Tom Payne himself never laboured harder to root all virtue out of society.--Mandeville nor Voltaire never even laboured so much.
Indeed!
Ib.
They were content with declaring their disbelief of a future state.
In what part of their works? Can any wise man read Mandeville"s Fable of the Bees, and not see that it is a keen satire on the inconsistency of Christians, and so intended.
Ib. p. 71.
When the populace shall be once brought to a conviction that the Gospel, as they are told, has neither terms nor conditions * * *, that no sins can be too great, no life too impure, "no offences too many or too aggravated", to disqualify the perpetrators of them for --salvation, &c.
Merely insert the words "sincere repentance and amendment of heart and life, and therefore for" salvation,--and is not this truth, and Gospel truth? And is it not the meaning of the preacher? Did any Methodist ever teach that salvation may be attained without sanctification? This Barrister for ever forgets that the whole point in dispute is not concerning the possibility of an immoral Christian being saved, which the Methodist would deny as strenuously as himself, and perhaps give an austerer sense to the word immoral; but whether morality, or as the Methodists would call it, sanctification, be the price which we pay for the purchase of our salvation with our own money, or a part of the same free gift. G.o.d knows, I am no advocate for Methodism; but for fair statement I am, and most zealously--even for the love of logic, putting honesty out of sight.
Ib. p. 72.
"In every age," says the moral divine (Blair), "the practice has prevailed of subst.i.tuting certain appearances of piety in the place of the great "duties" of humanity and mercy," &c.
Will the Barrister rest the decision of the controversy on a comparison of the lives of the Methodists and non-Methodists? Unless he knows that their "morality has declined, as their piety has become more ardent," is not his quotation mere labouring--nay, absolute pioneering--for the triumphal chariot of his enemies?
Ib. pp. 75-79.
It is but fair to select a specimen of Evangelical preaching from one of its most celebrated and popular champions * *.
He will preface it with the solemn and woful communication of the Evangelist John, in order to show how exactly they accord, how clearly the doctrines of the one are deduced from the Revelation of the other, and how justly, therefore, it a.s.sumes the exclusive t.i.tle of evangelical. "And I saw the dead * * * and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead * * and they were judged every man according to his works". Rev. xx. 12, 13. Let us recall to mind the urgent caution conveyed in the writings of Paul * * "Be not deceived; G.o.d is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap". And let us further add * * the confirmation * * of the Saviour himself:--"When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, * * * but the righteous into life eternal". Matt. xxv. 31, "ad finem". Let us now attend to the Evangelical preacher, (Toplady). "The Religion of Jesus Christ stands eminently distinguished, and essentially differenced, from every other religion that was ever proposed to human reception, by this remarkable peculiarity; that, look abroad in the world, and you will find that every religion, "except one", puts you upon "doing something", in order to recommend yourself to G.o.d. A Mahometan * * A Papist * * * It is only the religion of Jesus Christ that runs counter to all the rest, by affirming--that we are "saved" and called with a holy calling, "not" according to our works, but according to the Father"s own purpose and grace, which was "not" sold to us "on certain conditions to be fulfilled by ourselves", but was given us in Christ before the world began." Toplady"s Works: Sermon on James ii. 18.
"Si sic omnia"! All this is just and forcible; and surely nothing can be easier than to confute the Methodist by shewing that his very "no-doing", when he comes to explain it, is not only an act, a work, but even a very severe and perseverant energy of the will. He is therefore to be arraigned of nonsense and abuse of words rather than of immoral doctrines.
Ib. p. 84.
