COMMERCIAL DISCOURSES. 
 
DISCOURSES 
 
 APPLICATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 TO THE COMMERCIAL AHD ORDINARY 
 AFFAIRS OF LIFE. 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.LL.D. 
 
 SlhibliSfjei) jot STjontiig KonStti&lc, 
 
 SUTHERLAND AND KNOX, EDINBURGH. 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., LONDON. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This volume can be regarded in no other light, 
 than as the fragment of a subject far too extensive 
 to be overtaken within a compass so narrow. There 
 has only a partial survey been taken of the morality 
 of the actions that are current among people 
 engaged in merchandise; and with regard to the 
 morality of the affections which stir in their hearts, 
 and give a feverish and diseased activity to the 
 pursuits of worldly ambition, this has scarcely been 
 touched upon, save in a very general way in the 
 Discourse on the love of Money. 
 
 And yet, in the estimation of every cultivated 
 Christian, this second branch of the subject should 
 be by far the most interesting,—as it relates to that 
 spiritual discipline by which the love of the world 
 is overcome; and by which all that oppressive 
 anxiety is kept in check, which the reverses and 
 uncertainties of business are so apt to inject into 
 the bosom; and by which the appetite that urges 
 him who hasteth to be rich is effectually restrained 
 —so as to make it possible for a man to give his 
 hand to the duties of his secular occupation, and, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 at the same time, to maintain that sacredness of 
 heart which becomes every fleeting traveller through 
 a scene, all whose pleasures and whose prospects 
 are so soon to pass away. 
 
 There are two questions of casuistry connected 
 with this part of the subject, which would demand 
 no small degree of consideration. The first relates 
 to the degree in which an affection for present 
 things, and present interests ought to be indulged. 
 And the second is, whether, on the supposition 
 that a desire after the good things of the present 
 life were reduced down to the standard of the 
 gospel, there would remain a sufficient impulse in 
 the world for upholding its commerce, at the rate 
 which would secure the greatest amount of comfort 
 and subsistence to its families. 
 
 Without offering any demonstration, at present, 
 upon this matter, we simply state it as our opinion, 
 that, though the whole business of the world were 
 in the hands of men thoroughly Christianized, and 
 who, rating wealth according to its real dimensions 
 on the high scale of eternity, were chastened out 
 of all their idolatrous regards to it—yet would 
 trade, in these circumstances, be carried to the 
 extreme limit of its being really productive or 
 desirable. An affection for riches, beyond what 
 Christianity prescribes, is not essential to any 
 extension of commerce that is at all valuable or 
 legitimate ; and, in opposition to the maxim, that 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the spirit of enterprise is the soul of commercial 
 prosperity, do we hold, that it is the excess of this 
 spirit beyond the moderation of the New Testa¬ 
 ment, which, pressing on the natural boundaries 
 of trade, is sure, at length, to visit every country, 
 where it operates with the recoil of all those 
 calamities, which, in the shape of beggared 
 capitalists, and unemployed operatives, and dreary 
 intervals of bankruptcy and alarm, are observed 
 to follow a season of overdone speculation. 
 
 We have added seven Discourses to those which 
 appeared in the original volume. In the selection 
 of these, we have been guided by the consideration, 
 that the duty of citizens, and the duty of Christian 
 philanthropists, and more especially the duty of 
 those who belong to the humbler classes of society, 
 are at all times topics of pressing and peculiar 
 interest, in those places where commerce has 
 assembled together its masses of large and conti¬ 
 guous population. The Christianity which is all 
 things to all men, can adapt its lessons to all the 
 possible varieties of human life. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 •;N THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES WHICH MAY EX'"™ 
 
 OUT THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANI 
 ‘ Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
 things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
 
 things are of good report; if there he any virtue, ,, l- 
 
 be any praise, think on these things.”—P hil. iv. 8. 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 “ For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to 
 God, and approved of men. ”_Rom. xiv. 18. . . 34 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 OF MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. 
 
 “ And if you do good to them which do good 1 
 thank have ye ? for sinners also do even the sai 
 vi. 33. 
 
 DISCOURS 
 
DISCOUR! 
 
 was great, and because mine hand had gotten much; if I 
 
 brightness ; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or 
 my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity 
 to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the 
 
 DISCOURSE IX. 
 
 THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 “ Love not the world, neither the things that are in the 
 
DISCOURSE X. 
 
 THE RESTLESSNESS OF HOMAN AMBITION. 
 
 “ How say'ye to my soul. Flee as abird to your mountain?” 
 
 —“ 0 that I had the wings of a dove, that I may fly 
 away, and he at rest.”— Psalm xi. 1. and lv. 6. . 234 
 
 DISCOURSE XI. 
 
 ON THE ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE TO THE 
 LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 
 
 “ Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish 
 DISCOURSE XII. 
 
 ON THE DUTY AND THE MEANS OF CHRISTIANIZING OOR 
 
 “ And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature."— Mark xvi. 15. 265 
 
 DISCOURSE XIII. 
 
 “ Honour all men.-Honour the liing.”—1 Peter ii. 17. 284 
 
 DISCOURSE XIV 
 
 Not purloining, hut showing all good fidelity; that they 
 may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.” 
 —Titus ii. 10.301 
 
 DISCOURSE XV. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT TO SOCIETY. 
 What then ? are we better than they ? No, in no wise : 
 for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that 
 they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none 
 righteous, no, not one : There is none that understandeth, 
 there is none that seeheth after God. They are all gone 
 out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; 
 there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat 
 
DISCOURSE I. 
 
 ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES WHICH MAY 
 EXIST WITHOUT THE INFLUENCE OF 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 “ Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
 things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
 things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if 
 there be any praise, think on these things.”—P hil. iv. 8. 
 
 The Apostle, in these verses, makes use of cer¬ 
 tain terms, without ever once proposing to advance 
 any definition of their meaning. He presumes 
 on a common understanding of this, between 
 himself and the people whom he is addressing. 
 He presumes that they know what is signified by 
 Truth, and Justice, and Loveliness, and the other 
 moral qualities which are included in the enumera¬ 
 tion of our text. They, in fact, had words to 
 express them, for many ages antecedent to the 
 coming of Christianity into the world. Now, the 
 very existence of the words proves, that, before 
 the gospel was taught, the realities which they 
 express must have existed also. These good and 
 respectable attributes of character must have been 
 occasionally exemplified by men, prior to the 
 
14 ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 religion of the New Testament. The virtuous 
 and the praiseworthy must, ere the commencement 
 of the new dispensation, have been met with in 
 society—for the Apostle does not take them up in 
 this passage, as if they were unknown and unheard 
 of novelties—but such objects of general recogni¬ 
 tion, as could be understood on the bare mention 
 of them, without warning and without explanation. 
 
 But more than this. These virtues must not 
 only have been exemplified by men, previous to 
 the entrance of the gospel amongst them—seeing 
 that the terms, expressive of the virtues, were 
 perfectly understood—but men must have known 
 how to love and to admire them. How is it that 
 we apply the epithet lovely to any moral qualifica¬ 
 tion, but only in as far as that qualification does in 
 fact draw towards it a sentiment of love ? How 
 is it that another qualification is said to be of good 
 report, but in as far as it has received from men 
 an applauding or an honourable testimony ? The 
 Apostle does not bid his readers have respect to 
 such things as are lovely, and then, for the purpose 
 of saving them from error, enumerate what the 
 things are which he conceives to possess this 
 qualification. He commits the matter, with per¬ 
 fect confidence, to their own sense and their own 
 apprehension. He bids them bear a respect to 
 whatsoever things are lovely—nor does he seem at 
 all suspicious, that, by so doing, he leaves them in 
 any darkness or uncertainty about the precise 
 import of the advice which he is delivering. He 
 therefore recognises the competency of men to 
 estimate the lovely and the honourable of eharae- 
 
ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 15 
 
 ter. He appeals to a tribunal in their own breasts, 
 and evidently supposes, that, antecedently to the 
 light of the Christian revelation, there lay scattered 
 among the species certain principles of feeling and 
 of action, in virtue of which, they both oceasionally 
 exhibited what was just, and true, and of good 
 report, and also could render to such an exhibition 
 the homage of their regard and of their reverence. 
 At present we shall postpone the direct enforce¬ 
 ment of these virtues upon the observation of 
 Christians, and shall confine our thoughts of them 
 to the object of estimating their precise importance 
 and character, when they are realized by those 
 who are not Christians. 
 
 While we assert with zeal every doctrine of 
 Christianity, let us not forget that there is a zeal 
 without discrimination ; and that, to bring such a 
 spirit to the defence of our faith, or of any one of 
 its peculiarities, is not to vindicate the cause, but 
 to discredit it. Now, there is a way of maintaining 
 the utter depravity of our nature, and of doing it 
 in such a style of sweeping and of vehement 
 asseveration, as to render it not merely obnoxious 
 to the taste, but obnoxious to the understanding. 
 On this subject there is often a roundness and a 
 temerity of announcement, which any intelligent 
 man, looking at the phenomena of human character 
 with his own eyes, cannot go along with; and thus 
 it is, that there are injudicious defenders of ortho¬ 
 doxy, who have mustered against it not merely a 
 positive dislike, but a positive strength of observa¬ 
 tion and argument. Let the nature of man be a 
 ruin, as it certainly is, it is obvious to the most 
 
ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 common discernment, that it does not offer one 
 unvaried and unalleviated mass of deformity. 
 There are certain phases, and certain exhibitions 
 of this nature which are more lovely than others 
 _certain traits of character, not due to the opera¬ 
 tion of Christianity at all, and yet calling forth our 
 admiration and our tenderness—certain varieties 
 of moral complexion, far more fair and more 
 engaging than certain other varieties; and to prove 
 that the gospel may have had no share in the 
 formation of them, they in fact stood .out to the 
 notice and respect of the world, before the gospel 
 was ever heard of. The classic page of antiquity 
 sparkles with repeated exemplifications of what is 
 bright and beautiful in the character of man; nor 
 do all its descriptions of external nature waken up 
 such an enthusiasm of pleasure, as when it hears 
 testimony to some graceful or elevated doing out 
 of the history of the species. And whether it be 
 the kindliness of maternal affection, or the un¬ 
 weariedness of filial piety, or the constancy of tried 
 and unalterable friendship, or the earnestness of 
 devoted patriotism, or the rigour of unbending 
 fidelity, or any other of the recorded virtues, which 
 shed a glory over the remembrance of Greece and 
 of Rome—we fully concede it to the admiring 
 scholar, that they one and all of them were some¬ 
 times exemplified in those days of heathenism; and 
 that, out of the materials of a period, crowded as 
 it was with moral abominations, there may also be 
 gathered things which are pure, and lovely, and 
 true, and just, and honest, and of good report. 
 
 What do we mean, then, it may be asked, by 
 
OS THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 17 
 
 the universal depravity of man ? How shall we 
 reconcile the admission now made, with the un¬ 
 qualified and authoritative language of the Bible, 
 when it tells us of the totality and the magnitude 
 of human corruption ? Wherein lies that desper¬ 
 ate wickedness, which is every where ascribed to 
 all the men of all the families that be on the face 
 of the earth? And how can such a tribute of 
 acknowledgment be awarded to the sages and the 
 patriots of antiquity, who yet, as the partakers of 
 our fallen nature, must be outcasts from the favour 
 of God, and have' the character of evil stamped 
 upon the imaginations of the thoughts of their 
 hearts continually. 
 
 In reply to these questions, let us speak to 
 your own experimental recollections on a subject 
 in which you are aided both by the consciousness 
 of what passes within you, and by your observa¬ 
 tion of the character of others. Might not a sense 
 of honour elevate that heart, which is totally 
 unfurnished with a sense of God ? Might not an 
 impulse of compassionate feeling be sent into that 
 bosom which is never once visited by a movement 
 of duteous loyalty towards the Lawgiver in hea¬ 
 ven? Might not occasions of intercourse with 
 the beings around us, develop whatever there is 
 in our nature of generosity, and friendship, and 
 integrity, and patriotism; and yet the unseen 
 Being, who placed us in this theatre, be neither 
 loved, nor obeyed, nor listened to? Amid the 
 manifold varieties of human character, and the 
 number of constitutional principles which enter 
 into its composition, might there not be an- 
 
1§ ON TUE. MERCANTILE V) UTU ES«* 
 
 individual in whom the constitutional virtues SO 
 blaze forth and have the ascendancy, as to give a 
 general effect of gracefulness to the whole of this 
 moral exhibition; and yet, may not that individual 
 be as unmindful of bis God, as if the principles of 
 his constitution had been mixed up in such a dif¬ 
 ferent proportion, as to make him an odious and 
 a revolting spectacle? In a word, might not 
 Sensibility sbed forth its tears, and Friendship 
 perform its services, and Liberality impart of its 
 treasure, and Patriotism earn the gratitude of its 
 country, and Honour maintain itself entire and 
 untainted, and all the softenings of what is 
 . amiable, and all the glories of what is chivalrous 
 and manly, gather into one bright effulgency of 
 moral accomplishment on the person of him who 
 never, for a single day of his life, subordinates 
 one habit, or one affection, to the will of the 
 Almighty; who is just as careless and as uncon¬ 
 cerned about God, as if the native tendencies of 
 his constitution had compounded him into a 
 monster of deformity; and who just as effectually 
 realizes this attribute of rebellion against his 
 Maker, as the most loathsome and profligate of 
 the species, that he walks in the counsel of his 
 own heart, and after the sight of his own eyes ? ' 
 
 The same constitutional variety may be seen 
 on the lower fields of creation. You there witness 
 the gentleness of one animal, the affectionate 
 fidelity of another, the cruel and unrelenting, 
 ferocity of a third; and you never question the 
 propriety of the language, when some of these 
 instinctive tendencies are better reported of than. 
 
•ON. THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. '19 
 
 others; or when it is said of the former of them, 
 that they are the more fine, and amiable, and en¬ 
 dearing. But it does not once occur to you, that, 
 even in the very best of these exhibitions, there is 
 any sense of God, or that the great master- 
 principle of his authority is at all concerned in it. 
 -Transfer this contemplation back again to out 
 species; and under the same complexional differ¬ 
 ence of the more and the less lovely, or the more 
 and the less hateful, you will perceive the same 
 utter insensibility to the consideration of a God, 
 or the same utter inefficiency on the part of his 
 law to subdue human habits and human inclinations. 
 It is true, that there is one distinction between the 
 two cases; but it all goes to aggravate the guilt 
 and the ingratitude of man. He has an under¬ 
 standing which the inferior animals have not—and 
 yet, with this understanding, does he refuse practi¬ 
 cally to acknowledge God. He has a conscience, 
 which they have not—and yet, though it whisper 
 in the ear of his inner man the claims of an unseen 
 Legislator, does he lull away his time in the slum¬ 
 bers of indifference, and live without him in the 
 world. 
 
 Or go to the people of another planet, over whom 
 the hold of allegiance to their Maker is unbroken 
 —in whose hearts the Supreme sits enthroned, 
 and throughout the whole of whose history there 
 runs the perpetual and the unfailing habit of sub¬ 
 ordination to his law. It is conceivable, that with 
 them too, there may be varieties of temper and of 
 natural inclination, and yet all of them be under 
 the effective control of one great and imperious 
 
ON THE MEECANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 principle; that, in subjection to the will of God, 
 every kind and every honourable disposition is 
 cherished to the uttermost; and that in subjeo 
 tion to the same will, every tendency to anger, and 
 malignity, and revenge, is repressed at the first 
 moment of its threatened operation; and that, in 
 this way, there will he the fostering of a constant 
 encouragement given to the one set of instincts, 
 and the struggling of a constant opposition made 
 against the other. Now, only conceive this great 
 bond of allegiance to be dissolved; the mighty and 
 subordinating principle, which wont to wield an 
 ascendancy over every movement and every affec¬ 
 tion, to be loosened and done away; and then 
 would this loyal, obedient world become what ours 
 is—independent of Christianity. Every constitu¬ 
 tional desire would run out, in the unchecked 
 spontaneity of its own movements. The law of 
 heaven would furnish no counteraction to the 
 impulses and the tendencies of nature. And tell 
 us, in these circumstances, when the restraint of 
 religion was thus lifted off, and all the passions let 
 out to take their own tumultuous and independent 
 career—tell us, if, though amid the uproar of the 
 licentious and vindictive propensities, there did 
 gleam forth at times some of the finer and the 
 lovelier sympathies of nature—tell us, if this would 
 at all affect the state of that world as a state of 
 enmity against God; where his will was reduced 
 to an element of utter insignificancy; where the 
 Voice of their rightful master fell powerless on the 
 consciences of a listless and alienated family; where 
 humour, and interest, and propensity—at one time 
 
OS THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. H 
 
 selfish, and at another social—took their alternate 
 sway over those hearts from which there was ex« 
 eluded all effectual sense of an overruling God? 
 If he be unheeded and disowned by the creatures 
 whom he has formed, can it be said to alleviate the 
 deformity of their rebellion, that they, at times, 
 experience the impulse of some amiable feeling 
 which he hath implanted, or at times hold out 
 some beauteousness of aspect which he hath shed 
 over them ? Shall the value or the multitude of 
 the gifts release them from their loyalty to the giver; 
 and when nature puts herself into the attitude of 
 indifference or hostility against him, how is it that 
 the graces and the accomplishments of nature can 
 be pled in mitigation of her antipathy to him, who 
 invested nature with all her graces, and upholds 
 her in the display of all her accomplishments ? 
 
 The way, then, to assert the depravity of man, 
 is to fasten on the radical element of depravity, 
 and to show how deeply it lies incorporated with 
 his moral constitution. It is not by an utterance 
 of rash and sweeping totality to refuse him the 
 possession of what is kind in sympathy, or of what 
 is dignified in principle—for this were in the face 
 of all observation. It is to charge him direct with 
 his utter disloyalty to God. It is to convict him 
 of treason against the majesty of heaven. It is to 
 press home upon him the impiety of not caring 
 about God. It is to tell him, that the hourly and 
 habitual language of his heart is, I will not have 
 the Being who made me to rule over me. It is to 
 go to the man of honour, and, while we frankly 
 award it to him that his pulse beats high in the 
 
22f 
 
 ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES.) 
 
 pride of integrity—it is to tell him, that he who. 
 keeps it in living play, and who sustains the lofti- ; 
 ness of its movements, and who, in one moment of, 
 time, could arrest it for ever, is not in all his; 
 thoughts. It is to go to the man' of soft and - 
 gentle emotions, and, while we gaze in tenderness 
 upon him, it is to read to him, out of his own. 
 character, how the exquisite mechanism of feeling 
 may be in full operation, while he who framed it is ; 
 forgotten; while he who poured into his constitution 
 the milk of human kindness, may never be adverted ;■ 
 to with one single sentiment of veneration, or one ; 
 single purpose of obedience; while he who gave 
 him his gentler nature, who clothed him in all its 
 adornments, and in virtue of whose appointment it ; 
 is, that, instead of an odiousanda revolting monster, 
 he is the much loved child of sensibility, may be. 
 utterly disowned by him. In a word, it is to go 
 round among all that Humanity has to offer in the; 
 shape of fair, and amiable, and engaging, and to 
 prove how deeply Humanity has revolted against 
 that Being who has done so much to beautify and 
 exalt her. It is to prove that the carnal mind, 
 under all its varied complexions of harshness or of 
 delicacy, is enmity against God.. It is to prove 
 that, let nature be as rich as she may in moral 
 accomplishments, and let the most favoured of her 
 sons realize upon his own person the finest and the 
 fullest assemblage of them—should he, at the 
 moment of leaving this theatre of display, and 
 bursting loose from the framework of mortality,; 
 stand in the presence of his Judge, and have the 
 question put -to him, What hast thou done ...unto. 
 
’.'MERCANTILE' VIRTUES. 
 
 23 
 
 pie ? this man of constitutional virtue, with all the 
 salutations he got upon earth, and all the reverence 
 that' he has left behind him, may, naked and 
 defenceless, before Him who sitteth on the throne, 
 be left without a plea and without an argument. 
 
 God’s controversy with our species is not, that 
 the glow of honour or of humanity is never felt 
 amongthem. Itis, that none of themunderstandeth, 
 and none of them seeketh after God. It is, that 
 He is deposed from his rightful ascendancy. It is, 
 that He, who in fact inserted in the human bosom 
 every one principle that can embellish the individual 
 possessor, or maintain the order of society, is 
 banished altogether from the circle of his habitual 
 contemplations. It is, that man taketh his- way 
 in life as much at random, as if there was no 
 presiding Divinity at all; and that, whether he at 
 one time grovel in the depths of sensuality, or at 
 anqther kindle with some generous movement of 
 sympathy or of patriotism, he is at both times alike 
 unmindful of Him to whom he owes his continuance 
 and his birth. It is, that he moves his every 
 footstep at his own will; and has utterly discarded, 
 from its supremacy over him, the will of that 
 invisible Master who compasses all his goings, and 
 never ceases to pursue him by the claims of a 
 resistless and legitimate authority. It is this 
 which is the essential or the constituting principle 
 of rebellion against God. This it is which has 
 exiled the planet we live in beyond the limits 
 of His favoured creation—and whether it be 
 shrouded in the turpitude of licentiousness or 
 cruelty, or occasionally brightened with the gleam 
 
ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 of the kindly and the honourable virtues, it is thus 
 that it is seen as afar off, by Him who sitteth on 
 the throne, and looketh on our strayed world, as 
 athwart a wide and a dreary gulf of separation. 
 
 And when prompted by love towards His alien¬ 
 ated children. He devised a way of recalling them 
 —when willing to pass over all the ingratitude 
 He had gotten from their hands, He reared a 
 pathway of return, and proclaimed a pardon and 
 a welcome to all who should walk upon it—when 
 through the offered Mediator, who magnified His 
 broken law', and upheld, by His mysterious sacri¬ 
 fice, the dignity of that government which the 
 children of Adam had disowned, He invited all to 
 come to Him and be saved—should this message 
 be brought to the door of the most honourable 
 man upon earth, and he turn in contempt and 
 hostility away from it, has not that man posted 
 himself more firmly than ever on the ground of 
 rebellion? Though an unsullied integrity should 
 rest upon all his transactions, and the homage of 
 confidence and respect be awarded to him from every 
 quarter of society, has not this man, by slighting 
 the overtures of reconciliation, just plunged himself 
 the deeper in the guilt of wilful and determined 
 ungodliness ? Has not the creature exalted itself 
 above the Creator; and in the pride of those 
 accomplishments, which never would have invested 
 his person had not they come to him from above, 
 has he not, in the act of resisting the gospel, 
 aggravated the provocation of his whole previous 
 defiance to the author of it? 
 
 Thus much for all that is amiable, and for all 
 
ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 25 
 
 that is manly, in the accomplishments of nature, 
 when disjoined from the faith of Christianity. 
 They'take up a separate residence in the human 
 character from the principle of godliness. An¬ 
 terior to this religion, they go not to alleviate the 
 guilt of our departure from the living God; and 
 subsequently to this religion, they may blazon the 
 character of him who stands out against it: but on 
 the principles of a most clear and intelligent equity, 
 they never can shield him from the condemnation 
 and the curse of those who have neglected the 
 great salvation. 
 
 The doctrine of the New Testament will bear 
 to be confronted with all that can be met or noticed 
 on the face of human society. And we speak most 
 confidently, to the experience of many, when we 
 say, that often, in the course of their manifold 
 transactions, have they met the man, whom the 
 bribery of no advantage whatever could seduce into 
 the slightest deviation from the path of integrity— 
 the man, who felt his nature within him put into a 
 state of the most painful indignancy, at every thing 
 that bore upon it the character of a sneaking or 
 dishonourable artifice—the man, who positively 
 could not be at rest under the consciousness 
 that he had ever betrayed, even to his own heart, 
 
 the remotest symptom of such an inclination_ 
 
 and whom, therefore, the unaided law of justice 
 and of truth has placed on a high and deserved 
 eminence in the walks of honourable merchandise. 
 
 Let us not withhold from this character the 
 tribute of its most rightful admiration; but let us 
 further ask, if, with all that he thus possessed of 
 
26 
 
 ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 native feeling and constitutional integrity, 'there 
 was never observed in any such individual an utter 
 emptiness of religion; and that God is not in all 
 his thoughts; and that, when he does what happens 
 to be at one with the will of the Lawgiver, it is 
 not because he is impelled to it by a sense of its 
 being the will of the Lawgiver, but because he is 
 impelled to it by the working of his own instinctive 
 sensibilities; and that, however fortunate, or 
 however estimable these sensibilities are, they 
 still consist with the habit of a mind that is in a 
 state of total indifference about God ? Have we 
 never read in our own character, or in the observed 
 character of others, that the claims of the Divinity 
 may be entirely forgotten by the very man to whom 
 society around him yield, and rightly yield, the 
 homage of an unsullied and honourable reputation • 
 that this man may have all his foundations in the 
 world ; that every security on which he rests, and 
 every enjoyment upon which his heart is set, lieth 
 on tills side of death ; that a sense of the coming 
 day on which God is to enter into judgment with 
 him, is, to every purpose of practical ascendancy, 
 as good as expunged altogether from his bosom; 
 that he is far in desire, and far in enjoyment, and 
 far in habitual contemplation, away from that God 
 who is not far from any one of us; that his extending 
 credit, and his brightening prosperity, and his 
 magnificent retreat from business, with all the 
 splendour of its accommodations—that these are 
 the futurities at which he terminates; and that he 
 goes not in thought beyond them to that eternity, 
 which, in the flight of a few little years, will absorb: 
 
MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 27 
 
 all, and annihilate all ? In a word, have we never 
 observed the man, who, with all that was right in 
 mercantile principle, and all that was open and 
 unimpeachable in the habit of his mercantile trans¬ 
 actions, lived in a state of utter estrangement from 
 the concerns of immortality ? who, in reference to 
 God, persisted, from one year to another, in the 
 spirit of a deep slumber? who, in reference to 
 the man that tries to awaken him out of his lethargy, 
 recoils, with the most sensitive dislike, from the 
 faithfulness of his ministrations ? who, in reference 
 to the Book which tells him of his nakedness and 
 his guilt, never consults it with one practical aim, 
 and never tries to penetrate beyond that aspect of 
 mysteriousness which it holds out to an undiscerning 
 world ? who attends not church, or attends it with 
 all the lifelessness of a form ? who reads not his 
 Bible, orreads itinthe discharge of a self-prescribed 
 and unfruitful task ? who prays not, or prays with 
 the mockery of an unmeaning observation ? and, in 
 one word, who, while surrounded by all those 
 testimonies which give to man a place of moral 
 distinction among his fellows, is living in utter 
 carelessness about God, and about all the avenues 
 which lead to him ? 
 
 ■ Now, attend for a moment to what that is which 
 the man has, and to what that is -which he has not. 
 He has an attribute of character which is in itself 
 pure, and lovely, and honourable, and of good 
 report. He has a natural principle of integrity ; 
 and under its impulse he may be carried forward 
 to such fine exhibitions of himself, as are worthy of 
 all admiration. It is very noble, when the simple- 
 
IZItCANTIi-E VIRTUES. 
 
 utterance of his word carries as much security 
 along with it, as if he had accompanied that 
 utterance by the signatures, and the securities, 
 and the legal obligations, which are required of 
 other men. It might tempt one to be proud of 
 his species when he looks at the faith that is put 
 in him by a distant correspondent, who, without 
 one other hold of him than his honour, consigns to 
 him the wealth of a whole flotilla, and sleeps in 
 the confidence that it is safe. It is indeed an 
 animating thought, amid the gloom of this world’s 
 depravity, when we behold the credit which one 
 man puts in another, though separated by oceans 
 and by continents; when he fixes the anchor of a 
 sure and steady dependence on the reported 
 honesty of one whom he never saw; when, with all 
 his fears for the treachery of the varied elements, 
 through which his property has to pass, he knows, 
 that should it only arrive at the door of its destined 
 agent, all his fears and all his suspicions may be 
 at an end. We know- nothing finer than such an 
 act of homage from one human being to another, 
 when perhaps the diameter of the globe is between 
 them ; nor do we think that either the renown of 
 her victories, or the wisdom of her counsels, so 
 signalizes the country in which we live, as does 
 the honourable dealing of her merchants ; that all 
 the glories of British policy, and British valour, 
 are far eclipsed by the moral splendour which 
 British faith has thrown over the name and the 
 character of our nation ; nor has she gathered so 
 proud a distinction from all the tributaries of her 
 power, as she has done from the awarded confi- 
 
ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 29 
 
 dence of those men of all tribes, and colours, and 
 languages, who look to our agency for the most 
 faithful of all management, and to our keeping for 
 the most unviolable of all custody. 
 
 There is no denying, then, the very extended 
 prevalence of a principle of integrity in the com¬ 
 mercial world; and he who has such a principle 
 within him, has that to which all the epithets of 
 our text may rightly be appropriated. But it is 
 just as impossible to deny, that, with this thing 
 which he has, there may be another thing which 
 he has not. He may not have one duteous feel¬ 
 ing of reverence which points upward to God. 
 Ho may not have one wish, or one anticipation, 
 which points forward to eternity. He may not 
 have any sense of dependence on the Being who 
 sustains him; and who gave him his very principle 
 of honour, as part of that interior furniture which 
 he has put into his bosom; and who surrounded 
 him with the theatre on which he has come for¬ 
 ward with the finest and most illustrious displays 
 of it; and who set the whole machinery of his 
 sentiment and action a-going; and can, by a single 
 word of his power, bid it cease from the variety, 
 and cease from the gracefulness, of its movements. 
 In other words, he is a man of integrity, and yet 
 he is a man of ungodliness. He is a man born for 
 the confidence and the admiration of his fellows, 
 and yet a man whom his Maker can charge with 
 utter defection from all the principles of a spiritual 
 obedience. He is a man whose virtues have 
 blazoned his own character in time, and have 
 upheld the interests of society, and yet a man who 
 
ON THE' MERCANTILE VIRTUES.- 
 
 has not, by one movement of principle, brought 
 himself nearer to the kingdom of heaven, than tiie 
 most profligate of the species. The condemnation, 
 that he is an alien from God, rests upon him in all 
 the weight of its unmitigated severity. The 
 threat, that they who forget God shall be turned 
 into hell, will, on the great day of its fell and sweep¬ 
 ing operation, involve him among the wretched 
 outcasts of eternity. That God from whom, while 
 in the world, he withheld every due offering of 
 gratitude, and remembrance, and universal subor¬ 
 dination of habit and of desire, will show him to 
 his face, how, under the delusive garb of such 
 sympathies as drew upon him the love of his 
 acquaintances, and of such integrities as drew upon 
 him their respect and their confidence, he w-as in 
 fact a determined rebel against the authority of 
 heaven; that not one commandment of the law, in 
 the true extent of its interpretation, was ever ful¬ 
 filled by him; that the pervading principle of 
 obedience to this law, which is love to God, never 
 had its ascendancy over him; that the beseeching 
 voice of the Lawgiver, so offended and so insulted 
 —but who, nevertheless, devised in love a way of 
 reconciliation for the guilty, never had the effect of 
 recalling him; that, in fact, he neither had a wish for 
 the friendship of God, nor cherished the hope of en¬ 
 joying Him—and that, therefore, as he lived without 
 hope, so he lived without God in the world; finding 
 all his desire, and all his sufficiency, to be somewhere 
 else, than in that favour which is better than life; 
 and so, in addition to the curse of having continued 
 not in all the words of the book of God’s law to do 
 
E-MERCANTILE 
 
 them, entailing upon himself the mighty aggravation 
 of having neglected all the offers of His gospel. 
 
 We say, then, of this natural virtue, what our 
 Saviour said of the virtue of the Pharisees, many 
 of whom were not extortioners, as other men— 
 that, verily, it hath its reward. When disjoined 
 from a sense of God, it is of no religious estima¬ 
 tion whatever; nor will it lead to any religious 
 blessing, either in time or in eternity. It has, 
 however, its enjoyments annexed to it, just as a 
 fine taste has its enjoyments annexed to it;'and in 
 these is it abundantly rewarded. It is exempted 
 from that painfulness of inward feeling which 
 nature has annexed to every act of departure from 
 honesty. It is sustained by a conscious sense of 
 rectitude and elevation. It is gratified by the 
 nomage of society; the members of which are ever 
 ready to award the tribute of acknowledgment to 
 those virtues that support the interests of society. 
 And, finally, it may be said, that prosperity, with 
 some occasional variations, is the general accom¬ 
 paniment of that credit, which every man of 
 undeviating justice is sure to draw around him. 
 But what reward, will you tell us, is due to him 
 on the great day of the manifestation of God’s 
 righteousness, when, in fact, he has done nothing 
 unto God? What recompense can be awarded 
 to him out of those books which are then to be 
 opened, and in which he stands recorded as a man 
 overcharged with the guilt of spiritual idolatry? 
 How shall God grant unto him the reward of a 
 servant, when the service of God was not the 
 principle of his doings in the world; and when. 
 
32 
 
 ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 
 
 neither the justice he rendered to others, nor the 
 sensibility that he felt for them, bore the slightest 
 character of an offering to his Maker ? 
 
 But wherever the religious principle has taken 
 possession of the mind, it animates these virtues 
 with a new spirit; and when so animated, all such 
 things as are pure, and lovely, and just, and true, 
 and honest, and of good report, have a religious 
 importance and character belonging to them. The 
 text forms part of an epistle addressed to all the 
 saints in Christ Jesus, which were at Philippi; and 
 the lesson of the text is matter of direct and 
 authoritative enforcement, on all who are saints in 
 Christ Jesus, at the present day. Christianity, 
 with the weight of its positive sanctions on the side 
 of what is amiable and honourable in human virtue, 
 causes such an influence to rest on the character 
 of its genuine disciples, that, on the ground both 
 of inflexible justice and ever-breathing charity, 
 they are ever sure to leave the vast majority of the 
 world behind them. Simplicity and godly sincerity 
 form essential ingredients of that peculiarity by 
 which they stand signalized in the midst of an 
 ungodly' generation. The true friends of the 
 gospel, tremblingly alive to the honour of their 
 Master’s cause, blush for the disgrace that has 
 been brought on it by men who keep its Sabbaths, 
 and yield an ostentatious homage to its doctrines 
 and its sacraments. They utterly disclaim all 
 fellowship with that vile association of cant and 
 of duplicity', which has sometimes been exemplified, 
 to the triumph of the enemies of religion; and 
 they both feel the solemn truth, and act on the 
 
ON THE MERCANTILE VIRTUES. 33 
 
 authority of the saying, that neither thieves, nor 
 liars, nor extortioners, nor unrighteous persons, 
 have any part in the kingdom of Christ and of 
 God. 
 
34 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN ITT. 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN AID¬ 
 ING AND AUGMENTING THE MERCANTILE 
 VIRTUES. 
 
 • For be that'm those things seri’eth Christ is acceptable to God, 
 
 We have already asserted the natural existence of 
 such principles in the heart of man, as lead him 
 to many graceful and to many honourable exhibi¬ 
 tions of character. We have further asserted, 
 that this formed no deduction whatever from that 
 article of orthodoxy which affirms the utter depravity 
 of our nature; that the essence of this depravity 
 lies in man having broken loose from the authority 
 of God, and delivered himself wholly up to the 
 guidance of his own inclinations; that though some 
 of these inclinations are in themselves amiable 
 features of human character, and point in their 
 effects to what is most useful to human society, 
 yet devoid as they all are of any reference to the 
 will and to the rightful sovereignty of the Supreme 
 Being, they could not avert, or even so much as 
 alleviate, that charge of ungodliness, which may bo 
 fully carried round amongst all the sons and daugh¬ 
 ters of the species; that they furnish not the mate¬ 
 rials of any valid or satisfactory answer to the 
 question, “ What hast thou done unto God?” 
 and that whether they are the desires of a native 
 rectitude, or the desires of an instinctive benevo- 
 
lence, thej' go not to purge away the guilt of 
 having no love, and no care, for the Being who 
 formed and who sustains us. 
 
 But what is more. If the virtues and accom¬ 
 plishments of nature are at all to be admitted into 
 the controversy between God and man, instead of 
 forming any abatement upon the enormity of our 
 guilt, they stamp upon it the reproach of a still 
 deeper and more determined ingratitude. Let us 
 conceive it possible, for a moment, that the beauti¬ 
 ful personifications of Scripture were all realized; 
 that the trees of the forest clapped their hands 
 unto God, and that the isles were glad at His 
 presence ; that the little hills shouted on every 
 side, and the valleys covered over with corn sent 
 forth their notes of rejoicing; that the sun and 
 the moon praised Him, and the stars of light 
 joined in the solemn adoration; that the voice of 
 glory to God was heard from every mountain and 
 from every waterfall, and that all nature, animated 
 throughout by the consciousness of a pervading 
 and a presiding Deity, butto into one loud and 
 universal song of gratulation. Would not a strain 
 of greater loftiness be heard to ascend from those 
 regions where the all-working God had left the 
 traces of His own immensity, than from the tamer 
 and the humbler scenery of an ordinary landscape ? 
 Should not we look for a gladder acclamation 
 from the fertile field, than from the arid waste, 
 where no character of grandeur made up for the 
 barrenness that was around us ? Would not the 
 goodly tree, compassed about with the glories of 
 its summer foliage, lift up an anthem of louder 
 
36 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 gratitude, than the lowly shrub that grew beneath 
 it? Would not the flower, from whose leaves 
 every hue of loveliness was reflected, send forth 
 a sweeter rapture than the russet weed, which 
 never drew the eye of any admiring passenger ? 
 And, in a word, wherever we saw the towering 
 eminences of nature, or the garniture of her more 
 rich and beauteous adornments, would it not be 
 there that we looked for the deepest tones of devo¬ 
 tion, or there for the tenderest and most exquisite 
 of its melodies ? 
 
 There is both the sublime of character, and the 
 beauteous of character, exemplified upon man. 
 We have the one in that high sense of honour, 
 which no interest and no terror can seduce from 
 any of its obligations. We have the other in that 
 kindliness of feeling, which one look or one sigh 
 of imploring distress can touch into liveliest 
 sympathy. Only grant, that we have nothing 
 either in the constitution of our spirits, or in the 
 structure of our bodies, which we did not receive; 
 and that mind, with all its varieties, is as much the 
 product of a creating hand, as matter in all its 
 modifications; and then, on the face of human 
 society, do we witness all the gradations of a moral 
 scenery, which may be directly referred to the 
 operation of Him who vorketh all in all. It is 
 our belief, that, as to any effectual sense of God, 
 there is as deep a slumber throughout the whole 
 of this world’s living and rational generations, as 
 there is throughout all the diversities of its mute 
 and unconscious materialism; and that to make 
 our alienated spirits again alive unto the Father 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 37 
 
 of them, calls for as distinct and as miraculous an 
 exertion of the Divinity, as would need to be put 
 forth in the act of turning stones into the children 
 of Abraham. Conceive this to be done then— 
 and that a quickening and a realizing sense of the 
 Deity pervaded all the men of our species—and 
 that each knew how to refer his own endowments, 
 with an adequate expression of gratitude to the 
 unseen author of them—from whom, we ask, of 
 all these various individuals, should we look for the 
 halleluiahs of devoutest ecstasy? Would it not 
 be from him whom God had arrayed in the splen¬ 
 dour of nature’s brightest accomplishments ? 
 Would it not be from him, with whose constitutional 
 feelings the movements of honour and benevolence 
 were in fullest harmony ? Would it not be from 
 him whom his Maker had cast into the happiest 
 mould, and attempered into sweetest unison with 
 all that was kind, and generous, and lovely, and 
 ennobled by the loftiest emotions, and raised above 
 his fellows into the finest spectacle of all that was 
 graceful, and all that was manly ? Surely, if the 
 possession of these moralities be just another theme 
 of acknowledgment to the Lord of the spirits of 
 all flesh, then, if the acknowledgment be withheld, 
 and these moralities have taken up their residence 
 in the bosom of him who is utterly devoid of piety, 
 they go to aggravate the reproach of his ingrati¬ 
 tude ; and to prove, that, of all the men upon earth 
 who are far from God, he stands at the widest 
 distance, he remains proof against the weightiest 
 claims, and he, of the dead in trespasses and sins. 
 
is the most profoundly asleep to the call of religion, 
 and to the supremacy of its righteous obligations. 
 
 It is bv argument such as this, that we would 
 attempt to convince of sin those who have a 
 righteousness that is without godliness; and to 
 prove, that, with the possession of such things as 
 are pure, and lovely, and honest, and of good 
 report, they in fact can only be admitted to recon¬ 
 ciliation with God, on the same footing with the 
 most worthless and profligate of the species; and 
 to demonstrate, that they are in the very same 
 state of need and of nakedness, and are therefore 
 children of wrath, even as others; that it is only 
 through faith in the preaching of the gospel of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ that they can be saved; and 
 that, unless brought down from the delusive 
 eminency of their own conscious attainments, they 
 take their forgiveness through the blood of the 
 Redeemer, and their sanctification through the 
 Spirit which is at His giving, they shall obtain no 
 part in that inheritance which is incorruptible and 
 undefiled, and which fadeth not away. 
 
 But the gospel of Jesus Christ does something 
 more than hold out a refuge to the guilty. It 
 takes all those who accept of its overtures under 
 its supreme and exclusive direction. . It keeps by 
 them in the way of counsel, and exhortation, and 
 constant superintendence. The grace which it 
 reveals, is a grace which not merely saves all men; 
 but which teaches all men. He who is the pro¬ 
 posed Saviour, also claims to be the alone master 
 of those who put their trust in Him. His cogniz*. 
 
•fHE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 
 
 ance extends itself over the whole line of their 
 history ; and there is not an affection of their heart, 
 or a deed of their visible conduct, over which He 
 does not assert the right of an authority that is 
 above all control, and that refuses all rivalship. 
 
 Now, we want to point attention to a distinction 
 which obtains between one set and another set of 
 His requirements. By the former, we are enjoined 
 to practise certain virtues, which, separately from 
 His injunction altogether, are in great demand, and 
 in great reverence, amongst the members of society 
 —such as compassion, and generosity, and justice, 
 and truth; which, independently of the religious' 
 sanction they obtain from the law of the Saviour, 
 are in themselves so lovely, and so honourable, 
 and of such good report, that they are ever sure to 
 carry general applause along with them, and thus 
 to combine both the characteristics of our text— 
 that he who in these things serveth Christ, is both 
 acceptable to God, and approved of men. 
 
 But there is another set of requirements, where 
 the will of God, instead of being seconded by the 
 applause of men, is utterly at variance with it. 
 There are some who can admire the generous 
 sacrifices that are made to truth or to friendship, 
 but who, without one opposing scruple, abandon 
 themselves to all the excesses of riot and festivity, 
 and are therefore the last to admire the puritanic 
 sobriety of him whom they cannot tempt to put his 
 chastity or his temperance away from him ; though 
 the same God, who bids us lie not one to another, 
 also bids us keep the body under subjection, and 
 to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 soul. Again, there are some in whose eyes an 
 unvitiated delicacy looks a beauteous and an inter¬ 
 esting spectacle, and an undeviating self-control 
 looks a manly and respectable accomplishment; 
 but who have no taste in themselves, and no 
 admiration in others, for the more direct exercises 
 of religion; and who positively hate the strict and 
 unbending preciseness of those who join in every 
 ordinance, and on every returning night celebrate 
 the praises of God in their family and that, though 
 the heavenly Lawgiver, who tello us to live right¬ 
 eously and soberly, tells us also to live godly in the 
 present evil world. And lastly, there are some 
 who have not merely a toler ttion, but a liking for 
 all the decencies of an established observation; but 
 who, with the homage they p ly to sabbaths and to 
 sacraments, nauseate the Chi istian principle in the 
 supreme and regenerating vitality of its influences ; 
 who, under a general religio isness of aspect, are 
 still in fact the children of the rvorld—and therefore 
 hate the children of light in a 1 that is peculiar and 
 essentially characteristic of that high designation ; 
 who understand not what is meant by having our 
 conversation in heaven: and utter strangers to the 
 separated walk, and the spiritual exercises, and the 
 humble devotedness, and the consecrated affections, 
 of the new creature in Jesus Christ, shrink from 
 them altogether as from the extravagancies of a 
 fanaticism in which they have nc share, and with 
 which they can have no sympathy—and all this, 
 though the same scripture which prescribes the 
 exercises of household and of public religion, lays 
 claim to an undivided authority over all the desires 
 
41 
 
 and affections of the soul; and will admit of no 
 compromise between God and the world; and 
 insists upon an utter deadness to the one, and a 
 most vehement sensibility to the other; and elevates 
 the standard of loyalty to the Father of our Spirits, 
 to the lofty pitch of loving Him with all our 
 strength, and of doing all things to His glory. 
 
 Let these examples serve to impress a real and 
 experimental distinction which obtains between 
 two sets of virtues; between those which possess 
 the single ingredient of being approved by God, 
 while they want the ingredient of being also accept¬ 
 able unto men—and those which possess both these 
 ingredients, and to the observance of which, there¬ 
 fore, we may be carried by a regard to the will of 
 God, without any reference to the opinion of men 
 —or by a regard to the opinion of men, without 
 any reference to the will of God. Among the 
 first class of virtues we would assign a foremost 
 place to all those inward and spiritual graces 
 which enter into the obedience of the affec¬ 
 tions—highly approved of God, but not at all 
 acceptable to the general taste, or carrying along 
 with them the general congeniality of the world. 
 And then, though they do not possess the ingre¬ 
 dient of God’s approbation in a way so separate 
 and unmixed, we would say, that abstinence from 
 profane language, and attendance upon church, 
 and a strict keeping of the sabbath, and the 
 exercises of family worship, and the more rigid 
 degrees of sobriety, and a fearful avoidance of 
 every encroachment on temperance or chastity, 
 rank more appropriately with the first than with 
 
42 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the second class of virtues; for though there be 
 many in society who have no religion, and yet to 
 whom several of these virtues are acceptable, yet 
 we must allow, that they do not convey such a 
 universal popularity along with them, as certain 
 other virtues which belong indisputably to the 
 second class. These are the virtues which have 
 a more obvious and immediate bearing on the 
 interest of society—such as the truth which is 
 punctual to all its engagements, and the honour 
 which never disappoints the confidence it has 
 inspired, and the compassion which cannot look 
 unmoved at any of the symptoms of human 
 wretchedness, and the generosity which scatters 
 unsparingly around it. These are virtues which 
 God has enjoined, and in behalf of which man lifts 
 the testimony of a loud and ready admiration— 
 virtues in which there is a meeting and a combining 
 of both the properties of our text; so that he who 
 in these things serveth Christ, is both approved of 
 God, and acceptable unto men. 
 
 Let a steady hold be kept of this distinction, 
 and it will be found capable of being turned to 
 a very useful application, both to the object of 
 illustrating principle, and to the important object 
 of detecting character. For this purpose, let us 
 carry the distinction along with us, and make it 
 subservient to the establishment of two or three 
 successive observations. 
 
 First. A man may possess, to a considerable 
 extent, the second class of virtues, and not possess 
 so much as one iota of the religious principle; and 
 that, among other reasons, because a man may feel 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY; 43 
 
 a value for one of the attributes which belongs to 
 this class of virtues, and have no value whatever 
 for ' the other attribute. If justice be both ap¬ 
 proved by God, and acceptable to men, he may, 
 on the latter property alone, be induced to the 
 strictest maintenance of this virtue—and that 
 without suffering its former property to have any 
 practical influence whatever on any of his habits, 
 or any of his determinations: and the same with 
 every other virtue belonging to this second class. 
 As residing in his character, there may not be the 
 ingredient of godliness in any one of them. He 
 may he well reported on account of them by men) 
 but with God he may lie under as fearful a severity 
 of reckoning, as if he wanted them altogether. 
 Surely, it does not go to alleviate the withdraw- 
 ment of your homage from God, that you have 
 such an homage to the opinion of men, as influences 
 you to do things, to the doing of which the law of 
 God is not able to influence you. It cannot be 
 said to palliate the revolting of your inclinations 
 from the Creator, that you have transferred them 
 all to the creature; and given an ascendancy to 
 the voice of human reputation, which you have 
 refused to the voice and authority of your Lawgiver 
 in heaven. Your want of subordination to Him 
 is surely not made up by the respectful subordina¬ 
 tion that you render to the taste or the judgment 
 of society. And in addition to this, we would 
 have you to remember, that though other constitu¬ 
 tional principles, besides a regard to the opinion or 
 others, helped to form the virtues of the second 
 class upon your character; though compassion, 
 
44 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and generosity, and truth, would have broken out 
 into full and flourishing display upon you, and that, 
 just because you had a native sensibility, or a native 
 love of rectitude; yet, if the first ingredient be 
 wanting, if a regard to the approbation of God 
 have no share in the production of the moral ac¬ 
 complishment—then all the morality you can 
 pretend to, is of as little religious estimation, and 
 is as utterly disconnected with the rewards of 
 religion, as all the elegance of taste you can pretend 
 to, or all the raptured love of music you can 
 pretend to, or all the vigour and dexterity of bodily 
 exercise you can pretend to. All these, in refer¬ 
 ence to the great question of immortality, profit but 
 little; and it is godliness alone that is profitable 
 unto all things. It is upon this consideration that 
 we would have you to open your eyes to the naked¬ 
 ness of your condition in the sight of God; to look 
 to the full weight of the charge that He may prefer 
 against you; to estimate the fearful extent of the 
 deficiency under which you labour; to resist the 
 delusive whispering of peace, when there is no 
 peace; and to understand, that the wrath of God 
 abideth on every child of nature, however rich he 
 may be in the virtues and accomplishments of nature. 
 
 But again. This view of the distinction between 
 the two sets of virtues, will serve to explain how 
 it is, that, in the act of turning unto God, the one 
 class of them appears to gather more copiously, 
 and more conspicuously, upon the front of a 
 renewed character, than the other class; how it is, 
 that the former wear a more unequivocal aspect of 
 religiousness than the latter; how it is, that an air 
 
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 45 
 
 of gravity, and decency, and seriousness, looks to 
 be more in alliance with sanctity, than the air 
 either of open integrity, or of smiling benevolence; 
 how it is, that the most ostensible change in the 
 habit of a converted profligate, is that change in 
 virtue of which he withdraws himself from the 
 companions of his licentiousness; and that to 
 renounce the dissipations of his former life, stands 
 far more frequently, or, at least, far more visibly, 
 associated with the act of putting on Christianity, 
 than to renounce the dishonesties of his former life. 
 It is true, that, by the law of the gospel, he is laid 
 as strictly under the authority of the command¬ 
 ment to live righteously, as of the commandment 
 to live soberly. But there is a compound character 
 in those virtues which are merely socialand the 
 presence of the one ingredient serves to throw into 
 the shade, or to disguise altogether, the presence 
 of the other ingredient. There is a greater number 
 of irreligious men, who are at the same time just 
 in their dealings, than there is of irreligious men, 
 who are at the same time pure and temperate in 
 their habits; and therefore it is, that justice, even 
 the most scrupulous, is not so specifical, and, of 
 course, not so satisfying a mark of religion, as is a 
 sobriety that is rigid and unviolable. And all this 
 helps to explain how it is, that when a man comes 
 under the power of religion, to abandon the levities 
 of his past conduct is an event which stands far 
 more noticeably out upon him, at this stage of his 
 history, than to abandon the iniquities of his past 
 conduct; that the most characteristic transforma¬ 
 tion which takes place at such a time, is a trans- 
 
4f> THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIA.XIiYv 
 
 formation from thoughtlessness, and from licentious 
 gaiety, and from the festive indulgencies of those 
 with whom he wont to run to all those excesses of 
 riot, of which the Apostle says, that they which 
 do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of 
 God : for even then, and in the very midst of all 
 his impiety, he may have been kind-hearted, and 
 there might he no room upon his person for a 
 visible transformation from inhumanity of charac¬ 
 ter ; even then, he may have been honourable, and 
 there might be as little room for a visible transfor¬ 
 mation from fraudulency of character. 
 
 Thirdly. Nothing is more obvious than the 
 antipathy that is felt by a certain class of religion¬ 
 ists against the preaching of good works ; and the 
 antipathy is assuredly well and warrantably 
 grounded, when it is such a preaching as goes to 
 reduce the importance, or to infringe upon the 
 simplicity, of the great doctrine of justification by 
 faith. But along with this, may there not be 
 remarked the toleration with which they will listen 
 to a discourse upon one set of good works, and 
 the evident coldness and dislike with which they 
 listen to a discourse on another set of them; how 
 a pointed remonstrance against sabbath breaking 
 sounds in their ears, as if more in character from 
 the pulpit, than a pointed remonstrance against 
 the commission of theft, or the speaking of evil; 
 how an eulogium on the observance of family 
 worship feels, in their taste, to be more impregna¬ 
 ted with the spirit of sacredness, than an eulogium 
 on the virtues of the shop, or of the fnarket-place, 
 and that, while the one is approven of as having 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 17 
 
 about it.the solemn and the suitable characteristics 
 of godliness, the other is stigmatized as a piece of 
 barren, heartless, heathenish, and philosophic 
 morality ? Now, this antipathy to the preaching 
 of the latter species of good works has something 
 peculiar in it.. It is not enough to say, that it 
 arises from a sensitive alarm about the stability of 
 the doctrine of justification; for let it be observed, 
 that this doctrine stands opposed to the merit not 
 of one particular class of performances, but to the 
 merit of all performances whatsoever. It is just 
 as unseriptural a detraction from the great truth 
 of salvation by faith, to rest our acceptance with 
 God on the duties of prayer, or of rigid sabbath 
 keeping, or of strict and untainted sobriety, as to 
 rest it on the punctual fulfilment of all our bar¬ 
 gains, and on the extent of our manifold liberalities. 
 It is not, then, a mere zeal about the great article 
 of justification which lies at the bottom of that 
 peculiar aversion that is felt towards a sermon on 
 some social or humane accomplishment; and that 
 is not felt towards a sermon on sober-mindedness, 
 or a sermon on the observation of the sacrament, 
 or a sermon on any of those performances which 
 bear a more direct and exclusive reference to God. 
 We shall find the explanation of this phenomenon, 
 which often presents itself in the religious world, 
 in that- distinction of which we have just required 
 that it should be kept in steady hold, and followed 
 into its various applications. The aversion in 
 question is often, in fact, a well-founded aversion, 
 to a topic, which, though religious in the matter 
 of it, may, from the way in which it is proposed. 
 
48 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 be altogether secular in the principle of it. It is 
 resistance to what is deemed, and justly deemed, 
 an act of usurpation on the part of certain virtues, 
 which, when unanimated by a sentiment of godli¬ 
 ness, are entitled to no place whatever in the 
 ministrations of the gospel of Christ. It proceeds 
 from a most enlightened fear, lest that should be 
 held to make up the whole of religion, which is in 
 fact utterly devoid of the spirit of religion; and 
 from a true and tender apprehension, lest, on the 
 possession of certain accomplishments, which 
 secure a fleeting credit throughout the little hour 
 of this world’s history, deluded man should look 
 forward to his eternity with hope, and upward to 
 his God with complacency—while he carries not 
 on his forehead one vestige of the character of 
 heaven, one lineament of the aspect of godliness. 
 
 And lastly. The first class of virtues bear the 
 character of religiousness more strongly, just 
 because they bear that character more singly. 
 The people who are without, might, no doubt, 
 see in every real Christian the virtues of the 
 second class also; but these virtues do not belong 
 to them peculiarly and exclusively. For though 
 it be true, that every religious man must be 
 honest, the converse does not follow, that every 
 honest man must he religious. And it is because 
 the social accomplishments do not form the specific, 
 that neither do they form the most prominent and 
 distinguishing marks of Christianity. They may 
 also be recognised as features in the character of 
 men, who utterly repudiate the whole style and 
 doctrine of the New Testament; and hence a very 
 
ISTIANIT 
 
 49 
 
 prevalent impression in society) that the faith of 
 the gospel does not bear so powerfully and so 
 directly on the relative virtues of human conduct. 
 A few instances of hypocrisy amongst the more 
 serious professors of our faith, serve to rivet the 
 impression, and to give it perpetuity in the world. 
 One single example, indeed, of sanctimonious 
 duplicity, will suffice, in the judgment of many, to 
 cover the whole of vital and orthodox Christianity 
 with disgrace. The report of it will be borne in 
 triumph amongst the companies of the irreligious. 
 The man who pays no homage to sabbaths or to 
 sacraments, will be contrasted in the open, liberal, 
 and manly style, of all his transactions, with the 
 low cunning of this drivelling methodistical pre¬ 
 tender ; and the loud laugh of a multitude of 
 scorners, will give a force and a swell to this 
 public outcry against the whole character of the 
 sainthood. 
 
 Now, this delusion on the part of the unbeliev¬ 
 ing world is very natural, and ought not to excite 
 our astonishment. We are not surprised, from 
 the reasons already adverted to, that the truth, 
 and the justice, and the humanity, and the moral 
 loveliness, which do in fact belong to every new 
 creature in Jesus Christ our Lord, should miss 
 their observation; or, at least, fail to be recognised 
 among the other more obvious characteristics into 
 which believers have been translated by the faith 
 of the gospel. But, on this very subject, there is 
 a tendency to delusion on'the part of the disciples 
 of the faith. They need to be reminded of the 
 solemn and indispensable religiousness of the 
 
 6 t> 
 
50 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 second class of virtues. They need to be told, 
 that though these. virtues do possess the one 
 ingredient of being approved by men, and may, on 
 this single account, be found to reside in the 
 characters of those who live without God—-yet, 
 that they also possess the other ingredient of being 
 acceptable unto God; and, on this latter account, 
 should be made the subjects of their most strenu¬ 
 ous cultivation. They must not lose sight of the 
 one ingredient in the other; or stigmatize, as so 
 many fruitless and insignificant moralities, those 
 virtues which enter as component parts into the 
 service of Christ; so that he who in these things 
 serveth Christ, is both acceptable to God, and 
 approved by men. They must not expend all 
 their warmth on the high and peculiar doctrines of 
 the New Testament, while they offer a cold and 
 reluctant admission to the practical duties of the 
 New Testament. The Apostle has bound the 
 one to the other by a tie of immediate connexion. 
 Wherefore, lie not one to another, as ye have put 
 off the old man and his deeds, and put on the new 
 man, which is formed after the image of God, in 
 righteousness and true holiness. Here the very 
 obvious and popular accomplishment of truth is 
 grafted on the very peculiar doctrine of regenera¬ 
 tion: and we altogether mistake the kind of 
 transforming influence which the faith of the gos¬ 
 pel brings along with it, if we think that upright¬ 
 ness of character does not emerge at the same 
 time with godliness of character; or that the 
 virtues of society do not form upon the believer 
 into as rich and varied an assemblage, as do the 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 51 
 
 virtues of the sanctuary, or that, while he puts on 
 those graces which are singly acceptable to God, 
 he falls behind in any of those graces which are 
 both acceptable to God, and approved of men. 
 
 Let, therefore, every pretender to Christianity 
 vindicate this assertion by his own personal his¬ 
 tory in the world. Let him not lay his godliness 
 aside, when he is done with the morning devotion 
 of his family; but carry it abroad with him, and 
 make it his companion and his guide through the 
 whole business of the day; always bearing in his 
 heart the sentiment, that thou God seest me; and 
 remembering, that there is not one hour that can 
 flow, or one occasion that can cast up, where His 
 law is not present with some imperious exaction or 
 other. It is false, that the principle of Christian 
 sanctification possesses no influence over the 
 familiarities of civil and ordinary life. It is 
 altogether false, that godliness is a virtue of such 
 a lofty and monastic order, as to hold its dominion 
 only over the solemnities of worship, or over the 
 solitudes of prayer and spiritual contemplation. If 
 it be substantially a grace within us at all, it will 
 give a direction and a colour to the whole of our 
 path in society. There is not one conceivable 
 transaction, amongst all the manifold varieties of 
 human employment, which it is not fitted to animate 
 by its spirit. There is nothing that meets us too 
 homely, to be beyond the reach of obtaining, from 
 its influence, the stamp of something celestial. It 
 offers to take the whole man under its ascendancy, 
 and to subordinate all his movements: nor does it 
 hold the place which rightfully belongs to it, till it 
 
52 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 1 . 
 
 be vested with a presiding authority over the entire 
 system of human affairs. And therefore it is, that 
 the preacher is not bringing down Christianity— 
 he is only sending it abroad over the field of its 
 legitimate operation, when he goes with it to your 
 counting-houses, and there rebukes every selfish 
 inclination that would carry you ever so little within 
 the limits of fraudulency; when he enters into your 
 chambers of agency, and there detects the character 
 of falsehood, which lurks under all the plausibility 
 of your multiplied and excessive charges; when he 
 repairs to the erowdedmarket-place, and pronounces 
 of every bargain, over which truth, in all the 
 strictness of quakerism, has not presided, that it is 
 tainted with moral evil; when he looks into your 
 shops, and, in listening to the contest of argument 
 between him who magnifies his article, and him 
 who pretends to undervalue it, he calls it the con¬ 
 test of avarice, broken loose from the restraints of 
 integrity. He is not, by all this, vulgarizing reli¬ 
 gion, or giving it the hue and the character of 
 earthliness. He is only asserting the might and 
 the universality of its sole pre-eminence over man. 
 And therefore it is, that if possible to solemnize 
 his hearers to the practice of simplicity and godly 
 sincerity in their dealings, he would try to make 
 the odiousness of sin stand visibly out on every 
 shade and modification of dishonesty; and to 
 assure them, that if there be a place in our world, 
 where the subtle evasion, and the dexterous imposi¬ 
 tion, and the sly but gainful concealment, and the 
 report which misleads an iuquirer, and the gloss 
 which tempts the unwary purchaser—are not only 
 
53 
 
 currently practised in the walks of merchandise, 
 but; when not carried forward to the glare and the 
 literality of falsehood, are beheld with general 
 connivance ; if there be a place where the sense of 
 morality has thus fallen, and all the nicer delicacies 
 of conscience are o verborne in the keen and ambitious 
 rivalry of men hastening to be rich, and wholly 
 given over to the idolatrous service of the God of 
 this world—then that is the place, the smoke of 
 whose iniquity rises before Him who sitteth on the 
 throne, in a tide of deepest and most revolting 
 abomination. 
 
 And here we have to complain of the public 
 injustice that is done to Christianity, when one of 
 its ostentatious professors has acted the hypocrite, 
 and stands in disgraceful exposure before the eyes 
 of the world. We advert, to the readiness with 
 which this is turned into a matter of general 
 impeachment, against every appearance of serious¬ 
 ness ; and how loud the exclamation is against the 
 religion of all who signalize themselves ; and that, 
 if the aspect of godliness be so very decided as to 
 become an aspect of peculiarity, then is this 
 peculiarity converted into a ground of distrust and 
 suspicion against the bearer of it. Now, it so 
 happens, that, in the midst of this world lying in 
 wickedness, a man, to be a Christian at all, must 
 signalize himself. Neither is he in a way of 
 salvation, unless he be one of a very peculiar 
 people ; nor would we precipitately consign him to 
 discredit, even though the peculiarity be so very 
 glaring as to provoke the charge of methodism. 
 Hut, instead of making one man’s hypocrisy act as 
 
54 THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 a drawback upon the reputation of a thousand, we 
 submit, if it would not be a fairer and more philo¬ 
 sophical procedure, just to betake one’s-self to the 
 method of induction—to make a walking survey 
 over the town, and record an inventory of all the 
 men in it who are so very far gone as to have the 
 voice of psalms in their family; or as to attend the 
 meetings of fellowship for prayer; or as scrupu¬ 
 lously to abstain from all that is questionable in 
 the amusements of the world; or as, by any other 
 marked and visible symptom whatever, to stand 
 out to general observation as the members of a 
 saintly and separated society. We know, that 
 even of such there are a few, who, if Paul were 
 alive, would move him to weep for the reproach 
 they bring upon his Master. But we also know, 
 that the blind and impetuous world exaggerates 
 the few into the many; inverts the process of 
 atonement altogether, by laying the sins of one 
 man upon the multitude; looks at their general 
 aspect of sanctity, and is so engrossed with this 
 single expression of character, as to be insensible 
 to the noble uprightness, and the tender humanity, 
 with which this sanctity is associated. And there¬ 
 fore it is, that we offer the assertion, and challenge 
 all to its most thorough and searching investigation, 
 that the Christianity of these people, which many 
 think does nothing but cant, and profess, and run 
 after ordinances, has augmented their honesties 
 and their liberalities, and that, tenfold beyond the 
 average character of society; that these are the 
 men we oftenest meet with in the mansions of 
 poverty—and who look with the most wakeful eye 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY* 
 
 55 
 
 over all the sufferings and necessities of our species 
 —and who open their hand most widely in behalf 
 of the imploring and the friendless—and to whom, 
 in spite of all their mockery, the men of the world 
 are sure, in the negotiations of business, to award 
 the readiest confidence—and who sustain the most 
 splendid part in all those great movements of 
 philanthropy which bear on the general interests 
 of mankind—and who, with their eye full upon 
 eternity, scatter the most abundant blessings over 
 the fleeting pilgrimage of time—and who, while 
 they hold their conversation in heaven, do most 
 enrich the earth we tread upon, with all those 
 virtues which secure enjoyment to families, and 
 uphold the order and prosperity of the common¬ 
 wealth. 
 
