Christian philosophy...

Front matter

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J UNITED ST." , AMERICA. 1 i

OR, AN ATTEMPT TO MSPLAY,

Contents

Author's Preface .... xxxiii

1. Introductory . . . . . 1

2. On the sort of Evidence chiefly recommended and at-

Section I. Introductory

I enter on the subject of this volume with unaffected diffidence. I tread on holy ground with awe. Though much of my life, devoted to letters from the earliest age, has been spent in reading the best writers on the Christian doctrine, and more in contemplation of it, yet a sense of its high importance, and of my own fallibility, has long restrained the impulse which prompted me to engage in its public discussion. Nothing but conscious rectitude of intention, co-operating with the hope of obtaining the aid of God's Holy Spirit, and the reader's indulgence, could animate the tremulous mind in an enterprize to which it feels and avows itself unequal. A conviction that the subject is peculiarly seasonable, has contributed to overcome

1 <( It is my object to inquire what is true ; but not to acquiesce merely in the discovery of speculative truth ; but to find out that doctrine, which, together with truth, unites fious affections to God."

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reluctance. The times indeed appear to me to call upon every professor of Christianity to vindicate, in the mannner best adapted to his abilities and opportunities, its controverted truth, its insulted honour; and if I shall be fortunate enough to communicate one suggestion to the wavering mind, which may conduce to this great purpose, my labour will not be in vain, nor my undertaking deemed rashly adventurous. I shall have accomplished my wish. To diffuse the sunshine of religious hope and confidence over the shadowy path of life ; to dissipate the gloom of doubt and despair; to save a soul from death; objects so desirable, inspire an ardour which enables zeal to triumph over timidity.

That unbelief in Christ is increasing in the present age, and that the spirit of the times is rather favourable to its increase, has been asserted by high authority, and is too notorious to admit denial. The apostacy of a great nation, in the most enlightened and polished part of Europe; the public unblushing avowal of atheism, among some of its leaders; the multiplication of books on the continent, in which Christianity is treated as a mere mode of fanaticism ; all these circumstances have combined, with others, to cause not only an indifference to the religion of Christ, but contempt and aversion to his very name. It were easy to cite contumelious reproaches of hib person, as well as audacious denials of his claim to divine authority. But I will not pollute my page, which, however it may be deformed by error, shall not be stained with the transfusion of blasphemy. It is to be wished that all such works could be consigned to immediate and everlasting oblivion ;

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but I am sorry to say, that they are diffused with an industry, which, if it appeared in making proselytes to virtue, would be in the highest degree meritorious. Almost every individual in our own country can now read ; and manuals of infidelity, replete with plausible arguments, in language level to the lowest classes, are circulated among the people, at a price which places them within reach of the poorest reader. They are despised by the rich, and neglected by the learned, but they fall into the hands of the poor, to whom any thing in print bears the stamp of authority. At the same time, it must be lamented that there are treatises of a higher order, on the side of infidelity, which come recommended to the superior ranks, to men of knowledge and education, with all the charms of wit and elegance.

But it cannot be said that the apologists and defenders of Christianity, in our country, have been few, or unfurnished with abilities natural and acquired. Great have been the efforts of our profoundest scholars, both professional divines and laymen, in maintaining the cause of Christianity, and repelling by argument, by ridicule, by invective, by erudition, the assaults of the infidel. But what shall we say ? Notwithstanding their stupendous labours, continued with little intermission, the great cause which they maintained, is evidently, at this moment, on the decline. Though many of them, not contented with persuasion and argument, have professed to demonstrate the truth of the Christian religion, it is certain that a very great number of men in Christian countries continue unpersuaded, unconvinced, and totally blind to their demonstration. Such being the case, after

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all their voluminous productions, is it not fair to conclude that their modes of defence, however celebrated, are either erroneous or defective ? Had their success been equal to their labours and pretensions, infidelity must now have been utterly exterminated.

