The philosophy of unbelief in morals and religion ...

Preface

Numbers live in the neglect of religion, without knowing or considering the cause of their indifference to it. They profess to receive the Bible as the word of God, and if they do so, their conduct is inexplicable and opposed to all reason and analogy,, There is, therefore, ground for presuming they are in error on this point ; and if they are so, it is indispensable that they should be undeceived, as a first step to a correct understanding of their spiritual condition. This incongruity between the accredited faith and the conduct of men is so common, and in degrees so various, that it is to be feared we are ceasing to regard it as an exception to a general law— as something monstrous in practice — and are satisfying ourselves with the virtue of acknowledging it, or perhaps of declaiming against it, while we take not the trouble to inquire into the reason and enormity of it.

This inquiry the author has endeavoured to conduct — with good design he knows — with what good effect he leaves for the reader to judge. As the discussion ad vances, much is said, referring to the varieties of human

VI PREFACE.

character, and to the secret operations and tendencies of unbelief, suitable to be reflected on by devout believers, and yet not ultimately, it is thought, impertinent to the steady design of the work.

Having shown, or presumed, that numbers may justly be denominated infidels, who do not so consider themselves, and are not generally so considered by others, notice is taken of the confirmation which this view receives from the Scriptures, and of the adaptation of the doctrines of Christianity to the known nature and wants of man, and to the ends which it proposes to effect, and in the accomplishment of which man is made, what he is not and cannot be in any other way, both blessed and deserving to be so.

The inference, then, which is more or less disclosed in every branch of the subject, is, that if our views of Christianity do not renovate our natures and sway our conduct, it is because they are delusory, the mere allowances which an evil heart has made in its own vindication, and in which it loses sight of itself and of God together, while looking as at an image of its own creation, and which it kneels to and worships as having qualities that are in accordance with itself — which yet itself has imparted, or rather are itself again.

Philadelphia, June 28, 1836.

Chapter I

Vanity of man separate from his immortality — The chances of being finally lost — Plans and hopes of safety — Strange contrariety of faith and practice — Deep delusion- — The art and success of spiritual foes — Infidelity not readily owned — Persons chargeable with it in practice — The Reader — His candour — His interest in the subject — Its difficulty no discouragement 13

Chapter II

Moral character and speculative belief — Man consists of a double nature, half angel and half beast — Natural process downward — Tendency to be less and less spiritual in the affections and the understanding — Views of moral excellence, how acquired — Standard of comparison — Moral attributes of the Deity — Danger of misconceiving them — Proneness to error from the corruption of human nature — From the limited faculties of the mind — A case supposed — Diffidence of our capacity to judge correctly of moral qualities, the truest wisdom 24

Chapter III

Various modes in which human character is disclosed — Prevalence of hypocrisy — Its tendency to self-deception and infidelity — Morality of secular men a proof of their infidelity — Devotees of fashion — Dignity of their vocation — Their irreligion — Their freedom from the affectation of goodness — Their errors — The best virtues of unconverted men seem not to b CONTENTS.

Page acknowledge a God — They infer the greatest misconception of personal character — They centre in creatures, and afford the clearest evidence of a faithless heart — Peculiar depravity of such persons — Their sinning without a motive — Things which try men's souls — Their complaints and their pretensions illustrate their infidelity — Their self-importance and misery — Contrast of their reasoning and conduct with the suggestions of faith — Happiness of a mind resting on God. . . 40

Chapter IV

Moral worth of incidental actions and opinions — Their peculiarity with reference to the objects of faith — Proper estimate of worldly interests — Singularity of religious indecision — Its contrariety to reason and analogy — Casual devotion — -Its absurdity—Its action considered as the cause and fruit of infidelity — All true faith considered as necessarily influential in proportion to the value of its object — Prevalent inattention to the Scriptures — Connexion between faith and knowledge — Infidelity of those who give but a casual attention to religion — Their hope — Their conduct contrasted with their faith and caution in business affairs — Their singular inconsistency — The faith and practice of a nominal believer compared wdth those of a professed infidel — What there is to choose between them — Religious pretenders — Their liability to self-delusion from the facility with w T hich they gain credit 81

Chapter V

Error in estimating our own qualities a cause of our misconceiving the divine perfections — Obstacles to correct views of ourselves — Readiness with which men confess the evil of their hearts — Process by which men are reconciled to evil ways — Causes which perpetuate this delusion— Their unobserved operation — Tendency of worldly companions and amusements to foster infidelity — This danger inferred from our mental constitution — Presumption of those who disregard it — Delicacy of religious sentiment — Its easy decay — Peril of virtue and faith where the influence of religion is dis-