56 ,.. 
 
 THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS IN PROMOTING 
 THE HONESTIES OF MERCANTILE INTER¬ 
 COURSE. 
 
 “ And if you do good to them which do good to you, what 
 thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same."— 
 
 It is to be remarked of many of those duties, the 
 performance of which confers the least distinction 
 upon an individual, that they are at the same time 
 the very duties, the violation of which would confer 
 upon him the largest measure of obloquy and 
 disgrace. Truth and justice do not serve to elevate 
 a man so highly above the average morality of his 
 species, as would generosity, or ardent friendship, 
 ordevoted and disinterestedpatriotism. The former 
 are greatly more common than the latter; and, on 
 that account, the presence of them is not so calcu¬ 
 lated to-signalize the individual to whom they 
 belong. But that is one account, also, why the 
 absence of them would make him a more monstrous 
 exception to the general run of character in society. 
 And, accordingly, while it is true, that there are 
 more men of integrity in the world, than there are 
 men of very wide and liberal beneficence—it is also 
 true, that one act of falsehood, or one act of 
 dishonesty, would stamp a far more burning infamy 
 on the name of a transgressor, than any defect in 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 -57 
 
 those more heroic charities, and extraordinary- 
 virtues, of which humanity is capable. 
 
 So it is far more disgraceful not to be just to 
 another, than not to be kind to him; and, at the 
 same time, an act of kindness may be held in higher 
 positive estimation than an act of justice. The 
 one is my right—nor is there any call for the 
 homage of a particular testimony when it is ren¬ 
 dered. The other is additional to my right—the 
 offering of a spontaneous good will, which I had 
 no title to exact; and which, therefore, when 
 rendered to me, excites in my bosom the cordiality 
 of a warmer acknowledgment. And yet, our Savi¬ 
 our, who knew what was in man, saw, that much 
 of the apparent kindness of nature, was resolvible 
 into the real selfishness of nature; that much ol 
 the good done unto others, was done in the hope 
 that these others would do something again. And, 
 we believe, it would be found by an able analyst 
 of the human character, that this was the secret 
 but substantial principle of many of the civilities 
 and hospitalities of ordinary intercourse—that if 
 there were no expectation either of a return in 
 kind, or of a return in gratitude, or of a return in 
 popularity, many of the sweetening and cementing 
 virtues of a neighbourhood would be practically 
 done away—all serving to prove, that a multitude 
 of virtues, which, in effect, promoted the comfort 
 and the interest of others, were tainted in principle 
 by a latent regard to one’s own interest; and that 
 thus being the fellowship of those who did good, 
 either as a return for the good done unto them, or 
 who did good in hope of such a return, it might be,- 
 
58 THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 in fact, what our Saviour characterizes it in the 
 text—the fellowship of sinners. 
 
 But if to do that which is unjust, is still more 
 disgraceful than not to do that which is kind, it 
 would prove all the more strikingly how deeply sin 
 had tainted the moral constitution of our species— 
 could it be shown, that the great practical restraint 
 on the prevalence of this more disgraceful thing in 
 society, is the tie of that common selfishness which 
 actuates and characterizes all its members. It were 
 a curious but important question, were it capable 
 of being resolved—if men did not feel it their 
 interest to be honest, how much of the actual 
 doings of honesty would still be kept up in the 
 world ? It is our own opinion of the nature of man, 
 that it has its honourable feelings, and its instinctive 
 principles of rectitude, and its constitutional love 
 of truth and of integrity; and that, on the basis of 
 these, a certain portion of uprightness would remain 
 amongst us, without the aid of any prudence, or 
 any calculation whatever. All this we have fully 
 conceded; and have already attempted to demon¬ 
 strate, that, in spite of it, the character of man is 
 thoroughly pervaded by the very essence of sinful¬ 
 ness; because, with all the native virtues which 
 adorn it, there adheres to it that foulest of all 
 spiritual deformities—unconcern about God, and 
 even antipathy to God. It has been argued against 
 the orthodox doctrine of the universality of human 
 corruption, that even without the sphere of the 
 operation of the gospel, there do occur so many 
 engaging specimens of worth and benevolence in 
 society. The reply is, that this may be no dedue- 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 59 
 
 tion from the doctrine whatever, but be even an 
 aggravation of it—should the very men who 
 exemplify so much of what is amiable, carry in their 
 hearts an indifference to the will of that Being who 
 thus hath formed, and thus hath embellished them. 
 But it would be a heavy deduction indeed, not from 
 the doctrine, but from its hostile and imposing 
 argument, could it be shown, that the vast majority 
 of all equitable dealing amongst men, is performed, 
 not on the principle of honour at all, but on the 
 principle of selfishness—that this is the soil upon 
 which the honesty of the world mainly flourishes, 
 and is sustained; that, were the connexion dissolved 
 between justice to others and our own particular 
 advantage, this would go very far to banish the 
 observation of justice from the earth; that, generally 
 speaking, men are honest, not because they are 
 lovers of God, and not even because they are lovers 
 of virtue, but because they are lovers of their own- 
 selves—insomuch, that if it were possible to disjoin 
 the good of self altogether from the habit of doing 
 what was fair, as well as from the habit of doing 
 what was kind to the people around us, this would 
 not merely isolate the children of men from each 
 other, in respect of the obligations of beneficence, 
 but it would arm them into an undisguised hostility 
 against each other, in respect of their rights. The 
 mere disinterested principle would set up a feeble 
 barrier, indeed, againstadesolatingtideof selfishness, 
 now set loose from the consideration of its own 
 advantage. The genuine depravity of the human 
 heart would burst forth and show itself in its true 
 characters; and the world in which we live be 
 
60 
 
 THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 transformed into a scene of unblushing fraud, of 
 open and lawless depredation. 
 
 And, perhaps, after all, the best way of arriving 
 practically at the solution of this question would 
 be, not by a formal induction of particular cases, 
 but by committing the matter to the gross and 
 general experience of those who are most conver¬ 
 sant in the affairs of business. There is a sort of 
 undefinable impression that all have upon this 
 subject, on the justness of which, however, we are 
 disposed to lay a very considerable stress—an 
 impression gathered out of the mass of the recol¬ 
 lections of a whole life—an impression founded on 
 what we may have observed in the history of our 
 own doings—a kind of tact that we have acquired 
 as the fruit of our repeated intercourse with men, 
 and of the manifold transactions that we have had 
 with them, and of the number of times in which 
 we have been personally implicated with the play 
 of human passions, and human interests. It is 
 our own conviction, that a well exercised merchant 
 could cast a more intelligent glance at this question, 
 than a well exercised metaphysician; and therefore 
 do we submit its decision to those of them who 
 have hazarded most largely, and most frequently, 
 on the faith of agents, and customers, and distant 
 correspondents. We know the fact of a very 
 secure and well warranted confidence in the honesty 
 of others, being widely prevalent amongst men; 
 and that, were it not for this, all the interchanges 
 of trade would be suspended; and that confidence 
 is the very soul and life of commercial activity; 
 .and it is delightful to think, how thus a man can 
 
POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 61 
 
 suffer all the wealth which belongs to him to depart 
 from under his eye, and to traverse the mightiest 
 oceans and continents of our world, and to pass 
 into the custody of men whom he never saw. 
 And it is a sublime homage, one should think, to 
 the honourable and high-minded principles of our 
 nature, that, under their guardianship, the adverse 
 hemispheres of the globe should be bound together 
 in safe and profitable merchandise; and that thus 
 one should sleep with a bosom undisturbed by 
 jealousy, in Britain, who has all, and more than all 
 his property treasured in the warehouses of India 
 —and that, just because there he knows there is 
 vigilance to defend it, and activity to dispose of it, 
 and truth to account for it, and all those trusty 
 virtues which ennoble the character of man to 
 shield it from injury, and send it back again in an 
 increasing tide of opulence to his door. 
 
 There is no question, then, as to the fact of a 
 very extended practical honesty, between man and 
 man, in their intercourse with each other. The 
 only question is, as to the reason of the fact. Why 
 is it, that he whom we have trusted acquits him¬ 
 self of his trust with such correctness and fidelity ? 
 Whether is his mind, in so doing, most set upon 
 our interest or upon his own ? Whether is it 
 because he seeks our advantage in it, or because 
 he finds in it his own advantage? Tell us to 
 which of the two concerns he is most tremblingly 
 alive—to our property, or to his own character ? 
 and whether, upon the last of these feelings, he 
 may not he more forcibly impelled to equitable 
 dealing than upon the first of them? We well 
 
62 THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 know, that there is room enough in his bosom for 
 both; but to determine how powerfully selfishness 
 is blended with the punctualities and the integrities 
 of business, let us ask those who can speak most 
 soundly and experimentally on the subject, what 
 would be the result, if the element of selfishness 
 were so detached from the operations of trade, 
 that there was no such thing as a man suffering in 
 his prosperity, because he suffered in his good 
 name; that there was no such thing as a desertion 
 of custom and employment coming upon the back 
 of a blasted credit, and a tainted reputation ; in a 
 word, if the only security we had of man was his 
 principles, and that his interest flourished and 
 augmented just as surely without his principles as 
 with them ? Tell us, if the hold we have of a man’s 
 own personal advantage were thus broken down, 
 in how far the virtues of the mercantile world 
 would survive it ? Would not the world of trade 
 sustain as violent a derangement on this mighty 
 hold being cut asunder, as the world of nature 
 would on the suspending of the law of gravitation ? 
 Would not the whole system, in fact, fall to pieces, 
 and be dissolved ? Would not men, when thus 
 released from the magical chain of their own 
 interest, which bound them together into a fair and 
 seeming compact of principle, like dogs of rapine, 
 let loose upon their prey, overleap the barrier 
 which formerly restrained them ? Does not this 
 prove, that selfishness, after all, is the grand prin¬ 
 ciple on which the brotherhood of the human race 
 is made to hang together; and that he who can 
 make the wrath of man to praise him, has also upon 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 63 
 
 the selfishness of man, caused a most beauteous 
 order of wide and useful intercourse to be suspended ? 
 
 But let us here stop to observe, that, while 
 there is much in this contemplation to magnify the 
 wisdom of the Supreme Contriver, there is also 
 much in it to humble man, and to convict him of 
 the deceitfulness of that moral complacency with 
 which he looks to his own character, and his own 
 attainments. There is much in it to demonstrate, 
 that his righteousness are as filthy rags; and that 
 the idolatry of self, however hidden in its opera¬ 
 tion, may be detected in almost every one of them. 
 God may combine the separate interests of every 
 individual of the human race, and the strenuous 
 prosecution of these interests by each of them, 
 into an harmonious system of operation, for the 
 good of one great and extended family. But if, 
 on estimating the character of each individual 
 member of that family, we shall find, that the main¬ 
 spring of his actions is the urgency of a selfish 
 inclination; and that to this his very virtues are 
 subordinate; and that even the honesties which 
 mark his conduct are chiefly, though perhaps 
 insensibly, due to the selfishness which actuates 
 and occupies his whole heart;—then, let the sem¬ 
 blance be what it may, still the reality of the case 
 accords with the most mortifying representations 
 of the New Testament. The moralities of nature 
 are but the moralities of a day, and will cease to 
 be applauded when this world, the only theatre of 
 their applause, is burnt up. They are but the 
 blossoms of that rank efflorescence which is 
 nourished on the soil of human, corruption, and can 
 
G4 .THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 never bring forth fruit unto immortality. The 
 diseemer of all secrets sees that they emanate 
 from a principle which is at utter war with the 
 charity that prepares for the enjoyments, and that 
 glows in the bosoms of the celestial; and, therefore, 
 though highly esteemed among men, they may be 
 in his sight an abomination. 
 
 Let us, if possible, make this still clearer to the 
 apprehension, by descending more minutely into 
 particulars. There is not one member of the 
 great mercantile family, with whom there does not 
 obtain a reciprocal interest between himself and 
 all those who compose the circle of his various 
 correspondents. He does them good; but his 
 eye is all the while open to the expectation of 
 their doing him something again. They minister 
 to him all the profits of his employment; but not 
 unless he minister to them of his service, and 
 attention, and fidelity. Insomuch, that if his 
 credit abandon him, his prosperity will also 
 abandon him. If he forfeit the confidence of others, 
 he will also forfeit their custom along with it. So 
 that, in perfect consistency with interest being the 
 reigning idol of his soul, - he may still be, in every 
 way, as sensitive of encroachment upon his reputa¬ 
 tion, as he would be of encroachment upon his pro¬ 
 perty ; and be as vigilant, to the full, in guarding 
 his name against the breath of calumny, or suspi¬ 
 cion, as in guarding his estate against the inroads 
 of a depredator. Now, this tie of reciprocity, 
 which binds him into fellowship and good faith 
 with society at large, will sometimes, in the mere 
 course of business, and its unlooked-for fluctu- 
 
THE TOWER OF SELFISHNESS^ 
 
 (55 
 
 ntions, draw one or two individuals into a still 
 more special intimacy with himself. There may 
 be a lucrative partnership, in whieh it is the 
 pressing necessity of each individual, that all of 
 them, for a time at least, stick closely and steadily 
 together. Or there may be a thriving interchange 
 of commodities struck out, where it is the mutual 
 interest of all who are concerned, that each take 
 his assigned part and adhere to it. Or there may 
 be a promising arrangement devised, which it 
 needs concert and understanding to effectuate; 
 and, for which purpose, several may enter into a 
 skilful and well ordered combination. We are' 
 neither saying that this is very general in the mer¬ 
 cantile world, or that it is in the slightest degree 
 unfair. But all must be sensible, that, amid the 
 reelings and movements of the great trading society, 
 the phenomenon sometimes offers itself of a groupe 
 of individuals who have entered into some com¬ 
 pact of mutual accommodation, and who, therefore, 
 look as if they were isolated from the rest by the 
 bond of some more strict and separate alliance. 
 All we aim at, is to gather illustration to our 
 principle, out of the way in which the members of 
 this associated cluster conduct themselves to each 
 other; how such a cordiality may pass between 
 them, as, one could suppose, to be the cordiality 
 of genuine friendship; how such an intercourse 
 might be maintained among their families, as 
 might look like the intercourse of unmingled affec¬ 
 tion ; how such an exuberance of mutual hospitality 
 might be poured forth, as to recall those poetic 
 days when avarice was unknown, and men lhed' 
 (i k 
 
66 
 
 in harmony together on the fruits of one common 
 inheritance; and how nobly disdainful each member 
 of the combination appeared to be of such little 
 savings, as could be easily surrendered to the 
 general good and adjustment of the whole concern. 
 And all this, it will be observed, so long as the con¬ 
 cern prospered, and it was for the interest of each 
 to abide by it; and the respective accounts current 
 gladdened the heart of every individual, by the 
 exhibition of an abundant share of the common 
 benefit to himself. But then, every such system 
 of operations comes to an end. And what we ask 
 is, if it be at all an unlikely evolution of our nature, 
 that the selfishness which lay in wrapt conceal¬ 
 ment, during the progress of these transactions, 
 should now come forward and put out to view its 
 cloven foot, when they draw to their termination ? 
 And as the tie of reciprocity gets looser, is it not 
 a very possible thing, that the murmurs of some¬ 
 thing like unfair or unhandsome conduct should 
 get louder ? And that a fellowship, hitherto 
 carried forward in smiles, should break up in 
 reproaches ? And that the whole character of 
 his fellowship should show itself more unequi- 
 /ocally as it comes nearer to its close ? And that 
 some of its members, as they are becoming dis¬ 
 engaged from the bond of mutual interest, should 
 also become disengaged from the bond of those 
 mutual delicacies and proprieties, and even 
 honesties, which had heretofore marked the whole 
 of their intercourse ?—Insomuch, that a matter in 
 which all the parties looked so fair, and magna¬ 
 nimous, and liberal, might at length degenerate 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 67 
 
 into a contest of keen appropriation, a scramble of 
 downright and undisguised selfishness ? 
 
 But though this may happen sometimes, we are 
 far from saying that it will happen generally. It 
 could not, in fact, without such an exposure of 
 character, as might not merely bring a man down 
 in the estimation of those from whom he is now 
 withdrawing himself, but also in the estimation of 
 that general public with whom he is still linked; 
 and on whose opinion of him there still rests the 
 dependence of a strong personal interest. To 
 estimate precisely the whole influence of this 
 consideration, or the degree in which honesty of 
 character is resolvible into selfishness of character, 
 it would be necessary to suppose, that the tie of 
 reciprocity was dissolved, not merely between the 
 individual and those with whom he had been more 
 particularly and more intimately associated—but 
 that the tie of reciprocity was dissolved between 
 the individual and the whole of his former acquaint¬ 
 anceship in business. Now, the situation which 
 comes nearest to this, is that of a man on the eve 
 of bankruptcy, and with no sure hope of so retriev¬ 
 ing his circumstances as again to emerge into 
 credit, and be restored to some employment of gain 
 or of confidence. If he have either honourable 
 or religious feelings, then character, as connected 
 with principle, may still, in his eyes, be something; 
 but character, as connected with prudence, or the 
 calculations of interest, may now' be nothing. In the 
 dark hour of the desperation of his soul, he may feel, 
 in fact, that he has nothing to lose: and let us now 
 see how lie will conduct himself, when thus released 
 
68 
 
 from that check of reputation which formerly held 
 him. In these circumstances, if you have ever 
 seen the man abandon himself to utter regardless¬ 
 ness of all the honesties which at one time adorned 
 him; and doing such disgraceful things as he would 
 have spurned at the very suggestion of, in the days 
 of his prosperity; and, forgetful of his former 
 name, practising all possible shifts of duplicity to 
 prolong the credit of a tottering establishment; 
 and to keep himself afloat for a few months of 
 torture and restlessness, weaving such a web of 
 entanglement around his many friends and com¬ 
 panions, as shall most surely implicate some of 
 them in his fall; and, as the crisis approaches, 
 plying his petty wiles how to survive the coming 
 ruin, and to gather up of its fragments to his 
 family. O ! how much is there here to deplore ; 
 and who can be so ungenerous as to stalk in unre¬ 
 lenting triumph over the helplessness of so sad an 
 overthrow ! But if ever such an exhibition meet 
 your eye, while we ask you not to withhold your 
 pity from the unfortunate, we ask you also to read 
 in it a lesson of worthless and sunken humanity; 
 how even its very virtues are tinctured with cor¬ 
 ruption ; and that the honour, and the truth, and 
 the equity, with which man proudly thinks his 
 nature to be embellished, are often reared on the 
 basis of selfishness, and lie prostrate in the dust 
 when that basis is cut away. 
 
 But other instances may be quoted, which go 
 still more satisfactorily to prove the very extended 
 influence of selfishness on the moral judgments of 
 our species; and how readily the estimate, which 
 
69 
 
 THE POWER. OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 a man forms on the question of right and wrong, 
 accommodates itself to his own interest. There 
 is a strong general reciprocity of advantage between 
 the government of a country and all its inhabitants. 
 The one party, in this relation, renders a revenue 
 for the expenses of the state. The other party 
 renders back again protection from injustice and 
 violence. Were the means furnished by the former 
 withheld, the benefit conferred by the latter would 
 cease to be administered. So that, with the 
 government, and the public at large, nothing can 
 be more strict, and more indispensable, than the 
 tie of reciprocity that is between them. But this 
 is not felt, and therefore not acted upon, by the 
 separate individuals who compose that public. 
 The reciprocity does not come home with a 
 sufficiently pointed and personal application to 
 each of them. Every man may calculate, that 
 though he, on the strength of some dexterous 
 evasions, were to keep back of the tribute that is 
 due by him, the mischief that would recoil upon 
 himself is divided with the rest of his countrymen; 
 and the portion of it which comes to his door 
 would be so very small, as to be altogether 
 insensible. To all feeling he will just be as effec¬ 
 tually sheltered, by the power and the justice of 
 his country, whether he pay his taxes in full, or, 
 under the guise of some skilful concealment, pay 
 them but partially; and, therefore, to every prac¬ 
 tical effect, the tie of reciprocity, between him and 
 his sovereign, is in a great measure dissolved. 
 Now, what is the actual adjustment of the moral 
 sense, and moral conduct, of the population, to 
 
70 THE POWER. OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 this state of matters ? It is quite palpable. Sub¬ 
 terfuges which, in private business, would be held 
 to be disgraceful, are not held to be so disgraceful 
 m this department of a man’s personal transactions. 
 The cry of indignation, which would be lifted up 
 against the falsehood or dishonesty of a man’s 
 dealings in his own neighbourhood, is mitigated or 
 unheard, though, in his dealings with the state, 
 there should be the very same relaxation of princi¬ 
 ple. On this subject, there is a connivance of 
 popular feeling, which, if extended to the whole of 
 human traffic, would banish all its securities from 
 the world—giving reason to believe, that much of 
 the good done among men, is done on the expecta¬ 
 tion of a good that will be rendered back again ; 
 and that many of the virtues, by which the fellow¬ 
 ship of human beings is regulated and sustained, 
 still leave the imputation unredeemed, of its being 
 a fellowship of sinners; and that both the practice 
 of morality, and the demand for it, are measured 
 by the operation of a self-love, which, so far from 
 signalizing any man, or preparing him for eternity, 
 he holds in common with the fiercest and most 
 degenerate of his species; and that, apart from the 
 consideration of his own interest, simplicity and 
 godly sincerity are, to a great degree, unknown; 
 insomuch, that though God has interposed with a 
 law, of giving unto all their dues, and tribute to 
 whom tribute is due, we may venture an affirma¬ 
 tion of the vast majority of this tribute, that it is 
 rendered for wrath’s sake, and not for conscience’ 
 sake. Of so little effect is unsupported and 
 solitary conscience to stem the tide of selfishness. 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 And it is chiefly when honesty and truth go over¬ 
 bearingly along with this tide, that the voice of 
 man' is lifted up to acknowledge them, and his 
 heart becomes feelingly alive to a sense of their 
 obligations. 
 
 And let us here just ask, in what relation of 
 criminality does he who uses a contraband article 
 stand to him who deals in it ? In precisely the 
 same relation that a receiver of stolen goods stands 
 to a thief or a depredator. There may be some 
 who revolt at the idea of being so classified. But, 
 if the habit we have just denounced can be 
 fastened on men of rank and seemly reputation, 
 let us just humble ourselves into the admission of 
 how little the righteous practice of the world has 
 the foundation of righteous principle to sustain it; 
 how feeble are the securities of rectitude, had it 
 nothing to uphold it hut its own native charms, 
 and native obligations; how society is held together, 
 only because the grace of God can turn to account 
 the worthless propensities of the individuals who 
 compose it; and how, if the virtues of fidelity, and 
 truth, and justice, had not the prop of selfishness 
 to rest upon, they would, with the exception of a 
 few scattered remnants, take their departure from 
 the world, and leave it a prey to the anarchy of 
 human passions—to the wild misrule of all those 
 depravities which agitate and deform our ruined 
 nature. 
 
 The very same exhibition of our nature may be 
 witnessed in almost every parish of our sister 
 kingdom, where the people render a revenue to 
 the minister of religion, and the minister renders 
 
72 THE POWER OP SELFISHNESS. 
 
 back again a return, it is true—but not such a 
 return, as, in the estimation of gross and ordinal y 
 selfishness, is at all deemed an equivalent for the 
 sacrifice which has been made. In this instance, 
 too, that law of reciprocity which reigns through¬ 
 out the common transactions of merchandise, is 
 altogether suspended; and the consequence is, 
 that the law of right is trampled into ashes. A 
 tide of public odium runs against the men who are 
 outraged of their property, and a smile of general 
 connivance rewards the successful dexterity of the 
 men who invade it. That portion of the annual 
 produce of our soil, which, on a foundation of 
 legitimacy as firm as the property of the soil itself, 
 is allotted to a set of national functionaries—and 
 which, but for them, would all have gone, in the 
 shape of increased revenue, to the indolent pro¬ 
 prietor, is altogether thrown loose from the 
 guardianship of that great principle of reciprocity, 
 on which we strongly suspect that the honesties 
 of this world are mainly supported. The national 
 clergy' of England may be considered as standing 
 out of the pale of this guardianship; and the 
 consequence is, that what is most rightfully and 
 most sacredly theirs, is abandoned to the gambol 
 of many thousand depredators; and, in addition 
 to a load of most unmerited obloquy, have they 
 had to sustain all the heartburnings of known and 
 felt injustice; and that intercourse between the 
 teachers and the taught, which ought surely to be 
 an intercourse of peace, and friendship, and right¬ 
 eousness, is turned into a contest between the 
 natural avarice of the one party and the natural 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 73 
 
 resentments of the other. It is not that we wish 
 our sister church were swept away, for we honestly 
 think, that the overthrow of that establishment 
 would be a severe blow to the Christianity of our 
 land. It is not that we envy that great hierarchy 
 the splendour of her endowments—for better a 
 dinner of herbs, when surrounded by the love of 
 parishioners, than a preferment of stalled dignity, 
 and strife therewith. It is not either that we look 
 upon her ministers as having at all disgraced 
 themselves by their rapacity; for look to the 
 amount of the encroachments that are made upon 
 them, and we shall see that they have carried 
 their privileges with the most exemplary forbear¬ 
 ance and moderation. But, from these very 
 encroachments do we infer how lawless a human 
 being will become, when emancipated from the 
 bond of his own interest; how much such a state 
 of things must multiply the temptations to injustice 
 over the face of the country; and how desirable, 
 therefore, that it were put an end to—not by the 
 abolition of that venerable church, but by a fair 
 and liberal commutation of the revenues which 
 support her—not by bringing any blight on the 
 property of her ecclesiastics, but by the removal 
 of a most devouring blight from the worth of her 
 population—that every provocative to injustice 
 may be done away, and the frailty of human 
 principle be no longer left to such a ruinous and 
 such a withering exposure. 
 
 This instance we would not have mentioned, 
 but for the sake of adding another experimental 
 proof to the lesson of our text; and we now 
 
74 
 
 hasten onward to the lesson itself, with a few of 
 its applications. 
 
 We trust you are convinced, from what has been 
 said, that much of the actual honesty of the world 
 is due to the selfishness of the world. And then 
 you will surely admit, that, in as far as this is the 
 actuating principle, honesty descends from its 
 place as a rewardable, or even as an amiable 
 virtue, and sinks down into the character of a 
 mere prudential virtue—which, so far from con¬ 
 ferring any moral exaltation on him by whom it 
 is exemplified, emanates out of a propensity that 
 seems inseparable from the constitution of every 
 sentient being—and by which man is, in one point, 
 assimilated either to the most worthless of his own 
 species, or to those inferior animals among whom 
 worth is unattainable. 
 
 And let it not deafen the humbling impression 
 of this argument, that you are not distinctly con¬ 
 scious of the operation of selfishness, as presiding 
 at every step over the honesty of your daily and 
 familiar transactions; and that the only inward 
 cheeks against injustice, of which you are sensible, 
 are the aversion of a generous indignaney towards 
 it, and the positive discomfort you would incur by 
 the reproaches of your own conscience. Selfish¬ 
 ness, in fact, may have originated and alimented 
 the whole of this virtue that belongs to you, and 
 yet the mind incur the same discomfort by the 
 violation of it, that it would do by the violation of 
 any other of its established habits. And as to the 
 generous indignaney of your feelings against all 
 that is fraudulently and disgracefully wrong, let U3 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 75 
 
 never forget, that this may be the nurtured fruit 
 ot mat common selfishness which links human 
 oeings with each other into a relationship of 
 mutual dependence. This may be seen, in all its 
 perfection, among the leagued and sworn banditti 
 of the highway; who, while execrated by society 
 at large for the compact of iniquity into which they 
 have entered, can maintain the most heroic fidelity 
 to the virtues of their own brotherhood; and be, 
 in every way, as lofty and as chivalrous with their 
 points of honour, as we are with ours; and elevate 
 as indignant a voice against the worthlessness of 
 him who could betray the secret of their associa- 
 tion, or break up any of the securities by which it 
 was held together. And, in like manner, may we 
 be the members of a wider combination, yet 
 brought together by the tie of reciprocal interest; 
 and all the virtues essential to the existence, or 
 to the good of such a combination, may come to be 
 idolized amongst us; and the breath of human 
 applause may fan them into a lustre of splendid 
 estimation; and yet the good main of society on 
 earth be, in common with all his fellows, an utter 
 outcast from the society of heaven—wdth his heart 
 altogether bereft of that allegiance to God which 
 forms the reigning principle of his unfallen creation 
 —and in a state of entire destitution either as to 
 that love of the Supreme Being, or as to that dis¬ 
 interested love of those around us, which form the 
 graces and the virtues of eternity. 
 
 We have not affirmed that there is no such thing 
 as a native and disinterested principle of honour 
 among men. But we have affirmed, on a former 
 
75 THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 occasion, that a sense of honour may be in the 
 heart, and the sense of God be utterly away from 
 it. And we affirm now, that much of the honest 
 practice of the world is not due to honesty of 
 principle at all, but takes its origin from a baser 
 ingredient of our constitution altogether. How 
 wide is the operation of selfishness on the one 
 hand, and how limited is the operation of abstract 
 principle on the other, it were difficult to deter¬ 
 mine; and such a labyrinth to man is his own 
 heart, that he may be utterly unable, from his 
 own consciousness, to answer this question. But 
 amid all the difficulties of such an analysis to 
 himself, we ask him to think of another who is 
 unseen by us, but who is represented to us as 
 seeing all things. We know not in what characters 
 this heavenly witness can be more impressively set 
 forth, than as pondering the heart, as weighing the 
 secrets of the heart, as fastening an attentive and 
 a judging eye on all the movements of it, as trea¬ 
 suring up the whole of man’s outward and inward 
 history in a book of remembrance; and as keeping 
 it in reserve for that day when, it is said, that the 
 secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, and God 
 shall bring out every secret thing, whether it be 
 good, or whether it be evil. Your consciousness 
 may not distinctly inform you, in how far the 
 integrity of your habits is due to the latent opera¬ 
 tion of selfishness, or to the more direct and 
 obvious operation of honour. But your conscious¬ 
 ness may, perhaps, inform you, distinctly enough, 
 how little a share the will of God has in the way 
 of influence on any of your doings. Your own 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 77 
 
 sense and memory of what passes within you may- 
 charge you with the truth of this monstrous 
 indictment—that you live without God in the 
 world; that however you may be signalized among 
 your fellows, by that worth of character which is 
 held in highest value and demand amongst the 
 individuals of a mercantile society, it is at least 
 without the influence of a godly principle that you 
 have reached the maturity of an established repu¬ 
 tation ; that either the proud emotions of rectitude 
 which glow within your bosom are totally untinc¬ 
 tured by a feeling of homage to the Deity—or that, 
 without any such emotions, Self is the divinity' you 
 have all along worshipped, and your very virtues 
 are so many offerings of reverence at her shrine. 
 If such be, in fact, the nakedness of your spiritual 
 condition, is it not high time, we ask, that you 
 awaken out of this delusion, and shake the lying 
 spirit of deep and heavy slumber away from you ? 
 Is it not high time, when eternity is so fast coming 
 on, that you examine your accounts with God, 
 and seek for a settlement with that Being who will 
 so soon meet your disembodied spirits with the 
 question of—what have you done unto me ? And 
 if all the virtues which adorn you are but the 
 subserviences of time, and of its accommodations 
 —if either done altogether unto yourselves, or done 
 without the recognition of God on the spontaneous 
 instigation of your own feelings—is it not high 
 time that you lean no longer to the securities on 
 which you have rested,- and that you seek for 
 acceptance with your Maker on a more firm and 
 unalterable foundation ? 
 
78 THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 
 
 Tliis, then, is the terminating object of all thu 
 experience that we have tried to set before you. 
 We want it to be a schoolmaster to bring you unto 
 Christ. We want you to open your eyes to the 
 accordancy which obtains between the theology of 
 the New Testament, and the actual state and 
 history of man. Above all, we want you to turn 
 your eyes inwardly upon yourselves, and there to 
 behold a character without one trace or lineament 
 of godliness—there to behold a heart, set upon 
 totally other things than those which constitute the 
 portion and the reward of eternity—there to behold 
 every principle of action resolvihle into the idolatry 
 of self, or, at least, into something independent of 
 the authority of God—there to behold how worthless 
 in their substance are those virtues which look so 
 imposing in their semblance and their display, and 
 draw around them here a popularity and an 
 applause which will all be dissipated into nothing, 
 when hereafter thev are brought up for examina¬ 
 tion to the judgment-seat. We want you, when 
 the revelation of the gospel charges you with the 
 totality and magnitude of your corruption, that 
 vou acquiesce in that charge ; and that you may 
 perceive the trueness of it, under the disguise of 
 all those hollow' and unsubstantial accomplishments 
 with which nature may deck her own fallen and 
 degenerate children. It is easy to be amused, 
 and interested, and intellectually regaled, by an 
 analysis of the human character, and a survey of 
 human society. But it is not so easy to reach the 
 individual conscience with the lesson—we are un- 
 
POWER. 
 
 SELFISHNESS. 
 
 your hearts of the present guilt, and the future 
 damnation. It is not so easy to send the pointed 
 arrow, of conviction into your bosoms, where it 
 may keep by you, and pursue you like an arrow 
 sticking fast; or so to humble you into the con¬ 
 clusion, that, in the sight of God, you are an 
 accursed thing, as that you may seek unto him 
 who became a curse for you, and as that the 
 preaching of His cross might cease to be foolish- 
 
 Be assured, then, if you keep by the ground of 
 being justified by your present works, you will 
 perish; and though we may not have succeeded in 
 convincing you of their worthlessness, be assured, 
 that a day is coming, when such a flaw of deceitful- 
 ness, in the principle of them all, shall be laid open, 
 as will demonstrate the equity of your entire and 
 everlasting condemnation. To avert the fearfulness 
 of that day is the message of the great atonement 
 sounded in your ears; and the blood of Christ, 
 cleansing from all sin, is offered to your acceptance; 
 and if you turn away from it, you add to the guilt 
 of a broken law the insult of a neglected gospel. 
 But if you take the pardon of the gospel on the 
 footing of the gospel, then, such is the efficacy of 
 tins great expedient, that it will reach an application 
 of mercy farther than the eye of your own conscience 
 ever reached; that it will redeem you from the 
 guilt even of your most secret and unsuspected 
 iniquities; and thoroughly wash you from a taint 
 of sinfulness, more inveterate than, in the blindness 
 of nature, you ever thought of, or ever conceived 
 
SELFISHNESS. 
 
 SO THE FOWEB .OF 
 
 But when a man becomes a believer, there are 
 two great events which take place at this groat 
 turning point in his history. One of them takes 
 place in heaven—even the expunging of his name 
 from the book of condemnation. Another of them 
 takes place on earth—even the application of such 
 a sanctifying influence to his person, that all old 
 things are done away with him, and all things 
 become new with him. He is made the workmanship 
 of God iu Christ Jesus our Lord. He is not 
 merely forgiven the sin of every one evil worn of 
 which he had aforetime been guilty, but he is 
 created anew unto the corresponding good work. 
 And, therefore, if a Christian, will his honesty be 
 purified from that taint of selfishness by which the 
 general honesty of this world is so deeply and 
 extensively pervaded. He will not do this good 
 thing, that any good thing may be done unto him 
 again. He will do it on a simple regard to its own 
 native aud independent rectitude. He will do it 
 because it is honourable, and because God wills 
 him so to adorn the doctrine of his Saviour. All 
 his fair dealing, and all his friendship, will be fair 
 dealing and friendship without interest. The prin¬ 
 ciple that is in him will stand in no need of aid 
 from any such auxiliary—but, strong in its own 
 unborrowed resources, will it impress a legible 
 stamp of dignity and uprightness on the whole 
 variety of his transactions in the world. All men 
 find it their advantage, by the integrity of their 
 dealings, to prolong the existence of some gainful 
 fellowship into which they may have entered. 
 But with him, the same unsullied integrity which 
 
THE POWER OF SELFISHNESS. 81 
 
 kept this fellowship together, and sustained the 
 progress of it, will abide with him through its 
 last transactions, and dignify its full and final 
 termination. Most men find, that, without the 
 reverberation of any mischief on their own heads, 
 they could reduce, beneath the point of absolute 
 justice, the charges of taxation. But he has a 
 conscience both towards God, and towards man, 
 which will not let him; and there is a rigid truth 
 in all his returns, a pointed and precise accuracy 
 in all his payments. When hemmed in with 
 circumstances of difficulty, and evidently tottering 
 to his fall, the demand of nature is, that he should 
 ply his every artifice to secrete a provision for his 
 family. But a Christian mind is incapable of 
 artifice; and the voice of conscience within him 
 will ever be louder than the voice of necessity; 
 and he will be open as day with his creditors, nor 
 put forth his hand to that which is rightfully theirs, 
 any more than he would put forth his hand to the 
 perpetration of a sacrilege; and though released 
 altogether from that tie of interest which hinds a 
 man to equity with his fellows, yet the tie of prin¬ 
 ciple will remain with him in all its strength. Nor 
 will it ever be found that he, for the sake of subsis¬ 
 tence, will enter into fraud, seeing that, as one of 
 the children of light, he would not, to gain the 
 whole world, lose his own soul. 
 
DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 THE GUILT OF DISHONESTY NOT TO BE 
 ESTIMATED BY THE GAIN OF IT. 
 
 It is the fine poetical conception of a late poetical 
 countryman, whose fancy too often grovelled among 
 the despicable of human character—but who, at the 
 same time, was capable of exhibiting, either in 
 pleasing or in proud array, both the tender and the 
 noble of human character—when he says of the 
 man who carried a native unborrowed self-sustained 
 rectitude in his bosom, that “ his eye, even turned 
 on empty space, beamed keen with honour.” It 
 was affirmed, in the last discourse, that much of 
 the honourable practice of the world rested on the 
 substratum of selfishness; that society was held 
 together in the exercise of its relative virtues, 
 mainly, by the tie of reciprocal advantage; that a 
 man’s own interest bound him to all those average 
 equities which obtained in the neighbourhood 
 around him; and in which, if he proved himself 
 to be glaringly deficient, he would he abandoned 
 by the respect, and the confidence, and the good 
 will, of the people with whom he had to do. It 
 is a melancholy thought, how little the semblance 
 of virtue upon earth betokens the real and 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 85 
 
 substantial presence of virtuous principle among 
 men. But, on the other hand, though it be a rare, 
 there cannot be a more dignified attitude of the 
 soul, than when of itself it kindles with a sense of 
 justice, and the holy flame is fed, as it were, by 
 its own energies; than when man moves onwards 
 in an unchanging course of moral magnanimity, 
 and disdains the aid of those inferior principles by 
 which gross and sordid humanity is kept from all the 
 grosser violations ; than when he rejoices in truth 
 as his kindred and congenial element;—so, that 
 though unpeopled of all its terrestrial accompani¬ 
 ments ; though he saw no interest whatever to be 
 associated with its fulfilment; though without one 
 prospect either of fame or of emolument before him, 
 would his eye, even when turned on emptiness 
 itself, still retain the living lustre that had been 
 lighted up in it, by a feeling of inward and inde¬ 
 pendent reverence. 
 
 It has already been observed, and that fully 
 and frequently enough, that a great part of the 
 homage which is rendered to integrity in the world, 
 is due to the operation of selfishness. And this 
 substantially is the reason, why the principle of 
 the text has so very slender a hold upon the 
 human conscience. Man is ever prone to estimate 
 the enormity of injustice, by the degree in which 
 he suffers from it. He brings this moral question 
 to the standard of his own interest. A master 
 will bear with all the lesser liberties of his servants, 
 so long as he feels them to be harmless ; and it is 
 not till he is awakened to the apprehension of per¬ 
 sonal injury from the amount or frequency of the 
 
8-i GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 embezzlements, that his moral indignation is at all 
 sensibly awakened. And thus it is, that the 
 maxim of our great Teacher of righteousness seems 
 to be very much unfelt, or forgotten, in society. 
 Unfaithfulness in that which is little, and unfaith¬ 
 fulness in that which is much, are very far from 
 being regarded, as they were by him under the 
 same aspect of criminality. If there be no great 
 hurt, it is felt that there is no great harm. The 
 -innocence of a dishonest freedom in respect of 
 -morality, is Tated by its insignificance in respect 
 of matter. ■ The margin which separates the 
 right from the wrong is remorselessly trodden under 
 foot, so long as each makes only a minute and 
 gentle encroachment beyond the landmark of his 
 neighbour’s territory. On this subject there is a 
 loose and popular estimate, which is not at one 
 with the deliverance of the New Testament; a 
 habit of petty invasion on the side of aggressors, 
 which is scarcely felt by them to be at all iniqui¬ 
 tous—and even on the part of those who are thus 
 made free with there is a habit of loose and care 
 less toleration. There is, in fact, a negligence or 
 a dormancy of principle among men, which causes 
 tills sort of injustice to be easily practised on the 
 one side, and as easily put up with on the other; 
 and, in a general slackness of observation, is this 
 virtue, in its strictness and in its delicacy, com¬ 
 pletely overborne. 
 
 It is the taint of selfishness, then, which has so 
 marred and corrupted the moral sensibility of our 
 world. And the man, if such a man can be, whose 
 “ eye, even turned on empty space, beams keen 
 
GOILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED 
 
 GAIN. 85 
 
 with honour;” and whose homage, therefore, to 
 the virtue of justice, is altogether freed from the 
 mixture of unworthy and interested feelings, will 
 alone render to her, in every instance, a faultless 
 and a completed offering. Whatever his forbear¬ 
 ance to others, he could not suffer the slightest 
 blot of corruption upon any doings of his own. 
 He cannot be satisfied with any thing short of the 
 very last jot and tittle of the requirements of equity 
 being fulfilled. He not merely shares in the revolt 
 of the general world against such outrageous 
 departures from the rule of right, as W'ould carry 
 in their train the ruin of acquaintances or the 
 distress of families. Such is the delicacy of the 
 principle within him, that he could not have peace , 
 under the consciousness even of the minutest and 
 least discoverable violation. He looks fully and 
 fearlessly at the whole account which justice has 
 against him ; and he cannot rest, so long as there 
 is a single article unmet, or a single demand un¬ 
 satisfied. If, in any transaction of his, there was 
 so much as a . farthing of secret and injurious 
 reservation on his side, this would be to him like 
 an accursed thing, which marred the character of 
 the whole proceeding, and spread over it such an 
 aspect of evil, as to offend and to disturb him. He 
 could not bear the whisperings of his own heart, 
 if it told him, that, in so much as by one iota of 
 defect, he had balanced the matter unfairly between 
 himself and the unconscious individual with whom 
 he deals. It would lie a burden upon his mind 
 to huvt and to make him unhappy, till the oppor¬ 
 tunity of explanation had come round, and he had 
 
86 GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 obtained ease to his conscience, by acquitting him¬ 
 self to the full of all his obligations. It is justice 
 in the uprightness of her attitude; it is justice in 
 the onwardness of her path; it is justice disdaining 
 every advantage that would tempt her, by ever so 
 little, to the right or to the left; it is justice spurn¬ 
 ing the littleness of each paltry enticement away 
 from her, and maintaining herself, without devia¬ 
 tion, in a track so purely rectilineal, that even the 
 most jealous and microscopic eye could not find in 
 it the slightest aberration: this is the justice set 
 forth by our great moral Teacher in the passage 
 now submitted to you; and by which we are told, 
 that this virtue refuses fellowship with every 
 degree of iniquity that is perceptible; and that, 
 were the very least act of unfaithfulness admitted, 
 she would feel as if in her sanctity she had been 
 violated, as if in her character she had sustained 
 an overthrow. 
 
 In the further prosecution of this discourse, let 
 us first attempt to elucidate the principle of our 
 text, and then urge it onward to its practical con¬ 
 sequences—both as it respects our general relation 
 to God, and as it respects the particular lesson of 
 faithfulness that may be educed from it. 
 
 I. The great principle of the text is, that he 
 who has sinned, though to a small amount in 
 respect of the fruit of his transgression—provided 
 he has done so, by passing over a forbidden limit 
 which was distinctly known to him, has, in the act 
 of doing so, incurred a full condemnation in respect 
 of the principle of his transgression. In one word, 
 that the gain of it may be small, while the guilt of 
 
IAIN. 87 
 
 GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY G 
 
 it may be great; that the latter ought not to he 
 measured by the former; but that he who is un¬ 
 faithful in the least, shall be dealt with, in respect 
 of the offence he has given to God, in the same 
 way as if he had been unfaithful in much. 
 
 The first reason which we would assign in 
 vindication of this is, that, by a small act of injustice, 
 the line which separates the right from the wrong, 
 is just as effectually broken over as by a great act of 
 injustice. There is a tendency in gross and cor¬ 
 poreal man to rate the criminality of injustiae by 
 the amount of its appropriations—to reduce it to 
 a computation of weight and of measure—to count 
 the man who has gained a double sum by his dis¬ 
 honesty, to be doubly more dishonest than his 
 neighbour—to make it an affair of product rather 
 than of principle ; and thus to weigh the morality 
 of a character in the same arithmetical balance 
 with number or with magnitude. Now, this is 
 not the rule of calculation on v’hich our Saviour 
 has proceeded in the text. He speaks to the man 
 who is only half an inch within the limits of for¬ 
 bidden ground, in the very same terms by which 
 he addresses the man who has made the farthest 
 and the largest incursions upon it. It is true, 
 that he is only a little way upon the wrong side 
 of the line of demarcation. But why is he upon 
 it at all ? It was in the act of crossing that line, 
 and not in the act of going onwards after he had 
 crossed it—it was then that the contest between 
 right and wrong was entered upon, and then it was 
 decided. That was the instant of time at which 
 principle struck her surrender. The great pull 
 
88 GUILT 
 
 ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 which the man had to make, was in the act of 
 overleaping the fence of separation; and after that 
 was done, justice had no other barrier by which 
 to obstruct his progress over the whole extent of 
 the field which she had interdicted. There might 
 be barriers of a different description. There might 
 be still a revolting of humanity against the suffer¬ 
 ings that would be inflicted by an act of larger 
 fraud or depredation. There might be a dread of 
 exposure, if the dishonesty should so swell, in point 
 of amount, as to become more noticeable. There 
 might, after the absolute limit between justice and 
 injustice is broken, be another limit against the 
 extending of a man’s encroachments, in a terror of 
 discover}', or in a sense of interest, or even in the 
 relentings of a kindly or a compunctious feeling 
 towards him who is the victim of injustice. But 
 this is not the limit with which the question of a 
 man’s truth, or a man’s honesty, has to do. These 
 have already been given up. He may only be a 
 little way within the margin of the unlawful terri¬ 
 tory, but still he is upon it; and the God who 
 finds him there will reckon with him, and deal 
 with him accordingly. Other principles, and 
 other considerations, may restrain his progress to 
 the very heart of the territory, but justice is not 
 one of them. This he deliberately flung away 
 from him, at that moment when he passed the line 
 of eircumvallation ; and, though in the neighbour¬ 
 hood of that line, he may hover all his days at the 
 petty work of picking and purloining such fragments 
 as he meets with, though he may never venture 
 himself to a place of more daring or distinguished 
 
GUI LI- 
 
 ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 89 
 
 atrocity, God sees of him, that, in respect of the 
 principle of justice, at least, there is an utter 
 unhingement. And thus it is, that the Saviour, 
 who knew what was in man, and who, therefore, 
 knew all the springs of that moral machinery by 
 which he is actuated, pronounces of him who was 
 unfaithful in the least, that he was unfaithful also 
 in much. 
 
 After the transition is accomplished, the pro¬ 
 gress will follow of course, just as opportunity 
 invites, and just as circumstances make it safe and 
 practicable. For it is not with justice as it is with 
 generosity, and some of the other virtues. There 
 is not the same graduation in the former as there 
 is in the latter. The man who, other circum¬ 
 stances being equal, gives away a double sum in 
 charity, may, with more propriety, be reckoned 
 doubly more generous than his neighbour; than 
 the man who, with the same equality of circum¬ 
 stances, only ventures on half the extent of fraudu- 
 lency, can be reckoned only one half as unjust as 
 his neighbour. Each has broken a clear line of 
 demarcation. Each has transgressed a distinct 
 and visible limit which he knew to be forbidden. 
 Each has knowingly forced a passage beyond his 
 neighbour’s landmark—and that is the place where 
 justice has laid the main force of her interdict. 
 As it respects the materiel of injustice, the ques¬ 
 tion resolves itself into a mere computation of 
 quantity. As it respects the morale of injustice, 
 the computation is upon other principles. It is 
 upon the latter that our Saviour pronounces him¬ 
 self. And he gives us to understand, that a very 
 
90 GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 humble degree of the former may indicate the 
 latter in all its atrocity. He stands on the breach 
 between the lawful and the unlawful; and he tells 
 us, that the man who enters by a single footstep 
 on the forbidden ground, immediately gathers upon 
 his person the full hue and character of guiltiness. 
 He admits no extenuation of the lesser acts of dis¬ 
 honesty. He does not make right pass into wrong, 
 by a gradual melting of the one into the other. 
 He does not thus obliterate the distinctions of 
 morality. There is no shading off at the margin 
 of guilt, but a clear and vigorous delineation. It 
 is not by a gentle transition that a man steps over 
 from honesty to dishonesty. There is between 
 them a wall rising up unto heaven; and the high 
 authority of heaven must be stormed, ere one inch 
 of entrance can be made into the region of iniquity. 
 The morality of the Saviour never leads him to 
 gloss over beginnings of crime. His object ever 
 is, as in the text before us, to fortify the limit, to 
 cast a rampart of exclusion around the whole 
 territory of guilt, and to rear it before the eye of 
 man in such characters of strength and sacredness, 
 as should make them feel that it is impregnable. 
 
 The second reason, why he who is unfaithful 
 in the least has incurred the condemnation of him 
 who is unfaithful in much, is, that the littleness of 
 the gain, so far from giving a littleness to the 
 guilt, is in fact a circumstance of aggravation. 
 There is just this difference. He who has com¬ 
 mitted injustice for the sake of a less advantage, 
 has done it on the impulse of a less temptation. 
 He has parted with his honesty at an inferior 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 91 
 
 price; and this circumstance may go so to equalize 
 the estimate, as to bring it very much to one with 
 the deliverance, in the text, of our great Teacher 
 Df righteousness. The limitation between good 
 and evil stood as distinctly before the notice of the 
 small as of the great depredator; and he has just 
 made as direct a contravention to the first reason, 
 when he passed over upon the wrong side of it. 
 And he may have made little of gain by the enter¬ 
 prise, but this does not allay the guilt of it. Nay, 
 by the second reason, this may serve to aggravate 
 the wrath of the Divinity against him. It proves 
 how small the price is which he sets upon his eternity, 
 and how cheaply he can bargain the favour of God 
 away from him, and how low he rates the good of 
 an inheritance with him, and for what a trifle he 
 can dispose of all interest in his kingdom and in 
 his promises. The very circumstance which gives 
 to his character a milder transgression in the eyes 
 of the world, makes it more odious in the judg¬ 
 ment of the sanctuary. The more paltry it is in 
 respect of profit, the more profane it may be in 
 respect of principle. It likens him the more to 
 profane Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of 
 pottage. And thus it is, indeed, most woful to 
 think of such a senseless and alienated world; and 
 how heedlessly the men of it are posting their infat¬ 
 uated way to destruction; and how, for as little gain 
 as might serve them a day, they are contracting 
 as much guilt as will ruin them for ever; and are 
 profoundly asleep in the midst of such designs and 
 Buch doings, as will form the valid materials of 
 their entire and everlasting condemnation. 
 
92 GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 It is with argument such as this that we would 
 try to strike conviction among a very numerous 
 class of olfenders in society—those who, in the 
 various departments of trust, or service, or agency, 
 are ever practising, in littles, at the work of secret 
 appropriation—those whose hands are in a state 
 of constant defilement, by the putting of them 
 forth to that which they ought to touch not, and 
 taste not, and handle not—those who silently 
 number such pilferments as can pass unnoticed 
 among the perquisites of their office ; and who, by 
 an excess in their charges, just so slight as to 
 escape detection, or by a habit of purloining, just 
 so restrained as to elude discovery, have both a 
 conscience very much at ease in their own bosoms, 
 and a credit very fair, and very entire, among their 
 acquaintances around them. They grossly count 
 upon the smallness of their transgression. But 
 they are just going in a small way to hell. They 
 would recoil with violent dislike from the act of a 
 midnight depredator. It is just because terrors, 
 and trials, and executions, have thrown around it 
 the pomp and the circumstance of guilt. But at 
 another bar, and on a day of more dreadful 
 solemnity, their guilt will be made to stand out in 
 its essential characters, and their condemnation 
 will be pronounced from the lips of Him who 
 judgeth righteously. They feel that they have 
 incurred no outrageous forfeiture of character 
 among men, and this instils a treacherous compla¬ 
 cency into their own hearts. But the piercing 
 eye of Him who looketh down from heaven is upon 
 the reality of the question; and He who ponders 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY 
 
 I. 93 
 
 the secrets of every bosom, can perceive, that the 
 man who recoils only from such a degree of injustice 
 as is notorious, may have no justice whatever in 
 his character. He may have a sense of reputation. 
 He may have the fear of detection and disgrace. 
 He may feel a revolt in his constitution against the 
 magnitude of a gross and glaring violation. He 
 may even share in all the feelings and principles of 
 that conventional kind of morality which obtains in 
 his neighbourhood. But, of that principle which 
 is surrendered by the least act of unfaithfulness, he 
 has no share whatever. He perceives no overawing 
 sacredness in that boundary which separates the 
 right from the wrong. If he only keep decently 
 near, it is a matter of indifference to him whether 
 he be on this or on that side of it. He can be 
 unfaithful in that which is least. There may be 
 other principles, and other considerations, to 
 restrain him; but certain it is, that it is not now 
 the principle of justice which restrains him from 
 being unfaithful in much. This is given up ; and, 
 through a blindness to the great and important 
 principle of our text, this virtue may, in its essen- , 
 tial character, be as good as banished from the 
 world. All its protections may be utterly over¬ 
 thrown. The line of defence is effaced by which 
 it ought to have been firmly and scrupulously 
 guarded. The sign-posts of intimation, which 
 ought to warn and to scare away, are planted 
 along the barrier; and when, in defiance to them, 
 the barrier is broken, man will not be checked by 
 any sense of honesty, at least, from expatiating 
 over the whole of the forbidden territory. And 
 
94 GUILT SOT TO BE ESTIMATED BV GAIN. 
 
 thus may we gather from the countless peccadilloes 
 which are so current in the various departments 
 of trade, and service, and agency—from the secret 
 freedoms in which many do indulge, without one 
 remonstrance from their own hearts—from the 
 petty inroads that are daily practised on the 
 confines of justice, by which its line of demarcation 
 is trodden under foot, and it has lost the moral 
 distinctness, and the moral charm, that should have 
 kept it unviolate—from the exceeding multitude of 
 such offences as are frivolous in respect of the 
 matter of them, but most fearfully important in 
 respect of the principle in which they originate— 
 from the woful amount of that unseen and unre¬ 
 corded guilt which escapes the cognizance of 
 human law, but, on the application of the touchstone 
 in our text, may be made to stand out in characters 
 of severest condemnation—from instances, too 
 numerous to repeat, but certainly too obvious to 
 be missed, even by the observation of charity, may 
 we gather the frailty of human principle, and the 
 virulence of that moral poison, which is now in 
 such full circulation to taint and to adulterate the 
 character of our species. 
 
 Before finishing this branch of our subject, 
 we may observe, that it is with this, as with many 
 other phenomena of the human character, that we 
 are not long in contemplation upon it, without 
 coming in sight of that great characteristic of 
 fallen man, which meets and forces itself upon us 
 in every view that we take of him—even the great 
 moral disease of ungodliness. It is at the precise 
 limit between the right and the wrong that the 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 95 
 
 flaming sword of God’s law is placed.. It is there 
 that “ Thus saith the Lord” presents itself, in 
 legible characters, to our view. It is there where 
 the operation of His commandment begins; and 
 not at any of those higher gradations, where a man’s 
 dishonesty first appals himself by the chance of 
 its detection, or appals others by the mischief and 
 insecurity which it brings upon social life. An 
 extensive fraud upon the revenue, for example, 
 unpopular as this branch of justice is, would bring 
 a man down from his place of eminence and credit 
 in mercantile society. That petty fraud which is 
 associated with so many of those smaller payments, 
 where a lie in the written acknowledgment is 
 both given and accepted, as a way of escape from 
 the legal imposition, circulates at large among 
 the members of the great trading community. In 
 the former, and in all the greater cases of injustice, 
 there is a human restraint, and a human terror, in 
 operation. There is disgrace and civil punishment 
 to scare away. There are all the sanctions of that 
 conventional morality which is suspended on the 
 fear of man, and the opinion of man; and which, 
 without so much as the recognition of a God, 
 would naturally point its armour against every 
 outrage that could sensibly disturb the securities 
 and the rights of human society. But so long as 
 the disturbance is not sensible—so long as the 
 injustice keeps within the limits of smallness and 
 secrecy—so long as it is safe for the individual to 
 practise it, and, borne along on the tide of general 
 example and connivance, he has nothing to restrain 
 him but that distinct and inflexible word of God, 
 
96 GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 which proscribes all unfaithfulness, and admits of 
 it in no degrees, and no modifications—then, let 
 the almost universal sleep of conscience attest, 
 how little of God there is in the virtue of this 
 world; and how much the peace and the protec¬ 
 tion of society are owing to such moralities, as 
 the mere selfishness of man would lead him to 
 ordain, even in a community of atheists. 
 
 II. Let us now attempt to unfold a few of the 
 practical consequences that may be drawn from 
 the principle of the text, both in respect to our 
 general relation with God, and in respect to the 
 particular lesson of faithfulness which may be 
 educed from it. 
 
 1. There cannot be a stronger possible illus¬ 
 tration of our argument, than the very first act of 
 retribution that occurred in the history of our 
 species. “ And God said unto Adam, Of the tree 
 of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not 
 eat of it. For in the day thou eatest thereof, thou 
 shalt surely die. But the woman took,of the fruit 
 thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her 
 husband with her, and he did eat.” What is it 
 that invests the eating of a solitary apple with a 
 grandeur so momentous ? How came an action, 
 in itself so minute, to be the germ of such mighty 
 consequences? How are we to understand that 
 our first parents, by the doing of a single instant, 
 not only brought death upon themselves, but shed 
 this big and baleful disaster over all their posterity? 
 We may not be able to answer all these questions; 
 but we may at least learn, what a thing of danger 
 it is, under the government of a holy and inflexible 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 97 
 
 God, to tamper with the limits of obedience. By 
 the eating of that apple a clear requirement was 
 broken, and a distinct transition was made from 
 loyalty to rebellion, and an entrance was effected 
 into the region of sin—and thus did this one act 
 serve like the opening of a gate for a torrent of 
 mighty mischief; and, if the act itself was a trifle, 
 it. just went to aggravate its guilt—that, for such a 
 trifle, the authority of God could be despised and 
 trampled on. At all events, His attribute of Truth 
 stood committed to the fulfilment of the threaten¬ 
 ing ; and the very insignificancy of the deed, which 
 provoked the execution of it, gives a sublimer 
 character to the certainty of the fulfilment. We 
 know how much this trait, in the dealings of God 
 with man, has been the jeer of infidelity. But in 
 all this ridicule, there is truly nothing else than 
 the grossness of materialism. Had Adam, instead 
 of plucking one single apple from the forbidden 
 tree, been armed with the power of a malignant 
 spirit, and spread a wanton havock over the face 
 of paradise, and spoiled the garden of its loveli¬ 
 ness, and been able to mar and to deform the 
 whole of that terrestrial creation over which God 
 had so recently rejoiced—the punishment he sus¬ 
 tained w'ould have looked, to these arithmetical 
 moralists, a more adequate return for the offence 
 of which he had been guilty. They cannot see 
 how the moral lesson rises in greatness, just in 
 proportion to the humility of the material accom¬ 
 paniments—and how it wraps a sublimer glory 
 around the holiness of the Godhead—and how 
 from the transaction, such as it is, the conclusion 
 
cometh forth more nakedly, and, therefore, more 
 impressively, that it is an evil and a bitter thing 
 to sin against the Lawgiver. God said, “ Let 
 there be light, and it was light;” and it has 
 ever been regarded as a sublime token of the 
 Deity, that, from an utterance so simple, an ac¬ 
 complishment so quick and so magnificent should 
 have followed. God said, “ That he who eateth 
 of the tree in the midst of the garden should die.” 
 It appears, indeed, but a little thing, that one 
 should put forth his hand to an apple and taste of 
 it. But a saying of God was involved in the 
 matter; and heaven and earth must pass away, 
 ere a saying of his can pass away ; and so the 
 apple became decisive of the fate of a world; and, 
 out of the very scantiness of the occasion, did there 
 emerge a sublimer display of truth and of holiness. 
 The beginning of the world was, indeed, the 
 period of great manifestations of the Godhead; 
 and they all seem to accord, in style and character, 
 with each other; and in that very history, which 
 has called forth the profane and unthinking levity 
 of many a scorner, may we behold as much of the 
 majesty of principle, as, in the creation of light, 
 we behold of the majesty of power. 
 
 But this history furnishes the materials of a 
 contemplation still more practical. If, for this 
 one offence, Adam and his posterity have been so 
 visited—if so rigorously and so inflexibly precise 
 be the spirit of God’s administration—if, under the 
 economy of heaven, sin, even in the very humblest 
 of its exhibitions, be the object of an intolerance 
 so jealous and so unrelenting—if the Deity be such 
 
guilt not to be ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 99 
 
 as this transaction manifests Him to be, disdain¬ 
 ful of fellowship even with the very least iniquity, 
 and dreadful in the certainty of all his accomplish¬ 
 ments against it—if, for a single transgression, all 
 the promise and all the felicity of paradise had to 
 be broken up, and the wretched offenders had to 
 be turned abroad upon a world, now changed by 
 the curse into a wilderness, and their secure and 
 lovely home of innocence behoved to be abandoned, 
 and to keep them out a flaming sword had to turn 
 every way, and guard their reaccess to the bowers 
 of immortality—if sin be so very hateful in the eye. 
 of unspotted holiness, that, on its very first act, 
 and first appearance, the wonted communion be¬ 
 tween heaven and earth was interdicted—if that 
 was the time at which God looked on our species 
 with an altered countenance, and one deed of 
 disobedience proved so terribly decisive of the fate 
 and history of a world—what should each indi¬ 
 vidual amongst us think of his own danger, whose 
 life has been one continued habit of disobedience ? 
 If we be still in the hands of that God who laid 
 so fell a condemnation on this one transgression, 
 let us just think of our many transgressions, and 
 that every hour we live multiplies the account of 
 them; and that, however they may vanish from 
 our own remembrance, they are still alive in the 
 records of a judge whose eye and whose memory 
 never fail Him. Let us transfer the lesson we 
 have gotten of heaven’s jurisprudence from the case 
 of our first parents to our own case. Let us com¬ 
 pare our lives with the law of God, and we shall 
 find that our sins are past reckoning. Let us 
 
100 GUILT SOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 take account of the habitual posture of our souls, 
 as a posture of dislike for the things that are above, 
 and we shall find that our thoughts and our desires 
 are ever running in one current of sinfulness. 
 Let us just make the computation how often we 
 fail in the bidden charity, and the bidden godli¬ 
 ness, and the bidden long-suffering—all as clearly 
 bidden as the duty that was laid on our first parents 
 —and we shall find, that we are borne down under 
 a mountain of iniquity; that, in the language of 
 tlie Psalmist, our transgressions have gone over 
 our heads, and, as a heavy burden, are too heavy 
 for us; and if we be indeed under the government of 
 Him who followed up the offence of the stolen apple 
 by so dreadful a chastisement, then is wrath gone 
 out unto the uttermost against every one of us. 
 There is something in the history of that apple 
 which might be brought specially to bear on the 
 case of those small sinners who practise in secret 
 at the work of their petty depredations. But it 
 also carries in it a great and a universal moral. 
 It tells us that no sin is small. It serves a general 
 purpose of conviction. It holds out a most alarm¬ 
 ing disclosure of the charge that is against us; 
 and makes it manifest to the conscience of him 
 who is awakened thereby, that, unless God Him¬ 
 self point out a way of escape, we are indeed most 
 hopelessly sunk in condemnation. And, seeing that 
 such wrath went out from the sanctuary of this 
 unchangeable God, on the one offence of our first 
 parents, it irresistibly follows, that if we, manifold 
 in guilt, take not ourselves to His appointed way 
 of reconciliation—if we refuse the overtures of 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 101 
 
 Him, who then so visited the one offence through 
 which all are dead, but is now laying before us all 
 that free gift, which is of many offences unto justi¬ 
 fication—in other words, if we will not enter into 
 peace through the offered Mediator, how much 
 greater must be the wrath that abideth on us ? 
 
