and possessed ; to deny
merit to actions, because we are prompted to them by nature,
is to put an end at once to all human virtues, because there
is not a single one to which we are not carried by some ori-
ginal principle of our nature. It must be observed, too, that,
on every occasion, we are impelled by the constitution of our
minds to two opposite systems of action ; and that merit and
duty consist in selecting the right propensity : Fear prompts
us to fly, shame to remain, gratitude to remunerate, avarice
to withhold, parental affection to cherish, selfishness to ne-
glect. That man is righteous who, in the conflict of passions,
subdues those feelings which God has given us to be sub-
dued; and obeys those feehngs which he has given us to be
obeyed.
The sense of those obligations we owe to our parents, is
frequently impaired by the lapse of time since those obliga-
tions have been incurred; the season of infancy is passed away
like a dream ; the dangerous impetuosity of youth is sub-
sided: we feel strong and wise, and forget the days of weak-
ness, and the nursing father and the nursing mother of the
times that are gone ; — we remember these things no more ;
but they hve in the memory of the old, and it seemeth hard
to them that they should no more be had in remembrance.
These are some of the principal reasons which impede us
in this duty of honouring our parents. Let us now see how
this duty itself is to be performed.
There are few men, in the present state of society, (soft-
ened as the human heart is by the Gospel of Christ,) who, on
great and glaring occasions, would be deficient in duty to
ON DUTY TO PARENTS. ^
their parents ; who would suffer them to perish hy want ; or
would refuse to rescue them from aggression. Such sort of
occasions very rarely occur ; and, therefore, he who comforts
himself, that he would, in the cause of his parents, display
this species of alacrity, should remember, however excellent
his intentions may be, that he will, most probably, pass
through life, without ever putting them to the test. There
are little sacrifices of daily occurrence, which, in a series of
years, contribute as materially to the happiness of a parent,
and which, because they are obscure, and have no swelling
sentiments to support them, are more difficult for a continua-
tion than more splendid actions. Every man has little in-
firmities of temper and disposition, which require forgiveness;
peculiarities which should be managed; prejudices which
should be avoided ; innocent habits which should be indulged;
fixed opinions which should be treated with respect; parti-
cular feelings and delicacies which should be consulted ; all
this may be done without the slightest violation of truth, or
the most trifling infringement of religion ; these are the sacri-
fices which repay a man, in the decline of his life, for all
that he has sacrificed in the commencement of yours ; this
makes a parent delight in his children, and repose on them,
when his mind and his body are perishing away, and he is
hastening on to the end of all things. — Consider that he has
been used to govern you ; that (however you may have for-
gotten it) the remembrance is fresh to him, of that hour, when
you stood before him as a child, and he was to you as a God.
Bear with him in his old age ; pain and sickness have made
him what you see ; he has been galled by the injustice, per-
haps, and stung by the ingratitude of men; let him not see
that old age is coming upon him, that his temper is impaired,
or that his wisdom is diminished ; but as the infirmities of life
double upon him, double you your kindness ; make him re* *
spectable to himself, soothe him, comfort him, honour your
father and your mother, that your days may be long, that you
may be justified by your own heart, and honoured by the
children which God giveth to you.
Parents are honoured by the strict and sacred concealment-*^
of any faults they may be discovered to possess. A good
son will be loth to suppose that his parents have any faults ;
►—but he must be the worst, and wickedest of men, who un-
veils their nakedness, and avails himself of those occasions
which their protection has given him, to study their weak-
70 ON DUTY TO PARENTS.
nesses, and to expose them to a merciless world. Neither
is it only the duty of a child not to publish the faults of his
parents; let him take every fair and judicious opportunity
of mentioning their virtues, — their justice, — their kindness,
— their forbearance, — their zeal to promote the welfare of
their offspring : — in this way a man is honoured by his chil-
dren ; such testimony of children, prudently and modestly
delivered, the world always receives with favour and esteem,
as they ought to do that rectitude of conduct in the parent
which has impressed itself so deeply on the mind of the
child.
I need not add to my explanation of what is meant by
honouring a parent, — the necessity of obeying him, in all
things lawful, — of consulting him in all the important pro-
ceedings of our lives, — of referring to his advice and instruc-
tion in every difficulty, — of showing that we feel, on all
occasions, the strength of that sacred connection which binds
us to the authors of our existence.
No man, perhaps, can feel with sufficient energy all those
duties which he owes to his parents, before he himself is a
"-•fjarent, and stands in the same relation to other human
beings. — It is then he begins to perceive that the fears are
real ; that all the watchings and all the anxieties are true ; —
■"-that God has made nothing so timid, so kind, so good, as the
heart of a parent ; — it is then you will discover why a parent
is wounded by the slightest neglect, why he is more sensitive
in all his joys and sorrows, — why he rejoices in your faintest
glory, — why he mourns over your least disquietude, — why
he follows you from the cradle to the grave with an affection
which no labour can disgust, no peril intimidate, and which
scarcely the blackest ingratitude can ever dissolve. Even
the rebellion of Absalom could not extinguish the affection
of David ; but his victory was turned into mourning ; the
king forgot that he was safe upon the throne of Israel, and
called night and day for his son, weeping in the chamber
over the gate, and wishing that God had smitten him with
death.
It should be a great incitement to the performance of this
duty, that when the time comes for repenting that we have
neglected it, when the Httle personal feuds and jealousies
which blind our understanding are at an end, and it becomes
plain to the judge, within the breast, that we have often ne-
glected the authors of our being, often given them unneces-
ON DUTY TO PARENTS. * 71
sary pain ; — when these feelings rush upon us, it too often
happens that all reparation is impossible ; they are gone, the
grave hides them, and all that remains of father and of
mother are the dust and the ashes of their tombs. In all
other injuries the chance of repairing them may endure as
long as life itself, but it is the ordinary course of nature that
the parent should perish before the child ; and it is the ordi-
nary course of nature also, that repentance should be most
bitter when it is the most inefTectual.
This commandment to honour parents may, in fact, be
rendered subservient to every virtue, and may be obeyed as
the mean of enforcing every law of the Gospel, — honour your
father and your mother; honour them with your lives, by
your spotless integrity, by keeping yourselves void of offence
towards God and man. If revenge prompts you to break
through human laws, and makes you prodigal of life, forgive,
for the love of your parents ; — If indolence and sloth avert
you from honourable competition, rouse yourself, that the
praises which men bestow upon you, may warm the hearts
of your parents ; — whenever you are about to do anything
that is wrong, remember there are a father and a mother
whose hearts you will tear with anguish ; — have pity upon
them, and bear them in mind in all you do; if you are disho-
nourable, they cannot be honoured ; if you are in wretchedness,
they cannot rejoice ; — they will burn with your glory ; they
will blush with your shame ; — they have smiled upon your
cradle, they will weep on your tomb.
In fine, to fulfil this great duly is an act of rehgion, as it
is one of the commandments of Almighty God. It is a duty
most creditable to the heart of him who fulfils it, because it
is an obscure duty, and one of long continuance ; yet it is
base to say, I have forgotten the wants and miseries of my
childhood, and, because I am now strong, I will not remem-
ber that I was ever weak ; — it is cruel to laugh at that wis-
dom, in its decay, which has guided us in its perfection ; —
though his tongue falter, and though he is bowed down, he
is still thy father; — forsake him not, but comfort him as he
has comforted thee ; and if thy days are long in the land, at
the latest, and the last of those days, thou shalt feel that peace
which they only can feel who honour the authors of their
being and obey the commandments of their God.
^
SEEM ON X.
ON THE GOVERNMENT OF HEART.
His heart is established, he shall not be afraid. — Psalm cxii. verse 8.
The Psalmist, in stating the happiness of a righteous man,
comes, at last, to that essential part of it, the government of
the heart ; and, impressed with the security which such a
state of thoughts and feelings must afford, says, his heart is
established, he shall not be afraid.
The Psalmist means, I should suppose, by this establish-
ment of heart, an habitual regulation of passions, opinions and
imagination ; — a suspicious examination, not of our actions,
but of the motives of our actions ; and such a government of
the thoughts as is most likely to conduce to a moral and
religious life.
I shall, therefore, endeavour to enforce such valuable doc-
trine, and to unfold the principles on which it is founded.
The intimate connection between our ideas and our actions,
is such, that, as often as the moment comes for doing, or for
abstaining, every previous thought which has been harboured
in the understanding rushes in, and exercises a share of in-
fluence in the decision. — The pleasing pictures of sin we
have drawn, in the absence of temptation, dazzle us, in its
presence, with a more brilliant colouring, become more vivid,
more artful, and more resistless ; when the moment arrives
for actual gratification, we do not forget the gratification we
have enjoyed, by anticipation, when conscience should rise
up in all its terrors ; we cannot exclude from our minds all
the previous sophistry with which it has been disarmed,
when the terror of God should alarm us ; by this vicious
indulgence of our thoughts we have lessened our sense of
his vigilance, buoyed up our spirits with the fallacious pro-
mise of future repentance, or cast from us, altogether, the
ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HEART. 73
shackles and bondage of religion. It is no wonder that men
should so often yield to temptation, when they trust to the
casual virtue of the moment, and bring to the contest feelings
which have never been subjected to a single instant of dis-
cipline and control : — When they abolish every outpost,
rase every advanced defence, and trust everything to the
strength of the inward fortress alone. Virtue under such a
system as this, is not only difficult, it is almost impossible ; —
it is the result of accident, depending upon circumstances,
which he, whom they influence, can neither explain nor
command ; it is not that virtue which flows from a trained
and disciplined heart, the effects of which are uniform ; and,
as far as we may say so of what belongs to our fallen nature,
certain. To make virtue easy, we must lay the foundations
of it in thought ; when the temptation is not present, it is
easy to find reasonings against it ; — and, when it is at hand,
there are, then, many confirmed opinions and inveterate
aversions to guard us from its influence : he who has cau-
tiously excluded from his mind pictures of vicious gratifica-
tion, and considered a bad life rather with respect to the
permanent evil it inflicts than the transient pleasure it affords,
will be more likely to see, in real vice, horror than allure-
ment ; — he will dwell rather on the rewards than the diffi-
culties of virtue ; if he has spurned, even in thought, that
worldly good which is purchased by sin, he will, in action,
trample it beneath his feet ; — if he has enjoyed in fancy the
sweet security of an irreproachable life, he will not yield it
up to the gold of Ophir ; if he has taught himself to shudder
at the thought, even of disguised crimes, he will throw open
the gates of his soul, and defy the keenest inquisition of the
human race ; his deeds will be pure as the heavens, lofty as
the hills, and clear as the light. On the contrary, most men
give the full rein to their thoughts ; and, as long as they
abstain from the action, liberally indulge in the notion ; they
never think of stopping till they have inflamed themselves
with every possible incentive to advance ; or, of abstaining
till their appetite is sharpened to the keenest edge ; they
make a perpetual variance between deeds and desires,
aggravate the horror of what must be done, and magnify the
importance of what cannot be obtained ; and this, not to
increase, but to diminish the evils of life ; it is done to in-
demnify ourselves by the luxurious enjoyments of the
imagination, for the obstacles opposed to our pleasures, as
f.^ ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HEARTi
if those obstacles which cannot, and which ought not, to be
overcome, are not much more intolerable, from their imaginary-
removal, than they would be from a cheerful acquiescence in
the purposes for which they were created ; and submission
to the wisdom which gave them birth.
There seems to be, in the apprehension of some men, a
sort of cruelty, in extending the empire of religion over the
thoughts ; — it wears the appearance of vexatious inquisition,
which disturbs harmless enjoyment, and punishes the ap-
pearance of happiness wherever it can be discovered : the
fact is so much the reverse, that if the idea of duty is to be
admitted at all ; if the Gospel of Christ is to establish a bad,
and a good, in human actions ; it could have suggested no
other method so effectual to enforce obedience to its precepts,
as the government of the thoughts ; because it employs the
power of virtue, at a time when opposition to vice is not
arduous, or difficult ; when temptation is without form, and
void ; before the dangerous eloquence of the senses has
roused the bad passions : instead of creating an additional
call upon the energy and labour of man, it fixes upon him a
much lighter burthen, and binds him to a much easier yoke ;
it opposes him not to vivid perceptions, but to faint anticipa-
tions ; it arrays him not against the real presence, but the
ghost and shadow of sin ; while it gives to virtue inward
peace and outward respect : softening its privations, diminish-
ing its suffering ; and forgetting its toils. — Such are the results
of that discipline which we deem oppressive tyranny over the
thoughts ; such are the salutary pictures which our natural
love of virtue, sheltered from actual temptation, will soon
enable us to draw.
Neither can this discipline of the thoughts be regarded with
any colour of justice, as trivial, or inadequate to the efforts
which has produced it ; for I am not contending, that it is an
useful discipline ; but that it is an indispensable discipline ;
not that it is an auxiliary to the highest virtues ; but a
necessary foundation for the lowest and the least: it is not
possible that that man should walk outwardly in the law of
God, who is for ever feeding in imagination upon the pleasures
of sin. — The passions will at last act ; the seed will break
through the incumbent obstacle ; the vice, which has been so
often pictured, (because to draw such pictures is considered
as compatible with innocence,) will be imitated to the life with
fatal and unerring precision.
<m THIS GOVERNMENT OF THE HEAffT: it
Having thus touched upon the necessity of governing- the
heart, and handled a few superficial prejudices, which may-
render us less willing to submit to this invaluable discipline,
I shall endeavour, with God's help, to lay down a few rules
for its more easy attainment.
There is an old apophthegm, which says, reverence thyself,
and in this saying, much sound wisdom is locked up. If we
had half the reverence for ourselves that we have for the
world, how upright and how pure would our conduct be ;
we should carry about with us an inward judge, whose
vigilance we should fear ; whose justice we should respect ;
and whose praise we should love ; an awful judge ; the man
within the breast ; whose tribunal would extend over the
motives of actions, who would approve virtue, while it yet
only glowed in the thoughts, and discover crime in the secret
workings of the soul ; — this principle of self-love would effec-
tually banish from our minds every vicious indulgence of
thought ; and every low, ignominious feeling ; we should no
longer wear virtue as a mask, but all that we do now from
conformity, and the fear of shame, we should do then from
rooted principle, and passionate love of God.
Secondly, the heart is estabhshedby prayer because prayer
recalls to us the mercy of God for our love, his justice for our
terror, and his perfections for our imitation ; it reminds us of
the frailty of man, and makes us rationally suspicious of our-
selves ; — it brings before us the crucified Saviour of mankind,
and in his image, personifies every virtue ; — it turns our
thoughts from men to angels ; from frailty to perfection ; from
a few evil days to an happy eternity ; from a jumble of sighs
and joys, to a gladness that endureth for ever.
Again the heart is governed, by impressing on our recol-
lection the intimate connection between thought and action ;
and by making the propriety of the one the test of propriety
in the other ; if it is wrong to gratify revenge, it is wrong to
dwell on it in imagination ; if it is our duty to forgive out-
wardly, it is our duty to forgive from our inward hearts ; if
we are to withstand the allurements of pleasure, we must not
contemplate them ;— -if we are to support painful duties, we
must not magnify them in our thoughts ; — whatever we are
forbidden to do, we are forbidden to think ; whatever we are
commanded to perform, we are commanded to love : there
must be no discordance between the inward and the outward
7d ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HEART#
man ; thought, word and deed must be constantly and closely
united together ; there are, indeed, a purity in this doctrine,
and a wisdom, which give to the Gospel one cause of its
superiority over the spurious religions which are so widely
diffused over the world, that, whereas they look wholly to
the mere overt act, like an human law, Christianity com-
mences its empire from the first dawn of thought ; and, by
influencing the causes of actions, makes virtue more easy
and more permanent.
The heart is governed by tracing up our pains and plea-
sures to their source; whenever we enjoy any pleasure
unalloyed by dissatisfaction, it will be found, almost always,
to proceed from the performance of duty, as our miseries
will from the neglect of it ; and the repetition of this exercise
will insensibly impress upon our minds, the inseparable con-
nection between virtue and happiness : there is nothing, for
instance, so likely to cure us of selfishness, as the gloom and
uneasiness with which it never fails to be attended, or so
likely to reconcile us to the immediate efforts of the social
virtues, as the cheerfulness and interest in common life
which they always communicate to their possessor: when
we have traced up lassitude and remorse to the waste of
time, we shall employ it with more economy and vigour :
when we have discovered that we pay in languor of body
and loss of reputation for the pleasures of excess, we shall
be gradually reconciled to moderation ; when we have found
out in the heart, the springs of joy and pain, we shall learn
to keep them aright.
A steady employment of time, and a vigorous exercise of.
the intellectual faculties, are no mean auxiliaries to the gov-
ernment of the heart ; for our minds, made to overcome diffi-
culties, either lose their powers entirely when they are with-
out an object, or turn those powers inwardly to consume
themselves : It is clear, that we have no power to summon
up particular ideas at pleasure ; and it is equally clear, if we
cannot summon them up, their occurrence is involuntary,
and free from guilt ; but when ideas are present, it is in our
power to decide whether we will dwell upon and expand
them ; whether we will summon up every notion to which
they happen to be related, or whether we will oppose the
power of Satan, and resist the peril of unhallowed images :
hence, the use of intellectual exertion and previous habits of
labour in the government of the heart, that we are no longer
ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HEART. TlT
at the mercy of every dangerous fancy, and every wanton
image penciled by the passions ; we can fix our eyes steadily
upon intellectual objects, and find in the cultivation of our
understandings the noblest security for the innocence of our
lives. The greater part of our wretchedness, real and chi-
merical, of our vices, and of the mistaken views we are so
unfortunately apt to take of human life, proceed from the
want of something to do ; think we must, and if not of that
which is ornamental, or useful, certainly, of that which is
pernicious ; and let it never be forgotten, that as often as we
give ourselves up to the dominion of vicious thoughts, there
is never wanting an abundance of ingenious words, which
consult the delicacy of a bashful sinner, and veil the deform-^
ity of vice. A weariness of the decent restrictions hnposed
by society, is warmth of heart and liberality of sentiment ;
whatever is licentious is romantic ; whatever is base, is pru-
dent ; extravagance is generosity ; contempt of public virtue,
practical good sense ; and ignorant skepticism, enlightened
superiority to prejudice. »
The important practice I am endeavouring to inculcate,^,
will be powerfully promoted, by cherishing a love of open- '
ness and a detestation of hypocrisy ; by living as it were in
public ; by scorning to maintain one character before the
world, and another in the secret places of the heart ;— -if this
slavery of the mind, this necessity of fearing and hiding our-
selves from our fellow-creatures, were painted in glowing-
colours to the free and noble feelings of youth, it would have
no small tendency to encourage purity of thought; and would
convert the proud defiance, natural to that time of life, to the
wisest of all purposes."— To feel for the judgment of the world
unfeigned respect, is the property of a wise man; but to
know that any human being may, eventually, have it in his
power to treat us with merited contempt and infamy, and
that we owe our reputation only to the ignorance of those
with whom we are in repute, is a feeling which can never
exist long in the mind of him who has listened to the advice
of my text, and laboured earnestly that his heart should be
established aright.
There is, above all, for the obtaining of this habit, an awful
sense of the ever-during presence of God, and a dread of lay-
ing open, to his pure spirit, a carnal and voluptuous soul: —
The same God, who dwelleth above, hath his ways upon
earth ; he numbers the sanctities of Heaven, and knoweth
7*
T8r ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HEART.
the thoughts of man ; he searches where the planets wander ; ^
and walketh in the paths of the mind. Remember, also, the
pure severity of the Gospel, which punishes the adultery of
the heart ; which resents the malice of the thoughts ; and
ordains that words of pardon and of peace should come from
the very springs of the heart. If we can refrain from real
vice, we will not lose the reward of our firmness by the poor
•enjoyments of imaginary gratification ; if we have overcome
the greater difficulty, we will not yield to the less ; if the
terrors of an hereafter have made our lives pure, we will not
perish because our thoughts are evil,
I have thus endeavoured to impress upon you the import-
ance of estabhshing the heart, as it renders righteousness
more secure, and more easy ; those who have ever practised
this truly Christian disciphne, can need no other incentive to
its continuation than the immediate pleasure they have de-
rived from it ; and that feeling of inviolable security which
must ever be the lot of those in whom outward and visible
virtue is the accurate sign of inward and spiritual purity.
If, by a vigorous exertion of our own powers, and by earnest
prayer to God, we can guard from pollution this fountain of
evil and of good, we have httle to fear from all which the
world can inflict ; and at the moment when this mortal body
is crumbHng into dust, the heart, estabhshed in upright
thoughts, shall animate the dying Christian, and strengthen
his faith in the mercies of his God.
■m^^0i^jmm
SERMON XL
ON GOOD FRIDAY
And Jesus J crying with a loud voice, gave up the ghost. — St. Matthew
XV. VERSE 37.
The last scenes of our Saviour's life, and the particular
circumstances of his death, are fit subjects for examination,
either as they afford an additional example of the truth of the
Christian religion, or a practical example of morality. Whe-
ther we would learn how persecution is to be endured, and
death and adversity supported ; or would try, by the events
of so critical a period, the authenticity of our Saviour's mis-
sion, this part of the Gospel history ought powerfully to arrest
and deeply to engage our attention.
To try the character of the founder of our religion by the
last scenes of his life, is to subject it to the most candid of
all tests ; for if there had been fanaticism, it is probable, and
conformable to experience, that the approach of death would
have lowered that fanaticism to abject fear, or exalted it to
high passion; if there had been imposture, it is probable
that the love of life and hope of impunity would have pro-
duced either a full confession of the artifice, or those signs
of fluctuation and doubt which a bad man is so apt to display
when his life depends upon the success of his falsehood. If,
on the contrary, the last scenes of that life display mildness,
simplicity, firmness and majesty ; if they harmonize with
every other period of his existence, they sanction our belief
in the divinity of Christ, and they deserve our imitation, our
wonder and our love.
There is, in the death of Christ, as there was in his life,
perfect simplicity ; no scenical effect, no expression of tumul-
80 ON GOOD FRIDAY.
tuous feeling, no swelling words and sentiments ; no desire
to excite compassion in those who witnessed his sufferings.
The life of our Saviour is great, because it has no scenes of
vulgar glory; because he endured much for an high object;
and loved truth and virtue so well that when their interests
were concerned, he felt no pain and feared no evil ; — and his
death is great, because he died simply, Hfted up by a great
purpose above fortune and the world. The death-bed of
men who have acted a conspicuous part in the world, is
sometimes a scene of vanity, rather than a scene of piety ;
they have lived, not for God and for duty, but for opinion ;
and they summon up the remnants of strength to astonish the
beholders, and to give the last brilliant colour to their glory ;
but Jesus Christ died with a few words, and, to appearance,
forgetful of himself; remembering only what he had done for
others '.—for this cause came I into the world, to bear wit-
ness of the truth,
' The conduct of our Saviour towards Peter, whose apostasy
he had foretold, is characteristic of majestic simplicity, — when
Peter had denied him thrice, the Lord turned and looked
upon Peter, and Peter went out and wept bitterly. If that
look taught Peter to repent, it may teach us to believe : the
fraud and the folly which we witness, have no such singleness
of heart and such plain majesty of action ; whenever we behold
such signs as these, we hail them as the shepherds did the
star in the East ; they are the marks which God has put upon
truth and good faith ; premeditated sophistry may destroy
the first burst of nature, but in reading the history of Christ's
death, the fresh and sudden feelings of the heart, all acquit
him, all praise him, all believe in him ; — we all feel as Pon-
tius Pilate, his judge, felt, who, when he had looked at him,
and heard him speak, broke from the judgment seat, and
bathed his trembling hands in the water, saying, " I call you
all to witness, I ani guiltless of the blood of this innocent
man."
In the trial and death of Christ there was no symptom of
fear; he encountered all his miseries with decent, yet un-
yielding courage ; nor did he evince the smallest disposition
to recede from those high pretensions which he had advanced,
or disown that awful character which he had supported.
When the multitude came out to seize Jesus of Nazareth, he
said, "I am he!" When the high priest asked him of his
disciples and his doctrines, "Why askest thou me? (is his
ON GOOD FRIDAY. 81
reply.) I spake openly to the world ; I have ever taught in
the synagogue, and the temple where the Jews resort, and
in secret have I said nothing ; why askest thou me ? Ask
them which heard me what I said unto them ; behold they
know what I said." Then comes that memorable answer,
which was the immediate cause of his condemnation. "I
adjure thee (says the high priest) tell me if thou art the
Christ, the son of the blessed ?" And Jesus answered, " thou
hast said it. I am the Son of God ; hereafter thou shalt see
me sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the
clouds of Heaven." Thus far, then, there are identity and
consistency in the character of our Saviour; deserted and
disowned by his followers ; buffeted, smitten, and mocked,
by an angry multitude ; judged by enemies ; at the eve of
death he said all that he had said before, when the multitude
strewed branches in his road, and cried, " Hosanna to the
highest." The Gospel has all that corroboration which it can
possibly receive from uniformity of character in its founder,
— a character, after the intense hght thrown upon it, by adver-
sity and prosperity found to be without blemish or spot. Such
evidence, though not of itself conclusive, assists the stronger
proofs of the Gospel, and spreads upon its minutest parts the
genuine colour of truth. And this is the peculiar import-
ance of that species of death which our Saviour died, that it
leaves nothing to conjecture ; that it develops fully his sacred
character; and displays him in every variety of difficult
situation. Without the test of a persecuting death, something
would have been wanting to the proof; for death must
surely be considered as the strongest of all proofs, and the
most certain of all tests ; — he who dies for calling himself the
Son of God, must, at least, believe himself to be so ; it is
impossible to add anything to this evidence of internal con-
viction; and, had it been wanting to the history of Chris-
tianity, the whole argument, on which the sacred cause
depends, would have been much less complete than it now
is; but that which St. Paul tells us was to the Jews folly,
and to the Greeks a stumbling block, is, to us, the strongest
and most irresistible lesson of the true glory and greatness of
the founder of our religion.
We must observe, in speaking of our Saviour's firmness,
that it was the firmness of reason, not of passion ; there was
nothing in it which could in the remotest degree evince
an heated and disordered imagination ; nothing was ever so
82 ON GOOD FRIDAY*
far removed from enthusiasm ; he was mute under the crown
and the robe, and reviled not again when he was reviled ; he
bore every species of indignity with calm resignation, and
died meekly and mutely as a victim. Those upon whom
such facts make no impression, must believe, that an human
being of the calmest passions and the simplest mind, im-
agined himself to be the Son of God ; that, in consequence of
this madness, he preached the purest virtue and the soundest
reason ; that he lived in wretchedness for that doctrine and
that character ; then died for them, in the flower of his age,
not only without the smallest symptom of fear, or of enthu-
siasm, but with the cool display of every great quality; I will
not say such a fact is impossible, but I may say it is contrary
to all human experience. Imposture and enthusiasm have
never come down in such a shape to us ; such opinions may
suit those who believe greater improbabilities than they refute;
but no sound judge of the human mind will adopt them, and
no fair reasoner advance them.
Another proof of the excellence of our Saviour's death and
of its consistency with his former history, is the tender and
forgiving disposition which it uniformly evinces. His first
prayer to Heaven is, that his murderers may be forgiven : —
" Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." While
he is on the cross, and in the agonies of a painful death, he
sees his mother and his favourite disciple, — " When Jesus,
therefore, saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved, he
said unto his mother, woman, behold thy son ! And to the
disciple, behold thy mother ! And from that hour the disci-
ple took her unto his own home." Thus it was that this
great character preserved, to the last, that mild virtue and
those goo^ feelings which his precepts taught, and all his
previous actions confirmed ; the spirit of heavenly charity
triumphed over the grave ; the disciple whom he loved, and
the mother who bare him, were dear to him even upon the
cross ; and, while they are weeping at his feet, his last
accents lighten their misery, and bind them for ever in that
lasting friendship which flows from a common grief. Let us
remember, in thinking of his dying charity, that he has com-
mended to us not only son, and mother, and father, but all the
children of the Gospel to all time ; that he requires of us to
perform acts of charity and kindness ; to offer up those pas-
sions which are destructive of human happiness ; and to
learn from his death to be purer, and kinder, and better men.,
ON GOOD FRIDAY. 63
Having thus performed the last offices which remained to
be discharged, the world and its cares are no more to him ;
his earthly career is finished ; he bowed his head, and, crying
with a loud voice, gave up the ghost. Thus died that great
being whose life was one uniform tenour of just doctrines and
compassionate actions ; who laboured to soften, to unite and
to purify mankind; in whose existence there is not a word, nor
a deed, which had not our happiness for its object and its
end. Truly, there is something in Christ's history which
paints him to our eyes as the most venerable, the most simple
and the most holy of beings. The keenest malice, and the
sharpest inquisition, cannot fix upon him the shadow of error,
or of crime ; he preached doctrines for which he led a life of
persecution : and died a death of pain. Did he not, then,
believe in these doctrines himself ? But he was an enthusiast I
Never, then, was enthusiasm so mild, so gentle, so moderate,
and so intelligible ; — do you unto others as you would they
should do unto you ; let all your words be yea, and nay; —
pray to God, not before men, but in secret; give alms of all
thou hast to the poor ; purify the inward heart ; and expect
reward of God, as you are good to your fellow-creatures. If
this is enthusiasm, what then is simple, what clear, what
practical, and what wise ? Unquestionably, no one who has
ever attempted to legislate for mankind has involved his doc-
trine less in florid description and ambiguous subhmity; has
calculated his precepts so directly for practice, or addressed
himself so uniformly to the common feelings and common
sense of his followers. — Nor did our Saviour seek, by the arts
of insinuation, to lead before him a deluded multitude ; he
ministered to no man's passion; and he flattered no man's pride;
he taught not like the Scribes and Pharisees, but as one hav-
ing authority; — his resistance to the ruling powers was as far
removed from intemperate violence as his demeanour to the
people was from seductive artifice : — to be brief, there is not
in the character of Christ one trait of mortality; nothing
which, for an instant, bespeaks him allied to the infirmities of
man ; no change, no guile, no conflict of passion, no wavering
of heart, no pride of spirit ; without thought for himself, with-
out love of command, a man of sorrow, rejected and despised;
who bore in his bosom the rebukes of many people and moved
silently on in the paths of afliiction ; healing and comforting
mankind ; and laying the foundations of that blessed religion
the voice of which has gone out into all lands and called man
)-■
84 ON GOOD FRIDAY.
from the alternate slumber and fury of his savage life to the
sweets and glories of industry and peace.
So Hved Jesus, the Son of God; and how he was loved, and
honoured in his death, we all know : Every passer by smote
his breast ; the daughters of Jerusalem followed him weeping;
Judas flung down the thirty pieces of silver ; Pilate said, I am
guiltless of his blood ; the thief saw he was a God ; the cen-
turion believed and trembled ; the veil of the temple was rent;
darkness was over the earth ; the graves were open ; and
many sleeping bodies of the saints came up to the world : —
these are the miracles which carried conviction to the hearts
of his persecutors and murderers : if we can study in vain the
morals of his hfe, we must yield, at least, to the miracles of
his death : and exclaim, with the trembhng centurion, " of a
truth this was the Son of God,"
'«r:^:.fkaK.
SERMON XII.
ON THE JUDGMENTS WE FORM OF
OTHERS,
In righteousness shall thou judge thy neighbour.— Leviticus xix. verse 15.
Though this sentiment has been repeatedly confirmed by
our Saviour himself; and though it continually pervades the
writings of Saint Paul and the apostles ; I have chosen to
quote it from the Jewish Scriptures, to show, that it was an
ancient law among men, arising from good feeling, sanctioned
by long practice, and, therefore, from its direct bearing upon
human happiness, incorporated into Christian morals.
In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour ; the first
branch of which righteous judgment is, to cultivate a pre-
disposition to mercy ; to hear bad motives imputed to others,
with an earnest desire that they may prove to be exaggerated,
or untrue ; and to discipline the mind in such a manner, that
its habitual feeling, on hearing of the faults of others, should
be that of unfeigned sorrow. Modern manners have adopted
a certain language of virtuous sympathy, which passes, not
unfrequently, with ourselves and others, for the excellence
itself ; — if all, then, who wish to appear good, counterfeit a
compassion for the faults of others, all who wish to be good,
should really cherish and promote the feeling. — Manners are
the shadows of virtues ; the momentary display of those quali-
ties which our fellow-creatures love and respect. — If we
strive to become, then, what we strive to appear, manners
may often be rendered useful guides to the performance of
our duties.
The habit we have of comparing ourselves with others, is
that principle of our nature which prevents us from feeling
as much compassion as we ought for the infirmities of the
8
86 ON THE JUDGMENTS WE FORM OF OTHERS.
rest of mankind ; we cannot hear a bad action imputed to any-
one without congratulating ourselves that we have not been
guilty of it, and enjoying a momentary superiority that our
fortune has been more perfect, our wisdom more penetrating,
and our virtue more firm: — this is not what Christianity
teaches ; it teaches us to listen, with trembling humihty, to
every example of error, or of crime ; to reflect, at such sea-
sons, upon the frail nature of man; to receive, with serious
pity, every fresh example of misguided reason and triumph-
ant passion ; to remember, that to-morrow may bring some
difficulty which we cannot vanquish ; some temptation which
we cannot resist ;'^and that we ourselves may then be suing
for that indulgence which to-day we so arrogantly refuse to
others.
To judge our neighbour in righteousness, it is our duty to
consider those motives which may corrupt our judgment :
when we set ourselves to reflect how far we have cultivated
this species of justice, Ave deceive ourselves, by quoting the
examples of those who have become dear to us from particu-
lar circumstances ; by citing the judgments we have made of
friends, of kindred, of men, who have embarked with us in
common designs ; have been engaged in the same pursuit; and
been actuated by the same principles : doubtless we are just
enough in all these instances ; here we feel real sorrow at
the faults of others, and do all, and even more than the most
righteous judges ought to do: but if we really and faithfully
wish to fulfil this great duty, we are to examine how far we
have righteously judged those to whom we have never been
connected in friendship ; those whom chance has separated
from us by rank and wealth ; nature by talents ; education by
opinions; those who have been opposed to us in questions which
try the passions : those from whom we have suffered disre-
spect, injury and contempt. If, in the awful moments of
self-judgment, we can satisfy ourselves that we never wished
that calumny to be true which accorded with our warmest
passions ; that we have never been disappointed by that in-
nocence which baffled our resentment, that the infirmities of
our nature have rarely stifled this tenderness for the good
fame of others ; then, and not till then, are we entitled to con-
ceive that we have obeyed this precept of the Scriptures, and
judged our fellow-creatures in righteousness.
It is from inattention to the motives which may corrupt our
judgments, that the art of differing in opinion upon important
ON THE jrDGMENTS WE FORM OF OTHERS. 87
subjects is so little understood, or, if understood, is so imperfectly-
exercised ; — a part of conduct, however, in which all the best
feelings of a Christian may be called into action, and upon the
proper exercise of which the happiness of society intimately de-
pends. To look upon mankind, collected either into greater or
lesser numbers, as members either of kingdoms, or cities, we
are delighted with that social combination, that unity of view
and interests, which appears among them ; it is only from a
more intimate view of their condition that we perceive those
interior societies separated from each other by insuperable
aversion, and waging the most furious and implacable war of
opinion ; — to see men of acknowledged worth and talents
totally blind to each other's perfections, furiously ascribing to
each other the most improbable depravity, and shunning each
other Avith the most marked detestation, is, to him who has
kept his passions cool and unbiased, a lesson upon the in-
firmities of our nature not easily to be forgotten : differ we
must, and upon the most serious topics ; but the law of Christ
is not a set of words always in our mouths, but a rule to be
never absent from our hearts. What is the meaning of being
a Christian, if it is not to carry into all these differences a
candid, liberal and forgiving spirit ? to exhibit towards every
opponent the purest and most impartial justice ? to debar
ourselves of the unworthy resource of imputing bad motives,
but upon the most unq^uestionable evidence ? to exercise our
own right of deciding, without denying that right of others ?
and, while we obey the result of our own dehbe rations, to re-
member it is not impossible that we may have mistaken, ex-
ceeded, or distorted the truth ?
To judge our neighbour righteously, we should remember
that, in many instances, a fault once committed may be atoned
for ; and, that an imputation once true is not always true : we
do not derive that useful lesson which we might derive from
the consciousness of our own infirmities. If there are very
few, even of the best and most approved among us, who
would dare to lay open the secret history of thought, word
and deed, from infancy to this hour ; if many are conscious of
secret sin, many of those numerous perils on which their
virtue has been nearly wrecked ; if they are sensible, as they
must be, how often they have been indebted to accident,
rather than wisdom for escape; how powerfully do all these
considerations inculcate upon our minds precepts of tender-
ness and mercy for the infirmities of our nature ? not that
88 ON THE JUDGMENTS WE FORM OF OTHERS.
crimes should be sheltered from evil report ; but that, when
they are not of too deep a dye, they should be forgotten.
The faults of youth ought not to follow the same being through
every stage of his existence ; — there is no cruelty so great as
to keep the fallen man for ever in the dust ; and to blast his
reviving hopes with the malicious memory of past miscon-
duct ; but the misfortune is, we want the vices of others to
keep up our own halting virtue ; and we cannot afford to lose
them ; a good man is ever looking inward to the bright image
he has formed of Christian purity, while it is the genuine habit
of baseness to found reputation upon the imperfections of
others, and of suspected virtue, ferociously to insult its own
vices, in the lives and conduct of the rest of the world.
Whatever be our opinion of the guilt of others, it is not
always necessary to propagate and diffuse it ; — in the admin-
istration of public justice, punishment is separated from accu-
sation : but at the tribunal of the world they are often the
same things. If men were as ready to investigate calumny
as they are to receive it, the evils of its diffusion would be
much less ; but the disease travels faster than the remedy
can follow ; to give credit to defamation, though neither the
generous nor the just is considered as the safe side, and
many receive the accusation, who are too careless to listen to
the defence, or too timid to admit it.
To promote the righteous judgment of our neighbour, it is
our duty to defend him where we can do so with any colour
of justice; — this we are frequently prevented from doing,
because it is unpopular ; it checks a source of amusement from
which we are all apt, at times, to derive but too much plea-
sure ; it recalls those who hear us from a state of mirth, and
compels them to hsten to the dry, unamusing suggestions of
justice. But this temporary displeasure it is our duty to
incur, from the most exalted motives of Christian duty: — to
consider the real degree of credibility due to evil report ; the
temptations to misrepresentation ; and the chances for mis-
take ; — to take the fact with all its favourable colours and
extenuating circumstances; to wait for the answer of the
accused party ; to insist upon all the good which we have
previously known of him ; all this is in the power of the most
inconsiderable being among us ; and if there can be a proof
of a truly good, a truly noble, and a truly Christian disposi-
tion, this it is. While others listen eagerly to the narrrative
of folly and of crime, and every one secretly exults and says,
ON THE JUDGMENTS WE FORM OF OTHERS. 89"
thank God, I am not as this man is ; — forget not thou thy
absent brother, and, in the midst of his enemies, let thy voice
be heard for the defenceless man ; — look not for short-lived
favour, and the praise of a moment, by tramphng on him
who is already fallen ; but cherish a fixed concern for human
happiness : let your words and actions show that in your
eyes the absent are sacred ; and check, with serious benevo-
lence, that mirth which is cruel and unjust. — This it is to
look down upon the world from an eminence, to live upon
the grand, to act upon a noble and commanding scale, and
to lay deep the foundations of inward approbation and public
regard.
There are many, I believe, who are so far from listening
to the means by which this satisfaction at the misconduct of
others may be checked, that they are rather inclined to doubt
of the disorder than to adopt the remedy. It wounds our
pride as much to confess the fault, as it gratifies our pride to
practise it. No man chooses to avow that he wants the faults
of others as a foil to his own character ; no man has the
desperate candour to confess, that the comparison which he
draws between himself and his brother upon hearing of any
act of misconduct, is a source of pleasure ; and that, in such
cases, the feelings of self overcome the rules of the Gospel ;
if you ask any man such a question, he will say, that he
depends upon his own efforts, and not on the failure of
others ; he will contend that the errors of his fellow-crea-
tures are to him a source of serious concern ; he says so—
and he believes that he says the truth ; for no man knows
the secrets of his own heart ; but if it is true, why are the
wings of evil fame so swift and so unwearied ? Why is it
not as difficult to lose, as to gain, the commendations of man-
kind ? Why does it require a whole life to gain a character
which can be lost, and unjustly lost, in a single moment of
time ? It is because we are reluctant to exalt, and ever will-
ing to pull down ; because we love the fault better which
gives us an inferior, than the virtue which elevates an human
being above us.
I say these things not to offend, but to promote Christian
charity ; not to lower our ideas of human nature, but to recall
it to the purity and perfection of the Gospel ; and by these
means to adorn it, and to lift it up. The true way to rid our-
selves of these unworthy feelings, is to cultivate a general
love of happiness and of excellence ; to rejoice with the joy
tk^ ON THE JUDGMENTS WE FORM OF OTHERS.
of Others ; to be glad that the heart of any human being is
made glad ; to be proud of every virtue built up with time
and toil and sound instruction ; to mourn when man forgets
his God ; and to feel that it is the common interest of our
nature to withstand the violence of passion ; and to extend
the dominion of true religion.
I have thus endeavoured to show in what righteous judg-
ment of our neighbour consists ; I have stated it to be our
duty to receive, with reluctance, the imputation of evil, to
guard against every impulse of prejudice or passion, which
may bias our judgment ; to defend our fellow-creatures,
where we can do so with justice ; and never to believe in
evil report but upon the most satisfactory evidence : I have
stated, that it is also our duty to suppose, that, in time, bad
qualities may be corrected, and serious faults atoned for ; to
receive, with pleasure, every symptom of amendment; and
lastly, whatever be the proof of guilt, to be slow and cau-
tious in bringing it forward to the knowledge of mankind.
Such is the manner in which I have attempted to explain
this Christian duty of judging our neighbour in righteous-
ness ; — allow me to conclude, by pressing earnestly upon
your attention this ancient and sublime law, which bears so
directly upon human happiness, and is so frequently and
powerfully sanctioned by the Gospel. To depreciate our
fellow-creatures may gratify pride by the comparative eleva-
tion of ourselves ; or minister to vanity by the display of
lively talents ; but the pleasure is soon gone, and the bitter-
ness remains ; — we feel that the purity of our own conduct
gives us no title to censure that of others ; we are conscious
of deserving the enmity of those who have been the objects
of our malice ; and we know that it is not approved even by
those who appear to derive from it the greatest amusement ;
but to conquer the love of transient applause, to condemn
reluctantly, and for the public good ; to defend and protect
with pleasure ; and though passion, pride and impunity
tempt, to preserve a scrupulous and awful justice in our
judgment of others, is to secure the purest and most perfect
of all pleasures, — self-approbation and respect. If you can
raise your mind to this elevation of virtue, mankind will
love and adore you ; every human being will feel his honour
and his good fame safe in your hands ; — and that Saviour
will heap blessings on your head, who has bid you judge in
mercy, and love your neighbour as yourself.
-'^imfB^-^^m -^^
SERMON XIII.
ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY
By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept, when we remembered
thee, Oh Sion ! — Psalm cxxxvii. verse 1.
This beautiful Psalm was written in commemoration of
the Babylonish captivity, written, if we may judge, from the
lively feelings it exhibits, soon after the period of that memo-
rable event ; and, in truth, it is not possible to read it without
emotion. It tells a tale of sorrow with that simple melancholy
which the heart can only feel, and the imagination never
counterfeit. They hung up their harps on the willow trees,
they could not sing the songs of their God, for they were in
captivity, and heaviness of spirit oppressed them; they thought
of their country, and sat down by the waters of Babylon to
weep.
Whence, it may be asked, does this love of our country,
this universal passion, proceed ? Why does the eye ever
dwell with fondness upon the scenes of infant life ? Why do
we breathe with greater joy the breath of our youth ? Why
are not other soils as grateful, and other heavens as gay ?
Why does the soul of man ever cling to that earth where it
first knew pleasure and pain, and, under the rough discipline
of the passions, was roused to the dignity of moral life ? Is it
only that our country contains our kindred and our friends ?
And is it nothing but a name for our social affections ? It
cannot be this ; the most friendless of human beings has a
country which he admires and extols, and which he would,
in the same circumstances, prefer to all others under heaven.
Tempt him with the fairest face of nature, place him by
living waters, under shadowy cedars of Lebanon ; open to his
view all the gorgeous allurements of the climates of the sun ;
92 ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY.
he will love the rocks and deserts of his childhood better than
all these, and thou canst not bribe his soul to forget the land
of his nativity ; he will sit down and weep by the waters of
Babylon, when he remembers thee. Oh Sion.
But whether from this love of our kindred, or from habit,
or from association, or from whatever more simple principle
of our nature this love of our country proceeds, it is of the
highest importance to society that its existence should be
cherished, and its energy directed aright ; if the duties which
regulate the conduct of man to man be lit subjects for dis-
cussion in this place, that virtue which is founded upon the
relation between societies and individuals, and includes the
important and extended interests of a whole people, must, in
preference to all others, merit discussion on my part, and
attention on yours.
An attempt is often made to distinguish between moral and
Christian subjects of investigation ; but no subject can be
moral which is not Christian. Christianity guides us to ano-
ther world, by showing us how to act in this ; in precepts
more, or less general, it enacts and limits every human duty;
the world is the theatre where we are to show whether we
are Christians in profession, or in deed; and there is no action
of our lives which concerns the interests of others, in which
we do not either violate or obey a Christian law ; I cannot,
therefore, illustrate a moral duty, without, at the same time,
enforcing a precept of our reHgion.
The love of our country has, in the late scenes acted in the
world, been so often made a pretext for bad ambition, and so
often given birth to crude and ignorant violence, that many
good men entertain no very great relish for the virtue, and
some are, in truth, tired and disgusted with the very name
of it ; but this mode of thinking, though very natural and
very common, is, above all others, that which goes to perpe-
tuate error in the world ; if good men are to cherish in secret
the idea, that any theory of duties to our country is romantic
and absurd, because bad men and foolish men have made it
an engine of crime, or found it a source of error ; if there is
to be this constant action and reaction between extreme
opinions ; the sentiments of mankind in eternal vibration be-
tween one error and another, can never rest upon the middle
point of truth. Let it be our pride to derive our principles,
not from times and circumstances, but from reason and
religion, and to struggle against that mixture of indolence
ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY. 9&
and virtue which condemns the use, because it will not dis-
criminate the abuse, which it abhors. In spite of the pros-
titution of this venerable name, there is, and there ever will
be, a Christian patriotism, a great system of duties which
man owes to the sum of human beings with whom he lives :
to deny it is folly ; to neglect it is crime.
The love of our country has been ridiculed by some modern
enthusiasts, as too narrow a field for the benevolence of an
enlightened mind ; they are for comprehending the whole
human race in our affections, and deem any partiality shown
to the particular country in which we happen to be born, as
a narrow and unphilosophical preference. Now it would
be difficult to say, whether complete selfishness, or universal
philanthropy, is the most likely to mislead us from that sound
practical goodness, in which the beauty of Christianity and
the merit of a Christian consist. Our sphere of thoughts
has hardly any limits, our sphere of action hardly any extent;
we may speculate on worlds, we must act in families, in
districts, and in kingdoms ; and if we contract a distaste for
the good we can do, because it is not equal to the good we
can conceive, we only sacrifice deeds to words, and rule our
hves by maxims of the most idle and ostentatious sentiment.
One of the first passions by which the imagination of an
able and a good youth is inflamed, is the love of his country;
but he often manages it in such a manner as to convert it
into a venial error rather than a virtue ; I say venial, because
those errors which proceed from the good and generous dis-
positions of youth, deserve indulgence, and are seldom perpe-
tuated but when they are treated with harshness. All the
splendid actions performed in popular governments, give a
very early bias to the mind ; the perusal of them forms the
most material part of education ; there is nothing which
ranges youthful fancy on the side of government, and every-
thing which ranges it against it ; there is very little to feed
the imagination in the idea that men must be restrained, and
protected (above all things) from their own madness and
folly ; that they must often be deluded and threatened into
their own good ; but a very little warmth and elevation of
thought will convert all the necessary operations of the
best governments into crimes ; — contribution is extortion,
punishment is cruelty, management and prudence are du-
plicity, and restraint slavish subjugation ; and hence, in the
young, patriotism is often little else than an universal sus-
m
ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY.
picion and abuse of all government Avhatsoever. Many-
have the good fortune to outgrow this childish propensity ;
in others it is fixed for life, and exhibits instances of mis-
taken, declamatory men, and of the most deplorable waste of
talents.
Another cause which renders the love of their country less
useful in the young, is vanity.
A young man in some of the higher professions, becomes
fluent in technical phrases, and skilful in technical business ;
he acquires some degree of consideration in the little circle in
which he lives, and tastes, for the first time, the sweets of
distinction and praise : instantly he becomes to himself a
creature of unlimited importance, a concealed treasure ; and
careless of that partial pre-eminence, which he considers so
much less than his real right, he paints to himself listening
senates, and applauding people ; and is an orator, a dema-
gogue, and a statesman.
in the first half of life, vanity in all its various shapes is
unquestionably the great moving passion ; and it is, perhaps,
in the first half of life that these ideas more peculiarly pre-
vail. As a man multiplies his relations, and takes a firmer
root in society, as he assumes the new characters of father
and hiisband, and as the real business of the world crowds
upon him, he becomes more practical; the follies, like the
beauties of his youth, fade away, and the soul's dark mansion
lets in new light through the openings which time has made.
It would seem, also, that the science of government is an
unappropriated region in the universe of knowledge. Those
sciences with which the passions can never interfere, are con-
sidered to be attainable only by study and by reflection ; while
there are not many young men who doubt of their ability to
make a constitution, or to govern a kingdom. At the same
time, there cannot, perhaps, be a more decided proof of a
superficial understanding, than the depreciation of those dif-
ficulties which are inseparable from the science of govern-
ment. To know well the local and the natural man ; to track
the silent march of human affairs ; to seize with happy intui-
tion on those great laws which regulate the prosperity of
empires ; to reconcile principles to circumstances, and be no
wiser than the times will permit; to anticipate the effects of
every speculation upon the entangled relations and awkward
complexity of real life ; and to follow out the theorems of the
senate to the daily comforts of the cottage ; is a task which
.."'^ - ' ' ■
ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY. 95
they will fear most who know it best ; a task in which the
great and the good have often failed, and which it is not only-
wise, but pious, and just in common men to avoid.
There is a mahgnity of disposition which is unfavourable
to the interests of the country in which we Hve, a weariness
of the general content, a disgust at the diffusion of happiness,
and a desire to forget internal vexation by the sight of a con-
tagious and epidemic misery. In a different temperament,
this predisposing cause is a love of turbulence, an impatience
of everything tranquil, and a horror of stagnant serenity and "
insipid content. Above all, there is that horrid passion of
convulsing, and reversing which would place the heel of the
rustic upon the neck of the noble, — would worship the pan-
dects and decretals of peasants, — and thrust the sacred gold
of the sceptre into hands that had ever clenched the scythe
and the spade.
There lies at the bottom of all vast communities, a nume-
rous sect of men, of open or disguised poverty, who have
lost fortune and fame, in the sink of pleasure, and quenched
every particle of God in voluptuous enormities, and crimes ;
base, bad men, who prey upon industry and hate virtue; who
would tear down the decencies, and pollute the innocence of /
life, that they might make mankind as wretched as themselves,
and spread the horror of ungoverned passions and unquali-
fied indulgence. Here is the first nucleus of all revolutions ;
it matters not whether the object be to enslave the people, or ,
to free them ; to give them up to another's tyranny, or to the
more cruel dominion of their own folly ; to establish a despo-
tism or a democracy. In all revolutions there is plunder,
and change ; and here are the hordes of assassins and rob-
bers, the tools of political violence, tutored by their ancient
pleasures and their present distress, to callous inhumanity
and boundless rapine. This source of danger to our country
needs but very little comment ; the cure of such an evil falls
under that general law of self-defence by which we crush a
venomous reptile, or slaughter a beast of prey. No other ar-
gument can here be of the smallest importance but the argu-
ment of brute force and determined opposition.
Many people who are conscious, and justly conscious of
merit, are less disposed to the love of their country from find-
ing themselves neglected by their superiors in rank and re-
putation ; every man is desirous of rising in life, and ambi-
tious of connecting himself in the most eHgible manner. The
96 ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY.
world unfortunately measures by one scale, and the individual
by another ; and disappointment is always attributed to the
injustice of those who confer reputation, rather than the over-
rated pretensions of him who seeks it.
It is natural to every man to wish for distinction ; and the
praise of those who can confer honour by their praise, in spite
of all false philosophy, is sweet to every human heart. But
as eminence can but be the lot of a few, patience of obscurity
is a duty which we owe not more to our own happiness than
to the quiet of the world at large. Give a loose, if you are
young and ambitious, to that spirit which throbs within you;
measure yourself with your equals ; and learn, from frequent
competition, the place which nature has allotted to you ; make
of it no mean battle, but strive hard ; strengthen your soul to
the search of truth, and follow that spectre of excellence which
beckons you on beyond the walls of the world to something
better than man has yet done. It may be, you shall burst out
into light and glory at the last : but if frequent failure con-
vince you of that mediocrity of nature which is incompatible
with great actions, submit wisely and cheerfully to your lot.
Let no spirit of revenge tempt you to throw off your loyalty
to your country ; and to prefer a vicious celebrity to obscurity
crowned with piety and virtue. If you can throw new light
upon moral truth, or by any exertions multiply the comforts,
or confirm the happiness of mankind, this fame guides you to
the true ends of your nature. Buty in the name of God, as
you tremble at retributive justice, and in the name of man-
kind, if mankind be dear to you, seek not that easy and ac-
cursed fame which is gathered in the work of revolutions,
and deem it better to be for ever unknown, than to found a
momentary name upon the basis of anarchy and irreligion.
There is a wearisome and sickly affectation of feeling unfa-
vourable to the love of our country ; there are men, by whom
the people are spoken of in terms of the warmest compassion,
to whom government conveys no other notion than that of a
vast conspiracy against human happiness, and in whose minds
the different orders of society are considered to be in a state
of essential hostility against each other. A poor man is ne-
cessarily an oppressed man, and a rich man necessarily a
tyrant ; and the day of poHtical salvation is looked for, when
the valleys are to be exalted, and the hills laid low, crooked
rendered straight, and the rough places plain.
If such be commonly the errors of the young, the faults of
ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY. 97
those more conversant v^rith the world are, I am afraid, of a
less favourable complexion. Whatever virtues may increase
with age, the virtue of patriotism is not amongst the number.
It is in truth a matter of some wonder that so many men of
irreproachable honesty in private life, should be so totally de-
void of pubhc virtue ; not only devoid of it in practice, but in
theory. Every sneer against the duties we owe to the pub-
lic is received with complacency, and considered as proceed-
ing from a thorough knowledge of life and mankind ; and to
talk seriously of the love of our country, is political artifice,
or youthful declamation. Nor are these public sins at all in-
famous in the eyes of the world ; men of undoubted guilt
move in the same circles they moved before, and with in-
creased consideration, if their crimes be upon a large scale,
and they have bartered morality for a dignified price. De-
cided and immediate infamy follows treason to individual
trust. When one man suffers from fraud and injustice,
every honest heart is up in arms. Is dishonesty less dis-
honesty because the number of the sufferers is increased, and
the evil subdivided amongst a whole^ 'country ? The limits
of private fraud are narrow, and its effect of no long duration.
PubHc dishonesty may entail misery upon a whole people,
and the unborn infant may suffer for the laxity and corrup-
tion of preceding times. Has our Saviour given us such
strict rules for our conduct to each other, and left us to the
free exercise of every bad and licentious passion when we
sin only against the public ? Is it against narrow and partial
crimes that he has threatened the wrath of God, and has he
flung open the doors of Heaven to magnificent villany and
boundless pollution ? He who sins against the pubhc has no
true religion of Grod ; he has no honour, which is the religion
of the world: he abstains from crimes against individuals,
because he knows that loss of reputation is loss of interest,
and gives loose to his baseness, when profit invites and im-
punity permits ; if he lived in worse times, when the stand-
ard of morals was still lower, he would defraud his neighbour,
he would forfeit his word; his pretended virtues are maxims
of convenience ; he has no guardian conscience, no protecting
principle; there waves not in his breast that flaming sword
which turns every way to drive off that which is evil, and to
guard the tree of life ; he does not feel that he is as accounta-
ble to God in every public as in every private transaction of
his life ; that he is bound to perform those duties which may
9
98 ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY.
affect the country at large, with the same delicate and inflexi-
ble justice which he would exhibit on ordinary occasions,
and not to be base, because he can be base with impunity ;
that he ought to probe to the quick every, the least motive to
public fraud and to public corruption, even though the wrong
should be divided, and subdivided amongst millions and mil-
lions of people; he remembers not that they only can enter
into the holy tabernacle of God who have clemi hands and a
pure heart.
There is a crime committed against the country, in times
of its adversity, which is certainly of the most sordid and
selfish nature ; that men who derive not only protection, but
opulence, from a country in the days of its prosperity, should
upon any appearance of alarm, be ever ready to retire with
person and property to other countries, is a principle sub-
versive of all political union whatsoever. What nation could
exist for a moment, if, in the day of danger and war, when
the kingdoms were gathered together against her, she saw
her treasures dispersed, and her children fled ? Are we not
all hnked together by language, by birth, by habits, by opinions,
by virtues, for worse, for better, for glory, for shame, for peace,
for war, for plenty, for want ? Will you shudder to interweave
your destiny with the destiny of your country ? Can you
possibly think of your own security when your land is weary
and fainting because of her great afflictions ? And when all
whom you know and love can die and suffer, would you alone
live and rejoice? If I forget thee. Oh Jerusalem! let my
right hand forget her cunning : If I do not remember thee in
the time of my trouble, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth.
It is sometimes good to be content with doing httle ; the
great and splendid occasions in which a man can benefit his
country are few ; the humble duties by which her benefit
may be advanced are of daily occurrence ; such, among
others, is the duty of example : it is not enough to ascer-
tain that actions be innocent as to ourselves ; they must
be innocent as to the effect they produce upon others ; the
consequences of some levity or omission to you may be un-
important ; but they are not unimportant to those who are
guilty of the same thing because you are, and will be guilty
of it with far other talents, other habits, and other dispositions
than yourself. This kind of patriotism is, I am afraid, rare
enough ; indeed, men great in talents and rank found some-
ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY. 9SJ
what of their reputation upon not doing what the rest of the
world do, by which the one would have their superior talents
inferred, and the other their superior condition. Such, I am
afraid, is the unworthy shame of being thought capable of
attending to minutiae, which robs us of the invaluable benefit
of example.
I cannot conclude this subject of love to our country, with-
out animadverting to that species of it which consists in a
firm and spirited combination against the unjust aggression
and dangerous insolence of a foreign power ; and in all the
history of successful resistance to outrageous tyranny, (a
short and beautiful page in the annals of man,) there is no \
instance more marked and more illustrious than that which
this empire has so recently displayed to the world.*
The whole force of the most powerful people in Europe
was guided to our destruction by exquisite talents, unshackled
from the fear of God or man. Their warhke spirit was blown
into an enthusiasm which Mahomet could never kindle in
his savage Arabians, when he came forth, Hke these modern
fanatics, to blot out the name of Christ, and to dim the glory
of Christendom ; onwards they went, deceiving the simple, and
conquering the brave ; bringing to their foes death, to their
friends freedom worse than death ; but plundering, insulting,
and confounding all. Men's hearts were melted in the midst
of them ; there was neither council nor conduct in Europe ;
a deep-seated earthquake seemed to heave up the basis of
civil life, and the tribunals of men, and the thrones of mo-
narchs, and the temples of God, were shaken to the lowest
atom of their structure. What was the firm, dignified, and
manly conduct of this country ? We stood up for human
happiness, and spurning from us the luxuries of peace, un- ,
furled a banner to the nations, under which the good, and '
the honourable, and the wise might range ; and with as much
moderation as security would permit, and with as much
courage as man could display, through internal disaffection,
and through mutiny, and through open rebeUion, and through
two awful visitations of famine for many long years, we have -^
maintained this great fight. What evils are still in prepara-
tion for us, what we are yet doomed to sufl^er, it is painful
and difficult to conceive; upon the success of the contest
which we are now carrying on, depends the tremendous
* This Sermon was written during the French Revolution.
100 ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY.
/ question, whether Europe shall or shall not be visited by a
i long period of political struggles ; and liberal arts, domestic
' happiness, and rational piety be forgotten and destroyed in
the sorrows and the fury of revolutions. Our feelings are
just now a little blunted from the long continuation of the
. danger ; but no man can seriously turn his eyes to the position
of the world, without being sensible, that till this great gulf
be passed over, every hope of honest ambition, every wish
for repose, every feeling which warms the heart, may be but
a new cause of misery and despair. From all these evils
may the solid understanding and watchful courage of this
country, guided and blessed by the providence of God, pro-
tect and defend us ; and may he shelter, with his Almighty
power, a humane, a generous, and an ancient people, who
may now, perhaps, be destined to preserve to the human race
those indehble rights of our nature, of which they were tho
first to teach them the value and the use.
<";^^
SERMON XIV.
ON SKEPTICISM.
Let the lying lips be put to silence, which cruelly, disdainfully, and mali-
ciously speak against the righteous. — Psalm xxxi. verse 20.
To neglect those floating imputations and popular calum-
nies which are in circulation against any system either
moral, religious or political, is rather magnanimous than
wise, and savours more of a generous contempt for danger,
than of prudent precaution against it. Bold assertions and
specious invectives often repeated, begin at last to be credited;
we hear the calumny so often united to its object, that the
mention of the one almost mechanically introduces the notion
of the other ; and we are betrayed into dangerous prejudices,
rather by a principle of association than by any decision of
the judgment.
There is too, besides, a fashion in thinking as in every-
thing else, and the giddy part of mankind must ever appear
in the newest philosophy, and the most admired system of
ethics, or depravity, which the day has to exhibit. In an
age of devotion, they lead in hypocrisy, regulate the punc-
tilios of supplication, and adjust all the modes and minutiae
of piety. In an age of philosophy, they are the first to dis-
believe in the immortality of the soul, to discredit the evi-
dence of their senses, and to doubt of, discredit, and deride
everything else which the rules of fashionable skepticism
require.
If there be any truth in this, and if the world be led to
such unreasonable conclusions from such unreasonable causes,
it is important to remark the modes of thinking of the times,
and to select for animadversion, those trite, but prevailing
opinions which endanger the well-being of society.
9*
103 ON SKEPTICISM.
It is a leading object with skeptics, to bring into disrepute
the character of Christianity, of its teachers and adherents ;
and one mode by which they attempt it is, by attaching to
all mention of these subjects, the ideas of intolerance, bigotry
and narrowness of mind ; — the opposite virtues they ascribe
to their own sect, as candour, liberality, the spirit of discus-
sion, and an exemption from every human prejudice ; and
such, (as I have before remarked,) are the effects of invec-
tive, and assertion frequently repeated, that those who have
not formed to themselves precise notions of what these opera-
tive terms imply, and who have not learned the necessity of
ascertaining their due application by a steady appeal to facts,
are apt to admit both the justice of the imputations which this
sect of philosophers make, and of the pretensions to which
they aspire.
To the youthful, everything which appears open and
generous, is so agreeable, everything which conveys the
idea of narrowness, concealment, or deceit, is so obnoxious,
that they literally become ashamed of their religion, and feel
abashed at their faith, before these men of liberal sentiment
and extended inquiry.
It is very easy to see the pernicious consequences to which
this will lead ; the horror which a young man of talent feels,
is the horror of being unknown and unadmired ; he cannot
wait to think of distant consequences, the parade of disbelief
is too tempting for him, and he becomes a deist; a little time
elapses, and from the same vanity of extending (or appearing
to extend) investigation, he begins to call in question a super-
intending Providence, and a sense of right and wrong ; and
descending through a long train of theories and systems,
from bad to worse, he subsides into a state of complete skep^
ticism upon every question whatsoever. Is this a spectacle
which it is possible for any human being to behold with
indifference ? A young man standing on the threshold of
life, and just going into all the business of the world, with a
heart in which every principle of right and wrong is tho-
roughly shaken and impaired ! If not destined for great
offices in public life, yet he is a brother, a son, a friend ; he
is to be a husband, and a father of children ; some must trust
him, and some must love him. Call it bigotry, and cover
these notions with mockery and derision ; but I say it would
be better for this young man, that the work of death were
going on within him, that the strength and the roses of his
ON SKEPTICISM. 10§
youth were fading away, and that he were wasting down to
the tombs of his ancestors, wept by his friends, and pitied by
the world.
If I am right in considering these effects to be so perni-
cious, let us examine on what foundation such high-minded
pretensions rest, and whether there be any set of men who
have a right to consider themselves as so far advanced beyond
their fellow-creatures in the spirit of wisdom, and to look
down upon the rest of mankind with anger and contempt.
In speaking of those who disbelieve in Christianity, I am
very far from including, in my observations, every person of
this description.
The truth of Christianity rests upon its own internal evi-
dence, and the evidence of history. It is impossible to account
for the aberrations of human reason ; evidence of the strongest
kind is daily excepted to by men of unquestionable talents
and sincerity ; to us the proofs of the truth of our religion
appear manifest and strong ; that they shall not appear so to
others is certainly possible, because every irrational con-
clusion is possible. Whoever has examined the question
with that candid and investigating spirit which its extreme
importance demands : whoever respects, with an amiable
and principled modesty, the common behef of mankind on
this topic, however it may differ from his own particular
persuasion ; whoever would rather conceal what he considers
to be an exemption from prejudice, and a proof of superior
talent in himself, than weaken any rehgious restraint, or
impair any virtuous principle in the bosom of any one human
being ; whoever believes it possible for a Christian to be tho-
roughly impressed with the truth of his religion, without
forfeiting all pretensions to sincerity, to talent, and to learn-
ing ; against such a man I am not now lifting up my voice ;
may God enlighten his darkness, and convert his heart !
But it is that sect of men I am endeavouring to single out,
who, in all the common intercourse of life, obtrude upon you
their blasphemy and their skepticism ; who pant to tell you
they have no God ; and are restless till they have convinced
you they have trampled under foot every pleasant hope and
every decent restriction in life ; who think that a few silly/
pleasantries and slender arguments are a sufficient prepa-
ration to decide on these proofs of a future life ; men who
(while they think they have monopolized all liberal sentiment,
and all acute inquiry), are persecuting in their toleration,
104 ON SKEPTICISM.
bigoted in their liberality, and furious in their moderation.
These are the men who have made the very name of philo-
sophy a term of reproach ; who have been the cause, that the
plea of liberahty cannot now be heard without a sneer of sus-
picion ; these are they who have destroyed, in the mass of
mankind, all veneration for the labours of speculative wis-
dom ; who have really put back the world, diminished every
rational hope of improvement ; and by bringing the whole
healing art into disrepute, have made men cleave to their
ulcers and their pains, and shudder at the hand which is held
out to offer them relief.
In their depreciation of religion, and the religious, persons
of skeptical opinions are accustomed to make a very copious
use of history ; they can from thence show, that there was a
period when men were utterly debarred from all freedom of
opinion upon rehgious subjects, when this intolerance was
manifested in the most cruel persecutions, by an artful and
ambitious priesthood, who governed and who pillaged the
world.
