CHARGE II. ON THE NATURE AND END OF Reverend Brethren, I. IT has been a great misfortune to the interests of Christianity, in all ages of the Church, that men have searched the Scriptures rather to gratify their curiosity, than to regulate their lives and manners. What was said of Socrates, "That he called down Philosophy from the clouds, and introduced "her to the commerce of the world," may be applied, in a very eminent degree, to our divine Master. It was not his purpose to bewilder his followers in abstruse and airy speculations; but "to call sinners to repent "ance *." Happy had it been for the world if the same end had been uniformly and steadily pursued by succeeding teachers! but the doctrine of Jesus, like that of Socrates, being perverted from its original design ("plura genera effecit dissentientium philoso"phorum") has given birth to innumerable sects and parties, engaged in all the rage controversy, on useless, or uncertain, or unintelligible questions; and it is indeed no wonder that Religion and Philosophy have had the same fate, since both have been studied on the same principle, "dispudandi causâ, non vivendi." True religion is a practical thing, of not - addressed to the head, but the heart. Articles of faith are of no further significance than as they direct or animate us in the discharge of our duty. If, instead of this, they divert our attention from the principal affairs of human life, - if they inflame our passions and corrupt our morals, -if they stir up, on the one hand, a spirit of persecution; a spirit of rebellion on the other, the soundest believer may be the worst Christian. * Matt. ix. 13. Το say what I have said, is not to speak lightly or irreverently of the doctrines of our most holy religion; for those doctrines are recommended to us by the most apparent good influence on the conduct of our lives; and if we would express the highest regard and veneration for them, we can say no more, than that they are excellently well calculated to make us GOOD and to make us HAPPY. Those two words comprehend all possible praise. Yet there are not wanting men, even in this enlightened age (a character we take to ourselves upon a very doubtful title) who affect on all occasions to speak of morality with contempt; and even to place it in opposition to Christianity. What these men understand by either term, it would be useless to enquire; and indeed I am not sure whether they themselves be able to answer the question; but were they capable of using language in any precise signification, they would have known long since, that this poor despised morality is the very perfection of the human nature, and the brightest image of the divine: they would have known that the faith of a Christian is only a ladder to lift him to superior goodness and (by sure consequence) to superior happiness. I have said, and repeat it, that their ignorance of these things arises from their want of precision in language. It would be almost unfair to suppose that they use their words in the same sense with other men; for, surely, they do not intend to depreciate the principles of morality,-Love of God and Love of Man; and as little, I should think, could they slight the practice of it, if they understood it to comprehend a steady and uniform pursuit of the common good of mankind; yet they who are accustomed to speak accurately, mean nothing less than this by a moral life: such a conduct, on such principles, constitutes the very idea, the essence of virtue. And is this now to be considered as opposite to Christianity? Not in St. Paul's opi nion, most certainly; who gives Charity * expressly the preference to Faith itself; and *1 Cor. xiii. 13. who tells us that "Love is the fulfilling of "the law." Doubtless, the same commandments, which our Saviour pronounces first and greatest under the Jewish dispensation, must be the main pillars of every religion which comes from God. "To love him with "all the heart, and with all the understand❝ing, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as him"self, is more than all whole burnt-offerings "and sacrifices." † It may be said perhaps, as it has been, that these ideas are chimerical. That human virtue is at best imperfect; - seldom pure in the principle from which it springs; and too often interrupted and diverted, even in its most prosperous course. It is in vain, they tell us, that we sound forth the praises of that morality which we practice so ill. We are all sinners, all are obnoxious to the displeasure of God; and, therefore, must all fly for refuge to the arms of a Redeemer. To this grave declamation, I freely own, I have nothing to oppose; and why indeed + Mark xii. 38. Rom. xiii. 10. |