 Now, let the sinner have his conscience schooled 
 by such a contemplation, and there will be no rest 
 whatever for his soul till he find it in the Saviour. 
 Let him only learn, from the dealings of God with 
 the first Adam, what a God of holiness he himself 
 has to deal with; and let him further learn, from 
 the history of the second Adam, that, to manifest 
 himself as a God of love, another righteousness 
 had to be brought in, in place of that from which 
 man had fallen so utterly away. There was a 
 faultless obedience rendered by Him, of whom it is 
 said, that He fulfilled all righteousness. There 
 was a magnifying of the law by one in human form, 
 who, up to the last jot and tittle of it, acquitted 
 Himself of all its obligations. There was a pure, 
 and lofty, and undefiled path, trodden by a holy 
 and harmless Being, who gave not up His work 
 upon earth, till, ere He left it, He could cry out, 
 that It was finished; and so had wrought out for 
 us a perfect righteousness. Now, it forms the 
 most prominent annunciation of the New Testa¬ 
 ment, that the reward of this righteousness is 
 offered unto all—so that there is not one of us who 
 is not put by the gospel upon the alternative of 
 being either tried by our own merits, or treated 
 according to the merits of Him who became sin 
 for us, though He knew no sin, that we might be 
 
102 GUILT NOT TO 
 
 [MATED BY GAIN. 
 
 made the righteousness of God in Him. Let the 
 sinner just look unto himself, and look unto the 
 Saviour. Let him advert not to his one, but to 
 his many offences; and that, too, in the sight of a 
 God, who, but for one so slight and so insignifi¬ 
 cant in respect of the outward description, as the 
 eating of a forbidden apple, threw off a world into 
 banishment, and entailed a sentence of death upon 
 all its generations. Let him learn from this, that 
 for sin, even in its humblest degrees, there exists 
 in the bosom of the Godhead no toleration; and 
 how shall he dare, with the degree and the fre¬ 
 quency of his own sin, to stand any longer on a 
 ground, where, if he remain, the fierceness of a 
 consuming fire is so sure to overtake him ? The 
 righteousness of Christ is without a flaw, and there 
 he is invited to take shelter. Under the actual 
 regimen, which God has established in our world, 
 it is indeed his only security—his refuge from the 
 tempest, and hiding place from the storm. The 
 only beloved son offers to spread His own un¬ 
 spotted garment as a protection over him ; and, if 
 he be rightly alive to the utter nakedness of his 
 moral and spiritual condition, he will indeed make 
 no tarrying till he be found in Christ, and find that 
 in Him there is no condemnation. 
 
 Now, it is worthy of remark, that those principles, 
 which shut a man up unto the faith, do not take 
 flight and abandon him, after they have served this 
 temporary purpose. They abide with him, and 
 work their appropriate influence on his character, 
 and serve as the germ of a new moral creation; 
 and we can afterwards detect their operation in his 
 
GUILT NOT TO 13E ESTIMATED BY GAIN., 103 
 
 heart and life ; so, that if they were present at the 
 formation of a saving belief, they are not less 
 unfailingly present with every true Christian, 
 throughout the whole of his future history, as the 
 elements of a renovated conduct. If it was sensi¬ 
 bility to the evil of sin which helped to wean the 
 man from himself, and led him to his Saviour, this 
 sensibility does not fall asleep in the bosom of an 
 awakened sinner, after Christ has given him light 
 —but it grows with the growth, and strengthens 
 with the strength, of his Christianity. If, at the 
 interesting period of his transition from nature to 
 grace, he saw, even in the very least of his offences, 
 a deadly provocation of the Lawgiver, he does not 
 lose sight of this consideration in his future progress 
 —nor does it barely remain with him, like one of 
 . the unproductive notions of an inert and unpro¬ 
 ductive theory. It gives rise to a fearful 
 jealousy in his heart of the least appearance of evil; 
 and, with every man who has undergone a genuine 
 process of conversion, do we behold the scrupulous 
 avoidance of sin, in its most slender, as well as in 
 its more aggravated forms. If it was the perfec¬ 
 tion of the character of Christ who felt that it 
 became Him to fulfil all righteousness, that offered 
 him the first solid foundation on which he could 
 lean—then, the same character, which first drew 
 his eye for the purpose of confidence, still continues 
 to draw his eye for the purpose of imitation. At 
 the outset of faith, all the essential moralities of 
 thought, and feeling, and conviction, are in play ; 
 nor is there any thing in the progress of a real 
 faith which is calculated to throw them hack again 
 
104 GUILT NOT TC 
 
 into the dormancy out of which they had arisen. 
 They break out, in fact, into more full and 
 flourishing display on every new creature, with 
 every new step, and new evolution, in his mental 
 history. All the principles of the gospel serve, as 
 it were, to fan and to perpetuate his hostility 
 against sin; and all the powers of the gospel enable 
 him, more and more, to fulfil the desires of his 
 heart, and to carry his purposes of hostility into 
 execution. In the case of every genuine believer, 
 who walks not after the flesh, but after the spirit, 
 do we behold a fulfilling of the righteousness of the 
 law—a strenuous avoidance of sin, in its slightest 
 possible taint or modification—a strenuous per¬ 
 formance of duty, up. to the last jot and tittle of its 
 exactions—so, that let the untrue professors of the 
 faith do what they will in the way of antmomiamsm, 
 and let the enemies of the faith say what they will 
 about our antinomianism, the real spirit of the 
 dispensation under which we live is such, that 
 whosoever shall break one of the least of these 
 commandments, and teach men so, is accounted the 
 least—whosoever shall do and teach them is 
 accounted the greatest. 
 
 2. Let us, therefore, urge the spirit and the 
 practice of this lesson upon your observation. The 
 place for the practice of it is the familiar and 
 week-day scene. The principle for the spirit of 
 it descends upon the heart, from the sublimest 
 heights of the sanctuary of God. It is not vulgar¬ 
 izing Christianity to bring it down to the very 
 humblest'occupations of human life. It is, in 
 fact, dignifying human life, by bringing it up to the 
 
! 
 
 GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 105 
 
 level of Christianity. It may look to some a 
 degradation of the pulpit, when the household 
 servant is told to make her firm stand against the 
 temptation of open doors, and secret opportunities; 
 or when the confidential agent is told to resist the 
 slightest inclination to any unseen freedom with the 
 property of his employers, or to any undiscoverable 
 excess in the charges of his management; or when 
 the receiver of a humble payment is told, that the 
 tribute which is due on every written acknowledg¬ 
 ment ought faithfully to be met, and not fictitiously 
 to be evaded. This is not robbing religion of its 
 sacredness, but spreading its sacredness over the 
 face of society. It is evangelizing human life, by 
 impregnating its minutest transactions with the 
 spirit of the gospel. It is strengthening the wall 
 of partition between sin and obedience. It is the 
 teacher of righteousness taking his stand at the 
 outpost of that territory which he is appointed to 
 defend, and warning his hearers of the danger that 
 lies in a single footstep of encroachment. It is 
 letting them know, that it is in the act of stepping 
 over the limit, that the sinner throws the gauntlet 
 of his defiance against the authority of God. And 
 though he may deceive himself with the imagination 
 that his soul is safe, because the gain of his injustice 
 is small, such is the God with whom he has to do, 
 that, if it be gain to the value of a single apple, 
 then, within the compass of so small an outward 
 dimension, may as much guilt be enclosed as that 
 which hath brought death into our world, and 
 carried it down in a descending ruin upon all its 
 generations. 
 
106 
 
 It may appear a very little thing, when you are 
 told to be honest in little matters; when the servant 
 is told to keep her hand from every one arti&e 
 about which there is not an express or understood 
 allowance on the part of her superiors ; when the 
 dealer is told to lop off the excesses of that minuter 
 fraudulency, which is so currently practised in the 
 humble walks of merchandise; when the workman 
 is told to abstain from those petty reservations of 
 the material of his work, for which he is said to 
 have such snug and ample opportunity; and when, 
 without pronouncing on the actual extent of these 
 transgressions, all are told to be faithful in that 
 which is least, else, if there be truth in our text, 
 they incur the guilt of being unfaithful in much. 
 It may be thought, that because such dishonesties 
 as these are scarcely noticeable, they are therefore 
 not worthy of notice. But it is just in the pro¬ 
 portion of their being unnoticeable by the human 
 eye, that it is religious to refrain from them. 
 These are the cases in which it will be seen, 
 whether the control of the omniscience of God 
 makes up for the control of human observation— 
 in which the sentiment, that thou God seest me, 
 should carry a preponderance through all the 
 secret places of a man’s history—in which, when 
 every earthly check of an earthly morality is with¬ 
 drawn, it should be felt, that the eye of God is 
 upon him, and that the judgment of God is in 
 reserve for him. To him who is gifted with a true 
 discernment of these matters, will it appear, that 
 often, in proportion to the smallness of the doings, 
 is the saeredness of that principle which causes 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 107 
 
 them to be done with integrity; that honesty, in 
 little transactions, bears upon it more of the aspect 
 of holiness, than honesty in great ones; that the 
 man of deepest sensibility to the obligations of the 
 law, is he who feels the quickening of moral alarm 
 at its slightest violations; that, in the morality of 
 grains and of scruples, there may be a greater 
 tenderness of conscience, and a more heaven-born 
 sanctity, than in that larger morality which flashes 
 broadly and observably upon the world;—and that 
 thus, in the faithfulness of the household maid, or 
 of the apprentice boy, there may be the presence 
 of a truer principle, than there is in the more con¬ 
 spicuous transactions of human business—what 
 they do, being done, not with eye-service—what 
 they do, being done unto the Lord. 
 
 And here we remark, that nobleness of condition 
 is not essential as a school for nobleness of character; 
 nor does man require to be high in office, ere he 
 can gather around his person the worth and the 
 lustre of a high-minded integrity. It is delightful 
 to think, that humble life may be just as rich in 
 moral grace, and moral grandeur, as the loftier 
 places of society ; that as true a dignity of principle 
 may be earned by him who, in homeliest drudgery, 
 plies his conscientious task, as by him who stands 
 entrusted with the fortunes of an empire ; that the 
 poorest menial in the land, who can lift a hand 
 unsoiled by the pilferments that are within his 
 reach, may have achieved a victory over temptation, 
 to the full as honourable as the proudest patriot 
 can boast, who has spurned the bribery of courts 
 away from him. It is cheering to know, from the 
 
108 gui i 
 
 heavenly judge Himself, that he who is faithful in 
 the least, is faithful also in much; and that thus, 
 among the labours of the field and of the work-shop, 
 it is possible for the peasant to be as bright in 
 honour as the peer, and have the chivalry of as 
 much truth and virtue to adorn him. 
 
 And, as this lesson is not little in respect of 
 principle, so neither is it little in respect of influ¬ 
 ence on the order and well-being of human society. 
 He who is unjust in the least, is, in respect of 
 guilt, unjust also in much. And to reverse this 
 proposition, as it is done in the first clause of our 
 text—he who is faithful in that which is least, is, 
 in respect both of righteous principle and of actual 
 observation, faithful also in much. Who is the 
 man to whom I would most readily confide the 
 whole of my property ? He who would most 
 disdain to put forth an injurious hand on a single 
 farthing of it. Who is the man from whom I 
 would have the least dread of any unrighteous 
 encroachment ? He, all the delicacies of whose 
 principle are awakened, when he comes within 
 sight of the limit which separates the region of 
 justice from the region of injustice. Who is the 
 man whom we shall never find among the greater 
 degrees of iniquity ? He who shrinks with sacred 
 abhorrence from the lesser degrees of it. It is a 
 true, though a homely maxim of economy, that if 
 we take care of our small sums, our great sums 
 will take care of themselves. And, to pass from 
 our own things to the things of others, it is no less 
 true, that if principle should lead us all to maintain 
 the care of strictest honesty over our neighbour’s 
 
GUILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BV GAIN. 109 
 
 pennies, then will his pounds lie secure from the 
 grasp of injustice, behind the barrier of a moral 
 impossibility. This lesson, if carried into effect 
 among you, would so strengthen all the ramparts 
 of security between man and man, as to make them 
 utterly impassable; and therefore, while, in the 
 matter of it, it may look, in one view, as one of 
 the least of the commandments, it, in regard 
 both of principle and of effect, is, in another view 
 of it, one of the greatest of the commandments. And 
 we therefore conclude with assuring you, that 
 nothing will spread the principle of this command¬ 
 ment to any great extent throughout the mass of 
 society, but the principle of godliness. Nothing 
 will secure the general observation of justice 
 amongst us, in its punctuality and in its preciseness, 
 but such a precise Christianity as many affirm to 
 be puritanical. In other words, the virtues of 
 society, to be kept in a healthful and prosperous 
 condition, must be upheld by the virtues of the 
 sanctuary. Human law may restrain many of 
 the grosser violations. But without religion 
 among the people, justice will never be in extensive 
 operation as a moral principle. A vast proportion 
 of the species will be as unjust as the vigilance 
 and the severities of law allow them to be. A 
 thousand petty dishonesties, which never will, and 
 never can be brought within the cognizance of any 
 of our courts of administration, will still continue to 
 derange the business of human life, and to stir up 
 all the heartburnings of suspicion and resentment 
 among the members of human society. And it is, 
 indeed, a triumphant reversion awaiting the 
 
1 10 Gl-ILT NOT TO BE ESTIMATED BY GAIN. 
 
 Christianity of the New Testament, when it shall 
 become manifest as day, that it is her doctrine 
 alone, which, by its searching and sanctifying 
 influence, can so moralise our world—as that each 
 may sleep secure in the lap of his neighbour’s 
 integrity, and the charm of confidence, between 
 man and man, will at length be felt in the business 
 of every town, and in the bosom of every family. 
 
A r OF RECIPROCITY. i 1 1 
 
 TIUC CHRISTIAN I.AU 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 ON THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECI¬ 
 PROCITY BETWEEN MAN AND MAN. 
 
 “ Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 prophets.”— Matt. vii. 12. 
 
 There are two great classes in human society, 
 Detween whom there lie certain mutual claims and 
 obligations, which are felt by some to be of very 
 difficult adjustment. There are those who have 
 requests of some kind or other to make; and there 
 are those to whom the requests are made, and 
 with whom there is lodged the power either to 
 grant or to refuse them. Now, at first sight, it 
 would appear, that the firm exercise of this power 
 of refusal is the only barrier by which the latter 
 class can be secured against the indefinite encroach¬ 
 ments of the former; and that, if this were removed, 
 all the safeguards of right and property would be 
 removed along with it. The power of refusal, on 
 the part of those who have the right of refusal, 
 may be abolished by an act of violence, on the 
 part of those who have it not; and then, when 
 this happens in individual cases, we have the crimes 
 of assault and robbery; and when it happens on a 
 more extended scale, we have anarchy and insur¬ 
 rection in the land. Or the power of refusal may 
 be taken away by an authoritative precept of 
 
112 THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 religion; and then might it still be matter of appre¬ 
 hension, lest our only defence against the inroads 
 of selfishness and injustice were as good as given 
 up, and lest the peace and interest of families 
 should be laid open to a most fearful exposure, by 
 the enactments of a romantic and impracticable 
 system. Whenever this is apprehended, the temp¬ 
 tation is strongly felt, either to rid ourselves of the 
 enactments altogether, or at least to bring them 
 down in nearer accommodation to the feelings and 
 the conveniencies of men. 
 
 And Christianity, on the very first blush of it, 
 appears to be precisely such a religion. It seems 
 to take away all lawfulness of resistance from 
 the possessor, and to invest the demander with 
 such an extent of privilege, as would make the two 
 classes of society to which we have just now 
 adverted, speedily change places. And this is the 
 true secret of the many laborious deviations that 
 have been attempted, in this branch of morality, 
 on the obvious meaning of the New Testament. 
 This is the secret of those many qualifying clauses, 
 by which its most luminous announcements have 
 been beset, to the utter darkening of them. This 
 it is which explains the many sad invasions that 
 have been made on the most manifest and undeni¬ 
 able literalities of the law and of the testimony. 
 And our present text, among others, has received 
 its full share of mutilation, and of what may be 
 called “dressing up,” from the hands of com¬ 
 mentators—it having wakened the very alarms of 
 which we have just spoken, and called forth the 
 very attempts to quiet and to subdue them. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 113 
 
 Surely, it lias been said, we can never be required 
 to do unto others what they have no right, and no 
 reason, to expect from us. The demand must not 
 be an extravagant one. It must lie within the 
 limits of moderation. It must be such as, in the 
 estimation of every justly thinking person, is 
 counted fair in the circumstances of the case. The 
 principle on which our Saviour, in the text, rests 
 the obligation of doing any particular thing to 
 others, is, that we wish others to do that thing unto 
 us. But this is too much for an affrighted selfish¬ 
 ness ; and, for her own protection, she would put 
 forth a defensive sophistry upon the subject; and 
 in place of that distinctly announced principle, on 
 which the Bible both directs and specifies what 
 the things are which we should do unto others, 
 does she substitute another principle entirely— 
 which is, merely to do unto others such things as 
 are fair, and right, and reasonable. 
 
 Now, there is one clause of this verse which 
 would appear to lay a positive interdict on all 
 these qualifications. Blow shall we dispose of a 
 phrase, so sweeping and universal in its import, 
 as that of “ all things whatsoever ?” We cannot 
 think that such an expression as this was inserted 
 for nothing, by him who has told us, that “ cursed 
 is every one who taketh away from the words of 
 this hook.” There is no distinction laid down 
 between things fair, and things unfair—between 
 things reasonable and things unreasonable. Both 
 are comprehended in the “ ail things whatsoever.” 
 The signification is plain and absolute, that, let 
 tlie tiling be what it may, if you wisli others to do 
 
114 THE CHRISTIAN I.AW OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 that thing for you, it lies imperatively upon you to 
 do the very same thing for them also. 
 
 But, at this rate, you may think that the whole 
 system of human intercourse would go into un¬ 
 hingement. You may wish your next-door neigh¬ 
 bour to present you with half his fortune. In this 
 case, we know not how you are to escape from the 
 conclusion, that you are bound to present him with 
 the half of yours. Or you may wish a relative to 
 burden himself with the expenses of all your family. 
 It is then impossible to save you from the positive 
 obligation, it you are equally able for it, of doing 
 the same service to the family of another. Or 
 you may wish to engross the whole time of an 
 acquaintance in personal attendance upon yourself. 
 Then, it is just your part to do the same extent 
 of civility to another who may desire it. These 
 are only a few specifications, out of the manifold 
 varieties, whether of service or of donation, which 
 are conceivable between one man and another; 
 nor are we aware of any artifice of explanation by 
 which they can possibly be detached from the “ all 
 things whatsoever” of the verse before us. These 
 are literalities which we are not at liberty to com¬ 
 promise—but are bound to urge, and that simply, 
 according to the terms in which they have been 
 conveyed to us by the great Teacher of righteous¬ 
 ness. This may raise a sensitive dread in many 
 a bosom. It may look like the opening of a flood¬ 
 gate, through which a torrent of human rapacity 
 would be made to set in on the fair and measured 
 domains of property, and by which all the fences 
 of legality would be overthrown. It is some such 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 115 
 
 fearful anticipation as this which causes casuistry 
 to ply its wily expedients, and husily to devise its 
 many limits, and its many exceptions, to the 
 morality of the New Testament. And yet, we 
 think it possible to demonstrate of our text, that 
 no such modifying is requisite; and that, though 
 admitted strictly and rigorously as the rule of our 
 daily conduct, it would lead to no practical con¬ 
 clusions which are at all formidable. 
 
 For, what is the precise circumstance which lays 
 the obligation of this precept upon you ? There 
 may be other places in the Bible where you are 
 required to do things for the benefit of your neigh¬ 
 bour, whether you would wish your neighbour to 
 do these things for your benefit or not. But this 
 ■is not the requirement here. There is none other 
 thing laid upon you in this place, than that you 
 should do that good action in behalf of another, 
 which you would like that other to do in behalf of 
 yourself. If you would not like him to do it for 
 you, then there is nothing in the compass of this 
 sentence now before you, that at all obligates you 
 to do it for him. If you would not like your 
 neighbour to make so romantic a surrender to your 
 interest, as to offer you to the extent of half his 
 fortune, then there is nothing in that part of the 
 gospel code which now engages us, that renders it 
 imperative upon you to make the same offer to 
 your neighbour. If you would positively recoil, 
 in all the reluctance of ingenuous delicacy, from 
 the selfishness of laying on a relation the burden 
 of the expenses of all your family, then this is not 
 the good office that you would have him to do unto 
 
116 THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 you; and this, therefore, is not the good office 
 which the text prescribes you to do unto him. If 
 you have such consideration for another’s ease, 
 and another’s convenience, that you could not take 
 the ungenerous advantage of so much of his time 
 for your accommodation, there may be other verses 
 in the Bible which point to a greater sacrifice, on 
 your part, for the good of others, than you would 
 like these others to make for yours; but, most 
 assuredly', this is not the verse which imposes that 
 sacrifice. If you would not that others should do 
 these things on your account, then these things 
 form no part of the •' all things whatsoever” you 
 would that men should do unto you; and, there¬ 
 fore, they form no part of the “ all things whatso¬ 
 ever” that you are required, by this verse, to do 
 unto them. The bare circumstance of your posi¬ 
 tively not wishing that any such services should be 
 rendered unto you, exempts you, as far as the 
 single authority of this precept is concerned, from 
 the obligation of rendering these services to others. 
 This is the limitation to the extent of those services 
 which are called for in the text; and it is surely 
 better, that every limitation to a commandment of 
 God’s, should be defined by God himself, than that 
 it should be drawn from the assumptions of human 
 fancy, or from the fears and the feelings of human 
 convenience. 
 
 Let a man, in fact, give himself up to a strict 
 and literal observation of the precept in this verse, 
 and it will impress a two-fold direction upon him. 
 It will not only guide him to certain performances 
 of good in behalf of others, but it will guide him to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 IPItOCITY. 117 
 
 the regulation of his own desires of good from them. 
 For his desires of good from others are here set up 
 as the measure of his performances of good to 
 others. The more selfish and unbounded his 
 desires are, the larger are those performances with 
 the obligation of which he is burdened. Whatso¬ 
 ever he would that others should do unto him, he 
 is bound to do unto them; and, therefore, the 
 more he gives way to ungenerous and extravagant 
 wishes of service from those who are around him, 
 the heavier and more insupportable is the load of 
 duty which he brings upon himself. The com¬ 
 mandment is quite imperative, and there is no 
 escaping from it; and if he, by the excess of his 
 selfishness, should render it impracticable, then 
 the whole punishment, due to the guilt of casting 
 aside the authority of this commandment, follows 
 in that train of punishment which is annexed to 
 selfishness. There is one way of being relieved 
 from such a burden. There is one way of reduc¬ 
 ing this verse to a moderate and practicable require¬ 
 ment; and that is, just to give up selfishness— 
 just to stifle all ungenerous desires—just to 
 moderate every wish of service or liberality from 
 others, down to the standard of what is right and 
 equitable; and then there may be other verses in 
 the Bible, by which we are called to be kind even to 
 the evil and the unthankful. But, most assuredly, 
 this verse lays upon us none other thing, than that 
 we should do such services for others as are right 
 and equitable. 
 
 The more extravagant, then, a man’s wishes of 
 accommodation from others are, the wider is the 
 
118 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 RECIPROCITY. 
 
 distance between him and the bidden performances 
 of our text. The separation of him from his duty 
 increases at the rate of two bodies receding from 
 each other by equal and contrary movements. 
 The more selfish his desires of service are from 
 others, the more feeble, on that very account, will 
 be his desires of making any surrender of himself 
 to them, and yet the greater is the amount of that 
 surrender which is due. The poor man, in fact, 
 is moving himself away from the rule; and the 
 rule is just moving as fast away from the man. 
 As he sinks, in the scale of selfishness, beneath the 
 point of a fair and moderate expectation from others, 
 does the rule rise in the scale of duty, with its 
 demands upon him ; and thus there is rendered to 
 him double for every unfair and ungenerous imposi¬ 
 tion that he would make on the kindness of those 
 who are around him. 
 
 Now, there is one way, and a very effectual 
 one, of getting these two ends to meet. Mode¬ 
 rate your own desires of service from others, and 
 you will moderate, in the same degree, all those 
 duties of service to others which are measured by 
 these desires. Have the delicacy to abstain from 
 any wish of encroachment on the convenience oi 
 property of another. Have the high-mindedness 
 to be indebted for your own support to the exer¬ 
 tions of your own honourable industry, rather than 
 to the dastardly habit of preying on the simplicity 
 of those around you. Have such a keen sense of 
 equity, and such a fine tone of independent feeling, 
 that you could not bear to be the cause of hardship 
 or distress to a single human creature, if you could 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITV. 119 
 
 help it. Let the same spirit be in you, which the 
 Apostle wanted to exemplify before the eye of his 
 disciples, when he coveted no man’s gold, or silver, 
 or apparel; when he laboured not to be charge¬ 
 able to any of them; but wrought with his own 
 hands, rather than be burdensome. Let this mind 
 be in you, which was also in the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles; and then, the text before us will not 
 come near you with a single oppressive or imprac¬ 
 ticable requirement. There maybe other passages, 
 where you are called to go beyond the strict line of 
 justice, or common humanity, in behalf of your 
 suffering brethren. But this passage does not 
 touch you with any such preceptive imposition: 
 and you, by moderating your wishes from others 
 down to what is fair and equitable, do, in fact, 
 reduce the rule which binds you to act according 
 to the measure of these wishes, down to a rule of 
 precise and undeviating equity. 
 
 The operation is somewhat like that of a governor, 
 or fly, in mechanism. This is a very happy con¬ 
 trivance, by which all that is defective or excessive 
 ill the motion, is confined within the limits of 
 equability; and every tendency, in particular, to 
 any mischievous acceleration, is restrained. The 
 impulse given by this verse to the conduct of man 
 among his fellows, would seem, to a superficial 
 observer, to carry him to all the excesses of a most 
 ruinous and quixotic benevolence. But let him 
 only look to the skilful adaptation of the fly. Just 
 suppose the control of moderation and equity to be 
 laid upon his own wishes, and there is not a single 
 impulse given to his conduct beyond the rate of 
 
120 THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 moderation and equity. You are not required here 
 to do all things whatsoever in behalf of others, but 
 to do all things whatsoever for them, that you 
 would should be done unto yourself. This is the 
 check by which the whole of the bidden movement 
 is governed, and kept from running out into any 
 hurtful excess. And such is the beautiful operation 
 of that piece of moral mechanism that we are now 
 employed in contemplating, that while it keeps 
 down all the aspirations of selfishness, it does, in 
 fact, restrain every extravagancy, and impresses on 
 its obedient subjects no other movement, than that 
 of an even and inflexible justice. 
 
 This rule of our Saviour’s, then, prescribes 
 moderation to our desires of good from others, as 
 well as generosity to our doings in behalf of others; 
 and makes the first the measure of obligation to 
 the second. It may thus he seen how easily, in a 
 Christian society, the whole work of benevolence 
 could be adjusted, so as to render it possible for 
 the givers not only to meet, but also to overpass, 
 the wishes and expectations of the receivers. The 
 rich man may have a heavier obligation laid upon 
 him by other precepts of the New Testament; but, 
 by this precept, he is not bound to do more for 
 the poor man, than what he himself would wish, 
 in like circumstances, to be done for him. And 
 let the poor man, on the other hand, wish for no 
 more than what a Christian ought to wish for; let 
 him work and endure to the extent of nature’s 
 sufferance, rather than beg—and only beg, rather 
 than that he should starve; and in such a state of 
 principle among men, a tide of beneficence would 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 121 
 
 so go forth upon all the vacant places in society, 
 as that there should be no room to receive it. The 
 duty of the rich, as connected with this adminis¬ 
 tration, is of so direct and positive a character, as 
 to obtrude itself at once on the notice of the 
 Christian moralist. But the poor also have a duty 
 in it—to which we feel ourselves directed by the 
 train of argument which we have now been pro¬ 
 secuting—and a duty, too, we think, of far greater 
 importance even than the other, to the best interests 
 of mankind. 
 
 For, let us first contrast the rich man who is 
 ungenerous in his doings, with the poor man who 
 is ungenerous in his desires; and see from which 
 of the two it is, that the cause of charity receives 
 the deadlier infliction. There is, itmustbe admitted, 
 an individual to be met with occasionally, who 
 represents the former of these two characters; 
 with every affection gravitating to self, and to its 
 sordid gratifications and interests; bent on his own 
 pleasure, or his own avarice—and so engrossed 
 with these, as to have no spare feeling at all for 
 the brethren of his common nature; with a heart 
 obstinately shut against that most powerful of appli¬ 
 cations, the look of genuine and imploring distress 
 —and whose very countenance speaks a surly and 
 determined exclusion on every call that proceeds 
 from it; who, in a tumult of perpetual alarm about 
 new cases, and new tales of suffering, and new 
 plans of philanthropy, has at length learned to 
 resistand to resent every one of them; and, spurning 
 the whole of this disturbance impatiently away, to 
 maintain a firm defensive over the close system of 
 
122 THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 his own selfish luxuries, and his own snug accom¬ 
 modations. Such a man keeps back, it must be 
 allowed, from the cause of charity, what he ought 
 to have rendered to it in his own person. There is 
 a diminution of the philanthropic fund, up. to the 
 extent of what benevolence would have awarded 
 out of his individual means, and individual oppor¬ 
 tunities. The good cause is a sufferer, not by 
 any positive blow it has sustained, but by the 
 simple negation of one friendly and fostering hand, 
 that else might have been stretched forth to aid 
 and patronise it. There is only so much less of 
 direct countenance and support, than would other¬ 
 wise have been; for, in this our age, we have no 
 conception whatever of such an example being at 
 all infectious. For a man to wallow in prosperity 
 himself, and be unmindful of the wretchedness that 
 is around him, is an exhibition of altogether so 
 ungainly a character, that it will far oftener provoke 
 an observer to affront it by the contrast of his own 
 generosity, than to render it the approving testi¬ 
 mony of his imitation. So that all we have lost 
 by the man who is ungenerous in his doings, 
 is his own contribution to the cause of philanthropy. 
 And it is a loss that can be borne. The cause of 
 this world’s beneficence can do abundantly without 
 him. There is a ground that is yet unbroken, and 
 there are resources which are still unexplored, 
 that will yield a far more substantial produce to 
 the good of humanity, than he, and thousands as 
 wealthy as he, could render to it, out of all their 
 capabilities. 
 
 But there is a far w 
 
 vider mischief inflicted 
 
PUociTV. 123 
 
 the cause of charity, by the poor man who is un¬ 
 generous in his desires; by him, whom every act 
 of kindness is sure to call out to the reaction of 
 some new demand, or new expectation; by him, 
 on whom the hand of a giver has the effect, not of 
 appeasing his wants, but of inflaming his rapacity; 
 by him who, trading among the sympathies of the 
 credulous, can dexterously appropriate for himself 
 a portion tenfold greater than what would have 
 blest and brightened the aspect of many a deser¬ 
 ving family. Him we denounce as the worst 
 enemy of the poor. It is he whose ravenous gripe 
 wrests from them a far more abundant benefaction, 
 than is done by the most lordly and unfeeling pro¬ 
 prietor in the land. He is the arch-oppressor of 
 his brethren; and the amount of the robbery which 
 he has practised upon them, is not to he estimated 
 by the alms which he has monopolized, by the 
 food, or the raiment, or the money, which he has 
 diverted to himself, from the more modest sufferers 
 around him. He has done what is infinitely worse 
 than turning aside the stream of charity. lie has 
 closed its floodgates. He has chilled and alienated 
 the hearts of the wealthy, by the gall of bitterness 
 which he has infused into this whole ministration. 
 A few such harpies would suffice to exile a whole 
 neighbourhood from the attentions of the benevo¬ 
 lent, by the distrust and the jealousy wherewith 
 they have poisoned their bosoms, and laid an arrest 
 on all the sensibilities that else would have flowed 
 from them. It is he who, ever on the watch and 
 on the wing about some enterprise of imposture, 
 makes it his business to work and to prey on the 
 
124 ti 
 
 compassionate principles of our nature; it is he 
 who, in effect, grinds the faces of the poor, and 
 that, with deadlier severity than even is done by 
 the great baronial tyrant, the battlements of whose 
 castle seem to frown, in all the pride of aristo¬ 
 cracy, on the territory that is before it. There 
 
 is, at all times, a kindliness of feeling ready to 
 stream forth, with a tenfold greater liberality than 
 ever, on the humble orders of life; and it is he, 
 and such as he, who have congealed it. He has 
 raised a jaundiced medium between the rich and 
 the poor, in virtue of which, the former eye the 
 latter with suspicion; and there is not a man who 
 wears the garb, and prefers the applications of 
 poverty, that has not suffered from the worthless 
 impostor who has gone before him. They are, in 
 fact, the deceit, and the indolence, and the low 
 sordidness of a few, who have made outcasts of the 
 many, and locked against them the feelings of the 
 wealthy in a kind of iron imprisonment. The rich 
 man who is ungenerous in his doings, keeps back 
 one labourer from the field of charity. But a poor 
 man who is ungenerous in his desires, can expel a 
 thousand labourers in disgust away from it. He 
 sheds a cruel and extended blight over the fair 
 region of philanthropy'; and many have abandoned 
 
 it, who, but for him, would fondly have lingered 
 thereupon; very many, who, but for the way in 
 which their simplicity has been tried and trampled 
 upon, would still have tasted the luxury of doing 
 good unto the poor, and made it their delight, as 
 well as their duty, to expend and expatiate among 
 their habitations. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 125 
 
 We say not this to exculpate the rich, for it is 
 their part not to be weary in well-doing, but to 
 prosecute the work and the labour of love under 
 every discouragement. Neither do we say this 
 to the disparagement of the poor; for the picture 
 we have given is of the few out of the many; and 
 the closer the acquaintance with humble life 
 becomes, will it be the more seen of what a high 
 pitch of generosity even the poorest are capable. 
 They, in truth, though perhaps they are not aware 
 of it, can contribute more to the cause of charity, 
 by the moderation of their desires, than the rich 
 can by the generosity of their doings. They, 
 without, it may be, one penny to bestow, might 
 obtain a place in the record of heaven, as the 
 most liberal benefactors of their species. There 
 is nothing in the humble condition of life they 
 occupy, which precludes them from all that is 
 great or graceful in human charity. There is a 
 way in which they may equal, and even outpeer, 
 the wealthiest of the land, in that very virtue of 
 which wealth alone has been conceived to have the 
 exclusive inheritance. There is a pervading 
 character in humanity which the varieties of rank 
 do not obliterate ; and as, in virtue of the common 
 corruption, the poor man may be as effectually the 
 rapacious despoiler of his brethren, as the man of 
 opulence above him—so, there is a common excel¬ 
 lence attainable by both; and through which, the 
 poor man may, to the full, be as splendid in 
 generosity as the rich, and yield a far more impor¬ 
 tant contribution to the peace and comfort of 
 
126 THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 RECIPROCITY. 
 
 To make this plain—it is in virtue of a generous 
 doing on the part of a rich man, when a sum of 
 money is offered for the relief of want; and it is in 
 virtue of a generous desire on the part of a poor 
 man, when this money is refused; when, with the 
 feeling, that his necessities do not just warrant 
 him to be yet a burden upon others, he declines to 
 touch the offered liberality; when, with a delicate 
 recoil from the unlooked-for proposal, he still 
 resolves to put it for the present atvay, and to 
 find, if possible, for himself a little longer ; when, 
 standing on the very margin of dependence, lie 
 would yet like to struggle with the difficulties of 
 his situation, and to maintain this severe but hon¬ 
 ourable conflict, till hard necessity should force 
 him to surrender. Let the money which he has 
 thus so nobly shifted from himself take some new 
 direction to another; and who, we ask, is the 
 giver of it ? The first and most obvious reply is, 
 that it is he who owned it: but, it is still more 
 emphatically true, that it is he who has declined 
 it. It came originally out of the rich man’s 
 abundance; but it was the noble-hearted generosity 
 of the poor man that handed it onwards to its final 
 destination. He did not emanate the gift; but it 
 is just as much that he has not absorbed it, but 
 left it to find its full conveyance to some neighbour 
 poorer than himself, to some family still more 
 friendless and destitute than his own. It was 
 given the first time out of an overflowing fulness. 
 It is given the second time out of stinted and self- 
 denying penury. In the world’s eye, it is the 
 proprietor who bestowed the charity. But, in 
 
RECIPROCITY. 127 
 
 heaven’s eye, the poor man who waived it away 
 from himself to another is the more illustrious 
 philanthropist of the two. The one gave it out 
 of his affluence. The other gave it out of the 
 sweat of his brow. He rose up early, and sat up 
 late, that he might have it to bestow on a poorer 
 than himself; and without once stretching forth a 
 giver’s hand to the necessities of his brethren, 
 still is it possible, that by him, and such as him, 
 may the main burden of this world’s benevolence 
 be borne. 
 
 It need scarcely be remarked, that, without 
 supposing the offer of any sum made to a poor 
 man who is generous in his desires, he, by simply 
 keeping himself back from the distributions of 
 charity, fulfils all the high functions which we have 
 now ascribed to him. He leaves the charitable 
 fund untouched for all that distress which is more 
 clamorous than his own; and we, therefore, look, 
 not to the original givers of the money, but to 
 those who line, as it were, the margin of pauperism, 
 and yet firmly refuse to enter it—we look upon 
 them as the pre-eminent benefactors of society, 
 who narrow, as it were, by a wall of defence, the 
 ground of human dependence, and are, in fact, 
 the guides and the guardians of all that opulence 
 can bestow. 
 
 Thus it is, that when Christianity becomes 
 universal, the doings of the one party, and the 
 desires of the other, will meet and overpass. The 
 poor will wish for no more than the rich will be 
 delighted to bestow; and the rule of our text, 
 which every real Christian at present finds so 
 
128 
 
 practicable, will, w r hen carried over the face of 
 society, bind all the members of it into one con¬ 
 senting brotherhood. The duty of doing good to 
 others will then coalesce with that counterpart 
 duty which regulates our desires of good from 
 them; and the work of benevolence will, at length, 
 be prosecuted without that alloy of rapacity on 
 the one hand, and distrust on the other, which 
 serves so much to fester and disturb the whole of 
 this ministration. To complete this adjustment, 
 it is in every way as necessary to lay all the 
 incumbent moralities on those who ask, as on 
 those who confer; and never till the whole text, 
 which comprehends the wishes of man as well as 
 his actions, wield its entire authority over the 
 species, will the disgusts and the prejudices, which 
 form such a barrier between the ranks of human 
 life, be effectually done away. It is not by the 
 aholition of rank, but by assigning to each rank 
 its duties, that peace, and friendship, and order, 
 will at length be firmly established in our world. 
 It is by the force of principle, and not by the force 
 of some great political overthrow, that a consum¬ 
 mation so delightful is to be attained. We have 
 no conception whatever, that, even in millennial 
 days, the diversities of wealth and station will at 
 length be equalized. On looking forward to the 
 time when kings shall be the nursing fathers, and 
 queens the nursing mothers of our church, we 
 think that we can behold the perspective of as 
 varied a distribution of place and property as 
 before. In the pilgrimage of life, there will still 
 be the moving procession of the few chariotted in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 129 
 
 splendour on the highway, and the many pacing 
 by their side along the line of the same journey. 
 There will, perhaps, be a somewhat more elevated 
 footpath for the crowd; and there will be an air of 
 greater comfort and sufficiency amongst them; 
 and .the respectability of evident worth and good¬ 
 ness will sit upon the countenance of this general 
 population. But, bating these, we look for no 
 great change in the external aspect of society. 
 It will only be a moral and a spiritual change. 
 Kings will retain their sceptres, and nobles their 
 coronets ; but, as they float in magnificence along, 
 will they look with benignant feeling on the humble 
 wayfarers; and the honest salutations of regard 
 and.reverence will arise to them back again; and, 
 should any weary passenger be ready to sink un¬ 
 friended on his career, will he, at one time, be 
 borne onwards by his fellows on the pathway, and, 
 at another, will a shower of beneficence be made 
 to descend from the crested equipage that over¬ 
 takes him. It is Utopianism to think, that, in 
 the ages of our world which are yet to come, the 
 outward distinctions of life will not all be upholden. 
 But it is not Utopianism, it is Prophecy to aver, 
 that the breath of a new spirit will go abroad over 
 the great family of mankind—so, that while, to 
 the end of time, there shall be the high and the 
 low in every passing generation, will the charity of 
 kindred feelings, and of a common understanding, 
 create a fellowship between them on their way, 
 till they reach that heaven where human love 
 shall be perfected, and all human greatness is 
 unknown. 
 
130 THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 In various places of the New Testament, do we 
 see the checks of spirit and delicacy laid upon all 
 extravagant desires. Our text, while it enjoins 
 the performance of good to others, up to the full 
 measure of your desires of good from them, equally 
 enjoins the keeping down of these desires to the 
 measure of your performances. If Christian 
 dispensers had only to do with Christian recipients, 
 the whole work of benevolence would be with ease 
 and harmony carried on. All that was unavoidable 
 —all that came from the hand of Providence—all 
 that was laid upon our suffering brethren by the 
 unlooked-for visitations of accident or disease—all 
 that pain or misfortune which necessarily attaches 
 to the constitution of the species—all this the fext 
 most amply provides for; and all this a Christian 
 society would be delighted to stretch forth their 
 means for the purpose of alleviating or doing 
 
 We should not have dwelt so long upon this 
 lesson, were it not for the essential Christian 
 principle that is involved in it. The morality of 
 the gospel is not more strenuous on the side of the 
 duty' of giving of this world’s goods when it is 
 needed, than it is against the desire of receiving 
 when it is not needed. It is more blessed to give 
 than to receive, and therefore less blessed to receive 
 than to give. For the enforcement of this principle 
 among the poorer brethren, did Paul give up a 
 vast portion of his apostolical time and labour; 
 and that he might be an ensample to the flock of 
 working with his own hands, rather than be 
 burdensome, did he set himself down to the occu- 
 
CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 131 
 
 pation of a tent-maker. That lesson is surely 
 worthy of engrossing one sermon of an uninspired 
 teacher, for the sake of which an inspired Apostle 
 of the Gentiles engrossed as much time as would 
 have admitted the preparation and the delivery of 
 many sermons. But there is no more striking 
 indication of the whole spirit and character of the 
 gospel in this matter, than the example of him who 
 is the author of it—and of whom we read these 
 affecting words, that he came into the world not 
 to be ministered unto, but to minister. It is a 
 righteous thing in him who has of this world’s 
 goods, to minister to the necessities of others : but 
 it is a still higher attainment of righteousness in 
 him who has nothing but the daily earnings of his 
 daily work to depend upon, so to manage and to 
 strive that he shall not need to be ministered unto. 
 Christianity overlooks no part of human conduct; 
 and by providing for this in particular, does it, in 
 fact, overtake, and that with a precept of utmost 
 importance, the habit and condition of a very 
 extended class of human society. And never does 
 the gospel so exhibit its adaptation to our species 
 —and never does virtue stand in such characters 
 of strength and sacredness before us—as when 
 impregnated with the evangelical spirit, and urged 
 by evangelical motives, it takes its most direct 
 sanction from the life and doings of the Saviour. 
 
 And he who feels as he ought, will bear with 
 cheerfulness all that the Saviour prescribes, when 
 he thinks how much it is for him that the Saviour 
 has borne. We speak not of his poverty all the 
 time that He lived upon earth. We speak not of 
 
132 THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF RECIPROCITY. 
 
 those years when, a houseless wanderer in an 
 unthankful world, He had not where to lay his 
 head. We speak not of the meek and uncom¬ 
 plaining sufferance with which He met the many 
 ills that oppressed the tenor of His mortal existence. 
 But we speak of that awful burden which crushed 
 and overwhelmed its termination. We speak of 
 that season of the hour and the power of darkness, 
 when it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, and to 
 make His soul an olfering for sin. To estimate 
 aright the endurance of Him who himself bore our 
 infirmities, would we ask of any individual to 
 recollect some deep and awful period of abandon¬ 
 ment in his own history—when that countenance 
 which at one time beamed and brightened upon 
 Him from above, was mantled in thickest darkness 
 —when the iron of remorse entered into his soul— 
 and, laid on a bed of torture, he was made to 
 behold the evil of sin, and to taste of its bitterness. 
 Let him look back, if he can, on this conflict of 
 many agitations, and then figure the whole of this 
 mental wretchedness to be borne off by the ministers 
 of vengeance into hell, and stretched out unto 
 eternity. And if, on the great day of expiation, a 
 full atonement was rendered, and all that should 
 have fallen upon us was placed upon the head of 
 the sacrifice—let him hence compute the weight 
 and the awfulness of those sorrows which were 
 carried by Him on whom the chastisement of our 
 peace was laid, and who poured out His soul unto 
 the death for us. If ever a sinner, under such a 
 visitation, shall again emerge into peace and joy in 
 believing—if he ever shall again find his way to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 RECIPROCITY. 133 
 
 that fountain which is opened in the house of Judah 
 —if he shall recover once more that sunshine of 
 the soul, which, on the days that are past, disclosed 
 to him the beauties of holiness here, and the 
 glories of heaven hereafter—if ever he shall hear 
 with effect, in this world, that voice from the 
 mercy-seat, which still proclaims a welcome to the 
 chief of sinners, and beckons him afresh to recon¬ 
 ciliation—O ! how gladly then should he bear, 
 throughout the remainder of his days, the whole 
 authority of the Lord who bought him; and bind 
 for ever to his own person that yoke of the Saviour 
 which is easy, and that burden which is light. 
 
134 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 “ Let uo man deceive you witli vain words : for because of these 
 things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobe¬ 
 dience.”—E phes. v. G. 
 
 There is one obvious respect in which the standard 
 of morality amongst men, differs from that pure 
 and universal standard which God hath set up for 
 the obedience of His subjects. Men will not de¬ 
 mand very urgently of each other, that, which does 
 not very nearly, or very immediately, affect their 
 own personal, and particular interest. To the 
 violations of justice, or truth, or humanity, they 
 will be abundantly sensitive, because these offer a 
 most visible and quickly felt encroachment on this 
 interest. And thus it is, that the social virtues, 
 even without any direct sanction from God at all, will 
 ever draw a certain portion of respect and reverence 
 around them; and that a loud testimony of abhor¬ 
 rence mayoften beheardfromthe mouthsof ungodly 
 men, against all such vices as may be classed under 
 the general designation of vices of dishonesty. 
 
 Now, the same thing does not hold true of 
 another class of vices, which may be termed the 
 vices of dissipation. These do not touch, in so 
 visible or direct a manner, on the security of what 
 man possesses, and of what man has the greatest 
 value for. But man is a selfish being, and there- 
 
ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 135 
 
 fore it is, that the ingredient of selfishness gives 
 a keenness to his estimation of the evil and enormity 
 of the former vices, which is scarcely felt at all in 
 any estimation he may form of the latter vices. It 
 is very true, at the same time, that if one were to 
 compute the whole amount of the mischief they 
 bring upon society, it would he found, that the 
 profligacies of mere dissipation go, very far to break 
 up the peace, and enjoyment, and even the relative 
 virtues of the world; and that, if these profligacies 
 were reformed, it would work a mighty augmenta¬ 
 tion on the temporal good both of individuals and 
 families. But the connexion between sobriety 
 of character, and the happiness of the community, 
 is not so apparent, because it is more remote 
 than the connexion which obtains between integrity 
 of character, and the happiness of the community; 
 and man being not only a selfish but a short-sighted 
 being, it follows, that while the voice of execration 
 may be distinctly heard against every instance of 
 fraud or of injustice, instances of licentiousness 
 may occur on every side of us, and be reported on 
 the one hand with the utmost levity, and be listened 
 to, on the other, with the most entire and complacent 
 toleration. 
 
 Here, then, is a point, in which the general 
 morality of the world is at utter and irreconcile- 
 able variance with the law of God. Here is a 
 case, in which the voice that cometh forth from 
 the tribunal of public opinion pronounces one 
 thing, and the voice that cometh forth from the 
 sanctuary of God pronounces another. When 
 there is an agreement between these two voices, 
 
136 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES 
 
 the principle on which obedience is rendered to 
 their joint and concurring authority, may be alto¬ 
 gether equivocal; and, with religious and irreligious 
 men, you may observe an equal exhibition of all 
 the equities, and all the civilities of life. But 
 when there is a discrepancy between these two 
 voices—or when the one attaches a criminality to 
 certain habits of conduct, and is not at all seconded 
 by the testimony of the other—then do we escape 
 the confusion of mingled motives, and mingled 
 authorities. The character of the two parties 
 emerges out of the ambiguity which involved it. 
 The law of God points, it must be allowed, as 
 forcible an anathema against the man of dishonesty, 
 as against the man of dissipation. But the chief 
 burden of the world’s anathema is laid on the head 
 of the former; and therefore it is, that, on the latter 
 ground, we meet with more discriminative tests of 
 principle, and gather more satisfying materials for 
 the question of—who is on the side of the Lord of 
 hosts, and who is against Him ? 
 
 The passage we have now submitted to you, 
 looks hard on the votaries of dissipation. It is 
 like eternal truth, lifting up its own proclamation, 
 and causing it to be heard amid the errors and the 
 delusions of a thoughtless world. It is like the 
 Deity himself, looking forth, as He did, from a 
 cloud, on the Egyptians of old, and troubling the 
 souls of those who are lovers of pleasures, more 
 than lovers of God. It is like the voice of heaven, 
 crying down the voice of human society, and send¬ 
 ing forth a note of alarm amongst its giddy genera¬ 
 tions. It is like the unrolling of a portion of that 
 
[E DISSIPATION 
 
 OF LARGE CITIES. 137 
 
 book of higher jurisprudence, out of which we 
 shall be judged on the day of our coining account, 
 and setting before our eyes an enactment, which, 
 if we disregard it, will turn that day into the day 
 of our coming condemnation. The words of man 
 are adverted to in this solemn proclamation of God, 
 against all unlawful and all unhallowed enjoyments, 
 and they are called words of vanity. He sets 
 aside the authority of human opinion altogether; 
 and, on an irrevocable record, has He stamped 
 such an assertion of the authority that belongeth 
 to Himself only, as serves to the end of time for an 
 enduring memorial of His will; and as commits 
 the truth of the Lawgiver to the execution of a 
 sentence of wrath against all whose souls are 
 hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. There is, in 
 fact, a peculiar deceitfulness in the matter before 
 us ; and, in this verse, are we warned against it— 
 “ Let no man deceive you with vain words; for, 
 oecause of these things, the wrath of God cometh 
 on the children of disobedience.” 
 
 In the preceding verse, there is such an enumera¬ 
 tion as serves to explain what the things are which 
 are alluded to in the text; and it is such an enu¬ 
 meration, you should remark, as goes to fasten the 
 whole terror, and the whole threat, of the coming 
 vengeance—not on the man who combines in his 
 own person all the characters of iniquity which are 
 specified, but on the man who realizes any one of 
 these characters. It is not, you will observe, the 
 conjunction and, but the conjunction or, which is 
 interposed between them. It is not as if we said, 
 that the man who is dishonest, and licentious, and 
 
138 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 covetous, and unfeeling, shall not inherit the king¬ 
 dom of God—but the man who is either dishonest, 
 or licentious, or covetous, or unfeeling. On the 
 single and exclusive possession of any one of these 
 attributes, will God deal with you as with an enemy. 
 The plea, that we are a little thoughtless, but we 
 have a good heart, is conclusively cut asunder by 
 this portion of the law and of the testimony. And 
 in a corresponding passage, in the ninth verse of 
 the sixth chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the 
 Corinthians, the same peculiarity is observed in 
 the enumeration of those who shall be excluded 
 from God’s favour, and have the burden of God’s 
 wrath laid on them through eternity. It is not 
 the man who combines all the deformities of charac¬ 
 ter which are there specified, but the man who 
 realizes any one of the separate deformities. Some 
 of them are the vices of dishonesty, others of them 
 are the vices of dissipation; and, as if aware of a 
 deceitfulness from this cause, he, after telling us 
 that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom 
 of God, bids us not he deceived—for that neither 
 the licentious, nor the abominable, nor thieves, nor 
 covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extor¬ 
 tioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 
 
 He who keepeth the whole law, but offendeth 
 in one point, says the Apostle James, is guilty of 
 all. The truth is, that his disobedience on this 
 one point may- be more decisive of the state of his 
 loyalty to God, than his keeping of all the rest. It 
 may be the only point on which the character of 
 his loyalty is really brought to the trial. All his 
 conformities to the law of God might have been 
 
ON THE DISSIPATI 
 
 LARGE CITIES. 139 
 
 rendered, because they thwarted not his own 
 inclination; and, therefore, would have been ren¬ 
 dered,. though there had been no law at all. The 
 single infraction may have taken place in the only 
 case where there was a real competition between 
 the will of the creature, and the will of the Creator; 
 and the event proves to which of the two the right 
 of superiority is awarded. Allegiance to God in 
 truth is but one principle, and may be described 
 by one short and summary expression; and one 
 act of disobedience may involve in it such a total 
 surrender of the principle, as goes to dethrone 
 God altogether from the supremacy which belongs 
 to Him. So that the account between a creature 
 and the Creator is not like an account made up of 
 many items, where the expunging of one item 
 would only make one small and fractional deduc¬ 
 tion from the whole sum of obedience. If you 
 reserve but a single item from this account, and 
 another makes a principle of completing and ren¬ 
 dering up the whole of it, then your character 
 varies from his not by a slight shade of difference, 
 but stands contrasted with it in direct and diametric 
 opposition. We perceive, that, while with him 
 the will of God has the mastery over all his 
 inclinations, with you there is, at least, one inclina¬ 
 tion which has the mastery over the will of God; 
 that, while in his bosom there exists a single and 
 subordinating principle of allegiance to the law, in 
 yours there exists another principle, which, on the 
 coming round of a fit opportunity, developes itself 
 in an act of transgression; that, while with him 
 God may be said to walk and to dwell in him, with 
 
140 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 you there is an evil visitant, who has taken up his 
 abode in your heart, and lodges there either in a 
 state of dormancy or of action, according to circum¬ 
 stances; that, while with him the purpose is honestly 
 proceeded on, of doing nothing which God dis¬ 
 approves, with you there is a purpose not only 
 different, but opposite, of doing something which 
 he disapproves. On this single difference is sus¬ 
 pended not a question of degree, but a question 
 of kind. There are presented to us not two hues 
 of the same colour, but two colours, just as broadly 
 contrasted with each other as light and darkness. 
 And such is the state of the alternative between 
 a partial and an unreserved obedience, that while 
 God imperatively claims the one as his due, He 
 looks on the other as an expression of defiance 
 against Him, and against His sovereignty. 
 
 It is the very same in civil government. A 
 man renders himself an outcast by one act of dis¬ 
 obedience. He does not need to accumulate upon 
 himself the guilt of all the higher atrocities in crime, 
 ere he forfeits his life to the injured laws of bis 
 country. By the perpetration of any one of them 
 is the whole vengeance of the state brought to bear 
 upon his person; and sentence of death is pro¬ 
 nounced on a single murder, or forgery, or act of 
 violent depredation. 
 
 And let us ask you just to reflect on the tone 
 and spirit of that man towards his God, who would 
 palliate, for example, the vices of dissipation to 
 which he is addicted, by alleging his utter exemp¬ 
 tion from the vices of dishonesty, to which he is 
 not addicted. Just think of the real disposition 
 
LARGE CITIES. 141 
 
 and character of his soul, who can say, “ I will 
 please God, but only when, in so doing, I also 
 please- myself; or I will do homage to His law, but 
 just in those instances by which I honour the rights, 
 and fulfil the expectations, of society; or I will be 
 decided by His opinion of the right and the wrong, 
 but just when the opinion of my neighbourhood lends 
 its powerful and effective confirmation. But in 
 other cases, when the matter is reduced to a bare 
 question between man and God, when He is the 
 single party I have to do with, when His will and 
 His wrath are the only elements which enter into 
 the deliberation, when judgment, and eternity, and 
 the voice of him who speaketh from heaven are 
 the only considerations at issue—then do I feel 
 myself at greater liberty, and I shall take my own 
 way, and walk in the counsel of mine own heart, 
 and after the sight of my own eyes.” O! be 
 assured, that when all this is laid bare on the day 
 of reckoning, and the discerner of the heart pro¬ 
 nounces upon it, and such a sentence is to be given, 
 as will make it manifest to the consciences of all 
 assembled, that true and righteous are the judg¬ 
 ments of God—there is many a creditable man 
 who has passed through the world with the plaudits 
 and the testimonies of all his fellows, and without 
 one other flaw upon his reputation but the very 
 slender one of certain harmless foibles, and certain 
 good-humoured peculiarities, who, when brought 
 to the bar of account, will stand convicted there of 
 having made a divinity of his own will, and spent 
 his days in practical and habitual atheism. 
 
 And this argument is not at all affected by the 
 
142 ON THE DISSIJ 
 
 LARGE CITIES. 
 
 actual state of sinfulness and infirmity into which 
 we have fallen. It is true, even of saints on earth, 
 that they commit sin. But to be overtaken in 
 a fault is one thing; to commit that fault with 
 the deliberate consent of the mind is another. 
 There is in the bosom of every true Christian a 
 strenuous principle of resistance to sin, and it 
 belongs to the very essence of the principle that it 
 is resistance to all sin. It admits of no voluntary 
 indulgence to one sin more than to another. Such 
 an indulgence would not only change the character 
 of what may be called the elementary principle 
 of regeneration, but would destroy it altogether. 
 The man who has entered on a course of Christian 
 discipleship, carries on an unsparing and universal 
 war with all iniquity. He has chosen Christ for 
 his alone master, and he struggles against the 
 ascendancy of every other. It is his sustained and 
 habitual exertion in following after Him to forsake 
 all; so that if his performance were as complete 
 as his endeavour, you would not merely see a con¬ 
 formity to some of the precepts, but a conformity 
 to the whole law of God. At all events, the 
 endeavour is an honest one, and so far successful, 
 that sin has not the dominion; and sure we are, 
 that, in such a state of things, the vices of dissipa¬ 
 tion can have no existence. These vices can be 
 more effectually shunned, and more effectually 
 surmounted for example, than the infirmities of an 
 unhappy temper. So that, if dissipation still 
 attaches to the character, and appears in the con¬ 
 duct of any individual, we know not a more decisive 
 evidence of the state cf that individual as being 
 
ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 143 
 
 one of the many who crowd the broad way that 
 leadeth to destruction. We look no further to 
 make.out our estimate of his present condition as 
 being that of a rebel, and of his future prospect as 
 being that of spending an eternity in hell. There 
 is no halting between two opinions in this matter. 
 The man who enters a career of dissipation throws 
 down the gauntlet of defiance to his God. The 
 man who persists in this career keeps on the ground 
 of hostility against him. 
 
 Let us now endeavour to trace the origin, the 
 progress, and the effects, of a life of dissipation. 
 
 First. Then it may be said of a very great 
 number of young, on their entrance into the business 
 of the world, that they have not been enough 
 fortified against its seducing influences by their 
 previous education at home. Generally speaking, 
 they come out from the habitation of their parents 
 unarmed and unprepared for the contest which 
 awaits them. If the spirit of this world’s morality 
 reign in their own family, then it cannot be, that 
 that their introduction into a more public scene 
 of life will be very strictly guarded against those 
 vices on which the world placidly smiles, or at least 
 regards with silent toleration. They may have 
 been told, in early boyhood, of the infamy of a lie. 
 They may have had the virtues of punctuality, and 
 of economy, and of regular attention to business, 
 pressed upon their observation. They may have 
 heard a uniform testimony on the side of good 
 behaviour, up to the standard of such current 
 moralities as obtain in their neighbourhood; and 
 this, we are ready to admit, may include in it a 
 
144 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 testimony against all such excesses of dissipation 
 as would unfit them for the prosecution of this 
 world’s interests. But let us ask, whether there 
 are not parents, who, after they have carried the 
 work of discipline thus far, forbear to carry it any 
 farther; who, while they would mourn over it as a 
 family trial should any son of theirs fall a victim 
 to excessive dissipation, yet are willing to tolerate 
 the lesser degrees of it; who, instead of deciding 
 the question on the alternative of his heaven or his 
 hell, are satisfied with such a measure of sobriety 
 as will save him from ruin and disgrace in this life; 
 who, if they can only secure this, have no great 
 objection to the moderate share he may take in this 
 world’s conformities ; who feel, that in this matter 
 there is a necessity and a power of example against 
 which it is vain to struggle, and which must be 
 acquiesced in; who deceive themselves with the 
 fancied impossibility of stopping the evil in question 
 —and say, that business must be gone through ; 
 and that, in the prosecution of it, exposures must 
 be made ; and that, for the success of it, a certain 
 degree of accommodation to others must be 
 observed; and seeing that it is so mighty an 
 object for one to widen the extent of his connex¬ 
 ions, he must neither be very retired nor very 
 peculiar—nor must his hours of companionship be 
 too jealously watched or inquired into—nor must 
 we take him too strictly to task about engagements, 
 and acquaintances, and expenditure—nor must we 
 forget, that while sobriety has its time and it= 
 season in one period of life, indulgence has its 
 season in another; and we may fetch from the 
 
145 
 
 recollected follies of our own youth, a lesson of 
 connivance for the present occasion; and alto¬ 
 gether there is no help for it; and it appears to us, 
 that absolutely and totally to secure him from ever 
 entering upon scenes of dissipation, you must 
 absolutely and totally withdraw him from the world, 
 and surrender all his prospects of advancement, 
 and give up the object of such a provision for our 
 families as we feel to be a first and most impor¬ 
 tant concern with us. 
 
 “ Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
 righteousness,” says the Bible, “ and all other 
 things shall be added unto you.” This is the ' 
 promise which the faith of a Christian parent will 
 rest upon ; and in the face of every hazard to the 
 worldly interests of his offspring, will he bring them 
 up in the strict nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord ; and he will loudly protest against iniquity, 
 in all its degrees, and in all its modifications; and 
 while the power of discipline remains with him, will 
 it ever be exerted on the side of pure, faultless, 
 undeviating obedience; and he will tolerate no 
 exception whatever; and he will brave all that 
 looks formidable in singularity, and all that looks 
 menacing in separation from the custom and coun¬ 
 tenance of the world; and feeling that his main 
 concern is to secure for himself and for his family 
 a place in the city which hath foundations, will he 
 spurn all the maxims, and all the plausibilities, of 
 a contagious neighbourhood away from him. He 
 knows the price of his Christianity, and it is that 
 he must break off conformity with the world—nor 
 for any paltry advantage which it has to offer, will 
 
146 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 he compromise the eternity of his children. And 
 let us tell the parents of another spirit, and another 
 principle, that they are as good as incurring the 
 guilt of a human sacrifice; that they are offering 
 up their children at the shrme of an idol; that 
 they are parties in provoking the wrath of God 
 against them here; and on the day when that wrath 
 is to be revealed, shall they hear not only the moan- 
 iugs of their despair, but the outcries of their 
 bitterest execration. On that day, the glance of 
 reproach from then- own neglected offspring will 
 throw a deeper shade of wretchedness over the 
 dark and boundless futurity that lies before them. 
 And if, at the time when prophets rung the tid¬ 
 ings of God’s displeasure against the people of 
 Israel, it was denounced as the foulest of all their 
 abominations that they caused their children to 
 pass through the fire unto Moloch—know ye 
 parents, who, in placing your children on some 
 road to gainful employment, have placed them 
 without a sigh in the midst of depravity, so near 
 and so surrounding, that, without a miracle, they 
 must perish, you have done an act of idolatry to 
 the God of this world; you have commanded your 
 household, after you, to worship him as the great 
 divinity of their lives; and you have caused your 
 children to make their approaches unto his pre¬ 
 sence—and, in so doing, to pass through the fire 
 of such temptations as have destroyed them. 
 
 We do not wish to offer you an overcharged 
 picture on this melancholy subject. What we now 
 say is not applicable to all. Even in the most 
 corrupt and crowded of our cities, parents are to 
 
VTION OF LARGE CITIES. H7 
 
 lie found, who nobly dare the surrender of every 
 vain and flattering illusion, rather than surrender 
 the Christianity of their children. And what is 
 still more affecting, over the face of the country do 
 we meet with such parents, who look on this world 
 as a passage to another, and on all the members of 
 their household as fellow-travellers to eternity along 
 with them ; and who, in this true spirit of believers, 
 feel the salvation of their children to be, indeed, 
 the burden of their best and their dearest interest; 
 and who, by prayer, and precept, and example, 
 have strenuously laboured with their souls, from 
 the earliest light of their understanding; and have. 
 taught them to tremble at the way of evil-doers, 
 and to have no fellowship with those who keep not 
 the commandments of God—nor is there a day 
 more sorrowful in the annals of this pious family, 
 than when the course of time has brought them 
 onwards to the departure of their eldest boy—and 
 he must bid adieu to his native home, with all the 
 peace, and all the simplicity, which abound in it— 
 and as he eyes in fancy the distant town whither 
 he is going, does he shrink as from the thought of 
 an unknown wilderness—and it is his firm purpose 
 to keep aloof from the dangers and the profligacies 
 which deform it—and, should sinners offer to entice 
 him, not to consent, and never, never, to forget the 
 lessons of a father’s vigilance, the tenderness of a 
 mother’s prayers. 
 