I feel a sincere respect for the learned labours of theologists, the subtlety of schoolmen, the erudition of critics, the ingenuity of controversialists ; but I cannot help thinking that their productions have contributed rather to the amusement of recluse scholars already persuaded of Christianity, than to the conversion of the infidel, the instruction of the people. It appears to me, that some of the most elaborate of the writings in defence of Christianity are too cold in their manner, too metaphysical or abstruse in their arguments, too little animated with the spirit of piety, to produce any great or durable effect on the heart of man, formed as he is, not only with intellectual powers, but with fine feelings and a glowing imagination. They touch not the trembling fibres of sensibility. They are insipid to the palate of the people. They have no attractions for the poor, the great multitude to whom the gospel was particularly preached. They are scarcely intelligible but to scholars in their closets, and while they amuse, without convincing the understanding, they leave the most susceptible part of man, his bosom, unaffected. The busy world, eager in pursuit of wealth, honour, pleasure, pays them no regard ; though they are the very persons whose attention to religion, which they are too apt to forget entirely, ought chiefly to be solicited. The academic recluse, the theologist by profession, may read

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them as a task or as an amusement ; but he considers them as works of erudition and exercises of ingenuity, claiming great praise as the product of literary leisure, but little adapted to impress the heart, or convert the infidel and the profligate. The people are erring and straying like lost sheep, but in these calls they cannot recognize the voice of the shepherd. Such works indeed seldom reach the people ; and while they are celebrated in academic cloisters, their very existence is unknown among the haunts of men, in the busy hum of cities ; where it is most desirable that they should be known, because there the great majority of human creatures is assembled, and there also the poison of temptation chiefly requires the antidote of religion. What avails it that defences of Christianity are very learned and very subtle, if they are so dry and unaffecting as to be confined in their effects to sequestered scholars, far removed from the active world, and probably so firmly settled in the faith, as to require no new persuasives, no additional proofs to render them faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

Apologies and attacks of this kind have very little effect in silencing infidel writers, or changing their opinions. They frequently furnish fresh matter for dispute, and indeed put arms into the hands of the enemy. By provoking discussion on points which were at rest, they raise sophistry from its slumbers, and blow the trumpet of controversial wars, which do great mischief before the re-establishment of peace. In the issue, the contending parties are silenced rather from weariness in the contest, than from conviction ; and Te Deum, as is usual in other wars, is sung by those who are

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said to be vanquished, as well as those who claim the honour of undisputed victory.

Thus it has happened that the writings of men, no less benevolent in their intentions than able in their exertions, have sometimes not only done no good to their cause, but great injury. They have revived old cavils and objections, or invented new, in order to display ingenuity in refuting them ; cavils and objections which have frequently been answered, or which might never have occurred ; but which, when once they have occurred, produce suspicion and unsettled notions on topics never doubted, and among honest men whose faith was firmly established. Such conduct is like that of a physician, who should administer doses of arsenic to his patients, in order to prove to them, at their risk, the sovereign power of his nostrum. The venom, finding a constitution favourable to its operation, triumphantly prevails, and the preventive remedy cannot rescue the sufferer from his hapless fate.

I am persuaded, that even a sensible, thinking, and learned man might live his whole life in piety and peace, without ever dreaming of those objections to Christianity, which some of its most celebrated defenders have collected together from all ages, and a great variety of neglected books, and then combined in a single portable volume, so as to render it a convenient synopsis of infidelity. What must be the consequence ? It must at least disturb the repose of the sensible, thinking, and learned man ; and if it should be read and understood by the simple, the unlearned, the unthinking, and the ill-disposed, T am of opinion that its objections would be studied, its solutions neglected ;

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and thus a very large number of recruits enlisted volunteers in the army of unbelievers.