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couraged — Great changes in moral character occurring without our notice — Blindness to the infidelity consequent upon them — Difficulty of breaking from worldly society — Things implied in our attachment to it — The prospect presented to the mind — Worldliness — Practical atheism — Peculiar dangers of youth — Whether religion is an easy practice — What is essential to make it so — Its nature — Its requisitions agreeable to the truest philosophy 113

Chapter VI

Want of self-knowledge a cause of error in religion — Self-love — Examples of its deceptive operation — Its opposition to correct views of truth — Perils of the state to which it carries the mind — Difficulty of understanding this state, and of escaping from it — Errors that grow out of it — Its incompatibility with moral improvement — Two weighty inferences — Sense of guilt always slight in habitual sins — Great sins rendered sinless in our eyes by a continuance in them — Secret sins — The peculiar danger of them — Their effect on the moral perceptions — The false security and infidelity which insensibly spring from them — The folly of deciding on our character from the opinion of others — Deceptive appearances — Prayer of a Roman worshipper — Great inconsistencies in practice — Instruction drawn from the conduct of the thief and the robber — The moral decency of their example compared . with that of others — Effect of sinning on the judgment— Errors in one respect leading to error in all others — Reflections 189

Chapter VII

Influence of character on belief — Direct application of the reasoning in the preceding chapter — Analogies between what men think of themselves and what they think of others — These considered as the cause and proof of infidelity — Indifference of men to religion not accidental, but the result of settled opinions — Mental processes by which these opinions are acquired — The deductions of sense taken for those of reason—Reason held in the service of sense— Singular love of

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the world — Our own depravity approved when it goes to excess in one direction, yet hated under other and lower manifestations — Idolatry — Analogy of its forms to human character — Condition of the heart — Its changes great, yet imperceptible — Nature, not counsel, taken for a guide in spiritual perplexity — Its inventions — Its resentment of the truth — Its proneness to clothe God in its own likeness — Spiritual idolatry — Analogies bearing on the general subject — True basis of practical infidelity 170

Chapter VIII

Singularities m human conduct — Importance of knowing ourselves — Proneness to possess God with our own likeness- Causes of delusion in our judgment of him — Application of the subject to the reader — Reasons for distrusting his own opinions shown by various analogies— Continued argument with him — Separate responsibility of the head and heart — Peculiar evidence of divine truth — Difficulties in the way of believing — When they are insuperable — How overcome — Misconceptions of the gospel — Necessity of divine grace — Questions and troubles about human ability considered — Office and sacrifice of Christ, how estimated — Characteristics of the times — Needful despair — Proofs of infidelity 20?

Chapter IX

Man treated as a rational being in all the divine dispensations — No mysteries of feeling in regard to the doctrines of grace — Reason a competent judge of things necessary to salvation — Hinderances to its right exercise — Our difficulty with religion our fault — Contrariety of the sentiments and practice of Christ to human nature a ground of unbelief — Our incapacity to comprehend and believe the gospel — How acquired — How to be removed — Divine grace attainable when truly desired — Acts of holy obedience free and rational — Dispensations of grace encouraging in every scriptural view of them — Power of truth — Misconceptions of it the same thing as infidelity — Testimony of the Scriptures — Striking guilt of sinners in likening God to themselves 236

CONTENTS. 11

CHAPTER X. Page

Inferences growing out of or consistent with the principles of the preceding discussion — Doctrines of religion viewed in relation to our spiritual necessities — Mode of justification — Due esteem of divine grace — Operation of faith — -Its effects rational — Agency of the Spirit — His fruits contrasted with the works of the flesh — Just deductions of reason — Contrariety of Christianity to our corrupt nature a proof of its divine origin — Reason competent to judge of this — The assistance it gives to faith — Obligation it imposes on us to believe strongly — Justness of our thoughts of God depending on the purity of our hearts — Conceptions of holy men contrasted with those of the wicked — Necessity of a light that tries and purines 260

POPULAR INFIDELITY.

Chapter I

Vanity of man separate from his immortality — The chances of bekig finally lost — Plans and hopes of safety — Strange contrariety of faith and practice — Deep delusion — The art and success of spiritual foes — Infidelity not readily owned — Persons chargeable with it in practice — The Reader — His candour — His interest in the subject — Its difficulty no discouragement.