 Let us now, in the next place, pass from that 
 state of things which obtains among the young at 
 their outset into the world, and take a look of that 
 state of things which obtains after they have got 
 
148 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 fairly introduced into it—when the children of the 
 ungodly, and the children of the religious, meet oil 
 one common arena—when business associates them 
 together in one chamber, and the omnipotence of 
 custom lays it upon them all to meet together at 
 periodic intervals, and join in the same parties, and 
 the same entertainments—when the yearly impor¬ 
 tation of youths fromthe country falls in with that 
 assimilating mass of corruption which has got so firm 
 and so rooted an establishment in the town—when 
 the frail and unsheltered delicacies of the timid boy 
 have to stand a rude and a boisterous contest with 
 the hardier depravity of those who have gone 
 before him—when ridicule, and example, and the 
 vain words of a delusive sophistry, which palliates 
 in his hearing the enormity of vice, are all brought 
 to bear upon his scruples, and to stifle the remorse 
 he might feel when he casts his principle and his 
 purity away from him—when, placed as he is in a 
 land of strangers, he finds, that the tenure of 
 acquaintanceship, with nearly all around him, is, 
 that he render himself up in a conformity to their 
 doings—when a voice, like the voice of protecting 
 friendship, bids him to the feast; and a welcome, 
 like the welcome of honest kindness, hails his 
 accession to the society; and a spirit, like the 
 spirit of exhilarating joy, animates the whole scene 
 of hospitality before him; and hours of rapture roll 
 successively away on the wings of merriment and 
 jocularity, and song; and after the homage of 
 mauy libations has been rendered to honour, and 
 fellowship, and patriotism, impurity is at length 
 proclaimed in full and open cry, as one presiding 
 
DISSIPATION 
 
 2 DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 149 
 
 divinity, at the board of their social entertain¬ 
 ment. 
 
 And now it remains to compute the general 
 result of a process, which we assert of the vast 
 majority of our young, on their way to manhood, 
 that they have to undergo. The result is, that 
 the vast majority are initiated into all the practices, 
 and describe the full career of dissipation. Those 
 who have imbibed from their fathers the spirit of 
 this world’s morality, are not sensibly arrested in 
 this career, either by the opposition of their own 
 friends, or by the voice of their own conscience. 
 Those who have imbibed an opposite spirit, and 
 have brought it into competition with an evil world, 
 and have at length yielded, have done so, we may 
 well suppose, with many a sigh, and many a 
 struggle, and many a look of remembrance on 
 those former years when they were taught to lisp the 
 prayer of infancy, and were trained in a mansion 
 of piety to a reverence for God, and for all his 
 ways; and, even still, will a parent’s parting advice 
 haunt his memory, and a letter from the good old 
 man revive the sensibilities which at one time 
 guarded and adorned him ; and, at times, will the 
 transient gleam of remorse lighten up its agony 
 within him ; and when he contrasts the profaneness 
 and depravity of his present companions, with the 
 saeredness of all he ever heard or saw in his father’s 
 dwelling, it will almost feel as if conscience were 
 again to resume her power, and the revisiting spirit 
 of God to call him back again from the paths of 
 wickedness; and on his restless bed will the images 
 of guilt conspire to disturb him, and the terrors of 
 
150 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 punishment offer to scare him away; and many 
 will be the dreary and dissatisfied intervals when 
 he shall be forced to acknowledge, that, in bartering 
 his soul for the pleasures of sin, he has bartered 
 the peace and enjoyment of the world along with 
 it. But, alas! the entanglements of companionship 
 have got hold of him ; and the inveteracy of habit 
 tyrannizes over all his purposes ; and the stated 
 opportunity again comes round; and the loud 
 laugh of his partners in guilt chases, for another 
 season, all his despondency away from him; and 
 the infatuation gathers upon him every month ; 
 and a hardening process goes on within his heart; 
 and the deceitfulness of sin grows apace; and he 
 at length becomes one of the sturdiest and most 
 unrelenting of her votaries; and he, in his turn, 
 strengthens the conspiracy that is formed against 
 the morals of a new generation ; and all the inge¬ 
 nuous delicacies of other days are obliterated; and 
 he contracts a temperament of knowing, hackneyed, 
 unfeeling depravity: and thus the mischief is trans¬ 
 mitted from one year to another, and keeps up the 
 guilty history of every place of crowded population. 
 
 And let us here speak one word to those seniors 
 in depravity—those men who give to the corruption 
 of acquaintances, who are younger than themselves, 
 then - countenance and their agency; who can 
 initiate them without a sigh in the mysteries of 
 guilt, and care not though a parent’s hope should 
 wither and expire under the contagion of their 
 ruffian example. It is only upon their own con¬ 
 version that we can speak to them the pardon of 
 the gospel. It is only if they themselves are 
 
ON THE DISSIPATION 
 
 LARGE CITIES. 151 
 
 washed, and sanctified, and justified, that we can 
 warrant their personal deliverance from the wrath 
 that is to come. But under all the concealment 
 which rests on the futurities of God’s administra¬ 
 tion, we know, that there are degrees of suffering 
 in hell—and that, while some are beaten with few 
 stripes, others are beaten with man}'. And surely, 
 if they who turn many to righteousness shall shine 
 as the stars for ever and ever, we may be well 
 assured, that they who patronize the cause of 
 iniquity—they who can beckon others to that way 
 which leadeth on to the chambers of death—they 
 who can aid and witness, without a sigh, the 
 extinction of youthful modesty—surely, it may 
 well be said of such, that on them a darker frown 
 will fall from the judgment-seat, and through 
 eternity will they have to bear the pains of a fiercer 
 indignation. 
 
 Having thus looked to the commencement of a 
 course of dissipation, and to its progress, let us now, 
 in the third place, look to its usual termination. 
 We speak not at present of the coming death, and 
 of the coming judgment, hut of the change which 
 takes place on many a votary of licentiousness, 
 when he becomes what the world calls a reformed 
 man; and puts on the decencies of a sober and 
 domestic establishment; and bids adieu to the 
 pursuits and the profligacies of youth, not because 
 he has repented of them, but because he has out¬ 
 lived them. You all perceive how this may be 
 done without one movement of the heart, or of the 
 understanding, towards God—that it is done by 
 many, though duty to him be not in all their 
 
152 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 thoughts—that the change, in this case, is not from 
 the idol of pleasure unto God, but only from one 
 idol to another—and that, after the whole of this 
 boasted transformation, we may still behold the 
 same body of sin and of death, and only a new 
 complexion thrown over it. There may be the 
 putting on of sobriety, but there is no putting on 
 of go dlin ess. It is a common and an easy transi¬ 
 tion to pass from one kind of disobedience to 
 another, but it is not so easy to give up that 
 rebelliousness of the heart which lies at the root of 
 all disobedience. It may be easy, after the wonted 
 course of dissipation is ended, to hold out another 
 aspect altogether in the eye of acquaintances; but 
 it is not so easy to recover that shock, and that 
 overthrow, which the religious principle sustains, 
 when a man first enters the world, and surrenders 
 himself to the power of its enticements. Such 
 were some of you, says the Apostle, but ye are 
 washed, and sanctified, and justified. Our reformed 
 man knows not the meaning of such a process; and, 
 most assuredly, has not at all realized it in th§ 
 history of his own person. We will not say what 
 new object he is running after. It may be wealth, 
 or ambition, or philosophy; but it is nothing con¬ 
 nected with the interest of his soul. It bears no 
 reference whatever to the concerns of that great 
 relationship which obtains between the creature 
 and the Creator. The man has withdrawn, and 
 perhaps for ever, from the scenes of dissipation, 
 and has betaken himself to another way—but still 
 it is his own way. It is not the will or the way of 
 God that he is yet caring for. Such a man may 
 
THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 153 
 
 bid adieu to profligacy in his own person. But 
 he lifts up the light of his countenance on the 
 profligacy of others. He gives it the whole weight 
 and authority of his connivance. He wields, we 
 will say it, such an instrumentality of seduction 
 over the young, as, though not so alarming, is far 
 more dangerous than the undisguised attempts of 
 those who are the immediate agents of corruption. 
 The formal and deliberate conspiracy of those who 
 club together, at stated terms of companionship, 
 may be all seen, and watched, and guarded against. 
 But how shall we pursue this conspiracy into its 
 other ramifications ? How shall we be able to 
 neutralise that insinuating poison which distils from 
 the lips of grave and respectable citizens ? How 
 shall we be able to dissipate that gloss which is 
 thrown by the smile of elders and superiors over 
 the sins of forbidden indulgence? How can we 
 disarm the bewitching sophistry which lies in all 
 these evident tokens of complacency, on the part 
 of advanced and reputable men ? How is it 
 possible to tract the progress of this sore evil, 
 throughout all the business and intercourse of 
 society ? How can we stem the influence of evil 
 communications, when the friend, and the patron, 
 and the man who has cheered and signalized us by 
 his polite invitations, turns his own family-table 
 into a nursery of licentiousness? How can we 
 but despair of ever witnessing on earth a pure and 
 a holy generation, when even parents will utter 
 their polluting levities in the hearing of their own 
 children; and vice, and humour, and gaiety, are 
 all indiscriminately blended into one conversation; 
 
154 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 and a loud laugh, from the initiated and the 
 uninitiated in profligacy, is ever ready to flatter and 
 to regale the man who can thus prostitute his 
 powers of entertainment? O! for an arm of strength 
 to demolish this firm and far spread compact of 
 iniquity; and for the power of some such piercing 
 and prophetic voice, as might convince our re¬ 
 formed men of the baleful influence they cast 
 behind them on the morals of the succeeding 
 generation. 
 
 We, at the same time, have our eye perfectly 
 open to that great external improvement which has 
 taken place, of late years, hi the manners of society. 
 There is not the same grossness of conversation. 
 There is not the same impatience for the withdraw- 
 ment of him, who, asked to grace the outset of an 
 assembled party, is compelled, at a certain step in 
 the process of conviviality, by the obligations of pro¬ 
 fessional decency, to retire from it. There is not so 
 frequent an exaction of this as one of the established 
 proprieties of social or of fashionable life. And if 
 such an exaction was ever laid by the omnipotence 
 of custom on a minister of Christianity, it is such 
 an exaction as ought never, never, to be complied 
 with. It is not for him to lend the sanction of 
 his presence to a meeting with which he could not 
 sit to its final termination. It is not for him to 
 stand associated, for a single hour, with an assem¬ 
 blage of men who begin with hypocrisy, and end 
 with downright blackguardism. It is not for him 
 to watch the progress of the coming ribaldry, and 
 to hit the well selected moment when talk, and 
 turbulence, and boisterous merriment, are on the 
 
ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 155 
 
 eve of bursting forth upon the company, and 
 carrying them forward to the full acme and uproar 
 of their enjoyment. It is quite in vain to say, that 
 he has only sanctified one part of such an enter¬ 
 tainment. He has as good as given his connivance 
 to the whole of it, and left behind him a discharge 
 in full of all its abominations; and, therefore, be 
 they who they may, whether they rank among the 
 proudest aristocracy of our land, or are chariotted 
 in splendour along, as the wealthiest of the citizens, 
 it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly 
 aloof from such society as this, as he would 
 from the vilest and most debasing associations of 
 profligacy. 
 
 And now the important question comes to be 
 put: what is the likeliest ivay of setting up a 
 barrier against this desolating torrent of corruption, 
 into which there enter so many elements of power and 
 strength, that, to the general eye, it looks altogether 
 irresistible? It is easier to give a negative, than an 
 affirmative answer to this question. And, therefore, 
 it shall be our first remark, that the mischief 
 never will be effectually combated by any expe¬ 
 dient separate from the growth and the transmission 
 of personal Christianity throughout the land. If 
 no addition be made to the stock of religious prin¬ 
 ciple in a country, then the profligacy of a country 
 will make its obstinate stand against all the 
 mechanism of the most skilful, and plausible, and 
 well looking contrivances. It must not be disguised 
 from you, that it does not lie within the compass 
 either of prisons or penitentiaries to work any 
 sensible abatement on the wickedness of our exist- 
 
156 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 ing generation. The operation must be of a 
 preventive, rather than of a corrective tendency. 
 It must be brought to bear upon boyhood; and 
 be kept up through that whole period of random 
 exposures through which it has to run, on its way 
 to an established condition in society; and a high 
 tone of moral purity must be infused into the bosom 
 of many individuals; and their agency will effect, 
 through the channels of family and social connexion, 
 what never can be effected by any framework of 
 artificial regulations, so long as the spirit and 
 character of society remain what they are. In 
 other words, the progress of reformation will 
 never be sensibly carried forward beyond the 
 progress of personal Christianity in the world; and, 
 therefore, the question resolves itself into the 
 likeliest method of adding to the number of Chris¬ 
 tian parents who may fortify the principles of their 
 children at their first outset in life—of adding to 
 the number of Christian young men, who might 
 nobly dare to be singular, and to perform the angelic 
 office of guardians and advisers to those who are 
 younger than themselves—of adding to the number 
 of Christians in middle and advanced life, who 
 might, as far .as in them lies, alter the general 
 feeling and countenance of society; and blunt the 
 force of that tacit hut most seductive testimony, 
 which has done so much to throw a palliative veil 
 over the guilt of a life of dissipation. 
 
 Such a question cannot be entered upon, at 
 present, in all its bearings, and in all its generality. 
 And we must, therefore, simply satisfy ourselves 
 with the object, that as we have attempted already 
 
ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 157 
 
 to reproach the indifference of parents, and to 
 reproach the unfeeling depravity of those young 
 men who scatter their pestilential levities around 
 the whole circle of their companionship, we may 
 now shortly attempt to lay upon the men of middle 
 and advanced life, in general society, their share of 
 responsibility for the morals of the rising generation. 
 For the promotion of this great cause, it is not at 
 all necessary to school them into any nice or 
 exquisite contrivances. Could we only give them 
 a desire towards it, and a sense of obligation, they 
 would soon find their own way to the right exercise 
 of their own influence in forwarding the interests of 
 purity and virtue among the young. Could we 
 only affect their consciences on this point, there 
 ■would be almost no necessity whatever to guide or 
 enlighten their understanding. Could tve only 
 get them to be Christians, and to carry their 
 Christianity into their business, they would then 
 feel themselves invested with a guardianship ; and 
 that time, and pains, and attention, ought to be 
 given to the fulfilment of its concerns. It is quite 
 in vain to ask, as if there was any mystery, or any 
 helplessness about it, “ What can they do ?” For, 
 is it not a fact most palpably obvious, that much 
 can be done even by the mere power of example ? 
 Or might not the master of any trading establish¬ 
 ment send the pervading influence of his own 
 principles among some, at least, of the servants 
 and auxiliaries who belong to it ? Or can he, in 
 no degree whatever, so select those who are 
 admitted, as to ward off much contamination from 
 the branches of his employ ? Or might not he so 
 
158 ON THE DISSIPATION OF LARGE CITIES. 
 
 deal out his encouragement to the deserving, as to 
 confirm them in all their purposes of sobriety? 
 Or might not he interpose the shield of his counte¬ 
 nance and his testimony between a struggling 
 youth and the ridicule of his acquaintances? Or, by 
 the friendly conversation of half an hour, might not 
 he strengthen within him every principle of virtuous 
 resistance ? By these, and by a thousand other 
 expedients, which will readily suggest themselves 
 to him who has the good will, might not a healing 
 water be sent forth through the most corrupted of 
 all our establishments; and it be made safe for the 
 uuguarded young to officiate in its chambers; and 
 it be made possible to enter upon the business of 
 the world without entering on such a scene of 
 temptation, as to render almost inevitable the vice 
 of the w'orld, and its impiety, and its final and ever¬ 
 lasting condemnation ? Would Christians only be 
 open and intrepid, and carry their religion into 
 their merchandise; and furnish us with a single 
 hundred of such houses in this city, where the care 
 and character of the master formed a guarantee 
 for the sobriety of all his dependents, it would be 
 like the clearing out of a piece of cultivated ground 
 in the midst of a frightful wilderness : and parents 
 would know whither they could repair with confi¬ 
 dence for the settlement of their offspring; and 
 we should behold, what is mightily to be desired, 
 a line of broad and visible demarcation between 
 the church and the world; and an interest so 
 precious as the immortality of children, would no 
 longer beleftto the play of such fortuitous elements, 
 as operated at random throughout the confused 
 
159 
 
 mass of a mingled and indiscriminate society. And 
 thus, the pieties of a father’s house might bear to 
 be transplanted even into the scenes of ordinary 
 business; and instead of withering, as they do at 
 present, under a contagion which spreads in every 
 direction, and fills up the whole face of the com¬ 
 munity, they might flourish in that moral region 
 which was occupied by a peculiar people, and 
 which they had reclaimed from a world that lieth 
 in wickedness. 
 
160 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 ON THE VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE 
 HIGHER UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences 
 
 were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
 
 and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these 
 
 To offend another, according to the common 
 acceptation of the words, is to displease him. 
 Now, this is not its acceptation in the verse before 
 us, nor in several other verses of the New Testa¬ 
 ment. It were coming nearer to the scriptural 
 meaning of the term, had we, instead of offence 
 and offending, adopted the terms, scandal and 
 scandalizing. But the full signification of the 
 phrase, to offend another, is to cause him to fall 
 from the faith and obedience of the gospel. It 
 may be such a falling away as that a man recovers 
 himself—like the disciples, who were all offended 
 .in Christ, and forsook him; and, after a season of 
 separation, were at length re-established in their 
 discipleship. Or it may be such a failing away as 
 that there is no recovery—like those in the gospel of 
 John, who, offended by the sayings of our Saviour, 
 went back, and walked no more with him. If you 
 put such a stumbling-block in the way of a neigh¬ 
 bour, who is walking on a course of Christian 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 161 
 
 discipleship, as to make him fall, you offend him. 
 It is in this sense that our Saviour uses the word, 
 when he speaks of your own right hand, or your 
 own right eye, offending you. They may do so, 
 by giving you an occasion to fall. And what is 
 here translated offend, is, in the first epistle to the 
 Corinthians, translated, to make to offend; where 
 Paul says, “ If meat make my brother to offend, 
 I will eat no more flesh while the world standeth, 
 lest I make my brother to offend.” 
 
 The little ones to whom our Saviour alludes, 
 in this passage, he elsewhere more fully parti¬ 
 cularizes, by telling us, that they are those who 
 believe in him. There is no call here for entering 
 into any controversy about the doctrine of per¬ 
 severance. It is not necessary, either for the 
 purpose of explaining, or of giving force to the 
 practical lesson of the text now submitted to you. 
 We happen to be as much satisfied with the doctrine, 
 that he who hath a real faith in the gospel of Christ 
 will never fall away, as we are satisfied with the 
 truth of any identical proposition. If a professing 
 disciple do, in fact, fall away, this is a phenomenon 
 which might be traced to an essential defect of 
 principle at the first; which proves, in fact, that 
 he made the mistake of one principle for another; 
 and that, while he thought he had the faith, it was 
 not that very faith of the New Testament which is 
 unto salvation. There might have been the sem¬ 
 blance of a work of grace, without its reality. 
 Such a work, if genuinely begun, -will be carried 
 onwards even unto perfection. But this is a point 
 on which it is not at all necessary, at present, for 
 
 6 L 
 
162 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 us to dogmatize. We are led, by the text, to 
 expatiate on the guilt of that one man who has 
 wrecked the interest of another man’s eternity. 
 Now, it may be very true, that if the second has 
 actually entered within the strait gate, it is not in 
 the power of the first, with all his artifices, and all 
 his temptations, to draw him out again. But 
 instead of having entered the gate, he may only he 
 on the road that leads to it; and it is enough, 
 amid the uncertainties which, in this life, hang 
 over the question of—who are really believers, and 
 who are not ? that it is not known in which of 
 these two conditions the little one is; and that, 
 therefore, to seduce him from obedience to the will 
 of Christ, may, in fact, be to arrest his progress 
 towards Christ, and to draiv him back unto the 
 perdition of his soul. The whole guilt of the text 
 may be realized by him v'ho keeps back another 
 from the church, where he might have heard, and 
 heard with acceptance, the word of life which he 
 has not yet accepted; or by him, whose influence 
 or whose example detains, in the entanglement of 
 any one sin, the acquaintance who is meditating 
 an outset on the path of decided Christianity— 
 seeing, that every such outset will land in dis¬ 
 appointment those who, in the act of following after 
 Christ, do not forsake all; or by him who tampers 
 with the conscience of an apparently zealous and 
 confirmed disciple, so as to seduce him into some 
 habitual sin, either of neglect or of performance 
 —seeing, that the individual who, but for this 
 seduction, might have cleaved fully unto the Lord, 
 and turned out a prosperous and decided Christian, 
 
LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 163 
 
 lias been led to put a good conscience away from 
 him—and so, by making shipwreck of his faith, 
 has proved to the world, that it was not the faith 
 which could obtain the victory. It is true, that 
 it is not possible to seduce the elect. But even 
 this suggestion, perverse and unjust as it would be 
 in its application, is not generally present to the 
 mind of him who is guilty of the attempt to seduce, 
 or of the act which carries a seducing influence 
 along with it. The guilt with which he is charge¬ 
 able, is that of an indifference to the spiritual and 
 everlasting fate of others. He is wilfully the 
 occasion of causing those who are the little ones, 
 or, for any thing he knows, might have been the 
 little ones of Christ, to fall; and it is against him 
 that our Saviour, in the text, lifts not a cool but 
 an impassioned testimony. It is of him that He 
 utters one of the most severe and solemn denun¬ 
 ciations of the gospel. 
 
 If this text were thoroughly pursued into its 
 manifold applications, it would be found to lay a 
 weight of fearful responsibility upon us all. We 
 are here called upon, not to work out our own 
 salvation, but to compute the reflex influence of all 
 our works, and of all our ways, on the principles 
 of others. And when one thinks of the mis¬ 
 chief which this influence might spread around it, 
 even from Christians of chiefest reputation ; when 
 one thinks of the readiness of man to take shelter 
 in the example of an acknowledged superior; when 
 one thinks that some inconsistency of ours might 
 seduce another into such an imitation as overbears 
 the reproaches of his own conscience, and as, bv 
 
164 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 vitiating the singleness of his eye, makes the whole 
 of his body, instead of being full of light to be full 
 of darkness; when one takes the lesson along with 
 him into the various conditions of life he may be 
 called by Providence to occupy, and thinks, that 
 if, either as a parent surrounded by his family, or 
 as a master by the members of his establishment, 
 or as a citizen by the many observers of his neigh¬ 
 bourhood around him, he shall either speak such 
 words, or do such actions, or administer his affairs 
 in such a way as is unworthy of his high and im¬ 
 mortal destination, that then a taint of corruption 
 is sure to descend from such an exhibition, upon 
 the immortals who are on every side of him; when 
 one thinks of himself as the source and the centre 
 of a contagion which might bring a blight upon 
 the graces and the prospects of other souls besides 
 his own—surely this is enough to supply him with 
 a reason why, in working out his own personal 
 salvation, he should do it with fear, and with watch¬ 
 fulness, and with much trembling. 
 
 But we are now upon the ground of a higher 
 and more delicate conscientiousness, than is gener¬ 
 ally to be met with. Whereas, our object, at 
 present, is to expose certain of the grosser offences 
 which abound in society, and which spread a most 
 dangerous and ensnaring influence among the 
 individuals who compose it. To this we have been 
 insensibly led, by the topics of that discourse which 
 we addressed to you on a former occasion; and 
 when it fell in our way to animadvert on the magni¬ 
 tude of that man’s guilt, who, either by his example, 
 or his connivance, or his direct and formal tuition, 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 165 
 
 can speed the entrance of the yet unpractised young 
 on a career of dissipation. And whether he be a 
 parent, who, trenched in this world’s maxims, can, 
 without a struggle, and without a sigh, leave his 
 helpless offspring to take their random and unpro¬ 
 tected way through this world’s conformities; or 
 whether he be one of those seniors in depravity, 
 who can cheer on his more youthful companion to 
 a surrender of all those scruples, and all those 
 delicacies, which have hitherto adorned him; or 
 whether he he a more aged citizen, who, having 
 run the wonted course of intemperance, can cast 
 an approving eye on the corruption throughout all 
 its stages, and give a tenfold force to all its allure¬ 
 ments by setting up the authority of grave and 
 reformed manhood upon its side; in each of these 
 characters do we see an offence that is pregnant 
 with deadliest mischief to the principles of the 
 rising generation : and while we are told by our 
 text, that, for such offences, there exists some deep 
 and mysterious necessity—insomuch, that itis impos¬ 
 sible but that offences must come—yet, let us not 
 forget to urge on every one sharer in this work of 
 moral contamination, that never does the meek and 
 gentle Saviour speak in terms more threatening, 
 or more reproachful, than when he speaks of the 
 enormity of such misconduct. There cannot, hi 
 truth be a grosser outrage committed on the order 
 of God’s administration, than that which he is in the 
 habit oi indicting. There cannot, surely, be a 
 directer act of rebellion, than that which multiplies 
 the adherents of its own cause, and which swells the 
 hosts of the rebellious. There cannot be made to 
 
166 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 rest a feller condemnation on the head of iniquity, 
 than that which is sealed by the blood of its own 
 victims, and its own proselytes. Nor should we 
 wonder when that is said of such an agent for 
 iniquity which is said of the betrayer of our Lord. 
 It were better for him, that he had not been born. 
 It were better for him, now that he is born, could 
 he be committed back again to deep annihilation. 
 Rather than that he should offend one of these little 
 ones, it were better for him that a millstone were 
 hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 
 
 This is one case of such offences as are adverted 
 to in the text. Another and still more specific 
 is beginning, we understand, to be exemplified in 
 our own city', though it has not attained to the 
 height or to the frequency at which it occurs in a 
 neighbouring metropolis. We allude to the doing 
 of week-day business upon the sabbath. We allude 
 to that violence which is rudely offered to the feel¬ 
 ings and the associations of sacredness, by those 
 exactions that an ungodly master lays at times on 
 his youthful dependents—when those hours which 
 they wont to spend in church, they are called upon 
 to spend in the counting-house.—when that day, 
 which ought to be a day of piety, is turned into a 
 day of posting and of penmanship—when the rules of 
 the decalogue are set aside, and utterly superseded 
 by the rules of the great trading establishment; 
 and every thing is made to give way to the hurry¬ 
 ing emergency of orders, and clearances, and the 
 demands of instant correspondence. Such is the 
 magnitude of this stumbling-block, that many is 
 the young man v ho has here fallen to rise no more 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 1G7 
 
 —that, at this point of departure, he has so widened 
 his distance from God, as never, in fact, to return 
 to Him—that, in this distressing contest between 
 principle and necessity, the final blow has been 
 given to his religious principles—-that the master 
 whom he serves, and under whom he earns his 
 provision for time, has here wrested the whole 
 interest of his eternity away from him—that, from 
 this moment, there gathers upon his soul the com¬ 
 plexion of a hardier and more determined impiety 
 —and conscience once stifled now speaks to him 
 with a feebler voice—and the world obtains. a 
 firmer lodgement in his heart—and, renouncing all 
 his original tenderness about Sabbath, and Sabbath 
 employments, he can now, with the thorough 
 unconcern of a fixed and familiarized proselyte, 
 keep equal pace by his fellows throughout every 
 scene of profanation—and he who wont to tremble 
 and recoil from the freedoms of irreligion with the 
 sensibility of a little one, may soon become the 
 most daringly rebellious of them all—and that 
 Sabbath which he has now learned, at one time, 
 to give to business, he, at another, gives to unhal¬ 
 lowed enjoyments—and it is turned into a day of 
 visits and excursions, given up to pleasure, and 
 enlivened by all the mirth and extravagance of 
 holiday—and, when sacrament is proclaimed from 
 the city pulpits, he, the apt, the ivell trained disciple 
 of his corrupt and corrupting superior, is the 
 readiest to plan the amusements of the coming 
 opportunity, and among the very foremost in the 
 ranks of emigration—and though he may look back, 
 at times, to the Sabbath of his father’s pious house, 
 
168 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 yet the retrospect is always becoming dimmer, 
 and at length it ceases to disturb him—and thus 
 the alienation widens every year, till, wholly given 
 over to impiety, he lives without God in the world. 
 
 And were we asked to state the dimensions of 
 that iniquity which stalks regardlessly, and at large, 
 over the ruin of youthful principles—were we 
 asked to find a place in the catalogue of guilt 
 for a crime the atrocity of which is only equalled, 
 we understand by its frequency—were we called 
 to characterise the man who, so far from attempting 
 one counteracting influence against the profligacy 
 of his dependents, issues, from the chair of authority 
 on which he sits, a commandment, in the direct 
 face of a commandment from God—the man who 
 has chartered impiety in articles of agreement, 
 and has vested himself with a property in that 
 time which only belongs to the Lord of the Sab¬ 
 bath—were we asked to look to the man who could 
 thus overbear the last remnants of remorse in a 
 struggling and unpractised bosom, and glitter in 
 all the ensigns of a prosperity that is reared on the 
 violated consciences of those who are beneath him 
 —O! were the question put, to whom shall we 
 liken such a man ? or, what is the likeness to which 
 we can compare him ? we would say, that the guilt 
 of him who trafficked on the highway, or trafficked 
 on that outraged coast, from whose weeping 
 families children were irrecoverably torn, was far 
 outmeasured by the guilt which could thus frus¬ 
 trate a father’s fondest prayers, and trample under 
 foot the hopes and the preparations of eternity. 
 
 There is another way whereby, in the employ 
 
LOWER ORDERS OE SOCIETY. 169 
 
 of a careless and unprincipled master, it is impos¬ 
 sible but that offences must come. You know 
 just as well as we do, that there are chicaneries in 
 business; and, so long as we forbear stating the 
 precise extent of them, there is not an individual 
 among you, who has a title to construe the assertion 
 into an affronting charge of criminality against 
 himself. But you surely know, as well as we, that 
 the mercantile profession, conducted, as it often is, 
 with the purest integrity, and laying no resistless 
 necessity whatever for the surrender of principle on 
 any of its members ; and dignified by some of the 
 noblest exhibitions of untainted honour, and de¬ 
 voted friendship, and magnificent generosity, that 
 have ever been recorded of our nature;—you know 
 as well as we, that it was utterly extravagant, and 
 in the face of all observation, to affirm, that each, 
 and every one of its numerous competitors, stood 
 clearly and totally exempted from the sins of an 
 undue selfishness. And, accordingly, there are 
 certain commodious falsehoods occasionally prac¬ 
 tised in this department of human affairs. There 
 are, for example, certain dexterous and gainful 
 evasions, whereby the payers of tribute are enabled, 
 at times, to make their escape from the eagle eye 
 of the exactors of tribute. There are even cer¬ 
 tain contests of ingenuity between individual traders, 
 where, in the higgling of a very keen and anxious 
 negotiation, each of them is tempted, in t alki ng of 
 offers and prices, and the reports of fluctuations in 
 home and foreign markets, to say the things which 
 are not. You must assuredly know, that these, and 
 such as these, have introduced a certain quantity 
 
170 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 of what may be called shuffling, into the com¬ 
 munications of the trading world—insomuch, that 
 the simplicity of yea yea, and nay nay, is in some 
 degree exploded; and there is a kind of understood 
 toleration established for certain modes of expres¬ 
 sion, which could not, we are much afraid, stand 
 the rigid scrutiny of the great day; and there is an 
 abatement of confidence between man and man, 
 implying, we doubt, such a proportionate abate¬ 
 ment of truth, as goes to extend most fearfully the 
 condemnation that is due to all liars, who shall 
 have their part in the lake that burneth with fire 
 and brimstone. And who can compute the effect 
 of all this on the young and yet unpractised ob¬ 
 server? Who does not see, that it must go to 
 reduce the tone of his principles; and to involve 
 him in many a delicate struggle between the 
 morality he has learned from his catechism, and the 
 morality he sees in the counting-house; and to 
 obliterate, in his mind, the distinctions between 
 right and wwong; and, at length, to reconcile his 
 conscience to a sin which, like every other, deserves 
 the wrath and the curse of God; and to make him 
 tamper with a direct commandment, in such a way, 
 as that falsehoods and frauds might be nothing 
 more in his estimation, than the peccadilloes of an 
 innocent compliance with the current practices and 
 moralities of the world ? Here, then, is a point, 
 at which the way of those who conform to this 
 world, diverges from the way of those peculiar 
 people who are redeemed from all iniquity, and are 
 thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Here 
 is a grievous occasion to fall. Here is a comped- 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 171 
 
 tion between the service of God and the service of 
 Mammon. Here is the exhibition of another 
 offence, and the bringing forward of another temp¬ 
 tation, to those who are entering on the business 
 of the world, little adverted to, we fear, by those 
 who live in utter carelessness of their own souls, 
 and never spend a thought or a sigh about the im¬ 
 mortality of others—but most distinctly singled out 
 by the text as a crime of foremost magnitude in 
 the eye of Him who judgeth righteously. 
 
 And before we quit the subject of such offences 
 as take place in ordinary trade, let us just advert 
 to one example of it—not so much for the fre¬ 
 quency of its occurrence, as for the way that it 
 stands connected in principle with a very general, 
 and, we believe, a very mischievous offence, that 
 takes place in domestic society. It is neither, 
 you will observe, the avarice nor the selfishness of 
 our nature, which forms the only obstruction in 
 the way of one man dealing plainly with another. 
 There is another obstruction, founded on a far 
 more pleasing and amiable principle—even on that 
 delicacy of feeling, in virtue of which, one man 
 cannot bear to wound or to mortify another. It 
 would require, for instance, a very rare, and, cer¬ 
 tainly, not a very enviable degree of hardihood, to 
 tell another, without pain, that you did not think 
 him worthy of being trusted. And yet, in the 
 doings of merchandise, this is the very trial of deli¬ 
 cacy which sometimes offers itself. The man with 
 whom you stand committed to as great an extent 
 as you count to be advisable, would like, perhaps, 
 to try your confidence in him, and his own credit 
 
172 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 with you, a little farther; and he comes hack upon 
 you with a fresh order; and you secretly have no 
 desire to link any more of your property with his 
 speculation; and the difficulty is how to get the 
 application in question disposed of; and you feel 
 that by far the pleasantest way, to all the parties 
 concerned, would be, to make him believe that you 
 refuse the application not because you will not 
 comply, but because you cannot—for that you 
 have no more of the article he wants from you upon 
 hand. And it would only be putting your own soul 
 to hazard, did you personally and by yourself make 
 this communication: hut you select, perhaps, as 
 the organ of it some agent or underling of your 
 establishment, who knows it to be false; and to 
 avoid the soreness of a personal encounter with 
 the man whom you are to disappoint, you devolve 
 the whole business of this lying apology upon 
 others; and thus do you continue to shift this 
 oppressive burden away from you—or, in other 
 words, to save your own delicacy, you count not, 
 and you care not, about another’s damnation. 
 
 Now, what we call upon you to mark, is the 
 perfect identity of principle between this case of 
 making a brother to offend, and another case which 
 obtains, we have heard, to a very great extent 
 among the most genteel and opulent of our city 
 families. In this case, you put a lie into the mouth 
 of a dependent, and that, for the purpose of pro¬ 
 tecting your substance from such an application as 
 might expose it to hazard or diminution. In the 
 second case, you put a lie into the mouth of a 
 dependent, and that, for the purpose of protecting 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 173 
 
 vour time from such an encroachment as you would 
 not feel to be convenient or agreeably. And, in 
 both cases, you are led to hold out this offence by 
 a certain delicacy of temperament, in virtue of 
 which, you can neither give a man plainly to 
 understand that you are not willing to trust him, 
 nor can you give him to understand that you count 
 his company to be an interruption. But, in both 
 the one and the other example, iook to the little 
 account that is made of a brother’s or of a sister’s 
 eternity; behold the guilty task that is thus 
 unmercifully laid upon one who is shortly to appear 
 before the judgment-seat of Christ; think of the 
 entanglement which is thus made to beset the 
 path of a creature who is unperishable. That, at 
 the shrine of Mammon, such a bloody sacrifice 
 should be rendered by some of his unrelenting 
 votaries, is not to be wondered at; but that the 
 shrine of elegance and fashion should be bathed in 
 blood—that soft and sentimental ladyship should 
 put forth her hand to such an enormity—that she 
 who can sigh so gently, and shed her graceful tear 
 over the sufferings of others, should thus be 
 accessory to the second and more awful death of 
 her own domestics—that one who looks the mildest 
 and the loveliest of human beings, should exact 
 obedience to a mandate which carries wrath, and 
 tribulation, and anguish, in its train—O ! how it 
 should confirm every Christian in his defiance to 
 the authority of fashion, and lead him to spurn at 
 all its folly, and at all its worthlessness. 
 
 And it is quite in vain to say, that the servant 
 whom you thus employ as the deputy of your 
 
174 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 falsehood, can possiblj' execute the commission 
 without the conscience being at all tainted or defiled 
 by it; that a simple cottage maid can so sophisticate 
 the matter, as, without any violence to her original 
 principles, to utter the language of what she assu¬ 
 redly knows to be a downright lie; that she, hum¬ 
 ble and untutored soul, can sustain no injury wheu 
 thus made to tamper with the plain English of these 
 realms; that she can at all satisfy herself, how, by 
 the prescribed utterance of “ not at home,” she is 
 not pronouncing such words as are substantially 
 untrue, but merely using them in another and 
 perfectly understoodmeaning—and which, according 
 to their modern translation, denote, that the person 
 of whom she is thus speaking, instead of being 
 away from home, is secretly lurking in one of the 
 most secure and ultimate of its receptacles. You 
 may trj to darken and transform this piece of 
 casuistry as you will; and work up your own 
 minds into the peaceable conviction that it is all 
 right, and as it should be. But be very certain, 
 that where the moral sense of your domestic is not 
 already overthrown, there is, at least, one bosom 
 within which you have raised a war of doubts and 
 of difficulties ; and where, if the victory be on your 
 side, it will be on the side of him who is the great 
 enemy of righteousness. There is, at least, one per¬ 
 son along the line of this conveyance of deceit, who 
 condemneth herself in that which she alloweth ; 
 who, in the language of Paul, esteeming the 
 practice to be unclean, to her will it be unclean; 
 who will perform her task with the offence of her 
 own conscience, and to whom, therefore, it will 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OP SOCIETY. 1/5 
 
 indeed be evil; who cannot render obedience in this 
 matter to her earthly superior, but by an act, in 
 which she does not stand clear and unconscious of 
 guilt before God; and with whom, therefore, the 
 sad consequence of what we can call nothing else 
 than a barbarous combination against the principles 
 and the prospects of the lower orders, is—that as 
 she has not cleaved fully unto the Lord, and has 
 not kept by the service of the one master, and has 
 not forsaken all at His bidding, she cannot be the 
 disciple of Christ. 
 
 The aphorism, that he who offendeth in one 
 point is guilty of all, tells us something more than 
 of the way in which God adjudges condemnation 
 to the disobedient. It also tells us of the way in 
 which one individual act of sinfulness operates upon 
 our moral nature. It is altogether an erroneous 
 view of the commandments, to look upon them as 
 so many observances to which we are bound by as 
 many distinct and independent ties of obligation—. 
 insomuch, that the transgression of one of them 
 may be brought about by the dissolution of one 
 separate tie, and may leave all the others with as 
 entire a constraining influence and authority as 
 before. The truth is, that the commandments 
 ought rather to be looked upon as branching out 
 from one great and general tie of obligation; and 
 that there is no such thing as loosening the hold of 
 one of them upon the conscience, but by the 
 unfastening of that tie which binds them all upon 
 the conscience. So that if one member in the 
 system of practical righteousness be made to suffer, 
 all the other members suffer along with it; and if 
 
176 
 
 one decision of the moral sense he thwarted, the 
 organ of the moral sense is permanently impaired, 
 and a leaven of iniquity infused into all its other 
 decisions; and if one suggestion of this inward 
 monitor be stifled, a general shock is given to his 
 authority over the whole man; and if one of the 
 least commandments of the law is left unfulfilled, 
 the law itself is brought down from its rightful 
 ascendancy; and thus it is, that one act of disobe¬ 
 dience may be the commencement and the token 
 of a systematic universal rebelliousness of the 
 heart against God. It is this which gives such a 
 wide-wasting malignity to each of the separate 
 offences on which we have now expatiated. It 
 is this which so multiplies the means and the possi¬ 
 bilities of corruption in the world. It is thus that, at 
 every one point in the intercourse of human society, 
 there may be struck out a fountain of poisonous 
 emanation on all who approach it; and think not, 
 therefore, that under each of the examples we have 
 given, we were only contending for the preservation 
 of one single feature in the character of him who 
 stands exposed to this world’s offences. We felt it, 
 in fact, to be a contest for his eternity; and that 
 the case involved in it his general condition with 
 God; and that he who leads the young into a 
 course of dissipation—or that he who tampers 
 with their impressions of Sabbath sacredness—or 
 that he who, either in the walks of business, or in 
 the services of the family, makes them the agents 
 of deceitfulness—or that he, in short, who tempts 
 them to transgress in any one thing, has, in fact, 
 poured such a pervading taint into their moral 
 
STY. 177 
 
 constitution, as to spoil or corrupt them in all 
 things : and that thus, upon one solitary occasion, 
 or by the exhibition of one particular offence, a 
 mischief may be done equivalent to the total 
 destruction of a human soul, or to the blotting out 
 of its prospects for immortality. 
 
 And let us just ask a master or a mistress, who 
 can thus make free with the moral principle of their 
 servants in one instance, l)ow they can look for 
 pure or correct principle from them in other 
 instances ? What right have they to complain of 
 unfaithfulness against themselves, who have deliber¬ 
 ately seduced another into a habit of unfaithfulness 
 against God ? Are they so utterly unskilled in 
 the mysteries of our nature, as uot to perceive, 
 that if a man gather hardihood enough to break 
 the Sabbath in opposition to his own conscience, 
 this very hardihood will avail him to the breaking 
 of other obligations?—that he whom, for their 
 advantage, they have so exercised, as to fill his 
 conscience with offence towards his God, will not 
 scruple, for his own advantage, so to exercise 
 himself, as to fill his conscience with offence towards 
 his master?—that the servant whom you have 
 taught to lie, has gotten such rudiments of educa¬ 
 tion at your hand, as that, without any further help, 
 he can now teach himself to purloin?—and yet 
 nothing more frequent than loud and angry com¬ 
 plainings against the treachery of servants; as if, 
 in the general wreck of their other principles, a 
 principle of consideration for the good and interest 
 of their employer—and who, at the same time, has 
 been then- seducer—was to survive in all its power, 
 
 6 M 
 
178 
 
 IIGHER 
 
 and all its sensibility. It is just such a retribution 
 as was to be looked for. It is a recoil upon their 
 own heads of the mischief which they themselves 
 have originated. It is the temporal part of the 
 punishment which they have to bear for the sin of 
 our text, but not the whole of it; for better for 
 them that both person and property were cast 
 into the sea, than that they should stand the 
 reckoning of that day, when called to give an 
 account of the souls that they have murdered, and 
 the blood of so mighty a destruction is required at 
 their hands. 
 
 The evil against which we have just protested, 
 is an outrage of far greater enormity than tyrant 
 or oppressor can inflict, in the prosecution of his 
 worst designs against the political rights and liber¬ 
 ties of the commonwealth. The very semblance 
 of such designs will summon every patriot to his 
 post of observation; and, from a thousand watch- 
 towers of alarm, will the outcry of freedom in 
 danger be heard throughout the land. But there 
 is a conspiracy of a far more malignant influence 
 upon the destinies of the species that is now going 
 on; and which seems to call forth no indignant 
 spirit, and to bring no generous exclamation along 
 with it. Throughout all the recesses of private 
 and domestic history, there is an ascendancy of 
 rank and station against which no stern republican 
 is ever heard to lift his voice—though it be an 
 ascendancy, so exercised, as to be of most noxious 
 operation to the dearest hopes and best interests 
 of humanity. There is a cruel combination of 
 the great against the majesty of the people—we 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 179 
 
 mean the majesty of the people’s worth. There 
 is a haughty unconcern about an inheritance, which 
 by an unalienable right, should be theirs—we 
 mean their future and everlasting inheritance. 
 There is a 'deadly invasion made on their rights— 
 we mean their rights of conscience; and, in this 
 our land of boasted privileges, are the low trampled 
 upon by the high—we mean trampled into all the 
 degradation of guilt and of worthlessness. They 
 are utterly bereft of that homage which ought to 
 be rendered to the dignity of their immortal nature; 
 and to minister to the avarice of an imperious 
 master, or to spare the sickly delicacy of the 
 fashionables in our land, are the truth and the 
 piety of our population, and all the virtues of their 
 eternity, most unfeelingly plucked away from them. 
 It belongs to others to fight the battle of their 
 privileges in time. But who that looks with a 
 calculating eye on their duration that never ends, 
 can repress an alarm of a higher order? It 
 belongs to others generously to struggle for the 
 place and the adjustment of the lower orders in the 
 great vessel of the state. But, surely, the ques¬ 
 tion of their place in eternity is of mightier concern 
 than how they are to sit and be accommodated in 
 that pathway vehicle which takes them to their 
 everlasting habitations. 
 
 •Christianity is, in one sense, the greatest of all 
 levellers. It looks to the elements, and not to 
 the circumstantials of humanity; and, regarding 
 as altogether superficial and temporary the dis¬ 
 tinctions of this fleeting pilgrimage, it fastens on 
 those points of assimilation which liken the king 
 
180 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 upon the throne to the very humblest of his subject 
 population. They are alike in the nakedness of 
 then- birth. They are alike in the sureness of 
 their decay. They are alike in the agonies of their 
 dissolution. And after the one is tombed in 
 sepulchral magnificence, and the other is laid in 
 his sod-wrapt grave, are they most fearfully alike 
 in the corruption to which they moulder. But it. 
 is with the immortal nature of each that Christianity 
 has to do; and, in both the one and the other, 
 does it behold a nature alike forfeited by guilt, and 
 alike capable of being restored by the grace of an 
 offered salvation. And never do the pomp and 
 the circumstance of externals appear more humiliat¬ 
 ing, than when, looking onwards to the day of 
 resurrection, we behold the sovereign standing 
 without his crown, and trembling, with the subject 
 by his side, at the bar of heaven’s majesty. There 
 the master and the servant will be brought to their 
 reckoning together; and when the one is tried 
 upon the guilt and the malignant influence of his 
 Sabbath companies—and is charged with the pro¬ 
 fane and careless habit of his household establish¬ 
 ment—and is reminded how he kept both himself 
 and liis domestics from the solemn ordinance—and 
 is made to perceive the fearful extent of the moral 
 and spiritual mischief which he has wrought as the 
 irreligious head of an irreligious family—and how, 
 among other things, he. under a system of fashion¬ 
 able hypocrisy, so tampered with another’s princi¬ 
 ples as to defile his conscience, and to destroy him 
 —O! how tremendously will the little brief authority 
 in which he now plays his fantastic tricks, turn to 
 
UPON THE LOWElt ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 181 
 
 his own condemnation; for, than thus abuse his 
 authority, it were better for him that a millstone 
 were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into 
 the sea. 
 
 • And how comes it, we ask, that any master is 
 armed with a power so destructive over the im¬ 
 mortals who are around him? God has given 
 him no such powder. The state has not given it 
 to him. There is no lav-, either human or divine, 
 by which he can enforce any order upon his 
 servants to an act of falsehood, or to an act of 
 impiety. Should any such act of authority be 
 attempted on the part of the master, it should be 
 followed up on the part of the servant by an act of 
 disobedience. Should your master or mistress 
 bid you say not at home, when you know that 
 they are at home, it is your duty to refuse compli¬ 
 ance with such an order: and if it be asked, how- 
 can this matter be adjusted after such a violent 
 and alarming innovation on the laws of fashionable 
 intercourse, we answer, just by the simple sub¬ 
 stitution of truth for falsehood—just by prescribing 
 the utterance of, engaged, which is a fact, instead 
 of the utterance of, not at home, which is a lie— 
 just by holding the principles of your servant to be 
 of higher account than the false delicacies of your 
 acquaintance—just by a bold and vigorous recur¬ 
 rence to the simplicity of nature—just by deter¬ 
 minedly doing what is right, though the example 
 of a whole host were against you; and by giving 
 impulse to the current of example, when it happens 
 to be moving in a proper direction. And here we 
 are happy to say that fashion has of late been 
 
182 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 making a capricious and accidental movement on 
 the side of principle—and to be blunt, and open, 
 and manly, is now on the fair way to be fashionable 
 —and a temper of homelier quality is beginning to 
 infuse itself into the luxuriousness, and the effem¬ 
 inacy, and the palling and excessive complaisance 
 of genteel society—and the staple of cultivated 
 manners is improving in firmness, and frankness, 
 and honesty, and may, at length, by the aid of a 
 principle of Christian rectitude, be so interwoven 
 with the cardinal virtues, as to present a different 
 texture altogether from the soft and the silken 
 degeneracy of modern days. 
 
 And that we may not appear the champions of 
 an insurrection against the authority of masters, 
 let us further say, that while it is the duty of clerk 
 or apprentice to refuse the doing of week-day work 
 on the Sabbath, and while it is the duty of servants 
 to refuse the utterance of a prescribed falsehood, 
 and while it is the duty of every dependent, in the 
 service of his master, to serve him only in the Lord 
 —yet this very principle, tending as it may to a 
 rare and occasional act of disobedience, is also the 
 principle which renders every servant who adheres 
 to it a perfect treasure of fidelity, and attachment, 
 and general obedience. This is the way in which 
 to obtain a credit for his refusal, and to stamp upon 
 it a noble consistency. In this way he will, even 
 to the mind of an ungodly master, make up for all 
 his particularities: and should he be what, if a 
 Christian, he will be; should he be, at all times, 
 the most alert in service, and the most patient of 
 provocation, and the most cordial in affection, and 
 
LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 183 
 
 the most scrupulously honest in the charge and 
 custody of all that is committed to him—then, let 
 the post of drudgery at which he toils be humble 
 as it may, the contrast between the meanness of 
 his office and the dignity of his character will only 
 heighten the reverence that is due to principle, and 
 make it more illustrious. His scruples may, at 
 first, be the topics of displeasure, and afterwards 
 the topics of occasional levity; but, in spite of 
 himself, will his employer be at length constrained 
 to look upon them with respectful toleration. The 
 servant will be to the master a living epistle of 
 Christ, and he mayread there what he has not yet 
 perceived in the letter of the New Testament. 
 He may read, in the person of his own domestic, 
 the power and the truth of Christianity. He may 
 positively stand in awe of his own hired servant— 
 and, regarding his bosom as a sanctuary of worth 
 which it were monstrous to violate, will he feel, 
 when tempted to offer one command of impiety, 
 that he cannot, that he dare not. 
 
 And, before we conclude, let us, if possible, try 
 to rebuke the wealthy out of their unfeeling indif¬ 
 ference to the souls of the poor, by the example of 
 the Saviour. Let those who look on the immor¬ 
 tality of the poor as beneath their concern, only 
 look unto Christ—to him who, for the sake of the 
 poorest of us all, became poor Himself, that we, 
 through His poverty, might be made rich. Let 
 them think how the principle of all these offences 
 which we have been attempting to expose, is in the 
 direct face of that principle which prompted, at 
 first, and which still presides over, the whole of the 
 
184 VITIATING INFLUENCE OF THE HIGHER 
 
 gospel dispensation. Let them learn a higher 
 reverence for the eternity of those beneath them, 
 by thinking of Him, who, to purchase an inheritance 
 for the poor, and to provide them with the bless¬ 
 ings of a preached gospel, unrobed Him of all his 
 greatness; and descended Himself to the lot and 
 the labours of poverty; and toiled, to the beginning 
 of His public ministry, at the work of a carpenter; 
 and submitted to all the horrors of a death which 
 was aggravated by the burden of a world’s atone¬ 
 ment, and made inconceivably severe, by there 
 being infused into it all the bitterness of the cup 
 of expiation. Think, O think, when some petty 
 design of avarice or vanity would lead you to forget 
 the imperishable souls of those who are beneath 
 you, that you are setting yourselves in diametric 
 opposition to that which lieth nearest to the heart 
 of the Saviour; that you are countervailing the 
 whole tendency of His redemption; that you are 
 thwarting the very object of that enterprise for 
 which all heaven is represented as in motion— 
 and angels are with wonder looking on—and God 
 the Father laid an appointment on the Son of 
 His love—and He, the august personage in whom 
 the magnificent train of prophecy, from the begin¬ 
 ning of the world, has its theme and its fulfilment, 
 at length came amongst us, in shrouded majesty, 
 and was led to the cross, like a lamb for the 
 slaughter, and bowed His head in agony, and gave 
 up the ghost. 
 
 And here let us address one word more to the 
 masters and mistresses of families. By adopting 
 the reformations to which we have been urging 
 
UPON THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 185 
 
 you, you may do good to tile cause of Christianity, 
 and yet not advance, by a single hair-breadth, 
 the Christianity of your own souls. It is not by 
 this one reformation, or, indeed, by any given 
 number of reformations, that you are saved. It 
 is by believing in Christ that men are saved. 
 You may escape, it is sure, a higher degree of 
 punishment, but you will not escape damnation. 
 You may do good to the souls of your servants, by 
 a rigid observance of the lesson of this day. But 
 we seek the good of your own souls, also, and we 
 pronounce upon them that they are in a state of 
 death, till one great act be performed, and one act, 
 too, which does not consist of any number of 
 particular acts, or particular reformations. What 
 shall I do to be saved ? Believe in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and thou slialt be saved. And he 
 who believeth not, the wrath of God abideth on 
 him. Do this, if you want to make the great 
 and important transition for yourselves. Do this, 
 if you want your own name to be blotted out of 
 the book of condemnation. If you seek to have 
 your own persons justified before God, submit to 
 the righteousness of God—even that righteous¬ 
 ness which is through the faith of Christ, and is 
 unto all and upon all who believe. This is the 
 turning point of your acceptance with the Law¬ 
 giver. And at this step, also, in the history of 
 your souls, will there be applied to you a power 
 of motive, and will you be endowed with an 
 obedient sensibility to the influence of motive, 
 which will make it the turning point of a new heart 
 and a new character. The particular reforma- 
 
18G 
 
 VITIATING INFLUENCE, &C. 
 
 tion that we have now been urging will be one 
 of a crowd of other reformations; and, in the 
 spirit of Him who pleased not Himself, but gave 
 up His life for others, will you forego all the 
 desires of selfishness and vanity, and look not 
 merely to your own things, but also to the things 
 of others. 
 
187 
 
 DISCOURSE VIII. 
 
 ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 *• If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, 
 Thou art my confidence ; if I rejoiced because my wealth was 
 great, and because mine hand had gotten much; if I beheld the 
 sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my 
 heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my 
 hand ; this also were an iniquity to bepunished by the judge; for 
 I should have denied the God that is above.”—J ob xxxi. 24— 
 
 What is worthy of remark in this passage is, that 
 a certain affection, only known among the votaries 
 of Paganism, should be classed under the same char¬ 
 acter and have the same condemnation with an 
 affection, not only known, but allowed, nay cherished 
 into habitual supremacy, all over Christendom. 
 How universal is it among those who are in pursuit 
 of wealth, to make gold their hope, and, among those 
 who are in possession of wealth, to make fine gold 
 their confidence! Yet we are here told that this 
 is virtually as complete a renunciation of God as to 
 practise some of the worst charms of idolatry. And 
 it might perhaps serve to unsettle the vanity of those 
 who, unsuspicious of the disease that is in their 
 hearts, are wholly given over to this world, and wholly 
 without alarm in their anticipations of another,— 
 could we convince them that the most reigning and 
 resistless desire by which they are actuated, stamps 
 the same perversity on them, in the sight Gf God, 
 
183 
 
 as he sees to be in those who are worshippers of the 
 sun in the firmament, or are offering incense to the 
 moon, as the queen of heaven. 
 
 We recoil from an idolater, as from one who 
 labours under a great moral derangement, in suffer¬ 
 ing his regards to he carried away from the true God 
 to an idol. But, is it not just the same derange¬ 
 ment, on the part of man, that he should love any- 
 created good, and in the enjoyment of it lose sight 
 of the Creator—that he should delight himself with 
 the use and the possession of a gift, andbeunaffected 
 by the circumstance of its having been put into his 
 hands by a giver—that, thoroughly absorbed with 
 the present and the sensible gratification, there 
 should be no room left for the movements of duty 
 or regard to the Being who furnished him with the 
 materials, and endowed him with the organs, of every 
 gratification,—that he should thus lavish all his de¬ 
 sires on the surrounding materialism, and fetch from 
 it all his delights, while the thought of Him who 
 formed it is habitually absent from his heart—that, 
 in the play of those attractions that subsist between 
 him and the various objects in the neighbourhood 
 of his person, there should be the same want of 
 reference to God, as there is in the play of those 
 attractions which subsist between a piece of uncon¬ 
 scious matter and the other matter that is around 
 it—that all the influences which operate upon the 
 human will should emanate from so many various 
 points in the mechanism of what is formed, but 
 that no practical or ascendant influence should come 
 down upon it from the presiding and the preserving 
 Deity ? Why, if such be man, he could not be 
 
189 
 
 otherwise, though there were no Deity. The part 
 he sustains in the world is the very same that it would 
 have been, had the world sprung into being of itself; 
 or, wdthout an originating mind, had maintained its 
 being from eternity. He just puts forth the evolu¬ 
 tions of his own nature, as one of the component in¬ 
 dividuals in a vast independent system of nature, 
 made up of many parts and many individuals. In 
 hungering for what is agreeable to his senses, or 
 recoiling from what is bitter or unsuitable to them, 
 he does so without thinking of God, or borrowing 
 any impulse to his own will from any thing he knows 
 or believes to be the will of God. Religion hasjust 
 as little to do with those daily movements of his which 
 are voluntary, as it has to do with the growth of his 
 body, which is involuntary; or, as it has to do, mother 
 words, with the progress andthephenomenaof vege¬ 
 tation. With a mind that ought to know God, and a 
 conscience that ought to award to Him the supreme 
 jurisdiction, be lives as effectually without Him, as if 
 he had no mind and no conscience; and, bating a few 
 transient visitations of thought, and a few regu¬ 
 larities of outward and mechanical observation, do we 
 behold man running, and willing, and preparing, and 
 enjoying, just as if there was no other portion than 
 the creature—just as if the world, and its visible 
 elements, formed the all with which he had to do. 
 
 I wish to impress upon you the distinction that 
 there is between the love of money, and the love of 
 what money purchases. Either of these affections 
 may equally displace God from the heart. But, 
 there is a malignity and an inveteracy of atheism 
 in the former which does not belong to the latter, 
 
190 ON THE LOVE OE MONEY. 
 
 and in virtue of -which it may be seen that the love 
 of money is, indeed, the root of all evil. 
 
 When we indulge the love of that which is 
 purchased by money, the materials of gratification, 
 and the organs of gratification are present with 
 each other—-just as in the enjoyments of the inferior 
 animals* and just as in all the simple and immediate 
 enjoyments of man ; such as the tasting of food, or 
 the smelling of a flower. There is an adaptation 
 of the senses to certain external objects, and there 
 is a pleasure arising out of that adaptation, and it 
 is a pleasure which may he felt by man, along with 
 a right and a full infusion of godliness. The 
 primitive Christians, for example, ate their meat 
 with gladness and singleness of heart, praising 
 God. But, in the case of every unconverted 
 man, the pleasure has no such accompaniment. 
 He carries in his heart no recognition of that hand, 
 by the opening of which it is, that the means and 
 the materials of enjoyment are placed within his 
 reach. The matter of the enjoyment is all with 
 which he is conversant. The Author of the 
 enjoyment is unheeded. The avidity with which 
 he rushes onward to any of the direct gratifications 
 of nature bears a resemblance to the avidity with 
 which one of the lower creation rushes to its food, 
 or to its water, or to the open field, where it gambols 
 in all the vrantonness of freedom, and finds a high- 
 breathed joy in the very strength and velocity of 
 its movements. And the atheism of the former, who 
 has a mind for the sense and knowledge of his 
 Creator, is often as entire ah the atheism of the 
 latter, who has it not. Man, who ought to look 
 
ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 191 
 
 to the primary cause of all his blessings, because 
 he is capable of seeing thus far, is often as blind to 
 God, in the midst of enjoyment, as the animal who 
 is not capable of seeing him. He can trace the 
 stream to its fountain; but still he drinks of the 
 stream with as much greediness of pleasure, and as 
 little recognition of its source, as the animal 
 beneath him. In other words, his atheism, while 
 tasting the bounties of Providence, is just as com¬ 
 plete, as is the atheism of the inferior animals. 
 But theirs proceeds from their incapacity of 
 knowing God. His proceeds from his not lilting 
 to retain God in his knowledge. He may come 
 under the power of godliness, if he would. But he 
 chooses rather that the power of sensuality should 
 lord it over him, and his whole man is engrossed 
 with the objects of sensuality. 
 
 But a man differs from an animal in being some¬ 
 thing more than a sensitive being. He is also a 
 reflective being. He has the power of thought, and 
 inference, and anticipation, to signalize him above 
 the beasts of the field, or of the forest; and yet will 
 it be found, in the case of every natural man, that 
 the exercise of those powers, so far from having 
 carried him nearer, has only widened his departure 
 from God, and given a more deliberate and wilful 
 character to his atheism, than if he had been 
 without them altogether. 
 
 In virtue of the powers of mind which belong to 
 him, he can carry his thoughts beyond the present 
 desires and the present gratification. He can 
 calculate on the visitations of future desire, and on 
 the means of its gratification. He can not only 
 
192 
 
 ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 follow out the impulse of hunger that is now upon 
 him; he can look onwards to the successive and 
 recurring impulses of hunger which await him, and 
 he can devise expedients for relieving it. Out of 
 that great stream of supply, which comes direct 
 from heaven to earth, for the sustenance of all its 
 living generations, he can draw off and appropriate 
 a separate rill of conveyance, and direct it into a 
 reservoir for himself. He can enlarge the capacity, 
 or he can strengthen the embankments of this 
 reservoir. By doing the one, he augments his 
 proportion of this common tide of wealth which 
 circulates through the world, and by doing the 
 other, he augments his security for holding it in 
 perpetual possession. The animal who drinks 
 out of the stream thinks not whence it issues. But 
 man thinks of the reservoir which yields to him 
 his portion of it. And he looks no further. He 
 thinks not that to fill it, there must be a great and 
 original fountain, out of which there issueth a 
 mighty flood of abundance for the purpose of 
 distribution among all the tribes and families of 
 the world. He stops short at the secondary and 
 artificial fabric which he himself hath formed, and 
 out of which, as from a spring, he draws his own 
 peculiar enjoyments; and never thinks either of 
 his own peculiar supply fluctuating with the varia¬ 
 tions of the primary spring, or of connecting these 
 variations with the will of the great but unseen 
 director of all things. It is true, that if this main and 
 originating fountain be, at any time, less copious in 
 its emission, he will have less to draw from it to 
 his own reservoir; and in that very proportion will 
 
MONEY. 
 
 193 
 
 his share of the bounties of Providence be reduced. 
 But still it is to the well, or receptacle, of his own 
 striking out that he looks, as his main security for 
 the relief of nature’s wants, and the abundant 
 supply of nature’s enjoyments. It. is upon his 
 own work that he depends in this matter, and not 
 on the work or the will of Him who is the Author 
 of nature ; who giveth rain from heaven and fruitful 
 seasons, and filleth every heart with food and 
 gladness. And thus it is that the reason of man, 
 and the retrospective power of man, still fail to 
 carry him, by an ascending process, to the First 
 Cause. He stops at the instrumental cause, which, 
 by his own wisdom and his own power, he has put 
 into operation. In a word, the man’s understanding 
 is over-run with atheism, as well as his desires. 
 The intellectual as well as the sensitive part of 
 his constitution seems to be infected with it. When, 
 like the instinctive and unreflecting animal, he 
 engages in the act of direct enjoyment, he is like 
 it, too, in its atheism. When he rises above the 
 animal, and, in the exercise of his higher and larger 
 faculties, he engages in the act of providing for en¬ 
 joyment, he still carries his atheism along with him. 
 