As an exemplification of what I have here advanced, I mention in this place, Bishop Warburton's View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy. There the unbeliever sees the scattered arguments of scepticism and unbelief, all picked and culled for him, without any trouble of his own, and marked with inverted commas, so as to direct the eye, without loss of time, to their immediate perusal. The book becomes an anthologia of infidelity. The flowers are gathered from the stalks, and conveniently tied up in a nosegay. The essence is extracted and put into a phial commodious for the pocket, and fitted for hourly use. The late bishop Home, in his facetious Letters on Infidelity, has also collected passages from obscure books and pamphlets, and sent them abroad in such a manner as must of necessity cause them to be read and received, where they never would have found their way by their native force. These ingenious and well-meaning divines resuscitate the dead, and give life to the still-born or abortive offspring of dullness and malignity. I might mention many more instances of similar imprudence, in men of the deepest erudition and the sincerest piety ; but I am unwilling to follow their example, in pointing out to unbelievers compendiums, abridgments, and manuals of sceptical cavil. To say in their excuse that they refute those arguments which they insert so liberally from the writings of the unbeliever, may prove our candour, but not our judgment or knowledge of human nature. Evil is learned sooner and remembered longer than good ; and it would be better to let s

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many pamphlets of the deists sink into oblivion, than to preserve and extend them, by extracting their most noxious parts, and mixing them with the productions of men of learning and piety. The refutations are often long, laboured, and tedious, while the objections are short and lively. They are therefore either not read or soon forgotten, while a flippant sarcasm attracts attention and fixes itself in the memory. It must also be allowed, that the refutations are too often unsatisfactory : and that the weakness of a defence invites new attacks, and gives fresh courage to the enemy.

I think the style and manner of some among the celebrated defenders of Christianity extremely improper. It is not respectful, It treats Jesus Christ as if he were an inferior to the person who takes upon him to examine, as he phrases it, the pretensions of Jesus Christ. To speak in an authoritative, inquisitorial language of the author of that religion by which the writer himself professes to hope for salvation, can never serve the cause of Christianity. Think of a poor, frail, sinful mortal, sitting a self-appointed judge, and like a lawyer in a human court of judicature, arraigning Jesus Christ, the Lord of life, just as a venal solicitor might have questioned the two thieves that were crucified with him, had they been accused at a modern police-office. The cold yet authoritative style of the tribunal has been much used in examining, as it is called, that religion which brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. You would think the learned theologist, who assumes the office of an examiner, another Pontius Pilate. He sits in the seat of judgment, and with

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judicial importance coldly pronounces on the words and actions of that Saviour, whom he owns to be the great Captain of Salvation.

In such defences or examinations, Jesus Christ is spoken of in terms that must divest him of his glory, and therefore villify him in the eyes of the gainsayers, and all unthinking people. But how, on the contrary, do the prophets represent him ? Language has no terms of magnificence adequate to his dignity.

The prophets describe Jesus Christ as the most august personage which it is possible to conceive. They speak of him indeed as the seed of 6 the woman' and the ' Son of man but at the same time describe him of celestial race. They announce him as a being exalted above men and angels ; above ' all principality and power ; as the Word and the Wisdom of God ; as the eternal Son of the Father ; as the Heir of all things, by whom God made the worlds ; as the brightness of God's glory, the express image of his person.'

Thus speak the prophets of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Now let us hear an ingenious apologist and defender of him and his religion. A reverend author, highly estimable for his learning and ingenuity, and whom I sincerely esteem, speaking of Jesus Christ, in a book professedly written to vindicate his truth and honour, repeatedly calls him " a Jewish peasant/' and a 66 peasant of Galilee." For what are we comparing ? says he, (in a comparison of Jesus Christ with Mahomet,) " a Galilean peasant, accompanied with a few fishermen, with a conqueror at the head of his army;" and again, in the next page, "a Jewish peasant overthrew the religion of the world,"