These facts may be true ; but they do not justify the infer-
ences which are drawn from them, vlf everything is to be
considered as bad in itself, which is capable of being abused,
liberty, wealth, learning, and power, ought rather to be the
objects of our aversion than our choice ; every good principle
has been at times perverted ; every good institution has been
gradually elaborated from the sufferings and afflictions of the
world : man, doubly wretched, slowly toils on to perfection,
earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, and his wisdom
by the sorrows of his heart.
But what, it may be asked, have these historical imputa-
tions, these invectives of rolls and records, to do with the
principles and practice of the present day; a day in which
the pretensions of every class of men are kept in due bounds _
by the enHghtened condition of all, and in which every one
is left to worship God according to his own ideas of truth ?
The object is not to show what establishments have been,
and what Christianity has been in dark ages, but to show
the natural spirit and tendency of both. If it can be shown
that there is anything in the Christian religion necessarily
connected with bigotry and intolerance, this objection would
be pertinent and powerful ; but to suppose that a Christian
is a bigot now, because there were very few Christians who
were not so three hundred years ago, is to suppose the exist-
ON SKEPTICISM. 105
ence of principles and causes which every cool, unprejudiced
mind perceives to have long ago lost their influence upon
mankind. We have nothing to do but to make this mahcious
anachronism more general, and we shall say, that natural
philosophy is conjecture, the medical art empiricism, and
law a system of ingenious depredation, because there have
been periods in which these sciences were all exposed to such
imputations.
The fact is, (and such I beheve to be the opinion of every
man who loves truth more than party, let his religious opin-
ions be what they may,) that a disbelief, not only in Chris-
tianity, but in a superintending Providence, is travehng
down from the metaphysician to the common haunts and
ordinary scenes of life ; that men are giving up the practical
morality of the Gospel, and the true and wholesome terror of
a God, who have no beautiful and classical theory of morals
to substitute in its place, but who, if they are not Christians,
must be wild beasts. These are the dangers which now
threaten us ; we have not, in the present state of the world,
to fear that we shall be manacled again by superstition, but
that the golden chain which reaches from heaven to earth,
should be broken asunder, and not one link of it again be
found.
If philosophy be a love of knowledge, evinced by an ardent
and able pursuit of it, there can surely be nothing to exclude
the firm believer in Christianity from every honourable dis-
tinction which this appellation can convey. The subject
which engages his attention is unquestionably superior in
importance to every other which can occupy the wit of man ;
the prosecution of it involves wide historical research, much
curious and delicate examination of evidence, much labour,
and many vigils of the mind ; and he who gets up from these
studies a sincere Christian, is, for aught I know, as much a
philosopher as the atheist who has studied away his soul,
elaborated his theory of annihilation from whole libraries, and
given up one life to discover there is no other.
A great many human beings must take their rehgion upon
trust ; few have leisure, and few have talents, for speculative
inquiries ; but let me ask, which is the more commendable
and noble, to believe in Christianity without proof, or to dis"
beheve in it without proof? A modest coincidence with
received opinions above our faculties, or an affected contempt
of them ? Whether there is a more disgusting spectacle than
%
106 ON SKEPTICISM.
arrogant mediocrity ? Whether we cannot more easily allow
for that inchnation which bends towards a rehgion of com-
fortable promise, than that which leans to a system of cold
despondency ? Whether there is not something pleasant in
seeing our fellow-creatures cHng to a faith which arranges
the world, and cheers it ? And if it is not afflicting to behold ,
that depraved appetite for misery and despair which induces
men to yield up their assent to a system of incredulity, with-
out being acquainted in the smallest degree with the reasons
on which it is founded ?
Those who are so fond of preferring the charge of bigotry
against Christians should remember how intimately this at-
tachment to our opinions is interwoven in our constitution,
and how much more likely it is to display itself upon subjects*
of such extreme importance as that of religion : whoever has
made Christianity his rule of action in this world, and his
hope in the next, whose original conviction has been strength-
ened by habit, and warmed by devotion, and can bear in this
tenour of mind, to hear that he has been believing in a fable,
that his labour is lost, and his hope illusive ; whoever can
bear to hear these assertions, and to discuss them without
transgressing the rules of candour, possesses the love of truth
in a degree truly inimitable, for he risks all his happiness in
pursuit of it. But if, in spite of this plea of mitigation, the
want of candour be so offensive in a Christian, what shall we
say to that most extraordinary of all characters, a bigoted
skeptic? who resists the force of proof where he has every
temptation to be convinced, who ought to pant for refutation,
and to bless the man who has reasoned him to silence ?
Bigotry in him is the pure unadulterated vice ; it is not the
fear of losing an opinion on which his happiness depends, but
the fear of losing an opinion merely because it is an opinion ;
and this is the very essence of obstinacy and pride.
Where men pretend to notliing, the world is indulgent to
their faults ; but it well behoves those who lord it in word
and thought over the rest of mankind, that they be consistent
in their conduct, and perfectly free from those faults which
they so liberally impute to others. Ignorance, bigotry and
ilHberality are bad enough in their simple state ; but when
men of slender information, narrow views and obstinate dis-
positions, insult the feelings, and despise the understandings
of such of their fellow-creatures who have fixed their faith
in an amiable and benevolent rehgion, we are called upon
ON SKEPTICISM. 107
by common sense and by common spirit, to resist, and to
extinguish this dynasty of fools.
To those great men on whom God has breathed a larger
portion of his spirit, whom he has sent into the world to en-
large the empire of talent and of truth, mankind will ever
pay a loyal obedience : they are our natural leaders; they are
the pillars of fire which brighten the darkness of the night,
and make straight the paths of the wilderness ; they must
move on before us ; but while we give loose to our natural
veneration for great talents, let us not mistake laxity for
liberality, the indelicate boldness of a froward disposition for
the grasping strength and impulsive curiosity of an original
mind ; let us steadily discountenance the efforts of bad men,
and of shallow men, to darken the distinctions between right
and wrong ; to bring into ridicule and contempt the religion
of their country ; and to gratify some popular talent at the
expense of the dearest interests of mankind.
Bigotry and intolerance are their terms of alarm ; but do
not imagine that bigotry and intolerance are the creatures of
religion, and not the creatures of atheism, — wherever igno-
rance, wherever passion, wherever insolence reside, — you
will see the same Wind and bloated vehemence idly strug-
ghng with the wildness of human thought, and bending the
elastic mind of man to its own little standard of truth. The
infidel clings as tenaciously to what he denies, as the reli-
gionist does to what he affirms ; — arm him with power, will
he be more tolerant ? — will he suffer you to build temples ?
to pray openly to your God, and to insult his doubts with
the profession of a faith, which, in the deep wickedness of
his heart, he judges to be the consummation of all absurdity ?
— Toleration is the creature of benevolence and of wisdom ;
what have the shallow sneers and scoffings of infidelity to
do with this heavenly forbearance ? do not be mocked by
such idle pretensions ; if atheism ever rears its head among
men, piety will mourn and bleed ; the broken heart must no
longer cry aloud in prayer ; they will stop the song of the
priest ; they will pull down thy altars, oh Israel, even to the
ground.
To that small, but invaluable class of men who have steadily
kept down the natural tendency to violence, and who have
such an exquisite tact for truth, that they can extract it pure
from the fury and misrepresentation of all parties, are we to
look for our barrier against the danger with which we appear
108 ON SKEPTICISM.
to be threatened. To such men, this madness of incredulity
and lust of doubt will be a matter of uniform resistance and
profound regret ; they will know that the path assigned to
human reason, though lofty, is limited, and they will sigh over
her present excess, as well as her original imbecility ; as the
steady friends of human nature they will never believe that
the cause of real improvement is advanced by men who are
neither profound in the theory of religion, nor pure in its
practice; against such men they will bend the brow, and shut
the heart, and exert the real authority they possess in the
world, " to put to silence the lips which cruelly, disdainfully,
and despitefully, speak against the righteous."
M
'.4-
I^ 't
SERMON XV.
THE POOR MAGDALENE.
PREACHED BEFORE THE SCOTCH MAGDALENE SOCIETY.
Daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee. — Luke vii. verse 48.
The little narrative of which this text is a part, presents
so beautiful a picture of profound sorrow and virtuous humili-
ation, that I am sure you will excuse me, if I give it you
more in detail.
" Behold a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when
she knew that Jesus sat at meat, stood behind him, weeping, and
began to wash his feet with her tears, and did wipe them with
the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them
with ointment ; and he turned to the woman, and said to Si-
mon, seest thou this woman ? I entered into thine house, thou
gavest me no water for my feet ; but she hath washed my
feet with her tears, and dried them with the hairs of her head.
Thou gavest me no kiss : but this woman, since the time I
came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. Mine head with
oil thou didst not anoint ; but this woman hath anointed my
head with ointment : Daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee."
There is something in the sorrow of this poor, unknown
woman, which is touching and sublime : A delicate spirit,
abashed with the wisdom, and purity of Jesus, a lowliness
which forbade lamentation, a remorse which precluded hope,
a heart broken with public scorn and inward shame. She
said nothing, she had no hope of mercy, nor dream of salva-
tion for her soul ; but giving loose to that enthusiasm for the
good, from which the worst of our species are not wholly ex-
empt, and remembering, perhaps, the days when she was
innocent and happy, she never ceased to Avash the feet of
10
^m
110 THE POOR MAGDALENE.
Jesus with her tears, and to dry them with the hairs of her
head.
Jesus did not reject this poor creature ; he forgave her sins ;
and you bless the mercy of your Saviour. Bear then in mind
this picture, and imitate that mercy which you love. The
ipoor women in whose behalf I am this day to plead, present
themselves before you with the deepest shame, and the most
profound contrition : they are fully sensible of their unworthi-
ness ; they would kiss the ground on which you tread ; they
would wash your feet with their tears : have mercy on them,
for they are wretched ; and if you cannot forgive their sins,
at least alleviate their sorrows.
Before 1 enter at length upon this subject, it maybe neces-
sary to state to you, that the principal object Avith the society,
now called the Magdalene Society, is to reclaim unhappy and
deluded females from a vicious course of life, to inure them
to habits of industry, to reconcile them to their families, and
restore them to a sense of rehgion. It is nearly two years
since this Society was first founded ; and during that time
forty-four women have been admitted to the benefit of the
institution. You will be curious to know the result, and I
will lay it before you with the greatest candour. In some
women the habits of vice have been found so deeply fixed,
that it was not possible to eradicate them ; such have of course
been dismissed from the asylum, though by no means wholly
abandoned : The salvation of a fellow-creature has been al-
ways deemed, by those who superintend this institution, as
much too sacred an object to be given up while activity
could suggest a single effort, which reason could sanction.
But I have the greatest pleasure in assuring you, that the
cares of the Society have been eminently successful in by
far the greatest number of instances ; and that many poor
women who would (but for this) have dragged on a wretched
and ignominious life, have been reconciled to their parents,
received into reputable famihes as servants, and placed, by
a sense of their past misery and present comfort, beyond
the rational probability of relapse. There are at present
twenty women in the house ; and the frequent apphcation for
admission, from the most miserable objects possible, which
the contracted state of their funds has compelled the society
to reject, has occasioned this appeal to the charity of the
public.
It must not be dissembled, that there are some respectable,
«f
THE POOR MAGDALENE. IH
and well-meaning people unfavourable to this institution,
from a conception that it encourages vice : that women, who
have so far forgotten every principle of virtue, ought to be
abandoned to their fate ; and that to take so lively an interest
in the situation and circumstances of such depraved charac-
ters, is neither proper in itself, nor encouraging to those who
are virtuous and good.
But if it were true, that a facility to escape from the miseries
of vice, operates as an inducement to crime, are we wholly to
exclude all consideration for the individual sufferer, and ren-
der wretchedness coeval with life, for the sake of pubhc ex-
ample ? Vice besides does not originate from computation of
probabilities, and accurate adjustment of future good and evil,
but from ignorance, weak notions of duty, bad government of
the mind, and dangerous situation. Let us advert to the real
facts. A poor young creature, allured from the country,
perhaps, by idle dreams of wealth and ambition, is placed in
the middle of a large town, far removed from her parents and
friends, and exposed to every temptation which the most
infamous artifices can suggest. Bad must he be, indeed, who
would think to palliate a crime here in the face of God, and
the people ; but feeling as I do most deeply for the poor
women whose cause I have undertaken, it is my duty to
bring to your remembrance, those circumstances which fixed
their ill-fated destiny, and made them what they are, the
daughters of affliction ; degraded ; suppliants to God and
man. It is no imaginary picture I paint to you, but the crimes
of real life. I repeat again, that the most atrocious artifices
are daily put in practice against the lower class of women,
and by men in whom religion, education, and rank in life,
ought to have infused far other principles of honour, dignity,
and compassion ; who, besides all other considerations, ought
to know, that he who sacrifices the innocence of a woman, who
looks up to her character, and her labour for honest support,
gives up a human creature to want, and to crime, to untimely
depravity, and to early death.
The tender age of many of these poor creatures is a cir-
cumstance which pleads powerfully to your compassion.
The necessary sacrifice of prudence to poverty, is the source
of many vices, as it ought to be of much indulgence, to the
lower classes of mankind. At the very period when the
child requires most the advice and vigilance of the mother,
she is compelled to quit her home for new and dangerous
112 THE POOR MAGDALENE.
scenes, and is left to her own fatal guidance, at the most
perilous moment of life. There are women in this Society
of fifteen and sixteen years of age, fit objects truly of that
pious compassion they have moved, and that fatherly protec-
tion they have received ; thus while the human body slowly
toils on to its last stature, and the soul late unfolds its power,
and its might, every bad passion is swift to increase, and
before nature has finished her work, vice has sunk it to
decay.
You feel less pity for these women, perhaps, because yoa
associate to their former life, riot, extravagance, and mad
luxury : rather associate to it the feelings of infamy, of hun-
ger, of remorse, of houseless, friendless, and unpitied want :
The sufferings of the respectable poor are bad enough ; but
if you will fathom to the lowest the misery of our nature,
look to the union of poverty and vice. Behold the dying
prostitute, so joyous once, so innocent, and so good, behold
her in some dismal recess of a crowded city, slowly yielding
up her life to sorrow and to pain. So lies this poor forgotten
creature, without the blessing of parents, or the voice of kins-
men, or the sweet counsel of friends, and when you see her
face pale with weakness and her limbs withered with dis-
ease, and her dwelhng loathsome from want, forget not that
she has yet a sorrow which no human eye can reach, the
remembrance of a mis-spent life has broken her heart ; and
though she send forth no plaintive voice, and though she shed
no idle tear, she is mastered by an unknown spirit within, and
sinks sadly down to her long and lasting home.
To such scenes as these, sound policy and genuine piety
unite to call your attention ; to educate, to reclaim, to diffuse
morality and religion, is the most comprehensive wisdom and
the truest philanthropy. If laws give efficacy to morals,
morals give efficacy to laws ; and it is rather, perhaps, in the
disposition to obey, than in the power to enact, that the security
for human happiness consists.
The number of these deluded women is so great, and their
sufferings, in process of time, so lamentable, that, considered
by themselves, they become an object of political interference,
and Christian compassion ; considered as to its "general effects,
the increase or diminution of this species of profligacy, be-
comes of the highest civil importance. Who, then, shall set
bounds to those labours which go to increase the sum of
virtue in a state ; or who shall assign the precise limits where
THE POOR MAGDALENE. 1^
the work of reformation shall stop, and the bad be abandoned?
If education have been tried in vain, we will set to work the
great engine of repentance, which rests upon experience,
and model afresh the human mind softened by affliction. The
fears of mankind are in general resorted to, rather than their
ductility ; and it is more common to punish than reclaim ; a
supposed necessity alone can justify this rough mehoration of
our species ; but the voluntary labours of the truly good and
respectable men who preside over this Society, show you that
no such necessity exists, and deserve your warmest protection,
as they substitute for severity, persuasion, and effect the purest
end by the gentlest means.
The great attention which has always been paid to recon-
cile reclaimed children to their parents, is a very pleasing
feature in the conduct of this charity ; the protection and
countenance of the parent give stability to the new virtue of
the child; and the renewal of this endearing relation is strictly
congenial to our most lively feelings.
A young female was received some time since into the
Society, who, in consequence of the infamous character she
had incurred, had been wholly abandoned by her poor, but
respectable parents, for above four years. You all know
the extreme care with which the poor people attend to the
religious and moral education of their children in this part of
the world ; and will, I am sure, in the goodness of your
hearts, anticipate the feehngs of two poor villagers as they
speculated on the future prospects of their late beloved inmate,
their fears for her safety, their humble ambition, their hope
that they had not in vain suffered want for her improvement,
their ardent prayer to Almighty God for their child. Not to
dwell upon intermediate scenes, by the interference of the
Society ; the father agreed to receive his daughter, and they
were brought together ; the appearance of each, just before
they met, was wonderfully impressive : In the child there
were marks of the deepest contrition and humility ; a sense
of joy, at the idea of seeing her father, mingled with a pertur-
bation which bordered on delirious wildness ; in the poor man
there was an honest shame at the disgrace which his daughter
had incurred, not wholly devoid of anger ; but it was easy to
see how much his compassion ruled over every other feeling
of his mind. Such was the interesting appearance of these
poor people before they met ; but when they saw each other,
there was no shame, there was no dread, there was no anger,
10*
114 THE tOOR MAGDALENE.
there was no contrition ; but there were tears, and cries, and
loud sobbings, and convulsive embraces, and the father wept
over his daughter, and loved her ; and they that saw this,
bear witness how blessed a thing it is to snatch a human soul
from perdition, to show the paths of God to poor sinners, and
to shower down the glories of virtue and religion on the
last and the lowest of mankind. Will you then suffer me
to plead to you in vain, in such a cause as this ? Will you
suffer such a noble, and rational charity to perish now at its
birth? Will you turn back these half reclaimed women,
when you have taught them the full measure of their sin
and wretchedness ? Or, if a human being say to you, I am
doing wrong ; I am sinning against God, and man ; I am
wretched ; I know not where to turn ; pity me, and show
me the paths of eternal life ; will you drive back the penitent
to her sins, and rage with all the severity of law, and censure
when you have refused the benefit of preventive instruction ?
I could speak to you for hours on this charity ; but I have
the firmest reliance on that rational goodness, so characteris-
tic of this country, and before which no true object of misery
ever presented itself in vain. Let me beg of you to take the
nature and views of this society into your most serious con-
sideration, and only to promote them as in your cool judgment
you shall deem them important to the interest of true religion
and social order, and sanctioned, as I most firmly believe them
to be, by every moral probability of success.
But do not trust to the faded impressions of representation :
Scenes of moral improvement are always gratifying, and
always instructive : view with your own eyes the strict order
and decency which pervade this institution ; converse with
the humble penitents, and hear what they will tell you of
the horrors from which they have been rescued, of their pre-
sent comfort, and their hopes of immortality revived. The
most delicate and amiable woman need not blush to counte-
nance with her presence, this school of moral emendation :
To be noticed by their superiors in rank, animates the exer-
tions of these women, and lightens the task of reformation ;
and there is something in the sight of living purity (such as
it does often live in gentle and gracious women), that makes
the heart wiser and better in an instant, than the most spi-
rited harangues on the nature, and glowing descriptions of
the excellence of virtue.
My fellow Christians, and my brothers, hear now my last
THE POOR MAGDALENE. 115
words before you quit this solemn place, and return to the
business and bustle of the world. Half a century will scarce
elapse, and every being here present will be dead ; new
men, and new events will occupy the world, and the dreaded
pit of oblivion will shut over us all. Is the thought of an
hereafter dear to you ? Is it your care to meet the great God
Avith good deeds ? Have pity then on these forlorn women ;
for if you have no pity on them, they will speedily be for-
saken by all : lay up a sweet remembrance for the evil day;
and know, that the best mediation with God Almighty, the
Father, and his Son of mercy, and love, is the prayer of a
human being whom you have saved from perdition.
SERMON XVI.
UPON THE BEST MODE OF CHARITY
For the poor shall never cease out of the land : Therefore, I command
thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy
poor, and to thy needy in the land. — Deuteronomy xv. verse 11.
I DO not propose to myself so very comprehensive a subject
as that of a general exhortation to charity ; but presupposing
a due disposition in the minds of my congregation to relieve
the wants of their fellow-creatures, I shall take the liberty of
suggesting a few remarks upon the proper direction and just
government of this amiable virtue.
It is of importance, not only that we should do good, but
that we should do it in the best manner. A little judgment,
and a little reflection added to the gift, do not merely en-
hance the value, but often give to it the only value which it
possesses ; and even prevents that mischief of which thought-
less benevolence is sometimes the cause.
Mankind can never be too strongly, or too frequently cau-
tioned against self-deception. If a state of vice be a state of
misery, a state of vice of which we are ignorant is doubly
so, from the increased probability of its duration. It is sur-
prising how many men are cheated by flighty sentiments of
humanity into a belief that they are humane ; how frequent-
ly charitable words are mistaken for charitable deeds, and
a beautiful picture of misery for an effectual relief of it.
There are many who have tears for the chaste and classical
sorrow of the stage, who have never submitted to go into the
poor man's cottage, to hear his tedious narrative, and to come
close at hand with poverty, and its dismal and disgusting
attendants. Pure moral misery, wrought up into an artful
tale, is a luxurious banquet for the refined mind, which would
il
UPON THE BEST MODE OF CHARITY. 1 17
turn away from the gross unhappiness of real life, where the
low and the ludicrous are mingled with the sad, where our
deUcacy is offended, while our feelings are roused, and we
are reminded, not only of the misfortunes, but of the infirmi-
ties of man. A state of delicate sensibihty in the moral feel-
ings is commendable, or blameworthy, according to the con-
sequences to which it leads : If strong impressions of human
misery rouse us to the relief of it, they are faithful monitors
to virtue, and cannot be too effectually preserved; but if feel-
ings are mere feelings, and do not stimulate us to action, they
can answer no other purpose than to display ostentatious
softness, or inflict useless suffering ; if men indulge in specu-
lations far above the level of real life, the danger is, that
they become unfit for action. Who can bear the muddy pool,
and the barren sand of the desert, after he has gazed on the
beautiful prodigies of a fancy landscape? If we have drawn
romantic notions of misfortune, and annexed to it the ideas
of venerable, simple, docile, and grateful, we shall soon be-
come disgusted with the practice of charity, and fly back to
the reveries of speculative benevolence, as an asylum from the
disappointments we meet with in the world, as it is really
constituted.
Another important point in the administration of charity,
is a proper choice of the object we relieve. To give promis-
cuously is better, perhaps, than not to give at all. But instead
of risking the chance of encouraging imposture, discover
some worthy family struggling up against the world, a
widow with her helpless children, old people incapable of
labour, or orphans destitute of protection and advice ; sup-
pose you were gradually to attach yourselves to such real
objects of compassion, to learn their Avants, to stimulate
. their industry, and to correct their vices ; surely these
two species of charity are not to be compared together in the
utility, or in the extent of their effects ; in the benevolence
they evince or in the merits they confer. If you wish to
gratify the feelings or avoid the reproaches of your heart,
with as little trouble to yourself as possible, you may lavish
your bounty upon the first object you meet, without knowing
whether you are gratifying vice, or relieving want ; this is a
kind of middle course, which, though it fall far short of the
dignity of virtue, keeps up a sort of comfortable delusion,
and reconciles us in some measure to ourselves. Whereas,
he who is charitable, not from constitutional feelings, but
118 UPON THE BEST MODE OF CHARITY.
from a wide, strong, and imperative sense of duty, will re-?
member, that he owes to the poor, not only that which he
gives, but he owes to them the happy application and judi-
cious distribution of the gift ; he owes to them a certain por-
tion of his time and intelligence ; the exercise of that influ-
ence which education, wealth, and manners always have,
and always ought to have upon the lower orders of mankind.
This is the steady, enlightened compassion of an ample mind
and a good heart ; this is that vigilant and wise benevolence
which makes happy cottages and smiling villages, and fills
the spirit of a just man with unspeakable delight. This
patronage or adoption of the indigent, places the poor under
the critical inspection of their superiors ; it blends those who
want control, with those who can exercise it ; it gives to the
rich a taste for doing good ; to the poor, a love and veneration
for rank and power ; diffuses civilization, and has a wonderful
effect in promoting good order and general improvement.
Those who have taken notice of the very striking difference
between such villages in the country, where the poor are
deserted by their natural guides and leaders, and those where
they have some truly good model to look up to, will, I am
sure, need no other proof of the justice of these remarks.
The true reason why this species of charity is so rarely
practised is, that we are afraid of imposing such a severe
task upon our indolence ; though in truth, all these kinds of
difficulties are extremely overrated. When once we have
made ourselves acquainted with a poor family, and got into
a regular train of seeing them at intervals, the trouble is
hardly felt, and the time scarcely missed ; and if it is missed,
ought it to be missed ? Shall we lay out a whole life in the
acquisition of knowledge, and in the pursuit of wealth ?
Shall we pawn our souls to party, and to ambition, and
grudge those few moments which we give up to solid deeds
of virtue, the only deeds we shall look back on with pleasure,
when old age, and death near at hand, show us the world
in another and in a true light ? Can we find leisure for all
the intricacies of business and science, and no leisure to re-
concile the man to his own heart ? Shall we go to our grave,
knowing all wisdom but the best? " ^,'' says Job, in the
midst of his afflictions, " j/" / have withheld the poor from
their desire^ or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or
have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless have not eaten
thereof: If I have seen any perish for want of covering, or
UPON THE BEST MODE OF CHARITY. 1 19
any poor without clothing ; if his loins have not blessed me,
and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep : If I
have lifted up my arm against the fatherless when I saw my
help in the gate: then let mine arm be broken from the bone,
and let it fall from my shoulder blade.''
These charitable visits to the poor, which I have endea-
voured to inculcate, are of importance, not only because they
prevent imposture, by making you certain of the misery
which you relieve, but because they produce an appeal to
the senses which is highly favourable to the cultivation of
charity. He who only knows the misfortunes of mankind
at second hand, and by description, has but a faint idea of
what is really suffered in the world. A want of charity is
not always to be attributed to a want of compassion. The
seeds of this virtue are too deeply fixed in the human con-
stitution, to be easily eradicated : but the appeal to this class
of feelings is not sufficiently strong; men do not put them-
selves into situations where such feelings are liable to be
called forth : they judge of the misfortunes of the poor through
the medium of the understanding, not from the lively and
ardent pictures of sensation. We feel it may be said, the
eloquence of description ; but what is all the eloquence of art,
to that mighty and original eloquence with which nature
pleads her cause ; to the eloquence of paleness and of hunger;
to the eloquence of sickness and of wounds ; to the eloquence
of extreme old age, of helpless infancy, of friendless want !
What persuasives like the melancholy appearance of nature
badly supported, and that fixed look of sadness, which a long
struggle with misfortune rivets on the human countenance !
What pleadings so powerful as the wretched hovels of the
poor, and the whole system of their comfortless economy !—
These are the moments in which the world and its follies are
forgotten, which throw the mind into a new attitude of solemn
thought, which have rescued many a human being from dis-
sipation and crime, which have given birth to many admi-
rable characters, and multiplied, more than all exhortation, the
friends of man, and the disciples of Christ.
In truth, if these observations be anywhere applicable or
necessary, it is in great cities that they are peculiarly so ; for
as misery increases with vice, and dissipation extinguishes
charity, the poor suffer more, and meet with less rehef, at
least with less of that kind of rehef which proceeds from the
exertions and interference of individuals. Far be it from me,
120 UPON THE BEST MODE OF CHARITY.
in talking of the dissipation of great cities, to wage war with
the innocent pleasures of life ; with youth there should be joy,
for the best days of life are soon fled ; but the danger is, that
amidst the constant enjoyments and diversions of society, the
heart should become callous, and lose that noble irritability,
that moral life, which is the parent of all that is good in the
world. Enchanting as the pleasures of society appear, they
would still derive an additional charm from the consciousness
that you deserved to enjoy them, that you had acquired a
right to be happy, from having made others so ; and that an
evening of innocent gayety was earned by a morning of vir-
tuous exertion.
You are not, I hope, of opinion, that these kind of cares de-
volve upon the clergy alone, as the necessary labours of their
profession. Those who teach Christianity, ought certainly to
be most forward in every Christian exertion ; but, unquestion-
ably, it is not from them alone that these exertions are ex-
pected, but from every one whose faith teaches and whose
fortune enables him to be humane. I have touched on this
point, because such an opinion, though too absurd to be openly
avowed, is not too absurd for that crude and hasty palliation
with which we smother the conscience that we cannot satisfy.
Nor let it be imagined that the duties which I have pointed
out are much less pressing and imperative, because the law
has taken to itself the protection of the poor ; the law must hold
out a scanty and precarious relief, or it would encourage more
misery than it reHeved ; the law cannot distinguish between the
poverty of idleness and the poverty of misfortune ; the law de-
grades those whom it relieves ; and many prefer wretchedness
to public aid ; do not, therefore, spare yourselves from a belief
that the poor are well taken care of by the civil power ; and that
individual interference is superfluous ; — many a hand is held
up, and no man seeth it ; many a groan is wasted in the air,
many die in secret, and like the moments of the day, they
perish and are forgotten. Go then, while good days are yet
left to you, go into the house of mourning, under the roof of
affliction, and mingle with the old, the wretched, and the sad :
bow down thy spirit with them, and chasten thy soul with
their sorrow ; — when thy feet sound on the threshold of the
door, the widowed woman shall say there is bread for us to-
day ; children shall flock about thee, and thou shalt be to them
as a God ; ancient people shall have joy in their last days be-
cause of thee ; thy mind shall be moved within thee, and the
UPON THE BEST MODE OF CHARITY. 121
bread, and the estate of the poor and oppressed shall be pre^
cious in thine eyes.
Many are charitable in order to enjoy the luxury of grati-
tude ; an accidental good if it comes, but an unworthy motive
for benevolence, because it makes the virtue to depend upon
the caprice of the individual towards whom it is exercised.
For the permanent and unchangeable rule of religion, it gives
me a rule which varies with the feelings of every wretched
being whom I reheve. If my taste is gratified with the dis-
play of every proper sentiment, I am compassionate ; but the
slightest disgust is sufficient to avert me from one of the high-
est duties of a Christian ; I love moral effect more than reH-
gious obedience ; my principal object is not to reheve human
misery, but to excite in my own mind agreeable feehng. The
pity which Jesus taught was a modest and invisible pity,
thinking only of Hghtening the heavy heart, trembling at
fame, fearful lest any pleasure in the gratitude of man might
mingle with the spirit of charity, and pollute the pure sacri-
fice which it was offering up to God.
To conclude, let us always remember that every charity
is short lived and inefficacious, which flows from any other
motive than the right. There is a charity which originates
from the romantic fiction of humble virtue and innocence in
distress ; but this will be soon disgusted by low artifice, and
scared by brutal vice. The charity which proceeds from
ostentation can exist no longer than when its motives remain
undetected. There is (as I have just stated), a charity which
is meant to excite the feelings of gratitude, but this will meet
with its termination in disappointment. That charity alone
endures, which flows from a sense of duty, and a hope in
God. This is the charity that treads in secret those paths of
misery, from which all but the lowest of human wretches
have fled ; this is that charity which no labour can weary,
no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust, that toils, that par-
dons, that suffers, that is seen by no man, and honoured by
no man, but, Hke the great laws of nature, does the work of
God in silence, and looks to future and better worlds for its
reward.
11
'^Mtt
SEEMON XVII.
ON METHODISM.
I bear them record that they hare a zeal for God, but not according tp
knowledge.— Romans x. verse 2.
There is a sect which, of late years, has been growing
into some importance in this country, and which, from the
unwearied activity of those who guide it, has been too well
received, and too hastily embraced ; I mean that sect com-
monly called Methodists, and who (though less numerous,
perhaps, than the friends of our Church Establishment com-
monly suppose), are still numerous enough, and sufficiently
active in making proselytes, and sufficiently successful to
justify that watchful attention which they now begin to expe-
rience from the EstabHshed clergy.
Such attention is still more necessary at this period, when
enthusiasm, formerly confined to the lowest ranks of the com-
munity, has sprung up among the rich and the great ; and
when it derives an influence as considerable from the wealth
and consequence of those who profess it, as it does from the
seductive nature of its doctrines.
Nothing can be more clear, than that any sect has a perfect
right to interpret the Gospel after its own manner, or to infuse
into its followers, any spirit not incompatible with the pubhc
peace. Such are the rights of sects as against the civil power ;
but against reason and inquiry, no sect is, or ought to be pro-
tected ; and above all, that sect ought not which proclaims
itself to be better and wiser than all other sects, which says,
we only worship the true God, salvation is for us alone.
In applying the term sect to persons of this religious per-
suasion, and in distinguishing them from the Church of En-
gland, I do not found that distinction upon the speculative
ON METHODISM. 123
tenets they profess, but upon the general spirit they display ;
it is in vain to say you belong to our ancient and venerable
communion, if you lose sight of that moderation for which
we have always been distinguished, and, instead of sameness
of spirit, give us only sameness of belief. You are not of us
(whatever your belief may be,) if you are not as sober as we
are ; you are not of us if you have our zeal without our know-
ledge ; you are not of us if those tenets, which we have always
rendered compatible with sound discretion, make you drunk
and staggering with the new wine of enthusiasm.
Far be it from me, in pointing out those pernicious conse-
quences, which I believe to result from this sect of Christians,
to join with their enemies in the very unjust calumnies which
have been propagated against them ; 1 most firmly beheve
that, for the greater part, they are enthusiasts, not hypo-
crites ; that they are doing what they beheve to be right, and
though they are not acting up to their very exalted profes-
sions, yet that, upon the whole, they are fairly entitled to be
called sincere Christians. What may truly be objected to
them is, that, meaning to be the friends of religion, they are
its greatest enemies ; that, wishing to extend the dominion of
the Gospel over all hearts, they are ahenating from it the best
understandings ; that, preparing for sacred things, new tri-
umph, and wider glory, they expose sacred things to the
derision and scorn of the wicked. I bear them record that
they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
It is true that Methodism, and enthusiasm, are terms often
used by the unrighteous, to ridicule piety under whatever
aspect of manliness it may be presented, and by whatever
soundness of discretion it may be controlled ; but, in spite of
this, there is a real excess, there is a righteousness over-
much ; a zeal not according to knowledge, which is a perpe-
tual injury to true religion : the very name* used to denote
it, however unjustly it may be sometimes apphed, sufficiently
demonstrates among what description of Christians those
abuses exist.
When any man whose curiosity may be roused by their
high pretensions, or whose feelings may be wounded by their
unjust reproaches, first turns his attention upon these mem-
bers of the Christian Church, there is nothing which so much
attracts his notice, or so much ofl^ends his notions of real piety,
* Vital Christianity. >v^
124 ON METHODISM.
A as their astonishing arrogance and presumption; they speak
"^ t as if in their era and at their time God had again vouchsafed
to show himself to his people ; as if a new dispensation had
been accorded to the world, and as if the time was at last arrived
when they were permitted to show to mankind the true know-
ledge of the true God: they speak of men of all other per-
suasions as the children of darkness and error, pitying the
whole world besides themselves, and thanking God with a
very needless and impious gratitude, that he has made them
so much wiser and better than other human beings. The
gratification of this spiritual pride is become in fact, almost
one of their rehgious exercises ; it is mingled in all their reli-
gious meditations, and become the darling and consolation of
their souls ; " God J thank thee, I am not as other men are,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican;^*
thus spake the Pharisee ; " but the publican, standing afar
off, would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, but smote
upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinnerP*
Which of these went home to his house justified rather than
the other? And of whom did Christ speak this parable?
He spake it (says St. Luke) unto certain men which trusted
in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.
It is absolutely necessary, in order to prevent the young from
being imposed upon by these lofty pretensions, to protest
against them in the plainest and most serious manner ; they
are so far from being proofs of pure and genuine religion, that
they are the almost infallible characteristics of vulgar and
unblushing fanaticism. The most mistaken and impetuous
enthusiasts have all begun in the same manner, have all arro-
gantly and studiously depreciated every other mode of wor-
ship, have all grasped at the monopoly of piety and reason. It
is not the practice of the Church of England to do these
things ; it is not the habit of her ministers to speak insultingly
or to think arrogantly of those who w^orship the same God,
however different be the mode of that adoration ; she prefers
her own doctrine; but she prefers it without boasting and
without invidious comparison ; she derives from her antiquity
calm and dignified satisfaction, and from her experience, the
high blessings of moderation and forbearance ; but, when these
vain and mistaken zealots tell her that she is superannuated,
and decayed, that she is oppressed by the languor of age, and
unstrung by the indolence of success ; that she should rebuild
her altars after their model, and speak to the God of heaven
ON METHODISM. 125
as they speak ; when this is the part assumed by men whose
predominant notion of rehgion seems to be that it is something
removed as far from common sense as possible, it is then
surely time to ask these men who made them lords and teach-
ers over us, and where each of them has found that garment
of Elijah, in which they so fondly walk upon the earth. They
have so long held this language ; it has been so long heard
in silence, that the silence of inactivity has been mistaken for
the silence of guilt : it is time that the young, upon whose
unpractised minds they are always at work, should know,
that moderation is not wholly indefensible ; and it is time they
should be taught to exact of religious presumption, proofs as
severe as its pretensions are high.
Not that it is meant by these remarks to insinuate that the
church is endangered by this denomination of Christians ; I
hope and beheve that its roots are too deep, its structure too
admirable, its defenders too able, and its followers too firm,
to be shaken by this or any other species of attack; but it
such dangers do exist, which 1 am not able to perceive, that
danger is not from principles well known and previously re-
futed; it is not from men who profess to reason about their
faith, and who give you some means of making to them a
reply ; but it is from that fanaticism Avhich professes only to
feel and not to reason, which is intangible and invisible to its
enemies, which it is no more possible to meet with the com-
mon efforts of reason, than it is to dispute with a burning
fever, or to argue down a subtle contagion.
There exists, too, in this sect, not onty the arrogance of
which 1 am speaking, but that unchristian charity in the judg-
ment of the motives of others, which is the natural conse-
quence of such arrogance ; they are perpetually in the habit
of putting on the actions of the rest of mankind, a construction
which depreciates all other religions, and exalts their own ;
like all small sects, living and acting together, their proselytes
inflame each other by mutual praise, into an exaggerated
sense of their own value ; and giide imperceptibly into a kind
of confused notion, that they are a chosen and consecrated
people, placed by God in the bosom of idolatry, to purify and
to save mankind. It is impossible not to perceive that such
are the secret feelings by which these men are influenced,
and perceiving it, it is not possible at the same time to admit,
that they hold the Christian faith in all that vigour, purity,
11*
126 ON METHODISM.
and vitality which they would make us ordinary Christians
to believe.
Another mischief which they do to the cause of rehgion is,
>^l that by their eager and overheated imaginations, they bring
^ discredit upon the sacred cause, and upon the name of
religion; they are taunted as the priests of Baal were
taunted ; — " cry aloud, for he is a God : either he is talking or
pursuing, or he is in a journey, or, peradventure he sleepeth,
and must be waked : and they cried aloud and cut themselves
after their barbarous manner, with knives and lancets, till the
blood gushed out upon them." Nothing can be more mis-
taken in fact, than to look upon the frantic extravagance, or
the undignified trifling of their teachers as innocent. No-
thing is innocent which casts the faintest shade of error, or
of folly upon true rehgion. Nothing is innocent which dis-
poses the minds of men to confound a serious Christian with
an enthusiastic Christian. Nothing is innocent which in-
duces them to dishonour alike the firmness of rational con-
viction, and the vehemence of ignorant passion ; nothing
which, by disgusting correct judgments, runs the remotest
risk of involving sober Christianity in the fate of low fanati-
cism. — He who is reproached for being in one extreme, com-
forts himself that he is not in the other ; if he neglects the du-
ties of religion, if he is absorbed by the world, if he violates
the clearest rules of right and wrong, he pleads that he is no
hypocrite, no fanatic, that he despises the senseless, barbarous
raving, which passes so often under the name of religion.
And this is perhaps the greatest evil of enthusiasm ; it is not
that an enthusiast may not himself be a better man, but that
he makes others worse men ; for the publican says in his turn,
thank God I am not as this Pharisee, and then goes headlong
into every sin because he will avoid extravagance, hypocrisy
and ostentation. Thus it is that human vices and errors are
perpetually acting upon each other, that we seize hold of
what others do too much, in order to justify ourselves in doing
too little, and are, on the opposite side, provoked to do too
much, because we observe others to do nothing at all ; the
horrors of infidehty produce the folHes of enthusiasm ; and
the follies of enthusiasm disgust men into the horrors of in-
fidelity.
If power and praise are the objects you seek under the
name of religion, or, if you are mistaken enough to suppose
that which is good in some degree is good in every degree ;
ON METHODISM. 127
that the holy apostle, Saint Paul, when he talked of a right-
eousness over much, and of a zeal without knowledge, talked
of those feehngs which did not, and which could not exist,
then do as these men do, make a new god after your own
heated mind, and carry the narrow spirit of a faction into the
great business of eternity. But if you really wish to excel
all other Christians in your faith, and to exercise most worth-
ily that religion which hallows and guides the world, aim at
that moderation which, while it is the most difficult is the
most unhonoured, the most unnoticed and the most unre-
warded of all human virtues ; do that which a Christian ought
to do, without proclaiming that you do it ; do not insult men
to imitate you by the loftiness of your pretensions, but allure
them to follow you by the sweetness and beauty of your life.
When you come to pray to God before the world, let a vene-
rable and sacred decorum preside over every look, every
word and every action ; beware, lest you cast upon the name
of religion the shadow of blame or reproach ; — give us that
piety which, while it excites feeling, commands respect ; and
then we will bear you record, that you have a zeal for God,
and that your zeal is according to knowledge.
• Zeal without knowledge is the most dangerous foundation
on which religious education can be built up ; for, where it
happens to be appHed to a naturally strong understanding,
that can detect, in after-life, the excesses into which it has
been hurried in early youth, it too often superinduces a per-
fect carelessness to all religion ; a revengeful levity, which
seems to atone to itself by indiscriminate scorn, for the follies
into which it has been betrayed by indiscriminate enthusiasm.
But bad as this is, it is not the worst evil which is to be
laid to the charge of enthusiasm ; the total destruction of hu-
man reason, the quenching of every faculty, the blotting out
of all mind, fatuity, folly, idiotism, are the evils which it too
often carries in its train. This is the spectacle at which
they should tremble who believe that religious feelings do not
require the control of reason, and the aid of sound instruction ;
the spectacle of a mind dead forever to all joy, without peace
or rest in the day or in the night, the victim of incurable,
hopeless madness. These are the proper warnings for those
who are tired with the moderation of the English Church,
who ask for something less calm, more vehement, and more
stimulating than they can meet with here. At this moment,
a thousand human creatures are chained to the earth, suffer-
139 ON METHODISM.
ing, in imagination, all the torments of hell, and groaning
under the fancied vengeance of an angry God. What has
broken them down, and what is the cause of their great ruin ?
zeal without knowledge ; the violence of worship ; passions
let loose upon the most exalted of all objects ; utter contempt
of all moderation ; hatred and suspicion of the moderate ; a
dereliction of old, safe, and established worship ; a thirst for
novelty and noise ; a childish admiration of every bold and
loquacious pretender ; Methodism in every branch of its folly,
and in the fullest measure of its arrogance.
Perhaps this sect is come too late ; perhaps, in spite of their
incessant activity, it is not possible that mankind should again
fall very extensively under the dominion of enthusiasm ; in
the mean time, whatever be their ultimate and general suc-
cess, this will be the character of their immediate proselytes ;
they will have all who are broken down by the miseries of
the world, and who will fly to the drunkenness of enthusiasm,
as a cure for the pangs of sorrow ; they will have all men,
in whose mind fear predominates over hope; profligates, who
have exhausted the pleasures of life, will begin to blame
those pleasures enthusiastically, and to atone, by the corrup-
tion of their reason, for the corruption of their hearts. De-
signing hypocrites will sometimes join them, and throw a
mask of sanctity over the sordid impurities of their lives. It
will be a general receptacle for imbecility, fear, worn-out
debauchery, and designing fraud. It will nourish a scorn
for rehgion, produce a constant succession of scoffers, and so
blend the excesses of the human mind, upon religious sub-
jects, with its sound and serious efforts, that men, not caring
to disentangle the evil from the good, will cast both the evil
and the good away, and live in habitual carelessness for their
salvation.
But it is urged, in answer to this, that the Hves of these
men are good. Admit them to be so ; are there no good men
who are not enthusiasts ? Are there no men, deeply im-
pressed with the truth of the Gospel, who avoid all singularity,
party spirit, and display, in their obedience to that Gospel ?
Is there no such a thing as earnest, yet tranquil piety ? Is a
sound understanding really so incompatible with a pure heart,
that men must become spectacles and laughing stocks in this
world, before they consider themselves as fit for another, and
a better ? " I respect these people," says one of the greatest
ON METHODISM. 129
ornaments of the English Church, (now no more.*) " I
respect them, because I beheve they are sincere, but I have
never been present at their worship, without saying to myself,
how different is this from the primitive purity and simplicity
of the Gospel."
It is possible to love a thing so ardently, and to covet it so
much, that we cease to be good judges of the means by
which it is to be attained, or preserved when it is attained.
We have in our church, and in theirs, one common object —
salvation, — the greatest that the mind can conceive, or the
passions covet. We will not believe, that an All- wise and
an Almighty being has made our eternal happiness to depend
upon the display of impetuous feeling, or the observance of
unmeaning trifles. We will bend our whole heart to the
Lord our God, and to the great author of our redemption ;
but we will do it with calm adoration, and with zeal accord-
ing to knowledge ; those habits may not impose, they may
not dazzle, they may not attract ; — but they are practical,
they are permanent, they will endure ; and, while a thousand
new sects are swelling into importance, from their extrava-
gance, and dissolving again, when that extravagance has lost
the charm of novelty, our ancient and venerable church, too
great, too wise, and too aged, for these popular arts, shall stand
the test of time, and gradually gather into her bosom, those
who can be wise as well as good ; who have an ardent zeal for
God, but a zeal according to knowledge,
* Dr. Paley, whose works have adorned, and whose low situation in the
Eflglish Church has disgraced the age in which he lived.
SERMON XVIII
ON RICHES.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God. — Mabk x. terse 25.
Without entering into the disputes to which this passage
has given hirth, or agitating the question of the propriety of
the translation, I shall construe it in a figurative sense, and
suppose it to mean, that it is difficult for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God ; that the temptations, consequent
upon great possessions, create a very serious obstacle to the
attainment of the principles and of the rewards of the Gospel.
To examine what those obstacles are, and to point out in
what manner they may be guarded against, will, I hope, not
prove an unprofitable subject for this day's discourse ; if, in
the progress of such discourse, I point out any pernicious
effects of wealth upon the moral and rehgious character, I
cannot, of course, mean to insinuate that such influence is
never counteracted, and such danger never repelled. — I am
speaking, not of fact, but of tendency, — not of those efl^ects
which always are produced, but ofHhose which in nature and
probability may be produced.
It is difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
God : — The first cause to be alleged for this difficulty is, that
he wants that important test of his own conduct, which is to
be gained from the conduct of his fellow-creatures towards
him ; he may be going far from the kingdom of God, on the
feet of pride, and over the spoils of injustice, without learning,
from the averted looks, and the alienated hearts of men, that
his ways are the ways of death. Wealth is apt to inspire a
kind of awe, which fashions every look, modulates every
ON RICHES* 131
word, and influences every action ; — and this, not so much
from any view to interest, as from that imposing superiority,
exercised upon the imagination hy prosperous fortune, from
which it is extremely difficult for any man to emancipate
himself, who has not steadily accustomed his judgment to
measure his fellow-creatures by real, rather than artificial
distinctions, and to appeal from the capricious judgments of
the world to his own reflections, and to the clear and indis-
putable precepts of the Gospel.
The general presumption, indeed, which we are apt to
form, is, that the mischief is already done, that the rich man
has been accustomed to such flattering reception, such
gracious falsehoods, and such ingenious deceit ; that to treat
him justly, is to treat him harshly ; and, to defer to him only
in the proportion of his merit, is a violation of established
forms. No man feels it to be his duty to combat with the
gigantic errors of the world, and to exalt himself into a
champion of righteousness ; he leaves the state of society just
as he found it, and indolently contributes his quota of deceit^
to make the life of a human being an huge falsehood from
the cradle to the tomb. It is this which speaks to Dives the
false history of his shameless and pampered life ;— here it
is, in the deceitful mirror of the human face, that he sees
the high gifts with which God has endowed him ; — and here
it is, in that mirror, so dreadfully just to guilty poverty, he
may come back, after he has trampled on every principle of
honour and justice, and see joy, and delight, and unbounded
hospitality, and unnumbered friends. Therefore, I say to
you, when you enter in among your fellows, in the pomp,
and plenitude of wealth, — when the meek eye of poverty
falls before you, — when all men hsten to your speech, and
the approving smile is ready to break forth on every brow,— -
then keep down your rising heart, and humble yourself before
your father who seeth in secret ; then fear very greatly for
your salvation ; then tremble more than Felix trembled ; then
remember that it is easier for a camel to go through the ey«
of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
heaven.
The second reason why it is so difficult for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God is, that he loves the kingdom of the
world too well. Death is very terrible, says the son of Sirach, to
him who lives at ease in his possessions ; and in truth the plea-
sure of Hfe does, in a great measure, depend upon the lot which
132 ON RICHES.
we draw, and the heritage which we enjoy ; it may be urged,
that a person who knows no other situation, wishes no other ;
and that the boundary of his experience is the boundary of
his desire. This would be true enough if we did not derive
our notions of happiness and misery from a wider range of
observation than our own destiny can afford ; I will not speak
of great misfortunes, for such instances prove but too clearly,
how much the love of life depends on the enjoyment it affords ;
"-—but a man who is the eternal prey of sohcitude, wishes
for the closing of the scene ; a constant, cheerless struggle
with little miseries, will dim the sun, and wither the green
herb, and taint the fresh wind ; — he will cry out, let me
depart, — he will count his gray hairs with joy, and one day
will seem unto him as many. Those who are not reminded
of the wretchedness of human existence by such reflections
as these, who are born to luxury and respect, and sheltered
from the various perils of poverty, begin to forget the preca-
rious tenure of worldly enjoyments, and to build sumptuously
on the sand ; they put their trust (as the Psalmist says), in
chariots and horses, and dream they shall live for ever in
those palaces which are but the out-houses of the grave.
There are very few men, in fact, who are capable of with-
standing the constant effect of artificial distinctions ; it is diffi-
cult to live upon a throne, and to think of a tomb ; it is diffi-
cult to be clothed in splendour, and to remember we are dust ;
it is difficult for the rich and the prosperous to keep their
hearts as a burning coal upon the altar, and to humble them-
selves before God as they rise before men. In the mean-
time, while pride gathers in the heart, the angel is ever
writing in the book, and wrath is ever mantling in the cup ;
complain not in the season of woe, that you are parched with
thirst ; ask not for water, as Dives asked you have a warn-
ing which he never had. There stand the ever memorable
words of the text, which break down the stateliness of man,
and dissipate the pageantry of the earth : — thus it is that the
few words of a God can make the purple of the world appear
less beautiful than the mean garments of a beggar, and strik-
ing terror into the hearts of rulers and of exarchs, turn the ban-
ners of dominion to the ensigns of death, and make them
shudder at the sceptre which they wield. To-day, you are
clothed in fine hnen, and fare sumptuously ; in a few, and
evil years, they shall hew you out a tomb of marble, whiter
than snow, and the cunning artifice of the workman shall
ON^RICHES. 133
grave on it weeping angels, and make a delicate image of
one fleeing up to heaven, as if it were thee, and shall relate
in golden letters, the long story of your honours and your
birth, — thou fool ! ! He that dieth by the road side for the
lack of a morsel of bread, God loveth him as well as he loveth
thee ; and at the gates of heaven, and from the blessed angels
thou shalt learn, that it is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of heaven.
Another fatal effect of great wealth is, that it is apt to harden
the heart ; wealth gives power ; power produces immediate
gratification; the long habit of immediate gratification, an
impatience of unpleasant feelings ; a claim to be exempted
from the contemplation of human misery, of everything cal-
culated to inspire gloom, to pollute enjoyment, and protrude
a sense of painful duties ; the compassion with which pros-
perous men are born in common with us all, is never cher-
ished by a participation in the common suffering, a share in
the general struggle ; it wants that sense of the difficulty and
wretchedness of existence, by which we obtain the best mea-
sure of the sufferings of our fellow-creatures. We talk of
human life as a journey, but how variously is that journey
performed ? there are some who come forth girt, and shod,
and mantled, to walk on velvet lawns, and smooth terraces,
where every gale is arrested, and every beam is tempered ;
there are others who walk on the alpine paths of life, against
driving misery, and through stormy sorrows ; and over sharp
afflictions, walk with bare feet and naked breast, jaded, man-
gled, and chilled. It is easy enough to talk of misfortunes ;
that they exist, no man can be ignorant ; it is not the bare
knowledge of them that is wanting, but that pungent, vital
commiseration, under the influence of which a man springs
up from the comforts of his home, deserts his favourite occu-
pations, toils, invents, investigates, struggles, wades through
perplexity, disappointment, and disgust, to save a human
being from shame, poverty and destruction : here then is the
jet, and object of our blessed Saviour's menace ; and reason-
able enough it is that he who practically withdraws himself
from the great Christian community of benevolence, should
be cut ofl^from the blessings of Christian reward. If we suf-
fer ourselves to be so infatuated by the enjoyments of this
world, as to forget the imperious claims of affliction, and to
render our minds, from the long habit of selfish gratification,
134 ON RICHES.
incapable of fulfilling the duties we owe to mankind, then
let us not repine, that our lot ceases in this world, or that the
rich man shall never inherit immortal life.
As to that confidence and pride of which riches are too
often the source, what can the constitution of that mind be,
which has formed these notions of divine wisdom and justice?
Was this inequality of possessions contrived for the more
solid establishment of human happiness, that there might be
gradation and subordination among men ? or was it instituted
to give an arbitrary and useless superiority of one human
being over another ? Are any duties exacted for the good
conferred ? or was a rich man only born to sleep quietly, to
fare sumptuously, and to be clothed in brave apparel ? Has
he, who does not create a particle of dust but it has its use,
has he, do you imagine, formed one human being merely as
a receptacle of choice fruits and delicate viands ; and has he
stationed a thousand others about him, of the same flesh and
blood, that they might pick up the crumbs of his table, and
gratify the wishes of his heart? No man is mad enough to
acknowledge such an opinion ; but many enjoy wealth as if
they had no other notion respecting it than that they were to
extract from it the greatest enjoyment possible, to eat and drink
to-day, and to mock at the threatened death of to-morrow.
The command of our Saviour to the rich man, was, go thy
way quickly, sell all thou hast, divide it among the poor, and
take up thy cross and follow me ; but this precept of our
blessed Lord's, as it was intended only for the interests of
the Gospel, and the state of the world at that period, cannot
be considered as applicable to the present condition of man-
kind ; to preach such exalted doctrine in these latter days,
would, I am afraid, at best be useless ; our object is to seek
for some fair medium between selfishness and enthusiasm.
If something of great possessions be dedicated to inspire
respect, and preserve the gradations of society, a part to the
real wants, a little to the ornaments and superfluities of life,
a little even to the infirmities of the possessor, how much
will remain for the unhappy, who ask only a preference over
vicious pleasure, disgraceful excess, and idle ostentation.
Neither is it to objects only of individual misery, that the
application of wealth is to be confined ; whatever has for its
object to enlarge human knowledge, or to propagate moral
and religious principle ; whatever may afl^ect immediately,
or remotely, directly, or indirectly, the public happiness,
ON RICHES. 135
may add to the comforts, repress the crimes, or animate the
virtues of social life ; to every sacred claim of this nature,
che appetite for frivolous pleasure, and the passion for frivo-
lous display, must impHcitly yield : if the minulisB of indi-
vidual charity present an object too inconsiderable for a capa-
cious mind, there are vast asylums for sickness and want,
which invite your aid ; breathe among their sad inhabitants
the spirit of consolation and order, give to them wiser ar-
rangements and. wider limits, prepare shelter for unborn
wretchedness, and medicine for future disease ; give oppor-
tunity to talents, and scope to goodness ; go among the mul-
titude, and see if you can drag from the oblivious heap some
child of God, some gift of heaven, whose mind can burst
through the secrets of nature, and influence the destiny of
man. This is the dignified and religious use of riches, which,
when they cherish boyish pride, to minister to selfish plea-
sure, shall verily doom their possessor to the flames of hell.— •
But he who knows wherefore God has given him great pos-
sessions, he shall die the death of Lazarus, without leading
his hfe, and rest in the bosom of Abraham, though he never
stretched forth his wounds to the dogs, nor gathered up the
crumbs of the table for his food.
The best mode of guarding against that indirect flattery,
which is always paid to wealth, is to impress the mind with
a thorough belief of the fact; and to guard by increased in-
ward humility against the danger of corruption from without.
The wealthy man who attributes to himself great or good
qualities, from what he conceives to be the opinion of the
world, exposes himself to dangerous errors; on the most im-
portant of all subjects, this source of self-judgment is for him
most effectually poisoned ; he must receive such evidence
with the utmost distrust, weigh every circumstance with
caution, court animadversion and friendly candour, and che-
rish the man by whose poHshed justice his feelings are con-
sulted, while his follies are repressed.
For the pride which is contracted by the contemplation of
little things, there is no better cure than the contemplation of
great things. Let a rich man turn from his own pompous lit-
tleness, and think of heaven, of eternity, and of salvation ; let
him think of all the nations that lie dead in the dust, waiting
for the trumpet of God ; he will smile at his own brief autho-
rity, and be as one lifted up to an high eminence, to whom
the gorgeous palaces of the world are the specks and atoms
136 ON RICHES.
of the eye ; the great laws of nature pursue their eternal
course, and heed not the frail distinctions of this life ; the fever
spares not the rich and the great; the tempest does not pass
by them ; they are racked by pain, they are weakened by
disease, they are broken by old age, they are agonized in
death like other men, they moulder in the tomb, they differ
only from other men in this, that God will call them to a more
severe account, that they must come before him with deeds
of Christian charity and acts of righteousness, equal to all the
opportunities and blessings which they have enjoyed.
Let the rich man then remember in the midst of his en-
joyments, by what slight tenure those enjoyments are held.
In addition to the common doubt which hangs over the
life of all men, fresh perils lay hid in his pleasures, and the
very object for which he lives may be the first to terminate
his existence. " Remember thou art mortal," was said every
day to a great king. So, after the same fashion I would that
a man of great possessions should frequently remember the
end of all things, and the long home, and the sleeping place
of a span in breadth ; I would have him go from under the
gilded dome down to the place where they will gather him
to the bones of his fathers ; he should tread in the dust of the
noble, and trample on the ashes of the proud ; I would heap
before him sights of woe and images of death and terror ; I
would break down his stateliness and humble him before his
Redeemer and his judge. My voice should ever sound in
his ears, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of
a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
heaven.
SERMON XIX.
ON SWEARING.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord
vsrill not hold him guiltless who taketh his name in vain. — Exodus xx.
VERSE 7. *;^
While we are guarded against great and daring crimes,
by the disgust which their enormity excites, we remain ex-
posed to the lesser vices, because we consider them as too un-
important for our care, and in this manner they gain a vic-
tory by our negligence, which they never could obtain from
their own power.
Indeed, against the greater crimes Almighty God has placed
a powerful safeguard in the admonitions of conscience which
they awaken ; but when we come from crimes against feel-
ing, to crimes against reason, the danger is greater because
the warning is less ; and here we must owe to the instruction
of others, and to self-examination, that innocence which we
derive, on other occasions, from the loud and irresistible cries
of nature.
Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. To use the
Lord's name in vain, is to use it on any occasion, except
when called upon by the laws of our country, to offer that
solemn pledge for the truth of what we say. But the misfor-
tune is, we do not deem it in vain, if the object on which we
employ it is of importance to us, and to us alone. We do not
think it in vain to call down God, armed with all his terrors,
upon any accident which disturbs the cheerfulness of our
Jives ; we think that obedient Heaven is always ready to
avenge our wrongs, and that the Deity is ever watchful to
bless those whom we bless and curse those whom we curse.
We make use of God's name to exasperate the violence of
12*
138 ON SWEARING.
our own foolish passions, and to sharpen the edge of those
trifling vexations, which are entailed upon us all, in our pas-
sage through the world.
It may not, perhaps, be quite clear where the great danger
of using the name of God upon common occasions can be :
the danger (and a very serious one it is) is this, that we fa-
miharize ourselves too much with that awful name ; — that the
humble reverence, with which it should always be thought
of and pronounced, be exchanged for confidence and bold-
ness ; — that, having broken through the pales of the altar, we
approach to the sanctuary itself; — that, having accustomed
ourselves to talk of God without fear, we break through his
laws without hesitation ; and end with bad actions after we
have begun with impious words.
These outworks and fences of religion are of the most
sacred importance ; — no man breaks out at once into great
vices ; no man is of a sudden notoriously wicked; but he be-
gins with little faults, — he abstains from public worship, — he
loses gradually the awful remembrance of his Creator, — he
accustoms himself to call upon his name on the most trifling
occasions ; and then after such beginnings, foolishly imagines
he can stop just where he pleases. He who breaks through the
outward wall will soon come into the inner dwelling ; this law
is one of the strong barriers of true piety ; — ^beware how you
break it down ; — think much before you pronounce the name
of God ; — and you will think much more before you disobey his
word.' — Hallow that name with an holy fear, and you will not
trample on the laws which that holy name sanctions. Let
all your words be yea and nay ; and that will be some secu-
rity that your actions are pure and irreproachable as your lan-
guage.
The only excuse which worldly-minded men can set up
for sin is pleasure ; the present temptation is too strong ; the
sense of future evil too faint and too remote ; but who will
assert, that there is any pleasure in an oath ? — Or that in the
whole extent of language, the only words capable of commu-
nicating satisfaction, are those which are not only coarse and
vulgar, but shocking : not only shocking, but irrehgious, blas-
phemous, and bad. To take the Lord's name in vain, is to
incur guilt without delight ; and to violate a solemn command-
ment of God, merely that every one who hears us may con-
ceive a low opinion of our manners, our education, and our
understanding.
ON SWEARING. 130
It is with small vices as with trifling complaints of the
body; they become dangerous, only because they are ne-
glected. From the age of innocence, when we look at the
extremes of human depravity, the distance appears immense ;
we say, there is a great gulf between us ; — my soul can
never be darkened with such crimes as these; I shall go
down to my grave in innocence and peace. — In the mean
time, the descent from one step to another is short, and gentle,
and we arrive at the distant goal, betrayed by the artful
transition. We should take up the task of amendment,
where it is most Hkely to be attended with success ; to
struggle with great vices is always difficult, sometimes, I am
afraid, hopeless ; in checking the vice of swearing, we are
destroying the seeds of unrighteousness, and cherishing that
feeling of sanctity which is the parent of every good ; here-
after, when our religious feelings are blunted and worn away,
when our minds are prepared for the reception of every vice,
we shall find it too late to keep holy the name of the Lord our
God ; — too late to remember, that they are not guiltless who
take his name in vain.
Whatever rules any man may choose to apply to himself,
he will not deny, that it is his duty to watch, with the most
pious care, the first appearances of this dangerous vice in the
minds of children ; that a young person at least, should be
taught never to pronounce the name of God, but with feelings
of pious gratitude, and unbounded veneration; never, without
remembering that God breathed into him the breath of life ;
that, at his will, that breath still hangs in his nostrils ; that
in a moment, his soul may be taken from him ; and that he
may be called before the throne of that being, whose power
nothing can resist ; and from whose wisdom nothing remains
concealed. The youth who has these feelings, is safe from
all flagrant and enormous crimes ; in the moment of tempta-
tion, he flies to them as to the horns of the altar ; and, in the
day of his adversity, they are his stony rock, his buckler,
and his shield.
It is very striking, in our perusal of the Scriptures, to
remark the awful manner in which the name of God is men-
tioned ; and the noble images and allusions with which it
is surrounded and hallowed : Moses says, that it is eternal,
everlasting, not to be changed. Solomon calls it the frontlet
to his eyes; Isaiah says it is the tower of his heart. — Zecha-
riah calls it a wall of fire. — Joel, and Amos, and Haggai, say
140 ON SWEARING.
it is a miracle, and a glory, and a burning light. Prophets,
lawgivers, and sacred kings bless it; the worst only, and the
lowest of men, revile it, and trample it in the dust. This is
the way that common minds speak of the first and great
cause of all ; but David says, that when he called upon God,
the earth shook, and trembled ; that the very foundations of
the hills were shaken. " He bowed the Heavens, and came
down ; darkness was under his feet ; he rode upon a cheru-
bin ; — he did fly upon the wings of the wind ; he made dark-
ness his secret place ; his pavilion round about him was dark
waters, and thick clouds of the skies. The Lord also thun-
dered in the Heavens, and the highest gave his voice. Then
the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the
world were discovered. At thy rebuke, oh God ; at the blast
of the breath of thy nostrils." — This is not mere imagination,
but wise and instructive piety ; the loftiest flight, and the
boldest epithet have their use ; whatever exalts the Deity,
enforces obedience to his laws ; whatever degrades his name,
renders it more probable, that his commandments will not be
observed.
It is a vast advantage to keep in the heart a pure image to
look at, — something which is free from every stain of mortal
frailty ; and Avhich we may follow, though at a distance im-
measurable, and imitate, though in dimness and obscurity ;
for this reason, the thought of God is to be fenced about with
every care ; it is not to be called forth for the purposes of
any evil passion, or to gratify rash intemperance, or to give
dignity to insignificance. It is to be reserved for stupendous
affliction, poured forth in eminent distress, appealed to before
grave tribunals, and pronounced with solemn devotion, when
the dearest interests of mankind are at stake. God has given
us his name as a support to human laws, as a security to
human happiness ; it is so great and serious a possession,
the use of it is of such vast importance, that the law takes it
to itself, and pronounces it to be an offence against the public
to use it, but in prayer. And the law does this very justly,
reasoning after this manner ; that by the use of God's name
contracts are ratified ; by that pledge, men bind themselves
to the performance of high duties ; recompense is awarded ;
and crimes are punished. From a confidence that the name
of God will not be taken in vain ; so to take it, is to weaken
one of the props on which human happiness is placed ; is to
accustom yourself and others to the irreverent use of that
ON SWEARING. 141
name, upon the reverent use of which the administration of
justice intimately depends. It is in this very manner that
our Saviour preaches it, not only forbidding perjury, but for-
bidding that habit of appealing carelessly to sacred things,
which lays the foundation for a breach of oaths. " Ye have
heard how it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt
not forswear thyself;' — but I say unto you, swear not at all,
neither by Heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth,
for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of
the great king ; but let your communication be yea, and nay,
for whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil."