The sacred volume of Holy Writ declares that "true" (pure?) "religion and undefiled before G.o.d and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world". James i. 27
This is now at least, whatever might have been the meaning of the word "religion" in the time of the Translators, a false version. St. James is speaking of persons eminently zealous in those public or private acts of worship, which we call divine service, [Greek: thraeskeia]. It should be rendered, "True worship", &c. The pa.s.sage is a fine burst of rhetoric, and not a mere truism; just as when we say;--"A cheerful heart is a perpetual thanksgiving, and a state of love and resignation the truest utterance of the Lord"s Prayer." St. James opposes Christianity to the outward signs and ceremonial observances of the Jewish and Pagan religions. But these are the only sure signs, these are the most significant ceremonial observances by which your Christianity is to be made known,--"to visit the fatherless", &c. True religion does not consist "quoad essentiam" in these acts, but in that habitual state of the whole moral being, which manifests itself by these acts--and which acts are to the religion of Christ that which ablutions, sacrifices and Temple-going were to the Mosaic religion, namely, its genuine [Greek: thraeskeia]. That which was the religion of Moses is the ceremonial or cult of the religion of Christ. Moses commanded all good works, even those stated by St. James, as the means of temporal felicity; and this was the Mosaic religion; and to these he added a mult.i.tude of symbolical observances; and these formed the Mosaic cult, ("cultus religionis", [Greek: thraeskeia]). Christ commands holiness out of perfect love, that is, Christian religion; and adds to this no other ceremony or symbol than a pure life and active beneficence; which (says St. James) are the "true cult". [2]
Ib. p. 86.
There is no one whose writings are better calculated to do good, (than those of Paley) by inculcating the essential duties of common life, and the sound truths of practical Christianity.
Indeed! Paley"s whole system is reducible to this one precept:--"Obey G.o.d, and benefit your neighbour, because you love yourself above all."
Christ has himself comprised his system in--"Love your neighbour as yourself, and G.o.d above all." These "sound truths of practical Christianity" consist in a total subversion, not only of Christianity, but of all morality;--the very words virtue and vice being but lazy synonymes of prudence and miscalculation,--and which ought to be expunged from our vocabularies, together with Abraxas and Abracadabra, as charms abused by superst.i.tious or mystic enthusiasts.
Ib. p. 94.
Eventually the whole direction of the popular mind, in the affairs of religion, will be gained into the hands of a set of ignorant fanatics of such low origin and vulgar habits as can only serve to degrade religion in the eyes of those to whom its influence is most wanted.
Will such persons venerate or respect it in the hands of a sect composed in the far greater part of bigotted, coa.r.s.e, illiterate, and low-bred enthusiasts? Men who have abandoned their lawful callings, in which by industry they might have been useful members of society, to take upon themselves concerns the most sacred, with which nothing but their vanity and their ignorance could have excited them to meddle.
It is not the buffoonery of the reverend joker of the Edinburgh Review; not the convulsed grin of mortification which, sprawling prostrate in the dirt from "the whiff and wind" of the masterly disquisition in the Quarterly Review, the itinerant preacher would pa.s.s oft" for the broad grin of triumph; no, nor even the over-valued distinction of miracles, --which will prevent him from seeing and shewing the equal applicability of all this to the Apostles and primitive Christians. We know that Trajan, Pliny, Tacitus, the Antonines, Celsus, Lucian and the like,--much more the ten thousand philosophers and joke-smiths of Rome,--did both feel and apply all this to the Galilean Sect; and yet--"Vicisti, O Galilaee"!
Ib. p. 95.
They never fail to refer to the proud Pharisee, whom they term self-"righteous"; and thus, having greatly misrepresented his character, they proceed to declaim on the arrogance of founding any expectation of reward from the performance of our "moral duties":--whereas the plain truth is that the Pharisee was "not righteous", but merely arrogated to himself that character; he had neglected all the "moral duties" of life.
Who told the Barrister this? Not the Gospel, I am sure.
The Evangelical has only to translate these sentences into the true statement of his opinions, in order to baffle this angry and impotent attack; the self-righteousness of all who expect to claim salvation on the plea of their own personal merit. "Pay to A. B. at sight--value received by me."--To Messrs. Stone and Co. Bankers, Heaven-Gate. It is a short step from this to the Popish. "Pay to A. B. "or order"." Once a.s.sume merits, and I defy you to keep out supererogation and the old "Monte di Pieta".