Unbelievers are commonly men of the world ; fascinated by its pomps and vanities. Is it the most likely means to overcome their prejudices, and teach them to bow the knee to Jesus, thus to lower his personal dignity ? Was there any occasion for it P Do not the prophets, as I have just now observed, exalt him above every name ? Why call him peasant ? The term I think by no means appropriate to him, supposing that it were not an injudicious degradation of his character in the eyes of unthinking worldlings, and malignant unbelievers. There is something peculiarly disgusting in hearing dignified ecclesiastics, living in splendour and affluence entirely in consequence of the religion of Jesus Christ, speaking of him in their defences of his religion, as a peasant, as a person compared to themselves vile and despicable. Such arguments as this appellation is meant to support, will never render service to Christianity. The representation becomes a stumbling-block, and a rock of offence. I might however produce several other instances of great writers who have afforded precedents for such degrading appellations of Jesus Christ. But neither the infidel nor the Christian will easily believe, that the man who calls his Saviour a peasant, after the glorious representations of him which the prophets give, feels that awe and veneration which is due to the Son of God, the Lord of life, the Saviour and Redeemer. I forbear to specify them. One instance is sufficient to point out my meaning, and show the reason why some ingenious apologies for Christianity are totally ineffectual.

Dry argumentation and dull disquisition unanimated by the spirit of piety and devotion, will

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never avail to convert unbelievers, and to diffuse the doctrines of Christianity. Life, death, heaven, and hell, are subjects of too much importance to be treated by a sincere mind, duly impressed by them, with the coolness of a lawyer giving an opinion on a statute or case, in which another's property or privileges are concerned. The spirit of piety seems to have been wanting in some of the most logical and metaphysical defenders of Christianity. They speak of Christ, when they are examining the truth of the doctrine, with calm indifference, as if they were dull virtuosos discussing the genuineness of a medal, or the authenticity of a manuscript, valuable only as an amusing curiosity. If St. Paul had been no warmer an advocate than certain famous apologists for Christ's doctrine, he would never have prevailed with the Gentiles to relinquish their polytheism, and we of this island should, at this clay, have remained in the darkness of idolatry. Without the spirit of piety, all proofs and defences of Christianity are a dead letter. The multitude will not even read them ; and infidels, if they do not despise them too much to attend to them at all, will only read to find fresh matter for cavil and objection.

I may be wrong in my theory. I therefore appeal to fact. The fact is evident, that, notwithstanding all that has been written to demonstrate Christianity, by argument drawn from reasoning and history, infidelity has increased, and is every day increasing more and more. Let those who think the dry argumentative apologies irresistibly convincing, now bring them forward, and silence the gainsayers at once. The demonstrations of a

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Huet, the evidences of a Clarke, the reasonings of a Locke, a Grotius, a Hartley, should be presented in the most striking manner, by public authority; and if they are really efficacious in producing conviction, we may be assured that infidelity will vanish at their appearance, like the mists of an autumnal morning, when the meridian sun breaks forth in full splendour. But the truth is, they are already very much diffused, and yet the Christian religion is said to be rapidly on the decline.

Therefore it cannot be blameable to attempt some other method of calling back the attention of erring mortals to the momentous truths of revelation.

I have conceived an idea that our old English divines were great adepts in genuine Christianity, and that their method of recommending it was judicious, because I know it was successful. There was much more piety in the last century than in the present ; and there is every reason to believe that infidelity was rare. Bishop Hall appears to me to have been animated with the true spirit of Christianity ; and I beg leave to convey my own ideas on the best method of diffusing that spirit, in his pleasingly-pious and simple language.

