fyxull Wimmxi^ JilriJit^g BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF menirg m. Sage / / A....^^^^..:l ^y/?': Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029180797 THE DOCTRINES OF UNITARIANS EXAMINED, AS OPPOSED TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. IN EIGHT SERMONS FEEACHEO BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, IN THE YEAR MDCCCXVIIT, AT THE LECTURE FOUNDED BY THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M. A.' CANON OF SALISBURY. BY THE REV. C. A. MOYSEY, D.D.~ EECTOK OF WALCOT, BATH J CHAPLAIN TO THE LOKD RODNEY, AND LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH. OXFORD, AT THE -UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE AUTHOR. SOLD BY J. PARKER, oxford; MESSRS. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUl's CHURCH YARD J J. HATCHARD, PICCADILLY, LONDON J AND MESSRS. BARBATT, BATH. 1818. CONTE'l^TS. SERMON I. On Mysteries. Heb. iiii 12, Take heed, brethren,, lest there be in any of you an evil heart ofunbelief, in dep(fsrt!mg(from the living God. SERMON II. On the Holy Trinity. Matt;, xyiii. 19. Go ye and teach all natianSy.btaptvsing them in the, name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy GhosU SERMON III. On the Godhead pf Christ. Colds, ii. 9. In him dwellethall the fulness of the Godhead bodily. SERMON IV. ,,.^; ,N On the Personality of the Holy Ghost. John xvi. 13. When he, the Sprit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. a 2 iv CONTENTS. SERMON V. On the Judgment by our Saviour. Matt. xxv. 31. When the Son of man shall come in his ghry, and all his holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. SERMON VI, On the Inspiration of Scripture. 2 Tim. iii. 16. All Scripture is giiben by inspiration of God. SERMON VII. On the Eternity of Punishment. Matt. xxv. 46. jirtd these ihall go away into everlasting punishnient : but the righteous into life eternal. SERMON vin. Conclusion. Colds, ii. 8. Beware lest any man'ispdil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudi ments of the world, and ridi after Christ. EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY. — — " I give and bequeath my Lands and " Estates to the Chancellor, Masters, and Schd- " lars of the University of Oxford for ever, to " have and to hold all and singular the said " Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the in- <' tents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; " that is to say, I will. and appoint that the " Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford " for the time being shall take and receive all " the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after *' all taxes, reparations, and necessary deduc- " tions made) that he pay all the remainder to " the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture " Sermons, to be established for ever in the said " University, and to be performed in the man- " ner foUowitig :. . ' vi EXTRACT FROM " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first " Tuesday in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly " chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by " no others, in the room adjoining to the Print- " ing-House, between the hours ^pf ten in.the ^ rhorning and two in the afternoon, to preach " eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year fol- " lowing, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the " commencenrent of the last month in Lent ^'Term, and-the end of the third v^eek in Act " Term. 5' Also I direct,and appoint,, that the eight "Divinity Lecture /Sei-mons shall he preached " upon either of the following. Subjects — to con- " firm and establish the Christian Faith, and to "confute all heretics and schismatics"^— ^lipon :the " divine authority of the holy Scriptures— rupon " the authority of the writings of the. primitive " Fathers, aS to the faith and practice of thepri- " mitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord " and Saviour Jesus Christ — ;upon the/Divinity f of (the Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the " Christian Faith, as comprehended in the " Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. .uj uil, *' AlsQ I direct, that thirty copies of the .fejght " Divinity Lecture Sermon^ shall be '\ a^lways CANON BAMPTON'S WILU vii " printed, within two months after they are " preached, and one copy shall be given to the " ChanceUor of the University, and one copy to " the Head of every College, and one copy to " the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one " copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; and " the expence of printing them shall be paid " out of the revenue of the Land or Estates " given for establishing the Divinity -Lecture " Sermotis ; and the Preacher shall riot be paid, " nor be entitled to the revenue, before they " are printed. " Also I direct and appoint, that no person " shall be qualified to preach the Divinity Lec- " ture Sermons, unless he hath taken the de- " gree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the *' two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; " and that the same person shall never preach " the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice." SERMON L ON MYSTERIES. Heb. iii. 12. Tahe heed, brethren, lest there he in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. IN this land, where by the blessing of God the enjoyment of religious as well as of civil liberty is secured to all men, where restraint is laid upon the avowal of opi^ nions no farther than is absolutely neces- sary for the maintenance of good order both in Church and State, it is the more necessary that such opinions should be ob- served with attention; and that tendency to extravagance which too often springs out of liberty be prevented, if possible, from producing the destructive effects of disorder and licentiousness. In all matters is this necessary, but more especially in 2 SERMON I. those which have regard to religion ; reli- gion, which is the gre;^test source of bless- ing that mankind enjoys, when it is pre- served pure, and uncontaminated by the extravagancies of human invention, as it is the most powerful engine to produce fatal effects, when corrupted by the conceit, and debased by the inventions of man. I propose therefore to bring under our present examination the principles of a sect, which is daily striving to advance it- self, and to introduce such disorder, by overthrowing the very foundations of the Christian faith : I mean the sect of Soci- nians, or, as they style themselves in these days, Unitarians. That impunity which the Legislature has formally granted to them of late, ap- pears to have awakened their hopes, and aroused their activity ; and it is therefore the duty of the appointed ministers of God's word to meet their efforts by corre- sponding exertions, to detect the fallacy of their assertions, and to prevent, so far as we can, the mischief of their opinions from gaining farther ground. ON MYSTERIES. 3 Unitarianism is not indeed calculated to become easily a favourite doctrine with the common people, but it catches the vain, and those who are confident in their own abilities and discernment. It is a specula- tive faith, if indeed that may be called a faith which is rather a system of wwbelief. It relates to a most mysterious question, one which requires that which is not given to it so often as might be wished, a patient investigation ; an unpresuming judgment ; and a true humility, and submission of the weak understanding of mortals to the re- vealed, though incomprehensible, doctrines of the Most High. But there is a shew of simpHcity in Uni- tarianism, which is not unlikely to make impression on the minds of those who re- gard it superficially ; of those in particular, who have made just such advancement in learning as suffices to give them confi- dence; and whose period of life makes them bold to engage themselves on the side of any novelty which calls itself amendment, and to follow the leading of a course, to which the name of liberality, B 2 4 SERMON I. SO often and so sadly abused in these our days, is applied by its upholders. The shaking off of ancient prejudices has to many a flattering sound ; and there is something plausible to the inconsiderate, in the idea of rejecting mysteries; of bring- ing down religion to that which Unitarians now call, and Deists always have called, its original simplicity. But mysteries are in themselves no ob- jection to the doctrine which contains them ; more especially when, as in regard of the holy Trinity, the mystery relates to the incomprehensible nature of God. Do we suppose him able to reveal nothing that we cannot fully comprehend? This were to put our capacity on a level with that of the Almighty. Analogy requires, that since in the sys- tem of the natural world so many things pass our comprehension, much more should the same be the case with the heavens and their Creator; where God is not only the revealer of the mystery, but his own in- conceivable nature is also the object re- vealed. ON MYSTERIES. 5 The question here then is not, which party C2i\x frame a creed most plausible, bv most agreeable to human notions of that which is proper and intelligible; but, which follows that creed which ought ever to bind us, because it already exists in the unerring word of God. It is a question not of in- genuity, but of testimony. The Unitarians do not, like the Deists, profess to reject all revelation. With them therefore the holy Scriptures, though par- tially discredited, are yet in general an au- thority which cannot be disputed ; and from them alone I am confident that all the points in question between us may be abundantly proved. To that authority the speculations of mortal fancy must bend. It is not for us to reject mysteries be- cause they are incomprehensible, nor can that pride of human intellect, which isets itself up to measure the hidden things of God, be justified by the rational, nor en- dured by the religious mind. The point to be examined by us is simply this, whe- ther or no the matter offered for our belief be offered by the Almighty. If it be so, B 3 6 SERMON I. the case admits no farther questipn. Im- plicit belief then becomes a bounden duty. This however is a point which our ad- versaries will not concede, and declama- tion against " "prostration of the under- " standing" is employed by them, as if it were allowable to set up the understanding against him who made it; as if the facul- ties of created beings were to sit in judg- ment on the acts of their omnipotent Cre- ator, who gave and who limited those fa- culties. We shall however have abundant oppor- tunity for entering more fully into this question in the course of these Lectures. It is perhaps with many the chief cause bf infidelity, that they have neglected the Apostle's advice, " not to think of them- " selves more highly than they ought to " think, but to think soberly." Such meekness and humility is a duty which all Christians acknowledge to be incumbent on themselves; and whatever others may do, we shall depart from our * Belsham's Letter to the Bishop of London, p. 75. ON MYSTERIES. 7 own professions if we desert them. For what is the profession of him who calls himself a Christian ? What is its real value, if, at the same time that he so calls him- self, he deny and reject the Godhead of Him from whom we derive that name. What the faith of Christians is has long since been known and established. It ac- knowledges, that our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, is God and man. God, in identity with the Godhead of the Father, united with the manhood inherited from his mother. The Christian faith does not barely admit, that there was once a person called Jesus Christ upon earth, a teacher of righteotisness sent from God, and now rewarded with a high degree of exaltation in heaven ; but still, with all this, no more than a creature. A Christian is not at li- berty to take so much of the faith as he may think proper, and to reject the rest; to embrace the morality and refuse the doctrine, nor to adhere to the doctrine and reject the morality of the Gospel. No man can be called a Christian, even in profession, unless he hold, not only that B 4 8 SERMON I. Christ existed as the man Jesus here on earth, but that he was very God at that very time ; that his Godhead had existed, in identity with the Father as to being and power, from all eternity, though with dis- tinction as to person ; and that he shall so exist till time shall be no more. This we hold to have been the, faith of Christians as to the Person of our blessed Saviour from the beginning, and this the Unitarians deny. Whether the truth rest with them or with us will be matter for future discus- sion, but that such a faith is of necessity attached , to the name of Christian can hardly be disputed. Let all who are cap- tivated by the sound of freedom in opi- nion, and the boast of those which some call exclusively rational principles, con- sider to what those principles are leading them ; even to the denial of him whom God has declared to be our Lord, our Saviour, and our God. Let them not rely on the sound of a name superadded, in order to affix an opposite and arbitrary sense to the appellation by which that sect distinguishes itself, which absolutely denies ON MYSTERIES. 9 the Godhead of Christ, and the personal- ity of the Holy Ghost. The same has formerly been done by unbelievers, who affected to talk of Christian Deists, and Christian Jews, The imme of Unitarian Christians, if to the term Unitarian that sense be attached which they affix to it, is a contradiction in terms. It confounds believers in Christ's GcKlhead with those who absolutely deny that Godhead. It professes that they who bear that name are hoping -for salvation through his sacrifice of atonement, and his mediation, as consequent and dependant thereon; while they are denying the effi- cacy of that sacrifice, and reducing his me- diation to nothing more than the prayers of a prophet and righteous man. Even Ma- homet allowed as much as this, for he pro- fessed that he requested Christ's prayers for himself, and he ascribed to him pre- eminence above Moses and all the pro- phets. And what do modern Unitarians more than this ? The man Jesus, as a mere man, who had no manner of existence be- fore his birth at Bethlehem, who was not 10 SERMON I. the Saviour who purchased us by his blood, who was not the appointed sacrifice to atone for sins, who was not the eternal Son of the Most High : such is the person whose existence they acknowledge ! They grant indeed that Jesu% Christ bore a special mission from God, and that he is now miraculously exalted to preemi- nent honour at God's right hand. But where does it appear in the Gospel that this is all which his disciples are required to believe ? What great preeminence does this assign to him, above others whom we know to have been taken up into the pre- sence of God ? Such pretences are mere deception; and the addition of a highly respected name is but too much like a shield to cover their real tenets, and a snare to draw in the unguarded to the de- structive errors of their communion. Even the heresy of Arius came nearer to the true faith than this. For it allowed the Godhead of our Saviour, and his ex- istence before his incarnation, though not from all eternity. But the Unitarians deny both. Yet did the general assembly of ON MYSTERIES. 11 the whole Christian Church condenin his doctrine, and stigmatize it with their ana- thema. I do not urge the sentence of that Council as of equal authority with the holy Scriptures, by which the measures of that, and of every other assembly of frail and fallible men must be judged. But it dis- tinctly proves what was the sense of the great body of believers, at a time when corruptions were not so common but that they were examined and censured ; and so near to the Christian era, as to be compa- ratively but little removed from the age of the Apostles themselves. At that period human presumption had not become so fertile as in these days, in inv'enting corruptions of the Christian faith; and in that Council those Fathers of the Church assisted, who were most likely to know what had been the teaching of the Apostles themselves; whose opinions there- fore, though not infallible, have ever been accounted as entitled to the highest respect. Against the judgment then of the pri- mitive Church, and, what is much more, against the express words of Scripture, 12 SERMON I. from which we derive our doctrine, does this sect maintain opinions derogatory in the greatest degree to our blessed Saviour ; and it spares no pains in disseminating opinions, which, if received, would degrade him from the Divine supremacy, to the condition of a mere mortal, a servant, a frail being, capable of moral corruption and of sin, equally with ourselves. That the audacity of man should broach such opinions is unhappily no matter of wonder. But that they who do thus should assume the very name which they labour to bring to nothing, is a proof of something very different from zeal for the truth. All who have well examined their tenets can judge of their names and profes- sions ; but in regard to others^ it may well be feared lest the name should sometimes answer the purpose for which it is as- sumed, by putting them off their guard against the insidious practices of the Uni- tarians; lest it should lead those who do not inquire much into the matter, to con- clude that there is no reasonable appre- hension of danger to the Christian faith. ON MYSTERIES. 13 from those who assume an appellation which belongs, in truth, only to its sincere and faithful followers. What is the object which they profess .'' What do they hold out as their avowed in- tention? To " inculcate the rational prin- " ciples of religion, and the necessity of " free inquiry, on topics essential to the *' best interests of man, as well for the " world that now is, as for that which is to " come." None surely who consider this Can be drawn in by the sound of its first words — .Do not we know what has been in former times the abuse of similar language ? What has been always the plea of Infidels and Deists ? Rational principles, and free inquiry. The old title of Freethinkers might alone lead us to suspect the relation between the two parties. I do not mean to assert that the Unita- rians now hold all the same principles with the Deists, but that they hold that one which leads to them all, the supremacy of human reason, and its competency to ac- cept or reject even the dictates of Omni- potence. 14 SERMON I. They lay great stress on " making per- " sons of every class to comprehend and *' feel the dignity of their pature, and judge " for themselves, of the principles upon " which the duties enjoined are founded." But this magnifying of the dignity of hu- man nature is the very language of pride, and shews but little proficiency in Chris- tian knowledge, as it was taught by him from whom alone we all profess to derive it. " Take my yoke upon you and learn " of me,' ' were his words, " for I am meek " and lowly in heart, and ye shall j^wc? rest " unto your souls." They who will not abide by any thing which they do not comprehend, must as- sert, that all which is above our compre- hension is untrue; or, at least, that they are justified in treating it as if it were un- true. And what is this but to make mor- tal intellect the measure of Divine truth ? What, but to set up imperfect and very li- mited faculties to judge of the acts and counsels of the infinite and perfect Jeho- vah ? What, but to say in the pride of our hearts, so soon as we meet with any thing ON MYSTERIES. 15 in his declarations which we do not satis- factorily comprehend, Hitherto will I go, and no farther ? Let us, for the sake of common sense and reason ; let us first perfect our know- ledge of earthly things ; of our own na- ture, and of all the created universe. How weak, how erroneous are all our specula- tions even there ! How soon are we com- pelled to acknowledge that we see effects, whose most immediate causes we cannot discern ; that we find ourselves to be parts of a system, the laws of which, except where revelation has aided us, we compre- hend but in a small degree! Nor can we account for many of the wonderful pro- ductions or operations of nature, except by referring them at once to God ; whose work -we know them to be, though we know riot the course and method of his workmanship. The truly wise man will be the most ready to exclaim with Solomon, " Hardly do we guess aright at the things '' which are upon the earth, and with la- " hour do we find the things which are 16 SERMON I. " before us ; but the things which are in " heaven who hath searched out?" Such being the case, the Church of Eng- land, which does not disdain prostration of the understanding before the unsearchable mysteries of God, whioh is contented to go to that extent which he has laid open, and to stop where his light ceases to guide us farther : our Church is ready to give its belief to this great mystery of a Trinity in Unity, because, though not fully explained, it is yet certainly declared, by Him to whom alone it could be known. Though life and immortality are unquestionably brought to light by the Gospel, yet it is, in this our mortal state, only such light as may serve to guide us to that immortality. The perfection of knowledge can not be- long to an imperfect state of being. If however religion be now rendered in all respects so very simple a matter, and so much within the compass of every man's intellect, that we may reject any duty, or any point of belief, however positively en- forced, provided that we disapprove it ; ON MYSTERIES. 17 then are we all now far wiser than the wisest of antiquity, who admitted their inability to comprehend such things without a reve- lation from God. If it be necessary that a// should be throughly fathbmed by our reason, before we need to believe it, what means St. Paul, when he says, " ^'That '* your faith should not stand in the wis- ^ dom of men, but in the power of God?" Or what is this saying of the same Apostle, " "We speak the wisdom of God in a mys- " tery, — which none of the princes of '* this world knew ; for had they known it, " they would not have crucified the Lord " of glory.''" What is this, but a declara- tion, that man is not able to discover the whole of God's mysteries, of which this is the chief.'* Yet since the Most High has declared these things to us, though they be only in part intelligible, we are bound to receive and to admit the whole. It may be called unworthy of the dignity of our nature so to do ; but we must either receive them with- ^iCor.ii. 5. <= I Cor.ii.'J,^. c 18 SERMON I. out comprehending, or we must dare to reject his word which enforces them. In this mortal state there will be many things hidden, "the secret things of God;" but we must nevertheless submit to receive them, unless we would be wise above the measure which he has allotted to us. " ^The natural man receiveth not the " things of the Spirit of God, for they are *' foolishness unto him ; neither can he " know them, because they are spiritually " discerned." So long as these adversaries of the re- ceived faith reject with scorn all prostra- tion of the understanding, even before the throne of God, there is little or no hope of reclaiming them from their errors. The very snare of Satan, that same snare which entangled Eve, and led to all our woe, is, and always has been, wrought from our conceit and presumption. The right of human judg- ment in opposition to Divine revelation, was the temptation held out in that case : *' 'In the day ye eat thereof, then your d 1 Cor. ii. 14. = Gen. iii. 5. ON MYSTERIES. 19 ** eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as '^ gods, knowing good and evil." And the ambition of doing what is right in our own eyes is, and has ever been, a most fatal snare to human vanity. But let not them say, and let not others imagine, that Religion has nothing to do with Reason, because it is asserted, that Reason could never of itself have dis- covered the secret things of God, and is bound to receive them as revealed by him, though it be unable fully to comprehend them. The province of Reason is not to scrutinize the Divine essence, nor to pry into matters which must of necessity be far beyond the reach of our limited faculties. Its business on these points is to examine the credibility of the Revelation, so far as regards the testimony which is "to prove that it proceeded from the Almighty. It has nothing to do with comprehending things incomprehensible : but if, upon full inquiry, it find that the doctrine be re- vealed by the word of the Lord, Reason must bow before his authority which sanc- c 2 20 SERMON I. tions that doctrine. Reason is thankful for such ifisight into celestial matters as is given, thougli only to a certain extent, and ddes not presume to press beyond the li- mits which must ever confine it. Our knowledge of the Divine nature is now only partial ; enough to shew the infinite distance between it and our own ; lenough to call forth our awe and veneration. "Now we know in part;" and whoever has learned true Christian humility will be contented with that limited part, which is adapted to our limited abilities. In the next life;, the faithful will be rewarded with the fuir understanding of all, which they have believed now, though they did not entirely' comprehend it. "^Blessed," said our Saviour, " are they Who have not seen, " and yet have believed." What they now receive oh his authority, though thefy can- not coiiiprehend it, will then be fdlly made clear to their enlarged and perfected capa- cities. " ^ Now we see in a glass darkly, f John XX. 29. ; *-' s 1 Gor. xiii. 12. ON MYSTERIES. 21 " but then face to face. Now we know in ** part, but then shall we know even as also '* we are known." Let man then restrain his impatience till the consummation of all things. Let him not, before his nature be perfected, expect to attain to the perfection of know- ledge;, lest such presumption, far from bringing him nearer to the object of his desire, should utterly exclude him from those privileges, which shall belong here- after to the spirits of just men made per- fect, and to them alone. The great evil which leads, and always has led to infidelity, is the setting up of human reason as the measure of truth; whereas it is only the measure of that testimony whereby the truth is declared. The matter itself which is proposed to us may be ut- terly beyond the reaich of our faculties, as the matter here in question, the Divine nature, is, and always has been ; and while this world endures, always shall continue to be. Man has no sort of right to doubt the possibility of God's existence, in any man- c 3 22 SERMON I. ner which he shall be pleased to reveal. Man does not understand his own nature, and much less the incomprehensible nature of the infinite Godhead, When things are thus necessarily beyond the reach of hu- man understanding, the authenticity of the revelation which makes them known is all of which we are competent to judge. The certainty that these truths are really and distinctly revealed, though they be not entirely laid open and made familiar to our capacities, is certainty enough, and ought to produce complete convictioil. Such certainty must spring from due in- quiry into the authenticity of the revela- tion. It depends chiefly on the consist- ency of the present, with previous commu- nications frorii the same source ;^ wliich is one sort of testimony : and to this our Sa- viour himself appealed, when he said, " ''The works that I do, they bear wit- " ness of me." " ' Seardi the Scriptures, '* for, — they are they which testify of mei" The other testimony lies in the cha- h John X. 25. ' John v. 39. ON MYSTERIES. 23 racter and consistency of those, from whom the witness proceeds; and that is in this case unquestionable. The Unitarians, as they love to call themselves, falsely implying thereby, and indeed asserting, that we are Tritheists; these Unitarians do not deny the testi- mony, as to its authenticity, but endea- vour rather to wrest the words in which it is conveyed, and so to support themselves in thfeir denial of the doctrine which it in- culcates. But let Christians ever remem- ber that of our ownselves we can do no- thing. Let them never aWbw themselves to suppose that human reason is to fathom every depth, and that we are not bound to admit any thing which we cannot clearly comprehend. Let us beware of admitting generally the evidence of the holy Scrip- tures, only that such admission may give the more weight to objections afterwards urged in detail against the most important particulars; and let us not pervert and torture the obvious sense and plain inter- pretation of God's word, rather than break down the prejudice,s with which pride in- c 4 i4 SERMON I. spires the heart of man. This is no unfair insinuation; no misinterpretation of the language of Unitarians, nor any coucIut sion violently extracted from expressions, which were not designed to bear it. What are the very words of their own advocate, on the point of prostration of the undet- standing before the inscrutable mysteries of God? " "^ Prostration of the understand- *' ing," says he, " God forbid ! If any " onei^had charged us with admitting as a " revealed truth, as a doctrine of Jesus, a " proposition which previously to its re- " ception required a prostration of the nn- " derstandiing, we should have regarded it " as a caluhiny more absurd, and more in- " jurioiis, than aiiy which the ingenuity of " our bitterest enemies has everiip^et in- " vented." Jt The very point on which this prostration of the understanding was required, is the natufe of God, in regard to the Trinity in Unity. These Unitariaiis are not called to submit their intellects to^ny thing nti- derstoody and so ascertained to be absurd, '' Belsham's Letter to the Bishop X)f London, p. 75. ON MYSTERIES. 2b but to a doctrine, which, though it be avovvedly beyond the utniost stretch of mortal faculties to coinprehend it, is ne- vertheless well authenticated as having pro- ceeded from the Almighty, as shall be de-* monstrated : a doctrine, which is to be re- ceived as one of the secret things, by which God tries our faiths But it is supported by such testimony, as may well convince our reason, of all which reason is able to examine and decide; namely, that it is sent from God. The testimony to this doctrine is so di- rect and convincing, that Unitarians, in the pride of their heart, have set their own fancies above God's word ; and, in order to get rid of its evidence, have expunged and altered many passages which bore wit- ness to it most copiously. Foul methods indeed by which to hide an error, whether they were thrust upon the adoption of them by vanity, or by obstinacy ! I will however no farther anticipate my subject, but, having thus opened the ge^ neral question, will endeavour in my sub- sequent discourses to examine severally the '26 SERMON I. articles held by this party; as well those which constitute the . main hinge of the controversy, as the other subordinate points which they hold in opposition to the Chris- tian faith. v> The first is, that there is one God, " and " one only Person in the Godhead;" and connected with this is one of their negative articles, in which they deny absolutely, and in no very decent terms, (as is too much their practice,) a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead, And it is necessary throughout this ques- tion to keep it constantly in our recoUec- tion, that the Church invariably and most strictly maintains the Unity of dhe God- head. When it asserts the personal dis- tinction of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, it does not lose sight of the first article which is the foundation of all the rest, namely, that " there is but one living and "true God." As is the case with all works, so the whole confession of faith published in the Articles of the Church of England has a right to be considered as one composition. ON MYSTERIES. 2^ That composition is consistent with itself. Its parts were intended to agree with each other, as parts in one system, and as de- duced from one source : and the first, the very head of all, was certainly kept in view, while those which follow, especially those which immediately follow, were composed. The question is not of the number of Gods, but of the number of Persons who exist in one sole Godhead. Nor does the incom- prehensibiHty of the doctrine at all affect its truth.^ The whole subject of the con- troversy stands totally distinct from the question, whether a Trinity in Unity be, or be not, comprehensible to us; for both parties hold alike that it is not. But we have to examine whether the objections made to that doctrine be or be not well founded ; and the whole matter turns on its divine authority, not on our capacity of comprehending it. They assert, secondly, that our blessed Saviour was a mere human being ; and they deny that, which our Church never asserted, a subordinate Creator, &c. And 28 SERMON I. farther, they positively reject the most im- portant doctrine of the Atonement. Thirdly,' they reject the personality of the Holy Spirit. After these shall have been discussed, I propose to examine their admission, that Jesus Christ is to be the universal Judge, he yet being according to them a mere man. Fifthly, we will consider their doctrine as to the inspiration of the holy Scriptures, and the respect which they have in reality shewn to them. And lastly, we will consider their denial of the eternity of punishment to condemned sinners. •'■ ' ' I have followed j throughout this arrange- ment, the order of that confession which was published by one of their present -leaders', in his Letter to the present Bi- shop of London ; wherein it i« fair to con- clude, that the avowed doctrines of the sect are contained. I propose now to pro- ' Belsham. ON MYSTERIES. 29 ceed, with God's help, to the examination of those doctrines regularly and minutely. But I hope to avoid that offensive levity and indecency of style, which is too oftea perceptible in their pamphlets ; a style, in which it is unbecoming to treat any ques- tion acknowledged by all parties to be of the highest importance ; and which has too often betrayed them into language, shocking to the ears of all right-minded persons, because it is offensive and blas- phemous to the majesty of the Almighty. To him, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons in one God, we ren- der and ascribe all might, majesty, adora- tion and praise, now and for ever. SERMON II. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. Matt, xviii. 19. Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In these words we hear the original insti- tution of that rite, by which the followers of our blessed Saviour have in all times been initiated into the profession of the Christian faith; amd it is especially to be observed, that the Apostles are herein commanded by our Lord's own mouth to administer baptism in the names of all the three Persons who exist in the unity of the Godhead. In opposition to this, however, the first article with which the Socinian, or Unitarian, Creed commences, is, that ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 3 " " there is one God, in one Person only.' Herein consists the whole peculiarity o their doctrine, as to this point. For tha which is subsequently asserted, namely that he is the " sole Creator and Governo " of the universe, absolute in all perfection " and the sole object of religious worship,' is the same which we aiid all Christian hold. The question therefore as to thi article turns on the assertion, tha,t Go exists " in one Person only ;" contrary t the received opinion of the whole Christia Church, which agrees generally with ou Article, wherein the Catholic doctrine i thus expressed : " There is but one livin ** and true God, everlasting, without bodj •' parts, or passions, of infinite power, wis " dom, and goodness ; the Maker and Pre " server of all things both visiblRind itlv " sible; and in the Unity of this Godhea( " there be three Persons of one substanc( " power, and eternity, the Father, tt " Son, and the Holy Ghost." ^ Belsham, p. 5. b XXXIX Articles; Art. I. Of Faith in the Ho Trinity, &c. 32 SERMON U. The question therefore is not of the Be- ing, or Unity of God, but of the Trinity of Persons in that Unity ; and therefore we must look to a negative article in the Uni- tarian's Creed, which explains more fully their assertion, that God exists " in one *' Person only," They " 'enter their so- " lemn protest against the commonly re- " ceived doctrine of the Trinity, as an an- " cient and gross corruption of the Chri- " stian revelation ; the primary and fun- " damental article of which, is the Unity of « God." Their assertion is a negative; namely, that a Trinity of Persons does not exist in that Unity of Godhead ; a Unity which we hold as much as they. Upon that pioint thqn we will proceed to examine the, ques- tion. ^ These Unitarians reject the doctrine of the Trinity, together with those other mosjt important doctrines which must stand or fall with it, " •' as inconsistent with reason, *' as unfounded in Scripture, as dishonour- c Belsham, p. 8. '^ Belsham, p. 14. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 33 " able to the divine attributes, as leading " to very pernicious pipactical consequences, " as gross corruptions of the Christian re- " velation, and as obstructing the progress '^ of the Gospel in the world." Their first objection, that the doctrine of the Trinity is inconsistent with reason, is the old plea of Deists and Infidels for centuries past. But to that it has long since been sufficiently answered, " that it is not contrary to reason, though certainly ahove its reach ; and therefore cannot be proved to be inconsistent with it : for it is absurd to make positive assertions, or to attempt to reason on matters which are utterly and avowedly incomprehensible. We have no distinct idea of God's entire nature. Our only distinct idea of him is a negative > that he cannot be limited, either in dura- tion or power; cannot be resisted; cannot be comprehended. So far as this we have distinct ideas. But when we talk of his positive properties we have no distinct ideas; because infinity is the general at- tribute which pervades them all, and the J) 34 SERMON II. human mind can form no conception of that which is infinite. We know only what it is not ; that it is not limited in any manner: but it is most obvious that we cannot say what it is. This may teach us how unreasonable it is to reject any thing that the Almighty has revealed concerning bis own nature, because we do not comprehend it. One Person in the Deity, with all his necessary perfections, is, if we endeavour to explain all that belongs to them, fully as incompre^ hensible to mortal faculties, as the Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead. Even if we descend to earthly thingsi, to which our ideas and language are more adequate, to our own nature, and that of every thing animate or inanimate, if we consider every brute, every plantj even every blade of grass, it is beyond our power accurately to explain all the precise physical reasons of their birth or proper- ties.'^- The doctrine of the Trinity is avowedly a mystery. It is therefore of necessity in- ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 35 comprehensible, otherwise it would cease to be a mystery. And it isj from the very nature of things, impossible that the pecu- liar nature of God should ever be revealfed to us in this state of our existence, other- wise than as a mystery; because it does not admit of full explanation in mortal lan- guage. The images, in order to express which all language has been invented, are taken from visible objects. But the nature of God has nothing in common with them. Whether in regard to his Trinity of Per- sons, or to his other peculiar properties, such as his eternity for instance; tile na- ture of God, if considered in arty Way, is equally invisible, equally incomprehensible, equally above human reason; though never contrary to it ;, and therefore, if this be sufficient ground for disbelief, it applies to the divine nature altogether. We cannot explain by human langwagei framed according to sensible objects, that which is beyond the reach of pur senses,, and has nothing in common with those ob- jects. It is therefwe impossible, that our D 3 36 SERMON II. language should express intelligibly the hidden things of God '. When he is pleased to reveal to us any thing concerning his own infinite nature, we are bound to receive, in humble thank- fulness, what he so reveals, though we un- derstand the matter thereof only just so far as he is pleased to open it; and are unable to penetrate at all into the myste- ries which yet remain unrevealed. Our nature and faculties are imperfect, and li- mited ; God's nature and deity are incom- prehensible, and unlimited. It is therefore presumptuous and irrational to expect, that we should be able to advance one single step in so incomprehensible a matter as the divine nature, without the guidance of express revelation . e It is not in man's ability either to express perfectly, or conceive the manner how this was brought to pass. But the strength of our faith is tried by those things wherein our wits and capacities are not strong. How- beit, because this divine mystery is more true than plain, divers having framed the same to their own con- ceiis and fancies, are found in their exposition thereof more plain than true. Hooker, Eccl. Pol. v. 51. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 3? That this has always been the case is abundantly shewn by comparison of the Jews, who enjoyed this advantage, with the heathens, who, though otherwise far more learned, enjoyed it not. The Jews, a peo- ple far from distinguished for learning or those arts which human ingenuity brings to perfection, were yet wise to a degree to which the sages of Greece could make no pretension, in all which related to the Godhead : for to them it had been re- vealed, so far at least as it pleased the Lord to reveal' it. While the Greeks, far their superiors in letters and arts, during the very era of learning and philosophy, were yet labouring in vain to discover that, to which human faculties can never, by their own strength, attain. The reason of this ignorance with them was the want of express revelation on the subject; for Plato himself, whose faculties could go as far as those of any mortal, Plato himself confesses ^, that nothing short ^ TouTO S)) ovv TO [i.spoi ^ufjiiv ipvC ouV av 8i8«Jae» a fti) 0soj u^tjyofroV Epino7nis. D 3 Avayxuiov 38 SERMON U. of an actual communication from the D«ity could resolve their doubts and clear up their difficulties. • Even the feeble ray of knowledge in sa- cred things which they did possess, seems to have been either borrowed from the Jews, perhaps through the medium of the Egyp- tians ; or else to have been a remnant of patriarchal tradition, which might have been handed down . from the sons of Noah to their descendants. And it is well worth remarking, that all in which the heathens made any approaches towards truth in their traditions oi facts, may be clearly traced to events recorded in the holy Scriptures. Those traditions related principally, to Av«yx«iov oov eorj wspifisvav, Icoj av rig fiaSji oa; 8a vrpo; TOVg &SOUS KO) WflOf UVbgCOTlOVS SlXXSKT^O^, AAK. OTOTE OUV ■srapeffTa/ 6 ;^povoj odrosf ai 'Stoxpare;, ko^ rif 6 waiSediraiv j ^Sfora yetp ctv ftoi Soxo) jSav rotirov rov civdpamov rif sittiv. ^X2K. OuToj ea-Tiv, w /nsXs wsgt )/*ev ©soi/ ijSs xa/ eivipu, ovTio xotf (Tou 8av cciro rtjj i|«'X1f '^ptorov oKpskovra rrjv a.y(\\}y, ^ vuv ■ereieoua'oi Tuyyoi.vsi, to ti)vmuut jjSij tapoirpspEiv Bi' m jxeA- Xsij yma-^a-^at^ jjfiev xaxov ijSs xay Eff^Aov yui/ j«,ev yap oux «v jM,o» 8ox})s 8o>>id))v«/, ^^6. (/3'. ly'. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 39 events of a general nature ; such as the creation of mankind, and the universal deluge. Among particular nations, which had later intercourse with Judsea and its neighbourhood, other circumstances may be found, connected with persons and things mentioned in the Bible. In sacred matters, the being of God, and his omni- potence and eternity, though corrupted by the fiction of numerous subordinate deities^ and defaced by many impious ab- surdities, was still a truth originally derived from the same source. And, what is much more to our present purpose, even the doctrine of b, Trinity of Persons, that docr trine from which infidelity now revolts, passed down with the tradition of matters of fact ; corrupted indeed and debased ; but still it passed downward from the same source. It was found in very ancient times among the" Greeks and Romans ; and at this day it exists, together with records of the same great events, though in a corrupt form, yet in one wherein the original my- stery is still discernible. It exists even now in the wild mythology of the nations D 4 40 SERMON II. of Hindostan : a people situated nearer to the sources of patriarchal tradition, and hardly to be suspected of having framed for themselves mysteries, by abstract spe- culation, and refinements in theology. A Trinity of Persons in the Godhead is a doctrine which may be traced through- out the books of the Old Testament, which are confessedly, by many ages, the oldest records which now exist, or which can be proved ever to have existed. Those books were set forth among men who followed the same faith with the sons of Noah, who had been the progenitors of them and of all mankind. The matters of fact, and the mysterious doctrines contained therein, were both 'written by the same inspired person who was commissioned to deliver the Law expressly sent to them from God : by one whose means of information, and whose peculiar favour with the Lord, place him, equally above the imputation of de- ceiving or being deceived.'