Ib. p. 97.
--and from thence occasion is taken to defame all those who strive to prepare themselves, during this their state of trial, for that judgment which they must undergo at that day, when they will receive either reward or punishment, according as they shall be found to have "merited" the one, or "deserved" the other.
Can the Barrister have read the New Testament? Or does he know it only by quotations?
Ib.
--a swarm of new Evangelists who are every where teaching the people that no reliance is to be placed on holiness of life as a ground of future acceptance.
I am weary of repeating that this is false. It is only denied that mere acts, not proceeding from faith, are or can be holiness. As surely (would the Methodist say) as the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, so surely does sanctification from redemption, and not vice versa,--much less from self-sanctifiedness, that ostrich with its head in the sand, and the plucked rump of its merits staring on the divine [Greek: atae]
"venatrix"!
Ib. p. 102.
"He that doeth righteousness is righteous". Since then it is plain that each must "himself" be righteous, if he be so at all, what do they mean who thus inveigh against "self"-righteousness, since Christ himself declares there is no other?
Here again the whole dispute lies in the word "himself." In the outward and visible sense both parties agree; but the Methodist calls it "the will in us," given by grace; the Barrister calls it "our own will," or "we ourselves." But why does not the Barrister reserve a part of his wrath for Dr. Priestley, according to whom a villain has superior claims on the divine justice as an innocent martyr to the grand machinery of Providence;--for Dr. Priestley, who turns the whole dictionary of human nature into verbs impersonal with a perpetual "subauditur" of "Deus" for their common nominative case;--which said "Deus", however, is but another "automaton", self-worked indeed, but yet worked, not properly working, for he admits no more freedom or will to G.o.d than to man? The Lutheran leaves the free will whining with a broken back in the ditch; and Dr. Priestley puts the poor animal out of his misery!--But seriously, is it fair or even decent to appeal to the Legislature against the Methodists for holding the doctrine of the Atonement? Do we not pray by Act of Parliament twenty times every Sunday "through the only merits of Jesus Christ"? Is it not the very nose which (of flesh or wax) this very Legislature insists on as an indispensable qualification for every Christian face? Is not the lack thereof a felonious deformity, yea, the grimmest feature of the "lues confirmata" of statute heresy?
What says the reverend critic to this? Will he not rise in wrath against the Barrister,--he the Pamphagus of Homilitic, Liturgic, and Articular orthodoxy,--the Garagantua, whose ravenous maw leaves not a single word, syllable, letter, no, not one "iota" unswallowed, if we are to believe his own recent and voluntary manifesto? [3] What says he to this Barrister, and his Hints to the Legislature?
Ib. p. 105.
If the new faith be the only true one, let us embrace it; but let not those who vend these "new articles" expect that we should choose them with our eyes shut.
Let any man read the Homilies of the Church of England, and if he does not call this either blunt impudence or blank ignorance, I will plead guilty to both! New articles!! Would to Heaven some of them at least were! Why, Wesley himself was scandalized at Luther"s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, and cried off from the Moravians (the strictest Lutherans) on that account.
Ib. p. 114.
The catalogue of authors, which this Rev. Gentleman has pleased to specify and recommend, begins with Homer, Hesiod, the Argonautics, aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Theognis, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus. * * *. "This catalogue," says he, "might be considerably extended, but I study brevity. It is only necessary for me to add that the recommendation of these books is not to be considered as expressive of my approbation of every particular sentiment they contain." It would indeed be grievous injustice if this writer"s reputation should be injured by the occasional unsoundness of opinion in writers whom it is more than probable he may never have read, and for whose sentiments he ought no more to be made answerable than the compiler of Lackington"s Catalogue, from which it is not unlikely that his own was abridged.