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SECTION X.

WHETHER HIS TEACHING IS DEFECTIVE.

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IN the compass of Christ's instructions we find a great variety of duties explicitly taught or plainly implied. Some of his precepts are very comprehensive: as "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, ye even so unto them: Render unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's; and unto God the things which are God's." But what the evangelists have recorded of his public preaching may rather be called a specimen of the manner in which he taught, than a full detail of all his admirable lessons. must also be considered that our Lord promised to shew the Apostles plainly of the Father, after his departure from them; and that the Holy Spirit was to guide them into all truth, particularly into such as their prejudices could not bear till their minds were gradually enlightened. So that our Lord's ministry was not the whole of the gospel dispensation; but only an introductory part.

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follow Christ, might be properly exacted from those who were his companions, and his disciples in a stricter sense, like the scholars of Pythagoras, admitted within the curtain; but reason and experience both shew that, considered as general duties, they are impracticable, inconsistent with natural instinct, as well as law, and quite destructive of Society." Works, 4to. v. iv. 300.

Matt. xix. 19. fib. 12.

ib. 13.

ib. vii. 12.

<ib. xxii. 21.

* John xvi. 25.

I shall add, though it is a digression from my immediate subject, that the inspired teachers of Christianity not only consider the moral part of the Old Testament as obligatory on all, but also presuppose the law of reason, and build on it as a foundation. They do not prove certain actions to be virtuous or vicious; but mention them as previously known to be such, and as accordingly approved or condemned by our conscience. With regard to religious duties, no defect in them has been alleged. And if they do not distinctly recount, and formally enjoin, every moral, political and domestic duty, let reason distribute the general precepts or prohibitions of revelation into all their particulars, let it shew the analo. gy of one case to another, let it even supply whatever omissions can be discovered: for it extends to all the various parts of human duty, whereas many are foreign to the proper business of revelation; it is our primary law, of perpetual and universal obligation. The sacred writings have their due excellence and perfection, if they abound in the most important, religious and moral truths, and if they incidentally teach political and social duties; furnishing the outline of these latter subjects, without filling up the parts. The omissions imputed to them are easily supplied by reason, and can only be forcibly objected to books of strict method and system; not to teachers who choose a "different manner of delivering their precepts, the propriety of which I shall illustrate in its proper place.

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The following are some of the general passages which occur in the epistolary parts of the New Testament. St. Paul says, "If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things." Again : "The law is made-for the ungodly and for sinners— for liars, for perjured persons; and if there, be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine." And St. John advances this general assertion, that "sin' is the transgression of the law."

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As to particular omissions, it has been objected that Christianity does not recommend patriotism. But, besides the general answer already suggested, may be said that Christ himself afforded an example of it by the " affectionate regard which he expressed for Jerusalem, and by shedding tears at the foresight of its desolation; and that the Apostle Paul was a follower of Christ in this as in other respects, and declared his readiness to " suffer temporal destruction for the sake of his brethren, and kinsmen according to the flesh. It may further be replied that universal benevolence comprehends patriotism; and that, the closer the tie is, whether religious or social, corresponding duties are proportionably required of us that the most splendid acts of patriotism are among Christian virtues; a disinterested regard for others, and a readiness even to die for them when the importance of the case requires it : and that enjoining patriotism in direct terms would have been recommending a duty which, in one sense

i Phil. iv. 8. 34. xix 41, 2. > 1 Cor. x. 24.

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of it, men at that time were already disposed to prac tise in excess; which would have encouraged Roman ambition, and the narrow attachment of the Jews to their own country; and would have tended to restrict benevolence, instead of enlarging it. He who loves his relations, his friends, and his neighbours in the Christian sense of the word, must love his country; unless we mean by loving our country the love of its political constitution. And how could this be

enjoined to the Romans, who lived under a despotic form of government; or to the Jews, whose polity was soon to be done away? It should also be considered that "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning;" and therefore that Christians may be referred to the patriotic *magnanimity of Moses, to "Elisha's regard for the distresses and deliverance of his country, to Jeremiah's pathetic lamentations over Jerusalem, to Nehemiah's "zeal for the public," and to those remarkable words of the Hebrew poet, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee."

The omission of friendship among Christian duties has furnished another objection. But there are passages in which it is supposed to "exist among men ; and it has very clearly the sanction of our Lord's example. When our Lord says, Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you; and when he

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92 Kings viii. 11, 12. xiii. 18, 19. c. v. 18, 19. See Shaft. charact

"Luke xi. 6. xiv. 12. John John xi. 5, 11, 36. xiii. 23.

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is represented as loving Lazarus and St. John; in these passages, if not in some others, the idea rises above that of "an acquaintance, or kinsman, or relative, of the same family, fortune or sect." certain that no soil is so well prepared for "that ' peculiar relation which is formed by a consent and harmony of minds, by mutual esteem, and reciprocal tenderness and affection," as the heart in which Christian virtues flourish; and particularly that benevolence which Bishop Taylor nobly calls " friendship to all the world, friendship expanded like the face of the sun, when it mounts above the eastern hills." In the Old Testament, Moses speaks of a "friend who is as a man's own soul; we have a striking example of friendship in the history of Jonathan and David; and in the book of Proverbs mention is made of a friend who loveth at all times. We see by these instances that human nature is not one thing in the scriptures; and another thing in fact, or in the gravest and best ancient or modern moralists. Besides, as friendship is a connection which many may not be able to form, and therefore is not a general duty, if indeed it can be called a duty incumbent on any, it has been doubted whether it could properly be made the subject of a direct precept by a divine lawgiver.

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* Bishop Taylor in Shaftesbury, ubi supr. thinks that the writers of the New Testament always used pixos in this limited sense. y Shaf. tesbury's definition: ubi supr.

z ubi supr.

⚫ 1 Sam. xviii. 1, 3. xix. 2. 2 Sam. i. 26.

a Deut. xiii. 6. c. xvii. 17.

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