*^* Now if a similarity of doctrine, particu- larly in points beyond the reach of human reason, be found among the descendants ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 41 both of Jews and Heathens, it seems pro- bable at least that such doctrine was that of Noah the common father of both, " a " just man, a preacher of righteousness," and one who " walked with God;" who had therefore abundant means of superna- tural instruction, and who cannot be sus- pected of having perverted them. We will examine first the Old Testament, as disclosing from inspiration the same mat- ters which appeared, as retained in the form, of tradition more or less corrupted, among the Heathens. Now the principal evidence to be brought forward in tJiis place, is that of a plurality of Persons, not exactly of a Trinity, in the Godhead : though we might be allowed to account the appearances of angels to Abraham, and to Lot, by threes, as some representation of this precise mystery s. The names however of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, belong to the more clear re- velation of the New Testament, and in the discussion of the divinity of the second and g As also tlie threefold benediction in Numbers vi. 24, 25, 26. and the doxology, Isaiah vi. 3. &c. 42 SERMON II. third Persons in the Trinity, in reply to the particular Unitarian articles upon those points, I propose to bring forward, from both parts of the Bible, the argunaents which particularly affect that branch of the question. All which I shall now endea- vour to shew, is, that the Deity was re- vealed by the Prophets, (though not al- ways in express terms,) and was under- stood by the Jewish nation, as consisting of more than one Person. It is a very striking circumstance, a cir- cumstance which infidelity itself must al- low to have great weight, that to a people whose propensity to idolatry was strong even up to the captivity ; to that people, the God who declared bimself so jealous of his Unity, revealed himself nevertheless by his Prophets under a plural name. It cannot be imputed to inadvertency that they used such a mode . of expression ; and when we consider the strong tendency of the Jews to Polytheism, and the heavy vengeance denounced, and often inflicted on them for it, we cannot suppose that language in which was conveyed^ even that which might ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 43 possibly be considered to give an appear- ance of sanction to that vice, would be employed by such persons, if they could have avoided the use of it ''. We cannot account for it, except by admitting that a plural name was peculiarly adapted to their and our God, Jehovah. That a plural name was commonly em- ployed, is manifest in the original language of the Scriptures ; and even in our own translation the plural form of speech fre- quently occurs, though one particular word, which ought to have been rendered Gods, in the plural, is commonly trans- lated into the singular, God, For an in- stance, we need to look no farther than the third word in the book : of \Genesis, the very opening of the Law. : "; In the be- " ginning ' Goc?* created the heavens and " the earth;" audi the same plural word is ^ Lord Bolingbroke, whose object is well known, actually argued thus : " When God proceeds to the cre- " ation of man, he calls in other beings to co-operate " with him, and make man in his and their image. This "seems to lay a foundation for polytheism, &c." Lmd Bolingbroke' s Works, iii. 300. 44 SERMON II. repeatedly used in the same manner. This very argument is ujion record, as having been strongly urged by a converted Jew'' to his brethren. " Why else," says he, " is that frequent mention of God, by " nouns of the plural number ; as in Gen. " i. 1. where the word ^lohim, which is " rendered God, is of the plural number? "Which demonstrates as evidently as may " be, that there are several Persons partak- *' ing of the Divine nature and essence." In our own authorised version, though it is not guarded with that precision which would have been employed, had Unitiari- anism, and not Popery, been the prevailing error of the times in which it was made ; yet, in our own version, abundant instances may be shewn of the use of the plural number in speaking of God. " ^ God said, " Let us make man in our image," &c. *' n»The Lord God said. Behold the man is " become as one of us, "&c. Again, in the prophecy of Isaiah, " "I heard the Voice ^ John Xeres. See Jones's Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity, iii. 1. ' Gen. i. 26. "" Gen. iii. 22. " Isaiah vi. 8. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 45 " of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, " and who will go for usP" Sec. It is to no purpose to multiply such instances, which might easily be done. Let any one search for himsielf, and he will easily find abundant satisfaction. This only ought to be observed ; that the expression here put in the mouth of God, cannot be under- stood as if he were speaking to the angels, as has been asserted by the Unitarians. For where do we find that God takes counsel of them, as to what he shall do, or what he shall forbear. *' "Who hath known *' the mind of the Lord, or who hath been " his counsellor.?" The expression can be understood and explained intelligibly only by admitting, that one Person of the Tri- nity here speaks to another. For as to the style which kings on earth now use, where- in the plural number is employed in speaking only of one ; (and this also has been suggested as accounting for the plural name in the Scripture;) as to that style, it must be shewn that they used it in Isaiah xi. 13, 46 SERMON II. the days of Moses at the very least, in or- der to prove any thing thereby : that ob- jection therefore falls to the ground. In the fourth chapter of the Prophet Daniel there is another striking mention of a plurality of Persons in the Godhead^ where "a Watcher and a Holy One" is stated to come down in the Prophet's vi- sion, and to pass judgment on Nebuchad- nezzar, which is declared to be done " by " the decree of the Watchers, and the de- " mand of the word of the Holy Ones." What Holy Ones can these be who pass decrees in heaven upon the kings of the earth ? What but the King of kings in his Trinity of Persons.? The same expression is continued through the next chapter also: " ^They took his glory from him," &c. » I will mention only a few more out of the very many texts, which shew that the nattie and power of the Lord are applied indifferently' to more than one Person in the Old Testament. " ■» The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right P Dan. V. 20. q Psalm xc. 1. (( ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 47 " hand," &c. Here the name of the Lord is attributed to two Persons. " '^ I will '* drive thee from thy station, and from *' thy state He will put thee down." Here acts of sovereignty are ascribed on equal terms to two Persons in the Deity. •' " I '* will dwell in the midst oftbee, and thou " shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath " sent Me unto thee." Here God pro- mises his presence and protection, while he declares himself io be sent by the Lord of hosts*. The doctrine of a Plurality of Persons is thus manifestly taught in the Old Testament, while it every where insists on the strictest Unity in the Godhead. Before we proceed to that proof which, as might be expected, is yet more dis- ' Isaiah xxii. 19. ^ Zechariah ii. 2. * There are in the Psalnis many passages which shew the union of the singular and plural appellation in God, thus implying a Trinity (or at least a Plurality) in the Unity. For instance, Psalm viii. 12. "Lords," in the plural, (is) " a Just Judge," in the singular. Condem- nation is also denounced on those who, though for- bidden to worship more Gods than one, should forget " Lords." Psalm ix. 17. "The wicked shall he turned " into hell, all the people who forget Lords." So these passages would stand in a literal version. 48 SERMON II. tinctly given in the New Testament, it is not unworthy of our notice to observe that remnant of tradition which kept alive some imperfect idea of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, even among the Pagans ; whether it were derived from the Jews, or from the Patriarchs, the sons of Noah. That tradition does not bear the stamp of human invention ; and we may account for it perhaps not unreasonably, by supposing it to have been held in its original state, by him who was the stock of the various na- tions settled in distant parts of the earth, from whom they derived the doctrines of their faith, as well as their being. We find it indeed existing at this day among the barbarous nation* of the peninsula of In- dia, where the doctrine of three Persons in one God remains in their Bramah, Veshnii, and Sceva; though, as it did among the Greeks and Romans, it remains with them in a very corrupted state ; and it is a re- markable coincidence, that the second Person in that Trinity, is, as in ours, a God incarnate, from whom acts of mercy pro- ceed towards man. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 49 This doctrine, if we had nothing to which we might trace its origin, would be unac- countable. But when we find that it coin- cides with the Christian Trinity, and with the plurality of Persons in the Godhead, Avhich is plainly taught by the plural name of God, and by the threefold appearances in the Old Testament; matters which we learn from those which are infinitely the oldest of all authentic records ; it is not un- reasonable to suppose, that this religious mystery may have been preserved to those Indian heathen by tradition, even from the time >vhen they separated themselves from the original seat of the cdmmon progeni- tors of mankind. They would naturally hand down their own faith, as we find that it was hainded down in othen cases ; for instance, in the book of Job probably a descendant from Esau ; who plainly mentions the Re- deemer, and calls him by the name of God. That faith soon lost its purity, ex- cept in the records of the one chosen na- tion ; while among the others, fragments broken and corrupted alone remained; 50 SERMON II. yet, by God's providence, fr^^gnients so singular and remarH^ble, as when com- pared with the true, and perfect doctrine, to give abundant evidence that they pro-r ceeded from the same source. Of the re- ligion of the Eastern nations in gene^-al we yet know comparatively little, and better knowledge will probably throw clearer light on the traces by which their superstitioms are connected with, and were derived from the true faith. But how shall we account for the very strong and remarkable resemblance which exists, among all the darkness of heathen superstition, between, that corrupt Trinity which was found in the Roman and Samo- t^racian Cabala, and the true Trinity of Christians and: of Holy Writ ? How; ex- cept by concluding that those superstitions proceeded from the same source with thfi true faith, and that they were imperfectly delivered to the ancestors of those nation^, by the sons of Noah ; or else that they were borrowed by the Greeks from Egypt, and by the Egyptians from Israel, The SariTiothracian Cabiri were the origin of the ON THE HOLY TRINltY. 51 Capitoline Trinity at Rome. Now the very word Cahiri, or Cahirim, potverful Ones, is Hebrew", aftd shews the origin of the doc- tritie, which was said to have been brought, within eight hundred ydars from the de- luge, from Sattrothracia into Phrygia, atid from thence to Rome. It is applied to the three preeminent deities who had sprang, by an easy Corruptton, out of the real atid original doctrine of a Trinity in Unity. In the Capitoline Trinity of Jupiter, Minerva, sind Juno, we may observe, that Minefvst, the Divine wisdom, is the second persbn ; no slight coincidence vvi|;h the Wisdom 6f God, the Word. The Platonic Trinity, as it was held and taught by his followers, till they deviatied, as was the case in later times, from the doctrine, consisted of ^ three original hy- postases : — the first, 7 self- existence and goodness ;: th© second, mind j the third, life " C3'^T32 xitSeipot. Seat 8uv«t6(. See GadWor'th's In- tel. Syst: 451. ^ Tfsij »p^txou vTrOfaarets, y To Iv K«t T ayaSov, va;, xai i^vx'l' E 2 52 SERMON IL or soul. Neither was this doctrine in- vented by Plato, as we are told by Plo- tinus, who asserts ^that it had been in an- cient time uttered before his days, though not distinctly ;, having been delivered by Parmenides. But Parmenides followed the Pythagorean system, and therefore the doctrine may be carried up to Pythagoras ; and indeed it is by various ancient authors asserted to have been the doctrine of his School*. Now Pythagoras, as they declare'', was instructed in the Orphic mysteries re- lating to the gods, from whence all the Grecian theology was derived ; from whence also Plato afterwards learned it ; z See Cudworth's Intel. Syst. 546. Awao-a yag i) irag' 'EA^)JV«)l/ iro^ia tijj Og^ixtjf eg-j fiufayoj- •yiaf exyovoi' Ttfxirrs ftev Ilbdayoga •ssapa. AyAao^ijjiAa ra ■asqi Qecov opyia SiSa^^SsvTOf, divrepe 8s DXaTaJVOf vifoie^aifisva tjjv vravTeXij ■arspi thtiov sTn^nrjv, ex. ts tmv lluScxyogsKov xa» Op- fixaiv ypaijjiiJMTcov. Theol. Plafonis, 1. 1. e. v. ^A Trinity of Persons for the purpose of creation was taught by the Pythagoreans, and by Xenocrates. Aura T8 a/>*n)f, spuvos, xpovog. See Cudworth's Intel. Syst. 547. dJt is not to be disputed that the existence of the Platonic Triad or Trinity, as deities, has been, and may well be called in question. Nor is much weight rested upon it here. The present argument only brings it for- ward, if it may be admitted, collaterally, as some addi- tional confirmation to that which is more decidedly proved by the other evidence here adduced, viz. that some idea of a Trinity in the Godhead did exist among the heathens. That it was taught by Plato himself is not here asserted, but that it was the doctrine of his School after, as it had been of other philosophers before him. £ 3 54 SERMON II. luge. Whether it came from Japhcth, or from the Israelites, it is still the most an- cient doctrine of theology in the world, after that of the simple existence of a God. It ought not to excite wonder that the doc- trine of the Trinity was corrupted by Pla- tqnists and others, so that three gods were often substituted for three hypostases, or perscins, in one God^ It is far more won- derful that a doctrine so mysterious should have continued to exist at all : and it may not be too much for Christians to con- clude, that if it had been of men, it must have come to nought; but since it was, of God, nothing could overthrow it. TThe proofs of this doctrine are, as might be expected, far more explicit artd precise in the New, than in the Old Testament. The names of the three persons are men- tioned, injdifFerently, as performing acts of sovereignty and divine power; and they are used without distinction as to order and precedence; a circumstance which plainly intimates the perfect equality which exists between them, and which is essen- tial to their Unity in the Godhead. ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 55 The first and most important proof of this nature, is the use of all the three names in the sacrament of baptism, and that by our Saviour's own express command; for it is impossible, that in the very rite by which he £tppointed the initiation of con- verts into the Christian faifh, any thing should be introduced by him which coiild be injurious to that faith. His words are these: " *Go therefore and teach all na- '' tions j" or, as in the margin of our trans- lation, " f Make disciples of all nations, " baptizing thetti in the name of the Fa- " ther, and of the Son, and oif the Holy " Ghost" How distinctly are all the three Persons here named, as equally essential to that rite which was to be the seal of Chris- tians for ever ! And. yet ChristiaBiTty came to supersede among the heathens their po- lytheism ; and it always teaches, that theTe is but One God, If therefore, in the rite by whieh converts are to be initiated into that faith, it be rte. xvii. s John vi. 38. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 77 « ^ My Father is greater than I ;" the word of the Apostle, that " ' the head of " Christ is God ;" and his own remarkable declaration of his '' ignorance, as the Son of man, when the final judgment ishould come; are all easily reconciled with the foregoing passages, by understanding them as spoken of his human nature ; which re- tained all its natural deficiencies, while the Godhead, as has been, and shall be yet more fully, shewn, resided in his divine Person in actual identity with the Deity of the Father. This distinction between the divine* and human natures in Christ is plainly marked by St. Paul ; " ' He (God) " hath appointed a day wherein he shall "judge the world in righteousness, by " "" (in) the man whom he hath ordained." If this appellation, " the man," be thought any argument in favour of the unbeliever's assertion, that Christ is '* a mere* man ;" how can they make that to agree with the expression of the Prophet Zediariah, who h John xiv. 28. ' 1 Cor. xi. 3. k Mark xiii. 3. ■* Acts xvii. 31. •" Ey avSpt, &C. 78 . SERMON III. calls that man the Almighty's fellow? " "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, " and against the man that is my fellow, " saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shep- *' herd, and the sheep shall be scattered." Vfh^i fellow can the Lord of hosts have, except a second Person in the same in- communicable and incomprehensible God- head ? " "The supreme God," says a sound and excellent Divine, " who was mani- " fest in the flesh, and was in Christ re- " conciling the world to himself, shall re- " main in the same personal union with " him, till he has judged the world, *and is " ready to deliver up the kingdom. God " will be present in the same Person with " our Judge, and therefore, the act of " judgment is ascribed indifferently to " both; either that God will judge the " world, or that we shall appear before the "judgroent seat of Christ." The human infirmities and human passions which our Saviour shewed, when he hungered and " Zechariah xiii. 7- " Jones, Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity: art. Divi- nity of Christ. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 79' wept, are only proofs of the reality of his mortal nature; and are by no means in- consistent with such a union, as preserved the distinction between his two natures ; but rather they are necessary consequences of it. But there is yet a farther argument fot the actual supreme Godhead of our Sa- viour, to be drawn from the Old Testa- ment ; though from want of due caution it has lost its proper force in our translation. And when we recollect the plain distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which the New Testament exhibits, this argu- ment will go far to prove the identity of Godhead, without any confusion of Per- sons, in the Holy Trinity. It is a most remarkable fact, that in many prophecies of the Old Testament^ which plainly relate to the Son, our Sa- viour, he is called in the original language by the peculiar and incommunicable name Jehovah ; though our translators seem often to have given way to the Jewish cus- tom, of avoiding the mention of that sa- cred name, and have rendered it the Lord. 80 SEHMON III. The Prdphfet Jeremiah speaks of the fulurife kingdom of our Saviour upon earth, in these words : " ^ I will raise unto David a " righteous Branch, and a King shall reigtl " and prosper. In his days Judah shall " be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely." Thesfe expressions refer, without any sha- dow of doubt, t6 the future kingdom of the Messiah. Who that Messiah Was to be, We learn from the original words^ though not from the received translation, of th^ next followirig verse. " And this is his "iiame whereby he shall be called, Jeho- " vah (not the Lord) our Righteousness." The words of the Prophet Isaiah?, which St. John quotes as uttered concerning Christy and which have been already no- ticed, as proving that he is the Lord of hosts, prove moreover that the name Jeho- vah is his own name, and thereby strengthen their former evidence. The Prophet says, when, as the Apostle informs us, he saw Christ's glory, and spake of him, not, " I p Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. i Isa. vi. 5. f John xii. 41. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 81 /'saw the Lord," as we commonly read, but, " 1 saw Jehovah:" and the hymn of the angels to him is, " Holy, holy, holy," not Lord God, but " Jehovah of hosts." We might also insist on that triple expres- sion of adoration; but since it is not a di- rect prolof, though no bad presumptive evi- dence of the Trinity, when united with the others, I shall content myself with this mention of it. Isaiah also ' remarkably applies that highest of all names to Christ, in prophesying of his forerunner; " The *' voice of him that crieth in the wilder- " ness, Prepare ye the way," not of the Lord, b)it ^' of Jehovah." St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans *, when arguiAg for the necessity of calling upon Christ, cites the words of the Prophet Joel; as having solemnly declared the same thing. Let us see how those words stand in the liinguage of the original prophecy. " "And ** it shall come to pass, that whosoever " shall call on the name of Jehovah shall s Isa. xl. 3. « Rom. X. 12. See Bp. Horsley's 30th Sermon. " Joel ii. 32. English Bible, iii. 5. Hebrew Bible. G 82 SERMON III. " be delivered : for in mount Zion and in' " Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as Jeho- " vaJi hath said, and in the remnant whom " Jehovah shall call." Joel therefore, ac- cording to St. Paul's view of his prophecy, means our Saviour Christ Jesus, when he there speaks of Jehovah j and that name by which he does not scruple to call him, belongs to the one and true and Almighty Gpd. The Unitarians profess to admit that Christ is the Messiah. How they can fairly avoid the conclusion that he is Je- hovah also, it is difficulty if not impossible to shew. St. John the beloved disciple, who h^s left us the fullest and best account of all which belongs to our Saviour's divine na- ture, and of the doctrinal part of our relir gion, does not leave us without his evi-^ dence on this point of the Godhead of Christ. He lived longer than the other Apostlesj and saw the heresy of Cerinthus, and others, who taught doctrines not much unlike to those of the Socinians and mo- dern Unitarians on this point. Such an Apostle^ living at such a period, opens hi^ ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 83 Gospel with a direct assertion of the eter- nal preexistence of Christ, in unity of power, and identity of essence and of Godhead, with the Father. To the Word, which expression unquestionably denotes Christ, he there distinctly attributes the act of creation ; which the book of Genesis as distinctly attributes to God; but by b. plural name, a circumstance of which St. John and every Jew must have been well aware. In the second chapter also, that book of Ge- nesis continuing the account of the creation, which the Apostle ascribes to Christ, says, " These are the generations of the heavens " and the earth when they were created ; " in the day that," not the Lord God, as in our version, but, " Jehovah Gods made " the earth and the heavens," &c. That incommunicable singular name is here, and in many other places, coupled with the word Gods in the plural number; which teaches plainly enough, that the peculiar name of the supreme God belongs to all the Persons included in the Trinity, though the Godhead be Unity itself. 84 SERMON m. There seems indeed to be no other fair and rational way of accounting for so un- usual a form of speech; and it does not appear to be possible to shew any other, without imputing error to the words of him who is absolute perfection in every thing. St. Jj^hn declares in his Gospel, that " ''The Word w^s in the beginning." It could hardly have been thought, that any one would seriously maintain, as has been done on the Socinian side of the question, that this signifies the beginning only of the creation, when the Apostle goes on to say, that " the Word was with God, and th^ '* Word was God''' in the beginning ; and afterwards, that " all things were made « by him." St. John's assertion., there- fore, of the eternity of the Word,, and of the creation of all things by him, with that of St. Paul, " yBy vvhom also he made the worlds;" and others, to the same effect, afford the only explanation of the use of a plural word, as a name of the Almighty Creator. The fruitless attempts of the ''John i. 1. yHek i. 2. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 85 Unitarians to alter the version of this last passage, prove indeed that they feel its true and proper sense to be directed isMiediately against their doctrine. That great work of creation was performed by Jehovah, in his Trinity of Persons, and especially, as we have seen, by the second Person ; to whom, therefore, the name of Jehovah must of necessity belong. I need not here enter upon the identity of the Holy Ghost in Godhead with the Father and the Son, because that is made a separate article by the Unitarian, and will be separately discussed in these discourses. St. John clearly asserts, that *'the *' Word" performed that, which in the book of Genesis is ascribed to Jehovah ; and he afterwards shews, that by the Word he means our Blessed Saviour; when he says, " ''The Word was made flesh, and " dwelt among us." Similar to this is also the language of St. Paul ; " " Without " controversy great is the mystery of God- * Eo-xijvaio-ev, pitched his tent ; L e. he took that flesh as a covering. John i. 14. a 1 Tim. iii. 16, G 3 86 SERMON 111. " liness, God was manifest in the flesh:" expressions which, used as. they are by those Apostles, can apply only to our Sa- viour in his incarnate state. And here it seems proper to notice the insinuation, that we teach a " subordi- " nate Creator and Governor of the uni- *' verse." For it is plainly insinuated by the Unitarian, " when he in a pointed manner disclaims that doctrine,, while shewing the particulars of dissent in their party from our faith. The Church of England holds, that the Son is the second Person in the Godhead, which Godhead is throyghout infinite in all perfections ; and so therefore are all the three Persons alike. Of infinity we cannot, from the very constitution of our nature, frame any distinct conception ; but it is essential to all the peculiar properties of God. He is infinite in goodness, in power, in wisdom, in all his attributes. Therefore no humble Christian, no reason- able man, will expect that limited and im- *> Belsliam, ix. 2. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 8? perfect natures, like ours, should be capa- ble of comprehending those unbounded properties. Omnipotence is infinity of power. We hold, and we must hold, that it is fully possessed by the whole Godhead, and by every Person therein alike ; because all the three Persons are but one in God- head ; and Omnipotence is its attribute. Far be it from me however to attempt an ejcplanation of this sublime mystery of the Holy Trinity, " farther than the very " text doth, as it were, lead me by the " hand \" The attempt to illustrate by similitudes has often been made, but it must be made with extreme caution. Our images must all be drawn from things with which we are acquainted; things of the visible creation, and therefore imperfect : and there is manifest danger of our apply- ing in some degree that imperfection, which can hardly be separated from such things in our minds, to that Being who partakes not of it at all. His nature, as b^ing absolutely perfect, must in our pre- = Martyr's Letters, p. 64. G 4 88 SERMON III. sent stage of existence be absolutely in- comprehensible ; and equally so in regard to his infinity, whether we consider him in Unity or in Trinity. Of infinity we can have no more than a negative idea, namely, that it has no bounds ; but its po- sitive properties, whatever they be, are be- yond our utmost conception. The attempt to simplify an avowed mys- tery, however soothing to human presump- tion, is a mischievous attempt. It may lead us to some doctrine intelligible to our comprehensions ; but it is almost, if not al- together certain, that it will lead us astray from the truth ■*. That Christ our Lord was, and is, and always shall be the most high God, together and equally with the Father, is the faith of Christians ; and this, without any attempt to bring it down to the level of our understandings, has, I trust, d Admirably has this been urged by a great and ex- cellent writer of our Church, whose humility all may well emulate, though few can vie with the profundity of his learning, or the acuteness of his understanding : Hooker, Eccles. Pol. v. 51, 2, 3, 4. &c. See note ", page 36. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 89 been abundantly proved by the word of Scripture itself. We might and we do add the testimony of that voice from hea- ven which called our Lord, God's beloved Son, at his ^baptism and transfiguration, to shew that he is not called The Son merely as holy men have been called sons of God. We might and do challenge our adver- saries to produce an instance of the appli- cation of that title, or of the " only be- *' gotten Son \" to any mere mortal. We might and do argue from the first of these passages, that he who had yet done np-^ thing remarkable, was called "the beloved " Son," in regard to his antecedent rela- tion to the Father; to which he himself, just before he suffered, referred. " ^ Now, *' O Father, glorify thou me with the glory " which I had with thee before the world " was." Lastly, we appeal to our Lord's own direct and unequivocal words ; " "Be- " fore Abraham was, I am ;" an expres- sion which is not to be smothered by talk- er' • • ?<-.rt , ?ri -'j. c Luke Hi. 22. f John iv. 9. See Noelli Catechismus in Enchirid. Theol. p. 97. s John xvii. 5. ^ John viii. 58. 90 SERMON III. ing of preexistenoe in the Divine purpose; an expression which not only claims exist- ence before Abraham, but the property of ^elf-existence, of never ceasing to be, of being He to whom all time is present". And so the Jews understood it; for they took up stones to put him to death for blasphemy, " because," said they, " thou, ** being a man, makest thyself God''." Did he then retract, or explain away his ex- pression ? No. He justified it, and shewed that he was entitled to the name of The Son of God in a peculiar manner; far beyond those who are called children of God on account of their holiness, or of the gift of inspiration which was upon them. And that Person, who made that claim to Godhead, was he who received miraculous testimony by a voice from heaven, that God was well pleased with him. Could God be well pleased with an impostor and i An expression by which he claims the right df bear- ing that peculiar name by which God designated him- self to Moses; " Say unto the children of Israel, /aw " hath sent me unto you." Exod. iii. 1-i. ^ John X. 33. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 91 blasphemer? The question requires no an- swer. When the high priest adjured our Lord by the living God, which was the regular formof a judicial oath, to tell "whether " he were the Christ, the Son of God," he asserted that he was: for besides that St. Mark declares explicitly, " Jesus said, I "am;" the corresponding expression, " Thou hast said," was evidently a decided assent. And the Jews acted upon it as suck, and punished him for blasphemy: not for making himself the greatest of pro^ phets, but for making himself God. The Godhead of our Saviour being thus established from the incontrovertible word of Holy Scripture; for I have declined making use of the opinions held by the Fathers of the Christian Church, in its ear- liest and most incorrupt times ; because, strongly as they bear testimony to it, and greatly as their testimony deserves to be esteemed, our opponents protest against any authority of man : the Godhead of the Son being established from the word of God himself, it remains that we notice 92 SERMON III. the Unitarian's denial of the Atonement made by Christ'. For if they could set aside his Godhead, there would be an end at once to the doctrine of a sacrifice made by him to atone for the sins of all mankind. " n>No man can by any means " redeem his brother, nor give to God a " ransom for him." Therefore they seek to degrade our Lord to a mere man, " in " all respects like unto his fellows." But the falsehood of that blasphemy has been shewn ; and we will now proceed, lest the argument should seem to be defective on a point of so great importance, shortly to prove the most comfortable and important doctrine of the Atonement from the words of Scripture. But, first, it may not be improper to no- I This is truly to us the very life of the question. And it would have afforded large ground indeed for discourse at present, did I not feel myself deterred by the complete and masterly discussion which it has al- ready received from far abler hands. I shall therefore only notice it shortly in this plaqe, Observing that it de- pends on the decision of the Unitarian's question as to the actual Godhead of Christ. "1 Psalm xlix. 7- ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 93 tice the prevalence of idea of an atonement for offences throughout the world. Vica- rious sacrifice has been, from the begin- ning, the practice of all people alike. Now reason could not have taught, that the death of a brute should have any efficacy to make atonement for the sins of man; for there is no reason whatever in the thing itself, why it should work that effect. Nei- ther can it be imagined, as the Apostle ar- gues, " " that the blood of bulls and of "goats should take away sin." The prac- tice must have been of positive institution ; and we read of it as such so early as the sacrifice of Abel. Nor is there any way to account for that institution, except as a type of him who was to be the one great sacrifice, whose death was to make atone- ment for the sins of the whole world. Our Lord hiinself says^ "°The Son, of man; " came to give his life a ransom for many." Thus, in the institution of the holy sacra- ment of his body and blood, he says, " ""This is my blood of the new testament, 1 Heb. X. 4. ° Matth. xx, 28. PJbid. xxvi. 28. ^-l SERMON ill. " which is shed for many /or the remission ** of sins;" and this is his own declaration, and made with all possible solemnity. In the Acts of the Apostles, we find St. Paul "^ declaring, that it was the blood of Christ which had purchased us : " Take heed " unto yourselves, and to all the flock over " which the Holy Ghost hath made you *' overseers, to feed the Church of God, " which he hath purchased with his own *' blood." To the Romans he declares, that " "^ God spared not his own Son, but *' delivered him up for us all" To the Galatians, " ' Christ hath redeemed us from " the curse of the Law, being made a " curse for us" Redemption to mankind is declared to be the consequence, not of any purer doctrine which he taught, but of his being made a curse for us in his cru- cifixion ; that is to say, our salvation is the consequence of his sacrifice of Atonement. To Timothy St. Paul declares, * that Jesus Christ " gave himself a ransom for all;" q Acts XX. 28. ' Rom. viii, 32. » Gal. iiL 13. « Tim. ii. 5. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 95 and to the Hebrews, that they " "are sanc- " tified through the offerings of the body " of Jesus Christ once for all." St. John, in his first Epistle, tells us, that ""the " hlood of Jesus Christ his (God's) Son " cleanseth us from all sin." •' ^Without shedding of blood there is " no remission." This was typically shewn in the Old Law; and abundant proof has been given from the New, and it might, if necessary, be multiplred tenfold, to shew that the sacrifice of Atonement made by our blessed Saviour is that, to which al^ the typical sacrifices and atonements of the Mosaic Law refer. The matter, though concisely treated, has been even here abundantly established '. It has, I tfust, been clearly, though « Heb. X. 10. "^ John i. 7. y Heb. ix. 22. ^The whQle.^rgpment belonging to this question may be seen, as it is most fully and powerfully discussed by Dean Magee, in his excellent work " On Atonement and " Saerificei" He fully demonstrates the fallacy of the whole Unitarian system, and especially of the artifices by which they seek to do away the Christian doctrine. There is not space for me to enter farther into the ques- tion at present, nor do I think it needful so to do. > 96 SERMON III. shortly proved, that our Blessed Saviour is not ** a proper human being in all respects " like unto his fellows ;" but Very God, of one substance with the Father. It has been proved, that he did not come down, and much less was he created, " to super- " sede the Mosaic institute, and introduce " a new and more liberal dispensation ;" and that he did not come merely to " re- " veal the doctrine of eternal life by a re- " surrection from the dead." These were consequences, not causes of his coming; and they arose out of the grand object, his sacrifice of Atonement and Propitiation. < . We cannot, and God forbid that we ever should, give up, for the idle fancies of mor- tal vanity, the express declarations of the inspired word of God. We cannot so make shipwreck of our faith, and only hope- Rather let us ever hold fast that comer stone of our faith. Rather let us join with the saints above in glorifying thee our Omnipotent Redeemer; " *for thou " wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God « Rev. V. £)y 12, 13. ON THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST. 97 " through thy blood" And let us say in tbe words of their hymn, " Worthy is the " Lamb that was slain, to receive power, " and riches, and wisdom, and strength, *' and hpnour, and glory, and blessing. — *' Blessing, and honour, and glory, and *' power, be unto him that sitteth upon the *' throne, and unto the Xamb for ever and ** ever." H SERMON IV. OfK THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. John xvi. 13. JVhen he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he tvill guide you into all truth. -I HE words which I have just now re- cited seem to imply, in their natural and obvious sense, that which comes next to be proved in maintaining the Catholic faith, and therein that of our own Church, against the tenets of Unitarians- They, the Unitarians, utterly deny the existence of the Holy Ghost, as a Person in the Holy Trinity. Still do they endeavour, upon this point also, through an artifice similar to that which was noticed in the precje4ing discourse, to raise against our Church the prgudices of those, who hold together with PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 99 US the Unity of the Deity^ by a misstate- merat of the question. They assert, as if it were in opposition to the Church of England, that "'Unitarians do not believe ^' in the Personal existence of the Holy *' Spirit, as a Being distinct from the " Supreme." But neither ,dq we, nor yet does any other Christian Church maintain such a belief. The fair statement of the point under discussion would have been, to hanie left out the latter part of the sen- tence, arid to have declared merely their disbelief of the Personality of the Holy Spirit ; for that is the whole of our doc- trine in this matter to which their denial applies. In discussing questions of such infinite importance, it is much to be desired that the spirit of party should be carefully re- strained ; that it should not induce us to hazard assertions, or at ieast insinuations so iplain that they cannot be misunder- stood, though they be utterly groundless ; in the hope jof brifiging idiscredit on the a Belskam, x, .8. H 2 100 ' 7 SERMON IV, cause of the opponents. It was neces-^ sary, in my last discourse also, to direct our attention to the same sort of conduct, in regard to the question of our blessed Sa- viour's Godhead; where, by disclaiming the doctrine of " " a subordinate Creator " and Governor of the universe," the Uni- tarian's advocate has manifestly charged us with maintaining it, ,|^ The same has been done, and in the same covert way of insinuation here also, with regard to the Personality of the Holy Ghost. They do not believe him to be possessed of " Personal existence." This we do believe; and thus far the question is brought fairly under discussion. But then other matter is introduced,, as a conclu- sion to this profession of disbelief; namely, that they do not acknowledge his Personal existence, '^ as a Being distinct from the " Supreme." Neither do we now, nor did we ever teach this. There can be no doubt, that he who should teach or believe^ that the Son and Holy Ghost are Gods separate ^ Belsham's' Letters to the Bishop of Londonr PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 101 and distinct from the Father, would teach or believe Tritheism ; whereas the Church of England positively declares, as her first article, that there is but one God, But we teach the existence of three Persons in that one Godhead; though we feel that this mystery is not clearly explained to us, and are contented to acknowledge it as one of the secret things which " belong to the " Lord our God." We do not presume to assign limits to that Godhead which surpasses all our comprehension. We do not pretend to be wise above that measure which the Almighty has allotted to us. We are contented to believe, even without understanding them, those things which pass man's understanding ; and to rest sa- tisfied, in this life, with that which is re- vealed : believing it, as a mystery which we cannot hope to unravel ; and believing just so much, as it has pleased the Lord to unfold to our mortal capacities, concerning that divine nature, which no human facul- ties can throughly comprehend. To at- tempt more than this would be presump- tion. To refuse so much were disobedi- H 3 102 SERMON IV. ence and infidelity. How these things are so, we do not therefore in the smallest de- gree pretend to explain ; but that they are so, has in part been shewn, and shall now be farther proved from the Scriptures themselves: and that is the best of all proof. That all Godhead, which comprehends all its attributes, resides in the Father, is not in dispute. That it resides also, arid equally, in the Son, was shewn in the last disooilrse. That it resides in precisely the same degree in the Holy Ghost, as a sepa- rate Person in the divine Trinity, comes now to be proved from the same unques- tionable authority. The first passage which shall be mentioned to that purpose is my present text ; *' «= When he the "Spirit of truth is come, he will guide '* you into all truth." We have here a form of speaking which indicates Person- ality, if it indicates any thing. The expres- sion is evidently intentional, and marks the purpose for which it is employed. The c JtJhn xvi. 13. PERSONALITY OE THE HOLY GHOST. 103 Spirit of truth is, as we know, in the Greek of the neuter gender. The regular mode of expression in any language, would have been, not he, but it, the Spirit of truth, if the Spirit were merely an attribute of a Person. The masouline gender is however substituted for the neuter in the original language «*, where it is most important : for in this particular translations prove nothing on either side. He therefore is used hert ; he, the masculine gender, , expressly to mark the Personality of the Holy Spirit. The same is the case in other passages ; ^' ^The Spirit of truth whom,"" denoting Personality in the same manner, " whom »f the world cannot receive :" " ^Even the " Spirit of truth, ivho proceedeth from the '* Father." A form of speech so unusual ^ EXSIMJ TO VTVEtilAlt T>15 «X>)'^EI«;. '{; f" ^ • '._ . ? jjohn^iv. 17^ . . .J / John xy. 26, " The; Comforter, which is t)ie Holy " Ghost, — he shall teach you all things." xiv. 26. " If " I depart I will send him unto you." xvi. 7- " He *.' wjll guide you into all trut;!]