Christian morals

Front matter

HH

Qass.

BooL

CHAP. III. Practical Uses of the Doctrine of Providence *•••*• 43

CHAP. VI.

On the Parajble of the Talents ............ > . . 74

CHAP. VIL

On Influence, considered as a Talent • .*.*....» • 84

CHAP. VIII

On Time, considered as a Talent * • • - * ........... 97

CHAP. IX.

^ CONTENTS.

CHAP. XII.

Farther Causes of Prejudice • • ♦ • ♦ ........■••••• MJ . i4(j

CHAP. XIII.

Humility the only true Greatness ......... 152

CHAP XV.

Dangers and Advantages of Retirement « '> .• •«• • • • • • 181

CHAP. XVI.

&n Inquiry y why some Good Sort of People are not better 1 91

CHAP. XVII.

The Inquiry, why some Good Sort of People are not better > continued • • • • -...•• ^ ••-•••••..••....... . 200

CHAP. XVIII.

Tlioughts respectfully suggested to Good Sort of People 214

CHAP. XIX, On Habits • 22C

CHAP. XX.

On the Inconsistency of Christians with Christianity 242

CHAP, XXI.

Expostulation with the inconsistent Christian ...... 252

CHAP. XXII.

Reflections of an inconsistent Christian after a serious Perusal of the Bible % . 26$

CONTENTS. Xt

CHAP. XXIII.

CHAP. XXIV.

Difficulties and Advantages of the Christianin the World 282

CHAP. XXV.

CHAP. XXVI.

The established Christian ••••••••••• *•• ••♦••••• • SiS

CHRISTIAN MORALS

Chap. I. On The Writers Of Pious Books

ALL the things in this world carry in them such evident marks of imperfection, are so liable to be infected with error, good is separated from evil by such slight partitions, and the deflection from what is right is so easy, that even undertakings which should seem most exempt from danger are yet insecure in their conduct, and uncertain iu their issue. Writing a soundly-religious book might seem to put in the claim of an exempt case ; but does experience prove that the exemption is infallible? The employment is good, the motive is likely to be pure ; the work may be unexceptionable in its tendency, and useful in its con?e ■ quences. But is it always beneficial to the writer in the proportion in which he intends it to be profitable to the reader? Even of the reader, is his own improvement always the leading aim ? Does a critical spirit never diminish the benefit which the book was calculated to convey? If he is convinced by the more essential truths it impart?, is. not some trivial disagreement of opinion, in a matter on which persons may differ without any charge against the piety of either, made jfto defeat all the ends of improve . ment? Is not an insignificant, perhaps an ill-foun jection, suffered to invalidate the merit of the whole ivork ? Is not this eagerly detected fault triumphantly kept fore-ground, while all that is valuable is overio: ftfficarw defeated • the criticism fcemg a* okre rr '°: : --:' q give prominence to the error of the writer and the sagacity of the critic? Another reader is probably searching for brilliancy when he should be looking for truth, or he is only seeking a confirmation of his own opinions, when he should rather have been looking for their correction.

As to the writer, is he not in danger of being absorbed in the mechanical part of his work, till religious composition dwindles into a mere secular operation ? May he not hediverted from his main object by an over- attention to elegance, to correctness, to ornament ;— all which indeed are necessary ; for if he would benefit he must be read, if he would be read he must please, if he would please he must endeavour to excel ;— but maybe not, in taking some, take too much pains to please, and so become less solicitous to benefit, to the injury both of his reader and himself? May not the very lopping and pruning his work, the flowers which he is anxiously sticking into it, the little decorations with which he is setting off those parts which he fears may be thought dry and dull, raise a sensation in his mind not unlike that which a vain beauty feels in tricking out her person i May he not, by too much confidence in his own powers, be blind to errors obvious to all but himself; or else may he not use the file too assiduously, and by over-labour in smoothing the asperities of his style, diminish the force of his meaning, and polish honest vigour into unprofitable elegance ? w