 A sum of money is, in all its functions, equivalent 
 to such a reservoir. Take one year with another, 
 and the annual consumption of the world cannot 
 exceed the annual produce which issues from the 
 storehouse of Him who isthegreatand the bountiful 
 Provider of all its families. The money that is in 
 any man’s possession represents the share which he 
 can appropriate to himself of this produce. If it 
 be a large sum, it is like a capacious reservoir on 
 
194 
 
 the bank of the river of abundance. If it be laid 
 out on firm and stable securities, still it is like a 
 firmly embanked reservoir. The man who toils to 
 increase his money is like a man who toils, to 
 enlarge the capacity of his reservoir. The man 
 who suspects a flaw in his securities, or who 
 apprehends, in the report of failures and fluctua¬ 
 tions, that his money is all to flow away from him, 
 is like a man who apprehends a flaw in the 
 embankments of his reservoir. Meanwhile, in all 
 the care that is thus expended, either on the money 
 or on the magazine, the originating source, out of 
 which there is imparted to the one all its real 
 worth, or there is imparted to the other all its real 
 fulness, is scarcely ever thought of. Let God 
 turn the earth into a barren desert, and the money 
 ceases to be convertible to any purpose of enjoy¬ 
 ment ; or let Him lock up that magazine of great 
 and general supply, out of which He showers 
 abundance among our habitations, and all the 
 subordinate magazines formed beside the wonted 
 stream of liberality, would remain empty. But 
 all this is forgotten by the vast majority of our 
 unthoughtfulandunreflecting species. The patience 
 of God is still unexhausted; and the seasons still 
 roll in kindly succession over the heads of an 
 ungrateful generation ; and that period, when the 
 machinery of our present system shall stop and be 
 taken to pieces has not yet arrived; and that 
 Spirit, who will not always strive with the children 
 of men, is still prolonging His experiment on the 
 powers and the perversities of our moral nature; 
 and still suspending the edict of dissolution, by 
 
THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 195 
 
 which this earth and these heavens are at length 
 to pass away. So that the sun still shines upon 
 us; and the clouds still drop upon us; and the 
 earth still puts forth the bloom and the beauty of 
 its luxuriance; and all the ministers of heaven’s 
 liberality still walk their annual round, and scatter 
 plenty over the face of an alienated world; and 
 the whole of nature continues as smiling in promise, 
 and as sure in fulfilment, as in the days of our 
 forefathers; and out of her large and universal 
 granary is there, in every returning year, as rich a 
 conveyance of aliment as before, to the populous 
 family in whose behalf it is opened. But it is the 
 business of many among that population, each to 
 erect his own separate granary, and to replenish it 
 out of the general store, and to feed himself and 
 his dependents out of it. And he is right in so 
 doing. But he is not right in looking to his own 
 peculiar receptacle, as if it were the first and the 
 emanating fountain of all his enjoyments. He is 
 not right in thus idolizing the work of his own 
 hands—awarding no glory and no confidence to 
 Him in whose hands is the key of that great store¬ 
 house, out of which every lesser storehouse of man 
 derives its fulness. He is not right, in labouring 
 after the money which purchaseth all things, to 
 avert the earnestness of his regards from the 
 Being who provides all things. He is not right, 
 in thus building his security on that which is 
 subordinate, unheeding and unmindful of Him 
 who is supreme. It is not right, that silver and 
 gold, though unshaped into statuary, should still 
 be doing, in this enlightened land, what the images 
 
196 
 
 ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 of Paganism once did. It is not right, that they 
 should thus supplant the deference which is owing 
 to the God and the governor of all things—or 
 that each man amongst us should, in the secret 
 homage of trust and satisfaction which he renders 
 to his bills, and his deposits, and his deeds of 
 property and possession, endow these various 
 articles with the same moral ascendancy over his 
 heart, as the household gods of antiquity had over 
 the idolaters of antiquity—making them as effec¬ 
 tually usurp the place of the divinity, and dethrone 
 the one Monarch of heaven and earth from that pre¬ 
 eminence of trustand of affection thatbelongs to him. 
 He who makes a god of his pleasure, renders 
 to this idol the homage of his senses. He who 
 makes a god of his wealth, renders to this idol 
 the homage of his mind; and he, therefore, of the 
 two, is the more hopeless and determined idolater. 
 The former is goaded on to his idolatry, by the 
 power of appetite. The latter cultivates his with 
 wilful and deliberate perseverance; consecrates 
 his very highest powers to its service; embarks in 
 it, not with the heat of passion, but, with the cool¬ 
 ness of steady and calculating principle; fully gives 
 up his reason and his time, and all the faculties of 
 his understanding, as well as all the desires of his 
 heart, to the great object of a fortune in this world ■ 
 makes the acquirement of gain the settled aim, and 
 the prosecution of that aim the settled habit of his 
 existence; sits the whole day long at the post of 
 his ardent and unremitting devotions; and, as he 
 labours at the desk of his counting-house, has his 
 soul just as effectually seduced from the living 
 
197 
 
 God to an object distinct from Him, and contrary 
 to Him, as if the ledger over which he was bend¬ 
 ing was a book of mystical characters, written in 
 honour of some golden idol placed before him, and 
 with a view to render this idol propitious to him¬ 
 self and to his family. Baal and Moloch were 
 not more substantially the gods of rebellious Israel, 
 than Mammon is the god of all his affections. To 
 the fortune he has reared, or is rearing, for himself 
 and his descendants, he ascribes all the power and 
 all the independence of a divinity. With the 
 wealth he has gotten by his own hands, does he 
 feel himself as independent of God, as the Pagan 
 does, who, happy in the fancied protection of an 
 image made with his own hand, suffers no dis¬ 
 turbance to his quiet, from any thought of the real 
 but the unknown Deity. His confidence is in his 
 treasure, and not in God. It is there that he places 
 all his safety and all his sufficiency. It is not on 
 the Supreme Being, conceived in the light of a real 
 and a personal agent, that he places his dependence. 
 It is on a mute and material statue of his own 
 erection. It is wealth which stands to him in the 
 place of God—to which he awards the credit of all 
 his enjoyments—which he looks to as the emanating 
 fountain of all his present sufficiency—from which 
 he gathers his fondest expectations of all the bright 
 and fancied blessedness that is yet before him—on 
 which he rests as the firmest and stablest founda¬ 
 tion of all that the heart can wish, or the eye can 
 long after, both for himself and for his children. 
 It matters not to him, that all his enjoyment 
 comes from a primary fountain, and that his wealth 
 
is only an intermediate reservoir. It matters not 
 to him, that, if God were to set a seal upon the 
 door of the upper storehouse in heaven, or to blast 
 and to burn up all the fruitfulness of earth, he 
 would reduce, to the worthlessness of dross, all the 
 silver and the gold that abound in it. Still the 
 gold and the silver are his gods. His own foun¬ 
 tain is between him and the fountain of original 
 supply. His wealth is between him and God. 
 Its various lodging-places, whether in the bank, 
 or in the place of registration, or in the depository 
 of wills and title-deeds—these are the sanctuaries 
 of his secret worship—these are the high-places of 
 his adoration; and never did devout Israelite look 
 with more intentness towards Mount Zion, and 
 with his face towards Jerusalem, than he does to 
 liis wealth, as to the mountain and stronghold of 
 his security. Nor could the Supreme be more 
 effectually deposed from the homage of trust and 
 gratitude than He actually is, though this wealth 
 were recalled from its various investments; and 
 turned into one mass of gold; and cast into a piece 
 of molten statuary; and enshrined on a pedestal, 
 around which all his household might assemble, 
 and make it the object of their family devotions; 
 and plied every hour of every day with all the 
 fooleries of a senseless and degrading Paganism. 
 It is thus, that God may keep up the charge of 
 idolatry against us, even after all its images have 
 been overthrown. It is thus that dissuasives from 
 idolatry are still addressed, in the New Testament, 
 to the pupils of a new and better dispensation; 
 that little children are warned against idols; and 
 
all of us are warned to flee from covetousness, which 
 is idolatry. 
 
 To look no further than to fortune as the dis¬ 
 penser of all the enjoyments which money can 
 purchase, is to make that fortune stand in the 
 place of God. It is to make sense shut out faith, 
 and to rob the King eternal and invisible of that 
 supremacy, to which all the blessings of human 
 existence, and all the varieties of human condition, 
 ought, in every instance, and in every particular, 
 to be referred. But, as we have already remarked, 
 the love of money is one affection, and the love of 
 what is purchased by money is another. It was, 
 at first, we have no doubt, loved for the sake of the 
 good things which it enabled its possessor to 
 acquire. But whether, as the result of associa¬ 
 tions in the mind so rapid as to escape the notice 
 of our own consciousness—or as the fruit of an 
 infection running by sympathy among all men 
 busily engaged in the prosecution of wealth, as the 
 supreme good of their being—certain it is, that 
 money, originally pursued for the sake of other 
 things, comes at length to be prized for its own 
 sake. And, perhaps, there is no one circumstance 
 which serves more to liken the love of money to the 
 most irrational of the heathen idolatries, than that 
 it at length passes into the love of money for 
 itself; and acquires a most enduring power over 
 the human affections, separately altogether from 
 the power of purchase and of command which 
 belongs to it, over the proper and original objects 
 of human desire. The first thing which set man 
 agoing m the pursuit of wealth, was that, through 
 
200 ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 it, as an intervening medium, he found his way to 
 other enjoyments; and it proves him, as we have 
 observed, capable of a higher reach of anticipation 
 than-^e beasts of the field, or the fowls of the air, 
 that he is thus able to calculate, and to foresee, 
 and to build up a provision for the wants of futurity. 
 But, mark how soon this boasted distinction of his 
 faculties is overthrown, and how near to each 
 other lie the dignity and the debasement of the 
 human understanding. If it evinced a loftier mind 
 in man than in the inferior animals, that he invented 
 money, and by the acquisition of it can both secure 
 abundance for himself, and transmit this abundance 
 to the future generations of his family—what have 
 we to offer, in vindication of this intellectual 
 eminence, when we witness how soon it is, that 
 the pursuit of wealth ceases to be rational ?—How, 
 instead of being prosecuted as an instrument, 
 either for the purchase of ease, or the purchase of 
 enjoyment, both the ease and enjoyment of a whole 
 life are rendered up as sacrifices at its shrine ?— 
 How, from being sought after as a minister of 
 gratification to the appetites of nature, it at length 
 brings nature into bondage, and robs her of all her 
 simple delights, and pours the infusion of worm¬ 
 wood into the currency of her feelings ?—making 
 that man sad who ought to be cheerful, and that 
 man who ought to rejoice in his present abundance, 
 filling him either with the cares of an ambition 
 which never will be satisfied, or with the appre¬ 
 hensions of a distress which, in all its pictured and 
 exaggerated evils, will never he realized. And it 
 is wonderful, it is passing wonderful, that wealth, 
 
ON THE LOVE OF MONEY- 201 
 
 which derives all that is true and sterling in its 
 worth from its subserviency to other advantages, 
 should, apart from all thought about this subser¬ 
 viency, be made the object of such fervent and 
 fatiguing devotion. Insomuch, that never did 
 Indian devotee inflict upon himself a severer agony 
 at the footstool of his Paganism, than those devo¬ 
 tees of wealth who, for its acquirement as their 
 ultimate object, will forego all the uses for which 
 alone it is valuable—will give up all that is gen¬ 
 uine or tranquil in the pleasures of life; and will 
 pierce themselves through with many sorrows; 
 and will undergo all the fiercer tortures of the 
 mind; and, instead of employing what they have 
 to smooth their passage through the world, will, 
 upon the hazardous sea of adventure, turn the 
 ■whole of this passage into a storm—thus exalting 
 wealth, from a servant unto a lord, who, in return 
 for the homage that he obtains from his worship¬ 
 pers, exercises them, like Rehoboam his subjects 
 of old, not with w’hips but with scorpions—with 
 consuming anxiety, with never-sated desire, with 
 brooding apprehension, and its frequent and ever- 
 flitting spectres, and the endless jealousies of com¬ 
 petition with men as intently devoted, and as 
 emulous of a high place in the temple of their 
 common idolatry, as themselves. And, without 
 going to the higher exhibitions of this propensity, 
 in all its rage and in all its restlessness, we have 
 only to mark its workings on the walk of even and 
 every-day citizenship ; and there see, how, in the 
 hearts even of its most common-place votaries, 
 wealth is followed after, for its own sake; how', 
 
202 ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 unassociated with all for which reason pronounces 
 it to be of estimation, but, in virtue of some mysteri¬ 
 ous and undefinable charm, operating not on any 
 principle of the judgment, but on the utter per¬ 
 versity of judgment, money has come to be of 
 higher account than all that is purchased by money, 
 and has attained a rank co-ordinate with that 
 which our Saviour assigns to the life and to the 
 body of man, in being reckoned more than meat 
 
 and more than raiment_Thus making that which 
 
 is subordinate to be primary, and that which is pri¬ 
 mary subordinate; transferring, by a kind of fascina¬ 
 tion, the affections away from wealth in use, to 
 wealth in idle and unemployed possession,—inso¬ 
 much, that the most welcome intelligence you could 
 give to the proprietor of many a snug deposit, in 
 some place of secure and progressive accumula¬ 
 tion, would be, that he should never require any 
 part either of it or of its accumulation back again for 
 the purpose of expenditure—and that, to the end 
 of his life, every new year should witness another 
 unimpaired addition to the bulk or the aggrandize¬ 
 ment of his idol. And it would just heighten his 
 enjoyment, could he be told, with prophetic cer¬ 
 tainty', that this process of undisturbed augmenta¬ 
 tion would go on with his children’s children, tc 
 the last age of the world; that the economy of 
 each succeeding race of descendants would leave 
 the sum with its interest untouched, and the place 
 of its sanctuary unviolated; and, that through a 
 series of indefinite generations, would the magnitude 
 ever grow, and the lustre ever brighten, of that 
 household god, which he had erected for his own 
 
203 
 
 senseless adoration, and bequeathed as an object 
 of as senseless adoration to his family. 
 
 ' We have the authority of that word which has 
 been pronounced a discerner of the thoughts ana 
 intents of the heart, that it cannot have two masters, 
 or that there is not room in it for two great and 
 ascendant affections. The engrossing power of one 
 such affection is expressly affirmed of the love for 
 Mammon, or the love for money thus named and 
 characterized as an idol. Or, in other words, 
 if the love of money be in the heart, the love of God 
 is not there. If a man be trusting in uncertain 
 riches, he is not trusting in the living God, who 
 giveth us all things richly to enjoy. If his heart be 
 set upon covetousness, it is set upon an object of 
 idolatry. The true divinity is moved away from 
 His place; and, worse than atheism which would only 
 leave it empty, has the love of wealth raised another 
 divinity upon His throne. So that covetousness 
 offers a more daring and positive aggression on the 
 right and territory of the Godhead, than even 
 infidelity. The latter would only desolate the 
 sanctuary of heaven; the former would set up an 
 abomination in the midst of it. It not only strips 
 God of love and of confidence, which are his pre¬ 
 rogatives, but it transfers them to another. And 
 little does the man who is proud in honour, but, at 
 the same time, proud and peering in ambition— 
 little does he think, that, though acquitted in the 
 eye of all his fellows, there still remains an atrocity 
 of a deeper character than even that of atheism, 
 with which he is chargeable. Let him just take an 
 account of his mind, amid the labours of his 
 
204 
 
 merchandise, and he 'will find that the living God 
 has no ascendancy there; but that wealth just as 
 much as if personified into life, and agency, and 
 power, wields over him all the ascendancy of God. 
 Where his treasure is, his heart is also; and, linking 
 as he does his main hope with its increase, and his 
 main fear with its fluctuations and its failures, he 
 has as effectually dethroned the Supreme from 
 his heart, and deified an usurper in his room, as if 
 fortune had been embodied into a goddess, and he 
 were iu the habit of repairing, with a crowd of other 
 worshippers, to her temple. She, in fact, is the 
 dispenser of that which he chiefly prizes in existence. 
 A smile from her is worth all the promises of the 
 Eternal, and her threatening frown more dreadful 
 to the imagination than all his terrors. 
 
 And the disease is as near to universal as it is 
 virulent. Wealth is the goddess whom all the world 
 worshippeth. There is many a city in our empire, 
 of which, with an eye of apostolical discernment, it 
 may be seen, that it is almost wholly given over to 
 idolatry. If a man look no higher than to his 
 money for his enjoyments, then money is his god. 
 It is the god of his dependence, and the god upon 
 whom his heart is staid. Or if, apart from other 
 enjoyments, it, by some magical power of its own, 
 has gotten the ascendancy, then still it is followed 
 after as the supreme good; and there is an actual 
 supplanting of the living God. He is robbed of 
 the gratitude that we owe him for our daily susten¬ 
 ance; for, instead of receiving it as if it came direct 
 out of his hand, we receive it as if it came from 
 the hand of a secondary agent, to whom we ascribe 
 
ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 2G5 
 
 all the stability and independence of God. This 
 wealth, in fact, obscures to us the character of God, 
 as the real though unseen Author of our various 
 blessings ; and as if by a material intervention, does 
 it hide from the perception of nature, the hand which 
 feeds, and clothes, and maintains us in life, and in 
 all the comforts and necessaries of life. It just 
 has the effect of thickening still more that impalpable 
 veil which lies between God and the eye of the 
 senses. We lose all discernment of him as the 
 giver of our comforts ; and coming, as they appear 
 to do, from that wealth which our fancies have 
 raised into a living personification, does this idol 
 stand before us, not as a deputy but as a substitute 
 for that Being, with whom it is that we really have 
 to do. All this goes both to widen and to fortify 
 that disruption which has taken place between God 
 and the world. It adds the power of one great 
 master idol to the seducing influence of all the lesser 
 idolatries. When the liking and the confidence of 
 men are towards money, there is no direct inter¬ 
 course, either by the one or the other of these 
 affections towards God; and, in proportion as he 
 sends forth his desires, and rests his security on the 
 former, in that very proportion does he renounce 
 God as his hope, and God as his dependence. 
 
 And to advert, for one moment, to the misery 
 of this affection, as well as to its sinfulness. He, 
 over whom it reigns, feels a worthlessness in his 
 present wealth, after it is gotten; and when to this 
 we add the restlessness of a yet unsated appetite, 
 lording it over all his convictions, and panting for 
 more; when, to the dulness of his actual satisfaction 
 
206 ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 in all the riches that he has, we add his still un¬ 
 quenched, and, indeed, unquenchable desire lor the 
 riches that he has not; when we reflect that as, in 
 the pursuit of wealth, he widens the eircle of his 
 operation, so he lengthens out the line of his open 
 and hazardous exposure, and multiplies, along the 
 extent of it, those vulnerable points from which 
 another and another dart of anxiety may enter into 
 his heart; when he feels himself as if floating on an 
 ocean of contingency, on which, perhaps, he is only 
 borne up by the breath of a credit that is fictitious, 
 and which, liable to burst every moment, may leave 
 him to sink under the weight of his overladen 
 speculation; when, suspended on the doubtful result 
 of his bold and uncertain adventure, he dreads the 
 tidings of disaster in every arrival, and lives in a 
 continual agony of feeling, kept up by the crowd 
 and turmoil of his manifold distractions, and so 
 overspreading the whole compass of his thoughts, 
 as to leave not one narrow space for the thought of 
 eternity;—will any beholder just look to the mind 
 of this unhappy man, thus tost and bewildered, and 
 thrown into a general unceasing frenzy, made out 
 of many fears and many agitations, and not say, 
 that the bird of the air which sends forth its un¬ 
 reflecting song, and fives on the fortuitous bounty 
 of Providence, is not higher in the scale of enjoyment 
 than he ? And how much more, then, the quiet 
 Christian beside him, who, in possession of food 
 and raiment, has that godliness with contentment 
 which is great gain—who, with the peace of heaven 
 in his heart, and the glories of heaven in his eye, 
 has found out the true philosophy of existence; has 
 
THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 207 
 
 sought a portion where alone a portion can be found, 
 and, inbidding away from his min d the love of money, 
 has bidden away all the cross and all the carefulness 
 along with it. 
 
 Death will soon break up every swelling enterprise 
 of ambition, and put upon it a most cruel and de¬ 
 grading mockery. And it is, indeed, an affecting 
 sight, to behold the workings of this world’s infatu¬ 
 ation among so many of our fellow mortals nearing 
 and nearing everyday to eternity, and yet, instead of 
 taking heed to that which is before them, mistaking 
 their temporary vehicle for their abiding home—and 
 spending all their time and all their thought upon 
 its accommodations. It is all the doing of our great 
 adversary, thus to invest the trifles of a day in such 
 characters of greatness and durability; and it is, 
 indeed, one of the mostformidable of his wiles. And 
 whatever may be the instrument of reclaiming men 
 from this delusion, it certainly is not any argument 
 either about the shortness of life, or the certainty and 
 awfulness of its approaching termination. On this 
 point man is capable of a stout-hearted resistance, 
 even to ocular demonstration; nor do we know a 
 more striking evidence of the derangement which must 
 have passed upon the human faculties, than to see 
 how, in despite of arithmetic,—how, in despite of 
 manifold experience—how, in despite of all his gather¬ 
 ing wrinkles, and all his growing infirmities_how, in 
 
 despite of the ever-lessening distance between him 
 and his sepulchre, and of all the tokens of preparation 
 for the onset of the last messenger, with which, in 
 the shape of weakness, and breathlessness, and 
 dimness of eyes, he is visited; will the feeble and 
 
208 ON THE LOVE OF MONEY. 
 
 asthmatic man still shake his silver locks in all the 
 glee and transport of which he is capable, when he 
 hears of his gainful adventures, and his new ac¬ 
 cumulations. Nor can we tell how near he must 
 get to his grave, or how far on he must advance in 
 the process of dying, ere gain cease to delight, and 
 the idol of wealth cease to be dear to him. But 
 when we see that the topic is trade and its profits, 
 which lights up his faded eye with the glow of its 
 ehiefest ecstasy, we are as much satisfied that he 
 leaves the world with all his treasure there, and all 
 the desires of his heart there, as if, acting what is 
 told of the miser’s death-bed, he made his bills and 
 his parchments of security the companions of his 
 bosom, and the last movements of his life were a 
 fearful, tenacious, determined grasp, of what to him 
 formed the all for which life was valuable. 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 209 
 
 DISCOURSE IX. 
 
 THE EXPULSIVE POWER OF A NEW 
 AFFECTION. 
 
 “ Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. 
 
 If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” 
 
 There ave two ways in which a practical moralist 
 may attempt to displace from the human heart its 
 love of the world—either by a demonstration of 
 the world’s vanity, so as that the heart shall be pre¬ 
 vailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an 
 object that is not worthy of it; or, by setting forth 
 another object, even God, as more worthy of its 
 attachment, so as that the heart shall be prevailed 
 upon not to resign an old affection, which shall 
 have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old 
 affection for a new one. My purpose is to show, 
 that from the constitution of our nature, the former 
 method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual— 
 and that the latter method will alone suffice for 
 the rescue and recovery of the heart from the 
 wrong affection that domineers over it. After 
 having accomplished this purpose, I shall attempt 
 a few practical observations. 
 
 Love may be regarded in two different conditions. 
 The first is, when its object is at a distance, and 
 then it becomes love in a state of desire. The 
 second is, when its object is in possession, and then 
 it becomes love in a state of indulgence. Under 
 
210 
 
 the impulse of desire, man feels himself urged 
 onward in some path or pursuit of activity for its 
 gratification. The faculties of his mind are put 
 into busy exercise. In the steady direction of one 
 great and engrossing interest, his attention is 
 recalled from the many reveries into which it might 
 otherwise have wandered; and the powers of his 
 body are forced away from an indolence in which it 
 else might have languished; and that time is crowded 
 with occupation, which but for some object of keen 
 and devoted ambition, might have drivelled along 
 in successive hours of weariness and distaste—and 
 though hope does not always enliven, and success 
 does not always crown this career of exertion, yet 
 in the midst of this very variety, and with the 
 alternations of occasional disappointment, is the 
 machinery of the whole man kept in a sort of 
 congenial play, and upholden in that tone and 
 temper which are most agreeable to it. Insomuch, 
 that if, through the extirpation of that desire which 
 forms the originating principle of all this movement, 
 the machinery were to stop, and to receive no 
 impulse from another desire substituted in its place, 
 the man would be left with all his propensities to 
 action in a state of most painful and unnatural 
 abandonment. A sensitive being suffers, and is in 
 violence, if, after having thoroughly rested from his 
 fatigue, or been relieved from his pain, he continue 
 in possession of powers without any excitement to 
 these powers; if he possess a capacity of desire 
 without having an object of desire; or if he have 
 a spare energy upon his person, without a counter¬ 
 part, and without a stimulus to call it into operation. 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 211 
 
 The misery of such a condition is often realized by 
 him who is retired from business, or who is retired 
 • from law, or who is even retired from the occupa¬ 
 tions of the chase, and of the gaming table. Such 
 is the demand of our nature for an object in 
 pursuit, that no accumulation of previous success 
 can extinguish it—and thus it is, that the mo.st 
 prosperous merchant, and the most victorious 
 general, and the most fortunate gamester, when 
 the labour of their respective vocations has coihe to 
 a close, are often found to languish in the midst of 
 all their acquisitions, as if out of their kindred, and 
 rejoicing element. It is quite in vain with such a 
 constitutional appetite for employment in man, to 
 attempt cutting away from him the spring or the 
 principle of one employment, without providing 
 him with another. The whole heart and habit 
 will rise in resistance against such an undertaking. 
 The else unoccupied female who spends the hours 
 of every evening at some play of hazard, knows as 
 well as you, that the pecuniary gain, or the 
 honourable triumph of a successful contest, are 
 altogether paltry. It is not such a demonstration 
 of vanity as this that will force her away from her 
 dear and delightful occupation. The habit cannot 
 so be displaced, as to leave nothing but a negative 
 and cheerless vacancy behind it—though it may so 
 be supplanted as to be followed up by another habit 
 of employment, to which the power of some new 
 affection has constrained her. It is willingly 
 suspended, for example, on any single evening, 
 should the time that wont to be allotted to gaming, 
 require to be spent on the preparations of an 
 
212 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 approaching assembly. The ascendant power of 
 a second affection will do, what no exposition 
 however forcible, of the folly and worthlessness of 
 the first, ever could effectuate. And it is the 
 same in the great world. We shall never be able 
 to arrest any of its leading pursuits, by a naked 
 demonstration of their vanity. It is quite in vain 
 to think of stopping one of these pursuits in any 
 way else, but by stimulating to another. In 
 attempting to bring a worldly man intent and busied 
 with the prosecution of his objects to a dead stand, 
 we have not merely to encounter the charm which 
 he annexes to these objects—but we have to 
 encounter the pleasure which he feels in the very 
 prosecution of them. It is not enough, then, that 
 we dissipate the charm, by a moral, and eloquent, 
 and affecting exposure of its illusiveness. We 
 must address to the eye of his mind another object, 
 with a charm powerful enough to dispossess the 
 first of its influences, and to engage him in some 
 other prosecution as full of interest, and hope, and 
 congenial activity, as the former. It is this which 
 stamps an impotency on all moral and pathetic 
 declamation about the insignificance of the world. 
 A man will no more consent to the misery of being 
 without an object, because that object is a trifle, or 
 of being without a pursuit, because that pursuit 
 terminates in some frivolous or fugitive acquirement, 
 than- he will voluntarily submit himself to the 
 torture, because that torture is to be of short 
 duration. If to be without desire and without 
 exertion altogether, is a state of violence and 
 discomfort, then the present desire, with its corre- 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 213 
 
 spondent train of exertion, is not to be got lid of 
 simply by destroying it. It must be by substituting 
 another desire, and another line or habit of exertion 
 in its place—and the most effectual way of with¬ 
 drawing the mind from one object, is not by turning 
 it away upon desolate and unpeopled vacancy— 
 but by presenting to its regards another object still 
 more alluring. 
 
 These remarks apply not merely to love con¬ 
 sidered in its state of desire for an object not yet 
 obtained. They apply also to love considered in 
 its state of indulgence, or placid gratification, with 
 an object already in possession. It is seldom that 
 any of our tastes are made to disappear by a mere 
 process of natural extinction. At least, it is very 
 seldom, that this is done through the instrumentality 
 of reasoning. It may be done by excessive pam¬ 
 pering—but it is almost never done by the mere 
 force of mental determination. But what cannot 
 be thus destroyed, may be dispossessed—and one 
 taste may be made to give way to another, and to 
 lose its power entirely as the reigning affection of 
 the mind. It is thus, that the boy ceases, at 
 length, to be the slave of his appetite, but it is 
 because a manlier taste has now brought it into 
 subordination—and that the youth ceases to idolize 
 pleasure, but it is because the idol of wealth has 
 become the stronger and gotten the ascendancy— 
 and that even the love of money ceases to have the 
 mastery over the heart of many a thriving citizen, 
 but it is because drawn into the whirl of city 
 politics, another affection has been wrought into 
 his moral system, and he is now lorded over by the 
 
214 
 
 AFFECTI 
 
 love of power. There is not one of these transforms, 
 tions in which the heart is left without an object. 
 Its desire for one particular object may be conquered; 
 but as to its desire for having some one object or 
 other, this is unconquerable. Its adhesion to that 
 on which it has fastened the preference of its 
 regards, cannot willingly be overcome by the 
 rending away of a simple separation. It can be 
 done only by the application of something else, to 
 which it may feel the adhesion of a still stronger 
 and more powerful preference. Such is the 
 grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must 
 have a something to lay hold of—and which, if 
 wrested away without the substitution of another 
 something in its place, would leave a void and a 
 vacancy as painful to the mind, as hunger is to the 
 natural system. It may be dispossessed of one 
 object, or of any, but it cannot be desolated of all. 
 Let there be a breathing and a sensitive heart, but 
 without a liking and without affinity to any of the 
 things that are around it; and, in a state of cheerless 
 abandonment, it would be alive to nothing but the 
 burden of its own consciousness, and feel it to be 
 intolerable. It would make no difference to its 
 owner, whether he dwelt in the midst of a gay and 
 goodly world; or, placed afar beyond the outskirts 
 of creation, he dwelt a solitary unit in dark and 
 unpeopled nothingness. The heart must have 
 something to cling to—and never, by its own 
 voluntary consent, will it so denude itself of all its 
 attachments, that there shall not be one remaining 
 object that can draw or solicit it. 
 
 The misery of a heart thus bereft of all relish fo2 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION; 215 
 
 that which wont to minister enjoyment, is strikingly 
 exemplified in those, who, satiated with indulgence, 
 have been so belaboured, as it were, with the variety 
 and the poignancy of the pleasurable sensations they 
 have experienced, that they are at length fatigued 
 out of all capacity for sensation whatever. The 
 disease of ennui is more frequent in the French me¬ 
 tropolis, where amusement is more exclusively the 
 occupation of the higher classes, than it is in the 
 British metropolis, where the longings of the heart 
 are more diversified by the resources of business and 
 politics. There are the votaries of fashion,who, in 
 this way, have at length become the victims of fashion¬ 
 able excess—in whom the very multitude of their 
 enjoyments, has at last extinguished their power of 
 enjoyment—who, with the gratifications of art and 
 nature at command, now look upon all that is around 
 them with an eye of tastelessness—who, plied with 
 the delights of sense and of splendour even to 
 weariness, and incapable of higher delights, have 
 come to the end of all their perfection, and like 
 Solomon of old, found it to be vanity and vexation. 
 The man whose heart has thus been turned into a 
 desert, can vouch for the insupportable languor which 
 must ensue, when one affection is thus plucked away 
 from the bosom, without another to replace it. 
 It is not necessary that a man receive pain from any 
 thing, in order to become miserable. It is barely 
 enough that he looks with distaste to every thing— 
 and in that asylum which is the repository of minds 
 out of joint, and where the organ of feeling as well 
 as the organ of intellect, has been impaired, it is not 
 in the cell of loud and frantic outcries, where we shall 
 
216 
 
 meet with the acme of mental suffering. But that 
 is the individual who outpeers in wretchedness all 
 his fellows, who, throughout the whole expanse of 
 nature and society, meets not an object that has at 
 all the power to detain or to interest him; who, 
 neither in earth beneath nor in heaven above, 
 knows of a single charm to which his heart can send 
 forth one desirous or responding movement; to 
 whom the world, in his eye a vast and empty deso¬ 
 lation, has left him nothing but his own consciousness 
 to feed upon—dead to all that is without him, and 
 alive to nothing but to the load of his own torpid 
 and useless existence. 
 
 It will now be seen, perhaps, why it is that the 
 heart keeps by its present affections with so much 
 tenacity—when the attempt is, to do them away by a 
 mere process of extirpation. It will not consent to be 
 so desolated. The strong man, whose dwelling-place 
 is there, may be compelled to give way to another 
 occupier—but unless another stronger than he, has 
 power to dispossess and to succeed him, he will keep 
 his present lodgment unviolable. The heart would 
 revolt against its own emptiness. It could not bear 
 to be so left in a state of waste and cheerless insipidity. 
 The moralist who tries such a process of dispossession 
 as this upon the heart, is thwarted at every step by 
 the recoil of its ownmechanism. Youhaveallheard 
 thatNature abhors a vacuum. Such at least is the 
 nature of the heart, that though the room which is in 
 it may change one inmate for another,it cannotbeleft 
 void without the pain of most intolerable suffering. 
 It is not enough then to argue the folly of an existing 
 affection. It is not enough, in the terms of a forcible 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 217 
 
 or an affecting demonstration, to make good the 
 evanescence of its object. Itmaynotevenbe enough 
 to associate the threats and the terrors of some 
 coming vengeance, with the indulgence of it. The 
 heart may still resist the every application, by obedi¬ 
 ence to which, it would finally be conducted to a 
 state so much at war with all its appetites as that of 
 downright inanition. So to tear away an affection 
 from the heart, as to leave it bare of all its regards 
 and of all its preferences, were a hard and hopeless 
 undertaking—and it would appear, as if the alone 
 powerful engine of dispossession were to bring the 
 mastery of another affection to bear upon it. 
 
 We know not a more sweeping interdict upon 
 the affections of Nature, than that which is delivered 
 by the Apostle in the verse before us. To bid a 
 man into whom there has not yet entered the great 
 and ascendant influence of the principle of regenera¬ 
 tion, to bid him withdraw his love from all the things 
 that are in the world, is to bid him give up all the 
 affections that are in his heart. The world is the 
 all of a natural man. He has not a taste nor a 
 desire, that points not to a something placed within 
 the confines of its visible horizon. He loves nothing 
 above it, and he cares for nothing beyond it; and 
 to bid him love not the world, is to pass a sentence 
 of expulsion on all the inmates of his bosom. To 
 estimate the magnitude and the difficulty of such a 
 surrender, let us only think that it were just as 
 arduous to prevail on him not to love wealth, which 
 is but one of the things in the world, as to prevail on 
 him to set wilful fire to his own property. This 
 he might do with sore and painful reluctance, if he 
 
218 
 
 saw that the salvation of his life hung upon it. 
 But this he would do willingly, if he saw that anew 
 property of tenfold value was instantly to emerge 
 from the wreck of the old one. In this case there 
 is something more than the mere displacement of an 
 affection. There is the overbearing of one affection 
 by another. But to desolate his heart of all love 
 for the things of the world, without the substitution 
 of any love in its place, were to him a process of as 
 unnatural violence, as to destroy all the things that 
 he has in the world, and give him nothing 'in their 
 room. So that, if to love not the world be indis¬ 
 pensable to one’s Christianity, then the crucifixion 
 of the old man is not too strong a term to mark that 
 transition in his history, when all old things are 
 done away and all things become new. 
 
 We hope that by this time, you understand the 
 impotency of a mere demonstration of this world’s 
 insignificance. Its sole practical effect, if it had 
 any, would be to leave the heart in a state which 
 to every heart is insupportable, and that is a mere 
 state of nakeduess and negation. You may re¬ 
 member the fond and unbroken tenacity with which 
 your heart has often recurred to pursuits, over the 
 utter frivolity of which it sighed and wept hut 
 yesterday. The arithmetic of your short-lived 
 days, may on Sabbath make the clearest impres¬ 
 sion upon your understanding—and from his fancied 
 bed of death, may the preacher cause a voice to 
 descend in rebuke and mockery on all the pur¬ 
 suits of earthliness—and as he pictures before you 
 the fleeting generations of men, with the absorbing 
 grave, whither all the joys and interests of the world 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION.: 219 
 
 hasten to their sure and speedy oblivion, may you, 
 touched and solemnized by his argument, feel for 
 a moment as if on the eve of a practical and per¬ 
 manent emancipation from a scene of so much 
 vanity. But the morrow comes, and the business 
 of the world, and the objects of the world, and the 
 moving forces of the world come along with it—and 
 the machinery of the heart, in virtue of which it must 
 have something to grasp, or something to adhere to, 
 brings it under a kind of moral necessity to be 
 actuated just as before—and in utter repulsion to¬ 
 wards a state so unkindly as that of being frozen out 
 both of delight and of desire, does it feel all the 
 warmth and the urgency of its wonted solicitations— 
 nor in the habit and history of the whole man, can we 
 detect so much as one symptom of the new crea¬ 
 ture—so that the church, instead of being to him 
 a school of obedience, has been a mere sauntering 
 place for the luxury of a passing and theatrical 
 emotion; and the preaching which is mighty to 
 compel the attendance of multitudes, which is 
 mighty to still and to solemnize the hearers into a 
 kind of tragic sensibility, which is mighty in the 
 play of variety and vigour that it can keep up 
 around the imagination, is not mighty to the p ullin g 
 down of strong holds. 
 
 The love of the world cannot be expunged by 
 a mere demonstration of the world’s worthlessness. 
 But may it not be supplanted by the love of that 
 which is more worthy than itself? The heart 
 cannot be prevailed upon to part with the world, 
 by a simple act of resignation. But may not the 
 heart be prevailed upon to admit into its prefer- 
 
220 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 ence another, who shall subordinate the world, 
 and bring it down from its wonted ascendancy? 
 If the throne which is placed there must have an 
 occupier, and the tyrantthat now reigns has occupied 
 it wrongfully, he may not leave a bosom which 
 would rather detain him than be left in desolation. 
 But may he not give way to the lawful sovereign, 
 appearing with every charm that can secure His 
 willing admittance, and taking unto himself His 
 great power to subdue the moral nature of man, 
 and to reign over it ? In a word, if the way to 
 disengage the heart from the positive love of one 
 great and ascendant object, is to fasten it in posi¬ 
 tive love to another, then it is not by exposing the 
 worthlessness of the former, but by addressing ta 
 the mental eye the worth and excellence of the 
 latter, that all old things are to be done away and 
 all things are to become new. 
 
 To obliterate all our present affections by 
 simply expunging them, and so as to leave the 
 seat of them unoccupied, would be to destroy the 
 old character, and to substitute no new character 
 in its place. But when they take their departure 
 uppn the ingress of other visitors; when they 
 resign their sway to the pow-er and the predomi¬ 
 nance of new' affections; when, abandoning the heart 
 to solitude, they merely give place to a successor 
 who turns it into as busy a residence of desire and 
 interest and expectation as before—there is nothing 
 in all this to thwart or to overbear any of the laws of 
 our sentient nature—and we see how 7 , in fullest 
 accordance with the mechanism of the heart, a great 
 moral revolution may be made to take place upon it. 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 221 
 
 This, we trust, will explain the operation of 
 that charm which accompanies the effectual preach¬ 
 ing of the gospel. The love of God and the love 
 of the world, are two affections, not merely in a 
 state of rivalship, but in a state of enmity—and that 
 so irreconcilable, that they cannot dwell together in 
 the same bosom. We have already affirmed hovr . 
 impossible it were for the heart, by any innate 
 elasticity of its own, to cast the world away frofti 
 it; and thus reduce itself to a wilderness. The 
 heart is not so constituted; and the only way to 
 dispossess it of an old affection, is by the expulsive 
 power of a new one. Nothing can exceed the 
 magnitude of the required change in a man’s char¬ 
 acter—when bidden as he is in the New Testament, 
 to love not the world; no, nor any of the things 
 that are in the world—for this so comprehends all 
 that is dear to him in existence, as to be equivalent 
 to a command of self-annihilation. But the same 
 revelation which dictates so mighty an obedience, 
 places within our reach as mighty an instrument 
 of obedience. It brings for admittance to the very 
 door of our heart, an affection which once seated 
 upon its throne, will either subordinate ev^y 
 previous inmate, or bid it away. Beside the 
 world, it places before the eye of the mind Him 
 who made the world and with this peculiarity, 
 which is all its own—that in the Gospel do we so 
 behold God, as that we may love God. It is 
 there, and there only, where God stands revealed 
 as an object of confidence to sinners—and where 
 our desire after Him is not chilled into apathy, by 
 that barrier of human guilt which intercepts every 
 
222 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 approach that is not made to Him through the 
 appointed Mediator. It is the bringing in of this 
 better hope, whereby we draw nigh unto God— 
 and to live without hope, is to live without God; 
 and if the heart be without God, the world will 
 then have all the ascendancy. It is God appre¬ 
 hended by the believer as God in Christ, who alone 
 can dispost it from this ascendancy. It is when 
 He stands dismantled of the terrors which belong 
 to Him as an offended lawgiver and when we are 
 enabled by faith, which is His own gift, to see 
 His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and to hear 
 His beseeching voice, as it protests good will to 
 men, and entreats the return of all who will to a 
 full pardon and a gracious acceptance—it is then, 
 that a love paramount to the love of the world, and 
 at length expulsive of it, first arises in the regene¬ 
 rated bosom. It is when released from the spirit 
 »f bondage with which love cannot dwell, and 
 when admitted into the number of God’s children 
 through the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the spirit 
 of adoption is poured upon us—it is then that the 
 heart, brought under the mastery of one great and 
 predominant affection, is delivered from the tyranny 
 of its former desires, in the only way in which 
 deliverance is possible. And that faith which is 
 revealed to us from heaven, as indispensable to A 
 siuuer’s justification in the sight of God, is also the 
 instrument of the greatest of all moral and spiritual 
 achievements on a nature dead to the influence, and 
 beyond the reach of every other application. 
 
 Thus may we come to perceive what it is that 
 makes the most effective kind of preaching. It 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 223 
 
 is not enough to hold out to the world’s eye the 
 mirror of its own imperfections. It is not enough 
 to -come forth with a demonstration, however 
 pathetic, of the evanescent character of all its 
 enjoyments. It is not enough to travel the walk 
 of experience along with you, and speak to your 
 own conscience and your own recollection, of the 
 deceitfulness of the heart, and the deceitfulness of 
 all that the heart is set upon. There is many a 
 bearer of the Gospel message, who has not shrewd¬ 
 ness of natural discernment enough, and who has 
 not power of characteristic description enough, and. 
 who has not the talent of moral delineation enough, 
 to present you with a vivid and faithful sketch of 
 the existing follies of society. But that very 
 corruption which he has not the faculty of repre¬ 
 senting in its visible details, he may practically be 
 the instrument of eradicating in its principle. Let 
 him be but a faithful expounder of the gospel 
 testimony—unable as he may be to apply a descrip¬ 
 tive hand to the character of the present world, let 
 him but report with accuracy the matter which 
 revelation has brought to him from a distant world 
 ■—unskilled as he is in the work of so anatomizing 
 the heart, as with the power of a novelist to create 
 a graphical or impressive exhibition of the worthless¬ 
 ness of its many affections—let him only deal in 
 those mysteries of peculiar doctrine, on which the 
 best of novelists have thrown the wantonness of 
 their derision. He may not be able, with the eye 
 of shrewd and satirical observation, to expose to 
 the ready recognition of his hearers, the desires of 
 worldliness—but with the tidings of the gospel in 
 
224 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 commission, he may wield the only engine that can 
 extirpate them. He cannot do what some hare 
 done, when, as if by the hand of a magician, they 
 have brought out to view, from the hidden recesses 
 of our nature, the foibles and lurking appetites 
 
 which belong to it_But he has a truth in his 
 
 possession, which into whatever heart it enters, 
 will, like the rod of Aaron, swallow up them all 
 —and unqualified as he may be, to describe the 
 old man in all the nicer shading of his natural and 
 constitutional varieties, with him is deposited that 
 ascendant influence under which the leading tastes 
 and tendencies of the old man are destroyed, and 
 he becomes a new creature in Jesus Christ our 
 
 Let us not cease then to ply the only instru¬ 
 ment of pow-erful and positive operation, to do 
 away from you the love of the w r orld. Let us try 
 every legitimate method of finding access to your 
 hearts for the love of Him who is greater than the 
 world. For this purpose, let us, if possible, clear 
 away that shroud of unbelief which so hides and 
 darkens the face of the Deity. Let us insist on 
 His claims to your affection—and whether in the 
 shape of gratitude, or in the shape of esteem, let 
 us never cease to affirm, that in the whole of that 
 wondrous economy, the purpose of which is to reclaim 
 a sinful world unto Himself—he, the God of love, 
 so sets Himself forth in characters of endearment, 
 that nought but faith, and nought but understand¬ 
 ing, are wanting, on your part, to call forth the 
 love of your hearts back again. 
 
 And here let us advert to the incredulity of a 
 
225 
 
 worldly man; when he brings his own sound and 
 secular experience to bear upon the high doctrines 
 of Christianity—when he looks on regeneration 
 as a thing impossible—when feeling as he does, 
 the obstinacies of his own heart on the side of 
 things present, and casting an intelligent eye, much 
 exercised perhaps in the observation of human 
 life, on the equal obstinacies of all who are around 
 him, he pronounces this whole matter about the 
 crucifixion of the old man, and the resurrection of 
 a new man in his place, to be in downright 
 opposition to all that is known and witnessed of 
 the real nature of humanity. We think that we 
 have seen such men, who, firmly trenched in their 
 own vigorous and homebred sagacity, and shrewdly 
 regardful of all that passes before them through 
 the week, and upon the scenes of ordinary business, 
 look on that transition of the heart by which it 
 gradually dies unto time, and awakens in all the 
 life of a new-felt and ever-growing desire towards 
 God, as a mere Sabbath speculation; and who 
 thus, with all their attention engrossed upon the 
 concerns of earthliness, continue unmoved, to the 
 end of their days, amongst the feelings, and the 
 appetites, and the pursuits of earthliness. If the 
 thought of death, and another state of being after 
 it, comes across them at all, it is not with a change 
 so radical as that of being born again, that they 
 ever connect the idea of preparation. They have 
 some vague conception of its being quite enough 
 that they acquit themselves in some decent and 
 tolerable way of their relative obligations; and 
 that, upon the strength of some such social and 
 6 p 
 
226 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 domestic moralities as are often realized by him 
 into whose heart the love of God has never entered, 
 they will be transplanted in safety from this world, 
 where God is the Being with whom it may almost 
 be said that they have had nothing to do, to that 
 world where God is the Being with whom they 
 will have mainly and immediately to do throughout 
 all eternity. They admit all that is said of the 
 utter vanity of time, when taken up with as a 
 resting place. But they resist every application 
 made upon the heart of man, with the view of so 
 shifting its tendencies, that it shall not henceforth 
 find in the interests of time, all its rest and all its 
 refreshment. 'They, in fact, regard such an 
 attempt as an enterprise that is altogether aerial 
 —and with a tone of secular wisdom, caught from 
 the familiarities of every-day experience, do they 
 see a visionary character in all that is said of 
 setting our affections on the things that are above; 
 and of walking by faith; and of keeping our hearts 
 in such a love of God as shall shut out from them 
 the love of the world; and of having no confidence 
 in the flesh; and of so renouncing earthly things 
 as to have our conversation in heaven. 
 
 Now, it is altogether worthy of being remarked 
 of those men who thus disrelish spiritual Christi¬ 
 anity, and, in fact, deem it an impracticable ac¬ 
 quirement, how much of a piece their incredulity 
 about the demands of Christianity, and their in¬ 
 credulity about the doctrines of Christianity, are with 
 one another. No wonder that they feel the work 
 of the New Testament to be beyond their strength, 
 so long as they hold the words of the New Testa- 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 227 
 
 ment to be beneath their attention. Neither they 
 nor any one else can dispossess the heart of an old 
 affection, hut by the expulsive power of a new 
 one—and, if that new affection be the love of God, 
 neither they nor any one else can he made to 
 entertain it, but on such a representation of the 
 Deity, as shall draw the heart of the sinner 
 towards Him. Now it is just their unbelief which 
 screens from the discernment of their minds this 
 representation. They do not see the love of God 
 in sending His Son unto the world. They do not 
 see the expression of His tenderness to men, in 
 sparing Him not, hut giving Him up unto the 
 death for us all. They do not see the sufficiency 
 of the atonement, or the sufferings that were 
 endured by Him who bore the burden that sinners 
 should have borne. They do not see the blended 
 holiness and compassion of the Godhead, in that 
 He passed by the transgressions of His creatures, 
 yet could not pass them by without an expiation. 
 It is a mystery to them, how a man should pass 
 
 to the state of godliness from a state of nature_. 
 
 but had they only a believing view of God mani¬ 
 fest in the flesh, this would resolve for them the 
 whole mystery of godliness. As it is, they cannot 
 get quit of their old affections, because they are 
 out of sight from all those truths which have influ¬ 
 ence to raise a new one. They are like the chil¬ 
 dren of Israel in the land of Egypt, when required 
 to make bricks without straw—they cannot love 
 God, while they want the only food which can 
 aliment this affection in a sinner’s bosom—and 
 however great their errors may be both in resisting 
 
228 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 the demands of the Gospel as impracticable, and in 
 rejecting the doctrines of the Gospel as inadmissible, 
 yet there is not a spiritual man (and it is the pre¬ 
 rogative of him who is spiritual to judge all men) 
 who null not perceive that there is a consistency 
 in these errors. 
 
 But if there be a consistency in the errors, in 
 like manner is there a consistency in the truths 
 which are opposite to them. The man who 
 believes in the peculiar doctrines, will readily bow 
 to the peculiar demands of Christianity. When 
 he is told to love God supremely, this may startle 
 another; but it will not startle him to whom God 
 has been revealed in peace, and in pardon, and in 
 all the freeness of an offered reconciliation. When 
 told to shut out the world from his heart, this may 
 be impossible with him who has nothing to replace 
 it—but not impossible with him, who has found 
 in God a sure and a satisfying portion. When 
 told to withdraw his affections from the things that 
 are beneath, this were laying an order of self¬ 
 extinction upon the man, who knows not another 
 quarter in the whole sphere of his contemplation, 
 to which he could transfer them—but it were not 
 grievous to him whose view has been opened up 
 to the loveliness and glory of the things that are 
 above, and can there find for every feeling of his 
 soul, a most ample and delighted occupation. 
 When told to look not to the things that are seen 
 and temporal, this were blotting out the light of 
 all that is visible from the prospect of him in whose 
 eye there is a wall of partition between guilty 
 nature and the joys of eternity—but he who 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 229 
 
 believes that Christ hath broken down this wall, 
 finds a gathering radiance upon his soul, as he looks 
 . onwards in faith to the things that are unseen and 
 eternal. Tell a man to be holy—and how can he 
 compass such a performance, when his alone 
 fellowship with holiness is a fellowship of despair ? 
 It is the atonement of the cross reconciling the 
 holiness of the lawgiver with the safety of the 
 offender, that hath opened the way for a sancti¬ 
 fying influence into the sinner’s heart; and he can 
 take a kindred impression from the character of 
 God now brought nigh, and now at peace with him. 
 Separate the demand from the doctrine; and you 
 have either a system of righteousness that is 
 impracticable, or a barren orthodoxy. Bring the 
 demand and the doctrine together—and the true 
 disciple of Christ is able to do the one, through 
 the other strengthening him. The motive is 
 adequate to the movement.; and the hidden obe¬ 
 dience of the Gospel is not beyond the measure of 
 his strength, just because the doctrine of the 
 Gospel is not beyond the measure of his ac¬ 
 ceptance. The shield of faith, and the hope of 
 salvation, and the Word of God, and the girdle 
 of truth—these are the armour that he has put on; 
 and with these the battle is won, and the eminence 
 is reached, and the man stands on the vantage 
 ground of a new field, and a new prospect. The 
 
 effect is great, but the cause is equal to it_and 
 
 stupendous as this moral resurrection to the pre¬ 
 cepts of Christianity undoubtedly is, there is an 
 element of strength enough to give it being and 
 continuance in the principles of Christianity. 
 
230 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 The object of the Gospel is both to pacify the 
 sinner’s conscience, and to purify his heart; and it 
 is of importance to observe, that what mars the one 
 of these objects, mars the other also. The best 
 way of casting out an impure affection is to admit 
 a pure one; and by the love of what is good, to expel 
 the love of what is evil. Thus it is, that the freer the 
 Gospel, the more sanctifying is the Gospel; and the 
 more it is received as a doctrine of grace, the more 
 willitbe felt as adoctrine according to godliness. This 
 s one of the secrets of the Christian life, that the more 
 a man holdsof God as a pensioner, the greater is the 
 payment of service that he renders back again. Oil 
 the tenure of “Dothisandlive/’aspiritoffearfulness 
 is sure to enter; and the jealousies of a legal bargain 
 chase away all confidence from the intercourse be¬ 
 tween God and man; and the creature striving to be 
 square and even with his Creator, is, in fact, pur¬ 
 suing all the while his own selfishness, instead of 
 God’s glory; and with all the conformities which he 
 labours to accomplish, the soul of obedience is not 
 there, the mind is not subject to the law of God, nor 
 indeed under such an economy ever can be. It is only 
 when, as in the Gospel, acceptance is bestowed as 
 a present, without money and withoutprice, that the 
 security which man feels in God is placed beyond 
 the reach of disturbance—or, that he can repose in 
 Him, as one friend reposes in another—or, that any 
 liberal and generous understanding can be estab¬ 
 lished betwixt them—the one party rejoicing over 
 the other to do him good—the other finding that 
 the truest gladness of his heart lies in the impulse 
 cf a gratitude, by which itis awakened tothecnarms 
 
POWER. OF A NEW AFFECTION. 231. 
 
 of a new moral existence. Salvation by grace— 
 salvation by free grace—salvation not of works, but 
 according to the mercy of God—salvation on such 
 a footing is not more indispensable to the deliver¬ 
 ance of our persons from the hand of justice, than 
 it is to the deliverance of our hearts from the chill 
 and the weight of ungodliness. Retain a single 
 shred or fragment of legality with the Gospel, and 
 we raise a topic of distrust between man and God. 
 We take away from the pow’er of the Gospel to 
 melt and to conciliate. For this purpose, the freer 
 it is, the better it is. That very peculiarity which 
 so many dread as the gei'm of antinomianism, is, in 
 fact, the germ of a new spirit, and a new inclination 
 against it. Along with the light of a free Gospel, 
 does there enter the love of the Gospel, which, in 
 proportion as we impair the freeness, we ave sure 
 to chase away. And never does the sinner find 
 within himself so mighty a moral transformation, as 
 when under the belief that he is saved by grace, 
 he feels constrained thereby to offer his heart a 
 devoted thing, and to deny ungodliness. 
 
 To do any work in the best manner, we should 
 make use of the fittest tools for it. And we trust, 
 that what has been said may serve in some degree, 
 for the practical guidance of those who would like 
 to reach the great moral achievement of our text— 
 but feel that the tendencies and desires of Nature 
 are too strong for them. We know of no other way 
 by which to keep the love of the world out of our 
 heart, than to keep in our hearts the love of God— 
 and no other way by which to keep our hearts in 
 the love of God, than building ourselves up on our 
 
232 POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 
 
 most holy faith. That denial of the world which is 
 not possible to him that dissents from the Gospel 
 testimony, is possible even as all things are possible, 
 to him that believeth. To try this without faith, 
 is to work without the right tool or the right in¬ 
 strument. But faith worketh by love; and the way 
 of expelling from the heart the love which trans- 
 gresseth the law, is to admit into its receptacles 
 the love which fulfilleth the law. 
 
 Conceive a man to be standing on the margin 
 of this green world; and that, when he looked 
 towards it, he saw abundance smiling upon every 
 field, and all the blessing's which earth can afford 
 scattered in profusion throughout every family, 
 and the light of the sun sweetly resting upon all 
 the pleasant habitations, and the joys of human 
 companionship brightening many a happy circle of 
 society—conceive this to be the general character 
 of the scene upon one side of his contemplation; 
 and that on the other, beyond the verge of the 
 goodly planet on which he was situated, he could 
 descry nothing but a dark and fathomless unknown. 
 Think you that he would bid a voluntary adieu to 
 all the brightness and all the beauty that were before 
 him upon earth, and commit himself to the frightful 
 solitude away from it ? Would he leave its peopled 
 dwelling places, and become a solitary wanderer 
 through the fields of nonentity ? If space offered him 
 nothing but a wilderness, wouldheforitabandonthe 
 homebred scenes of life and of cheerfulness that lay 
 so near, and exerted such a power of urgency to 
 detain him? Would not he cling to the regions of 
 sense, and of life, and of society ?—and shrinking 
 
POWER OF A NEW AFFECTION. 233 
 
 away from the desolation that was beyond it, would 
 not he be glad to keep his firm footing on the territory 
 of this world, and to take shelter under the silver 
 canopy that was stretched over it ? 
 
 But if, during'thetime of his contemplation, some 
 happy island of the blest had floated by; and there 
 had burst upon his senses the light of its surpassing 
 glories, and its sounds of sweeter melody; and he 
 clearly saw, that there, a purer beauty rested upon 
 every field, and a more heartfelt joy spread itself 
 among all the families ; and he could discern there, 
 a peace, and a piety, and a benevolence, which put 
 a moral gladness into every bosom, and united the 
 whole society in one rejoicing sympathy with each 
 other, and with the beneficent Father of them all. 
 —Could he further see, that pain and mortality were 
 there unknown; andabove all, that signals of welcome 
 were hung out, and an avenue of communication 
 was made for him—perceive you not, that what was 
 before the wilderness, would become the land of 
 invitation; and that now the world would be the 
 wilderness ? What unpeopled space could not do, 
 can be done by space teeming with beatific scenes, 
 and beatific society. And let the existing tendencies 
 of the heart be what they may to the scene that is 
 near and visibly around us, still if another stood 
 revealed to the prospect of man, either through the 
 channel of faith, or through the channel of his senses 
 —then, without violence done to the constitution of 
 his moral nature, may he die unto the present world, 
 and live to the lovelier world that stands in the 
 distance away from it. 
 
234 RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 DISCOURSE X. 
 
 THE RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 “ How sny ye to my soul. Flee as a bird to your mountaiu ?—0 
 that I had the mugs of a dove, that I may dy away, and he at 
 rest."— Psalm xi. 1. and lv. 6. 
 
 To all those who are conversant in the scenery of 
 external nature, it is evident, that an object to be 
 seen to the greatest advantage must be placed at a 
 certain distance from the eye of the observer. The 
 poor man’s hut, though all within be raggedness 
 and disorder, and all around it be full of the most 
 nauseous and disgusting spectacles—yet, if seen at 
 a sufficient distance, may appear a sweet and inte¬ 
 resting cottage. That field where the thistle grows, 
 and the face of which is deformed by the wild ex¬ 
 uberance of a rank and pernicious vegetation, may 
 delight the eye of a distant spectator by the loveli¬ 
 ness of its verdure. That lake, whose waters are 
 corrupted, and whose banks poison the air by their 
 marshy and putrid exhalations, may charm the eye 
 of an enthusiast, who views it from an adjoining 
 eminence, and dwells with rapture on the quietness 
 of its surface, and on the beauty of its outline—its 
 sweet border fringed with the gayest colouring of 
 Nature, and on which spring lavishes its finest 
 ornaments. All is the effect of distance. It softens 
 the harsh and disgusting features of every object. 
 What is gross and ordinary, it can dress in the most 
 
RESTLESSNESS OE HUMAN AMBITION. 235 
 
 romantic attractions. The country hamlet it can 
 transform into a paradise of beauty, in spite of the 
 abominations that are at every door, and the angry 
 brawlings of the men and the women who occupy 
 it. All that is loathsome or offensive, is softened 
 down by the power of distance. We see the 
 smoke rising in fantastic wreaths through the pure 
 air, and the village spire peeping from among 
 the thick verdure of the trees which embosom it. 
 The fancy of our sentimentalist swells wdth plea¬ 
 sure, and peace and piety supply their delight¬ 
 ful associations to complete the harmony of the. 
 picture. 
 
 This principle may serve to explain a feeling 
 which some of us may have experienced. On a 
 fine day, when the sun threw its unclouded splen¬ 
 dours over a whole neighbourhood, did we never 
 form a wish that our place could be transferred to 
 some distant and more beautiful part of the land¬ 
 scape ? Did the idea never rise in our fancy, that 
 the people who sport on yon sunny bank are 
 happier than ourselves—that we should like to he 
 buried in that distant grove, and forget, for a while, 
 in silence and in solitude, the distractions of the 
 world—that we should like to repose by yon beau¬ 
 tiful rivulet, and soothe every anxiety of our heart 
 by the gentleness of its murmurs—that we should 
 like to transport ourselves to the distance of miles, 
 and there enjoy the peace which resides in some 
 sweet and sheltered concealment? In a word, 
 was there no secret aspiration of the soul for 
 another place than what we actually occupied? 
 Instead of resting in the quiet enjoyment of our 
 
236 HESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 present situation, did not our wishes wander abroad 
 and around us—and were not we ready to exclaim 
 with the Psalmist in the text, “ O that I had the 
 wings of a dove; for I would fly to yonder mountain, 
 and be at rest ?” 
 
 But what is of most importance to be observed 
 is, that even when we have reached the mountain, 
 rest is as far from us as ever. As we get nearer 
 the wished-for spot, the fairy enchantments in 
 which distance had arrayed it, gradually disappear; 
 when we at last arrive at our object, the illusion is 
 entirely dissipated; and we are grieved to find, that 
 we have carried the same principle of restlessness 
 and discontent along with us. 
 
 Now, what is true of a natural landscape, is also 
 true of that moral landscape, which is presented 
 to the eye of the mind when it contemplates human 
 life, and casts a wide survey over the face of human 
 society. The position which I myself occupy is 
 seen and felt with all its disadvantages. Its 
 vexations come home to my feelings with all the 
 certainty of experience. I see it before mine eyes 
 with a vision so near and intimate, as to admit of 
 no colouring, and to preclude the exercise of fancy. 
 It is only in those situations which are without 
 me, where the principle of deception operates, and 
 where the vacancies of an imperfect experience 
 are filled up by the power of imagination, ever 
 ready to summon the fairest forms of pure and 
 unmingled enjoyment. It is all resolvable, as 
 before, into the principle of distance. I am too far 
 removed to see the smaller features of the object 
 which I contemplate. I overlook the operation of 
 
RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 237 
 
 those minuter causes, which expose every situation 
 of human life to the inroads of misery and disap¬ 
 pointment. Mine eye can only take in the broader 
 outlines of the object before me; and it consigns 
 to fancy the task of filling them up with its finest 
 colouring. 
 
 Am I unlearned? I feel the disgrace of ignorance, 
 and sigh for the name and the distinctions of 
 philosophy. Do I stand upon a literary eminence? 
 I feel the vexations of rivalship, and could almost 
 renounce the splendours of my dear-bought reputa¬ 
 tion for the peace and shelter which insignificance 
 bestows. Am I poor ? I riot in fancy upon the 
 gratifications of luxury; and think how great I 
 would be, if invested with all the consequence of 
 wealth and of patronage. Am I rich ? I sicken 
 at the deceitful splendour which surrounds me; 
 and am at times tempted to think, that I would 
 have been happier far if born to a humbler station, 
 I had been trained to the peace and innocence of 
 poverty. Am I immersed in business ? I repine 
 at the fatigues of employment; and envy the lot 
 of those who have every hour at their disposal, 
 and can spend all their time in the sweet relaxa¬ 
 tions of amusement and society. Am I exempted 
 from the necessity of exertion ? I feel the corroding 
 anxieties of indolence, and attempt in vain to escape 
 that weariness and disgust which useful and regular 
 occupation can alone save me from. Am I single? 
 I feel the dreariness of solitude, and my fancy 
 warms at the conception of a dear and domestic 
 circle. Am I embroiled in the cares of a family ? 
 1 am tormented with the perverseness or ingratitude 
 
238 RESTLESSNESS 
 
 HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 of those around me; and sigh in all the bitterness 
 of repentance, over the rash and irrecoverable step 
 by which I have renounced for ever the charms of 
 independence. 
 
 This, in fact, is the grand principle of human 
 ambition; and it serves to explain both its restless¬ 
 ness and its vanity. What is present is seen in all 
 its minuteness; and we overlook not a single 
 article in the train of little drawbacks, and 
 difficulties, and disappointments. What is distant 
 is seen under a broad and general aspect; and the 
 illusions of fancy are substituted in those places 
 which we cannot fill up with the details of actual 
 observation. What is present fills me with disgust. 
 What is distant allures me to enterprise. I sigh 
 for an office, the business of which is more congenial 
 to my temper. I fix mine eye on some lofty 
 eminence in the scale of preferment. I spurn at 
 the condition which I now occupy, and I look 
 around me and above me. The perpetual tendency 
 is not to enjoy our actual position, but to get 
 away from it—and not an individual amongst us 
 who does not every day of his life join in the aspi¬ 
 ration of the Psalmist, “ O that I had the wings 
 of a dove, that I may fly to yonder mountain, and 
 be at rest.” 
 
 But the truth is, that we never rest. The 
 most regular and stationary being on the face of 
 the earth, has something to look forward to, and 
 something to aspire after. He must realize that 
 sum to which he annexes the idea of a competency. 
 He must add that piece of ground which he thinks 
 necessary to complete the domain of which he is 
 
RESTLESSNESS 
 
 HUMAN AMBITION. 239 
 
 the proprietor. He must secure that office which 
 confers so much honour and emolument upon the 
 holder. Even after every effort of personal ambition 
 is exhausted, he has friends and children to provide 
 for. The care of those who are to come after 
 him, lands him in a never-ending train of hopes, 
 and wishes, and anxieties. O that I could gain 
 the vote and the patronage of this honourable 
 acquaintance—or, that I could secure the political 
 influence of that great man who honours me with 
 an occasional call, and addressed me the other day 
 with a cordiality which was quite bewitching—or 
 that my young friend could succeed in his competi¬ 
 tion for the lucrative vacancy to which I have been 
 looking forward, for years, with all the eagerness 
 which distance and uncertainty could inspire—or 
 that we could fix the purposes of that capricious. 
 and unaccountable wanderer, who, of late indeed 
 has been very particular in his attentions, and 
 whose connexion we acknowledge, in secret, would 
 be an honour and an advantage to our family—or, 
 at all events, let me heap wealth and aggrandizement 
 on that son, who is to be the representative of my 
 name, and is to perpetuate that dynasty which I 
 have had the glory of establishing. 
 