^: for he sliall npt speak of " himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he " speak : and he will shew you things to come. He " shall glflrify ms,'^' &c. xvi. 13, &c,! H 4 104 SERMON IV. must have been employed for some suffi- cient, purpose, which it was peculiarly cal- culated to effect: for to suppose any in- accuracy or oversight in God's word, is to suppose imperfection in God himself; which is both impious and impossible. Since then that form of speech must have been employed intentionally, there must also be a peculiar signification in it, and it is for the Unitarians to shew what be its peculiar import, if it be not that here maintained. St. Peter's discourse to Ana- nias, immediately preceding the judgment which was inflicted on him, is an express mention of the Person of the Holy Ghost* distinctly as God : " ^ Why hath Satan " filled thine heart to lie to. the Holy *' Ghost? Thou hast not lied unto men, " but unto God." St. Paul says to the Romans, "''The Spirit itself maketh in - " tercession for us." We have not here indeed the expression of the Spirit himself to mark Personality, but we find it to be indicated with abundant plainness by the s Acts V. 3, 4. ^ Rom. yiii. 26. PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 105 Avhole tenor of the Apostle's Jexpression in this place. For surely the act of making intercession implies Personality in him who makes it : since it cannot be said, that the spirit of a person, meaning a part of him- self, intercedes with the rest of himself for the pardon of offenders. God's Spirit, mentioned in that sense which the Oppo^ nents of the Trinity would put upon the word, might ;6e moved, might be affected. But it could not be the active agent to- wards God. It cduld not move him to do nor to forbear any thing; for that is the office of a distinct Person, the Person of the Holy Ghost. With the same distinc- tion, the Prophet Isaiah also speaks : " ' And " now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath " sent me." Here is a manifest distinction of Persons, though not any division of Godhead. The Father, and his Spirit, are both particularly named. We could not, consistently with the common rules of language, say of a man, that a person and his spirit had done any thing. The spirit > Isaiah xlviii. 16. l66 SERMON IV. of a man is himself; not only witiiout di- vision, but without distinction. But here is a distinction between the Father and his Spirit ; such, as belongs not to human na- ture; but such as does, however incom- prehensibly, belong to the Deity''. Many more texts might easily be collected upon this point, in which acts of power and do- minion are imputed personally to the Holy Spirit; and I have selected only some of those which seem to me to mark the dis- tinction of Persons most plainly; because I would, previous to going farther into that evidence, notice the evasion which is evidently prepared in the expressions by which the Unitarians deny the Personality k. «« We ought to recollect, that wljile witl) regard to " the Holy Spirit, the ordinary current phraseology of *' Scripture is frarned on the supposition of his PeTson- " ality, thjs is not the case with any thing else, which, "^although occasionally personified, is not a persoq. " In other cases, the language of personification is the " exception to the general phraseology.' But in this "» John i. S3. PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 113 come aftjerward : that is, on Christ Jesus. If the Holy Ghost had signified only mira- culous gifts, the disciples at Ephesus must have heard of them ; for they were then well known to reside in the Christian Church. But since that name denoted one of the Persons in that Trinity, whom it was not John's office to preach, those disciples had heard nothing of him. Had thfey been baptised to our Saviour's bap- tism, the case would have been otherwise ; arid St, Paul's (question impHes it; " Unto "what' then were ye Ijaptized?" For in that case they must have learned the Holy Ghost equally with the Father and the Son. "■> Jesus," says the Evangelist, "was " led up of the Spirit into the wilderness." Is the Spirit here only gifts and powers ? " "Jesus also being baptized, and praying, " the heaven was opened, and the Holi/ '\X}host" (literally the p Spirit, the Holy One} " descended in a hodily shape like a n Matt. iv. 1. ,: ° Luke iii. ?J. P To w»gu;*« TO Aynv. 114 SERMON IV. " dove upon him ; and a voice came from " heaven, which said. Thou art my be- " loved Son ; in thee I am well pleased." I have cited this passage at length, be- cause it is a most remarkable manifestation of the three Persons in the Holy Trinity at the same time : the voice of the Fadier from heaven ; the Son incarnate upon earth ; and the Holy Ghost in a bodily re- presentation in the air. It cannot here be said, that the Holy Ghost means merely miraculous powers; for besides the remark- able distinction of Person which the ori* ginal language marks, " the Spirit, the *' Holy One," there was a visible appear- ance; and no mention is made, at that time, of any endowment with miraculous powers. ^If men find it convenient to q St. Paul says, " The Spirit searcheth all things, "^even the deep things of God." This then is no de- scription of the power of God. (See Pearson, Art. VIII.) If the Holy Ghost were not a Person, he could not be blasphemed; (see Pearson, ib.) and that the Holy Ghost is not the same as the Father or the Son, is shewn in the same place. He " proceedeth Jrom the ''Father." John xv. 26. " He shall receive of mine." John xvi. 14. " If I go not away, the Comforter will PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 115 fancy a thing, in order that they may build upon it a system of faith, or ra;ther of unbelief, they do so at their own peril. Only let them not say tEat the New Tes- tament warrants their dangerous and pre- sumptuous imaginations. Let them not talk of doing things in a figure, as one of the ■^ leaders of Unitarianism does, in regard to our Saviour's death and atonement. Where- ever the words of Scripture will bear a li- teral sense, the literal sense is the best; the only one indeed on which we are au- thorized to build. For the word of God was sent to give us instruction, not to re- ceive our emendations; and if we once depart from the obvious signification, we give a loose to fancy, and open a way to all the capricious insolence and licentious imaginations of man. That same marked distinction of the three Persons in the Godhead is found in the Epistle to the" " not come Unto you 3 but if I depart I will send him ^ unto you." (John xvi. 7-) The one Person was to be absent, when the other was present; consequently, as Persons, they could not be the same. ' Dr. Priestley. I 2 116 SERMON IV. Hebrews ; of which our adversaries are not disposed to allow that it probeeded from St. Paul. Without entering here into that question, thus much may be asserted with- out contradiction, that it was written in that same age, and was received as sound Christian doctrine by the priaiitive Church- es ; whatever might have been the ques- tions raised as to its true author*. To Christians therefore the Epistle is good and sufficient authority. Therein Christ is said to have "^ * offered himself by the « Holy Spirit without spot to God." We have in this place distinct mention of our Saviour, of the Holy Ghost, and of the Father, who must be denoted by the word * Origen was of opinion that St. Paul was the author, though the Unitarians have named his authority as supporting the opposite opinion; and in the extract which they cite, have fraudulently suppressed the paTt ^Mth they rtoist have known to support the authen- ticity of the Epistle. Origen says, concerning any Church which shall hold it for a work of St. Paul, aurtj suSoxjfiaro xa/ ewt tourw- and in his Epistle to Afrieanus declares his ititention to publish an argument, aj ««- Sa^iv Tou aV«/ TlauXOu tijy sffitrTaXriv, against those who dis- puted it. t Heb. ix. 14. PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 11^ God }n this place, because the other two Persons are particularly specified. Neither will this mention of the Holy Spirit bear any other sense than that of Personality : for he is described as the agent, through whom Christ offered himself to God the Father, as the sacrifice for mankind. Again he is distinctly personified by. . St. Paul, when he says, " "We have access by one " Spirit to the Father." If this; do not denote Personality, what does it denote? We have access to one Person by the agency of another. Miraculous gifts and powers, into which the ^Unitarians would explain away the positive personal appel* lation, can give no access to God, though access may be given upon account of them. But the Holy Ghost, who imtpediatdy con- ferred such gifts and powers, who worked with those on whom they were conferred, aiad whose aid and fellowship stilly though not still visibly, supports all true Chrisr tians; he does gipe us access to God. He does it through the good works which he ,K Y .; u Eph. ii. 2. • ' I 3 118 SERMON IV. produces in our conduct, and which enable us to prefer our humble claim to a share in the gracious and all-powerful interces- sion and sacrifice of our ever blessed Re- deemer. In the same manner also the Spirit is mentioned to the Corinthians, as personal, and distinct from the Father : " ^ The Spirit " searcheth all things, even the deep things " of God." St. Peter's judgment on Ana- nias has already been adduced: " y Why *' hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the " Holy Ghost ? — thou hast not lied unto ** men, but unto God." In this place the name and power of God unequivocally at- tributed to the Holy Ghost, plainly shew his participation in the Godhead ; while the many expressions of distinct Person- ality above mentioned, establish, so far as we can comprehend it, arid yet farther, his existence as a separate Person in that God- head. U\n The evidence on this point would how- ever not be complete, were we to omit » 1 Cor. ii. 10. y Acts v. 3, 4. PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST, lit) those two most remarkable and significant passages which are contained in the form of baptism, as it was ordained by our Sa- viour himself, and in the blessing . used by his Apostles: " ^Go ye and teach all na- " tions, baptizing them in the name of the " Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy " Ghost." Now let us call to mind what was the state of all nations at the time when this commandment was given. The Roman power had extended itself over all the countries around Judaea, and indeed over the whole civilized world. Where- ever their arms established their empire, its officers, civil and military, stationed upon their conquests, conveyed the reli- gion of Rome; which was the, most cor- rupt sort of Polytheism. They were ever ready to adopt, as objects of worship, the deities of any state which they conquered. Nay, we know that it was proposed at one time, to enrol Christ himself among the multitude of their Gods ; and the unso- ciable tenets of Christianity, which did not 2 Matt, xxviii. 19. I 4 120 SERMON IV. admit, any communion or participation in God's honours, alon^ prevented it from being done. The other nations also of the world were, without exception, Pa- gans; and all worshipped more than one Godv The Christian faith was sent forth to correct and reform those erroneous con- ceptions and idolatrous practices. It taught, that the world was reconciled to the one only God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ; and that men should thence- forth turn from those vanities in their wor- ship, as St. Paul instructed tlie Athenians, and adore the one, living, eternal, and only "true God. To those nations then, brought up in such mixed worship of many deities ; to those nations, did our Saviour send his Apostles to make disciples of them,! and to turn them from their own mistaken worship, to one which acknow- ledged only one God, in the strictest pos- sible sense; and in order to'i'effect that conversion, they were to baptize them in the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Let any person of common sense and judgment put the question upon PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 121 this to himself. Was it probable that any man of, sound judgment, was it possible that any inspired teacher, and above all others, that the Christ himself, should have proposed to those Pagan vs^orshippers of many deities, a form of initiation, wherein three names are mentioned equally in the Godhead, if it were not absolutely neces- sary so to do? Could he, above all others supreme in wisdom and every perfection, or could even any man of common discre- tion, have layed such a snare for persons strongly tinctured with their prejudices, as to name xin necessarily three distinct Per- sons in an act which ascribed authority and Godhead to each of them ; at the risk of giving a handle for relapsing into that vice to which the Jews had once been so fatally inclined, and in which their neigh- bours on every side, to whom that rite was^ to be communicated, were at that very time deeply involved? Would the Apo- stles have ventured upon a doctrine which bore so dangerous an appearance, unless it had been a matter of indispensable neces- sity to give them intimation of this mys- 122 SERMON I?. tery from the first ; unless it had been es- sential to the true profession of Christi- anity so to do ? The argument, it must be observed, applies with equal force to all the three Persons in the blessed Trinity ; and sets the divinity of the three upon precisely the same footing. So does the apostolic benediction, " "The grace of our " Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, " and the communion of the Holy Ghost, " be with you all." No one Person was to be omitted, because the blessing of God was fully implored on the converts; who were to understand that the three opera- tions of the three Persons in the Godhead were alike essential to God's blessing. The Holy Spirit was therefore, in the opi- nion of the Apostles, and of our Saviour himself, as much and as distinctly entitled to the honour of God, as either of the other two Persons. His comforting aid was deemed necessary to accompany the love of the Father^ and the grace of the Son ; and his name was solemnly and particu- a 2 Cor. xiii. 14. PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 123 larly invoked in conjunction with theirs, to give authority and sanction to the initiation of Christian converts. The passages of Scripture which have now been adduced, are some of those which apply forcibly to the separate Personality of the Holy Ghost; a doctrine layed down distinctly in the word of God, though . the manner and method of it be not distinctly comprehensible to our limited faculties, no more than the separate Personality of the Father and the Son in one and the same Godhead with the Holy Ghost. Many others might be brought forward, to shew the agency of the Holy Spirit, particularly, upon the souls of men ; but it has been my endeavour to avoid those, for which the subterfuge of interpreting the name as an attribute of, or as an emanation from, the Father might be held out. That, in regard to the Person of the Son, was the heresy of Sabellius in a very early age of the Chris- tian Church ; and the Unitarian evasion of interpreting the name of the Holy Ghost, so as to signify only miraculous gifts and powers bestowed by the Father, is not far 124 SERMON IV. removed from it. Still nearer does it ap- proach to the heresy of Macedoniiis, which was solemnly condemned in the first Coun- cil of Constantinople. He taught that the Holy Ghost is " a divine energy, diffused " throughout the universe, and not a Person '> distinct from the Father and the Son :" in substance nearly the same with the mi- raculous gifts and powers, which modern Unitarians would impose on us, contrary both to the word and sense of the holy Scriptures. These licentious fancies of human ima- gination are not now, as we see, for the first time devised ; nor are they now for the first time censured as violations of the pufe Christian faith. The opinion of the early Fathers is decidedly the same with that of the Church of England on this point*. But * The disciples of Polycarp, wjjo was hipnse^ St. John's disciple, must be ^eld to have kppwn his docr tribe. These are their words : .Egfca^a*. u/<.aj si;;^oju,ed« aSfeA^oi 'foiJ^doi'TSj TO) V.UTU to suay/eAiov Xoyoi lijerou Xpjfou, /jtsS' ou 8oJ« TO) 0s vf^ith which tiien fancy that their own rea- son has inspired them : all must be made tq.bow before the arbitrary conceits of the sceptic. '' in ipsius venerabili et sancta memoria Dominum nos- " trum Jesum Christum : per quein, et cum quo, Patri f' gloria, et potentia, cum Spiritu Sancto, in sancta Ec- " desia'in saecula sseculorum. Amen." Bulli Def. Fid. Nicmii. §, xiii. pp. 55, 56. Irenseus marks the distinction of the Holy Ghost from the Father, not as an Energy, but as a Person. Speak- ing of the Son, he says, '' Ab omnibus accipiens testimo- " niiim, quoniam vere homo et vere Deus, a Patre, a " Spiritu, ab angelis, &c." lib. iv. c. 14. A little farther onward he says also, there is one God the Father, one S6n, one Holy Spirit. Again in the 37th chapter of the same book he, says, that the Son and Holy Spirit are tliose to, whom the Father addressed himself when he said, "Let us make man in our image," &c. So the same Father distinguishes between the Spirit as a Person, and the Spirit as not a Person, lib. v, c. 12. See Bulli £>ef. Fid. Nicsen. §. ix. p. 82, 83. , These, it must be remembered, were some of the very, earliest Christian's, who derived their doctrine' from tlie immediate word of the very Apostles themselves. 126 SERMON IV. Into such difficulties do men run them- selves, when they must needs explain the mysteries of the kingdom of God farther than he has explained them ; when, in the pride of their hearts, they disdain any pros- tration of their mortal and circumscribed understandings before his supreme and in- comprehensible Godhead. If we must com- prehend every thing before we can believe it, let us make trial of the meanest herb on the face of the earth; and see whether we can account for all its properties, without throwing ourselves blindly on God's will and pleasure. How do the prolific proper- ties of the earth cause its increase? How are its leaves and flowers formed ? And in what manner do the sap and juices produce those particular forms, and that specific mode of increase, which belongs to each one in particular? We shall perhaps be told, that it is their nature so to spring and so to increase. But this is not to explain, but to evade the difficulty. It is the nature of God, that in the Godhead there should be three Persons. The manner in which this sublime mystery of the Trinity in Unity PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. 127 comes to pass, is not more removed from our knowledge, than the mode and prin- ciple of increase in the commonest plant ; or than that which may be more generally intelligible, the power of action in ourselves and every living creature. Does the tJni- tarian doubt whether the plants draw nou- rishment from the earth, because he can- not comprehend how the same earth com- municates to each one its own proper shape and colours ? Does he doubt whether man has power to move, because he cannot see how his will communicates motion to his muscles? because he cannot discern the process, by which the invisible and un- substantial inclination acts upon the gross and corporeal frame ? No : the fact is be- fore him ; and he is ready to make that prostration of his understanding before every part of the creation, which he scorns to make before the infinite and all perfect Creator. And yet to what does such scep- ticism lead } If we allow to it a free course without restraint, there seems to be no rea- son why it should stop short even of the ancient Epicurean doctrine, that God has J128 SERMON IV. WQ concern in mortal affairs, If we doubt this, let us but hfear wh^t the chief of sceptics in our own cOun?;ry has admitted : " ^ Were our ignorance a SuiRcietit reason *' for rejecting any thing, we should be led " into that principle of refusing all endrgy " to the Supreme Being." 44|i^i« We have thus gone shortly through some of the most striking proofs from Scripture of the Trinity in general, and of the second and third Persons in particular. We have found the existence of three Persons in one God to be plainly declared by the word of the Almighty, though declared as a mys- tery, and therefore with some darkness as to the manner of it ; into which we cannot penetrate farther than he has been pleased to open the way. In our present state, we must be contented with such knowledge as is limited in proportion to our abilities. We know not yet what we shall be; but it is one glorious prospect of the blessed here- after, that thei/ shall see God " "as he is :" that tkey " ^ shall know even as also they are b Hume's Phil. Essays, p. I?. Belsham, p. 36. JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 139 equivocally attribute Godhead to our Re- deieioer. And they are not shaken, and cannot be shaken, by any of these false de- signing, arts, which endeavour to hold out a shew of criticism, while they are really no better than "^ arbitrary alterations ; which are invented in order to get rid of those passages, which in the most imequivocal manner 'refute the blasphemous doctrine of Christ's mere manhood. That God is the Judge of all mankind who shall render to all according to their works, appears mo^t evidently from, every part of the word of God. That the man Jesus shall execute precisely the same high office is as un- questionably revealed. The humble piety of a Christian teaches, him^, not to reject either part of the doctrine, however diffi- cult he tnay find it to arrange, in a tnanner intelligible to his comprehension, this dis- tinction with this union of divine and hu- man nature in Christ Jesus. The unbe- liever, on the contrary, feiels it to be be- yond his reason to comprehend this mys^ k See Sermon VI. i SeeSerrooii II, i 140 SERMON V. i *■ tery, and therefore insolently rejects it; and thinks to get clear of the question by a profane sneer at the idea of a God- man. It is never to be forgotten, it can scarcely be enough impressed, that a Chris- tian must be " meek, and lowly in heart." He must take God's revelations thankfully, even as they are; and never imagine him- self at liberty to reject or modify, because he may not understand them. All infide- lity, if it be not founded in conceit, is prin- cipally upheld by it. Pride was the vice which cast Satan down from heaven ; and those who will follow his pride, must ex- pect to be involved in the endless perdi- tion which is its necessary consequence. -*P But let us turn to the holy Scriptures, and examine the passages which rejlate to the final judgment, and to the high office of administering justice on that occ£^iion, which they assign to Christ the Almighty Son, either by the name of the Son of man, or by that of the man Jesus, or by any other similar appellation. We find, in the first place, the text which I have taken this day to stand directly in opposition to the JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 141 adversaries of the established Christian faith. And that text is one of great im- portance. The words are those of our Saviour himself, when he was reveialing to his Apostles, so far as he thought it proper for them to know itj the manner of his ap- peararnce to judgment at the last day. There will probably be no question, as there cannot redsonably be any doubt, that he then intevaded himself by the Son of man, though the expression has occa- sionally been otherwise applied, especially to the Prophet Ezekiel. But it is- very evident from the context that Christ was not then describing himself as a mere man: " ""When the Son of man shall come in " his glory, and all the holy angels with " him"— whsi^t is the glory in which he is here desbribed as coniing ? His own pro- per glory, not one delegated to him for the occasibii ; " " the glory," as he says to the Father, "which I had with thee " before the world was :" the glory of one surrounded by the attendant angels, and ^i Matt. XXV.. 31. n John xvir. 5. < 142 SERMON V. coming in the clouds of heaven. But such gloty belongs exclusively to God Almighty; as our blessed Saviour in another place de- scribes it, where lie says, i*? "Whosoever " shall be ashamed of me and of my words, " in this adulterous and sinful generation, '* of him also shall the Son of man be " ashamed, when he cometh in the glory *,' of the Father with the holy angels." Now God himself declares, " ''My glory *^ will I not give to another :" a positive declaration, which excludes from all man- ner of participation in that glory every created being, of whatever rank or degree.^ And yet Christ claims participation in that glory at the day of judgment, as he had possessed it before the world was. He must therefore judge the world, not as man alone, but as God coupled with the man- hood ; for as God alone could he have ex- isted before the world was. There is no reason whatever for supposing, that any mere man, in all riespects like unto his fel- lows, can be dignified with the peculiar ° Mark viii. 38. P Isa. xlii. 8,'xviii. H. JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 143 honours of the Almighty. Such is the incommunicable name Jehovah, which has been shewn to be so often applied in f the Old Testament to Christ. Such is the at- tendance of all the holj angels, with* the right to call that glory which he enjoys indifferently his own, or the glory of the Father, t* God is always declared to be our Judge ; the same who once appeared in Christ with humiliation, *' reconciling the " world urito* himself;'^ and who will alsd come again in Christ with glory, to judge mankind for their use or abuse of such re- conciliation. ; It is therefore manifest blas- phemy, to describe as a liiere man him who shall then sit on the throne of Ms glory, whicK is the glory of God ^omnipo- tent. The phrase. Son of man, occurs, as has been observed, not unfrequently in the Old Testament. > The Jews therefore knew how it is there applied ; and if there had been any tolerable ground for inferring that the expression denoted a mere man, they could not have chairged our Lord with blasphemy for having declared, " ^ Here- q Matt. xxvl. 64. 144 SERMON V. " iafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting "on the right hand of power, and coming '^ in the clouds of heaven." But the Jews perceived distinctly from that expression, thatvhe claimed to himself supremacy and Godhead. They therefore immediately exclaimed, " He hath spoken blasphemy :" as on another occasion they did in like manner, specifying that in which they con- ceived that blasphemy to consist ; ** "[Be- " cailsiB thou, being a man, makest thyself ^' God.'' I do not say that the expression used on that occasion was exactly the same as that on the first mentioned; but notice it here, to shew, from the Jews' own explana- tion of that which they accounted for blas- phemy, that they understood him, when upon his trial before the high priest, to claim Godhead, in saying that he was the Son of man who should be seen sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven, tf Now every Jew knew, that Enoch and Elijah had been taken up to the divine presence ; and there JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 145 could be nohlasphemy in any man's asser- tion, that he, a mere mortal, should be, as those two mortals had been, exalted to any celestial dignity whatsoever, short of actual Deity. We must take notice, that they do not reproach our Lord for any degree of presumption -alone, but for ac- tual blasphemy ; that " thou, being a man, *' makest thyself God;" and he, by his silence upon that charge, suffers that sense to pass in which they understood his wOrds. That instance of what the Jews considered to be blasphemy, when our Saviour was not upon his trial, was indeed infinitely th^ strongest. For though he did not at that time call himself man, or the Son of man, yet he who frequently at other times had taken those appellations to hiniself, or had accepted them from his Apostles, in that instance plainly asserted, " The Father is '^ in me> and I in him." Our Saviour always kept his Sonship, his Godhead, distinct from the sonship of his disciples, who were mere men. He taught them to pray, " Otir Father," but he join- ed not himself with them ; for he withdrew (( (( 146 SERMON V. from them, and prayed, "My Father." I go," says he, "to m^ Father, and your Father ; and to my God, and your God." He joins without losing the dis- tinction, he distinguishes without losing the connection. He makes us to be united in him ; but himself to be one with the Father ^ This Person then of the Son, thus iden- tified in being with the Father ; this Judge of all the earth, who shall come at the last day, and whom the Unitarians represent as a mere man, possesses all the attributes of the Godhead. He calls the angels his own, therefore, when he says, that he, " Hhe Son of man, shall send forth his an- " gels :" those angels whom God " ° mak- " eth his spirits," but of whom it is not al- lowable for any one to say, that delegated power over them shall be given to any mortal. He shall Come to judgment in his own Godhead, not as a glorified man s Sic jungit ut distinguat, sic distinguit ut non se- ^ungat. Unum nos vult esse in se ; unum autetn Pa* trem et se. S. Aug. in Joan. t Matt. xiii. 41. ^ Psalm civ. 4. JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. '147 acting, by Goramission. What can be plainer than St. Paul's testimony in his Epistle to the Thessalonians^ " "The Lord " himself shall descend from heaven, with *' a shout, with the voice of the archangel, " and with the trump of God." The Lord, that is, the second Person, shall descend with the archangel and the honours of God. Yet he who thus wrote, ascribed at the same time those very honours to Christ as Ms own; " ^The Lord Jesus shall be "revealed from heaven with his mighty " angels*" How can these unbdievers reconcile the state to which they would lower the Judge of all the earth with these things? How can they reconcile it with that previous existence in heaven from the beginning, which St. John so distinctly as- serts in the opening of his Gospel ? What can be the meaning of our Lord's question to the Jews, " ^ What, and if ye shall see ** the Son of man ascend up," not merely as a glorified man taken into God's blessed » 1 Thess. iv. 16. y 2 Thess. i. 7. /*eT ayye^cov 8uv«/*ea)f aurou. * John vi. 62. L 2 148 SERMON V. abode by way of reward, of which we cer- tainly do know two instances in Enoch and Elijah ; but, " ascend up where he *^ was before f If he resided in heaven before he came down to earth, as is most manifest from hence, how dare they to call him a " mere man, in all respects like " unto his fellows?" What mere man ever ascended into heaven of his own act and power, as our Saviour did? " *No man," says St. John, reporting our Lord's own words, " No man hath ascended up into " heaven, save he that came down from " heaven, even the Son of man which is " in heaven." The Son of man then, who is the Judge appointed for the last day, shall come in his own proper glory to judg- ment. And be, that very Son of man, while he was on earth speaking the words just now recited, declares at the same mo- ment that he is, not merely that be was, in heaven : a declaration o£ which, if his two natures, the divine and the human, be denied, .if it be a " ''mean equivocation" » John ill. 13. •> Belsham. JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 149 to speak of the one distinctly from the other, no tolerable sense can possibly be made : the dreadful impiety of which sup- position, no true and devout Christian can contemplate without abhorrence and de- testation. The title of Son of man, that very title from whence our adversaries would infer the real and proper humanity of our future Judge, as totally divested of any participation of right in the Godhead ; is yet attributed to him in the prophecies, in language of such sublimity, and descrip- tive of such majesty, as are utterly inap- plicable to any mortal. That title is never indeed employed as an appellation of any ordinary person, nor of any one below the dignity of princes and prophets. And our Saviour takes it peculiarly to himself, to point out that he is the Person of whom Daniel so magnificently prophesied : ** " I " saw in the night visions, and, behold, one " like the Son of man came with the clouds " of heaven, and came to ithe Ancient of ^ days, and they brought him near unto = Dan. vii. 13, 14. I. 3 150 • SERMON V. ^' him. And there was given him domi- *' nion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all '* people, nations, and languages should " serve him. His dominion is an ever- " lasting dominion, which shall not pass *' away, and his kingdom that which shall " hot be destroyed," The title of Son of man is therefore not altogether ah appel- lation of humiliation ; but in this place it is clearly visible, that the honours and divi- nity assigned to that name by the Prophet Daniel, honours and divinity which shall not pass away, belong to our Lord Jesus, whom all allow to be the Judge there men- tioned. The name may also sometimes perhaps have relation to the human na- ture which he bore, a real and true human nature, but still united with the divine. In regard < to that his incarnation, he is ^orrietimes styled rhan, and the Son of man.i That incarnation of the Godhead in one of the three Persons, is however one of the principal points which these Unitarians deny ; and on that incarnation our present question altogether depends. While they deny, that, they must also ne- JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 151 cessarily reject with it , the atonement, for no mere man could make atonement for others. They must deny all peculiar sig- nification in the title of the Son of man, for it can be no distinction to call any mortal by that name, because he is such by the ordinary course of nature. But it was necessary to declare plainly, that, he who so often proclaimed hiniself the Son of God, and who was so often announced as such by the voice of the Father, or through: the ministry of his aijgels ; it was necessary to make it generally known, that this exalted Person was the Son of man also ; that he truly bore the hu^man nature of his mother Mary, and shall bear it in like manner when he shall return again to judgmeiit. This is a material part of that divine dispensation, smd, shews plainly the great mercy of Go^in his deal- ings with. us, that the most solemn and awful act, of his authority, the general judgment, shall be administered by one, who, having partaken of our infirmities, must therefore be fully aware of them, and able to make every prppej: allowance for 152 SERMON V. them. Therefore, in the Epistle to the He- brews, the Apostle comforts them on that very ground: " "^We have not an high *' priest which cannot be touched with the *' feeling of our infirmities, but was in all " points tempted like as we are." This very provision then, which the Almighty has made in his mercy, as a source of com- fort and encouragement to us and our in- firmities, is abused by these Unitarians into an argument to support their denial of his Godhead, to make the Judge of all flesh mere flesh in himself, arid to do away all his title to real and proper Deity ! They act thus, in the face of all that evidence which was miraculously given throughout the ministry of Jesus, in proof of the truth of his assertions, that he was himself the very and eternal God ; one and the same, in Deity, with the Father ; though distinct, in Personality, as the Son. These are truths on which we have before insisted in proving from holy Scripture the Deity of the Son. But we are niecessarily again re- d Heb. iv. 14, 15. JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR, 153 minded of them in this place, where the truth, that Christ Jesus shall be the Judge of quick and dead, is not the matter in dispute ; but where we find it asserted by the unbeliever, that he will come in that capacity only with a delegated authority; not acting in right of his own Godhead, but only as a man empowered and com- missioned by God. St. Paul tells us, that God hath given as- surance that Jesus will come again to judg- ment, " *in that he hath raised him from " the dead." But this assurance, which is the accomplishment of his own repeated prediction, and the seal to the truth of all his assertions, seems to have little or no weight with the modern sceptic. Yet this is the test to which our Lord repeatedly put his claim to actual Godhead ; as when he said, "* Destroy this temple, and iti " three days I will raise it up." Christ had entered into the temple, and asserted his right to that holy place, in which none but the Most High could possess any right, « Acts xvii. 31. f John ii. 19. 154 SERMON V. by casting out those whose occupations were profanation to it, and by the expres- sions which he used in so doing. The Jews, seeing him perform that act of au- thority, and hearing the language with which he accompanied it, demand a sign from him. Now it must be remarked, that the Jews always comprehended throughly the expression used by our Saviour, when he called himself the Son of God. They knew that it implied actual Godhead, and condemned him for blasphemy on. that very charge. In like manner, whea he here said, *' Make not my Father's house a *' house of merchandize," they understood that he called God his Father ; not gene- rally, as the Father of all ; nor more parti- cularly, as he is the Father of the right- eous ; but 7^05^ peculiarly, '' ^ making " himself equal with God ;" as we find that he was considered to have done, by calling God his ^ own Father, It was re- ,g iJohn V, 18, h IlaTsgci iSm. Justin Martyr shews that the name, the Son of God, is not applicable to Christ merely in common with holy men, Apolog. i, 44, "Q 8e uloj exst- JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 155 served for the Socinians and their followers to go beyond the Jews ; to put a miscon- struction on that expression, and degrade, if they had been able, him whom they ac- knowledge for their Saviour, to a mere mortal. The Jews understood that he claimed equal Godhead with the Father, and of this they demanded a sign. Very rarely did our Lord comply with that in- solent demand; never, indeed, in the sense in which they made it. And when he did so, it was by a future sign, which at once gave proof of his foreknowledge, and point- ed to that decisive evidence on which, more perhaps than on any other single proof, he rested his claim to Omnipotence^ namely, his own resurrection by himself from the dead. To that fact then, though hitherto unperformed, he referred the Jews, as to a complete demonstration that he was very God. To that fact his Apo- stle St, Paul afterward appealed, as a proof VOX), 'O /xovoj Asyoinevos xupiws vk;, &c. and in his Dia- logue with TryphOj 332. Movoyevrj; wuTpt tcov oKm, ihoog eJ «otou Xoyoj xa/ hvctfj^i; yeysvijjM.evof, xot) mrspov uv^gtffiro; dia. TYj; ■BTupStevou y6Vo/*6vo;. 156 SERMON V. that he, the same Lord Jesus, was or- dained to be Judge of quick and dead. And such a proof it was. Our Saviour had distinctly foretold the future judgment, when all flesh should appear upon their trial before God. He had declared himself to be the Son of God, equal to, and one with, the Father. He had required " ' that " all men should honour the Son, even as " they honour the Father;" and that, be- cause the " Father hath committed all "judgment to the Son." He had claimed Supreme Deity, when he cried openly among the Jews, '"^I and my Father M"e " one." If then he was actually God, all flesh is to be judged by him as God, and not as mere man in commission under God. That he was God, he himself put ta the. test of his rising again the third day after his death ; and therefore St. Paul Well declar- ed, that his having so done was full proof that he was to be the Judge of quick and dead. ^ These are plain and direct inferences, ' John v.'23. k John x. 30. JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 15? consistent with the whole tenor of the Gos- pel, and which do not admit any contrary interpretation without violence to sense and language. . They can hardly be, by this time, unknown to the Unitarians. And we cannot be too much on our guard against imitating the conduct of presumptuous men, who strive to uphold the opinions which they have taken up, in contradiction to the general teaching of God^s word, by. overstrained constructions of insulated and detached expressions of holy Writ. Such has ever been the infidel's constant method, and indeed their only shadow of support from Scripture; a support which, before heedless eyes, they may set up in appear- ance, while they are wresting the word of God to their own destruction. The truth of this question which they raise, concern- ing the Deity or manhood of him who is ordained to be the Judge of all the earth, cannot stand or fall alone. It is inseparably connected with the whole Christian faith, being placed on the same test with our Sa- viour's Godhead, namely, the resurrection of him from the dead. Against the gene- 158 SERMON V. ral and harmonious evidence of the whole Gospel, the Unitarian arrays a few select- ed and mutilated passages, which, if taken singly, may bear a sound which shall seeni to concur with his favourite opinions ; and he rests his whole system on them, without taking into the account the tenor of our Saviour's doctrine in general, as delivered by himself and his Apostles, Those single passages, like all others, are best explained in that sense which the context, and gene- ral tenor of the Scripture in which they are placed, manifestly points out. But the doc- trine which contradicts the unbeliever's construction of them, cannot be so over- thrown ; for it is the uniform doctrine of the Christian revelation. Every thing in Scripture points to the same evidence: '*If " these," as said our Saviour to the Pha- risees, who were, like the Unitarians, un- believers in his Godhead, " If these should "^ hold their peace, the stones would im- " mediately cry out." The Socinians must know, that their method of torturing the words of Scripture, in order to force a par- ticular interpretation upon them, would JUDGMENT BY OUR SAVIOUR. 159 not be endured, if they were so to treat the common writings of men. And they shew more respect for their own conceits, than for God's revelations, when they force and misconstrue his holy word, that they may represent it as utterly inconsistent with it- self, rather than bend their pride to bow to a doctrine which they cannot comprehend, though it be plainly revealed, and ex- pressly sanctioned by tlie word of the Most High'. 