Some indeed have been so indulgent to authors under their many difficulties, as to allow them a certain mixture of inferior excitement, as an under- help to assist such raptives as are more pure. If they did not feel a little too full of their work, when it was under their hand, it has been said, they would not devote to it the full force of their mind. This anxiety, or rather this absorption, it is presumed, lasts no longer than till the immediate object is accomplished. It retreats indeed, but waits for the author, seizes hira again with undiminished force on his next under-

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taking. If he fancied that his former subject was all in all while his mind was intent upon it, that preference, like the fondness of an animal for its young, which is lost when they no longer need its fostering care, is transferred to the next.

As this ardour in a rightly-turned mind will not be sufficiently durable to ripen into vanity, but will cool as soon as the end for which it was exerted is answered ; it will not materially injure the conscientious writer ; for he will probably, when the impetus is taken off, as much undervalue his work, as he had before over-rated it. But wofully deficient in humility is that author, whose enthusiasm does not subside, when it is no longer necessary to keep alive the spirit of his undertaking ! Convicted indeed will he be of vanity, who persists in thinking his work as glowing, as when, with a judgment dazzled by his ardor, he viewed it hot, and fresh-drawn from the furnace!

But perhaps when a man engages in any little service, if he did not in some degree exaggerate its value, in his hope of its utility, he would want one motive for attempting it. Is it not therefore a smaller evil that he should a little magnify its importance to his imagination, than that complete hopelessness should totally deter him from all enterprize ? Natural indolence is in many, too powerful a subduer even of religious exertion, to allow them to work without hope. If hope flatters, she at least supports ; thus something is achieved which else would not have been done at all. Again, the timid writer foresees that many objections may be raised to his work. This would amount to a disqualifying dejection, did he not take comfort in the chance that his censors may possibly disagree among themselves as to the points deserving criticism, and that one may even commend what another condemns. Thus his mind is kept in a just equilibrium ; without the expectation of censure, he would be vain ; without some hope of approbation, even the purity of his intention might not al- W ays secure him from despondency,

J$ ON THE WRITERS

But though no mixed motives or human feelings in the author ought to interfere with those of the reader, who has only to do with the book, and not with the man, it is of no small moment to himself, that both feelings and motives be pure. It is of the last importance that he do not impose on himself the belief, that he has only the honour of religion at heart, when literary renown, or victory over an adversary, may be the predominating principle. He will also be careful that his best endowments be not converted into implements of injury ; he will be cautious that his learning, which is so useful to arm his zeal, do not help to encumber k ; that his prudence, which is so necessary to moderate, do not extinguish it.

But if he come off clear from these temptations, other and greater lurk behind. He should bear in mind, that in composing a religious work for the public, he is producing the best part of himself ; that he is probably exhibiting liimself to others as much better than he is ; for whatever be the faults of his own character, it is his bounden duty to conduct his reader to the highest approach to excellence. Independent of his general defects, he is at least carefully keeping out of sight every vain thought which may have stolen upon him while writing, every evil temper which may have assailed him, every temptation to indulge too ardent a wish that his book may procure praise for himself, as well as benefit to his readers. To flatter himself inordinately on this -head, as well as in over-anticipating the great effects it will produce, is ncft, perhaps, the smallest of his dangers. That very self knowledge which he has perhaps been inculcating on others, would preserve him from an undue estimation both of himself and his book.