 This restless ambition is not peculiar to any one 
 class of society. A court only offers to one’s 
 notice a more exalted theatre for the play of 
 rivalship and political enterprise. In the bosom 
 of a cottage, we may witness the operation of the 
 very same principle, only directed to objects of 
 greater insignificance-—and though a place for my 
 girl, or an apprenticeship for my boy, be all that 
 
240 RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 I aspire after, yet an enlightened observer of the 
 human character will perceive in it the same eager¬ 
 ness of competition, the same jealousy, the same 
 malicious attempts to undermine the success of a 
 more likely pretender, the same busy train of 
 passions and anxieties which animate the exertions 
 of him who struggles for precedency in the cabinet, 
 and lifts his ambitious eye to the management of 
 an empire. 
 
 This is the universal property of our nature. 
 In the whole circle of our experience, did we ever 
 see a man sit down to the full enjoyment of the 
 present, without a hope or a wish unsatisfied? 
 Did he carry in his mind no reference to futurity 
 —no longing of the soul after some remote or 
 inaccessible object—no day-dream which played 
 its enchantments around him, and which even when 
 accomplished, left him nothing more than the 
 delirium of a momentary triumph ? Did we never 
 see him, after the bright illusions of novelty were 
 over—when the present object had lost its charm, 
 and the distant begun to practise its allurements— 
 when some gay vision of futurity had hurried him on 
 to a new enterprise, and in the fatigues of a restless 
 ambition, he felt a bosom as oppressed with care, 
 and a heart as anxious and dissatisfied as ever ? 
 
 This is the true, though the curious, and ive 
 had almost said, the farcical picture of human life. 
 Look into the heart which is the seat of feeling, 
 and we there perceive a perpetual tendency to 
 enjoyment, but not enjoyment itself—the cheerful¬ 
 ness of hope, but not the happiness of actual pos¬ 
 session. The present is but an instant of time. 
 
RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 241 
 
 The moment that we call it our own, it abandons 
 us. It is not the actual sensation which occupies 
 the mind. It is what is to come next. Man lives 
 in futurity. The pleasurable feeling of the moment 
 forms almost no part of his happiness. It is not 
 the reality of to-day which interests his heart. 
 It is the vision of to-morrow. It is the distant 
 object on which fancy has thrown its deceitful 
 splendour. When to-morrow comes, the animating 
 hope is transformed into the dull and insipid reality. 
 As the distant object draws near, it becomes cold 
 and tasteless, and uninteresting. The only way 
 in which the mind can support itself, is by recurring 
 to some new anticipation. This may give buoy¬ 
 ancy for a time—but it will share the fate of all its 
 predecessors, and be the addition of another folly 
 to the wretched train of disappointments that have 
 gone before it. 
 
 What a curious object of contemplation to a 
 superior being, who casts an eye over this lower 
 world, and surveys the busy restless and unceas¬ 
 ing operations of the people who swarm upon its 
 surface. Let him select any one individual amongst 
 us, and confine his attention to him as a specimen 
 of the whole. Let him pursue him through the 
 intricate variety of his movements, for he is never 
 stationary; see him with his eye fixed upon some 
 distant object, and struggling to arrive at it; see 
 him pressing forward to some eminence which 
 perpetually recedes away from him; see the inex¬ 
 plicable being, as he runs in full pursuit of some 
 glittering bauble, and on the moment he reaches 
 it, throws it behind him, and it is forgotten; see 
 0 u 
 
242 RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 h im unmindful of his past experience, and hurrying 
 his footsteps to some new object with the same 
 eagerness and rapidity as ever; compare the ecstasy 
 of hope with the lifelessness of possession, and 
 observe the whole history of his day to be made 
 up of one fatiguing race of vanity, and restlessness, 
 and disappointment; 
 
 “And, like tlie glittering of an idiot’s toy, 
 
 Doth fancy mock his vows.” 
 
 To complete the unaccountable history, let us 
 look to its termination. Man is irregular in his 
 movements, but this does not hinder the regularity 
 of Nature. Time will not stand still to look at 
 us. It moves at its own invariable pace. The 
 winged moments fly in swift succession over us. 
 The great luminaries which are suspended on high, 
 perform their cycles in the heaven. The sun 
 describes his circuit in the firmament, and the 
 space of a few revolutions will bring every man 
 among us to his destiny. The decree passes 
 abroad against the poor child of infatuation. It 
 meets him in the full career of hope and of enter¬ 
 prise. He sees the dark curtain of mortality fall¬ 
 ing upon the world, and upon all its interests. 
 That busy, restless heart, so crowded with its plans, 
 and feelings, and anticipations forgets to play, and 
 all its fluttering anxieties are hushed for ever. 
 
 Where then is that resting place which the 
 Psalmist aspired after ? What are we to mean 
 by that mountain, that wilderness, to which he 
 prayed that the wings of a dove may convey him, 
 afar from the noise and distractions of the world, 
 
RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 243 
 
 and hasten his escape from the windy storm, and 
 the tempest? Is there no object, in the whole 
 round of human enjoyment, which can give rest to 
 the agitated spirit of man—where he might sit 
 down in the fulness of contentment, after he has 
 reached it, and bid a final adieu to the cares and 
 fatigues of ambition ? Is this longing of the mind 
 a principle of his nature, which no gratification can 
 extinguish ? Must it condemn him to perpetual 
 agitation, and to the wild impulses of an ambition 
 which is never satisfied ? 
 
 We allow that exercise is the health of the 
 mind. It is better to engage in a trifling pursuit, 
 if innocent, than to watch the melancholy progress 
 of time, and drag out a weary existence in all the 
 languor of a consuming indolence. But nobody 
 will deny that it is better still, if the pursuit in 
 which we are engaged be not a trifling one—if it' 
 conduct to some lasting gratification—if it lead to 
 some object, the possession of which confers more 
 happiness than the mere prospect—if the mere 
 pleasure of the chase is not the only recompense 
 —but where, in addition to this, we secure some 
 reward proportioned to the fatigue of the exercise, 
 and that justifies the eagerness with which we 
 embarked in it. So long as the exercise is innocent, 
 better do something than be idle: but better still, 
 when the something we do, leads to a valuable and 
 important termination. Any thing rather than the 
 ignoble condition of that mind which feels the 
 burden of itself—and which knows not how to 
 dispose of the weary hours that hang so oppres¬ 
 sively upon it. But there is certainly a ground of 
 
244 RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 preference in the objects which invite us to exertion 
 —and better far to fix upon that object which leaves 
 happiness and satisfaction behind it, than dissipate 
 our vigour in a pursuit which terminates in nothing 
 —and where the mere pleasure of occupation is the 
 only circumstance to recommend it. When we 
 talk of the vanity of ambition, we do not propose 
 to extinguish the principles of our nature, but to 
 give them a more useful and exalted direction. A 
 state of hope and of activity is the element of man 
 —and all that we propose, is to withdraw his hope 
 from the deceitful objects of fancy, and to engage 
 his activity in the pursuit of real and permanent 
 enjoyments. 
 
 Man must have an object to look forward to. 
 Without this incitement the mind languishes. It 
 is thrown out of its element; and, in this unnatural 
 suspension of its powers, it feels a dreariness and 
 a discomfort far more unsufferahle, than it ever 
 experienced from the visitations of a real or positive 
 calamity. If such an object do not offer, he will 
 create one for himself. The mere possession of 
 wealth, and of all its enjoyments, will not satisfy 
 him. Possession carries along' with it the dulness 
 of certainty ; and to escape from this dulness, he 
 will transform it into an uncertainty—he will 
 embark it in a hazardous speculation, or he will 
 stake it at the gaming-table; and from no other 
 principle than that he may exchange the listlessness 
 of possession, for the animating sensations of hope 
 and of enterprise. It is a paradox in the moral 
 constitution of man; but the experience of every 
 day confirms it—that man follows what he knows 
 
RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 245 
 
 to be a delusion, with as much eagerness, as if 
 he were assured of its reality. Put the question 
 to him, and he will tell us, that if we were to lay 
 before him all the profits which his fancy anticipates, 
 he would long as much as ever for some new 
 speculation; or, in other words, be as much dissa¬ 
 tisfied as ever with the position which he actually 
 occupies—and yet, with his eye perfectly open to 
 this circumstance, will he embark every power 
 of his mind in the chase of what he knows to be a 
 mockery and a phantom. 
 
 Now, to find fault with man for the pleasure 
 which he derives from the mere excitement of 
 a distant object, would be to find fault with the 
 constitution of his nature. It is not the general 
 principle of his activity which we condemn. It 
 is the direction of that activity to a useless and 
 unprofitable object. The mere happiness of the 
 pursuit does not supersede the choice of the ob¬ 
 ject. Even though we were to keep religion out 
 of sight altogether, and bring the conduct of man 
 to the test of worldly principles, we still presuppose 
 a ground of preference in the object. Why is the 
 part of the sober and industrious tradesman pre¬ 
 ferred to that of the dissipated gambler ? Both 
 feel the delights of amind fully occupied with some¬ 
 thing to excite and to animate. But the exertions 
 of the one lead to the safe enjoyment of a com¬ 
 petency. The exertions of the other lead to an 
 object which, at best, is precarious, and often land 
 us in the horrors of poverty and disgrace. The 
 mere pleasure of exertion is not enough to justify 
 every kind of it: we must look forward to the ob- 
 
246 RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 ject and the termination—and it is the judicious 
 choice of the object which, even in the estimation 
 of worldly wisdom, forms the great point of dis¬ 
 tinction betwixt prudence and folly. Now, all 
 that we ask of you, is to extend the application of 
 the same principle to a life of religion. Compare 
 the wisdom of the children of light, with the wis¬ 
 dom of a blind and worldly generation—the pru¬ 
 dence of the Christian who labours for immortality, 
 with the prudence of him who labours for the 
 objects of a vain and perishable ambition. Con¬ 
 trast the littleness of time, with the greatness of 
 eternity—the restless and unsatisfying pleasures of 
 the world, with the enjoyments of heaven so pure, 
 so substantial, so unfading—and tell us which plays 
 the higher game—he, all whose anxiety is frittered 
 away on the pursuits of a scene that is ever shift¬ 
 ing, and ever transitory; or he, who contemplates 
 the life of man in all its magnitude; who acts upon 
 the wide and comprehensive survey of its interests, 
 and takes into his estimate the mighty roll of innu¬ 
 merable ages. 
 
 There is no resting-place to be found on this 
 side of death. It is the doctrine of the Bible, and 
 all experience loudly proclaims it. We do not 
 ask you to listen to the complaints of the poor, or 
 the murmurs of the disappointed. Take your 
 lesson from the veriest favourite of fortune. See 
 him placed in a prouder eminence than he ever 
 aspired after. See him arrayed in brighter 
 colours than ever dazzled his early imagination. 
 See him surrounded with all the homage that fame 
 and flattery can bestow—and after you have 
 
RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 24? 
 
 suffered this parading exterior to practise its de¬ 
 ceitfulness upon you, enter into his solitude—mark 
 his busy, restless, dissatisfied eye, as it wanders 
 uncertain on every object—enter into his mind, 
 and tell md if repose or enjoyment be there—see 
 him the poor victim of chagrin and disquietude— 
 mark his heart as it nauseates the splendour which 
 encompasses him—and tell us, if you have not 
 learned in the truest and most affecting characters, 
 that even in the full tide of a triumphant ambition, 
 “ man labours for the meat which perisheth, and 
 for the food which satisfieth not.” 
 
 What meaneth this restlessness of our nature ? 
 What meaneth this unceasing activity which longs 
 for exercise and employment, even after every ob¬ 
 ject is gained, which first roused it to enterprise ? 
 What mean those unmeasurable longings, which 
 no gratification can extinguish, and which still con¬ 
 tinue to agitate the heart of man, even in the ful¬ 
 ness of plenty and of enjoyment. If they mean 
 any thing at all, they mean, that all which this 
 world can offer, is not enough to fill up his capacity 
 for happiness—that time is too small for .him, and 
 he is born for something beyond it—that the scene 
 of his earthly existence is too limited, and he is 
 formed to expatiate in a wider and a grander theatre 
 •—that a nobler destiny is reserved for him—and 
 that to accomplish the purpose of his being, he 
 must soar above the littleness of the world, and 
 aim at a loftier prize. 
 
 It forms the peculiar honour and excellence of 
 religion, that it accommodates to this property of 
 our nature—that it holds out a prize suited to our 
 
2-18 RESTLESSNESS OF HUMAN AMBITION. 
 
 high calling—that there is a grandeur in its objects, 
 which can fill and surpass the imagination—that it 
 dignifies the present scene by connecting it with 
 eternity—that it reveals to the eye of faith the 
 glories of an unperishable world—and'how, from 
 the high eminencies of heaven, a cloud of witnesses 
 are looking down upon earth, not as a scene for 
 the petty anxieties of time, but as a splendid 
 theatre for the ambition of immortal spirits. 
 
ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 249 
 
 DISCOURSE XI. 
 
 ON THE ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOW. 
 LEDGE TO THE LOWER ORDERS OF SOCIETY. 
 
 “ Better is a poor ami a wise child than an old and foolish king, 
 who will no more be admonished.”— Ecclesiastes iv. 13 . 
 
 There is no one topic on which the Bible, 
 throughout the variety of its separate compo¬ 
 sitions, maintains a more lucid and entire con¬ 
 sistency of sentiment, than the superiority of 
 moral over all physical and all external distinc 
 tions. This lesson is frequently urged in the 
 Old Testament, and as frequently reiterated in 
 the New. There is a predominance given in 
 both to worth, and to wisdom, and to principle, 
 which leads us to understand, that within the 
 compass of human attainment, there is an object 
 placed before us of a higher and more estimable 
 character than all the objects of a common-place 
 ambition—that wherever there is mind, there 
 stands associated with it a nobler and more abiding 
 interest than all the aggrandizements which wealth 
 or rank can bestow—that within the limits of the 
 moral and intellectual department of our nature, 
 there is a commodity which money cannot purchase, 
 and possesses a more sterling excellence than all 
 which money can command. This preference of 
 man viewed in his essential attributes, to man 
 viewed according to the variable accessaries by 
 
250 ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 which he is surrounded—this preference of the 
 subject to all its outward and contingent modifi¬ 
 cations—this preference of man viewed as the 
 possessor of a heart, and of a spirit, and of 
 capacities for truth and for righteousness, to man 
 signalized by prosperity-, and clothed in the pomp 
 and in the circumstance of its visible glories—this 
 is quite akin with the superiority which the Bible 
 every where ascribes to the soul over the body, 
 and to eternity over time, and to the Supreme 
 Author of Being over all that is subordinate and 
 created. It marks a discernment, unclouded by 
 all those associations which are so current and 
 have so fatal an ascendancy in our world—the 
 wisdom of a purer and more ethereal region than the 
 one we occupy—the unpolluted clearness of a light 
 shining in a dark place, which announces its own 
 coming to be from above, and gives every spirit¬ 
 ual reader of the Bible to perceive the beaming 
 of a powerful and presiding intelligence in all its 
 pages. 
 
 One very animating inference to be drawn from 
 our text, is how much may be made of humanity. 
 Did a king come to take up his residence amongst 
 us—did he shed a grandeur over our city by the 
 presence of his court, and give the impulse of his 
 expenditure to the trade of its population—it were 
 not easy to rate the value and the magnitude which 
 such an event would have on the estimation of a 
 common understanding, or the degree of personal 
 importance which would attach to him, who stood 
 a lofty object in the eye of admiring townsmen. 
 And yet it is possible, out of the raw and ragged 
 
ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 251 
 
 materials of an obscurest lane, to rear an individual 
 of more inherent worth, than him who thus draws 
 the gaze of the world upon his person. By the 
 act of training in wisdom’s ways the most tattered 
 and neglected boy who runs upon our pavements, 
 do we present the community with that which, in 
 wisdom’s estimation, is of greater price, than this 
 gorgeous inhabitant of a palace. And when one 
 thinks how such a process may be multiplied 
 among the crowded families that are around us— 
 when one thinks of the extent and the density of 
 that mine of moral wealth, which retires, and 
 deepens, and accumulates, behind each front of the 
 street along which we are passing-—.when one tries 
 to compute the quantity of spirit that is imbedded 
 in the depth and the frequency of these human 
 habitations, and reflects of this native ore, that 
 more than the worth of a monarch may be stamped, 
 by instruction, on each separate portion of it—a 
 field is thus opened for the patriotism of those who 
 want to give an augmented value to the produce of 
 our land, which throws into insignificance all the 
 enterprises of vulgar speculation. Commerce may 
 flourish, or may fail—and amid the ruin of her 
 many fluctuations, may elevate a few of the more 
 fortunate of her sons to the affluence of princes. 
 Thy merchants may be princes, and thy traffickers 
 be the honourable of the earth. But if there be 
 truth in our text, there may, on the very basis of 
 human society, and by a silent process of education, 
 materials be formed, which far outweigh in cost 
 and true dignity, all the blazing pinnacles that 
 glitter upon its summit—and it is indeed a cheer- 
 
252 ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ing thought to the heart of a philanthropist, that 
 near him lies a territory so ample, on which he 
 may expatiate—where for all his pains, and all his 
 sacrifices, he is sure of a repayment more sub¬ 
 stantial, than was ever wafted by richly laden 
 flotilla to our shores—where the return comes to 
 him, not in that which superficially decks the man, 
 but in a solid increment of value fixed and perpet¬ 
 uated on the man himself—where additions to the 
 worth of the soul form the proceeds of his produc¬ 
 tive operation—and where, when he reckons up 
 the profits of his enterprise, he finds them to con¬ 
 sist of that, which, on the highest of all authorities, 
 he is assured to be more than meat, of that which 
 is greatly more than raiment. 
 
 Even without looking beyond the confines of our 
 present world, the virtue of humble life will bear 
 to be advantageously contrasted with all the pride 
 and glory of an elevated condition. The man who, 
 though among the poorest of them all, has a wisdom 
 and a weight of character, which makes him the 
 oracle of his neighbourhood—the man, who, vested 
 with no other authority than the meek authority of 
 worth, carries hi his presence a power to shame 
 and to overawe the profligacy that is around him 
 —the venerable father, from whose lowly tenement 
 the voice of psalms is heard to ascend with the 
 offering up of every evening sacrifice—the Christian 
 sage, who, exercised among life’s severest hardships, 
 looks calmly onward to heaven, and trains the foot¬ 
 steps of his children in the way that leads to it— 
 tiie eldest of a well-ordered family, bearing their 
 duteous and honourable part in the contest with its 
 
ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 253 
 
 difficulties and its trials—all these offer to our notice 
 such elements of moral respectability, as do exist 
 among the lowest orders of human society, and 
 elements, too, which admit of being multiplied far 
 beyond the reach of any present calculation. And 
 while we hold nothing to be more unscriptural than 
 the spirit of a factious discontent with the rulers 
 of our land—while we feel nothing to be more un¬ 
 tasteful t'.ian the insolence of a vulgar disdain towards 
 men of rank, or men of opulence—yet should the 
 king upon the throne be taught to understand, that 
 there is a dignity of an intrinsically higher order than 
 the dignity of birth or of power—a dignity which 
 may be seen to sit with gracefulness on the meanest, 
 of his subjects—and which draws from the heart of 
 the beholder a truer and profounder reverence. 
 
 So that, were it for nothing more than to bless 
 and adorn our present state, there cannot be an 
 attempt of greater promise, than that of extending 
 education among the throng of our peasantry— 
 there cannot be a likelier way of filling the country 
 with beauteous and exalted spectacles—there 
 cannot be a readier method of pouring a glory over 
 the face of our land, than that of spreading the 
 wisdom of life, and the wisdom of principle, through¬ 
 out the people who live in it—a glory differing in 
 kind, but greatly higher in degree, than the glories 
 of common prosperity. It is well that the progress 
 of knowledge is now looked to by politicians without 
 alarm—that the ignorance of the poor is no longer 
 regarded as more essential to the devotion of their 
 patriotism, than it is to the devotion of their pietv 
 —that they have, at length, found that the best 
 
254 ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 way of disarming the lower orders of all that is 
 threatening and tumultuous, is not to enthral, but 
 to enlighten them—that the progress of truth among 
 them, instead of being viewed with dismay, is viewed 
 with high anticipation—and an impression greatly 
 more just, and greatly more generous, is now be¬ 
 ginning to prevail, that the strongest rampart which 
 can possibly be thrown around the cause of public 
 tranquillity, consists of a people raised by infor¬ 
 mation, and graced by all moral and all Christian 
 accomplishments. 
 
 For our own part, we trust, that the mighty in¬ 
 terval of separation between the higher and lower 
 orders of our community, will, at length, be broken 
 down, not by any inroad of popular violence—not by 
 the fierce and devouring sweep of any revolutionary- 
 tempest—not even by any new adjustment, either 
 of thelimits of power, or the limits of property—not, 
 in short, as the result of any battle, fought either 
 on the arena of war, or on the arena of politics—but 
 as the fruit of that gradual equalization in mind 
 and in manners, to which even now a sensible ap¬ 
 proach is already making on the part of our arti- 
 zans and our labourers. They are drawing to¬ 
 wards an equality, and on that field, too, in w'hich 
 equality is greatly most honourable. And we fondly 
 hope, that the time is coming, when, in frank and 
 frequent intercourse, we shall behold the ready ex¬ 
 change of confidence on the one side, and affection 
 on the other—when the rich and the poor shall love 
 each other more, just because they know each other 
 more—when each party shall recognise the other 
 to be vastly worthier of regard and of reverence 
 
ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 255 
 
 than is now apprehended—when united by the 
 sympathies of a common hope, and a common 
 nature, and on a perfect level in all that is essential 
 and characteristic of humanity, they shall, at length, 
 learn to live in love and peacefulness together, 
 as the expectants of one common heaven—as the 
 members of one common and rejoicing family. 
 
 But, to attain a just estimate of the superiority 
 of the poor man who has wisdom, over the rich 
 man who has it not, we must enter into the 
 calculation of eternity—we must look to wisdom in 
 its true essence, as consisting of religion, as having 
 the fear of God for its beginning, and the rule of 
 God for its way, and the favour of God for its full 
 and satisfying termination—we must compute how 
 speedily it is, that, on the wings of time, the season 
 of every paltry distinction between them must, at 
 length, pass away; how soon death will strip the 
 one of his rags, and the other of his pageantry, and 
 send them, in utter nakedness, to the dust; how 
 soon judgment will summon them from their graves, 
 and place them in outward equality before the great 
 disposer of their future lot, and their future place, 
 through ages which never end; how in that 
 situation, the accidental distinctions of life will be 
 rendered void, and personal distinctions will be all 
 that shall avail them; how, when examined by the 
 secrets of the innef’man, and the deeds done in their 
 body, the treasure of heaven shall be adjudged only 
 to him whose heart was set upon it in this world ; 
 and how tremendously the account between them 
 will be turned, when it shall be found of the one, 
 that he must perish for lack of knowledge, and of 
 
250 advantages of Christian knowledge. 
 
 the other, that he has the wisdom which is unto 
 salvation. 
 
 And here it is of importance to remark, that to 
 be wise as a Christian is wise, it is not essential to 
 have that higher scholarship which wealth alone 
 can purchase—that such is the peculiar adaptation 
 of the Gospel to the poor, that it may be felt in 
 the full force of its most powerful evidence, by the 
 simplest of its hearers—that to be convinced of its 
 truth, all which appears necessary is, to have a 
 perception of sin through the medium of the 
 conscience, and a perception of the suitableness of 
 the ofFered Saviour through the medium of a 
 revelation, plain in its terms, and obviously sincere 
 and affectionate in its calls. Philosophy does not 
 melt the conscience. Philosophy does not make 
 luminous that which in itself is plain. Philosophy 
 does not bring home, with greater impression upon 
 the heart, the symptoms of honesty and good will, 
 which abound in the New Testament. Prayer 
 may do it. Moral earnestness may do it. The 
 Spirit, given to those who ask Him, may shine 
 with the light of His demonstration, on the docility 
 of those little children, who are seeking, with their 
 whole hearts, the way of peace, and long to have 
 their feet established on the paths of righteousness. 
 There is a learning, the sole fruit of which is a 
 laborious deviation from the truth as it is in Jesus. 
 And there is a learning which reaches no farther 
 than to the words in which that truth is announced, 
 and yet reaches far enough to have that truth 
 brought home with power upon the understanding— 
 a learning, the sole achievement of which is to read 
 
ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 257 
 
 the Bible, and yet by which the scholar is conducted 
 to that hidden wisdom, which is his light in life, 
 and his passport to immortality—a learning, which 
 hath simply led the inquirer’s way to that place, 
 where the Holy Ghost hath descended upon him 
 in rich effusion, and which, as he was reading, in 
 his own tongue, the wonderful words of God, hath 
 given them such a weight and such a clearness in 
 his eyes, that they have become to him the words 
 whereby he shall be saved. And thus it is, that 
 in many a cottage of our land, there is a wisdom 
 which is reviled, or unknown, in many of our halls 
 of literature—there is the candle of the Lord shin¬ 
 ing in the hearts of those who fear Him—there is 
 a secret revealed unto babes, which is hidden from 
 the wise and the prudent—there is an eye which 
 discerns, and a mind that is well exercised on the 
 mysteries of the sure and the well-ordered covenant 
 —there is a sense and a feeling of the preciousness 
 of that cross, the doctrine of which is foolishness to 
 those who perish—there is a ready apprehension 
 of that truth, which is held at nought by many 
 rich, and many mighty, and many noble, who will 
 not be admonished—-but which makes these poor 
 to be rich in faith, and heirs of that kingdom which 
 God hath prepared for those who love Him. 
 
 We know not, if any who is now present, has 
 ever felt the charm of an act of intercourse with a 
 Christian among the poor—with one, whose chief 
 attainment is, that he knows the Bible to be true 
 —and that his heart, touched and visited by a 
 consenting movement to its doctrine, feels it to be 
 precious. We shall be disappointed, if the very 
 
258 advantages of Christian knowledge. 
 
 exterior of such a man do not bear the impress of 
 that worth and dignity which have been stamped 
 upon his character—if, in the very aspect and 
 economy of his household, the traces of his 
 superiority are not to be found—if the promise, 
 even of the life that now is, be not conspicuously 
 realized on the decent sufficiency of his means, and 
 the order of his well-conditioned family—if the eye 
 of tasteful benevolence be not regaled by the 
 symptoms of comfort and cheerfulness which are 
 to be seen in his lowly habitation. And we shall 
 be greatly disappointed, if after having survived 
 the scoff of companions, and run through the ordeal 
 of nature’s enmity, he do not earn, as the fruits of 
 the good confession that he witnesses among his 
 neighbours, the tribute of a warm and willing cor¬ 
 diality from them all—if, while he lives, he do not 
 stand the first in estimation, and when he dies, the 
 tears and acknowledgments of acquaintances, as 
 well as of kinsfolk, do not follow him to his grave 
 —if, even in the hearts of the most unholy around 
 him, an unconscious testimony is not borne to the 
 worth of holiness, so as to make even this world’s 
 honour one of the ingredients in the portion of the 
 righteous. But these are the mere tokens and 
 visible accompaniments of Christian excellence— 
 the passing efflorescence of a growth that is open¬ 
 ing and maturing for eternity. To behold this 
 excellence in all its depth, and in all its solidity, you 
 must examine his mind, and there see the vastly 
 higher elements, with which it is conversant, than 
 those among which the children of this world are 
 grovelling—there see, how, in the hidden walk of 
 
ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 259 
 
 the inner man, he treads a more elevated path than 
 is trodden either by the daughters of gaiety, or the 
 sons of ambition—there see, how the whole great¬ 
 ness and imagery of heaven are present to his 
 thoughts, and what a reach and nobleness of 
 conception have gathered upon his soul, by his 
 daily approaches to heaven’s sanctuary. He lives 
 in a cottage—and yet he is a king and priest 
 unto God. He is fixed for life to the ignoble 
 drudgery of a workman, and yet he is on the full 
 march to a blissful immortality. He is a child in 
 the mysteries of science, but familiar with greater 
 mysteries. That preaching of the cross, which is 
 foolishness to others, he feels to be the power of 
 God, and the wisdom of God. That faithfulness 
 which annexes to all the promises of the Gospel 
 —that righteousness which is unto the believer— 
 that fulness in Christ, out of which the supplies of 
 light and of strength are ever made to descend on 
 the prayers of all who put their trust in Him—that 
 wisdom of principle, and u'isdom of application, 
 by which, through his spiritual insight into his 
 Bible, he is enabled both to keep his heart, and 
 to guide the movements of his history,—these are 
 his treasures—these are the elements of that moral 
 wealth, by which he is far exalted above the 
 monarch, who stalks his little hour of magnificence 
 on earth, and then descends a ghost of departed 
 greatness into the land of condemnation. He is 
 rich, just because the word o.f Christ dwells in him 
 richly in all wisdom. He is great, because the 
 Spirit of glory and of God rests upon him. 
 
 So that, the same conclusion comes back upon 
 
260 ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 us with mightier emphasis than before. If a poor 
 child be capable of being thus transformed, how it 
 should move the heart of a city philanthropist, 
 when he thinks of the amazing extent of raw mate¬ 
 rial, for this moral and spiritual manufacture that 
 is on every side of him—when he thinks, that in 
 going forth on some Christian enterprise among a 
 population, he is in truth, walking among the 
 rudiments of a state that is to be everlasting—that 
 out of their most loathsome and unseemly abodes, 
 a glory can be extracted, which will weather all 
 the storms, and all the vicissitudes of this world’s 
 history—that, in the filth and raggedness of a hovel, 
 that is to be found, on which all the worth of 
 heaven, as well as all the endurance of heaven can 
 be imprinted—that he is, in a word, dealing in 
 embryo with the elements of a great and future 
 empire, which is to rise, indestructible and eternal, 
 on the ruins of all that is earthly, and every member 
 of which shall be a king and a priest for evermore. 
 
 And before I pass on to the application of these 
 remarks, let me just state, that the great instrument 
 for thus elevating the poor, is that Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, which may be preached unto the poor. It 
 is the doctrine of His cross finding an easier 
 admission into their hearts, than it does through 
 thosebarriers of human pride,and human resistance, 
 which are often reared on the basis of literature. 
 Let the testimony of God be simply taken in, that 
 on His own Son he has laid the iniquities of us all 
 ■—and from this point does the humble scholar of 
 Christianity pass into light, and enlargement, and 
 progressive holiness. On the reception of this 
 
ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 261 
 
 great truth, there hinges the emancipation of his 
 heart from a thraldom which represses all the 
 spiritual energies of those who live without hope, 
 and, therefore, live without God in the world. 
 It is guilt—it is the sense of his awakened and 
 unexpiated guilt, which keeps man at so wide a 
 distance from the God whom he lias offended. 
 Could some method be devised, by which God, 
 jealous of His honour, and man jealous of his 
 safety, might be brought together on a firm ground 
 of reconciliation—it would translate the sinner 
 under a new moral influence, to the power' of 
 which, and the charm of which, He, before, -was 
 utterly impracticable. Jesus Christ died, the just 
 for the unjust, to bring us unto God. This is a 
 truth, which, when all the world shall receive it, 
 all the world will be renovated. Many do not see 
 how a principle, so mighty in operation, should be 
 enveloped in a proposition so simple of utterance. 
 But let a man, by his faith in this utterance, come 
 to know that God is his friend, and that heaven is 
 the home of his fondest expectation ; and in contact 
 with such new elements as these, he will evince 
 the reach, and the habit, and the desire of a new 
 creature. It is this doctrine which is the alone 
 instrument of God for the moral transformation of 
 our species. When every demonstration from the 
 chair of philosophy shall fail, this will achieve its 
 miracles of light and virtue among the people— 
 and however infidelity may now deride—or pro¬ 
 faneness may now lift her appalling voice upon our 
 streets—or licentiousness may now offer her sicken¬ 
 ing spectacles—or moral worthlessness may have 
 
262 ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 now deeply tainted the families of our outcast and 
 long-neglected population,—however unequal may 
 appear the contest with the powers and the principles 
 of darkness—yetlet notthe teachers of righteousness 
 abandon it in despair ; God will bring forth judg¬ 
 ment unto victory, and on the triumphs of the 
 word of his own testimony, will he usher in the 
 glory of the latter days. 
 
 There is one kind of institution that never has 
 been set up in a country, without deceiving and 
 degrading itspeople; and another kind of institution 
 that never has been set up in a country, without 
 raising both the comfort and the character of its 
 families. We leave it to the policy of our sister 
 kingdom, by the pomp and the pretension of her 
 charities, to disguise the wretchedness which she 
 cannot do away. The glory of Scotland lies in 
 her schools. Out of the abundance of her moral 
 and literary wealth, that wealth which communica¬ 
 tion caunot dissipate—that wealth which its possessor 
 may spread and multiply among thousands, and yet 
 be as affluent as ever—that wealth, which grows 
 by competition, instead of being exhausted—this 
 is what, we trust, she will be ever ready to bestow 
 on all her people. Silver and gold she may have 
 none—but such as she has she will give—she will 
 send them to school. She cannot make pensioners 
 of them—but will, if they like, make scholars of 
 them. She will give them of that food by which 
 she nurses and sustains all her offspring—by which 
 she renders wise the very poorest of her children— 
 by which, if there be truth in our text, she puts 
 into many f-single cottager, a glory surpassing that 
 
tISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 263 
 
 of the mightiest potentates in our world. To hold 
 out any other boon, is to hold out a promise which 
 she and no country in the universe, can ever realize 
 —it is to decoy, and then most wretchedly to 
 deceive—it is to put on a front of invitation, by 
 which numbers are allured to hunger, and naked¬ 
 ness, and contempt. It is to spread a table, and 
 to hang out such signals of hospitality, as draw 
 around it a multitude expecting to be fed, and who 
 find that they must famish over a scanty entertain¬ 
 ment. A system replete with practical mischief, 
 can put on the semblance of charity, even as Satan, 
 the father of all lying and deceitful promises,'can 
 put on the semblance of an angel of light. But 
 we trust, that the country in which we live will 
 ever be preserved from the cruelty of its tender 
 mercies—that she will keep by her schools, and her 
 Scriptures, and her moralizing process ; and that, 
 instead of vainly attempting so to force the exube¬ 
 rance of Nature, as to meet and satisfy the demands 
 of a population, whom she has led astray, she will 
 make it her constant aim so to exalt her population, 
 as to establish every interest that belongs to them, 
 on the foundation of their own worth and their own 
 capabilities—that taunted, as she has been, by her 
 contemptuous neighbour, for the poverty of her 
 soil, she will at least prove, by deed and by 
 example, that it is fitted to sustain an erect, and 
 honourable, and high-minded peasantry; and 
 leaving England to enjoy the fatness of her own 
 fields, and a complacency with her own institutions, 
 that we shall make a clean escape from her error, 
 and never again be entangled therein—that unse- 
 
264 ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 duced by the false lights of a mistaken philanthropy, 
 and mistaken patriotism, we shall be enabled to 
 hold on in the way of our ancestors; to ward off 
 every near and threatening blight from the character 
 of our beloved people ; and so to labour with the 
 manhood of the present, and the boyhood of the 
 coming generation, as to enrich our land with that 
 wisdom which is more precious than gold, and that 
 righteousness which exalteth a kingdom. 
 
ON CHRISTIANIZING OUR FOPUI.A1 
 
 *. 265 
 
 DISCOURSE XII. 
 
 ON THE DUTY AND THE MEANS OF CHRIS- 
 TIAN1Z1NG OUR HOME POPULATION. 
 
 the Gospel to every creature.”—M ark xvi. 15. 
 
 Christianity proceeds upon the native indisposi¬ 
 tion of the human heart to its truths and its lessons 
 
 _and all its attempts for the establishment of itself 
 
 in the world are made upon this principle. It 
 never expects that men will, of their own accord, 
 originate that movement by which they are to 
 come in contact with tbe faith of the Gospel—and, 
 therefore, instead of waiting till they shall move 
 towards the Gospel, it has been provided, from the 
 first, that the Gospel shall move towards them. 
 The Apostles did not set up their stationary college 
 at Jerusalem, in the hope of embassies from a 
 distance to inquire after the recent and wondrous 
 revelation that had broke upon the world. But 
 they had to go forth, and to preach among all 
 nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And, in like 
 manner, it never was looked for, that men, in the 
 ardour of their curiosity, or desire after the way of 
 salvation, were to learn the language of the Apostles, 
 that they might come and hear of it at their mouth. 
 But the Apostles were miraculously gifted with the 
 power of addressing all in their own native language 
 —and when thus furnished, they went actively and 
 aggressively about among them. It is no where 
 
266 
 
 E DUTY OF CHRISTIANIZING 
 
 supposed that the demand for Christianity is 
 spontaneously, and in the first instance, to arise 
 among those who are not Christians ; but it is laid 
 upon those who are Christians, to go abroad, and, 
 if possible, to awaken out of their spiritual lethargy, 
 those who are fast asleep in that worldliness, which 
 they love, and from which, without some external 
 application, there is no rational prospect of ever 
 arousing them. The dead mass will not quicken 
 into sensibility of itself—and, therefore, unless 
 some cause of fermentation be brought to it from 
 without, will it remain in all the sluggishness of its 
 original nature. For there is an utter diversity 
 between the article of Christian instruction, and 
 the articles of ordinary merchandise. For the 
 latter there is a demand, to which men are natively 
 and originally urged by hunger or by thirst, or by 
 the other physical sensations and appetites of their 
 constitution. For the former there is no natural 
 appetite. It is just as necessary to create a 
 spiritual hunger, as it is to afford a spiritual 
 refreshment—and so from the very first, do we find, 
 that for the spread of Christianity in the world, 
 there had to be not an itinerancy on the. part of 
 inquirers, buta busy, active, and extended itinerancy 
 on the part of its advocates and its friends. 
 
 Now, those very principles which were so obvi¬ 
 ously acted on at the beginning, are also the very 
 principles that, in all ages of the church, have 
 characterized its evangelizing processes. The 
 Bible Society is now doing, by ordinary means, 
 what was done by the miracle of tongues, in the 
 days of the Apostles—enabling the people of all 
 
HOME POPULATION. 
 
 207 
 
 nations to read each in their own tongue, the 
 wonderful works of God. And the Missionary 
 Societies are sending forth, not inspired Apostles, 
 gifted with tongues; but the expounders of apos¬ 
 tolical doctrine, learned in tongues, over the face 
 of the globe. They do not presume upon such a 
 taste for the gospel in heathen lands, as that the 
 people there shall traverse seas and continents, 
 or shall set themselves down to the laborious 
 acquisition of some Christian language, that they 
 might either have access to Scripture, or the ability 
 of converse with menthatare skilled in the mysteries 
 of the faith. But this taste which they do not 
 find, they expect to create—and for this purpose, 
 is there now an incessant application to Pagan 
 countries, of means and instruments from without 
 —and many are the lengthened and the hazardous 
 journeys which have been undertaken—and voyages 
 of splendid enterprise have recently been crowned 
 with splendid moral achievements; insomuch, that 
 even the ferocity and licentiousness of the savage 
 character have given way under the power of the 
 truth; and lands, that within the remembrance of 
 many now alive, rankled with the worst abominations 
 of idolatry, have now exchanged them for the arts 
 and the decencies of civilization; for village schools, 
 and Christian Sabbaths, and venerable pastors, 
 who first went forth as missionaries, and, as the 
 fruits of thc-ir apostolic labour, among these out¬ 
 cast wanderers, cannowrejoice over holy grandsires, 
 and duteous children, and all that can gladden the 
 philanthropic eye, ip the peace, and purity, and 
 comfort of pious families. 
 
268 ON THE duty of christianising 
 
 Now, amid the splendour and the interest of 
 these more conspicuous operations, it is often not 
 adverted to, how much work of a missionary 
 character is indispensable for perpetuating, and 
 still more for extending Christianity at home- 
 how families, within the distance of half-a-mile, 
 may lapse, without observation or sympathy on 
 our part, into a state of practical heathenism—how, 
 within less than an hour’s walk, hundreds may be 
 found, who morally and spiritually live at as wide 
 a separation from the Gospel, and all its ordinances, 
 as do the barbarians of another continent—how, in 
 many of our crowded recesses, the families, which, 
 out of sight, and out of Christian sympathy, have 
 accumulated there, might, at length, sink and 
 settle down into a listless, and lethargic, and, to all 
 appearance, impracticable population—leaving the 
 Christian teacher as much to do with them, as has 
 the first missionary when he touches on a yet 
 unbroken shore. It is vain to expect, that by a 
 proper and primary impulse originating with them¬ 
 selves, those aliens from Christianity will go forth 
 on the inquiry after it. The messengers of Chris¬ 
 tianity must go forth upon them. Many must go 
 to and fro amongst the streets, and the lanes, and 
 those deep intricacies, that teem with human life, 
 to an extent far beyond the eye or imagination of 
 the unobservant passenger, if we are to look for 
 the increase either of a spiritual taste, or of scrip¬ 
 tural knowledge among the families. That mass 
 which is so dense of mind, and, therefore, so dense 
 of immortality', must be penetrated in the length 
 and in the breadth of it; and then many will be 
 
OUR HOME POPULATION. 
 
 269 
 
 found, who, however small their physical distance 
 from the sound of the Gospel, stand at as wide a 
 moral distance therefrom, as do the children of the 
 desert—and to overpass this barrier, to send out 
 upon this outfield, such ministrations as might 
 reclaim its occupiers to the habits and the obser¬ 
 vations of a Christian land, to urge and obtrude, 
 as it were, upon the notice of thousands, what, 
 without such an advancement, not one of them 
 might have moved a footstep in quest of—these are 
 so many approximations, that, to all intents and 
 purposes, have in them the character; and might, 
 with the blessing of God, have also the effect of a 
 missionary enterprise. 
 
 When we are commanded to go into all the 
 world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, 
 our imagination stretches forth beyond the limits of 
 Christendom; and we advert not to the millions 
 who are within these limits, nay, within the sight 
 of Christian temples, and the sound of Sabbath 
 bells, yet who never heard the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ. They live to manhood, and to old age, 
 deplorably ignorant of the way of salvation; and 
 in ignorance, too, not the less deplorable that it is 
 wilful. It is this which so fearfully aggravates 
 their guilt, that, on the very confines of light, they 
 remain in darkness; and thereby prove, that it is 
 a darkness which they love, and which they choose 
 to persist in. Thus it will be found more tolerable 
 for the heathen abroad, than for the heathen at 
 home—and therefore it is, that for the duty of 
 our text, the wilds of Pagan idolatry, or of Maho¬ 
 metan delusion, are not the only theatres—that for 
 
TY OF 
 
 its full performance, it is not enough that we equip 
 the missionary vessel, and go in quest of untaught 
 humanity at a distance, and hold converse with the 
 men of other climes, and of other tongues, and rear 
 on some barbarous shore, the Christianized village, 
 as an outpost in that spiritual warfare, by which 
 we hope, at length, to banish depravity and guilt, 
 even from the farthest extremities of our species. 
 These are noble efforts, and altogether worthy of 
 being extended and multiplied a hundred fold. 
 But they are not the only efforts of Christian 
 philanthropy—nor can they be sustained as a com¬ 
 plete discharge from the obligation of preaching 
 the Gospel to every creature under heaven. For 
 the accomplishment of this, there must not only be 
 a going forth on the vast and untrodden spaces 
 that are without; there must be a filling up of the 
 numerous and peopled vacancies that are within— 
 a busy, internal locomotion, that might circulate, 
 and disperse, and branch off to the right and to the 
 left, among the many thousand families which are 
 at hand: And thoroughly to pervade these families; 
 to make good a lodgment in the midst of them, for 
 the nearer or the more frequent ministrations of 
 Christianity than before ; to have gained welcome 
 for the Gospel testimony into their houses, and, 
 in return, to have drawn any of them forth to 
 attendance on the place of Sabbath and of solemn 
 services—this, also, is to act upon our text, this 
 is to do the part, and to render one of the best 
 achievements of a missionary. 
 
 “ How can they believe,” says Paul, “ without, 
 a preacher,”—and “ how can they preach, except 
 
OUR HOME POPULATION. 271 
 
 they be sent?” To make sure this process, there 
 must be a juxtaposition between him who declares 
 the word, and them who are addressed by it—but 
 to make good this juxtaposition, the Apostle never 
 imagines that alienated man is, of his own accord, 
 to move towards the preacher—and, therefore, 
 that the preacher must be sent, or must move 
 towards him. And, perhaps, it has not been 
 adverted to, that in the very first steps of this 
 approximation, there is an encouragement for 
 going onward, and for plying the families of a city 
 population with still nearer and more besetting 
 urgencies than before. It is not known how 
 much the very juxtaposition of an edifice for wor 
 ship, tells upon the church-going habit of the 
 contiguous householders—how many there are 
 who will not move at the sound of a distant bell, 
 that with almost mechanical sureness, will go forth, 
 and mingle with the stream of passengers, who 
 are crowding the way to a place that is at hand— 
 how children, lured, perhaps, at the first, by curio¬ 
 sity, are led so to reiterate their attendance, as to 
 be landed in a most precious habit for youth and 
 for manhood—how this tendency spreads by talk, 
 and sympathy, and imitation, through each little 
 vicinity; and thus, in groups, or in clusters, might 
 adjoining families tie gained over to the ordinances 
 of religion—how the leaven, when once set a-going, 
 might spread by the fermentation of converse, and 
 mutual sentiment, through the whole lump ; till 
 over the face of a whole city department, the 
 Christian fabric, which stands conspicuously in the 
 midst of it, and whither its people are rung every 
 
572 ON THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANIZING 
 
 Sabbath, to the ministrations of the Gospel, might 
 come to be its place of general repair; and attend¬ 
 ance there be at length proceeded on as one of the 
 decencies of its established observation. Some of 
 the influences in this process may appear slight or 
 fanciful to the superficial eye—and yet they are 
 known, and familiarly known, to be of powerful 
 operation. You must surely be aware, that it 
 makes all the practical difference in the world, to 
 the retail and custom even of an ordinary shop, 
 should it deviate, by a very small hairbreadth, 
 from the minutest convenience of the public— 
 should it retire, by ever so little from the busy 
 pavement, or have to be ascended by two or three 
 steps, or require the slightest turn and change of 
 direction from that beaten path which passengers 
 do inveterately walk in. And human nature on a 
 week-day, is human nature on the Sabbath. There 
 is no saying on how slight or trivial a circumstance 
 it may be made to turn—and odd as the illustration 
 may appear, we feel confident that we have not, at 
 present, either a profound or a pious hearer, who 
 will undervalue one single stepping-stone, by which 
 a hearer more might be brought to the house of God 
 —who will despise any of the means, however 
 humble, that bring a human creature within the 
 reach of that word, which is able to sanctify and 
 save him—who will forget the wonted style of 
 God’s administrations, by which, on these minutest 
 incidents of life, the greatest events of history are 
 oft suspended—or, who will deny that the same 
 Being, who, by the flight of a single bird, turned 
 the pursuers of Mahomet away from him, and so 
 
HOME POPULATION. 
 
 spared the instrument by which a gross and griev¬ 
 ous superstition hath found an ascendancy over 
 millions of immortal spirits, that He can enlist in the 
 cause of His own Son, even the least and slightest 
 familiarities of human practice; and with links, 
 which in themselves are exceeding small, can 
 fasten and uphold the chain, which runs through 
 the earthly pilgrimage of man, and reaches to his 
 eternity. 
 
 But after all, though local conveniency may 
 allure, in the first instance, to the house of God, 
 local conveniency will not detain the attendance 
 of multitudes, unless there be a worth and a power 
 in the services which are rendered there—unless 
 there be a moral earnestness in the heart of the 
 preacher, which may pour forth a sympathy with 
 itself through the hearts of a listening congregation 
 —unless, acquitting himself as an upright minister 
 of the New Testament, he expound with faithful¬ 
 ness, and some degree of energy, those truths -which 
 are unto salvation; and so distribute among his 
 fellow-sinners, the alone substantial and satisfying 
 food of the soul—unless such a demonstration be 
 given of the awful realities in which we deal, as to 
 awaken in many bosoms the realizing sense of 
 death, and of the judgment-seat—and, above all, 
 unless the demands of the law, with its accom¬ 
 panying severities and terrors, be so urged on the 
 conviction of guilty man, as to make it fall with 
 welcome upon his ear, when told, that unto him a 
 Saviour has been born. These are the alone 
 elements of a rightful and w’ell-earned popularity. 
 Eloquence may dazzle—and argument may compel 
 6 s 
 
274 ON THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANIZING 
 
 the homage of its intellectual admirers—and fashion 
 may even, when these are wanting, sustain through 
 its little hour of smile and of sunshine, a complacent 
 attendance on the reigning idol of the neighbour¬ 
 hood—but it is only if armed with the panoply of 
 scriptural truth, that there will gather and adhere 
 to him a people who hunger for the bread of life, 
 and who make a business of their eternity. To 
 fill the church well, we must fill the pulpit well; 
 and see that the articles of the peace-speaking 
 blood, and the sanctifying Spirit, are the topics 
 that be dearest to the audience, and on which the 
 Christian orator who addresses them most loves 
 to expatiate. These form the only enduring staple 
 of good and vigorous preaching; and unless they 
 have a breadth, and a prominency, and a fond 
 reiteration in the sermons that shall be delivered 
 from the place where we now stand,* they either 
 will not, or ought not to be listened to. 
 
 Yet grieved and disappointed should we be, did 
 he confine himself to Sabbath ministrations—did 
 he not go forth, and become the friend and the 
 Christian adviser of all who dwell within the limits of 
 his vineyard—did he not act the part of an Apostle 
 among you, from house to house, and vary the 
 fatigue of his preparations for the pulpit, by a daily 
 walk amongst the ignorant, or the sick, or the sorrow¬ 
 ful, or the dying. It is your part to respect, as you 
 would a sanctuary, that solitude to which, for hours 
 together, he should commit himself, in the work of 
 
 * This Sermon was preached at the opening of a city chapel, 
 letting is on the territorial principle. 
 
HOME POPULATION. 
 
 275 
 
 meditating the truths of salvation—and it is his 
 part to return your delicacy by his labours of love, 
 by the greetings of his cordial fellowship, by his 
 visits of kindness. It is a wrong imagination on 
 the side of a people, when they look on the Sabbath 
 for a vigorous exposition of duty or doctrine, from 
 him whom they teaze, and interrupt, and annoy, 
 through the week—and it is a wrong imagination 
 on the side of a pastor, when looking on the church 
 as the sole arena of his usefulness, he does not 
 relax the labour of a spirit that has been much 
 exercised on the great topics of the Christian 
 ministry, by frequent and familiar intercourse 
 among those, whom, perhaps, he has touched or 
 arrested by his Sabbath demonstrations. You 
 ought to intrude not upon his arrangements and 
 his studies ; but he ought, in these arrangements, 
 to provide the opportunities of ample converse with 
 every spiritual patient, with every honest inquirer. 
 You should be aware of the distinction that he 
 makes between that season of the day which is set 
 apart for retirement, and that season of the day 
 which lies open to the duty of holding courteous 
 fellowship with all—and of hiding not himself from 
 his own flesh. It is the gross insensibility which 
 obtains to the privileges both of a sacred and 
 literary order—it is the disturbance of a perpetual 
 inroad on that prophet’s chamber, which ought, at 
 all times, to be a safe retreat of contemplation—it 
 is the incessant struggle that must be made for a 
 professional existence, with irksome application, 
 and idle ceremony, and even the urgencies of 
 friendship—these are sufficient to explain those 
 
276 on 
 
 CHRISTIANIZING 
 
 pulpit imbecilities, of which many are heard to 
 complain, while themselves they help to create 
 them. And, therefore, if you . want to foster the 
 energies of your future clergyman; if you would 
 co-operate with him in those mental labours, by 
 which he provides through the week for the repast 
 of your Sabbath festival; if it is your desire that 
 an unction and a power shall be felt in all his pulpit 
 ministrations; if here you would like to catch a 
 glow of heaven’s saeredness, and receive that fresh 
 and forcible impulse upon your spirits, which 
 might send you forth again with a redoubled ardour 
 of holy affection and zeal on the business of life, 
 and make youlook and long for the coming Sabbath, 
 as another delightful resting-place on your journey 
 towards Zion—then suffer him to breathe, without 
 molestation, in that pure and lofty region, where 
 he might inhale a seraphic fervency, by which to 
 kindle among his hearers his own celestial fire, 
 his own noble enthusiasm. If it be this, and not 
 the glee of companionship, or the drudgeries of 
 ordinary clerkship that you want from your minister, 
 then leave, I beseech you, his time in his own hand, 
 and hold his asylum to be unviolable. 
 
 But, we trust, that from this asylum his ex¬ 
 cursions will be frequent—and sure we are, that 
 nought but an affectionate forthgoing is necessary 
 on his part, that he may have a warm and a willing 
 reception upon yours. It is utterly a mistake, that 
 any population, whatever be their present habits, 
 will discourage the approaches of a Christian 
 minister to their families. It is a particularly 
 wrong imagination, that in cities there is a hard or 
 
277 
 
 an insolent defiance among the labouring classes, 
 which no assiduities of service or of good-will on 
 the part of their clergyman can possibly overcome. 
 Let him but try what their temperament is ill this 
 matter, and he will find it in every way as courteous 
 and inviting, as among the most primitive of our 
 Scottish peasantry. Let him be hut alert to every 
 call of threatening disease among his people, and 
 the ready attendant upon every death-bed—let 
 him ply not his fatiguing, but his easy and most 
 practicable rounds of visitation in the midst of 
 them—let him be zealous for their best interests, 
 and not in the spirit of a fawning obsequiousness, 
 but in that of a manly, intelligent, and honest 
 friendship, let him stand forth as the guardian of 
 the poor, the guide and the counsellor of their 
 children; it is positively not in human nature to 
 withstand the charm and the power which lie in 
 such unwearied ministrations—and if visibly 
 prompted by the affinity that there is in the man’s 
 heart for his fellows of the species, there will, by a 
 law of the human constitution, he an affinity in 
 theirs towards him, which they cannot stifle, though 
 they would; and they will have no wish to stifle it. 
 
 It is to this principle, little as it has been re¬ 
 cognised, and still less as it has been proceeded 
 on, it is to this that we confide the gathering at 
 length of a congregation within these walls, and 
 that too from the vicinities by which we are im¬ 
 mediately surrounded. That the chapel will be 
 filled at the very outset, from the district which 
 has been assigned to it, we have no expectation. 
 But we do fondly hope, as the fruit of his un» 
 
273 
 
 wearied services, that its minister will draw the 
 kind regards of the people after him; that an 
 impression will be made by his powerful and 
 reiterated addresses in the bosom of their families, 
 which may not stop there; that the man who prays 
 at every funeral, and sits by every dying bed, and 
 seizes every opening for Christian usefulness that 
 is afforded to him by the visitations of Providence 
 on the houses of the surrounding neighbourhood, 
 and who, while a fit companion for the great in 
 his vineyard, is a ready, and ever accessible friend 
 to the poorest of them all—it is utterly impossible, 
 that such a mau, after his work of varied and 
 active benevolence, will have nought to address on 
 the Sabbath but empty walls. After being the 
 eye-witness of what he does, there will spring up 
 a most natural desire, and that cannot be resisted, 
 to hear what he says. It is not yet known how 
 much such attentions as these, kept up, and made 
 to play in busy and constant recurrence upon one 
 local neighbourhood—it is not yet known how 
 much and how' powerfully they tell in drawing the 
 hearts of the people towards him who faithfully 
 and with honest friendship, discharges them. They 
 will make the pulpit which he fills a common centre 
 of attraction to the whole territory over which he 
 expatiates—and we need not that we may see 
 exemplified in human society, the worth and im¬ 
 portance of the pastoral relationship, we need not 
 go alone among the sequestered vales, or the far 
 and upland retreats of our country parishes. It 
 is not a local phenomenon dependent on geography. 
 It is a general one, dependent on the nature of 
 
OUR HOME POPULATION. 279 
 
 man; on those laws of the heart, which no change 
 of place or of circumstances can obliterate. To 
 gain the moral ascendancy of which we speak, it 
 is enough if the upright and laborious clergyman 
 have human feelings and human families on every 
 side of him. It signifies not where. Give him 
 Christian kindness, and this will pioneer a way 
 for him amongst all the varieties of place and of 
 population. Beside the smoke, and the din, and 
 the dizzying wheel of crowded manufactories, will he 
 find as ready an introduction for himself and for 
 his office, as if his only walk had been among 
 peaceful hamlets, and with nought but the romance 
 and the rusticity of nature spread out before him. 
 It is utterly a wrong imagination, and in the face 
 both of experience and of prophecy, that in towns 
 there is an impracticable barrier against the 
 capabilities and the triumphs of the Gospel—that 
 in towns the cause of human amelioration must be 
 abandoned in despair—that in towns it is not by 
 the architecture of chapels, but by the architecture 
 of prisons, and of barracks, and of bridewells, we 
 are alone to seek for the protection of society— 
 that elsewhere a moralizing charm may go forth 
 among the people, from village schools and sabbath 
 services, but that there is a hardihood and a 
 ferocity' in towns, which must be dealt with in 
 another way, and against which all the artillery of 
 the pulpit is feeble as infancy—that a foul and a 
 feverish depravity has settled there, which no 
 spiritual application will ever extinguish: For 
 amid all the devisings for the peace and order of 
 our community, do we find it to be the shrewd and 
 
250 ON THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANIZING 
 
 sturdy apprehension of many, that all which can 
 be achieved in our overgrown cities, is by the 
 strength of the secular arm; that a stern and 
 vigorous police will do more for public morals, than 
 a whole band of ecclesiastics; that a periodical 
 execution will strike a more salutary terror into 
 the hearts of the multitude, than do the dreadest 
 fulminations of the preacher’s voice—and this will 
 explain the derision and the distrust wherewith 
 that argument is listened to, which goes to set 
 forth the efficacy of Christian doctrine, or to magnify 
 the office of him who delivers it. 
 
 We can offer no computation that will satisfy 
 such antagonists as these, of the importance of 
 Christianity even to the civil and the temporal 
 well-being of our species ; and we shall, therefore, 
 plead the authority of our text, for extending its 
 lessons to every creature—for going forth with it 
 to every haunt and every habitation where immortal 
 beings are to be found—for not merely carrying it 
 beyond the limits of Christendom, but for filling up 
 with instruction the many blank, and vacant, and 
 still unoccupied places, teeming with population, 
 that, even within these limits have not been over¬ 
 taken. What! shall we be told, that if there is a 
 man under heaven, whom the Gospel has not yet 
 reached, it is but obedience to a last and solemn 
 commandment, when the missionary travels even 
 to the farthest verge of our horizon, that he may 
 bear it to his door—and shall we be told of the 
 thousands who are beside us, that, though their 
 souls are perishing for lack of knowledge, we might, 
 without one care or one effort abandon them ? Are 
 
OCR COME POPULATION. 28} 
 
 we to give up as desperate, the Christian reforma¬ 
 tion of our land, when we read of those mighty 
 achievements, and those heavenly outpourings, by 
 which even the veriest wilds of heathenism have 
 been fertilized—or, with such an instrument to 
 work by as that of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 
 which in the hands of the Spirit of God hath 
 wrought its miracles on the men of all ages, shall we 
 forbear, as a hopeless enterprise, the evangelizing 
 of our own homes, the eternal salvation of our own 
 families ? “ Be of good cheer,” says the Spirit to 
 
 the Apostle, “ I have much people for thee in this 
 city; and that, a city, too, the most profligate and 
 abandoned that ever flourished on the face of our 
 world. And still the Lord’s hand is not shortened, 
 that it cannot save. Wither is His ear heavy, 
 that it cannot hear. It is open as ever to the cry 
 of your intercessions—and on these, -we would 
 devolve our cause. We entreat the fellowship of 
 your prayers. We know, that all human exertion, 
 and eloquence, and wisdom, are vain, without them 
 —that, lacking that influence which is gotten dowii 
 by supplications from on high, sermons are but 
 high-sounding cymbals, and churches but naked 
 architecture—that mere pains are of no avail, and 
 that it only lies within the compass of pains and of 
 prayers, to do any thing. 
 
 And we, indeed, have great reason for encourage¬ 
 ment, when we think of the subject of our message. 
 When w r e are bidden in the text to preach, it is to 
 preach the Gospel—it is to proclaim good news 
 in the hearing of the people—it is to sound forth 
 what surely must be felt welcome by many—it is 
 
282 ON THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANIZING 
 
 to sound forth the glad tidings of great joy—it is 
 to tell even the chief of sinners, that God is now 
 willing to treat him as a sinner no longer; that 
 He invites him to all the honours of righteousness; 
 and that in virtue of a blood which cleanseth from 
 all sin, and of an obedience, to the rewards of 
 which he is freely and fully invited, there is not a 
 guilty creature in our world, who may not draw 
 nigh. Should he who preaches within these walls, 
 turn out the faithful and the energetic expounder 
 of this word of salvation—should the blessing of 
 God be upon his ways, and that demonstration 
 which cometh from on high, accompany his words 
 —should he, filled with zeal in the high cause of 
 your immortality, be instant among you in season, 
 and out of season—and devoted to the work of his 
 sacred ministry, he make it his single aim to gather 
 in a harvest of unperishable spirits, that by him as 
 an instrument of grace, have been rescued from 
 hell, and raised to a blissful eternity-—should this 
 be indeed the high walk of his unremitting toil, and 
 his unwearied perseverance—then, such is the 
 power of the divine testimony, when urged out of 
 the fulness of a believer’s heart, and made to fall 
 with the impression of his undoubted sincerity on 
 those whom he addresses; that for ourselves we 
 shall have no fear of a good and a glorious issue to 
 this undertaking—and, therefore, as Paul often 
 cast the success of his labours on the prayers of 
 them for whom he laboured, would I again entreat 
 that your supplications do ascend to the throne of 
 grace for him who is to minister amongst you in 
 word and in doctrine—that he may, indeed, be a 
 
OUR HOME POPULATION. 283 
 
 pastor according to God’s own heart, who shall 
 •feed a people here with knowledge and with spiritual 
 understanding—that the travail of his soul may be 
 blest to the conversion of many sons and daughters 
 unto righteousness—that he may prove a comfort 
 to all your hearts, and a great public benefit to all 
 your families. 
 
2fs4 
 
 >N THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 DISCOURSE XIII. 
 
 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 “ Honour all men.—Honour the king.”—1 Peter ii. 17. 
 
 To honour all men is alike the lesson of Philosophy 
 and Religion. He who studies Humanity, not 
 according to its accidental distinctions in society, 
 but in its great and general characteristics—he 
 who looks to its moral nature as a piece of curious 
 and interesting mechanism, all whose processes 
 are as accurately exemplified in the mind of the 
 poorest individual, as the laws or the constructions 
 of anatomy are in his body—he whose office it is 
 to contemplate the fabric of its principles and 
 powers, and who can recognise even in humble life 
 the goodliest specimens of both—with him the 
 distinctions of rank are apt to be lost and for¬ 
 gotten, in the homage which he renders to man, 
 simply as the possessor of a constitution that has 
 so often exercised and regaled his faculties as an 
 object of liberal curiosity. The homeliest peasant 
 bears within the confines of his inner man, that 
 very tablet on the lines and characters of which the 
 highest philosopher may for years perhaps have 
 been most intensely gazing. All the secrets of 
 our wondrous economy are deposited there ; and, 
 in the heart even of the most unlettered man, the 
 memory and the understanding and the imagination 
 and the conscience and every other function and 
 
ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 285 
 
 property of the yet inaccessible soul are all in busy 
 operation. To the owner of such an unexplored 
 microcosm, we attach somewhat of the same 
 reverence which we entertain for some profound 
 and hidden mystery—and he who has laboured 
 most anxiously to seize upon the mysteries of our 
 nature, and therefore feela most profoundly now 
 deep and how inscrutable they are, he perhaps is 
 the most predisposed by his pursuits and his habits 
 to “honour all men.” 
 
 Somewhat of the same sentiment is impressed 
 upon us in the midst of a crowd—or as we pass 
 along that street which is alive from morning to 
 night with its endless flow of passengers. We 
 are aware of no contemplation, that is more fitted 
 to annihilate in one’s own mind the importance of 
 self; or rather to multiply this feeling, and make 
 it be transferred by us to each individual of that 
 restless and eager population by whom we are 
 surrounded. To think of each having within the 
 precincts'of his own bosom, a chamber of thoughts 
 and purposes and fond imaginations as warm and 
 teeming as our own, and of the busy history that 
 is going on there ; that every one of the immense 
 multitude is the centre of his own distinct amphi¬ 
 theatre, which, however unknown to us, is the 
 universe to him; that each meditative countenance 
 of the vast and interminable number bespeaks a 
 play of hopes and wishes and interests within, in 
 every way as active, and felt to be of as great 
 magnitude and urgency, as we experience in our¬ 
 selves—further to think that should my own heart 
 cease its palpitations, and were the light of my own 
 
HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 wakeful spirit to be extinguished for ever, that 
 still there would he a world as full of life and 
 intelligence as before; to think of myself as an 
 unmissed or unnoticed tiling among the myriads 
 who are around me, or rather to think that with 
 each of these myriads there are desires as vivid, 
 and sensibilities as deep, and cares as engrossing, 
 and social or family affections as tender, as those 
 which I carry about with me in that little world to 
 which no one eye hath access hut the eye of my 
 own consciousness—there is a humility that ought 
 to be impressed by such a contemplation; or, if it 
 do not utterly abase the reckoning that we have 
 of ourselves, it ought at least to exalt our reckoning 
 of all other men, and teach us to hold in honour 
 those, who in the workings of the same nature and 
 fellowship of the very same interests so thoroughly 
 partake with us. 
 
