SECT. V.

Some other grand Defects in the practical System of the Bulk of Nominal Christians.

IN the imperfect sketch which has been drawn of the Religion of the bulk of Nominal Christians, their fundamental error respecting the essential nature of Christianity has been discussed, and traced into some of its many mischievous consequences. Several of their particular misconceptions and allowed defects have also been pointed out and illustrated. It may not be improper to close the survey by noticing some others, for the existence of which we may now appeal to almost every part of the preceding delineation.

In the first place, then, there appears throughout, both in the principles and allowed conduct of the bulk of nominal Christians, a most Inadequate inadequate idea of the guilt and evil of sin, ideas of the We every where find reason to remark, guilt and that Religion is suffered to dwindle away evil of sin. into a mere matter of police. Hence the guilt of actions is estimated, not by the proportion in which, according to Scripture, they are offensive to God, but by that in which they are injurious to society. Murder, theft, fraud in all its shapes, and some

species

writings of the author to whom I allude. Instead of employing his talents for the benefit of his fellow-creatures, they were applied to the pernicious purposes of corrupting the national taste, and of lowering the standard of manners and morals. The tendency of his writings is to vitiate that purity of mind, intended by Providence as the companion and preservative of youthful virtue; and to produce, if the expression may be permitted, a morbid sensibility in the perception of indecency. An imagination exercised in this discipline, is never clean, but seeks for and discovers something indelicate in the most common phrases and actions of ordinary life. If the general style of writing and conversation were to be formed on that model, to which Sterne used his utmost endeavours to conciliate the minds of men, there is no estimating the effects which would soon be produced on the manners and morals of the age.

species of lying, are manifestly, and in an eminent degree, injurious to social happiness. How different accordingly, in the moral scale, is the place they hold, from that which is assigned to idolatry, to general irreligion, to swearing, drinking, fornication, lasciviousness, sensuality, excessive dissipation; and in particular circumstances, to pride, wrath, malice, and revenge! ,* Indeed, several of the above-mentioned vices are held to be grossly criminal in the lower ranks, because manifestly ruinous to their temporal interests: but in the higher, they are represented as

losing half their evil by losing all their grossness, as flowing naturally from great prosperity, from the excess of gaiety and good humour; and they are accordingly “ regarded with but a small degree of

disapprobation, and censured very slightly or not

at all (a).”—“Non meus hic sermo est.” These are the remarks of authors, who have surveyed the stage of human life with more than ordinary observation; one of whom in particular cannot be suspected of having been misled by religious prejudices, to form a judgment of the superior orders too unfavourable and severe.

Will these positions however be denied ? Will it be maintained that there is not the difference already stated, in the moral estimation of these different classes of vices? Will it be said, that the one class is indeed more generally restrained, and more severely punished by human laws, because more properly cognizable by human judicatures, and more directly at war with the well-being of society; but that, when brought before the tribunal of internal opinion, they are condemned with equal rigour?

Facts may be denied, and charges laughed out of countenance; but where the general sentiment and feeling of mankind are in question, our common language is often the clearest and most impartial

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witness; and the conclusions thus furnished are not to be parried by wit, or eluded by sophistry. In the present case, our ordinary modes of speech furnish sufficient matter for the determination of the argument; and abundantly prove our disposition to consider as matters of small account, such sins as are not held to be injurious to the community. We invent for them diminutive and qualifying terms, which, if not, as in the common uses of language * to be admitted as signs of approbation and good will, must at least be confessed to be proofs of our tendency to regard them with palliation and indulgence. Free-thinking, gallantry, jollity (a), and a thousand similar phrases, might be adduced as instances. But it is worthy of remark, that no such soft and qualifying terms are in use, for expressing the smaller degrees of theft, or fraud, or forgery, or any other of those offences, which are committed by men against their fellow-creatures, and in the suppression of which we are interested by our regard to our temporal concerns.

The charge which we are urging is indeed undeniable. In the case of any question of honour or of moral honesty, we are sagacious in discerning, and inexorable in judging, the offence. No allowance is made for the suddenness of surprise, or the strength of temptations. One single failure is presumed to imply the absence of the moral or honourable principle. The memory is retentive on these occasions; and the man's character is blasted for life. Here even the mere suspicion of having once offended can scarcely be got over: "There is an awkward story about that man, which must be explained "before he and I can become acquainted." "But in the case of sins against God, there is no such watchful jealousy,

Vide the Grammarians and Dialecticians on the Diminutives of the Italian and other languages.

(a) Many more might be added, such as a good fellow, a good companion, a libertine, a little free, a little loose in talk, wild, gay, jovial, being no man's enemy but his own, &c. &c. &c. &c.; above all, having a good heart.

jealousy, none of this rigorous logic. A man may go on in the frequent commission of known sins, yet no such inference is drawn respecting the absence of the religious principle. On the contrary, we say of him, that “ though his conduct be a little “ incorrect, his principles are untouched;"-that he has a good heart: and such a man may go quietly through life, with the titles of a mighty worthy creature, and a very good Christian.

But in the word of God actions are estimated by a far less accommodating standard. There we read of no little sins. Much of our Saviour's sermon on the mount, which many of the class we are condemning affect highly to admire, is expressly pointed against so dangerous a misconception. There, no such distinction is made between the rich and the poor. No notices are to be traced of one scale of morals for the higher, and of another for the lower classes of society. Nay, the former are expressly guarded against any such vain imagination; and are distinctly warned, that their condition in life is the more dangerous, because of the more abundant temptations to which it exposes them. Idolatry, fornication, lasciviousness, drunkenness, revellings, inordinate affection, are, by the Apostle likewise classed with theft and murder, and with what we hold in even still greater abomination; and concerning them all it is pronounced alike, that “ they “which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom “ of God *

God.

In truth, the instance which we have lately specified, of the loose system of these nominal Christians, Inadequate betrays a fatal absence of the principle fear of which is the very foundation of all Re

ligion. Their slight notions of the guilt and evil of sin discover an utter want of all suitable reverence for the Divine Majesty. This principle is justly termed in Scripture, “the beginning of

«

wisdom;" * Gal, v. 19-21. Col. iii. 5-9

gay,

sect. 5.] of Practical Christianity. 186 “wisdom;" and there is perhaps no one quality which it is so much the studious endeavour of the sacred writers to impress upon the human heart *.

Sin is considered in Scripture as rebellion against the sovereignty of God, and every different act of it equally violates his law, and, if persevered in, disclaims his supremacy. To the inconsiderate and the this doctrine may seem harsh, while, vainly fluttering in the sunshine of worldly prosperity, they lull themselves into a fond security. “But the day “ of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in “ the which the Heavens shall pass away with a “ great noise, and the elements shall melt with « fervent heat; the earth also and the works that “ —“

are therein shall be burnt up."--" Seeing then, “ that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner

of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation “ and godliness +?”. We are but an atom in the universe. Worlds upon worlds surround us, all probably full of intelligent creatures, to whom, now or hereafter, we may be a spectacle, and afford an example of the Divine procedure. Who then shall take upon him to pronounce what might be the issue, if sin were suffered to pass unpunished in one corner of this universal empire? Who shall say what confusion might be the consequence, what disorder it might spread through the creation of God? Be this however as it may, the language of Scripture is clear and decisive ;- The wicked shall be turned into

“ hell, and all the people that forget God."

It should be carefully observed too, that these awful denunciations of the future punishment of sin derive additional weight from this consideration, that they are represented, not merely as a judicial sentence, which without violence to the settled order of things might be remitted through the mere mercy of our Almighty Governor, but as arising out of the established course of nature; as happening in the