It was the sneer of a witty, but discouraging satyrist, that, " To mend the world's a vast design." It is, indeed, a design from which the purity of his motive may not always secure the humility of the author. Yet modestly to aim at ameliorating that little portion of it which lies with*

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in his immediate sphere, is a duty out of which he should not be laughed by wits and epigrammatists. Instead of indulging unfounded hopes of improbable effects, the Christian writer will be humbled at the mortifying reflection, what great and extensive evil the most insignificant bad man may effect, while so little comparative good can be accomplished by the best But it is to be regretted, that even religion is no sure protection against the intrusion of vanity, that it does not always secure its possesser from over-rating his own agency, from fondly calculating on the unknown benefits which, by his projected work, he is preparing for mankind. A pious Welch minister, many years ago, being about to publish a sermon, previously consulted the writer of these pages how many thousand copies he ought to print. He felt not a little shocked at her advising him to reduce his thousands to hundreds ; scores she did not dare advise. As she had foreseen, not half a dozen were sold, except a few, charitably taken off his hands by his friends. At her return soon after, from the metropolis, he hastened to her with all the ardour of impatience, and seriously inquired, whether she had observed any material reformation at the court end of the town, since the publication of his discourse.

Among the many unsuspected but salutary checks to the vanity of a pious writer, it will not be the least, that his v ery popularity may make the intrinsic value of his work -questionable; — that he may be indebted for its favourable reception, not to its excellencies, but its defects, not to the deep, but to the superficial views he has taken of religion ; that it may be more acceptable only because it is less searching ; that if he has pleased, it may be owing to his haying been more cautious than faithful. If there is reason to suspect that success arises from his having skimmed the surface of truth, when he ought to have penetrated its depths, tliat he has reconciled the reader to Christianity and to himself by a disingenuous discretion^ by trimming between God and the world, by concealing truths he ought to have brought forward, or by palliating those he durst not disavow: popularity thus obtained will afford ground of humiliation rather than of triumph. In avoiding these, and all similar errors, he will also not fail to bear in mind, that He who gave the talents, gave also the right bent to the use of them, and that, therefore, he has no more ground for boasting of the application than of the possession.

When he is called upon by the nature of his subject to expatiate strongly on this vice, or to point out the danger of that error, does he never feel a sort of conscious superiority to certain individuals of his acquaintance, who may be infected with either, and, for a moment, be tempted to sit Tather in the seat of the scorner, than in that of the counsellor? On such occasions, there is nothing which he will more carefully watch, than the temper of his ow 7 n mind. "When duty compels him to be severe against any false opinion, or wrong practice, he will be cautious not to mix with liis just censure, any feeling of disdain, any sentiment of indignation, against any individual whom he may bear in mind ; nor will he indulge the unworthy wonder how such or such a person will be mortified at the exposure of a fault to which he is addicted. Nor will he harbour in his bosom &n uncharitable vekemence against those whom the reproof may suit, nor a secret self complacent certainty, that if any iking can do them good, this must do it ; that though they hear not Moses and the Prophets, they cannot but listen to his pointed admonitions— that they can never stand out against such persuasions as he has to offer — never resist such arguments as he has prepared for their conviction.

But what is still a more serious danger, has he never been tempted to overlook his own faults w r hile he has been exposing those of others; and this, though the failing he is t -c learning, may be peculiarly his own? With just in- £gQgtiox> against the offence he is reproving, has he never or PIOUS EOOKS. 19

once forgotten to mingle tender compassion for the offender, remembering, that he himself is sinful dust and ashes ; that he also stands in need of infinite mercy, and has been only rescued T?y that mercy from being on a level with the worst objects of his just disapprobation ?

It would, notwithstanding, be the highest degree of unfairness, to prefer a charge of injustice, hypocrisy, or even inconsistency, against an author, because his life, in some respects, falls short of the strictness of his writings. It is a disparity almost inseparable from this state of frail mortality. He may have fallen into errors, and yet deserve to have no heavier charge brought against him than he has brought against others. Infirmity of temper, inequality of mind, a heart, though fearing to offend God, yet not sufficiently dead to the world ; — these are the lingering effects of sin imperfectly subdued, in a heart which yet longs, prays, and labours for a complete deliverance from all its corruptions.