The transient nature of his existence, as well as the little he can know and do at best, stamps an inexpressible meanness on man, if we contemplate him aside from the hope of immortality. But regarding him as destined to live beyond the present scene, to live in bliss or wo, in glory or dishonour, according to the character of his agency here, every thing about him seems important. Indeed, the danger is, that our respect for him as a being of this high destiny, may hinder our being duly shocked with his degeneracy, when he voluntarily forsakes the end of 2 13 his existence, and assumes a character, which, had it been his by creation, would only awaken surprise and distrust of the wisdom of his Creator. We should, in that case, see nothing in it for admiration, but every thing for wonder and dissatisfaction. But, mean as it would then appear, we now seem to be little offended that the multitude live as without knowledge or concern for their immortality. The hope they have of living for ever, and of answering ends suitable to so noble a design, serves, it may be, to raise them in their own estimation, but has no control over their pursuits ; and looking to their improvidence and their passion for sensible things, we see little prospect- of their recovery to spiritual life. This, however, is not the worst of their condition. They have lost all right perceptions of their own character and of the objects which they must understand and love as the appointed means of renewal, and yet follow their convictions, such as they are, without doubting that they are right; so that the chief danger that they will fall short of their calling, seems to arise from their disposition 'to order their own steps/ and to confide in their own views, without making due allowance for their nature and its proneness to misconception.

Almost every one has a plan or hope of being saved, which supposes his character to be very different from what it really is. We never find any one living in the quiet expectation of being for ever depraved and miserable, but the great majority are living quietly in a practice that tends directly and strongly to this result. They continue in a practice which they pretend not to justify as innocent, and can hardly be said to consider as sinful, yet a practice which has confessedly deceived thousands, and in which thousands have confessedly perished. Still, they apprehend no evil, and cherish a secret expectation that all is to turn out well with them in the end. They have no idea of things as they are; they judge not of themselves as of others ; they are in a deep sleep, and the most that can often be done, is to keep them wakeful enough for worldly dreams; and did they but think them dreams, they would soon perceive themselves poor and destitute, without any reasonable concern or action for relief. But they do not so think ; the god of this world surrounds them with a false effulgence, which confuses their vision, and gives a deceptive appearance to every object, and the true light which clears the reason and the affections ' shines not unto them/ Like some creatures we know, they seem to see best through a medium which is dark to nobler beings, and that object which should give light and joy is without glory to them, lulling them to slumber, and justly making them a spectacle and wonder to all others.

But the rest they have, is but a sleeping storm; the security they feel, is but blindness to danger ; the freedom they claim, is but a slavery grown easy and natural to them ; the victory they are ready to arrogate to themselves, is but the triumph of their foes, in which they are permitted to participate, only to complete it. Their prison and chains are not fully prepared, and they are encouraged to assume the honours and the airs of victors, only to finish, the deception, and to make them the more loyal to their masters. Thus their spiritual enemies improve every advantage, while they make no resistance, and have no warfare as they view it. They have served Satan so well that his service is freedom, and no stoop for them, so long as they are not required to call him master; and, as it is his service, not his title, which he wishes them to own, they have no disagreement. Power of darkness and delusion, he first darkens the mind to delude it, and then perpetuates the spell by setting it off for a fancy-piece of light, flattering the subject of it with marks of reason and excellence, which he indulges him to call his own.

Nothing short of the prevalence of some delusion, deeper and more influential than men are generally aware of, is sufficient to account for this indifference to spiritual concerns. Writers may ascribe it to infidelity, but the bare evidence of the Christian system does not affect it : that system is professedly believed by the generality of those who manifest this indifference. They disclaim infidelity as a crime, as a baseless fabric, and are shocked at the bare name of' it as applied to them. Indeed, if you could persuade them that they are infidels, they would not feel safe for a moment, and their first inquiry would not be for truth and evidence, but for a way of escape from guilt. But they have always had a respect for the Bible as an inspired book ; the existence of a Supreme Being, with such attributes and purposes as it ascribes to him, they have never doubted : and they are not now to be convicted of infidelity. That they have not a saving belief of these truths they admit; but then they have such a belief as they deem respectful to them, and likely to lead on to it. They might, perhaps, be convinced that they have not such a belief as deters them from sins and crimes which set God and his word at defiance ; still they insist that it is a belief. It appears to have little or no influence on their practice, still they regard it as a very important affair, and would not part with it on any account. They acknowledge their accountability and sinfulness, and, though sinning daily, claim that they are less daring, 2* and more innocent and respectful, than those who deny both. They have the happy way of resolving the matter so that they keep the thing, and shun the name of it. It is satisfactory to them, not that it has any reason in it; not that it proves any superior goodness in them; not indeed that it restrains them from any iniquity ; but that it tallies with their household notions and conceptions of the beauty of faith, and the deformity of its opposite.