1 Bishop Pearson observes, on the question of the na- ture of Christ our Judge, " There is an original, su- " preme, autocratorical, judiciary power. There is a " judiciary power derived, delegated, given by commis- " sion. Christ, as God, hath the first, together with the " Father and the Holy Ghost. Christ, as man, hath " the second, from the Father expressly, from the Holy " Ghost concomitantly ; for ' the Father hath given him " authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son " of man.' " Pearson on the Creed, Art. vii. Chrysostom, on a question of the punctuation of John v„ 27. shews what the Church then held on this point : Co ycip hot TOTo aXa£s xpto'iv ert avSigcoTroj e^i, (s?r» rt sxcoAue woma; av^pooirov; swai xptrxi;) «AA,' siraSrj tijj aggvjroa s(rtai exHvris erii' wioj, hot touto eri xpiTHj;, &c. Theophylact says the same : Tijv yap xpitriv SsScoxs rtu Tup Uenrip, oux art Tioj etn^paivoti ej-i, «AX' ori, ©soy, &c. Potestatem dedit ei et judicium facere quoniam filius hominis est. Puto nihil es?e manifestius. Nam quia IGO SERMON V. FiUus Dei est cequalis Patri, non accipit banc potestatem judicii faciendi, sed habet illam cum Patre in occulto. Accipit autem illam, ut boni et mali eum videant judi-' cantem, quia filius hominis est. Augustin, de Trin. lib. i. c. 13. SERMON VI. ON THE WSPIRATlON OF* SCRIPTURE. ■ 3 'I'iM. liu 16. All' Scripture is given by inspiration of God, m. VV HATEVER be the errors or het-esies which hEive alt any time intruded them- selves into the CbtiTGh of Christ, and h©# far soever they may have gone asti^ay frbm its genuine faith, "yet all have been con- tented to shelteff themselves under the au- thority ctf holy Scripture. Others, who- fevet they be, who h^ve set forth stfange ddctrinesj have been satisfied with brfflg-* ing, by ait and contrivance, certain insu- lated and detached jJais^ges in sui^ort of their theories ; and though this was don© in violation of its uniform tenor and gene- ral precept, yet they seldom ventured to M 162 SERMON VI. do more. But the modern Unitarian has taken, as we shall ^ee, a bolder step. He has made more daring inroads upon sacred truth ; and,' with his eyes open — for the ut- most stretch of charity cannot suppose the contrary, seeing that the system of his party is irreconcileable with the word of God, as it stands delivered hy him — has en- deavoured to bend that holy word to an accommodation to his own system. The charge is indeed one of the heaviest de- scription. But it admits of indubitable proof, in spite of his general profession of respect for the word of Divine revela- tion. The faith which the Unitarians now profess to hold concerning the Holy Scrip- tures is this : That they "» contain a reve- " lation from God, and that they are the " only authentic repositoriies of his re- " yealed will." But they declare, that they " discover no evidence of plenary in- " spiration of the Scriptures of the Old " and New Testament." And again, they admit that ** the Bible, the New Testa-^ "Belsham, p. 7. te INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 163 " ment especially, though not itself in" spired throughout , contains the word of Grod." Thus they prepare the way for admitting or rejecting just so much, or so little, as may serve their purpose. I pro- pose in this discourse to examine this their admission, and to see how far it is' discor- dant from^the doctrine of the Church of England, and from the truth. We will also observe how far their s,own practices have shewn that respect, which their own ad- mission demands 'from them, towards those sacred writings; especially in regard to their treatment of the New Testament in their New, and, as they are pleased to style it, Improved Version. Now it is not any part of the doctrine of our Church to maintain the plenary inspi- ration of Scripture, if by plenary inspira- tibh it be intended, that t^ery several word was suggested by the Holy Ghost, Yet still we do assert, that the Scripture ^ is in- spired throughout, as to the doctrines there- in delivered, and even as to the guarding of b Burnet, XXXIX Articles, Art. vi. M 2 164 SERMON VI. the language frOm any error in faith or practice. This assertion however applies, of courscj only to the canonical bodks. Re- specting those which are called Apocryphal, our Church, since the Reformation, has ever held a different opinion. We maintiain 'that the books admitted by our Church into the canon of Scrijptilre, are so far as this in- spired thoughout; though we do riot hold that the very words, and every particular expression, proceeded from the Holy Spi- rit St. Paul himself indeed tells us so miieh, and makes a distinction between those ex- hortations which \vere his own, and those which CEtme expressly from God. For in- stance, when mentioning his own labotirSi and sufferings', he says, "^Thal which I " speak, I speak it not after the Lord,* but " as it were foolishly." In like manner, to the same Corinthians, he distinguished in his former Epistle between the precepts of his own advice, and those of divine cdmmatld. In his injunctions to married persdrisy he first gives a precept founded on the original c Burnet, XXXIX Artictes, Art. vi. i > ^2 Cor. xi. 17- INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 105 and express institution of God; "^Unto " the married I command, yet not I, but " the Lord, Let not the wife depart from " her husband :" afterward he continues, " But to the rest speak I,, not the Lord." We may not however suppose that these precepts, which the Apostle calls his own, were destitute of the superintending guid- ance of the Holy Ghost ; though he marks them, as not forming a part of the express commandment. The Unitarians profess general belief in the. Scriptures, because the inspiration of them cannot generally be questioned, with any appearance of reason. But they object to the "' plenary inspiration" of them, not on account of such passages as evidently do not require particular inspiration, be- cause they are manifestly within the com- mon scope of human wisdom ; but because, in disavowing the inspiration of the Bible, they open a way, as they imagine, for the rejection, or alteration, or mutilation, of any texts of Scripture which militate most strongly against their system. Like the e 1 Cor. vii. 10. M 3 166 SERMON VI. Pharisees of old, they make the command- ments of God of none effect, and by an art more unjustifiable even than theirs. The Pharisees had indeed a tradition, which set itself up to oppose, and even to overrule, the written Law. But they never presumed to change nor falsify the words of that Law. They did not presume to call that the word of the Lord, which they had substituted for his word. They ventured not to touch its precepts and threatenings, in the way of alteration or emendation. But these Uni- tarians, as they call themselves by way of distinction, avowing respect for the Gos- pel, seek, by impeaching its integrity, to undermine and overthrow it : and being fully aware that its doctrine is directly op- posed to theirs, arbitrarily cut down, dis- guise, and pervert, its peculiar and essen- tial truths. They profess, at the same time, to publish a more true and correct version of. that, which they cannot possibly be igno- rant that they have corrupted and muti- lated in the most audacious, fraudulent, and unjustifiable manner. Strong as these expressions may appear, I doubt not but INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 16? that every one, who shall at all have ex- amined into their " New and Improved f* Version," has found them to be not only justified by the treatment which the word of God has received at their hands, but rendered absolutely necessary, by the de- ceitful professions which they hold out to draw in those who are not aware of their dishonest arts ; to allure them to the snare which is made ready, in the corrupted text and decdtful notes of that " New and Im- " proved Version." They profess to take for their foundation a careful and ' accurate Greek text'. And since the common and authorised version is not sufficiently correct for them, they reisort to another, made, as they sayy by one of our ^Archbishops. ■ Siich professions carry an appearance of fairness. But it is no more than appearance, and vanishes so soon as we examine at all into it. In truth, the authorised version is too well known, to have been altered without immediate detection; and is too manifestly opposed to their peculiar doctrines, to be f Griesbach's. s Archbishop Newcome. M 4 168 SERMON VI. left unaltered in a version published by them. The version of the Arphbishop, whom they profess to follow, is compara- tively in few hands ; and it might be be- lieved, by those who have not seen it, th3,t all their alterations are copied from thence. This is obviowsly their reason for hplding up his version as their model, when in truth they have departed even from it in maqy very .material instances, without any notipe given of such variation. Nqr have they dealt more faithfully with the Greejs text, in that edition which they profess to hold in such estiwiation ; principally perhaps malt- ing such profession, ths^t they piay depre- ciate every other in comparison with it, For they talk largely of the incorrectness of all other editions; as if errors, ^nd thosp of material consequence, had abounded ;in all, till this made its appearance. Now the fact is found to be directly opposite tp their assertion, as upon accurate inquiry will bp easily perceived. For example, let us take the Gospel by St, John ; for it is of the greatest consequence in this present ques- tion, because it is the fullest on the subject INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 169 of the peculiar (Jpctrirjies of Christianity, as the Unitarians well know; ancj it is the one of all others which they would naost gladly set aside, on account of the unequivocal attestation which it bears tP our bJe§$ed JSaviour's actual and perfect Godhead. In this Gospel, numerous, extreinely nunie- rous, as are the smaller variations, which the diligence of the learned and studiou? has discovered in the different copies of the New Testament; yet among all of them, and they amount to more than 1700^, there arte not by the largest estimate more than ten of any real importance to the sense ^ : and even they are not now brought to light for the first time, hut have bepn ob- served and pointed out one hundred and fifty years since. Surely then there is but little Qcoasion for talking, as those editors do, of the great superiority, as to purity, of that Greek edition which they profess tP have used. There would have been but little ground for it, even if they had ad- 's 1787. ^ Consult Nares on the Unitarian Version, Ihtrodttct.- p. XXX. 170 SERMON VI. hered faithfully to its text. But it looks very suspicious, when we detect them in departing from it precisely in those places> where the maintenance of their cause re- quires that its true and obvious sense should not be deemed the real and correct interpretation. There is too much reason to suspect, that they selected Griesbach's text for the same reason as Archbishop Newcome's Version ; and that they pro- fessed to follow both, because they were less generally known, and therefore their deviations from them less likely to be de- tected. And they have also a farther in- ducement to that practice, in the conveni- ence of deriving sanction from those names, and under their authority imposing their own perverted doctrines the more effectu- ally on the unguarded reader. If we may judge from the actions of this sect, and they are a far more certain test than pro- fessions and declarations, we shall discover but little reverence for the word of God; which they presume to set aside in so many instances, that they may find a place for their own opinions in contradiction to it. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 171 Nor can it be too much to assert this, when we find them departing from that which is received, and which they profess to receive, as the genuine text, whenever it suits their purpose so to do, on their own single au- thority ; and frequently without any notice of such variation. Such conduct, when we consider the professions held out by them, of always giving intimation of any depar- ture from their models, can be accounted for nothing better than wilful and fraudu- lent deception. And let any one consider what must be the merits of that cause which stands in need of support, and requires to be main- tained by arts such as these. What is the object of holding up the name of one Archbishop', as the author of that version which they declare that they took from him } ; Why do they prefix to their version a, motto from the words of another Arch- bishop''.'' The motive is plain. It is to in- duce the wbrld to suppose, that both were of the same opinions with themselves ; and > Archbishop Newcome. ^ ArchWshop Parker's Preface to the Bishops' Bible. 172 SERMON VI. that their " New and Improved Version as they are pleased to call it, is the same with that of the Prelate whom they do not leave us merely to conjecture that they fol- low; but whose English text they openly profess to be the general groundwork of their own, from which they have never va- ried, without announcing to their readers all such variations. Much in the same spi- rit is the attempt which they have made to falsify the account of our Saviour's birtli, by bringing forward an author' to testify to that which he never testified. Lardner, though they number him among their par- ty, was a diligent and faithful writer; and on account of that his reputation, they cite him, to shew that the account given in the Gospels is erroneous, and that our Lord was not born till after Herod's death. If they could establish that assertion, it must shake the whole credit of that narrative which declares exactly the contrary. But what can we think qf their fidelity, when we turn to him from whom they profess to 1 Lardner, Credibility of the Gpspel. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 173 draW^ their authoritjj arid find, as we do find, that he has asserted no such thing? What can we think of their honesty, when We read, that though he aditiits the exist- ence of 4 some uncertainty in the date of Hefod's death ; yet he concludes that bur Saviour Was born niiore than one, if not two years pifevidtis to that event ? In the same spirit they vifouild hiutilate the Gos- p©l^j as the Ebionite^ did formerly, that they may justify their denial of the mira- culous donceptiori of our'blesiSed Saviour. ™ So do they how seek to rfevive the asser- tion of one of their writers concerning those Ebibttites, naniely, that they were the pri-> mitive Christians, and that their errors were the doctrines of the original Church. And these things they utter now, with as much confidence, as if they had not been long since completely refuted by a learned Pre- lite", whom they all dare to depreciate, now that he is dead, though not even the^ J - - . ■ 'i'i'y . "'See Magee on Atoraem^ist, &c. Postscript' to the App6ndix, p. 265, and nofe; pp. 266, 267, 268, 269, and note in p. 269. " Bishop Horsley ; iee Gofitroversy with Dr. Priestley. 174 SERMON VI. ablest of them could give him a satisfactory answer while he was alive. What shall we think of persons who profess to receive the Scriptures as the revealed will of God, and yet do not hesitate to interpolate, and omit, and alter by their false comments, what- ever stands in their way? When they meet with the distinguishing title of the Son of God applied to Jesus Christ, they studi- ously substitute a Son of God, and then refer us to our Saviour's question,"" "If he " (God) called them gods, unto whom the " word of God came, and the Scripture " cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom "the Father hath sanctified and sent into " the world, Thou blasphemest ; because I " said, I am the Son of God V They refer to this passage, as if it had proved that the phrase, the Son of God, signifies nothing more than a prophet. Whereas, that is not the signification of the passage ; which marks very strongly the distinction be- tween those called sons of God in general, and him who bore the peculiar and exclu- o John X. 35, 'i&.ymarkipg as spu- rious, without ceremony, the whole second chapter of his second Epistle, And no wonder; for it begins with the mention of a 2 Pet. ii. N 4 184 SERMON VI. " false teachers, who should bring in dani' " noble heresies, even denying the hard *' who bought them." An offensive passage indeed to those teachers, whose leading article is the denial of our Lord and of his atonement ! Yet this they do, in defiance of the two authorities by whom they pro- fess to abide always. But of such conduct it would be endless to enumerate all the instances ''. For though they tell the world, that notice is always given in their Ver- sion of any variation from that of the Pre- late whose English text they profess to adopt", yet have they failed to do it in many instances, and those the most liable to suspicion of fraudulent suppression ; be- cause they are passages which decidedly overthrow their particular tenets respecting our Blessed Saviour **. As they omit what it does not serve their purpose to retain, so do they add also, when they find it con- ^ See Nares on the Unitarian Version, p. 154, 181, &c. <= Calm Inquiry, Introduction, p. iv. d See Magee on Atonement, &c. Postscript to Ap- pendix, p. 16, 17, &c. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 185 venient to weaken the precision of any ex- pression by so doing. Thus they endea- vour to evade the expression by which St. Paul couples our Saviour's name with the great God, as' one and the same% by in- serting the article where it does not really stand. " Our great God and Saviour " Jesus Christ ;" whjch they would make, *' The great God and our Saviour Jesus " Christ." So wheii the same Apostle says, " f See that ye refuse not him that " speaketh," plainly intending our Saviour by " him ;" the editors of the New Ver- sion prefer to insert God instead of him, lest they should admit a passage which gives authority, in any other than a vica- rious manner, to Christ s. The present "time will not allow me to enumerate the very many instances, in ^ Titus ii. 13. Tflu neyaKou 0soo ;««/ %VTi)pos rifuov 'Ii)(r» Xgio-Tou, translated as if it were, tou ^eyahau Qsov x^ TOT StOTljpOfj &C. f Heb. xii. 25. s See Magee on Atonejnent, Pb^t^pript to Appendix, p. 207, 231, &c. whose remarks on this place apply to the whole conduct of the Unitarians in regard to the Bible. 186 SERMON VI. which they have departed from that Ver- sion of the holy Scriptures which they had selected as the most correct; and it is a matter again and again to be noticed, as indicating their reason for so doing, that most, if not all, their desertions of their avowed model are on those points, wherein the word of the inspired writer, as com- monly received, is most strongly adverse to the Unitarian doctrine. If this be not conclusive evidence, yet at least it is a strong presumption ; which must operate powerfully to prove, to unprejudiced, minds, that their profession of respect fqr > the word of God is no more than empty sound at best, if it be not rather " cunning craf-s *' tiness, whereby they lie in wait to de- " cejve:'' that it is assumed in order' to eVade, the odium which open rejection of the Bible must produce, and to draw in those whb might not suspect the snare that is laid for them, under cover of a trans- lation of God's word by a Prelate of the Established Church. Their notes on those passages which they have hot ventured to remove or alter in the text, are at the INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 187 same time weak in argument ; while thqy shew that;have notoriously endeavoured, by alteration of the stops, to evade a. strong expression used by St. Paul in favour of our Saviour's Godhead ''. The Apostle there styles hina, '* ' God over all, f^ blessed for ever." They endeavour to change the sense by an alteration of the stops, though manifestly against the sense and natural course of the expression, and so to apply it altogether to God the Fa- h See Nares, &c. p. .1 68. > , Rom. ix. 5. 188 SERMON VI. ther ; striving to make out, by the change thus produced in* the translation, their fa- vourite point, that Christ Jesus was mere- ly a man. By an equally unfair artifice, they attempt to escape from the acknow- ledgment, that he " ^inherited" a more excellent name than the angels; for they silently drop the word inherited, and use the words, *' this day have, I adopted," in- stead of " ' begottpn" thee ; and thus also do they distort that important passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, *' "» Who, being in the form of God, *' thought it not robbery to be equal with *' God : but made himself of no reputa- " tion, and took upon him the form of a f servant, and was made in the likeness of " nien.'' Little indeed can be thought of their reverence for the Scriptures, when they think proper to pervert this last by a strained accommodation to their own particular systepti, even while one of tljem n confesses, that if we allow Christ's divine ^ Heb. i. 4, 5. ' Ey«) Phil. ii. 6—9. " See Caarpenter's Letters to Mr. Veysie. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 189 nattire, the whole iidtnits an easy esxpl^na- tioh. With the same truth find honesty they quote Beza, as authority for asserting, that when St. Thomas said, ^' My Lord arid " my Gdd," in his address to Christ at his first interview aftef his resurrection, the wi^ds were only as ah exdaniatibn, signi^ fyShg, " O God, hoid' gr6at is thy pbwer !" and hot addressed to Christ. Whetieas B^za really says, that they " " are not l\\h *' words of Thomas merely in admiration, •* as the Nestorians eluded the passage ; " but of him addressing Jesus himself as << vfery God and Lord, — nor is there kny " other passSage ih these books more ex- " press for the invocation of Christ as the *' true God." These editoiis however ciit off all that does hot suit their purpose, and quote a part only of the passage against that which they must have known to be the sense of the whole. Thie whole Epistle ° Haec igitur verba quae sequuntur lion sunt tatttum admlrantis Thofnae, nt hunt locum eludcbant Nestoriani, sed ipsdm Jesum ut verum Deuth ac ©omihu'in suuro compellantis — tiec alius est lotus in his li'bris expressior, de Christo ut vero Deo invocando. 190 SERMON VI. to the Hebrews they discredit altogether, which is indeed less a subject of surprise, since it is so strong and pointed in support of the atonement. But they are not justi- fied in quoting Origen as authority for the utter uncertainty of the author's name. He speaks there only of the scribe, but says of the Epistle, that it contains ^the sentiments of an Apostle ; commends any Church which shall receive it as St. Paul's; and declares his own readiness to come forward' in demonstration of that very point. These, out of very many, are abundant proofs of the spirit in which the New and Improved Version is composed and pub- lished. Of their assertions, which rest merely on their own credit, it is needless P Origen says, that no one can tell who was the au4 thor of it; and so much is cited in the note to the Uni- tarian Version. But he also says, that it contains, ra fi.ev voYji^aTo. rov aTroo-roXoo, though the language is that of one who wrote from memory, to. stpiifisvx um tow §(8«(r- xaPiou- his own opinion is, that the matter was St. Paul's, and he commends any Church that shall receive it as his ; though the scribe (o yptv^as) be unknown. <] In his Epistle to Afncanus. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 191 to say any thing. Their own strength must support them as it can. But that they have wilfully deviated from the text of Scripture ; that they have followed no au- thority, human or divine, any farther than where it seemed to accord with their sys- tem, is most manifest. " 'They have/' as has been well remarked, " been compelled, "not only to invent a new translation fof " the text, but a new text for the transla- *' tion." What then can we think of their respect for thdt book which they acknow- ledge to c(Mitain k revelation from God? They havis; outgone their fathers of the old Socinian School in their denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures, as well as in tiie irreverence, not to say profaneness, with which they speak of the writers of them. The Racovian Catechism (p. 3, 4.) says, " No suspicion can poissibly creep r It is well worth the reader's while to consult the Dean of Cork's very able wdrk on Atonement and Sa- crifice, and especially, on this point, the Postscript to the Appendix. The note in p. 12, and that in p. 255, are indeed fatal to the Unitarian Version, as are p. 82, 83,. 84, &c. to their fidelity as to the text. 192 SERMON VI. ** into the mind concerning those authors, " as if they had not exact cognizance of " the things which they describe. — It is " altogether incredible, that God, whose " goodness and providence are immense, " hath suffered those writings, wherein he *' hath proposed his will, and the way to " eternal life, and which, through thie " succession of so many ages, have by all " the godly been received and approved, " as such, to be any ways corrupted." This was the opinion of the disciples of Socinus. The modern Unitarians however gb far beyond this, and will allow no in- terpretation which does not accord with their notions of reason. One of them (Priestley) ventured to accuse the sacred writers of having written on matters '* to " which they had not given much atten- *' tion, and concernirig which they had " not the means of exact information '." Another (Steinbart) affirms, that "* Moses, ** according to the childish conceptions of s Letters to Dr. Price. ' * SeeErskine's Sketches of Cliurch History, p. 67 — 71. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 193 "the Jews in his ;days, paints God as agi- " tated by ^violent affections ; partial to "one people, (and hating all ;, other na- " tions." A third of the same qotiimunion (Setnler) presumes to say, that *■ Peter " speaks according to the conception of " Jews, and the Prophets may have deli- " vered the offspring of their own brains." Such is the reverence of those who profess to hold that the Scriptures are the only repository of God's will; and such the conclusions which spring from their pre- sumption, that they may reject, whenever they think proper, any of the particular doctrines contained therein. Their arbi- trary version of the Scriptures is one of its eonsequences ; but the poison, which that offers, carries to all who will examine it with accuracy, its own antidote; and by Gpd's providence there have not been wanting those, who were both wiUing and able to guard their fellow Christians against that device of the unbeliever. May the Lord in his mercy still stretch his arm over us, and preserve the incorruptness of his word in our hands; and also a dutiful and o 194 SERMON VI. reverend care in' us, to hold fast that form of sound words which we have learned of him, till he shall come to take account how we have occupied that most precious talent committed to our charge. , SERMON VII. ON THE ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. » Matth. XXV. 46. And these shall go cnway into everlasting punish- ment : but the righteous into life eternal. IN; our proposed examination of those. ar-< tides which the Unitarian jadvocate has 'set forth as the eonfessipji. of faith of his party,- in opposition to the Church of England,- we . come lastly to . this particular, thati ^f they rgept the horrible doctrine," as he calls it,** of the future eternal torments of "/ the wicked; but ;believe, thai thejri pu- " hishment wUl be remedial, ais a .purgation " of crimes and : evil habits ; after which ** they will be restored to virtue and hap- " piness." i^gainst this their belief itwQ things are to be urged. The first, that it is unfounded in Scripture, and repugnant to o 3 196 SERMON VII. Scripture, The second, that it is incon- sistent with the nature of God's avowed designs in regard to man, because its natu- ral tendency is to produce an evil course of living. Now the passages in holy Writ which apply to this matter are so clear, that they appear to be incapable of misconstruction ; for they distinctly teach, that the pains of the damned shall be not only inconceiv- able, but also eternal. JSuch, in the first place, is my present text, which announces, in our blessed Saviour's own words, that " the wicked shall go into everlasting pu- •' nishment : but the righteous into life eter- " nal." The trifling variation of expression in regard to the reward and punishment which we read in the English, does not exist in the Greek. Both are described as precisely of the same duration. The word used in the original, in both parts of the sentence, has not only the same significa- tion, as is the case iu our version, but it is precisely the same word"; so that no * Ka/ aire^iuo-ovTOf ovtoi ei; xoKoutiv cckoviov oJ Ss 8jx«(0j-aj ^coijv aiconov. ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 197 reason whatsoever can be dra;wn from this very plain and positive passage, for making any manner of difference between the du- ration of the happiness and of the torment. Now the Unitarian system holds the future certainty of happiness, both to the blessed and the cursed; with this distinction alone, that such happiness is not to commence equally soon with both ; for after a course of purgatory pain, the most grievous sin- ners are to be restored, according to that system, to virtue and happiness. But if they build on the Scriptures, and there is no other foundation on which we can build securely, there is in them to the full as much and as decisive assurance of eternity of tor- ment, as of eternity of enjoyment. That it is a horrible doctrine, if by horrible they mean such as must excite terror as its na- tural consequence in the heart of man, is hot only the most true, but would to God that it produced that effect more deeply and more universally. For it is, if man- kind would give to it full and due consi- deration, the most powerful of all induce- ments to urge them to work out their own o 3 198 SERMON VIL salvation, by mortifying tlie deeds of the flesh. But if by' a horrible doctrine they mean to signify one which is unworthy of God, and inconsistent with his attributes, that assertion shall, I trustjbie speedily proved to have no foundation. Plain rea- son will prove it, and, what is far more, God's own word ; wherein it were the height of impiety to imagine that he could make any declaration unworthy of himself. Reason will shew, that the punishment must necessarily be eternal; because there is no deliverance from it at any time, ex- cept through our Saviour's mediation, and that mediation ceases after the judgment, when God shall be all in alP. ^ See Bishop Pearson on the Creed, Art. viii. The Fathers understood, as the doctrine. of Scripture, that punishment would he eternal. So Chrysostom: AviOTigai [iev jrjV xoAatriV sttsv svrau^a. 8e xa» tov xgiTjjv Sax* t/us-ii/j xat Trjv Ti^cugiav abciveiTov a, futuras poenas levigat j quas quasi cferto fine de- " terminat, ut eorum culpas sine termino correptionis " extendat: et eo magis hie peccata non finiunt, quo istic " aestimant peccatorum supplicia finienda. Quibus bre^ " viter respondemus. Si quandoque finienda sunt suppli- " cia reproborum, quandoque finienda sunt ergo et gau-^ " dia beatorum. Per semetipsam namque Veritas dicit, " 'Ibunt hi in supplicium aeterrium, justi autem in vitam " seternaih.' " S. Gregor. Mag. Mortal, lib. xxxiv, c. 19. ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 20? eteEnity of punishment ; and that, be it re- membered, is evidence which, if plainly made out, must be altogether decisive. For thougljL it be useful to do away the objec- tions and silence the presumptuous asser- tions of the unbeliever, if that be possible, by shewing the equity of God's ordinances, and proving that they may be vindicated even by human reason ; . yet that is only to be done as a satisfaction to our minds. The most full and conclusive evidence that alny thing will be, is the declaration of the Al- mighty that it shall be. Now the eternity of torment to the wick- ed Is in his word declared expressly, both in the Old and New Testament. The Pro- phet Daniel, speaking of the last day, states the eternity of the blessing and of i the curse, to the righteous^ and to the wicked, as distinctly as St. Matthew in my text: " s Many of them that sleep in the dust of "the earth shall awake, some to everlast- '* ing life, and some to shame and everlast- ^* mg- contempt." In like manner Isaiah s Dan. xii. 2. 208 SERMON VIL closes his prophecy with the declaration concerning the wicked in the last day, that " '' their worm shall Hot die, neither shall " their fire be quenched." So in another place he speaks of the lot of the righteous arid of the 'wicked, alluding very distinctly, to the eternity of punishment Vf\\\c\i asv^iXs the latter: " 'Who among us," says he, *' shall dwell with the devouring fire ? Who "among us shall dwell with everlasting " burnings?" Such expressions prove what was the knowledge possessed by the in- spired writers under the Mosaic dispiensa- tion, respecting the nature of those pains which are appointed for sinners hereafter. But the Unitarian always profiesses to think more lightly of the precepts of the Old Testament, as belonging to a system of less importance, than that which was brought to our knowledge in the Gospel. Let us therefore turn thither, and see whe- ther the same doctrine be not expressed more frequently, and, if possible, \n. a man- ner more incapable of being misunder- h Isaiah Ixvi. 24. > Ibid, xxxiii. 14. ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 209 Stood, in the bboks therein contained^ And herey though we have already touched upon the passage of my textj it ought to be agjain meiltioiied. among the rest ; for alttioogh there had been no. other to the same effect, yet this is so direct, and so incapable of perversion, that it alone might decide the question; especially when we recollect, that the words therein recorded are those of our Lord himself, and delivered in the most solemn and impressive manner. They are words which even if spoken by a pro- phet, as our adversaries choose to assert, and he too the Prophet, as they declare;, of the last arid most perfect revelation sent from heaven, must by their own selves be admitteidto utter incontrovertible truths: and in this declaration of our Lord and Saviouri as we maintain, and as I trust in God that we always shall maintain, it is asserted that "these (the wi<;ked) shall go ** away into everlasting punishment." To this however more abundant testimonies shall be added, that it may be seen, how well able all Christians are upon this point also, as well as on those before discussed, p 210 SERMON VII. to give a reason for the faith that is in them ; and that, a reason which cannot be shaken, because it stands on the immov- able footing of divine revelation. St. Mat- thew, from whom we take the record of the words above mentioned, asserts again in another place the same thing in effect; that is, the eternity of punishment here- after, and the doctrine is there again re- lated from our Lord's own mouth : " "^ It is *' better for thee to enter into life halt or *' maimed, rather than having two hands " or two feet to be cast into everlasting *' fire." What that fire is, may be seen from the very next verse, which follows in conclusion of that discourse : ** It is better *' for thee to enter into life with one eye, " rather than having two eyes to be cast " into hell fire." The " everlasting fire" in the first part is the same, most obvi- ously, with the " hell fire" in the last : it follows therefore undeniably, that hell fire is everlasting, and the punishment of sin- ners in it is equally everlasting ; for it is in ^ Matth. xviii. 8, 9. ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 211 regard to that punishment that this epithet is applied to it. The fire being eternal, it follows that those for whom it is prepared must abide in it eternally. " ' The smoke of *' their torment ascendeth up for ever :" and those who are cast into the lake of fire and brimstone " "" shall be tormented day " and night for ever." Similar to this is the passage in St. Mark's Gospel, but yet more full and urgent on this very point of the eternity of the punishment : " >> It is better " for thee to enter into life maimed, than *' haying two hands to go into hell, into *' the fire that never shall he qiienched ; " where their worm dieth iiot, and the fire " is not quenched :" and the same words are again repeated in the two following verses. How. can we possibly interpret such direct and positive expressions for the everlasting continuance of torment to the damned, in the sense of remedial or purgatorial tor- ments alone? Or how can we get rid of St. Mark's declaration respecting the pu- nishment o( him who shall blaspheme the 1 Rev. xiv. 11, "• Rev. XX. 10, n Mark ix. 43, 44, 45, 46. F 2 212 .1 • SERMON VII. Holy Ghost ; that he *' ° hath never for- ** giveness, but is' liable (jvoxoi) to eternal " damnation?" Even those unbelievers who reject our Lord Jesus as our God and our Atonement, yet acknowledge him as a true Prophet, and as the very greatest of that favoured and highly endowed and pri- vileged class of men. And how then dan they, consistently with sUch an acknowledg- ment, presume to dispense thus with the admission of that most important truth thus solemnly revealed by him? It is suffi- ciently obvious, that man has abundant in- ducement in his own Consciousness of sin and evil desert, to seek some escape from the dread of never-ending woe. But we cannot avert danger by shutting our eyes against it : and though we have all too much reason to wish that eternity of tor- ment for unrepentant sinners were not a pa^t of God's system, yet it being declared as such, it were well that men should re- collect the folly, nay more than that, the wickedness also of making their minds eaiSy ° Markiii. 29. , ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 213 by an unauthorized theory which contra- dicts the divihe revelation. Perhaps the Unitarians will take refuge in their denial of plenary inspiration to the Holy, Scrip- tures, for they dare not deny that both the passages in St. Matthew's, and that in St. Mark's Gospel are to be found there ; nor does their pattern for correctness in the sacred text P, reject, or throw any doubt on the, original of either. It is indeed no un- reasonable thing to : suppose this : of them, after the liberties which they have taken with the sacred text, as was shewn in my last discourse ; but it is impossible, I should hope, that* any man can be so persuaded, who believes that there was really any guid- ance of the Holy Spirit exerted upon the Evangelists. It is utterly impossible, if they were' inspired at all, that they should have been per'itiittdd t6 deliver as truth, that which is not truth ; as the words of our Saviour, those ^hich he never uttered j and to promulgatie' under the sanction of his supremei' authority such jdoctrine, if, ixs p Griesbach. P 3 214 SERMON VII. its adversaries maintain, it be repugnant to the attribute of mercy, which is so conspi*- cuously manifested by the Almighty, and so particularly asserted to be his peculiar property. That the doctrine of punishment, not only inconceivably grievous in its quality, but also eternal in its duration, is the doc- trine of the holy Scriptures, and of Jesus Christ our Lord himself, has been shewn ; sufficiently, as it may be hoped, to satisfy any one who is desirous, not to support a preconceived system, but to ascertain the truth. It is sufficiently clear, to prevent any one who allows the word of God its fair weight and proper influence from setting aside that doctrine, which, full of terror as it is to us, is yet unable to restrain the inconsiderate and profligate from doing those things whereby they lay themselves under the sentence of that eternity of pain. Dr. Priestley, indeed, with that irreverence which is too often visible in his writings, advises to keep death, and all its conse- quences, out of sight. " It is not neces- *' sary," says he, .*' to dwell in our thoughts ETERNITY 6F PUNISHMENT. 215 " upon death and futurity, lest it should " interrupt the business of life, and cause *' us to live in perpetual bondage i." On their hypothesis it may not indeed be ne- cessary ; but if future punishment shall be eternal, the necessity is most urgent and undeniable. And since even that is not enough to prevent sin, we have at once an answer to the vain plea, that it is inconsist- ent with God's mercy to punish man eter- nally for temporary offences. Man is God's creature, the offspring of his will and pleasure ; yet such a one that God de- signs to effect his everlasting happiness, if he shew himself worthy to enjoy it. The two courses of present conduct are placed before him, with an eternity attached to the end of each ; eternity of happiness to obedience and virtue, and of misery to disodience and sin. The terms there- fore are equal ; and there can be no injus- tice, no derogation from the divine mercy in such a system. Man is indeed in a state of such imperfection now, it is impossible for him not to transgress. But to this 1 Sermon on the Death of Mr. Robinson, 'iiil::. P 4 216 SERMON VII. there are two obvious answers : the first, that such imperfection is not the condition in which God originally created him ; the second, that in spite even of it, he may yet save himself through the atonement and mediation made by our Blessed Sa- viour. Though this last consideration must not be admitted by a Unitarian, for it is contrary to his system, because, denying our Lord Jesus Christ to be anymore than a mere man, he sees Well enough that it is impossible for such a frail being to make any satisfactory atonement for other beings frail as himself. Though therefore the un- believer must, in consistency with himself, deny this doctrine, yet to a Christian it is distinctly revealed,; and full of Joy and hope. It is an abundant vindication of God's mercy, of his love and desire to pro- liiote the welfare of the human race, that where he had originally set immortality and death, blessing and cursing, in equal balance, as the rewards of obedience or disobedience ; he has himself now thrown the weight into that scale which is favoiar- able to us ; he has himself found out, and ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 21? oifered to us, the remedy for the fatal con- sequences in justice due to the transgres- sion of his . own law, a transgreission which incurred the forfeiture of that claim, which man in his innocency had been allowed to make. And let us recollect, that in the case of our first parents there was no na- tural propensity, as there is now, to vice j but they were guarded on the one side as much as they were assailed on the other. They were fully apprized of the conse- quence of transgression, ^and yet allowed themselves to be drawn into it. After thisj the very exkct execution of the terms in which the original covenant between God and man had been made, could not have been more than justice. But,' }'■■ where *' sin abounded," as says St. Paul, " grace *' did much more abound?" God's merey so prevailed, that the Mediator was imme- diately.- promised, as he was afterwards sent, to make atonement for the- sin com- mitted, and to give to mankind a power through him, of regaining that inheritance which in strictness they had forfeited alto- gether. That all should suffer for the fault of 218 SERMON VII. our first parents, is no more unjust than that all should have enjoyed the blessed condi- tion appointed for us, if they had not trans- gressed. Of that side of the covenant none would have complained ; and it is only a sign of our depravity that we dare to mur- mur against the other ; to set up God's mercy to the utter overthrow of his judg- ment; and in the case before us, indeed, to rely upon what men choose to think that it requires him to do^ in spite of his own revelation of what he will do, because it is, in his eyes who cannot err, just and right so to do. " ^ Nay but, O man," says the Apostle to those who presume to argue upon that very question concerning thd equity of God's decrees in regard to man- kind, " who art thou that repliest against " God ? shall the thing formed say unto " him that formed it. Why hast thou " made me thus?" Of that humility how- ever, which utters, or which acquiesces, in such an argument as his, our adversaries are, it is to be feared, but little conscious. 1 Rom. ix, 21, 22. ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 219 There is in all their writings too obvious an endeavour to set up their own under- standing as tlie test of truth, to acknow- ledge no duty which is not grounded on reasons comprehended and approved by themselves, and to deny d,ll doctrines which are contrary to their ideas of wisdom and fitness. And denying, as they do, that this life is a state of probation for eternity, they have a sort of security in which they may go on to any thing that the imaginations of mortal man may suggest to them. For if eternity of punishment be done away, the probation is made of none effect ; since it becomes no more than a question open to the decision of every one, whether he thinks present gratification without re- straint an equivalent to the temporary torment which they set up by their system, as the only future punishment of disobe- dience. I say, by their system, because it is clear that it is not any part of the doc- trine of holy Scripture. The state of trial upon their plan is an unequal state, and one which it is blasphemous to impute to the unerring God. For we must remem- 220 SERMON VII. ber that he holds out to us the idea of himself as of one, who "is of purer eyes " than to behold iniquity ;" who has apr pointed that the "Jusf^ and only the jiist, "shall continue in his si^ht;" who takes pleasure in righteousness, and is offended ht iniquity. And yet' this article of the Unitarian's creed holds out to us a system which gives encouragement to vice, as if it were God's own ; though it be really in contradiction to his unequivocal declara- tions. This then is one of the inconsistencies, this is one instance of the impiety into which the system of unbelief adopted by this sect must necessarily fbrce them. The consideration of the tin warrantable libertie's which they are thus driven to take with the word of God, will, it is to be hoped^ prove the weakness of their cause ; and more than counterbalance, with all who have any due reverence for their Almighty Creator, those allurements which the Uni- tarian doctrine holds out to the va;nity of man, , equally as to hii^ depravity. For their doctrine courts popularity by the ETERNITY OF PUNISHMENT. 