When a pious writer treats on any awful topic, he writes under a solemn conviction of its vast importance ; he trembles at the idea of not being entirely faithful, of not being valiant for the truth, of not being honestly explicit, of not declaring the whole counsel of God. His own heart is deeply impressed with the dignity of his subject, and he deprecates the thought of shrinking from the boldest avow al of every truth, or of withholding the most powerful inforcement to the practice of every virtue. He is apprehensive lest, on the one hand, when he assails vice or error, he should appear to indulge a violent or vindictive spirit, and be magisterially lifting his fallible self into the chair of authority ; lest his attack on the vice might be construed into uncharitableness to the man. On the other hand, he is fearful lest by being more forbearing he should be less upright ; lest if he tried to soften he should deceive; lest, by indulging too much a spirit of conciliation, he should compromise truth for human favour,— Honest though

20 01 THE WRITERS

imperfeet, sincere though fallible, he endeavours to bring his principles, his faith, and his convictions, into full operation j he warmly declares what he cordially feels, and faithfully testifies what he firmly believes.

But when he comes to act, he is sometimes brought to be too keenly sensible of the very fault in himself, against which he has beeu cautioning others ; deeply does he lament that he feels strong remains in himself of that corruption against which it was not the less his duty to direct his attacks. Some temptation presses him, some infirmity cleaves to him. These unsubdued frailties prove that he is a man, but they do not prove that he is a hypocrite. The truth is, the religious writer is sometimes thought worse than other men, because his book was considered as a pledge that he should be better. It was expected that the faults he described he would avoid ; the passions he had blamed he would suppress ; the tempers he had exposed he would have subdued. Perhaps it will commonly be found that the reader had expected too much and the writer had done too little.

The writer on religious topics is however the person who of all others ought to watch himself most narrowly. He has given a public pledge of his principles. He has held out a rule, to which, as others will be looking with a critical eye to discover how far his conduct falls short of it, so he should himself constantly bear in mind the elevation of his own standard j and he will be more circumspect from the persuasion, that not only his own character but that of religion itself will suffer by his departure from it. The consciousness of the inferiority of his practice to his principles, if those principles are truly scriptural, will furnish him with new motives to humility. The solemn dread lest this inconsistency should be produced against him at the last day, is a fresh incentive to higher exertions, stirs him up to augmented vigilance, quickens him to more intense prayer. He experiences at once the contradictory feeling of dread-

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ihg to appear better than he really is, by the high tone of piety in his compositions, or of making others worse by lowering that tone in order to bring his professions nearer to the level of his life. Perhaps the most humiliating moment he can ever experience is, when by an accidental glance at some former work he is reminded how little he himself has profited by the very arguments with which he may have successfully combated some error of the reader ; when he feels how inuch his own heart is still under the dominion of that wrong temper of which he has forcibly exposed the turpitude to the conviction of others.

There is, however, no personal reason which could ever justify his holding out an inferior standard. If there is any point in which he eminently excels, he has the best of all possible reasons for pressing it upon others— his own experience of its excellence. If there be any in which he unhappily fails, he is clearly justified in recommending it from the humbling sense of his own deficiency in it. Thus he will in either case inforce truth with equal energy, from causes diametrically opposite. Is it not then obvious that as there is no vanity in insisting on a virtue because the writer possesses it, so there is no hypocrisy in recommending a quality because he himself is destitute of it?

But if, through the so frequently {alleged imperfection attached to humanity, Christian writers do not always attain to the excellence they suggest, let us not therefore infer that their principles ^ire defective, their aims low, or their practical attainments mean. Let ns not suspect that it is not the endeavour of their life, as much as the desire of their heart, to maintain a conduct which shall not discredit their profession. Above all, let us be cautious of concluding that they do not believe what they teach, because they have passions like other men ; provided we observe them struggling with those passions, and making a progress in their conquest over them, though that progress oe impeded by natural infirmity, though it be obstructed by occasional irritation. The triumphant detector of the discordance between the author and his book kno\V3 not the secret regrets, hears not the fervent prayers, witnesses not the penitential sorrows, which a deep sense of this disagreement produces in the self-abasing heart. To instance in a familiar case :•— In the heat of conversation with the author, he has probably marked an impatient word, a hasty expression, a rash judgment ; these he treasures up, and produces against him ; but he does not hear, in the writer's nightly review of the errors of that day, his self-rebuke for this unsubdued impetuosity, his resolutions against it, the earnest prayer, which perhaps at this moment is carrying forward the gradual subjugation of his temper.