It is pleasant to remember, that no man can cultivate any
one virtue, without cultivating others at the same time ; now,
to watch carefully over the use we make of the name of
God, and to beware that we do not misuse it, even in the
strongest paroxysm of violence, induces a turn of mind, which
is extremely favourable to the government of our evil nature ;
for it is not probable that he, who is striving not to offend
against one commandment of God, should at that very mo-
ment offend against another ; the same awful feeling which
prevents him from blaspheming against the name of God, may
curb anger, soften hatred, and produce a general spirit of
pious moderation. To conclude ; which of all those crimes
prescribed in the decalogue is the greatest, we know not ;
as they are all equally forbidden, they are, probably, all
equally heinous : — there cannot, therefore, be a doubt, which,
in a religious point of view, it is the greatest folly to commit ;
for, to the violation of the name of God, there is no natural
impulse, nor is any great enjoyment the consequence of it ;
for though it may be difficult sometimes not to do it, there is
no sort of pleasure in doing it, nor is it a vice by which
anything is gained, but the disreputation and disgrace. In
the meantime, it is as dangerous in its consequences as if
it were agreeable in itself; it weakens the obligation of oaths,
destroys the delicacy of religious feeling, and makes all those
thoughts common, which should be reserved for the great
changes and chances of life. He, therefore, who blasphemes
out of these walls, will pray within them to little purpose ;
and, whatever be the effusions of his heart, when the world
are not by, his open profanations will not be forgotten, nor.
will God hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
.1^ ' >?^i
SERMON XX
ON MEEKNESS.
The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of a great
price. — First Epistle of Peter hi. verse 4.
The meekness of the Gospel has been so far mistaken by
one sect of Christians, that they have erroneously interpreted
it to mean passive submission to violence and injury; a
principle which operates as an incitement to many bad pas-
sions, by leaving to them their undisputed reward, and urges
us to abandon those salutary means of defence, implanted by
nature for the encouragement of justice, and the due order of
the world.
That all men should cease to resist, would be of very Httle
importance unless all men were to cease to attack ; for, other-
wise, such a system would be merely the extinction of all
rights, and the quiet toleration of every wrong. On the con-
trary, if the object be to diminish, as much as possible, the
quantity of evil in the universe, and if its sudden destruction
be impossible, it is much better to render vice and violence
unsuccessful in their object, by that calm yet vigilant resist-
ance which is more desirous of preventing future than re-
venging past aggression.
As I cannot, for these reasons believe, that the meekness of
the Gospel is pusillanimity, I cannot allow it any more to be
error; it cannot consist in an undue depreciation of ourselves,
or an ignorance of any one superiority we may chance to
possess over our fellow-creatures ; the Gospel never teaches
ignorance; it stimulates man to the study of himself as the
best of all wisdom ; it permits him to discover the rank which
God has assigned to him; but threatens him with omnipotent
anger, if he turns the gifts of the Creator to the scorn and
ON MEEKNESS. 143
oppression of the creature, and when he feels the pride of
talents or of power ; the Scriptures unveil to him the glory of
God, and tell him of the days of the life of man, that they
are few and evil ; and that when the breath of his nostrils is
gone, he returneth again to his dust.
Christian meekness is neither ignorance nor pusillanimity ;
but the meekness of the Gospel, so far as it is concerned in
the vindication of its own rights, vindicates them only when
they are of considerable importance. Nothing more distant
from the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit than the inces-
sant and scrupulous vindication of minute rights, and an
avidity for litigation and contest ; a meek man will cede much,
and before he vindicates a right, or resents an injury, will
consider if that for which he contends is worth the price of
peace, not only if it be an object for which justice will permit
him to struggle, but one which prudence forbids him to re-
linquish ; he will pass over many trifling wrongs, forgive
slight injuries as the natural and inevitable consequences of
the imperfect morality of man; he will subdue malice by
openness and benignity ; turn away wrath by soft answers ;
disarm hostility by patience ; and endure much for the Gospel,
that he may gain the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,
which, in the sight of God, is of a great price.
Evangelical meekness is never more exemplified than in
the proper management of superior talents, so as to make
them rather a source of pleasure and encouragement than of
apprehension to those with whom we live. The same ob-
servation applies equally to superior rank, superior birth, and
every species of artificial as well as natural distinction ; meek-
ness softens down the distance between man and man, sweet-
ens the malevolent passions which it is apt to excite, and is
so far from diminishing subordination, that it strengthens it
by converting a duty into a pleasure. For mankind are at
the bottom, perhaps well aware that they must be governed,
and the obedience of men may be raised into a species of idola-
try, when those who could command them court them ; and
when they find the garb of power laid aside on purpose to
give pleasure, and diffuse the cheerfulness and confidence of
equality. The true meekness of the Gospel, therefore, is
powerfully evinced in the suppression of any superiority that
may be painful and oppressive, by informing rather than ex-
posing the ignorant ; by raising up the humble and judiciously
bringing forward to notice those whose merits are obscured
144 ON MEEKNESS.
by their apprehensions; Christianity is not confined to
churches and to hospitals ; to houses of mourning or of prayer;
but it penetrates every situation, and it decorates every rela-
tion of life ; the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit may be
worn amidst worldly joys without diminishing them. We
may be near to God, when we seem the most distant from
him, and offer up a sacrifice of meekness that shall be as
pleasant as a prayer in the temple.
It is not only unchristian, but it is unworthy and little to
thrust forward every pretension to notice ; — to blazen our-
selves over with the arms and insignia of our merits, and to
be perpetually occupied with putting the rest of the world in
mind of their inferiority ; — greatness is, then, infinitely at-
tractive, when it seems unconscious of itself; when it is de-
tected by others ; not when it publishes and praises its own
importance ; — when it is called forth by the chances of the
world to eminence and light ; and is unconscious of the wonder
amid the praises and acclamations of mankind.
A meek man does not exact minute and constant attentions
from his fellow-creatures ; he is not apt to form an exaggerated
estimate of the duties which are owing to him ; — he is grate-
ful for little services, and affectionate for any slight mark of
notice and respect ; — he attributes every act of benevolence,
not to his own merits, but to yours ; — he is thankful for what
has been conferred, without being incensed that more has
been withheld. To give to the meek is to lend to that
Saviour whom they imitate ; is to confer favours upon a man
who is ever ready to repay them seven fold, because his me-
mory of them is tenacious and his gratitude lively : his spirit
burns with a consuming fire, till he can make the soul of his
benefactor leap with joy.
On the contrary, the most obliging disposition cannot keep
pace with the pretensions of a proud man. The most ar-
duous efforts to promote his interests, he considers as so many
duties owing to his merits ; no sacrifice is too humble, no con-
cession too flattering, no negligence venial, no momentary
remission of benevolent exertion to be endured ; — whatever
you confer you lose, for whatever you are deficient you suffer ;
it is a service abundant in punishment, and utterly barren of
reward.
If a meek man hides his own superiority, he is ever ready
to do justice to the pretensions of others ; the weak, the ab-
sent and the defenceless feel safe in his judgments ; they are
ON MEEKNESS. 14S
sure not to be tortured by asperity of speech, malignantly
calumniated or sacrificed to unprincipled ridicule; — their
virtues and excellent qualities he is ever ready to acknow-
ledge, because he has no motive to suppress them, — his jus-
tice gives us ease, his innocence security, — we repose on
such a Christian character, — it is the shadow of a large rock
in a weary land ; we cast ourselves under it for refreshment,
and peace, weary with the dust, and the heat, and the panting
Of life.
As man advances in civilization, the feelings of his mind
become so vulnerable and acute, that severity of invective,
the mere power of inculpative words becomes more intolera-
ble than bodily pain, or any evil that fortune can impose.
The intemperate expressions of anger i"nflict wounds which
are never healed for a life, and lay the foundation of animo-
sities which no subsequent conciliation can ever appease.
The tongue of a meek Christian is held with a bridle ; — his
words are yea and nay, righteous, temperate, beautiful and
calm; — remonstrance without bitterness, — firmness without
passion, — pardon without reproach; — he has not to lament
that disgraceful and unchristian violence of speech which
often excites as much remorse in those who indulge it, as in-
dignation in those against whom it is directed, a virulence
often used with as much freedom as if men were proper and
candid judges of their own injuries, and with as much force
as if every slight injury against ourselves canceled all the
rights of humanity towards its author, and marked him out as
the fit victim of impure and unbridled invective.
The meek disciple of him who was the meekest of all, is
strongly impressed with the vanity andunworthiness of every-
thing human; in whatever station he may place himself,
relative to his fellow-creatures, he cannot deduce materials
for pride, for he deems that the highest are low, and the
strongest frail, and the earth an idle dream ; while vulgar
pride attaches the highest degree of importance to every-
thing, however distantly and minutely related to itself;
meekness, in viewing itself, and the earth upon which it is
placed, trembles at the attributes, and the works of God, and
wonders that it should be remembered amidst the labyrinth
of moving worlds.
It subdues high-mindedness by reflecting on the ignorance
with which human schemes are planned,— the casualties by
which they are interrupted, the unexpected consequences by
13
146 ON MEEKNESS.
which they are followed, — and the shortness of life by which
they are frustrated, dissipated, and mocked. This view of
the insignificance of life, intended for the cure of pride, may,
by abuse and misapplication, encourage levity and inactiv-
ity ; we are not to be careless in the government of our-
selves, and in the adjustment of our conduct, because this
world, contrasted with the sum of things, is insignificant ; and
to pass through life in boisterous merriment, or supine indif-
ference, because life is short ; — this world, so insignificant, is
the world in which we are destined to act, this life so short,
is all that is granted us for probation ; its narrow Hmits, its
feeble powers, and its sad vicissitudes, cannot justify sloth or
despair, though they ought to subdue pride, and to promote
that ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is so con-
genial to the Gospel, and so well adapted to the condition of
man.
The absence of this meekness produces a false estimation
of life, and gives birth to many follies and some vices ; a
proud man is, in his own eyes, the best and greatest work of
God ; the most trivial circumstance which relates to himself,
is of more importance than the happiness or misery of a
province ; as often as he condescends to mention them,
he exacts the most lively and watchful sympathy to the
minutest of his pleasures and his pains : as he is every-
thing to himself, he expects he should be everything to you ;
he not only confines his thoughts to this world, but to that
particular atom of it which he is ; whether this atom be hot,
or cold, or moist, or dry, or joyful, or sad ; these are the
principles which, in his estimation, should diffuse joy or
sadness over the creation, and regulate the sum of things.
Placability is a common attribute of the character described
in my text : whoever thinks humbly of himself, will not be
prone to conceive the injuries he experiences, as too atro-
cious for pardon, too enormous to be washed away with tears,
or atoned for by contrition ; perhaps he who has suflfered the
injury, has in some measure caused it ; perhaps, under similar
circumstances, he might have inflicted it ; he has done as
much before to others ; he may do as much again ; his trans-
gressions against God are innumerable ; he is placed, for a
few years, among frail beings, of a mixed and fluctuating
nature, himself as frail as they ; why judge as he would fear
to be judged ? why make a life of suffering a life of wrath ?
why exhibit the spectacle of remorseless insignificance ?
ON MEEKNESS. 147
these are the considerations which dispose a quiet and humble
mind to the forgiveness of injuries, and increasing benevolence
in the world, promote the mild and merciful purposes of the
Gospel.
The last characteristic of meekness, which I shall specify,
is long suffering, — patience for the weaknesses and trans-
gressions of others as far as wisdom will permit ; something
opposed to irascibihty and quickness of resentment. And
this is not mere facility of temper which prefers any endur-
ance, however great, to any opposition however slight ; but
a conviction that forbearance often does more than violence ;
that men are never more grateful than when they come
afterwards to discover that their errors and offences have
been borne with affectionate patience, from the hope of future
amendment. It is from meekness alone, that the most com-
plete and lasting penitence is produced ; that which proceeds
not from the reproaches and the punishments of others, but
from the reproaches which he who has offended makes to
himself; that which a bad son feels at the speechless grief of
his mother ; or an ungrateful friend at the silent melancholy
of his benefactor ; or a false disciple at the sight of his mas-
ter. — Thus the fugitive apostle, whom anger might have
hardened, was subdued by the meekness of Christ, — " and
Jesus looked upon him, and straightway Peter went out, and
wept bitterly."
Having thus expressed some clear and definite notions of
what meekness is, it shall be my care, on some future occa-
sion, to point out the pleasures which result from this orna-
ment of a meek and a quiet spirit, and the expedients which
suggest themselves for the subjugation of those passions which
are unfriendly to its attainment ; for it is ever our duty to
promote the fruit of the spirit, which are joy, and peace, and
rest ; it has pleased God to try us here, with divers diseases,
and sundry kinds of death ; these we cannot strive with, and
when God calls them away, we must part with children, and
we must often bear miserable wants and sorrows ; but these
are enough ; let us not pour fresh bitterness into the bitter
cup of life : — A little while and we shall be gone hence and
be no more seen; till then, peace, forgiveness of injuries and
tenderness to the infirmities of man. We may thus catch a
few moments from the inclemency of fate, and open in our
hearts those springs of love and mercy which will flow on
till they are swallowed up by the grave.
v^nm^^
SEEM ON XXI.
ON THE MODE OF PASSING THE
SABBATH.
And it came to pass that he went through the corn fields on the Sabbath
day, and his disciples began to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees
said unto him, behold, why do they, on the Sabbath day, that which is
not lawful ; and he said unto them, the Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath. — Mark ii. verses 23, 24, 27.
As the Sabbath day is of divine institution, we are bound
to keep it holy ; and we should have been equally bound to
have done so, if we were unable to discover the reasons for
which its sanctification was ordained ; but the reasons for the
law, and its utility, are so far from doubtful, that it probably
would have originated with man, if it had not been commanded
by his Creator ; and the weary nations would have found a
Sabbath for their toils, unhallowed by the structure of the
globe, and by the rest of God.
The great importance of the Sabbath, not only for the pro-
motion of righteousness, but even for our mere temporal
welfare, is too generally admitted to need much discussion.
If the duties of religion were left to be performed by every
one, at the time, and after the manner they thought best,
there would be a considerable risk that they were not per-
formed at all. The public, and periodical exercise of worship,
is the best security for sound doctrine ; the teachers of religion
teach openly to the world, and artifice, fanaticism, and cre-
dulity, which begin always in obscurity, are subjected to the
wholesome restraint of public opinion. We are so absorbed,
also, in the business, the pleasure, and the vanities, of this
world, that the recollection of any other, would, but for the
institution of the Sabbath, be very soon obliterated. It is
ON THE MODE of' PASSING THE SABBATH. 149
absolutely necessary that the chain of our ideas should be
broken, and a new system of reflections introduced ; the
cessation of business and amusement, the quiet of the Sab-
bath, the unusual appearance of objects, the solemnity of
manner and deportment, observable on this day, have all
some little tendency to rouse the most thoughtless, to awe the
most profligate into a sense of duty, and to inspire feelings
of contrition and remorse. The remembrance of youthful
feelings has ever a strong influence on the minds of men ;
those who have been brought up, when young, in a pious
observance of the Sabbath, to whom religious instruction has
been rendered pleasant by sweetness of manner and dexterity
of management, can never meet the Sabbath without experi-
encing, in some small degree, the same interesting feelings ;
and when they have tried in vain the pleasures of sin, and
found (as I firmly believe every man must find,) that happi-
ness is derived only from that righteousness which the Gospel
of Christ prescribes, they will return to the Sabbath, and
seek from the calm sanctity of that day, the pure enjoyments
of their youth.
The importance of the Sabbath admitted, the first question
arising from the subject concerns the best method of passing
it. The rule our Saviour has given us is one of the greatest
importance ; the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath ; that is, man was not created for the mere purpose
of complying with certain ceremonies, and obeying certain
prohibitions ; but these ceremonies were instituted, and these
prohibitions enacted to produce an effect upon man, to mor-
tify in him all sinfulness of the flesh, to cherish in him the
spirit of righteousness, and to meliorate his fallen nature.
The Sabbath, in fact, was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath. Taking the text in this sense, I shall proceed to
observe upon the method of passing the Sabbath.
The common excuse in the minds of those who are so
unhappily frivolous that they cannot abstain from unbecom-
ing amusements, even on the Sabbath, is, that if they were
not doing what they do do, they should be doing something .
worse. But this style of reasoning, if it can possibly justify
any fault, must justify all except the greatest : things are
either good or bad in themselves ; a bad thing is not good
because others are worse, nor is it any excuse for walking
in the paths of sin, that we are only midway, and have not
yet reached the extremity ; the answer is surely very obvious
13*
150 ON THE MODE OF PASSING THE SABBATH.
to such an excuse ; why do you continue in such an ungodly
state, that you must either do that which you do not approve,
or something else which you approve still less ? Why must
your progress he from negligence to guilt, and why the very
moment that you abstain from levity on the Sabbath must
you be charged with crime ? the fact may be true, but it is
no justification of your contempt for the Sabbath ; it is only
to say, though we are unwilling to make those sacrifices
and exertions necessary to a discharge of our duty, we will
not deviate from that duty grossly ; we will disobey God in
a method as little burthensome to our conscience as possible ;
but disobey him we must ; such is the plain meaning of that
style of reasoning which many of us are unfortunate enough
to consider as an excuse for the violation of the Sabbath.
Amusement on the Sabbath is not vice, perhaps, but untimely
amusement leads to ungodhness, by checking seriousness
and sanctity of thought, and by breaking down the barriers
of propriety. The greater part of those who avail them-
selves, to any Christian purpose, of the institution of the
Sabbath, do not do so, perhaps, from any preconceived resolu-
tion ; but the quiet solemnity of the day, and the total altera-
tion of the usual appearances, insensibly introduce a new
train of ideas, which could never be the case if the same
resources of frivolous dissipation were equally accessible at
every period. On this day, the pastor, standing between
God and the people, and clothed about with doctrines of
truth, boldly speaks of faith, and charity, and holy love, and
preaches Christ crucified, and the sound of the trumpet, the
dead rising from their graves, and the life of the world to
come ; and when he hears these things, (for on this day alone
he does hear them,) the miscreant of this earth trembles, the
loftiest guilt gathers paleness, the cross is hfted up on high,
and every soul is prostrate at the feet of Christ. It is on this
day, perhaps, that the man who has been gathering, and
hoarding all his life, begins first to find his confidence in
earthly treasures weakened and impaired ; on this day, the
strong think of death ; the youthful of old age ; the comely of
pale disease ; on this day, the son of pleasure starts from his
delicious vices, and thinks of a world to come.
Those common amusements, the innocence of which is,
by some, so strongly contended for, must have a tendency to
destroy completely the virtue and efficacy of the Sabbath ; it
is in the absence of our usual occupations, and at the season
^
ON THE MODE OF PASSING THE SABBATH. 151
of leisure, that conscience regains her empire over us, and that
man is compelled to hear the reproaches of his own heart ;
the mind turned inwardly upon itself, beholds the melancholy-
ravages of passion, the treacherous power of pleasure, and
the sad waste of Hfe. Every recurring Sabbath properly
spent, is a fresh chance for salvation ; if dignity is ever reco-
vered after the feehng of self-degradation has been long en-
dured ; if the latter half of Hfe is ever dedicated to the Avorks
of godliness and knowledge, when the days of youth have
been squandered in impiety and ignorance ; if tears of feeling
ever flow again from the dry eye ; if blushes of shame are
ever brought back to the hardened cheek, it is to the awful
voice and warning aspect of the Sabbath more than to any
other cause, that mankind are indebted for these wholesome
and pleasing examples of repentance.
To keep the Sabbath in levity, and with every species of
ordinary indulgence, is not to keep it at all ; it diminishes
the probability of improvement by making us believe that we
have dedicated a day to rehgion which we have dedicated to
everything but rehgion ; like all other false piety, it confirms
and supports sin by inspiring an unmerited approbation of
ourselves, and by soothing the useful severity of inward exa-
mination; in this, indeed, and in every other similar case, it
may be doubtful whether it were not better to lay aside all
pretensions to religion at once than to quiet our conscience
by a belief so powerless, that we cannot sacrifice to it, for the
least interval of time, the least of all our pleasures. After
all I have said, it is but too plain from whence these trifling
arguments for trifling away the Sabbath proceed : they pro-
ceed, I fear, from that advanced state of wealth and civiliza-
tion, w^hich precludes so many human beings from the neces-
sity of any mental exertion, and the example of this class of
society spreads rapidly downwards, destroying as it descends ;
they learn early to seek for gratification, which is immediate,
and become so weakened by long indulgence that they are
incapable of supporting serious thought for a single instant ;
that vacuity is considered as worse than death, which is not
filled up by the exultations of vanity or the perturbations of
sense. Such is the deep infatuation, and the melancholy
imbecility of a life of fashionable amusement, called by the
current error of the world, a life of pleasure ; but pitied by
the good and wise, as a life of wretchedness, leading to a
death of despair.
153 ON THE MODE OF PASSING THE SABBATH.
Having said thus much upon the manner in which the
Sabbath ought not to be passed, it will be still more easy to
state the few simple rules which that solemn institution calls
upon us to fulfil. The first of these is public worship ; the
great object of every human being should be, his progress in
righteousness ; and the sanctity of the Sabbath surely affords
us the most favourable of all occasions for such a communica-
tion with our own hearts. What have I done wrong ? In
what manner could I have acted more conformably to the
spirit of the Gospel ? What rules for future conduct can I
found upon my failures and my misfortunes? Whence have
my joys and my sorrows sprung ? Am I advancing in the
great science of life ? Is my dominion over present enjoyment
strengthened ? Is my perception of distant good enhvened ?
Am I the disciple of Christ ? Do I strive by a just, gentle,
and benevolent life, to keep my conscience void of offence
towards God and man ? This is the true use and this is the
proper discipline of the Sabbath : thus live the souls of the
just in the dungeons of the flesh; thus the blessings and glories
of the Gospel are scattered over the face of the earth.
It is also an important part of the duties of the Sabbath, to
converse with serious and impressive books : such, above all,
as the great and eloquent ministers of the word have left
behind them for a memorial to all time, for a pillar of light in
the desert : by their arguments, their piety, and their learn-
ing, the devout Christian will find his reason enlightened,
his faith confirmed, his knowledge expanded, his zeal in-
flamed, and he will rise up from the labours of the dead to
act a wiser and better part among the living.
On the Sabbath, every man ought to think of death ; not
to think of death languidly, but to bring it in bold relief before
his eyes ; to gaze at it as if he were hereafter to meet it, and
to learn from that effort of his mind, the most difficult, and
the most sublime of all lessons. This is the season in which
we are called on to fling off the drapery of the world, to for-
get we are powerful, to forget we are young, to forget we
are rich, to pass over all the scenes of life, till we get at the
last, and to remember only, that we must die, and be judged
by the Son of God. For the Sabbath is not only a day of
rest to the body, but it is a day of refreshment to the mind.
The spirit of it is not only to lift up the body that is bowed
down, but to purify the soul that is spotted by the world.
Thou §halt do no manner of work, thou shalt not be the slave
ON THE MODE OF PASSING THE SABBATH. 153
of avarice, nor of ambition, nor of vanity, nor of pride ; as your
body is cheered for the toils of the days that are to come,
your soul shall be more estranged from the temptations of
life, and better guarded against its perils.
To conclude ; one of the main pillars on which religion,
and consequently our temporal and eternal happiness rests,
is the conservation of the Sabbath ; against this the natural
course of human vices, and the designed attacks of profligate
innovators, will be powerfully directed ; here the best interests
of mankind are to be defended by vigilance, by strong unso-
phisticated sense, and by a decided disregard of that ridicule
that would throw an air of rusticity, inelegance, and even of
bigotry, over these institutions, of themselves solemn and
affecting; but from what they protect, inestimable. If ever
we live to see the Sabbath dwindle down to an ordinary day
of pleasure and of toil, the sun of Christianity is for a time
set ; God will give us up to the madness of our crimes, and
after a century of horrors, we shall begin to remember that
that there was once a day, which our forefathers set apart
to repent them of their sins, and to worship th^ l^qrd thei?
God.
SERMON XXII.
ON THE ERRORS OF YOUTH.
It is good for a man that hfe bear the yoke in his youth. — Lamentations
Of Jeremiah hi. verse 27.
The best days of life are soon gone ; and time, that stayeth
never for man, seems then to fly with greater speed. Death
lingers to the old, the night is long to the sick man, the fresh-
ness of the morning will not bring him his strength, and he
crieth out in vain for the peace of the grave. To all these
the sun is slow in his course, and they bear the burthen of
their days ;— -but youth is a dream of gladness which comes
but to vanish ; it is sweet as a smile that perishes ; it is bright
and rapid as the arrows of God when he shooteth his light-
nings in the heavens.
If youth, then, is the season when the foundation of wisdom
is to be laid, and if that season passeth away thus rapidly,
we must not suffer occasions to escape us which admit of no
substitute ; nor neglect improvements which no other period
of life will ever enable us to attain.
By the yoke, I understand the sacred writer to mean, in
general, a state of discipline ; everything which education
teaches ; the restraint of passions, the formation of habits, and
the cultivation of faculties. It is not my intention, at present,
to launch into so wide a field as that to which this explanation
would seem to lead; but in pointing out a few of the charac-
teristic faults of youth, to show in what manner the young
are most likely to prove intractable to that yoke, which the
prophet admonishes them to bear, and to make it clear what
those sins and infirmities are which present the most serious
obstacle to their progress in Christian improvement.
The first error I shall notice, and to which I consider youth
ON THE ERRORS OF YOUTH. 155
to be more exposed than any other period of life, is conceit ;
that which our Saviour characterizes under the name of high-
mindedness, an over-weaning opinion of our own good and
great quahties.
^ The reason of this is very obvious ; the comparisons the
young have made between themselves and their fellow-crea-
tures are few in proportion to what they must make here-
after ; absolute standard of excellence there is none ; — we
only think ourselves great because we think others little;
and the more human beings we mingle with, and the more
frequently we institute the comparison, the more probable it
is that we shall find our equals, and our superiors in every
accomplishment, and in every virtue.
We often observe men, whose sphere of life has been ex-
tremely confined, to be conceited through every period of
their existence, — for the same reason that the young are con-
ceited in its earliest period, because they have measured
themselves with very few of their species, and mistaking all
that they have seen, for all that there is, have so confirmed
themselves in habitual conceit, that the delusion is totally
impregnable to all future conviction.
Growing experience forces upon the young a perception
of their unjust pretensions ; they begin to discover that the
world had made some progress in knowledge before their
existence, and that their birth will not be hailed as the great
era of wisdom and of truth. — It is necessary to live for a
considerable time, and in various scenes, to perceive fully
the wisdom of those practices which the world has estab-
lished, not at the suggestion of any one individual, but from
the gradual conviction of all, that they were best adapted to
promote the general happiness. Our fathers, in their youth-
ful days, questioned with as much acuteness, and decided
with as much temerity as we can do in ours ; if the progress
of life has taught them to respect what in its origin they
despised ; if they have traced to the dictates of experience,
many things which they at first attributed to prejudice and
ignorance ; if they have learnt to mistrust themselves and
confide more in the general feelings and judgments of the
world, — ^we ought not to suppose ourselves protected from
the same revolution of opinions, or imagine that those early
conceptions of human life shall be permanent now, which
never have been permanent before.
,i These remonstrances against conceit (a faihngas injurious to
166 ON tKt ERRORS OF YOUTH.
the acquisition of Christian as of human improvement), are by-
no means directed against the spirit of free inquiry; from which
a strong mind cannot and ought not to be debarred, any more
than a strong body ought to be from perfect activity of motion ;
only the young should consider that it is not a necessary conse^
quence that no reason can be found because they can find none;
or even obtain none from a few persons to whom they have pro-
posed their difficulty ; and who, perhaps, can see and practice
right without the power of explaining or defending it.
To incline to the one side or the other is natural and not
blamable in the young ; but when you are so liable to error, do
not decide so that you cannot decently retract ; avoid the fatal
mistake of being so violent and positive that you are either
sacramented for life, to the first crude system you have
adopted, or forced to abandon it, hereafter, with the imputation
of folly or of guilt. Courage and firmness in maintaining im-
portant opinions are worthy attributes, but in proportion as
any opinion is marked by moderation and formed upon re-
flection, it is most likely to be retained with spirit. Extrava-
gance in opinion is the parent of change, and frequent change
produces at last a profligate indifference to all opinion. The
person who is firm and consistent in his manhood, has most
probably been modest in his youth ; so true it is that all the
humility so strongly enjoined by the Gospel is not calculated
to repress and extinguish human powers, but to adjust the
degree of confidence with which they are exercised, to the
degree of excellence with which they are endowed, and to
take care that that which is fallible should not be presump-
tuous.
- All those who judge of the world by ideal rather than
actual models of excellence, are in some little danger of be-
coming too contemptuous ; — the imagination can easily repre-
sent somewhat superior to what ever existed or ever will
exist ; by assembling all the excellencies which nature has
scattered among many real beings into one fictitious one; and,
by omitting all defects, we have at once a monster of perfec-
tion, to which our sad medley of good and evil cannot be
compared without disgrace. — Such is the case with the young
who despise imperfection, because extended observation has
not yet shown them, that the realities of life always fall far
short of the pictures of the mind, and that they can easily
conceive what they never will be able to find. The increase
of years with many evils brings this good,- — that our expecta-
ON THE ERRORS OF YOUTH^ 157
tions of life are more accommodated to its true state ; we are
no longer surprised at flagrant inconsistencies in character,
nor disgusted that prejudice and weakness should twine
round the loftiest virtues ; we are contented with the mixtures
of good and evil, as it has been mingled for us and do not
despise our species because God has made them lower than
the angels.
Prudence is, perhaps, another cause that checks the indul-
gence of contempt as we advance in life ; the world we find
has inevitable difficulties enough without the wanton exaspe-
ration of our fellow-creatures. Contempt is commonly mis-
taken by the young for an evidence of understanding ; but no
habit of mind can afford this evidence, which is neither diffi-
cult to acquire nor meritorious when it is acquired ; and as it
is certainly very easy to be contemptuous, so it is very useless
if not very pernicious. To discover the imperfections of
others is penetration ; to hate them for those faults is con-
tempt. We may be clear-sighted without being malevolent,
and make use of the errors we discover to learn caution, not to
gratify satire ; that part of contempt which consists of acute-
ness we may preserve ; its dangerous ingredient is censure.
Contempt so far from being favourable to the improvement
of the mind, is, perhaps, directly the reverse ; it increases so
rapidly that it soon degenerates into a passion for condemna-
tion ; the sense of what is good withers away, and the per-
ception of evil becomes so keen and insatiable that every
decision we'make is satire, not judgment. All things have a
double aspect ; the contemptuous man sees them only on one
side and does not believe they have any other ; he has sacri-
ficed an excellent faculty to an unchristian and malevolent
indulgence.
Wisdom consists in doing difficult things which the mass
of mankind cannot do : there is a much more compendious
road to reputation in doing nothing and in blaming everything;
in pointing out where others are deficient without proving
where we excel. In this way a contemptuous person gives
himself virtues by implication, as if the opposite perfection
were immediately infused into his own mind, the moment he
had discovered a defect in the mind of another. Real wisdom
rather delights in positive exertions and seeks for reputation
by showing what itself is, not by boasting what others are
not.
Contempt and conceit are those faults which Christianity
14
158 ON THE ERRORS OF YOUTH.
SO often condemns under the appellation of high-mindedness ;
they are passions connected with hatred ; and utterly incom-
patible with that simple and venerable benevolence which our
Saviour practised, loved and taught ; and, surely, if any one
has a right to look down upon the world with contempt, it is
not he who has just entered into it ; if great actions, admi-
rable qualities and profound knowledge, are sources of superi-
ority, they most probably will not be traced in that person to
whom so short a period of existence has yet afforded little
leisure for thought, word and deed.
Impatience of obscurity is another fault of which the young
are very apt to be guilty; and a fault the more to be compas-
sionated, because by a very little management it might be
converted into a virtue. The highest virtue flows only from
an obedience to the will of God, as evinced in the Scriptures;
but we must meliorate the wrong if we cannot attain the
right ; and regulate that love of praise which we cannot ex-
tirpate. The best atonement we can make for loving the
praise of men is by loving that praise only which is given to
actions difficult, meritorious and good. Unfortunately the
young are so fond of attracting notice, that they are often in-
duced to purchase it at any price ; — by spirited extravagance
— super-eminence in vice — by a bold violation of the restric-
tions of society — by paradox — by a witty contempt for the
good maxims which safely guide slower understandings — by
assuming a versatile profligacy of opinion, such as has some-
times marked brilliant men of extraordinary parts — by an
unripe skepticism which doubts before comprehension or
discussion — by levity, which laughs when the wise tremble,
and would mock at God, to gain a moment's applause from
the lowest of his creatures. By this impatience, displaying
itself in some one or other of these shapes, the young are
often irretrievably ruined. 'J'hey do not reflect that they
must be httle before they can be great ; that the privilege of
being listened to must be gained by listening ; and that he
who is too vain to begin with being insignificant, will most
probably be so through the whole of his existence. There is
one path to real fame, but that is sHppery and steep ; many
fall headlong down ; and few ever arrive at the summit. If
you have power, begin, but take the true path or none ; be too
proud to implore a little praise for your follies and perversi-
ties ; if you cannot dig, be ashamed to beg; you had better be
the lowest of man than glorious in the annals of sin, and
ON THE ERRORS OF YOUTH, 159
honoured by the vicious only because you have exceeded
them in vice ; this is a greatness of which any man who could
be truly great would be heartily ashamed. Let us be honestly
obscure or rightfully eminent. The praise of this world is
an idle breath, even when it is well deserved ; but when it
breathes on the wicked, it only reddens the flames of hell.
There can hardly be any occasion that I should descant
much upon the impetuosity of youth ; it is so sure of bring-
ing with it its own corrective, and the inconvenience is so
obviously and immediately connected with its cause, that
there is less need of proving its existence or animadverting
upon its consequences. We should always frame in our minds
the most consummate model of each virtue ; fashioning our
own conduct upon it, as well as we are able, and sure that a
proportionate excellence will always be observed between them,
whatever be the absolute distance between the standard and
the imitation. Impetuosity then is not the most perfect model
of courage ; there is something in it to admire and much to
blame ; we must select from it the admirable and never rest
satisfied till we have wrought out a perfect image of what
that virtue is which impetuosity counterfeits; and to the
slight infusion of which it owes all the little admiration it
excites. It is very possible to be firm in the maintainance of
rights, and in the discharge of duties, without being violent.
That conviction of the justice of our cause, which is one of the
great props of virtue, is best preserved when we are least likely
to impair it by the violence of passion. When we are growing
higher in our own estimation, by the moderation we exhibit, and
by that management which enables us to become firm instead
ot fierce. Impetuosity is still more useless in the business
than in the dangers of life. The power of good sense is as
irresistible as the power of gravitation ; there are disturbing
forces ; but in the great cycle of ages the world is governed
by calm and circumspect men ; whose sagacity in discerning
and whose consistency in acting are rarely disturbed by emo-
tions which they cannot control. The greatest of all men are
those who can use their passions as auxiliaries without obey-
ing them as masters. But involuntary impetuosity is so much
an enemy to understanding that it is better to want passions
altogether than blindly to obey them.
There is no fault which Christianity labours more to cor-
rect than that of an impetuous mind. " Could I not call down
legions of Angels?" said Jesus, as he went captive to the hall
160 ON THE ERRORS OF YOUTH.
of Pilate. He spake no word against them, say the Scrip-
tures, though they clothed him in the mock robe of majesty,
and beat him with rods, and crowned him with thorns ; and
when they had nailed his limbs to the cross, he said, " Lord, be
merciful to them ; they know not what they do."
These are the principal errors by an attention to which
the salutary yoke of discipline may be best supported in the
season of youth. To put on that humihty which is so well
accommodated to the beginning of wisdom and the beginning
of life, will spare future shame and future change ; and enable
us to pursue a simple, consistent tenour of improvement in
piety and knowledge. In subduing a tendency to contempt
we shall avoid malevolent feelings, which always bring with
them their own punishment; we shall not become blind to
perfections and curiously acute only in the detection of evil.
In reducing vanity Avithin due bounds, we shall remain under
our own laws instead of yielding obedience to a multitude ;
we shall live, not in dramatic agitation, but with firmness,
freedom and content. In curbing early impetuosity and con-
verting it into steady perseverance in affairs, and cool intre-
pidity in dangers, we shall pass through life safely and pros-
perously, and with as little experience of evil as wisdom can
ensure in a world where wisdom does not reign alone. — The
sum and glory of these individual improvements are a rich
progress in Christian wisdom. — A mind beautifully inlaid
with the thoughts of angels, and wrought about with the
signs and marks of Heaven. Bear this yoke for a while
when you are young that you may be free when you are
old ; that you may walk through life unmanacled by passions,
unchained by lusts, spurning the lash of Satan, and deriding
the bondage of sin ; that you may come to that holy and
happy land where no yoke is borne ; where the souls of
just men are illumined with amazing glory, and compassed
round about by the holiness of God.
SERMON XXIII.
ON SELF-EXAMINATION.
,_'J
We spend our years, as it were a tale that is told. — Psalms xc. verse 9.
When we hear a story pleasantly set forth in appropriate
language and with well-contrived incidents, the mind hangs
upon it eagerly, and falls from a certain height of enjoyment
when it is concluded : there is no sense of the passage of
time : hut the wit and genius of the narrator abridge it to
the duration of a moment ; so it is with the years of the rich
and great ; they are spent as a tale that is pleasantly told ;
there is no monotony in the events, no slownes/ in the suc-
cession ; novelty ever refreshes the fable, and *"genius ever
adorns it : on a sudden the noise is all hushed, the tale is
told ; our years are brought to an end, and the silence of
death succeeds.
I seize then with some eagerness upon the occasion which
the conclusion of the year presents, to press upon you the
duty of self-examination, and to protest against that life which
is passed without pause and without reflection.
It is these artificial divisions of time which teach men to
think of its rapid pace ; whenever the idea of change is intro-
duced, there comes with it that melancholy which is the
parent of virtue ; the mind is carried on from one vicissitude
to another, till it stops, and trembles at the last ; now it is
that our thoughts are more than ordinarily serious ; now it is
that we listen to the lowly breathings of conscience, that we
remember that this world is not the last scene of existence,
that we catch a distant glimpse of the grave ; how blest are
they who hear from that conscience the voice of praise, and
see beyond that grave the prospect of salvation.
We spend our years as a tale that is told; that is, we live
14*
162 ON SELF-EXAMINATION.
SO as to banish reflection ; we do not enter into any serious
computation of the progress we have made in godliness ; we
do not balance the increase of virtue against the waste of life ;
there is no care that the soul should be more pure because
the body is more frail ; that the inward man should be more
fit to live with Christ, as the outward man is more ready to
fall down into his native dust.
To stop this easy and fatal flow of life, and to extract reli-
gious wisdom from years, we must have recourse to self-
examination ; another year of my life is gone ; am I better
by that year ? is there one bad passion which I have con-
quered, reduced, or even attacked ? am I more respectable in
my own eyes ? am I more the child of grace ? do I feel an
increased power over sin ? can I fairly say for the year that
is past, that I have done something ? that I have advanced
a single step towards the prize of the high calling ? or must
I say, after the sun has carried light and heat through all the
nations ; after nature has gone through her great circle ; and
the bud, and the leaf, and the fruit have once more appeared,
that I am where I was before, still sinning and resolving; still
weeping and offending ; a feeble, contrite being, unable to
attain the virtue which I seek, and sure of being punished for
the sin which I cannot avoid ?
Let us first remember, in discussing the utility of self-
examination, that it must be done at repeated intervals when
it is profitable ; or it must be done OQce for all, when it is too
late ; if you wish to moderate those reproaches which an
human being makes to his own heart, give them their entrance
now : hear them at this time in obedient silence, or they will
rush in when the tale is nearly told, and visit you with such
anguish as might well be avoided by a life of moderate
wretchedness ; if you love difficulty better than despair, and
are not willing to purchase a respite from present pain at the
expense of eternal affliction, do this now that you may not
hereafter be compelled to do worse. Judge, or God will
judge ; repent, or he will punish.
To avail ourselves of such a period as this, for the purposes
of self-examination, is more necessary in this great city, than in
any other situation, because there are fewer blanks in our
existence here than there can be anywhere else. We strug-
gle here not only for wealth and power, and pleasure, but for
the greatest wealth, the highest power, and the keenest plea-
sure. — If the game of hfe is played elsewhere with attention,
ON SELF-EXAMINATION. 163
it is played here with passionate avidity : the sun goes down
too soon ; and we chide the morning star till it brings us back
to the world. It is not here that men are ever driven back
into their own hearts ; men never see their own hearts ; they
know not what dwells there ; whether it be the powers of
darkness, or the angels of God.
It is not merely the want of leisure in great cities, which
makes it necessary to enter into that voluntary self-examina-
tion to which we should never be impelled from the circum-
stances in which we are placed, but that according to the
common notions of men, there are no objects in great cities
which can inspire solemn and religious ideas. And yet,
where is God more visible than in great cities ? Can we see
infinite wisdom and power in torrents, mountains, and in
clouds, and not discern them in this wonderful arrangement
of rights, appetites and pretensions ? Is God not visible in
laws and constitutions ? Is he not visible in refinement ? Is
he not visible in reasoning ? Are not poets and orators and
statesmen more stupendous creations of God than all the depth
of the valleys, and all the strength of the hills ? If we are to
be lured to God by all we see of his greatness and his power,
here are his noblest works, and here his subhmest power ;
here he is to be felt, and honoured and adored.
An important reason for dedicating such periods as these to
the duties of self-examination is that our deficiencies must neces-
sarily be perceived ; we cannot shelter ourselves under a belief
that the shade of improvement is too delicate to be sensible ; the
year has either made us better or it has not ; we may not go
away from such an inquisition satisfied, but we can scarcely
go away deceived : the very doubt itself is an answer. If the
seventieth part of our rational existence has glided away, and
left us doubtful whether we have gained upon any one vice,
the hesitation itself is almost decisive of our failure.
Self-examination is important if life eternal is important ;
it is not one of those exercises to which any notion of degree
can be applied; it is not more or less useful, but it is indis-
pensable ; it must be ; without it there is no Christ, no right-
eousness, no life hereafter ; for it is not pretended that any
man is born to continued righteousness ; no man from an ori-
ginal sweetness and felicity of creation, goes on doing well
from the beginning of his days to the end. And if sin is uni-
versal, inquisition must be so too ; and the duty of self-exa-
mination never be forgotten or excused.
164 ON SELF-EXAMINATION.
It is not so much the higher crimes which have need of
self-examination. No one asks of a murderer on the opening
of the year, to reflect on blood-guiltiness ; no one invites an
adulteress to think on her husband and children, and on that
misery which she is preparing for her own soul : these feel-
ings do not wait for our call ; they come unasked for, and un-
wanted to torment the guilty before their time. But the vices
which need self-examination are those which condemn us in
the sight of God, without creating in our minds any instant
and pressing alarm. All the fruitful family of original sin,
pride, anger, lust, hypocrisy, deceit, envy, hatred, malice, and
all uncharitableness ; for all these things a man shall surely
die, though they do not make him pale with fear, or rouse
him from his sleep, to tremble at the spectres of a guilty mind.
Nor let it be supposed, that in urging our fellow-creatures
to self-examination, we put them upon any exercise which is
difficult or profound ; or in which one human creature can
make a greater progress than another ; for it is fine to observe,
that reason, when she meddles with science, or with any-
thing which has a cold and distant connection with human
life, can wait to be intricate and subtle; she can toil through
many steps, and be content with small acquirements, and
wait patiently and retrace carefully ; but when she comes to
the business of salvation, to right and wrong, to holy and un-
holy, she is as quick as an eagle's wing, and as rapid as the
lightning of God. In a moment sl\e pierces through a thou-
sand intricacies, shivers into atoms the dull heartless sophis-
try which is opposed to her course, and, breaking into the
chambers of the soul, scares guilt with the amazing splendour
of truth. Seek and ye shall find; ask and ye shall have;
knock and it shall be opened to you. No man ever turned
to look for the evil that was within him and was repulsed
with the difficulty. Whatever God has made necessary, God
has made easy ; every man who searcheth his heart diligently,
will find in it the issues of fife.
There is nothing which can be substituted instead of self-
examination, renewed at intervals ; self-examination volunta-
rily and intentionally entered into. Sickness prompts us to
examine our own hearts ; but we may not be in that manner
visited by the Almighty ; old age warns us to this salutary
task; but we may perish in youth; misfortune is a great
master of reflection ; but we may be successful in our sins,
ON SELF-EXAMINATION. 165
and a long course of lucky vice may obliterate every chance
and possibility of melioration.
Self-examination drives men to great exertions by inflicting
upon them great pains ; for the remembrance of a mis-spent
life commonly brings on remorse, a feeling that the harm
cannot be recalled or repaired ; it is not like falsehood vi^hich
may be corrected, and injustice which maybe atoned for; but
the evil done is often out of the power of repentance, and be-
yond the possibility of change. — It is this which makes a man
start up in the midst of irreverent old age, and struggle to
give a few months or years to God, doubting of mercy, and
not knowing if the relics of his days will be accepted at the
throne of grace. If timely thought can save us from a state
like this, it is, indeed, worth while to think.
In this process of self-examination, we should, among other
subjects of inquiry, put to our own hearts these two questions :
are we happy ourselves ; are we beloved by our fellow-crea-
tures ? — if we are really contented, it is no mean evidence
that we have a right to be so: if no human being is in a state
of hostihty against us, it is presumptive evidence, that we
have given no occasion of offence ; by tracing up our miseries
we shall arrive at our vices ; and by putting on the feehngs of
our enemies, and entering into their views of our conduct, we
may make their hostihty a motive for compensation, and a
mean of improvement.
In self-examination, I would have a man think of death ; he
should ask his own heart if he is afraid of death; why he is
afraid of death? what he has done to make it an object of fear?
what he could do to make it an object of hope ? in what way
he can make ready to appear before his Saviour, and all the
host of Heaven, at the sound of the everlasting trumpet, when
the heavens and the earth are expiring ? The use of self-
examination is to prepare for the worst, to place ourselves in
other situations and other circumstances before they really
exist, that we may meet them with the proper energy, Avhen
they are brought round by the revolutions of the world. The
business is to think of sickness in health, to reflect upon old
age in youth, to remember death in life, to think of the ne-
cessity of rendering an account now, while perfect freedom of
action remains : to feel that these are not situations which may
happen, but situations which must happen. Consider the
life which human beings lead, and tell me if there are many
men who put these things faithfuhy and strongly to their own
hearts. Look at a young man in all the flower and freshness
166 ON SELF-EXAMINATION.
of youth ; he acts, and he thinks, and he speaks, as if that
condition of body was ever to remain ; he forgets when his
strength is gone, and his nerves are trembhng with old age,
that another set of opinions, congenial to the mouldering frame,
will get possession of his mind ; and that all his animal bra-
very and animal happiness will vanish as the machine de-
cays by which it was put in action ; so with injustice and
oppression, when a poor man is ground to the earth, when
tlie wealthy Ahab says, "His vineyard shall be mine; there
is no judgment for the poor ; I am the Lord of the earth ;"
how foolish to forget that God sees it all ; that the great day
will come when the oppressor will be turned into the crimi-
nal ; when the master will find a greater master than he ; when
every wildness and wantonness of power will be subjected to
the searching eye of omnipotent justice ; therefore, the use of
self-examination is to see all these consequences remotely,
and at a distance to measure them fairly, and to deliberate
duly upon them, while we are yet secure ; not to determine
upon actions which must affect our future lives, and endanger
our salvation through the influence of feelings, which will
cease with that portion of existence from which they spring,
and to which they are appropriate; but the truly evangehcal
habit of self-examination will teach us to consider the life of
man in all its parts, and under all its revolutions ; will teach
us to diminish those sufferings with which it concludes, by
moderating those enjoyments with which it begins, and enable
us to endure that awful responsibility which awaits us in
another existence by inuring us to justice and righteousness
in this.
In entering into this species of judgment with ourselves,
we must resolve not to be deceived ; the Scriptures do not
only say, try thy heart, but try thy heart diligenily; meaning
thereby, that men are subject to every species of deception in
this exercise, and that nothing can render it edifying but an
honest and manly resolution to get at the truth ; to examine
into such matters falsely, and feebly, is only to disturb plea-
sure, without improving godliness ; it only renders sin bitter,
without bringing us nearer to righteousness ; therefore, the
affair is to be insisted upon earnestly, and subjected to calm
revision ; and every habit is to be encouraged which can ren-
der a man candid and impartial to himself, for wretched indeed
is the state of that man, who inquires only to approve, and
who throws a veil over the dangers of sin, by the mockery
of pious investigation. ?f r j-^r:.
ON SELF-EXAMINATION. 167
I have laid some stress, through the whole of my dis-
course, upon the necessity of systematic and intentional
self-examination, which I have done for two reasons : — be-
cause self-examination, which arises from accident, is often
too late, or it may not take place at all. Some men pass
through life without meeting with any serious and warning
visitation of God ; they pass through life, therefore, as igno-
rant of themselves as of any human being with whom they
have never held the smallest intercourse ; there are men
who come near to the grave without having once entered
into their own hearts, or having the shghtest conception of
that system of passions and feehngs which is going on there,
and working their everlasting happiness or destruction.
Many a man dies, possessing all other knowledge than the
best ; master of the secrets of nature ; deeply versed in the
habits of mankind ; great in the science of governing ; com-
pletely ignorant of himself; not knowing, to the hour of his
dissolution, whether he is the child of sin or the servant of
Christ.
Blessed, indeed, blessed above all his fellow-creatures, is
he who can bid adieu to the concluding year, without an
aching heart ; who can stand upon the threshold of the fresh
time, and look back, to say he has not hved in vain ; how
pleasant, to open his arms to the coming spring, and to think
that that which bringeth flowers and green herbs, and layeth
the unkind winds to rest, shall bring, also, its increase of
piety, and of wisdom, and calm the troubles of the mind.
In all Europe, the new year is celebrated with joy; it is a feast
to the peasant, and to the child ; and there is no man, how-
ever enhghtened his understanding, who will look down on
such pleasures, without some share of complacency and
approbation ; they have their foundation in the human mind,
which is ever prone to hope, and looks forward to brighter
seasons and fairer skies, with the expectations of some great
advantage, though it knows not precisely what ; let us give
way to the general impulse, and usher in the new year by
some act of Christian mercy and goodness, forgive a debt,
forget an injury, hold out your hand to a repentant brother,
take back to your heart an offending child, go into the dark-
ness of the dungeon, and refresh the sorrows of a languishing
prisoner; make this season holy before the Lord ; do something
on it, which may gain you eternal life ; before the last days
are come, before the years are brought to an end, as it were a
tale that is told.
liil.' -ym^-*^:
SEEMON XXIV.
ON DISSIPATION.
I said to my heart, go to, now, enjoy pleasure ; I will prove thee with
mirth ; but behold, this also is vanity. — Ecclesiastes ii. verse 1.
The former part of this soliloquy of Solomon, to his own
heart, we have all pronounced to our hearts ; we all have said,
" Enjoy pleasure ; I will prove thee with mirth ;" but have
we been wise, or fortunate enough, to add, with the royal
moralist, — this also is vanity?
In the progress of society, fresh crimes, follies, and virtues,
as well as new sciences, and arts, emerge into notice ; and to
study mankind aright, we must observe, no less the circum-
stances in which he is placed, than the feelings, passions,
and talents, of which he is composed. To savage men, sur-
rounded by enemies, and trusting to their daily activity for
their dail)?- support, abundance and ease are the greatest of
human blessings ; as society advances, the misery of man
seems, by a singular inversion of destiny, to proceed from the
very cause of his original happiness ; thousands are rendered,
miserable by tranquillity and opulence ; are ruined by a fatal
competence, which extinguishes every principle of action,
and feel that their existence is a burthen, only because they
have escaped from the curse of Adam, and are not doomed to
eat their bread by the sweat of their brow.
When we are taught by our wants, we are well taught ;
when we are left to act from our understanding, our conduct^,
is generally more imperfect and erroneous. The employ-
ment of time is, with a great part of the human species, who
are exempted from necessary labour, a very difficult con*
cern ; and among the number who enjoy the hazardous pri-,
vilege of choosing for themselves, there are not very many:^
ON DISSIPATION. 169
who have the happiness of choosing well ; the common
expedient is pleasure, by which, in the language of the
world, is meant a succession of company, amusement and
diversion ; an excessive pursuit of pleasure has received the
name of dissipation, and to this trite, but important subject,
I shall endeavour, on this day, to call your serious attention.
Moderate indulgence glides so imperceptibly into vicious
excess, that it is by no means an easy task to point out their
mutual confines. Some evidence, however, an attentive ob-
servation of our own souls will necessarily afford. Whenever
we perceive that the common occurrences of life become
languid and tedious ; when domestic society palls upon us ;
when we find ourselves perpetually escaping from the pre-
sent hour, and looking eagerly forward to the future moments
of vanity and display ; when occasional solitude and reflec-
tion become the worst of evils, and splendour, crowd, and
solicitude, the ever-recurring objects of our wishes and our
cares ; when instruction has no charms ; when good actions
can no longer animate and delight ; then has the soul lost its
dignity and its strength ; then is the rational being fast hast-
ening to decay; then is it time to remember that these things,
also, are but vanity.
Among other objections to dissipation, it will be found to
proceed from erroneous notions of pleasure : if it necessarily
involved any struggle between duty and gratification, it
would be more easily understood why the latter so often
triumphed over the former consideration ; but the most
dissipated men are the first to complain of the dullness and
sameness of the pleasures they pursue ; they cannot quit
what they do not love ; they are wearied, but have no asy-
lum ; wisdom and virtue are not to be recalled at pleasure ;
there is no retreat ; they are doomed to be irrevocably frivo-
lous, to trifle on to the brink of the grave, though conscience
whispers at every step, this is not pleasure ; it was not for
this that man was made after the image of his God.
How changed is our estimation of all worldly things, when
sober experience awakens us from the dreams of youth. —
We begin with expecting to find in the common circle of
ordinary amusement, every brilHant and every fascinating
quality of our nature ; we enjoy, in anticipation, the pictures
of fancy, the delight of eloquence, the surprise of wit, the
charm of courtesy, the union of joyous hearts and creative
minds. — What is it we do meet ? too often a weariness of
15
170 ON DISSIPATION.
life ; — too often the escaping^ from a man's own heart ; — too
often that melancholy dejection, which says, " I have no
pleasure in doing this, but I have no courage to do better
than this." How different from this species of society is that
wise, necessary, but occasional intercourse with our fellow-
creatures, which is founded upon mutual regard ; which is a
contrast with previous soHtude, or a relaxation from previous
toil ; where there is some real commerce of understanding,
and some real gratification of regard ; where melancholy is
dispelled, cheerfulness promoted, friendship confirmed, pre-
judice refuted, or reason sanctioned in her decisions : and
yet, how httle of such pure and innocent pleasure does it
fall to our lot to enjoy. Do you ask me why? this is the
reason ; and I would it were as easy to find a cure as a
cause : because our minds are unexercised, and our hearts
are not overflowing with the recollections of benevolence
gratified, and passion subdued ; because we have not courage
for the toil, which is to make the relaxation sweet, because
the love of admiration governs us, because we know not that
the very essence of pleasure is rarity, that it is impossible,
from the very constitution of our nature, to preserve the keen-
ness of first sensations, or to prevent that apathy into which
the mind, jaded with constant enjoyment, perpetually sub-
sides. — Let no one imagine that it is an easy thing to lay
aside the habits of dissipation at will ; a valuable and syste-
matic employment of time is acquired with difficulty, and,
to be acquired at all, should be soon begun. An industrious
manhood is rarely grafted on a youth of folly ; but a youth
of folly will still keep you young, though you have numbered
many days ; and a hoary head will surprise you in the midst
of youthful gratification and frivolous amusement ; yet, there
is a time, when retirement is comely and decent ; at which,
not only the dictates of reason and religion, but even the
opinions of the world require it ; there is a time, when you
should carry gray hairs, and paleness, and weakness, into
the midst of those whose love will support your declining
years, when you should grow old, and die in the bosom of
your family ; when you should spare to your fellow-creatures
the melancholy spectacle of irreverent old age, of levity with-
out joy, of infirmity without wisdom : blessed is the hoary
head, which is found in the paths of wisdom ; but no blessings
fall on him who has grown old without growing wise, and
ON DISSIPATION. J71
has gathered nothing from the lapse of years but the outward
symbols of decay.
One of the most obvious consequences of dissipation is the
destruction of all the mental powers. In men upon whom
the greater part of the business of the world, and the advance-
ment of knowledge principally depend, this evil is the most
inexcusable ; there is no character which ensures disrespect
so much as that of a trifling, frivolous man ; he is measured
by the magnitude of those objects which form the laudable
pursuits of his sex ; we cannot forget the height of science
to which he might have ascended ; the useful functions he
might have fulfilled ; the career of glory he might have run ;
the rehgious wisdom he might have treasured up. He has
no excuse in a natural indelible mildness of character, which
may betray the firmness of resolution and communicate a
greater force to the social feelings ; he sins against the most
exalted and popular qualities of a man without gaining any
others in return ; he is trifling without being amiable ; weak
without being delicate ; and ignorant without being affection-
ate or humane. Neither let any shelter themselves under
the plea that dissipation does not sacrifice that time which
ought to be given up to more important occupations ; rehgion
bids us all prepare for an hereafter; benevolence bids us
alleviate the miseries of the present scene ; knowledge invites
us to contemplate and understand it : the first hallows the
mind, the next softens it, the last strengthens, exalts and
adorns it. To love religion is to love eternity and to love
salvation ; but to love knowledge as the means of complying
with the injunctions of that religion may not be sufficiently
impressed upon the minds of us all. In an advanced period
of society it is the most eflTectual preventive against the perils
of idle opulence ; it economizes the most useful possessions
of a state, its talents ; prevents the mournful waste of genius
and turns the powers of our minds into the real channels in
which they ought to flow. — Against the fair and moderate
pursuit of pleasure, I hope no one imagines me so mistaken
as to contend ; the love of knowledge will render the extrava-
gant and dissipated pursuit of it as distasteful as it is perni-
cious ; nothing frees a man so effectually from the shameful
dependence on foreign aid, and renders him so contented with
himself and his own home ; he is no longer compelled to flee
from the restless activity of the mind to a circle of melancholy
and insipid amusement. This is not all; to exercise the
172 ON DISSIPATION.
mind is a duty, it is an essential part of righteousness ; the
agency upon the world, the power of doing good increases
immensely with the increase of our intellectual powers. It
matters not by what science, by what studies our minds are
exercised, if they be ready to be turned on the conduct of
life, the interests of mankind, and the promotion and defence
of rehgion. Take, for instance, the task of early education
commonly devolved upon mothers ; is there one of greater
importance in the whole circle of human affairs ? and what
daily ravages are committed on the characters of future men,
by affectionate parents, who mean to do well without any
adequate power of seconding their good intentions, and who
lament, when too late, that they wasted in dissipation the
season of improvement, that their minds have never been
strengthened by difficulties, or fertihzed by thought.
Dissipation is not less injurious to the qualities of the
heart than to the powers of the mind. The dissipated become
impatient of anything which is not immediately amusing;
they cannot submit to the present sacrifice which virtue re-
quires, or wait for the remote gratifications which it affords.
The passing moment must yield its tribute of pleasure at
every expense of health, fortune, and inward satisfaction. —
All control over incHnation is gradually lost, and the appre-
hension of distant consequences ceases to influence the con-
duct. Whenever we place our happiness, not in the good
feelings of the heart, but in the lively impressions of the
senses, every virtue becomes disgusting and dull; the child
leaves its aged parent to solitude and disease ; the mother,
ashamed of her advancing years, deserts her children. — The
father flies from the gloomy sameness of his family, and every
beautiful feeling is erased from the heart ; — the appearance
of misery excites not a desire to reheve, but anger at the
intrusion of disagreeable sensations, a feeling of injury at the
interruption of elegant pleasure. In the midst of these plea-
sures, in the full current of thoughtless joy, I pray you for
one moment pause; it is not much to give to salvation, to
virtue, and to wisdom; for one moment pause and think on
the motley destiny of man ; not far from the scenes of your
joy are crowded together the children of labour and sorrow,
and of affliction ; did you ever seek that cure of dissipation ?
Did you ever appal your heart ? Did you ever beat down
your gayety to the dust by the near aspect and approach of
the misery of man ? not such as it is painted in books, but
ON DISSIPATION. 173
such as you may find it, at this instant, not a span's length
from this very spot ; dissipation can never endure such tre-
mendous sights as these ; the very walls seem to cry out,
why have you forgotten these wretched people in the midst
of your pleasures ? The sight of a poor man's dwelling, the
food he eats, the bed on which he lies, these things scare
and admonish the voluptuous heart more than all the minis-
ters of God. Yet think not that these sights destroy plea-
sure ; they are the only passport to pleasure ; first deserve it,
then enjoy it ; go strengthen infirmity, heal disease, lighten
the load of human misery, pay back in humanity the loan of
opulence, then say to, your heart, go to now, enjoy pleasure,
I will prove thee with mirth ; and then only you will escape
the sad conclusion : — this also is vanity.
The love of expense is not one of the least miseries conse-
quent upon dissipation ; it produces meanness, dishonesty,
and unhappiness; the mind must be at ease for the cultiva-
tion of virtue, and there can be no tranquillity where such a
constant struggle is maintained between penury and ostenta-
tion, where everything is splendour without and distress
within, where the world is to be deceived and the melancholy
reflection supported, that the means of solid comfort are daily
sacrificed to idle and unsubstantial parade. The dictates of
common sense and the feelings of nature are never violated
with impunity ; the most intolerable of all sensations is that
of constant self-reproach ; to feel that days, and months, and
years are gliding away without leaving to us any acquisition
of virtue or of knowledge ; that our resolutions of amendment
are never proof against temptation, that our life is passing
on without utility to others or dignity to ourselves ; this is the
bitterness of soul which riseth up when the head is crowned
with flowers and the wine mantleth in the cup ; this is the
handwriting on the wall, at the sight of which the spirit of a
man fainteth within him, as did the spirit of Belshazzar, the
king, when he feasted with his thousand lords.
Is it possible, I may ask, in speaking of dissipation, is it
possible that we, who are daily enlightened by the sublime
morality and perfect example of Christ, can we believe that
the whole order of nature was reversed, and the stupendous
prodigy of revelation exhibited to the earth, to clothe with
immortahty a wretched being that has trifled away seventy
years of existence, and who is only loosened from the bonds
of folly by corruption and death ? Do you think it is to be
15*
174 ON DISSIPATION.
threescore and ten years of mirth, an hour of repentance,
and an eternity of joy ? By what courtesy are you exempted
from the curse of Adam ? Has God given to one the sweat
and the toil, and to another the smell of the blossom, the sha-
dow of the leaf, and the taste of the fruit ? This life is to
every description and condition of human beings, a life of
labour and exertion ; of labour either of body or of mind.
The labour of the rich is to combat their passions, to fortify
their virtues, to study and to follow the law of the Gospel, to
prepare themselves dihgently for another and a better state
of existence, to turn their leisure to the cultivation of know-
ledge and the improvement of human happiness ; to take
advantage of their condition, by being exemplary as they
are eminent, courteous as they are elevated, bounteous as
they are rich ; by making themselves the protectors of the
distressed and the stewards of the poor; with these general
habits of life, there are times when a wearied mind and body,
when the social feelings, when reason itself, call for, and jus-
tify relaxation and joy ; the pleasures of the good are as dear
to God as their prayers ; he is with them in the house of joy
and in the temple of religion ; he is in the midst of them
wherever they are gathered together ; through him they are
happy without fear and without reproving, and while they
prove their hearts with mirth they are not compelled to add
that this also is vanity and sorrow.
■■^r
SEEMON XXV.
ON THE CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL
And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the son
of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said, is not this he
that destroyed them which called on his name in Jerusalem. — Acts ix.
VERSES 20,21.
Of all the arguments dwelt on for the defence of Chris-
tianity, none have been more forcibly or more successfully
urged, than the conversion of St. Paul ; and it certainly is a
circumstance which cannot be explained without the suppo-
sition of something improbable, or the belief of something
miraculous.
The treatment which Christ, his disciples, and his converts
experienced from the Jews, would (if other proofs were want-
ing), sufficiently convince us of the obstinate adhesion of that
people to the religion of their ancestors, and demonstrate how
soon their watchful jealousy, on such a subject, would break
out into cruel persecution. The Pagans were, upon the
whole, not merely tolerant, but careless in matters of rehgion.
Poets vilified their gods ; comedians ridiculed them upon the
stage ; philosophers denied their existence ; the priests conti-
nued to sacrifice, the people to believe, and the government
was content : but the religion of the Jews was deeply fixed
and eagerly defended. It was their creed that God had sin-
gled them out from the whole earth as the people of his pro-
vidence and protection ; they considered themselves as sepa-
rated from the darkened hemisphere of the Pagans ; they
believed that they had been fed by angels, guided by mira-
cles, taught by prophets, and approached by God. They
were proudly mindful of these distinctions ; they studied their
law with active investigation, and defended it with ardent
176 ON THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.
zeal ; proselytism, therefore, effected among a people of this
description, is certainly more important as to the proof it
affords, than any ordinary change from one religion to an-
other ; the stronger the resistance, the greater the force which
overcomes it. Prejudices so deeply imbibed, no common
power can eradicate, and no usual force of argument refute.
In the twenty-second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles,
St. Paul, in declaring his conversion, thus describes himself:
" I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus ; and
was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according
to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zeal-
ous towards God, as ye all are this day."
St. Paul, therefore, seems to have been a man thoroughly
instructed in the Jewish law ; the opinions of his nation were
confirmed by the tenour of his education ; and belief in him
was not merely a popular opinion caught from living with a
multitude who were of the same creed, but an extended sys-
tem, disciplined by regular learning, and defended with scho-
lastic acuteness. The pride of the scholar was added to the
bigotry of the Jew, and he would resist conviction from vanity
as well as from faith.
If St. Paul had remained quiet, at the first propagation
of Christianity ; if he had taken no active part at this interest-
ing period ; if he had viewed its progress with indifference ;
if he had suspended his conviction till the sensation of novelty,
too active for reason, had subsided, and left him to the free
exercise of his understanding ; we could not have been so
much surprised that the result should have terminated in his
conversion ; but from the first appearance of Christianity, he
was its decided foe ; at the first dawn of this new light he
rose up in bitterness and in anger, to extinguish it ; and to
bear witness that it was from men and not from God. In
the above-mentioned chapter. Saint Paul says, "I persecuted
this way unto death, binding, and delivering into prison, both
men and women ; as also the high priest doth bear me wit-
ness, and the estate of the elders, from whom I received let-
ters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring them
which were bound unto Jerusalem for to be punished." And
yet this is he whom bondage could not make less zealous,
who, under all varieties of misfortune, and in every species
of sorrow, remained steadfast in faith, and immovable in con-
viction ; who, with that high-principled courage which always-
keeps fortune beneath its feet, and rises superior to every'
ON THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 177
event, preached, from the midst of guards, and swords, and
chains, the truths of the Gospel ; those truths which shook
the heart of Felix with fear, and drove Agrippa to the hrink
of conversion. This is the fact which comes home to the
bosoms of men ; this is the history which represses the confi-
dence of infidelity, and breaks the slumber of indifference.
The enmity of St. Paul is turned to protection ; the bitterness
of persecution is exchanged for the zeal of friendship ; and
he is made an humble instrument for promoting the Gospel,
whose ardent spirit had most powerfully impelled him to its
destruction.
After this general sketch of his life which I have already
quoted, St. Paul proceeds to state the particular circumstances
of his conversion : " Whereupon, as I went to Damascus with
authority and commission from the chief priests ; at mid-day,
oh king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the
brightness of the sun shining round about me, and them
which were with me, and when we were all fallen to the
earth, I heard a voice from heaven." And he then proceeds
to relate the command he received from heaven ; a passage
in the Scriptures too well known to need quotation.