There are two sorts of virtuous, not pious, people, which deserve some designation; — those, who, from a natural delicacy of their physical and mental structure, run virtuously without a principle of action, or a rule of judgment, exhibiting the most attractive graces of thought and feeling, responding to every call of sympathy and regard, and bearing the richest fruits, which yet are as 6 apples of gold in pictures of silver/ merely representations of the beautiful reality: — and those, who, without any uncommon advantage of nature, or exemption from temptation, have preserved a certain health and harmony of exercise in their moral powers, and kept themselves within the attraction of virtue, its colours not greatly changing in their view, and they, though captives to the powers of the present world, yet retaining some freedom of the spirit, and dwelling fn a kind of midheaven, whence they look down with a consciousness of superiority to the rest of their species as needful to sustain them in their elevation, as it is indicative of their imperfection. Thus it is possible so to yield the heart to the claims of justice and humanity, and so to occupy the mind with ennobling objects and investigations, as to preserve, in a commendable degree, the freshness of the moral feelings. But this is all a night- growth, liable to perish in the morning; a painted edifice, outwardly new and beautiful, while its timber is struck with decay, and will bend and break with the storm. A discarding of God and his counsel, self-reliance, self-aggrandizement, atheism, is the life of the structure: it is the heart which conveys vigour to all its living extremes. It was never reared, and it can never subsist, without the service of pride, vanity, a love of promotion, and the praise of men; and these do not more corrupt than enfeeble every thing they fashion and control. They have no part in the c workmanship' of God: 1 they do not so much as seek his aid, or acknowledge him in any of their doings.

These remarks may serve to characterize great numbers who would start at the charge of infidelity; who value themselves for virtues,, which, on a close inspection, appear to infer a want of faith ; who, to say the least, live in the habitual neglect of religion, 1 Eph. ii. 10, good men are called his ' workmanship.'

without knowing or considering the ground of their indifference to it. These points will, in course, be the subject of investigation.

We can presume on no ability to do justice to our conceptions of the subject upon which we are entering; much less, that we entertain conceptions worthy of its importance. But if we be able in any measure to clear the way of the reader, and start such trains of thought as, when pursued out and applied with the faithfulness of an honest inquirer, shall reconcile him to a just view of his condition, we shall have no fear that he will consider his time ill spent, though the chief advantage he gains should in justice be accredited to himself. More than this; if he shall allow to us the credit of an interest in his welfare, and deem that the amiable, and a sense of duty the graver, reason of our inquiries, we will not be so injurious to the courtesy of such judgment, as to suspect that slight disappointments may deter him from pursuing them, while there is a possibility of attaining the good they propose.

If he has duly considered what others are, though he has not so duly considered what he is, he will not forget that he is of the same nature with them; nor will it appear a thing incredible that he should be convicted of faults and errors in his estimate of himself, which, if they be more refined and less palpable, are not less destructive than those he sees in others. Indeed, should he prove to be gravelycriminal, he will not think any previous suspicion of it an impertinence, or consider himself as wronged byconviction, but only favoured with a discovery which candour and interest oblige him to welcome as the dawning of a better mind, a coming to himself which not more necessarily precedes all right reasoning than all spiritual excellence; — from which last he may have gone so far, that the loss itself is not mourned, while the miseries of it are vainly felt and deplored. It would be an unjustifiable aspersion, if he be known to be even well affected towards himself, to suppose he would quarrel with a truth, or shut his eyes to the evidence of it, when it could be improved to his own exaltation, and to the furtherance of his Creator's will. We would be too jealous of the honour of our nature, claiming nothing for its goodness, to presume him thus destitute of all decency of regard for himself, and for the divine authority and wisdom. But if we grant him to be of a considering humour, not ready to break with his Maker for eternity, not doubting his justice, his goodness, his absolute perfection, and still, not seeing them as realities, not affected by what he believes, or rather, is apprehensive of, — it is not too much to expect, it is the least that can with civility be looked for, that he will see he cannot with any show of reason vindicate his continuance in a state wherein he blushes to own himself either the friend or the foe of God, but wishes to be ranked as standing on anomalous and neutral ground; for this would be but a nonsuit of his claims to any other than a brute importance, since it is only when we are without reason that we can be without character.