Yet his reputation might suffer in another way ; for if the critic could hear these humbling confessions of the writers in question, he would be ready to conclude that they were " Sinners above all the Galileans." Whereas the truth most probably is, that they are so alive to the perception of the evil of their own hearts, that things which would be slight faults in the estimation of the accuser, to them appear grave offences. Things which they lament as evils of magnitude, would to the less tender conscience be impalpable, imperceptible. For instance, — While the caviller would call even the omission of prayer a venial fault ; tkey would call a heartless prayer a sin ; where the one would think all was well if the literal performance had not been neglected, the other would be uneasy under the exterior observance, if he felt that the spirit had not accompanied the form. The reprover might even accuse the serious Christian of absurdity, should he have overheard him humbling himself for something which was obviously a virtue. He was not, however, so preposterously humble, as to make the virtue the ground of his regret — he was j abasing fyimself for some vanity, whioh like an excrescence had grown out of it, some inattention which like a poison had mixed with it. When a humble man meditates on

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j his vices, and an irreligious man on his virtues, the vices of the one might be sometimes deemed about as unsubstantial as the virtues of the other actually are.

The writer of good books, in common with other authors, is exposed to one danger from which other men are more exempt, that of being so immediately the object of his own attention. This may lead him to be too full of himself. His intellect is even more constantly before his I eyes than the form and face of the beauty are before her's. I But if in this exercise he may be tempted to think too I' well of his understanding, the mischief will be counteracted I by the advantage which such a close view may bring to I his heart. The faults he reprehends in general, will bring I his own faults more forcibly before him, and it will be a | humbling consideration which he will not fail to press f home on himself, to reflect, that he is better able to pene- I trate into the recesses of the erring hearts of others, from & the sympathies of his own. Repeated and successful pains M have been taken by some popular wits*, in whom levity V has answered the end of malice, to lower the value of pious instruction, by exposing the discrepancy between the ex- :■}■ hortation and the exhorter. They have ingeniously in- I vented cases and situations in which the clergyman is prea. E ching powerfully and efficaciously on the duty of submission to the divine will; immediately after which, they contrive to betray him into a paroxysm of overwhelming impatience at some great domestic calamity of his own. I This, as it tends to make the infirmity of sincere Christians I a matter of triumph, could only have been done with a view I to make them ridiculous ; a laugh is cheaply though not I very honourably raised, and the insignificance or hollow- I ness of religious instruction perhaps indelibly stamped or W the mind of the young reader. But supposing the circum- ■ stances to have been real, ought the frail affections, ought * the conscious infirmity of these good men to have led them to withhold from their audiences the necessity of Christian resignation? Such instances of natural feeling in certain stages of a progressive piety, neither prove religion to be powerless, nor its professor deceitful. Was the fervent, but fallible apostle, who in a moment of infirmity denied his master, a hypocrite, when he said, " though all the world should be offended, yet will not I ?"

Yet is this captious spirit an additional reason why the pious writer should guard against excesses in feeling, which, if the reader could witness, he would exultingly reiterate the vulgar but melancholy truism— How much easier it is to preach tkan to practise! How gladly would he have brought the conduct to confront the counsel, and have missed all the benefit of the discourse, by the disclosure of the failing !