These are the facts respecting the conversion of St. Paul,
and from these facts it must follow as an inevitable conse-
quence, (if this miracle be not true,) that St. Paui deceived
himself, or that he deceived others ; that he was either a dupe,
or an impostor. We will first inquire, if it be probable that
St. Paul endeavoured to impose on the world a miracle in
which he himself had not a thorough belief, and the obvious
mode of beginning such an investigation, will be to examine
into the motives which, under any rules by which the human
character ought to be judged, could have influenced St. Paul
to the commission of such a despicable fraud, and implicated
him in such a shameless piece of hypocrisy.
I beheve it may be laid down as a general rule, that every
man will love that which is virtuous and honourable where
he can gain nothing by perfidy and vice. No man is bad
for nothing, no man covers himself with crimes, from a mere
lust for disgrace, or an eager relish for infamy; self-approba-
tion is not bartered for nothing ; every human being naturally
loves the praise of his own heart, and the approbation of his
fellow-creatures ; and if he sells them at all, he sells them for
some pleasure that is poignant, some gratification that will
repay him for infamy and remorse.
. The question then is, what motive St. Paul could have had
178 ON THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.
to sacrifice the consideration in which he was held by his
countrymen ; to expose himself to ridicule and to contempt,
to persecution, to poverty, to the most extreme and the most
varied distress; could the Christians hold out to him any
magnificent temptations ? could they buy him by the gor-
geous allurements of honour, power and opulence ? alas, what
could the Christians give ? begging themselves for life, for
bread, for compassion ; flying to rocks and caverns not to con-
ceal crimes, but to worship that Saviour who had just left the
earth ; what hopes and promises could they hold out to mer-
cenary talents and venal ambition ? The persecuted cannot
protect ; power is not in the gift of poverty ; the indigent and
afflicted have nothing to offer but a share in their misery :
they could say to St. Paul, be a Christian as we are ; we have
not, indeed, much of worldly honour to bestow ; but you may
share our persecution ; — you may become its most import-
ant subject ; — you may be the leading martyr of our sect ;— -«
you may be a more illustrious outcast, a more splendid victim,
than has yet graced the annals of our misery. You may live
in sorrow, and die in torture ; this must have been the lan-
guage of Christian seduction, and these the irresistible temp-
tations which worked upon St. Paul, to prostitute his honour,
and desert his religion ; he must have submitted to be base,
in order to be miserable ; he must have waded through im-
posture to martyrdom, and thought no artifice too mean to
encounter difficulty, and court persecution.
If St. Paul did not believe his own testimony, but was im-
posing on mankind, what evidence can we ever hear with
confidence and conviction ? with him seems to rise or fall the
credibihty of all human assertion : mere words we may per-
haps mistrust : the sad knowledge of man's depravity may
justify us even in doubting of oaths, and allow us to balance
the credibility against the solemnity of the assertion ; but he
who strengthens his testimony by his misfortunes, cannot be
any longer suspected ; he who is beaten, and shipwrecked,
and chained, cannot be considered as the martyr of obstinate
fraud ; he has washed off every stain of suspicion by his blood,
and has shown in the noble catalogue of his woes, the heroic
patience of conviction, and the unshaken courage of truth.
Then, again, if any considerations of policy had influenced
his conduct, he would have softened the odium of apostasy
by the gradual dereliction of former connections ; but observe
the singular circumstances of his conversion ; he sets out for
Damascus, an infidel bloated with rage and yearning for
ON TH« CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 17D
blood : his errand of death was a legal one ; he bore with him
those credentials of cruelty which he had eagerly sought for,
and easily obtained : he went forth the accredited minister of
Jewish vengeance, their favourite assassin, amid the shoutings
and rejoicings of the people. So he went forth ; how did
he return ? with a heart softened by sorrow, and bursting with
remorse, lowly, broken, and penitent; not the minister of
Jewish vengeance, but its object ; preaching Christ, and la-
menting with tears and sighs, the infatuation of his past life ;
this is the portentous fact which vouches so strongly for
Christianity ; here it is, if anywhere, that the finger of God
is to be seen in our religion.
Let us now consider if there was any reason to believe
that St. Paul was himself deceived, and that this miracle, in-
stead of a real revelation, was nothing more than the phan-
tasm of a deluded imagination.
If the character of St. Paul were such as to justify us in
this supposition, and induce us to believe, that a mind too in-
tensely heated had lost all wholesome control over the fancy ;
the difficulty is to conceive why this self-created vision did
not rather model itself in conformity, than in opposition to the
whole former tenour of his words and actions. If his miracle
had spurred him on to new asperity, and fresh bitterness
against the Christians, it would have accorded very well with
the usual history of fanaticism ; and the extravagancies of his
fancy would have preserved a certain affinity to his ordinary
ideas. Madness does not reverse the notions which a mind
in health intensely dwells upon, but points them, and gives
them new vigour. It does not struggle against the tide of
the conceptions ; but hurries that tide on with fresh impetu-
osity. St. Paul, a visionary and a madman, Avould have hated
the Christians worse than in his sober mind ; if not, I will
venture to assert, that it is the only instance on record where
an enthusiastic supposition of intercourse with heaven has
cured fanaticism instead of increasing it, and to suppose such
a case, is to decide contrary to all experience for the sole pur-
pose of depreciating Christianity. Is there, moreover, any-
thing in the character of St. Paul, after he became a Chris-
tian, that can warrant this imputation of fanatical derange-
ment ? Is a fanatic observant of times and seasons ? Does
he bend this way and that way in dexterous fluctuation, with
the little prejudices and passions of men? The strongest
feature of fanaticism is a want of fine perception, an ungovern-
180 * ON THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.
able and monotonous violence, totally unobservant of occa-
sions. But St. Paul at Athens makes no mention of the Gos-
pel, or the new light, or Christ, or his disciples, or Moses,
or the Jewish law; he addresses them in a strain of general
and exalted eloquence ; quotes their own poets in confir-
mation of his opinions, tells them he was come to make
known to them that God whom they ignorantly worshiped,
and to show them clearly those attributes which they already
adored in dark piety, and revered with unenlightened wonder.
See how dexterously he avails himself of the state of parties
in the Jewish synagogue ; how ably he pushes on the waving
faith of Agrippa, how he kindles into seven-fold eloquence,
when the hope of reclaiming that illustrious Pagan flashes
across his mind. *' King Agrippa, believest thou the pro-
phets ? I know that thou behevest ; and Agrippa said, thou
almost persuadest me to be a Christian ; then said Paul, I
would to God, that not only thou, but that all who hear me
this day were as I am, saving these bonds."
Here then I will stop, and recapitulating the plain story
that has been told, make a stand for Christianity. At the
first appearance of this religion, St. Paul declares himself its
enemy, and becomes the bitter persecutor of its converts ; he
solicits and obtains permission from the high priest to root it
out ; he, on a sudden, declares his belief in this heresy, fairly
tells the Jews he has been converted by a miracle ; not only
believes but ardently propagates it ; and in the course of his
reHgious labours, exposes himself to every possible danger
and difficulty that human nature can encounter. The infer-
ences to be drawn from this plain history, are these, that that
man cannot be insincere who has suffered evils worse than
death for what he believes to be the truth ; who by a life of
pain and wandering, of anguish and labour, has borne witness
to the integrity of his faith ; that that man cannot be a weak
man who has carried the arts of successful persuasion through
barbarous and through civilized men, and extorted from Pagan
pride, and Pagan power, such splendid evidence of his cogent
arguments, and also imposing eloquence. He is then a good
man, and a wise man ; and as he is, let him not plead and
sufTer in vain: let not his long labour, and his illustrious life
be lost upon us ; let us finish what Agrippa began, — our con-
viction,— and when he reasons of temperance, and righteous-
ness, and judgment to come, let us do more than Felix, not
only tremble, but tremble and repent.
'^Vi^k^-^lll^'4
SERMON XXVI.
ON TEMPTATION.
PART I.
Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of
the devil. — Matthew iv. verse 1.
In this season of the year, when we are reminded of our
Saviour's miraculous temptation, it is highly expedient that
we should consider those perils to which we are exposed by
the great deceiver of mankind ; who offers to us also all the
pleasures and glories of the world, if we will forget the Lord,
our God, and fall down to the worship of the powers of dark-
ness. Day and night man is tempted from the path of his
salvation ; and on each side stand alluring pleasures, inviting
him to destruction. There are lust, avarice, and ambition;
the great sin of intemperance ; deep servitude to this world ;
timid apostasy, that corrupted the soul of Peter; revenge, that
shed the blood of Abel; cruelty, that sharpened the sword of
Herod ; falsehood by which Ananias fell ; treachery, that
nailed Jesus to the cross. The soul is assailed by all these
powers of darkness, and no man will ever see God, who has
not clad himself in the armour of righteousness, and walked
unhurt through them all to the mountain of Calvary ; to
finish his race at that goal, to breathe his last at the feet of
Christ.
Let him among us, (say the Scriptures,) who would avoid
temptation, think meanly and humbly of himself. The
danger that is to be averted, must be well known, and ratio-
nally apprehended, or it will come in double terror. No
confidence, I beseech you, in the strength of resolutions, in
the solemnity of vows, in the force and freshness of repent-
16
182 ON TEMPTATION.
ance ; — the wind scatters chaff, the waves toss down mounds
of sand ; passion sweeps before it the oaths, the protesta-
tions, the resolves of men, and breaks in pieces the slender
fabrics of his soul. Before temptation, we are more than
angels ; have I not, (the sinner says,) mourned for my fault ?
am I not weary of the bondage of this sin ? is it possible that
I shall be tempted once more, that I shall forget all that suf-
fering has taught me, all that I have learnt from dejection
and self-reproach ? Alas ! a word, a sound, a sight will melt
all this new wisdom into air, and hurry us back to the same
station of sin ; again we shall resolve, again feel boldness
and pride ; again learn the weakness of man's nature, again
know the strength of sin, and again feel the bitterness of
repentance.
There is a degree of fear, however, which leads to despair;
our notions of the power of sin may be so excessive as to
make all resistance appear hopeless ; but the holy fear, of
which I am speaking, is that which is opposed to rash con-
fidence ; a fear mingled with so much hope, that it excites
activity, and does not confound judgment ; a fear which
discovers the whole extent of the danger, without magni-
fying it more than reality ; and distrusts the means of
opposing sin, without distrusting them more than they
ought to be distrusted ; distrusts them when unaided by
grace, when unfounded on religion, w^hen unblest by God,
when purely, and entirely human ; but when connected
with heaven, when sanctified and hallowed, and touched by
Christ, then sees their dignity and glory ; and knows they
have strength to trample on every lust and passion of the
flesh.
Confidence is the great auxiliary of temptation ; if we say
that we have no sin, we perpetually deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us. Profound Christian humility is the
only safeguard of virtue. " I dare not so much as lift up
my eyes to that allurement ; I dare not confide it to my
thoughts ; I will flee from it into the bosom of the deep,
and into the nethermost parts of the world ; if God save me
not, I am lost, for of myself I can do nothing — and my por-
tion is sin ;" — so think the just ; thus do they cry unto God
in their prayers, and in this way, by fear and trembling, are
ihey saved.
I beg you to observe, that in speaking of this timid appre-
hension of the perils of temptation, I speak rather of the
ON TEMPTATION. 18*3
beginning of righteousness than of its very advanced and
mature state ; the time at length comes, when the force of
temptation is diminished, and the power of resistance in-
creased ; and this fact is one of the strongest incitements to
resist temptation, that the difficulty and the struggle become
every day less intense, till righteousness and evangelical
purity appear to be almost habitual ; we see in the perils of
the flesh, that which we have before encountered and sub-
dued ; we remember the former protection of Heaven ; we
resume the same confidence in Christ ; we put up the same
prayer ; we receive for our aid the same emanations of the
divine grace ; — there dwell within us a constant courage,
founded upon experience of the efficacy of grace, a prone-
ness to trust in God, a cheerful and invincible hope. " Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil ; thy rod and thy staff shall comfort me."
At first, every passion of the flesh seems irresistible ; if
we are tempted by anger, we do not perceive how it is possi-
ble to remain serene ; if the sweetness of revenge invites us,
then it is not in our nature to forgive ; but the true servant
of Christ, who has begun this good exercise, who has often
prayed against temptation, and praying often subdued it ;
who has carried the old man forth to funeral, with the solemn
tears of repentance, and buried him in the grave of Jesus,
and put on the new man, a new heart, a new understanding,
new affections, and excellent appetites of Heaven ; he can be
tempted by anger, and remain in peace ; he can be injured,
and forgive ; he can look upon intemperance, and be frugal ;
he can witness successful violence, and be just ; beauty to
him is marble, riches dross, power vanity, ambition toil ;
the freedom of righteousness and the law of Christ are to
him all in all ; for these he has vanquished every temptation,
broken asunder the massive chains of sin, and walks hence-
forward with God, in perfect freedom, and with joyful hope.
There is a practice which, for the resistance of temptation,
cannot be too much inculcated, and that is the practice of
seeing things in their true nature, and calling them by their
right names. If we serve Mammon instead of God, we must
abide the consequences of that faith we have espoused ; but
do not let us call those things of Heaven which belong to
Mammon, or those things of Mammon which belong to God ;
if an action is sinful, and unchristian, at least convince your-
self that it is sinful, and call it by the name of sin ; — if you
are led away by temptation to do that which is injurious to
184 ON TEMPTATION.
temporal and eternal welfare, state the fact to your own
understanding in the truest colours, and the plainest words ;
it is your only chance of recovery, your only hope of return-
ing to the true shepherd of your souls ; if we use the lan-
guage of the world, if we cast a veil over the eye of piety,
if with accommodating phrases and plausible pretexts, we seek
to call that righteousness which is sin ; to say that is innocent
which the warning voice of our Saviour has forbidden ; we
are then doomed to hopeless destruction, and not to perish
eternally becomes impossible.
If this plain deahng with ourselves deprives us of any
comfort at all, it is of a very ambiguous, and imperfect com-
fort ; we may set conscience to sleep, but the sleep of con-
science is never sound ; she seems to sleep in agony, and in
pain ; and often starts up in wildness and distrust ; the decep-
tion which a sinner practices upon himself, is but an half
deception, a rude and unskilful art ; he is perpetually review-
ing, and appealing from his own decisions, and sees dimly
and distantly the fraud which he has exercised upon his
soul, without daring to throw upon it the meridian light of
truth ; we may deceive ourselves enough to insure the com-
mission of sin, but not enough to acquire the comforts of
righteousness ;• — in cultivating this inward sincerity, we give
up a system of fraud, the peril of which is immeasurable,
and in the consolation of which it is not wise to place a mo-
ment of firm dependence ; it is not possible to combine together
the pleasures of sin and the quiet of righteousness ; but if we
are wicked, we must be miserable.
Then there must be no treaty entered into with the
tempter ; no parley, no doubt, no lingering explanation, but
clear denial, indicating calm and invincible resistance ; for in
this way the souls of men are lost to salvation ; it seems inno-
cent to listen, it is no crime to hear what the thing is ; I can
always deny, I can always retreat ; I am still master of my
own actions. But this is an error, for you cannot deny or
retreat, but at the first pause you were lost, and sin and death
marked you for their own ; it is madness to combat Avith the
eloquence of sin, or to gaze at the pictures of passion; if you
dispute with pleasure she will first charm you to silence,
then reason you to conviction, then lead you utterly from
God ; she wants you only to hear and see ; she requires only
one moment's pause ; she knows if you can balance for a point
of time, between her present rapture and the distant felicity
of Heaven, that you are quite gone ; you must meet tempta-
ON TEMPTATION. ' 1^
tion with blind eyes and deaf ears, and with a heart which
no more balances whether it shall be virtuous, than it does
whether it shall send the blood of life through all the extre-
mities and the channels of the bodily frame.
One of the great instruments for withstanding temptation,
and changing our whole nature into a state of grace, is a firm
behef in, and perfect assent to the promises of the Gospel,
for holy Scripture speaks great word concerning faith. It
quenches the fiery darts of the devil, saith St. Paul: it over-
comes the world, saith St. John ; it is obedience, it is humi-
lity, it is a shield, a breast-plate, a mystery ; by faith God is
pleased ; by faith we are sanctified ; by faith we are saved ;
by it our prayers shall prevail for the sick ; by it all the mira-
cles of the church have been done ; it gives great patience to
suffer ; it inspires mighty confidence to hope ; it communi-
cates strength to perform ; it imparts infallible certainty to
enjoy; but then it is not, we must observe, a notion or opinion
situated finally in the understanding, but a principle produc-
tive of holy life; not only a believing in the propositions of
Scripture, as we believe a proposition in science, for which
we are neither the better nor the worse, but a belief of things
so great, that no man who can think and choose, who can
desire and act towards a definite object that can possibly
neglect them; this faith which justifies the faithful, confirms
the just and crowns the martyr ; this faith it is, which, plac-
ing us above the temptations of the world, will make heaven
the end of our desires; God, the object of our worship ; the
Scriptures the rule of our actions ; and the Holy Spirit our
niighty counsellor and assistant.
Faith in Christ, such as I have described it to be, is, above
all things, likely to afford to us the comfort of general rules ;
to give to the inward mind the benefit of good laws firmly
administered, the comfort of planning a wise system, and
pursuing it steadily, for the misery of yielding incessantly to
temptation is, that we live upon no plan, and to no certainty ;
we do not advance to a point, but wander to and fro, ignorant
to-day whether we are to be good or bad to-morrow ; whether
we are to crawl in the dust of this world or to act with the
purity of an angel ; but is it not mean and degrading to say,
I shall spend this day rationally and piously if I am spared
by all the lusts of the flesh ; but if I am tempted by any appe-
tite, or goaded by any passion, my piety will be dissipated,
and my reason destroyed ; whether I am the servant of righte-
16* •
186 • ON TEMPTATION.
ousness or the child of sin, depends upon the accidents of the
hour, upon whom I see, and what I hear, and upon all that
comes in contact with me. I take from every passing event
those inward principles, though I ought, with my inward
principles, to impart their character and complexion to all the
events of life.
The general rule which guards us against temptation, must
be laid down, and in time it will come to be regarded on its
own account ; many things, in themselves innocent, will be
avoided on account of their influence upon the rule ; many
things which might be omitted, will be done for its preserva-
tion ; what we love long for its utihty, we love at last for
itself; the rule which has often guarded us from sin, which
has saved us from the shame of inconsistency and relapse,
becomes at last sanctified and enshrined in our minds ; we
guard it with jealousies, we encompass it about with nice
feelings, we watch it with lively apprehensions, we remove
from it all distant harm and contingent inconvenience ; we
love it, and glory in it, and preserve it, as the children of
Israel preserved the ark, and the seraphim kept the gates
of Paradise.
But above all things, however often we may be tempted,
and however we may yield to temptation, we must beware
of despair ; we must never cease to resist, never beheve that
God has made the appetites of the body irresistible, and swim
down at once in the full torrent of sin from a conviction that
it cannot be stemmed. For every temptation with which we
can be tempted in this world, in whatever sbape of allurement
it may come, there is a power within, given to us by Almighty
God, greater and mightier than the temptation ; we have
reason to discern between evil and good ; we can look fonvard
and discern that good and evil in remote periods of time ; we
have freedom to resolve ; we have revelation to teach us what
to resolve ; we have laudable pride to animate us in guarding
that resolve ; we have shame to prevent us from its infringe-
ment, and we have the grace of God and his protecting spirit
to sanctify all the good that we intend. Therefore, we will
begin ; the terror of sin will be lessened, its triumphs dead-
ened, and its strength withered away ; success will be remem-
bered ; one victory will ensure another ; we shall meet temp-
tation, accustomed to overcome it, with the full aAd certain
conviction, that the Saviour of mankind never deserts the
humble and contrite spirit, that, in the hour of peril, pours
forth his fervent prayer to hinit
•i|^=-
SERMON XXVII.
ON TEMPTATION.
PART II.
Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of
the devil. — Matthew iv. verse 1.
In my last discourse upon this subject, I took occasion,
from some preliminary observations upon the miraculous
temptation of our blessed Saviour, to introduce and discuss
the subject of temptation, considering it to be a subject pecu-
liarly vsrell adapted to the sacred season of the year at which
we are arrived, a season, which it has ever been the practice
of the church, in all ages, to observe with peculiar solemnity,
and to dedicate to the examination of subjects intimately con-
nected with the salvation of mankind. I found it impossible
to do justice to so extensive a topic of religion in the compass
of a single discourse, and therefore, with the good leave and
permission of my congregation, I will now proceed with my
observations and conclude them. I shall first go on to specify
those general habits of mind which are eminently useful for
the withstanding of temptation.
I have before stated, how very important towards this object
is an attachment to general rules, but these general rules, in
order to be kept, must be moderate ; they must contain all
that the Gospel requires, but no more than the Gospel re-
quires ; they ought by no means to exclude the innocent plea-
sures of life, or to throw an air of crime over any system
of actions which our blessed Saviour, as wise as he was
holy, has left opeu to the tastes and inclinations of mankind.
There are some men who, with the best possible intentions,
would diminish, to the narrowest circle, the extent of human
188 ON TEMPTATION.
enjoyments, and drive their fellow-creatures to the contem-
plation of another world, by rendering this as tasteless and
uninteresting as possible. These lessons of severity are
the mere inventions of man, not the wisdom of God ; we
hear them from mistaken zeal ; we do not read them in
the Gospel ; innocent pleasure is, on the contrary, a very
great security against sinful pleasure. By taking that good
which Almighty God, in his benevolence, has allowed us,
we do not feel deprived of everything ; we are often en-
couraged to stop there by dint of exertion, often content to
stop there without any exertion at all ; but when we deny
ourselves those gratifications we may righteously enjoy, we
become weary of exaggerated duties, and listen to the seduc-
tions of the tempter from finding the burthen of false righte-
ousness greater than we have strength to endure ; in seeking
to be more than righteous, we become less and are plunged
into real sin, because we are too scrupulous to avail ourselves
of permitted enjoyment. I speak this against rash vows,
overstrained and heated resolutions, needless self-affliction,
dread of happiness and all that innumerable train of evils,
which false notions of rehgion entail upon mankind. God
asks not of us such sacrifices as these ; they have no grateful
smftll before him, he rejects them as he rejected the offerings
of Cain ; but the great enemy of us all wishes to see this, and
loves it, and knows when he can make a man believe that God
is one thing, and happiness another, that the soul of that man
is his own, that the angels have lamented over him in Hea-
ven, that he is lost to Christ. Here am I placed (a man
says), in this dull servitude, dead to all joy, combating for-
ever with my soul, goaded by appetites which I must not
gratify, surrounded with pleasures which I must not approach,
restrained by commandments too rigorous for the infirmities
of my nature, the member of a religion which overwhelms
me with present misery, and promises me future pleasure ;
the inhabitant of a world, in which I am placed only to be
allured and to be denied. All these feelings are the offspring
of a false and overacted severity, and the parents of the foul-
est and most abominable sin. What our Saviour instructs
us to do is arduous, not impossible ; but it is very easy for
human errors to render it impossible ; then cry up to Heaven,
to blame God, to say it is too much, to take up the wages of
sin and to perish eternally.
It will diminish our extravagant notions of the strength of
ON TEMPTATION. 189
temptation, by observing that we are all proof against some
temptations, and that these some are all different ; intempe-
rance is your sin and it is irresistible ; you cannot conceive
how such allurements can be withstood, but you are not sub-
ject to gusts of passion and can command yourself upon the
fiercest provocation; another man is a slave to irascible feelings
and a master of sensual appetites ; this person is tempted by
depraved ambition, and wholly exempted from every taint of
avarice ; the next would Hve cheerfully in obscurity and is
only desirous of accumulating wealth. It is quite certain that
you find many temptations easy to be overcome, which to
others are highly formidable ; that others find those wholly
insignificant, which are formidable to you ; all sin, then, may-
be overcome by the grace of Heaven and by the good princi-
ples of our nature ; there is no one temptation so strong but
that you may see it in the minds of some men completely
subdued and utterly disregarded; there is novice which must
necessarily and certainly subdue religious firmness ; but the
event depends upon how much we struggle and how long ;
we may obey or command, we may live in the bondage of
Satan or the freedom of God.
It is a great matter, also, in temptation, not only to gather
the powers of our minds for resistance from the daily and
common evidence which our nature affords ; but to search
diligently the Scriptures for the many examples of chosen
men, who, placed in situations of mortal peril, have kept their
souls in all purity, spotless, untempted and above the world.
The fear of death could not keep Daniel from his worship, nor
stop Paul from his way to Jerusalem, nor tempt the weary
David to drink of the water, nor cause Shadrack to fall down
to the idol. Every apostle was tempted to deny his crucified
Saviour, tempted by perils of sea and land, by the weariness
of journeying, by the cruelty of barbarous people, among
whom they sojourned, by monstrous and unheard-of torments;
we deem that we are soon arrived at the extremities of our
nature ; we can neither bear ridicule, nor look at terror, nor
defy pleasure ; but there are men upon record who shame us
out of these narrow hmits, and teach us the true bounds and
dimensions of our nature ; who have acted decently in the
midst of every pleasure, who have acted bravely in the midst
of every danger, and with inflexible duty to God, in the midst
of ridicule, outrage and scorn. These men are our masters
and our examples ; upon their model we must form ourselves
190 ON TEMPTATION.
in the great work of pleasing God and saving our souls from
the destruction of sin.
Much of our success in this great warfare depends upon the
general views we take of the temptations to which we are
exposed; temptations must by no means he considered as
needless difficulties; there are other views of this matter which
are the true and just views; if any man will show in the
Gospel any one prohibition to any one action, which action is
neither injurious to him who does it nor to any one else ; then
it may be allowed that temptation is an unnecessary hardship;
but otherwise it is plain that we are only forbidden to do
what it should be injurious to us to do ; and, therefore, the
first rule is to connect together resistance of temptation with
increase of happiness ; to perceive that we are only enlarging
our conceptions of enjoyment by resisting temptation and not
pleasing ourselves for the moment that is passing by at the
expense of the years that are to come.
The next rule is not only to connect resistance of tempta-
tion with happiness, but to connect it with immortal glory,
to consider it as a mean of distinction, an occasion of doing
something more difficult and meritorious than any other thing
in the whole world. There are many laws of the Gospel
which prohibit religious pride ; but none which prohibit
religious ambition ; it is not lawful to glory that we are better
than other men ; but it is quite lawful, it is quite right, it is
quite evangelical to strive to become so : no man strives too
hard to outvie others in extirpating from his soul the seeds
of corruption, in mastering his own nature, and in sacrificing
to God his beloved sins ; no hope is too eager for this, no in-
dustry too perfect, no dedication of time and understanding
too absorbing, too exclusive and too entire.
It is quite certain, also, that after the first efforts of temp-
tation are overcome, the occupation of bending our minds to
religious obedience, of subjugating our inclinations and actions
to the dictates of our reason, may be rendered the most in-
teresting of all human occupations, as it is certainly the most
important. It is ever to be remembered, in reflecting on these
matters, that there is an intimate connection between virtues
and between vices ; that one virtue fairly established in the
character, will probably introduce many others, that one sin
corrupting our nature, will generate and nourish many other
principles of corruption ; so that in conquering and completely
subduing any species of temptation, we gain a double bless-
ing and we avoid a double curse, for in freeing ourselves of
ON TEMPTATION. 191
the sin, we not only are clear of that sin but clear of others,
which would have connected themselves with it; and in gain-
ing the opposite virtue we gain other virtues associated with
it. He who withstands the sin of avarice, withstands the
temptation to hardness of heart and callous indifference to
human misfortune ; he who has all his bodily appetites in
perfect command, gains sweetness of disposition, a love of
order and an habit of self-command, which may conduct him
to every sublimity of active and passive righteousness and
make him the chosen servant of Christ. This last observation
is addressed particularly to those who imagine they can in-
dulge in any one fault and stop there ; that they can atone
for indulgence in a darling vice by abstaining from others for
which they have less inchnation ; in the first place this is a
mere mockery of God, that an epicure may give himself up
to sensuality, if he keeps clear of ambition ; or a meek man
sacrifice his pride and console himself by fraud and false-
hood; but if it were no offence against religion, it would
not be possible to gratify any one single sin and keep our-
selves clear from others ; it is so deadly to live in a state of
disobedience to the Gospel, to know that you do so and to
continue to do so, that there is no evil and no combination of
evils which may not be expected from it ; if any man sees in
his soul one speck of death and decay, and does not rush to
stop it with all the resources of healing righteousness, it will
become more dark and more deep at every moment ; it
will spread over all his counsels, it will blacken all his
thoughts, it will put on the genuine signs and characteristics
of hell, and cut him off for ever from the mercy of God.
If this affinity and connection of sins make temptation so
terrible, if, for these reasons, it is so difficult to confine our-
selves to any one error, still more difficult is it to proceed to
a certain length in any one sin and to stop there ; to say thus
far will I be tempted, and no farther; and when I have sinned
up to a particular point, I will then put on the spirit of right-
eousness and resist ; in truth, the delicate and graduated soft-
ness of doing wrong is not to be resisted ; when the first step
is made, the descent is so easy, the intervals so gentle, the
accommodation so happy, the contrivance so exquisite, that
we are far advanced down before we are thoroughly aware of
having begun ; there is in fact but one spot where any effect-
ual resistance is ever made, and that is at the very beginning;
if we give way there, it is quite certain from the common
193 ON TEMPTATION.
experience of life, that we can rarely or ever return ; and
this first step of sin is not what we commonly suppose it to
be, action, but thought ; nothing which outwardly appears,
but something which inwardly disposes ; what we are to be-
ware of in avoiding temptation is, (as our blessed Saviour
tells us,) the adultery of the heart, the revenge of the heart,
the malice of the heart. The beauty of the Christian religion
is, that it does not wait for sin till it is strong and flourishing,
but roots it up jiist as the seed is bursting into its pernicious
life ; it carries the order and discipline of heaven into our
very fancies and conception, and by hallowing the first shad-
owy notions of our minds from which actions spring, makes
our actions themselves good and holy.
Prayer in all temptation is ever to be resorted to, for it is
much to be believed, that the prayers of men, humbly and
honestly asking of their Creator the means of doing well, are
heard favourably, granted abundantly, and remembered eter-
nally.
I have thus, to the best of my abilities and from the humble
hope of doing good in this and the preceding discourse, passed
through the subject of temptation, and I conclude, by remind-
ing you of what that season is in which I have brought this
subject before you ; a season in which the anniversary of our
Saviour's death is now nigh at hand ; the death of him who
lived for our instruction and happiness, who expired for our
salvation, and who bequeathed to us, at his death, a Gospel,
which has diffused more gentleness, more goodness, more real
happiness among mankind, than the united wisdom of the
wisest sages could ever conceive before him; in addition,
therefore, to all other motives for resisting temptation, we have
this, — not to render vain that death and that crucifixion ; and
after the greatest of all beings has done so much for us, not
to cast away his mercy and frustrate his divine goodness, by
ceasing diligently to labour for our own salvation.
SERMON XXVIII.
FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY
Attd now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of
any man's life among you. — Acts xxvii. verse 22.
*I CONSIDER myself as fortunate that it has fallen to my lot to
recommend, from the pulpit, the establishment of an humane
society in this neighbourhood for the preservation of life ;
because, as I am sure from the benefits it will confer, that it
must be long remembered and zealously supported, I cannot
but be pleased to connect myself, however humbly and dis-
tantly, with that which I believe will impart happiness and
security to so many human beings.
I dare say there are few here present who are unacquainted
with the great progress which has been lately made in the
art of recovering persons apparently dead ; it appears from
the reports of the society established in London, that men
have been restored to life nearly an hour after every sign of
animation had disappeared, and after they had been given
up by common observers as completely dead ; it appears, also,
by the records of the same society, that under their exertions
and by the means they have recommended, more than three
thousand persons have already been restored to life whose pre-
servation, but for the skill diffused by the society, would have
been considered as impossible. It is of the greatest importance
to remember this, because it shows the enormous extent of
those accidents which are fatal to life, and the high degree of
perfection to which this art of resuscitation is already carried
* This sermon was preached at Watford, to recommend the institution
of an Humane Society, rendered expedient by some very dreadful acci-
dents which had recently occurred there.
17
194 FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY.
— four thousand human beings rescued from sudden death.
Let any man of common humanity reflect upon the rapturous
happiness which this mercy has excited ; the tears which it
has dried up ; the broken hearts which it has healed ; the
tender relations of life which it has restored ; the dreadful
thoughts of everlasting separation which it has spared ; think
of this, and there is not a man whose heart and whose under-
standing would not urge him to take part in so noble and
interesting a charity. Four thousand human beings won,
with labour and difficulty, from the grave ; an hour of war
would have overwhelmed twice their number, so easy it is
to destroy, so difficult to save ; God be thanked that this latter
is our task ; that while all Europe is again rushing into arms,
we are met together in the name of Christ to see how we
can increase the security of life and diminish the victory of the
grave.-
We may consider such sort of institutions as the sure signs
of the prevalence of good laws, sound morals, and of a gene-
ral state of prosperity ; it is not so much an object that there
should be many people, as that those who are, should exist in
the greatest attainable comfort, and be exposed to the least pos-
sible degree of peril and disturbance. In a savage state man
is so often destroyed by the sudden excesses of passion, and
subjected to destruction from so many causes, that life is
there of less consequence, and men never think of entering
into any schemes for its preservation. In poor countries no
institutions of charity can flourish ; the attention of mankind
cannot rise above their daily wants ; and though life may be
respected by their habits and laws, they cannot make any
considerable sacrifices for its preservation. In despotic coun-
tries it is not life in general which is of importance, but only
the life of the rich and great ; there are countries even in
Europe where a plan for saving the lives of the lowest classes
of society would carry with it an air of ridicule and hyper-
bole. Such kind of institutions can only exist in a country
where a just administration of just laws has made the life of
man of supreme importance ; they can only take place in a
country where the Christianity in its best form is universally
difl^used ; they can only take place in a country which in-
dustry has raised above the common wants of life and which
can afl^ord to be munificent in its goodness ; such an attention
to human Hfe is the united result of piety, of justice, and of
opulence. ^^,
FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY. 195
This scheme of benevolence has also a peculiar interest as
it connects itself with a knowledge of the human frame, and
of the most important laws by which it is regulated. Let no
man think that knowledge ever can be impious, or that it has
any other limits but the limits of possibility ; whatever secrets
of nature man can discover, he is permitted to discover;
whatever could not be entrusted to him, is placed beyond his
reach ; his efforts may be fruitless, but they cannot be criminal;
for it is only by experience he can find out those boundaries
which Providence has fixed and those rewards which it has
assigned to his labours. It may happen, then, that the science
which this charity patronizes may be yet in its infancy ; that
it may have new resources for the calamities of life ; fresh
consolation for the bitterness of grief; that it may go as far
beyond the present art of resuscitation as that art exceeds
what was believed to be possible in the times which preceded
its invention.
It must be remembered, too, whatever be the degree to
which this art is carried that the institution of an humane
society in this neighbourhood secures the practice of that
art in its utmost present perfection ; in case pf any dangerous
accident you can command all the resources which mechani-
cal or medical aid can supply ; and really I cannot well con-
ceive what an unhappy man can hereafter say to his heart,
who, when such a mean of obviating some of the greatest
calamities of life is placed before him ; when it is insisted
upon and earnestly pressed upon his attention, hears it with
indifference, or rejects it as frivolous or insignificant. Can
any person here present who may think the object upon
which I am employed to be trifling and inadequate ? can any
man pretend to say, before another Sunday summons him to
church, that he may not be crying over the dead body of his
child ; and lifting up from the ground its poor miserable
mother ? and if a man has no children of his own, still is there
such a feeling in the world to bring back a child to its parents,
to say, I took it up when it was breathless, I never quitted
it till life came back; I laboured for the sake of God and for
pity, and there is the child yet living? I come here to
awaken in you such thoughts as these, to be the humble
instrument of good to you and yours ; it is not for any dis-
tant objects that I appeal to your compassion, but for the
interests of this place and this people ; for scenes which you
all may witness, for misfortunes to which you are all exposed.
196 FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY.
Every man who has not beheld such scenes as those to
which I have alluded, is apt to wonder why they are insisted
upon so eagerly, and felt so much ; but those who have seen
them wonder that they are not felt more. I have been twice
present at the process of resuscitation, and I cannot wish that
any person should purchase his feelings of compassion at so
dear a rate. I shall not attempt to describe such scenes, but
one circumstance no time will ever efface from my mind ; the
frantic grief of the mother was not so affecting because it was
dreadful and alarming; but when the first symptom of return-
ing life appeared, I saw her, a poor labouring woman, kneel-
ing with her hands clasped close to the reviving infant;
breathing as her child breathed, growing red and growing
pale with it ; praying, hoping, fearing with her looks, and
gazing immovably on him till the poor lad rose up and knew
his mother once more ? Why did we all labour for this
wretched woman, who had scarcely clothes to cover her or
bread to eat ? we did it without thought or reflection, because
we found ourselves irresistibly called upon to make such an
exertion ; and so are you called upon to minister to such
anguish, to prevent such misery, to hghten that load of sor-
row which presses down the heart of man in the sad journey
of life.
Man is not discontented to part with those whom he loves
in old age ; when the fair career of life is run he feels such
losses ; but he knows they are the inevitable laws of nature,
the condition upon which he lives ; he knows this, and such
an habitual style of thinking brings his affliction within the
limits of reason; it operates, too, as some diminution of
wretchedness where there has been a previous warning, and
a gradual diminution of hope as in a long illness ; but there
is no heart strong enough to support the sudden loss of kin-
dred and of children. " It was only an hour ago that I was
playing with my child ; and when I came back I saw the
hope and pride of my life lying dead and breathless upon
the ground." It is too much for man to bear ; it is the bitter-
est dreg in the cup of God's wrath ; a man may live after
it ; but I defy him to taste of happiness ever again, or to
know what is meant by tranquillity and peace.
It is a subject of great delicacy to touch upon ; but let it
be remembered, we concern ourselves, not only with the con-
sequences of accidental, but of intentional death ; we stop the
impious temerity of the suicide ; we call back to hfe, to duty,
FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY. 197
to shame the man who is retiring from the world before God
and nature summon him away ? We keep back a spirit
from the torments of hell ; we seize upon the first dawnings
of returning reason, to teach him that he must never abandon
his confidence in Heaven. We spare to wretched women and
children, a spectacle of infamy and horror ; we give back a
son to parents, a parent to children, a citizen to the state, a
repentant man to all the duties, charities and relations of life;
it is astonishing that any wise and reflecting mind should
attempt to underrate the grievous sin of suicide ; — putting
aside all higher considerations, what sort of doctrine does it
tend to inculcate ? " It is of no sort of importance to me, to
labour slowly and systematically, to estabhsh a reputation in
the world ; I will eat and drink, for to-morrow I can die ; I
will plunder, dissipate and destroy ; and when the vengeance
of mankind is faUing too heavily upon me, the remedy is in
my own hands ; he who is careless of his own life, has no-
thing to fear from any human being." It is not only this
style of thinking and acting which is to be apprehended
from the frequency of suicide ; but no man stands insulated
from the world, no man can dispose of his own life, without
affecting, in the deepest manner, the happiness of many other
human beings, who have acquired certain rights over every
important action of his life. I pass over, at present, the reli-
gious offence ; I speak only of the alarm, the agony, the dis-
turbance, the universal horror, which such a crime occasions,
if we diminish (as we do most clearly diminish), all this train
of evils ; then, surely, upon every plea of reason and feeling,
upon every principle of the Gospel, is our society entitled to
your protection and support.
There is something in the very idea of the art of reviving
the apparently dead, which cannot fail to inspire the feelings
of solemnity and religion. Is there life yet in the body, or
is the soul of this man gone to render account of the good
and the evil it has done at the judgment seat of God ? Is it
merely perishable matter with which we are occupied, that
to-morrow will be laid in its grave ? or will it once more be
informed by a reasonable soul and agitated by passions? are
the days of his years come to an end, or will he remain to act
a valuable and important part upon the theatre of the world ?
Ihen what is this life, which we are calling back with such
eager and incessant care ? whence comes it ? how went it
away ? — what is it ? The flesh is not life, nor the blood, nor
17*
198 FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY.
the complicated system of nerves ; the eye cannot see it, nor
can it be subjected to any sense, nor has reason explained and
defined it ; it is a thought which baffles inquiry, inspires ter-
ror, teaches wisdom, humbles the most aspiring being, by
telling him that there is a Creator, a master ; and then, too, a
punisher above.
You see before you, too, on such occasions, and see with
no common interest, a man who has tasted of death ; who has
been subjected to that agony which we all must feel, and
exposed to that peril which we all at last must meet ; how
natural to ask, " What were your feelings at such a moment ?
In what shape, in what array, with what host of terrors, with
what new and stupendous machinery of feelings, does death
come ? What is it at which we all recoil with so much
horror, and which we learn, from our earliest youth, to con-
sider as the great bane of human happiness ?" But upon
such points as these, the veil of nature cannot be penetrated,
nor can living beings know the dreadful mysteries beyond
the grave ; this we know, however, from the universal assur-
ance of all who have been exposed to this anticipation of
death, that their last recollections have been the mercy and
protection of God ; that they descended, as they thought, to
death, calling on his name, and supplicating his forgiveness;
that this was the last notion with which they seemed to re-
sign the world. And so it always is with us all ; religion is
natural and necessary to the heart of man ; where else can
that being seek for succour, who is in death, in the midst of
life ? what other hope, in the perils of land, or water ; on the
bed of sickness ; in the hour of death ; in the day of judg-
ment ? Do not mind what the ministers of religion say, but
in all the stupendous events of life, if you find men falling
back upon religion, not only as their greatest, but as their
only consolation ; if those, who have thought themselves
perishing in secret, tell you that at that dread moment, it
was the rod and staff* upon which they leant ; this is one
of those powerful and unprepared evidences in favour of
religion, which outweighs all that eloquence and argument
can produce.
I am afraid, that I have already extended what I have to
say to an improper length, but I am most anxious to succeed
in my object, and to prevent a repetition of those melancholy
scenes which have given to us all so much pain; think
what it is to save one father for his children ; to rescue one
FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY. 199
child from untimely death ; to diminish so much alarm ; to
diffuse so much heartfelt joy ; to place under the control of
skill and prudence some of the bitterest calamities of the
world. God knows how often the life of man has been cast
away ; the httle account that has been made of it in all the
great changes and revolutions of the world ; the millions
which have perished for some object which they did not
comprehend, and by which they could not benefit ; it is
delightful to think, amid all the works of bad ambition, amid
all the groans and bleedings of the earth, that in some little
part of the world, at least, men are occupied with the preser-
vation of life ; that there are some human beings, who can
derive the highest gratification in restoring to those who love
him the lowest and poorest of mankind. These thoughts
are pleasant and refreshing ; they do honour to those with
whom they originated ; I am sure they must produce the
happiest effects in this neighbourhood; and I sincerely implore
the blessing of Almighty God upon so wise, so humane, and
so Christian an undertaking.
::i^M^^^0^^~%f^"
SERMON XXIX-
ON THE EFFECTS WHICH CHRIS
TIANITY OUGHT TO PRODUCE
UPON MANNERS.
The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, &c. — Galatians v. verse 25.
In this epistle to the Galatians, as in many parts of his
writings, St. Paul distinguishes between the works of the
flesh and of the spirit; meaning by the first, the gratification
of those bad appetites and passions incidental to our nature;
and by the last, those virtues which we are taught by the
Christian rehgion.
The catalogue of natural vices exhibits a true and disgust-
ing picture of man untaught and unpurified by his Creator.
The works of the flesh, says he, are hatred, variance, strife,
wrath, emulations, envyings and seditions. But the Chris-
tian religion teaches another mind ; the fruits of that spirit it
would inculcate are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle-
ness and goodness. In this manner, the general scope of
Christianity is pointed out in a few words, and a test afforded
us by which we may estimate our progress in religion.
We say, in our language, to seize on the spirit of a thing :
we talk of the spirit of our political constitution, of the spirit
of our civil and criminal law ; and we seem to mean by the
expressions, those few leading principles which uniformly
pervade these respective codes, and give them consistency of
character ; in this sense the apostle unfolds to us the spirit of
Christianity, the object and tendency of all its laws ; they are
instituted to increase love and affection amongst mankind ; to
make us happy, to diffuse peace, to inculcate mutual forbear-
ance, gentleness, goodness and meekness.
ON THE EFFECTS WHICH CHRISTIANITY, <fec. 201 *
The fruits of the spirit are love. — By love the apostle means
philanthropy, the general love of our fellow-creatures, a
passion dwelling more often on the lip than in the heart, and
rather a theme on which we declaim, than a motive from
which we act. The mass of us who are called Christians
do not hate our fellow-creatures, but we do not love them.
Misanthropy is a compound of ill-temper, disappointment and
folly, which does not often occur. But most men are indif-
ferent to that part of the species which is out of the pale of
their own private acquaintance ; the cry of public wretched-
ness never reaches them ; they never seek for hidden misery ;
they shrink from that courageous benevolence which wades
through mockery, and contempt, and horror, to curb the in-
famous with laws, and comfort the poor with bread ; and when
the rain and the tempest blacken the earth, they gather
round their comforts within ; and make fast the bars of their
gate against the crying Lazarus, and leave his sores to the
dogs, and his head to the storm.
Again, nothing can be more dissimilar from the fruits of the
spirit than that little indulgence which our mutual faults ex-
perience one from the other. The character and conduct of
those with whom we live, are not only a very natural but a
very necessary object of inquiry ; we should live and act in
the dark, if we were not to make it so ; but the strong tend-
ency to injustice and ill nature is the thing to be corrected.
Tear the veil off your heart, and look at it steadily and bold-
ly ; for a keener eye than yours shall one day pierce into
its darkest chambers. Is there no secret wish to find the im-
putation true, by which another is degraded ? Is there no
secret fear that it should be refuted? Do these sentiments
never lurk under the affectation of pity and condolence ? Have
you never concealed those circumstances and considerations
which you knew would extenuate the guilt of an absent and
an accused person? Have you never sat in the prudent
ecstasy of silence, and seen the frame of a good or an eminent
man mangled before your eyes ? Have you never given
credit and circulation to improbable evidence of crime ? Have
you examined the guilt of your neighbour, as you would
examine the guilt of jbur child, in heaviness of heart and in
all the reluctant wretchedness of conviction ? Have you
never added to evil report ? never in a bad hour and with
accursed tongue, and with unblushing face, heaped up in-
famy on a better man than yourself; and spoken that which
202 ON THE EFFECTS WHICH CHRISTIANITY
was false of the helpless, the good, the wise, or the great ?
And if you have done it, if it form the daily habit of your
life, what title have you to the name of Christian ? Or of
what right do you call on Jesus, the merciful and the good?
Be not deceived ; God is never scorned. Think you that he
who set at nought the idle sacrifice of the Jews, who would
not eat bulls' flesh, or drink the blood of goats, will be mocked
with bended knees and uplifted hands ? Are we the disciples
of Christ because we stand at this prayer, and rise at that,
and sanctify the face, and strain at trifles, and fill the temple
with the cry of God, God, and Lord, Lord ? If these are our
notions of religion, we walk on deceitful ashes, which will
plunge our bodies in flame. Christ came down from the
mercy-seat of God to heal our woes, and minister to our in-
firmities, to soften the nature of man, and to bend his heart
to mercy. If you truly venerate his holy name, walk in that
spirit with which he walked on the earth ; forgive as you
would be forgiven ; do unto others as you would they should
do unto you ; judge your brethren in mercy, be slow to con-
demn, and swift to forgive ; bearing always upon you the
fruits of the spirit, peace, long-suffering, gentleness and good-
ness.
Another cause equally fatal to our progress in Christianity,
is that proud contest for superiority, so strongly observable in
society.
Few human creatures, indeed, are eminent either for birth,
fortune, beauty, learning, or anything on which the world
sets a value, without considering such distinctions as a justifi-
cation of pride in themselves, or the want of it as a mark of
degradation in others. The sole object for which they mingle
in society, is to display what they possess, and to insinuate
what the rest of the world want. Their intercourse with
their fellow-creatures is an eternal mixture of ostentation and
sarcasm ; and they would seem to be certain beings of a su-
perior order, made by some other God, and hoping for a more
select salvation. The effect of Christian faith upon daily be-
haviour is often, indeed, scarcely discernible, if it exists at all;
every one is the greatest in his own eyes ; our forms of speech
only are humble, our hearts are full of disdain, and Christians
in this house are mere creatures of the world when they leave
it. And yet there is nothing in the humility of a Christian
incompatible with the elegance of* a gentleman ; and that
polish of manners on which the world places so great, and
OUGHT TO PRODUCE UPON MANNERS. 203
perhaps so merited a value, proceeds chiefly from the indi-
cation of quaHties, which it is so much the object of the Chris-
tian rehgion to diffuse. A man of graceful behaviour coun-
terfeits humiUty, throws a veil over his advantages and per-
fections ; he discovers concealed merit, brings it into light,
and gives it brilliancy and force. — Nobody has any fault be-
fore him ; he is in appearance gentle, long-suffering and be-
nevolent. There is hardly any one Christian quality which
a man, actuated by the mere vanity of pleasing, does not as-
sume to effect his object. Such oblique evidences in favour
of Christianity is not without force, and shows that the dis-
position of mind which it labours to inculcate, is precisely
that which would render human happiness the greatest, by
rendering society the most delightful ; much more delightful
than it ever can be, when we varnish over heart-burnings,
jealousies, envyings and seditions, with Christian faces, and
more than Christian language.
There must exist in society distinction of rank, as well as
difference of natural endowments and attainments the effect
of study ; but God ordained this inequality amongst mankind
for wiser purposes than to minister to the pride of one being,
and to wound the spirit of another ; the mere knowledge of
our superiority is not criminal, and indeed is frequently ine-
vitable. It is the internal pride and contemptuous treatment
of others, founded on such consciousness of superiority, which
violate a law of the Gospel most frequently repeated, and most
clearly explained.
After all take some quiet, sober moment of life, and add
together the two ideas of pride and of man ; behold him, a
creature of a span high, stalking through infinite space in all
the grandeur of littleness : Perched on a httle speck of the
universe, every wind of heaven strikes into his blood the
coldness of death; his souls fleets from his body like melody
from the string ; day and night as dust on the wheel, he is
rolled along the heavens, through a labyrinth of worlds, and
all the systems and creations of God are flaming above and
beneath. Is this a creature to revel in his greatness ? Is
this a creature to make to himself a crown of glory ; to deny
his own flesh and blood ; and to mock at his fellow sprung
from that dust to which they both will soon return ? Does the
proud man not err ? Does he not suffer? Does he not die ?
When he reasons is he never stopped by difficulties ? When
he acts is he never tempted by pleasures ? When he lives is he
204 ON THE EFFECTS WHICH CHRISTIANITY
free from pain ? When he dies can he escape from the com-
mon grave ? Pride is not the heritage of man ; humility
should dwell with frailty, and atone for ignorance, error and
imperfection.
It is not merely with gross acts of vice, or with splendid
virtues that Christianity is conversant ; this is not the true
genius and nature of our religion ; it descends even to that
turn of mind and sentiment which fashions the deportment
of man to man ; it not only guards society from daring enor-
mities, but would render our lives more happy by endearing
cares and engaging attentions; it teaches man to be gentle,
and kind to his fellow, to forbear with him, to forgive foibles,
to forget injuries, to cheer the lowly with glad words and
kind looks. This civil and gracious spirit is, perhaps, the
truest test of our progress in Christianity. Every one is
subject to occasional fits of generosity, but a humane conside-
ration, a rational indulgence for others, evinced by a constant
sweetness of manner, is, perhaps, the most indisputable proof
that Christianity has sunk deeply and intimately into the
heart. Do not let this seem a frivolous and inadequate object
for a Divine lawgiver ; it owes its importance to the moral
constitution of man. The causes of great happiness and
misery rarely occur; little circumstances and events that
appear trifling, singly considered, make up the sum of human
enjoyment or misery. The retrospect of our past lives will
show us that the greatest misfortune we have suffered, is the
sum total of useless vexation inflicted on ourselves and others
from the want of this Christian restraint upon temper and
Christian incitement to benevolence.
Men are more pained by affront than by injury ; affront im-
plies the absence of esteem and the presence of contempt ; and
to gain the one and to avoid the other, seems to be almost the
ruling passion of our lives. For wherefore are the greater
part of mankind studious of riches, but from the consequence
they reflect on their possessor? Of what good are hidden beauty
or concealed talent, or secret splendour of descent ? All these
we covet, as they enable us to move with greater dignity in
the world. What is the sting of poverty ? not the privation
of luxuries, but ridicule and contempt, which men die daily
to avoid, because they fear them worse than death. Esteem
is the great stake for which we all play: and to show a hu-
man being, not rendered infamous from crime, that you d€-
OUGHT TO PRODUCE UPON MANNERS. 205
spise him, is a cruelty which savours little of that gentle
religion we profess or that merciful Redeemer we adore.
The worldly motives to cultivate the fruits of the spirit
(though subordinate of course to those of religion), are nume-
rous and strong. The resentment which proceeds from con-
tempt, is as much to he feared as the affection excited by
courteous treatment is to be desired and cherished. It is
wretched policy to stimulate any human being to a keen in-
spection of our follies and our faults, for no character can
bear the microscopic scrutiny of vindictive anger. Contempt
never passes unobserved, is seldom forgiven, and always
returned with a rapid accumulation of interest. Everybody
makes league against insolence ; the misfortunes of an inso-
lent man are a public rejoicing ; his vices are exaggerated,
his motives falsified, and his virtues forgotten ; he must humble
himself in dust and ashes, before the world can or will forgive
him. Whereas that security which arises from a conscious-
ness of being generally beloved, is the great soother of life
and the most delightful sensation that any human being can
enjoy. He who affects to despise the verdict, which the great
tribunal of the world passes on his life and fame, says that
which is not true, or that which is shameful if it be true;
the delicacy of our feelings, with regard to public opinion,
is extreme. To hear that we have been the subject of
conversation in our absence creates a sensation of anxious
alarm ; we glance instantly at the weak parts of our character,
at the offence or the benevolence we have previously awak-
ened in our judges ; and our hearts die within us, if we learn
that we have been the object of general condemnation ; but
to reflect that we are beloved as widely as we are known, to
think that there are many absent human beings, who bear to
us the seeds of good will, kindness and esteem, is a senti-
ment which cheers the sadness of life ; we shall live so as
never to lose it ; it breathes a grateful tranquillity on the
soul ; it is a firm barrier against the waves of chance, a last-
ing, solid happiness, which we bear about us, like strength
and health earned by temperance and toil. If ye would then
that men should love you, love ye also them ; not with gen-
tleness of face alone and the shallow mockery of smiles ; but
in singleness of heart, in forbearance, judging mercifully,
entering into the mind of thy brother, to spare his pains, to
prevent his wrath, to be unto him an eternal fountain of peace.
These are the fruits of the spirit, and this the soul which
18
206 ON THE EFFECTS WHICH CHRISTIANITY, &C.
emanates from our sacred religion. If we bear these fruits
now in the time of this Hfe ; if we write these laws on the
tablets of our hearts, so as we not only say but do them, then
indeed are we the true servants of Jesus and the children of
his redemption. For us he came down from Heaven ; for us
he was scorned and hated upon earth ; for us mangled on the
cross ; and, at the last day, when the trumpet shall sound, and
the earth melt, and the heavens groan and die, we shall spring
up from the dust of the grave the ever living spirits of God.
SEEMON XXX.
FOR THE SWISS.
The mountains are melted with their blood. — Isaiah xxxiv. verse 3.
With the pleeisure which I always feel in addressing you
on any subject of charity, may be mingled, perhaps, on this
particular occasion some distant sense of national honour and
some small share of national pride ; for it has ever been the
memorable privilege of this island to stand forward as the
early and eager champion of all the miseries of man ; and
though other nations may have fought and may have gained
in arms and in arts a name equally glorious with our own, none
have ever cherished the wretched stranger as we have done ;
none have so sheltered the weary exile of other lands ; none
have ministered with such melting humanity, to aliens in
speech and blood, who kneeled before us venerable in misery
and pleaded the kindred of misfortune. For when did any
people ever fall from their high estate, and there was no one
of us to lament them ? When was any country ever smitten
and afflicted, and we did not lift them up from the dust ? What
victims of war, of tyranny, and persecution have we ever
driven back from our shores ? What species of sorrow have
we rejected? What shape of misery have we despised ?
It is pleasant to hear of the virtues of our country ; the good
deeds our fathers have done, warm our hearts to mercy ; their
generation is passed away, and they are all sleeping in their
tombs : but as their blood gives us life, so may their noble
thoughts yet dwell in the bosoms of their children.
When the poor Palatines presented themselves at the gates
of the metropolis, every British heart was roused to a pitch of
enthusiasm for their relief. It could not be endured that a
sad and motley crowd of men and women should lie on the
208 FOR THE SWISS.
bare ground, under the open wintry heaven, begging humbly
and piteously for food ; they drank of our cup : they were
warmed with the fleece of our sheep ; the tears of these poor
creatures were dried up, and their hearts opened to new pros-
pects of joy.
Not less conspicuous was the charity of this island at that
dreadful epoch when the city of Lisbon was overturned by
an earthquake, and one dreadful day made of a beautiful
metropolis a heap of hideous ruins. It was from the quick
and efficacious bounty of the British people, that they expe-
rienced the first dawn of relief; the blessings of all ranks of
j^eople were showered upon us. King and peasant were
melted by our compassion ; and wretched mothers that lin-
gered weeping over the stones of the city, which covered the
mangled bodies of their children, could spare one prayer to
Heaven for their benefactors and their friends.
Why should I remind you of the late unparalleled instance
of goodness and generosity shown to the poor French emi-
grants ? a generosity which want and privation of every kind
have not been able to relax, or to extinguish. In the midst of
a bloody war, carried on by their own countrymen for our
destruction, we have expended millions in support of the
French who have sought an asylum amongst us ; and while
the blood of our brothers and our friends has been flowing
from the swords of their kindred, they have lived tranquilly
amongst us, in the peace of our laws, and the plenty of our
land.
Induced by these splendid examples of national feeling,
the poor people of Switzerland come tremblingly before you,
to beg some small relief in their wretchedness. They come
to you, not with the looks of freemen, but in tears, and in
chains, naked, hungered, and broken-hearted. The valleys yet
ring with their cries, the mountains are wet with their blood;
they have been smitten, and slaughtered, and spoiled. Swit-
zerland is begging to Europe for charity ! — Switzerland,
where the humblest peasant would have blushed to have
sought his support, but from the strength of his arm, and the
energy of his mind ! — Switzerland, which seemed one vast
family, ruled by the same spirit of activity ! — Switzerland,
where simplicity, and peace, and joy, had fled from courts
and empires, to dwell in the awful bosom of her eternal
mountains.
I cannot but feel some little embarrassment in pressing the
^1
'FOR THE SWISS. 209
misfortunes of the Swiss upon your notice, when the neces-
sities of your own poor seem to put in so much more imperi-
ous a claim to your generosity. But this claim of your own
poor, it should be remembered, has been already heard, and
allowed ; a very large sum has been subscribed for their
Telief, and a much larger sum would, if it were necessary,
be raised with the same facility.
Neither does it follow, that the pittance raised upon this
occasion, should be subtracted from your domestic charities.
In the present posture of affairs, many good people will be, I
am sure, induced to sacrifice somewhat of their amusements,
or even of their comforts, to their conviction of the general
miseries of Europe ; and upon this truly Christian spirit, you
must allow me to say, from my present experience of this
country, that I place the firmest and most rational reliance.
Besides, too, I never will subscribe to that doctrine, which,
confines the feelings of humanity to the more wealthy and
educated classes of mankind. The poor feel acutely for those
whose miseries are greater than their own. Suff*ering as
the peasantry are in this melancholy season of scarcity, if it
were possible to give them a clear conception of the ancient
state of society in Switzerland, of that happiness from which
the Swiss have been precipitated, and the abject misery to
which they have been reduced, do you think they would
grudge to these poor creatures the charity you may extend
to them ? No ! suffering as they are, they would break off' a
morsel of their bread for the poor Swiss, and would cheer-
fully add another pang of hunger to the sorrows of their
hearts.
Amidst all the enormities of the French Revolution, no one
circumstance perhaps has excited such general sympathy
and indignation as the fall of Switzerland. With the name
of Switzerland have been connected, from our earliest years,
all the worthy feelings of the heart, and all the exquisite
beauties of nature ; all that the eye of taste, or the soul of
benevolence could require ; a race of brave, and happy, and
good men animated her solemn rocks and glens ; the climbing
step of freedom had scanned the summit of the mountains,
the unwearied hand of labour had drawn from the barren
rock sustenance for man ; the peasant, with his plough, and
his sword, and his book, was at once a tiller of the earth, a
soldier and a Christian. Happiness never w^as more com-
plete, imagination could not paint a more enviable lot upon
J8*
210 FOR THE SWISS.
earth, or could the earth afford it. For six hundred years
they had remained firm as their native mountains, amidst all
the convulsions of Europe ; for two hundred years they had
hardly drawn the sword, or never drawn it but to conquer.
" They were a chosen land, beloved of God ; and while the
wrathful hail smote the lands about them, in their fields was
no hail seen."
Into these hallowed retreats, in the midst of a solemn truce,
in spite of the strict neutrality observed by the Swiss, and
the solemn and repeated promises of their own government,
burst the common enemies of mankind, hot from the carnage,
and reeking with the blood of other nations. They came to
no new work of horror ; they had murdered other innocents,
and pillaged other temples, and wasted other lands. They
could dye the silvered hair of the aged man with his own
blood ; they could curse the tears of women, and dash down
the suckling babe as he lifted up his meek eyes for mercy.
In the midst of such horrid scenes as these, many actions
of heroic valour characterized the last days of Switzerland ;
and she died with her face ever turned to the enemy, slowly
yielding, and fiercely struggling to the last. In the final bat-
tle, fought near the environs of the capital, (fought, as said
the French, on their part, for the liberation of the Swiss peo-
ple,) one hundred and sixty women were left dead upon the
field of battle, mangled almost to atoms ; still greater numbers
perished at Nurenburg, at Laupen, and Lengnau, fighting
with madness for all they loved upon earth, and throwing
their comely bleeding bodies before their husbands and their
children. At Oberland, an old peasant was observed in arms,
fighting amidst his three children, and his seven grandchildren;
they sustained the combat with inconceivable bravery, calling
upon each other by name tenderly ; the children thronging
about the old man, and guarding with their manly limbs the
hoary head of their parent. They were all murdered ; and
in a moment of time, this valiant race was blotted from the
book of living men.
In the midst of all, wherever bravery, and wherever coun-
sel were needed, was their truly great and intrepid leader ;*
not now, as you might think, in the fullness of strength and
youth, but an old man of seventy years of age, who, for half
a century, had ruled the affairs of the republic with the utmost
* Steigner,
FOR THE SWISS. 211
wisdom and justice, and found himself, at the close of life,
when ease and retirement, crowned with honour, are so
sweet, combating in the midst of armed peasants, for the
existence of his country. He had ever warned the Swiss of
the dangers to which they were exposed, but unfortunately
in vain. At the moment of actual peril, his age and his in-
firmities would have allowed him to retire without disgrace ;
but there are men who are ruled by something within, which
they dread more than the judgment of the world. He who
had guided his country in the days of her tranquillity, could
not forsake her in her troubles. The miseries of Switzerland
made her doubly dear to this good man ; and, like a true
leader of the people, he led them in the day of death and
battle. The people are never ignorant who is fit to lead them ;
they rushed after him like the angel of the living God ; and
every Swiss peasant, who was stabbed at his feet, cast his
lingering eyes on this great man, and when he saw him yet
breathing, died in peace.
I ought perhaps to apologize to you for thus occupying
your time from the pulpit with the praises of individuals ; but
I could not let such an occasion pass, without saying a few
words on so memorable a man. I paint to you the genius of
the people, in showing you the extraordinary characters to
which such an epoch gave birth. You see what a nation
has been destroyed; you see the full extent of crime, for
which the French have become amenable to the whole human
race. Besides, too, if at any future time it shall please Al-
mighty God to expose this country to similar perils ; if these
robbers of the earth are still suffered to mock at all living
men, to shiver to pieces crowns and sceptres, and hurl down
princes, and potentates, and thrones, and dominations ; and
if there be in this church any young man, destined by his
great talents, to lead the people at such an awful crisis ; let
him learn from the life of this illustrious leader, to despise
every system of temporizing poHcy, to see that there are
times when magnanimity is prudence, when despair is wis-
dom; like him, ever looking up to God ; and guided by the
light of beautiful and manly principles, let him move forwards
in one even tenour, through all times, and seasons, and cir-
cumstances, and events.
The vengeance which the French took of the Swiss for
their determined opposition to the invasion of their country,
was decisive and terrible. The history of Europe can afford
212 FOR THE SWISS.
no parallel of such cruelty. To dark ages, and the most
barbarous nations of the east, we must turn for similar scenes
of horror, and perhaps must turn in vain. The soldiers dis-
persed over the country, carried fire, and sword, and robbery
into the most tranquil and hidden valleys of Switzerland.
From the depth of sweet retreats echoed the shrieks of mur-
dered men, stabbed in their humble dwellings, under the
shadow of the high mountains, in the midst of those scenes
of nature, which make solemn and pure the secret thoughts
of man, and appal him with the majesty of God. The flying
peasants saw, in the midst of the night, their cottages, their
implements of husbandry, and the hopes of the future year,
expiring in one cruel conflagration. The men were shot
upon the slightest provocation ; innumerable women, after
being exposed to the most atrocious indignities, were mur-
dered, and their bodies thrown into the woods. In some
instances this conduct was resented ; and for symptoms of
such an honourable spirit, the beautiful town of Altsdorf was
burnt to the ground, and a single house left to show where
it had stood. The town of Stantz, a town peculiarly dear to
the Swiss, as it gave birth to one of the founders of their
liberty, was reduced to a heap of cinders. In this town, in
the fourteenth century, a Swiss general surprised, and took
prisoner, the Austrian commander who had murdered his
father ; he forgave him, upon the simple condition of his not
serving any more against the Swiss Cantons. When the
French got possession of this place, they burnt it to ashes ;
not in a barbarous age, but now, yesterday, in an age we call
philosophical ; they burnt it because the inhabitants endea-
voured to preserve their liberty. The Swiss was a simple
peasant ; the French are a mighty people, combined for the
regeneration of Europe. Oh, Europe, what dost thou owe to
this mighty people ? dead bodies, ruinous heaps, broken
hearts, waste places, childless mothers, widows, orphans,
tears, endless confusion, and unutterable woe. For this
mighty nation we have suffered seven years of unexampled
wretchedness, a long period of discord, jealousy, privation
and horror, which every reflecting man would almost wish
blotted out from his existence. By this mighty people the
Swiss have lost their country ; that country which they
loved so well, that if they heard but the simple song of their
childhood, tears fell down every manly face, and the hearts
of intrepid soldiers sobbed with grief. What, then, is all this
FOR THE SWISS. 213
done with impunity ? Are the thunders of God dumb ?