We may think we feel indifferent to an object, but if that object be one of incomparable perfection and interest, it must have claims upon our highest regard, and, when these claims are enforced to the exclusion of all inferior objects which we have chosen in its place, it will be found, that not to have loved this the noblest and best of all, is not a mere worthless indifference, but the cherishing of the elements of an unappeasable enmity to it. It is not more clearly a part of the great design of the universe that all bodies should tend to a common centre, than it is the chief design of rational creatures that they should tend with strongest affection to the greatest and most worthy object of such regard; nor is this law of the material system more needful and proper to its destined action, than that of spirits to their safe and rational action, while both alike are allowed to attract smaller objects, and to feel their attraction, yet only as parts of a whole, and in pursuance of this their chiefest end. Why, therefore, one is not in love with this object, but goes counter to the ordinance of his nature, as well as to the claims and commands of Him whose claims could not be greater nor his commands more reasonable, and whose wills concerning us, expressing both his perfection and intending ours, may be summed up in one, 'be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect/ enjoining on us his likeness in order to our participating in his felicity, — is a question that may reasonably claim his first attention; and which, now that he deems it an unjustifiable reflection upon his faith, to infer that he denies its importance, he should be presumed to approach with candour and self-distrust, and as caring less to obtain that which he cannot keep, than to possess himself of that good which he knows he cannot lose.

Chapter II

Moral character and speculative belief — Man consists of a double nature, half angel and half beast — Natural process downward — Tendency to be less and less spiritual in the affections and the understanding — Views of moral excellence, how acquired — Standard of comparison — Moral attributes of the Deity — Danger of misconceiving them — Proneness to error from the corruption of human nature — From the limited faculties of the mind — A case supposed — Diffidence of our capacity to judge correctly of mora qualities, the truest wisdom.

It was stated in the outset, that the great danger of our losing the chief and only durable good arose principally from a too great trust in our own judgment of spiritual things, without duly considering the influence of our corrupt nature upon the perceptions and decisions of the mind. The operation of moral character upon speculative belief, though difficult to detect in particular cases, is yet in some measure understood and admitted by all. Both our sensibility to moral qualities and our perception of them may change and decay from neglect, or be choked and overrun by the growth of other and opposing principles. "Man, as he consists of a double nature, ' flesh and spirit/ so is he placed in a middle rank, betwixt an angel, which is a spirit, and a beast, which is flesh; partaking of the qualities and performing the acts of both. He is angelical in his understanding, in his sensual affections bestial; and to which of these he most inclineth and conformeth himself, that part wins more of the other, and gives a denomination to him: so as he, that was before half angel and half beast, if he be drowned in sensuality, hath lost the angel, and is become a beast; if he be wholly taken up with heavenly meditations, he hath quit the beast, and is improved angelical. It is hard to hold an equal temper; either he must degenerate into a beast, or be advanced to an angel. Mere reason sufficiently apprehends the difference of the condition." 1 It will not, perhaps, be doubted, it is so evident that it will not here be reasoned, that the process in every man is naturally downward, to the gratification of his inferior nature, and to the love and pursuit of sensible things. As the consequence of this, it is equally evident that he does not see either the objects of sense or those of faith in their true character. He is in the case of the blind man, who, when asked if he saw aught, was sure he saw something, which yet was not a proper sight, for he saw c men as trees/ He sees wealth, beauty, and honour; but it is not a proper sight, because he sees not all about them; he sees them not as a snare,

1 Bishop Hall's < Select Thoughts,' No. Ixii. 3 and does not sanely estimate their use to him. He sees the pleasures and enticements of sense; yet it is a question whether he sees them or no, beeause he sees them only as harmless and desirable: there is no reason in the sight. He sees all temporal goods; but we can hardly say whether he has a sight of them or no, because he sees them not as they are; he sees them ' as trees walking;' he does not see the reason and beauty of them; he does not see them as beams and proofs of that perfection of them, w T hich is reserved as c glory to be revealed/ But, becoming less and less spiritual in his affections and understanding, the derangement in his sight of spiritual objects must be still greater. What was lovely and tasteful in moral excellence gradually disappears, and the very virtues comprised in it are for the most part mean and spiritless in his view: still, he reasons about them, and fully confides in his own decisions. He never doubts the soundness of his views, but there is an inconsistency between them and his feelings and conduct, which does not appear with regard to any other subject. If we can find the cause of this, all difficulty will vanish, and we shall be able to account for much, in the practice of men, which seems not to be compatible with any just appreciation of their own welfare, or of the character of God; much, which is precisely as we should suppose it would be, if the light that is in them were indeed darkness.