221 one, as well as by the other method. By reducing every thing that is revealed to a level with the human understanding on the one hand, and by rejecting what is most alarming, and what expresses, the most decided intolerance of mortal ini- quities on the other, it brings the acts of God before the tribunal of men to decide on the truth or untruth of his declarations, and the propriety or impropriety of his de- crees. But we have St. Paul's declaration that Christianity does not proceed by such methods as these : that the devices of man must give Way, whatever they may be, or however supported, when we find them to be standing in opposition to the revelation which God has made, ''^The weapons *' of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, " through God, to the pulling down of "strong holds," such; as these are, in which the lunbelievers of our days endea- vour to (.establish themselves; and strqng holds, though not so strong but that the word of God utterly overthrows them, of ' 2 Cor. X. 4, 5. 222 SERMON VII. human judgment and human devices. The course pursued by true Christianity is that of " casting down imaginations and every *' thing that exalteth itself against the *' knowledge of God, and bringing into *' captivity every, thought to the obedience " of Christ." "The preaching of the cross/' says that same Apostle, "is to them that "perish foolishness." Let all who hold any part of its doctrines as foolishness take heed that they be not among the number of those who thus perish. Let us all look to this ; let us not allow our- selves to be drawn aside by the snares of our own vanity, nor yet by the devices of others who have been themselves so en- snared. The foundation laid in Go^'s word standeth sure; and so long as we have the support of his own recorded re- velation, let us not fear to maintain his truth, whether it be revealed clearly or in mystery, against all the sophistry of man, the allurements of our own passions, and the suggestions of the tempter. SERMON VIII. CONCLUSION. COLOSSIANS ii. 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philoso- phy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. OUCH is the caution which arises as a natural inference from the consideration of that sjTstem of scepticism and unbehef, which we have now endeavoured to ex- amine in all its avowed principles. The sect which avows them has set itself in open and declared opposition to those opi- nions which are held by the Church of England, with regard to the very founda- tions of the Christian religion. It has however, I trust, been shewn, that all the 224 SERMON VIII. difficulties and objections which they bring forward as impediments to the reception of the mysteries of Qhristiahity, are grounded in no better principle than human vanity. For they set up their own reason as a suffi- cient measure of God's revelations; and whatever does not accord with their ideas, they make no scruple to reject it, and that too frequently in most offensive and in- decent language. The great and increased activity which they have exerted in pro- moting their cause, by disseminating the pirinciples of their persuasion, and reviling the profession of sound Christianity, can- not but have been visible to every attentive observer ; from that time especially, when the restraints originally laid on them were withdrawn. But there is, I trust, nothing to be feared from their efforts as to any change which they can introduce generally, though much mischief may be done to unlearned or unstable individuals. The foundations of the Christian Church are laid, in a rock, and " the gates of hell shall not prevail " against it." Still however is it our duty to provide some remedies against the par- CONCLUSION. 225 tial evil which their confident arid positive assertions are not unlikely to produce. Refuted as they have been, by the repeated answers of various able advocates," on the great cardinal point of our Savioui-'s Deity and Atonement, still do they bring for- wa^'d the same assertions with the same as- surance, as if no one had ever replied to or disproved them. They tell those who will listen to them, in a summary manner, that there is nothing in the arguments which are urged against them ; and even the w:ord of God itself is treated by them with as little ceremony. For instance, one of their principal upholders, when pressed with one of those positive texts of St. John's Gospel whjch is fatal to their blasphemous asser- tion of the mere^humanity of Christ, whom the Unitarians declare to have been born in the natural way df his mother Mary, a man in all respects like other men j thinks it sufficient cpolly to reply, that there is nothing in it. The Apostle's words are t'hiese : " ^ And now, O Father, glorify thou a John xvii. 5, - . • Q 226 SERMON VIII. <* me with thine own self with the glory " which I had with thee before the world " was." It is not easy to conceive words more directly affirniative of the preexistence of our Saviour before his assumption of our human nature. Yet to this it is only answered, that " no argument can be drawn *^ from this ambiguous text^." If this be ambiguous, it is not easy to conceive what can be express or positive. Sometimes they will venture even' 'farther than this, and insinustte^ where they have not the confidence plainly to assert it, that the words which in reality tend to overthrow their system are rather favourable to it. Thus the same person says of the following passage of St. Pauli 'that <' if it be not de- " cisive in favour of their doctrine,-' it may " at least be regarded as neutral." Now the passage of which this is asserted is no less than one of the most positive for the actual deity of Christ, and for his coequality with the Father : " ** — Christ Jesus ; who, *' bdng in this form of God, thought it not i> Belsham, Calm Inquiry, p. 1^8. c Hj. p, 145, d Phil. ii. 6, 7. CONCLUS^ION. 227 " robbery to be equal with God ; but made '' himself of no reputation, and took upon " him the form of a servant, and was made " in the hkeness of men." fNow what can be J thought of those who openly say that this passage upholds their rejection of our Saviour's Godhead, or,*at the utmost, is neutral on the question ?» What? But that they are determined, by the most barefaced though ungrounded assertions, to prejudice thelminds of those who will listen to them, resisting themselves, and stifling in others, the conviction, which it is difficult to ima- gine that they do not see, and which in- deed their endeavours to alter the sense of this passage I have 'long since shewn that they do see, to arise naturally from this and similar-expressions. What can we think of their desire to weigh the truth fairly Ws it is declared by the Evangelist, when, finding that they eahnot sJet aside 'the express Words ofrhis Gospel, they /in another instance resort toifa sort of a mental fres'ervation, and tell us, that our Saviour's assertion of his preexistence before Abraham % (which e John viji. 58. Q 2 228 SERMON VIII. must of course, in its natural sense, do away all idea of his being a mere mortal,) . means only a preexistence ' in the Divine purpose? Such a miserable subterfuge is not indeed deserving of deliberate reply, for it is hardly to be supposed, that even the very person who makes it can feel him- self convinced of that which he asserts. We all may know, by almost every day's expe- rience, how tenacious men are of those opi- nions which they have embraced, especially when they are taken up in contradiction to the general sense of mankind. There is, then, a pretension to superiority of discern- ment, which urges them forward to assert, and which supports them in maintaining the assertions which they have made. And so soon as the vanity of human reason, the vain idea of its entire competency to judge and to reject any revelation, is once set up, the voice of the whole Christian world is scorned as the dictate of deluded igno- rance ; the judgment of the most wise in sacred knowledge is described as the bias ' John X. 3. CONCLUSION. 229 of prejudice and bigotry. By a specious shew of what they are pleased to miscall liberality, a name which has in these days been, more than any other, abused by its application to licentious practices and un- authorized scepticism ; by an ostentatious display of that name, they lay a dangerous snare for the ignorant or the unwary, and seek to promote its fatal effects by the as- surance of confident, though unsubstantial assertions. The vanity of man, especially of those who are wise in their own conceits rather than in the wisdom which is from above ; that vanity of man is naturally de- lighted by any idea of the supremacy of human reason ; by the notion of its ability and fitness to decide even on the reception due to the revelations of heaven itself. A.nd indolence also, and ignorance, will betray many, who are not so open to the snares of self-conceit. How many are there, who, though they will be the last to admit it, are, from the habits of their lives, incapable of weighing evidence ; who lie particularly open to the influence of either the one or the other; of either gratuitous assertions Q 3 280 SERMON VIll. and false criticism, or the delusive shew of liberality and freedom in opinion ! Some there are who will examine nothing ; but take up at once with the opinions which a specious and plausible statement sets be- fore them, under fair, though false colours. Others, on the contrary, who advance rashly to the trial of any question set before them, though without any of that practice in ex- amination which produces the faculty of weighing the comparative value of con- trary assertions ; of sifting and discrimi- nating evidence. For their presumption arises from that very inexperience, which at once prevents them from being fit for such disquisitioiis, and at the same time conceals from them j their own unfitness. How many are there, who, falling into the hands of artful men, before whom they are conscious of inferiority in understanding, yield up their assent without an effort; choosing rather to take human wisdom for their authority, than to examine for them- selves ! And yet on points so plainly re- vealed as these, nothing more than industry and consideration is requisite. Let the CONCLUSION. 231 more learned reason with the infidel, and confute his reascMiings; but even the most unlearned Christian may find in the-Bible,. if he will be at the pains of searching there, and humble himself enough to submit the opinion which he has taken up, 5 to that which he shair find there; even the'most plain* and . unlearned jChiastian may^find abundant proof of all those doctrines which Christians hold, and Unitarians deny. They will (indeed seek to shake him, by urging, though " falsely, the incorrectness of our version of the New Testament. ;■ But even though we wercito give up all which they have fraudulently suppressed and altered in til eirsy there would still remain enough of which they have not dared to get rid in that way; enough to prove the doctrines which ours and ^i^ every, other i Christian Church holds in opposition to, them. J:, .'s liThe doctrines of the Unitarian sect strike dt. the 4 very vitals of Christianity, and en- deavour to secure to thejrjfallowers, a sort of comparative impunity, an escape from eternal punishment, which may embolden them- to venture on the denial of the most q4 232 SERMON VIII. It important truths revealed by God, and committed to ourselves for unreserved ac- ceptation and belief. Therefore it is, that although the most particular and cardinal points of their system have been repeatedly discussed and overthrown by far more able defenders of our faith, it may yet be useful to have taken a comprehensive view of the whole, and shortly to have demonstrated the fallacy of each peculiar doctrine which that sect has aVowed. The indolent may not be terrified at so short a discussion of the matter ; and since the proofs on which I have insisted have been chiefly drawn from passages of holy - Writ, whose au- thenticity is not denied, even by our ad- versaries, a demonstration of the falsehood of their tenets is thereby afforded, which must carry conviction to any unbiassed mind, whether of the learned or unlearned. The Apostle exhorts us to " prove all " things, and hold fast that which is good/' I have proceeded so to do, upon that which, in spite of whatsoever presumption may suggest to the human niind, ought ever to be esteemed the best proof: I have proved CONCLUSION. 233 the truth of those doctrines which we hold and they refuse, by the word of him whose word is truth. Such evidence as this lies well within the compass of the most ordi- nary capacity, and is at the same time the most convincing testimony which can be laid before the brightest and most cultivated abilities. The inductions which appear at first sight to be reasonable, may upon far- ther examination be found to have been unfairly drawn : the course of an argument may ,be warped, and its result unfairly stated- Of abstract reasonings, the un- learned are not competent judges ; neither are those, who, with better abilities and means of information, neglect to give the subject a full investigation. Whether they do thus from presumption or negligence, or from a prejudice previously conceived in favour of new and strange doctrines, and what are falsely called liberal ideas in religion ; neither of them is more likely to convince the gainsayer, or themselves, to learn and to hold fast that which is good. The word of God, however, on this as well as on all other points of vital importance. 234 SERMON VIU. is clear to all who do not seek to wrest it to their own purposes. To that we must all bow, and on its foundation may secure- ly make our stand, and defy alike the snares and assaults of the infidel.'f- .'rt'")ftot;-r r And let it be remembered, that we enter upon this controversy, not' as on one which we have provoked byiany novel opinions of ours, but in defence of that which has been the Christian faith from the first : which was, with very few exceptions, uni- versally hdd in the earliest and purest ages of i the Christian Church, the age of the Apostles themselveSj and of their contem'^ poraries and immediate successors. 4 j The Unitarian, proud in his own conceit of his own reason, will tell 'us, when he finds that venerable authority to be against him, that it is of no value compared with the disco- veries which the freedom of religious in- qiiiry has now made' known. But that freedom is not now for the first time so employed; for we , all know, that in the earliest times there Were a few who erred, and overthrew, the faith of some: there were those who, ' being unlearned and un- CONCLUSION. 235 stable, wrested the Scriptures, as these do now, to their own destruction. The Uni- tarians indeed still tell vis, that they were the primitive Church, who did thus, though their assertion has long ago been most tri- umiphantly refuted, by the learning and abilities of a distinguished Prelate of our own days. They still keep alive the dis- pute, and hazardous as controversy is to the truly Christian spirit, yet it does not therefore become us to permit their dan- gi^rous doctrines and fallacious asisertions to -pass unheeded^ dispersing their mischief, and scattering their snares on every side, to poison and ' entrap the unwary. All Christians, but particularly those dedicated to the sacred office, are called upon to come forward; to takJe to them "the *' whole armour of God;" and " fight the " good fight of faith j" biit never let us forget that 'Which in the heat of contro- versy is too often allowed to escape our recollection, that *' the weapons of our " warfaire are not carnal." If it be almost impossible to suppress indignation at the coarse and profane manner in which things 236 SERMON VIII. the most Sacred are occasionally treated by the adversary, yet should a strict guard be kept over the mind of him who engages in the question, lest his indignation dege- nerate into anger and personal animosity. But whatever be the dangers which this controversy shares in common with all others, still it is not to be considered as altogether unproductive of good. The mercies of God are never more conspi- cuous, never more loudly call for our gra- titude,, than when, from the evil attempts of his enemies, he produces good to his faithful servants; when he makes those questions which the unbeliever agitates, in the hope of disturbing the belief of Chris- tians, the means of strengthening and con- firming that faith ; by causing its evidences, and the immoveable authority on which it rests, to be laid in every possible form before the eyes of the world. Controversy on the great fundamental articles of our religion, like the moving of the waters at Bethesda, excites a salutary influence, of which those who go fairly into it, to seek the- good which God has sent to man, be- CONCLUSION. 237 come partakers, to the establishment of their spiritual strength and health. The cavils and objections of the infidel, which if silently insinuated without reply would be more pregnant with mischief to those on whom they might light, are thereby brought before the world, examined and sifted. The poison is shewn to be poison, and the minds of many who might other- wise have rested quiescent in indolence, exposed to the influence of unbelieving cavils, without being able to " give a rea- " son for the hope that is in them," with- out having any power to confute the gain- sayer, will now, it is reasonably to be hoped, " prove all things ;" and if that be fairly done, they will the more effectually ."hold fast that which is good." And would to God that controversy were confined to points which affect the basis of religion, which threaten the foun- dations of the Christian faith ! Would to God, that where a difference of opinion prevails on points not essential to salvation, both sides alike would refrain from urging, as well as ffom repelling, with such vio- 238 SERMON VIII. lence as too often leads to bitter animo- sity, those opinions which they hold, and their opponents deny ! Would that all parties would recollect that in which all agree, that " charity never faileth:" that charity '^ is not easily provoked ; doth not " behave itself unseemly ; thinketh no ^'' evil !" The truth, as. it is in Christ Je- sus, and all that belongs to it, must be maintained. The defence of the outworks tends to keep off the attack from the ci- tadel, and the negligent maintenance of the one may in fact betray the other. But there is no advantage in intemperance; nor is there any thing, either in reason or religion, which justifies the corruption of earnest and fervent zeal, into fiery and in- temperate bitterness.! Let not Christians preach Christ " of contention" among them- selves; but if contention is forced upon us, let it be maintained by all believers, against those who are the enemies to the faith. Qf those professed enemies the present jsect 6f Unitarians are the chief; and it must be observed by any one who considei-s the state of religious dissent in these days, that CONCLUSION. 239 Unitarianism is, as it were, the sink into which those who have been long unsettled in their opinions, and have run through many different persuasions, often fall at the last. This is well known to be the case with a large and powerful sect, which once diflfered principally on a point of discipline from the. Established Church of this land ; many of whose members however are now falling into this state of positive unbelief. The writings of several among the German divines also have long been tending that way; and that imaginary illumination, which produced disbelief in the doctrines and person of our Blessed Redeemer, which has in our own times been too fa- tally connected with the total abandon- ment of religion under any form' whatso- ever, a^d with the rejection of true mora- lity altogether, proceeded from that same, which they now set up as a sovereign prin- ciple-— the ^ncied supremacy of Human Reason. ' It ' might perhaps be highly resented, were we to say, that the system of faith of this sect is the natural offspring of licen- 240 SERMON VIIL tious freedom of conduct ; though immoral practice naturall}^ begets an inclination to set aside that authority which most deci- dedly condemns it. But the writings of their own principal authors in our country declare that such is the case. One de- scribes them as those " ^ who have heard " Christianity from their infancy, who •' have in general believed it for some time, " and not come to disbelieve it, till they " had long disregarded it." Another'' says the same thing in effect ; for by " popular " superstition," he manifestly intends the established faith, and by " a rational sys- " tem of faith," the unbelief of the Unita- rians. " Men," says he, " who are mosi " indifferent to the practice of religion, " and whose minds therefore are least at- " tached to any set of principles, will ever '* be the first to see the absurdity of a po- " pular superstition, and. to embrace a ra- " tional system of faith." Holding such s Priestley, Letter to a Philosophical Unbeliever, vol. ii. Preface, p. 9. h Belsham's Sermon on the Importailce of Truth, p. 32. CONCLUSION. 241 maxims as these, how can it happen other- wise, than that they should attack the esta- blished religion in whatever fpnit it may be found ? And in fact they have always "-been the enemies and revilers, in Protesi- tant countries of the Reformed, in papal countries, where they have ^are4. to she\v themselves as such, of the Roman. Church ; in short, of Christianity itself, an ^ for it;s own sake : for it is not against any abusiejs peculiar to , any nations, but against the Crodhead of our Redeemer, that their at- tacks are directed. Their comfortless idpc- trine sacrifices to human vanity thfit greatr est of all consolations, which we derive from the dpctpne of th^ Atoriement. It annihilates, so far. as they can effect their purposes, that love of Christ which was the motive of air his acts of mercy, and is the foundation of aU encouragement to mortal frailty. Fdr if hisGodl^ead be done away, there is an end to his grace, to his sppnta" neous sacrifice for sin. If he were a mere orgature, sent to tlo his Creator's pleasure, that love on which the Gospel dwells so emphatically, that Ipve which the Apostles R 242 SERMON VIII. and primitive Christians regarded as pass- ing man's understanding, fades away into nothing. The act which is done from obe- dience in a creature to his Creator, how- ever beneficial to others, calls not for their gratitude towards him; because their be- nefit is not, in that case, the object which excited him to the act : it is a mere act of obedience, and would have been equally performed, if it had tended to their preju- dice. I need not labour to prove how ut- terly repugnant is such a theory to the whole tenor of Christianity, which always dwells, and takes pleasure in dwellirig, on the hve of Christ. If therefore the Person of the Son be not united in the Godhead of the Father, and so a sharer in all his acts, he can have shewn no love towards mankind in any thing which he has don'e. What then becomes Of those Scriptures whose authority is acknowledged by all parties, which describe such love as the motive to all the acts in which Christ ever has conferred, or ever shall confer, bene- fits on mankind ? Even the Jews, though they also deny CONCLUSION. 243 Christ, can perceive and expose that de- ceitful' profession, which sets forth as Chris- tians those who reject his Godhead. They consider the admission of that doctrine which our Church holds in this matter, to be essential to the real profession of the Christian faith. They consider that every Christian holds Christ to be the very Son of God, and not, as the Unitarians say, the son of Joseph \ They argue so far truly, that if he were not the Son of God in a ' " Your doctrine is so opposite to what I always un- ^'derstood to be the principles of Christianity, that I " must ingenuously confess I am greatly puzzled to re- " concile your principles to the attempt. What ! A " writer that asserts that the miraculous conception of " Jesus does not appear to him to be sufficiently au- " thenticated, and that the original Gospel of St. Mat- " thew did not contain it, set up for a defender of Chris- " tianity against the Jews, is such a system of incon- " sistency as I did not expect from a philosopher, whose " sole pursuit hath been in search of truth ! You are " pleased to declare in plain terms, that you do not be- " lievethe miraculous conception of Jesus; and that yoa '' are of opinion, that he was the legitimate son of Jo- " seph. After such assertions as these, how you can be " entitled to the appellation of a Christian in the strict " sense of the word, is to me really incomprehensible." David Levi's Letter to Dr. Priestley. K 2 244 SERMON VlIL peculiar manner, if he did not preach the word of God as Ms own word, and com- mand that it should be received upon his own authority ; they perceive that if he did not do these things of his oivn true and real right, he could have no delegated right, nor iany authority hy commission at all. They perceive that he claimed to be God and Lord ; and therefore, if he were not such, the person who preferred such a claim falsely, could not be a true prophet ^ They rightly understand his claims, as being layed so high, that he must have been an impostor, if he be not viery God. ^ Would that men might attend to that caution given by the Apostle, " Beware " lest any one spoil you through philoso- ^ " He preached himself tote the light of the world, " which is an instance not to be paralleled in Scripture. " For the duty of a Prophet consisted in his delivery of " God's word or message to the people : not in presump- *' tuously preaching himself. Aga;in we meet with the " same example in John xiv. 6. where Jesus preaches " Minseif ias the way, the truth, and the Ufa. It is inani- *' fest that he was not sent by God to us as a prophet, " seeing he was so deficient in the essential character of " a prophet." David Levi, Letter to Dr. Priestley, p. 14. CONCLUSION. 245 " phy and vain deceit !" Would that they might lay aside the vanity of human con- ceit, and bring every thought into subjec*- tion to the obedience of Christ ! Such has always been the mode of conduct adopted by the Reformed Church of England : such has been her diligence in examining, and her caution in embracing or rejecting opi- nions in religion : such her modesty and humility in submitting every doctrine, with- out exception or. reserve, to the test of God's word. Had such been the conduct of the Unitarian, we should not have seen the preference openly given to their awn speculations,', before t,he revealed truths which have been handed down in the re- corded word of the Most High. Had such been the respect, of that sect towards the Divine word, we should not have heard Crod impiously accused, as he is by them, ™ of " merciless tyranny" for his declared • • " To make discoveries ourselves, though the search " may require time and labour, is infinitely more pleas- " ing, than to learn every thing .by the information of " others." Sermon on the death of Mr. Robinson. m « If God mark and gupish every instance of^ans- " gression, he must be a merciless tyrant,: ind ftre mjist 426 SERMON VIII. intentions of punishing the unrepentant sinner at the day of judgment. Such are the impieties into which the maintenance of opinions which have their re^l founda- tion only in human arrogance betrays men. And yet even themselves can sometimes see, that prejudice is full as unreasonable when it runs against, as when it favours the commonly received opinion : '* There "is no class or description of men but *' what are subject to particular prejudices, " and every prejudice must operate as an " obstacle to the reception of some truth. "It is vain for unbelievers to pretend to " be free from prejudices. They may in- " deed be free from those of the vulgar; "and the very affectation of being free " from vulgar prejudices, and being wiser " than the rest of mankind, must indispose " them to the admission even of truth, if " it should happen to be with the common " people"." Thus can even Unitarians " be tempted to wish the reins of universal government " in better hands." Belshands Serm. on the Importance of Truth, p. 34. " Priestley'^s Letter to a Philosophical Unbeliever, Part ii. Letter 5. CONCLUSION. 247 argue, when they do not perceive how much tlie argument makes against themselves, and yet suffer conceit to lead them on in the maintenance of a favourite hypothesis, even in the very face of expressed convic- tion ! When such are the principles of this sect, that they stand in direct opposition to every thing which we most honour and revere, to the glory of God and the I>eity of his only begotten Son our Redeemer, how can they profess to be wholly igno- rant, " why 'it should of late i have grown " into a fashion among the Clergy to de- " claim against the Unitarians?" Has it not, to use their own words, of late " grown " into a fashion" among the Unitarians, to put themselves forward in reviling those sacred truths, to the defence of which the Clergy have solemnly dedicated themselves? They have not, say they, " attacked the " Ecclesiastical Establishment, the reve- " nues of the Church, or the characters of " the Clergy." Ought these considerations to have closed our lips ? Ought we to have been awake to our temporal interests, and '248 SERMON Vm. neglectful of the foundation on which rest all our hopes for evermore ? Though the foundation of God's word standeth sure, yet the weak brother must be guarded, lest he be made to slip from his footing upon that foundation. This is the consitleration which has called forth animadversion and rebuke upon their specious fallacies. We are placed in our station to watch for those committed to us, " as they that must give " an account." We are commanded to be ever ready to *' give a reason for the hope " that is in us." May God grant, that such reason be never wanting to the de^* fenders of Christianity ; and may he in his mercy extend to all, to believers and to unbelievers, in his good time, the grace of our Redeemer ; that all may receive and obey, with true humility and entire obedience, the doctrines of Salvation. THE END. 8ERMON. BEING THE CONCLUSION OF A COURSE, PREACHED DURING LENT, 1819, St. MARGARET'S CHAPEL, BATH. BY THE REV. C. A. MOYSEY, D.D. HECTOR OP WALCOT. S^conti tuition* BATH: PUBLISHED BY J. BARRATT AND SON, OLD bond-street; AMD sotn sir Au. the oiber booksellers. 1819. A SERMON, " IF YE KNOW THESE THINGSj HAPPY AHE YE IF YE DO THEM." John xiii. 17> J^UCH is the conditiorii annexed to every pre- cept of righteousneas ; such are the terms, accor- daing^ to which the salutary admomtions which the Gospel of our Saviour so abundantly sup- plies, will be counted to us either for causes of salvation or condemnation. When can these terms and conditions be more properly recalled to our recollection than at the conclusion of the season of fasting and humiliation ? When can it be expected that they should produce more salu- tary and permanent impressions, than at the close of reflections on that subject which has occupied our atteiation weekly in this place, Re- pentance ? Gratifying, highly gratifying it is, to see that a subject which affords so little to captivate the ear or allure the curiosity, should yet have engaged the continued arid still increas- ing attention which has been paid to it ; that the attempt, however imperfect, to declare the whole counsel of God on this point, so far as the op- portunity allowed, should have been received not only with patience, but -with every indication of earnest desire for such admonition. Well and fairly may the Christian generally rejoice in such appearance of religious feeling ; and with reasonable hope of acceptation may each" one offer up his prayer, that it might please the Almighty to make his own heart fertile in those good fruits which ought to spring from such preparation, and which may well be' ex- pected to spring from it, if it have been tho- roughly and sincerely made. But there is the question which we are bound to try in our own heart ; and for the thorough trial of which a re- view is necessary of the matters which have now been laid before us, and an examination of the impression which they have made, and as we may hope permanently made, on our conscience.— With some persons, at least, it' may not be un- reasonable to hope that such has been the case ; though the general course of dissipation hascon- tiniied without any respect-to the' exercises of religion appointed for this season,^ though every species of vanity,. and indulgence, and luxury, has continued to reign in public without control. " To day,", says the psalmist, " if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts."* Is it then that we refuse to bear God's voice, or to what is this hardening of the heart to be attributed ? — For never let it be forgotten that perseverance in any practice, after we have been apprized of its iniquity, constitutes this offence ; and the refusal to ^ hear does not afford any extenuation on the ground that it may not .perhaps have led to any positive and decided act of iniquity. - . If courses of idleness are pursued, they who follow them quickly become hardened in neglect ; they become insensible .of. the. sin which they commit in wasting so much of the preciou.s time committed to their charge; and indifferent to the consequences, because they have ceased to make any account of them. .The act of trans- gression can seldom be commited, whatever be its nature, without awakening the attention in some degree to that which we are doing. 'I'he sin of neglect is silent, and too often unheeded. The former, the positive commission of offence, may, .(>ften startle him who is not confirmed in practices of vice, and induce him to reflect, and withdraw his foot from the paths in which he is about to tread. The latter, the neglect of what * Psalm xcv. — 7, 8 6 ought to have been done,ci%epa silendy and un- observed upon us. It gives no violent shock to any of our feelings. It falls in with the love of ease, and with that disposition to indolence, which are defects so natural in the characters of most persons ; with that propensity to seek what pas- sion and inclination desire, rather than what duty approves, which constitutes a temptaition so po- werful in all,- and so fatal to too many, ' But let it not be forgotten, that whatever ex- cuses may be urged for . casual and occasional omissions r yet that continued neglect of any duty wliich'wex)ught.to have performed, or con- tinued neglect to consider whether we ought to .have performed that which we frequently -^ jier- form, amount to nothing less than hardening our- selves in careless indifference- at least,; if not in actual -iniquity. -■:,> jr ;.;,?! > ^ And inuch of . the same nature in effect is ^e •delay of amendment; much of the -same nature as ito its making us eventually chargeable with the sin of omission, though more deceitful, and there- fore more dangerous, in appearance. For why should not the same cause which now operates as an excuse for neglect of duty, continue to operate? It is, in the first instance, inclination which makes us seek for' such excuses. And are we so ignorant of our own nature, as ftot to be aware that every instance in which we give way to such inclination against our better judgment, or without consult- ing it, from^fear &f finding it against that which we desire to do ; every such instance weakens; our power of resistatice^ . if ever afterward we should collect resolutioa enough to make tiie- attempt? ., Whoever has been at all accustomed to exa- . mine his own heart, and i to review his actions and the -motives which led to. theoi^ will stand coq'. victed by his own coascience i» raany instances, with regard to this matter. Whoever has^iiot- ac-' quired the habit of regular and frequent selfrexa- jRiination, severely and . accurately made, may escape, indeed,, some reproachesof conscience, but is hardening himself in the slqs of omission, if not in those of a more positive nature. . And be it remembered that the distinctions wbich mankind, set up as tothexomparative criminalky of offences, are very commonly without founda- tion,^ except in their, own ideas formed out of their own habits. . Thus it is that sins of r»eglect have been accounted, as less offensive* fori no better reason than , because neglect is the com- mon vice of aH, and all are interested in seeking some appearance of extenuation for it. . , > Rut the Lord judgeth-not as man judgeth,, "for man looketb on the oytward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart ; " in that point, there- fore,; must *be reformation begiuj and all, with- eiut exception^ stand in need of it, for their posi- s tiv6 transgressions of the law of righteousness, or for their neglect to do the deeds of righteousness j if not for both. Repentance is never shut out from those who sincerely desire to repent ; but we may be cut off, - we know not how sOoti, from the power to at- tempt it. ' And have we tried ourselves whether the intention to repent be really sincere in our- selves? Have we -found on* former occasionsj' that when convicted of fault or omission by our own conscience, we have been truly earnest tO' reform that which was amiss,- without waiting for the exairfple of the world to lead in a way wherein * it never will lead ; and without taking shelter for our own misdoings under the prevailing follies^ and even vicesi of others ? Our own example to others is a concern of very weighty moment to every one of us ; but the example of others is no sort of justification to the conduct which may be produced by its influence, upon ourselves. Have we found ourselves willing to take example from- tlie virtuous, and earnest to set example of that which is good before others ? Or have we rather followed in the stream of popular practice,' satis- fied with the standard of worldly behaviour, and without reflecting how utterly void of excuse are they who "follow a multitude to do evil ? "' The wOrld, in the general acceptation of the' term, the body of society, and especially of more refined society, requires to be awakened to exertion ; to be convinced that not only p*tient'hearing of the word of God, but also diligent practice of the ' precepts, which it inculcates, is essentially neces- sary to salvation ; that it is not enough to read the ordinances of our duty, nor patiently to' endure reproof for the neglect of those ordi- nances in passed time ; but that unless our prac-- tice prove the effectual impression made on our conisciences, the precepts which we have received will only testify against us to condemnation. Most gladly do I bear witness to the attention which has been paid to an attempt (however weakly made) to impress on our own minds the importance of the great duty of repentance, at this season set apart for humiliation and contri-- tiOn. ' To hear the word is the first thing ; and patience under rebuke is essentially necessary to every one, who thinks to learn the righteousness of God, and how he may best shew it forth in the conduct of his own life. These give oppor-' funity for amendment ; they- open the mind to- suggestions which may by. God's grace make an, impression there,' and convince us of that whichs is the first tffing to be known, that we have yet much to do in order to make good our title as faithful and true disciples of our blessed Lord; But they do not amount to effectual amendment in themselves ; they are, as it were, but the 10 threshold and entrance to it. *' Blessed," sai4 our Saviour, "are they that hear the things which ye hear.'' Was it on account of' their gratifica- tion at the time, tiiat such hearing was accounted for blessedness? — Was it because they were con- vinced of the truth of tliose divine lessons, and gave their bare approbation and assent to them ? No— The doctrines of the Gospel never evapo- rate in mere speculative righteousness ; they are never satisfied by mere empty applause, nor is any reward ascribed to those who confer that and no more ; but the teaching of Christ him- self is this — " If ye know these things, ha{)py are ye if ye do them." There is a fashion in every thing at this day, and even in religion itself there is a fashion. It is followed in outward appearance by too many, merely because others shew the same observance to it; and not from any motive springing purely from the sense of duty, or from conviction of its excellence and high importance. In such a case the example vphich has now been shewn of atten- tion to this service, may, it is to be hoped, work salutary effects, and extend its influence not only to the exterior, but to the spiritual and essential part of religion. For as evil communications corrupt good manners, so will thesociety of those who are engaged in a good practice tend to re- commend the adoption of such practices to others. n But let not our concern for, Jhatw^ich we ac- knowledge to be our duty stop here- Let it not rest on the performance of one act of service, with- out going on to a consistent conduct in others also ; nor let us rest satisfied with the outward shew of good example, while no pains have been taken really to purify tlie thoughts and intentions of our hearts, and in .every thing to mate: our behaviour consis- tent with such shew of outward reverence. Let it be examined how much of the attention, shewn in this instance, has sprung from curiosity ; how much from influence of others ; and how much from a real desirato be awakened to the sense of our need of reformation. Our future behaviour will prove, what, has probably been the motive with each individual. For if the heart has really been desirous.of repentance, there will not appear tl^t ioconsisten<;y in your conduct^^ which marks t|je state ofone halting between two opinions. And surely.it. is not harsh nor unreasonable to entertain some idea, that, pure religion has not been the only principle of, action with all, . when so much haa constantly sjiewn itself, which vi^as inconsistent with the profession of really religious zeal. When those, who came- to hear the duties of a season of mortification and.p§nitence incul- cated in tlie morning, mixed , nevertheless in all the height of gaiety, wjiich the follo,wing eveQing's dissipation- could -afford. p-(-whfinUi0se who bad 12 listened to the warnings which the word of God supplies, against remission of duties, and neglect of dSily prepararion for our account with qur Almighty Judge, and against the delay of repeq- tance and reformation ; when they, as if to banish such thoughts, as if studiously to dispjerse all recollections which might have arisen from: them, plunged again as de^ly as ever into the tide of worldly gratification, and luxurious idle- ness, so soon as the opportunity was offered — ^what can be thought of their sincerity? Or what of the. firmness of their resolution, under the convictions with which they seemed to have been impressed? Can it be imagined, that they could have supposed the morning's attention to be set off as an equi- valent against the evening's neglect ? — Can it be,> that they could conceive that the duty performed, would stand as a sufficient counterpoise against the dirty neglected ?- Consistency is necessary to give respectability to our behaviour among men, and it is not less necessary to make our acts of righteous observance, valua,ble in the sight of God. If a season is observed at all as conducive to repentance, and as especially set apart for the promotion of that great and most important worfcy it ought to be observed throughout; and suQJh observance, if it were hearty and sincere, would put a stop, for the time, to those scenes of festi- vity, which in this city run higher, at this season, -'-•>r. I'o. any other. 13 The ex'ercises' of religion'y which are peculiarly appropriate to the season, would then produce ■their proper effect. The irhpi'essions which/Qqcrht to be kept tip, and which must beiept up if any good effect is to be produced by them, would riot then be dissipated by the plans of amusement •which was immediately- to foUowi^ The mind Tvonld have time to acquire somewhat of a habit of consideration, and religious reflection ; arid would come forth from such exercise, foj-iified against the temptations, which a state of society •necessarily produces for the probation of every one. That season has now indeed nearly passed away : how it has been spent, and what use has been made of it, is matter for :the ; reflections gf €v€ry individual. But though in the time parti- culariy set apart for penitence, it be more espe- cially becoming our -ptofession to pay peculiar attention to it ; yet be it rememberedj that it js a duty which never can be suspended. Let us not imagine, because a- special tinie of fasting and humiliation- was appointed by the primitive Church, and our own, that therefore we are to indulge in every sort of revelry and luxury when that time shall ha,ve ceased. Were jt observed, as it used in better days io be, such could not be the ease, nor would such inference jtheii be drawn. ' How rnuch less can the very imperfect practice of modern times among us, 14 afford aniy pretence for the justification of parti- cular indulgence afterwards. ''' If we have not yet begun to turn our minds to reflection on our own ways, and to real and tho- rough amendment of them', it is time that we should immediately now begin. Many are the oppiorturiities' besides such seasons as this, which may serve to recal the tboaghts from worldly vanities, and to make us better acquainted' with our own deficiencies. Every misfortune, whether great or small, ministers snch opportunities in a greater or less degree. Ill success in our under- takings ; sickness of ourselves, or others for whom we are interested as for ourselves ; misfortanei^ of every sort ; all tend to awaken the thoughts fo the serious reflectiott, without which there may be a profession of repentance, but without which it is little likely to be taken up in sincerity and truth;' The difficulty always is to make us tho^ roughly sensible how much we individually stand in need of it : to convince us that general con- fessions of sin are not the methods which Will lead us to know our own iaiquities, and that ge- neral professioiHi of •reperitaaee Wiir never lead Us to the amendment of them. ^'' *' Love not the world, neither the things of the world. If any man love the world,' the love of the Father is not in him.'