Are there no lightnings in his right hand ? Pause a Httle
before you decide on the ways of Providence ; tarry and see
what will come to pass. There is a solemn and awful cou-
rage in the human heart, placed there by God himself, to
guard man against the tyranny of his fellows, and while this
lives, the world is safe. There slumbers even now, perhaps,
upon the mountains of Switzerland, some youthful peasant,
unconscious of the soul he bears, that shall lead down these
bold people from their rocks to such deeds of courage as they
have heard with their ears, and their fathers have declared
unto them; to such as were done in their days, and in the old
time before them, by those magnanimous rustics, who first
taught foohsh ambition to respect the wisdom, and the spirit
of simple men, righteously and honestly striving for every
human blessing.
Let me go on a little further in this dreadful enumeration.
More than thirty villages were sacked in the Canton of Berne
alone ; not only was all the produce of the present year
destroyed, but as the cattle unfit for human food were
slaughtered, and the agricultural implements burnt, the cer-
tainty of famine was entailed upon them for the ensuing year;
at the end of all this military execution, civil exactions, still
more cruel and oppressive, were begun ; and under the forms
of government and law, the most unprincipled men gave loose
to their avarice and rapacity, till Switzerland has sunk at
last under the complication of her misfortunes, reduced to
the lowest ebb of misery and despair.
It cannot be necessary, after this narrative, to make any
long or urgent appeals to your feelings ? If ever the mis-
fortunes of man were a care to you ; if ever you have sacri-
ficed any pleasure to lighten the heavy heart ; if a wretched
face and a waihng voice have ever pierced your soul, and
sunk your gayety to the dust, and filled your eyes with tears,
have mercy on these poor forsaken people. I do not ask of
you much, but give them a little ; they have no bread, no
shelter, no friends ; they feel they have no right to petition
you ; but they fling themselves down on their knees before
you, and beg you, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to
have pity on them, or they must die. If any one of you had
been wandering in their mountains, they would have entreated
you kindly and gently ; if you had been sick, they would
have watched your bed ; if you had been w^eary, they would
214 FOR THE SWISS.
have sheltered you in their cabins : if you had been hungry,
their very children would have come to share their food with
you, and their little faces would have been clouded with
sorrow, till the countenance of the poor stranger within their
gates was turned to joy. Do not let these men perish ; but
though you have heard, in these latter days, many a tale of
misery, be not wearied with doing good ; but taught by that
power, which has ever pity on you, learn ye to have pity on
them.
The genuine soul of compassion is swift to figure, and to
conceive ; it glides into the body of the suffering wretch ; it
writhes with his agony ; it faints with his hunger ; it weeps
with his tears ; it bleeds with his blood ; till, bHnd with the
wise and heavenly delusion, it ministers to its own fancied
sorrows and labours for another self. Forget, then, for a mo-
ment that you are living in a free country, in affluent cir-
cumstances, and under respected laws ; put yourselves in the
situation of these poor peasants ; you would see your chil-
dren daily wasting before your eyes, for want of proper food;
you would be forced to bear their looks ; you would see the
little spot where all your affections centered the habitation of
your forefathers, the pride of your life, broken down to a
desolation and a desert ; you would sit down on the ruins ;
you would remember the happy days of your infancy that you
had passed there ; you would think your country was no
more, your kindred were dead in battle ; you would think of
all these things, and your heart Avould break.
My brethren, farewell. I have done. I have said every-
thing in my power for these unhappy people ; I have said it
with all my heart and soul, for I absolutely believe they are
dying from hunger. I humbly crave some little charity for
them ; I beg you as Christians, as good and kind men, to
turn your hearts towards their wretchedness ; I beg you, as
you hope for mercy from the good and gracious Jesus, as
you hope to spend your latter days in peace, as you wish
that your children in distant lands should return home to you
in good report, and bless your eyes once more before death.
If there be here a parent who feels the warning of age, and
hngers in heart round his dear family ; if there be a child that
knows how to cherish the declining age of its parent ; by all
these hopes, by all these feelings, by all these passions, I
solemnly entreat your mercy ; and may the God of Heaven,
and earth, and man, by teaching you to pity, give you the
right to implore.
-«?:<..;- ."i*:*- "^
SERMON XXX I.
ON TOLERATION.
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, in all the churches. —
1 Corinthians xiv. vekse 33.
As I intend to avail myself of this occasion to treat of that
spirit of religious intolerance which has recently* displayed
itself in this country, I am happy to ground my remarks upon
this simple and Christian precept, delivered in the writings
of St. Paul ; that the final end of all rehgious estahhshments is,
to disseminate peace and happiness among mankind ; that
nothing can be farther from, or more contrary to, the purposes
for which they were created, than to teach men to hate each
other on account of their religious opinions : " for God is not
the author of confusion, but of peace in all the churches."
It may seem needless to invite attention to a truth which
every man's understanding admits and every man's heart
adopts, as soon as it is stated. But common experience shows
us that the imderstanding and the heart are totally different
in a season of passion and a season of quiet ; that there are
periods when anger and error are epidemical; when the
wisest men forget the plainest rules ; when it is necessary to
call them back loudly and firmly to the first elements of
justice.
Because this agitation of the public mind has proceeded
from an apprehension for the safety of the Church Estabhsh-
ment, I shall endeavour to show what the fair limits of a
church establishment are; and then to lay down those prin-
ciples of toleration and liberahty by which its blessings may
* This sermon was written and printed in the spring of 1807 ; when a
clamour^ for political purposes, was raised against the Catholics.
216 ON TOLERATION.
be most widely extended, its friends the most successfully-
increased, and its interests the most effectually protected.
The church must be distinguished from religion itself. We
might be Christians without any established church at all ;
as some countries of the world are at this day. A church
establishment is only an instrument for teaching rehgion ; but
an instrument of admirable contrivance and of vast utility.
* To constitute an established church there must be an
order of men set apart for the ministerial office ; a regular
provision made for them; and a particular creed containing the
articles of their faith. These are the three considerations
which seem to make up our idea of an estabhshed church.
First, if those who instructed the people in their rehgion,
were not a peculiar body of men set apart for that purpose, it
is clear that the Christian religion, the evidences of which
depend so much on history and on a knowledge of the dead
languages, would be very imperfectly taught. Society, too,
has a right to look to its clergy for the benefits of example as
well as precept ; which of course they could not do, if the
character of a rehgious teacher could be assumed or laid
aside at pleasure, and lasted only for the time requisite to
deliver the instruction.
Secondly. The support of the clergy ought not to be left
to the caprice and pleasure of individuals, but it should be
(as it is) compulsory upon all; because, upon any other sys-
tem they would either not be supported at all, or would be com-
pelled to gain their subsistence by following where they ought
to lead, and by flattering where it was their duty to instruct.
Lastly. If there were no articles of faith, to which it was
necessary to subscribe in order to become a member of the
established church, every species of contradiction would be
preached to the same congregation; one minister would defend
the doctrine of the Trinity and another would attack it. We
should hear at one time, that Christ was the Son of God ; and
at another, that he was merely a prophet. The church
would become as divided in its doctrines as Babel was in its
language ; and the minds of well-intentioned Christians, jaded
by controversy, would lapse into uniform indifference upon all
subjects of rehgion.
These, then, are the three main points upon which all
* This account of a church establishment is taken from Paley ; though
such truths are so obvious that a child might state them, if he had no in-
terest in perverting the truth.
ON TOLERATION. 217
church establishments must rest ; and thus far such institu-
tions have reason on their side and powerfully promote the
best interests of mankind. In spite of all wild and visionary-
theories, it is right that the state should choose a particular
creed ; that they should set apart a particular order of men
to defend it ; and compel every individual to pay to its sup-
port. Homely and coarse as these principles may appear to
many speculative men, they are the only ones by which the
existence of any rehgion can be secured to the community ;
and we have now too much reason to beheve that the system
of greater latitude, attempted naturally enough in the new
world, will end fatally for the Christian religion, and for good
practical morality.
It may also happen that a particular sect, dissenting from
the doctrines of the church, is at the same time disloyally
inclined towards the state ; and then it seems expedient to
seize hold of their religious creed as a mark of their political
principles, and to exclude them from civil offices lest they
should use the power such offices confer to the injury of the
commonwealth. Exclusions of this kind exist in our own his-
tory ; and in their origin they were, perhaps, wise and neces-
sary. But it must be remembered they are not, nor were they
intended to be, any essential part of a church estabhshment ;
they are only laws which make use of a religious test, to
effect a particular purpose in government ; laws which do not
say that the man holding such rehgious opinions, must neces-
sarily be an enemy to the state at all times, but that he is so
at that particular time ; and that the civil exclusion must
remain as long as the political disaffection exists, and not a
moment beyond.
I beg, then, before I speak of the spirit which ought to ani-
mate the Established Church, to remind you that the only
essential and indispensable requisites for an establishment
are, a separate order of men as teachers ; a legal provision
not left to the option of the people ; and a clear exposition of
their religious belief to be subscribed by all its members. It
may be necessary, also, sometimes, for the state to make reli-
gious faith the test of political opinion, and, therefore, the
reason for civil incapacities: but all these regulations are
temporary, are by no means essential to the church establish-
ment, and ought to cease with the causes which give them
birth.
These are, as it seems to me and has seemed to wiser and
19
218 ON TOLERATION.
better men than me, the principles on which an establishment
ought to be placed ; and upon this base there will be reared
a church, not of confusion but of peace.
I come now to that part of my discourse concerning the
spirit and principles by which the members of the Established
Church ought to be actuated, so as to promote the general
purposes of benevolence specified in the text.
In the first place, there is nothing less Christian than to
wish that the same penalties and deprivations of civil rights
should remain, as a sort of degrading badge, upon those who
differ from the Established Church. Whether the necessity
for their continuation still exists, is another question ; but if it
does, to continue them is a duty, not a pleasure ; it is not a
triumph to be sought, but a melancholy and an hateful task to
be performed ; for to a genuine Christian it is always an hateful
task to abridge the. natural rights of any human being, to re-
press his industry, to damp his honest ambition, and to make
him a stranger in the land of his birth. As I love to worship
God according to my own conceptions of real religion, I love
that every man should do the same ; as I wish that all the
honours and advantages of the realm were laid fairly open to
my competition, I most ardently wish (if the safety of the
state will admit of it), that they could be laid open to the com-
petition of every man, let his faith be what it may. I have
no more pleasure in depriving an human being of his civil
freedom, than in depriving him of the blessings of light an4
of air. It is not impossible but that the safety of the state may
require the continuation of such odious restrictions, but I
would exact the most convincing proofs that such necessity
did reaUy exist ; and I should look upon it as the most sacred
of all duties, and the most exalted of all pleasures, to mark
that moment when the public safety could be rendered com-
patible with complete freedom in religion. The spirit to be
blamed, is the indecent joy and exultation, that other men are
still continued in a state of bondage ; the love of being free,
the dread lest others should be as free ; the narrow and peril-
ous notion that every privation we can heap upon those who
do not subscribe to its doctrines, is so much of soHd gain for
the Established Church.
It is contended that to deprive a man of the opportunity
of attaining to certain honours in the state, is not persecution ^
to torture and to destroy for religious opinions is wrong ; tQ
block up the road to political power for the same reason is not
wrong, and cannot be called by the name of persecution.
ON TOLERATION. 219
The plain answer to which error is this : you have no right
to prohibit any pleasure, or to inflict any pain, without an
adequate reason ; you have no right to defeat an human being
in the meanest of all his wishes, unless you can show that an
adequate good is obtained to the community by so doing:
much more are you bound, in rendering a particular mode of
faith a cause of perpetual degradation, to show what those
reasons are, which justify you in such an inroad upon the
liberties of mankind ; if this cannot be done, such exclusions
are persecutions of the grossest nature ; and all honest and
enUghtened Christians are bound to strive for their extinction.
It seems to be a want of candour in our Establishment to
presume that time has produced no changes for the better in
the spirit of any other religion. Though we ourselves are
in great measure indebted to experience, and to the progress
of civilization for that moderation by which we are distin-
guished, we conceive that the great book of observation has
been shut to all other sects ; that age has rolled on after age,
without lightening their ancient darkness, or softening their
early zeal. Availing ourselves of all the knowledge, all the
tranquillity, and all the improvement we have gathered for
three centuries ; painting ourselves as the world is at this
present day ; we ask if the Catholic and the Calvinist of the
sixteenth century, with all the cruelty, madness and ignorance
of that period, are fit to be put upon a level with the enlight-
ened member of the Establishment, and to be restored to the
exercise of their natural rights ? We oppose a creature of
fact to a creature of history; and derive the advantage of our
comparisons from the unfairness of the period at which they
are made. The fact is, the written doctrine remains the same ;
the book is as it was before ; that no sect ever alters ; but with
the same words in his mouth, the man may possess a very
different heart ; and repeating phrases of persecution, may be
really actuated by the spirit of peace. We are therefore
bound in justice to consider, not what is said by other sects,
but what is done ; not to seize upon lifeless and antiquated
doctrines, which they have been too proud, too timid, and too
careless to expunge ; but to mark their religion both where it
is in subjection, and where it is in power, and to gather its
real character from its general spirit. This we expect that
other religions should do to us ; this other religions have a
right to expect we should do to them.
^ It would tend to promote peace and prevent confusion (the
220 ON TOLERATION.
great object of my text), if the Establishment had a just confi-
dence in its own strength, and a manly ease and security, the
consequence of that confidence. Does it behove so learned,
so opulent, so pious, so moral a body of men, to tremble for
this vast and venerable Establishment, as if it were a little
sickly heresy that had sprung up yesterday in the brain of
some distempered enthusiast? Do the names and the writ-
ings of the English clergy go for so little ? do time and habit
produce such trifling effects upon the minds of men ? is pro-
perty of such little avail ? have learning and argument such
shallow resources, that the Church cannot endure the slight-
est extension of freedom to those out of its own pale, though
it did exist a whole century before the freedom of these men
was in the sHghtest degree diminished? Those who have
lively and irritable feehngs for the safety of the Church must
admire that for which they fear so much ; their admiration
is wise and just, but how is it consistent with their belief in
its rapid frailty and decay ? The truth is, it is not frail and
not perishable. If " the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it," it will never be dashed to pieces against the rock of
justice. It is strong enough to sufter all men to be free, and
to disdain all other aid than that which it gains from teaching
and from acting well.
The last twenty years of an history have been honourably
distinguished by the innumerable laws of persecution they
have repealed, and the comparative freedom they have ex-
tended to every description of Christians. At every stage of
toleration, the destruction of the Established Church has been
foretold ; which never was more powerful or more justly re-
spected, than at this moment. Is there any human being
who wishes to put religious toleration on the same footing it
was at the beginning of this period, and to deprive us of all
the advantages of that liberal policy which has distinguished
the present reign ? The moment the restriction is thrown
down all men wonder that it was ever reared up,'tnat it was
continued so long, or deemed so important. When persecu-
tion is put an end to, it is represented as useless or cruel:
while it exists, it is praised as wise in its policy, and whole-
some in its consequences.
It is the duty of every member of the Establishment, before
he gives his assent to the continuation of such penal laws, to
take care that he is not led away by inflammatory names.
All names by which sectaries are denoted, are become terms
<5N TOLERATION. 22 1
df passion and reproach ; and the very expressions of Papist,
Catholic and Presbyterian are, in the majority of instances,
sufficient to decide opinion. These bad and hurtful notions
are imbibed so early, and sink so deep, that the subject of
religious difference is that of all others where a man of prin-
ciple ought the most to suspect his own reason. The tenets
of the Catholic faith are, I mu^t say, in many instances, such
as common sense revolts at J but many of the greatest and
best men that ever lived have been Catholics ; the common
endearments of life go on with them as with us ; great and
civilized nations have, under the auspices of that rehgion.
Carried the arts of life to the highest pitch of refinement.
Blaming that religion cordially, dissenting from it totally,
wishing to inspire them with our better and purer knowledge
of the Gospel, it is impossible to cry down its followers as men
unworthy to be trusted by the state, and as unfit for all the
offices of civil fife ; it is impossible to pour forth one sweeping
clause of anathema and proscription against the greater half
of the civilized world, and to contend that we are the only in-
fallible judges of error and of truth. The Establishment is
not guarded by such practices as these ; but disgraced and
humbled in the estimation of those reflecting persons who
ought to be cultivated as its best and warmest friends.
I must add that nothing can be more injurious to the true
interests of the Church, than to mingle its name with the po-
litical factions of the day, and to lend its authority to any
purpose of individual ambition. If it is done by one party in
politics, it will soon be imitated by the other ; we shall then
become a mere tool, to answer the purposes of two opposite
factions; and the dearest interests of mankind will be sacri-
ficed to the vilest of all purposes. This is the true way first
to disgrace a church establishment; and then, (when it has
incurred universal contempt,) to destroy it.
Some feelings of generosity we might display towards
other sects, from the recollection that we are the strongest,
that we are endowed, that we are protected ; that we have
the favour of the great mass of the people, and the counte-
nance and support of the law. It would be charitable to re-
member, that these things must be galling to those who have
as firm a conviction in the truth and superiority of the creed
as we can possibly have of ours. The beautiful spirit, and
the true policy are, to allay the httle jealousy our advantages
must occasion, to soften these mortifying distinctions by every
19*
222 ON TOLERATION.
amiable concession, and by every charitable judgment : not
to inflame a painful sense of inferiority into a furious hatred ;
not wantonly to insult other Christians, or needlessly to de-
press them ; but cheerfully and eagerly to impart to them
every advantage with which the security of the EstabHshment
can possibly be rendered compatible.
Piety and honesty are always venerable, with whatever
degree of error they happen to^e connected. Far from con-
sidering the sectarian clergy as objects of ridicule, contempt,
and persecution, it is impossible to witness their laborious
exertions for what they believe to be the truth, their poverty,
the insignificance and obscurity in which they pass their
lives, without experiencing for them very sincere sentiments
both of pity and respect.
It is now time, however, that I should close what I have to
say upon this very important subject. It cannot, I am sure,
be necessary to apologize for any sentiments calculated to
inspire mankind with the spirit of religious charity, and to
remind them, that the God of us all, is the God not " of
confusion, but of peace." If a religious establishment were
nothing but a barbarous and monastic institution ; if it were
merely an human institution ; it might be necessary to prop it
up with penal laws, narrow jealousies, and political factions.
Such unworthy arts might for a little time retard its deserved
fate ; but convinced as I am that in the uninterrupted order of
its prelates it is of apostoHcal origin, that in its human arrange-
ments and provisions it is founded upon the sohd basis of good
sense and public utihty, I am sure it wants no such aids as
these. The more liberal the spirit it displays when any great
question of human happiness is at stake ; the more noble that
disposition which it exhibits towards all other descriptions of
Christians ; the less it suffers itself to be contaminated by
faction, and be duped by party ; by all that it increases in learn-
ing, in piety, and in good conduct ; by all this will it concili-
ate universal affection, be raised in real dignity, and increase
in permanent strength. These are the real means of secu-
rity, and the only true art of continuing and protecting reli-
gion in the w^orld. One man dies, and another is born ; but
public opinion under God settles the fate of all human insti-
tutions; blaming and degrading the works of violence ; loving,
honouring, strengthening and sanctifying the deeds of justice,
the spirit of charity, and the establishments of peace.
■^K^
SERMON XXXII.
ON VANITY.
Behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit. — Ecclesiastes i. verse 14.
Those vices are not always the most dangerous which are
the most rapid of operation, but as effects strike the senses
most where they follow immediately from their causes, such
vices have been more accurately observed, and more clearly
explained, than any others. In the mean time, there are
many habits of thought httle noticed, and little feared, which
pollute no less effectually the springs of the heart, and destroy
the purity of religion. We shudder at falsehood, at ingrati-
tude, at neglect of serious duties, at hardness of heart ; we
look at vanity with a smile of contempt, at the vanity of
the young and gay, with a smile of indulgence ; it seems to
our improvident view an harmless plant, that has got up in
the luxuriant soil of youth, and will quickly wither away in
more mature age ; in the mean time, up it chmbs, and stran-
gles in its grasp the towering and lordly passions of the
soul.
I mean by vanity, the excessive love of praise, an^ I call it
excessive, whenever it becomes a motive to action ; for to make
men indifferent to the praise of their fellow-creatures, as a
consequence of their actions, is not, that I know of, anywhere
enjoined by our sacred religion, nor would it be wise if it
were possible.
The vanity of great men, when it stimulates them to ex-
ertions, useful to mankind, is that species of vanity, which
seems to approach the nearest to virtue, and which we most
readily pardon for its effects ; and, indeed, so much are we
inclined to view actions by their splendour, or their import-
ance, rather than by their motives, that we can hardly agree
224 ON VANITY.
to call by the name of vain, a man who has exercised con-
summate and successful abihty upon great objects ; whereas,
there is a vanity of great, and a vanity of Httle minds, and
the same passion regulates a ceremony which saves or ruins
a kingdom. It is better, to be sure, that good (if it cannot
be done from the best), should be done from any motive, rather
than not be done at all ; but the dignity of the fact can never
communicate purity to the intention. True rehgion consists
not only in action, but in the mind with which we act ; and
the highest beneficence, which flows from vanity, though it
may exalt us in the eyes of men, abases us in the view of
God.
It is curious to observe this versatile passion of vanity, in
all the forms under which it loves to exist; every shape,
every colour, every attitude becomes it ahke ; sometimes it is
a virtue, and sometimes a decency, and sometimes a vice ;
it gives birth to the man of refined manners, the profligate,
the saint, and the hero ; it plays with the toy of the child ; it
totters on the crutch of age ; it lingers on the bed of sickness,
and gathers up its last strength to die with decent effect amidst
the plaudits of the world. The fall of great cities, the waste
of beautiful provinces, the captivity of nations, the groans
and bleedings of the earth. Whence have they sprung ?
that folly might worship, that fame might record, that the
world might look on, and wonder ; for these feelings men
have embittered life, accelerated death, and abjured eternity.
But with these vast scenes, I have nothing to do here ; to
common life, and ordinary occasions, I must at present con-
fine myself.
One of the great evils of vanity is, that it induces hardness
of heart. Compassion must have exercise, or it will cease to
exist ; th^ mind cannot be engrossed at once by two opposite
systems of hopes and fears. If we are occupied by the con-
sideration of what the world will think on every occasion,
there is no leisure for reflection on those solemn duties which
we owe to our fellow-creatures ; duties which God has not
trusted to reason only, but towards which he has warned us
by compassion and inward feeling. These feeHngs soon
cease to admonish, when they are unheeded, and the voice of
humanity, when it has often spoken in vain, speaks no more.
Soon the cry of him who wants bread will come up no longer
to your ear ; soon you will turn from the sad aspect of age,
-I
ON VANITV. 225
and your heart will become shut to the miseries of man, never
again to be opened.
The havoc which vanity makes on the social feelings, is
as conspicuous as that which it exercises on those of compas-
sion. One of the most painful symptoms it produces, is an
impatience of home. The vain man has no new triumphs to
make over his family, or his kindred ; their society becomes
tedious, and insupportable to him ; he flies to every public
circle for rehef, where the hope of being admired lightens
up in him that gayety which never beams on those who
ought to be the nearest to his heart. Thus it is, that the
lives of many in great cities are passed in crowds, and frittered
away in a constant recurrence of the same frivolous amuse-
ments ; after the poignant gratifications of vanity, every other
species of sensation becomes insipid ; the mind shrinks from
duty, and from improvement, and the whole character becomes
trifling and degraded. It is easy to misrepresent these obser-
vations, by supposing them to be leveled against pleasure,
and amusement in general ; whereas, it is not only lawful to
enjoy the innocent pleasures of society in moderation ; but it
is unwise not to enjoy them. That pleasure only is to be
censured which becomes a business, and corrupts the heart
instead of exhilarating the spirits. Dignity of character is a
very subtle thing, and as the guardian of many virtues,
should be carefully preserved ; but if there be any fault
which extinguishes amiable and pious sentiment, hardens
the heart, destroys delicacy of manners, and wipes ofl* all
bloom and freshness from the mind, it is constant and eter-
nal dissipation. The very essence of pleasure is rarity ;
admiration too eagerly pursued, leads infallibly to contempt ;
and the qualities which produce the greatest effect, are al-
ways those of which the possessor is the most profoundly
ignorant.
It is so little the habit of mankind in general, to look to
the consequences of things, that vanity has been strangely
denominated an innocent foible ; and yet there is not a single
virtue which it does not degrade, nor a single vice to which
it does not lead. Look to the many families reduced to ruin
from ostentatious expense ; the profligate who is debauched,
that the world may applaud his spirit ; the Deist who laughs
and trembles ; the atheist who prays in secret ; the weak tribe
who follow fortune, and hate the unhappy ; age lingering in
the haunts of pleasure, and summoned from the feast to the
326^ ON VANITY.
grave ; see ruined women, and mistaken sages ; beautiful
talents, heroic qualities, and princely virtues sunk down to
the dust, and the sad fall of men, whom nature sent forth to
rule, to enHghten, and to adorn the world. This is the evil
which the wise man saw, and said that the earth was filled
with it, that all things were vanity and vexation of spirit.
Vanity is not only a dangerous passion, but it is an absurd
passion ; as it does not in general attain the end it proposes
to itself. The way to gain wealth is to seek it. Learning
is only acquired by constant and eager labour ; but to gain
praise, you must be indifferent in it ; for the rule of commen-
dation is, and ought to be, the very reverse of the rule of
charity; to give most to those who want it least, and thus by
ill success to teach a better motive to action. Vanity is every
day detected and disgraced ; we know men who believe them-
selves to be objects of universal admiration, while in fact they
are objects of universal contempt ; we see how difficult it is
to conceal the passion, or prevent the ridicule consequent upon
it; yet we are vain, and believe that acute malice will be
blind for us alone.
A vain man looks more to the pleasure than the means of
triumph, and experiences defeat, because he sings the song of
victory while he should be spreading his ranks for the battle.
If he succeed, he loses even the inaccurate measure of himself
which he before possessed, attempts greater, and still greater
achievements, and is sure at last to fail, because it is the
easiest of all things to find difficulties superior to human
powers.
It must be from the most lamentable want of self-exami-
nation, that this vice is ever found in the Christian mind.
Christianity consists not only in what we do, and in what
we avoid, but in the sentiments we encourage, and the habits
of thinking we gradually acquire. A vain Christian may
have faith, and he may have conformity ; he may worship
and believe, but where is his humble soul, his mild and
steady wisdom, and his awful sense of the ever-during pre-
sence of God ? These are the sweet virtues on which this
worm of vanity pastures, and these the miserable relics of
Christianity which it leaves behind.
A very vain person is very seldom a very happy person ;
he lives under no certain law ; the rule of his conduct is the
caprice of those with whom he lives ; he never knows to-day,
what he is to do to-morrow, and is constantly acting a part
ON VANITY, 227
before an audience who become difficult to please, in pro-
portion as he is desirous to please them ; he lives in constant
perturbation, and is ever flushed with triumph or pale with
despair ; he is a slave in essence who feels that he has not
dignity to be free, and erects every man he meets into a master
and a lord.
A religious man enjoys the supreme comfort of living under
general rules ; he is ever dignified, because ever consistent ;
he avoids the misery of doubt, and follows a clear line of con-
duct through all times, and seasons, and events. While the
world are in good humour with him, he enjoys their praise
as an accidental good, though he never seeks it as an ultimate
object ; if the rectitude of his motives be not understood, he
wraps himself in his virtue, and gazes from the temple of
conscience at the storm which ravages beneath ; the will of
God is the guide of his life, and he moves through this earth
with fear and fortune beneath his feet, and with Heaven open
to his view.
This love of praise, so strongly infixed in our nature, it is
rather our duty to direct than to extinguish. The excellence,
which requires neither to be encouraged nor corrected, exists
not in the world ; the commendation or censure of enlight-
ened men, is, perhaps, the best test here below of the purity
and wisdom of what we intend, and the propriety and success
of what we do ; and a wise man will always make this use
of the decisions of the world ; when he is blamed, he will lis-
ten with sacred modesty to the collected wisdom of many
men, he will measure back his footsteps on the path of fife,
and whichever way he decides, he will know that he has
either obtained success or deserved it ; he will receive praise
as a probable, not as a certain evidence that he is right ; nay,
he will do more, he will rejoice in the approbation of his fel-
low-creatures ; every feehng of his heart will expand ; it will
cheer him in his long struggle, and dissipate that melancholy
which the best sometimes feel at the triumph of folly, and the
fortune of vice.
I have thus endeavoured to convince you of the danger of
this widely difiused and little-suspected passion of vanity,
and I have attempted also to show you that it injures the
understanding, that it injures the heart, that it injures the
Christian character, that it defeats its own end, and, while it
sues for admiration, often insures contempt. Be it your care
to watch its baneful influence, and to live from nobler motives.
228 ON VANITY.
If you wish for the praise of man, cease to pursue it ; live
that life which, sooner or later, leads to honour in this world,
and to eternity in the next ; he just, be modest, he charitable ;
love dearly your fellow-creatures, and number your days by
the miseries you have lessened, and the blessings you have
diffused. Study your own heart with the patience of a Chris-
tian ; coolly mark, and steadily resist the tendency to wrong.
Let wisdom ever increase with decay, and the soul gather
new light as its covering crumbles into dust ; this is the life
which will more effectually secure to you the sweets of praise
than all the toils and all the vexations of vanity ; you will
reign in the hearts of men, and move amongst them hke the
angel of wisdom and peace ; and when, in the fullness of
years, and in the fullness of honours, you rest for the short
sabbath of the tomb, the cold, dull earth which falls upon
your bier, shall be a cruel sound to the wretched and the
good ; a whole city shall gather round your grave, and weep
over their guide, their father, and their friend.
tS^l^ri^,
SERMON XXXIII.
ON SUICIDE.
Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. — 1st Book of Samuel xxxi. verse 4.
It is not easy to conceive a more melancholy picture of
suicide and despair than that which is exhibited in the latter
end of Satil ; " and the battle went sore against Saul, and the
archers hit him, and he was sore wounded by the archers :
Then said Saul unto his armour bearer, draw thy sword, and
thrust me through therewith ; but his armour bearer would
not, therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it." In this
way did Saul shrink from adversity ; he went forth glorying
in his majesty, the anointed of the Lord, king over the cho-
sen people of God ; the battle turns against him ; he is sore
wounded of the archers, and, forgetful of that all-seeing eye,
which looks down upon the smitten and afflicted man, he
rushes upon voluntary destruction, and seeks in death a cure
for the anguish of wounds and the shame of defeat.
This crime of self-murder, thus strikingly exemplified in
the death of Saul, is one said to prevail in this country to a
greater extent than in any other part of the European world;
whether this notion be true, or exaggerated, the crime exists
in a degree sufficient to produce misery and horror to many
individuals ; and to exhibit to the world at large, flagrant ex-
amples of disobedience to the will of Providence ; it therefore
exists in a degree to justify any Christian minister, in com-
menting upon it, whose object is to promote the happiness of
his fellow-creatures, and to enforce and explain the commands
of that heavenly Master, whose servant he is.
As to the utility of such discussion if principles are good
and sound, if remonstrance is founded upon pure feelings of
rehgion, men sometimes employ it to prevent the excesses of
30
230 ON SUICIDE.
passion, and sometimes they remember it in the midst of
passion ; and, if a sense of duty can restrain avarice, lust,
anger, and revenge, why may it not calm the madness of
despair, and induce him to carry on the load of life who pants
and wearies for the grave ; at all events, it is the duty of a
minister to diffuse good principles without doubting but that
it will produce good consequences ; to scatter the seed, whe-
ther it fall among tares, or upon rocks, or whether it please
God to give it fertihty and increase.
If we consider that by morality is meant that conduct which
promotes the general happiness, the notion that self-murder
is lawful, must be highly immoral, from the direct tendency
which it has to destroy human happiness by increasing vice.
The object of religious instruction always has been to awaken
the attention of mankind to those future pleasures even in
this life, which proceed from the exertions of righteousness ;
and to those future pains which await the gratifications of
sin ; its object has been not to debar men from pleasure, but
to make them acute and long-sighted about pleasure ; to
weaken the power of the present moment, and to give to
futurity that just influence which it ought to have upon our
determinations. Now the firm belief that we have no lawful
control over our own Hves, that it is our indispensable duty,
under every circumstance of good or evil fortune, to live on to
the last, comes directly in aid of these views. If we conceive
that (under the will of God), we must live to the common period
of human life, it is probable we shall make some provision for
future health of body and peace of mind ; the necessity of
living increases the chances of living well ; to him who has
threescore and ten years to remain upon the earth, it is worth
the pains to cultivate mankind, to love virtue, to maintain
justice and truth : it is worth the pains even to act greatly
and splendidly; it gives new interest to the game of life to
contend for honourable fame, and to be a guide and a bene-
factor to mankind. But what has he to fear or hope from
man, whose own hand is the messenger of God, and can tear
him from life more surely than pestilence or pain ? Why
should he quit any vice which gives him momentary pleasure?
Eat and drink, for to-morrow you die, said the Apostle ; but
these are narrow limits for him who is the lord of his own
life. — Ruin, injure and deceive, for to-morrow you die; crowd
infamy upon infamy; add horror to horror ; and when a
ruined body and a restless mind tell you that to-morrow is
ON SUICIDE .^ 231
come, your remedy is nigh at hand, you may curse God and
die.
Our Creator, it is said, has given us a general desire to
obtain good and avoid evil ; why may we not obey this im-
pulse ? We leave a kingdom or a society, of which we do
not approve ; we avoid bodily pain by all the means which
we can invent ; why may we not cease to live when life be-
comes a greater evil than a good ? Because in avoiding pain
or in procuring pleasure, we are always to consider the good
of others, as well as our own. Poverty is an evil, but we may
not rob to avoid it ; power is a good, but it is not justifiable
to obtain it by violence or deceit; we have only a right to
consult our own good within certain boundaries, and after
such a manner that we do not diminish the good of others :
Every evil incapable of such limited remedy, it is our duty to
bear ; and if the general idea, that we have a right to procure
voluntary death to ourselves, be pregnant with infinite mis-
chief to the interests of religion and morality, it is our duty to
hve, as much as it is our duty to do anything else for the same
reason ; a single instance of suicide may be of little conse-
quence ; nor is a single instance of robbery of much ; but we
judge of single actions, by the probability there is of their
becoming frequent, and by the eifects they produce when
they are frequent.
Suicide is as unfavourable to human talents and resources
as it is to human virtues ; we should never have dreamt of
the latent power and energy of our nature, but for the strug-
gle of great minds with great afflictions, nor known the limits
of ourselves, nor man's dominion over fortune. What would
the world now have been, if it had always been said, because
the archers smite me sore and the battle goeth against me, I
will die? Alas ! man has gained all his joy by his pains ;
misery, hunger, and nakedness have been his teachers, and
goaded him on to the glories of civilized life ; take from him
his unyielding spirit, and if he had lived at all, he would
have hved the most suffering creature of the forest.
Suicide has been called magnanimity; but what is mag-
nanimity? A patient endurance of evil to effect a proposed
good ; and when considering the strange mutability of human
affairs, are we to consider this endurance as useless or when
should hope terminate but with life ? To linger out year
after year, unbroken in spirit, unchanged in purpose, is doubt-
less a less imposing destiny than public and pompous suicide;
232 ON SUICIDE.
but if to "be, is more commendable than to seem to be ; if we
love the virtue better than the name, then is it true magna-
nimity to extract wisdom from misery and doctrine from
shame ; to call day and night upon God ; to keep the mind's
eye sternly riveted on its object through failure and through
suffering ; through evil report and through good report ; and
to make the bed of death the only grave of human hope ; but
at the moment when Christianity warns you that your pre-
sent adversity may be a trial from God ; when experience
teaches that great qualities come in arduous situations ; when
piety stimulates you to show the hidden vigour, the inex-
haustible resources, the beautiful capacities of that soul which
God has exempted from the destruction which surrounds it ;
at that moment the law of self-murder gives you for your
resource, ignominious death, frightful disobedience, and never-
ending torments.
It may be imagined that suicide is a crime of rare occur-
rence, but we must not so much overrate our love of hfe,
when there is hardly a passion so weak which cannot at
times overcome it ; many fling away life from ambition, many
from vanity, many from restlessness, many from fear, many
from almost every motive ; nature has made death terrible,
but nature has made those evils terrible, from the dread of
which we seek death ; nature has made resentment terrible,
infamy terrible, want terrible, hunger terrible ; every first
principle of our nature alternately conquers and is conquered;
the passion that is a despot in one mind, is a slave in the
other ; we know nothing of their relative force.
It is hardly possible to conceive this crime, committed by
any one who has not confounded his common notions of right
and wrong by some previous sophistry, and cheated himself
into a temporary skepticism ; but who would trust to the rea-
soning of such a moment, in such a state of the passions,
when the probability of error is so great, and the punishment
so immeasurable ? Men should determine even upon import-
ant human actions with coolness and unimpeded thought ;
much less then is a rash and disturbed hour enough for eter-
nity. Whoever thought of agitating such a question without
feeling an intolerable weight of sin upon his soul? Whoever
voluntarily quitted the world, at peace with himself and with
mankind ? All is passion when all ought to be trembling
deliberation ; when you are abandoned by the grace of God,
when you are compassed round about with the awful ven-
ON SUICIDE. S33
geance of man, when there is no good action on which your
soul can lean and rest, when you are become a desolation and
a great ruin, that is the very moment you choose to rush into
eternity before the God of purity and power.
All these reasonings are of universal application ; but there
are still stronger reasons for him who has bound himself
to the world by the strong ties of husband, friend or parent.
Suppose that Christianity does not forbid the crime, (which
it does virtually in every page ;) suppose it did not violate in
other cases the intentions of Providence by breaking the
course of nature, still how can there exist the right to inflict
such intolerable wretchedness upon those who remain behind,
to bequeath to them an horror which no future happiness can
ever calm, to make weak, timid, affectionate minds remember
that it was no irresistible disease which did this, that it was
not by old age they lost their protector, that they never took
the last leave of you ; but that in an hour of madness you
quitted them suddenly and cruelly, and that in a world to
come they can hope to see you no more.
It is painful to a man to look upon a family that he has
ruined, and to mix with children and kindred whom he has
disgraced; but you owe it to them to keep your pride low;
you owe to them the slow and dismal task of repentance; it
is your duty to bear the compunction of shame, and the lashes
of remorse; to feel degraded ; to live and to get better. Those,
too, whose reproaches you most fear, are ready to bear ruin
and disgrace with you ; they will dry up your tears and give
you dignity and peace of heart ; but the way which a self-
murderer reasons is : " Because I have reduced those whom I
love to ruin and disgrace, I will drive them to despair; I have
abstained from no pleasures for the sake of others, and I will
bear no pain for them; I will perpetuate, by the ignominy of
my death, all that wretchedness which I have caused by the
crimes of my life."
It has often been asked, if self-murder is forbidden by the
Christian religion ; but those who ask this question forget
that Christianity is not a code of laws, but a set of principles
from which particular laws must frequently be inferred; it is
not sufficient to say, there is no precise and positive law,
naming and forbidding self-murder ; there is no law of the
Gospel which forbids the subject to destroy his ruler ; but
there is a law which says, fear and obey him ; therp is no
20*
5J34 ON SUICIDE.
law which prevents me from slaying my parents ; but there
is a law which says, love and honour them ; " be meek," says
our Saviour; "be long-suffering; abide patiently to the last;
submit to the chastening hand of God," and let us never for-
get, that the fifth and greatest gospel is the life of Christ ; that
he acted for us, as well as taught ; that in the deserts of Judea,
in the hall of Pilate, on the supreme cross, his patience shows
us that evil is to be endured, and his piety and his prayers
point out to us how alone it can be mitigated.
It is the misfortune of those who plead for morality and re-
ligion, that they can seldom intimidate but with distant evil,
and allure but with distant good ; nevertheless, by the grace
of God, many a warning precept, little noticed perhaps at the
time it is heard, lays hid in the soul, to start forth when the
snares of death encompass us round about, and the pains of
hell get hold upon us. I am well convinced that there is not
one individual in this solemn assembly, who has the most
remote conception that he can ever be guilty of the crime of
which I have been speaking ; there are some, perhaps who
may consider the very mention of it as useless or injudicious.
So thought the once happy and prosperous men, who, in our
days, have perished by their own hand ; the wealthy, the
noble and the good who have shocked and astonished man-
kind by this act of despair. No man ought to say that his
virtues are less corruptible, his fortunes more lasting, and his
fate more fixed than theirs ; all these said that years of glory
and peace were before them ; that they should live happily ;
that they should go down in quiet to the grave. Alas ! the
day may come, when the noblest, when the happiest, when
the best man here present, who now wonders that such a
crime should exist among mankind, shall stand trembhng in
the twihght of life and death, shall say to the sun, " I shall
see thee no more; and to the face of nature, farewell." No
man ought to suppose that he can begin the swift career of
unrighteousness, and stop short of the last abyss. No gambler,
no adulterer, no restless voluptuary, no man who drains life
of the last dregs of pleasure, can ever say that his own exist-
ence is secure from the fierceness of his passions ; it is a
lowered and a chastened heart, which makes a man respect
and guard his own life ; a belief that whether he is a beggar
or a prince, whether he is tried by the good, or tried by the
evil of fife, it is his duty to remain till the great judge bids
ON SUICIDE. 235
him depart. That he owes it to the will of the Supreme
Being, to the Christian law, to worldly endearments, to general
utility, to individual magnanimity, to hrave every vicissitude
of fortune, while he extracts from those vicissitudes of every
nature, and in every degree, fresh sources of solid improve-
ment, and new occasions for pious and resigned obedience to
the will of God.
w
SERMON XXXIV.
ON REVENGE;
And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell upon his neck,
and kissed him : and they wept. — Genesis xxxiii. verse 4.
The injury Esau received from his brother, his anger, and
the flight of Jacob consequent upon it, form the first part of
that beautiful story of Scripture, of which my text is the
very interesting conclusion.
After an absence of many years, Jacob, who had fled in
poverty, and at an early period of life, from his native coun-
try, returns the father of many children, and the lord of much
pastoral wealth ; returns, however, suffering the strongest
apprehensions from the deserved resentment of his brother
Esau, and willing to allay that resentment, by a very consi-
derable sacrifice of his possessions. " And Jacob commanded
his servants saying, thus shall ye speak unto my lord Esau,
thy servant Jacob sayeth thus : I have sojourned with Laban,
and stayed there until now ; and I have oxen, and asses, and
men servants, and maid servants ; and I have sent to tell my
lord, that I may find grace in thy sight." After some in
terval, the history brings the two brothers within sight of
each other. " And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and
behold Esau came, and with him four hundred men ; and he
passed over before them, and bowed to the ground seven
times until he came near to his brother." Here then was the
moment for which so many human beings pray ; the foot of
Esau was upon the neck of his enemy, and there lay stretched
out before him that treacherous brother whom in bitterness
he had often cursed, and in imagination had often slain. But
in all his anger, he had never thought that Jacob would kiss
his feet for mercy, and weep on the ground before him ; for
ON REVENGE. 237
this Esau was not prepared, but ran to meet Jacob, and em-
braced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they
wept. So wept the much injured Joseph over his cruel bro-
thers ; so weep good men over their repentant enemies in all
ages, and in all climates ; Hstening to the God within them,
and acting, for a moment, like the creatures of a purer world
than this.
I shall take occasion, from the introduction of this beautiful
story of Esau, to treat of the forgiveness of injuries ; pointing
out as well as I am able, the most common obstacles, and the
most powerful motives to the acquisition of this first of the
Christian faith.
It may be said, consistently with the strictest truth, that
revenge is not the characteristic fault of this country. Chris-
tianity has so far interwoven its precepts in our habits and
manners, that we have commonly the fairest disposition to
forgive. The unchristian spirit of remembering, and resent-
ing injury, has no excuse in the spirit of the nation or the
age ; — it derives no colour from reflection, no malignity from
example ; it is original, native, individual badness.
The most obvious motive to forgive, is the pleasure of for-
giving, and the pain of resenting. It is not meant by this,
that there is no pain which accompanies the pleasure of for-
giveness ; or no pleasure mingled with the pain of resentment ;
but the pain of forgiving is of short duration; the pleasure
ever recurring ; causing a man to love and respect himself;
breathing a satisfaction over the whole of life ; remembered
the hour before dissolution, offered up to God as an atonement
for sin; — thought of in sickness, in pain, and in all the mise-
ries of the flesh, when power is forgotten and glory despised.
In the same way there is some sort of pleasure in resent-
ment ; when tears and wounds break out afresh, at the sight
of some accursed oppressor, it is hard to raise this man from
the ground, and to give to him the words of comfort, and the
kiss of peace. But remember the laws by which our nature
is controlled ; when we have shed the blood of him who was
our enemy, when we have broken down his stateliness, and
made him a taunt and a reproach, we shall be turned to
mercy, and our tears will fall down over his wretchedness ;
our anger will come back no more, and we shall mourn over
the desolation of our hands. When we have humbled all
that we have wished to humble, and destroyed all that we
lusted to destroy,— when we cease to be supported by strong
238 ON REVENGE.
passions, — when we cannot retract or repair, we shall begiii
to repent.
Again, common observation upon human character shows
us, that great schemes of resentment always give way ; no
man can hate for a whole life ; the passion which seemed
immortal, is at length swept off by the current of impressions,
and at the close of life, when little time remains for affection^
the feelings of nature return ; year after year has passed away
in silent gloom, and indignation ; every emotion of affection
stifled; every office of kindness lost ; all the sweet consolations
of existence lavished away ; and then, when the grave ad-
monishes enemies to forgive, they mourn over the kindness
they have lost, to renew it for a moment, and lose it again
for ever. Therefore, as the apostle says, repent, for the king-
dom of heaven is at hand; we may say forgive, for the king-
dom of heaven is at hand. Forgive while forgiveness is
worth having; forgive, while there remains enough of life for
the renewal of kindness ; forgive while you have something
else to bestow on repentance than lingering looks and falter-
ing words.
And what does this solemn Christian injunction of forgiv-
ing do, but eradicate from the mind the most painful and
most unquiet of all passions ? What wretchedness to cla-
mour out for ever, " I will pursue, I will overtake ; my right
hand shall dash in pieces mine enemy;" to sacrifice all the
quiet happiness of life, to sicken on the bosom of joy ; still
after the lapse of years to feel, to see, and to suffer with the
freshness of yesterday ; and in the midst of blessings to ex-
claim, all this availeth me nothing, while Mordecai, the Jew,
sitteth at the king's gate.
Are we sure, too, that the cause of our resentment is just ?
have we collected the most ample evidence ? have we ex-
amined it with the closest attention ? have we subjected it to
impartial revision ? have we suspected our passions ? have
we questioned our self-love ? When we make such terrible
resolutions of eternal hatred ; when we disobey the great rule
of the Gospel ; when we proclaim ourselves as punishers and
avengers ; it at least behoves us to know, that we have seen
facts as they really are, and reasoned rightly upon them.
But the truth is, no man ought to be bold enough to expose
his eternal salvation to such peril ; no man ought to say I am
so sure of my own passions, that I will risk my peace upon
them in this world, and my safety in the next ; I see every
ON REVENGE. 239
day, that the hatred of others is unjust ; I am sure mine is
just ; I am surrounded by pride, by error, and by infirmity;
I only am candid, temperate and good. What, if the revolu-
tions of time, mellowing and changing the passions of man,
as it changes the outward face of nature, convince us, that
our hatred and persecution have been unjust ? the years of
our delusion have past quickly on ; death has snatched from
us the object of our hatred, and all the reparation is impossi-
ble ; God says, pardon real injuries, forgive true sufferings ;
what mercy then will he have for the anger which oppresses
innocence, or can we believe that he will pardon our tres-
passes, if we are implacable even against them who have not
trespassed against us ? for it is worthy of observation, that
while other duties are only made the object of precepts, this
duty of forgiveness of injuries, is the very condition upon
which we are permitted to prefer any petition to the throne
of mercy ; it is not said simply thou shalt forgive him that
trespasseth against thee ; but we are made to say, forgive us
our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us ; a
form of words which cuts off the resentful man from the most
distant hope of divine favour ; and, in truth, it is monstrous
to die with a load of passion, folly and vice, without an atom
of mercy for the passions, the follies, and the vices of others ;
to implore, and^ to threaten in one breath ; to place the Re-
deemer Jesus between you and Omnipotence, you who have
never forgiven, or redeemed, or saved, or wept, or hstened, or
lifted up the bruised contrite spirit ; you shall ask in vain on
that day, when vengeance is near at hand ; when every rock
and hill are molten with heat ; when the bow of God is bent;
when the thunder and all the war of heaven are rolHng above
your head.
Men are so far, generally, from being ashamed of not for-
giving injuries, that they often glory in revenge ; they believe
it to be united with courage, and with watchful dignified
pride ; the attribute of a nature not to be approached without
difficulty, much less to be insulted with impunity, boundless
in gratitude and resentment, full of every wild untaught
virtue, and every magnanimous, popular vice, a nature firm
above others in what it purposes, and vivid above others in
what it feels. Yet, after all, what talents, or what virtue,
can an unforgiving disposition possibly imply ? Who is
most likely longest to retain the sense of injured dignity ?
He who has given no pledge to his fellow-creatures that he
240 ON REVENGE.
is good and amiable ? who does not feel that he is invul-
nerable ? who is least fortified by a long tenour of just inten-
tions, and wise actions ? What man, who had ever trodden
one step in the paths of rehgion, would vex the sunshine of
his existence with all the inquietudes of resentment ? would
ingraft upon his life the labour of hating, and hover, year
after year, over expiring injuries ? Who is there, that bears
about him an heart of flesh, that would put away a brother,
or a friend who knelt to him for mercy ? If there be virtue
and merit in such feelings as these, let us, at least, draw our
virtues from a source where the worst and vilest of mankind
cannot dip with us ; if such be the creed of the world, this is
the creed of the Gospel. " If there be any who have' taken
my I'ox, or my ass, and I have not forgiven him ; if the shadow
be long, and the sun be going down, and I am stirred up
against any one of my brethren ; if there be any man in the
whole earth, the latchet of whose shoe, the hair of whose
head I would injure ; if that man come to me, and hold out
his hand, and say, it repenteth me sore, that I have sinned
against thee ; if I turn that man away in the bitterness of his
heart, if I run not forward to meet him, may God turn away
from me in the bitterness of my heart, and while mine enemy
rests in the bosom of Abraham, may there be no drop of water
for my thirst."
Other men who have no desire to be thought magnanimous
because they revenge, are still apprehensive of being consi-
dered as timid if they forgive and resent, to maintain a cha-
racter for spirit ; but it is certainly extremely possible to
combine temperate resistance to present injustice, with a
tendency to forgive what is past ; to be firm in the maintain-
ance of just rights, while we abstain from any greater injury
to our enemies than is necessary to maintain them, and hold
ourselves ready for forgiveness, when they are maintained.
If, indeed, power and esteem are the principal objects of
human attention, the highest power over the minds of men,
and their most perfect esteem, are oftentimes obtained by a
forgiving, rather than a resenting disposition; an enemy, won
over by kindness, is always the most durable friend ; there is
nothing excites greater gratitude than forbearance, where
resentment would have been justifiable; nothing which secures
so forcibly our admiration, as to perceive that any man is so
much the master of his own nature ; like the apostles in the
ship, when we see him rising up, and rebuking the winds,
ON REVENGE. 241
and waves of the mind, we are beyond measure amazed, and
ask what manner of man may this be who can command his
own soul, and whom the passions and angers obey. We must,
therefore, distinctly remember, that it is very frequently pos-
sible to effect by forgiveness every object which we propose
to effect by resentment ; it is possible, by forgiving, to open the
mind of an enemy to a sense of his injustice, to excite his
admiration, to concihate his affection, and to turn his heart ;
it is possible to do everything with forgiveness, that can be
done with resentment, except to give pain, — there is, indeed,
even a pain to be inflicted by forgiveness, but a pain which
is at once the symptom and the guardian of Christian virtue;
compunction for having offended against a generous and
forgiving man. This pain you may inflict if you will ; he who-
inflicts it must be the disciple of Christ, and he who feels it
is not far from being so.
I have a great deal more to say upon this subject, more
than it will be possible to say in my present discourse, and
it will be necessary to resume it on some future occasion ; to
say too much upon it, will not be easy for a minister of the
Gospel. In every occasion of his hfe, our blessed Saviour
preached forgiveness ; to Sadducee, and to Pharisee ; to Gen-
tile, and to Jew ; to poor and to rich ; mercy to others, if you
wish for mercy, was his doctrine ; God forgiveth the forgiver;
he that smiteth, shall be smitten ; so Jesus taught, and dying,
as he lived, prayed for his murderers, looking up to heaven
and saying, God forgive them, they know not what they do.
21
:;c^^i^^:4<^ X
SERMON XXXV.
ON THE TREATMENT OF SERVANTS
Masters, give unto your servants that which is just, and equal, knowing
that ye also have a Master in Heaven. — Colossians iv. verse 1.
Upon first turning our mind to consider those causes which
preserve any society in a state of order and regularity, we
are apt to attribute this effect to the laws alone, and to believe
that it is principally the fear of punishment, which inculcates
one line of conduct, and discourages another ; whereas the
fact is, if the welfare of mankind depended alone upon the
struggle of two hostile principles, the passion which urged
to the commission of the crime on the one hand, and the law
that prohibited it on the other, there had been an end long
since of human association and refinement ; and man, after
such a vain experiment to better his condition and improve
his nature, had returned to his ancient woods, with a fierce-
ness confirmed by experiment, and a barbarity resumed upon
system.
If the law has not powerful assistance and co-operation, it
can never cope with human depravity. Accordingly, besides
the great and cardinal support of religion, we see education
and opinion disciplining the mind of man to a state of whole-
some obedience, and preparing him for those wise restraints
upon which the very existence of society depends. To these
auxiliaries of the law may be added another very important
one ; I mean family government, the most simple, the most
natural, and the most ancient of all governments. How very
much virtue and religion must be promoted by the due exer-
cise of this authority in all its branches, is too plain to be
proved ; the best administered governments must mistake
much and overlook much ; it is of course impossible that theyi
OK THE TREATMENT OF SERVANTS. 243'
can descend to inspect the lives and conducts of individuals,
and to regulate, with minute and laborious justice, the propor-
tion of merit and reward. Now, the chiefs of a family have
an intimate knowledge of every individual in it, a lively inte-
rest in their rectitude of conduct, and an influence over them
to which nobody else can pretend.
It is not my intention to treat of every branch of family
government, but simply of that to which my text relates, the
connection between master and servant. The subject is an
humble one, and little susceptible of ornament : but it is of
daily occurrence ; and, as a considerable share of our comfort
depends upon it, it certainly makes up in utihty what it loses
in dignity. It is a very easy thing to say of a rehgion, that
it has a tendency to assuage human passions, and soften hu-
man manners ; we must justify our praise by exemplifying
it, and, coming home to the business of men, show in moral
detail what Christianity exacts from the husband, the father,
the master, and the son ; and thus make eulogium rational
by giving a clear view of the specific excellencies on which
it is founded.
To a Christian, besides, the duties he owes to any class of
his fellow-creatures, however Ioav they may be placed beneath
him in wealth and rank, can never be but a serious and
solemn concern; for he bears within him a levehng faith
which beats down the pride of man to the dust, which tells
him that the poorest creature in his own shape has a soul
which came from God and before God will stand in judgment
at that day when the first shall be last, and the last be first,
and all flesh be changed.
It may be necessary to observe, that I mean simply to con-
sider the connection between master and servant, on one side
only ; not the duty which a servant owes to his master, but
that which a master owes to his servant ; considering this as
the only part of the subject which can be particularly apph-
cable and interesting to my present congregation ; nor shall
I go on touching methodically upon every common duty, but
shall content myself with mentioning only the most common
faults which we are apt to commit in fulfilling this relation of
life. I hope you will not think the subject I have chosen
too low or too particular for discussion in this place ; let us
never forget that the real test of Christian merit is action,
and that if we are not Christians in the daily and common
transactions of our life, the ardour of devotion, and sincerity
244 ON THE TREATMENT OF SERVANTS.
of our belief by evincing that we know the rule which we
neglect, and the lawgiver whom we disobey, are proofs of
our guilt and not of our virtue. I the more insist on this,
because it is the easiest and most common of all things to
deceive ourselves, and to substitute, instead of the toil of
moral emendation, an overheated fancy, and an undoubting
faith, and then to believe that we are doing our duty to God
and man.
I may very fairly begin with laying it down as a rule that
we owe to those placed under us, gentle language, and a kind,
and benevolent deportment. We are all of us enough dis-
posed to allow, and to make eulogiums upon Christianity, as
a beneficent system of morals. In this commendation, the
skeptic has shown an equal alacrity with the Christian ; but
do we imagine that our Saviour, in the zeal with which he
everywhere promotes the happiness of mankind, while he
endeavours to throw open every compassionate heart as an
asylum for the afflicted, and to make the good an altar for
the miserable ; do we imagine that while he remembers the
bodily wants, he forgets the moral feehngs of man ? that he
has not restrained the sallies of passion, as much as he has
quickened the emotions of pity ? The same merciful Christ,
who says, give of your abundance to those who have little,
who bids you comfort the man who is unhappy, forbids you
to add woe to woe, to build sorrow upon servitude, and to
break down the heart of your bondsman, who has no help but
from you, with scornful looks and galling words.
Man seizes greedily upon every little source of distinction,
which falls within his reach ; his perpetual effort is, to scrape
together every consideration which can exalt him in his own
mind above his fellow-creatures ; and the unwatched tendency
of all his thoughts is constantly to exaggerate the importance
of his own claims and pretensions, and to diminish those of
others. We are compelled to respect, in a considerable degree,
the rights of our equals ; but those of our inferiors, in this
instance of language and manner, we sometimes cruelly
neglect ; and the man Avho is trembhngly ahve to the preser-
vation of his most minute privileges, who is ready in con-
formity with the notions of the times, to expose his life upon
the least affront, or the least shadow of an affront, will tram-
ple without a moment of human reflection, upon the honest
feehngs of a fellow-creature who, though he never enjoyed
the goods of fortune, partakes of the common sentiments of
,0N THE TREATMENT OF SERVANTS. 245
our nature, and, in proportion as his lot of life is less envia-
ble, merits from every good man a treatment more kind.
Do not let us fall into the hard-hearted mistake, that be-
cause men are born in a low station of life, and humbly edu-
cated, they have not a considerable and a powerful share
of feelings. We think that humble men are to be moved
only by a sense of gain, and that all usage is nearly indifferent
to them, if their meat and drink, and clothing be the same ;
but there are many of them who would go from good fare to
kind words, who would be content with a less pittance from
the hand of a gentle and just man, and think with the pro-
verb that it were better to dine off herbs, where love was,
than to have a stalled ox, and hatred therewith. And have
we never heard of servants, whom no reverse of their master's
fortune had ever tempted to desert him? who have sacrificed
the long-cherished hope of liberty, and competency in their
old age, to follow a disgraced, an exiled, a needy man in all
his miseries ? who have given their body for his shield, and
their hands for his support ? and all this without the most dis-
tant hope of reward ? And why ? — not because he has fed
and clothed them, (for the labourer is worthy of his hire, and
recompense is rather justice than benevolence,) but because
they have never been debased in their own eyes by scornful
language ; have never been goaded by unworthy treatment ;
because they have met with men who have not thought the
feelings of their poor dependents too insignificant a subject
for consideration and self-restraint ; because they have been
thought of, esteemed, and valued.' * These are the most ac-
ceptable gifts which one human being can bestow upon ano-
ther, and when they come from him whom fortune and con-
dition surround with dignity, to him who has nothing to com-
mand the respect of the world, from the master to the servant,
they win the human heart, and form an attachment as indis-
soluble, perhaps, as subsists in the world.
Distinction of ranks there must be in every society, and it
is most devoutly to be wished, that the good sense and firm-
ness of this country may ever preserve them ; but it is the
peculiar province of religious instruction, to teach that consi-
derate mildness which softens down the line of demarkation
between the orders of mankind, which allays the natupal dis-
content of inferiority by amiable concession, and renders the
obedience of the lower classes certain and solid, by rendering:
•IT ^ ^
It wilung.
21*
346 ON THE TREATMENT OF SERVANTS.
There is one very striking advantage in this amiable be-
haviour to our domestics for those who are engaged in the
truly noble occupation of gradually correcting and improving
their characters ; it affords a constant exercise for the virtues
of justice and moderation, and it is in the bosom of their
famihes, and in the midst of those who are the daily witnesses
of their actions, that men ought to render virtue habitual to
themselves ; but instead of rendering their home a school of
probation and exercise, they too often look upon it £is a place
of rest from every noble effort, as a retreat, where they are
-exempted from the painful restraints of moderation, justice,
and complacency. Hence it is that in these little subdivisions
of society, in families, where the world is fenced off, where
one roof shelters those whom nature intended to be so dear to
each other, the nearest kindred are so often the constant source
of each other's misery and inquietude ; and hence it is that
when we meet together in the world, we do not bring into
each other's society virtues, but the symbols of virtues ; we are
not moderate, or just, or benevolent, but we counterfeit these
virtues for the time being; and the actions of men are not
here any proofs of amiable quahties, but of adroit and syste-
matic imposture.
This unchristianlike conduct to servants does not always
proceed from a bad heart ; many are guilty of it who have
much of compassion and goodness in their nature ; but it
seems to proceed from a notion early imbibed, never effectu-
ally checked, and aided by our natural indolence and pride,
that a sense of those injuries which are conveyed by manner
and expression, is almost exclusively confined to those whose
minds are refined by education, or whose condition is enno-
bled by birth ; but in spite of all the ills which poverty can
inflict, no human being is base or abject in his own eyes.
Without wealth, or beauty, or learning, or fame, nay, without
one soul in all the earth that harbours a thought of him, with-
out a place where to lay his head, loathsome from disease,
and shunned by men, the poorest outcast has still something for
which he cherishes and fosters himself; he has still some one
pride in reserve, and you may still make his tears more bitter,
and his heart more heavy ; do not then take away from men
who ^ve you their labour for their bread, those feelings of
self-cohiplacency which are dear to all conditions, but doubly
dear to this; do not take away that from thy poor brother,
which cheers him in his toil, which gives him a light heart,
ON THE TREATMENT OF SERVANTS. ^S^
and wipes the sweat from his brow ; and be thou good and
kind to him, and speak gentle words to him, for the strength
of his youth is thine, and remember there is above a God,
whom thou canst not ask to pardon thy folHes, and thy crimes,
if thou forgivest not also the trespasses which are done against
thee.
There is. another point in which the masters of famihes do
not fulfil this relation in a very exemplary manner, and that
is, in attention to the moral discipline of their servants. The
truth is, that if masters are well served, they busy themselves
very little farther with anything else, and suffer many faults
to pass unnoticed, which do not interfere with their own in-
dividual comfort; but is this the duty of a good member of
the community, or of a good Christian ? The master of a
family has an opportunity of informing himself of the charac-
ter of every individual in it more minutely than any other
person can do ; he derives a most important weight from his
situation, and a little temperate, judicious and dignified advice
from him, will reclaim many a thoughtless young person from
destruction, much more effectually than any public and
general instruction can be supposed to do. It is not easy to
conceive anything more respectable, more useful, and more
rehgious, than the conduct of a master of a family, who would
condescend in this manner, to take into his hands the moral
guidance of his servants, and to use his influence over them,
and to make them wiser and better men. That these exer-
i tions would afford to anybody a most ample and abundant
i return, there can be little reason to doubt. Such a man would
feel, in the first place, that most pure and perfect of all plea-
sures, the pleasure of doing good ; he would be conscious that
he had laid up against the hour of death and the day of afflic-
tion a store of complacent reflection, and many remembrances
of a well-spent life ; his too would be the singular fortune of
uniting his duty with his immediate interest ; for will any
human being be long faithful to his worldly master, who has
few and imperfect notions of any other? or can there be a
greater security for faithful and ready obedience, than a mind
solemnly impressed with notions of wrong and right, and
roused to a love of virtue and a dread of vice ?
There is not, perhaps, a more pleasant spectacle than a well-
ordered family, where the good sense and benevolence of
the superiors diffuse comfort and content to the meanest in-
dividual of which it is composed ; where the kindness of the
348 ON THE TREATMENT OF SERVANTS.
master is reflected back in the alacrity of the servant ; where
command is dictated by reason, and obedience comes from the
heart. There is here no contest whether one shall evade or
the other exact the most ; but generosity on the one side has
begotten fidelity on the other, and two diflferent orders of men
are bound together in the common bonds of interest and af-
fection. This house is the tabernacle of peace ; here it is that
virtue and religion love to dwell; and if the great God ever
give us in this melancholy vale to taste one drop of heavenly
comfort, in such a calm, wise and religious state that blessing
is surely conferred ; good, and surrounded by the good,
making use of the superior situation to which fortune has
exalted you, to influence your inferiors in the cause of virtue,
suffering no bad, no indifferent character near you, but by the
incessant efforts of benevolence and example, transmuting and
subliming every heart into moral and Christian excellence ;
this it is to imitate our great Creator, who for ages has seen
the nations of the earth gliding away under his throne, and
the people mad with folly and crime; yet he has looked on,
and spared us ; we are not swallowed up ; he is a merciful, and
a good God, and he still shows us the light of his counte-
nance, and he opens his hand, and fills all things living Avith
plenteousness. Do thou, therefore, unto thy servants that
which is just and equal, knowing that thou hast such a
master in heaven.
-^Wr;
SERMON XXXVI.
ON MEN OF THE WORLD,
Be not conformed to this world. — Romams Xii. verse 2.
I SHALL dedicate niy sermon of this day to the examination of
a very common and a very complex character in society; that
1 mean of men of the world : a description of persons so far
from having obeyed the injunction of the apostle, that they
have received an appellation directly significant of their dis-
obedience to it.
When vice stands by itself, we descry an enemy, and pre-
pare for attack or defence ; but vice, in union with agreeable
qualities and accomplishments, presents an insidious combina-
tion, which requires the close attention of the religious in-
structor, because it veils the danger which it augments.
Strange havoc is made in our opinions by words; appella-
tions frequently convey censure, or praise, which the ideas
they signify certainly would not do; and definition seems as
necessary in morals, as it is for any object of science. It is
enough for the purposes of shame or honour, to get hold of
certain phrases or terms ; what is the real import of these
words, and what good and evil they really convey, few people
give themselves the trouble to consider ; hence, if a loose ex-
pression be set up, significant of some popular qualities, the
adjacent vices will soon connect [themselves with these wel-
come guests, and bidding, under cover of their name, defiance
to the indolent search made for them, they will share in
common the indulgence and approbation of the world.
The appellation of a man of the world, can in strictness
mean nothing more than a person who, by long mingling with
his fellow-creatures, has acquired a knowledge of human
nature, together with those habits and manners which pre-
250 ON MEN OF THE WORLD.
vail in that cast of society which gives the law to the rest.^
Good manners and skill in character contribute so much to the
general happiness, that this appellation of man of the world,
would very justly confer popularity, if it were found to mean
nothing more. It is not a knowledge of the world, properly
so called, that can ever be the subject of condemnation in this
place ; to be ignorant of men can never be the way to live
well amongst them ; but those vices which have been fraudu-
lently interwoven with this pleasant and important knowledge,
should be torn off'; we should toss out the asp which hes hid-
den in the fruit ; death is a hard price for dehght.
In the first place, the appellation of a man of the world,
has become a protection for irreligion.