" There is not," says the venerable prelate, u so much need of learning as of grace to apprehend those things which concern our everlasting peace ; neither is it our brain that must be set to work, but our hearts. However excellent the use of scholarship in all the sacred employments of divinity ; yet, in the main act, which imports salvation, skill must give place to affection. Happy is the soul that is possessed of Christ, how poor soever

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in all inferior endowments. Ye are wide, O ye great wits, while ye spend yourselves in curious questions and learned extravagances. Ye shall find one touch of Christ more worth to your souls, than all your deep and laborious disquisitions. In vain shall ye seek for this in your books, if you miss it in your bosoms. If you know all things, and cannot say ' I know whom I have believed,' you have but knowledge enough to know yourselves completely miserable. The deep mysteries of godliness, which, to the great clerks of the world, are as a book clasped and sealed up, lie open before him, (the pious and devout man,) fair and legible ; and while those book-men know whom they have heard of, ' he knows whom he hath believed.' "

Christianity indeed, like the sun, discovers itself by its own lustre. It shines with unborrowed light on the devout heart. It wants little external proof, but carries its own evidence to him that is regenerate and born of the Spirit. " The truth of Christianity," says a pious author/' is the Spirit of God living and working in it; and when this Spirit is not the life of it, there the outward form is but like the carcass of a departed soul."

Divinity has certainly been confused and perplexed by the learned. It requires to be disentangled and simplified. It appears to me to consist in this single point, the restoration of the divine life, the image of God, (lost and defaced at the fall,) by the operation of the Holy Ghost.

When this is restored, every other advantage of Christianity follows in course. Pure morals are absolutely necessary to the reception of the Holy Ghost, and an unavoidable consequence of his continuance. The attainment of grace is then the

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unum necessarium. It includes in it all gospel comfort, it teaches all virtue, and infallibly leads to light, life, and immortality.

Section II

On the sort of Evidence chiefly recommended and attempted to be displayed in this Treatise,

I think it right to apprize my reader, on the very threshold, that if he expects a recapitulation of the external and historical evidence of Christianity, he will be disappointed. For all such evidence I must refer him to the great and illustrious names of voluminous theologists, who have filled with honour the professional chairs of universities, and splendidly adorned the annals of literature. I revere their virtuous characters ; I highly appreciate their learned labours ; I think the student who is abstracted from active life, and possesses leisure, may derive from them much amusement , while he increases his stores of critical erudition, and becomes enabled to discourse or dispute on theology. But men, able to command their time, and com-

1 u In what consists a faithful belief in Christ ? It consists in a faithful obedience to his commandments."

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petently furnished with ability for deep and extensive investigation, are but a small number in the mass of mankind. That systematic or speculative treatise which may delight and instruct such men, in the cool shade of philosophical retirement, will have little effect on the minds of others who constitute the multitude of mortals eagerly engaged in providing for the wants of the passing day, or warmly contending for the glittering prizes of secular ambition. Indeed, I never heard that the laborious proofs of Christianity, in the historical and argumentative mode, ever converted any of those celebrated authors on the side of infidelity, who have, from time to time, spread an alarm through Christendom, and drawn forth the defensive pens of every church and university in Europe. The infidel wits wrote on in the same cause; deriving fresh matter for cavil from the arguments of the defenders ; and re-assailing the citadel with the very balls hurled from its battlements in superfluous profusion.

What then, it may be justly asked, have I to offer ? What is the sort of evidence which I attempt to display ? It is an internal evidence of the truth of the gospel, consequent on obedience to its precepts. It is a sort of evidence, the mode of obtaining which is pointed out by Jesus Christ himself, in the following declaration : e If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God/ 1

But how shall he know ? By the illumination of the Holy Spirit of God, which is promised by Christ to those who do his will.

1 John, vii. 17*

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Therefore, if any man seriously and earnestly desires to become a Christian, let him begin, whatever doubts he may entertain of the truth of Christianity, by practising those moral virtues, and cultivating those amiable dispositions, which the written gospel plainly requires, and the grace of God will gradually remove the veil from his eyes and from his heart, so as to enable him to see and to love the things which belong to his peace, and which are revealed in the gospel only. Let him make the experiment and persevere. The result will be full of conviction that Christianity is true. The sanctifying Spirit will precede, and the illuminating Spirit follow in consequence.