**- That love of the '-■■ • 3 John «. 15. 15 world, however, it is, which, proves the constaat bar to our amendment ; which all can perceive in ^heir neighbours, but none will acknowledge in themselves. That love, it is, which makes men linger on, and still cling to habits of which they well know ^at the end is not salvation. That love, of the present it is, which prevents them from attending to the danger of deferring amendment beyond the present hour; and makes them for- get, that if they know these things, happy are they only. if. they do them. - , May God in his ine^cy grant that these reflec- tions be not merely tera,porary, but ' fixed 'and ingrafted in our hearts. To him alone' it is known, which of u& who have heard- these things, will at the return of this season in the next year be found among us, to shew the fruits which they have borne in consequence of them. The rest jwiil then have passed beyond the probation of this uncertain state, beyond, its trials of joy or of sorrow : beyond the allurement of its dissipation, and the irritation of its afflictionSi Think every one for himseH-r-let me fefeseech you to think, how your own particular accoant stands prepared should that lot fall on you. Try your hearts; how much observance has been given to religion, and to duty, because it is duty before God ; and how much atteji;ition has been paid to it, for decency's sake, before man, or from any other worldly mo~ 16 live ; where the practices of an idle and dissi- pated society have left scope even for that service. We are standing, both young and old alike, on the brink of eternity ; and examples are daily occurring to warn us how, suddenly we may be snatched away to abide the judgment— No. age, no condition, is exempt from responsibility ; nor secure, for one single moment, against the call which may instantly come, to render up the ac- count which must one day be given. May God in his mercy, grant that we, when he cometb, may be found so watering; that this present sea- son may be to us a beginning of serious reflection upon our past state here» and our future lot for evermore ; and may he so teach us to number our days, aye every one of them, that we may apply our hearts itnmediately from this time forth, and constantly and habitually, to his heavenly wisdom. THEYt.EK3, PKINTEBS, SAIH. A SERMON ON WmmMM (@iniiIEA(@^IlIEa FREiLCHED ON OCCASION OF f#er late iWaiestg'e ^Funeral, THE CHAPEL IN MARGARET'S- COURT, BATH. ay THE REV, C. A. MOYSEY, D. D. BBCTOR OF WALCOT. PUBLISHED BY BARRATT AND SOJv, BOOKSELLERS, BATH. mo. PRINTED BY MEYLER AND gOJi, ABBEY CtIVftCH-YARD,'»Al?H. SERMON. &c. 1 HEARD A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, SAYING UNTO ME. WRITE, BLESSE©. ARE THE DEAD WHO DIE IN THE LORD FROM HENCEFORTH. YEA, SAITH THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS ; AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM- —14 Rev. V. 13. J. HESE are the words which in that sub- lime and magnificent prophecy of St. John, describe the salvation of the faithful cut of the fiery trial, which is thgre announced as the furnace in which they were to be proved and purified. It follows immedi- ately upon the denunciation of vengeance and unspeakable punishment on those who should have received the mark of the beastj the badge of Satan, the symbol of adherence to that Babylon, which has commonly been understood as designating the Church of Rome with its idolatries and blasphemous worship. It follows upon As 4 the annunciation of the overthrow of that Babylon, of that idolatrous power ; and contains a blessing, emphatically pronoun- ced on those who had died under its perse- cutions, or who should die free from its ini- quities. May God, in his mercy, grant to all of us, that we may be partakers in that blessing; and though appearances may threaten the revival of that sinful and per- nicious dominion, yet we may hope that Divine vengeance will not visit our sins, by restoring strength to that perishing, but still dangerous apostacy : and we have aJT^ reason to make our prayer against the re- vival of that spirittial Babylon : to pray, *' Now that it lieth, let it rise up no more/' Much might be the benefit derived in these days from a full consideration of this the original sense of our present text, con- sidered in connection with the prophecy to -which it belongs. But it is hardly a fit suljject for discussion befoT€ a mixed con- gregation. It requires judgement and. much learning, and leisure to apply them both to the thorough examination of the whole book, if %ve would hope to pene- trate into the particular difficulties which there abound, ^nd even with all those advanteges, our proficiency would proba- bably be but small. For Gbd neter gave the wbrd of prophecyj to enable us bgfore hand to discern what was to come to paSfe, and error is the certain cbnSequence of all attempts at so dding. This has been exemplified most abundantly, in the at- tempts which have been so repeatedly made of late years ; attempts Which have not stopped at their proper point, the en- deavour to call the attention of mankind to those evidences of Divine foresight* which are afforded by the atcomplishment of prfeHictions which have been fulfilled'; an accomplishment to which the attentioji of unthinking persons is not directed as it ouglit to be ; but which Seeks to withdraw the veil spread by Almighty Providence over the events of futurity. Nor have those who make such attempts recollected the key which our blessed Saviour has given, to shew the pefied at which the ex- planation of prophecies may be expected, and the obfect which the knowledge of such .explanation is intended to answer. " Now I have told you before it come to pass 6 that when it is come the standard of female character in this country, when profligaicy and imraodestsy prevailed; and were openly countenan- ced in every other court of Europe: w^o steadily set her face against any, fbom the highest rank to the loweefr, who were known to have departed from that modesty which is the brightest or- nament of the ffemale character. Her attention to all the duties of re- Kgion was also exemplary. To charity she opened! wide- her hand without os- tentation : But many of those duties were performed in private, where the example could not produce the sam-e excellent effects on the public mind. The countenance which she gave to de^ eeney of character was open and pub> Kc, and therefore was it of the highest public benefit. To what might not the freedom and in- considerate licence of modern manners, 13 (i:o eall it by t^ie gentlest name) — to what might it not have growni but for the steady adherence of her who is now taken from this land, to her system of openly discourage ipg them, by refusing access to her pre- sence to all on whom the imputation noto- riously rested ? If we are not aware of the immense advantage which the public has reaped from such strictness of decorum, in an age when levity and dissipation are still at their height, when profligacy and ,&hameless disregard to decency have been seen in too many instances ; we know not, and do not deserve the advantages we have enjoyed. Is there any one who can be in- sensible of the influence which female character produces on the whole cast and complexion of society ; and can we be contented that such influence be perverted^, to aid the cause of irreligion rather than of Christian virtue ? From the highest rank to thp lowest, the force of example extends,; in some measure at least, it encourages and. persuades to obedience and to duties of reli- gion ; though human depravity is con- stantly acting in opposition to good inftu- ence ; constantly urging to obey the flesli 14 in all the lusts thereof. But if the exami^ pie tend to sin, how readily is the shadow of sanction which it seems to hold out em- braced ! How powerfully does it co-ope- jate with our natural propensity to evil, when those above us shew in themselves the pattern of iniquity, or when they up- hold or encourage vice by giving the sup-- portoftl>eir countenance to it in others, Surely then to her memory, in, whom- such iniquity was denied by example, and discountenanced by her authority ; the praise, the thanks, the gratitude of every advocate of well-doing are most justly due. Without that modesty and decency of reputation which it was her constant prac- tice to require, what should have preserved the female character in this country, from falling to the same low standard to which we have sren it sunk in too many places on the continent of Europe ? What though that standard relate chiefly to the outward appearance ? Yet is outward ap- pearance all over which an earthly being can exercise authority ; and little can they have known of human nature, who are not aware that so soon as the outward barrier* 15 of decent exterior and visible deportment are disregarded and thrown down, the pu- rity of the heart and mind are speedily borne away^ by the torrent of dissipation and profligate example which pour in on every side. And fearfully does that tide of vice and immorality threaten now to set upon «v when such numbers of those whose influ- ence and example greatly tend to establish the character of the times in which' we live, have been exposed to all the corrup- tion of licentious courts abroad ; to all the seducing influence of disregard for religion and for God, masked under the ensnar- ing appearance cf liberality, and cheetfal- ness, and amusement. In her^ to whose living example we now can look for it no more, have we the model, by which to frame our conduct in discouraging the growing profligacy of the age ; in resisting that corruption of the good manners which it has pleased God hitherto to preserve in the female character in this nation beyond those around us ; a corruption which the evil communications to which so many of our younger females have lately been 16 ejcp©sed, makes ihe cbnsiderate mind to re-* ^lard with espeeial apprehension and drfeS^d. Let it then be shewn, that the Chris- tian principled of this favoured nation ' are not to be carried away by the force of foreign licentiousness, and practical infidelity. Let each one now do her best individually to keep up that standard of modesty and decency of character, which ■was so well maintained by her who is now, as we trust, gone to receive the blessing of those " who die in the Lord." Will all who now hear me so die? Will all whose Works do follow them, find rest from their labours ? On them a^lone who die in the Lord, is the bless- ing of the Apostle pronounced. Not on those who die in worldly pursuits and pleasures, in fashionable follies and dis- sipation, in heedlessness and disregard for real practical Christianity. To die in the Lord, is to die in humble resig- nation to his m\], after having lived in faithful obedience to his ordinances ; in the mortification and habitual restraint of fleshly appetites, and passions ; in the denial and rejection of worldly va- 17 nhies ; in the daily improvement of our faith in our blessed Redeemer, and m the exercise of thosie Christian works to which such faith points out the way, and by which faith is made perfect. On this depends the rest from our la- bours, and for labouts must every mor- tal be prepared, Wretched, indeed, will their state be, who pass from those cC this mortal life, to the endless labours, the endless pains and auguish, which must follow the departure of the uppre- pared and unre.pentaut. The pains, the bodily anguish with which the righteous are chastened, may well be endured, fqr. the sake of the hope which is set before them ; the hope full of immortality. But shall tbp gay and thoughtless, shall the sensual and intemperate, shall the scorner and irr&- ligious rejoice in the same hope? When they draw near to the grave, who hav^ made all their reliance on the world, and bestowed all their care to pleaser the world, and to enjoy their owi* gratifica- tions and follies : When they find them^i selves approaching to the awful change. 18 from earthly to immortal ^existence ; will /^eirhope be reasonable, *' well grounded, and full of joy ?" Will ^^e«> trust be that of /aiV^w/ servants, looking through Christ, to a blessed immortality? Let , us not forget, that not to her alone, our Queen, whose loss this nation well may mourn; not to her alone is it appointed that- her works do follow her r but that there is no one person living, however young and healthy, however thoughtless and ^ fearJess now, who must not at ; any hour (God alone knows when) appear at his awful judgement seat, to give account for the things done in this mortal -body, whether they be good or evil. The righteous perish, and none '^layeth it to heart." The common observer is. not moved by the ordinary instances of mor- tality daily before his eyes; nor does it often happen that the person on whom the stroke of death has fallen, is one whose character has been sufficiently conspicuous to afford the lesson of example to any, ex- cept friends and relations. But the mo- ther of a whole nation passes not into life, nor out of it, thus, n^lji-without important 19 eofrisequenees. She lived an example of conjugal affection ; of Chri stain charity (for her charities, though not public, were gfedt and bountiful,) and of that decencjj aiid attention to the duties of religion, and to the maintenance of female modesty, which she with our afflicted King, per- haps alone, upheld among the courts of Europe. She lived to practise and to teach those virtues. * " Being dead, she yei speaketh ;" and let not that voice be uttered in vain. God has abundantly shewn forth his mercies towards us ; and well may we trust in him that he will yet raise up to us, at his good time, another model of female virtue, to stem the current of dissi- patiohy arid sruppoirt the credit of modesty. But great as is the influence of such high example, and invaluable as is the maintenance which it gives to religion and the practise of Christian virtue; yet be it remembered, that even without it, the foundation of- God standeth sure, and every Christian is called to build up a life of righteousness upon that foundation. The ' Pleb. xi. — V. 20 example set before us is a farther aid. We have not only read the precept, bat seen the possibility of the practice. If such example be by God's grace continued to us, (and why should it not?) still the indi- vidual exertions of every private person are required to co-operate, and bring it to its full effect. If, from whatever cause, the same high example should not be found, the greater then is the obligation to individual exarriple which lies on every private person. ^ j Such is the conduct which Christians are bound in duty, in charity to m^n, and in obedience to God, to exhibitt;evermore. " Such is the conduct which is honest, which is just, which is pure," which is lovely, which is of good report." If then there be amongst us " any virtue, and if there be any praise, think of these things,'* and act upon that righteous reflection. Mc/leraod ison, Frintera, Bath, LECTURES ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, VREACHED ON THE WEDNESDAYS AND FRIDAYS IN LENT, IN THE PARISH CHURCH, AND IN ST. MARGARET'S CHAPKL, IN WALCOT. BY THE REV. C. A. MOYSEY, D.D.; Archdeacon of Bath, and Rector of Walcot. RIVINGTON, HATCHARB, AND LONGMAN AND CO. LONDON; PARKER, OXFORD ; C0LLIN6S, BATH ; AtiB ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS. 1830. PRINTED BY BENJAMIN HIGMAN, No. 46, Walcot-Blreet, near St. Michael's Churcti, Bath. TO THE PARISHIONERS OF WALCOT, THESE LECTURES PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST, ARE INSCRIBED, BY THEIR FAITHFUL AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND AND PASTOR, CHARLES ABEL MOYSEY. L-KCTURE 1. 2 Peter iii. 16. IN WHICH ARE SOME THINGS HARD TO BE UNDERS WHICH THEY THAT ARE UNLEARNED AND UNS ^ WREST, AS (they Do) ALSO THE OTHER SCRIPT Ul^TO THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION. XT has been our custom, as you well k my brethren, at this season of the year < cially appointed for devotional exercise take into consideration in a more esp manner, some of the features of the mc christian character among us. Or somet as for the two or three , seasons of Lent passed, -I have, endeavoured to turn i eminent example off the primitive days, a: draw by comparison from, thence that rej and correction,' and instruction in righti ness, of which it has seemed to me that 1 this time stand. most in need. , The labours of St. Paul, his journey ings, and perils, and sufferings, his zeal for God, and his charity for man ; his boldness in the cause of truth, and with all that, his humility; his desire also, insomuch as was consistent with the preaching of the truth, to avoid offence: these have been set, so far as I have been able to do it, before yoUj and impressed upon you. Ex- ample is the plainest form in which instruction can be conveyed, and if we will not take it when thus placed before us, grievous indeed will be the account, that must be rendered up in the last day, for having received the grace of God, in vain. But his example, and his precept, ought ever to go hand in hand. Now there is not perhaps in the whole volume of the New Testament, one book to be found, in which the precept has been more frequently perverted through mis- understanding, than his epistle to the Romans. His personal conduct will indeed, it is true, often furnish an excellent commentary on the doctrines which he therein imparts to his converts. His writings themselves will, more- over, frequently explain the difficulties which therein are found — but still they remain a stumbling-block to many. Ask yourselves, my brethren, fairly and honestly, how often and how, diligently, are care and attention applied, to the searching out of the difficulties which appear, on the face of all the epistles of St. Paul, more or less: but of this to the Romans more especially? Every one has heard in the service of the church, different portions of thjat epistle; and most persons, as I should hope, have given at least, some attention to it at home. But as to that part which is heard in the public service ; it is necessarily so short, as to be on very many occasions separated from other matters, though they be connected with it, and though upon them it must depend in these instances, principally, for explanation. And as for the private studies of many, even seri- ously minded and well disposed christians, in their own secret chamber; every one knows b2 how little able are very many of them, to look for help into the many treasures of sacred learning; though they may be found, and searched with advantage, by the diligent and competently learned. And -besides them does not another class exist, who read as a matter of formal daily duty, but without much pains taken to under- stand? Are there not those to be found, who prescribe to themselves the reading of a por- tion in the Word of God, as a regular task; but pass on indifferently, whiether they have, or have not, perceived the sense of it? And do they not forget how nearly the same in spirit theirs is, with the ritual, formal service of those, who present themselves jn the house of God to hear, or it may be, to repeat their part, in forms of devotion, of the import of which they scarcely think at all? Yet all know how vain is" such sort of worship : surely then a very little consideration must make them perceive, that equally vain, equally fruitless^ must be the reading of scripture; when difficulties are hurried over, a^id that infornia^tion which such passages might convey, is. wilfully cast aside. It is ip the hope of giving tp the young, and to those who have not the means and oppor- tunities fpr close enquiry, some aid ; as well as to them who have not hitherto felt th^ dispo- sition, though they may now be awakened to a desire, fully to understand the vi^ord of God ; that I now propose to attempt the examination of this very important, and by no means easy book, the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans. And I t^ust, by God's grace, that my diligent endeavours, weak a.nd very imperfect as they must needs be,, maybe enabled to benefit some among those, who draw near in sincerity, to the study of that very instructive portion of the revealed word. . . , But before we enter upon the examination of the epistle itself, it may be well to make a few remarks on the style, and particular man,- ner, of St. Paul's. writing; for out of that, much of the difficulty which his epistle presents, will be found to arise. 6 St. Paul may be considered as the most copious writer of any, whom the volume of the New Testament presents to us. The same zeal, the same earnestness and vigour, which we have remarked in all the course of his conduct, displays itself also in his writing. And there was nothing which should make him afraid to exercise, and exhibit, those qualities. He was not one who feared to engage himself in any matter which opponents might present, in the way of objection to his reasoning, or of con- tradiction to his declarations. Well versed in the Greek phil9Sophers and poets, he evi- dently was. Throughly instructed, by especial revelation also in the doctrines of the faith which he taught, he feared no want of infor- mation on that essential point. Throughly informed by the same supernatural means, in the history of our Blessed Saviour's life, and teaching, which he alone among the Apostles had not personally witnessed ; he felt himself to be, as he said,* " not a whit behind the very *2 Cor. xi. 5. andxii. 11. qhiefest of them." And when the discussion was provoked by Jews, or by those who sought still to press the rites of the law of Moses on the christian believer; who so well informed in the sacred scriptures, and in the traditions ,of the Pharisees themselves, as St. Paul? He had been born a Jew; bred a Pharisee; and educated at the feet of Gamaliel, the great rabbinical teacher of his day. He was therefore, as vt^ell he might be, a fearless and a powerful advocate for Christianity, alike to learned and unlearned; alike to Jew and Gentile. Let his pains however, taken during his retirement of two years in Arabia, in order throughly to learn from the Holy Spirit the doctrines which he was to teach,* be a pattern to us, of industry and application. Let them prompt us throughly to learn, and not to issue crude and hasty conceptions of our own, upon any idea of Jcnowledge suddenly and summarily acquired. * Gal. i. 12. 8 St. Paul was called by mirale. He testifie d at once, immediately, and boldly^ in Damascus, his own newly adopted faith in Christianity. But he presumed not to preach it, untill he had been much more throughly instructed. He was qualified by all the learning of his day, both Jewish and Heathen; yet he did not suffer conceit of himself to arise on that ac- count. He employed all the means of each sort, which could be made to apply to the conver- sion of the Jews and Gentiles; and yet with all his gifts, he never forgot the necessity for humility. For though he was well stored with learn- ing, and knew its value; though he was able to apply it, when and where it would be most serviceable ; yet we find no shew of it in his epistles — rather there might appear something like a total disregard of form and order in argument, to those who read him but hastily. But it will be to them alone; for he is not negligent. He sacrifices method indeed ; that is to say, the method which was adopted by 9 tbose who studied elegance in their writings. But he wrote not disorderly. ' There was a preference, which his mind gave to some matters over others ; and for the sake of it he suffered them to break in just where the subject suggested them; and often to interrupt the thread of his discourse. But though the reader may sometimes lose sight of the leading subject; when a long interrup- tion has turned his thoughts anpther way; yet the Apostle never did so. There was no inattention to his matter in him; and he in- variably returns to it, even after the longest digressions. A style like his, is not mentioned as one which we should do well to imitate. But his language and manner of writing are not the points proposed for our imitation. These pe- culiarities are mentioned, to help us in attain- ing to the meaning of St. Paul's epistles, and to make us aware how great is the care, and how close the attention, which must be applied to them, if we would avoid the danger of being 10 among those "unlearned and unstable," of whom St. Peter speaks,* who "wrest them to their own destruction." The Apostle warns those to whom he writes,t that " his preaching is not with enticing words of man's wisdom." He tells them thus, J "I came to you not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, «&c. (that is, not with worldly skill, and science, and forms of oiratory), for I de- termined not to know any thing among you, (not to rely, or rest my argument on any thing) save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." There was an energy in the Apostle's mind, which when united with those his avowed sys- tem, naturally led him to overlook some of those common rules, which render writings more perspicuous. He was full of the matter which he was earnest to impress upon his hearers; and he poured it forth in, that abun- dance, which introduces subordinate subjects in the way of parenthesis', often at such length, * 2 Pet. iii. 16. + 1 Cor. ii. 4. J ib. 1. 2. 11 that it requires no small attention to observe the point, at which he returns to his original discourse. Yet he does, as I have already observed, invariably so return. But a careless reader will not perceive this, because such paren- theses are sometimes only partially marked, sometimes not at all, in oUr version. And therefore^ to them who read in haste, or withr out due application of mind, or in shoi;^ portions only; to them St. Paul's epistles are not a proper subject for their private, unassisted reading. Yet the fault (be it remembered), is in them and not in him. Pains are the price appointed for almost every thing of value. They will not labour for the meat which nourisheth unto everlasting life : while for worldly concerns, and even worldly trifles, they willtsike pains willingly; and bestow on them more than sufficient attention. "To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey."* And we * Rom, vi. 16. 12 ourselves must shew, whether we trust most in the revealed word of God, by his Apostles and Prophets; or whether in the rules, and precepts, and maxims, of a thoughtless and ungodly generation. St. Paul is the most copious, in his epistles, of any among the inspired writers. The inspi- ration (it must be recdllected) which was upon them, was sirietly according to our Blessed Saviour's^jpromise ; and went no farther. He never assured them, that any supernatural guidance should give them the graces of style, or purity of language. But he promised that "He the Spirit of Truth (should) guide them into all truth, and bring all things to their remembrance, whatsoever he had said unto them." * But in respect of abundance and richness. ^Ejtfivog TO Ylvevfj^x TVjg aX^^eiag, a strong argument, by the way it may be observed, for the person- ality of the Holy Ghost arises from the masculine pronoun thus used with the neuter substantive, and it is one which cannot easily, if at all, be overborne. 13 on the one hand, or of dryness of expression, on the other, they were left to themselves and to their own previously acquired manners. And so it was, as to the energy, or quietness of their language. It partook of the natural tempera- ment of the man, and was not governed, as the narration of matter of fact, and the decla- ration of christian doctrine \Vere, by the Holy Ghost, whose influence was upon the Apostles. Thus the sudden breaking off from the leading subject, into other matter which was suggested at the moment; in which the chief diflRculty of St. Paul's style consists; belonging to the fervent temper of the man. He was eager to press the important pointy so soon as it occurred to him, and was utterly regardless of the rules of composition in his epistles. But he never lost sight, nevertheless, of that on which he was principally discoursing. He always returned to it, though sometimes not till after a considierable interval. It is this cir- cumstance, (and it therefore must be repeat- edly impressed), which makes it dangerous 14 to r6st, in any point of doctrine, on short pas- sages of his epistles. Frequently they cannot be well understood, Without taking a great deal together. Frequently, not without utterly overlooking the separation of chapters and verses, which regard. for modern convenience at first occasioned. It must be recollected, that neither chapters nor verses, no, nor even stops, were in use at all when the epistles were written. The sense alone marked the period ; and the comparison of one part with another, led to the true sense. The stops were inserted afterwards, merely on man's judgment: they have been often changed, and so may they be at any time. The division into chapters and verses was also made by uninspired man ; and merely for con- venience sake. But unfortunately it has been done sometimes, to the effect of cutting off the connection of things which belong to each other; and thus the sense, and meaning, has been perplexed by them. These few remarks, are not intended to 15 convey a complete description of St. Paul's method, and style in writing. , For that, Mac- knight's preliminary essay to his commentary on the epistles, may be consulted with much advantage; as well as various other authors. But these things are stated as necessary with a view to preparing those among my congre- gation w^ho are not practised in the study of these sacred letters, for the peculiarities of writing, which will occur as we proceed. The epistle to the Boijians was written pro- bably about the year of our Lord fifty-eight; which was the fourth year of the reign of Nero. It was before St. Paul had ever been at Rome; and much a longer time before St. Peter was there. But there were christian converts in considerable numbers in that city, and to them he addressed himself. Nor could it indeed be otherwise. That great metropolis of the empire, sent forth its inhabitants into all lands, and received into itself strangers from all lands. We read of strangers of Rome on the day of Pentecost, at 16 Jerusalem ; * when the Holy Spirit first . fell upon the Apostles. We read before that, of the Centurion at Jerusalem, who was greatly moved, if he was not converted, by the circum- stances of our Lord's crucifixion; and who would naturally have spoken of them, and of his feelings and conviction on the occasion, when he should have returned .to Rome. And the case of the other Centurion Cornelius,t who actually became a christian, is well known. That event had occurred in the year of our Lord forty-one ; which was full seventeen years before the writing of this epistle. It is well known how widely the christian religion had spread in the dominions of the Romans, during that time; and that it had been embraced by many persons of rank, and of some consequence. It was therefore to be expected, thax it should be found in the capital; to which those Cen- turions would have returned, as well as the strangers of Rome, who had : witnessed the * Acts ii. 10. 41. . t Acts. x. 17 miraculous gift df tongues on the day of Pentecost. Thither the constant resort of persons of every description from the provinces, would of course bring the opinions which prevailed in the places from whcjnce they came; and that there were miany christian converts among them is not, to be doubted. The last chapter of this very epistle, is enough to prove it; thotigh it be a matter of some uncertainty whether any one had yet preached the faith in Christ, as an Apostle, in that city, and the presumption is much against any such thing. St. Paul had not yet been there, and much less had St. Peter, who followed and did not precede him. And this is a point of some importance in these latter days. For the whole claim of spiri- tual supremacy, which the church of Rome has for twelve hundred years advanced, is ground- ed on the idea that St. Peter was their first bishop, and that f o him pre-eminence had been given by our Lord abav* his fellow Apostles. 18 Now it is not to our pveseint purpose, -to enter on that question of pre-eminence at length. It is sufficient to direct your attention to this one ciFcumstance ; viz. that the power of binding and loosing, (wJiatever the terms might signify), was not exclusively .conferred, on him ; but was, inqiiite as strong terms given to all the Apostles,* just before our Lord's resuTrection. As to the special charge then given to St. Peter, three ctimes, to feed the sheep, it was in fact a reproach. It was con- nected with the threefold enquiry, concerning. Peter's love, which had been exposed todoubt, by his threefold denial of >his master. It was therefore the evidence- required, to proire the love which he professed. St. Paul not only wrote this epistle in the year fifty ^seven or fifty-eight, but was atiRome from the year ^sixty-oiie to sixty-three; St. Peter was never there till sixty-^fouror sixty- five; and then St. Paul was there again also; * John XX. 23. 19 and also, together with St. Petejr, there suf- fered martyrdom. There was, then, ni9,jaifes,tly a christian church ; that is, a community or fraterfliity of cjbristiajis, at il.ome, when St. ^fpl wjrote ,j^j§ epi^tle^ ^1^ befoje his first abode in that city. Ap^ it is fjfe^ knawn a,s s^ch; for he pbsery^^s in cominendation of them, that tljeij* ," faith yr^s ^pojken of throughout the jW,orld,;"* ^Jbucjb expression always ,means tjt^e limits ^of jthe Sloni an empire when it is ^ised in the epistles. ^jt is clear ^Jlso, tha,t befor^ |;hp yi^.riting ^of t^is jCpi^tle, there were christians establishe,^ at Rome. This appeals not merely from the probability of the thing, for the reasons alrjeajly given; but from the various saliltatfpns, which occupy ilie sixteenth chapter. 4pd apiong .them we find mention expressly made,. of two, who were converted before St. Paul himself. ,t' Andronicus and Junia" (are his words) "my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, ,w,ho were *Rom. i.8. c2 20 of note among the Apostles, who were also in Christ before me."* Of the state of the christian church, at the time when St. Paul wrote to the Romans, it is necessary that some notice should here be taken; though it must be more particularly mentioned, as the passages shall lead to ii, during our course. Christianity was, (as he himself says), "to the Jevfs, a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks, foolishness." The one resisted it, because it interferred with their prejudices; the others despised it, because it came noti to them clothed in subtilty of argument, nor resting on the wisdom of phi- losophy. The Jews relied on their own election, as the chosen people of God. As such, they had been admitted into the first covenant, by the ministration of Moses, and were therefore zealous for that law. But it was not that they were studious to uphold the purity which it * Rom. xvi. 7. 21 taught: their object was to maintain the pre-eminence which it gave to themselves, and to feed their pride with the idea of it. They found, that many of the Apostles' precepts, as well as our Lord's, were against the sense which the Scribes and Pharisees forced upon the law; and still more, against the traditions which they claimed a right to add to that law, under pretence of making it more complete. In this last particular, viz. the setting up of their tradition above the Holy Scriptures, we must remember, that one church among chris- tians, namely that of Rome, has but too closely imitated them. The Apostles, and the council at Jerusalem, had resolved, that the Gentile converts were not to be required to keep the ritual law. And therefore the unbelieving Jews in almost every place, took up the most decided enmity against them, and against the doctrine which they taught. The very converts also from among ihe Jews, frequently held no small portion of those same prejudices. They diligently sought to impress 22 this persuasion on the Gentiles who believed, that it Wds still necfessaty that they should be citctimdSevi, and keep the law.- This was no sinall hindrance t6 the progress of ihe Gospel; and therefore St. Paul in this epistle (as ivell as in two others, namely, to the GalatiattS arid Hebrews), set himself expressly to overthrbtv that pernicious idea. And so he opposes here in like manner, the doctrine of any limitation of God's favour to brie chosen people, under the Chn^tiari, as it had been limited under the Mosaic dis- pensation. We shall find as we proceed, that the fa- vourite arguments both of Jews and Greeks (to use the common expression of the Nfew Testariierit) are answered arid overthrowti in this epistle. We shall find it distinctly shown, that salvation was not to be attained by the rites of the law of Moses; nor yet by the wis- dom of philosophy, refining on the law of nature. Christianity alone is set forth as the head and the fountain, from whence only man 23 can attain to the enjoyment of 4ivine favour, an4 of everlas-ting life. Having thus stated whatever may be ad- viseable to be mentioned, in order to make the object of St. Paul's writing in this epistle, clear; we will ia the succeeding lectures, en- deavour to explain the difficulties, and to enforce the doctrines, which will occur in our progress through it. The matter before us is of a nature most highly instructive. It abounds as much as any book in the whole inspired volume, in doctrine of sound Chris- tianity: and is profitable also for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. May He from whom proceeds all light and all knowledge, give me grace to explain the difficulties; and incline us all to profit duly, by the godly wisdom with which this epistle abounds! So shall we have no cause to lament the pains bestowed, and the attention here applied; but be builded up firmly and steadily, in wisdom and godly knowledge. And so may we, through the grace of God, be able to drav> 24 nearer (to use the same Apostle's expression), *'to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;" tiU we be found worthy through his in^nite mercy shown forth on our dili- gent, but still frail endeavours, to' be received as his faithful servants, into his everlasting kingdom. 25 LECTURE II. Romans i. 7. TO ALL THAT BE IN ROME, BELOVED OF GOD, CALLED TO BE saints; grace to YOV, and peace, from GOD OUR FATHER, AND THE LORD JE8VS CHRIST. J. HE Apostle opens his epistle with a short declaration of his calling as an Apostle, to preach the gospel, and good tidings of salva- tion. Such, that is to say, good tidings, is the meaning of the Greek word ; * and such is that of the Saxon word gospel, by which we liave translated it. He then proceeds, in the same style which he was accustomed to use, to bless the converts to whom he writes; "Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Ohrist," * ev»yt f5oxiffc«(70v 42 their knowledge:" as there is also in that which answers to it; "God gave them over to a reprobate mind:"* and -it is one which I believe, is not unfrequently misunderstood. Now the words here translated, "like" and *' reprobate," (in, "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge;" and "God gave them over to a reprobate mind") are, in the original Greek, words which answer to each other. It is as if it were rendered;, they did not *' prove," or try by a test, literally; and in the other place it is, "an unproved," that is, an unsound mind, or habit of thinking. The original words have in? their primitive signification, referenccy the one to the trying oi gold, by way of ascertaining its purity; and the other to the state of the metal which can- not abide the test. The Apostle is using them, not with any view to that which is commonly called reprobation ; which is an absolute de- cree of cbndemnaition, supposed by mistaken 43 persQUS, to have been passed by the Almighty against, particular persons, without fault on their part to call* for it. He talks of a repro- bate mind, in opposition to a proving, that is, an examining mind. He rebukes the hea- then, their learned men, and philosophers; because their own conceit of their abilities and knowledge, had led them to frame a sys^ iem of idolatry, degrading to God. He re- proaches them because their own faculties, if rightly employed, could have perceived that :he was at least, something superior to those idols before whom they worshipped, or to the .deities represented by them. ; For those deities were debased, according to the heathen mythology, by most of the worst crimes which man can commit. The people however took up that senseless worship, even as they found it. They did not prove it, so as to retain the proper idea of a pure and holy God, in their knowledge. And therefore the Almighty gave them over to a reprobate, that is, an unimproving mjnd. He gave them 44 over to the consequences which such a deceiv- ed and foul representation of the- Deity would naturally, and did actually, produce in them ; namely, that they "should do those things which are not convenient," that is to say, not becoming, decentj or proper. It is a sense in which the word "convenient" is often used; as for instance in St. Paul's epistle to the Ephe- sianSj '' Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient," * that is, not suited to the condition of Christians. The .first, portion of our consideration on this epistle, may well enough stop here: with the censure thus passed on the self-conceited, and yet spiritually-ignorant, of the wise men among the heathen : wise, but only according to the wisdom of this world. We shall pre- sently see how St. Paul leads on the argument, from them to the Jews. . But it is more to our purpose to employ the short space which, yet remains on this occasion, to considerations *Eph. V.4. 45 which are directly applicable to our own con- dition, and circumstances. Look then, my brethren, at the character which he there gives, of those who went astray from God, and followed their own depraved imaginations. Consider also the causes, to which he ascribes that evil doing, namely their neglect, in not duly looking through those, which are called the works of nature, upward to the God of nature. To that he first im- putes their error ; and then their self-conceited pretensions to a philosophy which should ac- count for every thing, by which that error was fatally confirmed. ' * A.nd is nothing of the same sort to be found now, among ourselves, in this land ? Are there none of those followers of science, falsely so called, who professing themselves to be wise, have become fools ? Are there none, who pre- sume to estimate other sciences far before the knowledge of God, and of that which he re- quires of man ? Before our knowledge of our utter inability, as of ourselves; and of the 46 courses of living which shall render us accep- table to that Mediator, through whom alone our unworthiness can ever hope for accep- tance? Nay, are there none in this land, who pre- sume to doubt, and hesitate, about the things which divine revelation alone com/c? possibly make known; namely those which belong to the nature of the Almighty himself; and to the whole of the most merciful j though equally imcomprehensible scheme, the scheme of man's redemption ? Too surely such there are. And the vanity of affecting superior wisdom, will constantly betray the self-conceited into that egregibus folly, of thinking themselves equal to judge of the hidden things of God, because they know perhaps more than the general mass of their fellows, of matters of earthly speculation, and experimental philosophy. I say not this to depreciate such studies; but to suggest, that the wisdom of the works ou^ht to lead us to admire, and to bow down 47 in humble submission, before the great and omnipotent artificer of them. So did they, among the wisest whom the history of our country has left recorded, for the imita- tion of posterity. So did Bacon and Locke; so did Newton and Boyle. They possessed in- tellects with which few can cope, if any such there be at all among us; but which never dared to cavil at the wisdom of Almighty God. Here then, for the present, we must con- clude. May He from whom alone cometh wisdom and understanding, give us grace to know that "before honour is humility." May he teach us to submit ourselves in every thing, to all which tends to his honour and service. Nor can we better conclude, than in the words of a collect* from our excellent book of com- mon prayer. " O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; grant unto thy people, that they *4th Sunday after Easter. 