When I proceed to estimate the religion of a man of the
world, no one will imagine me about to draw a very savage
picture of severity and gloom; some httle relaxation of self-denial
will be anticipated, and some little deviation from unerring recti-
tude. It will be no story of the cowl, and the cloister, of the
burning lamp, and the midnight prayer, of the altar ever
charged with oblation, and the hymn ever sounding with
praise : I do not mean to be unjust in the delineation of cha-
racter ; injustice of this kind is impolitic and immoral ; but I
am not afraid of being severe, while I confine myself to truth;
we are placed here to remind, to warn, to detect, to caution,
to entreat, to blame, and to praise ; and that man is a traitor
to the most sacred trust, who thunders grief and terror against
awkward vice, and holds parley with pleasing error and popu-
lar sin.
A man of the world is rarely or ever seen in any place of
public worship ; a spirited and witty contempt for religion is
the most gaudy, indispensable feather in his whole plume. If
he happen not yet to have shaken off his rehgion internally,
which in the beginning of his career may perhaps be the
case, he must indulge only in furtive supplication, and retire
to his own chamber, not to avoid the ostentation, but the im-
putation of piety. As a man of the world becomes older and
more a man of the world, he may perhaps become a confor-
mist, and comply with the outward ceremonies of religion,
still taking care it is privately understood he is there to humour
the world ; that his contempt for these things is in no ways
diminished ; that he still thinks rehgion the business of wo-
men, children, and priests. His object is to impress man-
kind with a notion of his versatihty ; he insinuates that he
ON MEN OF THE WORLD. 251
v'would fall in with the reigning worship wherever he might
V*be placed, and change his adoration with his climate ; and
'-'you cannot more effectually pique or punish his vanity, than
by mistaking him for a devout man seriously impressed with
the truths of rehgion. This singular and impious affectation
proceeds from a^ desire of appearing to have escaped from
those unsocial and unpleasant quaHties with which rehgion
is in our imagination so fatally connected ; an association
strengthened by that period of our history when irreligion
was unfortunately the only test of genuine loyalty and elegant
extraction. But this union between disaffection and devotion
is now not only dissolved, but reversed, and religion is clearly
no longer the parent of barbarous and austere manners. As
far as it affects manners at all, it teaches the reality of every
amiable quaHty, of which knowledge of the world teaches us
to counterfeit the appearance, and changes a system of con-
ventional fraud and sanctioned falsehood into a solid commerce
of benevolence and mutual indulgence.
A man of the world, though he have no learned disbelief
of sacred things, but rather an habitual carelessness concern-
ing them, is still the author of much serious mischief to the
cause of religion ; he is always hovering upon the borders of
consecrated ground, and watching his opportunity to make
light and successful incursions upon it ; and when the out-
works of religion are attacked by a popular character, with
humour and pleasantry, we are defrauded into a smile, or dare
not stop the acclamations of contagious mirth with the warn-
ings of deliberate and principled austerity ; in the mean time,
the reverential awe in which education has enshrined every
holy thought, and every holy name, is gradually dissipated ;
and the best pledge of all that is valuable in character or ad-
, mirable in action, trucked away with the ignorance of children
for the graceful facihties and trifles of shameless, senseless,
silly men.
> The morality of a man of the world amounts to little more
than prudence, and does not always come up to that : he is
V. ''aware of the allowance that is made for him, and sins up to
- the full extent of his measure ; he must be always ready to
sacrifice his own life or to take that of another; in gaming,
he must observe the strictest faith, and, in general, must ab-
stain from all vices that are neither elegant nor interesting.
With these hmits he is let loose upon pubhc happiness, to
plunder and debauch, without penalty or shame. Take, for
252 ON MEN OF THE WORLD.
instance, the happiness of a private family, as it depends upon
the unsullied dignity and spotless life of its females ; is there
one of those whom we call men of the world, whom anything
but fear would prevent from poisoning the heart, and laying
waste the principles and virtues of women ? Is there one
who has rehgious magnanimity enough to scare this hcen-
tious cruelty from his soul? Is there one who would not
blush to be suspected of such a virtue ? And how often
would the indulgence of the vice meet its punishment in the
anger and the execrations of the world !
But though it be admitted that these, and many other bad
vices, too often mark the character of a man of the world,
" still," it will be urged, " he has his peculiar excellencies,
as well as defects, and the former of these justify, in some
measure, the admiration he receives, and give such a man a
title to our love, if not to our esteem ; one of these palliating
virtues is certainly generosity." If a man of the world be
generous, it must at least be allowed he is more frequently so
with other people's property than with his own. The great
check upon generosity, is the necessity of employing wealth
for the ordinary wants of life; but he who lives in the world
on free quarter, and defrauds a thousand honest men of their
due, may toss away his bounty with a profusion, admirable
enough to the multitude, but which, in fact, is the profligacy
of a robber, not the generosity of a magnanimous man.
In all matters of compact or agreement, it is the invariable
maxim of men of the world to take every advantage, which
the ignorance of the contracting party, or the ambiguity of
law, will permit ; and this not more from avarice than from
vanity, because, above all things, mankind must be impressed
with a notion of this dexterity; and if he give way to a sense
of generosity or justice, it will be presumed he has not seen
the advantage he has relinquished.
Another source of distinction, to which this class of per-
sons lays claim, is, an exemption from prejudices ; a claim of
such high importance, that I am afraid no class of men, and
very few individuals of any class, are entitled to make it. A
long commerce with the world, though it frequently extin-
guishes principle, seems only to commute prejudices. In
the world, the prop of friendship is httle wanted ; the ties of
blood forgotten, the ardour of youthful benevolence blunted ;
whatever amuses, is virtue ; whatever tires, vice ; a callous
contempt for mankind dispensing with all active benevolence,
ON MEN OF THE WORLD. 253
is riveted on the mind for ever ; this is frequent enough in
the world ; but for prejudice, men reason as badly, and retain
their opinions as obstinately in crowds, as in solitude ; if a
secluded man wants experience to correct his reflection, an
active man wants reflection to infer justly from his experience;
if the one be too little interested to observe minutely, the other
is too much interested to observe candidly ; so that there is
nothing in the life of a man of the world, that should impart
to his mind a greater degree of liberality, though his licen-
tiousness, and indifference to all opinion, may frequently lead
us to suppose so.
Nothing excites the ridicule of a man of the world more
powerfully than any hypothesis concerning public virtue, or
supposition that the mass of mankind are not a fair object of
plunder and deception ; you can hardly present to him a
better opportunity for sarcasm, or a more decided evidence of
your own pedantry and ignorance of mankind ; to him, office
and legislation are as much objects of sale, as the drugs or
the spices of the merchant ; he is ever ready to truck the
public happiness for what it will fetch ; and when he speaks
of the importance of his trust, you may be sure he means to
enhance the price of his treason. It is vain to talk of in-
novations, and to call out for a multiplication of checks in
government ; the root of the evil is the laxity of all public
principle. From this school of the world, swarms of disciples
will ever be ready to put to sale the wisest institutions, the
ablest laws, and the most sacred trusts. Such are the idols
of our admiration ! Such the models to which the eyes of
the young are directed, such the men before whom virtue is
abashed, and wisdom still ; who make us all blush for our
rustic integrity, and plebeian faith.
It commonly happens, that a man of the world adds to his
other bad qualities, those deep-seated and fatal vices which
proceed from the love of gaming : — His taste for lawful and
simple pleasure has long since given way to the emotions of
passion ; there exists in him a necessity for perturbation ; he
must ever be flushed with avarice, shaken with rage, or racked
with despair ; he must descend, in one short hour, from wealth
to poverty, from raptures to curses ; any tempest, any storm,
to escape from the dull tranquillity of virtue, and the inflexible
demands of duty.
The progress of opinions is curious and instructive. Vir-
33
*^'d4 on men of the world.
tiie is so delightful, Avhenever it is perceived, that men have
found it their interest to cultivate manners, which are, in fact,
the appearances of certain virtues ; and now we are come to
Jove the sign better than the thing signified, and indubitably
to prefer (though we never own it) manners without virtue,
to virtue without manners.
Men who have only this merit of exterior to plead, would
be ranked with some greater regard to justice, if their judges
were more governed by the suggestions of conscience and
reflection, than by the tyranny of fashion. The universal
object seems to be, not to do w^hat we think right, but to do
what is done, to avoid singularity ; self-approbation, the vice-
gerent of God, and legitimate monarch of our actions, is de-
posed. We voluntarily submit to the government of the
multitude, obey the mandate we disapprove, and employ all
the force of ridicule to make other people as slavishly irra-
tional as ourselves. Without a certain disregard to the
opinions of the world, or rather that mass of people engaged
in dissipation, who call themselves the world, there can be
neither wisdom of conduct, nor happiness the result of it.
Singularity as a motive to action, has justly experienced all
the ridicule it has received ; singularity, as a necessary con-
sequence of our obedience to the dictates of propriety and good
sense, it is the duty of every man to incur, and if he cannot
despise the ridicule consequent upon it, at least to bear it.
Give this self-called world its full dominion over trifles, up to
the very confines of morality, and religion, but not a step be-
yond ; here make your stand, or be for ever lost. There is a
latent sense of their own unworthiness in every multitude, in
none more than in that called the world; they are ever ready
to flee from the erect aspect of wisdom and of courage ; they
will begin with scoffing at your independence, and end Avith
respecting it. Join with that world in the admiration of
polish, refinement and urbanity ; dehght in that graceful
mutability of soul, which takes its tone and tenour from every
external object; in that subdued energy, which always charms,
and never exceeds ; in that learned exercise of talent which
gives pleasure without exciting envy; in that pleasant despot-
ism of courtesy, which makes every man a willing slave.
But let not that sacred vigilance slumber, which watches over
evil and good ; the fairest of all things are religion, and virtue,
for the want of which, all the accomphshments of the outward
ON MEN OF THE WORLD. 255
man are wretched atonements ; nothing can compensate fox
their absence ; no price, however splendid and imposing, can
purchase that, which is above all human value, calculation
and esteem.
The conviction which these plain and obvious remarks
may carry with them, will be eluded by that common style
of reasoning which gives vigour and duration to every pos-
sible fault. " A single example can do nothing ; the world
will still go on as it has always done ; bad men will still find
protecting names, and imposing pretences; the individual
who withstands it, will become ridiculous, the fault remain as
popular as ever." The misfortune is, that this objection is
made with bad faith, and can as well be answered by those
who make, as by those who state it. No individual is called
upon to bear the whole burthen of reform ; but the reform is
to be effected by the sum of individual exertions ; of course,
morality must always be stationary or retrograde, if we all
resolve to contribute nothing towards the general improvement,
because none of us can contribute much.
Those who have not strength of character to deviate mate-
rially from the customs of the world, in this patronage of
folly and estimation of vice, need not go all lengths ; some
scanty limits and some feeble shame they may still preserve,
and watch over the crumbling barriers of virtue, which totter
on their base.
Nobody of course can mean to say, that a fellow-creature
ought to be the object of aversion, because he has mingled
with great numbers, and great varieties of his species ; a
thousand virtues may result from the school of the world
which a speculative life can with difficulty infuse. An hu-
man being who has ever cultivated his understanding, and
preserved an unspotted integrity amidst all the business o£
life, exhibits the finest model of character which this world
can produce ; short of this, there are many who have had
the good sense, or the good fortune, to conduct themselves
with a decent propriety, which, in the spirit of Christian
indulgence, may entitle them to the favour they experience ;
bat when the term of a man of the world becomes the
pass-word to all society ; when the character is the admira-
tion of one sex, and the model for imitation in the other ;
when irreligious men, dishonest men, gamesters, seducers,
adulterers, ungrateful sons, unjust husbands, neglectful pa-
356 ON MEN ^F THE WORLD.
rents, shameless, infamoiis women ; when every polished
assassin, and every accomplished impostor, find shelter and
forgiveness for their crimes in this attribute of knowledge of
the world, it becomes the imperious duty of every reflecting
man to sift well this fatal, shuffling world, to be careful, as far
as his own efforts and example extend, to make infamy and
Regleet the punishment of vice, and not to sanction with his
name and society, an infamous, immoral character, though
birth, wit, fortune and manners» aU conspire to make it the
idol of the worlds
SERMON XXXVII.
ON THE FOLLY OF BEING ASHAMED
OF RELIGION.
Whosoever, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I confess
also before my Father, which is in Heaven ; but whosoever shall deny
me before men, him will I also deny before my Father, which is in Hea-
ven. — Matthew x. verse 32, 33.
There is no word which issues more frequently from the
mouths of those who have no great fondness for rehgion, and
the rehgious, than that of hypocrisy ; indeed, it is with them
so very common a word, that it may be questioned, if they
have any other by which to denote rehgion itself. Whoever
talks of religion is an hypocrite ; whoever frequents rehgious
worship is an hypocrite ; whoever is alarmed for, or defends
the interests of religion, is an hypocrite. Hypocrisy is the
term,. by which bad men endeavour to designate and to dis-
grace religion.
However just such imputation may have been in ages past,
it is not now worth while to determine ; rehgion might then
have been held in greater honour among men, than unfortu-
nately it is at present ; and, as the reality was more precious,
the counterfeit might have been more common ; but applied
to the times in which we live, hypocrisy is so far from being
a frequent vice, that we much more frequently see men
ashamed of the religion they do possess, than pretenders to
any degree of it which they have never attained ; the hypoc-
risy of impiety is a common vice, the hypocrisy of religion
is not ; it is most true that many men fear God, who would
not have the world believe that they fear him ; if the Gospel
has its open enemies, it has too its timid friends, and it is not
every one who would be pleased to confess to the world, the
2^*
258 ON THE FOLLY OF BEING ASHAMED OF RELIGION.
vivacity of that hope, and the extent of that consolation which
he derives from the rehgion of Christ.
To some this may seem a good sign ; it may be urged that
men are, therefore, better than at the first sight they appear
to be ; that there is more of real religion in the world, than
the despondency of the pious and the good allows them to
suppose ; but this is a most mistaken view, for why is Christ
denied before men, if that denial does not carry with it a cer-
tain appearance of bravery to the unthinking multitude ? why
are men ashamed of rehgion, if the name oif religion does not
convey with it some feeling of weakness and inferiority ?
why are the most beautiful, and the most solemn feelings of
the heart suppressed if there is not a lurking, half-formed
impiety in that mass of human beings, who are formed only
by circumstances, and who take their morals and their religion
from the temper of the times in which they live.
This shame of appearing too rehgious, proceeds principally
from the fear of ridicule, of which ridicule unfortunately all
things are susceptible, exactly in proportion to their dignity
and grandeur. But young pei-sons should leam at their first
entrance into life, the secret of converting this ridicule into
respect; the fool who laughs at you for your pious deport-
ment, will redouble his contempt when he perceives that he
is successful ; take care that your piety is genuine, that it is
neither fanatical nor superstitious ; and when you have seen
that it is good, persevere in it calmly and immovably ; con-
fess Christ before the world, not with the ostentation of a
Pharisee ; but with the firmness of a man ; God, who seeth in
secret, will reward you openly; and the very wretch who
mocked you, will be the first to honour your courage and to
respect your zeal. It is the greatest of all mistakes to yield
one step of your life to the clamours of impiety ; the enemies
of rehgion are aware of the powerful weapon they wield, but
they are also aware that they are injuring man and offending
God ; oppose them without insolence and without fear, and
when you have repelled their aggression, you will, if that be
any object, secure their respect.
But it may be asked, why we are bound to profess rehgion
openly among men ? Of what importance are those opinions
which the world may form of our religion, if we really beheve
what religion teaches, and practice what it enjoins ? But the
fact is, we are not only bound to be religious, but to be reli-
gious in such a manner that we make others so ; we are bound
ON THE TOLLY Of BEING ASHAMED OF RELIGION. 259
to make the faith appear honourable among men ; to give the
timid courage to profess it ; to let those who fluctuate and
doubt, perceive that firmness of character which is derived
from genuine piety; to teach those who would scoff' us out of
our religion, that we are walking above the world, that their
scorn cannot reach us, but that if it did, we should be proud
to bear every persecution malignity could inflict, to show our
humble gratitude for all the religious blessings we enjoy.
But, perhaps I have gone too far in animadverting on this
sinful shame of rehgion, before I have pointed out the most
flagrant instances in which we are guilty of it. If, in such
■enumeration, I should mention any example, an individual
instance of which may appear to be of little moment, remem-
ber what such instances would amount to, if they were com-
mon, and what a total corruption would ensue from the gene-
ral neglect of such duties.
To come then to the ordinary scenes of life ; — that man is
ashamed of his religion who scruples to express his disappro-
bation of any licentious and blasphemous conversation by
which it is attacked. It is not in the power of every one to
reason ; it is the privilege only of age or of authority, to re-
buke ; but every one can make others understand that he is
displeased, that his finest feelings have been trampled upon,
and his strongest opinion despised. It may poison vicious
mirth, but it is the duty of every man to incur this temporary
displeasure, and to offend by the rigour of his nature, rather
than to sin by its facility. — This is one occasion for professing
Christ before men; an occasion very arduous to a gentle na-
ture, because it is necessary to run counter to the tenour of
men's spirits, and to quench the vivacity of pleasure by a
dignified and serious concern ; but painful as it is, it must be
done. Wherever we are called upon to promote the interests
of man and the glory of .God, by professing Christ before the
w^orld, if we deny him, he also will deny us on the judgment
day : He, the only mediator between the dust and ashes which
we are, and the God that gave them life.
To comply with any custom or fashion of the world, which
we know to be in opposition to the precepts of religion, and
to comply, merely, because we are averse to confess the power
. which religion has over us, is to deny Christ before the world,
'and to fear man more than God.— -It is our duty at such time,
not only to dissent, but to state the true reason for that dis-
sent ; to make it clear that we abstain from the action or dis-
260 ON THE FOLLY OF BEING ASHAMED OF RELIGION.
sent from the custom, because it is religiously wrong, because
God has forbidden it, because no man can, with any consist-
ency, profess himself a Christian, and violate the plainest
rules which Christ has taught. — This is antiquated language ;
there is nothing in it of that polished facility, which is perpe-
tually crumbling away the ancient barriers of good and evil ;
but say it modestly, say it simply, say it kindly, say it from
the bottom of your heart, and you will speak and act in the
genuine spirit of a Christian; you will confess Christ before
men, and in a great and a perilous season, he will confess
you before our Father which is in Heaven.
The truth is, that men of refined taste are unwilling to con-
fess the influence which religion possesses over them, from
the apprehension that their motives will be mistaken ; rehgion
is sometimes a veil worn by hypocrites ; sometimes it is an
instrument for obtaining power ; sometimes men make it a
cloak for gratifying their resentments, and raise the cry of
impiety against those whom they envy or hate ; and some-
times religion degenerates into fanaticism, and works the
utter decay of all the best faculties of the mind ; all these im-
putations may be made against the man who professes Christ
before the world ; but you are not fit to be a Christian, if you
cannot bear that your motives should be for a moment mis-
taken ; take care that you do not use religion as the instru-
ment of your ambition and your hatred ; be not clad in the
cloak of hypocrisy ; beware of a mad and foolish enthusiasm ;
keep your hearts pure from the reality of these vices, and be
sure that the imputation of them will never remain long upon
you ; but at all events tremble to deny Christ before men ;
but, when shame and danger are at hand, come forward and
say, I am one of these, I am a GaHlean, 1 was with Jesus of
Nazareth ; for if you deny him from the fear of men, the time
■v^ill come when you will feel the anguish of Peter, and like
him go forth, and weep bitterly.
To conceal even crime increases it, and men are inclined
to extend some slight degree of indulgence to vices candidly
confessed. But what indulgence have they for him, who
blushes at the God to whom he prays ? who disowns the sup-
plication that has just been poured forth from his heart?
Who struts away before men as a free and original spirit ;
and then casts himself down before that being, whom he
knows to be the rewarder and the punisher of men, and from
whose hand the thunder and the manna fall ? As it will be
ON THE FOLLY OF BEING ASHAMED OF RELIGION. 281
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judg-
ment, that never knew Christ, than for that city where he
taught and died ; so also it shall be more tolerable for the
scoffer ; it shall be better even for the fool, that says in his
heart there is no God, than for him who looks up to a heaven
that disgraces him ; and pins his soul upon a faith, which he
smothers as a crime. And what after all is this weakness
that we are afraid of confessing before men ? that in this frail
and feverish existence we want the aid of rehgion ; that where
there are so many human beings, we are afraid to lose so
much we wish to enjoy, and such little life to enjoy it ; that
we do venture to hope all things are regulated here by a wise
■and a just God ; but this is not all ; if the whole truth is told,
it will turn out that we believe in another world, that we think
the angel of God will come, and separate the wicked from
the just ; that the record of Christ, which is received by half
the world, is acknowledged by us also ; that under the im-
pression of these truths, it is not to be denied that we do
sometimes most fervently implore the pity and protection of
the great God of the universe ; this is what we would not
have men know ; these are the shameful discoveries which
we dread to reveal to the impious, which would put an end
for ever to all careless bravery about rehgion, and sink us at
once in the estimation of thie most profligate and abandoned
of men.
Whatever we think or do, we are naturally induced to de-
fend ; our pride carries us to it, it is the genius of our nature ;
we often exceed the measure of right in obeying that feeling,
but here pride is a virtue ; inflexible perseverance is a great
excellence, intrepid avowal is a sacred duty ; we may give
way to all that conviction that our cause is right, without the
smallest possibility of any excess. We are placed in such a
situation that we are promoting our salvation by adhering to
our opinions, and performing one of the highest duties of re-
ligion, by defending the decisions of our understanding.
Lastly, we ought to learn something of intrepidity from bad
men. There can be no reason why they, who believe that
the soul perishes, should exalt themselves above us who have
not abandoned the hope of an hereafter ; it is a strange cause
for increase of confidence that they consider themselves out of
the protection of Providence ; and the worst of all excuses for
despondent shame, that we strive to model our lives and ac-
tions, after a pure law revealed to us from above.
262 ON THE FOLLY OF BEING ASHAMED OF RELIGION.
It is a disgusting spectacle to see religion tinged with ar-
rogance ; but a consciousness of its own dignity, a resolution
never to be shamed from its principles, a promptitude on all
trying occasions, to proclaim them with increased firmness,
and to put on even the spirit of martyrdom in their support,
this spirit a Christian must assume ; without it he is no Chris-
tian ; for our great master has never taught us to be so humble
as to yield up the truth of the Gospel to every invader that
approaches, but teaching us in all other things, to be meek
like him, he has taught us in this, to be firm like him, to bear
witness to the truth, without any fear of men. And he has
told us, if we deny him before the world, he also will deny
us at the last and dreadful day, before the Father which is in
Heaven,
SERMON XXXVIII
ON INVASION.
Then said Judas Maccabeus, it is better for us to die in battle than to be-
hold the calamities of our people, and our sanctuary. Nevertheless^ as
the will of God in Heaven is, so let him do. — 1st book of Maccabees
III. VERSE 59.
"*It is not I believe in strictness, the practice of our church
to seek for texts in the Apocryphal writings ; I have, however,
ventured to do so in this particular instance, to recall to your
notice the books of the Maccabees ; — a piece of history glow-
ing with eloquence and piety, pregnant with good example,
and applicable in the happiest manner, to the perils of the
present time. These books relate to one of those positions
of human affairs which awakens every good feeling in the
minds of those who contemplate it, which, by the hidden
energies it calls forth, and by the secret power which it has
to make men better, and braver than themselves, communi-
cates to history the vivacity and interest of romance. This,
however, is the least important consequence of such history
as relates successful resistance to tyranny ; it is a luminous
beacon to the world, a perpetual warning to mankind never
to be oppressed ; it teaches us in times like these, to measure
force not by the numbers of men, but by the passions with
which they are actuated, and the rights for which they con-
tend. It shows us that all can be gained by courage when
all seems lost ; and that those who, like Judas, can feel that
it is better to die than to suffer, may enjoy, like Judas, vic-
tory and renown.
* This Sermon was preached before a large body of volunteers in the
Metropolis, in the Summer of 1804, when the danger of invasion was con-
sidered to be imminent.
364 ON INVASION.
Nor is it a slight thing, that by enforcing our beh'ef in the
moral order of the universe, such history teaches us to depend
on Almighty God. When we see the immense armies of
Antiochus defeated by a few of these bold Hebrews, and hosts
that might have swallowed up the whole earth, broken to
pieces one after the other, by the valour of this extraordinary
man, we begin then to see that the world is safe ; that there
is a reaction of human passions, a mighty order, awfully
planned, mercifully conceived, carefully preserved, by which
the sum of human happiness is imperishable. From such
consolatory examples as these, (in which, I thank Heaven no
history is deficient,) when we have heard long of the reign of
tyrants, we have the firmest confidence that God is preparing
for us relief. No man can tell the hour and the day, but
there is a secret and encouraging conviction that the time of
liberation will at last come. God has said to the waves, thus
far shalt thou go and no farther : we have the evidence of our
senses that he is obeyed : I believe the same God has said to
human passions, thus far shalt thou go and no farther ; and
that the feelings of men obey him like the waters of the sea.
I believe it to be his eternal decree, that such tyrants as An-
tiochus shall at last raise up such heroes as Judas : and when
I see the men of my own land coming out ready for war, as
you are doing this day, I see the same marks of eternal order
and wisdom, that has reared up the rocks to save us from the
deep ; — you are the barriers, and you are the rocks that limit
unjust aggression, and ambitious violence ; a nation of free
men, sacramented together, a joining of all hands, a knitting
of all hearts, the cry of the valiant Judas, that it is better to
die ! these make the boundaries of rapine and of desola-
tion ; at these awful signs the robbers of the earth are ap-
palled, and dread lest they should have provoked mankind
enough.
Such are the feelings with which we are naturally inspired
by the perusal of this spirited history, in which the parallel
to our present situation is so exact that it should be the
manual of the times. But from this general eulogium
on the history of the Maccabees, I must proceed to an
examination of the particular text which I have extracted
from it.
This sentiment of Judas was pronounced at the eve of one
of the greatest battles which he fought ; on the morrow he was
about to commit to the chance of war the fate of the holy city
ON INVASION. 265
and of the chosen people ; his address to his Httle army con-
tains a morahty which is simple, just and subHme. "Arm
yourselves, (he says,) and be valiant men, sAd see that ye
be in readiness against the morning, that ye may fight with
these nations that are assembled together against us and our
sanctury, to destroy us. For it is better for us to die in battle
than to behold the calamities of our people and our sanc-
tuary. Nevertheless, as the will of God in heaven is, so let
him do."
In conformity then with the sentiment of Judas, I shall
endeavour to state what those outward advantages are, which
constitute the principal blessings of life, and under the priva-
tion of which, a wise man would cease to wish to Hve.
I pass over the herd of Epicurus, who would exist at any
price, and under any complication of baseness and anguish. I
am addressing myself to men who love a moral, not an animal
life, a life not numbered by days, but by feelings and passions,
and who know that there is somewhere or other a point
of suffering when (if such be the will of God) it is better
to die.
One circumstance, then, which much enhances the pleasure
of life is liberty. Without liberty the value of life is doubt-
ful; to see oppression without interference, to suffer it without
resistance, to consider that life and property are at the mercy
of one who has no more natural right to Hve or to enjoy than
ourselves, is a source of the most bitter and unquiet feelings to
elevated minds. For liberty, many have ventured their lives
who knew liberty only by description. We have lived the
life of free men, we have heard the name of freedom when
we were children, and in all the relations of life we have
found it to be more than a name. The enjoyment of it is so
wrought and tempered into our daily habits, that any internal
attempt to destroy the constitution of this realm could not suc-
ceed but by the most enormous waste of human life. — The
name is too dear, the feeling too deep — the habit too invete-
rate ; it would be easier almost to destroy this people, than to
enslave them ; and yet what are the sufferings of internal
tyranny, in comparison with those of foreign subjugation:
First there would be burnings, and massacres, and plunders ;
a promiscuous carnage of the English race : a thousand
flames would burst forth in this venerable city, and shed their
horrid light upon the dying and the dead ; and when the
s^vord had drank its full, and the flower of this race was per-
33
266 ON INVASION.
ished away, — then think of the silence of a land, over which
an avenging enemy had passed ; no loom— no plough — no
ship — no tolling of the hell to church — no cheerful noise of
the artificer — a land spent and extinguished, a people apos-
tate to their ancient spirit and their ancient fame. If you
think life worth having after this, if you will live when Eng-
land does not live ; if you will fawn at the feet of a foreign
soldier, for a few years of existence ; if you will put on the
smiles of a slave, after you have worn the countenance of a
free man, then live on, and may life be your punishment ! You
will remember when it is too late, the cry of Maccabeus, that
it is better to die in battle, than to behold the calamities of
your people and your sanctuary.
I would say that the happiness of life depends upon an un-
polluted sanctury, upon a pure state of rehgion ; without it,
crimes multiply, laxity prevails in morals, society becomes a
compound of fraud and voluptuousness ; the motives for life
are weakened: therefore Judas said well when he said, 1 will
never see a polluted sanctuary.
Life becomes more valuable under a wise administration of
good laws gradually elaborated by experience. It becomes
more valuable in a cultivated state of the arts and sciences,
more in a high state of commercial and agricultural pros-
perity of our country, more from its renown among the na-
tions of the world : by all the wisdom that has been employed
to make that country great and good, by all the lives that
have been sacrificed to make it secure, by all the industry
which has been exerted to render it opulent, by the deep tinge
which it has received of the Christian character, by the num-
ber of those servants of God who have left in their lives and
writings a great example to the people, by the rich presents
which God has at any time made to it of men famous for their
beautiful sayings and their genius : by this measure of value
the loss of a country is to be tried, and by this measure we
must decide whether it is better to die than to lose it.
There is another consideration to which Judas's magnani-
mous contempt of life may be applied : Born to higher and
to better things, would you lead a hfe of manual labour X
Would you cultivate the earth you once possessed, and if ye;^
could put up with such a life, could you endure it for others^
whom you love more than yourselves ? All this Judas had
seen, and he declared it was better to die than to see it.
I have thus generally stated those exterior advantages
ON INVASION. 267
which give a value to life ; now let me apply it to ^you, and
bring it home to the chambers of your hearts. Do you feel
that you are free men? Have you good laws? Have you a
pure religion ? Is England cultivated ? Is it rich ? Is it
powerful ? Is it renowned? Did you ever hear it had done
great deeds ? Did you ever hear it had nourished great men ?
I know that, but for the sanctity of this place you would answer
with loud shouts and cries that all these things are so. Why
then I say, in the hour of danger remember Judas, and think
it better to die in battle, than to behold the calamities of such
a people and such a land.
But in order to put on the spirit of Judas, we should know
well that it will bear no backsliding, no wavering, no compu-
tation. The resolution once taken, we must advance, or we
perish ; we must not imagine that the danger will not come,
and believe we are playing at magnanimity and heroism ; the
danger is pressing on against us with rapid strides ; in a little
time every man may be reminded of his threats, and his
covenant of war and courage exacted at his hands ; the lintel
post of every door may be smitten with blood, and the loud
cries of the helpless, the sick and the young may pierce our
hearts. Be not deceived, there is no wall of adamant, no tri-
ple flaming sword, to drive off those lawless assassins that have
murdered and pillaged in every other land ; Heaven has
made with us no covenant, that there should be joy and
peace here, and waihng, and lamentation in the world be-
sides ; I would counsel you to put on a mind of patient suf-
fering and noble acting ; whatever energies there are in the
human mind, you will want them all ; every man will be
tried to the very springs of his heart, and those times are at
hand which will show us all as we really are, with the gen-
uine stamp and value, be it much or be it little, which nature
has impressed upon each living soul.
Having thus endeavoured to illustrate and enforce the
leading principle of contempt of hfe, contained in the former
part of -this text, I pass on to its conclusion, and to the other
striking part of the character of Judas, his piety. The most
splendid writers of Pagan history have nothing equal to the
sp 'ech of Judas before he fights with Seron and his host.
" Then said Judas to his men : It is no hard matter for many
to be shut up in the hands of a few ; and with the God of
heaven it is all one to dehver with a small company, or
268 ON INVASION.
with a great multitude. For the victory of battle standeth
not in the multitude of an host, but strength cometh from
heaven ; they come against us in much pride and iniquity to
destroy us, and our wives and children, and to spoil us ; but
we fight for our lives and our laws. Wherefore, the Lord
himself will overthrow them before our face ; and as for ye,
be ye not afraid of them."
The different manner of the two people in making their
attack, is solemn and affecting; may it be ominous. "Then
Nicanor, and they that were with him, came forward with
trumpets and songs ; but Judas and his company encountered
their enemies with invocation and prayer ; so that fighting
with their hands, and praying to God with their hearts, they
were greatly cheered." You will listen more to such an
example than to many precepts ; our enemies mock at God,
and say it is their own arm which getteth them the victory ;
let us ask the aid of him who breaketh in pieces the chariot,
and snappeth the spear asunder ; who is more to be feared
than an army with banners. They may mock, but in truth
the angel of God is ever present at the battle ; his spirits
and ministers hover over the danger; they receive the
parting spirits of Christians ; they listen to the distant prayers
of kindred, and turn away the arrow from a father, or a
child ; without their knowledge, not one shall fall to the
ground.
A greater contest than that in which we are engaged, the
world has never seen ; for we are not fighting the battle of
our country alone, but we are fighting to decide the question,
whether there shall be any more freedom upon the earth. If
we are subdued, the great objects of life are vanquished ; all
reason for living is at an end. There remains a barren,
vacant earth, from which every good man would beg of hea-
ven that he might escape. But I have better, and brighter
hopes ; I trust in the watching providence of Heaven, in the
manly sense, and the native courage of this people. I believe
they will act now, as they have ever acted before — with un-
daunted boldness. I have a boundless confidence in the
Enghsh character; I believe that they have more of real
religion, more probity, more knowledge, and more genuine
worth, than exists in the whole world besides : they are
the guardians of pure Christianity ; and from this prostituted
nation of merchants, (as they are in derision called,) I believe
ON INVASION. 369
more heroes will spring up in the hour of danger, than all
the mihtary nations of ancient and modern Europe have
ever produced. Into the hands of God, then, and his ever
merciful Son, we cast ourselves, and wait in humble
patience the result : — First we ask for victory, but if that
cannot be, we have only one other prayer we implore
for death.
23*
•|^ ■ . . ^<'.^.<r^,-:i>^4
SERMON XXXIX.
UPON THE SPECIAL INTERFERENCE
OF PROVIDENCE.
And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire,
there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. And
when the Barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they
said, this man is a murderer. But when they saw no harm happen to
him, they changed their minds, and said he was a God. — Acts xxviii. 3d
and following verses.
This lively picture^f the judgments of the people of Melite,
is a fair example of the general disposition of all multitudes,
to ascribe the striking events of life to a particular Provi-
dence; to believe that every instance of prosperity is a reward
sent from God; and every example of adversity a punishment
emanating from his anger. The attack of the serpent the
Barbarians could not attribute to accident ; the slow effect of
its poison, upon the body of the apostle, they were equally
disposed to consider as miraculous; an action natural (though
extraordinary) it could not be, but as the event varied its as-
pect, the unconscious animal had fastened upon a murderer,
or wounded a god.
Such has been the disposition of mankind, in all ages, to
judge of the interposition of the Deity. We must all remem-
ber, that at one period of our own history, a regular appeal
was made to the immediate judgments of Providence, for
the establishment of innocence or guilt. Such an appeal
became the established law of the land ; and the magistrates
looked on to behold the innocent man walk upon the summit
of the waters, or trample unhurt upon the burning iron. It
has, in fact, ever been the tendency of human nature to liken
divine justice to human justice in its most perfect shape, and
UPON THE SPECIAL INTERFERENCE OF PROVIDENCE. 271
to suppose that he, to whom all hearts are open, would never
suffer the just to perish, while the guilty prosper and live.
Such ideas are very natural ; nor is it at all difficult to under-
stand whence they have originated, or why they have been
so generally diffused ; on the contrary it has required the ex-
perience of ages, and the endless repetition of precept, to
wean mankind from these false and limited conceptions of
divine Providence to convince them that the Creator has not
formed himself after their model, and that the ways of man
are not necessarily the ways of God.
Even now, it is the pious and the good that talk most of
judgments ; to say that an event was brought about by the
special interference of Providence, is considered as the ge-
nuine language of rehgion, and to doubt it is to exhibit a cold
and sceptical species of understanding. I will endeavour,
however, to show that an habit of referring all the events of
this world to a particular Providence, is a very dangerous
habit, derogating from the power and wisdom of the Al-
mighty, and exceedingly apt to expose rehgion to the scorn
and ridicule of unbelievers.
in the first place, if we acquire the habit of speaking per-
petually of judgments, and of referring everything to a parti-
cular interference of Providence, how are we to get over the
present state of the world, as it exists plainly before our
eyes ? Is it the good only who are covered with blessings ?
Does this earth seem to be the inheritance of the just ? Have
we never seen virtue living and dying in wretchedness ? Is
it quite new to us, to hear of the unbroken prosperity of
bad men, of the honours which they reach, and of the gra-
tifications which they enjoy ? Reconcile if you can, these
appearances with your supposition of the perpetual interfer-
ence of a divine Providence, and show us why poverty and
anguish are not kept for the scourges of guilt alone ; why
the tears of the good ever fall down upon the earth ; and
why the just cry for the mercy of God. While you mean
to be pious, in referring all to an immediate Providence,
you are, in fact, depriving religion of its most powerful
argument ; it has always been said, you are not to look
here for the rewards of righteousness ; because God is just,
and because men are not rewarded here according to their
works, because we do not perceive a wise and regular system
operating in the distribution of human happiness; there-
fore, we must conceive, that there is, beyond this life,
272 UPON THE SPECIAL INTERFERENCE OF PROVIDENCE.
^T another system of existence where this apparent injustice
' will be corrected, and the happiness we enjoy be apportioned
to the merits we possess. One of the most striking argu-
ments for futurity, has been drawn fronk the absence of that
particular Providence, from the suspense of those immediate
judgments, for the existence of which, mistaken piety is so
apt to contend.
By pretending that virtue and vice are so frequently
punished and rewarded by the Deity, even in this world,
and by struggling against the plain current of facts, you
•^ \ throw an air of ridicule upon religion, by compelling it to
account for events under a false theory ; religion is taunted
with the high fortune of impious conquerors ; men expect
that we should explain why innocent and peaceful nations
are massacred and rooted up ; when they see that it is not
always the good cause which prevails, but the strong cause,
they fall off from God, and think hghtly of that Providence
which they do not find such as human error has described it
to be. We know that God sees all; and that as the powerful
language of Scripture says, the hairs of our head are num-
bered ; that all things originate from God, we also know ;
but do they originate from the general rules he prescribes, or
from a partial interference for each particular object ? Is
it a great law, for instance, prescribed from the beginning,
that the excesses of the body should be punished by the
pains of the body, or does the sudden vengeance of the Al-
mighty smite the voluptuary with the disease which termi-
nates a shameless and pampered life ? Is it part of our
original creation, that the pangs of remorse should follow
guilt ? or does God send upon every sinner this evil spirit of
the mind for his present torment ? That we are all under the
guidance and omniscience of an Almighty being, no human
heart can doubt ; but the laws of that Almighty are grand, are
simple, are few ; nothing so derogatory to his nature, as to
suppose that he is perpetually deviating from them, or that he
guides one human being by many separate visitations of his
power, though he governs unnumbered worlds by a single act
of his will.
If a general law were not impressed upon the heavenly
bodies, which guided them unerringly in their course ; if it
needed fresh interposition to renew their vigour, and to con-
tinue their direction, it would at once argue a want of power,
and of foresight in their maker ; but in the moral world, we
^
UPON THE SPECIAL INTERFERENCE OF PROVIDENCE. 273
do not perceive how we are diminishing our notions of the
Deity, by supposing his original plan of human affairs to
be so imperfect, that he is always occupied in correcting it.
If God does so often interfere to punish the guilty, why was
not the original scheme of human affairs so constructed, that
sin should produce misery with as much certainty as each
fruit grows from its proper seed. If such is the case now,
why are the immediate judgments of God necessary ? but if
we conceive such judgments to be so common, are we not
guilty of impiety, in supposing the original plan of the uni-
verse to have been so imperfect, that the Creator of all is
perpetually occupied in its correction ?
We talk of judgments; but by what means are we to
ascertain what is reward, what punishment, till we have seen
the ultimate consequence of every event ? Joseph in the
dungeon knew not that he should be the lord of Egypt.
Abraham, about to slaughter his son, never thought of the
coming blessings of God. The wretched Daniel did not
believe that he should be lifted up from among the lions, to
be the chief servant of the eastern king. Many a soul has
been saved to God by sudden poverty; many have been
taught by diseases, and by the whisperings of death. Some
wealth has ruined, some honour, some fame ; we, who talk so
arrogantly of God's judgments ; alas, we know not when he
blesses, when he destroys, whether he is about to humble us
by apparent good, or to raise us up through the ministry of
sorrow and of pain.
Another evil resulting from the perpetual supposition of
judgments is, that it has a tendency to make success the
measure of merit ; if good and ill fortune are reward and
punishment, it will be difficult not to infer, that that cause
is just which is triumphant ; that unjust which is overcome ;
a fortunate man and a good man will be synonymous terms,
and unhappiness will be the infallible proof of sin ; a method
of decision pregnant with every evil, and against which reli-
gious and moral wisdom have in every age made the most
decided stand.
This habit of judging of the designs of Providence, and of
determining what are judgments, what ordinary events, is
apt, I fear, to cherish a species of arrogance and persecution
little compatible with Christian humiHty. From what power
of divination do I pretend to say, that this man is a murderer,
and that man a god ? where is that communication with the
274 T7P0N THE SPECIAL INTERFERENCE OF PROVIDENCE.
Divine nature, that gives me authority to pronounce the
punishment of any human being to be miraculous, to say that
God has singled out any one as the object of his preternatural
vengeance, whose life, after all, may be wiser and better than
mine ? Let it be my care so to live, that the destroying angel
come not forth against me. I cannot read the signs of Heaven
in another's destiny ; nor can I tell when nature moves on as
she is wont, when the voice of God calls her from her ancient
course.
After all, however, let it be remembered, it is only of the
frequency and excess of this discovery of judgments, that a
rational complaint can be made ; that God did interfere, in
Scriptural ages, with his judgments, we know from Scriptural
authority ; nor is it weak, or superstitious to conceive, that
on the solemn epochs of human affairs, the judgments of God
do now go abroad on the earth ; and, that what looks all
human, is sometimes the work of invisible power ; but if you
perpetually say, this is of God, and that of God, you do not
glorify the Creator, but you dishonour the magnitude of those
attributes, with which the piety of his creatures has sur-
rounded his nature ; you consider those rules which he has
formed for the moral government of the world to be so im-
perfect, that they require perpetual correction, and incessant
change ; you erect yourself into an interpreter of God's will,
and a judge of man's merit ; but, what is worse than these,
by teaching what is notoriously untrue, that God commonly
interferes in this world, to punish the wicked and reward the
good, you shake, in the minds of weak men, the very founda-
tion of all religion, for they cannot live a year, or look with
the most careless eye upon the fate of men, and empires,
without perceiving that these things are not so ; and then,
with rash and headlong impiety, they doubt of a superintend-
ing Providence, because they cannot find that rapid and
visible Providence which mistaken zeal is ever ready to per-
ceive. All is noted down ; nothing is forgotten ; there is not
a tear you draw down upon the face of a human being, nor a
feeling of wretchedness you can strike into his heart, but
what it is eternally recorded against you ; no holy desire, no
secret sin, are lost ; in pain, in sorrow, in death, God is with
us, but we may hve on, untouched in our sin ; the hghtning
shall not harm us, nor the pestilence lay us low ; there is a
second, and a retributive world, where our punishment will
come ; the closing scene, the true interpretation of this am-
UPON THE SPECIAL INTERFERENCE OF PROVIDENCE. 275
biguous and distressing world in which we live ; this, and
this only, explains why those frequent judgments do not go
forth, which it is so natural to man to expect ; why the ser-
pent is not armed against the murderer, and the impotent
against the pious and the good. And let us gratefully remem-
ber, that while the doctrine of futurity explains the present
endurance of evil, without recurring to the false supposition
of perpetual judgments, this doctrine does not rest upon
conjecture, is not invented to meet the difficulty, but is re-
vealed to us in the page of Scripture, and confirmed by the
death of Christ.
SERMON XL.
ON TKUE EELIGION
True religion, and undefiled before God the Father, is this; to visit the
fatherless, and widows in affliction, and to keep yourselves unspotted
from the world. — James i. verse 27.
Our happiness in this life as well as in a life to come, de-
pends so entirely upon the cultivation of rational religion,
that the efforts to excite a just sense of its importance in the
minds of every Christian congregation cannot be too fre-
quently or too warmly repeated. Even since the revelation
of Jesus Christ, man has too often worshiped his God by
idolatry, by childish and absurd ceremonies, by tedious and
despicable disputes, by the tears of chained heretics, by
wasted provinces, by the burnt incense of human bodies ;
every vice and every error have been shrined in the name
of religion, and the merciless inquisitor, while he blasted his
most beautiful creations, did it for the praise and glory of his
God.
These tremendous warnings should impress upon our
minds the difficulty of attaining to proper notions of true
religion ; and though there have been, in these latter times,
great improvements in our conception of it, there may be yet
some remains of error, something which may escape our
vigilant examination, and baffle the efforts of the most serious
and most evangelical minds.
Under the term religion, are comprehended Faith, Devo-
tion, and Practice ; a belief in the existence of God, and Jesus
Christ, our blessed Lord ; prayer, public and private, and
obedience to what we know to be the law of God, or what we
believe to be his will.
First, in all our considerations of religion, we are too apt
ON TRUE RELIGION. 277
to forget the ultimate end for which our Ahnighty Creator
made himself known to us ; we are weak enough to conceive
that God is soothed by our praises, and gratified by our adu-
lation ; that the maker of a million of worlds can dehght in
the praises and hosannahs of perishable men ; that any act of
ours can illustrate his dignity or magnify his name ; we be-
lieve that we are commanded to adore him, not to make our-
selves good, but to make him glorious ; not to set before that
which is frail, a model of purity, but to brighten that which
is pure by the breath of frailty.
From this, and from other causes proceeds that fatal and
common tendency of mankind to exalt the devotional above
the practical part of rehgion ; and to relax in the real per-
formance of what the Gospel enjoins exactly in proportion as
they comply with the ceremonies which it institutes. Not
that any but the lowest fanatics openly avow their neglect of
practical, and their preference of verbal piety ; but, that
numbers are guilcy of the error, almost without knowing it
themselves, and certainly without feeling the smallest dispo-
sition to defend it in theory ; it is contrary to the repeated
declarations of the Gospel; it is derogatory to the attributes
of the Deity to suppose that religion has any other object
than the happiness of mankind ; that Jesus Christ dwelt
among men for any other purpose but to show them that
rule of mortal life which leads them to life eternal ; and all
prayer and all devotion, should be resorted to for these ob-
jects as they remind us of that powerful being we adore, as
they fix in our hearts the sage, rigorous and pure rules of
morals which he has enacted, as they set before our eyes the
straight path and narrow gate which lead to the dwellings of
the just.
In the moments of self-examination, we must think what
shall be hereafter; when we remember with satisfaction, that
we were always on our knees in the temple, while others
were pursuing the vain business, or vainer pleasures of the
world, let us beware that we have something else to offer to
our God but sainted words, and holy kneelings, and suppli-
cating hymns ; imagine not, that statute praise and written
adoration can atone for a dissipated, .selfish, uncharitable life,
or that the postures of our bodies will be taken for the sin
of our souls ; mere devotion, barren of good actions, differs in
nothing from the gross idolatry of Pagan worship ; flocks and
hecatombs are as good as gestures and words ; they offered
34
2T8 ON TRUE RELIGION.
Up the blood of a victim, and you the breath of 5^ man ; you
approach your Creator with the sound of pious melody? and
they brought to him whom they thought to be their Creator,
the sweet savour of burning spices. In what did the folly
of these religions consist, but that they thought every idle
object of sense more acceptable to the Deity than the firm
dominion over bad passions and the noble exercise of aid and
mercy to mankind ? and how have they improved upon this
error, who substitute adulation for obedience and constantly
neglect the rule which they regularly recite? " Not every one,"
says our Saviour, " who sayeth unto me. Lord! Lord! but he
that doeth the will of my Father, which is in Heaven;" in
truth, the first condition of piety is much easier than the last ;
it is easier to cry Lord ! Lord ! than to do his will ; it is easier
to extol his attributes than to imitate them, even at the hum-
blest distance ; few would fail of immortality if the only price
of it were devotion, and many would purchase on their knees,
the privilege of sinning with impunity; it is not here that
our nature is tried ; this is not the proper ordeal of man. It
is more difficult to forgive an injury, to embrace an enemy,
to stop a bitter word, or to sacrifice a beloved pleasure to
charity, than to repeat a liturgy of prayers ; yet, remember
the words: True religion, and undefiled before God the Fa-
ther, is this, — to visit the fatherless, and widows in affliction,
and to keep yourselves unspotted from the world. These
are the real sacrifices to God ; there is more joy in Heaven
over one good deed, than over ninety and nine solemn sup-
plications which bring forth no good deed.
At the same time, devotional religion is so necessary to
practical religion, and so important, when considered as an
instrument rather than an end, that it is impossible to con-
ceive how an uniform tenour of good conduct can be sup-
ported without it ; from the perpetual mention of the attributes
of our Creator in prayer, we fashion in our minds that ideal
model of excellence, which, like a flaming pillar, guides us
through the wilderness of life ; in prayer we are reminded
of human misery ; the hope of his future mercy, the persua-
sive example of Christ softens the heart hardened by business
and pleasure ; in prayer, all that is bad, and low, and base is
forgotten ; something whfch belongs not to this world is min-
gled with our nature, and the breath of God is breathed upon
us. In prayer the seeds of action are sown ; but let us remem-
ber we shall be judged by the fruit.
-A
ON TRUE RELIGION. 279
Men are not only tempted to prefer devotion to practice
from the mistaken notion that it can of itself be acceptable to
the Deity, and from the superior facility of praying like a
Christian to that of living like a Christian; but because it is
that part of religion of which the world takes the greatest
cognizance ; whereas the real question which every man
should put to his own soul, is, not how often I have vowed
to do good, but how often I have done it ; not how often I have
repeated the law, but how much 1 have obeyed it ; not what
I have promised, but what I have performed ; for prayer with-
out good action is nothing but increase of guilt, because it
indicates how well we comprehended and how accurately
we remembered the duty which we have neglected to dis-
charge.
Another error to which we are exposed in our search after
true religion, is that of intemperate zeal or enthusiasm. ; an error
which often leads to the lowest and most contemptible fana-
ticism; often terminates in melancholy, in madness, or in
voluntary death. The passions have too mighty an influence
on religious opinion, not to render it necessary that they
should be suspected and watched. Hope, — fear, — gratitude,
—despair, — and every powerful principle of our nature^ may
all be called in to the aid of fanaticism ; artful men, or mista-
ken and enthusiastic men, can always corrupt some one pas-
sion by the allurements of rehgion ; and, by that unguarded
avenue, find their way to the inward heart. When once men
substitute for sinaple, intelligible rules of right and wrong,
the notion of extraordinary impulse, mysterious feeling, reli-
gious instinct, and, in general, any preternatural and myste-
rious afTection, reason looks like indifference, and common
sense appears to border upon impiety ; extravagance becomes
the test of godliness, and nothing is considered as acceptable
to the Deity, that is not laughable and contemptible to the
rational part of his creatures.
There is, in truth, a vitiated appetite in our nature for mys-
tery and terror ; we are disappointed by simplicity ; we nau-
seate that which is common, and despise every thing which
we comprehend; the languid mind must gaze at something
in the distant ground, half visible, half in shade; an object
half pleasing, half terrible, full of promise, and full- of threat ;
lovely and hateful; incongruous and impossible. We are so
desirous of involving religion in mystery, that we are dis-
pleased at finding it so clear in its nature, and so definite in
280 ON TRUE RELIGION.
its object ; we require a more splended and magnificent ser-
vitude ; we despise the waters of Israel, and pant for Tabana,
and Farfar, and the mighty rivers of Damascus. — But I may-
ask with the Prophet, if God had bid you do some great thing,
would you not have done it ? How much the rather then,
when he sayeth unto you, have mercy and be clean ; how
much the rather then, when he sayeth unto you, comfort the
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep your-
selves unspotted from the world.
In our religious progress, we are menaced by two opposite
evils, — indifference, and fanaticism,— which, like all contrary
excesses reciprocally generate each other; the horror of in-
difference inflames ardour ; and disgust at extravagance in-
creases indifference ; of the danger of the former, I hope I
think as seriously as any minister of the Gospel can do ; and
I have on other occasions, in the discharge of my duty, in-
sisted upon it, as well as I was able ;— that I have not unduly
magnified the latter, a very slight acquaintance with the his-
tory of religion will sufficiently evince.
To this head of intemperate enthusiasm is to be referred
that eager reception which the interpretation of prophecies
has, of late days, experienced among us.— There are some
prophecies so plain that they cannot be mistaken, and so im-
portant, that they have very properly been insisted upon, as
the strongest proofs of our religion; but the endless attempt
at fresh interpretation and the desire to apply passages from
the Prophets to the political events of the present times, should
surely be received with the greatest caution ; because it is a
subject above all others, in which the passions of weak, timid
people may betray their judgment, and because it is notorious
to common sense, that to support such interpretation, the lan-
guage of the Prophets has been distorted in the most violent
and uncandid manner. Far be it from me to blame the attempt
at farther explanation altogether ; I only contend, that it is an
attempt which should be made with the greatest humility and
received with the greatest caution ; at the same time, I have
no scruple to say, that this practice has, of late years, been
carried to the most blameable and pernicious excess ; predic-
tions of the most trifling events have been sought for, and dis-
covered in the Prophets, and the credulity of mankind abused
in a manner which has given a fresh handle to infidelity, and
cast unmerited obloquy upon true rehgion; true religion,
which is .always sure to suffer for the errors and absurdities
ON TRtJE RELIGION.
^^1
which the superstitious ignorance of man is perpetually fos-
tering upon it.
As true religion consists neither in devotion alone, nor in
fanaticism at all, it does not consist any more in theology,
which we are apt to confound with it ; the danger is that we
mistake the means and instruments by which we are to
make ourselves religious, for religion itself; theology and
prayer are instruments of the highest importance to the fur-
therance of true religion, but they are still different from re-
ligion itself. The ambiguities consequent upon translation,
the inevitable difficulties of words considered as a vehicle of
thought, the proceedings of the Christian church, down to this
period, the evidence in favour of Christianity, the questions
which must arise from the application of a general rule to
particular cases, have all made it necessary, that the Scrip-
tures should be profoundly and accurately studied, and have
given birth to the science of theology; but Almighty God in
revealing to us his Gospel, would have defeated his own be-
nevolent purpose, if everything which that Gospel contains,
might not be apprehended without laborious and critical study.
Upon the more important and practical parts of Christianity^
there has been little or no controversy ; every body knows
that mercy, that charity, that meekness, that obedience to the
higher powers, that every fundamental principle of morals,
on which the happiness of mankind reposes, are taught in
the sacred writings, with a strength which rivets attention,
and a precision which excludes mistake. It is right that
more speculative questions should be agitated by those to
whom these matters are properly and professionally a care ;
but it never could have been the intention of all-wise Provi-
dence, that subjects difficult enough to exercised understand-
ings, should be a necessary and indispensable matter of
thought and inquiry for every well disposed Christian.
I have thus endeavoured to caution you against a few of
those errors which vitiate our conceptions of true religion ;
and teach us to sacrifice the substance to the phantom and
shade of piety. If any other proof were wanting of the Di-
vine origin of Christianity, this alone would be of the highest
importance ; that it is the onty religion which does not de-
grade our notions of the Deity, by investing him with the
lowest of human passions. The Pagan sacrificed his milk-
white heifer, without blemish, cast frankincense on the flame,
and went forth justified before his God. The Mahomedan
282 ON TRUE RELIGION.
bathes in the stream, and turns nine times towards holy Mecca,
and is cleansed from all his iniquities : — the meek and patient
Hindoo eateth not of that which has life, and blesses his be-
loved Ganges, and these things are counted unto him for
righteousness. The Christian must offer up to God some
heart that he hath lightened, and some spirit that he hath
made glad ; the prayers of sick, wretched creatures, must go
up for him to heaven ; he must come to the altar, surrounded
by fatherless children ; his enemies must he prostrate at his
feet, conquered by gentleness, goodness, and forbearance ;
he must give to the reviler, blessings for curses ; he must be
the defence of those who seek his destruction ; he must avert
wrath with lovely, peaceable words ; by his wise discourse,
and by his fair honourable life, he must turn men from their
sins, to the worship of the Lord their God. This is the piety
of a Christian ; this is the path which leads to immortal life ;
to have a lively faith, to pray always for blessings from
above ; but to remember in the midst of our prayers, that
true religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in affliction ; and to keep
yourselves unspotted from the world.
.^M^^^^
SERMON XLI.
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL;
But some man will say, how are the dead raised up ? And with what body
do they come ? Thou fool ! that which thou sowest is not quickened
except it die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body
which shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or some other
grain ; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him,— and to every
seed his own body. — First book of Corinthians xv. verse 35.
He who looks at any object of matter, can scarcely be said
to know at what it is he does look if he confines himself only
to its present qualities and neglects the indications of its future
existence.
Look at the seed ; does it move ? Is there in it the sHghtest
sign of life ? Could any man conjecture, previous to expe-
rience, that it would not always remain what it now is ? yet,
of that seed comes the green herb ; man gathers of it his
daily bread ; or if such be its body, it riseth up to be the
strength and beauty of the forest.
The principle of change is indeed widely diffused over the
works of Providence ; few things are in that state now, in
which they are hereafter to remain ; the bird destined for the
air, sleeps in his shell ; the beautiful insect, that is to flutter in
the sun, crawls in the earth till the season of his glory is come.
The child that requires the hand of a parent to give him food,
may soon be changed into a saint or a sage. So, also (says
the great apostle) is it with the soul of man ; this is not its
resting place ; it was never intended to remain here, and to
be always as it now is; it will be changed as the seed is changed;
the corruptible will put on incorruption ; the mortal immor-
tality; the object for which it was created will be made mani-
fest ; at the very moment that it seems to perish, it is passing
284 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
into an higher order of creatures and getting hold of a better
life.
This comparison between the outward world and the
changes of the soul, set on foot by the holy apostle, may per-
haps be carried one step farther.
As we are admonished by experience of this propensity to
change in all the objects we behold, we accustom ourselves
to look out with eagerness and attention for the signs of these
changes ; we say of the seed, when it begins to burst this
part will become the branch, and from hence the root will
grow ; we trace out in the shell, the organs of the perfect
animal ; and we say with certainty, these are preparations for
a future existence ; to this perishing seed, to this inanimate
shell they are useless ; but the seed will grow, and the shell
will live ; these are the signs in them of a second state ; they
have other appearances to put on, and other objects to accom-
plish, to which their present being is entirely subordinate and
ministerial : this also is true of the soul of man ; it does not
do all here that it was intended to do ; it was never modeled
for this world alone ; there are in it qualities utterly useless
here, qualities which carry about with them the signs of pre-
paration, as if that soul was to undergo a great change, sur-
viving the body, and living for ever before God.
There cannot be a more awful speculation than to follow
out this train of thought, and to endeavour to find what those
quahties of our minds are, which appear to have a reference to
some future scene of existence, which by showing us that we
are intended for another and a better world, add the natural
evidence for immortality, to that which is derived from the
Christian revelation.
First. It must be observed, man in every stage of society,
civilized or savage, has universally behoved that he is to live
hereafter ; we have no sooner become acquainted with the
opinions of any new people, however barbarous their condi-
tion, however remote and insulated their situation, but we
immediately discover among them this sacred notion of a
second life ; discover it obscured by foolish inventions, dis-
graced by superstition ; but still discover it shining through
the dross and betraying its excellent nature. Why then has
the Almighty God, who in all other creations is acknowledged
to do nothing in vain, who could have pinioned down the
mind within any hmits, given it such a range, that its thoughts
reach up to an Heaven where it can never dwell? why is it
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 285
enabled to discover a God if that God is to doom it to annihi-
lation ? why has it the power to draw a never-ending scene
of happiness, if it has but a few wretched years to Hve. What
advantageth us, says the apostle, if the dead rise not at all ;
let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ; but alas! the mind
of man is not so constituted; the death of to-morrow ruins the
appetite of to-day; the beast that perishes he only is pleased to
the last, and is never troubled with that futurity, by which he is
never to be blest ; believing that God exists, that God is our
maker, that God is just, we cannot believe that he has given
us minds capable of forming the notion of immortality, but un-
worthy of enjoying immortality itself ; therefore, this universal
belief in a future state, is one sign of change, one proof that
the soul is not now in its last stage of being, that the change
which it undergoes, is merely change and not destruction.
If we had been destined for this world alone, it is probable
we should have been contented with what this world affords ;
s the excellence we saw and felt, would have been the only
^ excellence we could conceive ; but now man always imagines
something better than he sees ; no grandeur, and no beauty
which he beholds, are equal to the grandeur and the beauty
which he conceives ; something tells him this is human, that
elsewhere there are fairer and better things than these ; in
all times man has dehghted to draw a natural and moral
world after his own fancy; a land without storm and tempest;
a people without violence and injustice, living in perpetual
peace, and exercising unwearied benevolence. This discon-
tent of present things is made a part of man's nature, to
remind him that present things are not always to endure ; he
is swift to conceive better things, to inure him to that perfec-
tion, which must infinitely exceed even his imagination ; if
man is to live again, the object of such a provision is easy to
be comprehended, and worthy of Almighty wisdom ; but why
is it given, if all ends here ? why are we so keen to discern
the imperfections of this our first, and last, and only home ? a
being of this world has no need of it, it is a mark of futurity,
the forerunner of another world, the strong evidence of an
immortal being.
To exist in this world, seems to be the only purpose for
which the brute creation was intended ; they eat, and drink,
and perish ; nor does it appear that they have any superflu-
ous faculties, any portion of understanding greater than what
is necessary for the preservation of their brief existence ; if
^i
288 ON TUE Immortality of the ^otL.
•
they have lived a few yeats, and given birth to other beings
like themseves, they appear to have done all that Providence
ever intended them to do ; if man, like these, had only talents
to gather his support, and defeat the hostile animals which
surrounded him, no hope of immortality could be gathered
from a condition like this ; man would be of the earth, earthy;
destined to hve in this world, with qualities fitted for this
world, and, to all appearance, limited to it; but in speaking of
the mind of man, we forget and we leap over all those facul-
ties, which are sufficient for the preservation of life ; we do
not wonder at man, because he is cunning in procuring his
food, but we are amazed with the variety, the superfluity, the
immensity of human talents ; we are astonished that he should
have found his way over the seas, and numbered the stars,
and called by its name every earth, and stone, and plant, and
creeping reptile, that the Almighty hath made ; we see him
gathered together in great cities, guided by laws, disciphned
by instruction, softened by fine arts, and sanctified by solemn
worship : we count over the pious spirit of the world, the
beautiful writers, the great statesmen, all who have invented
subtlety, who have thought deeply, who have executed wisely,
all these are proofs that we are destined for a second life ; it
is not possible to believe that this redundant vigour, this
lavish and excessive power was given for the mere gathering
of meat and drink : if the only object is present existence,
such faculties are cruel, are misplaced, are useless ; they all
show us that there is something great awaiting us, that the
soul is now young and infantine, springing up into a more
perfect life when the body falls into dust.
Then, why is it that there is always a progress from one
novelty to another ? why does happiness recede before us
as we advance ? why is man driven by the present moment
to a future, which, when it comes, still beckons him to a fu-
ture beyond ? In boyhood it is to be youth, in youth it is to
be manhood, in manhood it is to be old age ; but in youth
pleasure wearies, in manhood power fatigues, in old age sad-
ness and weakness oppress, — till man is wearied out by the
long delusion, and sees at last, if he would reach that happi-
ness he has so long pursued, he must follow it over the great
gulf across which Dives called to Lazarus for aid.
God would not have so framed the heart of man if that
heart is perishable and mortal ; it is not one God that has
made the invisible spirit, and another God that has made all
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 287
the objects we can see and touch ; but one Omnipotence and
one Omniscience has acted throughout, in forming the most
stupendous mind, and in completing the minutest insect. If
this incessant change be then the quahty of a soul which is
to suffer death ; if our desires can here find no resting place
and are not to exist anywhere but here, where is there besides
such an inconsistency in all the other works of God ? No
animal has wings that is not destined to fly ; every creature
that swims in the deep has all the organs and instruments
necessary for that kind of life ; when we look at the courage-
ous animals, we are well aware that they must live by their
courage ; of the timid we do not doubt but that they are to
owe their safety to their circumspection ; we always assign
to Providence a purpose; we cannot look upon a bodily organ
or witness a mental quality, without assigning to them a par-
ticular use; if the present use is not obvious, the creature is
to undergo some change that will justify the work of God,
and bring that organ or that quahty into action ; this half-living
reptile that is now crawling on the earth, will not end in this
state; those rudiments of wings will expand, and he will become
an inhabitant of air ; thus we reason of all nature, and thus
we should reason also of the soul of man ; this eternal change,
this sickness of present things, this appetite for the future,
these are the marks of the wings, and the signs of the great
flight ; this is not the world to which they belong, but they
are the instruments and the organs which enable us to detach
ourselves from thi^ world, and to spring up into greater purity
and freedom.
Of the other qualities of the mind, there is no one who
doubts ; the connection they have with this life cannot be
mistaken ; resentment is given us for protection ; fear for
preservation ; hope for comfort ; compassion for mutual aid ;
gratitude for the encouragement of benevolence, — all these
are present qualities ; some beautiful, some bad, but all cal-
culated for the present scene ; all bearing upon our immedi-
ate destiny, all connected with this world ; but the knowledge
of God and his attributes, the ungratified notions of excellence,
the impatience of present things, the unwearied appetite for
change ; the lavish, variety and splendour of the human
faculties ; all these things are not to be explained but by be-
lieving the soul to be immortal, or the God that made it to be
unjust.
There is one other, and an almost universal passion in
288 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
human nature, which appears to be planted in us to excite
and to cherish, the feeHng of the immortaHty of the soul ; the
desire of being remembered and honoured after death ; or, as
it is commonly denominated, the love of posthumous fame. —
All men feel it ; it would overwhelm any of us here present
with the deepest affliction to believe that we were utterly
forgotten when we ceased to live ; after rehgion the great
soother and comforter in death is, to beheve that we shall
survive in the memory of those whom we leave behind. If
this passion was a passion only of the rich and great, it might
proceed from a reluctance to quit those enjoyments which
are said by the son of Sirach to make death so terrible ; but
all men have it ; the poor wish to live in the memory of the
poor ; the wretched to be remembered even by the wretched ;
anything but to be forgotten and blotted out, than which there
is nothing more awful to the mind of man ; for what purpose
is it then, that our wishes shoot out beyond our endurance,
and that we have such an irresistible tendency to paint our-
selves as conscious of honour or of shame after the outward
and visible man has perished away ? This universal feeling .
^1 was not given in mockery and derison of mankind ; he is ,
surely not allowed for the sport of some higher order of
beings, to hope so strongly that which is impossible; this^
peculiarity of his nature is not accidental; it was not over-,
looked in the structure of his mind, but it was placed there
with design, and placed there with benevolence ; with design,
because nothing in this world is done without design ; with be-
nevolence, because man wanted this glimpse of another life for
his happiness, and he wanted it for his elevation to give him
courage under all the evils of the world, and to whisper into
his inward soul that he only is unchangable amid vicissitude,
and imperishable amid decay.