I take it for granted, that God has given all men the means of knowing that which it imports all men to know ; but if, in order to gain the knowledge requisite to become a Christian, it is necessary to read such authors as Grotius, Limborch, Clarke, Lardner, or Warburton, how few, in the great mass of mankind, can possibly acquire that knowledge and consequent faith which are necessary to their salvation !

But every human being is capable of the evidence which arises from the divine illumination. It is offered to all. And they who reject it, and seek only the evidence which human means afford, shut out the sun, and content themselves either with total darkness or the feeble light of a taper.

" There is," (says the excellent bishop Sanderson,) " to the outward tender of grace in the ministry of the gospel, annexed an inward offer of the same to the heart, by the Spirit of God going along with his word, which some of the schoolmen call auxilium gratia generate, sufficient of itself to

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convert the sou] of the hearer, if he do not resist the Holy Ghost, and reject the grace offered ; which, as it is grounded on these words, 6 Behold I stand at the door and knock/ and upon very many passages of Scripture beside, so it standeth with reason, that the offer, if accepted, should be sufficient, exparte sua, to do the work, which, if not accepted, is sufficient to leave the person, not accepting the same, inexcusable.

The outward testimony to the truth of the gospel is certainly a very strong one ; but yet it is found insufficient without the inward testimony, The best understandings have remained unconvinced by the outward testimony ; while the meanest have been fully persuaded by the co-operation of the inward, the divine irradiation of the Holy Ghost shining upon, and giving lustre to the letter of revelation.

But because the doctrine of divine influence on the human mind is obnoxious to obloquy, I think it necessary to support it by the authority of some of the best men and soundest divines of this nation. Such are the prejudices entertained by many against the doctrine of divine influence and the witness of the Spirit, that I cannot proceed a step further, with hope of success, till I have laid before my reader several passages in confirmation of it, from the writings of men who were the ornaments of their times, and who are at this day esteemed no less for their orthodoxy and powers of reason than their eloquence. I make no apology to my reader for the length of the quotations from them, because I am sure he will be a gainer, if I keep silence that they may be heard in the interval. My object is to re-establish a declining

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opinion, which I think not only true, but of prime importance. T therefore withdraw myself occasionally, that I may introduce those advocates for it, whose very names must command attention. If I can but be instrumental in reviving the true spirit of Christianity, by citing- their authority,, theirs be the praise, and mine the humble office of recommending and extending their salutary doctrine.

" And if it shall be asked (to express myself nearly in the words of archbishop Wake) why I so often choose the drudgery of a transcriber, the reason is shortly this : I hoped that quotations from departed writers, of great and deserved fame, would find a more general and unprejudiced acceptance with all sorts of men, than any thing that could be written by any one now living, who, if esteemed by some, is yet in danger of being despised by more; whose prejudice to his person will not suffer them to reap any benefit by any thing, however useful, that can come from him; while such passages as these which I cite, must excite respect and attention, unmixed (as the authors are dead) with any malignant sentiment or prepossession against them, such as might close the eyes of the understanding against the radiance 6f truth." 1

1 The following text may, I think, confirm the opinion advanced in this Section, that the best evidence will arise from obedience : " And we are his witnesses of these things ; and so is alsu the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.*' — Acts. v. 37.

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Section III

On the Prejudices entertained against this sort of Evidence, and against atl divine and supernatural Influence on the Mind of Man.

Since the time of archbishop Laud, the most celebrated defenders of Christianity have thought it proper to expatiate, with peculiar zeal, on the excellence of natural religion. They probably had reasons for their conduct; but it must not be dissembled, that in extolling natural religion they have appeared to depreciate or supersede revelation. The doctrine of supernatural assistance, the great privilege of Christianity, has been very little enforced by them, and indeed rather discountenanced, as savouring of enthusiasm, and claiming, if true, a decided superiority over their favourite religion of nature.