48 may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise : that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our. hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found, through Jesus Christ our Lord." The peace of God, &c. 49 LECTURE III. Romans ii. 2. THINKEST THOU THIS, O MAN, THAT JUDGEST TH WHICH DO SUCH THINGS, AND DQEST THE SAS THAT THOU SHALT ESCAPE THE JUDGMENT GOD? X HE question before us comes now the condition of the Jew, in St. Paul's ds and naturally follows that consideration the iniquity of the Gentiles, with whi we closed the last lecture. He had ti urged the obligations, which arose frpm \ light of conscience; that inward evidei which all possessed, till they had for the selves extinguished it. He had urged, say, that obligation, as lying on the Gem RomaniS) even without any knowledge the Revelations of God's will. 50 To this the Jewish converts would readily enough assent, though their feeling would be very different, when he turned round, as it were, upon theinselyes, as he does in the opening of the second chapter. Such is the natural feeling of mankind; ready enough to perceive the misdoing, which perverts the ways of others; but seldom ready to acknowledge the same in them- selves. Pride, under whatever disguise it may be found, is ever the most effectual, the most fatal, hindrance, to the admission of any salutary self-cpnvictipn. It can see, and perhaps applaud, that which is good; so it can perceive, and censure the, evil^ when not shewn in our own instance. But when the actual offender is charged with Bftisconduct, then the . heart is hardened- against self-knowledge; and the evil is per- mitted to continue, that it may not be con- fessed to have been an evil. The Apostle had, skilfully as it seems, first drawn the attention of the Jews to 51 the sevisre censure which he here passes, on the vainj though philosophizing, Gentiles; Suddenly he turns to themselves; and re- bukes them, because with greater advantages than the Gentiles, they had fallen into the same vices with them. He shetvs them that they had no right to condemn others, who did no worse than thfey had done; though their own means of serving God truly, had been so infinitely superior. He touches not here, on that which was so^ odious to the Jews, namely the abroga- tion of the ritual law, in which they were used to make their boast, because the pos- session of it had once marked them for the 0hoseri people of God. But he convinces them of sin, even under their own particular privilege. He allows a certain precedence to them; "t& the Jew first, and jalso to the Greek," (that is to say, "the Gentile"). But it is a precedence of no avail, to those who had not taken advantage of the oppor- tunity, which the early revelations of the e2 52 divine will had given to the Jews. He announces that in his day, eternal life was the reward proposed to the well-doer in general; and condemnation, wrath, and an- guish, . to every soul of man that ,doeth evil. The righteous .judgment of God is (as he says), to "render unto every man according to his deeds,"* for "there is no respect of persons with God."t It may seem to those who but loosely view the matter, that this declaration, *' there is no respect of persons with God," is incon- sistent with the especial election, and par- ticular privileges, . granted as we all know, to the Jews. But there are two considiera- tions which must be set against that idea. The first is, that speaking of mankind in general, as they came from the Creatoj*'s hand, the case was strictly thus. For whei-e do we read of the election of any particular people, till the days of Abraham? *Rom. ii. 6. tllv. 55 Cain and his posterity were cast out; but it was for the sinfulness of the father, con- tinued by the children. From Noah eame three sons, who stood all equally well as to their prospects; until the wickedness of the one, cast him and his posterity behind that of his two brethren. Then came the dispersion of their children at Babel; and then, if not before, idolatry seems to have found its way among them. The Patriarchs from Abraham downward, were distinguished by their worship of the one God. Abraham was born only two thousand and four years after the creation; or three hundred and forty-three years sub- sequent to the deluge. Yet even then he was called out from those among whom he dwelt, in order to preserve the worship of the true God in his own family. And when Jacob aftervirard returned to his relations, Laban the brother of his mother (who had herself been the daughter of Bethuel, Abra- ham's nephew), had idols; concerning which 54 a question arose with Jacob, because Ba- chael had taken them a>vay with her. There T^as therefore no respect of persons in the origmal purposes of Go^. Man in general turned away froni the Lord; but the Lord did not originally turn away, in any degree from him. He chose indeed the posterity of his faithful servants to pre- serve in him the true worship of his holy name: but that was an act of mercy, not of arbitrary severity. Often as that nation offended, and turned away from him, yet for their forefather's sake, he never cast ^hem off. "Where sin abounded, grace did therefore, much more abound;" and that, even under the old dispensation. But there was a second evidence given, that there is no respect of persons with God. It was announced in plain terms repeatedly; and it shall be verified, awfuUy verified, be- fore the eyes of all in the last day. Every privilege, which was granted to the Jew, was for this life only. But in i-egard to that 55 which is to come, still was there no respect of persons with txod. If the Jew was bet- ter informed; it was expetsted, and requiredj that he should act the better; thiat he should act up to his information. Thus therefore does St. Paul go on in the beginning of this second chapter, "There- fore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself: fot thou that JTidgest doest the same things." From- thence he naturally comes to the de- claration, that " there is no Trespect of per- sons with Godi" Let not us, my brethren, paSs lightly on regarding this merely as a censure on the bigotry of the J-6ws. The Apostle no doubt, directed his expressions first to them.^ B>ut would he have used such exte^nsive terms, had he not also intended that they should be extensively applied? "O man, whoso- ever thou art," is a very coiiipreh>ensive mode of expression, and well' shall we do 56 in applying it every one to him or herself; now, at this season especially appointed for self-examination, and . repentance. Are none here conscious of that self- satisfied disposition? Have none among us ever censured others for disobedience, when we ourselves have done the same things? Have none among us, equally with them, thrown away our advantages, or neglected the pure and proper services of our God; though it may be that a different tempta- tion from theirs, has acted upon us, and therefore has cast us into a difierent des- cription of transgression? *'^^ Light has come into the world;" and the light, and knowledge of our duty has unquestionably shined on us. But if obedi-; ence to that duty be declined, because it mortifies the flesh; and requires that we restrain ourselves from the pursuit of present gratification, and that we purify ourselves in hope of that reward, which He who is pure shall allot to the faithful in his heavenly 57 kingdom; it will shine to our condemnation. In that case we shall be like the perverse Jews, who knew the things that are excel- lent, but did them not. And upon us there- fore, in such case, as well as upon them, will that same condemnation most justly fall; It is well for us, my brethren, born in a christian country, > and baptized into the privileges and adoption of the children of God, to bear in mind that which the Apos- tle here urges so strongly: namely, the in- creased responsibility, which that increase of privilege brings with it, Where igno- rance unavoidably prevails, there, no doubt, allowance will be made for it. But what reason is there for supposing that it will be made, for any deficiency beyond that which absolute necessity has unavoidably so occa- sioned? There is none whatever. " As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law." It is not said that they shall necessarily perish fot their ignorance, but that their destruction 58 shall be without any addition of punishment in consideration of the law. And why ? The reason is obvious. Because they knew it not; and therefore they ignorantly offended against it. ^But still it is pronounced that they shall perish, if thefy offend against the light of conscience within them. " As many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law.* They have had the advantage of farther privilegesj and farther knowledge: and they shall be judged for their abuse or improvement of them. It shall be done to both, according to that perfect rule of equity laid down in the holy scrip tures, "according to that- a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." * But, be it remembered, that we have, not only a certain positive knowledge in the way that should lead us unto life; but we have also the power of extending that know- ledge, and improving the practice which * 2 Cor, viii. 12, 59 springs from it. We have them, as neces- sarily inherent in the degree of information with which we have already been blessed. So says the scripture, '^He that hath to him shall be given, and he shiSiH have more abundance." Who then here shall complain, that the more perfect understanding of the law of God is not extended to them ? Asfc your- selves^ my brethren. May not this arise from our own fault? Have we. employed to the very utmost of oui* powers the means and advantages set before us? Have we drawn back from no exercise of righteousness and temperance? Have none of us sacriflced to the world and its vanittes those times, and oppoi*tunities, and powers, of whatever dif- ferent kiildg^ which all might have been applied to our improvement in the ways of godliness ? Beware my brethren, for oup danger is great. Remember that not the fe^are^Rs of the law, but the doers, are justifi^ed before 60 God. They who so sacBifice to the world the seasons, like this, which are appointed for religious consideration, and religious im- provement; prove too plainly, that they hate to be reformed, and have cast the word of salvation behind them. Before we pass on to the other matter close at hand, which will bring us, (as I trust in God, with some practical improve- ment), to the tonclTision of this lecture; I pause to notice another of those extraordi- nary parentheses, which to the careless rea- der so often perplex the reasonings of this Apostle. And this, as you must recollect, is done, not that we may cavil at the Apos- tle's style, but that the greater 'care and diligence may be applied io the study of this epistle. The twelfth verse of this se- cond chapter ends v^ith these words, "As many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law." From thence the sense passes on easily enough into the following verse, " For not the hearers of the law are 61 just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." But when we arrive at the sixteenth verse in this way of reading, it opens with words which have no imme- diate connection with that verse which pre- ceded it. • "The Gentiles," says the Apostle^ **shew the work of the law written in their hearts; their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts in. the mean while accusing, or else excusing one another. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of mem by Jesus Christ." Such is the way in which the words run. But does the sense also run thus with them? Far from it. The last passage beginning *'In the day" has, evidently, no connection^ directly with the words next before it. But leave out the whole parenthesis, which ac- cording to the sense should be marked from the beginning of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenlJi verse, and the sense is clear and obvious. 62 " As many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the lawj in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, &c." The other matter comes in afterward. It is by way of, a comment; an application and ex^ planation of the matter; and if considered in this manner it cannot be misunderstood. Here again then, is a striking instance of the need which we have for much care and caution, to be applied to the writings of St. Paul. So truly did St. Peter say,* that they who are unlearned and unstable, are those who wrest (who pervert), the things in Stj Paul's epistles; and that they do it to their own destruction. The Apostle has stated the equal and just method, by which the j,udgments of God virill be. administered. He has shewn that there is a light yet left, within the conscience of the most uninformed ; and . that every one will be judged according to the means * 2 Pet. iii. 16. 63 ivhich he has possessed, of serving the Lord, and working righteousness; whether such means shall have been great or small. None therefore, to whom it has been pos- sible tp obtain information, can expect to- escape punishment under the plea of igno- rance. It is the common plea; but it is commonly false, when viewed in this, its just and proper light. But now St. Paul turns to the more pri- vileged: to those who have enjoyed greater blessings, and more advantages. Now he demands of them, in their turn; what shel- ter they can find, in all .their knowledge- and boast of information^ if they be found deficient in their (practice? And here, my brethren, qomes. a question which will touch u^: home. "Behold (says he), thoti art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God; and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excelle,nt; being instructed out of the law: a,Bid art coi^dent, that thou thyself art a 64 guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes; who hast the form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law." Such may be said to be the state of all now under the gospel dispensation; who live as we do, in the peaceable exerciise of the religion which we pTofess; and with the advantage of unrestrained access to the holy and inestimable scriptures, which "are able to make us wise unto salvation." '■' Xo us then let the question which follows be applied, if we would profit by the word of God, and not be' found to turn aside from it, when it ceases to suit well with our worldly ideas, or pursuits. " Thou there- fore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" Such is the quciry which St. Paul proposes to the privileged Jews; pri- vileged, as they were still fond of accounting themselves^ in his own days. He seems to admit their knowledge ; but he turns it upon themselves. He calls on th^m to shew what 65 were the fruits, which their superior advan- tages had been found to bear, in the conduct of their own lives. The opportunity for ourselves also, is one wh,ich ought not to be lost, for much is the enquiry needed; and in this season es- pecially ordained to be devoted to repen- tance; well does it deserve, nay, imperatively does it demand, our most serious attention. We, like the Jews in that respect, have our schools, for the instruction of /the igno- rant . at home. And well is it done, that such institutions have, been founded among us, and are properly supported. It is one portion of godly care and conduct. But let us not forget, that one portion, is not all which is needed. We have moreover missions, to impart the knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus, Christ our Saviour whom he hath sent, to the heathen, who have hitherto sat in dark- ness. So far again is well; and it is an endeavour worthy of the servants of our F 66 Blessed Redeemer. But neither does that approach at all to the complete fulfilment of a Christian's duty. Charity and brotherly love, and our Lord's injunction, all command us to have care for our brethren, whether near to us, or far off; and to benefit them to, the utmost of our power. But still no professioHiS bf universal godd will ; no, nor even ''active exertions to confer benefits, though of the most essential description, tipon others ; can make 'good the whole of that diity, which we are bounden to perform. Still there will remain duties of inward discipline, of- preparation of the heart and spirit, of devotion of the soul really and heartily to God. And these will be re- quired, as the motives; by which our out- ward good deeds must be directed^ if they would be accounted as done in the spirit 6f the true disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Still must thfere be found in us a Tfillingness, to submit ourselves to all godly discipline. There must be a readiness to 67 confroul our evil affections, and passions; and to bring every thing into obedience, not only to the letter, but to the spirit of that holy gospel^ by which we all, with more or less sincerity profess to walk. What think we then of ourselves, my brethren, on this view of our case? In many instances, doubtless, well enough. But is the loose satisfaction with which self- conceit fills some, and utter carelessness/ others; is that to be set forth, as any sort of answer to the question, which I would have particularly bi-ought before us at this time? "Thou that teAchest another, teachest thou not thyself?" ' Where is' the instance of misdoing, on occasion of which numbers might not be bfought forward, who censure it freely ; while they draw 'rio inferences to themselves, from the condemnation which they can so readily utter upon others? The wisdom of the Gentiles had not pre- served therii from most egregious folly, in all f2 68 their notions concerning - religion. Though they could teach others in some matters; though they could talk gravely, and some- times powerfully, on the dignity of the di- vine nature; yet their whole worship was a disgrace to it ; a disgrace to that which they professed to honour. The Jew, with all his- superior, infinitely superior privileges, and information, in the way of righteousness; in spite of all that pure knowledge, in which he had been in- structed; and of that holy worship, to the putward observance of which he was ever labouring to bring the heathen, as prose- lytes; the Jew himself was little better. With all those advantages, he taught not himself; he forgot that purity which was in the spirit of the law; to follow and almgst to worship, the forms of its exterior service, and the follies of his own traditions. And Christians too on their part. — We, even we ourselves, my brethren, what is too generally found to be the manner, and 69 v/hat the measure of our observance? So ♦ long as it can run in a routine, which the custom of society at this day has con- descended to recognise ; the worldly spirits vrho caU themselves after the name of Christ, will vouchsafe to acknowledge the obliga- tion. And therefore, as much as from, any real principle . of obeying God Almighty, and "^ serving him; therefore it is, that too many (I do not say all) pay even their customary and visible devotions, even on the sabbath day. Who they are that do so, that is from mere shew; and who they are who do 'it from better motives, others cannot always decide ; and all should be backward to pre- tend to the power of making such decision. But all may judge themselves; and one obvious test by which to do so, lies at hand to all. All may easily know, if they will but truly search and examine within, how far their heart goes with their words ; how far their own spirit accompanies their acts 70 of devotion. All may observe^ fortinstanee) how far their own respect for the . Lord'-s sabbath carries them, beyond the service which is paid within the walls of his church. And if from thence they speedily turn to levities, and gaiety of amusement ; or i to feastings, as some do; or to matters of a merely common secular nature, wherein : the Lord comes not near -their thoughts ; they may be but too certainly convinced, that their heart is far from him. ^ Or let us apply the same consideration to the services and exercises, which pecu- liarly belong to this season of fasting and humiliation. Let those who are seldom wanting in readiness to teach others, so far as blame will do it, and to censure others; shew that they have not forgotten, that there are duties to be learned; or at least, to be improved as to the practice of them, by themselves. Still is this necessary among us. Still have we, and ever shall we have, need for the exertion of all the means 71 which we can command, in order jto keep under the body, and bring, it into Kubjecr *ion. s,l- And yet it were ui\just not to allow, that in some . respects, a degree of. decency and decorum at least, if it cannot be called by a yet better, name, has come to- he ob»" served among us. The excessive gaieties which some few years i since did. obtrude themselves on the view, and shock the Blinds, of devout and sober Christians, at this holy season, have for the most part ceased j at least during this portion of the year. If therefore there be occasionally an instance of such- an outrs^ge on christian feeling, it may be hoped that even it also will be removed from the appointed<^ days of fasting and self- mortification. , - ^ All this is well, so far as it goes. But chiefly is it to be observed with gladness, Jbecause it gives hope of yet better things. Bemember our Blessed Saviour's words, "These ought ye to have done, and not 72 to leave the other undone." Remember that we are called to perform not a blind, but a reasonable service. And are we then authorised to rush blindly into every way which temptation may open before us? Are we to imagine that the whole blame of luxury, and dissipation, and waste of time and talents, and neglect of self-examination and repentance, rests only on them who put forward that which gives the invitation to transgression? Such is the deceit with which too many satisfy their blinded; aye, wilfully blinded consciences. What, if a snare be spread before us. Have we no power to withhold our foot from stepping into it? Must it of neces- sity follow, because the temptation is placed in sight, that it must be one from which we cannot stand , away ? You yourselves know, my brethren, that such is not the case. If any one were to charge you with being unable to go, otherwise than as you were led by any individuals (let them be 73 ^ho they might), you would with indigna- tion, repel the ciiarge. In what respect then is it better to be enslaved by the temptations of pleasure, or of fashion, than by their force; or by the fear of offending them, which interest might excite? My brethren, we all know well ienough what it is our duty to do; though few indeed are they who have not that mis- chievous ingenuity, which can always find excuse in the instance of themselves, for that which- they so easily and freely con- demn in that of others. Nor does it at all follow that such condemnation is other- wise than just. The offence committed may, and does too commonly, deserve it. But the evil is now, even as it was with the wise among the heathens, and with the learned among the Jews; that while they judged those who offended, they themselves did the same things. Learn then to distrust ourselves. Learn to have courage enough, to make a stand 74 against an evil world ; whatever be the wiles of its temptations, or the snares of its in- fluence, and example. Remember that the Christian is called to wrestle against flesh and blood; and not to give way befoi-e them. If self-restraint and self-denial be re- quired ; and we ourselves can often- perceive that they are so, when the conduct of others is in question; recollect that fio law which we or our upholders can set up, is able to support us in the neglect of it. Nor can any licence of opinion^ though it may be miscalled fashion and liberty, justify it. " To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."* So speaks the Apostle, and we all know that his sentence is just and true. * James iv. 17. 7S LECTURE IV. Romans iii. 12. THEY ARE ALL GONE OUT OF THE WAY: THEY ARE TOGETHER BECOME ABOMINABLE; THERE IS NONE THAT DOETH GOOD, NO NOT ONE. X HE subject of our last lecture led us to observe that which the Apostle says, of the equity of the dispensations of Almighty God. Privileges were shewn to have been given to the Jew above the Gentile, for an especial purpose. That purpose was, to preserve the knowledge of Him and of his truth, in that race, from whence, according to the flesh, the Redeemer was, in fulness of time, to proceed. 76 But though great advantages necessarily attended upon that privilege, yet it was shewn, that nothing like an unjust parti- ality could be charged upon the divine go- vernment. Each sort of persons was to be made accountable, for the use or abuse of that measure of information in the duties of man, which was by divine wisdom placed within its reach. The Gentile was account- able for the employment of the faculties, and of the reason which he possessed ; and for the application of them to observe the visible effects of God's providence in the conduct of the universe. The Jew was ac- countable for much more; since he had for centuries ienjoyed the benefit of God's word, and the prophetic revelations. These had been personally given, through many ages; and had been afterward left on record in his hands: and it was a record, the truth of which he did not, even in the worst days of that people, pretend to dispute. Both therefore were pronounced to be 77 equally rfespoiisible ; according to the mea- sure of the talent entrusted to each. To whom much was given, of them much was required; and it was shewn that "there is no respect of persons with jGod." The same was shewn to be applicable, in its principle, to ourselves, my brethren. We enjoy a more perfect knowledge of the word of God ; a purer faith ; a form of wor- ship more free from error and superstition, than of the many nations which surround us. Let us recollect that still, as of old, there is no respect of persons with Qod. We are now the favoured occupiers of ten talents. If therefore our manner of occupying them be put to shame, by the greater diligence of them who hold but one ; if our gi'eater know- ledge of the pure doctrines of Christianity, do not lead to greater diligence and self- controul, in the practice of the holiness w^hich is of faith; they, even our most benighted neighbours, shall rise up in the judgment against this generation, and shall 78 condemn it. Their conduct Cmistaken as it may be) shall condemn us; if they do follow the true course so far as they have been taught to do; while we, though we have it plainly shewn to us, refuse to follow the stt-aight and narrow way which leadeth unto everlasting life. Having thus shown the perfect equity, with which the dealings of God are con- ducted toward all mankind, the Apostle goes on to the objection which the Jews, would maike. He asks (in the person of one of them), what were the adi^antages or benefits which they in particular enjoyed. He answers in his own person, that they had been great;, even in that circumstance alone, of their possessing the recorded re- velation of (rod's will. " Much (says he) every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the dracles of God." And to what, except the profession of that written word ; to whiat else could ration- ally be ascribed the freedom from idola^ryj 79 and all its gross errors and impurities; which, since the return from Babylon i nation had ceased to be defiled; even five hundred years and more, " Thy word (says the Psalmist) is a I tern unto my feet, and a light unto Jjaths." To that light they had been able return, and so to find the right way, wh ever they were but really disposed, in tl hearts so to db. How much more bles than the most learned among the Gree The best and wisest of w'hom admitt that they knew Jittle or nothing of Deity; and could not attain to i such kn ledge,, without an express revelation- s to guide them. Great was indeed the blessing bestow "in that to them, the Jews, were ci mitted the. oracles of God!" Great is same blessing, now committed in like it ner to ourselves, > arid to. all of the reforr religion, in :every church and every c< munity. The grossness of idolatry is stop 80 short: the darkness of superstition and utter ignorance, cannot close over that holy word. The light still shineth, and will shine untc the perfect day; though now, even as of old, there will be some perverse and blinded spirits, who will go astray; who love "darkness ra- ther than light, because their deeds are evil." Cherish then, my brethren ; let us che- rish as our most valuable profession, that light, which the word of the Lord sheds forth upon us in those blessed scriptures. Let us "not be disappointed of our hope," our best and eternal hope; by any cunning craftiness on the one side, or by mistaken and mis- called liberality on the other. Let us stand fast in that liberty wherewith: Christ has made us free; and beware that we sell not our birthright, for any present prospect of ease, or gratification. The third chapter of this epistle which we have now before us, opens in regular form of a dialogue. The Apostle begins in the person of the Jew, with the objections 81 which were urged by those of that nation against the christian liberty from the ritual law; and against the opening of the gate of salvation through Christ, to all the faith- ful among the Gentiles. He objects as a Jew to this, as if it were a thing incon- sistent with the original promises of peculiar blessing to the Jews. The, dialogue should be understood as, going, on by , alternate verses, from the first to the ninth, where St. Paul takes the discourse up in his own person,, at the words, "No in no wise, &c." And when, he used that expression in the fifth verse, "I speak as a man;" he intended to .make us fully understand this, namely, that Jie was using the mode of reasoning, which a man of his own nation would of course use. The Jew is represented as arguing, that it is -unjust to punish him for unbelief, if the falsehood of his aspersions upon the Lord Jesus, had tended to protnote his honour, and.adviancQ.th& kingdom of God, 82 That such was the case is notorious. The ' dispersion of the followers of Christianity, in consequence of the bitter opposition and persecution of the Jew^, dispersed also to- gether with them ' the knowledge of the faith which they professed. It spread the name of the Lord in a very ^short time, over the face of the whole Roman empire; l^hich included at that time, far the greater part of the civilized world. It sciattered the tvbrd, thinly indeed at first, as seed is sown on thte^roUnd; but by the favour and blessing of the Almighty, it soon Sprang up and bare fruit, some an hutidred fold, some sixty, some thirty. It increased in different proportions, according to the dif- ferent conditions and circuiiastanoes of those, to whom it came. But every where it did increase; according to Giamaliel's Sagacious prefdictidh: " If this thiflg be of- men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it." The only difficulty in the understanding 83 of the opening of this chaj^ter, when thus read as a dialogue, verse for verse, between the Jew and Christian, so far as tt> the second sehtencfe of the ninth verse; is per- haps at the eighth. But this is not very difficult of comprehension, when we recol? lect what was the manner of St. Paul's writing; wherein he commonly left many expressions to be supplied, as the sfense pointed out the necessity for them, in purir siiance of his argument. So there, the Jew is made to plead; *'If the truth of God hath more abounded, through my lie (that is through my conduct^ which belied my profession of belief in himj arid 6f obedience due to him); if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie, unto his glory; why . yet ■ am I also judged as a sinner?" Here ends -the speech on the part of the Jew; for the next verse relates to a charge brought by the enemies of Christianity against its :i>ro'fe8si6li; and (as they said, though g2 84 falsely), against its practice. But in the Apostle's short way, the beginning of that verse is left to be understood by the rea- der: as if he had written, "And why not add (of us Christians, he meant to say) as we are slanderously reported, «&c. let us do evil that good may come." He evidently has turned from the speech of the Jew, as these last words plainly shew. And he blames most strongly, and in terms of utter condemnation, that setiti- inent, which he tells us that their enemies were used to put into their mouths; falsely, to do so, as if they had been the usual speech of the Disciples. I must however observe here, that the word "rather" in the beginning of that eighth verse, tends, as it seems to me, ^to perplex the sense. You will all of you perceive, on turning to it, that the word does not exist in the original; because it is printed in the italic character; which is al- ways done purposiely, to give intimation that 85 it is an insertion of the translators. Inserted (no doubt) it has been, under the idea pf ex- planation; but in this instance, (as it seems to me), with an unfortunate effect; as tend- ing to perplex, and not to clear, the passage. The Jew has pleaded, that it is unjust to punish him, if his want of faith has caused the work of God to prosper. And such was the case. The Apostle replies, that he might as well argue, that the evil maxim which the unbelievers imputed to, Christians, was commendable, f " Let us do evil that good may come." But we must recollect that he stamps it as a slander, that any such .thing should be reported of them; and adds, that its utter condemination (including of course those who employed it), is just. All then, Jews and Gentiles alike? are shewn to have brought , themselves under the imputation of sin. The wisdom of the Greeks, or Gentiles, had not preserved them from gross error and general disobedience. Neither had the revelations, nor all the 86 national advantages so amply giveft to the Jews, saved them from sin; \vhich thongl^ of a different description, equally rendered them liablie to condemnation. So that the word of scripture was true in regard to both. "There is none that doeth good, no not one." * Here then we come to a passage, of which (as it seems to me), a very improper use is made at this day by many ; who doubt-; less mean well, but unfortunately do that which is really prejudicial to true religion. For those sweeping expressions of condem- nation are taken by them, as involving the greater proportion of mankind; and as de- livered absolutely; without aiiy regard to the occasion on which, or the manner in which, St. Paul makes use of them. "They are all gone out of the way; they are together become abominable, there is none that doeth good, no not one." Such are the words which follow, in continuation *Pet. xiv. 3. 87 of those fp which we have come^ in tj^e course of qur eaquiry into this epistle. Now in the first place 5, supely that which is said ^ith a view tQ parti9ular things, and in immediate and pis^nifest reference to them, ought nqt to^ be constrned fis haying res- pect to geneml matter, so much as to thos^ things. And this must strike us at once, if we reflect on the former part of this chapter. St. Paul has been speaking of Jews an^ of Gentiles. He has been shewing that neither of them had any claim to the sal- vation of God ; Ijiecause both alilie had abused the means of knowing and ,of fol- lowing his truth, in . such proportion as it had been imparted to each. And for tliat reason it was that he proceeded to this pas- sage, which condemns the conduct of both the one and the otl^er. For that reason he declares, that neither the one noy the other could advance any thing like a clqim to the favour of the Almighty ; nor assert any x^ght to be admitted to his favour^ and to the 88 inheritance vof his eterriial and inconceivable rewiard.' He proves therefore that, of which it is a great object with him in this epistle to convince them all, that they have all gone out of the way, and lost all preten- sion to claim eternal reward, as of their own deserving. And from thence he proceeds to bring them onward to that hope, on which alone the erring, sons of mortality can ever soberly, and with ' real safety, repose. He cites the book of Psalms, that (as Philip did to the Ethiopian eunuch) he may "be- gin at that scripture, arid preach unto them Jesus." Such is the use which sober and well- informed preachers will make • of that doc- trine, which he here brings forward and enforces; that doctrine of the general, aye of the universal depravation of mankind. But such is not the use to which it is always applied at this day. Few can have failed to observe the exaggerated manner in which this matter has been represeritedj by those 89 who often mean well; but while th^^y keep' watch over some of their passions, who seem not to be aware that they allow themselves fo be deluded in a very taischievous man- ner, by other impulses and feelings of their mind. They are fond df representing human nature as one mass of unmixed corruption! And in confirmation of that doctrine, W6 hear those words cited which have introduced my discourse this day. But we hear them brought forward (as has too often been the case in regard to other texts of scripture), without any regard to the particular matter to which St. Paul intended them to be ap- plied. To that however our attention must be turned, unless we would incur the fearful charge of "wresting and perverting his ex- pressions." For if they be so wrested, as to produce presumption on the one hand^ or despair on the other, it must needs tend toward their own destruction: who shall be guilty of such perversion. But it may perhaps be asked, "How can 90 th>e 4octrkie of- universal corruption, and of the most utter sinfulness, laid upon all man- kind, puff up any one with vain conceits?" It may be asked, "Must not every one be conscious of (jqmppsing ,in part such mass, of abominable wickedness? " When stated thus plainly, it becomes at once evident, i^^i- sound reaspn '^ilj, nay, that it must lead to such conclusion, if it ever do admit that, which is thus asserted universally of hil mankind, and yet so precisely. I say uni- versally, not generally; for a general asser- tion will £^dHiit cases of exception; but an assertion so universal and yet so precise as ^^none, no not one," can admit no exception. And yet do we not plainly see, that those who maintain suqh doctrine, do .contrive iq forgpt how it must involve themselves? Or else, in spite of all sense and meaning of ila^e most positive words (according to their interpretation pf them), that they dp conr trive some way for themselves to escape? It cannot possibly be, that they whp con- 91 sider Scripture - as having denotmced tjie penalties of divine vengeance for unmixed sinfulness; (and such are invariably declared to be its reward); it cannot be, that they should go on under the feeling that they have incurred that sentence, together with all their fellow mortals; and yet gp on, as those who make such avowals evidently do, in peace and hope. Nor do they so. But there is a delusion with which they impose on their own minds; and then, fancying themselves to be safe, they imagine that they may scatter the avenging fire of divine wrath on all around them. Now what does holy Scripture invaria- bly teach concerning the natural man ? — That is to say. What does it teach concern- ing man in his state of nature; unredeemed, and unsanctified, l?y God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost? No doubt it teaches that the imaginations of his heart are now, as they werp at the time of the universal dcr luge, only evil continually. ^2 ' But to what pufpose has our Saviour died? Or to what, has divine grace been sent forth by the Holy Spirit, if that depravation of our nature is not to be amended by the latter, and our absolute curse and condem- nation reversed by the former ; so as to make our absolute condemnation remediable; so that such as are really faithful, and therefore penitent, may, by that grace, and through that atonement, escape from such utter condemnation? The imaginations of man's heart are then influenced; though not constrained, from above; to take a better course than that which nature would have taught. Faith teaches the true Christian to endeavour to follow such guidance; and the help of God, for Jesus Christ's sake strengthens such endeavours, and counts them to us graci- ously for real- righteousness. Though real righteousness if the term be used in strict- ness, would be ■ nothing short of perfect obedience. And thus it is, as the Apostle 93 sajfs^ that "by grace ye are saved, through (or by the fruits of) faith; and that not of theirselves; it is the gift of God: not of works (not deservedly, nor to be claimed on account of them), lest any man should boast." But in this sweeping charge, not of gene- ral depravity, which is but too . true, but of universal and unvarying wickedness un- mixed with any goodness, which is thus with an unsparing hand .cast upon «^/ alike^ as if it were to be drawn by fair and legi-. timate construction from the words of the Apostle ; in spite • of this, I say, there is evidently a way left for escape. It is left for their own benefit^ ' by ■ those . VFho lay this imputation on all. It is to operate for their own advantage as they persuade them- selves, through a delusion which partial read- ing has: confirmed, after enthusiasm had given birth to it. . For can it possibly be iinagined that any persons can go on, really feeling that they 94 are themselves toid of all soft or descri|)- tion of* that "Jioliness, without which they own that no man can see the Lord/'* (as St. Paul says) unless they have some such de- vice, under which to find an imaginary shelter for themselves ? The thing is impossible. There have indeed (no doubt), been some who have holden such tenets in the ifervoi* of a distempered mind. Thus they have fallen into despair, and have been sometimes tempted thereby to do violence to them- selves^ and to rush, in the presumptuous and foul crime of self-murderers^ uncalled, into the presence of their judge. But such fanaticism, and such enormity, which is its natural fruit, sufficiently condemn themselvfeSi That is hot however the case with many; though many will thus misquote St; Paul's expression, of which we have herie «pokenJ They have builded a wall (as it were), to shelter themselves from all the horrors which *Heb. xii. 11. 95 they raise: but they have builded (as says the prbphet Ezekiel)* with "untempered mortar." On what can they rest? Or why should they sujipose that they should be exempted from the expression, there is none that doeth good, pio not one; if it be mMe one of universal application without regard to the ma.tter with which it is connected? They rely on sortie delusion, that they are chosen and elected of Godj fore-ordained to salvation; without regard to their lives, or to their works. But reihfetnber, my brethren, that election is alwiays to a covenant; that it ihay Mmit to privileges, or favours, or advantages; but tliat it never alters the d'oftditibn of any mah, from a state of trial, to one of security. The children of Israel were elected to be the chosen people; "But with many of them God Was not well' pleas^ed, ifor they werle overtfai^own in- the wilderness." The city of *xiii, 10, 96 Jerusalem was elected, and fore-ordained to be the holy place, where God would put hjs name. Yet twice has it been overthrown for its crimes ; arid the name of an impostor and false prophet now reigns there trium- phant. The Apostle Judas was elected, to be our Blessed Lord's companion upon earth; and he was elected also after death to be one of the twelve, who should sit on twelve thrones "judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'.' From all, that privilege he however by trans- gression fell, when he failed under his pro- bation; he fell to the effect that he might go to, that place of perdition, which his crime had made his own, .