It is a science not unworthy of time and attention to find
out what the qualities of our minds are, and for what pur-
poses they were intended ; but it is impossible in the prose-
cution of this study, not to perceive that the mind with all its
worldly attributes, has some qualities entirely destined for
futurity ; arranged for a totally separate order of things ; doing
within us the service of Heaven, and watching carefully over
the ark of God which every man carries in his heart ; there-
fore, do not answer me with saying all this perishes to the ,
eye, it seems as if the soul was dead ; I reply with the holy
apostle, it is the great law of nature, that which thou sowest
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 289
is not quickened except it die ; and that which thou sowest,
thou sowest not that hody which shall he, but God giveth it
a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed its own
body.
The season is now come when those changes to which the
apostle alludes begin to take place ; the sower has deposited
the seed in the ground, and to the outward eye it seems to
perish; yet, ere it be long, it will be green with life, and God
will give to every seed the body which hath pleased him ;
let it be our care then, to derive from the changes of nature,
a lesson of religious wisdom, and beholding the decay and
the resurrection of the outward world, to remember before it
is too late, that we also must die and rise again.
m
SEEMON XLII.
ON THE TLEASURES OF OLD
AGE.
Though the outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day.
2d Book of Corinthians iv. verse 14.
There seems to be, upon a superficial view of human life,
a vast inequality in the advantages enjoyed at its different
periods ; all its joys and pleasures appear to be crowded into
the season of youth, and its last scenes to be given up to pain,
and to decay ; to be marked only by the dissolution of the
body, and the gloom of the mind. Sad, forsaken, unhappy,
are the epithets appropriated to old age ; to grow old stands
foremost upon the catalogue of human miseries, and sin itself
seems less terrible than that outward ruin which brings man
down to his native dust.
To correct, if I am able, these mistaken views, and to strive
against this mournful and degrading impression, I have cited
these words of the great apostle ; they show us that the real
glory may be greatest, when the visible glory is no more ;
that death and ruin may be without, and immortality within ;
that, though the outward man perish, the inward man may
be renewed day by day.
I will endeavour to explain what is meant by this renewal
of the inward man by stating what those feehngs of the mind
are, which St. Paul sets up in compensation of bodily decay,
and in what sense we may be said to be daily renewed, when
it is but too evident to the eye, that we are dwindling away to
another state of existence. The principal object I have in
view in this discourse, is to prove that Providence has been
bounteous to every period of life; that the pleasures of age
are greater, and the pains less, than we commonly suppose
ON THE PLEASURES OF OLD AGE. 291
them to be ; and that, when old age is a state of affliction and
despair, it is not rendered so by a decaying body, but by a
sinful mind.
By the pleasures of old age are understood, of course, those
pleasures which may be attained by exertion ; for gratuitous
happiness is never conceded to man at any period of life ; but
in youth, in manhood, in old age is alike, and alone gained
by doing well, and by faith in Christ.
The first renewal of the inward man, the restoration of our
nature to what it was before its original transgression, is its
victory over the passions of youth. The eye fails, the hand
trembles, and the knee is unstrung ; but the happiness of man
does not depend only on the keenness of his sight, and the
vigour of his grasp ; it is not all health and strength ; there
is something Avhich palsy cannot reach, nor fever burn, nor
agony impair. The man whom you pity for his weakness,
would be loath perhaps, to change his infirmities for your
passions ; he would not be as young as you, to be disturbed
as you; he would not come again under the bondage of sin,
and be the slave of passion for all the happiness that youth,
and beauty, and strength could give ; he has calmed every
unholy tumult ; and put to rest every sinful emotion ; he
wishes only that which is righteous ; he thinks only that
which is good; he feels by day and by night a calm support-
ing confidence in God. Youth may flee away unheeded, if
old age bring with it such blessings as these. The outward
man may perish, when the inward man is thus renewed day
by day.
The pleasures of youth all fall under the cognizance of the
senses ; gayety is heard, and brilliancy is seen ; but the pas-
sionless tranquillity of old age is unnoticed by all but those
whom it blesses ; we call it unhappy because it has no clamor-
ous, and no visible joy ; forgetting that the emanation of
God's grace, the feeling of heaven, the strong hope of immor-
tality, are themselves deep and penetrating joys, which oc-
cupy the whole man, and keep his soul in dignity and peace.
Nor is this exemption from the tumults of sense, and the
agitations of sin, to be judged of, as if it were original apathy ;
but it is a tranquillity of which old age can fully ascertain
the value, from having experienced the contrary state. He,
whose decaying health is the only circumstance you notice,
has learnt in a long life to estimate aright the happiness of
age ; he has learnt that your ideas of pleasure are not the
292 ON THE PLEASURES OF OLD AGE.
true ideas of pleasure ; he once obeyed feelings as impetuous
as yours ; he was the slave of anger, of jealousy, of pleasure,
as you are at this day. He has now conquered the passions
which he once served ; and pity him as you may, he feels
that the latter days of his life are better than the first ; that it
is more pleasant to walk with God in old age, than to sin in
all the flower and freshness of youth.
The memory of a well spent Hfe is a pleasure which may
always be reserved for old age, and can be enjoyed by old
age alone ; in manhood the race is only half run, the firmest
virtue may give way, and that fame may set in clouds which
rose in beauty, and shone with meridian splendour. But in
old age the hand is upon the goal, the destined spot is reached ;
nothing more is to come, and what is past the malice of fortune
cannot affect. Nor is this pleasure peculiar to old age, by
any means confined to men of illustrious talent and exalted
station ; the consciousness of integrity and honesty is as
sweet as the remembrance of the brightest actions ; the plea-
sant feeling, the true delight is to know when the part is
finished, that the part has been acted aright, that however in-
considerable our best exertions may be, they have still been
made; that we have a right to challenge the approbation of
men, and to ask for some little portion of the mercy of God.
The aged, in fact enjoy some of the privileges of the dead;
they experience that justice, which those who are actively en-
gaged on the theatre of the world so seldom receive ; envy for
them is dumb, the worst passions of the human heart are
softened by the signs of decaying nature, and men begin to
love that merit which they are so soon to enjoy no more.
The respect which an old man experiences, who has quitted
the world with honour, is sincere and affecting; he has been
well tried, and the degree of his virtues fairly established ; he
is now no man's rival, and all are left freely to indulge in the
admiration of excellence ; a man thus far gone in existence,
does not convert the homage of his fellow-creatures into
food for vanity, but takes it deeply to his heart as a probable
evidence that he has discharged his duties well, and that at
the last hour, he may find some favour with his God. In this
manner a good old man learns from the praises of the world
what he has been ; and the young, inflamed by the sight of
living excellence, love virtue and steadily pursue it.
There remain for an old man the pleasures of knowledge,
the result of all that he has gathered in a long and laborious
ON THE PLEASURES OF OLD AGE. 293
life, and the liberal communication of that knowledge to others ;
wisdom and knowledge are the attributes of age ; and if the
young bow to the symbol of declining life, it is in a great
measure because they regard them also as the symbols of a
long-disciplined and wide-inquiring mind.
There remains to old age, to behold children acting an
honest and conspicuous part in the world ; carrying into ac-
tion those sound and moderate principles, which it has been
the object of parental care to inculcate ; and repaying to the
last days of the aged that kindness which guided their infant
life. Youth has its glories and pleasures, but they are not
the saddest days of human life, when a man wastes gradually
away, in the midst of his numerous and happy children ;
perishing, hke the patriarch, in a good old age, and blessing
his sons, the strength and hope of Israel.
But this it is, for which we deem old age miserable ; that
the pleasures of old age are not our pleasures : that the old
man cries out with Bazillai, " How long have I to live that I
should go up with the King to Jerusalem ? I am this day
four-score years old ; can I discern between good and evil :
can thy servant taste what I eat ? and what I drink ? Can I
hear any more the voice of singing men, and singing women ?
Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back, that I may die in
mine own city, and be buried in the grave of my father, and
of my mother ?" It is this, the tasteless meats, the deafness
to the singing man and the singing woman, the apathy to
common pleasures, for which old age is pitied and deplored.
But this is God's mercy, it is not his vengeance ; he deadens
the keenness of our bodily senses only to guide us to immor-
tality; we are disgusted with the pleasures of youth ; we de-
ride the objects of manly ambition ; we are wearied with one
worldly trifle or another, that our thoughts may centre at last
in God ; if I saw old age still hovering after the amusements
of youth, I should indeed pity it, but this oblivion of our trifles,
is the genuine sign that the great change is coming. This
loathing of the world shows us, that the renewal of the inward
man has begun; that the first state will soon end; that the
wings are now forming for the last and great flight ; and that
we are casting off" the appetites and passions of this world,
only because we are about for ever to abandon it.
Another evil that our imaginations are apt to connect with
old age, is pain ; but it is not the natural and inevitable con-
dition of human life, that it should close in pain ; a youth of
25*
294 ON THE PLEASURES OF OLD AGE.
intemperance, is crowned with an old age of bodily suffering-;
there is no wretchedness of mind or body, which we may not
prepare for old age : but the accidental consequences of our
sins, are not to be considered as the regular conditions of our
nature ; there is a gradual bowing down to the grave ; a
gentle departure from this hfe ; a peaceful separation of the
soul from the body ; which is the real destiny of man, when
he has lead that hfe which his Almighty Creator intended
him to lead.
In fact, the old age which has raised aU this terror, is the
old age of sin, not the old age of piety ; it is the spectacle of
young and ungoverned passions, in a perishing body ; of a
man giving up the world by his trembling limbs, giving it up
by his wasting strength, and cHnging to it with all the appe-
tites of his heart ; a man marked deeply by time, and out-
wardly fitted for Heaven, within all preparations for this life,
and with thoughts busied about the mortal pleasures of sin ;
to such a man, old age is indeed terrible, for it is a mark of
the coming vengeance of God, the pains and evils of the
body are to him signs that his eternal punishment is near at
hand ; that he is standing in the threshold to the place of
torment. I am not endeavouring to prove that this old age is
not terrible. It is, indeed, the greatest of human terrors ; and
though the threescore and ten years may first pass away, yet
the knowledge that it must come at last, shoots across the
horizon of life, and mingles the terror of God with the early
pleasures of youth.
If it is the mere contiguity to death, which makes old age
so terrible, find out, if you can, the man who would spend
his hfe over again. If your life has not been notoriously
wicked, so that death becomes to you the greatest of all evils,
put this question to your own heart. You shall be replaced
in earliest infancy, you shall enjoy all the happiness which
is said to be the privilege of that favoured period ; you shall
re-taste again, all the tumultuous pleasures of youth ; you
shall play over again the game of ambition. If all this were
offered, all this would be rejected ; your disposition would be,
to go on with the portion of life which remained ; to pass
over to something you did not know, in the hope of finding it
better ; not to return to that, with the value of which you
were already acquainted. Why then is the proximity to
death so terrible, if the possession of life is so little valuable ?
Why fear to die, if we do not wish to five ? Death viewed
ON THE PLEASURES OF OLD AGE. 295
at a distance by one unprepared for it, from having lived long,
is terrible ; but the natural feeling of the mind, in extreme old
age, is to wish for death ; to ask it of God as a boon, to speak
of it as a release, and to ardently desire what, in the begin-
ning of life, is considered as the greatest of all evils. " As
the hart panteth for the water brooks, — even so longeth my
soul for thee, oh God."
It is in truth, this very proximity to death, which in a
rightly-constituted and Christian mind, gives sometimes to old
age a superiority over all human conditions, because it brings
with it a feehng which we find to be that which we have
been seeking for throughout the whole of existence. The
feeling which this near approach to God inspires, is that
perfect happiness which I sought for, in pleasure, in power, in
riches, in earthly affections, in meditation, and in knowledge.
But there was bitterness in my pleasure, — power, and wealth
became familiar to me ; in my earthly affections I was
deceived ; my knowledge was pain and doubt. I have
found, in my old age, an happiness which fills my heart, and
satisfies my reason ; I see, now, why all the pleasures of the
earth have palled upon me, and the lawful object for which
my desires were reserved. Every remembrance of my
decaying body brings me nearer to God ; every earthly wish
is extinguished ; every injury forgiven ; every passion sleeps:
as the outward man perishes, the inward man lives in Christ,
and is renewed day by day.
^t^^m^-i^^mm^m^'^-^^':-
SERMON XLIII.
ON THE EFFECTS WHICH THE TUMUL-
TUOUS LIFE, PAST IN GREAT CITIES,
PRODUCES UPON THE MORAL AND
RELIGIOUS CHARACTER.
And Jesus went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. —
MaHK I. VERSE 35.
There are many passages in the New Testament, which
evince the love of solitude to have been a feeling very fre-
quent in the mind of our Saviour ; his business was with the
world, but it pleased him to retire from it ; and upon the shore
of the sea, upon the mountain, in the wilderness, surrounded
by the works of God, to restore, and sanctify his nature with
prayer. What Jesus did, we ought to do also ; to retire for
the purposes of religion ; often to quit the world, that we may
acquaint ourselves with God, and learn what the state of that
soul is, upon which everlasting joy and sorrow depend.
As it falls to my lot to address th^se whose lives are past
in this greatest of cities, the most stupendous collection of
civihzed men that the earth has ever contained, or the mind
contemplated, under such circumstances, I have thought it
right to expatiate upon the duty of occasional solitude, and to
state those effects, which the habits of great cities must
necessarily produce upon the moral and religious character.
It is right to show men, that this never-ending, uninterrupted
commerce with the world, darkens the evangelical light ;
erases the name of God ; stifles the breath of prayer ; closes
the hand of charity ; degrades the aspiring look of man, and
fixes it upon the earth.
Nothing can be farther from my intention, than to praise,
ON THE EFFECT WHICH A LIFE, <Sx3. 297
or recommend a life of solitude, which is, perhaps, rather
more injurious than a life of uninterrupted society. I speak
only of occasional retirement, and contend only against
incessant commerce with the world ; that those who can
escape from a life of tumult may do it, and those who can-
not, by knowing, and fearing them, may guard against its ill
effects.
It happens in great cities that men are too busy to be reli-
gious ; whatever regulates the fate of empires, promotes the
public happiness, or enlarges the boundaries of knowledge,
originates in great cities; there it is best discussed, and most
maturely perfected. Whatever is wonderful in nature, or
curious in art, whatever human kind has of wit, o* wisdom,
of eloquence, beauty or genius, is crowded into great cities ;
all the marvels, scattered elsewhere sparingly over the face
of the earth, are there collected into a single point; every fasci-
nation is spread out for the senses ; not to sin is difficult ; not
to trifle impossible ; these, then, are the reasons why the soli-
tary place of prayer is valuable; why it is necessary to breathe,
to pause, to be silent ; to remember that there is a day of
judgment, and an hour of death.
It is not favourable to religious feeling to hear only of the
actions and interference of men, and to behold nothing but
what human ingenuity has completed. There is an image of
God's greatness, impressed upon the outward face of nature,
which makes us all pious, and breathes into our hearts a
purifying and wholesome fear. Perhaps God so constructed
the outward world, as to remind man of his existence and of
his power ; it is not in vain that the hills are high, the streams
rapid, and the forests deep ; they touch the sensual heart of
man, and rouse his torpid understanding to discover who made
these wonders and who rules them. The very rocks are his
scripture ; and the mountains teaching him, appal him with
the power of God. These things have neither speech nor
language, but their voices are heard among men. Their
sound is gone out unto all lands, and their words unto the
ends of the world.
Nor is the spectacle of active nature less favourable to the
cultivation of rehgious feeling than the contemplation of its
passive scenes; every bird and every animal has its habits of
life independent of man ; it has a sagacity which man never
taught ; and propensities which man could not inspire. The
growth of all the plants, and fruits of the earth, depend upon
laws, over which man has no control ; out of great cities,
298 ON THE EFFECT WHICH A LIFE, PAST IN GREAT
there is everywhere around and about us, a vast system going
on utterly independent of human wisdom and human inter-
ference ; and man learns there the great lesson of his imbe-
ciUty and dependence ; not by that reflection, to which supe-
rior minds alone can attain, but by those daily impressions
upon his senses, which make the lesson more universal and
more certain. But here everything is man and man alone ;
kings and senates command us ; we talk of their decrees and
look up to their pleasure ; they seem to move and govern all,
and to be the providence of cities ; in this seat of govern-
ment, placed under the shadow of those who make the laws,
we do not render unto Csesar the things which are Caesar's,
and unto God the things which are God's, but God is forgotten
and Csesar is supreme; all is human policy, human foresight,
human power ; nothing reminds us of invisible dominion,
and concealed Omnipotence ; we do nothing but what man
bids ; we see nothing but what man creates ; we mingle with
nothing but what man commands ; it is all earth and no
heaven.
The weakness and helplessness of man, is one cause of his
dependence upon a being greater and wiser than himself. It
is not, I am afraid, in the season of youth and health, and in
the possession of affluence, that we are most mindful of our
religious duties ; the lesson which all ought to learn from
principle, is often taught by poverty, sickness, and old age,
and we are then most willing to rest upon a superior power;
when we learn from experience the moral and physical evils
by which we are surrounded, and the confined powers of our
nature by which those evils are to be repelled. This lesson,
however, is more slowly learnt in great cities, than elsewhere,
because there the strongest combination is formed against the
accidents of life. It is there that every evil, which can ha-
rass humanity, is guarded against by the most consummate
experience, and rectified with the most perfect skill ; what-
ever man has discovered to better his condition, is there to be
found ; and the whole force of human genius called to the aid
of each individual, gradually diminishes that conviction of
human imbeciHty which is one cause of religious feeling.
Where the society in which we move, is not of a magni-
tude that is enormous, a very wholesome restraint is produced
by public opinion ; every action of each individual is known ;
and the fear of disgrace and reprehension comes in aid of the
dictates of religion. But in the midst of such multitudes as
these, life would not suffice for such minuteness of inquisi-
CITIES, PRODUCES ON THE RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 299
tion ; every man walks in darkness ; and his actions are as
invisible to his fellow-creatures as if his days were past in
the bosom of the desert. There is little question here of
good and evil, of virtue and vice ; whatever amuses is virtue,
whatever tires is vice ; in a moderate state of society, where
full light is thrown upon every man's life, the good father,
the just neighbour, the steady and affectionate friend, take
the rank in public estimation, to which their excellent quali-
ties entitle them ; prudence, veracity, charity ; a class of vir-
tues are required and honoured, which, though unimportant
to a superficial intercourse, are indispensable to long and
intimate communication ; so that many virtues are thus learnt
from a regard to character, which are afterwards preserved
from the love of God ; enhghtened by his holy Gospel, and
confirmed by his grace ; but so light and superficial are the
relations among human creatures in great cities, so easily
are the connections of society created and dissolved ; and so
numerous are those connections themselves, that you ask
only for something that pleases for the moment ; for birth, for
wealth, for manner, for gayety, for the qualities and virtues
of an hour ; compatible, and often coexisting with every sin,
abhorrent from the law of God and injurious to the happiness
of man. Therefore, here are reasons why we should go into
solitary places, and pray ; because in the tumult of life, the
man who can please for the passing hour, is better and greater
than him who has difficult and unsplendid virtues ; because
goodness is not known, is not asked for, is not wanted : be-
cause a man can do as well without righteousness as he can
with it ; because he who forgets the Creator, and injures the
creature, is as much loved and honoured as the just. Let
any man ask the question of his own mind, if he has enjoyed
the opportunity of comparing a life of moderate solitude with
the distractions of a great city, where has he forgotten Christ,
and benefactor, and kindred, and friend ? where is it that he
has found his benevolent feelings swallowed up in selfish
vanity? where has he lived hating and blaming himself? The
cure of all these things is the prayer and the solitary place ;
that calmness and stillness of spirits, in which no uncharita-
bleness can live, and in which the soul of man is carried on-
ward to futurity, and upwards to God. As the body, harassed
with the noxious air of cities, seeks relief in the freedom and
purity of the fields, the mind, wearied by commerce with
men, resumes its vigour in solitude, and repairs its dignity.
300 ON THE EFFECT WHICH A lIFE, &C.
We must not suppose that righteousness depends upon our
exertions alone, and not upon the situations in which we are '
placed ; the love of Christ is so strong in some men's hearts,
that neither heights, nor depths, nor principalities, nor powers
can avail to destroy it. But the greater part of us are what
the circumstances in which we are placed incline to make
us ; in solitude, thinking sometimes of what man is, and of
the God that made him ; in the world, acting and thinking as
the world do act and think, neglecting no pleasure, avoiding
no display, avoiding only our own souls, and deaf to those
warnings, which are the whispers of Heaven and the calls to
salvation.
It is indeed possible that an human being may pass a long
life in the midst of society, without getting one distinct view
of his religious character, and may wait till the pains of death
make him look back and tremble ; his sorrows have all been
dissipated; his compunctions smothered; his old age forgotten;
his object has been to blunt all those feelings which lead to
salvation ; to heal instantly every warning pain, which might
make him change ; to avail himself of all the diversions be-
fore him ; to forget unpleasant duties ; and then, after three-
score and ten years of voluptuous oblivion, he wakes to the
judgments of God.
In saying these things I am well aware that the necessities
of human life do not allow to us all to place ourselves in
situations where the object of a rational and moderate inter-
course with our fellow-creatures may be best promoted. Some
are compelled by the accidents of the world, to mingle more
with their fellow-creatures, some less ; but it is the indispensa^
ble duty of all who cannot avoid scenes of tumult and per-
petual occupation, to remember that tendency which such
scenes have to harden the heart, and to make man forget his
Redeemer and his God ; it is their duty ever to call to mind,
that all these works of men with which they are conversant,
are but in fact, the works of him who made man ; and in the
midst of all the business, the pleasure, and the wonder which
surround them, they must not forget the hour of death, the day
of judgment, and the being which punishes and rewards ;
and let them, as often as can be, depart into the solitary place
and pray that they remain unspotted from the world ; that
they be ever mindful of the insignificance of those scenes in
which they are engaged; labouring iu their worldly vocation
with hearts firmly fixed upon the salvation of Christ.
^!3*>^:
SEKMON XLIV.
ON THE CHARACTER AND GENIUS
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
Our consolation abojindeth by Christ. — 2d Epistle to the Corinthians i.
VERSE 5.
As we are now celebrating the Nativity of our blessed
Saviour, and giving loose to those feelings of joy which arise
from such a stupendous instance of God's mercy, we can
surely do nothing better than to take some measure and
account of what that advantage is we have received; and
to examine upon what grounds of reason our gratitude is
indulged.
In laying before you for this purpose, a short analysis of
the genius and nature of Christianity, I shall begin with its
negative excellencies, because these are what would first
strike the mind of any reflecting man who had remarked the
glaring absurdities and deficiencies of those religions which
rival Christianity only in the number of their proselytes.
First, the genius of the Gospel is to discourage the pomps
and ceremonies of worship, in which all spurious and barba-
rous religions are apt to indulge ; it attaches no importance
to outward trifles ; the forms which it exacts are few, and in-
stituted for the only purpose for which forms ought ever to
be instituted, to awaken the attention to realities.
It is, perhaps, to the simplicity of the Christian faith, more
than to any other cause, that Europe is indebted for its supe-
riority over the rest of the world, for its industry, its science,
and its comparative freedom. In the Christian world, every
year increases the boundaries of human knowledge, and
multiplies the instruments of human happiness. Man seems
to be making that progress which his Creator intended he
should make. In the Pagan world this year is the same as
the last, the same as centuries before it ; a childish, and com-
26
802 ON THE CHARACTER AND GENIUS
plex faith ; interferes with every trifling arrangement of life ;
and so destroys all freedom of choice, and besets existence
with so many frivolous rules, that the originaHty of man is
totally destroyed ; and every branch that he would push forth
into the air with natural strength and beauty, is bent into the
forms of art. I only mean to oifer these last observations as
a negative proof of the genuineness of Christianity, inasmuch
as it shows the absence of a defect, for which all other widely-
extended religions are remarkable, and certainly, in the minds
of grave men, ought to excite veneration for the Gospel.
The Gospel is not a religion of fables and mythology, cal-
culated for the infantine simplicity of savages. It holds forth
no bribe to the senses : and not only does not ask their aid,
but hmits their gratifications within the narrowest limits of
virtue. It is as far removed from austerity as from sensu-
ality, for one of these two is commonly a feature in alJ spurious
religions ; either God is represented as bribing his votaries
by bodily pleasures, or his votaries are enjoined to appease
him by bodily pains ; the Creator is cruel, or the creature
voluptuous ; these two features carry with them such strong
marks of vulgar imposture, that a man of discretion may at
once condemn as spurious every religion in which they are
observable ; the Christian faith throws a veil over these scenes
and puts an end for ever to vain curiosity, by telhng us that the
eye has never se^n such things as we shall hereafter see, that
the ear has not heard them, nor has the heart thought them.
The Gospel has no enthusiasm; it pursues always the
same calm tenour of language, and the same practical views
in what it enjoins ; nor does it ever in any way connect itself
with questions of civil and ecclesiastical policy. These errors
do not exist in the Gospel, and they do exist in all other reli-
gions but the Gospel ; there is no other faith which is not
degraded by its ceremonies, its fables, its sensuality, or its vio-
lence ; the Gospel only is rational, simple, correct, and mild.
The Gospel contains a set of rules every one of which
appears eminently calculated to promote our happiness ;
among the foremost of these rules is poorness of spirit, by
which is meant a mind habitually void of offence, a favoura-
ble construction of men's motives, a connivance at little inju-
ries and insults ; moderation in resenting, and readiness in
forgiving those of a more serious nature ; a retiring, modest,
and gentle disposition. Now it is plain, if such were the
prevaihng spirit among men, that the earth would be a far
different scene from what it now is ; to see what the magni-
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGIOX. 303
tude of that good is which Christianity aims at conferring by
this rule, it is necessary to remark the effects this rule pro-
duces where it is obeyed, the happiness which a gentle, and
amiable man diffuses around him, the air of benevolence and
content visible in those who live within his influence, and
who seem to be breathing a purer atmosphere, and living in
some land of Goshen, unsmitten by the hail, and unvexed by
the storm. The opposite character which the Scriptures
labour to correct, is the heroic character, the inordinate love
of glory and power ; and no man can for a moment doubt
which of these two characters he would wish to see prevail,
which carries misery in its train, which joy, which desolates
the earth, and which gladdens it.
Another great feature of the morality of the Gospel is that
sublime jurisdiction which it exercises over the thoughts,
beginning with the rudiments of all action, and making the
life correct by rendering the heart pure ; a rule so far removed
from severity, that it diminishes the difficulty of virtue ; for
of a certainty it is a much lighter command to say to men,
your thoughts and your actions shall be one, you shall intend
good and do good, than to say, you shall indulge in every
licentious imagination, and abstain from every evil act ; you
shall prepare yourself for the commission of every sin, in order
to practice every virtue.
The Gospel makes one great commuj3t^y of us all, and
while it cherishes the more confined affections of family love,
does not forget to inculcate an affection for the whole species,
as a great and indispensable duty ; while it makes good hus-
bands, good fathers, and good sons, it kindles in the bosoms
of the faithful that warm philanthropy which watches for,
and employs every occasion to promote, the happiness of the
whole human race.
The Grospel detaches us from the world, that is, it does not
allow the affections to take a deeper root in the world than is
necessary for that period which limits their existence ; it pre-
vents men from hoping and fearing in a life of seventy years,
as they would hope and fear in a life of many thousand ; its
prohibitions do not abohsh those feelings which stimulate
human industry, but proportion the vehemence of the appetite
to the real value of the thing desired ; they moderate the pains
of disappointment and the zeal of contention, by reminding us
that this is but a small part of existence, and that it is foolish
to attach as much importance to it as if it were the whole.
The Gospel exacts forgiveness of injuries, and grants for-
304 ON THE CHARACTER AND GENIUS
giveness of sins upon these terms ; it allows no rest or resi-
dence to the malevolent passions, but requires a mind without
the spot or blemish of hatred ; it loves repentance, the sighing
of a contrite heart, and the desire of such as be sorrowful ;
and requires, in all the dangers and distresses of the world,
an undoubting confidence in God.
What is of equal value with such precepts, these books
contain the life of Christ, of a being who, amid the verbal
disputes and idle ceremonies of an illiberal people, taught his
countrymen that the only useful knowledge was the know-
ledge of God's will, and the only true religion to do it ; who
lived a life so blameless that the very murderers who slew
him for destroying their superstition, dared not breathe against
his unpolluted name the murmur of a crime ; who at every
season, without intermission, when he dared, in the midst of
cities, when he was compelled in the midst of deserts, poured
forth his immortal precepts of goodness and wisdom, that he
might make the earth gentle, and fill it with the spirit of
charity. Such is the Gospel, such the benefits for which, in
the ensuing nativity of our Saviour, we are about to return
thanks to Almighty God; it is a religion without pomp, and
which does not meddle with every little frivolous arrangement
of our daily business. It is neither austere, nor fabulous, nor
sensual, nor enthusiastic, nor political, nor warlike ; there is
one first principl^ervades every syllable of its moral regula-
tions, and that is^fte principle of promoting human happi-
ness ; for why are we to forgive, but that the tendency of
human passions is in the contrary direction ? why are we to
hang loosely upon the world, and not to cling to it, but be-
cause we should be the most wretched of created beings, if
we loved that, with the vehemence of eternal passion, which
we are not sure to enjoy for a single hour ? why are we to
subdue high-mindedness, and to become poor in spirit, but
because loftiness of spirit has so often bathed the world in
blood, and shaken the foundations of human happiness ? in
short, there is not in the Gospel a single precept, which has
not a direct tendency to make the wodd all that we find it to
be in some of its parts, and to refine every human being into
that gentleness of character, which delights us so much, in
those best of human beings, who have spent their lives in
the exertions of kindness, and in the subjugation of passion j
add to this, the importance of the motives by which it ope-,
rates, and the perfect example which it contains, and you
have a summary of the Gospel.
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 305
To conclude, if any man should think fit to inquire what
the Gospel has done for us, and in what way the condition,
of man is meliorated by it ? the answer is, that no man with
an ordinary share of candour, and with ordinary talents for
observation, can doubt of the extensive and beneficial effects
of the Gospel ; not a day passes, but the violence of resent-
ment is mitigated by it ; it extinguishes a thousand hatreds ;
reconciles long-separated friends, and not only reconciles, but
by teaching a spirit of charity, prevents those animosities
which render reconciliation necessary. Christianity has
infused such an amiable temper into this country, that nothing
is so shamed or discountenanced as a resentment excessive
in its effects, or implacable in its duration. Will any one
say, that many minds are not daily fortified against temptation
by the Gospel? that the train of inward thoughts is not
purified by it? that many unhappy persons are not daily
supported by the Gospel in pain, in obscurity, in poverty, in
old age, in loss of kindred, in the hour of death ? will kny
man say that the hungry are not fed by the Gospel ? that the
sick are not healed by it? in short, there is no question which
may not be iitigiously, or captiously put ; but I confess I
should be beyond measure surprised to find, that any man of
real candour and intelligence, could for a moment doubt of
the temporal effects of Christianity ; that he could suffer him-
self really to ask, whether the most benevolent precepts,
enforced by the highest motives, and believed by the greatest
part of the world, to be revealed by God, can produce any
beneficial effects upon the tempers and dispositions of men ;
that Christianity has elevated our nature to that immaculate
perfection which it describes, is of course not true, nor ap-
proaching to the truth ; for the heart of man, as the Psalmist
says, is desperately wicked; but if there was removed from that
heart, all that the Gospel has planted in it; if all the charity,
the candour, the gentleness, the faith, and the holy hope were
driven from the world, which the Gospel has brought into it,
I am sure I know not who would choose to remain behind ;
we should then see what man is by himself, and what man
is taught by his Maker ; and when every bad passion was
let loose, and the earth was one scene of horror and crime,
we should then know what Revelation hath done for human
happiness, and feel th^t our consolation aboundeth only
through Christ.
.^6*
# ' '^z^^W^^i^^^^^^^^''^--^'
SERMON XLV.
FOR THE SCOTCH LYING-IN HOSPITAL.
I have heard a voice as of a w^oman in travail, and the anguish as of her
that bringeth forth her child. — Jekiimiah iv. vebse 31.
To listen to that voice which the prophet in imagination
heard, to diminish a real anguish, which he only witnessed
with the eye of fancy ; to minister to the weariness of heart,
to the wailing and spreading of hands, and to lift from the
ground many a living being that crieth out, woe is me, my
soul is weary; to do what Jesus Christ did, to act as he com-
manded, and to labour in the work of salvation and love, for
these objects we are met here this night ;* for a moment the
business of the world is forgotten ; the aged are thoughtless
of their infirmities ; the gay of their pleasures; the busy of
their toils ; the church has told you, that there is great af-
fliction in the land, and ye have entered into this holy place
to minister unto it. May God bless this purpose, may he
breathe into you the soul of sanctity, and for the mercies of
the present hour, forget the sins that are past, and lessen the
sorrows that are to come.
The sun is now fallen in the heavens, and the habitations
of men are shaded in gross darkness. That sun is hastening
onwards to other cHmates, to carry to all tongues, and people,
and nations the splendour of day. What scenes of mad
ambition and of bleeding war will it witness in its course.
What cruel stripes ; what iron bondage of the human race ;
what debasing superstition ; what foul passions ; what thick
and dismal ignorance ! It will beam upon the savage and
sensual Moor; it will lighten the robber of Arabia to his
* This Sermon was preached in the night, as is the custom with Charity
Sermons in Scotland,
FOR THE SCOTCH LYING-IN HOSPITAL. 307
prey ; it will glitter on the chains of the poor negro. It
will waken the Indian of the ocean to eat the heart of his
captive. The bigot Turk will hail it from the summit of
his mosque ; it will guide the Brahmin to his wooden gods ;
but in all its course it will witness perhaps no other specta-
cle of a free, rational people, gathered together under the
influence of Revelation, to lighten the load of human misery,
and to give of their possessions to the afflicted, and the poor.
There is so much evil mixed with all human attempts at
improvement, and we are driven so frequently to sacrifice
one good to obtain a greater, that hardly any scheme has
been proposed for promoting human comfort, which has not
experienced, in its infancy, a strenuous opposition ; as often
as such opposition, proceeding from a mistaken calculation of
good and evil, is conducted with temper and moderation, it
deserves gentle treatment, and though it should be refuted, it
should also be respected. The best answer that can be given
to the very well-disposed people, who view with jealousy
the institutipn of a Lying-in hospital, is their general esta-
blishment throughout the whole of Europe. On the conti-
nent, as I have just now stated, there is hardly a great city
without them, and in London they are twelve in number; in
one of these only, I perceive by the printed accounts of the
year 1789, that twenty thousand women have been received
since its first institution ; I observe, also, there is hardly a
dignitary of the English Church, who has not preached in their
favour, and the crowd of respectable names of either sex,
who have contributed to their support, is admirable and im-
mense. Much as I love and respect that jealousy of religious
men in this country which watches over the purity of morals
with parental caution, t would remind them, that the love of
virtue is not confined to this, or to any other country ; that
there are men in the metropolis of this island, as unimpeached
in their moral and religious character, as jealous of public
corruption, and as able to foresee consequences, who after an
experience of half a century, continue to uphold these charities
with the most Christian zeal, and to sacrifice to their welfare
a very large portion of their time and attention. The rea-
sonings which influence the opponents to this hospital, might
have been more efficacious, if such an institution were new ; ■
but you are not requested to try an experiment, or to set an
example of Christian charity ; you have the incitement of
other men's actions, and the benefit of their courage ; the
308 FOR THE SCOTCH LYING-IN HOSPITAL.
danger which you suspect has been proved not to exist, and
the blessings they have scattered you may diffuse ; theirs
vsras the vigour which strikes out original plans ; yours the
benevolence which pursues them when crowned with suc-
cess ; the path to them was perilous, to you it is safe ; all
rational opposition has been for ever silenced, by the irre-
sistible reasoning of facts ; to the reasoning of ignorance
and passion, we can only oppose the feeling of silent com-
passion.
The branch of political economy with which Christianity
is the most concerned, is the provision for the support and
comfort of the poor, — for the first systematic work on political
economy all Europe is indebted to this country, indeed I be-
lieve to this city. Let it not be said that those were the last
to practice, who were the first to teach ; that magnificent
views and mistaken objections can originate in the same seat
of learning ; that you are enlightened in everything but your
practice ; and that you exemplify the errors which you
refute.
If old age, if the orphan state, if madness, have ail their
separate establishments, abounding in comforts, regulated
with care, and endowed even to opulence, why are poor un-
happy women to be abandoned at a season when they are
just objects of the tenderest compassion? If we diffuse the
blessings of education from public funds ; if we minister to
the sharp anguish of wounds and fractures ; if we fan the
feverish blood; if we refresh the languishing body with wine ;
why are we to desert the gentle mother when she craves a
morsel of food which she cannot then gain for herself? Why is
charity cold, why is science mute for her alone ? Why nurse
we the tree and leave the seed to perish ? Why multiply the
comforts of man in his maturity, and provide for his necessi-
ties, while we leave his infant body to the winds, and engrave
upon his printless heart, in the first morning of life, the feel-
ings of pain ?
Independent of all charitable notions, as an appendage and
a very important one to a school of medicine, this charity
deserves your notice and protection, — the Scotch are said to
love their country with the warmest affection ; I have lived
long enough among them to see that that love is well be-
stowed. In some it is a blind impulse, but those who know
the reasons on which their predilection rests, will be proud to
see the principles of the healing art diffusing themselves from
FOR THE SCOTCH LYING-IN HOSPITAL. 309
their native land over the four quarters of the globe, — to reflect
that even in the heart of India, or in the wilds of America, the
science imbibed in this place, may soothe pain, strengthen
weakness, and drive out the raging pestilence that stalketh
among the habitations of men. It is of the utmost consequence
that the reputation of your noble and incomparable school of
medicine should be consulted by the encouragement of this
hospital. If there be present in this church any of the chief
men of this country; respectable from their rank, their years,
their offices, and their talents ; by whose advice the powers
which govern would be influenced, and by whose authority the
people are willingly swayed; — I ask them, if they can see with-
out serious regret, such a rational charity as this abandoned
from want of support ? if they could hear without a pang,
that this consecrated ground was sold ? if they could see un-
moved, other edifices erected on that spot where the wife of
the poor man found shelter for her sick body, and her helpless
child ? If there are any circumstances which induce a man
to look out of the circle of his own family and friends to the
wider interests of humanity; if in that best school of all the
virtues, you have learned to forget yourselves, to joy and
suffer in the souls of others ; if you are happy enough to
know that warm social affections, guided by reason to their
object, constitute the noblest work of Heaven; come forth and
save this charity from destruction : statues and speaking in-
scriptions, the broken accents of children, the bursting hearts
of mothers, the smiles of angels, the Son of God shall bless
you.
I know very well that there are many men who imagine,
that this department of medicine is unworthy the name of
science ; and, that while all other branches have been rescued
from the hands of uneducated people, where they were all
originally placed, this should still be retarded by ignorance,
and disgraced by hypothesis. — The dignity of science is
compounded of its difficulty and its utihty; if mothers are
daily snatched away, at this perilous season ; if parents who
hoped to smile on the cradle of their child, are destined to
weep on his tomb ; why is not the will of nature to be dis-
covered, recorded, and taught here as in all her other opera-
tions ? why is she gazed at with such trembling attention in
her mournful hours, when she is hastening to decay? -and why
avert from her the patient eye of science, when she gives a
joyful increase, and lends to the earth a living, thinking soul?
310 FOR THE SCOTCH LYING-IN HOSPITAL.
This is mere folly, arrogance, or unprincipled ridicule ; it is
that kind of greatness which is founded upon contempt; that
which consists not in doing difficult or praiseworthy things,
but in denying that other people do them, and which sup-
poses that all the credit refused to the rest of the world will
necessarily be reflected upon itself.
Having thus done what in me lies to convince your reason
that this charity is worthy of your approbation, let me inquire
of your feelings, if the objects whom it reheves are worthy of
your compassion. "*";
First, let me remind you that the objects of this charity,
are women: — Providence has denied to them the rough cou-
rage which struggles with misfortunes ; it has made them the
comforters of man, and left them to his grateful protection. If
we cannot all be saved from hunger and thirst, let them
take the last morsel of bread, and the single cruise of
oil, and be clothed with the remaining fleece ; if charity is
cold for every other suffering, it must not abandon them in
whom the fountains of Christian goodness are never dry;
remember how they sit whole nights in the sick man's cham-
ber, how they know the language of his moaning, and give
him what his looks can only ask ; see how the timid child
clings to his mother, how all wretched people flock to women
as the temples of mercy. Whatever else be their faults,
cruelty is not one ; there never was a wretch so loathsome,
so poor, and so sad, who has not found in woman a pity which
the multitude of his griefs could never weary. When the
disciples of Jesus went away to their own homes, it was Mary
who sat down at the sepulchre and wept.
If this compassion is due to women at all other seasons,
what shall we say of it in the season of child-birth ? a season
so perilous, that our church has bade every woman who has
passed through it, return thanks to Almighty God for her
safety. If you have ever entered the house of a poor man,
and seen how few of the comforts of life it contains, you must
feel some compassion for a mother abandoned to her agonies
in the midst of wretchedness and noise; surrounded by other
children, without money to purchase food, or the comfortable
voice of a friend that she loves to hear. You, who have been
the mother of children, who have enjoyed at this season quiet
friendship, and the anxious tenderness of family love ; you
should have some mercy on mothers poorer than yourselves :
— If you know their sorrows, minister to their poverty, — if
FOR THE SCOTCH LYING-IN HOSPITAL. 311
you remember what you felt for your children, remember also
that the voice of nature speaketh as loud in the hearts of the
poor.
If the image of a parent forsaken at this time of her dis-
tress, has aught in it which appeals to our compassion, how
awful the spectacle of a mother driven by hunger and despair
to the destruction of her child. To see a gentle creature
hurled from the bosom to which it turns — grasped by the
hands that should have toiled for it, — mangled by her who
should have washed it with her tears, and warmed it with
her breath and fed it with her milk ! You may enjoy a spec-
tacle far different from this ; you may see the tranquil mother
on the bed of charity, and the peaceful child slumbering in
her arms ; you may see her watching the trembling of every
limb, and listening to the tide of the breath, and gazing
through the dimness of tears on the body of her child. The
man who robs and murders for his bread, would give charity
to this woman ; good Christians have mercy upon her, and
death shall not snatch away your children : they shall live
and prosper; mankind will love them! God will defend
them !
There is a circumstance remarked before the season of
child-birth, not unworthy of observation in this place ; I mean
the inexpressible anxiety of the mother to provide for her ex-
pected child every possible comfort it can want ; to prepare
its clothes, and to convince herself by perpetual interference
and examination, that everything is ready for its reception.'
To some the mention of this may appear trifling and ridicu-
lous ; I say it is the bird building her nest, and the ewe seek-
ing the sheltered pasture ; it is the eternal God, speaking as
he speaks to the native savage, and the creatures of the forest ;
it is that language which is more moving than the tombs of
heroes, or the ruins of a great city ; it is that gospel which
has gone forth to all lands ; it is that piercing original appeal
of unprotected weakness, which mankind has heard in every
age, which moistens every human face with tears, and melts
every soul of flesh.
If the people of this island enjoy any moral advantages
over the rest of Europe, it is, perhaps, in the domesticity of
their character, in their attachment to family life, and the
pleasure which they derive from the society of their children
and wives ; I am speaking to those who will understand me
well, when I remind you of the feehngs of a poor industrious
312 FOR THE SCOTCH LYING-IN HOSPITAL.
man, whose earnings exhausted in the purchase of food, dis-
able him from making any provision at this season for the
comforts of his wife. When you see him toihng from sun to
sun, and still unable to rise from the necessities of the present
hour, will you not save to such an useful, honest being, the
anguish of returning to a sick house ; the sight of agonies
which he cannot relieve, and of wants to which he cannot
administer ? Give me a little out of your abundance and I will
lift off this weight from his heart ; listen to me when I kneel
before you for humble, wretched creatures ; help me with
some Christian offering, and I will give meat to the tender
mother, and a pillow for her head, and a garment for the little
child, and she shall bless God in the fullness of her heart.
I fear I have detained you too long ; but the sorrows of
many human beings rest upon me, and many mothers are
praying that I may bring back bread for their children. I
told them that this ancient Christian people had never yet
abandoned the wretched, that they had ever listened to any
minister of Christ who spoke for the poor ; I bade them be of
good comfort, that God would raise them up friends ; and when
they showed me their children, I vowed for you all, that not
one of them should perish for hunger, and for cold ; do not
send me back empty handed to these victims of sorrow ; let
not the woman and the suckhng be driven from their comfort-
able home ; listen to the voice of the woman in travail, and
minister to the wailing and spreading of hands ; if one social
tie binds you to human life ; if you can tell how the mother's
heart is twined about her child ; if you remember how women
lighten the sorrows of life : if you are the disciple of the Sa-
viour Jesus, to whom they kindly ministered, forsake them
not this once, and God shall save you in the hour of death
and the day of sharp distress.
mm-
#11
SERMON XLVI.
ON THE PLEASURES OF RELIGION,
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. — Proverbs
III. VERSE 1?.
It has always been the practice with the ministers and
teachers of religion, to speak in this manner of the feelings
which religion inspires, not to confine themselves to the enu-
meration of religious duties, not merely to state the splendid
reward of the dutiful in another scene of existence, hut to con-
tend that, here upon earth, pleasure and peace are the natural
consequences of religion ; that the righteous have not only
the expectation of heaven, but the real enjoyment of earth ;
that, while their future hopes are more high than those whose
principles are unrestrained, their present pleasures are, strictly
and literally speaking, in number more frequent, higher in
degree, and in nature more pure ; they have given in their
contrast, every imaginable advantage to the wicked man;
birth, power, honour, genius and wealth ; they have made
their righteous man humble, poor, and unknown ; they have
said (and they have said most truly), that this last man is
blessed rather than the first ; that his mind is full of dearer
and sweeter thoughts ; that he is less racked, excited, and
disturbed ; that he has more affecting pleasures, more deep
and solemn happiness ; that he can so well answer for the
wanderings and fancies of his mind, that he has walked so
long and so firmly with God, that his ways are the ways of
■pleasantness, and his paths the paths of peace.
To enumerate the pleasures of righteousness is not possible,
without analyzing and dividing every feeling which belongs
to the system of human passions, because the effects of right-
27
314 ON THE PLEASURES OF RELIGION.
eousness pervade them all : but I will endeavour to state and
describe those which are the most conspicuous, — and the first
of these shall be, that control which a righteous man exercises
over his passions and desires.
A righteous man is a happy man, because he is a free man,
and the servant to no inward lust ; he can act up to his own
decisions, and when he sees what is right, he can do it ; he
has found from experience that the impulse of passion may-
be withstood, till the resistance becomes habitually strong,
and the passion habitually weak, and while the sinner stands
trembhng, and says to himself, shall I enjoy this one pleasure ?
shall I tempt the mercy of God only this once ?"the righteous
man treads down Satan beneath his feet, defends his soul,
and walks on to his salvation, unheeding bad pleasures that
lure him from eternity. If there is wretchedness upon earth,
it is to live by a rule which we perpetually violate ; first, to
convince ourselves that the thing is right, that prudence re-
quires it, that the world approves it, that religion ordains it ;
then, when the eye is tempted, when the heart is touched
only by the faint beginnings of pleasure, to forget prudence,
to forget the world, to forget religion, to enjoy, and to repent ;
he who has suffered this long hates and despises himself; he
can see nothing venerable in his own nature ; nothing but that
levity and voluptuousness which he would despise in others,
and which, in spite of all self-love, he knows to be despicable
in himself.
The most miserable of human beings are professed sinners,
men who despise rule, who look upon their passions as mere
instruments of pleasure, and are determined to extract from
life every drop of amusement it can afford ; the last excess is
stale and tiresome ; there must be a higher degree of emotion ;
when everything else is exhausted, the destruction of all
decency affords some little entertainment ; to laugh at religion
is, for some time, new and amusing ; but immodesty and blas-
phemy soon weary, like all other wretched resources ; and
though it may shame him to return, the sinner finds that
(whoever else may have found it), he at least has not chosen
the path of pleasantness and peace.
In fact, putting aside all religious considerations, there is
not a greater mistake in the world than to suppose that a pro-
fligate man is a happy man ; he seems to be happy, because
his enjoyments are more visible and ostentatious ; but is in
truth a very sorry and shallow impostor, who may deceive
ON THE PLEASURES OF RELIGION. 315
the young, but is laughed at by the wise, and by all who
know in what true happiness consists ; the truly happy man
is he who has early discovered that he carries within his
own bosom his worst enemies, that the contest must be man-
fully entered into ; that if righteousness does not save him
from his sinful appetites, they will rule him up to the moment
of the grave ; that they will bend him down to the earth, and
tear and rend him like the bad spirits in Scripture ; that his
fame will be sullied, his mind and body wasted away, and
his substance destroyed. When Solomon saw these things,
when he beheld one woman groaning with despair, another
writhing with disease, when he beheld the follies, the errors
and crimes of the world, and could see nothing placid, no-
thing calm, nothing stable but the righteous man ; then he
said, (and oh, how truly and wisely he said it,) the Avays of
that man are the ways of pleasantness, and his paths the
paths of peace.
A religious man is happy because he is secure ; because it
is not in the power of accident, or circumstance, to disclose
any secret guilt ; as he is, he has long been; he can refer to
the blameless tenour of years ; to a mind long exercised in
avoiding offence towards God, and towards man ! His pre-
sent enjoyments are never polluted by bitter remembrances
of the past ; whatever he has of honour or consideration
among men, he has honestly and safely ; it does not depend
upon their ignorance, nor upon his dexterity, nor upon any
fortunate combination of events ; the more men know him,
the more they love him ; the more they try him, the more
plainly they are convinced that he follows after righteousness
as the truest wisdom, and that this feeling is the plain and
simple key to all his actions ; herein it is that the sinner so
grossly miscalculates his happiness, and that he is so bitterly
taunted by the great masters of ethics in the Scriptures ; that
he has lost that in which the pleasantness and comfort of
righteousness principally consists ; the inviolable feeling of
security by which it is accompanied ; believe me, whether
you have sold this for money, or parted with it for ambition,
or bartered it for the joy of some vile appetite, you have lost
the purest and noblest instrument of human happiness. The
time will come when you will say to yourself, why did I
do this? why did I give up my pleasant innocence? why
cannot I look upon every man that I meet with the same
firmness and cheerfulness with which I was wont ? In this
31^ ON THE PLEASURES OP RELIGION.
short and passing life, there is nothing which can repay a
man for the loss of his own conscious purity. In extreme
old age, he will loathe the chariots and the horses, the pur-
ple, the fine linen, and the sumptuous fare the price of his
soul, and will remember, (when it is too late,) that the ways
of righteousness were pleasant, and her paths the paths of
peace.
I should say that another great source of pleasure, from
religion, is the feelings of charity and brotherly love which
it always inspires. As gracious God has given to one object
beautiful colours, and to another grateful odours, he has
annexed exquisite feehngs of happiness to the performance
of every benevolent action ; it is impossible to do good to
others, without feeling happy from it ; and the conviction,
which religion inspires, that a man is not born for himself
alone, and the habit which it inculcates, of attention to the
interests and feelings of mankind, induce at last that state
of calm and permanent satisfaction which the words of
Solomon describe. For as nothing disturbs us more than to
perceive the eflects of that secret, yet general enmity, which
is produced by high-mindedness, arrogance and selfishness,
so nothing is more grateful than general love, produced by
a long tenour of courtesy, of justice, of active kindness and
of modest respect. It is not only the subsequent reflection
which this benevolence, the attribute of righteousness, pro-
duces, but it makes happiness by giving new interest to hfe;
other men cultivate the great, the rich and the celebrated ;
but the righteous man cultivates and studies all whom he
approaches, not because they are rich, or great, or powerful,
but because they are human beings, and it is his duty, as a
Christian, to be gentle and gracious to all ; to make him
benevolent, it is not necessary that his avarice should be
awakened, his vanity gratified, or his curiosity excited ; he
has no need of such powerful motives ; but if he can make
the mean greater in their own eyes, — if he can give confi-
dence to the humble, — if he can instruct the ignorant,— if he
can do good to any human being, that is enough for him ;
his recompense is that the sum of human happiness should
be increased, and that he himself should be the humble in-
strument of good. Contrast these feelings with the contempt
which worldly men assume ; the unchecked hatred in which
they think it lawful to indulge ; their neglect and inattention
to all whom they have not some poignant motive for honour-
ON THE PLEASURES OF RELIGION, 317
ing ; look to this striking contrast, see what different states of
mind must result from this diversity of conduct and charac-
ter, and then determine who understands happiness the best;
who has taken the best views of human life ; whose ways
are the ways of pleasantness, and whose paths the paths of
peace.
The greatest torment of this world is the uncertainty of
living at all, and the uncertainty of retaining the good things
of this world, if we do live ; but here is a man, the man of
religious wisdom, who has practically adapted his love of
some objects to their own uncertain nature and hopes, if he
loses others here, to meet with them in another scene of ex-
istence ; if he experiences a reverse of fortune he feels it ;
but he feels it moderately ; it is not his only hope, nor his
best hope. I would rather my passage were pleasant (he
says) but it is only a passage ; I am hastening onward to
that state of existence which I have been always taught
from my first childhood to look up to as the end and object
of this. I have no false philosophy ; I allow, that what are
commonly called the good things of this world, are properly
the objects of a moderate desire and attention ; but I have
so trained and accustomed my mind to think of something
better, I have drawn such fairer pictures and contemplated
such nobler scenes, that no human misfortune can cast me
down, and utterly deprive me of my pleasantness and my
peace.
We see, sometimes, that a man rejoices with trembling ;
that he is afraid to give way to his human affections, that he
shudders at the warmth of his own feelings for children, or
for parents, because he does not know how soon he may mourn
over the frailties of life ; here (he says) I have never checked
my heart ; I have shipped all my happiness upon that which
a breath of wind, or a little too much damp, or a little too
much heat may for ever destroy ; the righteous man, he also
has his feehngs ; but though his tears fall down over the
dead like the tears of other men ; though he rends his gar-
ment, and clothes himself in sackcloth and in ashes, his
spirit comes back to him, and his pleasantness returns, be-
cause he knows that the souls of the dead are in the hands of
God, and that a better state of existence will restore to him
all that he has lost in this ; by connecting immortality with
this short life, he lightens all its burthens, lessens all its
misfortunes, and gilds all its pleasures ; if his happiness fluc-
27*
318 ON THE PLEASURES OF RELIGIOPT.
tuates here, he can look to that in which there is no varyingfi
nor shadow of change ; if the joys of this world fall short of^
his expectations, he knows that others await him greater
than his imagination can conceive ; if he is afflicted here by
the appearances of successful injustice, and the sinner tri-
umphing in the fruits of his wickedness, he cheers himself
with the thought of final retribution ; the righteous man car-
ries about with him a charm which protects his mind from
the effects of injury, vicissitude and doubt ; and leaves him in
that state of pleasantness and peace which wealth and power
alone, and all the common instruments of happiness, can so
seldom confer.
I have just now alluded to another source of tranquillity ia
the mind of the righteous man: I mean the comforts he derives
from the future retributive justice of rehgion.
A man of proper feeling always suffers, from observing
the striking disproportion that exists in this world between
happiness and merit ; the spectacle of a good man struggling
with misfortune, or languishing in obscurity, excites strong
compassion ; but it is the severest trial of human patience, to
witness the respect, honour and prosperity of bad men ; there
are no events which ruffle the tranquiUity of the mind more,
and which more encourage a general sensation of disgust at
human life. These sad scenes are tolerable to the religious
man alone, from that final order and regularity with which
he knows they will hereafter be concluded ; he pities suc-
cessful vice, while others rage against, or envy it ; he knows
that the good forgotten, and the just persecuted, are precious
in the sight of God, and that their sorrows are the pledges of
salvation. Wherever he looks, justice in its most perfect
shape terminates his view ; all guilt is detected ; aU innocence
is brought to hght ; at the conclusion of all things a never-
failing judge gives to every thinking soul, the good and the
evil which are its due.
These are the vexations which the religious man escapes,
and these the sources of that tranquillity which so commonly
falls to his share ; his happiness does not obtrude itself; it is
not noisy nor splendid ; it does not consist in humbling the
pride and exciting the envy of others ; it is deep, placid and
internal; a pleasantness and a peace proceeding from mode-
ration of desire, just observation on human condition, and
ardent hope of immortality. Superstition is not righteous-
ness, fanaticism is not righteousness, nor are idle fears, or
ON THE PLEASURES OF RELIGION. 31^
vain fancies, or frivolous observances deserving of that name ;
but that Hberal and enlightened righteousness which the Gos-
pel teaches is happiness; the most unbounded voluptuary
that the world ever produced has not a thousandth part of
that enjoyment of life that he has whose passions are regu-
lated, and whose hopes are immortal. After the first dark-
ness of youthful ignorance is dispelled, it is the clearest and
plainest of all truths that righteousness is the only source of
peace ; the only system upon which the difficulties and dis-
tresses of life can possibly be encountered and subdued. — No
man is so profoundly ignorant of pleasure as a professed
sinner ; pleasure is gained by being the lord and master of
our own hearts; by binding our passions in links of iron;
by adapting worldly hopes and fears to the nature of worldly,
things ; by obeying God, by trusting to his providence, by
expecting his judgments ; this is the discipline which banishes
fear, excludes remorse, and renders despair impossible ; it
gives birth to hope, it cherishes joy, it nourishes great thoughts,
it produces enchanting desires, it colours the earth over with
the gay light of heaven, and makes the ways of every man
the ways of pleasantness, and his paths the paths of peace.
SERMON XLVII.
UPON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
And ye fathers, bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord. — Ephesians vi. verse 4, in part.
In treating of the subject of religious education, as I pro-
pose to do this day, it is impossible not to begin with an
opinion which neither leans to this nor that system, but ob-
jects totally to all religious education whatever. For instance,
it is said, why give to children strong opinions upon subjects
of the highest difficulty and the highest importance, and
which they may possibly be induced to change when their
understandings are mature ? instruct them only in the first
principles of natural religion, and leave them to a gradual
acquisition of the sacred truths of Revelation, in proportion as
the growth of their understandings enables them to estimate
the value of that evidence upon which Christianity depends ;
by these means their belief will always be rational, and they
will not entertain a faith for which they are not ready to
render a reason. The objection to this system, which appears
to be more distinguished for an absence of good sound sense
than for any feature of ingenious paradox which it may ex-
hibit ; the objection to it is, that yoM cannot keep a mind void
of all religious opinions which you do not bring up in a par-
ticular system of those opinions ; such a state of suspense,
even if it were desirable, cannot be obtained ; some principles
on such a subject the mind will imbibe, and your alternative
is, not between those which you are ready to infuse and none
at all ; but it is between your own and those crude and peril-
ous opinions which sin is ever ready to suggest, levity always
prompt to encourage, and ignorance never able to detect and
repel ; at the very moment when you had intended to begin
UPON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. ^^t
this long-deferred education, to avail yourself of this now-
matured reason, and to oifer to his free election those truths
which you thought it uncandid to impress upon a ductile and
ignorant child ; at that moment you would find the question pre-
judged : you would perceive the mind filled up by opinions as
strong as those you had kept away, but not as good ; yooi
would meet with all the obstinacy you dreaded, with prepos-
sessions equally formed before they could be fairly discussed;
but without the qualification of their being formed in favour
of truth. Besides, can it be a reason why a parent should
not teach to his children those sacred truths which have taken
such firm hold of his belief, because such truths may not
hereafter present to the ripe understanding of his offspring
an evidence as satisfactory as they have done to his own ?
What can any man do but communicate to the mind of an-
other a belief as sincere as that which actuates his o^vn? he
does so fearlessly in all human science ; why should he dread
to do it where the instruction is more necessary, and the lesson
more awful ? It is not possible to wait for opinions till we
are capable of judging whether opinions are right or wrong ;.^^
we must act before we can reason ; a great part of humaft
life is elapsed, and all the habits which are to influence the
future man are formed before it can be said that he is fairly
capable of forming a judicious opinion upon any abstruse
subject ; in the meantime he must have decided notions of sin
and righteousness ; a divine law sanctioning those notions ;
a strenuous belief giving to that law its full influence upon
his actions ; and ancient forms cherishing that strenuous
belief. If none of these things were taught till the causes
from which they originate, the evidence on which they de-
pend, and the consequences to which they lead, could be
plainly apprehended, it is quite clear that they would soon
cease to be taught at all. Ye fathers, says the apostle, with-
out any regard to these things, bring up your children in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord; give them your own
religious opinions firmly and tenaciously; plant so deep that^^
the seed will not easily be rooted up ; instead of candidly^^
waiting for mature reason, seize practically hold of all the
softness and ductility of youth, use all the influence and
authority of age to inculcate the principles of the Gospel :
whatever changes in those principles may be made by the
future commerce of life that may depend upon circumstances
322 UPON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
over which we have no control, let us only unfold the book
of God in the season of gentleness and obedience, and after
this manner bring up our children in the nurture and admo-
nition of the Lord.
It will not, I presume, be considered as indiscreet to re-
mark, that some mischief is done in religious education by the
over-zealous feelings of the teacher, who appears to believe, that
a sentiment cannot be too frequently repeated, because it is
good, or a cause be weakly defended because it is right. At
a certain period of youth, and with a certain share of pene-
tration in him who reads, it is not sufficient that those works
which are written for religious instruction should be pious ;
they must be able, as well as pious ; there must not only be
zeal, but zeal according to knowledge ; not merely abuse of
infidelity, but conviction and refutation ; sound argument
from candid premises ; fair admission, impartial statement,
accurate knowledge, vigorous reasoning, conclusions modest
in style, and irresistible in power. Christianity disdains to
suppress any facts, or to impute bad motives instead of an-
^^wering plausible objections; it must be proved by something
stronger than exclamation, and defended by something less
precarious than feeling ; the selection of writers calculated to
promote rehgious knowledge in the young, is therefore an
object of much greater skill and delicacy than it is commonly
conceived to be ; because nothing can be more pernicious to
the prosperity of a cause than the weakness and uncandid
spirit of those who are its advocates ; and amidst the great
number who stand forward with laudable zeal, in the defence
of religion, it must of course happen that there are some who
have no other merit than the merit of intending well.
May we also add, that some mischief is done in religious
education, by the very high tone taken up respecting reli-
• gious subjects ; the evidence for Revelation is sometimes rashly
*^ ( compared to geometrical evidence ; everything is represented
"^ \ as so clear, and so perspicuous, that it is impossible any diffi-
^jgulty can be suggested ; it is not contended that a solution is
^^eady, but that a doubt cannot exist ; the mischief of which
overstatement is, that a young person, embarrassed by the first
arguments of infidelity which chance has thrown or design
placed in his way, considers that he has been deceived, that
the truth has been kept from him, and becomes irreligious,
partly to vindicate the dignity of his understanding, partly
UPON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 323
from the sudden suspicion that the cause of infideHty is much
stronger than it really is. Truth is ever safe and ever dura-
ble ; it is better to admit at once, that in a question which
depends upon the evidence of eighteen centuries, there are
some difficulties, that all is not reduced to demonstration, or
clear to be apprehended as objects of sense ; it is sufficient,
that by your own candour and industry, you may arrive at
such a preponderance of evidence as will produce decided
conviction, and leave you without a fair doubt of the Divine
origin of the Scriptures ; but do not imagine, if you are de-
termined to investigate the question, that you have no doubts
to dispei and no difficulties to solve ; those doubts you will
dispel, and those difficulties you will solve ; your solemn
opinions will at length rest, not upon the authority of other
men's minds, but upon the full conviction of your own.
Such is the language that I should deem it most useful to
hold in religious education, and after this manner would I
bring up a child to the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
A very important part of rehgious education is the virtues
of toleration and forbearance ; it is the duty of us all to edu-
cate our children in that modification of the Christian faith
which we ourselves profess, and to inspire them with a strong
predilection for that church of which we are members, by
insisting on those circumstances upon which we conceive its
superiority to be founded ; but these feelings we must labour
to unite with a respect for every other Christian worship ;
with a conviction of the indisputable right of every sect to
worship God after their own notions of spirit, and of truth,
and with a decided aversion to every species of hatred and
persecution, grounded upon difference of rehgious opinion.
The spirit of intolerance, however, so contrary to the nur-
ture and admonition of the Lord, so apt, but for incessant
care, to mingle with, and pollute the true evangelical spirit,
does not furnish, as many contend, any argument against re-
ligion ; but shows only how difficult it is for men to endure
contradiction upon topics which so deeply penetrate the un-
derstanding, and affect the heart ; it shows the useful and
pervading energy of a principle which a man does not re-
ceive as he receives the cold truths of human science, but
pants to carry it into other men's hearts, and to light over
the world the same burning zeal which glows within him-
self ; that this spirit is capable of every dangerous excess ;
324 UPON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
that every effort of religious education should be used for its
moderation, is unquestionably true ; but it only shows that
the thought of God, because it is greater than all other
thoughts, stirs up stronger passions ; that when men are think-
ing of eternity, you cannot keep them within the same limits
as if they were reasoning of the interests of a day ; but temper
this great incitement with a commanding prudence, and you
may draw from it every peaceful virtue in this world, and
every heavenly blessing in the next.
There is a toleration which, instead of proceeding from the
meekness and modesty of a Christian, is derived from a cal-
lous indifference to every description of faith ; this, of course,
is not a virtue, but an accidental good consequence from a
vice ; the difficulty to conquer, the merit to display, the evan-
gelical feeling to possess, is to cherish no sentiment of aver-
sion for him who warmly denies what you warmly affirm ;
who believes that form to be indifferent which you have al-
ways been taught to consider as essential ; if you wish to
such a person no punishment and no privation because such
has been his rehgious discipline, and such yours ; if at the
moment you firmly believe yourself right, you are aware it
is possible you may be wrong ; if you are at once sincere
and indulgent, zealous and forgiving, firm and modest, you
have then, indeed, fought a good fight ; the true spirit of the
Gospel is within you, and good and great is that man who
has thus brought you up in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord.
It is a great difficulty in religious education, to inspire
proper notions concerning the forms and ceremonies of reli-
gion : one danger is, that the practice of religion may come
in time to be considered as inferior in importance to those
very forms which were only instituted to promote and protect
it ; the opposite danger is that from the neglect of forms, the
essential part of religion may be itself impaired ; the age,
however, in which we live is some guide to him who would
steer safely through those opposite extremes, the genius of
which is, I am afraid, rather to neglect those forms which are
necessary than to cultivate those which are superfluous.
Fanaticism is one of those great perils which are cautiously
to be guarded against, in bringing up children in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord ; they are to be taught that God
is not served by extravagance ; that it is possible to be fervent
UPON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 325
Without being foolish ; that the least acceptable sacrifice to
Heaven is the sacrifice of propriety and common sense ; that
though it be a true sign that you are drawing near to God
when men persecute you for your righteousness, it is a sure
sign that you have mistaken the way to him, when all men.
deride you for your absurdity. Arrogant ignorance, insisting
upon persecution, and canvassing for contempt, will never
reap the rewards of that modest righteousness which, shun-
ning the notice of men, will still rather endure persecution,
than do wrong.