But allowing the worst— granting that the writer is not in all points exemplary ; if we resolve never to read a, work of instruction because the author had faults, Lord Bacon's inexhaustible mine of intellectual wealth might have still lain unexplored. Luther, the»man to whom the Protestant world owes more than to any other uninspired being, might remain unread, because he is said to have wanted the meekness of Melancthon, Even the divine instructions conveyed in the book of Ecclesiastes would have been written in vain.

It is not necessary that the writer under consideration should, like the sacred penmen, criminate himself. Their ingenuous self-abasement added weight to the truth of their general testimony, and was doubtless directed by the holy spirit, as well for this purpose, as for the humiliation of the offending historian. But above all it is calculated to shew that the renovation of hearts so imperfect was the work of the spirit of God.

Though the pious writer in these days is not called upon to exercise this self-disparaging egotism, yet let not bis silence on this head be attributed to a desire that he may

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be thought abetter man than Moses, wh iy per-

petuated the memory of that offence which was an inhibit tion to his entering the land of promise— nor than David,' the recorder of his own sins, the enormity of which could only be exceeded by the intensity of his repentance.— tic: than Saint Paul, who published himself to ha>e been a blasphemer and a persecutor. — If the best men among us have, through the preventing grace of God, been preserved from the signal offences of Prophets ana Apostles, they will themselves be the foremost to acknowledge how, beyond all comparison, they are below them, in that devotedness of spirit, that contempt of earthly things, and that annihilation of self, which so eminently characterised those inspired Servants of God.

But suppose we were to go farther — even if it could be proved that some individual charge had not been altogether unfounded. Even this possible evil in the man, would not invalidate the truths he has been teaching. Balaam though a bad man prophesied truly. Erasmus, whose piety is almost as doubtful, as his wit and learning were unquestionable, yet by throwing both into the right scale., was a valuable instrument in effecting the great 'work in which he was concerned. Erasmus powerfully assisted the reformation, though it is not quite so clear that the mation essentially benefited Erasmus,

If then the writer advances unanswerable arg the cause of truth, if he impressively enforces : importance, his character, even if defective, should not invalidate his reasoning. Though we allow that even to

the reader it is far more Sat hen the life

-

(rates the writing, yet we must never bring the conduct o; the man as any infallible test of the truth of his doctrine. Allow this, and the reverse o\ the proposition will be pleaded against us. Take the opposite case. Do we ever produce certain moral qualities which Hobbes, Bayte, Hume, *n$ other sober sceptics possessed, as arguments for iiig tlieir opinions ? Do we infer as a necessary consequent^ that their sentiments are sound because their lives were Hot flagitious ?

But though it is an awful possibility, that the same work may at once promote God's glory and prove a danger to the instrument that promotes it— that the opulence of the very mind which is advancing religion, may be used by the owner to his hurt — that he may be so absorbed in it as a business, that he may lose sight of his end — that he may neglect personal, while he is advancing public religion — or be so anxious for the success of his work, that he cannot commit the event to heaven : let us thankfully profit by the truths he teaches ; bless God that he has been useful to us ; and pray that his errors may not be imputed to him.

Many a sincere Christian will confess that when he is writing in an animated strain in the cause of religion, there are moments in which, from imbecility of mind or infirmity o( body, or failure of animal spirits, while he is promoting the spiritual interests of others, he is inwardly lamenting his own deadness to the very things on which he is insisting. He however perseveres ; like the army of Gideon, " faint yet pursuing," he suffers not the feeling to obstruct the act, till, as a reward for his perseverance, the act brings back the feeling. ."Were it suspected that some of his most approved pages were written under this declension of zeal, what a clamour would be raised against bis inconsistency, when his merit — if we dare use the word merit—consists in overcoming the languor of his spirit, and in acting as if he felt it not. His depression may in fact have been augmented by his humility. He has trembled lest the solemnity with which he has been calling upon others, should not stir up his own feelings; lest the arguments which were intended to alarm the reader, should leave his own heart cold and unaffected.