^ The Apostle Paul's words teach nothing contradictory to this. With regard to the perfect fulfilment of that righteousness which conscience taught the Gentiles, he declared that all had gone astray, and that there was not one that did righteousness. With regard to the Jews, who had enjoyed a clearer light, he nevertheless jdeclared the same. 97 And the result to which he brought them was this," that none could claim to be saved for their works, but purely for the grace' of God through Christ Jesus. He taught that no professions, and no belief alone, without the works of faith, would save us; but that the wrath of God is revealed in the gospel, against ''all unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteous- ness;" that is to say, who profess to believe, or do believe, but do not the righteousness which the Gospel demands. But though this be not said of Christistns, that there is none that doethgood; though we learn . that goodness may be imputed to the faithful (through the graci^ of our Blessed Lord, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost); yet what multitudeis are there who call themselves Christians, and yet de- serve no better report or character, -than this which the Apostle gives to unbelieting Jewsj or heathens! Let us not argue (my brethren), frofti the name t6 th« thing; 98 which is an easy, and a flattering way, lb\xt full of most dangerous deceit; but let us argue, if we would know the truth, from our practice, to the name which ought in strict, justice to be affixed to it. It is easy tp call ourselves Christians; and if a name would save us^ there is no doubt that none would be lost. But our Lord has left us a very distinct warning, against any such wretched self-delusion. He has said, "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Not every one that saith un,to me Lord! Lord! shall enter into, the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Names of party and of reproach, my bre- thren, do nothing but harden the professed disciples of the same heavenly Master, the one against" the other. Let our enquiry be into ourselves; and if we would avoid the imputation of unfaithfulness to the service which we have undertaken, let us not fear ?99 to search, and throughly to examine our- selves. '' M -» What man lives, who can presume to say that the hour 6f > the Lord's heavy judg- ments is not presently coming; -aye, in part actually come upon the earth? Who can have paid any attention to the wonderful events, which have, within the memories of very many of us, taken place; without noticing the . characters predicted, as indi- cating times which call upon us all to pre- pare for the final judgments of the Admighty ? I venture not to foretel *(my brethren) the things which i are ^ about to come. Nor can I consider them as acting judiciously, who do venture upon any such measure, in confidence of that which they conceive to be pointed out, by the dark suggestions of unaccomplished prophecy, iVi Those things are thus far hinted (as it seems to me) in dark figures; in ojcder that when the event shall have unfolded them, a clear testimony may be afforded to the wisdom and provi- h2 100 dence of God. These things are so Ikr told "before they come to pass, that when ihey are come to pass we may believe." — But it is vain . and presumptuous, for man to seek " to know the times and the sea- sons, which the Father hath put in his own power." Yet general signs have been named, as indications from which we are to conclude that the end is drawing near. But be it remembered, that we are no where told how near at hand it may be. Near per- haps it may be, in comparison with the whole of time; and yet it may be to any individual distant, so far as regards his own time; or it may be coming even suddenly, at an instant. There is "only one proper conclusion to be drawn. And may the Lord grant us all grace to make, and to improve it! "Be ye therefore ready; for; in such an hour as ye- think not the Son of Man Cometh." ■ Unquestionable it is that risings of people, 101 and tumults,^ and wars; and fearful commo- tions, beyond all former recollection, have in our times fallen on the world. And what «ays our Lord of them? "These are the beginnings of sorrows." What manner of persons then ought we to be, in all holiness and godliness of living; if we would hope to be enabled to endure that, which may, not at all improbably, be appointed for our own days? Shall we go on, because the tide of mankind still holds that course; in pursuing the empty follies and vanities, which swallow up the days and years of so many? Thhik not that professions and intentions will suffice. If we would avoid being hurried down the stream to the pit of destruction, we must struggle upward; and not be satisfied with that which demands no exertion, nor any self- controul. Remember then, that though many there may be in these days, who deem them- selves sufficiently secure against the charge 102 of having become abominable, wbich they think a strong expression; yet that the Apostle's language does seem manifestly to include many more than absolute profligates. He seems to include under that strong ex- pression, those who have "gone out of the way," to follow the inventions of man ; and those also who "dp not good." The abr sence of positive and active well-doing, must therefore be accounted for positive and ac- tual sin. It was so in the Romans. It was so in the Jews. And even so, in like man- ner must it be, with those who "say and do not;" though they may seek never so much, to cover themselves under the shadow of the Christian name. 103 LECTURE V. Romans iv. 13. FOR TttE PROMISE THAT HE sHoULD BE THE HEIR OS" THE WORLD (was), NOT TO ABRAHAM OR TO HIS SEED THROUGH THE tAW, BUT THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH. ^ jS/LY last lecture took into consideration the subject of the general (n6t the univer- sal and unmixed), depravity of man. It pointed out, that the Apostle intended to enforce the necessity of redemption for a^I, because all had sinned against that degree of light which each possessed. And it shew- ed that his sweeping expressions of the abominable sinfulness of all, were indeed intended for Jews, and Greeks alike; but are not to be thus fully extended to them who are Christians and disciples indeed. 104 The same , argument is continued to the end of that third chapter. And it is strongly enforced, that no man living had, nor now has, any claim to the, favour of God; be- cause all have sinned, and come short of the conditions of the covenant on their part. He points out therefore the free gift and bounty of the Almighty, in having of his grace alone, without any sort of claim or right on the part of man, sent forth his sal- vation through Jesus Christ, to them who work- the righteousness of faith. "There- fore (says he) we conclude that a man is justified by faith (is put into a condition wherein he may be capable of salvation -by faith), without the deeds of- the law ;" * that is, without any claim of merit, for having perfectly obeyed the law; which no man hsLs* done. • The gift of salvation .is free; not because any man is saved arbitrarily in unrepented 105 sin; -but because it is of "grace, and not of debt;"jebecause it is given through the merits and atonement of our Saviour to man; and is not due to any. man. It is given to them who mortify the. flesh and do the works of the spirit through faith,: trusting in our Blessed Redeemer's merits and mer- cies; and not to, them who work trusting in their own merits, and in the value of their own performance. This course of argument leads thie Apos- tle forward, to consider the pinciple, upon which obedience to the commands of God, even the most . apparently arbitrary among them, obtained- .commendation and reward. For great was the value which the Jews in all times attributed, especially to the ob- servance of such arbitrary institutions as were of divine appointment. The principle was good; but they corrupted it to evil. It was good, because compliance with that of which the utility was, not obvious, must have been paid through , faith in Him who required 106 such compliance. But they abused it by losing sight of the reason why such obedi- ence was counted for righteousness before God ; and "forgetting that godly living rested on precisely the same foundation, and is equally a work of faith. For it is to be paid, not because we judge it to be pro- per, wholesome, kind, or good, which would depend on the judgment of man 5 but solely because we know that God commands maa to practise it; and because we believe that He will reward those who endeavour, and punish those who refuse, so to do. The Jews farther abused the principle of obedience to positive institutions, such as were the greater part of those in their ceremonial law; by losing sight, in process of time altogether of God's moral law ; of the righteousness which ought to proceed from faith; and by resting on the act alone. And so they went on to the imputation of merit to the observance of their own tra- ditions, while they forgot the weightier mat- 107 ters of the law, justice, tnercy, and peace> Be it not forgotten jny brethren, that in this course the worship of the^Rpmish church even down to our own days has too much followed their example. For therein it is taught that masses and forms of words re- peated, and that penances, and ceremonies, have a merit in themselves; and that they do, by the very act of their perforniance, tend to give a title to eternal salvation. So universal has been the tendency of human pride, towards the claim of satisfac^ tory merit as. existing in itself; and that in all ages, and among all people. For it was much the same also among the heathen, in respect of their rites, and gifts; their pro- cessions, and sacrifices. Such is the fruit of superstition, which has • t shewn itself in all ages and all religions; superstition, which always arises from a de- ficiency of true christian faith. Here there- fore the Apostle opens this fourth chapter, with shewing that no rites or ceremonies, nor 108 any acts of service, had produced the jus- tification of Abraham. That is to say, they had not altered his condition by nature, nor given him any right, to stand as one who could claim salvation before God on account of them. The Jews stood, as they imagined, upon acts of outward service, and ceremonious observances. The Apostle points out to them, that Abraham had not been chosen of God on account of his performances of these ; but that he had been so chosen long be- fore they were ordained, for the uprightness of his practices; which arose from, implicit belief in, and obedience to, the Lord. He was chosen moreover by the free grace and favour of God ; who was not, and could not be, bounden to make any such choice^ nor to give him any such pre-eminence; whatever his righteous con- duct or obedience might have been. Yet we mUst never , forget, that though he did C^hoose and prefer him by favour of his own 109 free grace, yet such grace was not bestowed on him until he had proved himself, by his faith working righteousness, to be (so far as man can he) deserving of it. It was not" a debt paid, but a favour bestowed; yet bestdwe.d on one who had diligently stu- died to shew himself not unworthy of it. The words of the 'epistle,* "To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt," mtist not be strained beyond the meaning, which the whole course of the Apostle's reasoning in this place ' plainly con- veys. They signify, that when a man works so as to have earned, and become entitled to his hire ; it is that to which he has a right : it is then, in such case, not given to him as a favour, but as payment of a just debt. He does not mean to undervalue the wiorks of godliness, which true ..faith >vill always move the sincere Christian to shew forth; but to admonish us, that those *4v. 110 ^yorks, at the very best are so imperfect, that thiey cannot on the ground of right claim any reward. And in the same way it is said in the next verse t;hat God "justifieth the ungodly :" which must be understood not absolutely, but with reference to the rest of the -argu- ment, in the course of which it occurs. It is not, that God imputes ■righteousness to any persons, while they are persisting' in courses df iniquity; but that he does so, while yet, in spite of all the good -which their faith excites them to do, their work is so tainted by human depravity, as to be still in h,i» sight short of true and perfect righteousness. ^ Or it may be taken (and some have so understood it), as referring to Abraham's former habits;* when he lived with his fa- ther Terah^ and probably served his Gods. So Joshua tells the Israelites* " Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood, in old time; Ill even Terah the fether of Abraham, and they served other gods." * That sin of hav- ing served other gods was not imputed to him, when he had obeyed the Lord, and followed his especial calling to come out from that land, into one which he promised that he would give to him. This is plainly the real meaning. It certainly does not sig- nify that Abraham was taken into favour while in a state of ungodly living; but when he had proved his ^ith, by active devotion of himself to the service of God then that faith, though his former account were unrighteousness in the sight of God, that active faith, was counted to him for righteousness. It is a matter of no small importance that we should bear in mind the forni of expres- sion, which the Apostle uses in all the course of this argument. He is extremely careful, never to ^ive any idea to his^ conveTts, that * Josh. xxiv. 2, 112 their acts had any thing in them intrinsically; "which could justify them in setting up a"^ claim as of right, to the favour and blessing of God. The expression always is,- not that their faith, even in the highest perfeietion to which they could carry it, was really and actually ■ such as it ought to be ; or that it produced such a life as could lay claim to reward at his hand. But he always says, that it was "counted to them for righteous- ness:" it; was allowed to stand on "their ac- count, as if it had been perfect obedience and godliness.; ' ^ .,The very expression that it was "counted to. them," proves that he intended to imply," that it was not really and essentially that, for which it was so accounted. , And to the same purpose it is that he introduces the words of David, from the thirty-second psalm, "Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven ( not who has none to be forgiven, for there is no soul that liveth and sinneth not). Blessed is the 113 man unto whom the Lord will not impute sin." The Imputation could not be made by a righteous Judge, had there not existed actual sin in every case. And therefpre since criminality always is, and always will be found in man; so much as to take away sill claim of right to the reward of righte- ousness (for it must be faultless, in order to be entitled of right to the reward): there- fore the imputation of righteousness, the counting of righteousness to any one, must be the fruit of grace; that is to say, of di- vine favour, and of that alone. Are we then, my brethren, to suppose that any claim can possibly belo"ng to us, any more than it did to Abraham and to his seed of old ? • Can we, because we have been called into the fold of Christ here on earth, flatter ourselves that we have righte" ousness on that account, for which we may claim admission into his kingdom of hea- ven? Far from it. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," is the I 114 precept which all must carry with theniy if they would hope that righteousness might be imputed unto them also. But it has been set up by some in their own favour, that suph imputation of righteous- ness is altogether an arbitrary thing; and they who have set up the idea, have too commonly, endeavoured to make their own claim upon it. Now whatever the Apostle says -on the subject, he exemplifies . it in Abraham, But what is there in this place where St. Paul speaks so much on the sujb- ject, which can, with any fairness or reason be made to bear such signification?- The covenant, so far as regarded the nation of the Jews, might in some sense be said to have been given arbitrarily; because it was given before they existed as a nation. But still it was for iheir forefather's faith; and in that respect, as to its original grant,, and with reference to him, it was not, arbitrary. The covering of Abraham's infirmity, and the grant to him of such a gracious promise 115 for his posterity, was not arbitrary. It was not given through the law; not through any forms or ceremonies; nor through any choice made arbitrarily of him without res- pect to his obedience, which is the founda- tion of all righteousness. But it was given through the righteousness of faith: because he believed fully in God who had promised, and therefore with boldness executed that which ha was called to do. Abraham then believed in God, and proved his belief; and that was counted to him for righteousness. And this happened thir- teen years before he had received the co- venant.. of circumcision; before he had been placed as the first member of the visible church of God. To us this furnishes matter for considera- tion, not other than appropriate to the season, to which the mercy of the Lord has granted us again to come. For if the righteousness of faith was allowed by divine graee> to i^^ork so great things for Abraham; i2 11^ the righteousness which is by faith, I say, and not mere belief on the one hand, nor any privileges, or promises, or forms of ser- vice on the othei" ; to what does it teach us Christians to look as that to which our merciful God will impute merit for our Sa- viour's sake ? Is it not to that righteous- ness which still ought to be, though in very many instances 1 fear that we cannot say that it now is, by faith? Perfected as the object of our faith now is; and infinitely cleared and improved as are its prospectSj even to eternal, instead of temporal things; so much the more is that righteousness which ought in all cases to be its fruit, to be shewn forth by us. The present is the season (if there be. one above all others), peculiarly appropri- ate to the examination of our own courses and habits,, in regard to this matter. We cannot more, profitably employ the time which remains to us on this occasion, than in turning our serious attention toward it.r 117 There is, as we all know, a promise iriad^ to us who are followers of the faith which is in Jesus Christ; a promise that we shall be inheritors, not of the world that now is, but of that which is to come. But as the ancient promise was made to Abraham, not through the law, but through the righteous- ness of faith; so is it now made to ourselves. And never let us forget, that it is to such righteousness, to such godly living, as shall proceed from faith in all the prpmises, and all the threatenings, and all the revelations of God, and not in some one or two selected, parts of them, that such promise is made. How then have we, even we ourselves, my brethren, and all who dwell around us to whoitn the influence of our word or of our example may extend — how have we shewn forth that righteousness? Have we given proof, that we are not only able, but willing to fight the good fight of faith? And do we bear in mind that such an expression, familiar as is its sound in our ears, implies 118 a conduct^ widely different from that of very many, far too many, among those who call themselves Christians? Where is the righte- ousness of faith in them, who would rest upon a name, a baptism, or a profession, without recollecting to what that name has pigged them; for what purpose the Holy Ghost in baptism offered (if they would ac- cept .them) his sanctifying influences; or what is the self-eontroul, and self-denial, and moutification of the flesh, which they either personally, or by sureties, then pro- fessed their determination to. practise? Ox wjb.at is the faith,' on the other side, which seeks to be indicated by inward impressions alone, and imagined influences of the divine ■fiipirit? What is it worth, if these, are not to produce the righteousness which always comes of faith, wherever that virtue really exists^ and is not confounded with mere empty belief? Well may the question which the Aposr 4le here puts .concerning Abraham, be pror 119 posed also concerning all, and to all, who deceive themselves under any delusion of either soft; and so contrive to evade the shewing forth of those lively fruits, which are the only true proofs of faith; because they prove that the righteoushess of faith is in us. Well, I say, may it be proposed now concerning us, though in a different way from that in which St. Paul herd brings it' forward. " What shall we say then (asks he), that Abraham, our father according to the flesh, hath found?" What shall we say oh our jiairt, that we the children of God, by adop- tion and -grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, have found? Have we found a law which will encourage us in wickedness? Far from it. Have we found a salvation to which we have been absolutely elected, and which cannot be lost by our evil doing? Nothing at all like it. Have we received any security for going on in useless, un- profitable, and therefore ungodly ways; and 120 imagining that we shall be saved by the blood of our Blessed Redeemer's sacrifice^ without seriously keeping before us the awful question, "What must we do to be sav,ed?" AH such ideas are mere deceit- fulness and ruin. Too many perhaps may be found, who imagine that in the words here before us, the Apostle merely intended to undervalue the Jewish, that is the Mosaic, in comps^-' rison with the Christian law. And' in St, Paul's epistles that distinction which the article makes, is often of the highest utility, but chiefly for those who can read them in the original language. For when he speaks, not of law in general, but of the law; it generally does designate the peculiar law of the Jews, with all its rites and ceremonies.- But we must recollect, that though this be a good and a useful rule, to be carried with us, yet it is not one of universal ap- plication in regard to our version. The very text with which I introduced this present 121 discourse proves it. We read, ''^The pro- mise that he should be the heir of the world (was) not to Abraham or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." But in the original it is,* was not to Abraham or to his seed, through law. It is not said through the law, which might to some seem to mark the ritual law of the Jews; though we must remember that it existed not in Abraham's day. But it is said not to be through law; not on account of Abraham's having really and exactly ful- filled any law, which the Almighty had given. It is as if he had written. It was not to Abraham or his seed, through the righteous- ness which they had shewn, in never failing to obey the commandments of God ; for they had all failed. But it was through the righteousness which was imputed -to him, on account of his acts of faith. The object ,of the argument is to prove *ov jxq Stx vofii-8 V) eicxyyeXix, &c. 122 that, which is said also in express terms; that the acceptation of Abraham and of his seed, was not "of debt." It was not owing to them, as to those who bad actually de- served it at God's hand. But it was of grace. It was the fruit of God's favour, shewn to Abraham and to his seed aft«r him, on account of his inflexible faith; that faith which induced him, under all trials and temptations, to do that which God com- manded, and to put his trust in him, for a blessing on such deeds. ■ Here then is ^he point to which our imi- tation, if we wduld deserve thfe name of ^ristians, ou'ght to be, nay, must be di- rected. We must learn to " walk » by faith, and not by sight." We must learn to have respect to a state of things yet to be revealed; and not to any which we have seen, or can expect to see, so long as we remain In this our place- of probation. We must learn to "set our aifections on things above, not on things on 4he earth." 123 And it is thedatter part of this injunction which, unhappily for man, ;meets with the least attention from him. To look to re- ward hereafter, in the mere sense of , simply expecting to inherit it, is indeed a very easy matter to a careless miiid. But thiis it is that many think of it, and never carry their considerations beyond that points. Behold the young and the old alike; for the fault is not confined to any age, nor to either sex, among us. Beholdithem num- bered ostensibly among the followers of our Blessed Hedeemer ; and of course ;( though they may think little or nothing upon the subject); yet of course acknowledging. that they are debtors to his law, and covenant of iholiness. They seem to imagine (if we may judge from the secure and careless habit of their lives), that they are heirs of the vporld by promise. They seem to suppose that their faith, such as it is, will save them; and without ever looking into the title which they thus set up, live- in 124 ihat promise, which idleness and thoughtless habits encourage; that "to-morrow shall be as this day, and more abundant." But where is any promise given by God, to such habits, and , such manner of living ? He has indeed, it is true, given a promise even to them. Biit it is not one on which they will' much delight to dwell. ' He calls them, noit to sit down thus contented and at ease, imagining that all is safe for them. But he commands all without exception, to "work out their own salvation." "With fear and trembling'.' are we commanded to work it out; not in peace, and indolence, and carelessness. The promise which is given to us who call ourselves ' Christians, is, as St. Paul here declares, through the rtffhieousness of faith. And who' that gives any considera- tion to the matter, can be mistaken in such an expression as this? Too well do we know, how fatally many have perverted the promistes arid assurances 125 which are made, in reference to faith. Too well do we know how many will profess that they have that virtue, while they know not (and how should they know, for they have never taken pains to Jearn)?— they know not what it is; .and rest upon a mere .pro- fession and an empty name. But the righteousness of faith must needs be beyond all such misconstruction. It is not a thing to be taken for granted, in all, merely, because they, bear a christian name^ It must be proved, by far other than a worldly life, if it would lay claim to , those rewardsi^ which are far above all that this wretched world can give. f T)iink ,. then . ye careless ones, while nyet the hour of thought and reflection' in this mortal state, is with you. . Which of us can dare to say how long that period shall be, or how suddenly^ it shall be brought to an end? Beware of letting the reprobate mind grow up in you, and .become confirmed, as it was in the heathen. of old. It is, a mind 126 wbich cannot endure to prove, and to examine things for itself, by the rule of the word of life; and therefore follows heed- lessly in the track of others. However senseless, however stupid be their careless- ness; it follows them even to "the blackness of darkness for ever." The, day which is yet before us is a day of probation; and never let us forget that it has an end ; how near to any, or to all of usi we know not. The promise which is given 'to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, is that we shall be heirs; yet not heirs of this world, but of that which is to come. But still, recollect, my brethren, that inheritance is not actual possession. The Jews were heirs of promises, but they were disinherited in the instances of thousands; of many thou- sands, through all periods -of their history. Because they failed to shew the obedience of children; God therefore withdrew from them the kindness, and protection, and for- giveness, of a Parent. 127 So then may it be (but may the Lord for- bid that it should be) even with us ! Let us never forget that " The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore hasten to walk honestly, as in the day." "While ye have the light, walk as children of the light. And put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, that ye should fulfil the lusts thereof." 128 LECTURE VI. Romans v. 20, 21. GRACE DID MUCH MORE ABOUND; THAT AS SIN HATH REIGNED UNTO DEATH, EVEN SO MIGHT GUACE REIGN, THROUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS, UNTO ETERNAL LIFE, BY JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. JIN the chapter which we last considered, the privileges of Abraham's seed iaccording to the flesh, were noticed by St. Paul. They were shewn to depend not on their birth, but on their faith; and through that alone was it declared, that the privileges of their descent from him could be enjoyed by them individually. But here again he turns to the Kbmans especially, who were not his seed according to the flesh: "to them who should walk 129 in the faith of their spiritual father Abra- ham (the father of the faithful, as he if? called), in. that faith which h0 had being yet uncircumcised." And great as were the advantages offered to the national seed, those which were to be given to his spiritual seed were yet grjeater. Of that seed (my brethren), if it be not through our own fault, we, ourselves and ^sill Christians, shall be accounted: for a portion, We are among the branches of the wild olive tree, which are " grafted in, to partake of the root and fatness" of the plants, which God originally plante4 in his own favour, and protection. Yet are we noit so grafted in, but that we may be cut oflf. Nor are the especial advantages granted to the spiritual sjeed of Abraham such* as must of necessity bring us all into the rest of the heavenly Jerusalem; any more than the temporal J aid vantages promised to the Jews in^ the wilderness, were effecti^l to bring all that people into the promised land. K 130 The carcases of those who disobeyed, and with whom therefore "God was not well pleased," fell in the wilderness. And the souls of them who know the law of the covenant of salivation given through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, but keep it not, will infallibly be ciast out from hea- ven; how much soever they may have been called of God, to enter by such means as he has appointed into his rest. For they will not have obeyed that calling, as it was given to them; and without holiness, which is the object and essence of his calling, no man shall see the Lord. If found without that garment of righteousness, they shall be cast out "into outward darkness, where shall be waliling,' and gnashing of teeth." The Apostle here begins, with declaring that the peace of the converts with their God, depended on the Lord Jesus Christ; not (as the Jews imJagined that theirs still did), on the works of the old law, whether of the Patriarchal, or the Mosaic law. It 131 depended on the grace pr favour ^'of God, who justifieth (or putteth iiitp the gituatioEi of persons capable of being accepted), the ifljperfeet, who are all in hi^ sight iijigodly ;" and that he dops.thrpugh Je^us Chris|; our Lord. This is the first privilege of Chris- tians. And infliutely greater is it, than any which belongs to the covenant of works; a covenaat, the fulfilments of which required constant works of .holiness^ withput any .^fj; of failure. It is theijf privilege also, thjat the v.Gjry things which they are me;.de tp suffer, do to the faithful, supply matter for joy and exultation. "Npt only (add^ he), but we glory m tribilatipn." * Bujt what sort of glorying was that, to which he thus encouraged them? Not q, boasting of the things which they suffered. Not any puffing up of their conceit of their * Rom. V. 3, k2 132 own sanctity, because they, had courage and steadfastness so to- endure. ■ Nor was their motive any pride of spirit which mkde them court persecution. Nor did they go out of their way, to oppose and revile the harmless customs^ and indif- ferent practices, wherein others disagreed from them; merely because they did not conform to some system which, they had been pleased to set up. The Apostles never courted tribulation, nor gloried in it after that manner; on the contrary, when duty did not require them to endure, they avoided it; and , never provoked ill usage, in any Vain conceit of their. own strength'. And so our great Master and Lord had commanded them, "When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another." • But they were specially inspired. Their understandings were opened, by the Holy Ghost, to enable them to distinguish truly between the cases which occurred. And of that power of discrimination they availed 133 themselves; sometimes retiring from the tu- mult and danger, and sometimes facing it, and enduring all which could be inflicted. Their object was, that in all things the name of God might be praised ; aind not their own name nor their own courage. Their aim was, "That the word of the Lord might have free course and be glo- rified."* i -T Ul And such is, I trust even at present, the real aim and object Of many sincere and devout Christians. But let it be , remem- bered, that there may be a zeal which is not according to knowledge. There may be also a degree of self-deception operating on the mind, and that sometimes, when those' on whom it acts, and acts powerfully too, are not consdous of it. And therefore the ambition of undergoing tribulations, is no proof in itself, of resemblance between those who feel it and the Holy Apostles of old. '''■ *2 Thes. iii. i. 134 If the affectation of sihgularity prompt any .Christians to differ from their neigh- bburs, there can be nothing ^praiseworthy in that. If the desire of distinction prompt them to incur the ill will of those, over whom thiey would in any way exalt them- selves as being especially holy, thfey have their reward. And if a mistaken *eal do really persuade them, that, as a matter of eoriscienee, they are called of ^od, io fol- low any particular fancies or inward sug- gestions, which are unsupported Jby the fair construction of the recorded word of God; let thiem never allow themselves to imagine that evil report or any ill wjll incurred in such a manner, can be counted to them for righteousness. Remember the Apostle's question j "What glory is it> if when ye be buffeted for ybur faults, ye take it patieiitly?" Patience in all cases, is the duty- of a Christian; and he sins who fails to exhibit it. But there is no ground for ptaise vi^hen it has been 135 rendered necessary, by the consequences of our own ill-founded pretensions; whether they have sprung from fancy, deluded by enthusiasm, or fronji self-conceit. They who suffered for Christ's sake in the Apostles' d^ys, glorified in tribulations. . But it was not with a vain glory; it was not as priding themselves on their own strength. The expression only signifies, that they felt a pleasure even under their sufferings. It was a pleasure grounded in faith and hope; and it is by, St. Paul here mentioned, not by way of boasting in his own steadfastness; but for the sake of en- courc\gement> to those who were likely to be exposed to the same endurance. There- fore he reminds them, that their patience and endurance wprked their approval as true and faithful disciples ;, and to that approval of them in their christian profession, they well knew that the mercy of God would not fail, in his good time, to give reward. The expression however, as we have it 136 in our version, is not so strong nor so ac- curate as it ought to be. We read thlis/ "Knowing that tribulation worketh patience j and patience experience; and experience hope; &6.'-'* Nolv experience is riot the true meaning of the original word.t It sig- nifies a test, or here the having endured a test. That tribulation produceth patience (or rather, makes it manifest), in the godly disposed, is well known to all; however lit- tle too many -may have taken care, to keep their own patience ready at hand, when it may have been so required. But, that "pa- tience worketh experience," is a passage not very easy to be comprehended: for it is not so much patience which does it, as the af- fliction itself. It worketh both patience, in the godly, and experience. But (as I be- fore observed), "experience" is a word which does not convey exactly, the sense of the original expression. *3, 4t. &c. t^OXifiV} 137 The word used in the Greek, is one which in its own direct signifieation means the as- say (as it is called), or the putting of the precious- metals (gold and silver) to the test, in order to try their putity. Not are extended, in spite of our infirmities and imperfections and failures-; *' through righteousness, unto eternal life, by JesuSiChrist our iord." j . s , .-What then, as he asks elsewhere, shall separate us vfrom the love of Christ? What, when so great pi'ivileges have been extended to' us^ shall^render: them fruitless, and make the grace of God lofi none effect?: Something thfere is (my biiethren) which too manifestly does produce -such lamentable, such fatal fruits. SomfiiJiing there ; is, which, though it do not, and cannot make void the pur- poses- of the. Father^ nor the mercies of our. 145 Redeemer; does throw too many into such a condition, in regard to his holy covenant of grace, that. the promise becomes, as to them, of none effect. • . i,; .. \;uri^ It is not that 4their faith. itiself, so far as they have it, is made j void ; but it is that t«hat they call faith is void in itself: that they have little ini them, which "really de* serves to be called faith. A m^re empty name and profession, is: of necessity void in itself; void of any claim or hope grounded. tm the premises of the Almighty. 2 ;n.' ' And now is the time, ab'ov^e all others that ever have been within our recollection^ wh«n we are all called, within our holy church; t& stir up the grace of God which is upon us. Now are we called ta be most visibly, and manifestly, and particularly careful, that we receive not the grace of God in vain; and that we attempt., not to rely on the mere name, without^ the sub&taitee of chris^ tianity. If ever it was * needful, that the purity of our w profession shotildabe shewn 146 forth in our lives, the time is now at hand; nay, it has actually come upon us. And shall we now sit down in indolence, giving a fatal and ruinous example, to them who will be but too ready to follow it? Shall we hot exert ourselves, to make manifest that beauty of holiness which belongs to our belief and worship, by our lives and conver- sation? Shall we not give that most effec-' tual, because most intelligible of all modes of contradiction, to them who revile our na- tional religion, and say that it is not the true faith of our Lord Jesus Christ? St. Paul strictly enjoined his converts, to eive none occasion to the enemies of our Lord to blaspheme. Let us then be careful to abide by his warning. To blaspheme, does not in that place mean that which we commonly call blasphemy. It does not mean ■ only outrageous curses, and open dishonour done to the name and attri- butes of God. The Apostle uses the word here in its original sense: which is, when 147 simply considered,, to speak evil (fp what-i ever ,that evil may be applied), His con- verts lived among bigotted Jews, or idolatrousi Gentiles. He therefore exhorts them so to live, that their profession of a faith, vt^hich they (the Jews and heathens) opposed, might pot.be such. as to give countenance, ,to the; things which they would speak against that faith. And so he reproaches the RomanSj*^ "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you." v ) - The days have come, my brethren, when enough, and more than enough will proba- bly be found, to revile our holy protestant faith, if they can see any thing in the lives of its avowed followers, on which to fix the imputation of unholiness. The, days have come, when nothing can safely be neglected ; whether of the outward, or of the inward part, of Protestant Christianity. The days have come, when we must bear in mind *ii.24. 148 both 'parts of our Blessed Saviour's injunc- tion, with more, in regard to many, than their usual attention in passed times, "Make" clean first the inside, &c. that the outside may be clean also." Nor can such cleansing and such care be spared, either in one part, or the other. Great is their delusion, who imagine^ that they can stand in safety, on their freedom from all intention to do dishonour to €tod, or (which comes to the same thing) to re- ligion; whether it be Outward and visible religion, or inward, and witnessed only by their own conscience. The latter indeed all men know to be, as it were, the essence, the very springs and root, of all that is good in its fruits. But • let not the faith of our fathers be put to shame, by the refusal of the children to conform themselves to the outward ordinances also, to those of self- restraint, and mortification. Let not that, which was intended to be an open profession, of our desire to be found obedient to the rules 149 and institutions of godly living according* to the gospel of Christ; be neglected for the sake -of' any evil ways, and ungodty dissipa- tions. Such will ever tempt us ,to indul- gence; but they will bring reproach on that religion, which we all profess, at least, to venerate* It is by the lives and conversations . of those who- call themselves children of the church of this land, that the rules and doc- trines and faith of that church, will, by. very many persons, be judged. It was so, when first the errors of a corrupt church Were abandoned, it was so, that those er-. rors were then most easily made to be visible. The defect was shewn and seen first of all, in the- unholy manner of living which appeared in the conduct of very many among its sons, and its advocates. The reformed churches on the contrary, were then careful to maintain good works-; and by them to shew the purity of the be- lief which produced them. 150 This test is not indeed (for there will be hypocrites); it is not unerring in its opera- tion. But it will generally guide to a right j-udgment, and can hardly fail of being, ap- plied to us. The teaching of ouf Saviour was, "Ye shall know them (that is, the per- sons professing true doctrine) by theif fruits;" and that rule, will be .strictly applicable so far as the persons, in every case. But in order to judge of the doctrine itself much more than single cases must be observed. The general tendency, and the usual effect of the whole must be kept in view; as well as the conformity of the teaching with that revealed word, from whence alone the real rules of righteousness before God can be drawn. But still we must bear iiiri mind, that it is not inward holiness alone (though that be undoubtedly the first, and the fundamental matter); it is not thad'^lone which will suf- fice. The "beauty of holiness," must also be made to appear; if we would not have 151 the true and pure doctrine of our Saviour to be blasphemed, and evil reputed, through us; and on account of our departure from that which we profess to follow. Remember then, my brethren, that both we, and the form of faith and worship, and the doctrines which we ■ hold as the true doctrines of the Christian Religion, are now especially, put, as it were, upon their trial. If we will not endure to deny ourselves, for the sake of that Lord whom we profess to follow; will it not be concluded that we are led by a mode of belief, which does not require us to walk in his footsteps? If we, with all our means of knowledge in divine things, refuse to "keep under the body and bring it into subjection ;" shall it not natu- rally be concluded, that we do not pursue the way of Him, whose holy word by his Apostle teaches us plainly and positively so to do?. If we be found "lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God;" shall not the ignorant be ensnared through our laxity of 152 practice? And will they not naturally be led to believe, that they who so do, and yet profess to follow the faith of Christ, are not rightly following it ? How dreadful ! How terrible shall be the account, which they must render up to the Judge of the spirits of all flesh; — they, I say, through whose unbridled, and unauthorised liberty, the weak brother, for whom Christ died, shall thus be drawn in to perish! My brethren, another year of probation will pass, before we meet again to, continue these lectures in this holy place ; if indeed we ourselves be allowed to see that day, or to meet any where on earth, at that season. If then there be any virtue among us; or if any praise which the Almighty can bestow, be really held in estimation with us; '^ think on these things^" Great is our responsibility; and the Lord alone knoweth when we must, each one of us render up an account of our stewardship. Remember, that if we would, not be made 153 accountable for the misguidance of others, by our example; we must learn well and carefully, even in outward deportment, to guide our own ways. If we would not do dishonour to the religion which we profess, before the face of its adversaries; we must honour it in their sight; by more strict, and atttentive following of it, in all; though it be unpalatable to the lusts of the flesh; in all, I say, which it requires. So may the Almighty bless us, and pre- serve us pure and spotless, in his service! And, in his good time, so may He bring us to his everlasting rest, as those who, shall have fought the good fight of faith ; through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advo- cate! FINIS. PRINTED BY BENJAMIN RIGMAN, No. 46, ^Taleot Street, near St. I^idia^l'-s Church, Bath.