It is no inconsideralJle part of religious discipline, to guard
the mind from the influence of superstition, and to inspire
just notions of the Deity, so that the soul may not be afraid
where no fear is, nor those principles be converted to our
punishment which were intended for our happiness. A su-
perstitious man is afraid of joy and amusement, and trembles
when he is not wretched, lest God should be angry; he per-
ceives that the means of happiness are given, but he thinks
they were placed here to tempt, not to bless ; even perpetual
sadness cannot make him safe ; a thousand involuntary
thoughts spring up, which he thinks the angels record for his
future punishment ; he is perpetually acting, and looking,
and thinking sin, and there is always near him a cruel and
envious God who made him frail, and marks his frailty for
guilt. For him Nature has no ordinary course, and Provi-
dence no general law ; every death is a judgment, and every
sickness a visitation ; nothing that concerns him is ever
brought about by secondary means ; he becomes healthy, and
ill, rich and poor, by a special interposition of Providence ;
lives under a separate dispensation, and is the subject of more
miracles then were employed for the establishment of the
sacred truths of Christ. All these are false and superstitious
notions of the Deity, for though we may believe that God does
sometimes interfere, we cannot know when, and it is deroga-
tory to the wisdom of those general rules by which the world
is governed, to suppose that they so perpetually require cor-
rection and change : this is not the true nurture and admoni-
tion of the Lord. — It is our business rather to show the young
that this world does not belong to the just and the good ; that
wickedness triumphs in it, and sin is prosperous ; but that
there is One on high who sees it all, and will not endure it
for ever ; to please whom you must possess a mind prone to
38
336
UPON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
compassion, swift to forgive, and able to suffer long ; which
no aspiration for power or wealth can make base ; which loves
to be good and just better than it loves any one thing human ;
which employs life in mortifying sin, promoting righteousness
and rendering itself better fitted for heaven ; these are the
true notions of the Almighty, which the Gospel teaches ; and
these are the feelings the apostle would inspire, when he
commands a parent to rear up his children in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.
SERMON XL Ail 1 1.
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE
WORLD.
They that use this world as not abusing it. — I Corinthians vii. verse 31.
If we attend to the general tenour of the language of our
blessed Saviour and his disciples upon the subject of worldly-
pursuits, it is quite clear that their object was not to abolish,
but to regulate them ; not to persuade mankind that they
should not use the world, but that they should so use it, as
not to abuse it. The whole of life of course cannot be passed
in the fervour of prayer, and the effusions of piety ; the great-
est part must be spent in action, and to act we must have
desires sufficiently strong and systematic to become pursuits ;
it is not only lawful to engage in worldly pursuits, but abso-
lutely necessary to do so ; without them righteousness would
be fantastical speculation or criminal indolence ; the great
points for consideration are, as we must pursue something,
what is best worth the pursuit? what are those objects at
which a wise and religious man may fairly aim ? how may
he use the world without abusing it ? Imperfect as all its
pleasures are, what are the best and greatest that world can
afford ? For I repeat again, that righteousness cannot con-
sist in neglecting and despising everything in this world, but
in selecting proper objects of our attention ; and in rendering
even those proper objects subordinate to the higher considera-
tions of religion.
It has been ever a great question with the pious and the
good, what degree of happiness the world can afford ; the
holy Scriptures call it the valley of tears; the dark shadow of
deatii is said to be shed over it ; all things have been deno-
minated vanity and vexation of spirit, which are under the
328 ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD.
sun ; but these melancholy views of human life either respect
the errors of life, and the common foolish objects of our am-
bition, or they are intended to contrast the brief, fluctuating,
and half-satisfactory joys of the world, with a perfect and
eternal felicity. It is still, therefore, true that there are some
pursuits which will probably confer happiness upon him,
who, at the same time, firmly connects this world with that
which succeeds it ;» such happiness is not, to be sure, con-
summate and certain, but it is highly probable, and very im-
portant.
I will, therefore, expatiate upon the methods of using the
world, without abusing it, and enumerate those objects which
are truly worthy of a wise man's best exertions.
The first rule for using the world is, to live in it with a
clear conscience, without the startings and trembling of guilt ;
in innocence, openness, and decent freedom; this is the basis
of happiness, the rock on which the house is reared. What-
ever be our external condition, if there is not a perfect clear-
ness within from all great and atrocious sin, life is but a load
of anguish, and the greatest man breathing, a wretch who
would gain by exchanging his existence with the lowest of
human beings.
This obvious point of a good conscience disposed of, the
world is to be used, and not abused, with regard to wealth ;
and this is not so easy a point to adjust ; it may, however, be
stated (I think) with safety, that a wise and religious man
may strive to obtain that middle station of opulence which
places him above contempt, and below envy ; which, while
it shelters him from that unfortunate ridicule which is too
often the lot of poverty, neither affords the opportunity, nor
encourages the disposition to exercise a depraved superiority
over his fellow-creatures ; beyond this, riches are not an evil
if they come, but they are not a good worth the toil of pur-
suit. The state of enjoyment which one degree of wealth
afTords over another, soon becomes habitual ; what is sump-
tuous fare to one, is daily food to another; and your luxuries
are the common enjoyments of some man greater than you.
The proportion between an ordinary state and an unusual
gratification is the same in all, though each class in life posi-
tively sets out from a different degree in the scale ; from which
of those degrees it is our lot to begin our career, is a circum-
stance perfectly immaterial to happiness ; the abuse of the
world is to eat forever the bread of carefulness ; to come late
to rest, to rise up early, to add vineyard to vineyard, and field
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 329
to field, till there is no one (as the Scriptures say), left upon
the earth ; to hoard up, and to gather into garners, as if we
were to equal the rocks and hills in duration ; and were to
remain here, till the heavens themselves had waxed old, and
were rolled up like a garment, and changed as a vesture is
changed.
To use the world aright, there must be a vigorous employ-
ment of time, a great and absorbing occupation to prevent the
temptation and dispel the melancholy of idleness. The effects
of inactivity make the intentions of Almighty Grod clear as
they regard the destiny of man ; for to do nothing is so horri-
ble, that we are often compelled to do harm to avoid it ; and
sin becomes the natural resource of indolence. The want of
occupation gives birth too to that anticipation of evil, those
-dismal views into futurity, which occasion much more un-
happiness than the evils themselves when they do occur.
An occupied man has no leisure for counterfeit misfortune ;
an inward impulse hurries him on through little doubts, jea-
lousies, suspicions, and distant fears, and keeps him ever
cheerful, and ever serene ; an evil which is not come, he
thinks may not come ; if its approach is certain, he does not
magnify its degree ; life receives in him all that assistance
from sweetness of temperament, harmony of disposition, and
wise arrangement of thought, which their ministry can pos-
sibly supply; and though there are of course many evils
which do not depend upon our method of judging them, yet
there are many others which may be magnified into serious
misfortunes, or will subside into insignificant trifles according
to the tenour of that disposition upon which they fall. All
these advantages are gained by a full and active occupation
of time ; without which it is hardly possible to enjoy much
of innocence, dignity, or happiness in this life, or to use the
world without abusing it.
Another great ingredient for the increase of happiness
and the proper use of life, is the cultivation of kindness and
benevolence ; nothing can be more worthy the exertions of a
wise man than this discipline, or so likely to reconcile him
to the world for the short period in which he remains in it;
the lowest degree of it consists in avoiding all just cause for
offence ; no callous indifference to other men's feelings ; no
belief that strength or greatness of mind is evinced by con-
tempt of the little niceties which inflict pleasure and pain;
rio superiority founded on that unchristian asperity which
3b*
330 ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD.
any man can assume who is sufficiently devoid of delicacy
and shame to do so ; but a firm conviction and a perfect re-
collection that all men have as much right to be happy as
ourselves ; and an earnest desire to study and respect their
feelings in the most minute parts of Hfe, so that no man may
know, on our account, one moment of pain which a deliberate
sense of duty does not compel us to inflict : but these are
narrow hmits for the feehngs of kindness ; a wise man will
not only please by not offending, but please by positive efforts
to comply (so far as sincerity and innocence permit), with
the leading notions and prevaihng systems of those with
whom he lives, so as to be a perpetual source of satisfaction
to his little portion of the world, and to contribute his efforts
to gladden and to embellish human intercourse. It is possi-
ble for any man in time to teach himself the strongest sym-
pathy with the happiness of others, however distant and
unknown ; so that every blessing which it pleases Almighty
God to vouchsafe to the children of men, the sick rescued
from death ; the poor defended from oppression ; the good
rewarded; an injured nation victorious over its powerful ene-
mies ; any history of joy, any page out of the annals of hap-
piness, may bring with it its tribute of calm and placid satis-
faction. These habits of benevolence necessarily procure not
only general good will, but raise up by degrees the blessings
of friendship, the shield and ornament of hfe ; and if there is
any worldly thing worth the notice of a religious mind, it is
to be cared for by good and upright men ; to feel that you
have endeared yourself to those who have sagacity to discern
what you really are, and to compare you with the rest of the
world ; to enjoy that noble proof, that your struggles for right-
eousness have not been fruitless, or your efforts to meliorate
your fallen nature quite in vain ; that you have some value,
some attraction, some source of conciliation, some little portion
of good ; that you are not quite left alone and abandoned in
the wilderness of hfe. This is one of the greatest goods the
world affords, and I wish most forcibly to impress upon the
younger part of my congregation, that the friendship of just,
able, and pious men, is the highest prize they can obtain ;
the most signal blessing which God bestows ; the soundest
proof of having done well ; the best security for doing well ;
the highest human barrier against all sordid impurities and
base comphances ; the greatest comfort and hope and embel-
lishment of life.
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 331
The world may be said to be used without abuse, when a
portion of hfe is dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge ; to
discover more of truth, and to become better acquainted with
the propesties and relations of those objects by which we are
surrounded, promotes the happiness of others, while it secures
or increases our own ; to see what this world is in which we
are placed, to investigate the curious attributes of each object
it contains, seems to be a life agreeable to that Providence
which has placed us in the midst of wfj^ders, and roused us by
inward feelings to their contemplation. The love of knowledge
may be fairly and religiously indulged from an experience of
the beneficial effects which it produces upon human happiness,
from remembering that the sick are healed by knowledge, the
hungry fed fcy it; the blessings of nature generally diffused and
equally divided by it ; the appetites and passions of mankind,
arranged in civil institutions by knowledge ; and all the powers
of matter, turned from the destruction of the human race, to
their use and convenience. The most zealous Christian of us
all, in cultivating human knowledge, will find the amplest
occasions for carrying into effect all its provisions of benevo-
lence ; it will add power to his charity, and give to him those
enlightened views and strengthened faculties which confer
wisdom and skill in doing good ; besides, too, though life is a
moment compared with eternity, it brings with it many
weary, weighing hours, which are best lightened by the
varied and inexhaustible resources of knowledge; by its
exuberance of images ; by its fertility of thought, and the
busy inward world which it makes within the breast ; a man
is not saved by knowledge, and if he is puffed up with it, it
is laughter and lightness before God ; but we must use the
world in some way while we are in this place of sojourning;
we must do the best that the temporary nature intrusted to us
seems to indicate ; and there is nothing better which we can
do, than to love that which is always the guardian of inno-
cence, the friend of true religion, and the handmaid of labori-
qas virtue.
The last point which I shall state as conducive to happiness
and as using the world aright, is a moderate and temperate
enjoyment of the praises of our fellow-creatures ; not that
human praise is ever to be a motive for action ; the love of
Christ and sincere faith in his holy name, are the only lawful
and religious motive for human actions ; but when we have
acted from these motives ; when, in compliance with the pre-
332 ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD.
cepts of the Gospel, we have dedicated a great part of exist-
ence to the good of mankind, then if praise does come, it is a
pure joy of hfe ; if all men say vvith one accord, we have
ever beheld in you the beautiful signs of mercy and compas-
sion ; we have long seen you forgetful of yourself, labouring
even for those who could never know the author of their hap-
piness, giving up day after day, and year after year, to plans
of benevolent wisdom and exalted goodness ; if all this bursts
in upon a human beinp^ and moves the springs of his heart
with joy, his Saviour does not call upon him to hear with
coldness the overflowing gratitude of his own flesh and blood;
his pleasure is lawful, and there is joy in heaven itself over
the tenderness and the happiness of the world.
This, then, it is to use the world and not a6ws^it ; at these
solemn seasons of humiliation and review, it is our duty to
direct aright the objects of human ambition, to reclaim man-
kind from the paths of sin and death, and to prevent them
from losing that trifling portion of good which this world is
able to supply; a conscience clear of crime, a moderate com-
petence of wealth, the soul of charity and brotherly love ; a
thirst for knowledge ; a fair distinction among men, earned by
a life of zealous and enhghtened benevolence ; this is the
frame and tenour of mind, in which, (if I could) I would live
my short hour on the stage of hfe ; and in this manner, would
I least tremble to meet my Redeemer and my Judge. How
is it that men do use the world ? Too often for gain ; too often
for conquest ; too often for inordinate vanity ; for sensual
pleasure ; for palaces built by crimes ; for trophies reared by
cruelties ; for bad joys gained by breaking mens' hearts, and
by grinding them to the dust ; in this way we seek for hap-
piness, where no happiness is to be found, mistaking and
forgetting the boon of God ; for the Almighty has vouchsafed
to us here, a little portion of joy to comfort us in this time of
our pilgrimage, and to charm our pained steps over the soil
of life ; yet that pleasure is quiet, modest, unassuming, evan-
gelical, coming from a good heart, tender to all men, humbled
before God, using the world, not abusing it, waiting day an^
night, in all faith, and all humility, and resignation, for the
coming of Christ.
SERMON XLIX.
ON THE RESUERECTION
If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
First Book of Cokinthians xv. verse 14.
* The history of the resurrection of Christ is one of the
most valuable parts of the Christian evidence ; not that, as a
miracle, the resurrection is to be accounted a more decisive
proof of supernatural agency than any other miracle ; not
that, as it stands, it is better attested than many others ; but
that it is completely certain, that the apostles of Christ and the
first teachers of Christianity asserted the fact; and this would
have been equally certain if the four Gospels had been lost or
never written ; every piece of Scripture recognizes the resur-
rection ; every epistle of every apostle ; every author co-
temporary with the apostles ; of the age immediately succeed-
ing the apostles ; every writing, from that age to the present,
genuine or spurious, on the side of Christianity, or against it,
concur in representing the resurrection of Christ as an article
of his history received without doubt by all who called them-
selves Christians, alleged from the beginning by the propa-
gators of the institution, and alleged as the centre of their
testimony. Nothing which a man does not himself hear or
see can be more certain than that the apostles and first teachers
of Christianity gave out that Jesus had risen from the dead ;
in the other parts of the Gospel narrative, a question may be
made by infidels whether the things related of Christ be the
very things which the apostles and first teachers of the religion
delivered concerning him ? And this question depends a good
deal upon the evidence we possess of the genuineness, the
• The greater part of the arguments in this sermon, and in the sermon
on the Nature of Christianity , are taiten from Paley's Evidence.
--A
334 ON THE RESURRECTION.
antiquity, the credit, and the reception of the books ; upon
the subject of the resurrection, no such discussion is necessary,
because no such doubt is entertained ; whatever else is certain
of the resurrection, it is qidte certain, that it was outwardly
asserted to be true by the disciples of Christ ; and the only
points which can enter into our consideration are, whether the
apostles knowingly published a falsehood, or whether they
were themselves deceived. If either of these suppositions is
possible, or highly probable, the resurrection of our Saviour
cannot be considered as that strong evidence of the truth of
Christianity which the ministers of the Gospel have always
represented it to be.
The supposition of fraud (after a considerable trial of its
efficacy),is, I believe, pretty generally given up by the enemies
of the Gospel ; the nature of the undertaking, and of the
men ; the vast improbability that such men should engage in
such a measure, as a scheme ; their personal toils, dangers,
and sufferings in the cause ; their appropriation of their whole
time to the object ; the warm, and seemingly unaffected zeal
with which they profess their sincerity, exempt their memory
from the suspicion of imposture ; their conduct, as preachers
of the Gospel, was disinterested, noble and generous ; they
quitted house, land, occupation, friend, kindred, parent, wives,
children, country — every pursuit, and jevery endearment of
life, to propagate, with infinite labour, through innumerable
difficulties and dangers, the salvation of mankind, certain of
meeting, in every new region, with new enemies, and yet
requiring of those who, through their preaching, were become
friends and brethren, nothing but a bare subsistence, and
sometimes labouring even with their own hands, to save them
from that light and reasonable burthen ; disclaiming for
themselves all authority, pre-eminence and power, and teach-
ing that savage people, who took them for gods, that they
were men like themselves, and servants of that Being, to whom
alone worship was due.
It is related in the history, what indeed the story of the
resurrection necessarily implies, that the body was missed
out of the sepulchre ; it is related also in the history, that the
Jews reported the followers of Christ to have stolen it away ;
but says St. Paul, Christ did rise from the dead ; he was
seen of Cephas ; then of the twelve ; then of five hundred
brethren, of whom the greater part are still alive ; then of
James ; then of the apostles ; last, he was seen of me also, as
ON THE RESURRECTION. 335
of one born out of due time. Now it is plain, whatever fraud
there was, St. Paul concurred in it ; he combined with others
for the promotion of a shameless falsehood ; and at the very
moment that he was preaching Christ as the Son of God, he
must have known, that the promises of Christ's re-appearance
w^ere completely frustrated, and every hope which had hitherto
supported the courage of his disciples, dissolved into air.
Yet this was the man who was in labours more abundant, in
stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths
often ; thrice was this man beaten with rods ; once was he
stoned ; three times did he suffer shipwreck ; a night, and a
day, was he in the deep ; God (he declares) had sent forth
the apostles, appointed unto death ; we are, says he, a spec-
tacle to the world: even unto this present hour, we both hun-
ger and thirst, and are naked and beaten, and have no certain
dwelling-place, and labour, working with our own hands ;
being reviled, we bless ; being persecuted, we suffer it; being
defamed, we entreat ; we are made the filth of the world, and
the refuse of all things, unto this day. This is one of those
who deceived the world with the story of Christ's resurrection
from the dead, and these the splendid objects which he pro-
posed to himself, by that deception.
I will produce only one more instance of his simple and
heroic courage in support of his imposture. It was necessary
for the good of the church, that St. Paul should go to Jeru-
salem ; and this, at a time, when it was quite certain, from
the various accounts brought from that city, that his destruc-
tion was intended ; his disciples are so much alarmed by the
magnitude of his danger, that they beseech him not to go ;
this is his answer, and in that answer, I request you to ex-
amine with all diligence, for those symptoms of false and
perjured imposture with which he is charged by his enemies.
** What mean you, (he says,) to weep and break my heart,
for I am ready, not to be bound only, but to die at Jerusalem
for the name of Jesus. I go, not knowing the things that
shall befal me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in
every city that bonds and afflictions abide me ; but none of
these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto my-
self, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry
which 1 have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gos-
pel of the grace of God. I know that ye all, among whom I
have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face
no more, wherefore I take ycu all to record, that I am innocent
336 ON THE RESURRECTION.
of the blood of all men ; I have not shunned to declare unto
you all the counsel of God ; neither for the space of three
years, have I ceased to warn every one, night and day, with
tears. I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel.
Ye yourselves know that these hands have often ministered
to my necessities, and to them that were with me ; I have
showed you that ye ought to support the weak, remembering
the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed
to give than to receive ;" and when he had thus spoken, they
all wept, sorrowing for the words which he spake, that they
should see his face no more ; he did go to Jerusalem, he was
imprisoned, and beaten with rods ; his speech declares his
former sufferings, which we know from other sources to be
true ; his subsequent misfortunes were as great, his whole
life was a continued series of affliction and persecution, not
accidentally incurred, but clearly foreseen, bravely met, and
patiently endured ; bravely met, and patiently endured, be-
cause he had seen Christ risen from the dead, and was by that
miracle convinced that he was the Son of God ; if not, where
in any human history is there any conduct similar to that
evinced by the apostles ? in the ten thousand frauds which
have been exercised in the world, where is there any parallel
to this ? If Christ did not rise from the dead, their preaching
was vain, and they knew it to be vain ; why then did they
die for it ? why did they live in misery for it ? why did they
persevere in it, not in the jfirst warm and faithful moment of
conspiracy, but after years, after separation in different cor-
ners of the earth? (Questioned by different tribunals, awed by
different kings, these poor martyrs in the agonies of death,
all said, Jesus had risen from the grave ; that they had seen
him ; that he was their God ; that they would never disown
him, for he would give them immortal life, and not leave
them to perish in the grave ; and for what temporal purpose
could they say this ? To preach a pure and enhghtened mo-
rahty. A number of uneducated men, all concurring in a most
impudent falsehood, dedicating their lives to it, suffering, and
perishing for it, with no other assignable motive than to make
their fellow-creatures pious, charitable and just! Can the
whole world produce, besides, one single instance of so fraud-
ulent a conspiracy, for the mere purposes of morahty and
benevolence ? The friends of religion are surely entitled to
observe, in such an opinion, some faint symptoms of that
credulity so frequently and so unjustly objected to them.
ON THE RESURRECTION. 837
Dismissing, then, this supposition of fraud, which is too
extravagant to deserve the attention bestowed upon it, let us
consider the charge of enthusiasm ; let us suppose that the
apostles, thoroughly persuaded of the truth of the resurrec-
tion, were deluded by their own heated minds ; that with
them, as with visionaries in general, a very slight proof,
coinciding with their enthusiastic notions, had the force of
perfect conviction. But upon the supposition of enthusiasm,
there occur two, or three questions, which it appears to be
quite impossible to answer: Was the body in the grave ? if it
was, how could they believe Christ to be risen from the dead?
if it was not, by whom was it removed ? If we admit, upon
the concurrent testimonies of all the histories, so much of the
account as states that the religion of Jesus was set up at
Jerusalem, and set up with asserting, a few days after he was
buried, his resurrection from the grave, it is evident the Jews
would have produced it as the shortest, the most complete
answer to the whole story ; the attempt of the apostle could
not have survived this answer for a single instant. If we
also admit, upon the authority of St. Matthew, that the Jews
were aware of the expectations of Christ's followers that he
would rise again, and that in consequence of this expectation,
the body was in marked and public custody, this argument
is of still greater force. Notwithstanding their precaution,
when the story of Christ's resurrection came forth as it im-
mediately did, when it was publicly asserted by his disciples,
and made the ground and basis of their preaching in his
name, and collecting followers to his rehgion, the Jews had not
the body to produce, but were obliged to meet the testimony
of the apostles by asserting that the body had been stolen ; a
supposition compatible enough with fraud, but certainly not
with enthusiasm. The very circumstance that Christianity
went on at all, that it did not completely terminate with the
death of our Saviour, is at once a decisive proof of the truth
of the resurrection. It was a point of time at which the truth
of the Christian religion was brought to the most rigid test,
for they had purposely involved it with this supernatural con-
dition, that the great author and founder of it should rise again
from the dead. Why was this added if their religion was
not true ? it was a difficulty which hardly any falsehood could
overcome ; and it is quite impossible to conceive why it was
made a criterion of the truth of a spurious religion ; but as it
was made the criterion of Christianity, it is still more difficult
3J>
338 ON THE RESURRECTION.
to conceive, why it was not seized hold of by the inveterate
enemies of Christianity, finally and completely to exterminate
it. There is your prophet dead; there is his sepulchre ; there
is the lifeless body of him who, as you believe, had power to
call the dead from their graves ; he saved others, himself he
cannot save. Such an answer as this would for ever have
put an end to Christianity ; it is the answer which incipient
fanaticism and imposture have received, in every century of
the world, and which, in every instance with which we are
acquainted, has been found sufficiently powerful to strangle
them in their birth. If these means were never used, or if
being used they were powerless against the faith; if that faith
grew from hour to hour ; if it was propagated by men who
declared themselves wilhng, and who evinced themselves
able to endure every earthly affliction for Jesus whom they
had seen rising from his tomb ; if that faith was adopted, not
by cold hearts at distant ages, but by men of that time, who
might have heard the groans of Jesus, and looked upon his
blood ; if the voluptuous Asiatic yielded up to it the pleasures
of the flesh ; if the Roman saw that his chains could not scare
it, nor his sceptre rule it, nor his gods thunder it away ; if,
curbing every lust, and inspiring every virtue, it crept into
all men's hearts, and the earth with all its kingdoms, princi-
pahties and powers ; and prayed aloud to the mangled Jesus;
then, indeed, are we bound to beheve that the grave held him
not ; then we are sure that there is another life than this ; that
we also shall rise from our graves to glory or to sorrow, as we
have gratefully remembered his resurrection, and accurately
imitated his life.
SERMON L.
ON SEDUCTION.
The way of the wicked seduceth them. — Proverbs xii. verse 16.
I INTEND in my present discourse to treat on the seduction
of the lower class of females in this town ; an evil, which has
arisen to a very alarming height, and which menaces, with
utter corruption, the morals of one of the best and wisest na-
tions in Europe. I have no scruple to attribute this calamity
to the profligacy of men in a superior situation of life, and to
such I principally mean to apply my observations on this
subject.
It is so much the custom to confine ourselves to generalities
in the pulpit, and to direct the force of evangelical prohibition
against sin in general, rather than any particular species of
it, that it may be necessary to remind you how much we gain
in precision, and how much we communicate of interest by this
abatement of dignity and circumscription. The reasoning
which applies to all crimes, acts languidly against each indi-
vidual crime ; it does not paint the appropriate baseness, or
echo the reproaches of the heart. — Our Saviour has signified
to us his commandments clearly, but generally, and it must
therefore be our care to point them at the fluctuating vices
of the times ; if he has said, do no evil, and love thy neighbour
as thyself, it is our duty to state to mankind an instance, in
which they are guilty of an irreparable evil to their fellow-
creatures, and in which they are entailing endless destruction
upon the most unprotected of the human race.
Among the far greater number who resort here for the pur-
poses of real devotion, there may be a few who, led to this
sacred place by habit, or a principle of conformity, would be
glad to convert their listlessness into mirth, and to catch from
340 ON SEDUCTION.
my lips some indiscretion, which would justify a moment of
shallow pleasantry ; this, God helping, they shall not do ; but
they shall hear me pleading for the happiness of undefended
women, pouring forth for all this church their honest indig-
nation, and hurling the damnation of God on base, brutal,
sensual seducers.
First, The character of a seducer is base and dishonourable ;
if deceit is banished from among equals ; if the conduct of
every man to those of his own station of life, should be marked
by veracity and good faith ; why are fallacy and falsehood
justified, because they are exercised by talents against igno-
rance, cunning against simplicity, power against weakness,
opulence against poverty ? No man ever lured a wretched
creature to her ruin, without such a complication of infamous
falsehoods as would have condemned him to everlasting in-
famy, had they been exercised to the prejudice of any one in
an higher scene of life ; and what must the depravity of that
man be who has no other criterion of what he shall do, or
from what he shall abstain, than impunity ? who has no love
of truth, but only a dread of the infamy consequent upon
falsehood ? and who, as often as he believes that the eye of the
world is not turned upon him, will descend to the meanest lies
to gratify the foulest vices ? A seducer of this class owes his
escape from infamy to the inconsistency of his conduct in dif-
ferent situations; it is not believed by the better half of the world,
that a man of unimpeached integrity in his own walk of life,
who never deviates from truth, and who would repel, at the
risk of his life, the imputation of falsehood, it is not believed
that such a man can stoop to the most disgraceful subterfuge
Avhere he has no equal to awe him into better faith ; and that
his real object is to unite the gratifications of vice to the con-
venience arising from the reputation for moral worth. — What
a dignified occupation this, for a gentleman, a scholar and a
Christian, to blind the understanding of an ignorant creature
with specious sophistry, to inflame her vanity, to weaken her
distinctions between right and wrong ; to give her a distaste
for honest industry, and to lead her, by imperceptible grada-
tions, to guilt, to ruin and to sorrow ; how must such a man
despise himself in the midst of all his artifices ? What shame
must he feel, to find himself scattering the principles of vice
and misery, and breaking down every barrier which the good
and wise have reared against the passions ? What human
being, not arrived at the last stage of profligacy, has not suf-
ON SEDUCTION.
a^
fered the bitterest reproaches of his own heart for these crimes,
and envied in the good, the safe and tranquil feehngs of in-
flexible virtue ?
The friends of human happiness must contrast with pain,
the hard-earned progress of moral order, and the irresistible
inroads of the passions; the one struggles against a strong
current, where a momentary remission from labour loses the
space which a long toil has gained ; the other glides down a
torrent which art can make stronger, though nature has made
it impetuous. The more we contemplate this world, the
greater does the necessity appear for the active vigilance of
virtue and wisdom ; it has cost whole ages to bring the earth
to its present appearance, and to render it fit for culture ; mil-
lions of our fathers, now dust and ashes, chained up the wild
waters, prevailed over the furious beasts, rooted up the forests,
let in the heat and hght on the green herb, and gave shape
and plenty to that which was without form, and void ; in a
few years of plague, or war, the creatures of the forest would
resume their former dominion, and the earth would relapse
into its ancient horrid silence ; so with our minds as our fields ;
moral law and government have been built under the revela-
tion of God, by the arts, the eloquence and the wisdom of
mighty men ; but the worst and lowest of human beings can
destroy them, and let loose from their prison all the primitive
horrors of savage life; these are melancholy reflections, and
they augment the painful indignation we feel at seduction ;
it is not for the miserable victim alone we grieve ; but for the
waste of parental aftection; the fruitless exertions which have
been bestowed on early years, to infuse into an human mind
the love of virtue, and an horror of every evil action ; we
sympathize with the poor industrious parents of a misguided
child more than if her seducer had robbed them of their pos-
sessions ; they have deprived themselves of clothing and food,
and often endured the cold, and made their meal more scanty,
that they might procure for this child the blessing of a little
knowledge ; it appears trifling to dwell on such details, but
they are the happiness and misery of milhons of humble peo-
ple; everybody knows the anxiety with which the poorest
people send forth, for the first time, a daughter into the world;
the efforts which they make to supply the loss of her natural
protectors, and to fortify her with every good principle which
rustic piety and prudence could suggest ; perhaps proud of
her appearance ; perhaps soothing ihemselv^es with the notion
29*
34^ ON SEDUCTION.
that she might contribute something to the support of their
dechning years. To ruin and corrupt this innocence, is an
outrage which the levity even of youth cannot carry off in
ridicule ; which leaves a young man covered with infamy
and guih, and the imputation of the basest cruelty. With
what feehngs can he face the just indignations of those into
whose humble dwelling he has carried misery and tears ; to
whom he has laid open the prospect of beholding their daugh-
ter the wickedest and most abandoned of human creatures ;
whose noble pride of adorning poverty with virtue, he has
frustrated and mocked ? Is it to be borne, that the welfare of
human beings should be thus sported with, that the religious
and moral principles inspired into the poor with such difficult
attention, should be sacrificed to the basest passions of the
vilest men, and that any human being should exercise, un-
punished, the power of infusing fresh bitterness into the cup
of poverty ? 1 know the contempt with which such sort of
feehngs are apt to be received ; but there is a right and a
wrong in human affairs, whose irresistible power breaks
through every barrier, and makes the heart confess while
the looks defy and the tongue denies ; there never was a
libertine whose soul did not sink within him at the sight of
the wretched creature whom he had ruined, who did not
know, that he was followed by the curses and the condemna-
tion of every upright man, and that the vengeance of the Al-
mighty was lowering over his head.
To the cruelty of seduction, is generally added the base-
ness of abandoning its object, of leaving to perish in rags and
hunger, a miserable being bribed by promises and oaths of
eternal protection and regard. Now let us be just even to
sinners ; just do I say ; let us be merciful in the midst of
horror, for their crimes ; let us fix before our eyes every cir-
cumstance that can extenuate ; let us place by the side of the
guilt the temptation, and try them as we hope to be tried
in a perilous day, by the Great Judge of all ; let us allow all
the indulgence to youth which youth can require ; still if we
excuse the errors, we have a right to expect the virtues of
that period of life ; if the accused party plead the perilous
situation in which he is placed, and seizes on all the palliation
which that situation can supply, we have a right at least to
ask if he has done all the good which that .situation prompted :
a man may say that his youth excuses him for this vice ; but
does his youth prompt him to starve a woman he has ruined.
ON SEDUCTION. 343
If his youth made him susceptible of beauty, did it also make
him forgetful of weakness ? was it youth that taught him to
fly from a wretched creature for fear she should ask him for
bread ? Does youth unite fervour with meanness ? does it,
without a single compensatory virtue, combine its own vices
with the vices of every other period of life ? is it at once violent,
and sordid, avaricious and impassioned, the slave of every
other feehng, and the master of generous compassion alone ?
This is not youth ; it has nothing to do with the origin of life ;
it is cold and callous profligacy began in brutal passion, fos-
tered by irreligion, strengthened by association with bad men,
and become so hardened, that it laughs at the misery which
it creates.
If I were to show you in this church the figure of a
wretched woman, a brutal, shameless creature clothed in rags,
pale with hunger and mouldering with disease ; if I were to
tell you that she had been once happy and once good, that
she once had that chance of eternal salvation which we all
have this day: if I were to show you the man who had
doomed her to misery in this world, and to hell in the world
to come, what would your feelings be ? But if I were to tell
you that the constant occupation of this man was to search
for innocence and to ruin it, that he was a seducer by profes-
sion, that the great object for which he existed was to gratify
his infamous passions at every expense of human happiness ;
would you not say that his life was too bad for the mercy of
God ? If the earth was to yawn for him as it yawned for
Dathan and Abiram, is there one eye that would be lifted
up to ask forgiveness for his soul?
The crime of seduction has this in it of aggravaJ;ion over
other crimes, that it cannot be defended under any of the in-
genious systems by which men are perpetually vitiating their
understandings, and defending the painful perspicuity of the
law of Christ : all the arrogance of theoretical reasoners upon
morals has never extended so far as to assert that any one
human being has the right to make others as miserable as he
pleases ; some men have sided with Christ and some with
the reasoners of this world: some have said that the Deity
was everywhere, and that he guided all ; others have con-
tended that he took no care of this world ; and the fool has
said in his heart, there is no God ; but all have said, it is bad
to rob and plunder; all have taught us to respect human
happiness ; all have cursed the oppressor and the maker of
344 ON SEDUCTION.
lamentations and tears; this load of solid substantive guilt
no human ingenuity, no dissipation, no prosperity can shake
off; the eternal laws of nature which regulate growth, and
motion, and decay, have fixed also the everlasting empire of
conscience ; her voice you shall hear in the time of sickness
and of pain ; it shall follow you to the bed of death ; it shall
go down with you to the tomb ; it shall rise up with you to
the resurrection ; it shall descend with you to the bottomless
pit.
I would not wish to make the character of a seducer worse
than it is, perhaps I could not if I did wish ; but I would
ask these ruiners of the lower class of females, if a great part
of their infamous conduct is not to be attributed to impunity?
Does it never come into their minds, in the course of their dis-
graceful, ungentlemanly conduct, that they have nothing to
fear from the sword of a brother or a father pointed at their
throats; that the object of their designs is without protectors, or
with protectors of so low a stamp that their indignation would
excite ridicule rather than apprehension; put this kind of feel-
ing into language and see what it means : it says thus to a fel-
low-creature, I know you are poor, and because you are poor
you are helpless, and 1 will oppress you ; from your indigna-
tion at the ruin of your child, my rank protects me, and I may
pretend to despise what I should fear to oppose ; to the laws
of your country you have neither wealth nor knowledge to
appeal, and your illiterate story of your own injuries can
never attract attention. Is there any human being who
dares openly to express these sentiments ? is it possible to view
the conduct of such men as I have been describing, and not
be convinced that by such sentiments their conduct must be
swayed ? or do we think that tenderness to the reputation of
a daughter is a mere refinement of education, a privilege, or
perhaps a weakness of opulence and rank? if so, go to the
meanest of human beings and bargain with him for the dis-
honour of his child ; offer to him ease and plenty ; if this will
not do, bribe him with all that luxury can give, and see if
the proudest monarch would repulse you with fiercer disdain
and more decided contempt.
If I have been too warm in my animadversions on this
crime, ascribe such warmth to its real cause ; a rooted anxiety
to do good. The conscience of young men is seldom so
hardened as to be proof against remorse ; they are seldom
desperately and irrecoverably wicked ; but while they do
ON SEDrCTION. 345
wrong they repent, and their lives roll on to maturity amid
the gratifications of sin and the bitterness of self-reproach ;
how blessed is he above his fellows who arrives at the middle
period of human existence ungoaded by the remembrance of
great and irreparable crimes ; for whose profligacy no child
need to blush ; on whose account no wretched woman sits at the
gate of her seducer crying for bread. Therefore, on account
of these sad things, while you are yet young, remember the
time of old age ; remember what a thing it is to destroy puritj?-
of heart ; — and if you do chance to meet with an innocent and
unprotected woman whom you might, perhaps, have art
enough to ruin and degrade, hear the voice of compassion,
and lead her not into the paths of death. The memory of
this good deed shall cheer you in many an arduous struggle ;
shall make you dear to your own soul ; shall give you the
feehngs of angels in this life, and their rewards in a life to
come.
A FRAGMENT
ox THE
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH.
PEEEACE.
The following unrevised fragment, found among the
papers of the late Rev. Sydney Smith, if it serve no
other purpose, will at least prove that his last, as well
as his earliest efforts, were exerted for the promotion of
religious freedom, and may satisfy those who have ob-
jected to his later writings, because his own interest
appeared to be bound up with his opinions, that he did
not hesitate to the last moment of his life, boldly to advo-
cate what he considered to be justice to others.
April, 1845.
30
Pnvate Memoranda of Subjects intended to have been introduced in
the Pamphlet, Sfc.
Debates in the House of Commons in 1825^ on the motion of Lord
F. Egerton, for the support of the Roiyian Catholic clergy. Printed
separately, I believe, in Ireland.
Evidence before the House of Commons in 1824 and 1825, includ-
ing Doyle's.
A Speech of Charles Grant's in 1819, on a motion of James Daly
to enforce the Insurrection Act.
Debates on Maynooth, in February last, (1844.)
Hard case of the priest's first year.
Provision offered by Pitt and Castlereagh, and accepted by the
hierarchy.
* Send ambassadors to Constantinople, and refuse to send them to
Rome.
England should cast off its connection with the Irish Church.
Lord F. Egerton's plan for paying the Roman Catholic clergy in
1825. The prelates agree to take the money.
* Old mode of governing by Protestants at an end.
^ Vast improvements since the Union, and fully specified in Mar-
tin, page 35.
* Priests dare not thwart the people, for fear of losing money.
* Dreadful oppression of the people.
* Bishops dare not enforce their rules. They must have money.
* These subjects are treated of in the Fragment,
A FRAGMENT
ON
THE IRISH HOMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH.
The revenue of the Irish Roman Catholic Church is made
up of half-pence, potatoes, rags, hones, and fragments of old
clothes, and those Irish old clothes. They worship often in
hovels, or in the open air, from the want of any place of wor-
ship. Their religion is the religion of three-fourths of the
population ! Not far off, in a well-windowed and well-roofed
house, is a well-paid Protestant clergyman, preaching to stools
and hassocks, and crying in the wilderness ; near him the
clerk, near him the sexton, near him the sexton's wife — furi-
ous against the errors of Popery, and willing to lay down
their lives for the great truths established at the Diet of Augs-
burg.
There is a story in the Leinster family which passes under
the name of
''''She is not welV
A Protestant clergyman, whose church w£is in the neighbour-
hood, was a guest at the house of that upright and excellent
man, the Duke of Leinster. He had been staying there three
or four days ; and on Saturday night, as they were all retiring
to their rooms, the duke said, " We shall meet to-morrow at
breakfast." — " Not so (said our Milesian Protestant) ; your
hour, my lord, is a little too late for me; I am very particular
in the discharge of my duty, and your breakfast will inter-
fere with my church." The duke was pleased with the very
proper excuses of his guest, and they separated for the night;
— his grace perhaps deeming his palace more safe from all
the evils of life for containing in its bosom such an exemplary
352 A FRAGMENT ON THE
son of the Church. The first person, however, whom the
duke saw in the morning upon entering the breakfast-room
was our punctual Protestant, deep in rolls and butter, his fin-
ger in an egg^ and a large slice of the best Tipperary ham
secured on his plate. " Dehghted to see you, my dear vicar,'*
said the duke ; " but I may say as much surprised as de-
lighted." — " Oh, don't you know what has happened?" said
the sacred breakfaster, — "sAe is not well,'''' — " Who is not
well ?" said the duke : " you are not married — you have no
sister Hving— I'm quite uneasy ; tell me who is not well." —
"Why the fact is, my lord duke, that my congregation con-
sists of the clerk, the sexton, and the sexton's wife. Now the
sexton's wife is in very delicate health : when she cannot
attend, we cannot muster the number mentioned in the rubric;
and we have, therefore, no service on that day. The good
woman had a cold and sore throat this morning, and, as I had
breakfasted but sHghtly, I thought I might as well hurry back
to the regular family dejeuner." I don't know that the clergy-
man behaved improperly ; but such a church is hardly worth
an insurrection and civil war every ten years.
Sir Robert did well in fighting it out with O'Connell. He
was too late ; but when he began he did it boldly and sensi-
bly, and I, for one, am heartily glad O'Connell has been found
guilty and imprisoned. He was either in earnest about Re-
peal or he was not. If he was in earnest, I entirely agree
with Lord Grey and Lord Spencer, that civil war is preferable
to Repeal. Much as I hate wounds, dangers, privations, and
explosions — much as I love regular hours of dinner — foolish
as I think men 'covered with the feathers of the male Fullus
domesticus, and covered with lace in the course of the ischia-
tic nerve — much as I detest all these follies and ferocities, I
would rather turn soldier myself than acquiesce quietly in
such a separation of the empire.
It is such a piece of nonsense, that no man can have any
reverence for himself who would stop to discuss such a ques-
tion. It is such a piece of anti-British villainy, that none but
the bitterest enemy of our blood and people could entertain
such a project! It is to be met only with round and grape —
to be answered by Shrapnel and Congreve ; to be discussed
in hollow squares, and refuted by battalions four deep ; to be
put down by the ultima ratio of that armed Aristotle, the Duke
of Wellington.
O'Connell is released ; and released I have no doubt by tho
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 353
conscientious decision of the law lords. If he was unjustly
(even from some technical defect) imprisoned, I rejoice in his
liberation. England is, I believe, the only country in the
world where such an event could have happened, and a wise
Irishman (if there be a wise Irishman) should be slow in
separating from a country whose spirit can produce, and
whose institutions can admit, of such a result. Of his guilt
no one doubts, but guilty men must be hung technically and
according to established rules ; upon a statutable gibbet, with
parliament rope, and a legal hangman, sheriff, and chaplain
on the scaffold, and the mob in the foreground.
But, after all, I have no desire my dear Daniel should come
to any harm, for I believe there is a great deal of virtue and
excellent meaning in him, and I must now beg a few minutes
conversation with him. "After all, my dear Daniel, what is
it j^ou want ? — a separation of the two countries ? — for what
purpose ? — for your own aggrandizement ? — for the gratifica-
tion of your personal vanity ? You don't know yourself; you
are much too honourable and moral a man, and too clear-
sighted a person for such a business as this : the empire will
be twisted out of your hands by a set of cut-throat villains,
and you will die secretly by a poisoned potato, or be pistoled
in the streets. You have too much sense, and taste, and open-
ness, to endure for a session, the stupid and audacious
wickedness and nonsense of your associates. If you want
fame, you must be insatiable ! Who is so much known in
all Europe, or so much admired by honest men for the real
good you had done to your country, before this insane cry of
Repeal ? And don't imagine you can intimidate this govern-
ment ; whatever be their faults or merits, you may take my
word for it, you will not intimidate them. They will prose-
cute you again, and put down your Clontarf meetings, and
they will be quite right in doing so. They may make con-
cessions, and I think they will ; but they would fall into utter
contempt, if they allowed themselves to be terrified into a dis-
solution of the Union. They know full well that the English
nation are unanimous and resolute upon this point, and that
they would prefer war to a Repeal. And now, dear Daniel,
sit down quietly at Derrynane, and tell me, when the bodily
frame is refreshed with the wine of Bordeaux, whether all
this is worth while. What is the object of all government ?
The object of ail government is roast mutton, potatoes, claret,
a stout constable, an honest justice, a clear highway, a free
30*
354 A FRAGMENT ON THE
chapel. What trash to he hawHng in the streets ahout the
Green Isle, the Isle of the Ocean ! the bold anthem of £rin
go bragh J A far better anthem would be Erin go bread and
cheese, Erin go cabins that will keep out the rain, Erin go
pantaloons without holes in them ! What folly to be making
eternal declamations about governing yourselves ! If laws
are good and well administered, is it worth while to rush into
war and rebellion, in order that no better laws may be made
in another place ? Are you an Eton boy, who has just come
out, full of Plutarch's Lives, and considering in every case
how Epaminondas or Philopcemen would have acted, or are
you our own dear Daniel, drilled in all the business and bustle
of Hfe ? I am with you heart and soul in my detestation of all
injustice done to Ireland. Your priests shall be fed and paid,
the liberties of your Church be scrupulously guarded, and in
civil affairs the most even justice be preserved between Catho-
lic and Protestant. Thus far I am a thorough rebel as weJl
as yourself; but when you come to the perilous nonsense of
Repeal, in common with every honest man who has five grains
of common sense, I take my leave."
It is entertaining enough, that although the Irish are begin-
ning to be so clamorous about making their own laws, that
the wisest and the best statutes in the books have been made
since their union with England. All Cathohc disabihties
have been abolished ; a good police has been established all
over the kingdom ; public courts of petty sessions have been
instituted ; free trade between Great Britain and Ireland has
been completely carried into effect ; lord lieutenants are placed
in every county; church rates are taken off CathoHc shoulders;
the county grand jury rooms are flung open to the pubhc ;
county surveyors are of great service ; a noble provision is
made for educating the people. I never saw a man who had
returned to Ireland after four or five years' absence, who did
not say how much it had improved, and how fast it was im-
proving; and this is the country which is to be Erin-go-bragh'd
by this shallow, vain, and irritable people into bloodshed and
rebelHon !
The first thing to be done is to pay the priests, and after a
little time they will take the money. One man wants to re-
pair his cottage ; another wants a buggy; a third cannot shut
his eyes to the dilapidations of a cassock. The draft is pay-
able at sight in DubHn, or by agents in the next market town
dependent upon the commission in Dublin. The housekeeper
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 355
of the holy man is importunate for money, and if it is not pro-
cured by drawing for the salary, it must be extorted by curses
and comminations from the ragged worshipers, slowly, sor-
rowfully, and sadly. There wiU be some opposition at first,
but the facility of getting the salary without the violence they
are now forced to use, and the difficulties to which they are
exposed in procuring the payment of those emoluments to
which they are fairly entitled, will, in the end, overcome all
obstacles. And if it does not succeed, what harm is done by
the attempt? It evinces on the part of this country the
strongest disposition to do what is just, and to apply the best
remedy to the greatest evil ; but the very attempt would do
good, and would be felt in the great Catholic insurrection,
come when it will. All rebellions and disaffections are gene-
ral and terrible in proportion as one party has suffered, and
the other inflicted ; — any great measure of conciliation, pro-
posed in the spirit of kindness, is remembered, and renders
war less terrible, and opens avenues to peace.
The Roman Catholic priest could not refuse to draw his
salary from the state without incurring the indignation of his
flock. " Why are you to come upon us for all this money,
when you can ride over to Sligo or Belfast, and draw a draft
upon government for the amount ?" It is not easy to give a
satisfactory answer to this, to a shrewd man who is starving
to death.
Of course, in talking of a government payment to the Ca-
tholic priest, I mean it should be done with the utmost fair-
ness and good faith ; no attempt to gain patronage, or to
make use of the pope as a stalking-horse for playing tricks.
Leave the patronage exactly as you find it ; and take the
greatest possible care that the Cathohc clergy have no reason
to suspect you in this particular; do it like a gentleman,
without shuffling and prevarication, or leave it alone altogether.
The most important step in improvement which mankind
ever made, was the secession from the see of Rome, and the
establishment of the Protestant religion ; but though I have
the sincerest admiration of the Protestant faith, I have no ad-
miration of Protestant hassocks on which there are no knees,
nor of seats on which there is no superincumbent Protestant
pressure, nor of whole acres of tenantless Protestant pews, in
which no human being of the 500 sects of Christians is ever
seen. I have no passion for sacred emptiness, or pious va-
cuity. The emoluments of those hvings in which there are
356 A FRAGMENT ON THE
few or no Protestants, ought, after the death of the present
incumbents, to be appropriated in part to the uses of the pre-
dominant religion, or some arrangements made for superseding
such utterly useless ministers immediately, securing to them
the emoluments they possess.
Can any honest man say, that in parishes (as is the case
frequently in Ireland) containing 3000 or 4000 Catholics, and
40 or 50 Protestants, there is the smallest chance of the ma-
jority being converted ? Are not the Cathohcs (except in the
North of Ireland, where the great mass are Presbyterians)
gaining everywhere on the Protestants ? The tithes- were
originally possessed by the Catholic Church of Ireland. Not
one shiUing of them is now devoted to that purpose. An im-
mense majority of the common people are Catholics ; they see
a church richly supported by the spoils of their own church
estabhshments, in whose tenets not one tenth part of the peo-
ple believe. Is it possible to believe this can endure ? — that
a light, irritable, priest-ridden people will not, under such
circumstances, always remain at the very eve of rebeUion,
always ready to explode when the finger of Daniel touches
the hair trigger ? — for Daniel, be it said, though he hates
shedding blood in small quantities, has no objection to provok-
ing kindred nations to war. He very properly objects to
killing or being killed by Lord Alvanley ; but would urge on^'
ten thousand Pats in civil combat against ten thousand Bulls.
His objections are to small homicides ; and his vow that he
has registered in Heaven is only against retail destruction,
and murder by piecemeal. He does not like to teaze Satan
by driblets ; but to earn eternal torments by persuading eight
million Irish, and twelve million Britons no longer to buy
and sell oats and salt meat, but to butcher each other in God's
name to extermination. And what if Daniel dies, of what
use his death ? Does Daniel make the occasion, or does the
occasion make Daniel? — Daniels are made by the bigotry
and insolence of England to Ireland ; and till the monstrous
abuses of the Protestant Church in that country are rectified,
there will always be Daniels, and they will always come out
of their dens more powerful and more popular than when
you cast them in.
I do not mean by this unjustly and cowardly to run down
O'Connell. He has been of eminent service to his country
in the question of Catholic Emancipation, and I am by no
means satisfied that with the gratification of vanity there are
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 357
not mingled genuine feelings of patriotism and a deep sense
of the injustice done to his country. His first success, how-
ever, flung him off his guard ; and perhaps he trusted too
much in the timidity of the present government, who are by
no means composed of irresolute or weak men.
If I thought Ireland quite safe, I should still object to in-
justice. I could never endure in silence that the CathoUc
Church of Ireland should be left in its present state ; but I
am afraid France and England can now afford to fight ; and
having saved a little money, they will, of course, spend it in
fighting. That puppy of the waves, young Joinville, will
steam over in a high-pressure fleet ! — and then comes an im-
mense twenty per cent, income-tax war, an universal insur-
rection in Ireland, and a crisis of misery and distress, in
which life will hardly be worth having. The struggle may
end in our favour, but it may not ; and the object of political
wisdom is to avoid these struggles. I want to see jolly Roman
Catholic priests secure of their income without any motive
for sedition or turbulence. I want to see Patricks at the
loom ; cotton and silk factories springing up in the bogs ; Ire-
land a rich, happy, quiet country ! — scribbhng, carding,
cleaning, and making cahco, as if mankind had only a few
days more allotted to them for making clothes, and were ever
after to remain stark naked.
Remember that between your impending and your past
wars with Ireland, there is this remarkable difference. You
have given up your Protestant auxiliaries ; the Protestants
enjoyed in all former disputes all the patronage of Ireland ; they
fought not only from rehgious hatred, but to preserve their
monopoly ; — that monopoly is gone; you have been candid and
just for thirty years, and have lost those friends whose swords
were always ready to defend the partiality of the government
and to stifle the cry of justice. The next war will not be
between Catholic and Protestant, but between Ireland and
England.
I have some belief in Sir Robert. He is a man of great
understanding, and must see that this eternal O'Connelling
will never do, that it is impossible it can last. We are in a
transition state, and the Tories may be assured that the ba-
ronet will not go too fast. If Peel tells them that the thing
must be done, they may be sure it is high time to do it ; —
they may retreat mournfully and sullenly before common
justice and common sense, but retreat they must when Tarn-
358 A FRAGMENT ON THE
worth gives the word,— and in quick-step too, and without
loss of time.
And let me beg of my dear Ultras not to imagine that they
survive for a single instant without Sir Robert — that they
could form an ultra-tory administration. Is there a Chartist
in Great Britain who would not, upon the first intimation of
such an attempt, order a new suit of clothes, and call upon
the baker and milkman for an extended credit ? Is there a
political reasoner who would not come out of his hole with a
new constitution ? Is there one ravenous rogue who would
not be looking for his prey ? Is there one honest man of
common sense who does not see that universal disaffection
and civil war would follow from the blind fury, the childish
prejudices, and the deep ignorance of such a sect ? I have
a high opinion of Sir Pobert Peel, but he must summon up
all his political courage, and do something next session for
the payment of the Roman Catholic priests. He must run
some risk of shocking public opinion ; no greater risk, how-
ever, than he did in Catholic Emancipation. I am sure the
Whigs would be true to him, and I think I observe that
very many obtuse country gentlemen are alarmed by the
state of Ireland, and the hostihty of France and America.
Give what you please to the Catholic priests, habits are
not broken in a day. There must be time as well as justice,
but in the end these things have their effect. A buggy, a
house, some fields near it, a decent income paid quarterly ;
in the long run these are the cures of sedition and disaffec-
tion ; men don't quit the common business of life, and join
bitter political parties, unless they have something justly to^
complain of.
But where is the money — about 400,000/. per annum —
to come from ? Out of the pockets of the best of men, Mr.
Thomas Grenville, out of the pockets of the bishops, of Sir
Robert Inglis, and all other men who pay all other taxes ;
and never will public money be so well and wisely em-
ployed !
It turns out that there is no law to prevent entering into
diplomatic engagements with the pope. The sooner we be-
come acquainted with a gentleman who has so much to say
to eight miUions of our subjects, the better ! Can anything
be so childish and absurd as a horror of communicating with
the pope, and all the hobgobhns we have imagined of pre-
munires and outlawries for this contraband trade in piety? _
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 359
Our ancestors (strange to say, wiser than ourselves), have left
us to do as we please, and the sooner government do what
they can do legally, the better. A thousand opportunities of
doing good in Irish affairs have been lost, from our having
no avowed and dignified agent at the Court of Rome. If it
depended upon me, I would send the Duke of Devonshire
there to-morrow, with nine chaplains and several tons of
Protestant theology. I have no love of popery, but the pope
is at all events better than the idol of Juggernaut, whose
chaplains I beheve we pay, and whose chariot I dare say is
made in Long Acre. We pay 10,000/. a year to our am-
bassador at Constantinople, and are startled with the idea of
communicating diplomatically with Rome, deeming the Sul-
tan a better Christian than the pope !
The mode of exacting clerical dues in Ireland is quite
arbitrary and capricious. Uniformity is out of the question ;
everything depends on the disposition and temper of the
clergyman. There are salutary regulations put forth in each
diocese respecting church dues and church discipline, and
put forth by episcopal and synodical authority. Specific
sums are laid down for mass, marriage, and the administra-
tion of the Eucharist. These authorized payments are
moderate enough, but every priest, in spite of these rules,
makes the most he can of his ministry, and the strangest
discrepancy prevails, even in the same diocese, in the de-
mands made upon the people. The priest and his flock are
continually coming into collision on pecuniary matters.
Twice a year the holy man collects confession money under
the denomination of Christmas and Easter offerings. He
selects in every neighbourhood, one or two houses in which
he holds stations of confession. Very disagreeable scenes
take place when additional money is demanded, or whea
additional time for payment is craved. The first thing done
when there is a question of marrying a couple is, to make a
bargain about the marriage money. The wary minister
Avatches the palpitations, puts on a shiUing for every sigh,
and two-pence on every tear, and maddens the impetuosity
of the young lovers up to a pound sterling. The remunera-
tion prescribed by the diocesan statutes, is never thought of
for a moment ; the priest makes as hard a bargain as he can,
and the bed the poor peasants are to lie upon is sold, to make
their concubinage lawful ; — but every one present at the
marriage is to contribute j — the minister, after begging and
360 A FRAGMENT ON THE
intreating some time to little purpose, gets into a violent rage,
abuses and is abused ; — and in this way is celebrated one of
the sacraments of the Catholic Church ! — The same scenes
of altercation and abuse take place when gossip money is
refused at baptisms ; but the most painful scenes take place
at extreme unction, a ceremony to which the common people in
Ireland attach the utmost importance. " Pay me beforehand
—this is not enough — I insist upon more, I know you can
afford it, I insist upon a larger fee '."—and all this before the
dying man, who feels he has not an hour to live ! and believes
that salvation depends upon the timely application of this
sacred grease.
Other bad consequences arise out of the present system of
Irish Church support. Many of the clergy are constantly
endeavouring to over-reach and undermine one another.
Every man looks to his own private emolument, regardless
of all covenants, expressed or implied. The curate does not
make a fair return to the parish priest, nor the parish priest
to the curate. There is an universal scramble !— every one
gets what he can, and seems to think he would be almost
justified in appropriating the whole to himself. And how
can all this be otherwise ? How are the poor wretched
clergy to live but by setting a high price on their theological
labours, and using every incentive of fear and superstition
to extort from six millions of beggars the little payments
wanted for the bodies of the poor, and the support of life ! I
maintain that it is shocking and wicked to leave the religious
guides of six millions of people in such a state of destitution !
•—to bestow no more thought upon them than upon the clergy
of the Sandwich Islands ! If I were a member of the cabinet,
and met my colleagues once a week, to eat birds and beasts,
and to talk over the state of the world, I should begin upon
Ireland before the soup was finished, go on through fish,
turkey, and saddle of mutton, and never end till the last
thimbleful of claret had passed down the throat of the incre-
dulous Haddington : but there they sit, week after week ;
there they come, week after week ; the Piccadilly Mars, the
Scotch Neptune, Themis Lyndhurst, the Tamworth baronet,
dear Goody, and dearer Gladdy, and think no more of pay-
ing the Catholic clergy, than a man of real fashion does of
paying his tailor ! And there is no excuse for this in fana-
ticism. There is only one man in the cabinet who objects
from reasons purely fanatical, because the pope is the Scarlet
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 361
Lady, or the Seventh Vial, or the Little Horn, All the rest
are entirely of opinion that it ought to be done- — that it is
the one thing needful ; but they are afraid of bishops, and
county meetings, newspapers, and pamphlets, and reviews ;
all fair enough objects of apprehension, but they must be
met, and encountered, and put down. It is impossible that
the subject can be much longer avoided, and that every year
is to produce a deadly struggle with the people, and a long
trial in time of peace with O' somebody, the patriot for the
time being, or the general, perhaps, in time of a foreign war.
If I were a bishop, hving beautifully in a state of serene
plenitude, I don't think I could endure the thought of so many
honest, pious, and laborious clergymen of another faith,
placed in such disgraceful circumstances ! I could not get
into my carriage with jelly-springs, or see my two courses
every day, without remembering the buggy and the bacon
of scMne poor old Catholic bishop, ten times as laborious,
and with much more, perhaps, of theological learning than
myself, often distressed for a few pounds ! and burthened
with duties utterly disproportioned to his age and strength.
I think, if the extreme comfort of my own condition did not
extinguish all feeling for others, I should sharply commise^
rate such a church, and attempt with ardour and perseverance
to apply the proper remedy. Now let us bring names and
well-knowa scenes before the English reader, to give him a
clearer notion of what passes in Catholic Ireland. The living
of St. George's, Hanover Square, is a benefice of about 1500/.
per annum, and a good house. It is in the possession of
Dr. Hodgson, who is also Dean of Carlisle, worth, I believe,
about 1500/. more. A more comfortable existence can hardly
be conceived. Dr. Hodgson is a very worthy, amiable man,
and I am very glad he is as rich as he is : but suppose he
he had no revenues but what he got ofl' his own bat,-^sup-
pose that instead of tumbling through the skyhght, as his
income now does, it was procured by Catholic methods.
The Doctor tells Mr. Thompson he will not marry him to
Miss Simpson under 30/.; Thompson demurs, and endeavours
to beat him down. The Doctor sees Miss Simpson ; finds
her very pretty ; thinks Thompson hasty, and after a long
and undignified negotiation, the Doctor gets his fee. Soon
after this he receives a message from Place, the tailor, to
come and anoint him with extreme unction. He repairs to
the bed-side, and tells Mr. Place that he will not touch him
31
362 A FRAGMENT ON THE
under a suit of clothes, equal to 10/.: the family resist, the
altercation goes on before the perishing artizan, the price is
reduced to 8/., and Mr. Place is oiled. On the ensuing
Sunday the child of Lord B. is to be christened : the god-
fathers and godmothers will only give a sovereign each ; the
Doctor refuses to do it for the money, and the church is a scene
of clamour and confusion. These are the scenes which,
under similar circumstances, would take place here, for the
congregation want the comforts of religion without fees, and
will cheat the clergyman if they can ; and the clergyman
who means to live, must meet all these artifices with stern
resistance. And this is the wretched state of the Irish Ro-
man CathoHc clergy ! — a miserable blot and stain on the
English nation ! What a blessing to this country would a
real bishop be ! A man who thought it the first duty of
Christianity to allay the bad passions of mankind, and to re-
concile contending sects with each other. What peace and
happiness such a man as the Bishop of London might have
conferred on the empire, if, instead of changing black dresses
for white dresses, and administering to the frivolous dis-
putes of foolish zealots, he had laboured to abate the hatred
of Protestants for the Roman CathoHcs, and had dedicated
his powerful understanding to promote religious peace in the
two countries. Scarcely any bishop is sufficiently a man of
the world to deal with fanatics. The way is not to reason
with them, but to ask them to dinner. They are armed
against logic and remonstrance, but they are puzzled in a
labyrinth of wines, disarmed by facihties and concessions,
introduced to a new world, come away thinking more of hot
and cold, and dry and sweet, than of Newman, Keble, and
Pusey. So mouldered away Hannibal's army at Capua !
So the primitive and perpendicular prig of Puseyism is
softened into practical wisdom, and coaxed into common
sense ! Providence gives us generals, and admirals, and
chancellors of the exchequer ; but I never remember in
my time a real bishop — a grave, elderly man, full of Greek,
with sound views of the middle voice and preterperfect
tense, gentle and kind to his poor clergy, of powerful and
commanding eloquence ; in Parliament never to be put down
when the great interests of mankind were concerned ; leaning
to the government when it was right, leaning to the people
when they were right ; feeling that if the Spirit of God had
called him to that high office, he was called for no mean
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 363
purpose, but rather that, seeing clearly, and acting boldly,
and intending purely, he might confer lasting benefits upon
mankind.
We consider the Irish clergy as factious, and as encourag-
ing the bad anti-British spirit of the people. How can it be
otherwise ? They live by the people ; they have nothing to
live upon but the voluntary oblations of the people ; and they
must fall into the same spirit as the people, or they would be
starved to death. No marriage ; no mortuary masses ; no
unctions to the priest who preached against O'Connell !
Give the clergy a maintenance separate from the will of
the people, and you will then enable them to oppose the folly
and madness of the people. The objection to the state pro-
vision does not really come from the clergy, but from the agi-
tators and repealers : these men see the immense advantage
of carrying the clergy with them in their agitation, and of
giving the sanction of religion to political hatred ; they know
that the clergy, moving in the same direction with the people,
have an immense influence over them ; and they are very
wisely afraid, not only of losing this co-operating power, but
of seeing it, by a state provision, arrayed against them. I am
fully convinced that a state payment to the Catholic clergy,
by leaving to that laborious and useful body of men the exer-
cise of their free judgment, would be the severest blow that
Irish agitation could receive.
For advancing these opinions, I have no doubt I shall
be assailed by Sacerdos, Vindex, Latimer, Vates, Clericus,
Aruspex, and be called atheist, deist, democrat, smuggler,
poacher, highwayman. Unitarian, and Edinburgh reviewer !
Still, / am in the right, — and what I say requires excuse for
being trite and obvious, not for being mischiev^ous and para-
doxical. I write for three reasons ; first, because I really
wish to do good ; secondly, because if I don't write, I know
nobody else will ; and thirdly, because it is the nature of the
animal to write, and I cannot help it. Still, in looking back
I see no reason to repent. What I have said ought to be
done, generally has been done, but always twenty or thirty
years too late ; done, not of course because I have said it, but
because it was no longer possible to avoid doing it. Human
beings cling to their delicious tyrannies, and to their exqui-
site nonsense, like a drunkard to his bottle, and go on till
death stares them in the face. The monstrous state of the
Catholic Church in Ireland will probably remain till some
364 ,2^f!t*/ A FRAGMENT ON THE
monstrous i^uin threatens the very existence of the empire,
and Lambeth and Fulham are cursed by the affrighted peo-
ple.
I have always compared the Protestant church in Ireland
(and I believe my friend Thomas Moore stole the simile from
me) to the institution of butchers' shops in all the villages of
our Indian empire. " We will have a butcher's shop in every
village, and you, Hindoos, shall pay for it. We know that
many of you do not eat meat at all, and that the sight of beef
steaks is particularly offensive to you ; but still, a stray Eu-
ropean may pass through your village, and want a steak or
a chop : the shop shall be established ; and you shall pay for
it." This is English legislation for Ireland ! ! There is no
abuse like it in all Europe, in all Asia, in all the discovered
parts of Africa, and in all we have heard of Timbuctoo ! It
is an error that requires 20,000 armed men for its protection
in time of peace ; which costs more than a million a year ;
and which, in the first French war, in spite of the puffing
and panting of fighting steamers, will and must break out into
desperate rebellion.
It is commonly said, if the Roman Catholic priests are paid
by the state, they will lose their influence over their flocks ; —
not their/air influence — not that influence which any wise and
good man would wish to see in all religions — not the depend-
ence of humble ignorance upon prudence and piety — only
fellowship in faction, and fraternity in rebellion ; — all that
will be lost. A peep-of-day clergyman will no longer preach
to a peep-of-day congregation — a Whiteboy vicar will no
longer lead the psalm to Whiteboy vocalists ; but everything
that is good and wholesome will remain. This, however, is
not what the anti-British faction want ; they want all the ani-
mation which piety can breathe into sedition, and all the fury
which the priesthood can preach to diversity of faith: and
this is what they mean by a clergy losing their influence
over the people ! The less a clergyman exacts of his people,
the more his payments are kept out of sight, the less will be
the friction with which he exercises the functions of his office.
A poor Catholic may respect a priest the more who marries,
baptizes, and anoints ; but he respects him because he asso-
ciates with his name and character the performance of sacred
duties, not because he exacts heavy fees for doing so. Double
fees would be a very doubtful cure for skepticism ; and though
we have often seen the tenth of the earth's produce carted
IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 365
away for the benefit of the clergyman, we do not remember
any very Uvely marks of satisfaction and delight which it
produced in the countenance of the decimated person. I am
thoroughly convinced that state payments to the CathoHc
clergy would remove a thousand causes of hatred between
the priest and his flock, and would be as favourable to the
increase of his useful authority, as it would be fatal to his
factious influence over the people.
THE END.
CP^S^;
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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