 It is true, that, in what may be called the 
 outward magnitude of these interests, there is a 
 wide distance between a sovereign and his subject 
 —between the cares of an empire, and the cares 
 of a small household economy. That is, the 
 empire externally speaking is greater than the 
 household—while inwardly the cares, the cogitations, 
 the sensibilities of the heart, whether oppressive 
 or joyful, may be altogether the same. They be 
 a different set of objects, wherewith the monarch 
 is conversant, and that keep in play the system of 
 his thoughts and emotions, just as it is upon a 
 different sort of food that his blood circulates or that 
 his physical system is upholden. But as the 
 peasant is .ike to him in respect of anatomy, so, 
 
ON THE HONOUR DUE 
 
 MEN. 2S7 
 
 with all the diversity of circumstances, he is sub¬ 
 stantially like to him, in the frame and mechanism 
 of his spirit. The outward causes by which each 
 is excited are vastly different; but the inward ex¬ 
 citement of both is the same—and, could we explore 
 the little world that is in each of the two bosoms, 
 we should recognise in each the same busy rotation 
 of hopes and fears and wishes and anxieties. If 
 it be indeed a just calculation, that there is a 
 superiority, a surpassing worth in the moral which 
 far outweighs the material, then, let the cottage 
 be as widely dissimilar from the palace as it may, 
 there is a similarity between their inhabitants, not 
 in that which is minute, but in that which is 
 momentous—and our weightiest arguments for 
 honouring the king bear with efficacy upon the 
 lesson, to honour all men. 
 
 And moreover, let us but rate the importance 
 of one thinking and living spirit, when compared 
 with all the mute and unconscious materialism 
 which is in our universe. Without such a spirit, 
 the whole of visible existence were but an idle 
 waste—a nothingness—for what is beauty were 
 there no eye to look upon it, and what is music 
 were there no ear to listen, and what is matter 
 in all its rich and wondrous varieties without a 
 spectator mind to be regaled by the contemplation 
 of them ? One might conceive the very panorama 
 that now surrounds us—the same earth and sea and 
 skies that we now look upon—the same graces on 
 the face of terrestrial nature, the same rolling 
 wonders in the firmament—yet without one spark 
 of thought or animation throughout the unpeopled 
 
283 
 
 amplitude. This in effect were nonentity. To 
 put out all the consciousness that is in nature were 
 tantamount to the annihilation of nature; and the 
 lighting up again of but one mind in the midst of 
 this desolation, would of itself restore significancy 
 to the scene, and be more than equivalent to the 
 first creation of it. In other words, one living 
 mind is of more worth than a dead universe—or 
 there is that in every single peasant to which I 
 owe sublimer homage, than, if untenanted of mind, 
 I should yield to all the wealth of this lower world, 
 to all those worlds that roll in spaciousness and in 
 splendour through the vastuesses of astronomy. 
 
 Our Saviour Himself hath instituted the com¬ 
 parison between a world and a soul—and, whether 
 both were alike perishable or alike enduring, His 
 estimate of the soul’s superiority would hold. He 
 founds his computation on our brief tenure of all 
 that is earthly, and on the magnitude of those 
 abiding interests which wait the immortal spirit 
 in other scenes of existence. All men are im¬ 
 mortal. There is a grandeur of destination here, 
 that far outweighs all the pride and pretension of 
 this world’s grandeur. Those lordly honours 
 which some men fetch from the antiquity of their 
 race are but poor indeed, when compared with 
 that more signal honour which all men have in the 
 eternity of their duration. Inrespectof immortality, 
 the great and the small ones of the earth stand on an 
 equal eminence—and in respect of the death which 
 comes before it, both have to sink to the same 
 humiliating level. The prince shares with the 
 peasant in the horror and loathsomeness of death 
 
HONOUR DUE TO ALL 
 
 283 
 
 —the peasant shares with the prince in the high 
 distinction of immortality. It is because in the 
 poorest man’s bosom, there resides an undying 
 principle—it is because of that endless futurity 
 which is before him, and in the progress of which 
 all the splendours and obscurations of our present 
 state will be speedily forgotten—it is because, 
 though of yesterday, the bliss and the brightness 
 of coming centuries may be upon his path: and, 
 whatever the complexion of his future history shall 
 be, yet the sublime character of eternity shall rest 
 upon it—it is because of these that humanity, 
 however it be clothed and conditioned in this 
 evanescent world, should be the object of an awful 
 reverence; and if, by reason of those perishable 
 glories which sit on a monarch’s brow for but one 
 generation, it be imperative to honour the king— 
 then, by reason of those glories which the meanest 
 may attain, to, and which are to last for ever, it 
 is still more imperative to honour all men. 
 
 It is in virtue of the natural equality between 
 man and man, of the like noble prospects and the 
 like high capacities among all the members of the 
 species—that we have never hesitated on the ques¬ 
 tion of popular or plebeian education ; and when it 
 is asked, how far should the illumination of the 
 lower orders in society be permitted to go?—we do 
 not scruple to reply, that it should be to the very 
 uttermost of what their taste and their time and 
 their convenience'will permit. There have been 
 a dread and a jealousy upon this topic wherewith 
 we cannot at all sympathize—somewhat of the 
 same alarm for the progress of scholarship among 
 G T 
 
290 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALT KEK 
 
 the working classes, that is felt for the progress of 
 sedition—.just as if the admission of light amongst 
 them were to throw the whole mass into a state of 
 busy and mischievous fermentation—and some 
 great coming disorder were surely to result from 
 the growing intelligence of those who form the 
 vast majority of our commonwealth. And, in ad¬ 
 dition to what injury it is apprehended the social 
 edifice at large might sustain from the elevation of 
 the popular mind, it is further thought that indivi¬ 
 dually it is fraught with uttermost discomfort to 
 the people themselves ; that it will induce a rest¬ 
 lessness, a discontent, a wayward ambition, wholly 
 unsuited to their state as labourers; that hence¬ 
 forward they will spurn at the ignoble drudgeries 
 of their lot, and that the fruit of malting them 
 scholars will be wholly to unhinge and unsettle 
 them as workmen. And when once this impatience 
 becomes general, a certain fierce and feverish 
 aspiring, it is feared, will run throughout that class 
 in society who even now by the superiority of their 
 muscular force are enough formidable—and of 
 whom the terror is, that when once a mental force 
 is superadded to the muscular, they will overleap 
 ail the barriers of public safety, and be the fell 
 instruments of a wild and wasteful anarchy over 
 the face of the land. 
 
 This is not altogether the place for exposing 
 what we deem to be the utter groundlessness of 
 such imaginations; and therefore, without touching 
 at all on the political apprehension lest Education 
 should lodge a power that is dangerous in the 
 hands of the labouring classes,—we shall just say 
 
ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 291 
 
 of the personal, or of that which relates to the 
 habits and character of the individual labourer, that 
 we believe it to be scarcely ever if at any time 
 realized. We positively find them to be among 
 the best symptoms of a trusty and well-conditioned 
 mechanic, if, upon enteving his house, we find the 
 humble library upon his shelves—or if in taking 
 account of his hours, we find the time which many 
 give to evening dissipation given by him to the 
 attendance or the preparations of a mechanic 
 school. There is no such discrepancy between 
 the powers and the principles of our complex 
 nature, no such awkward sorting or balancing of 
 parts in the human constitution, as that there must 
 be a stifling of some in order to make room for the 
 right and prosperous operation of the others—as, 
 for example, that all liberal curiosity, all appetite 
 for the informations of science should be kept in 
 check, lest industry be relaxed, or the cares of a 
 family provision be altogether forgotten. The 
 ingredients of our compound being are really in far 
 better adjustment than that all should be so very 
 apt to go into disorder, upon any one of them 
 being fostered into activity by the excitement of its 
 own peculiar gratification—and it will be found 
 that a taste for literature, and patient assiduity in 
 labour, and a reflective prudence in every matter 
 of family economies, and a habit of sound and good 
 workmanship on the one hand, with a well exercised 
 intellect even in the subjects of general speculation 
 upon the other—that all these may be at work, 
 and in fullest harmony together with one anti the 
 6ame individual. Instead of spoiling him as an 
 
292 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO AIX MEN. 
 
 artisan, they would only transform him into an 
 artisan of a higher caste—and as there is a general 
 movement all over the land for a higher education 
 to our people, let us do nothing to curb the 
 energies of their aspiring intellect—but rather 
 rejoice in the bright anticipation that must at 
 length be realized, of a well-taught and a highly 
 lettered peasantry. On a progress like this we 
 would lay no limitation. Let _it go freely and 
 indefinitely onwards—nor be afraid, as many are, 
 lest there should be too much of schooling or even 
 too much of science for the common people. That 
 were a noble achievement in political economy, did 
 it point out the way by which, through better wages 
 and less work, the children of handicraft and of 
 hard labour might be somewhat lightened of their 
 toils. And that were a still nobler achievement in 
 philanthropy, could their then wider and more 
 frequent intervals of repose be reclaimed from 
 loose and loathsome dissipation—could even an 
 infant but growing taste for philosophy be made 
 to supplant all the coarser depravities of human 
 vice—and they, admitted to more of companionship 
 than they now have with men of a higher walk in 
 society, give frequent demonstration, that, even 
 amid the drudgery of their humble condition, there 
 was among them much of the unquenched fire of 
 genius, and a still vigorous play of those perceptions 
 and those powers by which our common nature is 
 ennobled. 
 
 Having said thus much for that education which 
 gives the knowledge of science to the common 
 people—we feel ourselves placed on still higher 
 
ON TI1E HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 293 
 
 vantage ground, when we plead for that education 
 to them which gives the knowledge of religion. If 
 we hold the one to be desirable, we hold the other 
 to be indispensable. In our estimation there is a 
 certain narrowness of soul, among those who are 
 jealous even of their most daring ascents into the 
 region of a higher scholarship; but to lay an inter¬ 
 dict upon all scholarship, is in truth nothing better 
 than the midnight darkness of Popery. And yet, 
 in certain quarters of our land, there still lurks, in 
 deep and settled inveteracy, that intolerance which 
 would withhold the very alphabet from our popular 
 tion; and though in one respect, it is the key to 
 the revealed mysteries of heaven, the instrument 
 for unlocking that gospel which was designed so 
 ' specially for the ignorant and the poor—yet still 
 there be some who, aloft from all sympathy with 
 the lower orders, can admit of no higher demand 
 for them than the mere wants of their animal 
 existence. The eternity of the poor does not enter 
 into their care or computation at all. They are 
 viewed in scarcely any other light than as the 
 instruments of labour, as so many pieces of living 
 mechanism that have their useful application along 
 with those other springs and principles of action 
 which keep the busy apparatus of our great manu¬ 
 factories in play—their limbs as the levers of a 
 certain kind of machinery, and the spirit that is 
 within them but as that moving force by which the 
 human enginery is set agoing. The immortality 
 of this spirit is as little regarded, as if it were 
 indeed but a vapour that passeth away. It is 
 valued only because of the materialism which it 
 
294 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 animates, or of the motion which by means of a 
 curious and complicated framework, it can impress 
 on any tangible thing that is transformed thereby 
 into some article of merchandise. It is thus that 
 Humanity is apt to be addressed or treated with, 
 singly for the physical strength which it might be 
 made to yield in the service of busy artisanship—- 
 and, without one ungenerous reflection on the great 
 capitalists of our land, it is thus that sometimes 
 at least there is a certain grossness of mercantile 
 spirit, in virtue of which, our nature, in despite of 
 all its noble capacities, and the exceeding grandeur 
 of its ultimate destination, is very apt to be grossly 
 brutalized. 
 
 It is therefore the more refreshing, when, in 
 some densely peopled territory that is all in a* 
 fervour with the smoke and the din and the unre¬ 
 mitting turmoil of its many fabrications, there is 
 seen an interest to arise in the religion of the 
 assembled host, and on the side of their immortal 
 well-being—when, for so wide and plenteous a 
 harvest, there at length appears a band of resolute 
 and devoted labourers—when, in the midst of a 
 field so rich in the materials for a great spiritual 
 manufacture that hath its gains and its proceeds in 
 eternity, men are to be found of compass enough 
 and Christianity enough for this highest enterprise 
 of charity—when -a company is formed with a 
 design and on a speculation so magnificent, as far 
 to surpass the sublimest adventures of commerce— 
 and, instead of that transformation on the rude 
 produce of our country, which is effected by the 
 labour of human hands, it is proposed to go forth 
 
ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 295 
 
 on the people of the country as the subjects of a 
 nobler transformation; and to impress upon human 
 souls, now in the darkness and earthliness of nature, 
 a glory that is unperishable. 
 
 It is a reproach to the spirit of merchandise,— 
 when in its exclusive demand for the physical 
 strength and service of human beings, it gives but 
 little regard to their eternity—yet among the sons 
 of merchandise, we do meet with many of those 
 zealous and enlightened philanthropists, who, by 
 their efforts in the cause both of common and of 
 Christian scholarship, have done much to redeem 
 the imputation. There is indeed the grossest 
 injustice m every imputation that leads to the 
 fastening of an odium or an obloquy, upon a 
 whole order—and we might here take the opportu¬ 
 nity of saying in reference to another order, and 
 when we hear so much of an alleged conspiracy 
 on the part of monarchs against the illumination of 
 our species, it is far indeed from holding universally. 
 There is a growing liberality upon the subject 
 among all the classes of society—and as surely as 
 workmasters are now learning that education 
 furnishes them with their best and most valuable 
 servants—so surely will Kings also learn, that the 
 firmest basis upon which their authority can be 
 upholden, is a virtuous and a well schooled pea¬ 
 santry. 
 
 The ancient prejudice upon this question is now 
 on all hands rapidly subsiding. The cause of 
 popular ignorance is no longer incorporated, as it 
 wont to be, with the cause of loyalty and estab¬ 
 lished order. Even they who sit in the highest 
 
2S(5 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 places, and were at all times the most sensitively 
 fearful of any new element, that, when brought 
 into play, might derange and unsettle the existing 
 framework of society—even they can now look 
 without alarm on that heaving of the popular mind 
 towards a higher scholarship, which now is ferment¬ 
 ing and spreading over the whole face of the British 
 commonwealth. We are aware of nothing more 
 truly important to the cause of education, than 
 some recent practical testimonies of our landed 
 aristocracy to the worth of Scotland’s parochial 
 teachers, and their offer of a helping hand to secure 
 and to speed the ascent of our common people, 
 though already perhaps the most lettered in Europe 
 or in the world, even above the level of their 
 present acquirements. There could not more 
 authentic demonstration have been given, and 
 from a quarter more thoroughly unsuspicious, to 
 the safety of a learning for the vulgar—and there 
 is nought more delightful than thus to behold 
 the upper classes of society, giving welcome and 
 encouragement to the lower for a nearer assimila¬ 
 tion with themselves in that knowledge which is 
 more honourable than wealth, in those mental 
 accomplishments which shed its truest grace and 
 dignity upon our nature. 
 
 There are two opposite directions in which we 
 have to witness what may he called an ultra or 
 extreme politics. One of those extremes is now 
 getting fast obsolete at least in Scotland—for in 
 our sister country there is still an inveteracy about 
 it, which may not give way for perhaps one or two 
 generations. To picture it forth most effectually. 
 
HONOUt 
 
 we might seize in imagination upon some one 
 individual by whom it is realized—who, frank and 
 generous and kind-hearted in all the relations of 
 private society, yet on every question of public or 
 parliamentary warfare shows all the fiercest anti¬ 
 pathies of high and antiquated cavaliership—who, 
 merciful and munificent in all his dealings with his 
 own people, yet eyes a boding mischief in every new 
 and advancing movement by the people of the land 
 —who deems it perhaps one of the glories of Old 
 England to have a jovial and well fed peasantry, 
 yet would feel the education of them to be a raising 
 of them out of their places, and so a disturbance 
 on the sober and settled orthodoxy of other days— 
 who fears a lurking sectarianism in this active and 
 widely diffused scholarship—-that might afterwards 
 break forth into outrage on England’s venerated 
 throne, "and her noble hierarchy ; and therefore 
 would vastly rather than this age of philanthropic 
 restlessness, have the age brought back again, 
 when pastime and holiday and withal a veneration 
 for Church had full ascendant over the hearts and 
 habits of a then unlettered population. Still in 
 many of England’s princely halls, in many a bar¬ 
 onial residence, there exists a feeling that her 
 golden time has passed away—and that this new 
 device of a popular education is among the deadliest 
 of the destroyers. High in loyalty, and devoted 
 by all the influences of sentiment and ancestry 
 and sworn partisanship to the prerogatives of 
 monarchy; they honour the king—but, overlooking 
 the intellect and the capacity and the immortal 
 nature that reside even in the meanest of his sub- 
 
298 
 
 HONOUR DUE TO A1X MEN. 
 
 jects, and so regardless as they are of the still higher 
 prerogatives of mind; they do not and they know 
 not how to honour all men. 
 
 But in counterpart to this, there is another 
 extreme that to our taste is greatly more offensive 
 than the former—when the cause of education 
 is vilified by mixing up with it in the meantime, 
 that accursed thing which education at length will 
 utterly exterminate—when a mechanic school 
 is made the vehicle of an outrageous disaffection 
 to all authority, and a mechanic publication 
 breathes the fierceness of radicalism throughout 
 all its pages—when one cannot in any way devise 
 either for the religion or the science of our lower 
 orders, but this unclean spirit must insinuate and 
 turn it all to loathsomeness; and every honest 
 effort to obtain a more enlightened peasantry is 
 either paralyzed or poisoned, by the obtruded 
 alliance of men, who bear no other regard to the 
 people than as the instruments of some great public 
 or political overthrow. Still it vouches nobly for 
 the good of a people’s scholarship, that this abuse 
 is chiefly' exemplified in that land where they are 
 just emerging from ignorance, and that in our own 
 more lettered country it is comparatively unknown 
 —that it is there and not here where this cause has 
 been seized upon by demagogues, who, while they 
 would flatter the multitude into the belief that they 
 honour all men, give full manifestation by all their 
 writings and their ways that they do not honour 
 the king. 
 
 It is in such conflicts of human passion and 
 human party, that Christianity comes forth in the 
 
ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 299 
 
 meekness of wisdom, and points out to us the more 
 excellent way. It unites loyalty to the King with 
 love nay reverence for the very humblest of his 
 subject population—and can both do homage to . 
 the dignity of office that sits upon the one, and to 
 those exalted capacities both of worth and of 
 intellect which lie in wide and wealthy diffusion 
 through the other. There is nought of the pusil¬ 
 lanimous in its devotion to the Crown, and nought 
 of the factious and the turbulent in the descents 
 which it makes among the common people. We 
 have felt that glow which the presence of a monarch 
 can awaken, when, instead of the crouching servility 
 of bondsmen, we are conscious of nothing but the 
 generous and high-minded enthusiasm of gallant 
 chivalry. And equal to this is the pure and phil¬ 
 anthropic triumph which the spectacle of a beggar’s 
 school is fitted to awaken, when instead of a fiery 
 sedition lighted up in the heart and rankling its 
 mischievous fermentations there, the mind indulges 
 in the soothing perspective of that brighter day, 
 when the whole community of our empire shall be 
 moulded into a harmonious and well ordered 
 family. To call forth the energies of the popular 
 mind by the power of a high education being made 
 to bear upon it, will most surely add to the stability 
 of the throne, while it must serve to lift and to 
 embellish the whole platform of society. It will 
 speed the progress of the species, but not along a 
 track of revolutionary violence. The moral per¬ 
 fectibility of the infidel may call for the demolition 
 both of altars and of thrones—but the operations 
 of the Christian philanthropist leave the fabric of 
 
300 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. 
 
 our civil polity untouched; and, in that Millennium 
 after which he aspires, he sees Kings to be the 
 nursing fathers and Queens the nursing mothers 
 of our Zion. He has no fellowship either with 
 those who would revile the monarch, or who would 
 refuse to enlighten the people—and, though fired 
 with the hopes of some great and coming enlarge¬ 
 ment, he founds them on the prophecies of a hook, 
 whose precepts within the utterance of one breath 
 and placed together in the same text, are to honour 
 the King and to honour all men. 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 301 
 
 DISCOURSE XIV. 
 
 ON THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 “ Not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may 
 adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.”— Titus 
 
 It is the duty of the Christian minister to bring 
 forward not one part of the divine will, but all the 
 parts of it—and whatever he sees urged and insisted 
 upon iu the Bible, lie lies under the solemn obliga¬ 
 tion of urging and insisting upon it also. Now 
 it is remarkable, that, when urging some of the 
 commandments, lie is looked upon as more religious¬ 
 ly employed, than when urging some other of the 
 commandments. There are certain subjects which 
 do not carry to the eye of many, the same aspect 
 of godliness witli others. A sermon on sabbath¬ 
 breaking, for example, would he regarded as a 
 more characteristic exercise, and as more allied 
 with the solemn and appropriate functions of the 
 pulpit, than a sermon upon theft; and, generally 
 speaking, while the duties of the first table are 
 listened to by the more serious professors of 
 Christianity with a pious and respectful feeling of 
 their high importance—it may be observed that 
 the duties of tiie second table, when urged in 
 all their minuteness, and brought forward in aii 
 their varieties, and illustrated by references to the 
 homely and familiar experience of human life, are 
 looked upon as having a certain degree of eartlili- 
 
302 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 uess about them—to be as much inferior in point 
 of religiousness to the duties of the first table, as 
 the employments of a common week-day are in¬ 
 ferior to the employments of the sabbath—in a 
 word, while the one bears to many the aspect of 
 sacredness, the other bears the aspect of secularity 
 —and when a minister gives his strength and his 
 earnestness for a whole sermon to the latter, there 
 is a feeling among his hearers that he has descended 
 from that high ground on which a godly or an 
 orthodox minister loves to expatiate. 
 
 We forbear at present to enter into the explana¬ 
 tion of this very notable peculiarity, though it does 
 admit we think of a most interesting explanation. 
 The thing complained of, forms a serious obstacle 
 in the way of our attempts to enforce the whole 
 will of God, and to explain the whole of his counsel. 
 If there be any part of that will of which the ex¬ 
 position is resisted as a very odd and uncommon 
 and perhaps ridiculous subject from the pulpit, how 
 shall we be able to command a reverential hearing 
 for it ? In what way shall we establish the authority 
 of God over all the concerns of a man’s history ? 
 Should not the solemnity of religious obligation 
 be made to overspread the whole field and compass 
 of human affairs?—and if it be not so is not this 
 deposing God from the supremacy which belongs 
 to Him? Is it not just saying that there are places 
 and occasions in which we will not have Him to 
 reign over us ? Is it not disowning His right of 
 having all things done to His glory ? And those 
 hearers who love to be told of what they owe to 
 God on the sabbath and in the holy days of sacra- 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 303 
 
 raent and prayer—but who love not to be told of 
 what they owe Him in their shops and in their 
 market places and in their every-day employments 
 —they are just narrowing the limits of His juris¬ 
 diction, and with all their seeming reverence for 
 godliness as the only high and appropriate theme 
 for the pulpit, they are in fact wresting from God 
 his sovereignty over the great bulk of human 
 existence. With the quitrent of a few occasional 
 acknowledgements, they are for securing the 
 mighty remainder of time to themselves—and are 
 for putting off with fragments that Being who 
 demands of all His creatures, the homage of an 
 entire service—the incense of a perpetual offering. 
 
 We should like all hearers to feel the religiousness 
 of that topic which this text leads us to insist upon. 
 We should like them to annex as serious a feeling of 
 solemnity and obligation to the eighth of God’s com¬ 
 mandments, as to the fourth of His commandments. 
 Both were announced in thunder from mount 
 Sinai. Both were heard to issue in the same 
 voice of authority from the throne of the lawgiver. 
 The violations of both are written in the book of 
 God’s remembrance ; and they are ranked among 
 the bad deeds done in the body, which will bring 
 down from the judgment-seat the same awful doom 
 upon the children of iniquity. The place which 
 the commandment possesses in the catalogue is 
 surely of no great consequence in the matter. 
 Enough that it be a commandment. Enough for 
 one and for all of us that thus saith the Lord. He 
 orders one thing, and He orders another. If the 
 one thing must be observed with reverence, because 
 
304 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 He orders it—there is precisely the same reason 
 for the other thing being also observed with rever¬ 
 ence. And if “ sanctify the sabbath-day and keep 
 it holy” be a godly and religious subject, then do 
 we contend that, “ Thou shalt not steal” is a godly 
 and a religious subject also. 
 
 In this case the minister has no choice. If the 
 consciences of any of his hearers are blind upon 
 this subject, that is the very reason why he should 
 labour to open and to enlighten them. He stands 
 charged with the office of expounding and urging 
 and solemnly insisting upon all the requisitions 
 of the Bible. If he do not warn the sinner from his 
 way, the sinner will die in his iniquity, but his blood 
 will be required of him. This is perfectly decisive 
 as to his conduct. It is with him a matter of selt- 
 interest, as well as of duty, to warn his hearers 
 against all sin—and, knowing as he does that there 
 is an awful day of reckoning before them, that hp 
 must appear in the midst of them at the bar of 
 God, that he will be called upon to give an account 
 of them and be examined upon this, whether he 
 has watched over the souls of his people, and faith¬ 
 fully attempted to guard them against all error, 
 and to warn them against all unrighteousness—.woe 
 be to him if he is deterred by any senseless or 
 ignorant levity whatever, from coming forward with 
 a faithful and a firm exposition of the truth, or 
 from sounding in their ears this awful testimony 
 of God’s abhorrence of the sin of stealing, that 
 thieves shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 
 
 In the further prosecution of this discourse, we 
 shall first endeavour to explain what the precise 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE 
 
 '! DELITYc 
 
 sin is which the text warns us against. We shall 
 secondly insist on its exceeding sinfulness, in spite 
 of all the pleas which are offered to palliate or to 
 excuse it. And thirdly we shall press the duty 
 which is opposed to the sin of the text, that is, 
 good fidelity, by the motive which the text itself 
 insists upon, that we may adorn the doctrine of 
 God our Saviour in all things. 
 
 The sin of the text receives a particular name, 
 and it must therefore receive a particular explana¬ 
 tion. It is not called stealing, though it be 
 certainly a species of it. Stealing is neither more 
 nor less than taking to oneself what belongs to 
 another, and what he does not give. We should 
 apply this term to the act of a man who entered 
 into another house than that in which he tarried, 
 and bore away of the moveables he found in it— 
 or to the act of a man who came to another farm 
 than that on which he laboured, and carried off 
 such produce as he could lift away with him—or 
 to the act of a man who made out his access into 
 a shop or a workhouse belonging to another master, 
 and abstracted such money o'r such goods as he 
 could lay his hand upon. These are so many acts 
 of theft—and to give a clear idea of what that is 
 which turns an act of theft into an act of purloining, 
 tve have only to conceive, that, instead of another 
 entering the house, a servant within it were to help 
 himself to such tilings as he had access to, with¬ 
 out any understood allowance from the master or 
 the mistress who employed him—or that, instead of 
 another coming to a farm, a labourer belonging to it 
 were to make a daily and a weekly habit of secret- 
 
306 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 ing a part of its produce, for the purpose of feeding 
 his own little stock, or helping out the maintenance 
 of his young family—-or that, instead of another 
 finding his way into your shop or your workhouse, 
 the man you employed to keep the one or to work 
 in the other, were to pocket for his own use what 
 he thinks he might bear away without too great a 
 hazard of detection. All these are so many un¬ 
 doubted examples of theft—but such a theft as 
 would more readily be characterised by the term 
 purloining. To steal is to take that which is not 
 our own. To purloin is to take that which is not 
 ours also; but then the thing so taken must be that 
 which we have in trust, or that to which our situation 
 as an agent or a servant or an overseer gives us 
 free and frequent access. When purloining is 
 done upon a large scale it sometimes changes its 
 name, though not its nature. It is then called an 
 embezzlement. To embezzle is quite equivalent 
 to purloin in the nature of the act, though greater 
 in the extent of it. Thus we have heard of the 
 embezzlement of public stores, of the embezzlement 
 of the royal treasury. It is an act of theft per¬ 
 formed by a confidential agent of the crown—and 
 we have succeeded in the object of all these ex¬ 
 planations, if we have led our hearers to perceive 
 the reason why Paul addresses the advice of the 
 text to people in a particular situation. They 
 are in the situation of servants—and, taking in 
 the 9th verse, the whole advice runs thus, “ Exhort 
 servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and 
 to please them well in all things, not answering 
 again; not purloining, but showing all good fidelity, 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 307 
 
 that they may adorn the doctrine of God our 
 Saviour in all things.” 
 
 We now proceed in the second place to insist on 
 the exceeding sinfulness of this sin, in spite of all 
 the pleas which are offered to palliate or to excuse 
 
 The first palliation is a kind of tacit one, by 
 which the understanding is imposed upon, and the 
 conscience quieted, merely through the change of 
 name which this crime has undergone. Because it 
 is not commonly called stealing, it is not conceived 
 to have the disgrace or the odiousness of stealing. 
 There is a wonderful power of imposition in words 
 —and how many a purloiner may quiet all that is 
 troublesome within him by the reflection that what 
 he does is not stealing; it is only taking. Thus may 
 he try to escape the imputation of stealing, by 
 merely giving a different name to his iniquity—but, if 
 the thing thus taken be not his to take, it is to all 
 intents and purposes, stealing—he merits the full 
 disgrace of being called a thief—and, what is still 
 more awful than all the disgrace with which this 
 world can cover him, he is guilty of a sin, which, 
 if persisted in, will most infallibly exclude him from 
 the inheritance of the kingdom of God. To un¬ 
 deceive him, he should be made distinctly to know 
 that there is no difference whatever in the sins; 
 that an angry and offended God looks with equal 
 displeasure upon both, and will assign to each the 
 same awful punishment in the great day of reckon¬ 
 ing. This low work of purloining is just stealing 
 under another name. It is taking what belongs to 
 another, and what that other has not given. Every 
 
308 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 understanding will acknowledge, that, however it 
 may be glossed over by another and a milder 
 designation, it is an act of theft; and what every 
 understanding will acknowledge, we want every 
 conscience to feel. But we go further. ■ We take 
 up a principle contained in our Shorter Catechism, 
 where it is said, in answer to the question, “ Are 
 all sins equally heinous in the sight of God?” 
 That “ some sins, by reason of several aggrava¬ 
 tions, are more heinous in the sight of God than 
 others.” Now purloining contains in it an aggra¬ 
 vation which does not belong to a bare and simple 
 example of stealing. The stranger who does not 
 know me, and whom I never trusted, may come to 
 my premises and steal of my property. But the 
 servant ■who purloins does know me, lives under 
 my roof, is maintained by my wages, and, above all, 
 has had a confidence placed in him which he has 
 chosen to abuse and to violate. I left a door open, 
 or I made over a charge, or I invested him with a 
 particular commission, and why? because I had 
 faith in his integrity and discretion. The stranger 
 thief is guilty of one vice—an act of dishonesty. 
 The household thief is dishonest too ; but he is 
 more than this. He has betrayed the trust I put 
 in him. He has repaid my good opinion of him, 
 by an act of ingratitude and an act of unfaithful¬ 
 ness. 1 was led away by his fair appearances; 
 and he has turned out a hypocrite. He has added 
 to the guilt of stealing, the guilt of cunning and 
 falsehood and habitual concealment. These are 
 aggravations which make the purloining of the ser¬ 
 vant far more provoking to him who suffers by it, 
 
MURAI. INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 309 
 
 than the depredations of the nightly vagabond. 
 But they are not only more provoking to man— 
 they are more provoking to a just and a holy God. 
 The aggravations which we have just now spoken 
 of will tell on the awful sentence of the great day. 
 The discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
 heart sees and judges of every one of them; and 
 when the time cometh that the secrets of all hearts 
 shall he laid open, the low pilferments of the farm, 
 of the family, and of the workshop, will appear to 
 the shame and condemnation of the guilty. 
 
 But there is another plea on which the purloiner 
 tries to find for himself something like an acquittal, 
 from the shame and the remorse of his secret ini¬ 
 quities. However great at the end of months or 
 of years his depredations may he in the amount, 
 yet, to escape detection, he is forced to make them 
 small in the detail. The distinct and single theft of 
 every one day is but a petty affair—and his con¬ 
 science easily falls into the snare, that, as what he 
 does take at any one time is so very little it is not 
 worth the thinking of. But what right has he, we 
 would ask, to make any addition to the eighth com¬ 
 mandment ? God says, “ Thou shalt not steal,’' 
 and then he brings the commandment to a close 
 He does not say thou shalt not steal much, leaving 
 us at freedom to steal a little, and to judge how 
 little we may steal with innocence and safety. He 
 says, thou shalt not steal, and then he leaves off. 
 If we steal the value of a farthing, it is a stolen 
 farthing. It is evidence enough to convict of a 
 breach of the eighth commandment, by which we 
 are enjoined not to steal at all. Little as we may 
 
310 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY-. 
 
 think of it, it is enough to convict us of disobedience 
 to the entire and absolute commandment of God— 
 and it will turn out the accursed thing, which, if 
 not repented of and not turned from, will be the 
 death and the condemnation of our souls. He that 
 is unjust in the least, says our Saviour, is unjust 
 also in much. It may be so little as to be the very 
 least—but if stolen, it is an act of injustice—and 
 he who knew what was in man says, that he who can 
 do the very least act of injustice can do a great 
 one. O how many go to Hell with what they 
 account small sins. Small sin l is sin a small 
 matter? If we have stolen to the value of a 
 single grain, we have broken the law of God; and 
 do we call that an affair of small consequence ? 
 The moment we stretch forth our hand to what is 
 another’s, be it ever so little, we have broken the 
 line which lies betwixt duty and rebellion. We 
 have got over the wall which separates lawful from 
 forbidden ground, and, ho wever little way we have got 
 on the forbidden ground, still we are on it—and, if 
 apprehended there and brought to the bar of judg¬ 
 ment, we shall be treated as criminals. Go not, ye 
 purloiners and household thieves, to delude your 
 consciences any more upon this subject. Go not 
 to make any distinction which the law of God does 
 not make. Think not that you will escape con¬ 
 demnation; because the thing stolen is so very 
 little. Think not that this plea will serve you 
 with God whose law must be fulfilled to the very 
 last jot and tittle of it—and we tell you that if you 
 ever pray and lift up your hands unto God—then 
 though you have stolen only to the amount of a 
 
FIDELITY. 
 
 311 
 
 morsel or a fragment which does not belong to 
 you, God will look upon your hands and see them 
 to be unclean. The defilement of the thing stolen 
 sticks to them; and He beholding it will turn in 
 indignation from your prayers and your offering. 
 
 The next plea we propose to your attention is, 
 that the master out of whose stock we have pur¬ 
 loined is rich—he will not miss it, and it can do 
 him no harm. Still making additions of their own 
 you observe to the law of God. Still doing as the 
 Pharisees did before them—making the command¬ 
 ment of God of none effect by their traditions, and 
 teaching for doctrines the commandments and 
 inventions of men. God says thou shalt not steal. 
 He does not say thou shalt not steal from the 
 poor, leaving us at liberty to steal from the rich 
 whenever we have opportunity. The distinction 
 betwixt rich and poor in this matter is a distinction 
 of their own, By making this plea they not only 
 disobey God; but they insult Him by offering to 
 mend His law, and bringing forward what they 
 think a better one of their own. Heaven and 
 earth shall pass away, but the word of God shall 
 not pass away. And that word is—let him that 
 stole steal no more. There is no allusion to rich 
 or poor in this injunction. Nay in the text it is 
 stealing from the rich that is expressly forbidden. 
 The poor, generally speaking, are the servants; 
 and the rich, generally speaking, are the masters— 
 and servants are ordered not to purloin from their 
 masters, but to show all good fidelity. No there 
 is nothing for it, but an entire separation from this 
 unclean and accursed practice. It is an express 
 
312 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 violation of God’s law ; and admits of no plea, no 
 palliation. It is a dangerous experiment to trifle 
 with sin, and to venture upon what we are pleased 
 to think the lesser shades and degrees of it. The 
 moment that sin is committed even in the very 
 least degrees of it, the fence which separates obedi¬ 
 ence from rebellion is broken down. After we 
 have got over that fence, there is no saying how 
 far we may go. After a garden wall is once leaped, 
 it is not doing much more to enter its most precious 
 depositories, and spoil it of its fairest and richest 
 productions. And here we may repeat, by the 
 wav - , that the first sin ever committed by man 
 forms a striking refutation of the two pleas which 
 we are now attempting to expose. The thing 
 stolen was a fruit. The master he stolq it from 
 was the Lord of Heaven aud -of Earth—to whom 
 belongs the cattle on a thousand hills, and who sits 
 surrounded with the wealth of innumerable worlds. 
 What becomes of the smallness of the sin now ? 
 It was just this sin which banished Adam from 
 paradise, which broke up the communion between 
 earth and heaven—which entailed ruin on a whole 
 species of moral and intelligent creatures. The 
 infidel laughs at the story, and with all the parade 
 of an enlightened wisdom he counts it ridiculous— 
 he thinks how paltry the offence—and how big the 
 mischief and the ruin which are stated to have 
 sprung from it. But he only betrays the grossness 
 of a mind, which cannot rise above the estimates 
 and the calculations of an ordinary man—which 
 looks no further than to the visible performance, 
 and is blind to the only Drinciple which gives to 
 
.MOUAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 313 
 
 the performance its moral character. It is not in 
 .the magnitude of the thing done, that the chiei 
 magnitude of the offence lies. It is the state ot 
 mind implied by the doing of it. Had Adam rooted 
 out every tree of paradise and dismantled the gar¬ 
 den of all its beauties—we might have thought that 
 his offence lay in the material extent of the injury 
 that was done by him. But Adam did no more 
 than steal a forbidden fruit; and, for any evil 
 performed by his hand, Eden might have remained 
 in all its bloom and in all its loveliness. But in 
 proportion as the material hurt was small, is the 
 grandeur and the entireness of the moral lesson 
 conveyed by it. It leads our single eye to the 
 foulness of that turpitude which lies in disobedience 
 to God. The thing done was small in itself—but 
 it carried rebellion in its principle. Thus saith 
 the Lord, was the sanction which lay upon it—and 
 that sanction was trampled upon. When God said 
 Let there be light and there was light—we look 
 upon this as a sublime and wonderful evidence of 
 His power. When God said In the day he eateth 
 he shall die, and he did eat, and from that moment 
 a cloud of malignant darkness gathered upon the 
 head of the offender, and hangs to this hour over 
 his distant posterity—we look upon this as an 
 evidence no less sublime of His truth and of His 
 righteousness. The simplicity of the visible act 
 enables us to' see the spiritual character of this 
 great transaction in all its majesty—nor can the 
 senseless levities we have heard on the subject of 
 Adam’s fall, keep us from viewing it as one in 
 dignity with the other events of that wonderful 
 
314 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 period, when the Almighty had spread a new 
 creation around him, and displayed the attributes 
 of His high and unchangeable nature among the 
 beings whom He had formed. 
 
 Take this lesson to yourselves, ye purloiners, 
 who are going on deceiving your consciences, and 
 heaping ruin and condemnation upon your deluded 
 souls. You think the thing purloined is so very 
 small, and the master you stole it from is so very 
 rich. But what right have you to set your think¬ 
 ings and your excusings, against the awful authority 
 of “ Thus saith the Lord”? It is no matter how 
 small the theft. It is no matter how rich the man 
 who suffers by it. God’s authority is trampled 
 upon by the act. His Holy Bible is despised. 
 His judgment is bid defiance to—and the saying of 
 the Apostle Paul is as much slighted and under¬ 
 valued as if no Apostle had ever said it, that thieves 
 shall not inherit the kingdom of God. O, if any 
 of you have been hitherto deceived upon this sub¬ 
 ject, suffer now the word of exhortation. Go 
 uot to trifle any longer with the precious interest 
 of your souls. Resist not what we say, because it 
 touches painfully upon your practices or your 
 consciences. We mean no offence. We want to 
 stir up no anger among you. We bring forward 
 no railing accusation. It is the general and un¬ 
 ceasing importance of the subject which has led us 
 to fix upon it; for we give you our solemn assurance, 
 that we know of no act of purloining committed by 
 any one of you—nor do we have in our eye a single 
 guilty individual. For any thing we know, there 
 is not one of you who is not nobly superior to the 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 315 
 
 slightest taint and degree of this iniquity—and, in 
 this case, the sole use of this sermon may be that 
 you shall be kept clean through the word now 
 spoken to you. But lest there should be a pur- 
 loiner in this congregation, we think it our high 
 and awfully incumbent duty, to stretch forth our 
 hand that we may arrest and reclaim him from that 
 road of perdition on which he is hastening—and 
 surely you will grant us your indulgence, when we 
 say that in doing what we have done, we have only 
 lifted our testimony against what we honestly 
 believe would land him in everlasting burnings if it 
 be persisted in. 
 
 But let us now endeavour, in the third place, to 
 press the duty which is opposed to the sin of the 
 text, that is, good fidelity—by the motive which 
 the text itself insists upon, that you may adorn the 
 doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. Let 
 us observe, however, that the servants whom Titus 
 was to exhort, were among the people of his own 
 congregation. They formed a Christian commu¬ 
 nity ; and, whatever kind of people this designation 
 may be applied to now-a-days, it was applied in 
 those days to men, who, in embracing the profes¬ 
 sion of the faith, formally renounced the errors or 
 the idolatries of their former years—to men, who, 
 in making this profession, must generally speak¬ 
 ing have been moved to it by a real belief in the 
 great and prominent truths of that new religion 
 which was proposed to them: Or, in other words, 
 the exhortation of the text is recommended by 
 Paul to be addressed to men, who, not only em¬ 
 braced the profession of the faith, but had embraced 
 
316 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 the faith—to men who felt the influence of the 
 great doctrines of Christianity—to men who had 
 God revealed to them in their Saviour, and knew 
 of the grace of God that bringeth salvation, and 
 were under that process of teaching which the 
 grace of God is employed in carrying on, and the 
 object of which is that we should deny ungodliness 
 and worldly lusts and live soberly righteously 
 and godly in this present evil world. We know 
 well the use that has been made of these considera¬ 
 tions. Bring, it is said, these dissuasives against 
 their evil practices to bear upon Christian servants. 
 Exhort those who are already in the faith; and, 
 as to those who are not in the faith, including for 
 any thing we know the great mass of servants 
 who are now before us, suspend all our attacks 
 upon their sins, till we have brought them to the 
 Saviour—furnish them with a Christian motive, 
 before we press them to a Christian reformation— 
 make them the subjects of grace, by giving them 
 that faith which has the promise of the Spirit, ere 
 we attempt that teaching which can only be done 
 effectually by the grace that bringeth salvation. 
 Now, it is all very true that no obedience is pure in 
 its principle, but that to which we are constrained 
 by the love of God reconciled to us in Christ Jesus 
 —no obedience is successful in its accomplishment, 
 but that which is wrought through the strength of 
 Him who confers power to become the children of 
 God only on those who believe—no obedience is 
 acceptable to the Father, but such as is offered up 
 in the name of the Son. All this is most true— 
 and it must be our incessant object to grow in such 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE 
 
 FIDELITY. 317 
 
 obedience, by growing in tlse only principle which . 
 can actuate and uphold it. But recollect that 
 there are expedients set agoing by the wisdom of 
 God for bringing men to Christ—and there are 
 considerations addressed to sinners for the purpose 
 of convincing them of danger, and forcing them to 
 flee for refuge unto Christ—and there are certain 
 performances, which, in the very act of coming 
 unto Christ, they are called upon to do—and, 
 therefore it is, that, though at this moment you 
 may be out of Christ and away from Him, we count 
 it a seasonable topic for each and all of you, when 
 we tell you of the exceeding sinfulness of every one 
 sin with which you are chargeable. It is right 
 that every kind of unrighteousness should be made 
 manifest to your consciences—for the wrath of 
 God is revealed against all unrighteousness. It 
 is right that every purloiner should be made to 
 know what thousands and thousands more of pur- 
 loiners are not aware of, that the heavy judgment 
 of God lies upon them for that offence which they 
 are apt to look on as so light and so common and 
 so natural and so excusable. It is right they should 
 he made to understand, how great the danger is, 
 and what the place of security to flee to—and 
 surely, the more they are burdened with a sense 
 of the wrath of God, the more will they feel the 
 weight and importance of the saying, that unless 
 they believe in Christ this wrath abideth on them. 
 And surely if Christ said at the very outset, repent 
 and believe the Gospel—if He said, he that fol- 
 loweth after me must forsake all—if the grace of 
 God at the first moment of its appearance, taught 
 
318 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts—we are 
 not out of place when we tell the most ignorant 
 and graceless purloiner among you, to turn him to 
 Christ that he may obtain the forgiveness of all 
 his misdoings; and when we tell him within the 
 compass of the same breathing to turn him from 
 his iniquities—that the man who keeps by his sins 
 is in fact keeping away from the Saviour—that he 
 is loving darkness rather than light because his 
 deeds are evil—that he is not coming to the 
 Saviour, for he is not doing what all who come 
 must and will do—he is not stirring himself up in 
 the business of forsaking all. The evil and inve¬ 
 terate habits of an unfaithful servant he will not 
 forsake. He clings to them as so many idols that 
 he cannot bring himself to part with. Christ, who 
 claims the authority of his alone master, does not 
 prevail upon him to give up the service of those 
 sins which lord it over him. And it is, therefore, 
 that he should know, how every day that he per¬ 
 sists in this forbidden practice, he is treasuring 
 up wrath against the day of wrath, and putting 
 the grace of an offered salvation and the voice of a 
 beseeching God away from him. 
 
 Let us therefore urge it most earnestly upon 
 you that you consider your doings. Christ is wil¬ 
 ling to receive you ; and, if you are willing to come 
 to Him, to you belongs the whole extent of His 
 purchased salvation. But you are not willing to 
 come to Him, if you are more willing to retain 
 your iniquities; and in these iniquities you will die. 
 Sell your goods to feed the poor, says our Saviour 
 to the young man in the Gospel, and then come 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 319 
 
 and follow me; but he would not come to Him upon 
 these terms, and his devotedness to his wealth was 
 the bar that stood in his way to the kingdom of 
 God. In like manner we call upon you purloiners 
 to cleanse your hands and come to the Saviour. 
 If you will not come upon these terms, the rich 
 man had his bar in the way of salvation, and you 
 have yours. He would not give up his property, 
 and you will not give up the produce of your petty 
 pilferments. You are not willing to come to Christ 
 that you may have life—for, sweet as is the life which 
 is at his giving, it is not so sweet to your taste, 
 as is the sweetness of those stolen waters which 
 have hitherto been your secret and your habitual 
 enjoyment. Esau sold his birthright for a mess 
 of pottage, and he is therefore called the profane 
 Esau. How much more profane are you, who are 
 putting the offer of a birthright in heaven away 
 from you—and for what ?—for the crumbs and frag¬ 
 ments of your paltry depredations. From this 
 moment we charge you to touch them no more. Bid 
 your hand cease from its pilferments; and compel 
 it to your bidding. If what we have said tell upon 
 your conscience, this very night will it tell upon 
 your conduct. To-morrow comes, and it will find 
 you a reforming man—earnest how to find your 
 salvation, and busy to frame your doings that you 
 may turn unto the Lord. You will get up from 
 the bed of reflection, with the purpose of keeping 
 yourself clear and aloof from your wonted dis¬ 
 honesties; and, with a prayer that you may be 
 strengthened in the execution of this purpose. 
 Till we see something of this kind,, we see no evl- 
 
320 
 
 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 denee of your yet having taken a single step to the 
 Saviour. Keep by the purloinings against which 
 we have been charging you; and you are not 
 so much as moving towards Christ, nor will you 
 ever reach Him. Cease then from them at this 
 moment—do this in the very act of going to the 
 Saviour aud seeking after him; and who knows 
 but this first and foremost of your visible reforma¬ 
 tions, humble as it is when compared with the accom¬ 
 plishments of him who stands perfect and com¬ 
 plete in the whole will of God, who knows but it 
 may betoken the commencement of a good work 
 in your soul ?—that awakening of the sinner’s eye 
 on which Christ has promised that he shall give 
 light—the outset of that path which conducts from 
 one degree of grace unto another, till you reach 
 the stature of the full grown Christian—an earlier 
 stage of the journey which conducts him who 
 cometh unto Christ to all His promised manifesta¬ 
 tions, that, made to shine upon your head will 
 make you rejoice more and more in the perfections 
 of His righteousness, in the fulness of His grace 
 and the freeness of His kind invitations, in the 
 sureness of those never-failing supplies out of 
 which you are strengthened with all might in the 
 inner man, and enabled to do all things through 
 the spirit which is given unto you. 
 
 We now proceed to the motive which Paul urged 
 upon the servants he was addressing—that they 
 might adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in 
 all things. We think that two very distinct, and, 
 at the same time very affecting and important 
 lessons, may be drawn from this single clause of 
 
•MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY, 321 
 
 the verse now before us. The first is that a man’s 
 Christianity might be made to show itself through¬ 
 out the whole business of his vocation, whatever it 
 may be—that it may be made to give a pervading 
 expression to his whole history—that it might 
 accompany and be at work with him throughout 
 every doing and every exercise he can put his haiid 
 to—that, in a word, the influence of its spirit is a 
 perennial influence, ever present in the heart, and 
 ever sending forth a powerful and a perpetual con¬ 
 trol over the conduct. It is not merely in one 
 thing, or in another thing, that the doctrine 
 of Christ is capable of being adorned. It admits 
 of being adorned in all things. Doctrine some¬ 
 times signifies the thing taught; and it sometimes 
 signifies the process of teaching. We understand 
 it more in the latter sense on the present occasion. 
 Show how excellent, and how purifying, and how 
 universal, in point of salutary influence, this 
 teaching is. Show how completely it goes over 
 the whole round of human performances. Show 
 with what a comprehensive eye, it surveys the 
 map of human life, and stamps its own colour and 
 gives its own outline to its most remote and 
 subordinate provinces. Let the world see, that 
 wherever a man of Christian doctrine is present, 
 and whatever the employment be that he is en¬ 
 gaged with, there at all times goes along with him 
 a living exhibition of the power and the eflicaey of 
 Christian doctrine; that he represents by every 
 one action the character of the gospel which he 
 professes; that the stamp of its morality may be 
 recognised on his every distinct and separate per- 
 
322 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 formanee ; and that others may say of each and of 
 all his doings, that this is done in the style and 
 manner of a Christian. 
 
 When a man becomes Christian, what we would 
 ask is the most visible expression of the change 
 which has taken effect upon him ? We are not 
 speaking of the change in its essential character, 
 which is neither more nor less than a thorough and 
 aspiring devotedness to the will of that God whom 
 he now sees by the eye of faith to be reconciled to 
 him through the blood of an everlasting covenant. 
 The question we are putting relates to the seen 
 effect , of this principle upon the man’s outward 
 habits and performances; and we ask which is the 
 most notable and conspicuous effect, and such as 
 will most readily arrest the eye and the observation 
 of acquaintances ? We know well what the general 
 impression of the world is upon this subject. They 
 think when a man undergoes that mysterious and 
 unaccountable thing which is called conversion ; the 
 most palpable transformation it makes upon him is 
 to turn him into a psalm-singing, a church-going, an 
 ordinance-keeping, and a prayer-making Christian. 
 They positively do not look for such a change on the 
 common and week-day history of this said convert, 
 as they do on the style and character of his sabbath 
 observations. But yet there is a something that 
 they will look for on week days too. They will 
 look for a more decided aspect of sobriety. They 
 will look for a more demure and melancholy seclu¬ 
 sion from his old acquaintances. They will look 
 for a clear and total renunciation of all that is 
 intemperate, and of all that is licentious. They 
 
MOllAl. INFLUENCE 
 
 FIDELITY. 323 
 
 will look for a final adieu from those habits of 
 .intoxication, or those habits of profligacy, or those 
 habits of companionable indulgence, to which the 
 young of every great city are introduced with a 
 facility and a readiness so alarming to the heart of 
 every Christian parent; and in the prosecution of 
 which they widen by every day of thoughtlessness 
 their departure from God; and accumulate upon 
 them the burden of his righteous indignation ; and 
 lull their consciences into such a slumber, as to 
 thousands and thousands more will at length sink 
 and deepen into the sleep of death; and bring the 
 whole power of their example to bear upon the 
 simple and the uninitiated. And thus does the 
 tide of corruption maintain its unabated force and 
 fulness from one period to another; and is strength¬ 
 ened by yearly contributions out of the wreck of 
 youthful integrity; and, did not the cheering light 
 of prophecy assure us that through the omnipotence 
 of a pure gospel better days of reformation and of 
 virtue were to come, one would almost sit down 
 in despair of ever making head against such a 
 torrent of combination and of example on the side 
 of profligacy. Nor is this despair much alleviated, 
 though some solitary case of repentance out of a 
 hundred should now and then be offering itself to 
 our contemplations; and conscience should again 
 lift its commanding voice within him, and be rein¬ 
 stated in that authority which she had lost; and 
 he, breaking off his sins by righteousness, should by 
 an act of simple and determined abandonment brave 
 the mockery cf all his associates, and betake himself 
 to the paths of peace and of prayer and of piety. 
 
324 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 Now, the all things of our text should lead an 
 enlightened disciple to look for more evidence than 
 this; and should lead a decided convert to exhibit 
 more evidence than. this. The man who adorns 
 the gospel in all things, will most certainly be and 
 do all that we have heretofore insisted on. But 
 we regret that it should be so much the impression 
 of the world, and so much the impression even of 
 our plausible and well-looking professors, that these 
 form outward marks of such prominency as to throw 
 all other outward marks into the shade; and to 
 draw an almost exclusive regard towards sobriety 
 of manners, and sobriety of external observation, as 
 forming the great and leading evidences of a now 
 acquired Christianity. Now think, what prodigious 
 effect it would give to the gospel, what an impressive 
 testimony to its worth and excellence it would 
 spread around the walk of every professor of it— 
 did all that was undeviating in truth, all that was 
 generous in friendship, all that was manly in prin¬ 
 ciple, all that Weis untainted in honour, all that was 
 winning in gentleness, all that was endearing in the 
 graces and virtues of domestic society, all that was 
 beneficent in public life, and all that was amiable 
 in the unnoticed recesses of private history—did all 
 these form into one beauteous corona of virtues 
 and accomplishments, which might shed the lustre 
 of Christianity over every field that is traversed by 
 a professor of Christianity. The name of a convert 
 is at all times most readily associated with sobriety 
 and sabbath-keeping. We should like that the 
 conduct of the professors were such as to establish 
 a still wider association. And if it is not, it is 
 
325 
 
 becauso professors have so woefully neglected the 
 principle of our text. It is because they have 
 made their Christianity one thing, and their civil 
 business another. It is because 4- they have sepa¬ 
 rated religion from humanity, and missed a truth of 
 most obvious and most commanding evidence—that 
 there is not so much as a single half hour in the 
 whole current of a man’s history, which the gospel 
 might not cheer by its comforts, or guide by its 
 rules, or enlighten by its informations and its prin¬ 
 ciples. Had every professing convert proceeded 
 upon this, the association would have gone much 
 farther than it has actually done. It would have 
 thrown a kind of universal emblazonment over the 
 very name of Christianity. A man under the 
 teaching of Jesus Christ could not be spoken of, 
 without lighting up in the heart every feeling of 
 confidence and affection and esteem. And only 
 conceive how it would go to augment the power of 
 this living and efficient testimony—did every man 
 who plies his attendance upon church, and runs after 
 sacraments, and whose element is to be hearing 
 and talking of sermons, and the whole style of whose 
 family regulation wears a complexion of saeredness 
 —how it would tell with all the omnipotence of a 
 charm upon the world, could we only have it to say 
 of every such man—that the soul of honour and 
 integrity animated all his doings—that his every 
 word and his every bargain were immutable—that 
 not so much as a flaw or the semblance of an im¬ 
 peachment ever rested on any of his transactions 
 —that if in business, you might repose upon him— 
 that if in company, you had nothing to fear from 
 
326 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITF. 
 
 his pride or his severity or his selfishness—that if 
 in the relations of neighbourhood, you might look for 
 nothing from his hands but kindness and civility— 
 that if in the offiSialities of public employment, you 
 might see all the faithfulness of a man who felt the 
 weight of duty and responsibility that were attached 
 to it—that if the head of a family, you might 
 behold the happiest attemperament of wisdom and 
 of gentleness—and finally, that if in service, you 
 might commit to him the keepership of your all; 
 you might give your suspicions and your jealousies 
 to the wind; and, trusting to a fidelity which no 
 opportunity can tempt, and no power of conceal¬ 
 ment can make to swerve from the line of honesty, 
 you might review the whole subject of his guar¬ 
 dianship, and find how to its minutest particle that 
 all was untouched and all was unviolated. 
 
 This conducts us to the second lesson, which w r e 
 proposed to draw from the clause of adorning the 
 doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. And 
 that is that it is in the power of men and women, in 
 the most obscure and unnoticed ranks of society, 
 to do a thing of far greater magnificence and glory, 
 than can be done by all the resources of a monarch, 
 by all the commanding influence of wealth, by all 
 the talents and the faculties of genius, by all the 
 magic of utterance pouring forth its streams of elo¬ 
 quent and persuasive reasoning, by all grandeur 
 and all nobility and all official consequence when 
 disjoined from Christian principle. Humble as ye 
 are ye servants, there is a something ye can do 
 which has all the greatness and all the effect of 
 eternity stamped upon it. There is a something 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 327 
 
 ye can do which the King of Glory may put down 
 as done unto Him, and by which ye can both 
 magnify the name and carry forward the interests of 
 the Sun of Righteousness. There is a something 
 ye can do by which ye may be admitted into the 
 high honour of being fellow workers with God—-by 
 which He to whom all power is committed both in 
 heaven and earth, will own you as the auxiliaries 
 of His cause—by which ye may become the instru¬ 
 ments of adding to the triumphs of the great 
 Redeemer, and holding up His name to the world 
 with the splendour of an augmented reputation. O 
 think what a distinction the once-crucified but now 
 exalted Saviour has conferred upon you. He has 
 laid the burden of His honour and of His cause upon 
 your shoulders. He has committed to you the task 
 of adorning His doctrine. He has ennobled your 
 every employment, by telling you that out of them 
 all there may arise the moral lustre of such a prin¬ 
 ciple and such a quality, as will reflect a credit 
 upon Himself. And He who has done so much 
 to exalt the station of a servant by taking the form 
 of one on His own person, and by rendering under 
 it such a service to Him who sitteth on the throne, 
 as to have purchased for a sinful world all the 
 securities and all the hopes and all the triumphs of 
 their redemption, comes back upon you servants, 
 now that he is exalted to the right hand of the 
 most High, and tells you how much he looks to 
 you for the glories of His interest and of His 
 name—how much He rests upon you for the illus¬ 
 tration and the honour of His doctrine in the world. 
 And as it was the work of the Son of God, when 
 
32S MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITYV 
 
 veiled in the humiliation of a servant, which set cm 
 foot the great plan of the world’s restoration—so 
 is it still to the work of servants, to you my 
 humbler brethren, the glories of whose immortal 
 nature lie buried only for a few little years under 
 the meanness and the drudgeries of your daily 
 employment—it is to you that He confides the 
 helping forward of this mighty achievement, and 
 the maintaining of its influence and of its glory from 
 generation to generation. 
 
 It is in His name that we address you. We 
 tell you, ye men-servants and ye maid-servants, from 
 the sincerity of a heart that is most thoroughly 
 penetrated with the truth and the importance of 
 svhat we are now uttering, that you can do more for 
 Christ in your respective families than we can 
 possibly accomplish. We know not who your 
 masters and your mistresses are. But we know 
 that there may be masters who scowl disdainfully 
 on the business of the priesthood. We know that 
 with the insolence of wealth, there may be some 
 who despise the preaching of the cross, and make 
 holiday of our sabbaths and our sacraments. We 
 know that there may be some who come not here 
 to have the doctrine of God our Saviour preached 
 to them; and therefore it is that we want you to 
 do this business for us. You may do it in effect 
 without the utterance of a single word on the sub¬ 
 ject of Christianity. You may do it by the living 
 power of your example. You may do it by the 
 impressive exhibition of a fidelity which no tempta¬ 
 tion can seduce, and no lure of gain can cause to 
 swerve from the line of a strict and undeviating 
 
MOKAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 integrity. You may do it by a lesson of greater 
 energy than all that human argument can press, 
 or the magic of human eloquence can insinuate. 
 You may let them see in the whole of your history, 
 that the man among all their dependents who is 
 most devoted to the service of the sanctuary, is also 
 the most devoted to the service of his employer; 
 and the most tender of all his interests; and the 
 most observant of all his will. You may preach 
 them a daily sermon by the daily exhibition of your 
 faithfulness, and your attachment, and that deep 
 and duteous spirit of loyalty, which, with all the 
 firm footing of a religious principle in your heart, 
 leads you to be careful of all the trust he has com¬ 
 mitted to you, and mindful of all his orders, and 
 ever ready to meet his every wish and his every 
 lawful imposition by the alacrity of your most 
 assiduous and devoted ministrations. The king¬ 
 dom of God is not in word but in power. And 
 even though your master should listen to the 
 every demonstration which issues from the pulpit, 
 he may retire day after day with a charmed ear 
 and an unawakened conscience, and the whole of 
 the preacher’s eloquence may die away from his 
 memory like the sound of a pleasant song. But 
 you keep by him through the week, and a grateful 
 sense of your value is ever forcing itself upon his 
 convictions. And the inference that Christianity 
 has a something of reality in its nature, may at 
 times intrude itself among the multitude of his 
 other thoughts and his other avocations. And his 
 conscience may be arrested by the interesting 
 visitation of such an idea. And that Spirit whom 
 
330 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 we call you to pray for on his behalf, may reward 
 your example and your supplications by pressing 
 the idea home, and pursuing him with its resistless 
 influence, and opening through its power such an 
 avenue to his heart, as may at length carry before 
 it the whole of his desires and of his purposes. And 
 in like manner as Christianity found its way into 
 the household of Cesar—so may you, my humbler 
 brethren, find out a way for it into the houses of 
 the wealthiest of our citizens ; and be the instru¬ 
 ments of spreading it around among all those 
 villas of magnificence, which skirt and which adorn 
 the city of our habitation; and to you, clothed as 
 ye are in the habiliments of servitude, and weighed 
 down from morning to night by its drudgeries, and 
 veiled as the greatness of your immortal aspirations 
 is from the eye of the world—even upon you may 
 this blessing in all its richness be realized, that as 
 ye have turned men unto righteousness so shall ye 
 shine as the stars for ever and ever. 
 
 When we think of the lower orders of society, 
 we cannot but think along with it, how high and 
 how noble is the Gospel estimate of that importance 
 which belongs to them. Each of them carries in 
 his bosom a principle of deathless energy, never to 
 be extinguished. Each of them has a career of 
 ambition opened up, lofty as heaven and splendid 
 as a crown of immortality. Each of them has an 
 open way to Him who sitteth on the throne, through 
 the mediation of Him who sitteth on the right band 
 of it. To them belongs the memorable distinction 
 conferred by this utterance of the Eternal Son— 
 that unto the poor the Gospel is preached. Each of 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. S31 
 
 them possesses a heart that may be regenerated by 
 the influences of the Spirit; and may be filled with 
 all that is pure and all that is elevated in piety; 
 and may be turned into a residence for the finest 
 and the loftiest emotions; and that, under the power 
 of an evangelical culture, may be made to exemplify 
 all that is respectable in worth, and all that is 
 endearing in the nobler graces of Christianity. 
 When worth and greatness meet in one imposing 
 combination, there is a something in a spectacle so 
 rare which draws the general eye of admiration 
 along with it. But to the moral taste of some, 
 and we profess ourselves to be of that number— 
 there is a something still more touching, still more 
 attractive, still more fitted to draw the eye of phil¬ 
 anthropy and to fill it with the images of beauty 
 and peacefulness, in what we should call the virtues 
 and the respectabilities of humble life—as a pious 
 father, in the midst of a revering family—or the 
 duteous offspring who rise around him, and are 
 taught by his example to keep the Sabbaths of the 
 Lord and to love His ordinances—or the well- 
 ordered household, the members of which are 
 trained to all the decencies of Christian conduct— 
 or the frail and lowly tenement, where the voice of 
 psalms is heard with the return of every evening, 
 and the morning of the hallowed day collects all 
 its inmates around the altar of domestic prayer. 
 When such pictures as these occur in humble life, 
 and sure we are that humble life is capable of 
 affording them, who could think of withholding 
 from them his testimony of readiest admiration? 
 The man who, without any superiority of wealth 
 
332 MORAL, INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 ■whatever, has, by the pure force of character, 
 gained a moral ascendency over the population of 
 his obscure neighbourhood, causes all earthly dis¬ 
 tinctions to vanish into insignificance before him. 
 Now we affirm that in the very poorest and most 
 unnoticed walks of society, such men are to be 
 found; that by the powerful application of Chris¬ 
 tian motives such men may be multiplied; that 
 there exist throughout the wide mass of society all 
 the imaginable capabilities of worth and excellence 
 and principle and piety; that on the spacious field 
 of a mighty harvest which is on every side of us, 
 there may be raised a whole multitude of converts 
 in whose hearts the principle of the Gospel shall 
 have taken up its firm possession, and over the 
 visible path of whose history the power of the 
 Gospel may shed the lustre of some of the best 
 and finest accomplishments by which our nature can 
 be adorned. 
 
 We must not however pursue this speculation 
 any farther. It is in the power of the servants 
 who now hear us, to turn it into a reality. We 
 look to them for the vindication of all we have 
 uttered; and sure we are, that a faithful and an 
 attached servant; one who would maintain unse¬ 
 duced integrity, in the midst of manifold tempta¬ 
 tions ; on whom the struggling force of principle 
 would achieve a victory over the lure of every op¬ 
 portunity, and the certainty of every concealment; 
 who, nobly superior to all that is sordid and sneak¬ 
 ing and artful, would protect his master’s interest 
 as his own, and disdain to touch a single farthing 
 of what was committed to him—why, we should 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 333 
 
 never think of the rank of such a man—we should 
 call him the champion of his order, and feel how 
 honourably he had represented his own class of 
 society—how he had asserted all their honours, and 
 shown how elevation of soul and of sentiment be¬ 
 longed as essentially to them as to the wealthiest 
 and most distinguished of the land—how he had 
 evinced the wondrous capabilities of principle and 
 of improvement which had existed over the wide 
 mass of the population. And, taking • him as a 
 specimen, that the whole face of the community 
 might be turned into a moral garden; and that, 
 in point of moral and spiritual importance, the 
 poor, the despised, the unnoticed, the neglected 
 poor, are to the full equal with all that was most 
 lofty in the rank, and all that was most splendid in 
 the literature of society. 
 
 We dismiss you, my friends, with the remark— 
 that this is no speculation of ours. It is the call 
 of the Saviour who died for you. It is He who, 
 now that he has achieved your redemption, conde¬ 
 scends to ask a favour of you. He commits to you 
 the adornment of his doctrine in the eyes of the 
 world. And remember that when you leave this 
 church, and betake yourselves to the familiarities 
 of your daily employment, though our eye cannot 
 follow you, the eye of your Master in heaven is 
 never away from you. He takes an interest in all 
 your doings. He registers the every hour and 
 performance of your history. If you suffer not 
 this reflection to tell upon your conduct from this 
 moment, you are throwing the gauntlet of defiance 
 to a beseeching and a commanding Saviour. But 
 
334 MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. 
 
 if otherwise, He will not despise the humble offer¬ 
 ing of your obedience. He will put it down as 
 done unto Him. He will recognise you as fellow- 
 helpers to His cause and to His interest in the 
 world. He will accept of your prayers, because 
 they are the prayers of them whose hands are clean 
 and whose hearts are purged from their regard to 
 all iniquity. You will grow in friendly and fami¬ 
 liar intercourse with the great Mediator; and He 
 will put down the very smallest items of your 
 obedience as fruits of the love that you bear Him, 
 and of the faith which worketh by love and which 
 keepeth the commandments. 
 
IMPORTANCE OF 
 
 GOVERNMENT. 335 
 
 DISCOURSE XV. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 
 TO SOCIETY. 
 
 " What then 1 are we better than they ? No, in no wise : for wo 
 have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all 
 under sin ; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not 
 one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that 
 seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they 
 are together become unprofitable; there is none that doetb 
 good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with 
 their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under 
 their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness ; 
 Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery 
 are in their ways : And the way of peace have they not known: 
 There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know, 
 that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are 
 under the law ; that every mouth may be stopped, and all tho 
 world may become guilty before God."— Romans iii. 9_19. 
 
 There are certain of these charges which can be 
 brought more simply and speedily home in the way 
 of conviction than certain others of them. Those 
 which bring man more directly before the tribunal 
 of God, can be made out more easily than those 
 which bring him before the tribunal of his fellows. 
 It were difficult to prove, that, in reference to man, 
 there are not some of the species who have not 
 something to glory of; but it should not be so dif¬ 
 ficult to prove, that we have nothing to glory of 
 before God. Now, the conclusion of the Apostle’s 
 argument in this passage is, that it is before God 
 
336 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 that all the world is guilty; and if we, in the first 
 instance, single out those verses which place man 
 before us in his simple relationship to the God who 
 formed him, we ought not to find it a hard matter 
 to carry the acquiescence of our hearers in the sen¬ 
 tence which is here pronounced upon our guilty 
 species. 
 
 One of those verses is, that “there is none 
 righteous, no, not one.” To be held as having 
 righteously kept the law of our country, we must 
 keep the whole of it. It is not necessary that we 
 accumulate upon our persons the guilt of treason, 
 and forgery, and murder, and violent depredation, 
 ere we forfeit our lives to an outraged government. 
 By one of these acts we incur just as dreadful and 
 as entire a forfeiture as though guilty of them all. 
 The hundred deeds of obedience will not efface or 
 expiate the one of disobedience; and we have 
 only to plead for the same justice to a divine tha‘ 
 we render to a human administration, in order to 
 convince every individual who now hears us, con¬ 
 scious, as he must be, of one, and several, and 
 many acts of transgression against the law of God, 
 that there is not one of them who is righteous 
 before him. 
 
 “ There is none that understandeth, there is 
 none that seeketli after God,” is another of these 
 verses. We will venture to say of every man, 
 without exception, who has not submitted himself 
 to the great doctrine of this epistle, which is justi¬ 
 fication by faith, that there is not one principle 
 clearly intelligible even to his own mind, on which 
 he rests his acceptance with the God whom he has 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 337 
 
 offended. He may have some obscure conception 
 of His mercy, but he has never struck the compro¬ 
 mise between His mercy and His justice. He 
 has never braved the inquiry, how is it possible 
 that a sinner can be pardoned without a dissolution 
 of God’s moral government ? If he has ever taken 
 up the question, “ What shall I do to be saved ?” 
 he has never, in the prosecution of it, looked steadily 
 in the face at the Truth and Holiness of the God¬ 
 head. He has never extricated his condition as a 
 sinner, from the dilemma of God’s conflicting 
 attributes; or apprehended, to his own satisfaction, 
 how it is that the dignity of Heaven’s throne can 
 be upheld, amid the approaches of the polluted, 
 who dare the inspection of eternal purity, and offer 
 to come nigh, on the single presumption of God’s 
 connivance at sin,—and a connivance founded too 
 on the vague impression of God’s simple, and easy, 
 and unresisting tenderness. What becomes of all 
 that which stamps authority upon a law, and props 
 the majesty of a Lawgiver, is a question that they 
 have not resolved; and that just because it is a 
 question which they do not entertain. They are 
 not seeking to resolve it. That matter which 
 appertains to the very essence of a sinner’s salva¬ 
 tion, is a matter of which they have no under¬ 
 standing ; and they do not care to understand it. 
 They are otherwise taken up, and giving themselves 
 no uneasiness upon the subject. They, all their 
 lives long, are blinking, and evading the questions 
 which lie at the very turning point of that transition 
 by which a sinner passes from a state of wrath into 
 a state of acceptance. They hold the whole of this 
 
338 
 
 matter in abeyance; and the things of the world 
 engross, and interest, and occupy, their whole 
 hearts, to the utter exclusion of Him who made the 
 world. They are seeking after many things, but 
 they are not seeking after God.—If you think that 
 this is bearing too hard upon you, tell us what have 
 been the times, and what the occasions, on which you 
 have ever made the finding of God the distinct and 
 the business object of your endeavours ? When did 
 you ever seek Him truly ? When did your efforts 
 in this way ever go beyond the spirit and the 
 character of an empty round of observations ? 
 What are the strenuous attempts you ever made 
 to push the barrier which intercepts the guilty from 
 the God whom they have rebelled against? If 
 you are really and heartily seeking, you will find ; 
 but, without the fear of refutation, do we affirm of 
 all here present who have not reached the Saviour, 
 and are not in their way to Him, that none of 
 you understandeth, and none of you seeketh after 
 God. 
 
 “ They are all gone out of the way, they are 
 together become unprofitable, there is none that 
 doeth good; no, not one,”—is another of these 
 verses. We do not say of the people whom we 
 are now addressing, that they have gone out of the 
 way of honour, or out of the way of equity, or out 
 of the way of fair, and pleasant, and companionable 
 neighbourhood. But they, one and all of them, 
 are out of the way of godliness. When the 
 Prophet complains of our species, he does not 
 affirm of them that they had turned every one to 
 a way either of injustice or cruelty; but he counts 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 339 
 
 it condemnation enough, that they had turned every 
 one to his own way. It is iniquity enough in his 
 eyes that the way in which we walk is our own 
 way, and not God’s; that in the prosecution of it 
 we are simply pleasing ourselves, and not asking 
 or caring whether it be a way that is pleasing to 
 Him; that the impelling principle of what we do 
 is our own will, and not His authority; that the 
 way in which we walk is a way of independence 
 upon God, if not of iniquity against our fellows in 
 society; that it is the way of one who walks in the 
 sight of his own eyes, and not of one who walks 
 under the sight and in the service of another; 
 that God, in fact, is as good as cast off from us ; 
 and we say what is tantamount to this, that we 
 will not have Him to reign over us. This is the 
 universal habit of Nature; and if so, Nature is out 
 of the way, and the world at large offers a monstrous 
 exception to the habit of the sinless and unfallen, 
 where all from the highest to the lowest, walk in 
 that rightful subordination which the thing that is 
 formed should ever have towards Him who formed 
 it. It is this which renders all the works of mere 
 natural men so unprofitable, that is, of no value in 
 the high count and reckoning of eternity. They 
 want the great moral infusion which makes them 
 valuable. There is nothing of God in them; having 
 neither His will for their principle, nor the advance¬ 
 ment of any one cause which His heart is set upon 
 for their object. They may serve a temporary 
 purpose. They may shed a blessing over the 
 scenery of our mortal existence. They may mi¬ 
 nister to the good, and the peace, and the protec- 
 
340 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 tion of society. They may add to the sunshine or 
 the serenity of our little day upon earth; and yet 
 be unprofitable, because they yield no fruit unto 
 immortality. Destitute as they all are of godliness, 
 they are destitute of goodness. They have not 
 the essential spirit of this attribute pervading them. 
 And though many there are to whom the preaeli- 
 ingof the cross is foolishness, and who havereached a 
 lofty estimation in the walks of integrity and honour, 
 and even of philanthropy and patriotism, yet, with 
 the taint of earthliness which vitiates all they do, 
 in the estimation of Heaven’s Sanctuary there is 
 none of them that doeth good ; no, not one. 
 
 We now pass onward to another set of charges, 
 which it may not be so easy to substantiate on the 
 ground of actual observation. ■ They consist of 
 highly atrocious offences against the peace and the 
 dearest interests of society, it is true, that the 
 apostle here drops the style of universality which 
 he so firmly sustains in the foregoing part of his 
 arraignment, when he speaks of all being out of the 
 way; and of none, no, not one, being to be found 
 on the path of godliness. And it is further true, 
 that, in the subsequent prosecution of his charges, 
 he quotes several expressions which David made 
 use of, not against the whole species, but against 
 his own enemies. But yet it will be found, that 
 though the picture of atrocity here drawn may 
 not in our day be so broadly exhibited as in the 
 ruder and more barbarous periods of this world’s 
 history, yet, that the principles of it are still busily 
 at work; that though humanity be altered a little 
 in its guise, it is not. apart from the gospel, at all 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 341 
 
 altered in its substance; that though softened down 
 into a somewhat milder complexion, its fiercer ele¬ 
 ments are not therefore extinguished, hut only lie 
 for a time in a sort of slumbering concealment; 
 that though law and civilization, and a more en¬ 
 lightened sense of interest, may have stopped the 
 mouth of many a desolating volcano, which would 
 else have marred and wasted the face of society, 
 yet do the fiery materials still exist in the bosom of 
 society. It is religion alone which will kill the 
 elementary principles of human wickedness, and 
 every expedient short of religion will do no more 
 than restrain the ebullition of them. So that, dark 
 as the scriptural representation of our nature is; and 
 though here personified by the Apostle into a mon¬ 
 ster, whose delight is in the most foul and revolting 
 abominations; with a throat like an open sepulchre, 
 emitting contempt, and hatred, and envy, and every 
 thing offensive ; and a tongue practised in the arts 
 of deceitfulness ; and lips from which the gall of ma¬ 
 lignity ever drops in unceasing distillation; and a 
 mouth full of venomous asperity; and feet that run 
 to assassination as a game; and with the pathway on 
 which she runs marked by the ruin and distress that 
 attend upon her progress; and with a disdainful 
 aversion in her heart to the safety and inglorious¬ 
 ness of peace; and, finally, with an aspect of defi¬ 
 ance to the God that called her into being, and 
 gave all her parts and all her energies—though this 
 sketch of our nature was originally taken by the 
 Psalmist from the prowling banditti that hovered 
 on the confines of Judea, yet has the Apostle, by ad¬ 
 mitting it into his argument, stamped a perpetuity 
 
342 IMPORTANCE OE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 upon it, and made it universal,—giving us to un¬ 
 derstand, that if such was the character of man, as it 
 stood nakedly out among the rude and resentful 
 hostilities of a barbarous people, such also is the 
 real character of man among the glosses, and the 
 regularities, and the monotonous decencies of mo¬ 
 dern society. 
 
 There is one short illustration which may help 
 you to comprehend this. You know that oaths 
 were more frequent at one time than they are now 
 in the conversation of the higher classes, and that 
 at present it is altogether a point of politeness to 
 abstain from the utterance of them. It is a point 
 of politeness, we fear, more than a point of piety. 
 There may be less of profaneness in their mouths, 
 while there may be as much as ever in their hearts; 
 and when the question is between God and man, and 
 with a view to rate the godliness of the latter, do 
 you think that this is at all alleviated by a mere 
 revolution of taste about the proprieties of fashiona¬ 
 ble intercourse ? There may be as little of religion 
 in the discontinuance of swearing, when that is 
 brought about by a mere fluctuation in the mode 
 or bon ton of society, as there is of religion in the 
 adoption of a new dress, or a new style of enter¬ 
 tainment. And, in like manner, murder in the 
 act may be less frequent now, while, if he who 
 hateth his brother be a murderer, it may be fully 
 as foul and frequent in the principle ; and theft, in 
 the shape of violent and open depredation, be no 
 longer practised by him who gives vent to an equal 
 degree of dishonesty through the chicaneries of 
 merchandise; and that malice which wont in other 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 343 
 
 times to pour itself forth in resentful outcry, or 
 vulgar execration, may now find its sweet and se¬ 
 cret gratification in the conquests of a refined po¬ 
 licy ; and thus may there lurk under the soft and 
 placid disguises of well-bred citizenship, just as 
 much of unfeeling deceit, and unfeeling cruelty, as 
 were ever realized in the fiercer contests of savage 
 warfare, so as to verify the estimate of our apostle, 
 even when applied to the character of society in 
 modern days, and to make it as evident with the 
 duties of the second table as it is with the first, that 
 in every thing man has wandered far from the path 
 of rectitude, and in every thing has fallen short of 
 the glory of God. 
 
 The truth is, there is much in the whole guise of 
 modern society that is fitted to hide from human 
 eyes the real deformity of the human character. We 
 think that, apart from Christianity, the falsehood 
 and tlie ferocity of our species are essentially the 
 same with what they were in the most unsettled 
 periods of its history—that, however moulded into 
 a different form, they retain all the strength and 
 substance that they ever had—and that, if certain 
 restraints were liftedaway, certain regulations which 
 have their hold not upon the principle, but upon 
 the selfishness of our nature ; then would the latent 
 propensities of man again break forth into open 
 exhibition, and betray him to be the same guileful, 
 and rapacious, and vindictive creature he has ever 
 shown himself to be, in those places of the earth 
 where government had not yet introduced its re¬ 
 straints, and civilization had not yet introduced its 
 disguises. 
 
344 IMPORTANCE OF CiVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 And even when society has sat down into the 
 form of a peaceful and well-ordered commonwealth, 
 will it be seen that the evil of the human heart, 
 though it come not forth so broadly and so outrage* 
 ously as before, is just as active in its workings, and 
 just as unsubdued in its principle as ever. We ap¬ 
 prehend that man to be mainly ignorant of life, and 
 to be unpractised or untaught among the collisions 
 of human intercourse, who is not aware that even 
 among our politest circles, smoothed as they may 
 be into perfect decorum, and graced by the smile of 
 soft and sentimental courtesy, there may lurk all 
 the asperities and heart-burnings so honestly set 
 forth by our Apostle ; and that even there the artful 
 malignity of human passion finds, in slanderous in¬ 
 sinuations, and the devices of a keen and dexterous 
 rivalry, its effectual vent for them. And little 
 has he experienced of the trick and treachery of 
 business, who thinks that, in the scramble of its 
 eager competitions, less deceit is now used with the 
 tongue, than in the days -when the Psalmist was 
 compassed round with the snares of his adversaries. 
 And slightly has he reflected on the true character, 
 that often beams out from beneath the specious fal¬ 
 lacy which lies over it, who does not perceive that 
 there may, even with larv, be as determined a spirit 
 of injustice, among the frauds and the forms of bank¬ 
 ruptcy, as that which in the olden time, and wdthout 
 law', carried violence and rapine into a neighbour’s 
 habitation. And there is a lack of insight with him 
 who thinks, that in civilized war, with all its gallant 
 courtesies, and all its manifestos of humane and 
 righteous protestation, there may not be the same 
 
:E OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 345 
 
 kindling for the fray, and the same appetite for blood, 
 that gives its fell and revengeful sweep to the toma- 
 • hawk of Indians. There is another dress and another 
 exterior upon society than before; but be assured, 
 that in so far as it respects the essentials of human 
 character the representation of the Apostle is still 
 the true one. Whatever were the deceitful, or 
 whatever were the murderous propensities of man, 
 three thousand years ago, they have descended to our 
 present generation; and we are not sure but that, 
 through the regular vents of war, and of bank¬ 
 ruptcy, there is as full scope for their indulgence as 
 ever. There may be a change in the mode of these 
 iniquities, without any change at all in the matter 
 of them; and after all that police, and refinement, 
 and the kindly operation of long pacific intercourse, 
 havedonetohumanizetheaspect of these latter days, 
 we are far from sure whether upon the displacement 
 of certain guards and barriers of security, the slum¬ 
 bering ferocities of man might not again announce 
 their existence, and break out, as before, into open 
 and declared violence. 
 
 All this, while it gives a most humiliating esti¬ 
 mate of our species, should serve to enhance to our 
 minds the blessings of regular Government. And 
 it were curious to question the agents of police upon 
 this subject, the men who are stationed at the place 
 of combat and of guardianship, with those who 
 have cast off the fear of God, and cast off also the 
 fear of man to such a degree, as to be ever ventur¬ 
 ing across the margin of human legality. Let the 
 most observant of all these public functionaries 
 simply depone to the effect it would have, even 
 
346 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 upon our mild and modern society, were this guar¬ 
 dianship dissolved. Would it not be evident to 
 him, and is it not equally evident to you all, that 
 the artificial gloss which now overspreads the face 
 of it would speedily be dissipated; and that, under¬ 
 neath, would the character of man be sure to stand 
 out in far nearer resemblance to that sketch, how¬ 
 ever repulsive, which the inspired writer has here 
 offered of our species? Were anarchy the order 
 of our day, and the lawless propensities of man per¬ 
 mitted to stalk abroad in this the season of their 
 wild emancipation; were all the restraints of order 
 driven in, and human strength and human fierce¬ 
 ness were to ride in triumph over the prostrate au¬ 
 thorities of the land; were the reigning will of our 
 country, at this moment, the will of a spontaneous 
 multitude, doing every man of them, in rude and 
 random ebullitions, what was right in his own eyes, 
 with just such a fear of our heavenly superior as 
 now exists in the world, but with all fear and reve¬ 
 rence for earthly superiors taken away from it; let 
 us just ask you to conceive the effect of such a state 
 of things, and then to compute how little there is of 
 moral, andhowmuch thereisof mereauimalrestraint 
 in the apparent virtues of human society. There 
 is a twofold benefit in such a contemplation. It 
 will enhance to every Christian mind the cause of 
 loyalty, and lead him to regard the power that is, 
 as the minister of God to him for good And it will 
 also guide him through many delusions to appreciate 
 justly the character of man; to distinguish aright 
 between the semblance of principle and its reality; 
 and to gather, from the surveys of experience, a 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 347 
 
 fresh evidence for the truth of those Scriptures, 
 which speak so truly of human sinfulness, and point 
 out so clearly the way of human salvation. 
 
 But it is not necessary, for the purpose of identi¬ 
 fying the character of man, as it now is, with what 
 the character of man was, in its worst features, in 
 the days of the Royal Psalmist, to make out by 
 evidence a positive thirst after blood on the part of 
 any existing class in society. We are not sure 
 that it was any native or abstract delight in cruelty 
 which prompted the marauders of other days to 
 deeds of violence. Place a man in circumstances 
 of ease and of self-complacency, and he will revolt 
 from the infliction of unnecessary pain, just as the 
 gorged and satiated animal of prey will suffer the 
 traveller to pass without molestation. It forms no 
 part of our indictment against the species, that his 
 appetite for blood urges him onwards to barbarity, 
 but that his appetite for other things will urge him 
 on to it; and that if, while he had these things, he 
 wmuld vather abstain from the death of his fellov'- 
 men, yet, rather than want these things, he would 
 inflict it. It is not that his love of cruelty is the 
 originating appetite v'hieh carries him forward to 
 deeds of cruelty, but that his abhorrence of cruelty 
 is not enough to arrest the force of other appetites, 
 when they find that human life lies in the way of 
 their gratification. The feet of the borderers of 
 Judea made haste to shed blood; but, just because, 
 like the borderers of our own land, their love of 
 booty could only be indulged with human resistance 
 among human habitations. And were these days 
 of public licentiousness again to return—were 
 
3-18 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the functions of government suspended, and the only 
 guarantee of peace and of property were the native 
 rectitude of the species—did the power of anarchy 
 achieve its own darling object of a jubilee all over 
 the country for human wilfulness ; and in this way 
 were, not the past inclinations revived, but just the 
 present inclinations of man let loose upon society— 
 a single month would no t elapse, ere scenes of as dread 
 atrocity were witnessed, as those which the Psalmist 
 has recorded, and those which the Apostle has 
 transmitted, as the exemplars, not of practical, but 
 of general humanity. The latent iniquities of the 
 human heart would reappear just as soon as the 
 compression of human authority was lifted away 
 from them; and these streets be made to flow with 
 the blood of the most distinguished of our citizens; 
 and the violence at first directed against the summit 
 of society, would speedily cause the whole frame 
 of it to totter into dissolution; and in this our 
 moral and enlightened day it would be found, that 
 there was enough of crime in the country to spread 
 terror over all its provinces, and to hold its prostrate 
 families in bondage; and with such a dreary inter¬ 
 regnum of tumult, and uproar, and vagrancy, as 
 this, would there be a page of British history as 
 deeply crimsoned over, as are the darkest annals 
 of the barbarity of our species—all proving, how 
 indispensable the ordinance of human government 
 is to the well-being of society; but also proving, 
 that if it he the will, and the inward tendency, and 
 the unfettered principle, which constitute the real 
 elements of the character of man, this character 
 has only been coloured into another hue, without 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 349 
 
 being transformed into another essence, by an 
 ordinance which can only keep its elements in check, 
 but never can extinguish them. 
 
 And on applying the spiritual touchstone of the 
 gospel, may we perhaps fasten a similar charge on 
 many in society, who never suspected it possible 
 that they had any part in the Apostle’s dark repre¬ 
 sentation of our foul and fallen nature. Even in the 
 wildest scenes of anarchy, it may not he the love of 
 cruelty, but the love of power or of plunder, which 
 leads men to the most revolting abominations 
 of cruelty. It is not so much a ravenous desire 
 after human blood, as a regardlessness about it, 
 which stamps a savage barbarity on the characters 
 of men. It is their regard for the objects of avarice 
 and ambition, coupled with their regardlessness 
 about the quantity of human life, that lies in the 
 way of them; which is enough to account for deeds 
 of atrocity as monstrous as ever were committed, 
 either by bloody tyrants, or ferocious multitudes. 
 Now, may not this regard on the one band, and 
 this regardlessness on the other, be fully exemplified 
 by him who looks with delight on the splendid 
 reversion that awaits him, and cares not how soon 
 the death of bis aged relative may bring it to his 
 door ? And may it not be exemplified by him who, 
 all in a tumult with military glee, and the visions of 
 military glory, longs for some arena crowded with 
 the fellows of his own sentient nature, on which he 
 might bring the fell implements of destruction 
 to bear, and so signalize himself in the proud lists 
 of chivalry or patriotism ? And most striking of all, 
 perhaps, may it not be exemplified, by the most 
 
350 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 gentle and pacific of our citizens, who, engrossed 
 with the single appetite of fear, and under the 
 movements of no other regard than a regard to his 
 own security, might listen with secret satisfaction to 
 the tale of the many hundreds of the rebellious who 
 had fallen—and how the sweep of fatal artillery, or 
 the charge of victorious squadrons, told with deadly 
 execution on the flying multitude? We are not com¬ 
 paring the merits of the cause of order, which are 
 all triumphant, with those of anarchy; the inscribed 
 ensigns of which are as hateful to every Christian 
 eye, as ever to the Jews of old was the abomination 
 of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet. 
 We are merely expounding the generalities of a 
 nature, trenched upon every side of it in deceitful¬ 
 ness ; and where, under the gloss of many plausi¬ 
 bilities, there lurk, unsuspected and unknown, all 
 the rudiments of depravity; and through the 
 intricacies of which, he who saw with the eye of 
 inspiration could detect a permanent and universal 
 taint, both of selfishness and of practical atheism. 
 The picture that he has drawn will bear to be 
 confronted with the humanity of modern, as well as 
 of ancient days ; and, though taken off at first from 
 the ruder specimens of our kind, yet, on a narrow 
 inspection, will it be found tobesubstantiatedamong 
 the delicate phases of our more elegant and artificial 
 society; so as that every mouth should be stopped, 
 and the whole world be brought in guilty before 
 God. 
 
 In looking to the present aspect of society, it is 
 not easy so to manage our argument as to reach 
 conviction among all, that all are guilty before God ; 
 
IMPORTANCE 
 
 GOVERNMENT. 351 
 
 and that, unknowing of it themselves, there may be 
 the lurking principles of what is dire in human 
 atrocity, even under the blandest exhibitions of our 
 familiar and every-day acquaintanceship. But, 
 as there are degrees of guilt, and as these are more 
 or less evident to human eyes, it would, perhaps, 
 decide the identity of our present generation, with 
 those of a rude and savage antiqqity, could v'e 
 run along the scale of actual wickedness that is 
 before us, and fasten upon an exemplification of it 
 so plainly and obviously detestable as to vie with 
 all that is recorded of the villany of our species • in 
 former ages of the world. And such a one has 
 occurred so recently, that there is not one here 
 present who, upon the slightest allusion, will not 
 instantly recognise it. We speak not of those who 
 have openly spoken, and that beyond the margin of 
 legality, against the government of our land. We 
 speak not of those who have clamoured so loudly, 
 and lifted so open a front of hostility to the laws, 
 as to have brought down upon them the hand of 
 public vengeance. We speak not even of those 
 who, steeled to the purposes of blood, went forth to 
 kill and to destroy, and, found with the implements 
 of violence in their hands, are now awaiting the 
 sentence of an earthly tribunal on the enormity into 
 which they have fallen. But we speak to our men 
 of deeper contrivance; to those tvary and unseen 
 counsellors who have so coolly conducted others 
 to the brunt of a full exposure, and then retired 
 so cautiously within the shelter of their own cow. 
 ardice ; those men of print and of plot, and of pri¬ 
 vacy, in whose hands the other agents of rebellion 
 
352 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 were nothing better than slaves and simpletons; 
 those men of skill enough for themselves, to go 
 thus far, and no farther, and of cruelty enough 
 for others, as to care not how many they impelled 
 across the verge of desperation; those men who 
 have made their own harvest of the passions of the 
 multitude, and now skulk in their hiding places, till 
 the storm of vengeance that is to sweep the victims 
 of their treachery from the land of the living shall 
 have finally blown away ; those men who spoke a 
 patriotism which they never felt, and shed their 
 serpent tears over sufferings which never drew 
 from their bosoms one sigh of honest tenderness. 
 Tell us, if, out of the men who thus have trafficked 
 in delusion, and, in pursuance of their unfeeling- 
 experiment, have entailed want and widowhood 
 upon families, there may not as dark a picture of 
 humanity be drawn as the Psalmist drew out of the 
 rude materials that were around him : And, after 
 all that civilization has done for our species, and 
 all that smoothness of external aspect into which 
 government has moulded the form of society ; is it 
 not evident, that upon the slightest relaxation of its 
 authority, and the faintest prospect of its dissolution 
 and overthrow', there is lying in reserve as much 
 of untamed and ruthless ferocity in our land, as, if 
 permitted to come forth, would lift an arm of bloody 
 violence, and scatter all the cruelties of the reign 
 of terror among its habitations ? * 
 
 These are rather lengthened illustrations in which 
 we have indulged; but who can resist the tempta- 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIC GOVERNMENT. 353 
 
 tion that offers itself, when an opening is given for 
 exhibiting the accordaney that obtains between the 
 truths of observation, and the averments of scripture; 
 when facts are before us, and such a use of them 
 can be made, as that of turning them into materials 
 by which to strengthen the foundations of orthodoxy; 
 and when, out of scenes which rise with all the 
 freshness of recency before us, it can be shown how 
 the sturdy apostolic doctrine will bear to be con¬ 
 fronted with every new display, and every new 
 development of human experience ? And, ere we 
 have done, we should like to urge three lessons 
 upon you, from all that has been said; the first 
 with a view to set your theology upon its right 
 basis; and the second with a view to set your 
 loyalty upon its right basis; and the third with a 
 view to impress a right practical movement on 
 those who hold a natural or political ascendancy 
 in our land. 
 
 I. First, then, as to the theology of this question. 
 We trust you perceive how much it is, and how 
 little it is, that can be gathered from the compara¬ 
 tive peace and gentleness of modern society; how 
 much the protection of families is due to the 
 physical restraints that are laid on by this world’s 
 government, and how little is due to the moral 
 restraints that are laid on by the unseen government 
 of Heaven; how little the existing safety of our 
 commonwealth, both from crime and turbulence, is 
 owing to the force of any considerations which are 
 addressed to the principle of man, and how much 
 of it is owing to the force of such considerations 
 as are addressed to man’s fears and mail’s selfish- 
 
354 IMPORTANCE OF CIVII. GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ness;—all proving, that if human nature, in this 
 our age, do not break forth so frequently and so 
 outrageously into violence as in other ages that have 
 gone by, it is only because it is shackled, and not 
 because it is tamed. It is more like the tractable¬ 
 ness of an animal led about by a chain, than of an 
 animal inwardly softened into a docility and a 
 mildness which did not formerly belong to it. It 
 is due, without doubt, to the influence of a very 
 strong and very salutary counteraction; but it is 
 a counteraction that has been formed out of the 
 interest of man, and not out of the fear of God. It 
 is due, not to the working of that celestial machinery 
 which bears on the spiritual part of our constitution, 
 but to the working of another machinery most 
 useful for the temporary purpose which it serves, 
 yet only bearing on the material and worldly part 
 of our constitution. On this point, observation 
 and orthodoxy are at one; and one of the most 
 convincing illustrations which the Apostle can 
 derive to his own doctrine, may be taken from 
 the testimony of those who, in the shape of legal 
 functionaries, are ranged along that line of defence, 
 over which humanity, with its numerous outbreak- 
 ings of fraud, and rapacity, and violence, is ever 
 passing. Let them simply aver, on their own 
 experimental feeling, what the result would be, if 
 all the earthly safeguards of law and of government 
 were driven away from the rampart at which they 
 are stationed; and they are just preaching orthodoxy 
 to our ears, and lending us their authority to one 
 of its articles, when they tell us, that upon such 
 an event the whole system of social life would go 
 
into unhingement, and that, in the wild uproar of 
 human passions which would follow, kindness, and 
 confidence, and equity, would take their rapid 
 flight from human habitations. 
 
 II. But, secondly, the very same train of argu¬ 
 ment which goes to enlighten the theology of this 
 subject, serves also to deepen and to establish 
 within us all the principles of a most devoted 
 loyalty. That view of the human character, upon 
 which it is contended, by the divine, that unless it 
 is regenerated there can be no meetness for heaven, 
 is the very same with that view of the human 
 character upon which it is contended, by the 
 politician, that, unless it is restrained there will be 
 no safety from crime and violence along the course 
 of the pilgrimage which leads to it. An enlightened 
 Christian recognises the hand of God in all the 
 shelter that is thrown over him from the fury of 
 the natural elements; and he equally recognises 
 it in all the shelter that is thrown over him from 
 the fury of the moral elements by which he is 
 surrounded. Had he a more favourable view of 
 our nature, he might not look on government as 
 so indispensable; but, with the view that he 
 actually has, he cannot miss the conclusion of its 
 being the ordinance of Heaven for the church’s 
 good upon earth; and that thus a canopy of defence 
 is drawn over the heads of Zion’s travellers; and 
 they rejoice in the authority of human laws as an 
 instrument in the hand of God for the peace of 
 their Sabbaths, and the peace of their sacraments; 
 and they deprecate the anarchy that would ensue 
 from the suspension of them, with as much honest 
 
350 importance of civil government. 
 
 principle, as they would deprecate the earthquake 
 that might ingulf, or the hurricane that- might 
 sweep away their habitations; and, aware of what 
 humanity is, when left to itself, they accept, as a 
 boon from heaven, the mechanism which checks 
 the effervescence of all those fires that would else 
 go forth to burn up and to destroy. 
 
 This, at all times the feeling of every enlight¬ 
 ened Christian, must have been eminently and 
 peculiarly so at that time when our recent alarms 
 were at the greatest height. It was the time of 
 our sacrament; and, to all who love its services, 
 must it have been matter of grateful rejoicing, that, 
 by the favour of Him who sways the elements of 
 Nature, and the as uncontrollable elements of 
 human society, we were permitted to finish these 
 services in peace; that, in that feast of love and 
 good-will, we were not rudely assailed by the din 
 of warlike preparation; that, ere sabbath came, 
 the tempest of alarm, which had sounded so fearfully 
 along the streets of our city, was hushed into the 
 quietness of sabbath; so that, like as if in the 
 midst of sweetest landscape, and amongst a congre¬ 
 gation gathered out of still and solitary hamlets, 
 and with nothing to break in upon the deep repose 
 and tranquillity of the scene, save the voice of 
 united praise, from an assembly of devout and 
 revering worshippers, were we, under the protection 
 of an arm stronger than any arm of flesh, and at. 
 the bidding of a voice more powerful than that of 
 mighty conquerors, suffered to enjoy the pure and 
 peaceful ordinances of our faith, with all the threats 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 3- r .7 
 
 aud all the outcries of human violence kept far 
 away from us. 
 
 - It was the apprehension of many, that it might 
 have been otherwise. And, what ought to be their 
 enduring gratitude, when, instead of the wrath of 
 man let loose upon our families, and a devoted city 
 given up to the frenzy and the fierceness of a mis¬ 
 guided population ; and the maddening outcry of 
 combatants plying against each other their instru¬ 
 ments of destruction; and the speed of flying 
 multitudes, when the noise of the footmen and the 
 noise of the horsemen gave dreadful intimation of 
 the coming slaughter; and the bursting conflagra¬ 
 tion, in various quarters, marking out where the 
 fell emissaries of ruin were at work; and the 
 shock, and the volley, and the agonies of dying 
 men, telling the trembling inmates of every house¬ 
 hold, that the work of desperation had now begun 
 upon the streets, and might speedily force its way 
 into all the dwelling-places:—this is what that 
 God, who has the elements of the moral world at 
 command, might have visited on a town which has 
 witnessed so many a guilty sabbath, and harbours 
 within its limits the ungodliness of so many profane 
 and alienated families—In what preciousness, then, 
 ought that sabbath to be held; and what a boon 
 from the kindness of long-suffering Heaven should 
 we regard its quietness; when, instead of such 
 deeds of vengeance between townsmen and their 
 fellows, they walked together in peaceful society 
 to the house of prayer, and sat in peacefulness 
 together at its best loved ordinance. 
 
 ' The men who prize the value of this protection 
 
358 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the most, are the men who feel most the need of 
 human government, and who most revere it as an 
 ordinance of God. Such is their opinion of the 
 heart, that they believe, unless it be renewed by 
 divine grace, there can be no translation into a 
 blessed eternity ; and such is their opinion of the 
 heart, that they believe, unless its native inclinations 
 be repressed by human government, there can be 
 no calm or protected passage along the track of 
 conveyance in this world. Their loyalty emerges 
 from their orthodoxy. With them it has all the 
 tenacity of principle; and is far too deeply seated 
 to be laid prostrate among the fierce and guilty 
 agitations of the tumultuous. They have no part 
 in the rancour of the disaffected; and they have no 
 part in the ambitiousuess of the dark and daring 
 revolutionist; and seeking, as they do, to lead a 
 quiet and a peaceable life, in all godliness and 
 honesty, a season of turbulence is to them a season 
 of trial, and would be a season of difficulty, had 
 they not the politics of the Bible to guide their 
 way among the threats and the terrors of surrounding 
 desperadoes. “ Honour the king, and meddle not 
 with those who are given to change,” are the inde¬ 
 lible duties of a record that is indelible; and they 
 stamp a sacredness upon Christian loyalty. They 
 are not at liberty to cancel what God has enacted, 
 and to expunge what God has written. They 
 are loyal because they are religious; to suffer 
 in such, a cause is persecution, to die in it is 
 martyrdom. 
 
 There is a mischievous delusion on this subject. 
 In the minds of many, and these too men of the 
 
IMPORTANCE 
 
 VIL GOVERNMENT. 359 
 
 first influence and station in the country, there is a 
 haunting association which still continues to mislead 
 them, even in the face of all evidence, and of all 
 honest and credible protestation; and in virtue of 
 which they, to this very hour, conceive that such 
 a religion as they call methodism, is the invariable 
 companion of a plotting, artful, and restless 
 democracy. This is truly unfortunate; for the 
 thing called methodism is neither more nor less 
 than Christianity in earnest; and yet they who so 
 call it, have it most honestly at heart to promote 
 the great object of a peaceful, and virtuous, and 
 well-conditioned society'; and not therefore their 
 disposition, which is right, but their apprehension 
 upon this topic, which is egregiously wrong, has 
 just had the effect of bending the whole line of 
 their patronage and policy the wrong way'. And 
 thus are they unceasingly employed in attempting 
 to kill, as a noxious plant, the only element 
 which can make head against the tide of irreligion 
 and blasphemy in our land; conceiving, but most 
 woefully wide of the truth in so conceiving, that 
 there is a certain approving sympathy between 
 the sanctity of the evangelical system, and the 
 sedition that so lately has derided and profaned 
 it. The doctrinal Christianity of this very epistle 
 would be called methodistical by those to whom 
 we are now alluding; but sure we are, that the 
 disciple who goes along with Paul, while he travels 
 in argument through the deeper mysteries of faith, 
 will not abandon him when, in the latter chapters 
 of his work, he breaks forth into that efflorescence 
 of beautiful and perfect morality with which he 
 
360 
 
 winds up the whole of his wondrous demonstration; 
 but will observe the bidden conduct as a genuine 
 emanation of the expounded creed—when told, 
 that every soul should be subject unto the higher 
 powers, and that there is no power but of God, 
 and that the powers which be are ordained of 
 God. And whosoever, therefore, resisteth the 
 power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they 
 that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 
 Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for 
 wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 
 
 III. We venture to affirm, that it is just the want 
 of this Christianity in earnest which has brought 
 our nation to the brink of an emergency so fearful 
 as that upon which we are standing. When So¬ 
 lomon says, that it is righteousness which exalteth 
 a nation, he means something of a deeper and more 
 sacred character than the mere righteousness of 
 society. This last may be learned in the school of 
 classical or of civil virtue ; and an argument may 
 be gathered in its behalf even from the views of au 
 enlightened selfishness; aud, all lovely as it is in 
 exhibition, may it draw from the tasteful admirers 
 of what is fine in character even something more 
 than a mere nominal acknowledgment. It may 
 carry a certain extent of practical conformity over 
 the real and living habits of those who, faultless in 
 honour, aud uprightness, and loyalty, are never¬ 
 theless devoid of the religious principle altogether; 
 and who, so far from being tainted with methodism, 
 in the. sense of that definition which we have already 
 given of it, would both repudiate its advances upon 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 361 
 
 their own family, and regret any visible inroads it 
 might make on our general population. 
 
 ' That Solomon does mean something more than 
 the virtues to which we are now alluding, is evident 
 we think from this circumstance. The term 
 righteousness, admits of a social and relative 
 application, and in this application, may introduce 
 a conception into the mind that is exclusive of God. 
 But the same cannot he said of the term sin. This 
 generally suggests the idea of God as the Being 
 sinned against. The one term doesnotso essentially 
 express the idea of conformity to the divine law, as 
 the other term expresses the idea of transgression 
 against it. It does not carry up the mind so 
 immediately to God; because, with the utter absence 
 of Him from our thoughts, may it still retain a 
 substance and a significancy, as expressive of what 
 is held to be right in a community of human beings. 
 It is well, then, that the clause, “ Righteousness 
 exalteth a nation,” is followed up by the clause, 
 “ But sin is a reproach to any people and that 
 thus the latter term, which is equivalent to ungodli¬ 
 ness, by the contrast in which it stands with the 
 former term, leads us to the true import of the first 
 of these two clauses, and gives us to understand 
 Solomon as saying, that it is godliness that exalteth 
 a nation. 
 
 Cut away the substratum of godliness, and how, 
 we ask, will the secondary and the earth-born 
 righteousness be found to thrive on the remaining 
 soil which nature supplies for rearing it ? It is an 
 error to think that it will make a total withdrawment 
 of itself from the world. It will still be found, in 
 
362 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 straggling specimens, among some sheltered and 
 congenial spots even of this world’s territory—at 
 times among the haunts of lettered enthusiasm; 
 and at times on the elevated stage of a rank which 
 stands forth to public notice, or of an opulence which 
 is raised above the attacks of care and of temptation; 
 and, at times, on the rarely-occurring mould of a 
 native equity', when, in middle and comfortable life, 
 the rude urgencies of want and of vulgar ambition 
 do not overbear it. Even there it will grow but 
 sparingly, without the influences of the gospel; 
 as it did in those ages, and as it still does in those 
 countries where the gospel is unknown. But, if 
 you step down from those moral eminences, or if 
 you come out from those few sweet and kindred 
 retirements, where the moral verdure has stood, 
 unblighted, even in the absence of Christianity, 
 and thence go forth among the ample spaces, and 
 the wide, and open, and general exposures of 
 society ; if, on the arena of common life, you enter 
 the teeming families of the poor, and hold converse 
 with the mighty host who scarcely know an interval 
 between waking hours of drudgery and hours of 
 sleeping unconsciousness; if, passing away from 
 the abodes of refinement, you mingle with the many 
 whose feelings and whose faculties are alike buffeted 
 in the din and the dizzying of incessant labour— 
 we mean to affix no stigma on the humbler 
 brethren of our nature; but we may at least be 
 suffered to say, that among the richest of fortune 
 and accomplishment in our land, we know not the 
 individual whose virtues, if transplanted ' into the 
 unkindlier region of poverty', would have withstood 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 363 
 
 the operation of all the adverse elements to which 
 it is exposed,—unless upheld by that very godliness 
 which he perhaps disowns, that very methodism on 
 which perhaps he pours the cruelty of his derision. 
 
 And here it may be remarked, how much the 
 taste of many among the higher orders of society, 
 is at war with the best security that can be devised 
 for the peace and the well-being of society. There 
 are many among them who admire the blossoms of 
 virtue, while they dislike that only culture which 
 can spread this lovely efflorescence over the whole 
 field of humanity. They advert not to this—that the 
 virtue which is cradled in the lap of abundance, and 
 is blown into luxuriance among the complacencies 
 of a heart at ease, would soon evince its frailty were 
 it carried out among the exposures of an every-day 
 world ; that there it would droop and perish under 
 the uncongenial influences which, apart from 
 religion, would positively wither up all the honesties 
 and delicacies of humble life; and therefore, that 
 if they nauseate that gospel, which ever meets with 
 its best acceptance, and works its most signal ef¬ 
 fects upon the poor, they abandon the poor to that 
 very depravity into which they themselves, had 
 they been placed among the same temptations and 
 besetting urgencies, would assuredly have fallen. 
 The force of native integrity may do still what it 
 did in the days of Pagan antiquity, when it reared 
 its occasional specimens of worth and patriotism; 
 but it is the powerof godliness, and that alone, which 
 will reclaim our population in the length and 
 breadth of it, and shed a moral bloom, and a moral 
 fragrance, over the wide expanse of society. But 
 
364 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 with main', and these too the holders of a great 
 and ascendant influence in our land, godliness is 
 puritanism, and orthodoxy is repulsive moroseness, 
 and the pure doctrine of the Apostles is fanatical 
 and disgusting vulgarity ; and thus is it a possible 
 tiling, that in their hands the alone aliment of 
 public virtue mavhe withheld, or turned into poison. 
 Little are they aware of the fearful reaction which 
 may await their natural enmity to the truth as it is 
 in Jesus; and grievously have they been misled 
 from the sound path, even of political wisdom, in 
 the suspicion and intolerance wherewith they have 
 regarded the dispensers of the word of life among 
 the multitude. The patent way to disarm Nature 
 of her ferocities, is to Christianize her; and we 
 should look on all our alarms with thankfulness, as 
 so many salutary indications, did they lead either 
 to multiply the religious edifices, or to guide the 
 religious patronage of our land. 
 
 But, again, it is not merely the taste of the 
 higher orders which may be at war with the best 
 interests of our country. It is also their example; 
 not their example of dishonesty, not their example 
 of disloyalty, not their example of fierce and 
 tumultuous violence, but an example of that which, 
 however unaccompanied with any one of these 
 crimes in their own person, multiplies them all 
 upon the person of the imitators—we mean the 
 example of their irreligion. A bare example of 
 integrity on the part of a rich man, who is freed 
 from all temptations to the opposite, is not an 
 effective example with a poor man, who is urgently 
 beset at all hands with these temptations. It is 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 365 
 
 thus that the most pure and honourable example 
 which can shine upon the poor from the upper 
 walks of society, of what we have called the 
 secondary and the earth-born righteousness, will 
 never counterwork the mischief which emanates 
 from the example that is there held forth of ungod¬ 
 liness. It is the poor man’s sabbath which is the 
 source of his week-day virtues. The rich may 
 have other sources; but take away the sabbath 
 from the poor, and you inflict a general desecration 
 of character upon them. Taste, and Honour, and a 
 nativelove of Truth, maybe sufficient guarantees for 
 the performance of duties to the breaking of which 
 there is no temptation. But they are not enough 
 for the w'ear and exposure of ordinary life. They 
 make a feeble defence against such temptations as 
 assail and agitate the men who, on the rack of then- 
 energies, are struggling for subsistence. With 
 them the relative obligations hold more singly upon 
 the religious; and if the tie of religion, therefore, 
 be cut asunder, the whole of their morality will 
 forthwith go into unhingement. Whatever virtue 
 there is on the humbler levels of society, it holds 
 direct of the sabbath and of the sanctuary; and when 
 these cease to be venerable, the poor cease to be 
 virtuous. You take away all their worth, when 
 you take away the fear of God from before then- 
 eyes ; and why then should we wonder at the result 
 of a very general depravation among them, if before 
 their eyes there should be held forth, on the part 
 of their earthly superiors, an utter fearlessness of 
 God? The humbler, it ought not to be expected, 
 wiil follow the higher classes on the ground of social 
 
366 
 
 virtue; for they have other and severer difficulties 
 to combat, and other temptations, over which the 
 victory would be greatly more arduous. But the 
 humbler will follow the higher on the ground of 
 irreligion. Only they will do it in their own style, 
 and, perhaps, with the more daring and lawless 
 spirit of those who riot in the excesses of a newly 
 felt liberty. Should the merchant, to lighten the 
 pressure of work in his counting-house, make over 
 the arrears of his week-day correspondence to the 
 snug and secret opportunity of the coming sabbath; 
 —the hard wrought labourer just follows up this 
 example in his own way, when, not to lighten, but 
 to solace the fatigue of the six days that are past, 
 he spends the seventh in some haunt of low dissipa¬ 
 tion. Should the man of capital, make his regular 
 escape from the dull Sunday, and the still duller 
 sermon, by a rural excursion, with his party of 
 choice spirits, to the villa of weekly retreat, which 
 by his wealth he has purchased and adorned—let 
 it not be wondered at, that the man of drudgery is 
 so often seen, with his band of associates, among 
 the suburb fields and pathways of our city ; or that 
 the day. which God hath commanded to be set 
 apart for himself, should be set apart by so vast 
 a multitude, who pour forth upon our outskirts, 
 to the riot and extravagance of holiday. Should 
 it be held indispensable for the accommodation 
 of our higher citizens, that the great central 
 lounge of politics, and periodicals, and news, be 
 opened on Sabbath to receive them; then, though 
 the door of .public entry is closed, and with the 
 help of screens, and hangings, and partial shutters, 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL 
 
 VERNMENT. 367 
 
 something like an homage is rendered to public 
 decency, and the private approach is cunningly- 
 provided, and all the symptoms of sneaking and 
 conscious impropriety, are spread over the face of 
 this guilty indulgence—let us not wonder, though 
 the strength of example has forced its way through 
 the impotency of all these wretched barriers, and 
 that the reading-rooms of sedition and infidelity 
 are now open every sabbath, for the behoof of our 
 general population. Should the high-bred city 
 gentleman hold it foul scorn to have the raillery of 
 the pulpit thus let loose upon his habits, or that any 
 parson who fills it should so presume to tread upon 
 his privileges—let us no longer wonder, if this very 
 language, and uttered, too, in this very spirit, be 
 reechoed by the sour and sturdy Kadical, who, 
 equal to his superior in the principle of ungodliness, 
 only outpeers him in his expressions of contempt 
 for the priesthood, and of impetuous defiance to 
 all that wears the stamp of authority in the land. 
 It is thus that the impiety of our upper classes now 
 glares upon us from the people, with a still darker 
 reflection of impiety back again; and that, in the 
 general mind of our country, there is a suppressed 
 but brooding storm, the first elements of which 
 were injected by the men who now tremble the 
 most under the dread of its coming violence. 
 
 It is the decay of vital godliness amongst us, 
 that has brought on this great moral distemper. 
 It is irreligion which palpably lies at the bottom 
 of it. Could it only have confined its influences 
 among the sons of wealth or of lettered infidelity, 
 society might have been safe. But this was im- 
 
BBS IMPORTANCE 
 
 VEtlKMESI. 
 
 possible; and, now that it has broke forth on the 
 wide and populous domain of humanity; is it seen 
 that, while a slender and sentimental righteousness 
 might have sufficed, at least, for this present world, 
 and among those whom fortune has shielded from 
 its adversities, it is only by that righteousness which 
 is propped on the basis of piety that the great mass 
 of a nation’s virtue can be upholden. 
 
 There is something in the history of these Lon¬ 
 don executions that is truly dismal.* It is like 
 getting a glimpse into Pandeemonium; nor do we 
 believe that, in the annals of human depravity, 
 did ever stout hearted sinners betray a more fierce 
 and unfeeling hardihood. It is not that part of 
 ♦he exhibition which is merely revolting to sensitive 
 nature that we are now alluding to. It is not the 
 struggle, and the death, and the shrouded operator, 
 and the bloody heads that were carried round the 
 scaffold, and the headless bodies of men who but 
 one hour before, lifted their proud defiance to the 
 God in whose presence the whole decision of their 
 spirits must by this time have melted away. It is 
 the moral part of the exhibition that is so appall¬ 
 ing. It is the firm desperado step with which 
 they ascended to the place of execution. It is the 
 undaunted scowl which they cast on the dread 
 apparatus before them. It is the frenzied and 
 bacchanalian levity with which they bore up their 
 courage to the last, and earned, in return, the 
 applause of thousands as fierce and as frenzied as 
 themselves. It is the unquelled daring of the 
 
 * Executions of men who had conspired for the murder of the 
 Ministers of State. 
 
369 
 
 man, who laughed, and who sung, and who cheered 
 the multitude, ere he took his leap into eternity, 
 and was cheered by the multitude, rending the ait 
 with approbation back again. These are the 
 doings of infidelity. These are the genuine ex¬ 
 hibitions of the popular mind, after that Religion 
 has abandoned it. It is neither a system of un¬ 
 christian morals, nor the meagre Christianity of those 
 who deride, as methodistical, all the peculiarities 
 of our Faith, that will recall our neglected popula¬ 
 tion. There is not one other expedient by which 
 you will recover the olden character of England, 
 but by going forth with the gospel of Jesus Christ 
 among its people. Nothing will subdue them, but 
 that regenerating power which goes along with the 
 faith of the New Testament. And nothing will 
 charm away the alienation of their spirits, but their 
 belief in the overtures of redeeming mercy. 
 
 But we may expatiate too long; and let us 
 therefore hasten to a close with a few brief and 
 categorical announcements, which we shall simply 
 leave with you as materials for your own considera- 
 
 First, though social virtue, and loyalty, which 
 is one of its essential ingredients, may exist in the 
 upper walks of life apart from godliness—yet godli¬ 
 ness, in the hearts of those who have the brunt of 
 all the common and popular temptations to stand 
 against, is the main and effective hold that we 
 have upon them for securing the righteousness of 
 their lives. 
 
 Secondly, the despisers of godliness are the 
 enemies of the true interest of our nation; and it 
 
370 
 
 is possible that, under the name of methodism, 
 that very instrument may be put away which can 
 alone recall the departing virtues of our land. 
 
 Thirdly, where godliness exists, loyalty exists; 
 and no plausible delusion—no fire of their own 
 kindling, lighted at the torch of false or spurious 
 patriotism, will ever eclipse the light of this plain 
 authoritative scripture—“ Honour the King, and 
 meddle not with those who are given to change.” 
 
 But, again, such is the power of Christianity, 
 that, even though partially introduced in the whole 
 extent of its saving and converting influences, it 
 may work a general effect on the civil and secular 
 virtues of a given neighbourhood. It is thus that 
 Christianity may only work the salvation of a few, 
 while it raises the standard of morality among many. 
 The reflex influence of one sacred character upon 
 the vicinity of his residence may soften, and purify, 
 and overawe many others, even where it does not 
 spiritualize them. This is encouragement to begin 
 with. It lets us perceive that, even before a great 
 spiritual achievement has been finished, a kind of 
 derived and moral influence may have widely and 
 visibly spread among the population. It is thus 
 that Christians are the salt of the earth; and we 
 know not how few r they are that may preserve society 
 at large from falling into dissolution. It is because 
 there are so very few among us, that our nation 
 stands on the brink of so fearful an emergency. 
 Were there fewer, our circumstances would be 
 still more fearful; and if, instead of this, there were 
 a few more, the national virtue may reattain all the 
 lustre it ever had, even while a small fraction of 
 
371 
 
 our people are spiritual men. It is in this way, 
 that we would defend those who so sanguinely 
 count on the power of Christianity, from the impu¬ 
 tation of being at all romantic in their hopes or 
 undertakings. It may take ages ere their ultimate 
 object, which is to generalize the spirit and char¬ 
 acter of the millennium in our world, be accom¬ 
 plished. But if there were just a tendency to go 
 forth among our people on the errand of Christian¬ 
 izing them, and that tendency were not thwarted 
 by tbe enmity and intolerance of those who revile, 
 and discourage, and set at nought all the activities 
 of religious zeal, we should not be surprised though, 
 in a few years, a resurrection were witnessed 
 amongst us of all the virtues that establish and 
 that exalt a nation. 
 
 But, lastly, alarming as the aspect of the times is, 
 and deeply tainted and imbued as the minds of many 
 are with infidelity; and widely spread as the habit 
 has become of alienation from all the ordinances 
 of religion; and sullen as the contempt may be, 
 wherewith the hardy blasphemer of Christianity 
 would hearken to its lessons, and eye its ministers, 
 yet even he could not so withstand the honest and 
 persevering good-will of one on whom there stood, 
 visibly announced, the single-hearted benevolence 
 of the gospel, as either to refuse him a tribute of 
 kindliness, when he met him on the street, or as to 
 reject, with incivility and disdain, the advances he 
 made upon his own family. Even though he should 
 sternly refuse to lend himself to any of the processes 
 of a moral and spiritual operator, yet it is a fact 
 experimentally known, that he will not refuse to 
 
372 IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 lend his children. The very man who, unpitying 
 of himself, danced and sung on the borders of that 
 abyss which was to ingulf him in a lake of vengeance 
 for ever, even he had about him a part of surviving 
 tenderness, and he could positively weep when he 
 thought of his family. He who, had he met a 
 minister of state would have murdered him, had he 
 met the sabbath-school teacher who ventured across 
 his threshold, and simply requested the attendance 
 of his children, might have tried to bear a harsh 
 and repulsive front against him, but would have 
 found it to be impossible. Here is a feeling which 
 even the irreligion of the times has not obliterated, 
 and it has left, as it were, an open door of access, 
 through which we might at length find our way to 
 the landing-place of a purer and better generation. 
 We hear much of the olden time, when each parent 
 presided over the religion of his own family, and 
 acted, every sabbath evening, the patriarch of 
 Christian wisdom among the inmates of his own 
 dwelling-place. How is it that this beautiful picture 
 is again to be realized ? Is it by persuasives, 
 however forcible, addressed to those who never 
 listen to them ? Is it by the well-told regrets of a 
 mere indolent sentimentalism ? Is it by lifting up 
 a voice, that will die in distance away, long ere it 
 reach that mighty population who lie so remote 
 from all our churches, and from all our ordinances? 
 Are we to be interdicted from bending the twig 
 with a strength which we do have, because 
 others require of us to bend the impracticable 
 tree, with a strength which we do not have ? The 
 question is a practical one, and should be met 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 373 
 
 experimentally;—how is the olden time to be 
 brought back again ? Is it by merely looking back 
 upon it with an eye of tasteful contemplation; or, is 
 it by letting matters alone ; or, is it by breathing 
 indignation and despite against all the efforts of 
 religious philanthropy; or, is it by disdainful 
 obloquy against those who do something, on the 
 part of those that do nothing? Who, in a future 
 generation, will be the likeliest parents for setting 
 up the old system? the children who now run 
 neglected through the streets, or those who, snatched 
 from sabbath profanation, receive a weeldy training 
 among the decencies and the docilities of a religious 
 school? It is not the experimental truth upon 
 this question, that the amount of family religion is 
 lessened, under such an arrangement, in those 
 houses where it had a previous existence; but 
 that, instead of this, it is often established in houses 
 where it was before unknown. It is true, that 
 unless a sabbath-school apparatus be animated by 
 the spirit of God, it will not bear with effect on 
 the morals of the rising generation ; but still it is 
 by the frame-work of some apparatus or other that 
 the spirit works: and we deem that, the likeliest 
 and the best devised for the present circumstances 
 of our country, which can secure, and that imme¬ 
 diately, the most abundant strength of application 
 on tender and susceptible childhood.* 
 
374 IMPORTANCE 
 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 In conclusion, we may advert to a certain class 
 of society, now happily on the decline, who are 
 fearful of enlightening the poor; and would rather 
 that every thing was suffered to remain in the 
 quiescence of its present condition; and though 
 the Bible may be called the key to the kingdom of 
 Heaven, yet, associating, as they do, the turbulence 
 of the people with the supposed ascent that they 
 have made in the scale of information, would not 
 care so to depress them beneath the level of their 
 present scanty literature, as virtually to deny them 
 the use and the possession of the Oracles of God. 
 Such is the unfeeling policy of those who would 
 thus smother all the capabilities of humble life, and 
 lay an interdict on the cultivation of human souls, 
 The same remark applies to the cursory allusion that he has 
 
 ventured to suggest the gradual remedy that might be provided 
 for the restoration of church-going habits among the people of our 
 
 He takes the opportunity which this Note affords him, of refer¬ 
 ring the attention of his readers to a truly Christian charge, drawn 
 up by the Methodist body in November 1819, on the subject of tho 
 political discontents which then agitated the country. It was 
 circulated, he understands, among the members and ministers of 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 375 
 
 and barter away the eternity of the lower orders, 
 for the temporal safety and protection of the higher, 
 and, in the false imagination, that to sow knowledge 
 is to sow sedition in the land, look suspiciously and 
 hardly on any attempt thus to educate the inferior 
 classes of society. It is well that these bugbears 
 are rapidly losing their influence—and we know 
 not how far this is due to our late venerable 
 monarch, who, acting like a father for the good of 
 his people, certainly did much to rebuke this cruel 
 and unfeeling policy away from his empire. His 
 saying, That he hoped to see the time, when there 
 should not be a poor child in his dominions who 
 was not taught to read the Bible, deserves to be 
 enshrined among the best and the wisest of all the 
 memorabilia of other days. It needs only the 
 Saxon antiquity of Alfred, to give it a higher place 
 than is given to all that is recorded even of his 
 wisdom. We trust that it will be embodied in the 
 remembrance of our nation, and be handed down 
 as a most precious English tradition, for guiding 
 the practice of English families ; and that, viewed 
 as the memorial of a Patriot King, it will supplant 
 the old association that obtained between know¬ 
 ledge and rebellion, and raise a new association in 
 its place, between the cause of education and the 
 cause of loyalty. Be assured, that it is not be¬ 
 cause the people know too much, that they ever 
 become the willing subjects of any factious or 
 unprincipled demagogue—it is just because they 
 know too little. It is just because ignorance is 
 the field on which the quackery of a political im¬ 
 postor ever reaps its most abundant harvest. It 
 
376 IMPORTANCE 
 
 OP CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 is this which arms him with all his superiority; and 
 the way eventually to protect society from the 
 fermentation of such agitators, is to scatter 
 throughout the mass as much of knowledge and 
 information as will equalize the people to the men 
 who bear them no other regard, than as the instru¬ 
 ments of uproar and overthrow. No coercion can 
 so keep down the cause of scholarship, as that 
 there shall not be a sufficient number, both of 
 educated and unprincipled men, to plot the dis¬ 
 turbance and overthrow of all the order that exists 
 in society. You cannot depress these to the level 
 of popular ignorance, in a country where schools 
 have not been universally instituted. You cannot 
 unscholar demagogues down to the level of an 
 untaught multitude; and the only remaining alter¬ 
 native is, to scholar the multitude up to the level 
 of demagogues. Let Scotland,* even in spite of 
 •the exhibition that she has recently made, be com¬ 
 pared with the other two great portions of our 
 British territory, and it will be seen, historically, 
 
 * What we regret most in our late disturbances, is, that it may 
 serve to foment the prejudice which still exists against the cause 
 of popular education. It is worthy of remark, that, of late years, 
 both in Glasgow and Paisley, this cause has been most lamentably 
 on the decline; insomuch that we will venture to say, there is no 
 town population in Scotland which has become so closely assimi¬ 
 lated, in this respect, to the manufacturing population of our 
 sister country. Any danger which may be conceived to arise 
 from education, proceeds not from the extent of it in any one 
 class of society, but from the inequality of it between people either 
 of the same, or of different classes; thus rendering one part of 
 the population more manageably subservient to any designing 
 rillany or artifice that may exist in another part. The clear 
 and direct way of restoring this inequality, is. not to darken and 
 degrade all, which is impracticable, but, as much as possible, to 
 
IMPORTANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 377 
 
 as well as argumentatively, that the way to tran¬ 
 quillize a people is not to enthral but to enlighten 
 them. It is, in short, with general knowledge as 
 it is with the knowledge of Christianity. There 
 are incidental evils attendant on the progress of 
 both ; but a most glorious consummation will be 
 the result of the perfecting of both. Let us go- 
 forth, without restraint, on the work of evangelizing 
 the world, and the world, under such a process, 
 will become the blissful abode of Christian and 
 well-ordered families. And let us go forth, with 
 equal alacrity, to the work of spreading education 
 among our own people; and, instead of bringing 
 on an anticipated chaos, will it serve to grace and 
 to strengthen all the bulwarks of security in the 
 midst of us. The growth of intelligence and of 
 moral worth among the people, will at length stamp 
 upon them all that majesty of which they will ever 
 be ambitious; and, instead of a precarious tranquil¬ 
 lity, resting upon the basis of an ignorance ever 
 open to the influences of delusion, will the elements 
 of peace, and truth, and righteousness, be seen to 
 multiply along with the progress of learning in our 
 
 VOLUME SIXTH.